Welsh Affairs

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Welsh affairs.

It is almost five years since I was elected Member of Parliament for Montgomeryshire. I wish to take this opportunity to say what a huge pleasure it has been for me to serve the constituency in which I have always lived. It is a great honour for me to open this debate today.

I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing a St David’s day debate, even if it is four days late. I hope our patron saint will forgive us for that. The normal business schedule of the House, which usually timetables such debates on Thursdays, means that we can hit the right date only once every seven years.

The general nature of this debate allows us to speak about a wide range of issues that impact Wales, and I am sure that Members will speak about many different things. I wish to begin by making a few introductory comments before turning briefly to the economic well-being of rural Wales. I shall end with some initial thoughts on the Command Paper, which was issued by the Secretary of State last week in response to the Silk commission recommendations.

In preparation for this debate, I have researched a little of the history of St David. It seems that he travelled widely before settling down in Pembrokeshire, which is one of the most beautiful parts of Britain. If he had been alive during the eight years that I represented mid and west Wales as an Assembly Member, he would have been one of my constituents, so I feel a special connection with him.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

He probably would not have voted for you.

[Glyn Davies]

Indeed. St David did many wonderful and awe-inspiring things in his long life, including preaching with such passion and fervour at Llanddewi Brefi that the earth rose up around him to form a hill. The most amusing reflection on that stunning achievement was made by the late great Dr John Davies, who said that he could not

“conceive of a miracle more superfluous than the creation of a new hill at Llanddewi Brefi.”

That is a good reflection on Dr John Davies as well as on St David. But It was an impressive trick none the less.

Holding a Welsh affairs debate on or near St David’s day is not an old tradition of this House. I discovered that while I was reading through the speeches of those who had previously opened what is now the annual Welsh debate. I was hoping that one of my great political heroes, David Lloyd George, had opened a Welsh debate at some stage so that I could say I was following in the great man’s footsteps. However, the first Welsh debate was not held until 1944 by which time the great man had retired from the House. None the less, the first Welsh debate was opened by a Lloyd George—it was Dame Megan Lloyd George, the great man’s daughter, who represented Ynys Môn before the rise to power of Cledwyn Hughes and, indeed, that of the current excellent Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn.

That leads me to the second part of my speech, which is the economic temperature of mid-Wales, specifically of my constituency of Montgomeryshire. Reading Dame Megan Lloyd George's speech in 1944, it struck me how little has changed in 70 years. In 1944, Dame Megan spoke of a crisis in the dairy industry, a focus on south Wales at the expense of other parts of Wales, and an almost total absence of concern for mid-Wales. I could so easily have spoken about those same issues today.

One memorable line from Lady Megan’s speech caught my eye. Sometimes I am not sure whether some of our colleagues representing English constituencies fully understand how we Welsh function. Lady Megan understood that very well. She said:

“No Englishman can understand the Welsh. However much he may try, and however sympathetic he may feel, he cannot get inside the skin and bones of a Welshman unless he be born again.”—[Official Report, 17 October 1944; Vol. 403, c. 2237.]

I hope that that explains some of the ways in which we Welsh behave in this House.

In 1944, my constituency of Montgomeryshire was in serious long-term decline. The population had dropped from more than 50,000 to 36,000 and was falling like a stone. There were very few employment opportunities for ambitious young people, who were forced to leave the area in search of work. Regional policy had not been yet introduced to rural Wales. It was 20 years later that such policies were introduced by a Labour Government and they continued under successive Conservative Secretaries of State.

Montgomeryshire has now been transformed. Today it is a genuine success story, with thriving businesses and the lowest unemployment in Wales: only around 500 people are registered as unemployed. The population of Montgomeryshire is now 63,000 and rising. It is not just that new businesses have moved in, but that much of the area has been built up by local entrepreneurs. Coincidentally, I visited some entrepreneurs last Friday. Members may have seen the yellow Alun T. Jones lorries around Wales. I knew Alun when we were teenagers. He has grown to be the Eddie Stobart of Wales, employing very large numbers of people. I then went to the impressive mid-Wales airport, which was established by the late Bob Jones who was tragically killed in an air accident, and is now run by his wife Linda. It is entirely a private sector company. Again, I knew Bob when we were teenagers.

I then went to a water bottling plant, which is run by Paul Delves in Churchstoke, where another 70 are employed. He is another local lad who has done well, and I could list dozens more. Over the past five years, the level of confidence in Montgomeryshire business has grown hugely, built on the stability and sound economic policies of the Conservative Government. Of course there is more to do. We want to restore the economy to where we want it to be, but none of the businesses wants to risk a return to more public spending and more public debt.

Finally, I wish to mention the Command Paper, which was published by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State last week. It outlines a St David's day package of changes to the devolution settlement between the UK Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. Its publication was a very significant constitutional event for Wales, and represented a major step forward in the process of Welsh devolution. It is too early for any of us to have made a full assessment of the detail of the package, which will have to await the Wales Bill in the next Parliament.

At this stage, there are just four issues I wish to mention. First, I greatly welcome what I consider to be the most important proposal in the Command Paper, which is the move to a reserved powers model of Welsh devolution. It is sensible that everything should be considered devolved, unless it is specifically reserved to Westminster. Soon after I was elected to the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, I realised that the reserved powers model was needed to give clarity and greater stability to the devolution settlement. There may well continue to be occasions when a Supreme Court is needed to establish a competence, but under a reserved powers model it would be far less likely. That is the most important change included in the St David's day package, and I hope that we can deliver it in the next Parliament.

The second important issue is the devolution of income tax powers, and here I fear I take a very different view from many other MPs, particularly those on the Labour Benches. I see the proposals as a complete package, which includes the responsibility of levying a significant proportion of income tax in Wales. I have spoken on that issue several times before in this House. I feel so strongly about it that I do not believe we should devolve one iota more power to the Welsh Government until income tax powers are devolved. I accept that any new Wales Bill will have in it a commitment to a referendum on the issue before it becomes a reality, but for the life of me I cannot understand why.

If returned as a Member of Parliament on 8 May, I shall table an amendment to any future Wales Bill to remove the need for a referendum, and I expect to be supported by Members of every party in this House except Labour, which is desperate to avoid any fiscal accountability to the people of Wales. The Welsh Government simply want to carry on claiming credit for what voters like and blaming Westminster for what the voters do not like, avoiding any tough decisions and preferring comfortable impotence to facing up to the tough decisions that Governments must take. How can it be thought right to refer to the Welsh Assembly as a Welsh Parliament, as we all want, while clinging to a position that means it is in reality not a great deal more than a spending body?

Another proposal I greatly welcome is the commitment to a Barnett floor. We know that Wales has been underfunded through public spending granted through the block grant for decades, but changes to public spending by the coalition Government mean that underfunding has fallen to a virtually insignificant level. The Secretary of State has pulled off a historic victory for Wales by securing agreement to retain the current level of comparative spending as a floor below which UK Government support to Wales via the block grant will not fall no matter what changes to public spending are made in future. It is a huge win for Wales, and every party in this House should welcome it.

When a devolution of income tax powers was first proposed, the First Minister of Wales said that should not happen until the lockstep was removed. It has been removed. Then there was the Barnett deficit, but that has been removed as well. Now it is something else, and then it will be something else again. The truth is that Welsh Labour hates the thought of being financially accountable to the people of Wales.

[Mr Llwyd]

I partially agree with the hon. Gentleman about the Barnett floor, but there is one other glaring omission: there is no discussion about taking fair funding for Wales forward. That is a big mistake and should have been considered within the purview of this Command Paper.

[Glyn Davies]

The right hon. Gentleman is a man for whom I have huge respect as a Member of this House. He is retiring, so may I wish him well in the future and say that he has made a wonderful contribution to this House?

This is an area on which I am a bit unsure. To my mind, the win we have tackles that problem. We have virtually eliminated the deficit and if that becomes the Barnett floor, funding can rise but cannot fall below it. That is an absolutely fantastic win, and I would be surprised if the Secretary of State did not go in to a little more detail about it in his speech.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman is giving a thoughtful and heartfelt speech. I forgive him for suggesting that the deficit has been dealt with, as he put it; it was still £75 billion the last time I looked. However, does he think that Wales would definitely be better off or worse off if we were to have and exercise tax-raising powers? That is the great lacuna in the Tory proposals.

[Glyn Davies]

This is how the antipathy towards being responsible through income tax in Wales manifests itself in questions and comments from the Opposition. There should not necessarily be any difference. We will be responsible just as we are now; it is just that the people of Wales will have a responsibility to know what the Welsh Government are doing. If the Welsh Government want to raise more money, they can suggest it and they can become accountable for what they doing rather than just blaming Westminster for virtually everything that people do not like.

My final point is about the proposal to devolve power over energy projects of up to 350 MW to Wales. I accept the logic of the proposal and supported it during most of my eight years as an Assembly Member, but since 2005 the obscene determination of the Welsh Government to desecrate mid-Wales with hundreds of wind turbines and pylons has made it impossible for me to continue to support it. The behaviour of the Welsh Government, and particularly the First Minister, has been shocking and has demonstrated total contempt for the people of Montgomeryshire, whom I represent. It should be a real concern to every Welsh MP that because the people of Powys have refused to bow down before the Welsh Government’s bullying, the First Minister intends to remove planning powers from local planning authorities and to take them for the Government in an act of power centralisation, to ensure that the Welsh Government can push things through despite any local resistance. The Secretary of State may well want to comment on this anti-devolution tendency.

While we talk about devolution in this place, we have a Welsh Government who are bringing everything back to themselves simply so they can get their own way in the parts of Wales that do not do exactly what they—the Welsh Government—say. In England, we are seeing a drive to devolve powers to city regions and local councils, whereas in Wales we are seeing a centralisation of power in the hands of the Welsh Government.

St David chose Wales as his home. He was a very wise man. He created a hill that, together with thousands of other hills, makes Wales the wondrous landscape that it is today. I was born among those hills, I shall always live among them. We have a duty to protect Wales for our children so that they can enjoy it as much as we have and as we do today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glyn Davies]

We have had a thoroughly enjoyable debate, with several entertaining contributions as well as some insightful ones. I hope Members will forgive me if I make special reference to the contributions of the right hon. Members for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) and for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who showed us the quality of their contributions to this House over many, many years and what we will miss when they have retired. On behalf of everybody, I thank them both for all their work.

It has been an incredibly entertaining afternoon. It is entirely unreasonable for us not to have a six-hour debate. It is unreasonable to restrict a Welsh man or woman to just 12 minutes; we like to talk for much longer than that. We had my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—[Interruption.] It is only a matter of time. We had my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth standing up and advocating nationalisation, and then the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) suggesting that that was part of my hon. Friend, movement to the far left. We also heard about historical Welsh jurisdiction, which has some basis in sharia law, as far as I can see.

I thank everybody for a wonderful debate. Let us all look forward—those of us who are still here—to the same next year.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Welsh affairs.