Inward Investment (Wales)

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[David T. C. Davies]

How times have changed, as Labour councils now seem to be very supportive of nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations. In 1981, there were no Conservative-led councils, but today there is one in my constituency, so things change for the better.

Returning to education, however, things are not changing for the better. Hon. Members will be aware of the recent OECD programme for international student assessment—PISA—report on education across numerous developed countries. Wales was not only below average for the developed world in subjects such as maths and science, but below average for the whole United Kingdom. The Committee hopes that the Welsh Assembly Government will address that situation. Speaking personally—to take off my Chair’s hat for a moment—I do not think that it will be addressed by setting up a completely separate examination system in Wales, which the Assembly is considering.

We considered the role of further and higher education, and universities are becoming increasingly prominent in investor decisions. We believe that although a lot of good work is going on between universities and industry, a great deal more can be done.

There are numerous studies about the economic benefits of good and efficient transport links. We should be concerned about the current quality of transport links in mid and north Wales, and about connectivity with the rest of Wales. We are exploring those issues in more detail in a current inquiry and our report will be published shortly.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Welsh Assembly Government failed to make any representations for investment in the north Wales coast main line, which is the key rail infrastructure in north Wales?

[David T. C. Davies]

I am extremely concerned about that, but I welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State for Wales that a business case will be developed for the north Wales main line from Holyhead to Crewe. If the Minister has any more to say about that, we would welcome it.

I am sure that every member of every political party represented in Wales will be delighted by the coalition Government’s decision to extend electrification of the Great Western main line to Swansea and the valleys, and I am sure that the biggest supporter will be the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). There is much good news there.

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[Geraint Davies]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the real rise in debt started in 2008 after the financial tsunami, and the previous Labour Government had paid back enormous amounts of debt, partly through the sale of—[Interruption.] I think I had better redirect my argument. We can rehearse those arguments again, but people realise that what I say is, in essence, a factual record of what happened.

[Guto Bebb]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Geraint Davies]

I have seen the European version of his website—it is called “Mon mouth”. Moving swiftly forward, I give way to the hon. Member for Aberconwy.

[Guto Bebb]

On the specific point about the lack of consumer demand in the economy, we had a consumer-driven economy under the previous Labour Government—a consumer debt-driven economy, based on personal debt and Government debt. Households are now retrenching, which is one reason why there is a lack of consumer demand in the economy, but we need to rebalance the economy and not depend on further credit card-fuelled economic growth, as the previous Labour Government did.

[Geraint Davies]

We do not want a debt-driven, borrowing-driven economy—obviously not. We need people to be given the opportunities to get jobs, create wealth and pay some of that back in tax. Post-1997, we had the transfer of a situation where the previous Conservative Government—history is repeating itself, of course—saw ever fewer people in jobs, paying less tax, and they were forced to cut services and increase debt and borrowing. That changed with Labour getting Britain back to work. Later, post-2008, it was a special situation, with too much borrowing and on the back of that, sub-prime debt. I agree that the sustainable future is about working and paying our way, but it is not about cutting to such an extent that we deflate the private sector so that it cannot invest in new jobs. We need the economy going along, with investment in consumer markets and productive areas. Although there is some level of agreement, we differ slightly on our interpretation of the past.

Moving back to the future, what should the UK and Welsh Governments do to give Wales the best opportunity for economic growth? An area that we touched on in the report was UK Trade and Investment’s role, and I very much agree with the report’s recommendations. UKTI has 83 offices around the world, and they are opportunities to market Wales for inward investment and trade. The coalition Government, in their wisdom, decided to close down all the regional development agencies, so when we went to see UKTI in Berlin, Dusseldorf and so on, we asked what happens now when a German company comes along and says to UKTI, “We want to build a factory, a distillery, or whatever. Where should we go?” That used to be put on a computer platform that was drawn down by the RDAs, which would compete for that investment. As RDAs were abolished, that no longer happens, and clearly, there is an opening for Wales to move in to. Wales has great, ongoing opportunities to use UKTI to maximise the open goals that have been created by the Government taking the players off the pitch.

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[Geraint Davies]

I bet the hon. Gentleman’s wife was happy about that, with him shouting for a goal, but there we are. I wish him a long and happy marriage while watching Swansea. I thank him for that intervention, which was very welcome.

On a serious note, the Swansea brand is of course a global brand, so there is an opportunity to attach various values to it, including the fact that it is a nice family and business environment by the sea. With internet connectivity, why would people want to be in the expensive congestion of London, for instance, when they could be overlooking Swansea bay? The fact that there are sporting successes, good schools, a good health service and so on is critical to that.

I mention that point partly to move on to the regional pay issue. The Government have been considering the case for regional pay, and I will say two things about that. First, reducing the pay of people in the public services in Wales by some 20%, which is the implicit agenda, would remove even greater amounts of economic power from the consumer markets in Swansea and, again, push down the private sector; but as important or possibly more important, GPs and other public servants would think that they would be better off getting a job in Bristol, where their pay would be higher, and suddenly we would be denuded of some of the best GPs and other public servants. That would have implications for inward investors, who are being taken, for instance, from London.

Let us consider how inward investment works. UKTI promotes the UK. Someone says, “Okay, I’ll go to the UK. That sounds great in terms of stability, environment, access to Europe and everything else, but where shall I go in the UK”—that is the next decision—“and how do we have added value there?” Of course, in Wales, we have environmental opportunities. We want to increase accessibility, skills and research and development. However, if the families going there suddenly do not have the right GP or education services because of wage deflation in Wales, that will be very bad for inward investment.

[Guto Bebb]

I share many of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns in relation to regional pay. Certainly, in an area such as north Wales, part of which I represent, it is a real concern—Chester is within 45 minutes of my constituency. Was there anything specific, therefore, about people working in the Courts Service that meant that the Labour Government were quite happy to see those working in Mold paid less than those working in Chester, even though there are only 10 miles between them?

[Geraint Davies]

That is a very well rehearsed intervention—“How can you have this, that and the other?” Obviously, there is a case for London weighting, for example. There are some cases at the margin for differentials, but in the main what we do not want is suddenly to have a free market approach to regional pay, as the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues seem to want to promote. That would undermine inward investment in areas such as his own, because people would not be paid the right rate for the job.

In a global environment, regional pay becomes even less relevant. I hope that over time the average pay in Swansea will escalate quite phenomenally because of the emergence of the second campus at the university and of satellite industries—SMEs and global companies locating beside that centre of excellence and moving forward from that. I am talking about international links from Swansea university and, indeed, the other university in Swansea, Swansea Metropolitan university, which delivers the highest proportion of SMEs that last for three years or more in Wales. It is building up digital clusters in interactive technology, animation and modern manufacturing design. If we can move to a level at which the community of people around that intellectual base evolves, so that people can get a number of jobs in the same place, the average pay may go up. What does that mean for regional pay in the public sector? We might stop that through the moves that have been set out.

We have already mentioned bridge tolls. My view in a nutshell is that the Severn bridge toll is a tax stranglehold on the south Wales economy. We should eliminate the toll sooner rather than later. The reason why I want the Government to evaluate immediately whether, if they paid that toll themselves, they would get the money back in jobs, in income tax from new jobs and in benefit cuts from people going off the dole is that the toll is undermining inward investment in south Wales.

The Welsh Government recently produced a report that said that £107 million was being lost from the Welsh economy because of the tolls. I suggest that that is an underestimate. Let me give a simple example. A small builder from Newport, who wants to retile roofs and do extensions, would not go across to Bristol to look for that work now because of the toll, but if there was no toll, he or she would do so. I therefore believe that we should look at that again.

As we see other city regions, such as Manchester, emerging, it would be unbelievable for the person or the group that is leading Manchester city region to suggest a toll on the M5 to build some infrastructure. That would be unheard of. Similarly, we must look carefully at the economic impact of removing tolls. The removal of the Forth bridge toll, which was only £1, increased traffic by 13%. The Select Committee report is about what the UK and Welsh Governments can do to stimulate inward investment and growth. Getting rid of the tolls is clearly an option.

The Silk report talked about borrowing powers and so on, but frankly, the first issue to get right is ensuring that Wales has its fair share of the UK cake—though I do understand that it is a squeezed cake. We have had something like 2.5% of the transport investment in recent years, but proportionally we should get about 5%. There is a plan to spend £32 billion on High Speed 2 to connect north and south England. Our fair share would be £1.9 billion, and unless we also have a spur off the line, inward investment that would otherwise go to Wales will end up in the north of England.

Is the Silk report just a way of saying, “Actually, we’re not going to give you any more money. We don’t want to know the arguments about a fair share and Barnett and all that. If you want more money, raise it yourself from a lower tax base.”? Wales’s gross value added is about 70% of the UK average however, so it is less capable of doing that. We do not need new tax raising powers and a lot of uncertainty about the future for inward investors; we need a fair share of British investment in our services, capital investment in our transport infrastructure and to deflate the costs of entering south Wales by bridge.

I shall move swiftly on, because I know others want to speak. The tax regime leads to a tax on inward investment. One small example, which leads to a significant example, is that in recent days Tata Group has announced 900 job losses in Britain, 600 of which are in Port Talbot in the Swansea bay city region. The job losses are largely due to a fall in demand in Tata’s core markets in Europe, which accounts for two-thirds of its sales. I have had discussions with Tata, and part of its decision is about a level playing field on tax. In Britain, Tata pays 50% more tax than it would in its European operations, due to the additional carbon pricing that the coalition Government have introduced.

I worked for five years in the Environment Agency Wales on flood risk management and adapting Wales to climate change—incidentally, the Government have cut investment in those areas, despite the flooding. Although I am a great supporter of investment in green technology and a sustainable future, we need a level playing field. We cannot have a situation in which steel production moves from south Wales to South America, for example, and we end up with dirtier steel production, because taxes are too high here. We all share the same environment. The European tax regime, which has carbon taxing built in to it, is the right way forward. Adding a huge amount to UK prices, which drives down jobs and clean production in Britain, is not the way forward.