Draft Wales Bill (Morning sitting)

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Stephen Crabb]

I will, and I will be very clear. In my discussions with Carwyn Jones, he told me that he regards “distinct” and “separate” as the same thing. They are words. He said that he regards a distinct and separate jurisdiction as amounting in practical terms to the same thing.

What I do believe is that as the body of Welsh-specific law grows, the judicial system will need to take account of the distinctiveness within Wales. I have discussed that with the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor here. Work is needed to ensure effective delivery of the justice function in Wales to take account of the growing body of Welsh law, but that does not necessarily lead to a path of separate jurisdiction and splitting the single England and Wales jurisdiction, which has served the people of Wales well for centuries.

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

Surely we need to look more closely at what “separate” and “distinct” mean. “Separate” implies a different legal profession with a whole new set of courts. “Distinct” does not have to mean that. What we are hearing from the Assembly is “distinct”. All the requirements that go alongside that—necessity clauses—are what we would require to make this Bill work.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady, for whom I have huge respect, is very knowledgeable about legal and constitutional matters. If, through the Select Committee of which she is a member or independently, she would like to provide me with details of what she regards as a distinct jurisdiction, we can measure it against what other people are saying they regard as a distinct jurisdiction.

Part of the problem is that no one knows what “distinct jurisdiction” means. We understand what “separate jurisdiction” means, but people are bandying about this term “distinct jurisdiction” as if it is now the answer, in the same way as people used to say, “We need a reserved powers model; that will sort out Welsh devolution” without thinking of the complexity underneath it. People are now saying “separate jurisdiction” or “distinct jurisdiction” without really having thought through what it means.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. After the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, the Prime Minister made a promise to the people of Wales that just as the rights of Scottish voters would be respected, reserved and enhanced, so too would the rights of Welsh voters. He promised that Wales would be at the heart of the devolution debate. Since then, the Wales Office has published a draft Wales Bill and presented it as the UK Government’s response to the cross-party Silk Commission. However, it was immediately apparent that the draft Bill has utterly failed to deliver the recommendations of the Commission, which the Tories established. I believe that there are people present in this room who were party to that.

Throughout Wales’s devolution journey, Plaid Cymru has consistently sought the best possible deal for everyone who has chosen to make Wales their home. That has and always will be our driving motivation as Wales’s national party. We hold true to the principle that the people who live in Wales are best placed to make decisions for Wales.

[David T.C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that it is for people living in Britain to make decisions about what is in Britain’s best interests?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It was distressing to hear about the students in Cardiff who have no one to speak for them. We recognise, however, that not all parties share this view. That is why we agreed to sign up to the Silk Commission—a cross-party Commission with nominees from each of the four parties represented here and in the Assembly, along with academic experts. It carried out extensive engagement and consultation with the public across all parts of Wales. It was a truly representative Commission.

It was deeply disappointing, therefore, to find the Secretary of State then choosing to forgo genuine consensus in favour of a process that can only be described as a means of determining the lowest common denominator. Far from being an agreement, as the Secretary of State likes to call it, “Powers for a Purpose” and the resulting draft Wales Bill that we are discussing today fall well short of the consensus that Silk worked so hard to achieve.

The heavy criticism that the draft Bill has received from all sides, including the Secretary of State’s party, is striking when contrasted with the consensus previously evident in Wales. What happened to the consensus that Wales’s natural resources should be in the hands of the people of Wales? What happened to the consensus that Wales’s Welsh language television channel should be in the hands of the people who use it? We find ourselves with a cherry-picked menu that trusts people in Wales to set their own speed limits, but considers drink-drive limits far too complicated.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her passionate speech. Does she agree that perhaps the most revealing aspect of these proceedings is the way the new shadow Secretary of State for Wales is distancing herself from her predecessor’s position?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I cannot say because I was not here at that time, but that is what I understand.

It is interesting that the menu on offer considers water to be too valuable a resource to be left in the hands of the people of Wales, but—fair play—it gives us control over sewage.

I have many concerns regarding the current list of reserved policy fields and will return to this later in my contribution, but I will start by focusing on the foundations of the draft Bill. I should stress first that Plaid Cymru warmly welcomes the move to a reserved powers model as a matter of principle; that is, to move away from the current model whereby the devolution settlement lists areas where the Assembly can legislate, to a model in which the settlement lists areas where it cannot.

There was an unusual and welcome consensus across all six of Wales’s biggest parties on the need to move to a reserved powers model over a number of years. This consensus stems from the frequency with which Welsh legislation is challenged in the Supreme Court and the lack of clarity on where responsibility lies, especially when compared with the Scottish dispensation. Moving to a reserved powers model was also about shifting the mentality and attitudes towards devolution. It should put the onus on the UK Government to justify why something should be reserved, rather than justifying why something might be devolved—devolution based on subsidiarity rather than on retention.

However, those principles—the foundations of the argument in favour of a reserved powers model—have been lost, and the result is a Bill that is simply not fit for purpose. We have unfortunately gone from a position as recently as May last year where all four parties represented in this Chamber today, as well as UKIP and the Greens, agreed on a way forward, to a position where, I am sad to say, it appears the Secretary of State is the only person who thinks the Bill delivers a workable settlement.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady is making a good and important speech. Agreeing on moving to a reserved powers model, to use her phrase, is the easy bit. Of course, everybody can sign up to the principle of moving to a reserved powers model. The really hard bit is doing the wiring underneath it. How do you do that in the context of preserving the combined England and Wales jurisdiction? Even if one moves down the road of a distinct or separate jurisdiction, one does not get over the complexities. The hard bit is doing the detailed work to get the wiring right to make the reserved powers more able to work.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Perhaps that is why the Presiding Officer of the Assembly has asked for a consolidation of previous Welsh legislation, because we are effectively building on the previous conferred models and trying to build a reserved model out of that. That is part of the problem we face. I will return to distinct legislation anon.

We are facing a draft Bill that claws back the powers for which the people of Wales voted overwhelmingly in favour in 2011; a draft Bill that, had it been implemented in that year would have required 20% of the current Assembly’s Acts to seek the consent of UK Government Ministers. We are facing a draft Bill that would allow Welsh legislation to be enacted only if it passes no fewer than 10, or perhaps a debatable number of tests on each provision within the Bill in question—certainly a wide range, a battery, of tests. Incidentally, distinguished legal experts have described the tests as

“a failure of comparative legal method”

and claimed that they

“jar with basic constitutional principle”.

Members of the Welsh Affairs Committee have been warned that this could lead to situations whereby legislators would choose to avoid amending the law—a chilling effect—despite it being the better option, for fear of opening a Pandora’s box of debate about what constitutes “necessary”.

Perhaps the most concerning legal aspect of the draft Bill is the reservation of criminal law and private law. These are not policy reservations, they are mechanisms—means—necessary for the enforcement of law. They are what animates the law. They will put policies into effect. They were not discussed as part of the St David’s day process, and, as Professor Thomas Glyn Watkin told the Welsh Affairs Committee, the introduction of these restrictions

“appears to deliberately ignore the express decision of the people of Wales regarding their Assembly’s legislative powers”.

Placing restrictions on the Assembly’s ability to make such modifications to the law not only drastically rows back on the 2011 referendum, but also restricts directly elected Welsh Governments from implementing their policies. It is no wonder that so many people have described the Bill as unworkable.

In fairness, it is proposed that the Assembly should be able to make modifications where such modification is:

“(a) necessary for a devolved purpose or is ancillary…to a provision which has a devolved purpose, and (b) has no greater effect on the general application of the private law than is necessary to give effect to that purpose.”

Simple. I hope Members will have detected that I did not understand what I have just said, although I may have said it with confidence. It asks the question of who is to decide whether a modification to the law is necessary for a devolved purpose or whether a modification has no greater effect than is necessary to give effect to a provision’s purpose. This is not a matter of semantics and niceties; it is a lawyers’ playground.

[Mr David Jones]

I agree with the hon. Lady. The word “necessary” is unworkable. Does she have an alternative formulation that would define the boundaries between what is and what is not devolved?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I will come to that anon, rather than trying to answer briefly and then repeating myself. As I said, this is a lawyers’ playground and, exactly as the Secretary of State said earlier, means that we will end up in the Supreme Court, which is what we do not want.

[Stephen Crabb]

Nobody has argued more forcefully than Plaid Cymru that the Welsh devolution settlement should mirror the Scottish devolution settlement. However, the necessity test, which the hon. Lady has taken a few minutes to malign and attack, appears in the Scottish devolution settlement.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It does appear in the Scottish devolution settlement but it appears three times in the draft Bill. In Scotland, it refers to reserved matters but here, it also refers to criminal and private law. That is the significant question.

I challenge anyone to justify making a Government accountable to a judge rather than to a legislature, as the draft Bill effectively promotes. The report released this week by the Wales governance centre at Cardiff University and the constitution unit at UCL states:

“To restrict the choice of National Assembly members in matters likely to form parts of a great many Assembly Acts may be said to undercut their role as primary legislators, and to deny the institution…proper esteem in ‘the union of the nations of Wales and England’.”

The reasons that these mechanisms are listed as reserved is, according to the Secretary of State,

“to protect the unified legal system of England and Wales”.

All the criticisms that the Secretary of State has faced since the publication of the draft Bill—the cries of “unworkable,” “badly drafted,” “overly complex,” and so on—are a consequence of his blind loyalty to preserving the unified legal system, which has almost unanimously been described to the Welsh Affairs Committee by the legal profession as unnecessary, damaging and paradoxical.

Plaid Cymru, along with many legal experts, believes that it would be a sensible and—crucially—sustainable solution to create a separate legal system for Wales and the Welsh legislature. As the Wales governance centre’s report says,

“it would bring Wales more into the mainstream of sub-state constitutional arrangements in the common law world”.

It is noteworthy that that is also the long-term aim of the Labour Welsh Government.

We acknowledge that it would have financial and practical implications that would need careful consideration but, if the UK Government are serious about delivering a devolution settlement that stands the test of time, they need to adopt a long-term approach. Although that would be Plaid Cymru’s preferred solution, we recognise that not all parties have caught up with our position. The same cannot be said, however, of the creation of a so-called distinct but not separate jurisdiction. The evidence that the Welsh Affairs Committee has heard has been overwhelmingly in favour of this solution, as has that heard by the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee in the National Assembly. I suspect that those who remain sceptical of this solution mistakenly fear the practical and financial implications that a separate jurisdiction might have, and do not fully understand—or perhaps do not want to fully understand—the simplicity of what is actually being proposed.

Creating a distinct jurisdiction need not be any more complicated—perhaps this is the definition that we have been looking for—than simply acknowledging in statute the existence of the law of Wales and the law of England that extend to the territory of Wales and the territory of England respectively.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Can the hon. Lady explain why Welsh law does not have that current status and why she feels it needs to be put into statute? Surely it has that status already.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Because we are arguing about the leeway and lock model, and the necessity clauses in criminal and private law, and that is creating so much complication. With this acknowledgment, we could move ahead.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady is making an incredibly intelligent speech. I was struck by what she said about the geographical boundary and that moving to a distinct jurisdiction is as simple as that. Would she acknowledge that the Welsh Government, through their law making in the Assembly, have the ability to have impacts on reserved matters and matters affecting England? The draft Bill preserves that, albeit with a necessity test. What she is proposing with that geographically sharp distinction ends their freedom to do that altogether.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It does seem to be a way forward in dealing with the necessity clauses, which are such a problem. The territory acknowledgement—

[Stephen Crabb]

That is rolling back.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts]

If I may continue, creating a distinct jurisdiction need not entail establishing a separate system of courts and separate legal professions, and it would evidently avoid the costs associated with doing so. It would, however, provide clarity on the territorial extent of the laws of the National Assembly for Wales, thus avoiding the need for the complex and restrictive drafting in the Bill, which has been the subject of such criticism.

The National Assembly does not want to legislate for England. It wants to legislate for Wales, and a distinct jurisdiction would allow it to do so effectively. In the words of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales:

“there is no reason why a unified court system encompassing England and Wales cannot serve two legal jurisdictions”.

The Secretary of State can hardly accuse the Lord Chief Justice of being a “nationalist lawyer”.

Returning to the list of reservations more broadly, the draft Bill is 71 pages long. Some 34 of those pages—half of the Bill—is a list of reservations. Provisions need only “relate to” one of the more than 220 matters in that list, making the Bill all the more problematic. As the report by the Wales governance centre and UCL states:

“Complexity is piled on complexity...The potential for legal challenge casts a long shadow.”

As I have said, the shift to a reserved powers model was supposed to be made in tandem with a shift in mentality to determine what needed to be reserved, rather than what might be devolved. It is clear that the Secretary of State has instead facilitated a Whitehall trawl of powers based on no evident principles. If he is serious about creating a lasting devolution settlement, he cannot simply flip the current settlement from the conferred powers model to the reserved model and then just allow Whitehall to pick and choose what powers it wants. The process must be built on the principles of clarity and workability, coherence and subsidiarity.

The Silk Commission expressed hope that the move to a reserved powers model would be an opportunity to rewrite the settlement to remove the defects of haste and inconsistency that have so far marred legislative devolution in Wales. The list of reservations certainly does not reflect that hope. The authors of the report by the Wales governance centre and UCL go as far as to say that

“it even suggests an unwillingness to take Wales seriously.”

In practical terms—this is only to be regretted—it will undoubtedly lead to even more partisan blame-shifting between Cardiff and London, which is the last thing that the public of Wales want or deserve.

The original report from the Wales governance centre, which was released before the draft Bill was published, offered a list of considerations for identifying functions that should be devolved:

“Is its retention…necessary for the functioning of the UK as a state…Does retention of a particular function make the governance of the UK generally less clear or comprehensible?...Does retention of a particular function undermine the workability, stability or durability of the devolution settlement?”

I will not return to the examples, but it is easy to put the reservations listed in the draft Bill through that test and to come up with some obvious questions. Those are the questions that the Secretary of State should be asking himself for each and every reservation in the Bill. He should justify each individual reservation. Simply making hundreds of reservations for no good reason is not acceptable. I welcome his comment that he will shorten the list of reservations in the Bill, but I hope he hears the calls of commentators and those of us in this room today that all reservations need to be individually justified.

The draft Bill has come under heavy criticism from all directions: from academia, business experts, legal experts and all four parties, including the Secretary of State’s. The workability of the Bill and the legal drafting—including the necessity tests, ministerial consents and the reservation of criminal and private law—stem from the Secretary of State’s obsession with maintaining a unified legal jurisdiction. The same unified legal jurisdiction was the excuse for opposing Wales-only legislation in the 1880s and the creation of a Secretary of State for Wales in the last century. Most recently, it was the reason for not giving Wales a reserved powers model from the outset of devolution. It is an unnecessary and damaging block on Welsh devolution that has affected, and continues to affect, the effectiveness of Welsh governance. The Tory party cannot deny the existence of the National Assembly for Wales, which, by existing, makes self-evident the existence of legislation that is distinct to Wales.

As the Wales Governance Centre and UCL report concludes, there is no quick fix to the legal problems in this draft Bill. It is not possible simply to replace the term “necessary” with an alternative such as “appropriate”. The problem is not terminology but the whole model, which the report calls

“the leeway and lock model”

and which is built around the unnecessary preservation of the unified legal system.

I recognise that the Secretary of State wants to hurry this Bill through and get the job done, but this issue is too important to pass legislation on with a nod and a wink. This Bill will be the foundation upon which the Welsh Government will operate for the foreseeable future—how it will govern health, education and economic development. It is in everybody’s interest that the Wales Bill makes devolution work better.

I hope that the Secretary of State will please recognise that the criticisms he faces are not merely political attacks. They are criticisms from experts, legal and otherwise, who want to see something that achieves exactly what he himself says he wants to achieve: a clear and lasting devolution settlement. The Bill as it stands will move us further away from achieving that goal.

Members will have read the conclusion of the comprehensive second report from the Wales governance centre and UCL, which recommended that Assembly Members reject the Bill. The opportunity to shape Wales’s constitution does not come around very often. This Bill is crucial to all of us who care about the future of our country, and when the time comes to vote, I do not want to be forced to vote against it. There are many things in the Bill that we welcome: powers over fracking; devolving further planning consenting powers over energy; electoral arrangements; and so forth. I should also take this opportunity to say that we welcome and are grateful for the opportunity to discuss a draft Bill. I think we have discussed it very thoroughly.

For Plaid Cymru—the Party of Wales, whose primary purpose is to empower the nation and the people of Wales to run their own affairs to vote against those powers would be a painful decision. I sincerely hope that the Secretary of State will not force me to do so. I urge him to take these criticisms on board in the constructive spirit in which they are intended, and to make the necessary changes before publishing the Bill itself. Finally, I urge him to reflect on the significance of what he is building. I suggest that the task of reshaping Wales’s constitution is far more important than keeping a date with a particular time slot in the parliamentary calendar. I am encouraged by his comments that suggest that the Bill will be drastically altered before it is published, as a result of this pre-legislative stage, but the Bill requires reconstruction and not mere tinkering. The Secretary of State needs to pause, to listen to the concerns of everybody around him and—please—to come back with a different Bill.

Draft Wales Bill

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

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

Have we not been told that we cannot even consider a distinct legal jurisdiction? We have not even got to the position where we discuss maturely what this actually means. That surely is something that we should look at and go into greater detail, but we have not had the room to discuss it properly.

[Craig Williams]

I have never known Plaid Cymru to wait for permission to discuss or look at something. If the hon. Lady is suggesting that she should seek our permission before exploring anything, I welcome that due deference, but I do not think that that is the case. If someone had a clear definition of “distinct jurisdiction” it would have been published and it would be out there. There would be a clear answer, but no one in the Committee can answer the question of what a distinct jurisdiction is.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

To be fair, there are three models in the Bill.

[Craig Williams]

At least. The hon. Lady emphasises my point for me. She is asking for clarity in the draft Bill, and this is the panacea that people come up with. There are already three models. If we want clarity, “distinct jurisdiction” does not solve the problem. I think that in many areas of law Wales already has it, so I do not see why we need to make reference beyond this practical solution. I accept what the Secretary of State said about protocol and looking at the way in which our legal system operates. That is a separate issue—a distinct issue—from what we are talking about, but there is bit of maturity in Welsh politics and where the Assembly is at. We should recognise that it now has the power to effect laws, and it has, for the sake of argument, a distinct jurisdiction, but I still holds my hands up, as I have no idea what that means.

On reserved matters, we have seen some welcome movement by the Secretary of State and the Wales Office, but I see the complications. Space is an obvious one. Why on earth is that in the Bill? I wholly welcome the spaceport—it should of course go to north Wales. The industry, the sector and the technology are developing and they need to be future-proofed. The Bill should be future-proofed, and space should be a reserved matter—but we could argue at length about hovercraft.

To conclude, there is a clash between political reality and academia. I find completely bemusing the emotive terms that some academics and Welsh politicians have used when discussing the Bill. I can see how people can get emotional about a Commonwealth games bid from Wales and about the city deal for Cardiff and the transformational effect on south Wales, but I cannot see how people can get so emotive about the deep constitutional debates that we are having at the moment. Of course, the onus is on us to get excited about it, because if we do not get excited, I do not think anyone in Morrisons in Aberystwyth, or in Tesco or Asda in Cardiff, will be getting excited at all. I call for a mature, pragmatic approach to the Bill, which is a huge step for Wales. I welcome the responsibility that the Bill would bring to Wales with income tax devolution—true responsibility for the Welsh Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

The hon. Lady took part in that debate and she will recognise the way in which the Minister responded. He said that he was listening to the arguments and that he wanted to engage as positively as he could. I hope that she recognises the spirit in which that was intended.

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

Last July, the Culture Secretary and the Treasury informed the director-general of the BBC in a letter that S4C’s grant might be cut by the same percentage reduction as the BBC itself and that:

“It will be up to the Government to decide how to make up the shortfall.”

This is therefore not the only Government-driven cut facing S4C. What additional funds will the Government be providing over and above these DMCS cuts?

[Alun Cairns]

As the hon. Lady knows, charter renewal negotiations and discussions are under way at the moment, and I do not want to pre-empt any of the issues that will come out of that. Clearly, there will be a widespread consultation and I hope that she and other Members will engage positively in it.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I understand, of course, that we are facing the BBC charter consultation, but given the BBC’s response in the current situation there is surely now room for cross-party consensus on Silk II’s recommendation that the funding of the public expenditure element of S4C should be devolved to the National Assembly for Wales.

[Alun Cairns]

I do not accept the basis of the question. During my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s discussion that led to the St David’s day agreement, there was not agreement on this issue. We are keen to progress in consensus so that we can take everyone forward. We need to remember that it was a Conservative Government who established S4C, which has been a great success since 1982. I hope that the hon. Lady will share in and recognise that success.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not sure that the hon. Lady is fully sighted on all the actions on steel that we are taking at a European level. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and his colleague, the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, have been at the forefront in discussions and negotiations at a European level to get change, with real, practical, urgent action on anti-dumping and on state aid clearance for compensation for energy costs. We are leading the way in trying to get change at a European level to support and protect our British steel industry.

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

2. What steps he has taken to ensure access to justice services in Welsh.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)]

It was of course a Conservative Government who introduced the Welsh Language Act 1993, which provided for the use of the Welsh language in the courts system. We are committed to remodelling our courts to make them more cost-effective and efficient, and these changes will give due consideration to the needs of Welsh speakers.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I take this opportunity to extend our sympathies to every nation that has suffered at the hands of IS in recent days, and to express concern at the news of the explosion in south Wales.

I understand that the Ministry of Justice has closed its consultation on the court and tribunal estate in England and Wales, which proposes the closure of 11 courts in Wales, including Dolgellau in my constituency, and that is without undertaking a Welsh language impact assessment, as required by law and under the Welsh language scheme. Will the Secretary of State ensure that a Wales-wide assessment is undertaken and that its recommendations are implemented before any decisions are reached on court closures?

[Mr Speaker]

I thank the hon. Lady, but we are very constrained for time and must move on.

Barnett Floor (Wales)

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I agree entirely. The matter is urgent, but we are concerned about the Government’s lack of interest. The coalition’s programme for government in the previous Parliament stated that the priority was to reduce the deficit and that changes to the system could await stabilisation of the public finances, although why exactly the coalition Government were incapable of paying sufficient attention to Wales to deal with the issue—or even to start dealing with it—remains entirely unclear.

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

Given that the Barnett formula has been in question since 1978, why did the hon. Gentleman’s party not rectify the Welsh funding shortfall while it was in government?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I repeat to the hon. Lady a point made powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies): in 1997 to 2010, we had what he called “Barnett-plus”, which was record investment in public services in Wales, to the benefit of both my constituents and hers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alun Cairns]

I will come to that point in a moment, but it is worth remembering that the Command Paper, which was agreed by all parties, was published earlier this year and that committed specifically to acting within the next spending review period. As I said, the Barnett floor and spending commitments for Wales will be published alongside that.

The £300 million spoken about compared with a budget of roughly £15 billion. It is also worth noting that when Holtham reported, there was total identifiable spending in Wales of approximately £29 billion.

A lot has changed since 2010, both financially and politically. A joint statement in 2012 by both Governments recognised the resonance of this issue in Wales. In particular, it recognised the Welsh Government’s concerns that their funding would converge further towards English levels. However, joint work with the Welsh Government at the previous spending review confirmed that funding is not forecast to converge during the period to 2015-16. That refutes the points made by several Opposition Members; that was joint work agreed with the Welsh Government. Furthermore, Holtham’s logic also illustrated that the relative level of funding per head had risen, or diverged to use the technical term, and it is now in the range that the commission regarded as fair.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

None the less, the Minister cannot ignore the 78% of 10,000 people responding to a YouGov poll who said that Wales should be funded to the equivalent level of Scotland, which would bring in an extra £1.2 billion.

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but Scotland’s devolution settlement, and therefore its financial settlement, is naturally different. However, I pay tribute to her for her earlier point, when she asked why Labour did not act in its 13 years in government, when there was a greater divergence between the relative funding in Wales and England, and Wales was getting worse off.

Capel Celyn Reservoir (50th Anniversary)

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the 50th anniversary of Capel Celyn reservoir.

This October marks the 50th anniversary of the official opening of the reservoir that flooded Capel Celyn, a rural community in the Tryweryn valley in my constituency. The village, along with other parts of the valley, was razed and then flooded to supply Liverpool and the Wirral with water, primarily for industry.

A private Bill sponsored by Liverpool Corporation was brought before Parliament in 1956. By obtaining authority through an Act of Parliament, Liverpool City Council avoided any requirement to gain consent from the Welsh planning authorities. Despite 35 out of the 36 Welsh MPs voting against the Bill, in 1957 it was passed by Parliament.

The village of Capel Celyn was one of the few remaining Welsh-only speaking communities in existence. It had a school, a post office, a chapel, a cemetery—the usual things—along with a number of farms and homesteads. The culture and life of the people of Capel Celyn might not mean much to those who neither know nor love Wales. To members of the Liverpool Corporation, the farms that they were drowning were no more than convenient stretches of land along a remote valley floor, so the region as a whole—a convenient 800 acres—could thus be put to a more convenient and productive use. To Welsh men and women however, their very names ring like bells—Hafod Fadog, Y Garnedd Lwyd, Cae Fadog, Y Gelli, Pen y Bryn Mawr. But those bells now ring underwater and are heard by no one. It is an evocative image in Wales, which remembers the bells of Cantre’r Gwaelod, and the loss associated with inundation.

To understand the strength of feeling in Wales about the event, one must first know something, not of the agricultural potential or the landscape of the Tryweryn valley, but of the character of the community it supported and its place in Welsh life. The people of Capel Celyn were an integral part of the pattern of one of the richest folk cultures in Europe. Cynghanedd poetry was not an academic affectation, but the flower of a robust tradition with a sophisticated metrical discipline that was passed from generation to generation. It was a community with one of the oldest living languages in Europe. It is a language with an unbroken literary tradition, exceeded only by Latin and classical Greek, which was and remains under threat.

No civilised person would wish to see a community of such significance and such high artistic and intellectual attainment invaded and destroyed by an alien institution. Far greater schemes have been rejected by Government to protect wildlife or sites of antiquarian value. The Tryweryn valley was a living community of men and women, young and old, whose continued existence was of far greater moment to Wales, and indeed to Europe, than any ruins or wildfowl, important though those may be.

The value of what was at stake 50 years ago was described in a letter to the Liverpool Daily Post from Mrs Gertrude Armfield, an English woman resident in Wales:

“The way of life nurtured in these small villages which serve, with their chapel and school, as focal points for a widespread population—this way of life has a quality almost entirely lost in England and almost unique in the world.

It is one where a love of poetry and song, the spoken and written word, still exists, and where recreation has not to be sought after and paid for, but is organised locally in home, chapel and school.”

It was not a stretch of land that was flooded against the will of the people of Wales, but a community of people, a culture and a language. People saw the coffins of their parents and grandparents dug up and reburied at Llanycil and Trawsfynydd.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on the incredibly passionate speech she is making this afternoon. Does she agree that Tryweryn had a traumatic impact on the Welsh psyche? It is immortalised in the words of Meic Stevens, that great Welsh folk singer, when he says:

“Dwr oer sy’n cysgu yn Nhreweryn”—

it is cold water that sleeps in Tryweryn. Does that not say it all about the impact of Tryweryn on the Welsh psyche?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It does indeed. Another poet, Twm Morys, says of people who drive past the lake, which is of course strikingly beautiful:

“Be’ weli di heblaw dwr?”

There is more to the place than just the water that we now see and appreciate. The water was for industry in Liverpool, and, indeed, excess water for the Liverpool Corporation to sell at a profit.

But why Wales? Wales is a small country, whose language and way of life was, and is, threatened with extinction—inundation. England on the other hand was a country with 10 times Wales’s area, whose language and life were in no peril. It is safe to say that the English language was then, and remains, the most politically powerful and richly resourced language in the world. There were untapped resources in Cumberland and Westmoreland, where the water of many natural lakes was not being used by any authority. Why insist on flooding a Welsh community for its water? The answer has been given quite openly by those behind the project: they came to Wales, not because water was unavailable elsewhere, but because they could get it at a lower cost. It was purely a matter of business—profits. The issue was not whether Liverpool was to get more water, but how cheaply it could get it.

Another reflection of Liverpool’s attitude towards Wales was its lack of candour. Neither the people of Capel Celyn, nor the people of Wales as a whole, were informed by the council of its intentions. They were left to infer from reports of engineers that the work afoot in the Tryweryn valley would mean something significant to their lives. Those who lived in Capel Celyn facing eviction learned of their fate for the first time from the press. Their reaction was predictable. They put their names to a statement expressing uncompromising opposition. They established a defence fund, contributed liberally to it and, in the best Welsh tradition, set up a Tryweryn defence committee, to which representatives were elected by the public bodies directly concerned, such as the county councils, national park authorities and the Dee and Clwyd river board.

One of the committee’s first actions was to ask Liverpool City Council to accept a strong and representative deputation from Wales, which would put the Welsh case. The request was refused. The town clerk stated that though the water committee would be willing to meet the deputation, the council itself dealt only with important local matters. The rebuff captured clearly the mentality of those behind the scheme—that Welsh opinion was of small importance in comparison with local Liverpool needs.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate on a significant matter for people in Wales, particularly north Wales. She will be familiar with the pictures of the march through Liverpool by the people of Capel Celyn and elsewhere. Women and children carried banners saying:

“Your homes are safe…Do not drown our homes”

to the council offices only to be met with a locked door. She spoke of Liverpool Council’s priorities; it is clear in this case that the fate of the people of Capel Celyn was not its priority, and that is certainly a lesson for us for the future as far as Wales’s other natural resources are concerned.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I thank my hon. Friend. I am aware that many people feel strongly about Capel Celyn, and were present and saw the events or were nearer to the events than I was. I find a certain irony in the fact that I am from south-east London, but it is a matter of pride to me that I am talking about this issue today.

Despite the clear and unmistakeable opposition, from not only the people of Tryweryn and the people of Wales, but every single MP from Wales, bar one, Capel Celyn was flooded. Those who advocated the flooding of the village spoke of the employment created by the reservoir. They spoke of the hundreds of jobs created temporarily during the construction phase and “about 20” permanent jobs. Almost any atrocity can be justified in Wales on the grounds that it creates employment. That justification is still used today, most recently perhaps in the case of the so-called “super prison” in Wrexham. Despite the number of prison places needed across the whole of north and mid-Wales being between 700 and 750, a prison to house 2,000 prisoners will be built in Wrexham to accommodate the needs of the north-west of England. The justification? One thousand jobs.

No Welsh man or woman can feel happy about the position of their country when it is possible for anybody outside Wales to decide to take Welsh land and resources regardless of the social and economic impact of that decision on Wales. As the private Bill was passing through this Parliament in 1957, the late Gwynfor Evans, who would be Plaid Cymru’s first MP, spoke of its being

“part of the crippling penalty paid by a nation without a government.”

He also said:

“Had Wales her Government, Liverpool would have had to negotiate with a responsible Welsh body for the resources it required. A unilateral decision to take Welsh land would be as unthinkable as it would be for an English authority to walk into Ireland and take a valuable part of the Gaeltacht.”

It was that blatant disregard for the social and economic impact of the UK Government’s decision on Wales that sparked the national debate about Wales’s constitutional future. Arguably, it led to the election of Gwynfor Evans in July 1966 to the House of Commons, who became, as I mentioned before, the first ever party of Wales MP—Wales’s first independent voice in this Parliament.

The combination of sadness and anger that the events at Capel Celyn caused in Wales also played its part in the demand for the creation of the Crowther commission, or the Kilbrandon commission as it was later rebranded. It sparked a realisation in the minds of the people of Wales that we were not adequately represented in Parliament.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Lady on reminding us of these events that took place 50 years ago. I think I am one of the few people in this debate today who has memories of it, because I was a mature politician at that time. The most remarkable figure that she has cited is that only one of Wales’s MPs supported the flooding of Capel Celyn. We had this extraordinary unanimity. Welsh MPs at that time agreed on nothing, but they came together on this issue, because it was an act that was insulting to the Welsh nation and because a language that echoed down the centuries—a 2,000-year-old language and culture—was given no power to defend itself. I hope that we have learned the lessons of Tryweryn, and its reverberations are carrying on now in our perception of ourselves as a nation and in the need to have our own independent voices.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Indeed. We learned lessons, of course, about what representation actually means and about the impact of not being represented sufficiently, and people came to understand that we were not treated as equal in this unique family of nations.

That understanding, along with the injustice dealt to the people of Wales and Scotland during the 1970s, eventually led to the people of both countries demanding a say in their constitutional future. The 1979 referendums, in which 20% of the Welsh electorate and 52% of the Scottish electorate voted for the creation of national Parliaments, was the first tentative step towards greater autonomy for both nations. Of course, neither country was given a Parliament as a result of those referendums but they laid the groundwork for what followed. And what followed was the historic vote of 1997, in which the people of Wales voted—very narrowly, but they voted—for devolution. That led to the creation, through the Government of Wales Act 1998, of the National Assembly, which was a directly elected democratic body representing the people of Wales.

However, even after the creation of the Assembly and even after the creation of a more powerful Assembly through the Government of Wales Act 2006, the people of Wales still have little say over their natural resources. Wales’s natural resources remain outside the remit of the National Assembly. And on the emotive subject of water, the Secretary of State still reserves the right to intervene on any Welsh legislation that

“might have a serious adverse impact on water resources in England, water supply in England or the quality of water in England”.

Such a section is not included in the Scotland Act 1998. Why? I suggest to the House that Wales is unique in being the only developed country on this Earth that allows a neighbouring country to hold such powers of veto over its legislative competence.

That situation cannot continue. The lesson of 50 years ago is that as long as the Welsh nation has no national freedom, and as long as she is shackled to this imbalanced institution and at a constant democratic disadvantage vis-à-vis England, there will always be another Tryweryn waiting to happen.

Today, in the context of debate about her natural resources, Wales has only the freedom to protest; the freedom to recoil and react, but not to take the initiative, act for herself and make her own choices. Our natural resources are our most valuable assets. The supply of clean, fresh water across these islands is limited and there is now a growing appreciation of its importance as an industrial resource as well as a residential necessity. It must be considered as much a raw material as oil or iron ore, and just as precious. It is one of the most important of Wales’s natural resources, and if we have been irresponsible in the past in our attitude to the rich resources of our land, we must mend our ways.

A resource taken by a city outside Wales is lost to Wales, with no fair exchange. That is a blunt statement of the obvious, but it is a truth that is too often ignored. We can little afford to ignore that statement. As we are so often reminded, Wales is the poor relation in this family of nations.

In the past, Welsh resources have enabled industry to develop in Liverpool, in Birmingham and in the rest of the English midlands, while Wales herself has been largely a stranger to such development. The people of Wales have had to follow her resources to find work, exacerbating the productivity gap between Wales and the rest of the UK. A responsible attitude towards Welsh resources will ensure that the people of Wales have the benefit of those resources in Wales.

It is right that Wales’s natural resources should be used for the enrichment of all the people of Wales, just as the natural resources of every other country are used for the enrichment of their peoples. Until we make the necessary changes to Wales’s constitution, Liverpool’s actions 50 years ago will remain natural, logical, constitutional and perfectly legal into the future.

There is an opportunity ahead of us to ensure that that situation is not allowed to continue; an opportunity to ensure that the people of Wales have full ownership of their natural resources, and to ensure that never again will we see a repeat of the mistakes of our past. We have yet to have sight of the Wales Bill, but we have seen the White Paper, which was entitled, “Powers for a purpose”. It proposes building Welsh devolution on the same foundation as that of Scotland—a reserved powers model. We welcome that proposal with enthusiasm. It is long overdue and Plaid Cymru welcomes it not simply for the clear practical improvements and legal clarity that it will bring, but for the shift in attitude that it will necessitate.

It is right that decisions that affect the people of Wales should be made in Wales by democratically elected representatives, unless there is a good reason for those decisions to be made elsewhere. The reserved powers model will put the onus on the UK Government to justify why a matter should be reserved, rather than justifying why it should be devolved. It will mean that the UK Government, in producing the Wales Bill, must give the people of Wales full ownership of their resources, or justify not doing so. In that case, the UK Government must justify to the people of Wales why they should not have full ownership of their resources, when the people of Scotland have ownership of theirs.

I doubt very much that any Member of this House considers the flooding of Capel Celyn to be justified; I know that Liverpool Council has since apologised and that apology should be accepted in the extensive way in which it was offered. However, the UK Government must now ensure that such an event can never be allowed to happen again. They must ensure that the law is changed, so that a repeat of the events of 50 years ago would be illegal today. Never again should the people of Wales be forced out of their communities against their will, against the will of the whole country and against the will of those who represent us in the directly elected National Assembly; never again should Welsh land, Welsh culture or Welsh communities be allowed to be so drastically undervalued; and never again should Parliament leave such a dark mark on Welsh history that it is commemorated here 50 years later.

Since the flooding of Capel Celyn, there has been a significant development in the national consciousness of Wales. There is no longer anyone in Wales who is not aware that the Welsh are a nation and that Wales is their homeland. While Wales’s voice has been significantly strengthened, her natural resources remain in the hands of a neighbouring country and there have been no developments to make a repeat of the sad event at Capel Celyn illegal. The Secretary of State now has a chance to make his mark on Welsh history. The Wales Bill is an opportunity to put this matter right and I urge him to take it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Thank you, Mr Gapes. I appreciate the opportunity to wind up the debate.

To hear the words “Cofiwch Dryweryn” quoted by people from the other two parties present is a source of pride. It shows that there is a general appreciation of the impact that the event had on people in Wales during the 1950s and 1960s. We are still seeing the repercussions now.

I am delighted by the very wise comments of fellow hon. Members this afternoon. It was borne in on me in preparing for this debate that the act of remembering is integral to the wellbeing of a nation, and the debate here today denotes part of the remembering process for Wales.

[Hywel Williams]

One of the points in my hon. Friend’s speech that impressed me immensely was the call that she made for Wales’s natural resources to be controlled by the people of Wales. I do not want to introduce a discordant note into the debate, but does she share my disappointment with the less than fulsome reply from both Front Benchers? One would have hoped—

[Hywel Williams]

I am sure that my hon. Friend understands the point I was making.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I would like to refer to some of the Minister’s remarks. I mentioned the Government of Wales Act 2006, which specifically provides that the water that England takes from Wales must not be in any way restricted, and I like to think that Wales will be able to make best use of its resources in future. Although I am delighted to hear about rationalisation and realignment of border arrangements with the various water authorities, I think we are possibly talking about different things.

To come back to the prison in Wrexham, and jobs perhaps being perceived as a panacea for all ills, I think that the people of Wrexham feel differently about it and there are concerns about the social impact of having a prison of that size, and about who will come to fill those jobs.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to hold the debate today. My agent, Elwyn Edwards, who spent much of his childhood years involved—indeed, he got into terrible trouble for missing school to protest in Liverpool —will also be glad that we have held this debate. Some of us will speak in a rally on the dam in Capel Celyn on Saturday—weather permitting—and we will take the message forward. Diolch yn fawr.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the 50th anniversary of Capel Celyn reservoir.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman may be aware that I was in his constituency just a fortnight ago with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise to meet Tata Steel—and we also met Celsa Steel that day—to talk about precisely the issues he raises. It is a concern. People in the steel industry are a concern for us, and we are working with the industry to provide compensation for the higher bills it faces as a result of our renewable obligations.

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

Does the Secretary of State not agree that the economy of Wales would be boosted by the exciting proposed spaceport at Llanbedr? What discussions has he had with his Cabinet colleagues about bringing the spaceport to Llanbedr?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady knows, because we discussed this on Monday, that I share her excitement and enthusiasm about the prospect of a spaceport coming to Llanbedr in her constituency. The Government are looking at various sites and various options, but I am in discussions with my colleagues at the Department for Transport about how we can secure that facility potentially for Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. One of my first conversations after being reappointed as Secretary of State was to meet Gerry Holtham to talk about his analysis of Welsh funding. He agrees with me that we do not need to commission any independent new evidence. The work has been done and we need to crack on with introducing the fair funding floor. We are committed to doing that.

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

Both Labour and Conservative parties have cynically sought to redefine what constitutes fair funding for Wales, with both parties seeing it as a funding floor rather than putting us on an equal footing with Scotland. Will the Government join the people of Wales, 78% of whom believe that Wales should be funded to the same level per head as Scotland?

[Stephen Crabb]

Plaid Cymru had one single theme and policy during the general election campaign: funding and seeking parity with Scotland. [Interruption.] A voice behind her asks what about the north-east of England. The trouble with seeking parity with Scotland is that one would have to start dividing up the whole pie. The important thing is that we are delivering on a fair funding floor for Wales that will correct the way the Barnett formula operates for Wales, and she should be supporting that.