Port Talbot Steelworks

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

The hon. Lady asks about the money to support the town of Port Talbot. I have said already that there is £500 million to build an arc furnace that will save thousands of jobs. There is £15 million going into regenerating the town. There is £26 million of funding for the freeport, £7.5 million of funding for Launchpad and, as far as skills are concerned, £80 million from the UK Government primarily to retrain people. There is another £20 million coming in from Tata. There has not been one penny from the Welsh Government towards this endeavour. They have been able to find £120 million to spend on more Senedd Members, and £30 million to spend on 20 mph road signs, and we have just learned that they have lost £60 million, having set up a bank, but they have not been able to find one penny to support the steelworkers at Port Talbot.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Is this not just the tail end of a Government who abandoned the words “industrial strategy” a decade ago when I asked questions on this matter? Why have the Government not had the ambition and the vision to realise the potential? For example, if there were a plate mill on the site, it could produce the steel for the substructures and wind turbines that are planned to be built in the Celtic sea around the Milford Haven and Port Talbot freeport? There is no industrial strategy, there is no vision and there is no joined-upness. There are just massive sticking plasters from this Government.

[David T. C. Davies]

There are discussions going on about the possibility of building a plate mill on the site when the electric arc furnace is completed. There is nothing whatsoever to prevent a plate mill from being built. The hon. Gentleman will not be aware of all the discussions going on, but I say respectfully to him that a plate mill will not save 2,800 jobs. We face the loss of a significant number of jobs as a result of the decision to close down the blast furnaces, and even if a plate mill, a direct reduced iron plant or a hot zinc dip line were built on the site—all of which are reasonable things to consider—it would not solve the problem that 2,800 people are facing the loss of their jobs. That is why the £500 million for the arc furnace was so important, as was the £80 million for the transition board.

Ann Clwyd

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Thank you for granting this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. First of all, I thank Ann’s family and friends, some of whom have joined us in the Gallery, for their support as we in the Chamber pay tribute to Ann Clwyd. Croeso i chi—welcome to you. I did not know Ann as well as many of those present this evening, having met her on only a handful of occasions. However, since I was elected I have had many positive conversations with local people and activists who knew her. Others will have had much more direct experience of working alongside Ann, and I thank them for coming to pay their tributes.

When I look back at Ann Clwyd’s life and career, I so much respect her work, and I think so much of it resonates with what we face today. Ann was a strong, independently minded woman, an advocate for women’s rights, international human rights, the Welsh language, good-quality public services and so much more. She was the first woman to be elected as an MP for the south Wales valleys, so I take pride in having had the opportunity to follow in her footsteps in Cynon Valley.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Having sat for many years next to Ann on this very spot on the Back Benches, and on the other side of the House as well, I want to echo my hon. Friend’s remarks about Ann’s incredible passion, pride and sense of justice, but I also want to mention her sense of mischief and the twinkle in her eye. She brought both passion and humour to this Chamber. She is sadly missed, and we are all greatly diminished by the lack of her presence in this House. Certainly in Cardiff West, where in her latter years she was a very active constituent and correspondent with me as her local MP, I certainly miss her letters, even though they created a great deal of work for me here in this place.

[Beth Winter]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Ann understood the need to keep jobs in local communities. Tyrone O’Sullivan, leader of the Tower Colliery buy-out, who sadly also passed away earlier this year, spoke at an event for Ann that was organised in March last year by our local Labour women’s branch in Cynon Valley. Tyrone acknowledged and celebrated Ann’s contribution to the fight for Tower Colliery, and he reminded me, only weeks before his death, of the importance of the working-class struggle for today. They showed the way to build local economies, building local wealth for local people, not encouraging local people to leave in order to get on in life. I share that vision and I try to carry on in the same vein with my work on the local economy in Cynon Valley.

Ann fought battles on behalf of miners. When she became MP, our constituency was in the throes of fighting to keep the mining industry alive. Next year, we will remember 40 years since the 1984 miners’ strike—the year when Ann became MP for Cynon Valley. I was, as a child, on the demonstration through the town of Aberdare with Ann. In her maiden speech in Parliament, Ann said that the miners’ strike was

“a symbolic fight, a fight against the two Britains—the haves and the have nots. It is a protest on behalf of a lost generation of young men and women who have never been able to find a job in the valleys of South Wales.”

That fight continues. Public service workers, rail workers and health workers today are fighting against two Britains—the haves and the have nots.

Ann also fought tirelessly for compensation for miners suffering health problems as a result of their work. As she said in the same speech:

“It is a heartbreaking experience—I wish that Conservative Members could share it—to see a miner gasping for breath even while using an oxygen mask. Yet, because he has not been diagnosed as suffering from pneumoconiosis, he does not get a penny in compensation. That is more than wrong, it is cruel and unjust.”—[Official Report, 7 June 1984; Vol. 61, c. 476-77.]

I, like other Members in the Chamber, am currently involved in the ongoing battle for miners’ pension rights and compensation, so again the fight goes on; the thread of history continues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I think I can do even better than my hon. Friend requests me to by simply quoting the words of the chief executive of UKHospitality, Kate Nicholls, who said: “The tourism tax is ill thought through and proposed without any impact assessment. Welsh Government does not know why it is needed, what its effect will be on visitors and what damage it will do to businesses and jobs in a sector making up a quarter of the Welsh economy. It is unnecessary, unhelpful and ill considered.” If the House does not believe it from me, it should believe it from the experts in this particular field.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On tourism in Wales, when a previous Tory leader resigned, he not only visited Wales but bought a home in Wales. Can I suggest that one way the Secretary of State for Wales could help tourism in Wales is by encouraging the current Tory leader to follow suit, resign and buy a home, although perhaps not in Wales—perhaps somewhere else?

[Simon Hart]

Perhaps I can encourage the hon. Gentleman to persuade his colleague in Cardiff, the First Minister, to drop his ridiculous plans for a tourism tax and for various other means of punishing successful businesses in Wales. If he did that, perhaps we could create some lasting jobs in Wales rather than simply listening to his political protestations.

Welsh Affairs

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

It is a complicated situation. Initially, we were extremely concerned because, objectively speaking, areas of obvious need were being excluded for no good reason at all. That situation has changed, and I have to say that is because of our strong lobbying. It is very important to recognise that.

If we look across the border, we see that the situation in England is very worrying indeed, because in many cases resources were allocated not on the basis of need, but on the basis of a perverse formula that was concocted to help areas that most of us would agree do not need support. I am concerned about what has happened so far and the implications for the future.

The Government have apparently moved away from a competition mechanism whereby local authorities and others compete against each other. However, given the performance of the community renewal fund, I am worried that we will get another perverse formula that does not recognise what most of us would consider to be objective need. That is what happened with the European funding, but we are concerned that it may not happen with the shared prosperity fund.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) touched on my final point about the shared prosperity fund. He said that he was concerned about how it would relate to devolution. It is extremely important that we ensure that different tiers of government—central Government and the Welsh Government—work together. There must be, to repeat the phrase I used earlier, mutual respect between the two institutions. They need to pull together so that resources are used to maximum effect. It worries me greatly that there is, unfortunately, quite a lot of friction between the Welsh Government and central Government. I have to be honest: it seems to me that that is because central Government refuse to co-operate fully with the Welsh Government on economic development. I plead with the Wales Office and central Government to move away from that approach and to recognise that, at the end of the day, our interest is in the wellbeing of the people of Wales. We need to pull together in the interests of all our people, not indulge in petty squabbles and friction, and the onus is on central Government to do that.

It is very important that the Secretary of State issues a clarification today on the shared prosperity fund and sweeps to one side the fog that has descended over the replacement for European funding. We need clarity on what is going to happen in the very near future.

The second issue that I would like to address is the cost of living crisis in Wales. I referred in the Welsh Grand Committee to the Bevan Foundation’s excellent December report, which gave information on poverty in Wales in winter 2021. Two of its conclusions are very worrying. First, it said:

“Households are struggling to make ends meet—Nearly four in ten Welsh households (39 per cent) do not have enough money to buy anything beyond everyday items, up from 33 per cent in May”.

It also concluded that living costs were still rising, stating:

“Households across Wales have seen their living costs increase. More than half have seen the cost of food increase with more than six in ten seeing the cost of their utilities increase.”

As we all know, since that report was written at the end of last year, things have become much more difficult for many families—for all families, in fact—in Wales.

We all know that the fuel crisis is an important part of the general crisis. Unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine and Russia is making it worse—we cannot get away from that fact. I am extremely concerned about how it impacts directly on my constituents. I will give two examples. One constituent recently got in touch with the constituency office in Bedwas, Caerphilly to let us know that she would usually pay £80 a month for her fuel bill but that it has now jumped to £210 a month. That is a 162.5% increase. She told us that she is going to have to choose between heating and eating for her and her child. That is the reality, and that is just one example.

Another constituent said that his combined energy utility bill was £101 a month, but from this March it will increase to £340 a month. That is a huge increase—it is phenomenal. He is a retired gentleman and says that he has a good pension, but even he will find it difficult to make ends meet.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly important point. Is not that the reason why the Chancellor’s buy now, pay later scheme is so misguided? These constituents are already going to be potentially getting into debt as a result of those eye-watering rises; they do not need more misery piled on later.

[Wayne David]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Unfortunately, people still believe that they are being given money by the Government when in reality we all know that it is a loan that has to be paid back.

As we also realise, this is not a short-term crisis; it is going to continue for some time yet. There has been a slight delaying of the pain but no resolution of the difficulties that many people are facing. There is a need for a wholesale cut in VAT, but we also need to target those people who are in the greatest need again. Everybody is facing a crisis or a problem, but those who will bear the brunt of it are the poorest in our society. I urge the Government to rethink their whole support policy and to have not just a holistic policy, which is absent, but a policy that focuses particularly on those people and families who need support most of all.

For example, I welcome the fact that the Welsh Government’s winter fuel support scheme is making funds available only to those claiming universal benefit. That is a recognition that that is where the need is greatest, and I hope that this Government will learn from their good example. Clearly this is an ongoing situation, and I really hope that the Government will not just acknowledge the situation but revisit what they are doing to alleviate real fuel poverty and poverty generally for many people in Wales.

Finally, I would like to comment on the situation in Ukraine and the support that many people in Wales are giving to the Ukrainian people in their hour of need. I am sure that every single Member has been close to tears when they watch the television, particularly this morning when we saw families and small children crying and leaving their homes to find refuge and sanctuary elsewhere. I think that all of us, irrespective of our political affiliations, would want to do everything we possibly can to help those people in their terrible need. I pay credit to the fact that the Welsh Government, even though they have limited resources, have made some £4 million available in humanitarian aid and declared Wales to be a nation of sanctuary. Good; so it should be. That is something we can all be proud of.

I am pleased that the Government here in London have said that they intend to provide match funding for the resources provided by members of the public to the Disasters Emergency Committee, but the scale of the crisis that we see unfolding is truly enormous and horrifying, and all of us need to do far more. We need to do a lot in this House to encourage and work with the Government so that they can give the greatest possible support. We need to ensure that this Government work with the Welsh Government to ensure that aid and sanctuary are provided to those people who need them. Also, we all have a responsibility to go back to our constituencies and do everything we can to work with local people to provide the infrastructure and mechanisms to ensure that the support they want to give is channelled effectively and quickly. I am sure that we can all commit ourselves to doing that.

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[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

May I belatedly wish you a very happy St David’s day, Madam Deputy Speaker? May I also say what a great pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David)? This is not the first time I have followed him. I also followed him as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Wales Office, and I would like to pay tribute to him for all the hard work he has done over the years for Wales.

We speak today on the important issue of Welsh affairs, and I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has facilitated this debate. We speak also against the sombre backdrop of the events in Ukraine. We are living through difficult times—arguably the most difficult times since the end of the cold war. Russia’s unjustifiable aggression against Ukraine has made us all realise the truth of the old adage that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Making a strong contribution to the United Kingdom’s vigilance against the threats posed by an aggressive Russia are the 850 soldiers of the Royal Welsh Regiment who were recently deployed to Estonia as part of the defence of NATO’s eastern flank. The 1st Battalion the Royal Welsh is the successor to the historic regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, one of the most ancient regiments of the British Army, which historically recruited in north Wales. I am sure that we all wish the soldiers of the Royal Welsh and their families well at this difficult time.

As the hon. Member for Caerphilly mentioned, sad events such as this tend to bring out the best in the Welsh people. I have no doubt that the tragedy of Ukraine is touching the hearts of the people of all our constituencies. In fact only today, while I have been waiting to speak in this debate, I have received two emails from constituents. One was from Mrs Parry in Llanfair Talhaiarn, who wanted me to advise on how she and her neighbours could get a supply of nappies to the refugees in Ukraine. The other was from Mr Bolton of Abergele, who drew my attention to the activities of Abergele Viewpoint, which is supporting the Disasters Emergency Committee. Like the hon. Member for Caerphilly, I commend the Government for already committing £20 million to that fund and committing to match-fund anything that the public raise.

The crisis in Ukraine is not only a humanitarian one; it has focused attention on a number of issues, not least the issue of energy. Many European countries are heavily dependent upon Russia for natural gas. It has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Germany, for example, takes over 40% of its natural gas from Russia. Italy takes about 50%. Some of the smaller countries, such as Bulgaria, are virtually entirely dependent upon Russian natural gas. Germany has halted approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as part of its sanctions against Russia. That is a move that is likely to infuriate President Putin, and I would suggest that his retaliation is only a matter of time. Fortunately, we in the United Kingdom rely on Russian gas for only around 3% of our own natural gas supplies, but nevertheless, the potential for energy shortages on the continent should be a wake-up call for all of us. We need to do more to ensure the security of our domestic energy supply, and that means not only gas but the carbon neutral sources of energy that will be crucial if we are to meet our net zero targets.

[Kevin Brennan]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly mentions the UK Government’s assistance in relation to the Ukraine crisis. During this St David’s day debate, will he acknowledge and praise the Welsh Government for setting aside £4 million of their budget for financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine?

[Mr Jones]

Obviously we should commend the Welsh Government for doing that, and we should commend everyone who is lending their resources to the Welsh national effort. Wales is a generous nation, and its generosity is demonstrated by all the stories we are hearing in this debate.

North Wales potentially has a huge role to play in helping to secure the energy supply of this country. It is well placed to become an energy powerhouse, and not only in relation to what I would describe as the low-hanging fruit of wind energy. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) would wish me to draw attention to the potential of Anglesey as an energy island, which should be developed as a priority.

The Prime Minister has said it is his ambition to see a new nuclear power station started in this Parliament, and there could be no better location for it than Wylfa on the north Anglesey coast. I was once told by a senior nuclear engineer at Hitachi, which previously had an interest in Wylfa, that it is the best site he has seen anywhere in the world for a nuclear power station, and I strongly urge the Government to pursue the development of Wylfa with appropriate private sector partners as a priority. I am pleased that the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill will soon become law, as it will provide a financing model, the regulated asset base, that should prove more attractive to domestic investors.

Similarly, I suggest that Trawsfynydd should be considered for the location of a new fleet of small modular nuclear reactors. That proposal has the support of the local authority, it has significant local expertise and it has a lot of the necessary infrastructure. Siting an SMR in Trawsfynydd would present the prospect of a new north Wales-developed industry that could relatively quickly be rolled out across the country and, indeed, internationally, putting north Wales ahead of the game.

We should also look seriously at the concept of tidal lagoons. Sadly, as we know, the proposed Swansea lagoon did not proceed.

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[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I join in the tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who has announced his retirement at far too young an age? There is plenty of life left in him yet. I wish him and his partner Jayne well when, eventually, in some considerable time, perhaps in a couple of years, he stands down from the House. May I also extend that to you, Madam Deputy Speaker? With both you and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly announcing your intention to leave the House at the next election, we will be poorer on these Benches in the future. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly is not leaving because in one of the last Welsh affairs debates I claimed the title of Tad y Tŷ—the Welsh Father of the House—as the longest serving Welsh Member of Parliament, having sneaked in before everybody else back in 2001 and taken my oath first of the Welsh intake at that time. I know it was dispiriting for all the other Welsh Members to suddenly realise that their hopes of ever being Tad y Tŷ were threatened by my claim to that title.

We meet to celebrate that patron saint of Wales and St David’s Day, and to discuss Welsh affairs, as we usually do each March. As I have said before, this should be a permanent fixture and we should not have to go to the Backbench Business Committee with a begging bowl to ask for this debate each year. As other Members have said, we meet at a time of great peril for Ukraine and for the world. I want to take this opportunity to express the solidarity of the people of my constituency, in Wales’s capital city, with the people of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and the whole of the Ukrainian people. Hon. Members may not be aware, although some will, that one of my predecessors had strong Ukrainian ties. In what can only be described as a temporary historical blip, the voters of Cardiff West broke habits that were decades old and returned a Conservative MP in 1983. I am afraid that the experiment was not a success and after four years they returned to Labour, and have done so ever since, to my considerable benefit. The name of the late Conservative MP for Cardiff West was Stefan Terlezki, who was born in what is now western Ukraine in 1927. I should make it clear that his politics and mine could hardly have been more different, but his extraordinary life story, where he was both enslaved by the Nazis and conscripted into the red army, from which he absconded, is a reminder of the suffering that the people of Ukraine have endured through war in their history. When Ukraine became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he warned of the dangers of maintaining overly close ties with Russia and pressed for Ukrainian membership of the European Union. We now see his fears being realised before our eyes.

Hon. Members also may not be aware of this Welsh connection with Ukraine, but we are learning more about Ukrainian history, perhaps for the first time. For example, the city of Donetsk in Ukraine owes its creation to a man from Merthyr Tydfil, John Hughes. Towards the end of the 19th century, he left the Welsh valleys to start a new life in what was then one of imperial Russia’s industrial centres. In 1869, Hughes, along with dozens of others, embarked on a daunting journey of more than 2,000 miles, boarding eight ships and heading eastwards, ultimately using the opportunity to set up a state-of-the-art steelworks and ironworks of his own in what is now Ukraine. He chose the Donbas region, because of its rich mineral deposits. As word reached the ears of skilled workers, engineers and managers back home, around the site there gradually grew up a thriving town of expatriate Welsh people, which was christened Hughesovka and later Yusovka. It had grown to a population of 50,000 by the turn of the 20th century, although its Welsh influence would come to an end with the Soviet revolution in 1917, after which it was renamed Stalino and later Donetsk. Today, there still remains one part of Donetsk known as Yusovka, and we, as Welsh MPs in the UK Parliament, send a message, across political parties, of solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

However, Wales is the focus of today’s debate and I wish to talk a little about Welsh leadership. The past two years of the covid pandemic have highlighted the issue of leadership and styles of leadership, providing a case study in different types of leadership at a Wales and a UK level. There is no doubt that the people of Wales have been glad to have had my friend and constituency colleague Mark Drakeford as First Minister during the past two years of the covid crisis. His thoughtful, serious and empathetic approach has provided a contrast with the shambolic, chaotic and irresponsible behaviour of the UK Prime Minister; while a bevy of drunken parties, in breach of the Government’s own regulations, were proceeding at the heart of the UK Government, in and around No. 10 Downing Street, the First Minister of Wales was devoting every ounce of his efforts and attention to protecting the Welsh people against the deadly virus, even taking the precaution of occupying a small separate building in his garden to avoid spreading it. Throughout, he was prepared to take difficult, potentially unpopular decisions for the good of the nation. In short, he was faithful to the facts, not a hostage to the headlines—that was the approach the UK Prime Minister, in his desperate desire to not upset the right-wing press, pursued.

We see further evidence of that compassionate leadership in Wales’s response to the Ukraine crisis. As I mentioned in an intervention, the First Minister has made it clear that Wales is proud to be a nation of refuge and has set aside £4 million from the Welsh Government’s own budget for financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. I still do not understand why the UK Government were content until recently to provide passports and privileges to Putin’s pals but are still refusing to waive visas for Putin’s Ukrainian victims in their desperate hour of need. The quality of that Welsh leadership has been reflected in the polls. In a recent poll, in January, in Wales, more than 1,000 people aged 16 and over were asked about leadership during the pandemic and the different approaches that were taken in Wales and England. They were asked which approach they preferred, and 60% preferred the Welsh approach, 17% preferred the English approach, 10% did not know and 13% expressed neither opinion. Other polls have shown that even voters in England preferred the Welsh approach to the covid crisis than the one that has been taken in England. We need to reflect on the whole issue of leadership and what it means, and I think that Mark Drakeford been an exemplar of good political leadership.

I also wish to mention the excellent leadership of Wales’s capital city, Cardiff, by council leader Huw Thomas and his Welsh Labour colleagues. During the pandemic they acted so that no one needed to go hungry, setting up an advice line, and co-ordinating with Cardiff food bank and delivering 13,271 food parcels. On refugees, Cardiff hosted one of the highest numbers of people seeking sanctuary per head of any local authority in the UK; 50% of all asylum seekers in Wales have been hosted in Cardiff in recent years, and the people of Cardiff have been generous in doing this. On the environment, Cardiff has been recognised by the Queen’s green canopy, the UK-wide tree planting initiative for the jubilee, as a champion city. Cardiff Council has planted more than 25,000 trees and started work to increase canopy cover from 19% to 25% of the city. This year, 16,000 trees will be planted in a single planting season.

On culture, the post-covid-lockdown “Live and Unlocked” music gigs at Cardiff castle last August, funded by the council and the Welsh Government and curated by grassroots venues and supporting performers, who have struggled during the pandemic, were a huge success. Successive Purple Flag awards for excellence in the night-time economy have been given to Cardiff since 2019, and £130 million of business support was distributed by the council during the pandemic. The council also adopted a new street-naming policy that I particularly welcomed using Welsh language names by default, with an expert panel proposing names that reflect local history and historic place names. Cardiff Council is working towards parity in the number of English versus Welsh language street names across the city.

That kind of leadership needs to be praised, and I hope that it will be added to at the forthcoming local elections in Wales in May by the candidates for Welsh Labour in my constituency, who I think will all make excellent councillors, including Jasmin Chowdhury, Stephen Cunnah and Susan Elsmore in Canton; Leo Thomson, Kanaya Singh and Caro Wild in Riverside; Peter Bradbury and Elaine Simmons in Caerau; Russell Goodway, Maliika Kaaba and Irene Humphreys in Ely; Laura Rochefort and Peter Jenkins in Llandaff; Helen Lloyd Jones and Tyrone Davies in Radyr; John Yarrow in Pentyrch; and Claudia Boes, Saleh Ahmed and Lorna Stabler in Fairwater. I believe that great leadership requires clear vision, integrity, the ability to see round corners and a willingness to take on difficult decisions. Both the Welsh Government and Cardiff Council have shown that.

I will move on to one final point: the pig-headedness of the Home Office post Brexit on certain issues, and its impact on the Welsh economy and, particularly, Welsh tourism and tourism across the UK. I refer in particular to school trips that are undertaken by children from member states of the European Union. I was formerly a chair of Cardiff castle when I was a member of the local authority in Cardiff. It is a wonderful centrepiece of our capital city, and was bequeathed to the city by the Marquess of Bute and the Bute family. It is a major tourist attraction in Wales and in the city of Cardiff, and a big attraction for coach parties of school children from the continent of Europe, particularly from France, Italy, Germany and other EU countries.

As a result of Brexit, the Home Office has decided that any child visiting the UK on a school trip has to have a full passport. Previously they need only have carried an identity card or some group identity passport. That was all that was required to participate in the school trip. As a result of that decision, it was reported in The Guardian at the end of last year—this evidence was confirmed by Bernard Donoghue, the chief executive of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, at a recent meeting of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee—that 80% of some travel companies’ customers are now going elsewhere than Wales, or the rest of the UK, as a result of the policy.

[Craig Williams]

Would Welsh schoolchildren—British schoolchildren—going into the European Union Schengen area in the past couple of decades have got away with a driving licence, or would they have needed a passport to enter?

[Kevin Brennan]

I took many school trips over, and they did not require a passport in order to travel because group travel arrangements can be made within the European Union.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some really important points. The cultural differences around our country are also made great when we can travel to Europe. I had the great opportunity as a member of the national youth choir, orchestra and brass band of Wales to be able to tour Europe as a child. Artists and musicians are now struggling to tour across Europe because of the visa issue. That point desperately needs to be raised for our choirs, brass bands and orchestras.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend and I have raised that point many times in this House, but I want to get to the nub of the issue. This policy is a choice, not a requirement, by the Home Office. It is a choice that is causing significant damage to British business and to our ability to attract these kinds of school trip tours to our country, and it is affecting our visitor attractions. When the Home Office is asked why it is pursuing this particular policy, the answer that it has given to organisations such as the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions is that that is what people voted for in the Brexit referendum. It has a point; I remember seeing that bus, on the side of which was written: “No more French schoolchildren coming to visit our country!” Is that what people really voted for in the Brexit referendum—no more French schoolchildren absconding and taking our jobs; no 12-year-olds stealing British jobs? The Home Office has adopted a ludicrous position, which it needs to revisit urgently.

[Mr David Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point that tourism is a vital industry in Wales, especially in north Wales and not least in my constituency. My tourism operator constituents are terrifically concerned about the prospect of a tourism tax in Wales, which the Welsh Government seem to think is a really good idea. Does he think it is a good idea too?

[Kevin Brennan]

It is a great distraction technique to try to stop me when I was reaching my peroration. It is absolutely irrelevant to the point that I am making. My view has always been, and I have made it absolutely clear, that those sorts of things should be decided locally. People should have the option to decide how best to handle their tourism funding at a local level. That has always been my view, and I would have thought that it is a view that might fit in with Conservative philosophy, rather than centralising everything.

To return to the point that I was making about visitors to Wales, as a result of the policy, as I have said, there has been a significant reduction. It will have a huge impact if we do not have schoolchildren from Europe visiting. As a former teacher, if I had a class of schoolchildren some of whom had a full passport and some of whom had only an identity card, I would do the same as continental schoolteachers are doing now: I would not bring my class, because I would not deprive some of an opportunity to visit while allowing others to take it up, and neither would any teacher worth their salt. Whenever we took a school trip, if someone could not afford it we ensured that, somehow or other, the funds were put together quietly behind the scenes to allow that child to travel. This is a ludicrous example of Lord Frost’s pig-headed Brexit dogma, and it should be stopped. The Home Office should reverse the policy so that children can come and visit Cardiff castle again, and we can have the joy of seeing them on the streets of our capital city.

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[Kevin Brennan]

Does the hon. Gentleman have any confidence that the UK Government will listen to their Welsh Conservative colleagues, not least because in a recent business statement the previous Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees- Mogg), who now has another ministerial job, could not even name the leader of the Welsh Conservative party?

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fine point. I am afraid I could not name the leader either—I never know whether it is our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State across the Chamber or Mr Andrew R. T. Davies, the rather excitable leader of the Conservative group in Wales. Possibly it is the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). He gets my vote, as I really enjoy talking to him, although we rarely agree about anything—he is a very fine man. But the serious point is that we need a bank holiday to celebrate our saint’s day.

This week there was yet more evidence of the other long-standing crisis, that affecting our climate, in the form of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. As the UN Secretary-General noted, the severity of the challenges facing our climate, our ecosystems and our way of life mean that the report is, in his words, an “atlas of human suffering”; that is a striking way of putting it. The report underlined in stark terms how those least responsible for climate change will face the worst risks, which is the poor of the earth mainly; how climate change will drive the widespread extinction of life both on land and in the sea; and how these life-threatening events will continue to multiply. We all have a duty and responsibility to mitigate and adapt to these outcomes. As such, I urge the Government to update their net zero commitments and use the upcoming Budget to fiscally empower Wales and the other devolved nations to meet their own net zero and sustainability commitments and targets.

Further to this, the Government must reconsider their position on the Crown Estate in Wales. They devolved the management of the Crown Estate in Scotland to Scotland in 2017, but Westminster retains control of that estate in Wales. This means that revenues from Wales’s natural resources are siphoned off to Westminster and the Treasury rather than staying in the communities where they are generated. This injustice and constitutional asymmetry is particularly pertinent to our net zero ambitions. Were we to get those rights and that power, the opportunities for us in Wales would be breathtaking. For instance, through 17 offshore wind projects, Scotland has secured nearly £700 million for its public finances and attracted a global consortium of developers who will further invest in a Scottish supply chain. This is great for Scotland and the world, and for the environment, and clearly demonstrates how local control is essential to maximise the benefits of the green transition.

While our resources are smaller in Wales, the most recent round of auctions demonstrated the potential wealth of Wales’s offshore wind resources as the Crown Estate’s Welsh marine portfolio increased in value from £49.2 million to £549.1 million—about a tenfold increase. Simply put, we have an opportunity in Wales to better deliver the renewable electricity needed for our net zero transition and for energy security. I urge the Government to reconsider their position ahead of the Budget and to work with Wales, rather than over us, to help meet our net zero commitments.

Finally, I would like to close by considering the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. As I said earlier in the debate, I was deeply moved at a rally I organised in Caernarfon on Saturday. We had between 200 and 300 people there, including people from Ukraine and Russia. I was deeply moved by the commitment shown by local people; we organised the rally overnight essentially, calling it on Friday afternoon and holding it on Saturday lunchtime.

More broadly, I applaud the UN General Assembly meeting yesterday and voting overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The international community showed itself to be united in the face of Russia’s illegal war and demanded the full withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. Plaid Cymru also fully supports the sanctions regime introduced by the UK, the European Union and the US, and urges the Government to go further in their pursuit of Russian influence and money in the UK.

Hundreds of thousands of people have already been displaced by this conflict. Wales stands ready to assist as a nation of sanctuary, as has been said—gwlad lloches ydym ni. We are a land that welcomes people and gives sanctuary, and we are ready and willing to take in those displaced by this illegal conflict. As someone said at the rally on Saturday, “Close the door on the thieves, open the door for the refugees”—in a nutshell. That is why I urge the Government to waive all visa requirements for Ukrainian refugees coming to the UK and match the support offered by the EU, and to put in place support for the Welsh Government to implement their nation of sanctuary plan.

I will make one further point on this matter. The Prime Minister, at Prime Minister’s questions, said it was impossible for the UK to do that because countries on the mainland of Europe were within Schengen. Therefore, they had open borders and by necessity had to have a unified plan allowing movement. He neglected to mention, despite the heckles from those on the Opposition Benches, the fact that Ireland is outside Schengen. But Ireland has said, “Come. Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter if you have no contact with us. Come, there is a welcome for you.” That is how we should be in Wales, too.

To conclude, in these times of crisis we must all come together and play our part. Wales can and will do more to further our common future, whether on climate action or on helping those displaced by conflict. I urge the Government to step up, listen to the wishes and aspirations of the people of Wales, and work with everyone to deliver on them.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)]

I echo the tributes to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) for bringing this debate to the House—I also thank the Backbench Business Committee—and regarding the fact that since we last met he has announced that he will be standing down at the next election, whenever that might be. I join in and support his warm comments about Ukraine. I do not think there is a Member of the House with whom those comments would not have resonated, whether here or watching these affairs on television.

However, there the agreement may come to a rather abrupt end. The hon. Member for Caerphilly mentioned two very important subjects: the shared prosperity fund and the cost of living. On the shared prosperity fund, I think that he and other Members, on both sides of the House, will be pleased that the long wait for clarity and publication is coming to an end, and there will be further details available any day now. I am conscious that I may have said that before on previous occasions, but one day I will be absolutely right, and that day is soon. Like other Members who have raised similar issues, he made perfectly justifiable comments about mutual respect and a desire to minimise petty squabbles—an ambition somewhat thwarted by subsequent speeches—but that only works so long as the shared ambition is about outcomes rather than about power.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Simon Hart]

I will not give way for a bit, but I anticipate that the hon. Gentleman will want to intervene when I get on to his speech.

On the hon. Member for Caerphilly’s points about the cost of living, all of us representing seats in Wales will have examples not dissimilar to the ones he has raised in respect of this particularly difficult challenge. While the UK Government have attempted, and continue to attempt, to intervene in all the ways that he suggested so as to be as generous, rapid, thorough, fair and humanitarian as possible, the Treasury must of course balance that with trying to control the inflationary effect of those significant interventions, which, if allowed to run rampant, would end up with greater hardship being suffered by the very families that we both agree need the help that we can all provide.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is precisely why we have to take considerable care with the measures that we are taking, because if we do not, then the already quite pressing inflationary pressures can only get worse. We are in the same place on that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) rightly introduced early on in the debate a tribute to our soldiers of the Royal Welsh currently stationed in Estonia. That was a sobering and passionate reminder of the role that they are playing and have played in many other pressures facing the nation over the past few months and years. He mentioned, as did others, the potential in the renewables sector, especially in north Wales. He is right to have the ambitions, as is our hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), for large-scale and small-scale nuclear at Wylfa. The other day, I met representatives of the floating offshore wind sector to talk about the potential in the Celtic sea, particularly off the west coast of Pembrokeshire. There are unbelievably exciting prospects in that regard, so we need to aim high. When I refer to the comments of the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) about devolution of the Crown Estate, I will explain why that would limit our ambitions rather than enhance them.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West mentioned the tidal lagoon at Colwyn Bay. That was an argument well made. When visiting north Wales with the Prime Minister the other day, we looked out across the potential site for that. I might add that the Prime Minister has been to that particular part of Wales more often than the First Minister, in fairness to him. That is how seriously we take levelling up and the potential in that part of Wales. I resonate with the comments that my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West made about the Mersey Dee Alliance. That can be just as easily extended to mid Wales and its relationship with the west midlands as it can to south and west Wales and their relationship to Gloucester, Swindon, London, the south-west of England and beyond, as represented by the Western Gateway.

I quickly turn to the comments of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who seems to have generated more use of my highlighter pen than any other contribution today, which is probably what he intended to achieve, so full marks for having done that. He made some interesting comments about leadership, most of which I had some sympathy with, but in his glowing tribute to the First Minister, it struck me that if the First Minister’s choice of leadership had been successful, we would be confronting our problems across the globe with the potential of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) as Prime Minister. I am not sure that would necessarily have provided the leadership and robust response to Vladimir Putin.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Simon Hart]

I did not think it would take long for him to rise. Go ahead.

[Kevin Brennan]

On the issue of leadership and mutual respect, will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to clear up confusion in the House? Is he the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, as according to the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), or is it somebody else?

[Simon Hart]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the leader of our Conservative group in Cardiff is Andrew RT Davies, and the leader of the Conservative party is Boris Johnson. The hon. Gentleman should know that by now, I would have thought.

I have to resist the hon. Gentleman’s attempt to talk about an English approach or a Welsh approach to the covid response. If anything epitomised a UK approach, it was our response to the covid pandemic, and what better example of that than the vaccination programme, which was originally conceived, researched, contracted, delivered and paid for by the UK Government. It was then distributed, with some professionalism, I might add, by a combination of the Welsh Government—tick that box, we can credit our opponents when necessary and appropriate—with the huge help of the Ministry of Defence, as represented rather conveniently by the Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), who is sitting next to me on the Front Bench, and NHS Wales. The suggestion that there was either an English approach or a Welsh approach is demonstrably untrue.

I add one last thing. The hon. Gentleman made a rather unnecessarily snide comment about integrity, but when it comes to promises to the electorate, the First Minister and the leader of Plaid Cymru both said just before the Senedd elections that the one thing they would not do is get into bed with each other. Within months of making that pledge to voters in Wales, they did precisely the opposite.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), with rather good timing—it was a relief at that moment—decided to celebrate everything that is good about Wales, having been treated for a few minutes before that with apparently everything that is bad. I thought that his message to the outside world about what Wales has to offer, and in particular what his part of Wales has to offer, and the strength, value and opportunities that the Union presents, was incredibly well-timed and reminded me of the visit I paid with him to the Trevor Basin back along, where we were able to see for ourselves the joy on the faces of the people who had received funding courtesy of some of the new initiatives from the UK Government to engage in projects that they have hitherto not been able to do.

The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) rightly made some powerful comments about how we should be helping communities in need at this time, but she went on to mention one or two things that make that more difficult in terms of the relationship with the Welsh Government. The solutions to the very problems that she rightly pointed out are not necessarily always achieved just by dishing out cash. I do not think that the Labour party has a remotely compassionate record to look back on. The undeniable truth is that, every time a Labour Administration have held office for goodness knows how many generations, more people were unemployed at the end than at the beginning. That is nothing to be proud of; it is no sign of compassion at all.

We want to be as fair and as reasonable as we can to as wide a number of people in vulnerable positions as possible not only by making sensible, fair and humane interventions but by creating the best circumstances for job creation and proper well-paid sustaining jobs across the whole of Wales. That is compassionate and that is levelling up. It is not simply about handing out cash, tying people down into the benefits system and offering no hope of being able to move on from that position to a different state of their lives.

My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams), again, echoed the armed forces’ contribution and made some great comments about the levelling-up fund and how Powys County Council had never been able to qualify for funding of that nature before. I thought he was going to launch into a lengthy speech, because I have heard it often before, on the subject of the Montgomery canal.

Muslim Community in Wales

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I thank everybody for their contributions, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) on securing the debate. I also congratulate colleagues who have spoken, including my hon. Friends the Members for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), as well as my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who has made some interventions and who I know is also very busy with the Russian question today. I am sure my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) and for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) would both want to echo lots of the remarks that have been made about the positive contribution of the Muslim community in Wales.

I will not repeat the statistics that others have quoted about the Muslim community in Wales, but suffice it to say that the Muslim community in Cardiff has a very long history going back well over a century, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth mentioned earlier. There are particularly strong links because of Cardiff’s maritime history, with sailors from Somalia and Yemen originally coming to Cardiff and settling in what was once known as the Tiger Bay area and now tends to be called Cardiff Bay, which is in my hon. Friend’s constituency. There was a huge melting pot of cultures in Cardiff over 100 years ago. If one walked the streets of Cardiff, particularly near the docks in the south part of the city, one would have seen a recognisable and unique multiracial community. It was famous across the world for its diversity, with a large number of people of the Muslim faith living there.

As hon. Members have mentioned, the exciting melting pot of Cardiff produced a unique culture, but it has also produced problems over the years. We know there is nothing new about discrimination and Islamophobia. One of the first cases that I worked on when I worked for my predecessor, the former Member of Parliament for Cardiff West, Rhodri Morgan, involved a woman called Laura Mattan, who was from Ely in my constituency and whose husband, Mahmood Mattan, was a sailor from Somalia who came to settle in Cardiff. As a result of a gross and terrible miscarriage of justice in 1952, he was the last person to be hanged in Cardiff. Through the campaigning of Laura as a widow and the work of my predecessor Rhodri Morgan, that conviction was subsequently overturned. Indeed, she was the first person ever to receive compensation from the newly created criminal review board for a miscarriage of justice. There is no question at all that prejudice played a large part in the trial. Even the defence barrister for Mahmood Mattan referred to him as a “semi-literate savage” back in 1952. That was his own lawyer, so we have to be realistic. Even though we have a wonderful and marvellous history to celebrate in Cardiff, we also have to recognise that along the route there has been terrible prejudice, that Islamophobia is not a new thing, and that it still exists to this day.

However, we should also focus on the incredibly positive contribution that the Muslim community in Wales, and especially Cardiff, has made to our capital city. As well as the original Muslim population of Cardiff, who came from Yemen and Somalia, we have had in recent decades more Muslims originating from south Asia, particularly India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. I was very privileged a few years ago to travel with a group of Welsh Bangladeshis to Bangladesh and to visit Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet, where, as I am sure hon. Members will know, most British Bangladeshis tend to come from—they have fed us in restaurants for many decades. What an incredible experience it was to travel with British Bangladeshis back to Bangladesh and see the vibrancy. It is a poor country, but it is incredibly rich in culture and activity. Anyone who says that poor people are lazy should try visiting Bangladesh, because the incredible human activity and endeavour of the people of that country was inspiring to me as someone who had never visited a south Asian country before. It was an amazing experience.

As hon. Members have said, there are several mosques in Cardiff West. The Muslim community has made an incredible contribution during the pandemic, not just through charitable acts within the Muslim community itself, but reaching out to anybody who needed assistance, particularly the elderly. It was inspiring to see the way that the community has organised itself during the pandemic to help elderly people from all backgrounds around my Cardiff West constituency. They are proud to be Welsh Muslims—I know that because they tell me—and I am proud to have the privilege of representing that community in Parliament.

[Stephen Doughty]

I fully endorse my hon. Friend’s comments about the links with Bangladesh. I recently had the chance to have a meeting with the Wales Bangladesh chamber of commerce and heard more about those links, which are absolutely fantastic. Does my hon. Friend agree that a number of Muslim-led and Muslim-majority organisations are doing fantastic work in education with young people? Some of our sporting organisations, such as Tiger Bay boxing club and Tiger Bay football club, which are in my hon. Friend’s constituency, are not only delivering amazing sporting prowess in the community, but providing tutoring, education and inspiring mentorship for young people.

[Kevin Brennan]

I endorse everything my hon. Friend said and add that my constituency is also home to Glamorgan county cricket club. There has recently been controversy regarding racism in cricket. I am a member of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the chair of Glamorgan recently appeared before us to talk about some of those issues. Glamorgan is based at Sophia Gardens and has one of the largest Muslim communities in the country—certainly in Wales—on its doorstep at Riverside.

By the way, Riverside is on the west of the river, but the Conservative party does not seem to have noticed that in its proposals on boundary changes, and they somehow want to move part of the west of Cardiff to the other side of the river. We will have to fight them tooth and nail on that, because that is where the heart of the Muslim community is in my constituency, in Riverside, on the west bank of the River Taff, which is the major geographical boundary in Cardiff and should be respected by one and all. Hopefully, the Welsh Conservatives will revisit that crazy idea as the Boundary Commission hearings go on.

Before you tell me off, Ms McVey, for straying too far from the subject of the debate, I want to say that I am proud to represent the Muslim community in Cardiff West and across Wales. As others have done, I praise the political contribution that the Muslim community make to all political parties in Wales. With the retirement of Councillor Ramesh Patel, who has made an incredible contribution, I am pleased that Welsh Labour has selected Jasmin Chowdhury as the candidate for Canton ward, where I live. I wish all candidates well, but particularly her, in the forthcoming local elections in May.

However, there is one Muslim constituent that I am missing at the moment, and he is a young man called Luke Symons. Like many people from Cardiff, he has a family background linked to the history I talked about earlier and linked to Yemen. A few years ago, Luke travelled to the middle east in search of his roots and ended up looking up his family in Yemen. He converted to Islam and married a local girl. Sadly, five years ago Luke was detained at a Houthi checkpoint, having tried to flee the country when civil war began. For the last five years he has been held by the Houthis in Sanaa, without trial and without being accused of any offence.

I appeal to everyone here to support Luke and his family. His marvellous grandfather, Bob Cummings, whose background was as a merchant navy man, has campaigned tirelessly to get Luke released. I appeal to the Minister, in particular the Wales Office Minister, to put pressure on his colleagues in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to do more about Luke’s case.

It is completely wrong that the Foreign Secretary picks and choose which families to meet of the British detainees who are held overseas without any justification. She and her predecessors have refused to meet Mr Cummings, Luke’s grandfather. He has met with other Ministers, but he wants a meeting with the Foreign Secretary; other families have been granted that privilege. I think it is outrageous that he is discriminated against in this way, and that Luke’s case is not given the priority it should be given by the Foreign, Development and Commonwealth Office.

Last year in Yemen, many hostages of many nationalities were able to be released. However, somehow or other, Luke, who should be taking his place in the Welsh Muslim community with his wife and child, was not got out at that time—while other nationalities were. Why is it that we as a country seem so poor at being able to get our people home in those circumstances, when other countries succeed in doing so? What is going on at the FCDO that means we have a terrible record in looking after our own citizens? I sincerely ask the Minister to take an interest in Luke’s case, and put pressure on his colleagues in the Foreign Office to do two things. They should, first, do everything they possibly can to get him released so he can come and re-join the Welsh Muslim community in Cardiff and, secondly, put pressure on the Foreign Secretary to agree to meet with Luke’s grandfather, Bob Cummings, so that he can put to her directly the impact this case is having on their family.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

We have certainly had a full debate today. I am now going to move to the Front Benchers.

Welsh Affairs

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab) [V]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Welsh affairs.

Thank you very much for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. Prynhawn da; diolch yn fawr. I thank the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) and the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for supporting the application to the Backbench Business Committee, and I thank the Committee for granting this time this afternoon, although it is and always has been my view that time should be set aside every year, as a permanent fixture of the UK parliamentary calendar, to debate the affairs of Wales on or around St David’s Day, which occurs on 1 March, next week.

I want to open on a sad note, by paying tribute to the former Member for Aberavon, Hywel Francis, who died earlier this month. Hywel entered the House nearly 20 years ago, alongside me and other current Members from Wales, my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Caerphilly (Wayne David), my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), and the hon. Member for Arfon.

It will not surprise hon. Members and others listening who knew Hywel that, in his maiden speech back in 2001, he spoke about Labour history, the miners’ strike of 1984, Welsh devolution and the rights of disabled people, the latter a subject that was personally very close to Hywel and his wife Mair and their family. In calling, in that speech, for equal rights for disabled people, he said:

“Those are, after all, universal rights, whether they apply to a disabled child in Soweto, or to a disabled miner or steelworker in Skewen.”—[Official Report, 25 June 2001; Vol. 370, c. 456.]

Typical of Hywel: a voice for the oppressed everywhere, an internationalist voice, a compassionate socialist voice, a distinctly Welsh voice. Rest in peace, good friend and comrade.

Circumstances mean that I am participating in today’s debate from Wales’s capital city. I recently heard a quote about Cardiff from the late, great Victoria Wood, who said it was

“classy and yet somehow seedy at the same time”—

surely the slogan to put on our road signs; but in truth Cardiff has developed in the last 20 years, in the era of devolution, into a classy capital city that truly feels like a modern capital, with a vibrant cultural sector and the seat of the elected Government of Wales. Wales is second only to London in percentage growth, for example, in music tourism in recent times, not least here in Cardiff itself; and this Saturday, in normal times, our streets would be thronged with people for the Six Nations rugby encounter between Wales and England. Sadly, there will be no crowds this Saturday, but millions will watch on free-to-air public service television. I say to the Welsh Rugby Union: do not lock this important part of our sporting culture in a dark cupboard behind a paywall. All Wales’s Six Nations matches must remain free to air in Wales in any new broadcasting deal.

But I do not want to talk just about union as in rugby union today, but I want to say a few words about the state of the Union of the United Kingdom, and Wales’s place in it. Any union, whether a sporting union, or a trade union, or a political union of nations, can only with the consent of its members, and that consent can only be obtained through a culture of respect. I am genuinely worried that the UK Government, Prime Minister and current Secretary of State for Wales do not understand that. We read that the Union unit, set up at the heart of Whitehall to save the Union, has been so disunited itself and beset by brutal rows that it has had to be disbanded. Well, if the Government cannot even keep their own unit in charge of unity united, what hope is there that they can keep the United Kingdom united?

But all may not be lost, because the Union unit is being replaced, we are told, by a Cabinet Committee consisting of—I quote from the press—

“Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart, Scottish Secretary”

Alister Jack,

“Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis and other Cabinet members.”

They are to

“discuss how best to save”

the United Kingdom. Well, forgive me if I am sceptical that this news will have people running down to the bookies to put money on the improved chances of the survival of the Union, because the problem is, there is no evidence here of any understanding of that principle of consent and respect. In fact, we have clear evidence to the contrary from the Secretary of State for Wales himself. While aggressively undermining the democratically elected Welsh Senedd and Government by centralising spending powers from Wales, this week he said:

“I do wish Welsh Government would stop fretting about their own little status in Cardiff”.

Those words—

“their own little status in Cardiff”—

contain not an ounce of respect for Welsh voters and the two referendums that established elected devolved institutions in Wales.

I say to the Secretary of State: he is treading a dangerous path. He has revealed that he has had no respect for Wales’s democratic institutions, choosing instead to look down his nose from Gwydyr House, sneering those words—

“their own little status”—

with reference to the elected Government of Wales. I presume he will soon be getting fitted for his governor-general’s costume and plumed hat at this rate.

I sometimes hear colleagues say that these constitutional issues do not matter. They say, “I have never heard anyone on the Ely omnibus talk about devolved powers.” That may be right, but they do matter to the things people really care and talk about, and which affect their everyday lives, including those riding with a bus pass on the No. 17.

It does matter to Welsh people that they have the right to elect a Government who genuinely reflect their values and aspirations, and who are empowered to make real changes that affect their lives. Devolution has allowed those values of the Welsh people to be expressed in progressive policies that are an alternative to neoliberalism and to running the country in favour of the wealthiest through crony capitalism.

It does matter to people in Wales that their NHS has been true to its Welsh roots, with free prescriptions and freedom from market-driven motives and privatisation. The UK Government are now mimicking that, after the abject failure of the experiment in competition under the Lansley reforms.

It does matter that Wales can decide to have an integrated public transport system, which was denied by the centre to all but London until recently, with rail brought back into public control, bringing Wales in line with modern European countries. It does matter to people that their education system remains free from divisive selection, with local governance and free of outsourcing and fragmentation.

In this covid crisis, it has mattered to people that the Welsh Labour Government have not ducked or delayed difficult decisions, but have always put health and welfare first. They have struck better deals on personal protective equipment for the NHS and social care because of their public service values, rather than turning to expensive and dubious outsourcing, which has failed repeatedly. It has mattered to people that Wales has had a successful, publicly run contract tracing service, rather than a massively wasteful, outsourced chumocracy.

It also matters that in Mark Drakeford, Wales has a First Minister who is rightly praised for integrity, difficult decision making, grasp of detail and open communication, in contrast to a Prime Minister held hostage by headlines and headbangers. Now is not the time for empire Unionism from the Welsh Secretary or the Prime Minister; now is the time to recognise that this voluntary Union of four nations can function only through equality, respect for devolution and a commitment to enhance and develop our democratic institutions in Wales and the other nations and regions of the United Kingdom.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

There is an immediate time limit on Back-Bench speeches of three minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan [V]]

I thank everybody who has participated in the debate today. I pay tribute to our friend and comrade Dr Hywel Francis. I hope that it will be a comfort to Mair and the family that so many of the Members who have spoken today wanted to pay fulsome tribute to Hywel in his memory and for his contribution to the House and outside. I also thank everyone who has contributed, but also express my sorrow for those who were not able to participate because of the lack of time for this debate, particularly the Members from Wales who missed out. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) might have had something to say to the Secretary of State on his closing remarks, had she had an opportunity to make her contribution. Others include the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who of course is now the Member for the seat that Hywel Francis represented in the House for so many years—I am sure he would have wanted to pay fulsome tribute to Hywel as well—and my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), whose contribution, as always, would have been extremely important and passionate. My hon. Friends the Members for Newport West (Ruth Jones) and for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) would have made important contributions as well. It highlights the need for us to work towards trying to make the St David’s Day debate a permanent fixture of the parliamentary calendar and to guarantee it sufficient time, so that those Members who wish to contribute—particularly those representing Welsh constituencies—can do so.

I will not revisit the arguments of the debate, but I join others who have wished good luck to the Welsh team against England on Saturday. At least that was one issue that united us all in today’s debate, including perhaps even the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), who contributed and I suspect might also have expressed support for the Welsh team on Saturday.

Finally, Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Welsh affairs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Wales on the UK shared prosperity fund.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Wales on the UK shared prosperity fund.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has regular discussions with the First Minister and Welsh Ministers on a range of issues, including the UK shared prosperity fund.

[David T. C. Davies]

We have already made the commitment that the amount of money will match everything that came from Europe. Previously, the European Union held the strings and controlled how the money was spent; now, it will be the UK Government working in partnership with local authorities and the Welsh Government to ensure that the money is spent wisely.

[Kevin Brennan [V]]

The Minister says that the money will be matched, but when the dealing is done, will the so-called shared prosperity fund in fact turn out to be a pared back austerity fund for Wales, in keeping with normal Conservative practice? Merry Christmas.

[David T. C. Davies]

The shared prosperity fund will mean more money going into Wales, along with more powers, which will come about as a result of Brexit, going to Wales. We are looking forward to putting our Conservative record before the people of Wales in the elections next May.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman needs to remind himself that there was not a single seat in Wales where Labour did not lose votes at the last election. He needs to be a little careful—[Interruption.] With respect, he needs to be a little careful about making accusations, based on the political reality. The economic reality is that the people of Wales do not share his enthusiasm for defining the next stage of our post-covid and post-Brexit evolution purely in terms of political one-upmanship. They want to see jobs and investment, and that is what we intend to deliver.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Wales on the effect on the Welsh economy in the event that the UK does not reach an agreement with the EU on the future relationship by the end of the transition period.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

The Secretary of State and I have had regular discussions with Welsh Ministers, including the First Minister, on a wide range of matters, including preparations for the end of the transition period. Preparations for the end of the year are well advanced, and build on the plans that we had in place for a no-deal scenario in 2019.

[Kevin Brennan]

When he has had those discussions with the First Minister, has the Minister discussed how the so-called shared prosperity fund will be spent in Wales? I do not know whether he has seen any opinion polls recently, but far from people in Wales regarding the Welsh Government as a “cosy clique in Cardiff”, as the Secretary of State puts it, they far prefer the Welsh Government to run their affairs to a swivel-eyed bunch of incompetents in Westminster doing so. Will the Minister commit to the House, now, that every penny of that money will be allowed to be spent by the democratically elected Government in Cardiff?

[David T. C. Davies]

There are no swivel-eyes on this side of the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman ought to restrain himself a little; I do not think anyone would want to be looking at his eyes at the moment. The reality is that far more people voted for Members of Parliament in Wales than voted for Members of the Welsh Assembly—the turnout is always high, which rather rebuts the hon. Gentleman’s point. We have already said that the shared prosperity fund will match the amount of money that came from the European Union, and that will of course be spent in Wales after discussions with Ministers in both the Senedd and Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Come on, Minister. You have got to help me get through the questions.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I welcome some of the wartime-socialism policies of this Government, based on Gordon Brown’s rescue packages under the last Labour Government, which were then cruelly undermined by the Tory Government who followed. But there is room for more fiscal measures, including perhaps looking at VAT on events as a way of trying to stimulate that industry. When the Chancellor sits down next to him, will the Minister whisper in his ear and tell him to do that?

[David T. C. Davies]

I am happy to accept the hon. Gentleman’s support for Conservative party policies, and if he can just restrain himself for another half hour or so, he might well discover that there is yet more good news for businesses and individuals in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

Welsh Affairs

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I extend my congratulations and condolences to the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes): I congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech but offer my condolences, and I am sure those of every Opposition Member, on the loss of his mother. I am sure that his mother would have been immensely proud of him not only for being elected to the House, but for the speech he has just made. He is just starting out on his parliamentary career—he is almost exactly the same age as I am; in other words, just about reaching his prime in life. I take this opportunity to declare that I think I am now officially the longest-serving Welsh MP from any party in this House. I think I signed in before my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) in 2001, and I am therefore claiming the title Tad y Tŷ— “Father of the House” in Welsh—at least for this gathering today.

I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the charity that he set up, Concertina, and I very much agree with what he said about the power of music and its impact on older people. Having volunteered for a charity in a care home to play music to older people, I look forward to talking to him more about the work that he has been undertaking. I also thank him for paying tribute, quite properly, to his predecessor, Susan Elan Jones, who really was the best of us as a Member of Parliament, from any party, and who was a great champion in this place for Wales and particularly for the Welsh language.

It is a great pleasure to speak in today’s debate from the Back Benches, having served almost continuously for 15 years on the Front Benches, both in government and in opposition. It is quite a relief to have the freedom to roam and talk about anything I want. Today, I want to talk about the future of public service broadcasting in Wales, in particular BBC Cymru Wales, ITV Wales and Sianel Pedwar Cymru—S4C—not least in the light of the publication this morning by Ofcom of its five-year review of public service broadcasting, “Small Screen: Big Debate”. The key finding in the report is that public service broadcasting remains extremely important and relevant to the UK as whole, but I think that is especially true for us in Wales.

On St David’s Day 1967, BBC Wales opened Broadcasting House in Llandaff in my constituency. After 53 years, it recently moved to a brand-new, high-tech, modern headquarters just over the River Taff in the city centre. It remains a major employer for my constituents and residents of many other constituencies across Wales. Of more than 1,000 employees, many live in Cardiff West. BBC Cymru Wales is a key community partner in my constituency for the new state-of-the-art Cardiff West Community High School, which the Labour council recently built with funding assistance from the Welsh Government. That partnership provides exciting opportunities for students from the communities of Ely and Caerau who badly need them. Indeed, Caerau boy and top BBC talent Jason Mohammad was at the opening of the school, which was built on the site of the school he attended, to promote its partnership with the BBC.

I say all that to remind the House that public service broadcasting in the form of BBC Cymru Wales, ITV Wales and S4C, and the many producers and other ancillary services it supports, plays a huge role in Welsh culture, Welsh society and the Welsh economy. That includes Welsh language television and radio programming, which plays a key part in promoting and building the language and will make a vital contribution to achieving the Welsh Government’s aspiration of having 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. Part of the licence fee now funds the Welsh language channel S4C, so proposals to scrap or even, as I understand someone from No. 10 said, to “whack” the licence fee without properly examining the consequences threaten the culturally and socially vital programming that is so important to Wales as a nation. A purely profit-drive subscription system would destroy public service broadcasting, in particular S4C.

The Prime Minister likes to make a big point about his undying love for the Union, but it is strange how cavalier his Government are about Wales’s presence and influence within the Union. There seems to be a complete lack of understanding of the importance of the licence fee, the BBC charter and public service broadcasting more generally to Wales’ place as one of the four constituent nations of the United Kingdom. The BBC, ITV Wales and S4C are major Welsh employers, both indirectly and directly. They have brought many programmes we are all familiar with—“Doctor Who”, “Pobol y Cwm”, “Casualty”, “Torchwood”, “Life on Mars”, “Sherlock”, “Hinterland”, “Keeping Faith” and “Gavin and Stacey”—to UK-wide and indeed global audiences. Today, the Ofcom report shows that public service broadcasting production in Wales has risen threefold since 2010. It is still only 3% of the total, so there is room for further growth, but it is hugely important in our economy and a growing sector.

BBC Wales and S4C play huge roles in promoting Welsh music, employing musicians and composers not just through things like the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, but through Welsh language music on Radio Cymru and S4C. I say to some colleagues on the Government Benches, who seem to be playing with the concept, that they should resist the temptation to pull at the loose threads of a carefully woven shawl that has been bequeathed to us, just because it looks slightly frayed at the edges. They risk unravelling something precious that can never be recreated.

Quite rightly, there is a debate at Welsh and UK level about the role that public service broadcasting can play in a new world in which we consume our media from a variety of different sources. The founders of the BBC in the 1920s could not have imagined a world in which people could pick up a mobile phone and watch whatever content they cared to choose—as the old Martini ad used to say, “any time, any place, anywhere”. The underlying question for this new world, however, is “Does the concept of public service broadcasting still have relevance?”, and I would argue that, more than ever, it does. In this information free-for-all, the original founding values of the BBC resonate more loudly than ever. In an era of fake news, when conspiracy theorists thrive and journalistic integrity is routinely questioned and undermined by, I have to say, all sides in the political debate, the BBC’s mission to “inform, educate and entertain” has never been more important.

Some ask why public service broadcasters need to entertain when entertainment can be supplied by the market. There are times, I agree, when those broadcasters can be legitimately criticised for straying too far in the direction of content of questionable public value, but we have to realise that in a world of high-tech global corporations hoovering up data and monopolising gateways to content, our cultural sovereignty will suffer without the public service broadcasting framework. It would be ironic if, having supposedly voted to take back control, we handed over the remote control from Cardiff West or Westminster to the west wing of the White House and big tech’s west coast of America.

We therefore need new, flexible regulations to guarantee continuing prominence for public service content, even when the gateway to that content is through a set-top box, a smart TV or a smart speaker. In a world in which Amazon determines what is on the home page of a deliberately discounted loss-leader television monitor, there is a danger that public service content will be locked in a dark cupboard with no key easily available. S4C already suffers from that on the electronic programme guide, having been relegated to channel 166 on Virgin Media and multiple clicks away from the home page of a Sky+ box.

It should be obvious that we need to ensure that trusted, curated information is available to young people in particular, and that they can distinguish between fact and fake, between informed opinion and hateful prejudice. What future is there for democracy without an informed next generation in Wales and beyond with the skills to navigate the deluge of information in the digital era? Public service broadcasting and streaming, through content such as BBC Bitesize, “Newsround” and “My World”, can help to thwart the penetration of untrustworthy news sources to younger generations.

In fact, Ofcom is currently consulting on changes proposed by the BBC to reinvent the service that “Newsround” provides for young people by replacing its evening bulletin with more online content, which already has nearly 1 million users a week compared with the 35,000 six-to-12 year-olds who currently watch the televised 4 pm bulletin. The fact that younger people watch less linear television does not mean that they will not consume public service content, provided that it is made available to them in places where they look for their content.

I was going to say something about sports rights and, in particular, the need for the Six Nations to be put on the category A list, but I do not want to detain the House for too long, so I will just say a bit more about the licence fee. The Government have launched a public consultation on the so-called decriminalisation of non-payment. That proposal was not in the Conservative party’s manifesto. It has been launched within a few years of a previous review which provided clear evidence that decriminalisation would not help those in Wales struggling with their bills, would draw more people into the courts, and would undermine the funding of the BBC.

That review, the Perry review, clearly concluded that the current system was the fairest, and that any move towards decriminalisation of non-payment of the fee would undermine the BBC’s ability to enforce the licence and would not remove the risk of imprisonment. In any case, imprisonment is not an available punishment for non-payment of the licence fee; it is a penalty available to the courts for wilful refusal or culpable neglect on the part of the offender to pay any court-ordered fines. Often, those who are caught for non-payment are fined the value of the fee itself and no criminal case is brought. When cases are brought, the only directly available penalty is a maximum fine of £1,000 and no criminal record, with actual fines served averaging £176.

Furthermore, the Perry review outlined that the current regime serves as an effective deterrent, maintaining the offending rate at a very low 5%. One has to question the Government’s motives in reopening this issue now, in the light of that very recent evidence. If they really want to ease the burden of the licence fee on any group of people, why do they not reinstate free television licences for those over 75 rather than passing the buck on to an already underfunded BBC with no means of sustaining it, and simultaneously undermining BBC finances through this bogus consultation?

This is all part of an agenda by some to undermine, to cut and eventually to privatise large swaths of the BBC, including BBC Cymru Wales. It is also a direct threat to employment in Wales, particularly in my constituency of Cardiff West. As this proposal is not a manifesto pledge, the House of Lords would have every right to reject it if, as expected, the Government decide to ram it through for ideological reasons using their Commons majority. If ever there was an instance in which the Salisbury convention would apply, this is it. The method of enforcing licence fee collection should not be changed before the next charter renewal in 2027. Labour and the Conservatives, and the other parties, can set out in their manifestos for the next election—probably in 2024—where they stand on this issue.

Public service broadcasting through BBC Cymru Wales, ITV Wales and S4C plays a huge part in the lives of our constituents. They are major employers and cultural leaders, and they produce trusted quality television, radio and online content. Back in 1964, Wales got its very own TV service. It was our service and our programming, reflective of our talent and our culture, with content made in Wales by Wales, for Wales and beyond and recognised worldwide. In fact, the Union is stronger for our role in providing some of the UK’s leading TV, film, radio and online exports.

Public service broadcasting might need to be renamed in the age of digital streaming, perhaps as “public service media”, but whatever we call it, we should value and nurture it. We should ensure that it is not locked away in that dark cupboard where it is difficult to find. We should ensure that it has a sustainable source of funding—either through advertising, in the case of some public service broadcasters, or through the licence fee for others—that allows it to remain independent of Government. We should acknowledge its relevance in a world of fake news, and for Wales we should fight to protect, preserve and enhance it so that it can continue to play a positive role in the language, culture, life and economy of our nation.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies]

Sorry?

[Kevin Brennan]

It is mutualised.

[David T. C. Davies]

Indeed, and I will not query that decision at the moment. I remember that taking place 20 years ago in the Welsh Assembly, and if Members are asking me to praise a nationalised, mutual industry, I am very happy to do it in the case of Dŵr Cymru today. I am a pragmatist.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has obviously been meeting the various people involved, and we will continue to do that, but I should gently point out that the leader of Monmouthshire County Council made it clear to me that he did not want politicians going into the flooded areas during the emergency.

[Kevin Brennan]

The Minister makes the point that the Prime Minister would have got in the way if he had turned up; is that an implicit criticism of Prince Charles for doing exactly that?

[David T. C. Davies]

Far be it from me to criticise the royal family; that would be a bit above my station. I was simply saying that the leader of Monmouthshire Council made it clear to me that he did not want me or anyone else going into the flooded area while the floodwaters were still there.

Let me move on to other matters. The Secretary of State for Wales and I have been thinking very carefully about the importance of ensuring that when Wales leaves the European Union, we continue working with the Welsh Government, the local authorities and businesses, so that Wales maintains its position at the heart of a strengthened United Kingdom. We are looking forward to negotiating the cross-border Welsh Marches growth deal, and to developing schemes for improving cross-border infrastructure.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) spoke about the importance of good broadband, and compared Pandy Tudur rather unfavourably with the Pitcairn Islands. Some £200 million has been promised by the UK Government to ensure that areas across the United Kingdom that are not properly connected become so, and we recognise the importance of that. Rail connectivity was mentioned by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies). Again, I absolutely recognise the general point that he made, but I will have to get back to him on the specific point.