Welsh Affairs

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I am sure that Welsh Members who see me, as an English Member, rise to address this debate will be a little curious as to my intentions. Let me reassure them, and the House, that I am not here to assert my historical right to use my crossbow with extreme prejudice on any of their fellow countrymen I might find within the walls of my beloved city after the hours of darkness. It is a historical right but I certainly do not intend to assert it.

In fact, I hope to give something of a mirror image of the speech by the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) about the importance of cross-border working between north Wales and my area of west Cheshire and Merseyside. He talked about a border that does not exist. That border might have prevented me from taking part in this debate, but, as he said, it is a border in name only. Indeed, Colin Brew, chief executive of West Cheshire and North Wales chamber of commerce—a cross-border body—tells me that business, in particular, does not recognise the border. When the Minister was at a North Wales CBI dinner just before Christmas at which I was also present, he felt very confident and positive about these matters, and he is well aware of the importance of this strategic area.

Let me give some examples. Of the 5,000 skilled manufacturing workers at Airbus in Broughton—which is, in essence, in Chester but across the border in north Wales—at least 600 live in my constituency. The situation is similar for other major manufacturing employers, such as Toyota and Tata Steel on the Deeside industrial park, which my good friend and parliamentary next-door neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), visited last week because so many of his constituents work there.

It works both ways. For example, Bank of America MBNA is one of Chester’s most prestigious employers and is based on Chester business park. It employs about 3,500 people, a third of whom live in north Wales. The cross-border region has a population of about 1 million, 81% of whom work in the region, but whether they live in north Wales and work in England, or the other way around, is scarcely relevant for them.

I was pleased to join noble Lords, right hon. and hon. Members of all parties and local government representatives from the Mersey Dee Alliance at a meeting—this was mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman—of the all-party group for the Mersey-Dee north Wales region, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) and has been formed to drive forward in Parliament and Government the concept of the Mersey Dee Alliance. The group and the alliance will work together to prevent needless duplication; propel economic growth; provide flexibility for greater cross-border co-operation within the parameters of existing local government frameworks; and, above all, overcome administrative differences created by the national boundary running through a successful and functioning economic region.

I reject the Government’s notion of a northern powerhouse. I believe it is nothing more than a slogan from a Government who are very adept at using slogans to hoodwink and mollify those of us outside London and the south-east of England while our imbalanced economy continues to grow at an imbalanced rate in an imbalanced direction.

Given that economic growth in north-west England is focused on the big cities, there remains a danger that Cheshire and north Wales will be squeezed out. The MDA initiative will give us strength to stand our ground, stand up to that squeeze and punch at our true weight. Discussions are currently taking place about local government reorganisation in England. Anything that would force Cheshire West and Chester to look the wrong way, as opposed to across the border, would be very unhelpful to north Wales, as well as to Chester. I ask the Minister to bear that in mind in his discussions with the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government.

If we are to maximise the natural economic link between north Wales and Chester, we must optimise our infrastructure, which is important to north Wales and west Cheshire. As the West Cheshire and North Wales chamber of commerce has said, this is all about connectivity. I want to give the Minister a couple of examples of how it might be improved.

For starters, the M56 motorway in Cheshire must be upgraded. Although it is in England, it is the main link road to north Wales—people also use it to get to Holyhead and Ireland—and it provides the principal access to industrial zones in Deeside and to industrial parks in Wrexham via the A483. Serious accidents and major delays are a weekly occurrence, but Department for Transport Ministers have declined to include the upgrade of the M56 to a smart motorway in any programmes before 2020. Will Wales Office Ministers have words with their Department for Transport colleagues and impress on them the importance of that link road to north Wales, including its role as a driver of the north Wales economy?

We also hope to get a new bridge over the Dee near Broughton, which would link the A55 and A494, thereby improving access to the industrial zones I have mentioned, particularly near the Airbus site, and increasing capacity and resilience in the network. I have written to the National Infrastructure Commission in support of that major project and I ask Ministers to seriously consider supporting the proposal.

There is also a strong case for the electrification of the north Wales coast line, from Crewe to Chester and on to Holyhead. The Minister and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), who has responsibility for rail, attended a meeting in Llandudno last year. She expressed the view that electrification was not the magic bullet that many of us believe it to be. It is the view of Mersey Dee Alliance members, however, that electrification of the line is necessary for performance, capacity and reliability, and to run larger electric trains from Holyhead to London. The right hon. Member for Clwyd West mentioned the importance of linking it to HS2 in Crewe. I do not want the benefits of HS2 to terminate at Crewe; I want them to extend to Chester and north Wales.

It is important for the future prospects of Cheshire and north Wales that the UK votes to remain in the European Union, as other hon. Members have said. So many of our major employers in the Mersey Dee Alliance area are dependent on our relationship with Europe. Airbus is the obvious example. To Members who claim that a so-called membership fee of £55 million a day is the cost of EU membership, I say that every time the Beluga flies out of the Airbus plant into the north Wales skies with products that are the result of skilled manufacturing, the fee, bogus as it is, is paid off.

Bank of America, Tata Steel and Bristol-Myers Squibb all have a presence in the area that is central to their European operations. That is not to mention the countless smaller businesses that trade with Europe but would not have the time or energy to worry about negotiating through trade barriers with each EU country, should we leave. Those businesses simply could not afford to wait for the chimera of a promised free trade deal, which is supposedly the answer to every argument that proponents of our leaving the EU cannot face up to.

I finish by echoing the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Clwyd West and continuing the consensual note that he brought to the debate by daring to suggest that many residents of north Wales feel a stronger affinity with Chester and west Cheshire than they do with Cardiff. We in the region are doing something about that; we are working together to drive forward common economic growth across that border. I hope and believe that hon. Members will be hearing a lot more about the Mersey Dee Alliance and our successes in the years to come.