Support for the Welsh Economy and Funding for the Devolved Institutions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Baynes]

Actually, I do think that the way it is being done now is fairer. I could never understand that schematic system, which was rigid in its thought process and implementation, and which meant that areas of deprivation, particularly in north Wales, were simply not going to get the level of funding. I am not saying that there was no European funding—there was some—but it was not anything like the largesse that went to west and south Wales. That simply cannot be right. The new system is much fairer in its thought process and application.

Another point that I feel strongly about is devolution, about which we have heard from several Opposition Members. To my mind, if the granting of money is devolved from the UK Government to local authorities, that is devolution. Why should it go to the Welsh Government, who already get a huge block grant and have plenty of scope within their remit of government to spend that money? It seems that they like devolution if it comes into their coffers, but they do not like it when it goes into the coffers of the local authorities.

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

The Government’s form of devolution is different and does not work because it is a beauty parade. Councils are asked to bid and then some get the money and some do not. It is not a fair form of devolution, because it pits one council against another with an opaque mechanism for deciding how councils get the money. At least if it goes to the Welsh Government, it is clear how Wales is getting the money.

[Simon Baynes]

With all due respect, I have been part of that process. As the Member for Clwyd South, I sponsored a bid, which was granted. One point I would make—[Interruption.] Opposition Members can make their point, which I know and which I anticipated, but let us take the world heritage site at the Trevor basin in my constituency, which includes the wonderful Thomas Telford aqueduct. Hitherto, it has never had any public money invested in it by the Welsh or UK Governments. I think that the constituencies of Opposition Members have received money for so long that they do not understand how starved places such as my constituency have been over a long time.

The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) said that the process pitted councils against each other, but that is not how I see it. Let us look at the process, in which I have been involved. Every council can apply, although some Labour councils do not because of a political point of view, which seems a very strange approach when the money and availability are there. It is not really pitting people against each other; it is an application. The Welsh Government are themselves an opaque mechanism for distributing money to regions such as north Wales. Those of us who represent north Wales constituencies are fed up with north Wales being starved of investment and south Wales in particular getting the lion’s share. For us, it is a much fairer system.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) referred to the financial problems that are besetting the country. I accept that we have high inflation and so on, but if Wales were independent, how would he get round the fact that its national net fiscal deficit—the gap between total public spending for Wales and public sector revenues from Wales—amounted to £25.91 billion at the financial year end in March 2021? This is about £8,200 per person compared with the UK average of about £4,700 per person. It seems to me that, if we went down the route suggested by Plaid Cymru Members, we would have a huge financial problem in Wales, and we never ever hear any cogent arguments to oppose that point of view. If they are going to vote for independence and to go for independence, they have to prove to the country how they would make the books balance.

--- Later in debate ---

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

May I say what a pleasure it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden)? I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) on securing and leading this debate.

When I rise to speak in any debate on Welsh affairs, I suspect that Members can predict straightaway what I will talk about. Sure enough, there are no surprises from me today: I will speak about Chester’s place at the heart of the transport links for all of north Wales. We are debating Welsh economic growth, and the railway network around Chester is central to what Members across the House hope to achieve in north Wales. The hon. Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes) spoke about the dislocation that north Wales sometimes feels from the south. That is something that I hear, too. By improving connectivity in north Wales through Chester, we could certainly minimise that.

Chester is the gateway to north Wales, with lines heading down to Shrewsbury through Chirk and Gobowen, down to Wrexham and further on that way, and along the beautiful north Wales coastline. I see the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) in his place. He spoke earlier about Conwy castle, which is a fantastic day out on the train from Chester. I went crab fishing on the quayside there as a child, and I took my children there when they were younger. That railway line is also an economic artery, linking up with the ferries coming in from the Republic of Ireland, and it absolutely needs upgrading.

The central element is the Growth Track 360 proposals that are being put together with the Mersey Dee Alliance, which covers the cross-border area, as well as the local authorities, the North Wales Economic Ambition Board and the local enterprise partnership on my side of the border. The proposals will increase signalling and platform capacity at Chester and allow for through services from north Wales to Manchester and Liverpool. The Government have a good story to tell on those Liverpool services, because they opened the Halton curve to allow through trains from Liverpool. However, because of the continuing restrictions on the north Wales coastline, the number of direct services from Liverpool through to north Wales is restricted. Can we please have some more oomph from Ministers in the Wales Office and the Department for Transport, working with Transport for Wales, so that we get confirmation that the work will go ahead in Chester and its station to increase capacity, and to increase train frequency along the north Wales coastline to five an hour, given the full benefits that that will bring to north Wales?

That would tie in neatly with something I have been pushing for since I was first elected: the electrification of the line from Crewe to Chester. There is something of a bottleneck at Chester, and there are restrictions. We keep being promised that that last 20 or so miles will be electrified, but the promises seem to be disappearing further into the distance. This work is essential, particularly if we are to get the full benefits of High Speed 2 in Chester and on into north Wales. The Minister has been very supportive of the electrification, and I believe that the Secretary of State has visited the area and is aware of the issue. If north Wales is to get the full benefit of HS2, we need to get further forward with electrification.

A lot more immediate than HS2 is the issue of through services from north Wales to Chester and on to London Euston. We used to have 12 such services a day, but it was reduced to one a day. We are now supposed to be grateful for an increase to two a day—a doubling of the service. The railway companies are telling us that there will be an increase to 14 direct services a day between London and Chester, with a majority of those going on, along the north Wales coastline, to Bangor, Llandudno and Holyhead. We absolutely need the Government’s support, through the Department for Transport and the Wales Office, and that of Transport for Wales, to nail this down. We need those direct services, and I would be grateful if the Minister gave the issue attention.

The hon. Member for Clwyd South and I had an exchange about levelling-up bids. My constituency is not bidding in round two, not because the local authority, Cheshire West and Chester, lacks ambition—it absolutely does not—but because the bids take up a lot of officer time and office resources. There is something of a beauty contest here, and hard-pressed local authorities do not necessarily want to gamble on getting bids approved. However, I am pleased to support Flintshire County Council’s bid for the Borderlands line. That will benefit his constituency, as well as the constituencies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), as well as Chester.

Although it lies outside the boundaries of my constituency, a new station at Deeside will absolutely help the western side of my constituency. It will also help the Deeside industrial area, in which there are 26,000 jobs, to grow even further. It is immediately outside Chester, in north Wales. A station there would provide additional connectivity with Liverpool and Wrexham. If the bid is successful, it will also allow more trains on the Chester to Wrexham line, which will help Wrexham to grow, because it will allow for railway sidings at the Hanson cement works. The way trains are manoeuvred around at the moment requires space on that line, as there are limits on the number of trains that can pass. Again, the Government have a story to tell on this: I think I am right in suggesting that the track from Chester to Wrexham has been doubled since 2010, so the Government are not getting the full benefit of an investment for which they can claim credit. Let us allow this bid, which I support; let us get the developments on the Borderlands line sorted; and let us allow real regeneration in Chester and, of course, north Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

To draw on the link between Wales and Scotland, I congratulate Loganair, which flies between Cardiff and Edinburgh and will no doubt benefit from the cut in air passenger duty for regional airports. As a result, we can expect to see an increase in demand for flights, which is good news for Cardiff airport, good news for travellers and good news for the Union.

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

10. What recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on improving cross-border transport connectivity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

Cross-border links are vital to achieving levelling up in every part of the United Kingdom, including Wales. Last week, I met the Welsh Government’s Transport Minister to discuss how our Governments can work together to improve those vital links, including through the recommendations in the Union connectivity review.

[Christian Matheson]

If you go by train to north Wales, Mr Speaker, the chances are that you will go through Chester. We have plans ready to go to increase capacity at Chester station, but we are being held up because the Minister’s colleagues in the Westminster Department for Transport will not agree on Union connectivity grants for Network Rail and Transport for Wales. Will he please have a word and tell them to get a move on?

[David T. C. Davies]

I am sure that my colleagues in Westminster will be doing absolutely everything they can to improve connectivity links between Wales and England, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman could have a word with his colleagues in the Welsh Labour Government, who have decided to abandon road building in Wales. Traffic congestion is bad for the environment, and a good road network is good for a flourishing economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

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

1. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on rail electrification in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Guto Bebb)]

This Government’s rail investment strategy is historic in its scale and ambition, and will benefit passengers in both north and south Wales. We are electrifying the Great Western main line all the way to Swansea, and we are developing the north Wales main line through a £43 million programme of modernisation and investment.

[Christian Matheson]

The Department for Transport seems to be making precious little progress on the Crewe to Chester-north Wales coast electrification, so will the Minister get together with his DFT colleagues and perhaps the Welsh Assembly Government, and I will even come along myself, to get a full engineering survey to find out the costs and the timescale for the electrification process, which is so important to the growth of the area?

[Guto Bebb]

I understand the importance of the north Wales main line to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and the whole of north Wales. We are engaged in a £43 million programme of investment and modernisation and we are seeing the benefits of that investment. For example, there has already been vast improvement in services from Chester to Euston, which also benefits north Wales. I would thoroughly welcome the opportunity to discuss this further with the hon. Gentleman as part of our strategy for a north Wales growth deal.

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.