Strengthening the Union as it Relates to Wales (First sitting)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 18th January 2022 General Committees

[Stephen Crabb]

Yes. [Interruption.] “Baroque eccentricities” is the phrase that the Prime Minister used to describe some of the Welsh Government’s decisions.

I will draw my remarks to a close in a moment. What most concerns me about the posture of the Welsh Government during the pandemic is just how divisive they have been. There have been times when I felt they tried to politicise the border and to lean into what I describe as nationalist sentiment. The Secretary of State opened his remarks by saying that the majority of people in Wales support Unionist parties, but is the Welsh Labour party really still a Unionist party? I look at that agreement that it signed with Plaid Cymru in the Senedd—Plaid and Welsh Labour Members are sitting together almost seamlessly this morning—I hear the First Minister when he appears before the Welsh Affairs Committee and says that the Union is finished, and I look at some of the other decisions taken by the Welsh Government to create space between themselves and the United Kingdom, and I question what kind of journey Welsh Labour is on. Welsh Labour used to be an absolute bastion of the Union and could be relied on to defend the United Kingdom. I question what kind of journey it is on, because I do not see it as that same Unionist party.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Crabb]

I will give way to the hon. Member because I like her a lot.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that, time after time, the First Minister has referred to the fact that, during the pandemic, Wales gave personal protective equipment to England, and Wales benefited from PPE coming from England to Wales? Most recently, Wales has given 10 million tests to England. Time after time, the First Minister has emphasised the importance of working together across the United Kingdom.

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention. I have heard Vaughan Gething describe himself as a Unionist. I may be wrong, but I am not sure I have heard the First Minister describe himself as a Unionist. I think there is a division at the heart of Welsh Labour that should concern us all, as it is in perpetual government in Cardiff Bay. I will leave that thought hanging. I thank Committee members for their time.

Macur Review

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for advance sight of it.

The horrific abuse that was carried out at care homes in north Wales has shocked us all and our thoughts today must be with the survivors. Not only did they endure violence from those who were meant to protect them, but they have had to wait years—decades—to be heard.

I would like to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) who has campaigned tirelessly for the survivors ever since these allegations came to light. As she has highlighted before, some of those who were abused at Bryn Estyn and other homes have since taken their own lives. It is therefore right that we think of their families today and of everyone affected by this scandal.

The extent of the abuse revealed by the Waterhouse inquiry was staggering. It found evidence of “widespread and persistent” physical and sexual abuse, including multiple rapes carried out against young boys and girls. This abuse was allowed to take place over many years, sometimes decades, in the very homes where vulnerable children should have felt safe. The scale of the abuse is shocking, but what is also shocking is that many of the inquiries into this abuse have encountered a reluctance to co-operate with them, and a refusal to publish their conclusions—in short, cover-ups and missed opportunities.

As the Secretary of State has indicated, the Macur review was

“set up to examine whether any specific allegations of child abuse falling within the terms of reference of the Waterhouse Inquiry were not investigated.”

On behalf of the Opposition, I would like to extend our thanks to Lady Justice Macur and her review team for the work that they have undertaken. In the light of what has happened to previous reports and the overwhelming need for transparency, I welcome the fact that the Macur review has now been published.

There may be cases where redactions are needed, not least to ensure that no ongoing police investigation is compromised, but these redactions must be as few as possible and they must be justified to the survivors. Can the Secretary of State confirm that this review, along with the many other reports on and inquiries into abuse in north Wales, will be made available in full to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, and that this inquiry will be able to see full, unredacted copies of these reports?

The Waterhouse inquiry found that most children did not feel able to come forward to report what had happened to them. The few who did were discouraged from taking matters further. In fact, were it not for the bravery of whistleblower Alison Taylor, many cases of abuse would not have been uncovered. Although we recognise that processes for safeguarding children have changed radically since many of these cases took place, we must always be ready to learn lessons to ensure that we can protect children better in the future.

Having studied the report, what changes in policy or practice do the Government feel are necessary? What steps will they take to ensure a co-ordinated response to any future cases, wherever they occur—in the public, private or third sector? Does the Secretary of State believe that there is sufficient protection for whistleblowers such as Alison Taylor?

We know that physical and sexual abuse has a lasting impact on the lives of those affected. In recent years, many survivors have felt able to come forward and report the abuse that they experienced. Indeed, we know that a number of people contacted the Children’s Commissioner for Wales following the announcement of the review, and it is possible that others will come forward as a result of the report’s publication. No matter how long ago the abuse took place, survivors need support to rebuild their lives. What support is being given to the survivors of abuse who have come forward, and what conversations has the Secretary of State had with agencies, including the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, to ensure that survivors of abuse know where to turn?

The scale of the abuse that has become apparent in recent years has shocked the whole of society. It is now clear that many thousands of children were targeted by predatory abusers in places where they should have felt safe. Far too many of those children were let down for a second time when they reached out for help, but nothing was done. Our duty is to make sure that survivors of abuse are heard and listened to, that those who report abuse are given sufficient protection, and that anyone who is responsible for acts of violence against children is brought to justice. Above all, we must ensure that this appalling abuse can never be allowed to happen again.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her response to the statement, and for the spirit and tone in which she made it. I join her in paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) for her long-standing work in trying to achieve justice not only for her constituents who suffered abuse, but for the wider number of care home residents at the time.

When we discussed this issue during a recent session of Wales Office questions, the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley asked me about the redactions. I gave her a commitment that everything possible would be done to ensure that they were kept to a minimum, and that we would be able to explain the reasons for them fully. As I said in my statement, I believe that the letters that we have published along with the report set out those reasons very clearly, but I suggest that Members read Lady Justice Macur’s remarks in the report urging caution in relation to the publication of the names of individuals in the various categories that she describes. I hope that those explanations will provide ample justification for the redactions.

The hon. Lady asked whether we would make a full, unredacted version of the report available to the independent Goddard inquiry. The answer is yes, absolutely. We have also made a full, unredacted copy available to the Crown Prosecution Service, the Director of Public Prosecutions and Operations Pallial, Hydrant and Orarian.

The hon. Lady asked about changes in policy and practice, and about looking to the future. As I said in my statement, Lady Justice Macur has made a number of specific asks of the Government. She has asked for changes to be made, and made recommendations about, in particular, the way in which material is stored and archived. That is one of the weaknesses that she found in establishing her inquiry after 2012, when it was set up. She referred to the “disarray” that many of the files were in. There are important lessons to be learned by Government as a whole—devolved Administrations and the United Kingdom Government—about the way in which sensitive material is archived and protected for the future. Those lessons have been and are being learnt.

As for the wider issue of how we support the survivors and victims of abuse, I think that there has been an enormous cultural change in the last 30 years in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons why more survivors now feel empowered to come forward as part of Operation Pallial, to relive those horrific events, and to make specific allegations, which are being pursued rigorously by the National Crime Agency.

The really positive developments that have taken place since the 1990s, including the establishment of the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, show that as a society we have made a lot of progress. Of course we do not get everything right, and there is much more that we need to learn to do, but we have made a lot of progress over the past 30 years on the way in which we support victims of sexual abuse and address this issue. I do not wish to sound complacent in any way, however, and indeed there is no sense of complacency in Lady Justice Macur’s report that we are publishing today. I hope that that addresses the hon. Lady’s specific question.

The hon. Lady also asked what support was being provided through the independent Goddard inquiry. The inquiry will shortly open an office in Cardiff to reach out to survivors in Wales, and it will work through the mediums of English and Welsh.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend, who chairs the Welsh Affairs Committee, has been persistent and effective in raising concerns about the burden imposed on businesses and motorists in Wales by the very high tolls on the Severn bridge. We have not made any final decisions about what will happen when the private sector concession ends at the end of 2017, but we and the Treasury will be very keen to hear any specific ideas that he and members of his Committee might have.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Last year, the Secretary of State said his ambition was to secure more balanced growth in the Welsh economy, but on his watch we are seeing the loss of hundreds of jobs in our strategically important steel industry. The Government are being painfully slow to heed our warnings on cutting energy costs, and weak and disingenuous when it comes to standing up to Chinese dumping. With EU backing given in December, how much longer will the Government delay the energy compensation package the steel industry in Wales so desperately needs?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am really disappointed by the slightly tribal and partisan tone the shadow Secretary of State adopts on this issue. If she wants to talk about what has happened to steel jobs under Conservative and Labour Governments, I am happy to do that, and we can talk about the decline in steel jobs on the watch of previous Labour Governments. I am much more interested in getting answers now to the global storm facing the steel industry. This Government have taken a lead in Europe in changing procurement rules and arguing for protection measures against Chinese dumping. We are making sure that the steel industry in Wales has the best possible chance of a sustainable and profitable future.

[Nia Griffith]

The Government also have a key role in commissioning large infrastructure projects, which can boost manufacturing and rebalance the economy. Manufacturers across Wales, who are gearing up in earnest to supply the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, share my deep concern that the Government are now planning a lengthy review, which could scupper the project altogether. Will the Secretary of State now give us an unequivocal guarantee that this vital project will not be sunk by his Government?

[Stephen Crabb]

I notice that the shadow Secretary of State did not stand up and welcome what we saw yesterday—Her Majesty the Queen naming and opening the new Elizabeth Crossrail line, which, by the way, uses 50,000 tonnes of steel made in Wales by Celsa Steel. The hon. Lady should be absolutely welcoming that as a good example of how UK infrastructure investment can drive growth in the steel industry. On the tidal lagoon review, the chief executive of the Swansea tidal lagoon has welcomed it himself. He welcomes the fact that we are looking into this and exploring all options to see whether the project can be financially viable.

Draft Wales Bill (Morning sitting)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to take me down a road that we are not going down today. On the earlier point of his intervention, as I said to the Welsh Affairs Committee and to the Assembly’s Committee, we will be using this process to look again at some of the details and I have listed three broad areas that we are looking at: reservations, ministerial consents and the necessity test. My purpose today is to remind Members from Wales, who perhaps have not participated in the Welsh Affairs Committee proceedings or followed what the Assembly Committee has been saying, of some of the broad principles behind our approach to what is a really complicated and difficult issue.

The second bit of what I regard as a new, emerging orthodoxy in Cardiff Bay is this: they believe that the Welsh Government and the National Assembly should have completely unfettered freedom to legislate in devolved areas. They believe that they should have complete freedom in those policy areas that are clearly the competence of the Welsh Government. That is a proposition I agree with and am very comfortable with. I want the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly to exercise their law-making powers freely. I do not agree with what they then go on to say about these law-making powers—that when Welsh legislation has a spillover effect in affecting reserved matters, in affecting the law as it applies to England or in the way it affects the underlying principles of English and Welsh law—the single jurisdiction—somehow the Welsh Government should have the unfettered ability to make changes in those areas.

That is what the necessity test in this Bill is designed to do—not to stop the Assembly enforcing its legislation, but to make clear where the boundaries of their competence lie. However, this test has now become a point of warfare because they do not believe there should be any boundary or safeguard to those powers. When I put the question to them—when I asked the Presiding Officer and Carwyn Jones why the Welsh Assembly should have unfettered ability to make law without having any regard to the impacts on England or on reserved matters—I simply got a shrug of the shoulders in response. That is not a proposition that we can endorse.

The Bill is not designed to serve the agendas of those who believe that the next stage of devolution should be about driving a wedge between England and Wales and creating more separation. The purpose of the Bill is to provide clarity and to ensure that the two legitimate Governments for Wales, the UK Government and the Welsh Government, can work together in clarity so that Ministers in Cardiff Bay and in Westminster understand which areas of policy they are responsible for.

The answer to the complexities around this is not, as the First Minister now suggests, to create a separate legal jurisdiction. A separate jurisdiction would be expensive, unnecessary and, in the words of a partner of a major law firm in Cardiff, would result in a flight of legal talent from Wales. Let us be clear. If the Labour party had won the general election and had taken forward a devolution Bill, it would not be entertaining the creation of a separate jurisdiction.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Owen. The First Minister has not advocated a separate legal jurisdiction. He has talked of a distinct legal jurisdiction, as indeed have the Constitutional Affairs Committee at the Assembly and all the Members of the Assembly, including all the Conservative Members, and that was backed in a motion at the Assembly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nia Griffith]

Absolutely. There have to be certain consents and criteria, but our difficulty with the Bill is that it does not provide the clarity that we all want in legislation.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am interested in what the hon. Lady just said. Is she saying therefore that she supports the retention of some kind of test, whether that is necessity or some other formula, or does she want to remove it altogether?

[Nia Griffith]

Our worry is that we might turn the clock back to a time pre-2006. The purpose of the Bill is to define powers, but what we have at the moment is confusing. That confusion has arisen for several reasons, but particularly with regard to the non-devolution of certain parts of the law.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again. In answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West, she appeared to say that we clearly need some kind of test. Is it her view, and the view of her party, that, whether it is the necessity test or another formula that commands legal respect, we need some kind of boundary or legal phrasing in the Bill, rather than no test at all?

[Nia Griffith]

We need a framework that successfully explains to people what it actually is, not one that is confused and suggests, for example, that we might be looking at Bills that have been passed in the Assembly such as the Renting Homes (Wales) Bill.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady has made strong points about the need for clarity by posing a specific question, which she now appears to have muddied. Does she support having some kind of test around the spillover impact when the Welsh Government make law that affects reserved areas, England, and civil and criminal law? Does she support having some kind of test within the framework?

[Nia Griffith]

There has to be some sort of framework to define exactly where the Welsh Government can legislate. What we do not want is a situation where we continually dispute that, as that would not help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nia Griffith]

I will not give way any more. It is for the Secretary of State to introduce better legislation. It is simply undemocratic to go continually to the Supreme Court, because it is not for judges to decide this, that or the other about what can be subject to legislation. We want legislation that makes the position clear, rather than having to go to court time after time.

The real problem is the sense that we are going back pre-2006, and rolling back things that have been introduced by the Assembly in the past few years. The Welsh Government have listed no fewer than 14 Acts in this Assembly’s term that would require additional permission from Whitehall if the Bill were in force. The Secretary of State has said that this is all about respect, but where is the respect in making it harder for the democratically elected Assembly to pass laws? The people of Wales did not vote in 1997 and 2011 for a Welsh Assembly hamstrung by Whitehall, able to legislate but only when UK Ministers allowed it. That completely undermines the autonomy of the Assembly and is a major step backwards. As Conservative Assembly Member David Melding has highlighted, that ends with the constitutionally unacceptable position of UK Ministers, who are not accountable to Assembly Members, telling the Assembly what it can and cannot do.

Of course, ministerial consent exists under the current system, but if the Secretary of State really wants to clarify and simplify the settlement, he would clear up the consent process. As the Silk Commission recommended, there should be general transfer of ministerial functions in devolved areas from Whitehall to Cardiff Bay, just as happened in the Scotland Act. The Secretary of State has given no good reason why Wales should be treated any worse than Scotland.

The Bill would make the system significantly more complicated, with the effect of rolling back the Assembly’s powers. In the words of the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee:

“It is clear to us that the cumulative effect of the approach being adopted…is to reduce the Assembly’s legislative competence.”

Yet again the Bill would fail to deliver a fair and lasting settlement. Instead, it would take powers away from Wales and make it harder for the Assembly to do its job.

Let us turn to the reservations themselves. A primary purpose of the Bill is to introduce a reserved powers model, in order to bring greater clarity to the devolution settlement. The Silk Commission report says:

“In a reserved powers model, the settlement would set out clearly the limits of devolved competence. We would expect law-makers to legislate with greater confidence…rather than being constrained by uncertainty”.

Clarity is about the last thing that comes to mind when reading the 34 pages of reservations in the Bill, covering 267 separate powers, on everything from Antarctica to zebra crossings. Everyone agrees that the list is far too long. Indeed, Angela Burns, the Conservative Assembly Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, has described the list as unworkable. She said:

“The reservations, as they stand, will hinder the development of policy, will impact on the coherence and unity of legislation and will, in my view, muddy the waters between legislatures.”

Even the Secretary of State has said:

“When I read through the list of reservations I can see for myself that there are things where I think, you know, ‘For goodness’ sake, why is that being held back as reserved?’”

It is his Bill.

[Stephen Crabb]

Draft Bill.

[Nia Griffith]

As a bare minimum, we should expect the Secretary of State to have confidence in his own draft legislation, not to rush forward with some half-baked set of reservations that not even he supports.

The failure of the Wales Office to challenge Departments to explain what needs to be reserved, not just what they want to have reserved, is quite remarkable. In the words of the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee:

“The absence of a principled approach has contributed to the excessive number and complexity of the reservations.”

In this week’s report by the Wales Governance Centre and University College London, they describe the failure to think rationally about what needs to be reserved as a “fundamental defect” in the Bill.

Perhaps if the Secretary of State and his Department commanded more respect in Whitehall we would not have ended up with a shoddy list of reservations that literally no one supports.

The biggest problem with the reservations is the completely ill-advised decision to reserve the entirety of criminal and civil law. That makes absolutely no sense and is the clearest example of the Bill rolling back the Assembly’s powers. The Assembly is a law-making body, so preventing it from having any ability to change the law is both illogical and unacceptable. It reduces the status of the Assembly to a second-class legislature. It is directly contrary to the Silk Commission’s warning that the reserved powers model must

“do nothing to restrict the existing and future ability of the National Assembly to create criminal sanctions where it is necessary”.

The rationale behind the decision to reserve the entirety of the law is given in the explanatory notes. The Bill seeks to provide

“a general level of protection for the unified legal system of England and Wales, whilst allowing the Assembly some latitude to modify these areas of law”.

But the 2011 referendum was about giving the Assembly full powers to legislate in the areas devolved to it, not some latitude to modify the law. So the Secretary of State needs to reconsider this crucial aspect of the Bill. One solution would be to introduce a distinct legal jurisdiction for Wales, as recommended by the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and endorsed unanimously by the Assembly.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Stephen Crabb]

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Lady, because I am enjoying her speech a lot, but just to clarify, at no point have I said that I am not going to change this and not going to change that. She has put words in my mouth there. What I have said today is that there are areas of the Bill which we need to look at and change—I have said that very clearly—but also there are fundamental principles behind what we are trying to do, in ensuring the integrity of the UK Government and Parliament and the integrity of the Welsh Government and Assembly.

[Nia Griffith]

The problem is that we had the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire telling us that he may not even vote for the Bill; he describes it as an abysmal failure. We had the hon. Members for Vale of Clwyd, for Brecon and Radnorshire, for Monmouth, and for Gower—I see he has left his place—and, indeed, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West, all saying publicly that the income tax devolution that will be included in the final Bill is disrespectful to the Welsh people. So there is utter chaos on the Conservative Benches about the Bill. It is a remarkable situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

As I understand it, the incident happened in the past hour. Ambulances are at the scene. I am told by officials that there are three injuries at the site. That is all I know at this moment. As the hon. Gentleman says, our thoughts are very much with the workers, their families and the emergency services at the scene.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

First, I echo the words of the Secretary of State in respect of the tragic events in Paris and the explosion at Celsa this morning.

The Secretary of State knows just how serious is the crisis facing the steel industry in Wales, and indeed the whole of the UK. Four years ago, the Chancellor promised a compensation package for energy-intensive industries. What reassurance can the Secretary of State now give to the thousands of workers in Wales whose jobs depend on the steel industry that his Government will deliver that package by the end of this month?

[Stephen Crabb]

The point I would make first up is that we are in the process of delivering that compensation. We have already paid out about £50 million in compensation to British steel companies, not least to companies based in Wales, so the money is already getting to them. What we are talking about at the moment is getting state aid clearance for the final element of the compensation package. That is really important for the steel companies, and we are pressing hard to get it.

[Nia Griffith]

After four years, the Secretary of State’s Government have still not finished negotiating one package. That hardly bodes well for the promises the Prime Minister is making about EU reform.

The Government have made much of merely renewing existing anti-dumping measures, but with 94% of the Chinese steel that comes into the EU flooding the UK market, why is the Secretary of State’s ministerial colleague in the EU Council of Ministers blocking the much needed reform of the trade defence instruments?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not sure that the hon. Lady is fully sighted on all the actions on steel that we are taking at a European level. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and his colleague, the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise, have been at the forefront in discussions and negotiations at a European level to get change, with real, practical, urgent action on anti-dumping and on state aid clearance for compensation for energy costs. We are leading the way in trying to get change at a European level to support and protect our British steel industry.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend asks a really good question. What we have seen over the past five years, despite the scaremongering and Labour’s talking down of the Welsh economy, is unemployment continuing to fall. Today’s figures demonstrate once again that record numbers of people in Wales are going back to work—there is no reason to think that that will not continue—and we will achieve our long-term ambition of full employment.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister repeatedly promised before the election not to cut child tax credits, so will the Secretary of State explain to the 250,000 families in Wales who are losing an average of £1,000 a year, 90% of which will not be recouped by the rise in the minimum wage, just why his Conservative Government are breaking that promise? By reducing work incentives and hitting low-income families, any pretence they ever had to represent working people has been exposed as the sham it always was.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am really surprised by the tone that the shadow Secretary of State adopts for her first question. As I said, we discussed this issue at length yesterday. We have just come through an election in which the people of this country gave a very strong mandate and endorsement to one party to carry on fixing the economy and reducing the deficit. We cannot get on top of that or achieve it without tackling our spiralling welfare costs. I thought during the election campaign that Labour Members seemed to be getting close to understanding that, but I now see that they have abandoned all hope.

[Nia Griffith]

We have a broken promise on child tax credits. The majority of the 250,000 families affected are in work, and the Government are deliberately choosing to push them into poverty. It is not only they who will lose out. These cuts will suck £200 million out of the Welsh economy, which is money that families, out of sheer necessity, spend directly in their local high streets. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the knock-on effects of that lost income on jobs in our communities across Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

Ahead of the summer Budget, we of course analysed how the measures taken together would affect people up and down the country. As I have said, eight out of 10 families will be better off as a result of the measures we are taking. The hon. Lady knows as well as I do that low pay has been a curse on the Welsh economy for far too long. I repeat the point that I never thought I would see the day when Labour Members stood up to talk down the efforts that we are making to drive up wage levels for people all across our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Given the 80% success rate of the Labour Welsh Government’s Jobs Growth Wales programme and the Secretary of State’s new-found enthusiasm for devolution, why did he not include in his St David’s day announcement the devolution of the Work programme, which, under his Government, gets only a miserable 10% of clients into work in Wales and is clearly failing people in Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. The crucial point is that the Work programme was brought forward by the coalition Government—the UK Government—and has helped more than 17,000 people in Wales who had been unemployed for the longest periods. Let us not forget how complacent the previous Labour Government were about long-term unemployment in Wales: the rate of long-term unemployment increased by more than 160% on their watch.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and make two points in response. First, First Milk did not collapse last week. It faces some pressures and there are specific impacts for dairy herds, but that co-operative is still very much functioning. Secondly, on the Welsh Government, we work constructively and co-operatively with them on agriculture issues.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State rightly recognises the severe crisis in the dairy industry, so with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s dairy price report criticising the grocery adjudicator’s role as too narrow and left toothless by this Government’s failure to set the level of fines that she can impose, will he now act with a sense of urgency, push for an immediate review of the adjudicator’s role and give that assurance to Welsh farmers?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am surprised by the tone that the hon. Lady takes. Under the Government that she supported, no progress whatever was made on implementing a code of practice or an adjudicator. As a Government we have been taking forward these measures. We will look at the specific recommendations of the Select Committee report, but we will take no lessons from the Labour party on the dairy sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend talks about an important issue that has been raised by Members on both sides of the House in recent months. I commend his work personally and that of his Select Committee on examining the impact of Severn bridge tolls on businesses and consumers in Wales. I share his concerns about the levels of the tolls. I want a long-term plan in place, so I look forward to discussing his ideas with him in more detail.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that his Government are investing in the electrification of the railways and building a prison, and now he talks about the tidal lagoon, but is not the reality that they have not yet spent a single penny on any of those projects? They have not laid a brick or a yard of electric rail. In fact, the situation is worse, because his Government have cut the Welsh capital budget by a quarter, and no amount of jam tomorrow can sweeten that unpalatable truth.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am genuinely bemused by the hon. Lady’s question. Let us just remind ourselves that under the Labour Government no work was done to improve the M4, and not a single mile of railway line was electrified in Wales. We are cracking on with a long-term plan for infrastructure investment, and I am very proud to be part of a Government who are doing that.

North Wales Economy

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) on securing the debate, which has been excellent, and on making a very good and full opening speech. I do not wish to repeat all of that; nor do I wish to dwell too long on the issue of transport infrastructure, as we had a debate about it last November, but it is crucial that we have joined-up thinking UK-wide whenever we talk about transport infrastructure. We have to be certain that north Wales is fully connected not just to Crewe but to the north-west of England more generally—to the Liverpool and Manchester airports, and then across the trans-Pennine route to the north-east. It is also vital that we are part of joined-up thinking across Europe and that people can go right through to Holyhead and across to Ireland. Transport infrastructure remains extremely important, and I hope that the Minister will continue to stress both that and the need for investment and careful thought about how we can link the north Wales economy to the rest of the economy of the UK.

The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) mentioned the skills sector. The point was reiterated by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who spoke about the recent investment by the Welsh Government in that sector, particularly with respect to the energy sector. The hon. Member for Aberconwy also mentioned the reluctance of the banks to lend. That point was picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who explained the important way in which we could use a regional banking system, which would take money from the local economy and put it back into the local economy. It would make money available for local businesses to grow organically in their home towns, thereby securing that investment for many years to come. That point was broadly echoed in the call by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) for a return to something like the Welsh Development Agency, the demise of which he much regretted. Those were important points about growing the local economy.

The hon. Member for Aberconwy also referred to the modern crowdfunding for a local coffee shop and stressed the importance of the food sector.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd talked about small businesses, and I certainly enjoyed meeting people from small businesses when they came to this place. He also mentioned the issue of the low-wage economy and asked what the Labour party policy was. Our policy is clearly that we very much want to incentivise employers to move up to paying the living wage by giving them a tax break to do so. While they were getting that tax break, we would obviously be saving on the additional tax credits that would have to be paid if people were paid less than the living wage.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned zero-hours contracts. He knows full well that zero-hours contracts are zero-rights contracts. One of the key issues is that if people do not have a proper contract, they have no rights at all. We have said clearly that where there is abuse of zero-hours contracts when people are working on a regular basis, they need to be issued with proper contracts rather than being kept in that awful situation of having insecurity not only from week to week but about whether they will even keep their job. He also mentioned the need to increase the spend on tourism—in other words, to try to attract in more money per person than we have in the past.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn talked about the huge investment in the nuclear sector on his island and the importance of that to the north Wales economy, but also about the importance of wind and solar investment. Again, he mentioned the importance of skills for the energy sector. He also made a key point about ports. I know that the Minister would not like to appear partisan; he would not like to appear to be looking for money just for his own constituency port. I ask him to take up my hon. Friend’s point that we did have money secured for ports that is now not coming to the Welsh ports. If the Minister could take the point up with the Treasury and see whether he can do something for investment in the ports in Wales, that would be a welcome outcome of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) mentioned job losses. That point was emphasised strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham—we have seen significant job losses in Wrexham. That brings me to the two major points that I want to make today. One is about the importance of giving a strong and clear message that we are fully committed to staying in the EU. I serve on the European Scrutiny Committee, and believe you me, Mr Hollobone, there are members of that Committee who wish not only to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty and go back to the Maastricht treaty, but to renegotiate the 1972 accession treaty. Those are the sorts of messages that people in Asia are getting, which is extremely damaging. If we look at the Welsh economy, we see that 150,000 jobs in Wales depend on our membership of the EU.

The uncertainty is worrying for existing firms that want to invest. They are thinking, “Shall we invest further in the UK, or play safe and invest in the Netherlands, Germany or France—in mainland Europe, where we know we will be okay and will not suddenly find ourselves outside the EU?” The uncertainty also deters new investors, particularly from outside the EU, who want access to that market. They do not want to invest in a part of the EU that might suddenly not be there any more. They do not want to think that they might face tariffs of anything from 5% to 200%. Nor do new investors want to be left out of the negotiations on the EU-US treaty. They do not want to be in a country if the head of that country is not at the negotiating table and is not at the centre of the negotiations on what will happen in the EU in future.

It is concerning that we hear all these noises and that there is talk of uncertainty right up until 2017, with the issue of a referendum hanging over people. There is a real worry about whether we will get investment in jobs in Wales, and whether there will be certainty for the companies that are currently there and for new companies to come in. Of course, that is not to mention the huge support for the agricultural sector in north Wales through the common agricultural policy, or the European structural funds, which help north-west Wales. That uncertainty is one of the key factors in this debate, and I hope that the Minister will take back that message to his party.

The other point on which we want certainty is industrial policy on energy prices and on what is happening to things such as the carbon price floor. The Chancellor has now put in a freeze, but it is rather late in the day. Manufacturers are still concerned, because they see that a unilateral tax was imposed by the UK Government and they then had to go to the EU to try to get some state aid funding to mitigate it.

[Stephen Crabb]

You backed it; you supported it.

[Nia Griffith]

The Minister says from a sedentary position that we supported it. We did not support it at the level at which the Government set it. What is important is that we try to get some help in as soon as possible, rather than having to wait another two or three years, because that will be vital for investment in some of our industries and for whether they will be able to stay in north Wales.

We have mentioned on a number of occasions the failure of the banks—the way they change their terms and conditions and do no service to many of the small businesses in our region—and the work that needs to be done to increase bank lending and foster a much more positive attitude towards local businesses.

I would like to finish by mentioning the importance of borrowing. Borrowing is important to the Welsh Government and it is important for investment in north Wales. We very much support the measures in the Wales Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, on the issue of borrowing. We hope that the Minister will not only facilitate the interim funding that is supposed to come to south Wales, but ensure that the mechanisms are in place for borrowing by the Welsh Government to improve the economy of north Wales. That will mean that we can have a vibrant economy that is supported by investment on the English side in transport infrastructure and mechanisms that will help north Wales, and on the Welsh Government’s side by investment in transport and broadband infrastructure. In that way, we can have a flourishing north Wales economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not disputing the fact that the situation as regards wages and jobs across Wales is patchy. Of course it will be, during the early stages of a recovery, but the trend is positive and will continue, bringing in new investment and creating more jobs.

As Members in all parts of the Chamber have highlighted, manufacturing is one of the bright points of the Welsh economy; there is the involvement of companies such as Airbus, Kimberly Clark—in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Delyn—and Kronospan. Growth has not simply been generated by a housing bubble in the south-east, as the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) argued in debate last night. There is real, balanced growth across all sectors in Wales.

On energy costs for manufacturers, the package of measures announced in the Budget by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was welcomed widely across the manufacturing sector in Wales, particularly by the energy-intensive industries that are so heavily represented in the Welsh economy. The measures directly address the concerns that the industry has raised with us. Companies such as Kronospan and Kimberly Clark are classified as energy-intensive industries and will benefit directly from that package.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the Minister do everything he can to bring forward those measures? The message from the industry is that it does not want to have to wait one or two years; it would like help sooner. We would be most grateful for anything that he could do in that respect.

[Stephen Crabb]

We are taking action. We are making available £240 million. We can make those substantial resources available only because of difficult decisions that we have taken to cut the deficit and to put the national finances back in order—measures that the hon. Lady opposed on every single opportunity over the past three or four years. We are taking action where we can, and those measures have been welcomed by industry across Wales.

I move on to transport, which quite a few Members have mentioned. We at the Wales Office totally understand the concerns and the desire for electrification of the north Wales main line. That is something that the Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), is personally very engaged in, and on which we are in close dialogue and discussion with the Welsh Government and the Department for Transport. The right hon. Member for Delyn is quite right, because electrification of the north Wales main line and the development of the High Speed 2 hub at Crewe will open a hugely expanded range of opportunities for travel and for the economy of north Wales. That is something that we very much support.

I cannot offer any immediate good news on the Halton curve, which has been mentioned more than once this morning. The UK Government have no immediate plans to reopen that section of line, but we want to hear the arguments. If the right hon. Gentleman is engaged in work on the business case for reopening the Halton curve, I would like to see that, and I am happy to facilitate discussions with the Department for Transport where possible.

On the point about ports, we have discussed before the £60 million fund that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) raised. I salute him for the work that he does in championing not only his local port, but the port sector across Wales. The fund that was announced was an economic development fund designed to attract wind turbine manufacturing to port areas. He will be aware that economic development is devolved to the Welsh Government, so the Welsh Government received the Barnett consequentials of that £60 million fund. They received the resources, so if it had been a priority for them, they could have initiated something similar for Wales.

Fairness and Inequality

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Fairness and equality are fundamental to Labour’s vision for society. Our roots are in the philosophy and movements that worked for a fairer society, such as the democratically controlled non-conformist chapels, friendly societies and trade unions. We believe in a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few. We want to see a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. However, it is not just the less well off who benefit from a more equal society. As has been well documented, more equal societies deliver better outcomes not only for the less well off, but across the whole community —not only are the least well off less disadvantaged, but people feel more secure, safer and less threatened, and society is more cohesive.

Tackling inequality is about challenging those structures that perpetuate inequality and about creating the necessary structures to challenge and mitigate that inequality. It is about challenging and ending exploitation in its many guises. It is about responsible trade unions negotiating with managers to ensure a fair share of rewards for working people and, as we saw in 2008, safeguarding jobs and retaining skilled workers, even if that meant their accepting temporary reductions in pay or hours. Tackling inequality is about siding with ordinary people against the powerful, against whom they feel they have no redress. It is about empowering them and giving them the means to achieve that redress. It is about setting priorities to try to redress inequalities and developing the tools and structures to continue to tackle inequality.

Things do not stand still. We need to continue to tackle inequality. For example, we have said that we will impose a freeze on energy prices, but that is not enough. It is the immediate first step. We will then break up the energy market to make it work better for the consumer. In other words, we need an ongoing solution. We will also introduce a tougher regulator to ensure that the market works for people. It will have the power to tackle the off-grid issues that many hon. Members have mentioned today. With this Government there is absolutely no redress for the ordinary person. They are not standing up to the energy companies, which are making massive profits, but instead are just moving the green taxes on to general taxation.

The Government have imposed massive cuts to legal aid and introduced disproportionate charges for employment tribunals. Someone who is wrongly dismissed from a low-paid job will have to pay £500 up front to go to an employment tribunal, but because they were on low pay they might not have any savings. The Government are trying to tear up employment legislation and make people feel even more insecure than they do now.

The Government are using the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 to attack trade unions that are standing up for workers’ rights. Despicably, they have been using the same Act to attack charities standing up for, and highlighting the needs of, vulnerable people. They are charging people an up-front fee to go to the Child Support Agency to get an estranged parent to pay their fair share of child maintenance.

Everywhere we look, the Government are making it harder for ordinary people to get what they are entitled to: harder to get a fair wage for a fair day’s work; harder to get energy supplies at a fair price; harder to make ends meet if they fall sick, lose their job or cannot find more hours to work; and harder to stay in their house, which might have been specially adapted, if they are hit by the bedroom tax—a cruel and ill-thought-out tax that Labour would reverse.

We all understand that the banking crisis has led to severe financial restraint, but there are still different options and priorities that Governments can adopt. They can choose to give tax cuts to millionaires, as this Government have done, or they could ask the better-off to bear a greater share of the burden. Under this Government, however, we have seen the very poor get even poorer.

Successive Governments have uprated benefits in line with inflation, mostly using the retail prices index until 2011. Since then we have seen the breaking of the link between inflation and the rates at which benefits rise. Do not forget that 68% of those affected by the Government’s benefits changes are in work. Universal credit will be subject to annual review, but not to mandatory uprating. There is a huge danger that it will fall behind inflation.

However, well before we get to universal credit, with its myriad problems, which are not helped by the sheer incompetence with which it is being introduced, the Government should look at the impact of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013. Most working-age benefits have been limited to rises of 1% a year, yet the cost of basic items, such as food and energy, are rising by significantly more. Even Government estimates suggest that there might be 200,000 more children living in poverty, and the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that there could be 1 million more children living in poverty by 2020.

Let us look at some of the benefits that have been affected. The first is tax credits, which have a huge impact. We have called the cut to tax credits a strivers’ tax, because it affects the very people who are desperately trying to make ends meet, often working two or three jobs and patching together a few hours here and a few hours there. Then they are told that they have to find more hours, but they are simply not available—otherwise, they would be working them. Those are some of the issues that I think the Government need to address. In particular, they need to look at how they are hitting those who are in work and doing their best to try to make ends meet.

We all know the proverb, “Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; give them a fishing rod and they can feed themselves for life.” In the same way, we need measures that can make an immediate difference to inequality. For example, Labour introduced pension credit as a fast and targeted means of taking the very poorest pensioners out of poverty. Many of them were women who had had little opportunity to earn much money outside the home.

We also need mechanisms and structures that can continue to make a difference. In 1998 Labour introduced the national minimum wage despite fierce opposition from the Conservatives—I welcome their late conversion— and complete indifference from the Welsh nationalists, who absented themselves from the vote. During our time in office, we raised the national minimum wage to above the rate of inflation, but what has happened under this Government? As I warned when speaking for the Opposition in the debate on this Government’s first statutory instrument on the subject, the national minimum wage has been weakened by galloping inflation. I am glad that the Chancellor is now talking about the need to raise it to £7, but the question is when, because as the national minimum wage moves forward, so does inflation. Any rise needs to be tied to a particular time and we need to know exactly what is planned.

We have clearly stated that we want to strengthen the national minimum wage and pursue firms that are trying to find ways of avoiding it by, for example, exceeding the limit for deductions for accommodation. We introduced the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to tackle abusive exploitation of workers, and we want to extend such provisions to the construction and care sectors, yet many Government Members want to get rid of it, just as they got rid of the Agricultural Wages Board.

We want to incentivise wider adoption of the living wage, so we will bring in tax breaks for the first year to encourage employers to introduce it. We could make £3 billion-worth of savings simply by helping people to earn more and pay more tax, and then we would not need to pay out so much in tax credits. As the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), has said, and has been quoted today as saying, we will get the benefits bill down. We will do that by putting people back to work, by ensuring that the national minimum wage keeps up with inflation, and by bringing in measures to encourage employers to introduce the living wage. In those ways, we can save on tax credits, make sure that work pays, and bring the benefits bill down without hitting the poorest hardest.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady talks about Labour’s promise to bring the welfare bill down. I remember that on the eve of the 1997 general election, the Labour leader, Tony Blair, promised to do exactly the same thing. What went wrong over the 13 years that Labour was in power?

[Nia Griffith]

We are saying now that we want to tackle the reasons why people are on such poverty wages. If we try to reduce the price of fuel, that helps people with the amount of money they have in their pocket. If we look at the amount that they earn, that helps them to get the right amount of money in their pocket without it having to be topped up so much by the tax system. There are ways forward and we have to tackle these issues. It would be very welcome if this Government were prepared to look a bit more at ways of doing so.

We will also tackle zero-hours contracts. In September, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition announced Labour’s plans to tackle zero-hours contracts where they exploit people. This would be achieved by banning employers from insisting that zero-hours workers be available even when there is no guarantee of any work, by stopping zero-hours contracts that require workers to work exclusively for one business, and by ending the misuse of zero-hours contracts where employees are, in practice, working regular hours over a sustained period.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If Opposition Members were genuinely concerned about tackling the cost of living in Wales they would be hammering on the door of their Labour colleagues in the Welsh Government in Cardiff and demanding that they freeze council tax bills, as we have for households in England.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Wales has seen the sharpest increase in the number of people falling behind with their energy fuel bills—up 24% from 68,000 two years ago to an alarming 85,000 households now in arrears. With SSE’s massive 8% price hike kicking in last Friday, will the Minister explain why he thinks it is not possible to deliver an energy freeze and to break up the six big energy companies to deliver a fairer system for the people of Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

The uncompetitive big six were of course created by the previous Labour Government. We are opening up the marketplace to seven new independent suppliers, challenging the dominance of the big six and increasing competition in the marketplace, which will deliver lower bills for households in Wales.

Protecting Older People from Fraud (Wales)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that case. Without more detail, I cannot comment further, but I would be very disappointed if Dyfed-Powys police or the Serious Fraud Office were not able to investigate. Let us see the detail, and hopefully we can raise that issue and get some progress on it.

We know that more than 3.2 million people—nearly 7% of the entire UK population—fall victim to scams each year, and that fraud and scams generate more than £9 billion of individual losses each year. That figure is truly staggering. We can all say that we are in complete agreement in this room this afternoon about the need to protect all sections of society, and especially the elderly, against the harm caused by scams.

I take on board the point made by the right hon. Gentleman about the level of prosecutions concerning reported scams. It is important to recognise and put on record that it is notoriously difficult to investigate phone and e-mail scams and to pursue the culprits behind them, because so often the scams originate overseas. The solution, therefore, cannot just be one of enforcement, and that is where prevention comes in, as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned.

In Cardiff, for example, the trading standards team recognise that prevention is key to reducing such crimes. Last year, they set up monthly victim support meetings with South Wales police and other partners, such as Age UK, Age Cymru, Victim Support, and Care & Repair. They work to identify victims of scams and doorstep crime and provide further support, advice and education. As a result, they report that they are seeing the number of cases raised at meetings decline. Through making people aware of how to spot and avoid scams and by utilising telephone and mailing preference services, we can reduce exposure to scams and the likelihood that someone will be taken in.

The Government provide for advice on scams through various agencies—particularly through the citizens advice service, which provides clear and practical guidance to consumers over the phone and on websites. As a Government, we are also taking steps to ensure that people are aware of scams and know what to do if they suspect a scam.

[Nia Griffith]

The Minister will be aware that the hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) proposed a ten-minute rule Bill. Will he comment on whether the Government have any plans to implement the meat of that Bill, which was to allow, with safeguards, postal workers to intervene when they saw a huge number of envelopes with those fancy prizes on the front going to one address?

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that point. I shall come to Royal Mail a bit later and hopefully the information that I shall provide will suffice. If not, I can follow that up in writing.

The “Think Jessica” campaign and representative bodies such as Age UK and citizens advice bureaux work to raise awareness of the devastating impact that scams and fraud can have on those who fall victim—especially the elderly—and on victims’ families. The National Trading Standards Board has also provided funding to trading standards in Wales for a national doorstep crime project. That project has a number of actions to undertake and that includes working alongside the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, the Welsh Assembly and other Government Departments.

The Consumer Protection Partnership, which is made up of partners from the enforcement community, as well as Citizens Advice and other Government bodies, has teamed up with fraud and scam experts, such as the Serious Organised Crime Agency and Action Fraud, to implement a more holistic and joined-up approach to tackling scammers. As part of that, the citizens advice service and the Trading Standards Institute launched a scam awareness campaign in May this year, which was endorsed by the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—the consumer Minister—to raise awareness and to help empower consumers to take firm action against scams. Through a renewed focus on prevention, there is an opportunity to try to protect some of the most vulnerable members of society from falling victim to unscrupulous people.

I will now mention some ways in which consumers can report scams and fraud. The Government have established Action Fraud to allow for the reporting of scams. Scams can be reported to Action Fraud by phone or by completing an online fraud report. It is a simple and quick process, and most importantly, it alerts the most appropriate authority to a potential scam. If someone believes that they have been the victim of a scam, or if they need help about how to advise someone whom they believe is the victim, they can also contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline, which provides clear, practical help for consumers on what they should do.

Where Citizens Advice identifies a breach of consumer protection law, it can alert local authority trading standards enforcement. I encourage anyone who wishes to do so to make use of schemes such as the telephone preference service and the mailing preference service, which will stop addressed mail, and the “Your Choice” preference service, which will stop unaddressed mailings.

Over the past two years, the Government have better equipped trading standards to hit scammers hard by transferring responsibility for cross-cutting leadership and co-ordination of enforcement activity from the Office of Fair Trading to the National Trading Standards Board. The NTSB funds and directs specialist scambuster teams in England and Wales to enable trading standards to take a cross-regional approach to tackling scams and rogue-trading practices. Scambusters currently have five ongoing serious investigations into scams targeting older people in Wales, and I will highlight a couple of their successes shortly.

On the green deal, I strongly share the concerns of the right hon. Gentleman about rogue traders claiming to be associated with the green deal. We have seen that previously with double-glazing salesmen, with households being targeted for inappropriate investments in conservatories, and a few years ago, with the boom in solar panels.

As constituency MPs, we have all had experience of people coming to our surgeries reporting bad practice. The green deal is just another opportunity for some of these hardcore scammers and fraudsters to target vulnerable households. In April this year, I visited the British Gas training academy in Tredegar, where proper qualified green deal assessors received their training and qualifications. Those are the people whom households should trust for green deal assessments, and not the rogue companies that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned.

The Consumer Protection Partnership is collating emerging consumer issues around the green deal and has held discussions with the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The CPP aims to ensure that initiatives from all Government Departments—but especially on the green deal—take account of potential real harm to consumers through fraud and misrepresentation.

Both trading standards and the Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body naturally take a very serious view of rogue traders and will pursue them with the full force of the law. While instances of abuse under the green deal are only just starting to emerge, it is worth putting on record that scambusters have notched up a couple of impressive wins against other vultures who prey on the vulnerable in Wales. That serves as an example of what fraudsters operating under the green deal banner can expect to receive.

For example, one criminal was a cold-calling rogue trader builder, operating in the local authorities of south-west and mid-Wales. A scambuster investigation identified 21 victims of the man; they had paid more than £150,000 to him. The scambusters team was able to contact and offer support to a number of victims through dedicated specialists. The investigation resulted in the man being sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, for using aggressive commercial practices against vulnerable people. I could point to other examples as well, but time is against us. In order to build further on successes such as that, and to continue to limit the real damage caused by rogue traders in Wales, the NTSB has allocated a budget of £325,000 for its Welsh scambuster team this year.

In summary, the fraudsters’ goal is a simple one: to cheat as many people as possible out of their money by making false promises. Fraud and scams hit the elderly particularly hard; on becoming victims of a scam, they often lose a disproportionate amount of money in relation to other victims. I hope that I have been able to demonstrate this afternoon how, as a UK Government, we are taking action to combat the issues—particularly in Wales, where we are working alongside local authorities and the Welsh Government. We will keep that in sight, and if the right hon. Gentleman wants to follow up in the weeks and months ahead, I will be very happy to continue the discussion.

I come back to a couple of specific questions that have been raised by hon. Members. We were asked about cold doorstep-calling and whether we would welcome a ban, or an increased number of cold-calling “notspots”, where people are prevented from doing so. As a Government, we are certainly not against such initiatives when they are genuinely community-led. When specific communities are being targeted by fraudsters and there is a demand in the community for such an arrangement, we certainly do not wish to do anything against that. However, it is worth putting on the record that neither do we want to harm genuine entrepreneurs, who make a living legitimately, providing a legitimate service and business to households on their doorsteps. There is a balance to be struck, but where there are vulnerable communities who have suffered repeated targeting, perhaps that is one of the solutions that can be community led.

The hon. Member for Llanelli asked about Royal Mail, which currently takes steps to raise awareness of the problem of scam mail among its staff. It has put in place an internal reporting facility that allows customers, including relatives or friends of suspected victims, to report concerns to postal workers or directly to a Royal Mail helpline, which allows advice to be issued and information to be passed on to an appropriate body—the police, trading standards or a support body—for action. The company has been working with the police on identifying possible victims and postage accounts suspected of being used to send scam mail. Again, I am happy to follow up with the hon. Lady if she wants further information about what Royal Mail is doing to prevent scam mail.

The right hon. Gentleman described the people who perpetrate such crimes as crooks and gangsters. That is probably some of the more polite language that we could use to describe such people. We absolutely want to prevent them from operating. They are at times notoriously difficult to investigate and track down, but we as a Government take the issue extremely seriously. We want to provide resources to local trading standards departments and to the cross-cutting partnerships to ensure that there is enforcement and action at the local and Welsh national levels, right across the UK and internationally where possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Women in Wales

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 16th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Mr Benton.

I thank the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) for securing this short debate on the important subject of women in Wales and the situation under this Government, or any Government. I thought I was coming in here to listen to a debate in the round on women in Wales, but—I hope she forgives me for saying this—in fact we were treated to a speech that was pretty similar to those we have heard in Westminster Hall and on the Floor of the House numerous times in the past three years: a general attack on cuts and welfare reform, dressed up as a debate about women in Wales. We could have been discussing the role of women in public life, higher education or the legal sector in Wales, or the efforts that we as a Government are making to help women in Wales smash through the glass ceiling and take their place on boards, running companies and being leaders in all spheres of life in Wales. What we actually had was a crude attack, if I may say so, on our welfare reform proposals and our approach to deficit reduction.

[Nia Griffith]

Does the Minister not accept that the full title of the debate is “Effect of Government policies on women in Wales” and that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) has cited specific statistics about the situation as it affects women and women in Wales? She made that point a number of times. It is about the actual effect on women in Wales and the lack of an impact assessment or, if there is an impact assessment, the lack of sufficient attention to it, because there has been a disproportionate effect on women.

[Stephen Crabb]

The danger when looking through any particular demographic lens—we could have been debating the impact of policies on young people, older people, disabled people or people from ethnic minorities—is that we are lured into making generalisations and over-simplifications. We have had a bit of that this afternoon, so hopefully I will inject some balance into the debate.

The starting point, of course, is the economic context and the enormous financial crisis that still faces this country. It is worth putting on record again—I know that Opposition Members will roll their eyeballs at this—that the reason why we are having to take very difficult decisions about public expenditure, and the reason why we are having to restore discipline to our national finances, is the financial mess that the Labour party left after 13 years in government. I will go further: future generations of women and girls would not thank us if we shirked our responsibility now and did not address the deficit and the debt. They would not thank us for the burden of debt that we might hand on to them if we did not take the difficult decisions that we are taking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

I do not have the specific statistics to hand, but as I said to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Mrs James), there are certainly communities in which the trends are not as positive as the broader Welsh trend that I have presented here. We need to be more ambitious and redouble our efforts to see unemployment fall across all categories of women in Wales. I hope Members of all parties can agree on that.

Beyond just the positive signs we are seeing in the employment market, we as a Government absolutely recognise that many, many families face real financial pressure at this time. Many of those families, as the hon. Member for Newport East rightly says, are headed by single women, which is one reason why we are absolutely committed to assisting with the cost of living. We have seen some significant increases in the cost of living, which have placed huge burdens on families in recent years. That is one reason why we are doing one of the most effective things that can be done to put cash back in families’ pockets, which is to take the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether. We have now cut income tax for more than 1.1 million working people in Wales by increasing the tax-free personal allowance. By increasing it to £10,000 in 2014, we will lift 130,000 of the lowest-paid workers in Wales out of income tax altogether. Let no one be in any doubt: the majority of those 130,000 people lifted out of income tax—57%—will be women.

The hon. Member for Newport East spoke in great detail about some of our welfare reform measures. The introduction of universal credit is central to our welfare plans. Why are we reforming welfare? First, we cannot begin to think about cutting the deficit and the debt burden unless we are serious about welfare reform. Also, we all have communities in our constituencies where there are people who have not worked a day in their life—we have 200,000 such people in Wales, and worklessness is still a huge problem in many of our communities. If we care about those communities and are bothered by that, we must be serious about welfare reform. We as a Government are certainly bothered by it, which is why we are putting so much energy and focus on welfare reform.

[Nia Griffith]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East said, we support the idea of making work pay, but it seems to us from the figures presented by professional organisations that universal credit may actually provide a disincentive for the second earner in a household to go out to work or take on more hours. Can the Minister take that back as a serious message to his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and ask them to consider it, so that the introduction of universal credit does not create a disincentive for people to go out to work?

[Stephen Crabb]

If that is a real concern and there is evidence to back it up, I will certainly take it to my noble Friend Lord Freud, the Minister responsible for welfare reform, and discuss it with him. I sit with him and discuss the impact of welfare reform in Wales, because I am concerned about it. The whole purpose of introducing universal credit is a more simplified system, which we want to incentivise more work. We hope that more women will choose to re-enter the labour market, partly on the back of the introduction of universal credit. Some of them will be in work already, but we want them to take on more hours if they choose to do so. We want people to be able to make the right choices for them in their circumstances at that point in time, and we want a welfare system that supports those choices rather than creating negative incentives that work against the interests of the families and individual women that we are discussing.

Households with single women and couple households will be better off on average after the introduction of universal credit. We are clear that that is what the modelling shows. Single women will receive an average increase in benefits of about £13 a month, and the figure for couple households will be £16 a month.

The impact of child care costs has been mentioned. We recognise that, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for putting on record some of the measures that we as a Government have taken to assist with child care costs, most notably the introduction of the tax-free child care scheme, which makes child care simpler and more affordable for parents to access. From autumn 2015, working families will be able to claim 20% of child care costs, up to £1,200 per child under 12. We believe that that will contribute significantly to helping women who want to go out to work in Wales by encouraging those who want to do so to get back into the labour market and take the jobs that are being created.

To respond to the point made by Opposition Members, I absolutely agree that more women than men have been affected by public sector job losses, due to the proportion of men and women who work in public services. Nevertheless, it is true—even in Wales, where Opposition critics said that it could not happen, because we were led to believe that the private sector was too weak—that more private sector jobs have been created in Wales to offset public sector job losses. Women are taking up those new jobs. Some of them will need extra skills training, and we are committed to helping provide that, but I genuinely believe that the employment situation is not nearly as grim as Opposition Members say.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

As I understand the project across the Menai straits, four options are being looked at and sub-sea is one of them. I shall certainly discuss the matter with National Grid, as I recognise the significant concern, and I will follow up with the hon. Gentleman in due course.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Welsh steel industry could have to wait yet another year for the Government to get state aid clearance for the energy-intensive industries package—a package that would not have been necessary had the Government not gone it alone and introduced such a high carbon floor price. What can the Minister do to secure interim support to prevent energy-intensive industries in Wales from being forced to run down production and lay off workers?

[Stephen Crabb]

I and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), recently met representatives of different industries in south and north Wales for a round table to discuss precisely that question. Those present included Tata Steel and Celsa Steel, large industrialists from south Wales, and Toyota from north Wales. We are looking at specific solutions that will keep the Welsh economy powering ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

We have more than doubled the amount available to local authorities for discretionary housing payment. In the local authorities of Wrexham and Caerphilly, it has been increased by more than 300%. We are determined to protect the most vulnerable people at a time when we have to restore budget discipline to housing benefit expenditure.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Official housing allowance figures indicate that even if only a third of bedroom tax victims in Wales manage to move to smaller private accommodation, that will mean at least a £17 million increase in the annual housing benefit bill going straight into the pockets of landlords. How many jobs does the Minister reckon could be created with that £17 million?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not sure that the hon. Lady will want to talk about jobs, because today’s figures show yet again that unemployment in Wales is falling, economic inactivity is falling, and employment is up. I do not really follow the logic of her question, but she should welcome today’s good news

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I will make the same point to the hon. Gentleman: the Government simply do not accept the catastrophic scenarios that Labour Members are trying to communicate. Universal credit will be a major tool in creating new incentives to work and raise employment levels in Wales. Let us not forget that Labour’s legacy in Wales was 200,000 people who have never worked at all. He should feel angry about that.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Disarray on universal credit means that children in Wales still do not know whether they will lose their free school meal entitlement, and some families in Wales will be better off not seeking more work because they would have to earn an additional £1,500 per child to make up for the loss of school meals. What is the Minister doing to safeguard free school meal entitlements for children in Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. The Government take seriously concerns about high child care costs. On her specific point on passported benefits, of which the free school meal is one, we are in close discussions with Welsh Government Ministers. We are making good progress on resolving the outstanding questions. I will write to her with further information.

Food Banks (Wales)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Crabb]

That is exactly what it is about. I did some research before the debate this afternoon and looked at the parliamentary record, because I wanted to know what kinds of questions and issues were being raised on food banks by Members of different parties—not only from Wales, but from right across the UK. It might not surprise my hon. Friends to know that I could not find a single reference by a Labour Member of Parliament, before 2010, to food banks.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stephen Crabb]

No, I will not. I may not have been doing my research as fully as I should, but I could not find a single Labour MP who raised food banks as an issue on the Floor of the House of Commons before the coalition Government came into office. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff West says from a sedentary position that it was not an issue. Well, questions were being asked by my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), as well as a certain individual called Dai Davies, representing the south Wales seat of Blaenau Gwent. He asked a question about food banks during the previous Government, and some Labour Members will recall how viciously that individual was treated by members of the Welsh Labour party in recent years.

Food banks were very much an issue under the previous Government. However, the conspiracy of silence that existed around food banks extended beyond this place to Jobcentre Plus, because one thing that Labour Ministers refused to do was allow Jobcentre Plus advisers to signpost people facing particular financial need to use food banks. That is something that we changed. In 2011, we altered the guidance to allow Jobcentre Plus advisers to refer people and advertise the services of food banks. Among the underlying causes and reasons for the expansion in the use of food banks in recent years, one reason is that, in contrast to the previous Labour Government, we see them, up front and unashamedly, as a good thing, and we encourage people who are facing points of financial crisis in their lives to use them.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West mentioned a “cost of living crisis”. He used that phrase several times, and it was picked up by other hon. Members as the reason for the expansion in the use of food banks. Of course, that is true. People use food banks because they face a financial crisis at that time. I have met people who use them for a whole variety of reasons: some are young, homeless people; some are struggling with addictions, and they are spending money as a result of addictive behaviours that they are seeking to address; and some are victims of domestic violence who find that they have to flee their family home—they are fleeing an abusive relationship and need that extra support. People use the resources for a variety of different reasons.

I do not want to spend too much time picking holes in the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cardiff West, but he did say, slightly patronisingly, that he suspected that the Minister would stand up and say that he has visited a food bank. Well, I have actually. In fact, I served as a trustee on a charity that ran food banks. The charity set up its food bank in 2008, and its services have expanded. It now provides not only food but a basic bank of clothing, because as hon. Members have rightly said, people face a whole range of financial needs. As well as that, it runs an annual toy appeal to ensure that the poorest families in Pembrokeshire, in my constituency, are able to have a Christmas for their children.

The charity was founded by some of the Churches, and I know that the hon. Members for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), among others, have mentioned different Churches and faith-based organisations that are behind the creation of food banks in their constituencies. I would like to pay my own tribute on the record to the volunteers and people who work in those organisations, because they are doing a fantastic job. When I speak to them, the last thing they want is to be dragged into a party political football match. This issue is bigger and more important than that. We could have had a sensible debate this afternoon about the social needs in Wales, and the role that charities and third sector organisations can play. It is really disappointing that the debate was reduced to a party political argument, when it could have been so different.

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend expresses himself extremely well, as ever.

Let us look at the context for Wales. The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) mentioned the underlying economic context for Wales. It is true that Wales has suffered from low wages, but it is not true that wages continue to decline relative to the rest of the UK. If we look at the most recent wage data for Wales, the increase is sharper than for the UK average. That is only a small set of data, but it gives us reason for optimism that we can, over time, close the wage gap and see more families in Wales taking home more real-terms pay from their jobs.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the Minister explain how his policies will raise incomes in Wales? What will he do to ensure that the poorest people in Wales have better job opportunities and better pay for what they do?

[Stephen Crabb]

Every single day of the week at the Wales Office, we focus on the economic challenges facing Wales. Every week in the Wales Office we are thinking about how we work with the Welsh Government to bring in new investment in infrastructure and new inward investors, and see better, higher-quality jobs created in Wales that will provide higher real-terms wages.

Household debt was only mentioned briefly in the debate, but it is one of the key reasons why, in recent years, the number of people using food banks has increased. Over the past 10 years, and perhaps going back even further than that, there was an explosion of personal indebtedness, fuelled by the consumer credit boom, which was encouraged—egged on—by the policies of previous Labour Governments. Household indebtedness has started to fall in the past two years, but there is still a long way to go to see people with sustainable debt levels in their lives. That is one reason why some of the organisations that are at the forefront of setting up food banks are also at the forefront of tackling the debt culture. Some of the same organisations run debt advice counselling services alongside their food banks. The Government take seriously the challenge of payday loans and doorstep lenders, and we are taking real action to change the regulatory framework in which such people operate.

Fuel poverty has been mentioned by more than one colleague as a real challenge for Wales, and I absolutely recognise that point. We continue to support people in Wales through the winter fuel payments. The hon. Member for Arfon asked me to follow up on a specific request to see whether there is a way of facilitating, earlier in the season, cold weather and winter fuel payments, because that is when people have the opportunity to buy fuel at a cheaper rate. I shall certainly follow that up with my hon. Friends in the relevant Department.

To close the debate, I am sure that we will come back to this issue as MPs in Wales, and I hope, on that occasion, that we can have a more rounded, more thorough debate on some of the real issues affecting society in Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is quite right to suggest that shale gas has been something of a game changer for the energy market in the UK. In the autumn statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a range of measures to explore the potential for shale gas in the UK, alongside strict new regulatory safeguards.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Minister will no doubt have seen the report from the Department of Energy and Climate Change which shows that people in Wales pay some of the highest gas and electricity prices in the whole of the UK. Why does he think that is the case?

[Stephen Crabb]

There are price variations right across the UK, and it is not possible to say that this is a Wales-specific issue. We stay in close touch with the regulators, and we are looking particularly at off-grid prices for liquefied petroleum gas and for fuel oil. We are aware of some competition questions in that area, but we do not believe that this is a Wales-specific issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Welsh Government’s initiative of introducing legislation to increase organ donation, but after the Supreme Court justices described as “bizarre” the referral by the Secretary of State to the court of the Welsh Government’s byelaw legislation, will the Minister give the House unreserved assurances that the Wales Office will not delay this life-saving legislation and will not waste taxpayers’ money by making any more spurious referrals to the Supreme Court?

[Stephen Crabb]

My Department and the Department of Health have been in close discussion with the Welsh Government about the detail of the legislation, and we are optimistic that all outstanding devolution issues will be addressed before publication of the legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: the £11.7 million that we have made available to Cardiff to support its development as a superconnected city will make it one of the most digitally advanced cities in the United Kingdom, and we look forward to that helping to leverage new business investment into the city.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Minister’s positive words about the Welsh Assembly Government’s work with enterprise zones and, indeed, full co-operation on measures to help the economy, but will he join me in congratulating Welsh Assembly Government Ministers on creating 1,700 youth jobs in the past six months, in an effort to tackle the scourge of underlying youth unemployment in Wales? Will he tell his Cabinet and Front-Bench colleagues how Wales is leading the way in this and that they should never have got rid of the future jobs fund?

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the shadow Minister for that question. I welcome any new jobs being created that will tackle long-term youth unemployment in Wales. I am just disappointed that she has not welcomed today’s news that unemployment has fallen in Wales, employment is up and worklessness is down.

UK and Welsh Governments (Finance)

Debate between Nia Griffith and Stephen Crabb

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Crabb]

Tempted though I might be to be drawn into discussing what might be in the final statement, I will not do so. On what the Holtham report said about the financial position of Wales, the hon. Gentleman mentioned his party’s belief. There are a lot of beliefs about the position. Big assumptions are made in the report about Wales’s funding situation. Not all of those beliefs and assumptions are shared by the UK Government.

Over the past 12 months the two Governments have together been exploring the issues in detail. The hon. Member for Arfon went into a little detail about the Barnett formula, and its weakness. I caution him about claiming that the current system always delivers an unfair outcome for Wales. The spending settlement for Wales in the 2010 spending review was fair in a difficult economic climate. It represented a 7.5% reduction in the Welsh Government’s resource budget—an average cut of less than 2% a year. We recognise that there are challenges in that, but it is significantly less than the 3% a year cut that the Welsh Government had previously planned for. In addition, the Government have provided almost an additional £500 million since the spending review for the Welsh Government to use in any way they want.

In our programme for government we recognised the concerns expressed by the Holtham commission, but our priority was and is to stabilise the public finances. Plaid Cymru’s perspective may differ from the Government’s, in not recognising the necessity of the UK fiscal framework, but that is the context in which we are operating. Reform of the Barnett formula cannot take place in the current environment. It should be borne in mind that comprehensive reform, as my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) so eloquently said, would have huge implications not just for Wales but for all parts of the United Kingdom. That is why the intergovernmental talks between the UK and Welsh Governments have not looked at replacing the Barnett formula, or at the pros and cons of alternative systems.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain something to me? The economic forecast given to us in 2010 does not seem to be holding up. We seem to be in a no-growth situation. Is there therefore a case for revising the view of when the Barnett formula should be reconsidered, given that we now face perhaps another five years of double-dip recession?

[Stephen Crabb]

I have yet to see any economist forecasting five years of double-dip recession. I always enjoy listening to the hon. Lady, but given the zero progress that her party’s Government made on the issues, I am not sure we should take guidance from her on this subject.