Martin Caton
Main Page: Martin Caton (Labour - Gower)Department Debates - View all Martin Caton's debates with the Wales Office
(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Caton, I believe that this morning we are seeing a further example of the Government’s contempt for Welsh Members and the procedures of the House. When I first sought the debate, with the support of a large number of Welsh Members, I was advised by both the Speaker’s Office and the Table Office that the subject should be dealt with by the Leader of the House. Indeed, the debate was delayed by a week specifically so that it would fall in a week when he would be responding to debates in Westminster Hall. I have not been notified that he has declined to respond to the debate and has instead put up the junior Minister at the Wales Office to reply. The Leader of the House is clearly unwilling to appear here today to defend the Secretary of State’s behaviour, even though it falls within his responsibility to do so. On a more important constitutional point, the opportunity that the Welsh Grand Committee provides for Welsh Members to debate properly major issues affecting Wales is a matter for the whole House, not just for Ministers in the Wales Office. May we please know who decided that the proper procedure should not be followed when making arrangements for the debate, and why?
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
It is entirely a matter for the Government to decide which Minister will reply to debates. You have put on the record your grave disappointment that the Leader of the House is not present, Mr Michael.
Alun Michael
Further to that point of order, Mr Caton, may I therefore ask you to establish when and why it was decided that the Leader of the House would not reply to the debate, and to draw that sorry state of affairs to the attention of Mr Speaker?
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
I am afraid that that is not a matter for me, Mr Michael. If you would like to take it up with the Leader of the House, you can of course do so. We must now move on to the debate.
Alun Michael
I am grateful for the opportunity to open the debate, and to the large number of Welsh Members, particularly Labour Members, for attending. They include colleagues from across the geography of Wales and from every level, from the oldest Members to the newest. Perhaps in one sense we should be grateful to the Secretary of State for her steadfast refusal to agree to hold a meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee to discuss the implications of the most serious constitutional change to threaten Wales for generations, because it has made us all the more conscious of the mechanisms that allow us to defend the interests of Wales and of the Welsh people in the House of Commons.
The subject of the debate is the Welsh Grand Committee and the scrutiny of Government policy as it applies to Wales. There is clearly a deficiency in how current legislation is debated. The failure to meet to discuss the current legislation goes beyond that individual topic and touches on how Welsh issues are dealt with generally in the House. Welsh Members have fought for proper representation over many years, and as the shadow Minister said in an excellent article in The Western Mail, the balancing of the interests of minorities with a national constitution is regarded as not just important, but essential in a number of other countries, such as Germany. There ought to be a balance that is not just about simple, crude arithmetic.
Representation of constituencies in Wales will be damaged by the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. It is about not only the reduction in numbers, but the fact that the reduction can be achieved only by tearing up the principle of representing communities of interest in each part of Wales and the principle of respecting the links with local authority boundaries and, above all, by tearing apart the constituencies that are currently represented by both a Member of Parliament and a Member of the National Assembly for Wales. That cannot be right.
Even worse is the lack of proper debate as the Conservatives steamroller over the interests of the people of Wales and principles of democracy. The matter should have been debated in the Welsh Grand Committee before the Bill was debated on the Floor of the House, and I remind Members on both sides of the Chamber of the battles that took place to establish the Welsh Grand Committee in the first place as a venue for debates.
Alun Cairns
I object absolutely to the comments made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). He knows well that I have been in discussions with the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Defence and other Ministers—[Interruption.]
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. The background noise has grown as this debate has gone on. Could Members be quiet enough that I can hear whoever is speaking?
Alun Cairns
Thank you, Mr Caton. Discussions that I have had with the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Defence and other Ministers have been reported widely in the press, but the hon. Member for Rhondda conveniently chooses to ignore that fact. I am delighted that St Athan remains the preferred option for the defence training solution, and I am shocked and saddened by the approach taken by Opposition Members in favour of a private company and cost to the taxpayer—
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that that was supposed to be an intervention.
Alun Michael
Methinks the hon. Gentleman doth protest too much. We will see the outcome, and if that outcome is jobs in south Wales we will welcome—
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. I should like to start the wind-ups at 10.40 at the latest. At least five Members are indicating that they wish to speak, so the more succinct each of you is, the more people can make a contribution.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. I am afraid there are only three minutes left before I start the wind-ups.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. The Minister has said he does not intend to give way.
Mr Jones
I have listened for the past hour and a half to histrionic rubbish from Members on the Opposition Benches and it is about time that that was redressed.
It is accepted that there is considerable political interest in the Bill throughout Wales. The focus of interest was clause 11, which deals with the number of seats, and which was debated last night—the right hon. Member for Torfaen made an important contribution—and clause 13, which decouples Assembly constituencies and parliamentary constituencies in Wales. That was not reached last night, although I waited all evening to debate it.
From the start, the Government were careful to make adequate time available for the Bill. My role, as the Wales Office Minister responsible for taking through the Wales-specific elements of the Bill, working closely with the Bill Minister—the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who has responsibility for political and constitutional reform—is to ensure that Welsh issues are centre stage during the Bill’s passage through the House.
The Government allowed adequate time for debate on the Floor of the House. The original programme motion approved by the House on Second Reading provided for five days of debate in Committee. Subsequently an additional six hours of debate were granted to make sure that on days when there might be statements, there would be adequate time for debate.
The five days that were allowed in Committee compare more than favourably with the three days in Committee that were allowed for the Government of Wales Act 2006, which was forced through by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain). I reiterate the point that I made to the right hon. Member for Torfaen—that neither for the Government of Wales Act 1998 nor for the 2006 Act was a Welsh Grand Committee convened, because of the simple fact that the right forum for debate was the Floor of the House of Commons. There have been five days in Committee and two days on Report—36 hours of debate. [Interruption.] No, I will not give way. That has given more than adequate time. Have Opposition Members taken advantage of that time? No, with the honourable exception of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), from whom we have heard at length. They have done nothing but agonise and posture over process, and the complaints about the non-convening of the Welsh Grand Committee are symptomatic of that.
The matter is nothing to do with concern about constitutional arrangements. It has everything to do with Opposition Members’ concerns about their own partisan position as Members of Parliament, because they know, as the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) has indicated, that there will be a reduction of 25% in the number of Welsh constituencies, because Wales is grossly over-represented in the House of Commons. The debate has everything to do with the vested interests of the Labour party, which seeks to preserve political advantage over the concerns of the nation as a whole. I see nothing wrong with a Bill that will ensure that a vote in Arfon, Ceredigion or Clwyd West is worth the same as a vote in any other part of the country. That is fairness, and the people of Wales are nothing if not a fair people. If the hon. Member for Pontypridd does not understand that, he has made a very poor start to his parliamentary career.
Paul Flynn
On a point of order, Mr Caton. The Conservative spokesman intervened on other speeches and has refused interventions on his own speech.
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
The gift of allowing interventions is entirely in the control of the hon. Member who is speaking.
Mr Jones
To reiterate, this morning there has been nothing but posturing over process, and histrionics from the Labour party, which did not want to debate the issues on the Floor of the House. Had its members wanted to debate them, and not to push to the limit the bounds of what might be, but clearly is not, regarded as filibustering, we should have had adequate time for debate. We have heard a ludicrous set of objections from the Opposition.
There will be, in due course, further Welsh Grand Committees, and they will be called for matters that are appropriate for such Committees. Issues that are appropriate for the Floor of the House will be debated there. Issues that are appropriate for Grand Committees will be debated there. The next time Opposition Members have the opportunity to debate in Grand Committee, I hope they will contain themselves and listen with more respect to speakers on the Government side. Their synthetic outrage will not resonate in Wales at all. The Bill that is going through the House will ensure fairness for people in every part of the United Kingdom. Had the Opposition sought to do so they could have debated the issues on the Floor of the House, rather than avoiding doing so.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
The key point about the debate is that the Government have chosen 50 seats as a cut, knowing that that will affect Wales, Scotland, Manchester and other Labour areas. That is a cynical piece of gerrymandering, and is despicable—
Martin Caton (in the Chair)
Order. We must move on to the next debate, on the post office network.