Business of the House

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has had this opportunity to pay tribute to the work that is being done in his constituency. I cannot promise a debate immediately. He will have heard what I said about opportunities for questions, but it is important, none the less, that we have the opportunity to discuss how the implementation of our commitment to increase places for two-year-olds—this follows the introduction of our scheme for three-year-olds—will enable all young people to have access to the best possible early start in education.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

At yesterday’s Welsh Grand Committee, the Opposition completely torpedoed what we thought was an all-party agreement to grant tax-raising powers to the National Assembly for Wales and to make the Welsh Government fiscally accountable. May we have a statement in this Chamber on what was a stunning U-turn by the Opposition so that we can expose Labour as an anti-devolutionary and anti-Welsh party?

[Mr Lansley]

I am interested in what happened at the Welsh Grand Committee. In fact, the Deputy Leader of the House and I visited it yesterday morning for the first hour of the debate. Like my hon. Friend, I was astonished to hear the Opposition saying that they were opposed to this major extension of devolution to Wales. We are in a position to give the people of Wales the opportunity, through a referendum, to decide whether they want devolution. The Opposition seem to be against that.