English Votes for English Laws and North Wales

James Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Westminster Hall

[James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) on securing this debate. I represent a constituency that is three seats into Wales, but none the less I have many constituents who daily cross the border into England, just 30 minutes away. We do not tend to hear about constitutional matters on the doorstep.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point about constitutional matters being a sleeping pill for most of the electorate. Does he agree that one of the greatest frustrations during the election campaign was the confusion over who is responsible for what? That great exasperation probably damages the reputation of politics in the eyes of the public. Whatever we do, we must address that point. rather than just talking about ourselves to ourselves.

[James Davies]

My hon. Friend is quite right: we must address those issues. I will come on to that point in a minute. On the doorstep, some people pointed out the unfairness of the current situation—with particular regard to Scottish MPs, in fact; Wales was mentioned to a lesser degree—and that unfairness is ultimately a consequence of devolution. The First Minister in Wales has said that laws that affect Wales should be made in Wales—meaning by Welsh politicians. The follow-on from that is that laws that affect England should be made in England by English politicians. People cannot have it both ways.

The proposals certainly have a good deal of pragmatism behind them. That said, Wales is in a different position from Scotland in many respects. In North Wales, many live near the border, and the political boundaries do not reflect the reality of people’s day-to-day lives—where they live and work. Yes, roads, universities, energy projects and environmental issues in England affect our constituents, but having said that, they need to travel out of North Wales for that to be the case.

Today I want to highlight the issue of health. As a doctor, I am well aware of the issues that have been brought up about hospitals in the north-west. The Countess of Chester hospital, where I have worked, was built on the basis that about a third of the patients would be from Flintshire, which is still the case in many respects. Alder Hey, Gobowen, Broadgreen, Liverpool women’s, Arrowe Park and Walton are all hospitals that rely on the throughput of North Wales patients—

[Albert Owen]

And the staff.

[James Davies]

And many of the staff live in Wales, of course. The services at those hospitals exist because of the North Wales patients. This happens the other way around, but to a lesser extent; there are not many services in North Wales to which English patients travel. That said, there are English patients registered with Welsh GPs and vice versa. North Wales is a particular case; services in north-west England are designed for and accessed by North Wales patients. That perhaps does not apply in other areas.

Unfortunately, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) mentioned, many voters are unaware of the devolution settlement, or disregard such things. Some of the issues, to be honest, challenge the rationale of Welsh devolution, certainly in so far as North Wales is concerned. In summary, the key thing for me is that the decision as to what is an English-only matter will be difficult, requiring much consideration to ensure that the voices and interests of North Wales residents are not overlooked. I foresee that many issues will be both English and Welsh, and not English only.