St David’s Day

Debate between Chris Elmore and David T C Davies

Thursday 28th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi). I also extend my sincerest condolences to the family of Paul Flynn, and to all Paul’s colleagues in the Labour party. I had known him for well over 30 years. He used to be my MP, and he used to come to my school when I was a sixth-former. I would try, and utterly fail, to catch him out with difficult questions. History seemed to repeat itself when he joined the Welsh Affairs Committee. He was an inspirational Member of Parliament, a true Back Bencher, who worked incredibly hard. He turned up to every Committee meeting, even when his health was making that difficult for him. We were both Council of Europe delegates as well.

I think that the best compliment I can pay comes from one of Paul’s constituents, who described him as “a damned good constituency MP” who would always take up people’s concerns. That comment was actually made to me by a member of Newport West’s Conservative association. I think I need say no more than that.

Let me also thank all members of the Welsh Affairs Committee, past and present. In the nine years for which I have served on the Committee, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with everyone. We certainly have a wide range of political opinions, but most of our reports have featured a strong measure of unanimity in their recommendations to the Government. I think that that is because, outside the Chamber and the hurly-burly of politics, most of us—indeed, all of us—will always want to put the good of Wales first, and look for ways in which to support Wales and the Welsh people rather than dividing on political issues.

In the four minutes that I have left, I will canter through a couple of the issues with which the Committee has been dealing. The issue of the Severn Bridge was the first that I took up as Chairman, and there were various inquiries, reports and follow-ups on the subject. With the support of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, we continued to maintain that the tolls were unfair, and were creating a brake on the south Wales economy. I was delighted when, earlier in the year, they were finally scrapped. If we are to see the full benefit, however, it is vital for the Welsh Government to get on with building an M4 relief road. Otherwise, we will simply see further congestion in the area of the Brynglas tunnels.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has paid tribute to the Secretary of State. Will he join me in also paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), who has campaigned for the abolition of the tolls since 2005? Should she not be congratulated on her achievement?

[David T. C. Davies]

In fact, the hon. Member for Newport East was a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee when that first report was produced some nine years ago, and I think that it was at her instigation that the abolition went ahead. I pay full tribute to her for that.

As I was saying, the advantages that will accrue from the abolition of the tolls will be greatly increased if the Welsh Government now get on with building the M4 relief road. I know that was the policy—or it certainly seemed to be—of the Labour Government in the Welsh Assembly, and I am sure the Government here will want to support them in that.

To be slightly more parochial, the booming south Wales economy, for which my colleagues in government can take much of the credit, has meant that there is a demand for housing in south-east Wales, which is causing further problems. I hope Ministers will be doing everything possible to get the local authorities together to build the Chepstow bypass, which is also urgently needed.

The Select Committee on Welsh Affairs obviously cannot do much in the way of culture, media and sport, which is a devolved matter, but there are areas where we can offer support, not least in cheering on the national side as we all did on Saturday, but on S4C too. We have produced numerous reports to try to ensure that there are no threats to S4C’s budget.

I am also delighted that the Select Committee now enables anyone who wishes to do so to give evidence in Welsh. Debates can also now be held in Welsh in the Welsh Grand Committee, and I do not see why this cannot be extended further. I know that many Committee members would be quite supportive of it. There is no technical reason why we could not have debates on Welsh matters in Westminster Hall in Welsh, and I do not think there is any technological reason why a St David’s Day debate in this very Chamber could not also be held in the medium of Welsh. Perhaps we could look at that over the next few years.

We have looked on many occasions at the issue of powers for the Welsh Assembly. I was on the losing side of a referendum: I campaigned against the Welsh Assembly but quickly realised it would be utterly wrong to stand in the way of something the people of Wales had voted for. That is why I am glad the Conservative party, rather than trying to overturn the result of that referendum in 1997, embraced it and realised we would simply have to go along with what the Welsh people wanted, because that is democracy.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Chris Elmore and David T C Davies

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we were paying about £18 billion a year to be a member of the European Union. Even if the £39 billion Brexit divorce bill figure is correct—I am prepared to accept that it is—it represents about two years’ membership of the European Union. If that is the price that we have to pay for a good deal, and if other Members support it, I am willing to support it as well. I would probably be willing to walk away and, effectively, say “Get stuffed”, but I am a man who likes to work with other people, and if I can encourage other Members to get behind the Government and compromise a little bit, I am all for doing that.



Let me now return to education for a minute. I think it very important for members of the Welsh Affairs Committee, and Welsh MPs in general, to consider the state of education in Wales. We often hear comparisons between the Welsh and the English national health services, but I do not think we hear enough comparisons between the Welsh and the English education systems. I want to know why my children, who attend state schools in Wales, have less chance statistically of getting good GCSE results and A-level results, less chance of getting into the best universities, and less chance of getting first-class degrees, and I want to know whether Labour Members agree with the judgment of the former Labour Education Minister in Wales who announced that it was time for the Labour Government in Wales to apologise to learners and parents for the mess that they had made of education.

[Chris Elmore]

I think I have raised this issue with the hon. Gentleman before. When his own county’s education services were put into special measures while being run by a Conservative administration, he said nothing. I will tell him what is good about the Welsh education system: record investment in school buildings, record GCSE results, record A-level results, and some of the best universities in the United Kingdom, if not the world.

The hon. Gentleman is doing a great disservice to the people of Wales and the people of Monmouth. He needs to get his facts straight rather than making misleading statements on the Floor of the House.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am certainly not doing—

[Chris Elmore]

I got carried away, Mr Deputy Speaker. I apologise, and I withdraw those words.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Thank you very much.

[David T. C. Davies]

I welcome the fact that everyone feels passionately about this issue, but I suggest that the hon. Gentleman look at what his own Labour Education Minister is saying about Labour’s education record in Wales.

[Chris Elmore]

rose—

[David T. C. Davies]

I have been given only 10 minutes, and I would like to move on to the subject of Brexit, which, after all, is a matter of some interest to all of us at the moment.

I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union for the enormous amount of extra power that he will give the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, although, if I were anything less than a man who likes compromise, I would be slightly worried about it. I was on the losing side of a referendum in 1999. I remember what it was like to wake up the next day and realise that we had lost, and to have a great discussion about what to do next. What we decided to do was respect the fact that the people of Wales had voted for a Welsh Assembly, albeit by a very narrow majority, and with a much smaller turnout than the one that we saw for the Brexit referendum. We in the Conservative party decided—and I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales was among the people who were thinking about this—that the thing to do was simply to respect the decision and get on with it.

We did not say, “Well, there was only a small turnout and a tiny majority, so let us have a second referendum.” We did not say, “Let us see if we can find some dubious hedge fund managers and challenge the whole thing in the courts on a technicality.” We did not go off to the House of Lords and say, “Let us see if we can delay the whole thing”, or whip up a load of scare stories about what it was likely to do to the economy—although I must admit that the scare stories that remainers are coming out with are not particularly good. One minute they say that Brexit will crash the economy, and the next minute they are complaining that there will not be enough people to fill the thousands of job vacancies that are currently available as a result of the good handling of the economy by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

We did not do any of that. We recognised the fact that the people of Wales had voted in a certain direction, and we respected that. We respected devolution and we respect it now, and we respect the voice of the Welsh public, who voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union. I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for listening to the people of Wales. Ours is the only political party that is willing to deliver the Brexit for which those people voted.