Welsh Affairs
Debate between Craig Williams and Christina Rees(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Government for bringing forward this debate on Welsh affairs. Of course, the calendar dictates that we are unable to hold the debate on St David’s Day, as 1 March falls on a Sunday this year. Nevertheless, the debate remains a firm fixture in our parliamentary business, providing a great opportunity to discuss the issues, challenges and priorities that matter to Wales.
I also thank the Government for granting the debate in Government time, which has not happened for many years; not, I think, since the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) became Secretary of State—I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) would be able to correct me on that, were he here, as his knowledge of the House is far better than mine. Certainly, since I have been taking part in St David’s Day debates, they have been Backbench Business debates.
Yesterday I bumped into my good friend Albert Owen, the former Member for Ynys Môn. We were reminiscing about Welsh affairs debates, among other things. Seeing Albert reminded me just how much I miss him, Ian Lucas, David Hanson, Susan Elan Jones, Owen Smith, Madeleine Moon, Anne Clwyd and, last but not least, my former shadow ministerial colleague, Chris Ruane. Those dedicated Welsh MPs have given years of service to the people of Wales, and their work should be celebrated for all that is good about being a Welsh Labour MP. We have two great new Labour MPs, my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), who are already making their presence felt and will be fantastic additions to our Labour Team Wales.
Not many hon. Members know this, but in my constituency of Neath we celebrate not only St David’s Day, when the children dress up in Welsh costumes to celebrate our Welsh culture, but St Patrick’s Day. Patrick was born in Banwen, at the top of the Dulais valley, but he was kidnapped as a child and taken to Ireland. Every year we hold a fantastic celebration at a stone we have erected to his memory in Banwen. Schoolchildren, residents and special guests come along to hear the great Roy Noble giving one of his memorable speeches about St Patrick. We are indebted to the famous local historian George Brinley Evans, now 93, who researched this phenomenon and was the leading protagonist in establishing the St Patrick stone and the annual event. Please join us. We have a leprechaun who comes all the way from Ireland to take part too. I look forward to seeing Members there on 17 March.
It is regrettable that I must begin my proper address in sombre tones, as we reflect on the impact that recent events have had on our great nation. Two storms and unprecedented flooding have taken their toll on communities across Wales, including, but not limited to, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Llanwrst, Monmouth and parts of my Neath constituency. From severe damage to bridges and iconic landmarks, such as the national lido of Wales, to the destruction of the entire contents of family homes, these floods will cost Wales dearly.
The First Minster, the Leader of the Opposition and, indeed, the Prince of Wales have visited households and communities right across the country, but alas the Prime Minster could not find the time to visit just one of the flood-damaged areas of the UK. He has said many times that he would not “die in a ditch”, but perhaps he was missing in action because he fell into the moat surrounding his holiday castle, or perhaps he could not find his wellies.
The community spirit and response in our devastated Welsh communities has shown the world the best of Wales: compassion, kindness, humour and solidarity have shone through the contribution of volunteers, emergency services, council workers, welfare halls, miners’ institutes, Royal British Legion branches, rugby clubs, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and so many more.
Craig Williams
The hon. Lady missed that the source of the Severn is in Montgomeryshire, in mid-Wales. Although I will not politicise this or make tribal political points about missing one of the biggest floods in Wales, will she reflect on the fact that we have to work together to ensure that people recover as soon as possible from this tragedy, and that does not include cheap political shots of the sort she has made thus far?
Christina Rees
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We always work together, but the Prime Minister is the leader, so he should have visited the areas affected.
Many local authorities are pulling together to support those who are most severely impacted by the floods, working in the most demanding of circumstances to get the quickest possible support to those in need. However, the UK Government must now step up and recognise the disproportionate and intense impact that the floods have had on Wales. We need additional funding for Wales. We need protection for emergency household payments. We need immediate help for those who do not have insurance. We need support for those who have lost their jobs and livelihoods.
Christina Rees
My hon. Friend makes an important point. When I have visited homes that have been flooded or affected by landslips over the past few weeks, it has broken my heart. People who do not have insurance have had their homes destroyed yet again. Yes, we need action, and we need it now, because the weather forecast is definitely not favourable for the next few weeks.
A quarter of all homes and businesses were flooded in Rhondda Cynon Taf alone, with a potential bill of £30 million—twice the council’s annual capital budget. I must commend the work of the Rhondda Cynon Taf MPs and AMs and the leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf Council, Andrew Morgan, who is also leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, which has done some fantastic work.
There is so much to celebrate about our great nation, some of which I will discuss in a moment, but there are also a great many challenges and a level of uncertainty in our communities, against the backdrop of Brexit and the negative effects of austerity on so many Welsh communities and families.
These challenging times make it more important than ever to have a strong Welsh Labour team of MPs here in Westminster, working with the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, and the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff Bay. It remains a huge privilege to serve as the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), our Welsh Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), and our wonderful Welsh Labour MPs.
This Tory UK Government have continually failed Wales, and unfortunately the Wales Office continues to fail to stand up for the people of Wales. We were promised the electrification of the Great Western main line to Swansea, but the UK Government changed their mind. The Swansea bay tidal lagoon was recommended by this Government’s own inquiry, but they ignored it, and Wylfa Newydd has been paused. The people of Wales hear loud and clear the UK Government’s promises to our country, and the people will hold them to account for their failure to deliver. We demand more, and we demand better.
The UK Government must recognise the folly of continuing to frustrate efforts to launch a major new domestic market for Welsh steel. The pathfinder tidal lagoon in Swansea bay requires around 100,000 tonnes of steel, much of which could be sourced in Wales, against a very clear commitment from the investors and businesses involved to buy Welsh. The past 12 months have seen the loss of hundreds of jobs in the steel industry, in Tata’s Orb steelworks in Newport and in Liberty Steel in sites in south Yorkshire and south Wales. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Newport East and for Newport West (Ruth Jones) for their tireless campaigning on behalf of our steelworkers.
Wales needs investment, as the UK as a whole needs investment, and the people of Wales will judge this Government harshly if they continue to fail to deliver it. Opposition Members will continue to speak up for Wales—for Welsh families, communities and businesses— and for the devolution settlement itself. It is not for any UK Government unilaterally to rewrite the rules of devolution by attempting to power-grab and centralise functions set out in law and agreed through the ballot box, using Brexit as a cover for those actions. Despite what the Secretary of State has said about the UK shared prosperity fund, it is still a mystery to me. We continue to wait and wait for the much anticipated consultation, and for any details whatever on how the fund will be implemented. It must respect devolution and be overseen by the Welsh Government, and we must not see a penny less or a power lost. I commend the report produced by the all-party parliamentary group for post-Brexit funding for nations, regions and local areas, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock).
The people of Wales have a right to see a UK Government acting in their best interests, protecting their jobs and investing in the public services they rely on and the infrastructure we desperately need to secure Wales’s future. Despite a decade of austerity and a 7% real-terms cut to funding per head of the population, the Welsh Government have continued to lead the way in delivering landmark legislation and progressive policy making. The Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 and the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 are groundbreaking examples of a modern legislature creating laws that make a difference for the people of the nation.
The Welsh Government have also introduced policies such as free bus travel for the over-60s, free swimming for children and older people, free school breakfasts, free prescriptions and free hospital parking, as well as being the first nation of the UK to introduce the 5p carrier bag charge. They have banned smoking in cars carrying children, and Wales has the third highest recycling rate in the world. That is just a brief glimpse of what has been delivered during the past decade. The achievements of the Welsh Government are, quite honestly, nothing short of remarkable.
Craig Williams
I could not resist intervening at this particular moment—I rather thought it was 1 April, not St David’s Day. Will the hon. Member comment on the report of the Wales Audit Office that pointed out the several hundred million-pound overspend on the heads of the valleys road and other significant infrastructure projects over the decade that the hon. Member said was so successful?
Christina Rees
As the hon. Gentleman knows, European funding produced the heads of the valley road.
Spending Review and Autumn Statement: Wales
Debate between Craig Williams and Christina Rees(9 years ago)
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Christina Rees
No, we did not actually say that—if the hon. Gentleman checks his facts, he will see that we did not.
As I was saying, by the time this Conservative Government leave office in 2020, we will have seen an 11% cut in the Welsh budget. For all the Government’s talk of economic recovery, they have delivered a mountain of cuts since 2010, and their decisions will do further harm to the Welsh economy over the next five years.
Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)
The hon. Lady talks about 11% cuts to the Welsh budget, but how does that compare to the regions and Departments of England? She has not once mentioned the commitments on the national living wage. Will she welcome that as well as banging on with the diatribe we have heard on universal credit?
Christina Rees
The hon. Gentleman may think it is a diatribe but I do not—these are the facts, and the so-called national living wage is yet more rhetoric from the Conservative party.
In Neath Port Talbot, the county borough in which my constituency sits, the local authority has seen a cumulative cut of £65 million to its budget since 2010, not including this coming financial year, with further planned cuts potentially of £37 million over the next three years—a total of £102 million being taken out of its budget in eight years. That has meant its workforce has shrunk by 20%, and it is important to point out that those cuts have come as a direct consequence of UK Government cuts to the Welsh budget. That has hit local services hard, leading to the unwanted but necessary reduction in support for community facilities, such as libraries and leisure centres.
The IFS has estimated that the tax and social security changes introduced in the last Parliament cost the average Welsh family £560 a year and took £700 million out of the Welsh economy each year. According to the IFS, the Chancellor’s plans mean that Welsh households will lose a further £500 each year between 2015 and 2019, meaning an annual loss of £660 million to our economy.
The Chancellor made much of implementing a Barnett floor to ensure that the funding gap between Wales and England does not widen further. I welcome that announcement. Six years on from the Holtham report, which recommended such a floor, I am pleased that the Government have finally pledged to deliver that mechanism, but the simple fact is that the floor makes hardly any difference when spending on Wales is falling. What is unacceptable, and completely at odds with the recommendations of the Holtham report, is that the Barnett floor is only being set at its present level of 115% of spending in England for the duration of this Parliament, with the amount being “reset” at the next spending review
“to take full account of the Welsh Government’s new powers and responsibilities.”
Christina Rees
Not at the moment—I have to make progress.
We are all well aware of the Chancellor’s habit of slashing funding from central Government then expecting local government and the devolved Administrations to make up the shortfall. That policy ensures that the poorest areas are hardest hit. If the Chancellor plans to use the devolution of income tax to Wales as a cover to cut Welsh funding further and to lower the Barnett floor, that will understandably be seen by the people of Wales as an unacceptable outcome.
The autumn statement was also largely silent on the vital infrastructure projects that Wales needs. Despite its strategic importance to the Swansea bay city region, of which my constituency is a part, there was not a single mention of the Swansea bay tidal lagoon in the Chancellor’s statement. Along with the 22% cuts that the Chancellor announced to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, perhaps that silence signals the Government’s lack of commitment to green energy.
In light of the landmark agreement reached in Paris last weekend, we know that projects such as the tidal lagoon are essential if this country is to meet its international obligations to combat climate change. Unfortunately, although important progress was made in Paris, I understand that the pledges will not achieve the aim of limiting global average temperature rise to below 2 °C, so further action is urgently needed.
Craig Williams
I thank the hon. Member for giving way again. Will she take the point that there is also the Cardiff lagoon to consider, and that investors around the world are being shaken by what she and other Labour Members are saying about tidal lagoons at a very critical point, when we are negotiating the strike price? They are endangering lagoons, and not just the Swansea lagoon.