Welsh Affairs

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, this issue has come up a number of times in the decade in which we have been in this House. The answer to his question is yes, but it is never as simple as it seems. All sorts of contributory factors are involved, with planning being one, but I assure him that we will take that issue seriously and look into it.

I had wanted to mention financial assistance, because it was raised during yesterday’s Welsh questions and Prime Minister’s questions. It is an important moment to restate what the Prime Minister said yesterday about money being “passported through” in relation to this. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is not here, but if he were, he would talk about this as being a Union issue, as he did yesterday. We agree that it is a Union issue, which is why we are working so closely with the Welsh Government to make sure that we know precisely what they need and when they need it, while not interfering with the devolution settlement.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Bearing in mind that the Rivers Severn and Wye have an impact on communities in England, if the Welsh Government were to approach the UK Government for additional support specifically to address that flooding, how would the Secretary of State respond?

[Simon Hart]

We will respond in the way we always do to Welsh Government requests for assistance, in whatever form it might be requested, by taking it extremely seriously and respecting the views that they express. However, in the two meetings I have had with the First Minister so far, it is clear—this is no criticism of him—that we are a long way off being able to measure precisely what that request might consist of. When it comes, we will take it seriously.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr, Madam Dirprwy Lefarydd. It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), and I join him on many of the issues he has raised about infrastructure and the potential for a tidal lagoon in north Wales. I am sure he would join me in asking the Department and the Ministers to consider the funding required and the potential for an innovation power purchase agreement in relation to funding tidal lagoons, as was presented to the Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth yesterday.

Of course, I should say: Hoffwn gymryd y cyfle hwn i ddymuno Dydd Gŵyl Ddewi hapus iawn i chi i gyd. I am sure all Members will realise from the context that I was, entirely appropriately, wishing everybody a happy St David’s Day in Welsh. For Welsh people and those of Welsh descent all over the world, no matter where we happen to be St David’s Day is a chance to come together to celebrate what it means to bear the mantle of being Welsh, whether by birth, luck or design. Many hon. Members will have taken part in excellent events this week to celebrate St David’s Day as part of Wales Week London. The best in Welsh music, art, food, tourism and heritage is proudly on display here in this city for Cymry tramor—the diaspora of Wales—in London to enjoy. This is an opportunity to showcase what we have to offer to the world. This year, for the first time, Wales Weeks are occurring in 21 places around the world, including New York, Ohio, Paris and Melbourne.

Of course, this is the first St David’s Day since our departure from the European Union, which makes flying the flag for Wales the world over more important than ever. Leaving the EU demands a discussion about what the future holds for Wales; and with our position in the world being redefined around us, we owe it to the people of Wales to set out a positive vision for the future. In the last few years, the political tectonic plates have shifted dramatically across these islands; in Ireland and in Scotland, we have seen a radical realignment of identity and politics. People are no longer willing to accept the old notion that the Celtic fringes are a colourful, cultural indulgence, humoured at best and otherwise tolerated, with the meaningful powers—I say that with an element of sarcasm—shored up where they have always been, in south-east England. With both Irish reunification and Scottish independence now discussed more widely and in more forums than ever before, it is important for us, Welsh politicians of all colours, to be under no illusion about what the future holds for Wales. In the event of the reunification of Ireland and an independent Scotland, the default setting will be the emergence of an England and Wales entity that would surely be the most imbalanced, inequitable so-called Union in the world: one nation would comprise 56 million people, the other 3 million. One would have its devolved Parliament, which would inevitably feel the strain without a wider context of devolution across the state, as the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) mentioned powerfully earlier.

Even as things currently stand, despite 20 years of devolution there are those who seek to mock, denigrate and deny the people of Wales the institutions and the powers that normal countries take for granted. There is clearly a failure on the part of the current Welsh Government, whose Ministers have failed so spectacularly to capture the hearts and minds of the people with whose Parliament they have been entrusted for 20 years. They are a Government marked by a lack of ambition, by managerialism and by a reluctance to face scrutiny—all tragically evidenced by a decline in education standards and a failing health service. Welsh Labour were given the tools to build a nation; it has kept those tools in the toolbox.

The recent floods raise questions about the performance of both the Welsh and British Governments. There has been chronic under-investment in flood-defence infrastructure and a shameful lack of response. The Prime Minister failed to call a Cobra meeting in response to the floods. The Welsh Government do not even have a Cobra-style national emergency response system. Our First Minister deemed it “too dangerous” to send in the Army to flood-stricken areas, despite their being called in to help in Yorkshire three times in seven months. It is 30 years to the week since the Towyn floods in north Wales, and the message that only preparation can prevent an emergency from turning into a disaster remains unlearned in those 30 years.

The UK Government are already acting to claw back powers to Whitehall. Take, for example, the UK shared prosperity fund. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister said that there should be a strong Conservative influence over how money that replaces EU structural funds is spent in Wales, despite the Welsh Government having controlled that EU funding over the past two decades. The Secretary of State said earlier that shared prosperity investments have to be meaningful and not vanity indulgences. Let us recall Boris’s bridges: the garden bridge in London and the bridge to Northern Ireland. To put this in context: investment in Wales must be decided in Wales. I put it to the Government that not only is the precedent intolerable, but they are setting down a short-termism precedent that may return in future. Investments for Wales should be made and decided in Wales.

Of course, an England and Wales entity already exists across key policy areas: despite 21 years of devolution, our national Parliament has no powers over policing and justice and we still lack a legal jurisdiction—the only nation in the UK to do so. I therefore wish to explore how treating Wales as an appendage of England in this respect is bad for the people of Wales, because that is exactly how we should look at and evaluate it. The issue is particularly timely because we have the upcoming police and crime commissioner elections in May, when the two excellent Plaid Cymru PCCs, Arfon Jones and Dafydd Llywelyn, will be seeking re-election.

Let us look at some specific problems in Wales in relation to policing and justice—problems to which the solutions are out of the hands of the people of Wales until the powers are devolved. Since the creation of the system of PCCs, we have seen the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice hiving over more and more responsibilities to commissioners to carry out new functions. But—this is the important point—rather than seeing a corresponding level of additional funding, we have for 10 years seen an abdication of duty on the part of the UK Government to fund the police service. It is all very well to talk about additional thousands of police officers now, but we are talking about 10 years of underfunding and what politicians with the interests of the people of Wales in mind have had to do in Wales to provide some remedy.

The PCCs have been forced to rely on raising the local tax precept. The precept for the four Welsh forces as a proportion of the overall funding increased from 32% in 2008-09 to 47% in 2019-20. They did that for good reason: to keep the police on the streets and to keep the public safe. This increase in police precepts meant that Welsh police funding was £34 million greater in 2018 than it would have been had it risen in line with that of England. We have had to find the means to do it ourselves without the sufficient powers to do so, but we have done it anyway. That is a message for all of us. None the less, this is clearly an unfair funding system, demanding a stark choice between increasing the precept and cutting services, neither of which would need to be done if the Home Office addressed the issues with a comprehensive and equitable funding formula.

The prison system in Wales is also let down by the current framework. Research carried out by Dr Robert Jones of Cardiff University’s Welsh governance centre found that in 2017 Wales had the highest prison population rate in western Europe, with 154 prisoners per 100,000 population. That is equivalent to one in every 650 people, and this is despite the fact that recorded crime in Wales was lower than in England in every year between 2013 and 2017. I wonder whether this is something to do with the fact that we have had to put our money where our mouth is in Wales. We have had to do that, and it has had an effect.

Women are more likely to receive an immediate custodial sentence than men. That is despite the fact that there are no women’s facilities in Wales. In 2016, 623 women were sentenced to immediate custody, 86 of whom were convicted for non-violent offences. They were sent to facilities in England, far away from their families—and we know the effect that that has on the children—when a more rehabilitative programme based in their communities would have been better for everyone. Wales was promised a residential unit for female offenders back in 2018, but we have yet to see it even in 2020.

Imprisonment rates among black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are even more disproportionate relative to population in Wales than in England. For every 10,000 white people in Wales, 14 are in prison. For every 10,000 black people in Wales, 91 are in prison. Further to that, BAME people have the highest average sentence length. Therefore, a person of colour in Wales is both more likely to be imprisoned and to receive a longer sentence.

Prisons are perhaps the clearest example of how an England and Wales approach simply does not work. We need to build a system that fits our purpose and is suitable for the people of Wales. Devolving policing and justice for Wales must now be a priority if we are to do better for the people of Wales, and we will, of course, be arguing for that strongly. At the same time, we will also be arguing about the specific ways that we can improve the lives of the people of Wales with the powers that we already have, because that is part of being ambitious. This includes the establishment of an economic crime unit for north Wales, dedicated to investigating fraud against the most vulnerable, and protecting those who are being increasingly exploited by fraud. That would include things such as implementing the victims’ code of practice and implementing changes to systems to provide a seamless service and support, so as to give victims increased confidence in coming forward with evidence. We will have a focus on reducing reoffending—by mainstreaming Checkpoint Cymru and the Early Action Together team, which relates to adverse childhood experiences, in the work of North Wales Police. We will also pledge, across Wales, to increase the capacity of our rural crime team to address rural criminality and wildlife crime, which is something that I am sure every Member here would agree should be a priority in Wales.

No matter what one’s position is on devolution, it is clear that designing policy on an England and Wales basis does not work at the moment. There is a chance that, in future, more policies will be designed without Wales’s specific needs taken into account—that irresistible urge to centralise powers here in Westminster.

We often hear about Brexit being a chance to bring power closer to the people, but I do fear, whatever the Conservatives say, that the reality will be the exact opposite. None the less, let us look to the future. This is Saint David’s Day. Let us look to our future and our role—all of us—in growing a stronger, more confident, more wealthy, more equitable Wales. That is what we can do here until we get the powers back home to do it properly. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

[Several hon. Members rose—]