Business of the House

James Davies Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Future business will be announced in the usual way, but I know that the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is deeply concerned by these issues and wants to make good progress on them. I would just reassure the hon. Gentleman by asking him to look at our track record on a whole raft of issues on improving animal welfare not only in the UK, but also around the world.

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

As my right hon. Friend may be aware, I have long been a proponent of comparable and interoperable data in the NHS across the United Kingdom. The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill has the potential to bring this about, which could be very important for north Wales, so will she confirm when the Bill will return to the House?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Business will be announced in the usual way, but it is incredibly important that we are able to compare statistics, particularly between one part of the UK and another. For example—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is sitting on the Front Bench—I understand that in England one in 20 people are waiting more than a year for treatment, and in Wales the figure is one in four, and I think greater scrutiny of such comparisons should be encouraged.

Business of the House

James Davies Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I should make it clear that Departments have a responsibility to respond in a timely manner to questions from MPs. I will assist the hon. Lady in pursuing the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to get answers to her questions and write on her behalf to the Secretary of State.

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

As we recover from the pandemic, rail services, particularly in north Wales, need to be scaled back up. Transport for Wales services remain less frequent than usual, while direct Avanti West Coast services to London Euston are running just twice per day. That is set to increase to four from May, but it is well below the six per day that there were before the pandemic. Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the need for services not only to return to normal, but to exceed that in north Wales, to help drive investment in the regional network?

Business of the House

James Davies Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s charming apology. I refer her back to what I said last week about what a great man my noble Friend Lord McLoughlin is. I think particularly highly of him because—I shall let the House in on a not-particularly-secret secret—it is thanks to the noble Lord that I ever got on to the candidates list for the Conservative party in the first place. He interviewed me during the candidate selection process. When I then arrived in Parliament and kept on voting against the Government while he was Chief Whip, I think he sometimes had reason to doubt his judgment some years earlier.

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

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the use of military planning expertise in civilian settings? Last Friday was the first anniversary of Storm Christoph and the sad destruction of Llanerch bridge in my constituency. This historic, grade 2 listed bridge spanned the River Clwyd, connecting the communities of Tremeirchion and Trefnant. Although Denbighshire County Council is considering options to replace the bridge, the process is complex and time consuming. Meanwhile, local people are left without a key travel route, so military planners could, I am sure, be used to advise on the possibility of a temporary solution.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The provision of defence support to civil authorities in the UK is governed by a robust and well-defined set of principles, set out in a publicly available joint doctrine publication. Those principles ensure that defence assistance is the last rather than first resort when responding to operational challenges. That is essential in order to preserve defence capabilities for defence outputs wherever possible and to reduce the risk of legal challenge from commercial providers, which may otherwise have reasonably expected to tender for contracts from the requesting authority. Defence maintains a standing network of joint regional liaison officers across the country to maintain relationships with civil authorities, provide potential advice on defence assistance, and facilitate requests when they meet the required principles. Any request for defence assistance should be referred to the joint regional liaison office.

I fear that that is not an enormously helpful answer, because the issue is that defence assistance is a last resort. However, I hope that raising the issue in the House will put a little bit of extra pressure on Denbighshire County Council to get on with what it should be doing in relation to the bridge.

Business of the House

James Davies Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I know that hospital parking charges are a concern for many Members across the House. Of course, it is a difficult balance for trusts to strike, because the money raised normally goes into patient care, although I understand the point the hon. Lady makes. There will be an opportunity to debate health service matters on Monday, and there will be Health questions in the first week after the conference recess. I encourage her to raise the issue with my colleagues in the Department of Health, who I am sure will have heard what she has said.

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

The A55 expressway in north Wales is an important part of the UK’s road network, linking the M56 in Cheshire to the port of Holyhead. Previous Conservative Governments have a proud record of constructing this road, which is used regularly by thousands of my constituents. However, it is increasingly congested, subject to increasing numbers of accidents, and has poor linkages to the urban coastal strip of my constituency. Unlike rail infrastructure, trunk roads are now a devolved matter in Wales. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate to discuss how very necessary improvements to the A55 and its linkages might be brought about?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. He highlights one of the frustrations that many representatives from north Wales feel about the fact that the Labour Administration in Cardiff neither understands north Wales nor pays very much attention to it. Only Conservatives in north Wales, fortunately in much larger numbers than in the past, really beat the drum for that important part of this country and make the case for proper improvements there. I hope that his comments will have been noted on both sides of the border. I encourage him to bring forward an Adjournment debate so that we continue to put pressure on the Labour party, which, where it is actually in office, proves pretty ineffective at it.

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.