Draft Wales Bill (Morning sitting)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Hywel Williams

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Nia Griffith]

No; I think I have said enough on this. What we need from the Secretary of State is a solution, a way forward. We need a way to make it possible for the Assembly to legislate in the areas in which it has competence, which people voted for in 2011, not to make it more difficult. If we remember, the Secretary of State said he was going to deliver,

“the most robust and ambitious package of further devolution to Wales in a generation”.

However, it is pretty clear that the consents, the necessity test and the Bill in general would roll back the powers of the Welsh Assembly. The Bill is not robust, ambitious, lasting or clear. In fact, the Secretary of State has failed every one of his own tests. What he has proposed is a second-class settlement, a system that is unduly complex, regressive and unworkable, and we will not support the Bill unless it is radically amended. It is clear that the Secretary of State has badly mismanaged this entire process, including failing miserably to ensure the cross-party consensus that characterised both the Silk and Smith Commissions. In fact, he has not even got consensus within his own party.

[Hywel Williams]

I am listening to the hon. Lady with great interest. She seems to be batting into the Bill very hard indeed and criticising it. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr I think she repudiated the stance taken by her predecessor. Does she think there is a case to be made for reopening discussions between the parties on what the Bill should be, rather than the dog’s dinner that we have before us?

[Nia Griffith]

I would welcome the opportunity to have another look at how the Bill could work, but what I want to hear from the Secretary of State is a willingness to be more open about that, rather than digging this big trench around himself and saying that he is not going to change this, not going to change that, and not going to change the Bill radically.

Wales Bill

Debate between Nia Griffith and Hywel Williams

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well that the Opposition have very different priorities from the Government in the way that we deal with budgets and decide what our priorities are. Quite frankly, I think that he needs to do a bit more homework before he begins to make these suggestions.

I turn now to income tax. The Opposition do not accept that there is no accountability without the devolution of income tax. The National Assembly for Wales and the Welsh Government are accountable through elections, and Welsh Ministers are subject to the usual scrutiny procedures. Let us look at councils: more of a council’s budget comes through the block grant than from council tax, but nobody says that councils cannot borrow and that council borrowing has to be contingent on further devolution of some income tax powers.

None the less, we accept that the Welsh Government are slightly anomalous in not having the power to raise revenue. The devolution of a number of minor taxes will rectify that anomaly. It should be noted that in their evidence to the Silk commission the Welsh Labour Government did not actually seek the power to vary income tax. However, since the publication of the Silk commission report we have said that we support the recommendation to give Wales the power partially to vary income tax, contingent on a triple lock. That consists of fair funding, agreed by the Welsh and UK Governments; the power being subject to a referendum; and the power being in the long-term interests of Wales—that is to say that it should tested during a period of assignment.

We would like the Secretary of State to give further details on the period of assignment and to provide reassurances about the ability of HMRC to monitor a Welsh rate of income tax. We believe that further examination is needed of the impact of tax competition arising from different rates of income tax on either side of the border. We want to ensure that that looks at the behavioural aspects of what might happen if income tax rates vary on either side of the border.

Turning to the constitutional issues, we believe that the question of five-year terms is a matter for the Assembly. It may not be practical to table an amendment to that effect, but we want to put on record our belief that it should be something for the Assembly to decide.

On double-jobbing, we are very clear that we do not think that an individual should be an MP and an AM at the same time. It is not practical or fair to the electorate and we certainly support the ban in the Bill.

A number of my hon. Friends have referred to dual candidacy and I want to focus on one aspect of it, namely that the impact assessment notes that more people find it confusing and dislike it than those who favour it, and that smaller parties need the system because they are struggling to find candidates. It is pathetic that some of the smaller parties are finding it difficult to find candidates of the right quality. They should be asking themselves why it is that they cannot find anyone. Is the Liberal Democrats’ problem that no young person wants to knock on doors and explain why the Liberal Democrats propped up the Tories to put up student fees to £9,000 in England while in Wales the Labour Welsh Government pegged fees at £3,500? I cannot see any young person wanting to stand for the Lib Dems. Will young people want to stand for Plaid Cymru when they are worried that they might be told, “If you haven’t got two parents who were born in Wales, you can’t represent Wales”?

[Hywel Williams]

Disgraceful!

[Nia Griffith]

Well, that is the sort of thing we have heard Plaid Cymru say about whether the captain of the Welsh rugby team should be captain or not. [Interruption.] Plaid Cymru Members can shout and protest all they like, but that is what they said only three weeks ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nia Griffith]

I am not sure how the Conservative party will find people to stand for it when many of its Members are simply rubbishing Wales in order to further their electoral interests in England. It may be very difficult for the Conservatives to find people, but if they can they should not try to overturn the ban on the dual candidacy. That is the whole point, is it not?

[Hywel Williams]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Transport Infrastructure (North Wales)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Hywel Williams

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) on securing this important debate. We can tell by the number of Members who are here—a 100% turnout from Labour MPs in north Wales—just how important infrastructure is, and transport infrastructure in particular. As he rightly pointed out, although we have one of the most vibrant economic areas in Europe in north-east Wales, we cannot be complacent. Even big household names can go bust or move elsewhere. If we want to keep investment there, retain existing firms and attract new investment, we need to be continually upgrading our transport infrastructure to compete in the modern world. He highlighted the over-reliance on cars because of the lack of availability of public transport and pointed out that some people face a real dilemma, in that they hesitate to take up low-paid jobs, particularly if they are part-time or split-shift, because of the high cost of transport to get to them.

The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) talked of cross-border bypasses, saying that although there is enthusiasm for road improvements on the Welsh side of the border in order to access markets, there is no real commitment from the UK Government to back up the English side of the project.

The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) emphasised the need for better services not only to London but to Liverpool. He highlighted the success of the Conwy Valley rail line and pointed out that rail is vital to bringing in tourists, particularly those with mountain bikes. He also stressed the important success of local FE colleges in helping to upskill local people.

The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) referred to the status of Holyhead and whether it was the top priority for the TEN-T European scheme. He also mentioned the importance of electrification and the need for better transport links when crossing over from Wales into England.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) held a local summit to bring together partners, showing how infrastructure is part of the business community’s priorities and something that everybody needs to be involved in. He talked of the importance of long-term commitments and projects such as HS2, which will outlive all of us. He also mentioned the growing importance of tourism, such as that brought by the completion of the all-Wales coastal path.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) stressed the importance of Holyhead as a port, particularly as part of the route from continental Europe through to Ireland. He pointed out that ports are a reserved matter, and that although £60 million of funding was made available for English ports, Welsh ports had to make do with only £3 million. I ask the Minister what he will do to secure a better funding deal for Welsh ports. I am sure that he will be only too aware of the issue, from Milford Haven in his constituency, and I hope that he will be able to respond to my hon. Friend on the subject of Holyhead.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) pointed out that new industrial estates need to be fully integrated and served by public transport. There needs to be proper joined-up thinking, as the phrase goes. He again stressed the need for better connectivity to the international airports in England—obviously, Manchester and Liverpool are absolutely vital to north Wales—and for a link with HS2. He also stressed the need to keep up the pressure for better rail transport in north-east Wales and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, stressed the importance of working together with the local business community to keep that pressure up.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) praised the vision of the A55 science corridor, and he stressed the importance of railways and rolling stock. He talked, again, of the connectivity to Manchester and Liverpool airports and mentioned the importance of infrastructure to tackle unemployment. He would like an answer to his ambitious vision for a hovercraft project from Rhyl to Wallasey and suggested that the Minister might instigate some sort of feasibility study to look at how that might work out in practice. Perhaps we can hear the Minister’s views on that project.

I turn to how we will fund the infrastructure and, in particular, what measures the Government can take to facilitate funding for infrastructure in north Wales. We have heard the Secretary of State for Wales telling us that £2.25 billion of new infrastructure will benefit Wales, but the reality is that we will see little of that—possibly none of it—in this Parliament. Government Ministers have boasted frequently about electrification, but in fact, only 50 miles of rail track will be electrified by the time of the election across the whole of Britain.

When we left office in 2010, we already had plans for the electrification of the Great Western main line to Swansea, but this Government have had a stop-start approach. The project was cancelled, and then there had to be a campaign to reinstate the plans for the line through to Swansea. That electrification project will not start until 2015, so what about north Wales? The Welsh Government have been looking at plans for rail electrification in the north, but when are we likely to see the funding mechanisms for that put in place?

The reality of investment in Wales is very different from the rhetoric. The truth is that the Tory-led Government in Westminster have cut the Welsh capital budget by a third, as part of an overall budget cut of £1.7 billion, hindering the Welsh Government’s ability to invest in transport, housing and other essential infrastructure.

[Hywel Williams]

I cannot allow the hon. Lady to get away with what she said. Where were the Labour Government for 13 long years, when not a single millimetre of railway in Wales was electrified? Where were they? It is not a stop-start process—it is a stop-stop process.

[Nia Griffith]

I want to point out, first, that we had all the plans in place for electrification, and the Tory Government wasted time by cancelling them so that we had to campaign to reinstate them. Secondly, as my hon. Friends have already pointed out, there was a certain Minister from Ynys Môn who was the Transport Minister in the Welsh Government from 2007 to 2011, and who seemed to think that electrification in the north was just pie in the sky. Perhaps if he had fought a little harder for it, it would have been higher up the agenda.