Welsh Affairs

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman has raised this question on numerous occasions, but sadly that is one of the paradoxes of devolution.

[Mark Tami]

Further to that point, the Countess of Chester hospital was built to serve Chester and Deeside, yet I cannot have any view about it, despite the fact that a large number of people from Wales will attend that hospital.

[Mr Jones]

That, too, is one of the paradoxes of devolution. Many hon. Members find their constituencies served by hospitals on the Welsh side of the border and, because of devolution, they are unable to make representations on behalf of their constituents.

English Votes for English Laws

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman speaks of devolution for England. That might or might not be a good thing, but if a proposal for devolution were put to the people of England in a referendum and they rejected it—as people in the north-east rejected it a few years ago—would not the same problem arise?

[Mark Tami]

I accept that that was the result then. The right hon. Gentleman’s party was strongly opposed to devolution at that time, but it has had a bit of a turn of face, and is now promoting it. Indeed, a number of people who were very much against devolution have gone down the road to Damascus and changed their opinion, and I am pleased they have.

English Votes for English Laws and North Wales

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for securing this important debate.

I represent a border area, but in reality the border does not exist. As others have mentioned, many thousands of people from North Wales travel across it to go to work at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port, and at many other employers in the north-west. Equally, many people from England travel the other way to work at Airbus, Toyota, Deeside industrial park and many other places. Our road and rail networks work east to west, but do not work particularly well north to south. The Mersey Dee Alliance has worked well to promote the region as economically important not only to North Wales but to the north-west of England.

I and many other MPs from North Wales rightfully think that we should have a view on what happens on both sides of the border, as it affects the people we represent, but clearly the Government, with their usual approach, are trying to find a short-term solution to a long-term problem and have come up with a bit of a dog’s breakfast.

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman speaks of short-termism. Does he not agree that the devolution settlement was lashed up hastily by the Labour Government?

[Mark Tami]

I do not. The right hon. Gentleman is always blaming someone else. He and his party have been in government for some time now. Surely they should take some responsibility.

Time is short, so I will set out just one example: healthcare. People in Alyn and Deeside use healthcare on both sides of the border, as has been touched on. Our children’s hospital is the Alder Hey, our heart hospital is Broadgreen, and we use services at Gobowen, the Christie and Clatterbridge.

The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (James Davies) mentioned the Countess of Chester hospital. It may be in Chester, but it was built to serve the people of Chester and Deeside. The previous MP for Chester used to stand up in the Chamber and talk about thousands of people from north-east Wales flooding across the border to go to that hospital. It is their hospital; it was built to serve the people of both Chester and north-east Wales—in particular the people of Alyn and Deeside. There are representatives on its council of governors from Flintshire and Wrexham. They have their view, and rightfully so. If those Welsh patients did not use it and the hospital served only the catchment area of Chester, I question whether it would be viable. Many people in Alyn and Deeside are registered with doctors and dentists on the English side of the border and vice versa. We are a particular and very different region.

Where does this start and end? Are the Government saying that because policing and transport powers are devolved to the Mayor of London and the London Assembly, London MPs should not have a view on those issues—is that what we are saying? We are talking about giving powers to city regions—will the MPs from those areas not be allowed to have a view? The question that no one has answered, although lots of Members have asked it, is: what is an English-only law? The Government need to decide where they stand. Are they going to treat people equally, and do they actually believe in the United Kingdom?

North Wales Economic Infrastructure

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mark Tami]

That would have a massive impact. If my hon. Friend can wait a little longer—I am sure that he can—I will address that point towards the end of my remarks.

I mentioned the importance of a quality work force in attracting new companies to the area. That does not happen by accident; it happens because we train the people who are needed. Coleg Cambria has an excellent record of doing such work. It works with employers to develop training packages that meet their needs, rather than offering, and only ever having offered, an off-the-shelf programme that people can take or leave; I believe that that has been a failing of some further education colleges. Coleg Cambria is good at looking to deliver what employers want. I have talked to companies such as Raytheon, and they are pleased with the arrangement, which includes work placements. The arrangement works well.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman rightly praises Coleg Cambria for its engagement with industry, but is it not the case that Glyndwr university in Wrexham has a similar relationship with, for example, Airbus and that such education links across north Wales give the region added value to prospective employers?

[Mark Tami]

It does indeed. I was just about to mention Glyndwr university, which is important. Both further education and higher education institutions have to be adaptable and have to consider how they can deliver the skill base that employers need, rather than just offering courses that have not changed for years. We need such flexibility, which is important.

There are still many hurdles to get over in changing attitudes, particularly towards apprenticeships, and we have to be honest about that. There is still a culture in this country that apprenticeships are done by people who do not go to university, and who perhaps do not have the skills to go to university. In many people’s minds, apprenticeships are a second-class thing to do. I do not hold that view—it is totally wrong—but we have to be honest and admit that people still hold it, and that we have to counter it.

We are light years behind Germany and some other countries where apprenticeships and university are on the same level, and people have the opportunity to take up an apprenticeship that can lead to a university education. Airbus, through the higher apprenticeship scheme, is doing that, but far more employers should be going down that route. It should not be an either/or; people should be able to move seamlessly through one to the other. We are a long way from that. It is no good just talking about the importance of apprenticeships. We have to deliver apprenticeships for people across the gamut of qualifications so that they can move. We will then change the attitude towards the importance of engineering, but we are a long way off that at the moment.

The Deeside enterprise zone established by the Labour Welsh Government offers a great opportunity to create thousands of jobs, but it also creates challenges. The northern gateway project is a major opportunity, and I am pleased that the Welsh Government announced that they will be funding a highway through the site, which will help to speed up growth. I also welcome the £2.2 million investment for flood defences, which are long overdue and are part and parcel of that new site.

There will be other road improvements. Work on the A483-A55 intersection is still ongoing. I recognise that there are major concerns about delays but, if we are honest, the time will never be right for making road changes, which will always cause problems. If someone has a magical solution for making those road changes without causing delays, I would love to hear it. The intersection is a pinch point that needs to be addressed, and I am pleased that is happening.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, rail is the major area in which a lot of work remains to be done. Cross-party colleagues and I recently attended a meeting of the North Wales economic ambition board, in which it presented its case for the electrification of the railway line from the north-west across north Wales. The board pointed out that north Wales has not received any major investment in rail since Queen Victoria was on the throne. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) probably remembers those days, but most of us in this room do not.

The board estimates that electrification across north Wales to Holyhead would create some £400 million in economic growth, help to regenerate areas that have suffered for many years and promote inward investment. If electrification stops at Chester, the board’s evidence shows that there would be a negative impact on the economy of north Wales, and even on the economy in England, too. If the project is to go ahead, we clearly need joined-up thinking to extend electrification for the length of the route. For that to happen, the Department for Transport, the Welsh Government, local government and the train operators need to work together. Although electrification is on the list of infrastructure investment projects and priorities for Wales published by the Wales Office, there is no start date, and the status is “locally supported,” which I presume is code for there not being any money and the project not being on the blocks to go ahead—certainly not in the short or medium term.

I am sure we would all like the electrification to go ahead, but if the reality is that it will not go ahead in the short or medium term, we have to consider what we can achieve on a smaller scale, and whether we can perhaps deliver economic benefit without that massive injection; electrification would clearly be an extremely costly project. The reinstatement of the Halton curve with a more modest £10.4 million investment, which I welcome, will have a positive effect. My hobby-horse, and the hobby-horse of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), is the Wrexham-Bidston line. It would be fair to say that we have been banging on about that for many years. It could offer real benefits, including an improved service with more trains running. Longer term, the line could be electrified and have a dedicated station for the Deeside enterprise zone. The line could make a real difference, because Flintshire has one of the country’s highest rates of people travelling to work by car, which probably tells us all we need to know about how well our rail routes, and probably bus routes, work.

Broadband coverage in the area is improving, although not where I live, but that is probably my fault as much as anything else. We still have a long way to go before we can say that we have cracked it. A number of companies and individuals have come to see me, and they have been told that they have good coverage in their area, but when they started operations they found out that the coverage was actually very poor. It is all very well for the Government to say that 90% or so of people are covered, but that is not the same as saying that 90% or so of the country is covered. Rural areas are particularly badly affected. Broadband is not an optional extra for businesses today; it is not something they can pick and choose. If they do not have broadband, their business will suffer. The way in which we all do business has changed, which is why we have to improve broadband coverage. This is not just about rural areas, because we have not-spots in our towns, too.

Energy infrastructure is extremely important. I do not want to go on a lot about that, because my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) will have something to say on the subject, but I will mention my concern about the viability of Deeside and Connah’s Quay power stations in the longer term. They are older gas stations, but they play an important role in meeting peak demand. They can operate only if they receive the right support to make them viable.

House building is another issue, because if we are encouraging companies to site in north Wales, their employees have to live somewhere. We need more affordable housing, not just to buy but to rent. I applaud Flintshire county council for starting a council house building programme, which is an important step that will help a lot of people. Like many colleagues, I know a lot of families in which both adults are working but cannot get a first step on the ladder. Getting on that ladder is very important in encouraging people to site themselves in the area. We are moving in the right direction, but major concerns remain about our rail network. We are doing better than some areas, but there is room for improvement.

Finally—my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd has been waiting for this moment—I worry that all that good work could be undone if we put everything at risk by exiting the European Union. That would have a devastating impact on companies in our area such as Airbus and Toyota, among many others. I do not think that they would shut up shop and go the following day, but I worry that we would not see further investment, and then we would see operations starting to go back the other way. Companies such as Airbus are European partnerships, which are a great example of how Europe can and should work. Our European partners—the Germans, the French and the Spanish—would love to have that wing work. Let us not kid ourselves: if we think that they would not push harder for that work and make the case about all the difficulties of us being outside the European Union, we are naive in the extreme.

To believe that we can leave the EU and then establish trade arrangements so that we can carry on exactly as before is as ludicrous. We are not Norway, and even it has to abide by the same rules and regulations to sell its goods, but it does not have a chair at the table when those rules and regulations are being made. The think-tank Open Europe published a report this week that warned that, in one scenario, UK GDP could be 2.2% lower by 2030 if Britain leaves the EU and fails to establish liberal trading arrangements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

I have already said many times and I am quite happy to repeat—that is why I started by saying that frequently I think politicians in London and Cardiff do not fully understand the north Wales element—that whenever any such issues touch and concern the interests of the people of north Wales, their representatives should have the right to speak on those issues in this Parliament.

[Mark Tami]

I am very pleased to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say. He makes a very strong point, and one of the best examples of what he is talking about is the Countess of Chester hospital. It was absolutely established not as an English hospital but as an English and Welsh hospital, and its catchment area is Deeside and Chester; it serves Deeside as much as it serves Chester. It would not be viable without Welsh patients, so to look at it as purely an English hospital would be wrong, and he is absolutely right that people outside our area do not understand how that dynamic works.

[Mr Jones]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is entirely right. In fact, that is a point that I put to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House when he announced the proposed arrangements for so-called English votes for English laws.

We must have regard to the fact that people in north Wales rely on English services, not only health services but in so many other respects. Our people work across the border, and, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, people from the north-west of England work in factories, such as Airbus, Toyota and so on, on the Welsh side of the border. It is essential that people in north Wales should have proper representation in this place whenever necessary.

Frankly, one of the other difficulties is that there has been an unfortunate tendency to equate Wales and Scotland. Wales is a very different place from Scotland. The border of north Wales is highly populated, whereas the border between England and Scotland is not. It is essential that Members from all parties should ensure that, whenever the concerns of people from Wales are debated in this place, their representatives have a full voice in those debates.

Wales Bill

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

Some of what is passed to the Assembly would be subject to indexation every year. This would take into account both growth and contraction in the wider UK economy, so there is a mechanism built into the Bill that addresses the right hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

As the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) has made clear, this is not just about the Welsh economy; it is about the cross-border economy. Changing tax rates, whether personal or business, will obviously have an impact both sides of the border.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, which is why the Government went out to further consultation before announcing their response to the commission’s recommendations. Again, these are points he would no doubt raise in the context of a referendum debate, and given the view he has just expressed, he would clearly be voting against the proposal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I have regular discussions with both the Welsh Government and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport on this issue. A business case is already being worked up, I hope, for electrification of the north Wales coast line, and I have already referred to the issue of roads.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

When it comes to the Wrexham-Bidston line, the Secretary of State is all talk and no action. When can we expect some action?

[Mr Jones]

It is rather rich of the hon. Gentleman to say that. In 13 years, his Government did absolutely nothing about that line. He should be aware that we already have a taskforce looking at this issue, and I hope the business case will be developed shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend is entirely right: it is a question not just of speed, but of capacity. In his area, journey times from Leeds to London will be reduced by about 60 minutes, which I am sure we would all welcome.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the effects in Wales of changes to housing benefit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I was very pleased to see that a service is being developed at Hawarden airport. It will clearly be extremely important to north-east Wales and the two enterprise zones at Deeside and Wirral Waters.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

At the last Welsh questions, the Secretary of State was asked whether he thought Airbus jobs would be safer if the UK was outside the EU. He failed to answer that question. Will he answer it now?

[Mr Jones]

The issue of a referendum on Europe has, of course, yet to be determined. Consultation will take place with all sectors of industry, aviation included.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

1. What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister on future investment in the aerospace industry in Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

The aerospace industrial strategy published in March sets out a vision for the sector, including a joint industry and Government investment of £2 billion across the next seven years. I am pleased that the Welsh Government have endorsed that strategy.

[Mark Tami]

Aerospace and Airbus are great success stories in Wales, so why do the Secretary of State and his Government believe that now is the time to create uncertainty on the question of Europe, which could threaten future investment in the sector? Does he not want quality jobs in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman that Airbus is an important and innovative employer. I have visited it twice recently, including when the contract for the AirAsia order was signed. However, Europe is an important issue. The Prime Minister considers it right that we should debate it properly, and that, at the end of that debate, we should have a vote. After the dust has settled, the fact will remain that, of all the mainstream parties, only the Conservative party wants to give the people of this country a vote on Europe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

Yes. I was pleased to go with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to witness the signing of that contract. It represents a tremendous boost to the factory at Broughton. It will secure the jobs of 1,500 workers, as well as of those in the wider supply chain.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The success of Airbus is based on European co-operation. Does the Secretary of State think that his hopeless Government could possibly learn from that example?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right; Airbus is an excellent example of European co-operation, and we expect it to remain so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Jones and Mark Tami

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

As a result of the Budget the Welsh Government will benefit from an additional £11.7 million over the spending review period. Consequently, they will have received nearly £500 million in additional funding since the spending review in 2010.

[Mark Tami]

The granny tax, the pasty tax and cutting the top rate of tax for the rich while shutting Remploy factories that give disabled people the dignity of work: those are the priorities of this Government. The caravan tax will hit thousands of hard-working families in Wales, particularly in north Wales. Will the Minister speak to the Chancellor and get him to scrap the caravan tax, rather than sitting on his hands like the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) did the other evening?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman should not get so aerated. The Government fully recognise the importance of the holiday and touring park sector to the Welsh tourism industry and to the economy of Wales as a whole. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is consulting on the proposals, as he should know, and I hope he will play a part in that consultation, which closes on 18 May.