Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Craig Williams and Guto Bebb

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department has taken to ensure that the Government’s industrial strategy benefits Wales and other parts of the UK equally.

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

We are delivering a bold, long-term industrial strategy that is truly UK wide and builds on our strengths and prepares us for the years ahead. It is important that the economy works for everyone, delivers good, skilled, well-paid jobs, and creates the conditions for competitive, world-leading businesses to prosper and grow across the UK. That, we are doing.

[Craig Williams]

The industrial strategy and the Cardiff city deal demonstrate the strong and stable Government the people of south Wales need. Alongside the compound semiconductor catapult in Cardiff, the industrial strategy and city deal are delivering sustainable high-tech jobs. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Guto Bebb]

I could do nothing other than agree with my hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion for Wales’s capital city. The city deal is an example of the Westminster Government working with the Welsh Government for the benefit of Wales, and the semiconductor centre is an example of a world-class resource in which Wales leads the globe. We can contribute so much more with the support of the UK Government, working with the Welsh Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Craig Williams and Guto Bebb

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

The hon. Gentleman has made a good point about the importance of rail connectivity to economic development, but I do not think it is a case of either/or. I think it is important to have great connections between north and south Wales, but we should also recognise the need for south Wales to be linked with the London area and the south-west, and the same applies to north Wales. As for “speeding up”, I will take no lessons from the Labour party, which failed to invest a single penny in the electrification of any railway line in Wales during a 13-year period.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

By stark contrast with what was done by the last Government, what this Government are doing for the Great Western line—the electrification, and the new trains—is remarkable. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the provision of direct trains from Cardiff Central station to London to build on that capacity and investment?

[Guto Bebb]

My hon. Friend is a great champion of railway connections between south Wales and London, and it would be a pleasure to meet him to discuss further developments in a Welsh context. I fully agree that the modernisation and electrification of the south Wales main line will greatly enhance the connectivity between south Wales and London, not least the new link to Heathrow airport.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Craig Williams and Guto Bebb

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

The right hon. Gentleman is well aware of my position on this issue. I believe quite passionately that the Welsh economy is stronger for being part of the European Union. Whether for our manufacturing industry, our agriculture industry or our small businesses, I think the stability and certainty of being part of the European Union are good for Wales.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

The unemployment level in Cardiff North is at a record low of 1.7%. Does the Minister agree that to support this trend and keep unemployment down, the new Welsh Government have to deliver on infrastructure promises such as the M4 relief road and the south Wales Metro, towards which this Government have given hundreds of millions of pounds?

[Guto Bebb]

My hon. Friend has been a great champion for the capital city of Wales since he was elected to this place. The £500 million contribution of the UK Government to the city deal in Cardiff will be essential for employment, growth and the continued success of Cardiff, but we need to keep up the pressure. The question marks over the M4 relief road are a barrier to growth in south Wales, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise his concerns about those delays. [Interruption.]

Cardiff Coal Exchange

Debate between Craig Williams and Guto Bebb

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on his speech and on securing this debate. It is important that Westminster is still relevant to the communities that we represent in Wales, and highlighting such issues in Westminster Hall debates is appropriate and correct. He said that he does not expect me to have all the answers, and indeed it would be inappropriate for me to respond to some of the points that have been raised because many of them are issues for the Welsh Government and for City of Cardiff Council, which as part of local government in Wales is answerable to the Welsh Government. I will have to restrain myself from commenting on devolved areas. It is important to place this debate in context and to respond to the undevolved issues, and I will particularly respond to the questions on the tax allowance system. Additionally, it is important to touch on the Crown Estate’s position in the sales process to try to allay some of the fears he raised.

On the background to the debate, I fully subscribe to the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the coal exchange, which is an iconic Welsh building. We should be proud that Wales was able to dictate the price of coal throughout the world, and we should trumpet that the first £1 million business transaction—the sale of coal to France—happened at the coal exchange. We should talk about that when we discuss the history of Cardiff but, in the context of Cardiff bay, this debate is also an opportunity to highlight the way in which Wales has developed. We should proudly boast of the revitalisation of Cardiff bay and highlight the economic impact of the changes in Cardiff that have been secured through the work of successive Governments here in Westminster, in co-operation with Governments in Cardiff bay—it is an example of the two Governments working together and of the local authority being proactive in redeveloping an area that was ripe for redevelopment. This is a success story, and there is no doubt that the coal exchange is an iconic building at the centre of the proposed redevelopment of Cardiff bay.

When we talk about redevelopment and business opportunities in Cardiff, it is no bad thing to trumpet, for example, the Cardiff city deal. I represent a north Wales constituency, and I often hear the accusation that all the investment in Wales goes to Cardiff, but it is important to point out that the scale of the Cardiff city deal is not confined to the city of Cardiff; it will have a huge impact on all the areas surrounding Cardiff. Indeed, a significant proportion of the Welsh population will be affected by the Cardiff city deal, which has secured a £1.2 billion investment on a cross-governmental level. I am sure that every hon. Member in this Chamber would welcome that.

Cardiff is a city that is going places and performing extremely well in attracting inward investment. There is no doubt that the Cardiff bay area has been crucial to the refocusing of Cardiff in the mind of inward investors as a city with a “can do” attitude, which has made a difference to job creation throughout the area and south Wales.

[Craig Williams]

There is a direct comparison between the scale of regeneration in Cardiff under the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, which was formed under the previous Conservative Government, and the city deal in partnership with the Wales Government. It is a national disgrace that we are debating the future of the coal exchange and that it has been left to fall down through the inaction of the Labour Welsh Government. The impression has been given that the officers run City of Cardiff Council, which has a Labour cabinet.

Media Plurality (Wales)

Debate between Craig Williams and Guto Bebb

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Guto Bebb]

I tend to agree. There is always a question of quality, although when MPs are asked to provide 20 facts about themselves they seem quite happy to do so.

[Craig Williams (Cardiff North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and approaching it in his usual style. We have debated intervention in this declining market at length. First, does he welcome the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s welcome efforts with Made in Cardiff and the increase in local television news? Secondly, I say unashamedly that S4C is based in Cardiff North for now, although of course there are plans for it to go elsewhere. If we look at S4C’s spending, we see that 82% goes on independent broadcasts and supporting the independent network. I commend that as a way in which the media in Wales could approach supporting the sector.

[Guto Bebb]

I agree with both my hon. Friend’s points. We should applaud the success of a local television network in the Cardiff area, but that does not address the needs of the whole of Wales—of course, that is not to decry the success of such a service in the Cardiff area. I welcome S4C’s spend in the Welsh context and how that can foster a plurality of providers in production companies and so on. The fact that we have an independent television sector in Wales is in many ways a direct result of the existence of S4C. That plurality of production companies, if not of final destinations for programmes, is something that I welcome very warmly.

I mentioned our over-dependence on television for news in a Welsh context. The figures are stark. In most of the UK, about 45% of people get their main news from television; in Wales, the figure is more than 60%. Strikingly, because commercial radio is much more successful in most of the United Kingdom than in Wales, the figures on the number of people in Wales getting their news from the radio is slightly lower than in the rest of the UK. The overall picture, however, is clear: we have a dependence on the broadcast media that is not replicated in the rest of the United Kingdom. We should be concerned about that.

Even more concerning was a study of the 2007 Welsh Assembly election. No respondents to the survey said they gained their news about the election from London-based newspapers. It is difficult to see how there can be a democratic debate if 90% of the newspapers sold in Wales are London-based and contain no coverage of the election. Some 42% of the news that people received about the 2007 Assembly election came from BBC Wales. Obviously, we should congratulate BBC Wales for getting that reach, but before the BBC gets too proud of itself I should point out that the same survey showed that 55% said that their main source of information about the campaign was the polling card, and 72% said it was political literature—so it could be argued that we beat the BBC’s reach.