Devolution and the Union

Jonathan Evans Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Raab]

This may be the easiest intervention I get today, but I do agree that everything is on the table and that everything is possible. In fact, if the hon. Gentleman listens closely as I develop my speech, he will find that I am rather sympathetic to taking further steps toward financial devolution, which the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have proposed.

Equally, there needs to be recognition that with greater financial freedom and power, Scotland must expect to bear some additional responsibility. I am sure that as a matter of principle—regardless of the practicalities—all hon. Members would agree with that. A new deal for Britain must be fair to all parts of Britain. In my view, that means two things. First, if we went down the road of devo-max or fuller financial devolution, it would eventually render utterly untenable the Barnett formula used by the UK Government to subsidise the devolved Administrations. That formula is based on outdated spending patterns and population numbers and is already divorced from any objective assessment of real need across Britain. If Scotland now wants greater powers to tax and spend—as I said, I am sympathetic to that—it cannot expect the Union and taxpayers across the Union to keep subsidising them to the hilt on such an arbitrary basis, without fuelling resentment in other parts of the UK. I note that that is also the logic of the SNP submission to the Smith review. I have it here and will happily read it later.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend not find it curious to hear these sotto voce interventions of SNP Members defending the Barnett formula, which is recognised as unfair to Wales and is vehemently opposed by Plaid Cymru, the SNP’s allies in the House?

[Mr Raab]

As usual, my hon. Friend makes a cogent and eloquent point. That point is actually made by the SNP in its submission to the Smith review—that the logical consequence of full financial devolution would indeed mean the overhauling of the Barnett formula. I thus say to SNP Members that there may be potential for a nascent consensus on some of this—if it can be reached and grasped.

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[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab) on securing the debate. Like him, I welcome the result of the Scottish referendum. However, Members should be under no illusion. The way in which the UK is governed has changed, and we cannot change it back. These issues are more important than the Barnett formula. Promises were made about devolution max to the people of Scotland, and those promises have to be honoured. It would be inconceivable—and political suicide—not to do so. Once those promises have been honoured and powers have been transferred to Scotland, however, there will quite rightly be demands from the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly for the same powers to be transferred to them. If those powers were not transferred, the people of Wales and Northern Ireland could rightly say that they were being discriminated against.

[Jonathan Evans]

May I caution the hon. Gentleman about saying that exactly the same powers should be offered to Wales? Wales is not Scotland. Speaking as the chairman of the Welsh Conservative party, I must tell him that the Conservatives are the official Opposition there. That is not the position in Scotland. We are two very different countries.

[Mr Godsiff]

I did not say that the powers would automatically be transferred. I said that they would have to be offered to the people of Wales and Northern Ireland, because if they were not, the people of those countries could rightly say that they were being discriminated against.

Once Scotland has been given devo max, if Wales and Northern Ireland choose to go down that path as well, there will in my opinion be an unstoppable momentum for an English Parliament to be set up. That is, and has always been, the logic of devolution, and we have to live with that. This raises other questions as well. If we have four Parliaments responsible for a whole range of services, the role of the Westminster Parliament will have to change. Westminster could of course retain its role in foreign affairs, defence and international trade matters, as well as a whole range of residual responsibilities, but such a change would automatically mean that there would be no need for such a large House of Commons, because many of the services would have been devolved. We would need a much smaller House of Commons.

As part of the new constitutional settlement, we are going to have to ask other questions. Would the Westminster Parliament continue to need two Chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, or could we have a unicameral Parliament? Would we need to retain the House of Lords in its present form, or could it be abolished? If these changes were to happen, the four devolved Parliaments, together with the Westminster Parliament, would also have to decide on the role of the monarchy in the new constitutional settlement. On the front page of The Guardian newspaper today, Prince Charles’s spokesman is suggesting that King Charles III would have a much more activist role in British politics, so it might be appropriate to have such a discussion.

The Scottish referendum has changed politics in the United Kingdom completely, and we cannot turn the clock back even if we want to. Once we started down the road of devolved government in this country, we were always going to be faced with the prospect of referendums on independence. Such referendums will be won only by winning hearts and minds, as happened in the Scottish referendum. There will be more of them in future. The reason that nationalist parties exist—in Scotland, Wales and indeed in Northern Ireland—is to seek to achieve independence for their countries. That is perfectly reasonable and proper, but if that was not their objective when those parties were set up, they would have no future role whatever.

Like it or not, we are moving towards a federal structure in the United Kingdom. I believe that that holds considerable attractions, although others will disagree. The momentum is such that it is going to happen, however, and I believe that it will happen sooner rather than later.

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[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field). He knows that I have admired him as a parliamentarian since I was first elected to the House almost 22 years ago. His standard of contribution today came up to the same level.

I congratulate Scotland on the turnout for the Scottish referendum. People said it was a colossal outcome, and at the same time a lesson to the rest of us in the United Kingdom—84.59% of people in Scotland voted in the referendum. But it is not quite such a lesson, because when I was first elected to this place in 1992, I was elected with an even larger turnout in my constituency of 85.9%. Why? Because I was elected in a three-party marginal in which most people thought that their vote mattered. That is the key to turnout.

I congratulate those who brought forward the debate. My first point is to the nationalists. I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on the Front Bench. I served with him in the Welsh Office when last we exercised all the territorial powers before the Assembly was created. I then led the Conservative party’s opposition in Wales to the establishment of the Assembly. I reiterate that the outcome of the vote that was taken on establishing a Welsh Assembly was a majority of 0.4%. Yet the Conservative party, under the leadership of my right hon. Friend and with my support as spokesman in Wales, fully accepted the outcome of that vote, narrow as it was. The vote in Scotland is 10.6%. That is a very clear outcome, and may I say to our nationalist friends that they would be wise to accept the outcome as well?

We know that we are now engaged in a debate on the offer of powers, but from my perspective, it is important that while we are considering the offer of powers, my right hon. Friend should look for mechanisms to ensure that we get accountability to go with them. I say that because at the moment the computer in my office is receiving lots of messages urging me to be here tomorrow to ensure that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is repealed because of its impact on my constituents. My constituents are in Cardiff, and they are not impacted by that Act in any way because they are in Wales and the Act applies in England. Is it not interesting that Unison is telling people that the Act applies in my constituency, and that, after all the debate in Prime Minister’s questions between the two sides of the House on the performance of the health service in England and Wales, in my constituency a majority of people still think that health is the responsibility of the Westminster Parliament? That demonstrates that we have not got it right when it comes to accountability.

The other unaddressed question is the West Lothian question. That goes back to the issue raised by Tam Dalyell, but it was also raised by my former law firm partner, the distinguished Back-Bencher Leo Abse, the former Member for Pontypool. He said that there was a basic unfairness there that needed to be addressed. It is unsatisfactory that with all the changes that we have seen, and all the additional powers for Wales that we Welsh Conservatives have supported ever since the Assembly was established—the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) knows that—nothing has been done to address this unanswered question. For that reason, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is quite right: the issue must be addressed. It is not English-centric to say that; it is pointing out that we have a system of asymmetrical devolution, and that because these issues relating to England have not been addressed, we have gone down a road that, just a few weeks ago, might have led to the break-up of the United Kingdom. We must not leave the question unaddressed for the future.

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[Hywel Williams]

I will not give way. I do believe that some powers will be made over to Scotland, though I suspect that these will fall short of devo-max, modern home rule, or the new federalism proposed by the no campaign. In Wales, national political confidence is growing. Independence is a goal for a minority, but importantly, the majority of Welsh people reject the status quo.

[Jonathan Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hywel Williams]

I will, to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jonathan Evans]

I am grateful. I intervened in the certainty that the hon. Gentleman would get another minute from it. He ought to share with the House the fact that the last poll in Wales that I saw indicated that support for independence in Wales had reached 3%.

[Hywel Williams]

I thought that the hon. Gentleman might raise that point. Support for the status quo was at 37%; 63% of the population wanted a change, and the poll offered four choices. I said earlier in my speech that a minority supported independence, and I am one of that minority.

Business of the House

Jonathan Evans Excerpts

Thursday 21st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I heard the Prime Minister respond to that question and provide the accurate figure, which was that something approaching 1% of Sure Start children’s centres have closed—nothing like the figure the hon. Gentleman refers to. The Prime Minister also pointed out that financial support for early intervention is rising in this financial year from £2.3 billion to £2.5 billion.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

May we have an early debate on the future of mutuals and co-operatives, so that those of us who have consistently supported the mutual concept have the opportunity to argue the case on behalf of well run, properly regulated and non-political mutuals and co-operatives, and to demonstrate the contribution that they have made to this country?

[Mr Lansley]

I cannot promise a debate immediately, but I completely understand the point that my hon. Friend rightly makes. The failings that have been evident in the way in which the Co-operative bank was run and the implications of that are a matter of the greatest disappointment to many of us. I personally share with my hon. Friend a sense that we do not want that to undermine the commitment to mutuals and co-operatives as a form of organisation for businesses. They have tremendous potential—as yet unrealised potential in many cases—for ensuring that businesses are very successful in the long term because they engage staff successfully and enable staff as well as customers of an organisation to feel that they have a stake in its long-term future.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Jonathan Evans Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is an enormous privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy). I have always had great admiration for him, as he knows, but the points that he has made about the Government’s intransigent and hard-line views are extremely refreshing and, if I might say so, devastating. He rightly goes to the heart of our democracy. At the end of the day, it is the relationship between the Member of Parliament and his or her constituents that, in many ways, identifies British parliamentary democracy. The drift towards an American-style district, which is purely based on numbers and not on communities themselves, is an attack on the very basis of our democracy in the United Kingdom.

The right hon. Gentleman rightly points, as we can in Wales, to the preposterous anomalies that will result from the Government’s policy if it is allowed to continue. There will be enormous constituencies in Wales, just as there will be in Scotland. One constituency might even stretch from the south Wales valleys to Wrexham. It would perhaps not take five hours to drive from one end to the other, but it would certainly take three hours—[Hon. Members: “Five.”] It depends how fast one drives, I suppose. I take my hon. Friends’ point, and they make it very properly—it is a long way from one part of Wales to the other.

I have had the privilege of representing a south Wales valley for 23 and a half years in this place, and the valleys of Wales are very distinct. Our communities run north and south, not east and west. Dismembering those valleys or including them with others will make complete nonsense of the community basis of our constituencies, whether in Wales and Scotland, or, indeed, in Cardiff, which the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) will undoubtedly now talk about.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the history of the valley communities, but he may recall that when Aneurin Bevan was elected to the House in 1929, he represented three valley communities, not one or two. The right hon. Gentleman is over-stressing his point a little.

[Paul Murphy]

I cannot actually remember the time when Aneurin Bevan was in the House of Commons, but he is still my great hero. However, the hon. Gentleman knows that the situation he describes was exceptional because of the heads of the valleys situation, and he knows my point is valid. Our local authorities in south Wales are based on valleys, and our constituencies are based on valleys. However, the point is that our constituencies are also based on communities. What Government in their right mind could think that the Isle of Wight could be anything other than a constituency? The rigidity with which the Government are dealing with these issues is beyond belief.

I want now to talk to amendment 14 and to raise the business of Wales in so far as it is represented in the House of Commons. I had the great privilege of being Secretary of State for Wales on two occasions. The fact that I held that office at all was a recognition by our constitution that there should be territorial Secretaries of State—for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There is machinery in the House of Commons for dealing with Welsh and Scottish matters, although I must tell the Wales Secretary, who is in the Chamber, that the refusal to hold a Welsh Grand Committee on this issue is a disgrace. When I was Wales Secretary, I held 22 Welsh Grand Committees—we debated anything that the people of Wales wanted their public representatives to debate, whether they were Conservative, Liberal, Plaid Cymru or Labour.

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[Susan Elan Jones]

The answer is this ragbag Government, who will not stand up for the people of Wales. Indeed, it is no surprise that all this is happening at about the same time that they are showing exactly the same sort of disrespect for the fourth Welsh television channel.

[Jonathan Evans]

As the hon. Lady develops this victimhood of Wales, perhaps she would like to reflect on the fact that there are 15,000 more electors in my constituency in Cardiff than there are in her constituency. How on earth is that fair? What do I say to my neighbour, just 50 miles away, who has 15,000 more electors? Surely the hon. Lady should recognise that fairness means that each vote, in every part of the United Kingdom, should be of equal value.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman go back to his constituents and say, “Yes, of course it’s right that we are open to proper Boundary Commission changes, but we shouldn’t undersell our nation of Wales within the United Kingdom.”