Government Policies (Wales)

Mark Tami Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I think that the evidence for Jobs Growth Wales is absolutely clear to us all. It has proven to be the most effective youth employment programme anywhere in Europe. It is succeeding in creating 16,000 opportunities for young people, and it is succeeding in keeping those young people in work beyond the six months. It is widely supported by the business community right across Wales. I cannot imagine for a minute that the Secretary of State should wish to undermine it, especially when it stands in such stark and promising contrast to his Government’s Work programme.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as amazed as I am by what the Secretary of State has just said? He has effectively said, “Well, we shouldn’t do anything for young people, because most of them will probably get jobs anyway.”

[Owen Smith]

Around 750,000 young people in Britain are still unemployed. Although that is fewer than the 1 million who were unemployed just a couple of years into this Government’s time in office, and we welcome that fall, I suggest that 750,000 is an enormous number of people to be left languishing on the dole, but that is what we have come to expect from a Tory Government.

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[Mark Tami]

rose—

[Stephen Crabb]

I give way to the Member in whose constituency Airbus is located.

[Mark Tami]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that Airbus is a European partnership and it works because we are in Europe, and if we were not in Europe that relationship would be endangered, along with thousands of jobs?

[Stephen Crabb]

There is truth in what the hon. Gentleman says. It is an excellent example of European industrial co-operation, but he knows better than anyone else here that at the heart of the success of Airbus in his north Wales constituency are the excellent skills and motivation of the workers, many of whom are in his constituency, but also in other constituencies.

North Wales is at the heart of Wales’s economic growth, and I look forward to seeing more excellent examples of enterprise in Wales’s very own northern powerhouse tomorrow, when I embark on a two-day business tour there. The Labour party here in London at times seems to resist these developments.

--- Later in debate ---

[David T. C. Davies]

I will give way in a moment.

The motion mentions energy. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) made a good point about the impact of carbon taxes on steel production and other manufacturing. What he did not want to say, of course, is that those policies were brought about by the previous Labour Government, who swallowed hook, line and sinker the environmentalist line that carbon dioxide is causing runaway global warming and began imposing billions and billions of pounds in carbon taxes on manufacturing and on home owners. That is one of the reasons why energy bills are so high for home owners and manufacturers. That is why I welcome the fact that the Government have said that they will start rolling them back. I would like to see them rolled back even further, to be honest, but that in no way undermines the enormous support I feel for the Government at the moment or the anger I feel towards those in the UK Independence party—although not those in this House at the moment—who put forward simplistic solutions to very complicated problems. That is why it is important that we have a moderate, centre-right party proposing sensible policies for the people of this country.

Interestingly, even though this debate is about the effect of Government policies in Wales, not once during his 40-minute speech did the hon. Member for Pontypridd mention the effect of Government health policies on Wales. They have had a pretty significant effect, because large numbers of patients in Wales are now trying to get out of the Labour-run Welsh NHS and get their treatment in England, where they will be looked after by the coalition-run NHS.

[Mark Tami]

The hon. Gentleman makes that statement as if there was just a Welsh health service and an English health service; it is a cross-border health service, and that is particularly true in constituencies such as mine. Indeed, the Countess of Chester hospital exists only on the basis that it covers Deeside and Chester, so the whole idea that people are somehow fleeing across the border is based on spurious figures and is totally wrong.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am not using figures that are totally wrong, because since 2012, in my own area, the Aneurin Bevan university health board has been doing everything possible to treat people in Wales and prevent people who were previously being treated in England from continuing to get treatment there. People are aware of moves such as the cancer drugs fund, which has allowed patients in England to enjoy the benefits of life-extending drugs such as Avastin. That is denied to patients in Wales by the Labour-run NHS. I met some of those patients outside No. 10 Downing street last week when they presented a petition to the Prime Minister about the problems being caused to them by the Labour-run Welsh NHS service. They have had to move—to sell up their houses or move into friends’ houses in England—to get access to the higher standards, lower waiting lists, fewer cuts and better ambulance service response times that are being delivered by this coalition Government.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that for a lot of us in north Wales our children’s hospital is on the English side of the border? [Interruption.] Our heart hospital.

[Chris Ruane]

And Gobowen.

[Mark Tami]

And Gobowen, as my hon. Friend says. Will the hon. Gentleman accept that these people are not flying across the border to get better health care—it is our health service, and that is why we should have the right to vote on it?

[David T. C. Davies]

It is actually not the hon. Gentleman’s health service. There is a health service in England and there is a separate health service in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland, as a result of devolution. He should be aware of that because his party destroyed the truly national UK health service and brought in regional health services. Of course there are hospitals that serve people in Wales on the English side and hospitals on the English side that serve people coming the other way, and that is a good thing. However, many people’s access is now being prevented, and they certainly do not have the automatic right of access that they would enjoy in England.