Address to Her Majesty: Platinum Jubilee

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Dirprwy Lefarydd. I thank you for the opportunity to congratulate Queen Elizabeth on celebrating the remarkable milestone of reaching 70 years since she acceded to the throne. That is indeed what you call a lifetime of service. I take this opportunity to put on record my gratitude to the Queen and to Buckingham Palace who, on Monday this week, planted the John Ystumllyn rose in the Buckingham Palace gardens. The rose was planted in memory of the life and legacy of John Ystumllyn, the first recorded black man—indeed, black person—in North Wales following his abduction as a child from western Africa in the 18th century. The rose was launched in his honour by Harkness Roses and by We Too Built Britain as part of its work of telling and uncovering the stories of under-represented people. The rose is therefore a powerful symbol of friendship and love, kindness and community, and those visiting the gardens at Buckingham Palace will now have an opportunity to reflect on his story and on what the rose represents for many years to come.

While we still have a long way to go, the rose is also a reminder of how far we have come as a society in the last 70 years. In 1952, for example, there were just 17 women in Parliament. In this Parliament, we have 225 MPs who are women, and I am proud to be the first woman to lead the Plaid Cymru group in Westminster. As the leader of my party, Adam Price, noted in the Senedd in his tributes earlier this week, the Queen’s first official visit to Wales, on 28 March 1944, was also a momentous day for women’s rights. This was the day on which MPs voted to pay women teachers the same as men. The same as men! Can you imagine that? And there was such opposition to it at the time. This was an important—indeed, critical—milestone in the wider struggle for equality. During the Queen’s reign, women have fought for and gained reproductive rights. We have also made progress on equal pay, with key legislation passed in the 1970s and ’80s, and now there is a growing movement calling for fair recognition of the work that women do in caring for children and families. These are among the bright strands of social progress woven into the tapestry of the Queen’s life and reign.

The Queen has been present for some of the most important events in recent history for Wales as a nation —our Wales. In 1999, the Queen was present for the inaugural opening of our Parliament. Last year—over two decades later—she returned to open our Parliament’s sixth Session. In that time, our Parliament has become the Senedd, gained important legislative powers, and introduced legislation reflective of all the voices and aspirations of Welsh society. Now, the Senedd is set to consider proposals for historic reforms that will pave the way for a stronger Welsh democracy, with a greater ability to improve the lives of people across our country, energise our politics, and make our elected Parliament fairer, more representative, and thus more effective.

To close, and to echo the comments of my right hon. Friend Lord Wigley of Caernarfon, I am not instinctively a monarchist but, in her jubilee year, I stand in respect of the remarkable way Her Majesty the Queen has carried out her responsibilities over the years with consistency, dignity and grace. She has been a constant figure in all our lives. Llongyfarchiadau a phob dymuniad da i chi. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Sue Gray Report

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. People in glass houses should not throw stones.

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

To call this a damning report for the Prime Minister is an understatement. It states:

“The senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture.”

For 168 days, the Prime Minister has used Sue Gray as a human shield against this duty. In this farce of a parliamentary system, it is now all down to Tory MPs—and there are not many of them left in the Chamber—to grow a backbone and oust this moral vacuum of a Prime Minister. Will he spare them the trouble and resign?

[The Prime Minister]

No.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

My right hon. Friend is completely right. We are putting in place a new deal for governors based on clear expectations and accountability, giving them greater autonomy over education provision in their establishments, which includes transparent key performance indicators, outcome measures and targets, including on prisoner literacy. Indeed, in Highpoint Prison in his constituency, there is a prisoner who was completely illiterate on entering prison. He had the ambition to read to his young child and is now three chapters into a book. With that sort of personal determination and encouragement from the Prison Service, we have high hopes for the chances of prisoners when they leave prison and keeping our communities safer.

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

Diolch yn fawr, Lefarydd. Education and literacy highlight the inconsistency between what is devolved and what is reserved in relation to justice in Wales. Does the Minister therefore welcome Welsh Government’s proposals, published today, to further the devolution of justice in Wales, and will she commit to work with Welsh Government to further those proposals?

[Victoria Atkins]

I like working with the Welsh Government; that may come as a surprise to some, but I have found them incredibly helpful on plans such as the residential women’s centre, which I launched the plans for only last week. We will see a residential women’s centre set up in Swansea to help vulnerable women who are on the cusp of custody, giving them 12 weeks’ residential accommodation and courses to try to steer them away from offending. I believe that, by working together we can come up with some really interesting and innovative ideas to help not just the good people of Wales, but the entire United Kingdom.

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Before I start my main points, I want to mention a couple of things that I have been listening to. First, many of us on this side were aware that the Government were trying to kick the issue down the road with their abandoned amendment. We are two weeks away from the local elections, and their action begs the question of whether desperation to ensure that the way their MPs voted was not on the record was their motivator.

Secondly, the Government’s approach is that they live in hope that the public’s memory is ruled by the news cycle and that the public interest will move on. I believe that they are fundamentally wrong in that assumption. Everybody who made a personal sacrifice during covid will remember their loss, pain and grief for the rest of their lives. It is engraved on our hearts. We are not going to forget. The Government may kick this down the road, but they are wrong if they assume that their safety is tied up with the news cycle. The Prime Minister’s behaviour will not be forgotten.

Today we have a chance to correct the record, to reinstate credibility in our system and hold Conservative Members—and, indeed, all of us—to account, not only for their or our misdeeds but for our preparedness on occasion to defend the indefensible. Today is a chance for all Members, of all parties, to do the right thing, and our names should be on record when we want to do the right thing.

Public trust in our democratic system is plummeting as we careen from one scandal to another, and the very reputation of our democracy, ourselves and the function that we are honoured with here is seemingly at stake.

Some 73% of the British public are in favour of a Bill that would criminalise politicians who willingly lie to the British public. Plaid Cymru has been calling for stronger measures to ban politicians from lying in their public role, not just in the past few months, but for 15 years.

We all know that we live in an age of public disenchantment. From that same poll, conducted by Compassion in Politics, we learnt that 47% of people have lost trust in UK politicians during the past 12 months. If we look back at the momentous events over the period, from the fall of Kabul to the pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, what other conclusion can we draw than that we have failed in our duty to uphold the public’s trust?

That sense of failure is not just a rhetorical gambit, a professional nicety or an optional extra for us here. From anti-vaxxers to the Putin regime, when we fail to confront mistruths, we create a truth vacuum in which division takes hold. When any “truth” is as good as any other, division along political lines comes to matter more than agreement on the common ground of facts. That matters.

We work in an institution where we cannot call out the lies of another Member, regardless of their position of responsibility—lies that are broadcast around the country, recorded for posterity and therefore impressed on the memories of millions of people. We have no way of addressing that effectively.

Although I defer to the Speaker’s judgment in this matter, partygate has demonstrated conclusively that our self-regulating system is no longer fit for purpose. The ministerial code has been proven not worth the paper it was written on. Gentlemen’s honourable agreements depend on the existence of honour. We must do better. If we cannot do better, because we make a mockery of the public’s concerns by shrugging our shoulders and accepting that it is merely part and parcel of modern politics, we must be

compelled to do better.

We as legislators must legislate to uphold our good names, and, by extension, the good name and efficacy of democracy itself. A first step would be a Bill; a second would be rebuilding our political model, much as Wales and our Co-operation Agreement has done, so that politics is built around what we share, rather than that which divides us. Honesty is the most important currency in politics. We have to restore it before we here are responsible in part for bankrupting our society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes; my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary has told me that he has met those individuals before and he is happy to meet them again.

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

Plaid Cymru has been calling for 15 years for a law to ban politicians from being wilfully misleading. New polling by Compassion in Politics shows that 73% of people support such a law. Will the Prime Minister support a lying in politics Bill?

Easter Recess: Government Update

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend very much, and thank him for all the work that he does to protect and support the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As he knows, it is under a lot of pressure, caused by the Northern Irish protocol, which I believe is undermining the balance of the Good Friday agreement, and we will have to sort it out.

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

The Prime Minister debases himself, he debases his office, he debases his Government and he debases those who seek to defend him. He is a millstone around his party’s neck. The Welsh Conservatives’ 18-page local election manifesto makes zero reference to the Prime Minister. It appears that they, like a number of his own Back Benchers, do not want to be associated with him. Can he explain why?

[The Prime Minister]

I think what they probably want to have in Wales is better government. I would think they are campaigning for the investment in the NHS that I am afraid both Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru have failed to deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and as somebody who once had to deal with a badly thought out low emission zone, it is totally wrong to impose measures thoughtlessly that damage business and do not do very much to protect clean air. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has done the wrong thing, and I am glad we are delaying it. I congratulate my hon. Friend and other local Conservative MPs in the Manchester area who have shown common sense.

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

My Wales-based constituent works for the British International School in Ukraine. The school employs 60 British citizens, most of whom thankfully escaped via a bus over the weekend. I heard the Prime Minister’s response to my colleague the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), but, given the lack of a humanitarian corridor, 173 Ukrainian colleagues from that school are stuck in Kyiv and Dnipro, and ineligible for the Home Office’s humanitarian sponsorship pathway due to the school being domiciled in Ukraine. Wales aspires to be a nation of sanctuary. Our neighbours in Ireland have waived all visa requirements for three years. Why will the Prime Minister not allow us to provide the same humanitarian welcome?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Lady very much and I know the whole House will want to help the 173 she mentions in Ukraine. I think the arrangements we have are right, and they will be very generous—they already are very generous indeed. The House should be proud, by the way, of what the UK has already done to take vulnerable people; I think we have taken more vulnerable people fleeing theatres of conflict since 2015 than any other country in Europe.

Ukraine

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Putin’s war on Ukraine is brutal, illegal and a calculated attack on peace and stability in Europe. Plaid Cymru fully supports the actions and sanctions announced today. Putin and his cronies with their personal fortunes must pay for their actions. On a visit to Ukraine, Plaid Cymru leaders spoke to Ukrainian soldiers, Government officials and organisations, admiring the Ukrainian people for their strength and resilience, but those people are now in harm’s way. With Poland organising medical assistance and Slovakia opening up its borders to refugees, will this Government mobilise and resource a global effort to support and aid people fleeing this horrific conflict?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her support and her resolve. I want to assure her that we are of course working with our international friends to prepare for a humanitarian crisis.

Ukraine

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is completely right, because this action tears up the 1994 Budapest memorandum. It makes an absolute nonsense of the whole Minsk process—the agreement of 2014. That is ripped up, too. International law has been mocked by what President Putin has done, and that is what is at stake: democracy and the rule of law across the world.

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

Putin last night confirmed that he is a ruthless imperialist posed to destroy Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-determination. I, too, am grateful for the briefing from the National Security Adviser. We must now hit Putin where it hurts. As of this morning, BP’s website proudly proclaims that it is

“one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia”,

owning nearly 20% of Russia’s oil giant, Rosneft. Rosneft also has a secondary holding in London. Will the Prime Minister commit to imposing legally mandated divestment by UK firms in Russia, and if not now, when?

[The Prime Minister]

We have to recognise the lesson of 2014, which is that we have to move away from a dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, and the Government will pursue policies to that end.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I can definitely give my right hon. Friend that commitment, and I would be more than happy if he wanted to bring additional stakeholders from the area into that meeting because there is not only huge potential for nuclear; he mentioned a tidal lagoon and there is also the commitment already made around the Holyhead hydrogen hub; and of course there is almost limitless potential in the Celtic sea for floating offshore wind. I would like to discuss with him and others exactly what opportunities they present.

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

Blwyddyn newydd dda, Mr Llefarydd—I wish you a wonderful new year. A National Trust-run hydro scheme with eight sites in Eryri has reached its target of producing 20 million kW of energy within eight years; that is enough electricity to power 5,300 homes for one year. The scheme has helped local communities to develop their own community hydro schemes but technical issues in connecting to the grid make that no easy task. What is the Secretary of State’s Government doing to upgrade the electricity grid in rural Wales to enable more such schemes?

[Simon Hart]

The right hon. Lady has raised this issue with me a few times and her point about that initiative is really well made. I am very happy to go with her and talk about particular infrastructure requirements. These things are not straightforward, as she knows, but if there are sensible proposals that we can discuss with not only the relevant Department, but the Welsh Government, who will have a role in this, I would be very happy to do that.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I have heard the Secretary of State mention the offshore wind potential of the Celtic sea. He will know that, as part of Plaid Cymru’s co-operation agreement with the Welsh Government, both parties agree that further powers are needed to support our path to net zero—specifically on the management of the Crown Estate and its assets in Wales. Two months ago, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), said that he would look with interest at my Crown Estate (Devolution to Wales) Bill. Given that there is now a clear majority in the Senedd to support the principle of Wales having the same powers, remember, as there are regarding the Crown Estate of Scotland, will the Minister also support my Bill to ensure that the profits of offshore wind go to the people of Wales?

[Simon Hart]

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), was very disappointed not to be here to answer this question in person; he is diligently following Welsh Government regulations on covid isolation and sends his apologies. That said, the relationship that the Crown Estate enjoys with the UK Government, the Welsh Government and stakeholders works very well. I do not think there is any public interest or appetite for altering the terms of that arrangement. Frankly, it is a case of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but I am always happy to listen to the right hon. Lady’s arguments.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I think my right hon. Friend’s amendment may have re-emerged in another place, and I thank him. He knows a great deal about the issue and I understand what he is trying to do. We are taking, for the time being, a different approach, and that is having record numbers of people working in our NHS—more than ever before, with 5,000 more doctors this year than last year, and 10,000 more nurses. That is thanks to the investment that this House voted through, and that that Opposition, unbelievably, opposed.

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

6. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Lefarydd. My mother, Dr Nancy Saville, was diagnosed with dementia just before Christmas. She had a stroke a year ago. I was called to sit with her in hospital on Monday because of a covid staff shortage but I fear that, like many of our constituents in similar circumstances, we are likely to be separated indefinitely when she is moved into an EMI, or elderly mentally infirm, nursing home. John’s Campaign has successfully campaigned in every UK nation that people disabled by dementia have a special need for person-centred care—under the Equality Act 2010—but in reality there remain many care homes and hospitals where even the most minimal visits can be denied, leading to isolation and separation, which cause irreversible damage to wellbeing. Does he agree that the human rights of disabled people, sick people and the elderly are not fair-weather luxuries, and that everyone with dementia, wherever they live, has the right to family life?

[The Prime Minister]

May I extend my deepest sympathies to the right hon. Lady? I am sure the whole House, and everybody who has listened, will have shared her feelings and will simply wish to extend their condolences in view of her mother’s condition. I know how her feelings must be exacerbated by the difficulties that so many people up and down the country are facing because of the restrictions that we are having to put on care homes, and I sympathise deeply. We do have to try to strike a balance and to keep home care residents safe and to do what we can to prevent the epidemic from taking hold in care homes. We continue to allow three nominated visitors to care homes, and there should be no limit to the duration of those visits. I understand the particular distress and anxiety that the right hon. Lady’s circumstances are causing. May I suggest that she has a meeting, as soon as it can be arranged, with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care?