Shared Prosperity Fund: Wales

Debate between Ian C. Lucas and Wayne David

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas]

Certainty is something that all our constituents and all the businesses in our constituencies crave, but it has been sadly lacking in the period since 2016, so I would like the Minister to provide some in his début today. First, can he assure us that Wales will not receive less in funding under the new UK regional prosperity fund than it does under EU structural funds? Secondly, and importantly, will the rules of the UK prosperity fund be set at UK level, with the same rules applying across the devolved nations and regions? Will there be any difference between rules in Scotland, in the regions of England, in Wales and in Northern Ireland, or will the rules apply in the same way as the current EU rules?

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I think we all welcome the fact that a prosperity fund is to be created. Following on from my hon. Friend’s argument, does he accept that the sensible and most effective thing would be for the Welsh section of the fund to be administered by the Welsh Government? That would ensure that the fund enhances the work that the Welsh Government have already conducted.

[Ian C. Lucas]

My hon. Friend must have read my speech on the quiet, because my next question is who will administer the fund—will it be administered by the UK Government or by the devolved bodies?

Exiting the EU: Businesses in Wales

Debate between Ian C. Lucas and Wayne David

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas]

Indeed. It seems increasingly likely that there will be some kind of transitional phase. I have talked about one set of standards—the environmental standards in the automotive sector—but different regulatory regimes will apply to all sorts of businesses right across the piece. Constructing the mechanisms that will apply to businesses and our relationship with the European Union after we leave will involve a huge amount of work. Regimes will have to be defined for areas such as financial services, broadcasting and pharmaceuticals, and those will have to apply very soon. If those systems are going to be in place within the next two years, we need to provide clarity to businesses that are making investment decisions now. Businesses in Wrexham that I represent, such as Wockhardt and Ipsen Biopharm, which are both exporting pharmaceutical companies, need to know what our relationships will be. If they do not, they may begin to reflect on whether the business environment in this country will be as effective, successful and supportive for them in the future.

My objective for post-Brexit Britain and Wales is for the UK to be as close as possible to membership of the single market, while retaining the right to devise and implement immigration policy. If I were negotiating, that is what I would want. I would love the Government to provide that sort of clarity about its negotiating position. It is really important that we have access to the single market. Membership of the EU and the single market has benefited the Wrexham economy hugely—it has become very much an exporting economy—but the lesson of the referendum is that we have failed to manage migration to the UK. I am clear that we must apply a managed migration policy for EU citizens.

[Wayne David]

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is a need to differentiate between skilled and unskilled labour?

[Ian C. Lucas]

Absolutely. One of my questions for the Minister is: what migration system will apply to EU citizens? We already have a system in place for citizens from outside the EU, and I imagine that if we jump off the cliff that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) referred to, EU citizens will, by default, be put in the same position as people who come to the UK from outside the EU. However, I have seen reports in the press that the Prime Minister thinks that the points-based immigration system for people from outside the EU that the Labour party introduced when it was in power is not restrictive enough. I would really like clarity on that question from the Government, because we need to have a system in place. In my constituency, we have really important multinational manufacturing businesses such as Kellogg’s and Solvay, whose members of staff travel regularly from mainland Europe to the UK. Those businesses need to know what system will be put in place for them to manage that.

English Votes for English Laws

Debate between Ian C. Lucas and Wayne David

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian C. Lucas]

In the Committee I will not be able to move the amendment, because I will not be a member of the Committee, and I will not be able to vote on the amendment. Members from England will have twice as many votes as I will, even though our constituents go to the same hospitals—as is the case with the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson). It is outrageous.

[Wayne David]

My hon. Friend has made a series of powerful and practical points about what the proposals might mean in practice. Does he agree that the NHS in England is so large, compared with the NHS in Wales, that it has a huge influence on Wales, which Wales does not have on England?

[Ian C. Lucas]

That is certainly the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David]

Another relatively small example—people might think it is such—shows the complexity of the situation we are talking about. In the run-up to the first police and crime commissioner elections, a mistake was made in Westminster because the election ballot papers were not bilingual. The legislation to correct that had to come from Westminster because it was an electoral matter, and it was done belatedly. Westminster clearly has the power to legislate on some Welsh language matters.

[Ian C. Lucas]

I was talking about the implications of giving Welsh MPs—dare I say it?—the same rights as MPs from England. Let us suppose, for example, that a future UK Labour Government dependent on Scottish and Welsh votes for an overall majority wished to lower tuition fees in England, and this was vetoed in a Committee comprising English Members only. After the Committee, the Education Secretary would have to defend in the House a policy with which he disagreed. In effect, he would be the Education Secretary for England, but England could have a Conservative majority. A Labour Minister cannot be responsible to a Conservative majority, so the logical solution would be to have a Conservative Education Secretary. However, there cannot be two Governments at the same time, one for devolved matters and the other for non-devolved matters. A Government have to be collectively responsible for all their policies, not just a selection of them. That is the type of situation that the Standing Orders will create.

The Standing Orders will, in practice, increase the Conservative majority on English devolved matters from 12 to 105 at a stroke. When Labour set up the Welsh Assembly, there were no Conservative MPs in Wales at all. With a majority of more than 150 in the House of Commons, the Labour party introduced an additional member voting system in Wales to ensure that there was a balanced representation within the National Assembly for Wales. The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) would not have been elected to the National Assembly for Wales because she kept losing under the first-past-the-post system.