Welsh Affairs

Mark Williams Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

There are certainly differences. I will speak for myself, and others may follow. I think I am right in offering my congratulations to the hon. Gentleman. Has he recently had a child? He is looking a bit worried—perhaps it was someone further along the Opposition Benches. [Interruption.] I am told that it was actually the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). My congratulations to him. He, too, will no doubt be experiencing the state education sector in Wales shortly.

My recommendation is that we look at what has gone wrong in that sector. There are not enough schools inspections, and far too much notice is given of those that are taking place. That practice has been done away with in England. I worked with the police for many years, as Members know. We could not have a situation in which a policy custody unit was told weeks in advance that it was going to be inspected; people just turned up and did it. That is how it should be with schools, and with hospitals. That is not what is happening in Wales, however.

I have been told by head teachers, and by schools improvement officers, that it is difficult for people to go in and assess how a teacher is doing in a classroom because the unions do not like it. Similarly, the unions do not like league tests, or testing of any other sort, and they are making it very difficult for people to go in and make the kind of changes that are required.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I spent 12 years working in the classroom, and I am still a paid-up member of a teaching trade union. My experience of the unions is that they were certainly not obstacles to the inspection regime. I want to probe the hon. Gentleman a little further on the question of education in Wales. What does he see as the main explanation for those PISA results, and for the failings in English literacy and mathematics in particular? Will he tell us what the main failings are that he has identified, rather than giving us the kind of jargon that he was articulating just now?

[David T. C. Davies]

I do not think that I was using jargon; I was spelling it out in fairly simple English. But okay, I will give the hon. Gentleman a list of things. First, I am told that it is difficult for head teachers to go in and assess teachers. They are allowed to do it only a couple of times a year, and they cannot simply walk into a classroom. I have been told that by two senior educationists in Wales, working in totally separate schools, over the past few weeks. Either they are wrong or the hon. Gentleman is wrong.

I have also been told that schools get a great deal of notice before an inspection takes place, and I think that is wrong. Inspectors ought to be able to go in without any notice whatsoever and find out what is going wrong. I know for a fact that when I was in the Welsh Assembly the unions and everyone else seemed to be totally against testing, but testing is a good thing. If my children are failing in tests, I want to know about it and to get involved. There is also a problem with sickness, whereby too many teachers are taking too many sick days in schools in Wales and that is not being properly investigated afterwards by the personnel departments. It is also far too difficult to get rid of bad teachers who are not up to the job. That situation can occur in any walk of life, but in most others someone who is not up to a job will be got rid of by someone higher up. That does not seem to happen in teaching. I do not think all that is jargon; those are fairly simple matters.

May I make one last point on this, which is the most important one of all? In England, there is a recognition that parents have a right to have some say over their children’s education, and they can exercise that most drastically by taking their children out of the state system and putting them into some kind of an academy. As a parent, I welcome that, because it is my taxpayer’s money that is being spent and I ought to have a say. If the school is not up to the job, I ought to have the right to take my child out and put them somewhere else. I do not have that right in Wales, and that is taking away an incentive for teachers to improve.

[David T. C. Davies]

My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely right. The Labour party has generally been the lead party in the Assembly since it was set up, but at other times Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats have been involved.

[Mr Mark Williams]

I respect the sincerity with which the hon. Gentleman makes those remarks, but I spent 12 years in the classroom and no head teacher was ever prevented from inspecting any lessons I undertook. Does he think that he could add to his list the issue of resources? Our Government have addressed that in part through the pupil premium, and Liberals in Wales, along with Labour colleagues, have pursued a similar policy there. That has been a good measure. Resources are important, but so, too, is maintaining properly motivated and confident staff. One challenge to this Government in Westminster is to retain that well-motivated staff, because the jury is out so far on that.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am grateful to my friend—I am not sure whether he is an hon. Friend, a colleague or what under this coalition, but he is that—for the compliment. I agree that both those matters are important. On resources, the Government have rightly made cuts to all sorts of departments, except to foreign aid; I could launch into another speech on that, but will not do so. Generally speaking, the Government have had to make cuts—we have done so rightly—to try to balance the books, but we have not cut money to the Welsh Assembly. The amount of money that it has had overall has increased slightly, although people there will try to argue that when inflation is factored in it is not quite as much as it once was. So that is certainly not an issue that can be laid at the door of either of us in this coalition Government. Of course I completely agree that it is important that staff are motivated, and I would regret it if anything were ever done to stop that happening, but there is a difference between de-motivating people and allowing them to get away with things.

May I just move on to health, Madam Deputy Speaker, because it is the other big area of which the Welsh Assembly has control?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and his colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), for making the application to the Backbench Business Committee. I very much agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) said this morning during business questions and what the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) has said about the need to re-establish this as an annual debate on important matters in Wales, ideally as close as possible to the day we celebrate our patron saint.

This year, the promenade in Aberystwyth may be rather more familiar to Members as a result of the media interest in the storms that lashed the west Wales coast. Not just Aberystwyth was affected; Borth, Clarach, Aberaeron, Llangrannog and Cardigan all faced the brunt of the storms. I take this opportunity to thank all those in our communities—the voluntary sector, council workers, the emergency services—who did such sterling work to get us back on our feet. One Saturday morning stands out: 150 local residents physically cleared debris off the promenade to make it smart again.

I thank the Welsh Assembly Government for their response: as the Minister responsible, Alun Davies quickly came to see what was going on; £1.5 million has been pledged to the county for renovating the promenade; and Mrs Hart and Mrs Hutt have announced £560,000 for promoting the tourist sector. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who I know took a great interest in what was going on. He has been in touch with the county council in relation to military support being made available when storms hit again, which has also been much appreciated.

At the time, there was much local speculation about whether funding would be forthcoming from the EU solidarity fund, and I asked a question in the House about that. It would be useful if the Secretary of State clarified whether a request was ever made by the Welsh Assembly Government to access European funds, whether the substantive fund or the regional fund. I go further to suggest that if we believe in devolution—and I very much do—the responsibility for such matters as flood protection and the alleviation of flood damage rests with the National Assembly for Wales, so should the Welsh Assembly Government simply wait for the Westminster Government to act, if they can under European Union criteria, or should they make a request? I am not sure whether such a request has been made, but either way, the resources made available by the Welsh Assembly Government to Ceredigion have been much welcomed, as, I repeat, has been the interest shown by the Secretary of State.

Ceredigion is open for business—the promenade in Aberystwyth is open for business—and like the hon. Member for Ynys Môn, I want to use this opportunity to talk about the tourist sector. We are all aware of the triangular tour made by visitors to Britain—a few days in London, off to Edinburgh, down to Stratford-on-Avon and back to London before jetting off home to wherever they have come from. Somehow, Wales is often overlooked in the tourist sector. If that is a problem for Wales generally, it is certainly a problem for those of us on the periphery of Wales. Despite our coastal path, the agri-tourism sector and the beauty of the Cambrian mountains, generating tourism is a real challenge, partly because of transport infrastructure, but also because of the costs to visitors.

That matter needs to be set in the context of the importance of tourism and the real potential for growth. Some 3,000 jobs in my constituency are dependent on tourism. The potential for growth was identified by a British Hospitality Association report, appropriately subtitled, “Driving local economies and underpinning communities”, which suggested a 5% cut in VAT for the hospitality sector. That issue is not unique to Wales, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies)—I emphasise the hon. Friend—who said that he will look at the effect of making a 5% cut across the whole United Kingdom. He is right that we need to do that, and I urge Welsh Ministers to make that case for the United Kingdom to their colleagues in the Treasury. It has been estimated that we could create another 2,000 jobs in my constituency and another 20,000 jobs across Wales by 2020. There is huge potential, but Wales of course relies on tourist industry jobs: 8.3% of our jobs in Ceredigion and 8% of our jobs in Wales are dependent on the tourist sector. There are precedents, not least in Europe, where 24 of the 28 member states have such a policy.

[Hywel Williams]

Has the hon. Gentleman made any assessment of the extra tax take that would accrue to the UK Government from the employment of those extra people?

[Mr Mark Williams]

I have not made any such assessment, but if the hon. Gentleman looks at Hansard for the debate on VAT and tourism in Westminster Hall a couple of weeks ago, he will see the figures that were produced. There will of course be a hit on the UK economy in the first year, but we need to consider the gains that will accrue thereafter. I most strongly commend that point to my Front-Bench colleagues.

I want briefly to talk about rurality in general, and the extent to which the rural dimension is considered by policy makers in Whitehall. I must say that the Welsh case is strongly represented throughout Whitehall by Welsh Ministers, but the rural dimension can sometimes be overlooked. For example, accessing work capability assessments is a challenge in rural areas such as mine, where there is limited public transport. I suggest that a disproportionate number of my constituents have missed appointments and suffered penalties as a consequence of living in rural areas.

We have lost tax offices. Aberystwyth lost its tax office under the last Labour Government and is now losing its tax advice centre. Instead, west Wales will be served by a roving team of experts from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. We are losing face-to-face contact and expertise on the ground. It was anticipated that VAT returns would be made to HMRC online, but 20% of my constituency is yet to get broadband.

The hon. Member for Monmouth rightly raised concerns about the health service. We have lost our consultant and midwife unit, which is something that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) will relate to. The Welsh Labour Government are much more interested in the urban agenda than in the challenges that we face in mid and west Wales.

We could talk endlessly and there are many more points that I want to make. I hope that we have such a debate again, particularly so that there is another opportunity to talk about rural Wales.