Welsh Affairs

Debate between Jo Stevens and Paul Flynn

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) on his opening speech. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies); I am a great fan of Swansea cockles, so I was interested to hear what he had to say. I represent the university constituency of Cardiff Central. We have three universities—Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, and the University of South Wales—so I shall focus my remarks on the importance of the higher education sector to Wales.

People in Wales have long understood the value of a good education, from the late 19th century, when working men pooled their wages to help to fund some of the earliest Welsh universities, through to today, when our seven universities are thriving like never before. They performed extremely well in the latest research excellence framework audit, when 77% of their submitted research was placed in the top two tiers of world research, and Cardiff University has been judged as the fifth best research university in the whole UK.

Welsh universities now stand at the cutting edge of research into renewable energy, new agriculture methods and new health research. In my constituency we have the brand new Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, which brings together world-leading expertise in brain mapping with the very latest in brain imaging and brain stimulation. CUBRIC, as the centre is known, plays a pivotal role in the global endeavour to better understand the causes of neurological and psychiatric conditions such as dementia, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis, and to identify vital clues for the development of better treatments.

The higher education sector now accounts for almost 5% of Wales’s gross value added, generating £1.38 billion itself and powering £1.41 billion in other industries every year. Although universities in Wales are often portrayed as urban, they are in fact based in diverse areas and benefit the whole nation. Of the nearly 50,000 jobs created by the higher education sector in Wales, more than 11,000 are in local government areas that do not have a university based within their boundaries, which highlights how success in higher education helps to deliver success not only for its local communities, but for every community throughout Wales.

We know, however, that success is not inevitable. It has taken an incredible amount of work from teaching and research staff, students, administrators, and university managers and leaders to make our universities what they are. It has also taken a lot of hard cash, a major source of which has been the European Union, not only through research programmes such as Horizon 2020, but more generally through European regional development funding.

I am reminded of that every time I drive past CUBRIC, because without the £4.5 million of European funding that Cardiff University received for the building, the land where the centre now stands would have remained wasteland—a home for rats rather than researchers. Such examples explain why, during the referendum, the Welsh Conservative leader pledged that Wales would not get a penny less in funding after we left the EU, yet the Secretary of State has repeatedly refused to guarantee a replacement of the EU funding currently available to Wales and, by extension, to Welsh universities.

Given the Prime Minister’s quips about Labour cheques bouncing, it would be bitterly ironic for Wales if we discovered that the Welsh Conservative leader had been writing cheques that his boss could not cash. The refusal to offer guarantees to future EU students, the nonchalant attitude to pan-European student programmes such as Erasmus, and the general tone struck towards those seen as different echo far beyond our shores, and Wales is already paying the price.

Applications to Welsh universities from EU students are down by 8.45% on the previous year. Those students put more than £130 million into our universities and local economy. The reduction in the number of applications means that some of the brightest people in the world are now not choosing Wales—that is our loss.

The Government could take a simple step now to halt that decline and reduce the widespread and growing perception that EU students are unwelcome here. They could give a guarantee, as they have done for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 student cohorts from the EU, that EU students who start courses next year will have identical tuition fee status and access to financial support. Last week I heard from representatives of university medical students who are really concerned about NHS workforce planning, because while current medical students have been factored into that planning, many of them are from the EU and do not know whether, when they finish their degrees after we have left the European Union, they will be able to stay and work here.

Our ability to attract and retain the best academic talent is at risk. Some 17% of Cardiff University’s academic staff are EU nationals, which is why it is essential that the Prime Minister shows some leadership now—

[Paul Flynn]

Does my hon. Friend believe that the amendment passed by the House of Lords yesterday would be very useful, if it is supported by this House, to help the people whom she mentions?

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, 17% of Cardiff University’s academic staff are EU nationals. Universities across Wales, and indeed across the UK, are concerned that we will lose not only EU national teaching staff, but UK national teaching staff who have EU spouses, because they will leave the UK to work abroad.

The Welsh higher education sector represents everything to which a global Britain should aspire—a world leader punching above its weight, and ready to work with its friends across Europe and the world. We need to applaud this success, but also to recognise that it is not inevitable. We have a responsibility—a positive duty—to provide an environment in which Welsh higher education not just survives, but thrives.

Wales Bill

Debate between Jo Stevens and Paul Flynn

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

In the spirit in which the Bill has so far developed, we will this afternoon see something of a rarity in my life: I will, on occasions, agree with the Government and some of the measures they are taking. Before the Secretary of State gets too excited about that, though, it has to be put on record that the Bill has had a chequered history. It started out very badly—so badly that the Government had to take it away and start all over again. The second attempt was better, and we have now reached a point at which although it is still far from ideal, there has been considerable movement by the Government as a result of pressure from the Opposition and in the other place.

I put on record my thanks to my predecessors, my hon. Friends the Members for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Newport West (Paul Flynn), and their Front-Bench teams, for their work during the Bill’s passage. I particularly thank my colleague Baroness Morgan of Ely and our team in the other place for the sterling efforts they made to secure numerous improvements to the Bill through debate and discussions with the Government, who took a largely constructive approach to concessions. We therefore support the Bill in its current, improved form, and will not attempt to frustrate its passage.

I shall not detain the House longer than necessary on matters on which there is agreement, but I wish to make substantial points on the Opposition amendments at the tail end of the selection list, on which I may wish to test the will of the House. We are hopeful that we can make good progress and reach those amendments.

Given the importance of the consequences of Lords amendments 9 and 44, it is right to put something on the record about them. They will raise the Welsh Government’s overall capital borrowing ability to £1 billion, and from April 2019 the annual capital borrowing limit will rise to £150 million—15% of the overall figure. As the Secretary of State pointed out, all that stems from the fiscal framework agreed by the Government here in Westminster and the Welsh Assembly Government. It is welcome news; I congratulate the Welsh Government. Like the Secretary of State, I particularly congratulate the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Mark Drakeford, for working so hard to seal this important deal with the UK Government. I also pay tribute to the Government for moving on this issue.

The increase in borrowing ability is so important because the austerity that successive Conservative Chancellors have imposed on Wales has had severe consequences for the Welsh Government’s ability to invest, particularly in infrastructure. As has been pointed out, with the loss of European funding that Wales will experience once we leave the EU, the ability of the Welsh Government to invest in infrastructure becomes even more critical. Therefore, moves to enhance the Welsh Government’s ability to invest in and develop infrastructure for the future are of course welcome. It is all about investing in Wales and boosting our economy, and this measure will go a significant way towards doing that.

Sensible infrastructure investment led by the Welsh Government will help improve productivity rates in Wales and increase the gross value added of Wales. However, as Members will hear me say several times today, the Government plans do not go far enough. In the other place, my Front-Bench colleague, Baroness Morgan, tabled an amendment to raise the borrowing cap to £2 billion based on the Holtham recommendations. We accept £1 billion as a step forward, but it is clearly not enough to properly meet the demands of the Welsh economy. Before the Minister responds to that point, I caution the Government against viewing the cap as a target. The point is to see the flexibility and dynamism provided by the higher limit, rather than to look at only how much is borrowed.

Many successful businesses do not use 100% of their borrowing facility, but leverage their borrowing to a sensible percentage of the facility based on the economic context in which they are operating. The higher £2 billion that was sought would not necessarily have been used, but would have allowed greater flexibility and freedom for the Welsh Government to invest in a greater number and a greater scale of critical schemes and infrastructure projects.

I make these points to the Minister to put them on record and to push his conversations with the Treasury ahead of the forthcoming Budget, but, as I have said, we do welcome the step forward that Lords amendments 9 and 44 provide and we will not vote against them.

[Paul Flynn]

May I say that it is a matter of some pleasure to see this Bill going through the House? It started off, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) said, as a dreadful and ugly Bill. This is not the slap of firm Government, but the timid, limp wrist cringe of a weak, uncertain Government, who do not know in what direction they are going. None the less, the result is generally beneficial, and a step forward—a stuttering step forward and not one of which we can feel greatly proud. We also know that we will have to come back to it because the world has changed after Brexit.

I accept that there has been some improvement in this Bill. I am talking about the £1 billion in the amendment, but it should have been £2 billion. The Welsh Assembly has a very good record of investing in infrastructure and other projects, but we do need more investments in the future. The purchase of Cardiff airport was a great success.