Wales Bill

Craig Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Is it not right that we should be debating this? The whole point about devolving electoral arrangements is that the Assembly should make these important decisions, not this Chamber?

[Byron Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a very good point.

This is what concerns me regarding taxation powers: the Welsh people have not had their voices heard. They have not had the chance to hear the arguments, to debate with their neighbours and friends, or to discuss with their local politicians what the new powers will mean for their lives. The powers are significant not just to family lives, but to the economic future of Wales. I have felt that the Welsh public deserve a major discussion about this most crucial of issues, which will affect their day-to-day lives.

I have made my points about how we view the Assembly and how it scrutinises the Welsh Government, but I hope that I will be forgiven for going into my concerns regarding the Welsh Government. The previous Welsh Government were, I am afraid, completely adverse to any scrutiny or constructive criticism, as I saw at first hand. I was an Assembly Member until May last year, and I saw a complete lack of will and want in that Government to hear an opposing view or to discuss a different solution. That led to the appalling running of certain services in Wales. For example, there is a complete lack of an integrated transport system that would be fit for a modern and outward-looking nation. Legislation was not to the standard it should have been and there were scandals such as the regeneration investment fund for Wales. The Welsh Government scandalously sold land massively under value—we are talking about millions of pounds—and deprived Welsh taxpayers of key revenues, which highlighted the very inadequate processes for and governance of major public assets. That leaves me deeply sceptical about that Government’s ability to control billions of pounds of revenue that they raise themselves. I do not make that point to be party political, but it would be remiss of me and remiss of the House if we did not consider such issues, which are absolutely crucial to our constituents.

As it stands, I am completely unconvinced of the Welsh Government’s ability to run a Treasury. That Government have chronic and long-standing problems regarding their ability to run projects, so I feel uneasy about giving them such powers. I therefore hope that the Secretary of State will assure us that the Treasury and the Wales Office will ensure that there is a clear process so that the Welsh Government are prepared and equipped to use these powers in a way that befits the Welsh people.

I look forward to scrutinising the Bill. I know that it could not be in better hands than those of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb). I know that they will listen and speak to Members to ensure that the Bill benefits the people of Gower and the rest of Wales and, above all, to give the people of Wales greater confidence in further devolved powers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

The Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee is no longer in the Chamber, but I should like to thank him for a fascinating insight into both the previous Wales Bill and the Bill that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has brought to the House today to start a new journey. The pre-legislative process certainly gave us an insight into how legislation is put together, but, perhaps more broadly, it also gave us an insight into the devolution journey on which we embarked with the creation of the National Assembly for Wales.

I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State and his team for the amendments that have brought us from the pre-legislative Bill to what is before us today. The dropping of the necessity test is very welcome, as are the inclusion of the Severn tolls in the reservations and the removal of various elements. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the cross-party Welsh Affairs Committee to establish how we can improve the Bill further as it proceeds through its various stages.

Let me begin by tackling the elephant in the room. I support the income tax provisions, but I think that the horse has bolted to some extent. If we look at business rates and council tax receipts, we see that more than £2 billion of income is being raised, and is already devolved to the Welsh Government. That is more than income tax, and it gives the Welsh Government a bit of accountability, which is welcome. The more accountability we can give that institution, the better. My hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Byron Davies) touched on some of the more worrying aspects of the competence of the Welsh Government to date. It has taken many forms, but it has, I am afraid, been Labour-led since the creation of the Assembly.

I understand the passion expressed by some of my colleagues, and I find it difficult to separate my heart from my head. My heart says “Do not give the Welsh Labour Government any more power. They must prove that, to date, they have been competent in regard to education, health, local government and economic development.” At the same time, my head says that this is a very principled debate about the devolution journey and the powers that the House needs to give the Welsh Assembly as an institution. A journey is taking place in my own head, or a fight between poor performance and more principled considerations about the localism agenda.

I was very taken with the pragmatic approach of the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) to some of the battles over devolution, but I wanted to focus for a moment on the fact that the income tax provision constitutes a very welcome step. It will improve transparency and accountability, although we are already there with more than £2 billion of revenue from council tax and business rates, which the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly completely control.

[Mr David Jones]

How comfortable is my hon. Friend about being asked to break a manifesto commitment?

[Craig Williams]

Well, the world moves on. I cannot say that I am ever terribly comfortable about breaking a manifesto commitment, but when it comes to income tax, I have said consistently to my electorate—throughout the general election period and before—that we need accountability in the Welsh Assembly and, more important, in the Welsh Government. I believe that passionately. My constituency, more than most, has seen at first hand some of the real scandals caused by complacency, such as the scandal of the regeneration investment fund for Wales, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gower. Some of the most expensive residential land on the main site, in Lisvane, was sold at agricultural prices. There is a complacency, and until the place has real accountability and is shaken up, I believe we are going to continue in the same vein. I have made that very public statement, throughout my time as a candidate and in this House. I stand here comfortably, although I accept the wider point about the manifesto. However, the people of Cardiff North and of Wales put us here to make unpopular and difficult decisions, as well as the popular and easy decisions, and I think this is one of the former.

[Chris Davies]

My hon. Friend stated that his constituents are unhappy with what has already gone on under the Welsh Assembly, so does he not agree that the timing of this Bill is not right? Let the Welsh Assembly get its house in order before we pass to it even more commitments.

[Craig Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for making one of his classic interventions. I touched on this when I spoke about the heart and head. I disagree fundamentally with a lot of what the Welsh Labour Government do, but I support the institution of the Welsh Assembly, and I want to strengthen it and one day return a Welsh Conservative Government who have the levers and powers to get on and do the job.

I will touch on bus regulations a little later. I refer Members to my declaration of interests: I served on the board of a major bus company for many years, and I welcome the bus regulations we are giving to the Assembly, because of the importance of issues such as integrated transport.

I do not want to jump around the issues too much, but the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) mentioned corporation tax, and there is always something else to get. Now business rates are with the Assembly. In terms of the Cardiff city deal and getting high-value companies from London to Cardiff, we have discretion over business rates, and we can do exciting things with them. Rather than talk about more powers again, we should encourage the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues in the Assembly to put a visionary bid together with the powers they already have, if we manage to get this Bill through with income tax included.

[Chris Evans]

I was talking about the fact that we need certainty now in the constitutional settlement. I would be happy to see corporation tax devolved in the Bill, in the hope we will not be revisiting this, as we have done over the last couple of years. The reason I mentioned corporation tax is the example of the Republic of Ireland, which has been very successful in getting some large companies to headquarter there.

[Craig Williams]

I accept that point, but I hope the hon. Gentleman sees where I am coming from. Complacency sinks in when we give the Assembly more powers. It thinks, “Right, we’ve got them, and rather than think about what to do with them, we’ll think about what we want to ask for next.” What could be done with corporation tax and what can already be done with business rates is a good example of that.

I want to talk a little about the capital side of this. The more revenue streams and accountability we are able to give the Welsh Government, the more capital they can borrow, so the more capital they can put into infrastructure projects off their own bat, and we can judge them on the success of that. The Commonwealth games bid will require some capital. More revenue streams, and more accountability and transparency in being able to raise money, would mean that we could make a Commonwealth games bid in Wales. We could put more into the south Wales metro, too, and top up the Cardiff city deal. At the moment, the Welsh Government come to Westminster to access borrowing powers—the old Welsh Development Agency powers, for example—but this Bill tidies things up: it enables the Welsh Government to get on and hopefully deliver for the people of Wales. If they do not, we can more appropriately judge their failure or success.

I have touched on the worrying parts of the RIFW scandal and how I see that as an example of a lazy approach and attitude within the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly more broadly, but I want to move on to the single legal jurisdiction question for Wales. I believe that a single legal jurisdiction of England and Wales has served us well and should be maintained. Although we acknowledge that the Assembly is now going to make a greater body of law, and I commend this Bill for tackling what has been a very thorny issue, I agree that the disruption and cost of establishing a separate legal jurisdiction is not justified at this time. A separate jurisdiction would create upheaval and huge cost for no good reason.

Another issue that has been modified owing to the scrutiny of the draft Bill is the formal recognition in this Bill of a body of Welsh law made by the Welsh Assembly and Welsh Ministers—or Welsh Secretaries, as I should now call them. This change reflects the importance placed on this matter during the revision process in the past few months. Most of the debate on a distinct or separate jurisdiction revolved around the necessity test, and I am hoping that the Bill in its present form will have lanced that boil. I am sure that we will hear more about that from Plaid Cymru Members later. The Welsh Affairs Committee, on which I am proud to serve, concluded that the necessity test was wrong and recommended that it be replaced. I therefore welcome the Secretary of State’s approach to this issue.

The body of Welsh law continues to grow. I have made the point in the Welsh Grand Committee and the Select Committee that the Assembly is making Welsh laws and a body of Welsh laws exists, and that the Assembly should have the security and confidence to stand up and say that, rather than constantly looking for reassurance from Westminster that it can have its own body of laws. We can now build our legal infrastructure around the body of Welsh laws, but we would risk economic and commercial damage if a separate jurisdiction were pursued. We would risk a flight of talent, given that Cardiff has strong professional legal services. We would also face problems with our universities. The University of Aberystwyth is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), and I would not want to put it or any other Welsh university in a position of having to debate whether to teach English or Welsh law to international students. That might be a difficult one for the dean of law at Aberystwyth. For all those reasons, I support the Government’s belief in maintaining a shared legal jurisdiction, and I welcome the work being undertaken by representatives of the Lord Chief Justice’s office.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

The short answer is that I am sure the head of the law department at Aberystwyth would enjoy teaching both English and Welsh law. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the positives that has come from the Government in recent days is the at least partial acknowledgement of the need not for a separate legal jurisdiction but for a distinct legal jurisdiction? The difference seems to have been lost on some Conservative Members. People are talking about a separate jurisdiction, but many of us here are calling for a distinct one.

[Craig Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. We debated this matter in the Select Committee and in the Welsh Grand, and I constantly said that I thought we already had distinct arrangements and could not understand what was being asked for. He was right, however, and the Secretary of State has made it clear in the Bill that those distinct arrangements will be put in place.

[Mr Williams]

But surely the hon. Gentleman would acknowledge that the creation of the working group that the Government have announced is a step in the direction of a distinct jurisdiction. Otherwise, we shall be revisiting this matter in the years to come, as the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) has suggested.

[Craig Williams]

I am going to touch on something that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) said. I agree that this is a pragmatic solution to a thorny issue, and I cannot see why the distinct arrangements would not stand the test of time as the body of Welsh law emerges. This is a significant change.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

In that case, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the findings of the working group will be extremely important to our discussions on the Bill? Given that it is going to report back in the autumn, should we not ensure that its findings are incorporated in the Bill?

[Craig Williams]

Being a new Member of Parliament, I am guessing that that will fit into the timetable of the Bill’s passage through the House, given that we do not exactly rush things here. I think the Secretary of State alluded to the fact that that work would be carried out coterminously. I look forward to the findings; they will be important and they will perhaps bring Members together to deal with the thorny issue of jurisdiction. I am looking forward to the findings of the working group and I hope that they will be produced in a timely fashion so that we can consider them in Committee. These proposals represent a significant change from those in the draft Bill.

I support the proposals on the judicial impact assessments. I do not follow the rationale behind the objections to them. Any sensible institution or Government would have them, but I look forward to sitting down and discussing that rationale with anyone who opposes them. Adopting those assessments would be a sensible approach. Similarly, the electoral arrangements have been a long time coming. As I have said, it is not right that we in this place should debate how many Assembly Members there should be or at what age people in Wales should have the vote. The new arrangements are quite right, and if the Assembly chose to call itself the Welsh Parliament, I would be entirely relaxed about that—a rose by any other name—given that it is making laws, generating revenue and borrowing against capital.

In drawing my contribution to a close, I wish to talk about two practical things. The shadow Secretary of State mentioned ports and the protections on trust ports, particularly Milford Haven. Some 62% of all UK natural gas is coming through that port, so I judge it to be a port of national infrastructure on a UK level, and it is entirely warranted that there is protection there. I have alluded to a welcome, practical measure on bus regulation, which I see as an excellent step forward for what the Welsh Government have been trying to do on integrating transport. It is also an excellent step forward for local authorities. I served on the board of Cardiff Bus, the largest south Wales bus company, and I think this measure will enable the integrated approach between buses, city regions and the train services.

I hope that the Bill has a speedy and successful passage through the House, and I very much look forward to seeing what the Welsh Government do with these powers and, as I said to the hon. Member for Islwyn, the business rates and the huge powers and levers the Welsh Government currently have to better the lives of my constituents and the people of Wales. I commend this Bill, I thank the Secretary of State and his team, and I look forward to the remainder of the debate.