Welsh Affairs

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

I absolutely accept that. There is a lot of detail in the Select Committee report, and I am just skipping through it in my speech. The hon. Gentleman will probably recall that when we were in Brussels we were told that some Welsh universities were not doing quite as much to get European Union research grant funding as those in England. The picture is mixed, as usual.

We should be very clear that if we are to sell Wales and persuade businesses that it is a good place to come to, we need to show co-operation. I was not going to mention this today, but I feel that I have to because of other things that have happened: the Committee was disappointed that the Welsh Economic Development Minister felt unable to come and give evidence. I can accept that slight once, but there seems to be a pattern of the Welsh Government not wanting to do anything with the UK Government.

For example, a tourism seminar was held recently, I believe at No. 10, to encourage the devolved regions of the UK to do more to get tourism going during the Olympics. Nobody from Wales came. I have heard that when a broadband grant scheme was set up and a special grant was made available for pilot broadband schemes across England and Wales, the Welsh Assembly did not really bother to fill in the forms, so we did not end up with one of the pilot areas.

The Welsh Affairs Committee was due to visit Cardiff next week to take evidence, along with a Welsh Assembly Committee, which had asked us to go there and told us when would be convenient. Of course, we were more than happy to do so. We enjoy going down to Cardiff to visit the Welsh Assembly and work with our colleagues in the devolved regions. We were not expecting Ministers, but we expected officials from Edwina Hart’s Department to give evidence about ports. Today, I have been told—I have e-mailed members of the Committee, so they will know this—that the officials will not turn up because Members of Parliament will be present. I find that extraordinary. The Welsh Assembly Government want to make speeches in the City, telling people to come to Wales and an Assembly Minister is calling for the green bank to be set up in Wales, yet they are not willing to send officials down a few flights of steps to come and see us at the Welsh Assembly. We are not asking them to visit us—we will go to them, at their convenience—yet they still do not want to talk to us. What sort of message are we sending the world through that complete lack of co-operation?

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mrs Cheryl Gillan)]

My hon. Friend has just made a serious point about a lack of co-operation that means that officials cannot give a Committee of the Assembly and a Select Committee of the House information that would help both Committees understand the issues better and make recommendations in the interests of Wales. Will he write to me so that I can take up the matter with the First Minister, because I am sure that the Welsh Government will be disappointed to hear that? My understanding from discussions with the First Minister is that he is very keen on co-operation. Opposition Members are nodding, and I think it would be fitting for me to take up the matter urgently with the First Minister to see whether I can do anything to broker reciprocal arrangements.

[David T. C. Davies]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. Of course, I shall be delighted to write to her. Welsh Affairs Committee members were looking forward to hearing from officials about ports, but we still intend to go to Cardiff, with officials from the Department for Transport. We may not be able to see the officials that we had hoped to meet, but we are perfectly happy for Assembly Members to talk to British Government officials about the policy, because we believe in co-operation. I apologise to Committee members who will be let down by the lack of the second part of the meeting. Who knows—we might be able to find something else to do instead.

What a marked contrast there is between that lack of co-operation and the actions of the British Government. Last night, we had a superb reception, which was perfect in all respects bar one, in that somebody may have been left off the guest list who should have been there.

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[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I shall follow that, Mr Deputy Speaker. I suspect the white wine concerned had not been in the hand of the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) for long enough to get warm.

I was there last night and it was a splendid occasion, but to be honest, colleagues from other parties should have been there. There were very few Labour Members, which may have been a mistake—[Interruption.] I was pleased to be there, but I am just making that point. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), an ex-Secretary of State for Wales, was not there, for example. In any event, I do not want to be boorish, and I have obviously bumped myself off next year’s guest list. Mr Deputy Speaker was there—[Hon. Members: “He wasn’t!”] Just to make absolutely sure that I am bumped off the list for next year, I think the St David’s day event could have had something to do with current politics. I hear rumours of a Rabbie Burns fortnight next year.

I congratulate my friend, the right hon. Member for Torfaen, and the hon. Members for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) and for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), on their assiduous pursuit of today’s parliamentary time. The St David’s day debate should be in Government time, as it always was prior to the Backbench Business Committee coming into being. I know that there is sympathy on the Committee for the proposal to take a day out of its basket to be allocated by the Government for that purpose. That is entirely appropriate, especially because we are likely to have fewer Welsh Members of Parliament, which was mentioned by my friend, the right hon. Member for Torfaen.

[Mrs Gillan]

The right hon. Gentleman will know how bitterly disappointed I was last year when I found out that the St David’s day debate had been passed over to the Committee, which refused a debate despite requests from both sides of the House, including Front Benchers, who are of course not allowed to request debates. I am doubly pleased that we have at least a half-day debate today, but I join him in hoping that there is a way of removing that day from the Committee so that there is always a dedicated St David’s day debate. Because of how the House’s business has fallen, there are fewer opportunities to discuss Welsh matters on the Floor of the House. That is why I called a whole day’s debate on the Silk commission, which is so important for Welsh matters. I support the right hon. Gentleman and look forward to getting more details.

[Mr Llwyd]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Lady for her support. I am sure she is quite sincere. I remember the disappointment we all felt last year that the case was in some way not made for a Welsh day debate. I hope somebody somewhere reads the Hansard of today’s debate. There is sympathy on the Committee, so let us hope that Government Whips take that on board.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen has discussed his concerns about constitutional matters in Wales. He and I agree on many, many things, but it is fair to say that we do not always see eye to eye on constitutional matters, and he would not expect me to say otherwise. I respect his opinion, although we may diverge substantially on where we see the constitution going. However, it is right that we both agreed that the cuts in the number of Welsh seats was inappropriate and went much too far at this time. Frankly, I thought that a number in accordance with the Speaker’s Conference of 1944 would have been appropriate this time around—in other words, 45.

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[Chris Ruane]

Absolutely, and my next point leads directly to that. People who are more mindful have higher and more stable self-esteem that is less dependent on external factors, which is important in this day and age. Young people feel pressure from their peers, the media and, most significantly, advertising. They are told that if they do not have a particular type of trainers or shirt they are less than normal. There is a lot of pressure out there, and mindfulness is known to help young people rediscover the important things in life.

People who are more mindful enjoy more satisfying relationships, are better at communicating and less troubled by relationship conflict. Mindfulness is correlated with emotional intelligence. Being more mindful is linked to higher success in reaching academic and personal goals. If we aim to raise educational standards, this could be a good way of doing it—a point I will move on to in greater detail in a moment.

Practising meditation has repeatedly been shown to improve people’s attention. It can be used instead of drugs such as Ritalin to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. More generally, it has been shown to increase blood flow, reduce blood pressure and protect people from cardiovascular disease. People who use mindfulness and meditation are half as likely to see their GP as those who do not. Let us just imagine the benefits for the health service of cutting GP visits by 50%. These are all excellent initiatives.

To show the relevance of mindfulness, I will give some key statistics. Between 12% and 15% of children on any one day will declare themselves to be unhappy, and 29% of them were living in poverty at the height of the Tory regime. That figure was reduced to 20%. Around 10% of five-year-olds are obese, and the figure rises to 20% for 10-year-olds. Around 20% of children will experience mental illness during childhood, and the figure rises to 45% for looked-after children and 72% for children in institutional care. Mindfulness could play a great role in helping to reduce that.

Mindfulness can also be used in the workplace. I recommend to Members the book, “The Mindful Workplace”, by Michael Chaskalson. It contains recommended and proven therapies which have helped to stabilise people in work and have been used by the Rhyl city strategy. We have had training days in north Wales attended by 120 businesses, because they could see the relevance of mindfulness to them. They can spot the patterns in their workplace when a worker is off for one day a week, then two days, and then three days—and after six months they might be off for a lifetime. Mindfulness-based workplace techniques can be used to stabilise people in the workplace. Indeed, there will be another event this April, which I will attend, based on the work in that book.

[Mrs Gillan]

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) takes a great deal of interest in alternative therapies and medicines. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could help me. Are the courses run by experts in mindfulness and is it possible to train in those techniques in his constituency? Is there a school or training place there where therapists can train, or is mindfulness just being practised by a group of therapists?

[Chris Ruane]

A training day for education in my constituency three weeks ago was attended by Denbighshire’s director of education, who was very impressed by the statistics. There were also 56 practitioners from the health and education fields in Denbighshire, and they were highly enthused and wanted more training. There is no certification for mindfulness, which bothers me, and the course lasts only eight weeks. I believe that there needs to be more rigour and control over who goes out and practises mindfulness.

To return to the point that I was making, we will have a further training day in north Wales based on mindfulness in the workplace. When we look at the influence on productivity and the number of days that are lost through stress as a result of alcohol, drugs and lack of sleep, we find that the impact on the British economy is worth billions of pounds, but mindfulness can help to overcome that. That is not a recent discovery, and the Labour Government addressed well-being. At the New Economics Foundation in 2008, Nic Marks produced an excellent report, “Five Ways to Well-being”, and I recommend his excellent YouTube video on the TED channel, which summarises all that.

I pay tribute also—and Members might not believe this—to the Prime Minister for the work that he has done. He has recognised good practice. He discovered the issue of well-being in 2005, and that we should measure our nation’s wealth not just as economic wealth, but as personal and social wealth and as social capital. He has instructed the Office for National Statistics to come up with well-being indicators so that we can judge the success of our nation not just in financial terms, but by the impact on individuals, their families and their community.

I am not sure whether the Prime Minister has the support of his wider party, of wider society or indeed of Opposition Members, but he has taken a brave and bold decision in using well-being as an indicator of national success, and I congratulate him on that.

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[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). I concur with everything he said about the balance in wind policy—a shift away from some of the large-scale projects of the sort that are about to be inflicted on us in mid-Wales to projects out at sea would be welcome.

I thank the right hon. Members for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) for securing the debate. It is wholly appropriate to hold it today—indeed, I think that it is expected. We lament the fact that we did not have it last year, despite the Secretary of State’s efforts, and I remember attending the Backbench Business Committee with the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) and others.

At that time, we were in the run-up to the referendum that brought an end to the unfortunate legislative competence order process and we had yet to hear about the Silk commission. I greatly welcome the action that the Secretary of State and the Wales Office took on both matters to ensure that they happened speedily in the early days of the coalition Government.

The challenge that now faces the Wales Office and the Government is to ensure that when Mr Paul Silk reports—on part I, which deals with fiscal powers and taxation, and part II, which covers the National Assembly’s powers—those matters will not be left on a shelf to collect dust or parked in some cul-de-sac, but be actioned. I sincerely hope that the Wales Office is successful when it comes to talking to Government business managers about legislative slots in the second half of the Parliament. There is an expectation that those matters will be carried further.

Devolution has been described as a process rather than an event. There have been memorable events along the route, not least the creation of the National Assembly, but the process is continuing and demands will grow. I should like briefly to take the opportunity to reflect on three issues that spring to mind from the past year as pointing, at least in my view, to the logic of rooting decision making in Cardiff Bay, and to the need to move further in that direction.

The first issue is energy consents. The National Assembly has the ability to define strategic search areas through TAN 8 for the large-scale wind farm projects that the hon. Members for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and I are challenging in our respective constituencies. Although we have great concerns about the projects, it seems sensible that the Assembly defines the scale of those schemes, ensuring that they fit in with Assembly targets for renewables. Yet the ultimate sign-off of those policies happens in the offices of the Department of Energy and Climate Change in London. Welsh Liberal Democrats have supported recent ten-minute rule Bills on that matter to transfer powers for schemes of over 50 MW to be deliberated and determined in Cardiff Bay.

The second matter—consumer advocacy and rights—might seem small. It arose during consideration of the Public Bodies Bill. Consumer Focus Wales is an excellent body, which has been sensitive to the needs of Welsh consumers. It has an excellent record of advocacy on behalf of the people of Wales. Yet that body is to be abolished under the Public Bodies Bill, and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Ministers in Whitehall rather than Assembly Members in Cardiff will determine the model that applies to Wales.

The third matter is broadcasting. I met S4C officials this week, and they are rightly determined to make the new model of governance work. They are clearing the agenda and want to move S4C forward. However, during consideration of the Public Bodies Bill, it became clear that—inevitably, I fear—there was a perception that the arrangement was a Westminster-BBC one, with which S4C would have to comply. Given the Assembly’s holistic approach to promoting bilingualism and a bilingual education policy, and its responsibility for culture and heritage, it is again wholly appropriate that Welsh language broadcasting should be devolved.

I cite those three examples, which will doubtless feature in Mr Paul Silk’s work. I am glad that all parties have collaborated in setting up the Silk commission. The Secretary of State worked hard to ensure that all parties would be involved in it. I will not enter the debate about whether we should have written submissions, but all four political parties will have to be held to account.

[Mrs Gillan]

I also met S4C representatives this week and confirmed that they were happy with the arrangements. There was no request for broadcasting to be devolved.

[Mr Williams]

The Secretary of State will not be surprised that I had the same discussion, in that there was no specific request. I am mindful that there is a large section of opinion within Wales that S4C and broadcasting should be devolved. That is a matter for the Silk commission, and I hope we have that debate in the wake of Paul Silk’s deliberations.

I shall return to the point about tourism made by the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). I have the honour to chair the all-party Wales tourism and hospitality group, of which he is a member. We heard evidence last week from the British Hospitality Association and the Welsh Tourism Alliance on the critical importance of tourism and the huge potential for growth in all Welsh constituencies. In Ceredigion alone, 3,000 people are directly employed in hospitality and hotels. Those jobs can be protected.

One mission of those groups is on differential VAT rates. They are punching high—perhaps they are too high in their ambitions—and are pushing for a 5% rate of VAT on hotels and local attractions. There have been discussions with the Treasury, which I welcome. They believe that that could create some 80,000 jobs UK-wide. The Assembly and Westminster need to work together on those things.

Devolution is moving forward. In the last 30 seconds, I pay tribute to many people who campaigned vigorously for devolution over the years—great names in Welsh politics such as Clement Davies, Gwynfor Evans and Jim Griffiths. I should also mention Emlyn Hooson—Lord Hooson—who passed away last week. He did a great deal of work for Montgomeryshire and championed the cause of devolution in the House, introducing Bills for home rule and the creation of the Secretary of State for Wales. He was a good son of Montgomeryshire who worked very hard for his constituents. We very much miss him and send our condolences to his family.

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[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mrs Cheryl Gillan)]

It gives me great pleasure to stand at the Dispatch Box on St David’s day, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and others on securing the debate. I will not be taking interventions, as the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) did not take any, and regrettably we have very little time left. However, I will offer the hon. Lady, on St David’s day, a lovely bunch of daffodils from Dreams and Wishes, which I hope she will take home and enjoy.

I congratulate everyone who has taken part in the debate, particularly those on the Government Benches. I am exceedingly proud that we have had a 100% turnout —apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), who, on behalf of the House of Commons, is on abroad on business with a Select Committee. We have certainly been standing up for Wales. I only regret that that there has been such a thin turnout on the other side, with the honourable exception of Plaid Cymru, which also had a 100% turnout. I also greatly regret that the shadow Secretary of State was not standing up for Wales in the House this afternoon.

This Government are tackling Britain’s problems head on. We recognised that deficit reduction and continuing to ensure economic recovery was the most urgent issue facing Britain, as it still is. After all, it was the Labour party, when it was in government, that left us, the coalition Government, with an interest payment of £120 million a day on the debt that it had racked up. That interest is being paid by every family in the United Kingdom, including families in Wales. We are dealing with those debts, we are securing the long-term stability and low interest rates that are the building blocks for creating prosperity, and we are making Britain competitive once more by reducing tax rates and lifting the deadening cloak of regulation.

The building blocks for recovery are in place, and, as the latest employment figures for Wales show, there are grounds for optimism about the economy, but we all know that this will not be an easy ride. The economic outlook remains very challenging, and the challenges are particularly acute in Wales. But, notwithstanding the naysayers on the Opposition Benches, we in Government are playing our part in making the conditions right for Britain to invest in Wales. We are delivering rail electrification to Wales as part of £1 billion of investment in the Great Western main line. We are investing £60 million in superfast broadband for Wales. We have lowered corporation tax as part of a package of support for business, and have lifted 52,000 lower-paid taxpayers out of income tax altogether. Those major investments demonstrate the way in which Wales benefits from being part of a strong United Kingdom, to which many Members referred. The right hon. Member for Torfaen confirmed that. Although we may not agree on some things, we certainly agree on Wales’s place in the United Kingdom.

Many Members referred to the relationship between the UK Government and the Welsh Government. Responsibility for the Welsh economy is shared between London and Cardiff. Our Government are getting the macro-economic conditions right, but the Welsh Government must also rise to the challenge. We must work to steer a clear course for economic resurgence in Wales through co-operation. The Welsh Government must meet the challenge set by this House’s Welsh Affairs Committee to work in closer collaboration, especially with UK Trade & Investment, to attract inward investment into Wales. Several Members made that point. We need the Welsh Government to grasp the nettle of public sector reform by taking off the blinkers of political dogma and upping the pace of reform. That point was also frequently made in this debate, especially in respect of health.

I am encouraged, however, by some recent Welsh Government initiatives, such as their response to the coalition’s establishment of enterprise zones in England by creating similar, and much-needed, zones in Wales. The Welsh Government must do more to make Wales an open and welcoming place in which to do business. I was saddened by the First Minister’s recent remarks supporting a financial transactions tax, as that would cost the UK 500,000 jobs. That remark shows that there is still a long way to go.

I want to respond to some of the many and varied points made by Members. The right hon. Member for Torfaen, a man of high distinction and service to Government and country, said we must work together, and his advice should be heeded by his own party. He was critical, however, of Ministers’ knowledge across Government, but the current system of devolution was created by a Labour Government. He should know that we now have a devolution Ministers’ network, with a Minister in every Department looking at how we operate and at levels of understanding of devolution. My officials and my excellent Minister work ceaselessly to educate people across the board on the meaning of devolution, in order to ensure that it works better.

The right hon. Member for Torfaen also mentioned the Barnett consequentials and health. He should know that the Government have protected the health spend for this comprehensive spending review period, which has benefited Wales, even though the Welsh Government have chosen not to offer similar protection. If in the longer term—post-2015—the provisions of the Health and Social Care Bill were to result in less spend on health, that might impact on the Barnett formula, but none of us knows whether that is going to be the case. It is also worth noting that the previous Government increased private sector involvement in health, yet spend per head in Wales rose and remains above the English average.

There was, once again, discussion about the initial proposals of the Boundary Commission for Wales. I think the right hon. Gentleman knows that they are based on the principles of equality and fairness; my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) made that point. The right hon. Gentleman has said several times that these proposals are partisan, but that is entirely wrong. There is nothing partisan in seeking a fairer basis for representation in Parliament. I would venture to say that it is the Labour party that is driven by self-interest, in seeking to preserve the blatant unfairness of the current arrangements. There is nothing unfair about making votes and constituencies more equal. It is the current arrangements that are unfair, with some constituencies being much larger than others and votes counting for more in some constituencies than they do in others.

My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) is my surfing hero and of the Beach Boys era, as he told us. The Select Committee he chairs has conducted an excellent inquiry. I congratulate him once again and note that he would like a dedicated trade agency to promote Wales. Although the Welsh Development Agency has recently hit the headlines and there have been attempts to rubbish it in the press, I do not think that what has been said is the case. The WDA is well known, if nothing else. It is a name that falls from our lips, it has made Wales a brand around the world and made us feel good about Wales. His comments about the wine at the reception last night are very well founded. I have visited the award-winning vineyard he mentioned and I can tell him that that white wine is absolutely delicious, although, sadly, I had none of it last night.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) agrees on the point about the WDA and is a beauty to behold in his place; I think we are attending the same event this evening, but I may not have the opportunity to change. I was very interested in the list of taxes that he wished to see devolved. He must understand that the Silk commission is working on how the accountability of the Assembly and the Welsh Government could be improved. One way of doing that is to devolve powers over certain taxes to Cardiff Bay and it is open to the Silk commission to consider the devolution of any taxes, although in practice it will probably be considering the case for devolution of certain fixed taxes, such as the aggregates levy, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and the landfill tax. The commission is unlikely to recommend the devolution of more mobile taxes, such as VAT, because in certain cases, such as that one, we would need EU agreement. In addition, the mobility of taxes such as capital gains tax and VAT, and the porous nature of the England-Wales border, would probably militate against their being effective tools to enhance accountability.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) took us into an area of great celebration, mentioning not only the triple crown, but Cardiff City and of course the Swans, who are doing so well and will definitely stay up. May I just say that it was such a delight to see Sam Warburton and Warren Gatland at No. 10 last night and to be able to celebrate their achievements for Wales? I have comforting words for my hon. Friend on the licensing model for football administration, as that is certainly being looked at by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is awaiting the football authorities’ proposals in response to the Government’s ideas for a licensing system and other reforms on supporter ownership.

I am not going to have time to cover everything from the legal system, tourism, enterprise zones, S4C and welfare even to the forthcoming nuptials of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), but I would just like to say that for me there is no more important debate in the calendar than the St David’s day debate. I very much hope that next year we will be able to have a full day’s debate, with more Members able to participate. It just remains for me to wish everybody a very happy St David’s day and a very healthy, happy, wealthy and successful Wales.