Freeports: Wales

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers, and to speak on behalf of the Opposition. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) on securing this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. She started the debate with characteristic vigour and passion, which set the tone for a series of excellent contributions from colleagues.

On the hon. Lady’s point about Holyhead, we are all aware of its totemic role in north Wales, Wales more generally and the whole of the UK, and we all have concerns about the challenges it faces in relation to trade. She made the case for its exciting future, and that is where we need to move the conversation. She and her colleagues have clearly built a strong coalition at home. Whether through this process or others, they ought to have the power and resources to shape Holyhead’s future so it can continue to be a crucial part of the UK.

The hon Lady’s point about this being a levelling-up issue was pertinent. Perhaps I would say that as shadow levelling-up Minister; I see levelling up everywhere. However, the test will be whether young people in her community and her part of Wales feel they do not have to move to Cardiff, London or the rest of England. That will show us whether we have delivered for them through this process and through levelling-up more generally.

The debate became a de facto freeport hustings, and Port Talbot and Milford Haven were also well represented. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) that this is not about single project interventions here and there to add a bit of lost GDP or gross value added in different parts of our nations and regions. It has to be much more fundamental. We need to re-gear our nation’s economy around the things that we do well and where we can compete globally, and it is clear that he and his colleagues are using the Celtic freeport bid to do that. I agree with his point that the green industrial revolution is where we need to focus. His community is clearly a long way down the road when it comes to floating offshore wind, and there is real potential in that.

Renewables, including floating offshore wind, are a way to tackle our three domestic crises: the cost of living, regional inequalities and reaching net zero. They will help us to add skilled jobs to our economy so that people have long, viable careers; to spread opportunities more fairly around our nations and regions; and to protect our planet. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon and his colleagues have clearly put a lot of thought into doing that with the Celtic freeport bid. As the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) mentioned, the plans change will that community, which we may associate with energy generation methods from the past, into a place of energy generation for the future.

The exchange between the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on the Crown Estate was important. Having had similar conversations with the right hon. Gentleman, I know that it has levelling up at the forefront of its mind. It is important that we write that into the way in which future transactions are done. Perhaps that is a debate for another day; but I know they will have listened to our debate with interest. That test really must be passed.

The right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire alluded to a point raised in the Welsh Affairs Committee about not doing things for “optical or political purposes”. That is important, too; it is a challenge to us all. One of the most dangerous arguments in politics is that something must be done. Doing anything is something, but what our constituents want and need is for us to do meaningful things, based on a sober look at the reality and the evidence. In relation to the levelling-up fund, we have had plenty of conversations in the last two weeks about bids and single interventions, where we almost compete with each other. In such situations, some will go away happy because they have won, in the broadest sense, but others will go home disappointed because they have not got anything. I want to move away from that, because levelling up, and our nation’s economic future more generally, is for me about the devolution of power and resources to local communities to shape their own places. It is not about feast-or-famine, cup-final individual interventions, which can become a bit optical or a bit political. We need to move beyond that.

I want to make a few points of my own. It is important to state that freeports and the freeports programme are not, in and of themselves, a panacea for tackling the challenging picture of economic growth across all our nations and regions. Sometimes I wince when I hear freeports mentioned as an example of how communities have been levelled up, as if the mere existence of a freeport has done that. Freeports do not automatically lead to more jobs, better skills and wider prosperity unless—this is what we have heard in both the cases that we have discussed today—they are seen as part of a broader national, regional or sub-regional economic strategy for the area in question. Otherwise, they are just more single interventions.

It will be important and constructive for all of us in this place to have a tight eye on the evidence of the impact of freeports. We know that the risk is that they do not bring additionality but instead result in displacement, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd has said. We need to have an honest conversation about that. Nevertheless, such decisions are fundamentally for local communities to make. As has been set out in “Prosperity for All” and by colleagues today, Wales has outstanding economic potential, whether that is in foundation sectors such as food and tourism, or in harnessing our location for import and export, and, in particular, in clean energy. That is a promising economic outlook.

The Welsh Government need to work in concert with local authorities and communities, which are clearly ready, able and waiting to deliver. The question for us in this place is how we get the right powers and resources out of here to them, to allow them to do so. I do not want to dwell too much on the history, but the initial knockings of this debate between the UK and the Welsh Governments did not offer a particularly solid demonstration of the devolution settlement. I think we would all have struggled with the idea that the UK Government could impose a freeport without putting the backing in; that would not have been a good thing. Happily, cooler heads have prevailed, and the two Governments have negotiated two important things: the non-repayable starter funding for the freeports established in Wales on a similar footing to deals in England; and the agreement that both Governments will act as a partnership of equals, and, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd said, in a manner that works with the Welsh Government’s policies on fair work and environmental sustainability, including the commitment to net zero. That provides a bedrock of certainty for the people of Wales and their business leaders to allow them to plan for the future.

The Minister has an unenviable job of arbitrating between the multiple bids on offer, or perhaps choosing them all. I suspect that today might not be the day to make that decision. However, I hope to hear from him a commitment that, fundamentally, yes, this is about the UK Government taking a view, but it is also about giving the people of Wales—whether it is north Wales, south Wales or anywhere else—the tools and the resources to decide their economic future, take a hard look at what they are good at and where they are going to be good in the future, and build out from that. We see our role here as enablers of that, rather than deciders. That is hugely important, and I look forward to the Minister’s contribution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will see what we can do to help those particular people but I just remind the House that we not only evacuated 25,000 people under Op Pitting, which was a great credit to this country, but since then have supported 4,600 more to come to this country, and we will do what we can to help the people my hon. Friend mentions.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q13. Jubilee LEAD Academy in my constituency, working with Nottingham citizens, recently asked me to visit the school to hear about their low pay campaign. They are tired of seeing people in our community working hard but living in poverty. Bills are rising and inflation is at 9%, yet the Government seem incapable and, frankly, a little disinterested in doing anything to help out. Our children can see the need for emergency action; why cannot our Government?

[The Prime Minister]

Everybody in work—30 million workers—will get a tax cut in July, on top of everything that we are already doing, but that is not the end of what this Government are going to do to look after people. I told the House before this afternoon that we will continue to use our fiscal firepower to look after the British people through the covid aftershocks and beyond.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes indeed. I know that my hon. Friend, as a doctor, knows the vital importance of medical research and pure science. That is why this Government are investing record sums in science R&D—£14.6 billion in 2021-22. That is going to support all the life sciences sectors. If anybody wants evidence of why it is so vital to support those sectors, they have only to look at the events of the last few months.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

HS2, in full, will transform the east midlands and the north, reversing a 40-year trend of losing skilled work. In February, the Prime Minister promised that it would be built in full. Yesterday’s National Infrastructure Commission review reduces the eastern leg to a small line between Birmingham and the disliked station at East Midlands Parkway. That will not deliver the connectivity or the economic uplift that the midlands and the north need. Will the Prime Minister reaffirm his previous commitment and reject the NIC’s plan, or is this yet another broken promise to our community?

[The Prime Minister]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. What the NIC is saying is that there are other things we can do as well, including massively improving the midland main line—I think everybody would want to do that—but the ambition to do the eastern leg, as I have said in the House before, remains absolutely unchanged.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that attractive idea to my attention. I know that several projects are being considered along the Cumbrian coast. I would advise him, first, to get in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to see what he can do to take it forward, and I will give what support I can.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yesterday, after a delay of more than a year, the Government published their response to their call for evidence regarding violence and abuse against shopworkers. In that period, there have been 150,000 such incidents, which are completely unacceptable. There are a lot of good things in the Government’s response, but it is disappointing that they have stopped short of a change in the law. Will the Prime Minister make a commitment that if his plans do not reduce the 400-plus incidents every day, within six months he will support legislative change?

[The Prime Minister]

I think we should have absolutely zero tolerance for violence or aggression towards people who work in shops, just as we have zero tolerance for people who are aggressive towards those who work in our public services, and we will do everything we can to ensure that that is the case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q8. In 2016, the then Home Secretary launched the “Ending Violence against Women and Girls” strategy, which emphasised the need for a national network of domestic violence refuges. In 2017, Women’s Aid says that the Government’s proposals for short-term supported housing threaten that network. In 2018, will the then Home Secretary, the now Prime Minister, show personal leadership, support Women’s Aid and step in to save our refuges?

[The Prime Minister]

I recognise the importance of dealing with domestic violence. When I was Home Secretary, we ring-fenced funding to support the victims of domestic violence, and we have continued to ring-fence that funding. We have also taken a number of steps: we will be introducing a new domestic violence law, we have introduced the criminal offence of coercive control and we have introduced a variety of changes that have improved the support for people suffering from domestic violence.

We are proposing a new funding model for the provision of housing and homes for people who have suffered from domestic violence. There is a very good reason for wanting a change, which is to make this more responsive to the needs of individuals at a time of crisis in their lives, and to make the system work better. At the moment, the funding is not responsive enough to need in local areas. Individuals have to worry about meeting housing costs themselves at a time of crisis, and access relies on welfare claims and eligibility. We are proposing a new model that frees those women from worrying about meeting housing costs themselves, and the overall amount of funding available will remain the same.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

4. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the Welsh economy of the Government’s decision not to electrify the main line to Swansea.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the effect on the Welsh economy of the Government’s decision not to electrify the main line to Swansea.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)]

Before I respond to questions, I would like to convey the thoughts and prayers of the whole House to the families and community in Llangammarch Wells following the tragic fire earlier this week.

The Government are delivering the biggest rail investment programme for more than a century. The Great Western modernisation programme includes £5.7 billion of investment in new trains. It will cut journey times from south Wales to London by 15 minutes, which will make south Wales more attractive to investors, and bring significant benefits to our economy and passengers alike.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns]

A major multibillion investment programme is benefiting rail passengers in Wales. Earlier this year, the Public Accounts Committee asked us to reassess the electrification programme on a stage-by-stage basis, and that was what we did. We are therefore using the latest advances in modern technology to ensure that passengers in Swansea and west Wales get the benefits of the most modern trains on the network immediately, rather than perhaps waiting for the traditional technology of electric-only trains.

[Alex Norris]

On 16 May, the Transport Secretary said that electrification was definitely happening and that he wanted to see an end to “smelly diesel trains”, so there was widespread disappointment on 20 July when electrification was cancelled between Cardiff and Swansea, and also for the midland main line, with Ministers citing the fact that new technology made electrification unnecessary. Can the Secretary of State satisfy the House that this is not another cynical broken election promise by outlining what technological breakthrough was made after the ballot boxes closed?

[Alun Cairns]

One of the strong advocates for electrification was Professor Mark Barry, but he said that the bimodal fleet neutralised the case. The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point about diesel trains because these bimodal trains will use the latest and most environmentally friendly diesel generators. The latest trains can even exceed the maximum speed that could be achieved between Cardiff and Swansea. Of course they will stick to the maximum speed along that route, but that demonstrates their flexibility.