Queen’s Speech

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab) [V]]

I thank my noble friend Lady Merron for an insightful and discerning maiden speech. I am sure that her background of public service will permeate every aspect of her future work in your Lordships’ House. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie.

The theme of the gracious Speech may have been levelling up, but this Government’s actions to date can more accurately be described as an all-too-characteristic stitch-up. How else can the Minister explain this Government’s decision to award top-tier funding to relatively affluent Tory-held areas at the expense of some of the poorest places, which have been pushed to the back of the queue for investment? Does not the Chancellor’s approach to prioritising funding for the levelling-up fund show that if you vote Conservative, your money will go to wealthy areas? How can this Government claim to fix regional imbalances when this fund pits regions and nations against one another?

The fund bypasses the devolution settlement by directly allocating funding for regional and local development in Wales, directly counter to the expressed position of the Senedd and directly contrary to what was announced at the spending review, when the Government said the £4 billion commitment for England

“will attract up to £0.8 billion for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the usual way”.

This is the UK Government taking funding that would previously have been allocated to Wales to spend in line with the priorities that the elected Senedd—Welsh Labour resoundingly re-elected by the people of Wales last Thursday—has identified. This means decisions made by Whitehall departments with no history of delivering projects within Wales, no record of working with communities in Wales and no understanding of the priorities of those communities. Does Whitehall know the massive economic, cultural and social differences between the two Newports that we have in Wales, for example?

The UK Government are taking decisions on devolved matters in Wales without being answerable to the people of Wales. Furthermore, the £800 million spread over four financial years represents little more than £50 million each year for Welsh projects—a fraction of the funding that Wales has lost as a result of no longer having access to structural funds.

The UK Government’s fixation with undermining democratic devolution is driving a cynical attempt at rebranding existing spending as new and rolling back progress on a model of national and regional development by democratically elected Governments and councils across the United Kingdom, and thus levelling down. This Conservative Government have an appalling record on providing Wales with even a fair share of UK spending, let alone the kind of funding needed to level up. The Welsh Government’s budget, set by the Treasury, is still lower per head in real terms than it was in 2010.

Wales has a collaborative approach where our local authorities work in partnership with Welsh government, as they did magnificently with track and trace and as they have done to produce a framework for regional investment. It is very concerning that we will now see a centralised, Whitehall-led, ad hoc approach instead of a strategic Welsh approach, while it appears that the comprehensive review of the UK’s constitutional structures promised in the 2019 Queen’s Speeches—a manifesto commitment —has now been delayed indefinitely.

In the other aspects of the Government’s intentions, the abject failure to deal with the problem of social care will have financial implications for Wales even though it is a devolved policy. In terms of the subsidy control Bill, “state aid” was in the view of the Welsh Government a devolved competence, but this was reversed by the United Kingdom Internal Market Act. We want a transparent set of rules for subsidy control which are independently enforced and apply equally to the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. The system must also recognise structural economic weakness in some regions and allow for higher intensity of business support in such regions as west Wales and the valleys, as was the case under the previous EU regime. If the Minister wishes to refer to it, I still have a copy of the “Assisted Areas” map in my office.

We see the electoral integrity Bill as being about voter suppression and curbing the independence of the Electoral Commission. The Welsh Government will shortly publish a Green Paper on electoral issues which will move in a very different direction: making it easier to vote by post; introducing early voting; and building on what is already done to enfranchise people legally resident in Wales, regardless of nationality. We will oppose any suggestion to copy the UK Government’s intention of extending the franchise to all UK citizens resident overseas. What if Westminster just decided to scrap the electoral system in Wales and Scotland?

There is a clear omission of an employment rights Bill. This increases the risk of the UK Government’s international trade policy undermining our current standards, despite all the promises made during the Brexit negotiations.

Devolution received an overwhelming vote of confidence from the people of Wales last week. The role of the national Government of Wales, and that of local government as a partner in delivering Wales’s national vision, must be respected.