Transport Funding: Wales and HS2

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Craig Williams

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I want to make a couple of political points and to reflect on what my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) said—I will continue using “Friends”, as we are mostly Welsh in the Chamber.

This debate starts from the premise that HS2 is not good for Wales and I completely dispute that. On the political map of Wales, above the Brecon Beacons, we find one Labour MP. I think that is a reflection of the political circumstances of Wales. To put in a nutshell what is being alleged today, the political reality of the Labour party in Wales is that it is in south Wales, and only south Wales, so anything that matters to any one above the Brecon Beacons is not Welsh and not helpful for Wales.

In my intervention, I alluded to the Cambrian line. The Montgomeryshire economy looks east and west. It looks to Birmingham. Our railway line goes straight into Birmingham. Our international airport for mid-Wales is Birmingham International airport. In terms of a political ideological point about the Welsh nation, I get why people go on about north-south links, but the reality of our economy and transport is that we look to Birmingham. That is just a day-to-day part of life.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman shares with me the concerns that historically there were north-south links. There is a deep irony that anyone who wants to use a train for a north-south link now, even in my constituency, has to use a steam train, which is very effective, but not indicative of a country in the 21st century or of our needs. We need these links in Wales, to build the nation of Wales, alongside all the talk of building the Union.

[Craig Williams]

I agree to a point, but it is ironic that since the creation of devolution we have seen the public transport network in Wales deteriorate. I speak as somebody who served as a director of a bus company. The funding to our bus companies in Wales and to a lot of things in devolved areas has completely wiped away capacity in the nation of Wales. I would reflect on what our Welsh Parliament has done to those north-south connections.

I occasionally commute to my constituency office by steam train—the right hon. Lady has been on the line from Llanfair Caereinion to Welshpool—and it does not reflect the modern, dynamic Wales we want, but the heritage railways are incredibly important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Williams]

Before I give way to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, I will reflect on the fact that this debate is very premature. The Union connectivity review is yet to come out, and those are the exact issues that Peter Hendy has been looking at. The review is the vehicle for delivering this. There is a pressure, at times, that unless we give money to the Welsh Government we are not giving money to Wales—that is not true at all. The UK Government invest in Wales as well as the Welsh Government. We have two Governments that look after Wales; the UK Government, in terms of strategic assets such as transport links, and the Welsh Government in terms of devolved responsibilities. I was in Machynlleth, at the black bridge, with Peter Hendy some months ago; as the hon. Gentleman and I have neighbouring constituencies, we know that that was a multi-million pound investment to sort out the Cambrian line by Network Rail and the UK Government. That should be the UK Government’s role, and I expect that after the publication of the Union connectivity review there will be a significant investment into Wales.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Of course, we do share the Cambrian coast line that runs through Montgomeryshire; it serves Ceredigion and Gwynedd as well. One of the issues that has arisen from HS2 is the way that it distracts from other possible places of investment. I would argue that for many of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, as with mine, that improvements at Shrewsbury would make a far greater difference to connectivity in the immediate term than improvements to Birmingham.

[Craig Williams]

I agree on that point. That is under the franchise of Transport for Wales; although it is an English station it comes under the Welsh franchise and they operate it. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and I are campaigning, along with other Shropshire MPs, to get direct services from Shrewsbury to London, and improve the connectivity across the UK in terms of the Cambrian line. I will give way once more, and then I will make some other cheap political points before I shut up.

COP26: Devolved Administrations

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Craig Williams

Thursday 16th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to rise and talk in this debate. I welcome the topic and I welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can involve the devolved Administrations in this. The first half of the speech by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) was a spectacular opening, and I pay tribute to him for that. It went downhill a bit, with a couple of political points and some charged polling. I would be interested to see who commissioned the poll and what the target audience was, but I am sure that we can take that offline to discuss it further.

Representing Montgomeryshire, I represent the Centre for Alternative Technology. The people there have been talking about this subject and devising plans since way before it was fashionable, and way before devolution. They have been at this for decades. I would have liked to hear much more in this debate about getting communities involved, more broadly than politicians and more broadly than the typical argument about the devolved Administrations being left out. Clearly, much of what needs to happen at this very important COP involves UK reserved powers.

I very much welcome the fact that the UK Government chose Glasgow and that we will be able to showcase what the devolved Administrations and many cities have led on. I welcome both the working groups that were set up early in this process to bring the DAs together with the COP President and to bring together the cities and Mayors of the United Kingdom, including Edinburgh, Manchester, Cardiff and Birmingham. They brought our huge urban conurbations together to talk about what we can do in the urban and rural space.

I thought it was remiss of the hon. Gentleman to comment about who should lead the welcomes and who should be front and centre. We need to put politics aside over the last couple of weeks before COP. We need to get behind the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the negotiations that are happening right now to get international leaders together. As the Centre for Alternative Technology has set out time and again, this needs to be tackled on a global basis.

I have no doubt that we will hear in this debate how the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government are world leading and the best. Maybe even the Northern Ireland Executive will feature, but let us be frank about the significant changes that have happened under this Government. Let us be frank about the fact that we have settled the climate change argument and are moving at a pace on energy distribution and on fundamental policies that have been difficult to grasp. This debate is happening in nuclear week, and there is no doubt in my mind that the nuclear industry has a huge role to play in achieving that, be that through the small modular reactors of Dwyfor Meirionnydd or through Wylfa in north Wales, a larger, more strategic site. Clearly, these are UK competences that we need to be lobbying and levering the UK Government on.

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

Would the hon. Gentleman nevertheless admit that his Government now need to start moving ahead from the short-term decisions that they are making, and to start making real decisions and announcements in relation to energy and how it is to be funded in future? Otherwise, I fear that we will just be making more empty words.

[Craig Williams]

The right hon. Lady and I share the campaign to get an SMR into our area of the world, and she is of course right. We on these Benches are looking to the UK Government to make these important decisions. Sizewell C hangs over all our heads across the House, as do the more practical applications of SMRs. There are important decisions to be made, but I suppose that underscores what I am trying to say about how this debate needs to focus on bringing these ideas together.

Commission on Justice in Wales

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Craig Williams

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

That question will be running through my speech. Of course, we should always be looking to measure and gather evidence about the public costs and what this does for the people of Wales. The fundamental conclusion here is that the present arrangement is not serving the people of Wales effectively. I urge the Minister to consider that. It is not simply matter of asking for the devolution of everything or nothing at all, although the commission recommends the devolution of jurisdiction. There are many stations on the way in the recommendations. I sincerely hope the UK Government will look at them in the spirit of what is best for the people of Wales. I find it difficult to believe that anybody could argue otherwise.

On the effort required to get a picture of what is happening to Wales, another person to whom I must give credit is Rob Jones at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, who has done excellent work. Dr Rob has made effective use of all research tools at public disposal to extract information of great public interest about the criminal justice system as it is experienced in Wales. That source reveals that Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe—154 prisoners for every 100,000 people. Although imprisonment dropped by 16% in England between 2010 and 2017, it increased by 0.3% in Wales, at a time when everybody has been talking about the pressures on the prison system in England and Wales. Rob Jones’s work exposes that the Government plans for additional prison places will eventually result in Wales becoming a net importer of prisoners from England. Despite that evidence, we simply do not need more prisons in Wales, but unfortunately the Justice Secretary has recently indicated that the UK Government still want to build an extra prison. It begs the question why.

There is more. The commission notes that people who are charged are disproportionately likely to come from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and that there is currently a lack of a joined-up approach to address that inequality as well as inequalities with regard to women, LGBT people and disabled people. The Wales Governance Centre found that there were 72 black men—they would all be men—from Wales in prison for every 10,000 of the population in 2017. That rate compared to just 15 white people per 10,000 of the population. There were 25 Asian people in prison per 10,000, and 37 people from a mixed-race background per 10,000.

For women the current system is, for lack of a better word, simply inadequate; there are no facilities for women in Wales. It is perhaps in relation to women’s justice that a public health approach is most needed. There is significant evidence about the prevalence of a wide range of mental health problems afflicting many vulnerable women caught up in the criminal justice system. Most are the direct result of difficult childhoods, trauma, addiction and abusive relationships. In 2018, Wales was promised a residential unit for female offenders. Will the Minister, in due time, update us on where in Wales that unit will be, when it will be opened, and how his Government will work with the Welsh Government in its operation?

I will give the Minister another immediate opportunity to acknowledge the difference between England and Wales and to improve legislation at the stroke of a pen. The serious violence Bill will see new laws to require schools, police, councils and health authorities to work together to prevent serious crime. That will introduce a much-needed shift towards a public health approach to tackling serious violence in England. The Bill’s provisions will also apply to Wales, however, where most of the areas mentioned in the description—schools, councils and health authorities—are the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

I refer the Minister to pages 138 and 139 of the commission’s report. Page 138 shows the bodies that his Government has charged with implementing the justice system in Wales. On page 139, we have the Welsh Government’s crime prevention support networks. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that the Serious Violence Bill starts off on the right foot by acknowledging that the implementation of many of its measures will require the recognition of the existence of devolution in Wales? Will he commit to acknowledging the existence of those bodies, and to making sure that their best and effective use is planned at the early stage of planning legislation?

Will the Minister also commit to responding to the commission’s eminently sensible request to establish an overarching Wales criminal justice board with executive authority to set overall criminal justice strategy for Wales and to provide the means for accountability in Wales, which is presently missing in the delivery of an overall strategic approach? That degree of complexity goes against the first principle of Bingham’s rules of law. There is such complexity and presenteeism, and such a lack of coherence and answerability to strategy, that it has a direct impact on the people of Wales and their experience of justice.

Family justice is another area that was covered in the report, and is closely linked with the issue of women’s justice and with the part of the justice system that deals with concerns relating to children and interfamilial relationships. Again, unquestionably integrating education, health and social policy with family justice would be significantly more suitable than the current state of affairs. Shockingly, in August last year, Dr Sophie Hallett’s study into children in care found that in Wales, one child lived in 57 different places while in contact with social services. Although that individual case is extreme, the researchers found that on average, children were moved nine times and saw seven different social workers.

The rate of children in care is significantly higher in Wales, at 102 per 10,000, than in England, where the figure stands at 64 per 10,000. Scotland’s rate is higher still, but interestingly, it has fallen in recent years, while the rate continues to rise in Wales. That raises the question about how justice is applied, about the traceable differences between England and Wales, and about the job that we have just getting hold of that data, let alone actually applying it.

Cardiff University research shows that since 2010, spending on children in care in Wales has gone up by £95.9 million, or 33%. That in itself shows that the problem is specific to Wales and requires a solution specific to Wales, in the context of devolution. As family law is reserved to Westminster, however, there are complexities between non-devolved and devolved matters.

Although law-making powers in social welfare are now the responsibility of the Welsh Government, the current law is a mishmash of older laws that cover both England and Wales, such as the Children Act 2004; some that differ slightly between England and Wales, such as the Care Act 2014 and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014; and some that apply to Wales only, such as Cafcass Cymru. Different legislation and different structures are in place, and we are still finding our way through that.

To cut through the complexities, the commission recommends that the law relating to children and family justice in Wales be brought together in one coherent system, aligned with functions in relation to health, education and welfare. I cannot perceive a logical argument to counter that.

I will move on to legal aid, although there are many other points in the report. The deep cuts to legal aid in 2012 have led to serious deficiencies in Wales, with deserts where legal aid is not available. Before the cuts, there were 31 providers of publicly funded benefits advice; now there are three. The number of firms providing legal aid has fallen by 29% in Wales compared with 20% in England. That has led to an increase in the number of people representing themselves in courts and tribunals, and leaving significantly disadvantaged.

The Welsh Government have rightly chosen to support people by spending their own funds on advice services for a policy that is reserved to the British Government. They are doing that to make amends for the harsh effects of cuts to legal aid, and because they believe it right for the people of Wales. Regardless of one’s political leanings, that one Parliament, for the good of the citizens it serves, has to provide its own additional funding to make up for the failings of political decisions made in this place must be seen as being unsustainable and unjust. The commission recommends that the funding for legal aid and the third sector providing advice and assistance should be brought together in Wales, to form a single fund under the strategic direction of an independent body.

To conclude, in the time available I have only been able to touch on certain matters raised in the commission’s report. Suffice it to say that the current system clearly does not work. For too long, Wales has put up with complexities that lead to the people of Wales being systematically let down. My party, Plaid Cymru, has long argued that it is time for Wales to take responsibility for justice and to have its own legal jurisdiction. There is a growing cross-party understanding that the devolution of policing and criminal justice, as well as powers over prisons and the probation system, is sorely needed. Surely now, with this landmark report, commissioned by Labour’s Welsh Government, we can move away from the accusations of partisanship.

We in Plaid Cymru are calling for devolution of justice, not just because we like the idea and believe in the principle, but because the evidence shows that it will improve the lives of the people of Wales. That is the point of devolution, and all acts that we take in respect of devolution should be with that aim in mind. We should have the tools, the data and the information to measure whether what we do is improving people’s lives, so that if it is not, we can make amends and improve the situation; but for all of us, in Cardiff and here in Westminster, that must be the driving force behind why we act.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for securing this important debate, and I welcome the tone she has adopted. However, in the overriding, constant call of, “Devolve, devolve, devolve!” what is missing is the people’s consent, as is any mention of the cost. The estimate in the report is of between £105 million and £115 million; that is a substantial amount. She has outlined the cuts that have taken place. But where is the people’s consent? At the last general election, we stood on a platform of not devolving justice, but I understand that the right hon. Lady’s party did not.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

On the costs, we know from past evidence that policing was funded under the Barnett formula. We have yet to apply that to the new police funding, but the per head rate of Barnett funding should produce an additional £25 million. The people of Wales directly fund the maintenance of the frontline presence of the police on their streets. The people of Wales are funding that themselves, in a way that does not happen with police forces in England. Wales is also already contributing funding for legal aid and advice over and above what happens in England, because that is believed to be best for the people of Wales.

That situation is not sustainable. One Government is propping up the failures experienced by the people of Wales that have been imposed on them by the Government here. By working together we can ensure that no other family will have to endure the pain and suffering that Conner Marshall’s family had to suffer over the last four years, by building a probation service that is fit for purpose. We can ensure that no child has to live in 57 different homes while in contact with social services, and design a Welsh policy integrating social services and family law. We can ensure that no one in Wales loses out on justice as a result of lack of access to legal aid.

Justice is a public good. Good governance exists not for its own sake but for the public good. If not now, when? Over the weekend, the Justice Secretary told the BBC:

“What is more important…from the point of view of residents is outcomes”—

rather than “who holds the pen”. That is evidence that the UK Government are merely opposing the devolution of justice on ideological grounds, and that the good governance that the Welsh people deserve to enjoy is of secondary importance.

I will close my speech with three specific asks in addition to those that I have already mentioned. Could the Minister tell us what will be the UK Government’s formal response to the report on justice in Wales, and when it will be released? Will he commit to providing a response that acknowledges all recommendations individually? When will the working group that the Welsh Government and the Ministry of Justice have agreed to set up to consider the user needs for Welsh justice data be convened? I understand that no timetable has been provided. Finally, I really hope the Minister will be able to find common ground with me on this: will he ensure that the Serious Violence Bill will include the Welsh Government and their agencies for all strands of co-operation?