Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he is doing for fishing, for coastal communities and for Brixham in particular. I understand that the fish market in Brixham was outstandingly successful the other day. We are going to make sure that we continue to support fishing and the seafood business across the country. The scheme has approved funding in Brixham, Salcombe and Dartmouth, and a further £100 million is being made available through the UK seafood fund to support our fisheries.

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

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llefarydd.

If COP26 is to be successful, people must be at the heart of our net zero emissions strategy. For too long, the UK economy has left too many people behind, with wealth and investment hoarded in the south-east of England. Devolving powers over the Crown Estate would bring half a billion pounds-worth of offshore wind and tidal stream potential—assets, of course, currently controlled by Westminster—under Welsh control. Scotland, meanwhile, already has those powers. Will the Prime Minister support my Bill to devolve the management of the Crown Estate to Wales?

Tributes to Sir David Amess

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2021 Commons Chamber

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

It is an honour to speak on behalf of my party and to send commiserations to Sir David’s family, friends and colleagues.

The one thing I would like to emphasise is that people outside possibly do not appreciate how much we work together and how much of an honour it is to work together, and how by that we achieve so much. For all of us here, the reality is that democracy is what we have developed so that we no longer attack each other and use violence to achieve our aims. This terrible, abhorrent death has struck us so badly, as of course it has the constituents and so many other people who knew Sir David so well. When we stand up for democracy, we remember that we are standing up for civility, for good behaviour and for treating people properly because, historically, the alternative has been violence, and violence must never be allowed to succeed again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I remind Members that supplementary questions must be in line with the original question.

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

The Government’s attack on struggling families this autumn will make more than four in 10 families with children over £1,000 worse off. It is no surprise that the Secretary of State is content with plunging thousands of people into poverty, but these families spend their money in high street shops and local businesses. Government policy will be directly responsible for taking £286 million out of the Welsh economy. This is not levelling up; it is hammering down. What assessment has he made of the effect of the £20 cut in universal credit on the Welsh economy?

[Simon Hart]

The right hon. Lady clearly did not listen to my answers to the first and second questions on this very subject, and her statement—rather than question—was predicated on the basis that absolutely none of the Government’s other economic interventions, such as the plan for jobs, the levelling-up fund and the other encouraging initiatives we have been talking about, will have any positive effect at all. That is clearly incorrect and is clearly not supported by businesses across Wales, which leads me to the conclusion that she is determined to talk down the economic prospects of the country she wants to represent.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It is clear that the Government are content that Wales loses almost £300 million. The pattern is clear from the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, trade agreements, the control of state aid and now plans to cut the number of Welsh MPs from 40 to 32: the right hon. Gentleman’s Government are taking from Wales and giving to Westminster. Anyone can see that levelling up will only happen when we have a strong Parliament in Wales empowered to do the job and directly answerable to the people of Wales. We all know there is a reshuffle going on; is now the time to reshuffle the Wales Office out of existence?

[Simon Hart]

The right hon. Lady will not be surprised to learn that I am not going to rise to the last of the baits she dangles in front of me, but she needs to make her mind up about whether she wants Westminster representation or not: she complains on the one hand that the numbers might be reduced, whereas in fact they are being equalised to be fairer, and on the other that we should not be here at all.

Afghanistan

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the risks that the Taliban are themselves running, because they now possess the government of Afghanistan and it is their responsibility. They clearly face that threat from IS-K and indeed potentially other groups. Of course they will do everything, I imagine, to protect the public, but in the end we have to face the reality that the Taliban have now got the problem. We will do everything we can, of course, to ensure that we guard against future outbreaks of terrorism from that country, but it is in the interests of the new Government of Afghanistan to crack down on terrorism as much as anybody else.

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

Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, an Afghan woman who flees with her children and arrives in Britain by an irregular route will not be welcomed; she will be criminalised. Wales has declared our role in the world to be as a nation of sanctuary. Will the Prime Minister withdraw the Bill to enable us to fulfil our ambition and to make that warm welcome he spoke about?

[The Prime Minister]

No, I cannot accept what the right hon. Lady has said, because this country has been extremely generous—more generous than most countries around the world—not just in bringing people immediately from Afghanistan but in setting out a safe and legal route for 20,000 more to come. That is a big number and the route for those people is clear.

Afghanistan

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for facilitating the recall of Parliament. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and I hope the Government will reflect very carefully on her words—particularly her remarks at the end of her contribution about the role of NATO in the light of the American decision to pull out of Afghanistan. These are very real issues about the capabilities within NATO. If I may say so, it is about not just the capability of NATO but how we make sure the United Nations has all the tools at its disposal to do what we expect of it. We will have to return to these matters in this House when we come back from recess.

I thank the Government for the briefings we have had over the course of the last few days, and in particular I commend the Defence Secretary for making himself available and for how he has conducted himself. Indeed, that is also true of Ministers in the Home Office—I think particularly of the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) and, from the Foreign Office, the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa. When we are talking about human lives being lost, it is important that we in this House work together where it is possible but—yes, of course—that we ask legitimate questions.

There can be little doubt that the chaos and crisis that has been inflicted on the Afghan people is the biggest foreign policy failure of modern times. The sheer scale of that political failure is matched only by the humanitarian emergency that it has now unleashed. As we gather here this morning, the future and fate of Afghanistan has never been more uncertain. Afghanistan, a country that has been through so much, is once again facing a period of darkness. Over the course of the past week we have watched those tragic images from afar. The scenes of Afghans seeking to jump on to moving planes to escape will haunt us for the rest of our lives. We have watched from afar, but we all have a deep sense of sorrow about just how closely the UK has been involved in what has unfolded. Geographical distance does not for a second diminish the moral responsibility that we need to feel for the west’s role in this crisis. Washing our hands of this crisis will not make it go away, and it definitely will not wash away our responsibility to the Afghan people. We all know that acting now will be too little, too late, but better little and late than nothing at all.

Today we have a choice: we can either offer meaningless words of sympathy and stand idly by, or we can start to do the right thing. We can take responsibility and act. The Home Secretary has today talked about evacuating more contacts of the UK Afghanistan operation from the existing resettlement scheme. Let me be clear: there should be no ifs or buts; everyone who has worked with UK forces and who by definition has a vulnerability, must be moved to a position of safety. No one can be left behind. That is our moral and ethical responsibility. All those who work with us are our responsibility. We do not, we cannot, walk away from them. Today I am asking the Government to make that commitment.

That action needs to begin with a co-ordinated domestic and international effort to offer safe passage, shelter and support to refugees fleeing this crisis is obvious. That action cannot wait. If we are to act, we must act with the same speed with which the situation in Afghanistan has developed. I am sad that the scheme announced last night by the UK Government, and today by the Prime Minister, does not go nearly far or fast enough. It can only be right that the number of refugees we welcome here reflects the share of the responsibility that the UK Government have for this foreign policy disaster. This scheme falls way short of that responsibility. The scheme must be far more ambitious, generous, and swift to help the Afghan citizens that it has abandoned and left at serious risk of persecution, and indeed death. The scale of the efforts must match the scale of the humanitarian emergency.

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

Considering that the Government promised in 2016 to save 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children from Calais, is the right hon. Gentleman concerned that the number who have actually been saved stands at around 380? If those promises can be broken, and among those children were many from Afghanistan, is he concerned that the promises made today may be as unrobust as those of the past?

--- Later in debate ---

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

Diolch yn fawr, Madam Ddirprwy Lefarydd. First, I would like to pay tribute to our service personnel who are putting their lives on the line in Kabul to evacuate our citizens safely, and to those who have served in Afghanistan these last 20 years.

The west failed in its mission and the UK Government bear their share of responsibility, but now is not the time to question how we got here nor how our allies have behaved. It remains the case that the UK Government have a practical and moral responsibility to thousands upon thousands of people in Afghanistan. We must ensure the swift and safe evacuation of UK nationals, UK personnel and Afghan nationals linked to the British NATO mission and to charitable and non-military efforts. I urge the Government to expand their Afghan relocation and assistance policy to all locally engaged staff and their families, regardless of whether they served in exposed, enabling roles or not. We must help too those people who dared to share our cherished values, especially journalists and women in senior civil society roles, those who worked with UK-affiliated charities and NGOs, and women in the judiciary, in the Government and in education.

Wales, of course, has a long and proud history of providing sanctuary to those fleeing persecution. Communities across Wales and the rest of the UK are ready to show the same compassion today. I must refer to the counties of Gwynedd and Ceredigion, whose intentions have been declared as well, but to whom the funding is critical to the numbers that they can accept.

The announcement of the resettlement scheme is a positive step. None the less, the 5,000 cap this year is arbitrary and insufficient. It is vital that the Government provide safe routes for Afghan refugees and end—this is clear now, as we have heard from others—the deportation of those already here. We must expedite procedures. There is a question about whether being an Afghan citizen is now sufficient, in terms of resettlement, to qualify as being in “well-founded fear of persecution”. We must look at the opportunity in the here and now, and not put up barriers and use the routes that we would conventionally use. We must look at how we can address the present situation as best we can. The Government must also consider whether the Nationality and Borders Bill is in keeping with these new circumstances and with the UK’s clear duty of responsibility to the Afghan people.

I would like to question the Government on another point, to which I would like a response when they wind up the debate. Reports are emerging that there is now only a 72-hour window before the US pulls out of Kabul airport. We are indeed in that 72-hour window now. This will endanger the UK’s and other allies’ efforts to evacuate citizens and eligible local nationals. We must make every effort to secure the time to do the right thing. Will the Government today guarantee that the evacuation operation from Kabul airport will continue until 31 August, which was the declared timetable of both the US and UK Governments? Will the Government still be there, with representatives able to send people out of Kabul airport, to the end of this month?

Finally, it is clear that our greatest and only success after 20 years in Afghanistan has been the rights of women and girls. Will the Government commit today to do everything in their power to encourage the Taliban to protect those advancements and the lives, livelihoods, freedoms and rights of Afghan women and girls?

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend, who knows a lot about the subject that she mentions. This is a fantastic opportunity for this country, because we do indeed produce a great many tech breakthroughs and we are very much looking at how to scale up fast, but we must not forget that, as I speak, there are three countries in the world that have scaled up tech breakthroughs to 100 unicorns worth more than a £1 billion. Only three countries have 100 unicorns. They are the United States of America, China and the United Kingdom.

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

Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd.

For more than seven years, Plaid Cymru has been calling for the gargantuan HS2 railway to be treated as an England-only project, so that Wales gets our fair share. Not a single inch of track will be in Wales, but we are footing the bill. Today the Welsh Affairs Committee backed our call, calling the UK Government’s categorisation of HS2 in relation to Wales “unfair and biased”. Will the Prime Minister today right this wrong, respect the Welsh Affairs Committee and ensure that Wales, like Scotland, receives our fair share from HS2?

[The Prime Minister]

I normally have a great deal of respect and interest in what the right hon. Lady says, but in this case she has missed what the Government are doing for transport connectivity in Wales and to Wales—something about which I know she is as passionate as I am. Look at what we are doing in the Union connectivity review with the A55, the north Wales railway corridor into Liverpool and the M4. Never let it be forgotten that it was the Welsh Labour Government—not the right hon. Lady’s fault, of course, because she is Plaid—who spent £144 million on a study and then did not even do the diversion.

Emergency Covid Contracts

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to Liz Saville Roberts.

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

Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd. Let us call this out for what it is: a gross misuse of public money. The shady deal to award a half-a-million-pound covid contract to Ministers’ friends at Public First is yet another example of Tories putting Tory interests first. Given that focus groups were held in Wales, did the Secretary of State for Wales consent to the decision to use the Public First contract for political research purposes?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. As I said, we do not use public money for political campaigning purposes.

G7 and NATO Summits

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The problem at the moment is the application of the protocol. The protocol makes it very clear that there should be no distortions of trade and that the Good Friday peace process, above all, must be upheld, but it is being applied in such a way as to destabilise that peace process and applied in a highly asymmetrical way. All we are asking for is a pragmatic approach. I hope very much that we will get that, but if we cannot get that, then I will certainly take the steps that my hon. Friend describes.

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

Monday’s Australian trade deal announcement revealed the Prime Minister’s fear of democratic accountability. He has withheld details of the agreement and prevented Parliament from doing our proper job of scrutiny at the proper time. Yet, from day one, Australian farmers will be able to export over 60 times more beef before UK tariffs kick in—that is no tariff whatsoever on up to 35,000 tonnes of potentially low-welfare beef. So, from day one, will he at least commit to an annual assessment of the economic impact of his deal on Welsh beef and lamb farmers?

[The Prime Minister]

I will repeat the point I have made to many Opposition Members. This is an opportunity for UK farming and indeed for Welsh farmers. The right hon. Lady speaks with apprehension about 35,000 tonnes of Australian beef. We already import about 300,000 tonnes of EU beef. Australian farmers observe very, very high animal welfare standards, and they will only get completely tariff-free access after 15 years. After 15 years, we are going to give people in Australia the same rights of access as we give the 27 other EU countries.

Debate on the Address

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 11th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

“We didn’t win”—can you believe it? We have just taken two seats from the Conservatives in the election: Edinburgh Central and Ayr. I do not know what the hon. Member calls winning when, by the Westminster rules, we win 62 of the 73 seats, and by the warped logic of Conservative Back Benchers, we have not won. The hon. Member lives in a parallel universe if that is what she believes.

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

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will join me in wondering how the House will hold Welsh Labour to account, which has moved its manifesto so much that it can talk about parking its tanks on Plaid Cymru’s lawn, but Plaid Cymru made that lawn.

[Ian Blackford]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that intervention. Hopefully the light that we have shone in Scotland gives an example to the people of Wales and Plaid Cymru that they should follow us and find their way back into Europe as an independent country.

Putting on the record the scale of the SNP victory and achievement and the verdict of the Scottish people is especially important given today’s context, because today this Tory Government put forward their policy programme for the new Session. The Prime Minister gained the authority and the mandate to do so when his party was re-elected to office in 2019—re-elected, I might add, with a significantly smaller vote share than was achieved by the SNP in Scotland last week. In that election, the Prime Minister put forward a manifesto with the policies that he said he and his party would implement. Those of us on the Opposition Benches have the right to oppose many of those policies, and we will do so and do so forcibly, but if the Prime Minister secures a majority in this House, that mandate from the manifesto will be legally implemented. It is a pretty fundamental principle and should be a simple concept—it is called parliamentary democracy.

Yet, a few short days after a landslide victory in Scotland, it is that very basic principle of democracy—that right of Governments to propose and implement their manifesto commitments—that this Tory Government are threatening to undermine. By doing so, they are threatening a new low level of hypocrisy and disrespect. The defeated Scottish Tory leader has said that the SNP seeking to implement a fundamental manifesto promise—a commitment to give our people a choice on their own future—should be treated as illegal. Before the results had even been completed, the Prime Minister himself told his favourite newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, that he would try to block a post-pandemic independence referendum.

On today of all days, I genuinely urge the Prime Minister and his Government to think again. He is looking away and looking disinterested, but this is important, because it is about democracy. It is about the rights of people. [Interruption.] People will be watching this, and they can hear Conservative MPs laughing about our desire to make sure that democracy is delivered. That is the contempt that I have talked about.

Let me say to the Prime Minister that any confrontation will not be with the SNP. If the Government seek to deny Scottish democracy, their confrontation will be with the people of Scotland. Secondly, the Prime Minister needs to reflect on this reality: a fight with democracy is a fight he will never, not ever win. I know that the Prime Minister does not want to hear this, but he might try to show some interest in what is going on, because what we are seeing is this Government’s contempt for Scotland.

Today’s Queen’s Speech and this Tory policy programme emphasise another important point. Last week’s elections brought into stark focus the chasm in the political choices being made in different parts of the United Kingdom. The differing values in leadership between the Prime Minister and our First Minister and the tale of two Governments in London and Edinburgh have crystallised the choice of two futures. Time and again, the majority of people in Scotland back a progressive, inclusive, outward-looking vision for the future of our nation. This has been our direction of travel since we gained some powers through devolution, yet in this Westminster Parliament we are facing many more years of right-wing, Brexit-obsessed Tory Governments we did not vote for taking us in a direction we have not chosen. That clear divergence in political direction is simply not sustainable: Scotland has chosen a different path.

As we look beyond the pandemic and build the recovery, our alternative to these Tory values and their vision is set out in our manifesto. Unlike this Tory Government, the SNP manifesto has the support of the Scottish people. The policy programme the SNP put before the people of Scotland will move our country forward, making it fairer, greener and more prosperous. The First Minister is already back at work and getting on with the job. Our alternative to this Queen’s Speech is already in action.

With health and social care services being won on the frontline of the pandemic, this new elected SNP Government will now deliver a 20% increase in frontline NHS spending, a total of £2.5 billion. While this Tory Government dither and delay on reforms to social care, the new SNP Government will move to establish a national care service, backed by a 25% increase in social care investment. While the Conservatives dither, the SNP Government in Edinburgh act. This will include significant investment in the staff themselves. The Tories continue to laugh while we talk about investment in the NHS. Unlike the insult of the 1% offered by the Tories, in Scotland NHS staff have been offered an average—an average, Prime Minister—of a 4% pay increase. The new national care service, backed by £800 million, will enable the Government to offer a national living wage to all care staff. It is little wonder that the Prime Minister hangs his head in shame, and so he should.

To invest in the next generation, the SNP Government will invest over £1 billion over the next Parliament to close the school attainment gap and to recruit 3,500 additional teachers and classroom assistants. [Interruption.] I do not think that if the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine was back in school he would behave the way he is behaving in this House. He really ought to calm down.

This Tory Government have to be shamed by a professional footballer into providing free school meals. In contrast, the Scottish Government will get on with providing free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil year round and a device for every child in Scotland to get online. For families, the SNP Scottish Government will build a wraparound childcare system to help support working parents, with the least well-off families paying nothing. While this Tory Government threaten to rip away the lifeline of the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit, the new SNP Government will double the game-changing Scottish child payment over the lifetime of their Parliament. That is a Scottish Government delivering on the people’s priorities.

The context of the covid crisis makes the choices made now all the more critical, because in seeking to build economic recovery in the aftermath of this pandemic, it is vital that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. But the Budget in March and this Queen’s Speech are clearly laying the grounds for more Tory austerity and more Tory cuts. It is also important to point out that no party and no Government who forced through a job-destroying Brexit in the middle of a pandemic can credibly claim to be focused on recovery.

With the powers we have, the SNP Scottish Government are doing everything they can to mitigate this damage and seeking to protect our businesses. We believe a fair recovery should follow the example of the Biden Administration: it must be investment-led. At the centre of the SNP’s recovery plans is an economic transformation that would have fair work and the climate emergency at its heart. This will include an investment of £500 million to support new jobs and to retrain people for the jobs of the future, as well as funding the young person’s guarantee of a university, college, apprenticeship or training place or a job for every young person who wants it. The SNP Government will also embark on a massive programme of capital investment. Over £33 billion will be invested over the next five years in our national infrastructure, directly supporting 45,000 jobs. An SNP Government will deliver a further 100,000 homes by 2032, with investment of £3.5 billion over this Parliament, which will support 14,000 jobs a year.

Ahead of the COP26 conference in Glasgow in November, enhancing and expanding our world-leading climate action policies will be a key priority. The SNP Government will deliver a green transport revolution by providing free bikes to all school-age children who cannot afford them, removing the majority of fossil-fuel buses from public transport, ramping up investment in active travel, and bringing ScotRail into public ownership with the aim of decarbonising the rail network by 2035. There is also a commitment to decarbonising the heating of 1 million homes by 2030.

This is the vision and these are the values that we will use to fuel the recovery with the limited powers of devolution we now hold. However, the covid crisis has laid bare the need to equip our Parliament with the full powers that are needed to drive our long-term recovery. If we are to fully build the kind of country we want to see, it is clearer than ever before that we need the full powers that we can only deliver with independence—powers to borrow and invest in our economy and in our people. Only then can we build the country that truly and fully reflects our choices, our values and our priorities: a country that lifts children out of poverty instead of wasting sums of money on yet more nuclear warheads; a country that gives our young people the ability to travel, instead of stopping their freedom of movement across the European continent; a country that welcomes the world instead of imposing a hostile immigration policy that damages our economy; and a country that respects and values refugees—refugees who were allowed to vote in our elections of last week—instead of proposing a law in this Queen’s Speech that will rip up the refugee convention.

Just as it is right to point out the opportunity before us, it is also right that we are honest about the risks to recovery if we remain trapped in a broken Westminster system—because hidden in this new legislative programme from the Tories lies a familiar threat. Just as the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 was a blatant assault on devolution, this Queen’s Speech doubles down on that agenda with further power grabs on state aid and other aspects of devolved spending and powers. Only yesterday there were more media reports of the UK Government seeking to spend money directly in devolved areas in a desperate attempt to shore up support for the Union. The Tory plan has now been obvious for some time: it is to hand this Prime Minister and his Government more powers to control our choices and dictate our future. It is one more powerful reason for Scotland to choose a very different future.

Post Brexit and post pandemic, Scotland now has the choice of two futures. We know the past Westminster has imposed and we now know the future that it will inflict. Westminster has chosen its future: a job-destroying Brexit, a return to austerity cuts, and more attacks on devolution. Today’s legislative agenda confirms and cements that choice. For Scotland, the choice over our own future is now ever clearer and ever closer. We have repeatedly said that our immediate priority is to steer people safely through this pandemic and to kick-start the recovery. We remain true to that commitment. But when this crisis has passed, there is now a fresh democratic commitment to give the Scottish people the right to choose an independent future. The Prime Minister would do well to listen to the First Minister: an independence referendum is now a question of when and not if. On the SNP Benches, we relish the opportunity for debate and democratic decision that that now-inevitability awakes, and we look forward to Scotland rejoining the independent nations of the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

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

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Mr Dirprwy Lefarydd. Mi wnai fy ngorau—I will do my best.

It was very interesting to listen to what the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett) had to say, because I previously worked in further education as well. We are all good at talking about parity of esteem between academic education and vocational training and skills, but it is about how we realise that and, particularly, the sort of curriculum that we provide. It is easy to provide the same old curriculum, but it is very challenging to look at the transferable skills that will be needed, predict the skills that will be needed and decide who we offer those to and where.

I welcome today’s Queen’s Speech as an opportunity for us all to take stock of the United Kingdom, our legislative priorities and the interests of those people and nations whom we serve in this place. Wales has returned a pro-devolution Parliament, whose Government Plaid Cymru will now hold to their manifesto commitment to achieve what they styled as “far-reaching federalism”—we shall see what that actually means. Wales also thumpingly rejected those who explicitly sought to deny our democracy its very existence. Scotland has returned an SNP Government with overwhelming support and every right to hold a vote on Scotland’s future.

While the Prime Minister’s victory over Labour in parts of England was, indeed, impressive, it simply underscores that the Conservative party is riding high as the party of England and not the UK, yet the UK Government continue to hold powers over and withhold powers from the devolved nations and strongly regulate their budgets. That is why today’s most immediately disappointing omission is the Government’s failure to deliver on their manifesto pledge to reform social care in England.

In this year of all years, given the experiences that we have had of covid, we must recognise that it would be a fundamental failure not to acknowledge the dedication of care workers paid and unpaid, the stress and distress that families have experienced over the last year and the experiences of thousands upon thousands of people who depend for their welfare on the care system. Just as Dickens looked back at his own era and decried some of the social experiences and horrors of it, we might in the future look back at this era and decry how we have run the care system and what we have been satisfied with. That is the issue that we need to address—what families have suffered, what care workers have had to endure and the low pay that they have had, and what we have regarded as being acceptable for loved ones in their homes or in care homes.

I notice that the Government have made some positive sounds. There is a will across the House and across all the Parliaments of the United Kingdom to work together on this matter. We have to work together to do it. We will have failed the people we serve if we do not address the care crisis that we have experienced in the last year, which we know has been there for years.

In Wales, the number of people aged 65 and over is projected to increase by 44% in the next two decades, to over 1 million people—almost a third of the population. We have the oldest population of any UK nation, yet a shorter life expectancy, with poorer health outcomes. A well-funded and integrated social care system is vital for supporting the future long-term health and wellbeing of people in Wales. Increased spending is inevitable for the system in Wales, and the real choice will be whether to increase funding on a piecemeal basis or to grasp the fundamental challenge of genuine reforms.

The costs and the need are clear. Covid cost Welsh local authorities nearly £30 million in additional expenditure for providing older adult social services during the first quarter of 2020-21 alone. In the longer term, with need and cost rising, net expenditure for community care services for older people in Wales will rise by 177% in the next 15 years. Social care is devolved in Wales, but with our limited means to raise funds, both our powers and our funds are delineated and bestowed on us by Westminster. We thus face a real challenge of affordability. That is why, in this new parliamentary term, I extend a hand to the Prime Minister and his Chancellor to prove that they care for Wales. Give us both the powers and the needs-based means so that we can afford proper social care and finally address this perennial issue.

Equally pressing is the climate challenge. I hope the Government will support the cross-party climate and ecological emergency Bill to strengthen our efforts to tackle the fundamental and all-important crisis.

In that spirit, I hope the Government will recognise the need to correct the stymieing inconsistencies in the devolution settlement and devolve the Crown Estate in Wales to Wales—as has occurred, of course, in Scotland. Control over our natural resources and their rent is essential not only for their sustainable management, but to help generate the capital investment necessary to deliver our net zero future. The change would improve upon the current restrictive borrowing limits imposed by the Treasury on the Welsh Government and better connect Wales’s natural heritage and resources with their sustainable use and production.

Finally, I hope that the Prime Minister will join me in welcoming Wales’s decision to return a pro-devolution Parliament with a Government committed to overhauling the UK’s constitutional framework. Levelling up has so far proved to be a ruse to centralise power in Westminster. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has shown itself to undermine devolution, and the Government have already broken their manifesto promise to Wales that we would not be a penny worse off when we left Europe.

From our personal lives to our politics, actions speak louder than words, of course, and no doubt the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition will join me in echoing the comments of a Labour Senedd Member who noted that we are at a crossroads between independence and a

“polarising hard British unionism based by and large on a growing English nationalism with its epicentre in 10 Downing Street.”

We must achieve radical constitutional change, as Labour argues in Wales. Will Labour argue it here, too? A welcome first step would be further tax powers to help with our post-conflict recovery. The next must be the devolution of the policing and justice system to Wales—as suggested in evidence to the Thomas commission and as voted for by the people of Wales.

It will be a pleasure, if the opportunity arises, to work with the Leader of the Opposition to further those constitutional objectives. They were borrowed from Plaid Cymru, and the only Labour Government in the UK could strengthen their own hand considerably and further their own principles considerably if they admitted it.

In sum, our nations face pressing challenges that touch our loved ones, our homes, our climate and our nations. This parliamentary term is when we must address those challenges, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with the Government and the Opposition as best they can to find the solutions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank Liz Saville Roberts, because not only did you promise to try and come in sub-10 minutes, but you delivered on your promise with seven minutes. Well done.

His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 12th April 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I wish to speak on behalf of Plaid Cymru in Westminster and to express my party’s condolences to Queen Elizabeth and her family at the death of Prince Philip, and to share their sadness following the death of a husband, a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather. Sorrow at the close of such constancy and stability resonates across families, communities and nations during this time of great loss, and there are many people in Wales who would desire that I convey their sorrow and sympathy today.

Among the Duke of Edinburgh’s titles was Earl of Merioneth, which is now inherited by his eldest son. The Queen wears a wedding band made of gold from the Clogau St David’s mine above Bontddu, near Dolgellau in Meirionnydd. Prince Philip was stationed as an instructor of naval ratings at HMS Glendower, near Pwllheli, during the second world war. The navy camp became one of Billy Butlin’s holiday camps after the war, which the Duke and the Queen toured in an open-top Land Rover during a later visit.

I, too, would particularly like to mention the Duke of Edinburgh’s contribution to the promotion of outdoor education for young people, and how he was influenced by the pioneering educator Kurt Hahn, initially during the Prince’s own schooling at Gordonstoun in Scotland and then with the establishment of the first Outward Bound centre in Aberdovey, Meirionnydd in 1941. This led in turn to the principles that continue to underpin the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and that have enriched the lives of millions of young people. The four pillars of these principles are physical fitness, craftsmanship, self-reliance and compassion, and they are reflected in Wales’s educational initiatives, from the international baccalaureate at Atlantic College to the principles that inform the nation’s public curriculum.

To close, I would like to say in Welsh: “Pob cydymdeimlad â’r teulu brenhinol yn eu galar, ac â phob teulu sy’n galaru am anwyliaid eleni. Boed iddyn nhw oll huno mewn perffaith hedd.” [Translation: Condolences to the royal family for their loss and to all those who are grieving for loved ones this year. May they all rest in peace.]