Welsh Affairs

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Happy St David’s Day to everyone for Monday, and congratulations to the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on securing the debate.

I pay tribute to my friend Kirsty Williams, who, after 22 years in the Senedd, is stepping down at the May elections. During that time, she has been a fantastic voice for her constituents as well as leading the Welsh Liberal Democrats for eight years, as the first female leader of a Welsh political party. Since 2016, she has served with distinction as Education Minister in the Welsh Government. During the pandemic, she ensured that Wales was the first of the four nations to commit to continuing the provision of free school meals during the summer holidays.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady and I are both committed Unionists. In relation to education, some of my constituents from Strangford are attending medical school in Cardiff. We should celebrate the education in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—better together, as always.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I absolutely agree that it is important that we work across the four nations, but one area that the Welsh Government have been focusing their attention on recently is the Erasmus scheme. Last year, we heard from the Prime Minister and others that UK membership of Erasmus was not under threat. Indeed, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster indicated that we would still be part of Erasmus as late as 17 December 2020; yet ultimately it did not feature in the deal with the EU, apparently on cost grounds.

That is a huge disappointment, and I know that the Welsh academics in universities to whom I have spoken are concerned that the Government’s new Turing scheme is at risk of overpromising and, very likely, underdelivering. We are told that up to 35,000 students will take part in the first year of the programme, but funding for providers will be confirmed only in July, which leaves a very short window to get places finalised by September. At the heart of the new programme, we are told, is the Government’s levelling-up agenda; yet the reality is that the Turing scheme does not cater for adult and youth groups, as Erasmus did.

Add to that the likely additional costs to participants of visas, savings and income requirements, which the Foreign Office has said are for universities to navigate, as well as the loss to local economies of income from students attending UK institutions, and I find it increasingly difficult to understand the Government’s decision. The Welsh Government, like the Scottish Government, want to be able to opt in to the Erasmus scheme, and I think that we should do what we can in this place to facilitate that choice. I ask the Minister to set out what conversations he has had with the Welsh Government on that issue.

There are a number of areas where Wales faces challenges posed by our departure from the EU. Another is the impact on trade routes and ports. There has been a huge reduction. At Rosslare Europort in the Republic of Ireland, traffic to the UK halved last month while direct routes to the EU increased in popularity by nearly 500%. The Government might dismiss that as teething problems, but the general manager at Rosslare said that Wales should consider shutting one of its ports. Surely that must be concerning for all of us.

The rise in the number of direct ferry routes bypassing the land bridge route through Wales means that this is not going to go away. The Government need to engage on this issue now, because if they let it run on, it will cause damage to the Welsh economy and local communities. The foresight must also be applied as livestock comes into season and the agriculture industry looks to export to the EU later in the year. Can the Government offer assurances that farmers will not experience the same disruption that the fishing industry is currently facing?

I have talked about the challenges posed by Brexit, but I also want to touch on the challenges posed over the last year by the pandemic. It is incumbent on all of us to reflect on the enormous change to the political centre of gravity in Wales and elsewhere over the last year. None of us has ever experienced anything like the restrictions placed on our lives over the last year, and I very much hope that we will never have to endure them again. But for those of us in the devolved nations, there have been restrictions conceived and passed not in this place, but in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast, and that is hugely significant. The whole driving force behind devolution is the idea that power is best utilised where it is closest to the people that it impacts upon, and that is a lesson that has been reinforced during the pandemic. That means not just between the four nations, but within them. That partnership built on consensus and common interest has to be the future of this Union and, as we approach Saint David’s Day, I can think of no better time for all of us in this place to engage again with that approach.