Shared Prosperity Fund: Wales

Debate between Albert Owen and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen]

Absolutely. That is the next point that I want to move on to. I am a strong supporter of devolution—I have fought for it in referendums, and I have seen its enhancement—but devolution is no good just going from Whitehall down the M4 to Cardiff Bay. It needs to go throughout the areas of Wales, including to north-west Wales and north Wales generally. Real devolution is about empowering people in their local communities. My hon. Friend is right: we have a structure in the north Wales growth bid. We have a board set up, with business and local authority representatives, and they have the ability to be a mechanism for distribution of the new growth fund in the future. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. I know that he is visiting my constituency in north Wales shortly, and he will hear about that.

I want to quote the remarks referred to by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), in which the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government stated:

“The UK Shared Prosperity Fund will tackle inequalities within communities by raising productivity, especially in parts of the UK whose economies are furthest behind…It will have simplified administrative arrangements aimed at targeting funding effectively; and…It will operate across the UK. The UK Government says it will respect the devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and will engage the devolved administrations”.

I want those words to be put into action. I want the new Minister to take that on board and to work with us, as Welsh Members, to ensure that areas such as mine continue to grow and will benefit from the shared prosperity fund. I do not want to see this Government pull the rug from under the feet of the poor communities, education communities and farming communities that have benefited since 2000. Europe based its European structural funds on need, and that is what we need: to establish the needs of areas throughout the UK, including periphery areas such as the one that I represent, to show that we will go forward, that we do share prosperity and that we share it at a pace equal to that in the south-east of England. At the end of the day, we want a more equal society, economically and socially.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches, and the guidelines are five minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition, 10 minutes for the Minister and the remaining time Mr Lucas may use to sum up the debate.

Rural Economy of Wales

Debate between Albert Owen and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen]

Yes, it is. The Government talk, as many Governments do, about decentralisation and devolution of services, but they act in the opposite way, pulling out services from rural areas. Those rural areas have very competent people, with the skill sets to do those jobs for many years. The services are being moved just to save the Government money, and in the long run communities are getting left behind.

My final point has nothing to do with the Government, although the Government need to take some responsibility. We need to get proper banking policy in this country. When high street banks close in rural areas and in small and larger towns, it rips the heart out of those communities. Local government, the Welsh Government and the UK taxpayer are paying for those communities, yet banks just walk away. We know what banks have done to our global economy; we see the recession across the world and in this country. Those banks have responsibilities, but we need to plug those gaps, because often buildings are left empty, jobs are lost and the local high street suffers.

Rural Wales needs a strong voice and, with Welsh MPs across the parties, we have one. We also need a Government here in the UK that are listening and putting devolution into practice, with real delivery of jobs and services in our rural communities, so that rural and urban Wales can compete on a level playing field with the rest of the United Kingdom. I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion for giving me the opportunity to say that, because I want to stand up in future and say how much better things are in Wales because rural and urban areas have worked together to create the best place to live, work and visit in the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the first of the Opposition Front-Bench speeches. The guideline limit for both the Scottish National party and the Labour party Front Benchers is five minutes.