Welsh Grand Committee (Scrutiny)

Owen Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. We are particularly lucky that a Welsh Member and a Welshman is in the Chair. That is particularly appropriate.

I offer my warmest congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael) on securing the debate and on highlighting the twin critical issues at its heart. The debate is about balancing the rights of the minority in the House, or the Opposition party, against those of the majority, or the Government party, in scrutinising legislation as it relates to Wales. There is also the larger, far more important issue of balancing the rights of the minority country, Wales, against those of its dominant partner, England, in their peculiar and, for the moment, stable union within the UK.

Too many Members to list have spoken with enormous passion about both those critical issues. Their eloquence and passion bears great testimony to just how deep the feeling is among Opposition Members that Wales—our country—is being ill served by the coalition Government. We feel that we are being disrespected, disregarded and, today, disfranchised.

[Alun Cairns]

Would the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that, among the many crocodile tears that have been shed today, there is just a hint of self-interest?

[Owen Smith]

No, I would not. Throughout the debate, one of the most disconcerting things about the Government’s Front Benchers, and particularly the silence of their Welsh Front Benchers, has been the absolute failure to acknowledge that there are any legitimate questions to be asked about balancing the interests of Wales against those of England. The continued refrain has been that we are talking about balancing one seat and the votes in it against another seat and the votes in it. There is a legitimate issue there, and we have acknowledged throughout that the issue of equalisation is legitimate, but it is just as legitimate to address the issue of balancing the aggregate weight of Wales and Welsh seats against that of English seats—our Dai of 40 seats against the English Goliath of 533 seats. That is a legitimate question, and the Welsh Grand Committee should have met to consider it. The Secretary of State’s decision repeatedly to deny Welsh Members our right to discuss these critical issues is yet another example of the disrespect agenda that is the hallmark of this Government’s approach to Wales.

[Dr Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, the then Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), was anxious to hold an early meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee to discuss the Welsh Affairs Committee report on the National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Welsh Language) Order 2009. However, as a result of the Select Committee’s intervention while I was its Chair, the Secretary of State graciously acceded to delaying the meeting. Is that not the way the present Secretary of State should behave? She should listen, as another former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), said.

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One thing that is clear from the debate and from the history of the Welsh Grand Committee is that Labour Secretaries of State and, indeed, previous Conservative Secretaries of State have a starkly different attitude from the present Government to listening to those who represent Welsh constituencies and to calling the Welsh Grand Committee when we need to discuss matters of importance for Wales. The Committee met 21 times at the discretion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), but it has met once in the past six months. We still do not know whether it will meet to consider the CSR, but it must.

I want to start my substantive remarks with a challenge to the Minister. I want him to defy my assertion that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is having a far greater impact on Wales than on any other area of the United Kingdom. Wales is losing 25% of its constituencies versus just 6 or 7% in the rest of the UK. That impact is out of proportion. The Minister will argue that that is happening because Wales has historically smaller constituencies, but can he, unlike his hon. Friends on the Front Bench, not accept that a specific case can be made for Wales? We are not the west midlands, but a separate, distinct nation with a different set of priorities. That is what needs to be considered alongside the legitimate questions about equalisation.

[Albert Owen]

Had the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), who claimed to be a democrat, given way, I would have asked him whether it was not more democratic that there was a referendum in Wales as part of the devolution settlement. That settlement said that we would retain the same number of Welsh representatives in Parliament. We are now having another referendum. Would it not have been sensible to wait until after the people of Wales had spoken in that referendum and we had seen the outcome before gerrymandering seats in Wales?

[Owen Smith]

Again, I completely agree. It is an absolutely telling indictment of the Government that they did not even think about the implications of the referendum because they are hellbent on railroading the proposed changes through in an attempt to rig not only the next election, but successive elections. This is about trying to secure Tory power in perpetuity, and we need to defend against that.

As various Members have said, the Welsh Affairs Committee is a Tory-chaired Committee with a Tory majority. It concluded unanimously that the proposed changes would have an impact on not only Wales, but the UK—on our constitution and the union between Wales and England.

[Alun Cairns]

This is the second or third time that I have heard the point about the make-up of the Welsh Affairs Committee, but it is made up in just the same way as every other Select Committee. Will the hon. Gentleman tell me when this Administration introduced the process and structure that led to the imbalance that he talks about?

[Owen Smith]

I will respond with a counter-question, I am afraid. As someone who sat with me on that Committee, does the hon. Gentleman deny supporting its conclusion that the Bill would gerrymander the map of Wales and should not be passed?

[Kevin Brennan]

Although the Select Committee will reflect the Government’s majority, it was the Government who decided to have a Conservative Chair. Can my hon. Friend imagine their doing the same to the Scottish Affairs Committee?

[Owen Smith]

To be honest, given the way they have been behaving recently, yes, I can imagine that. That is precisely the sort of thing they might consider doing, no matter how outrageous it is. [Interruption.] No, I will not give way any more. I want to ask the Minister a further question. If he cannot deny that Wales will be affected more than other parts of the UK, is he telling his constituents that? Is he explaining to them that he is sitting idly by watching Wales burn and his constituents’ representation in Parliament be diminished? I would be intrigued to know what his constituents in Clwyd West think about that.

I would also be intrigued to know whether the Minister has told his constituents, as we have heard so often from Conservative Front Benchers, that people’s local identities and local communities, as reflected in their political representation, no longer matter. Apparently, none of that matters, and the only thing that counts is a crazy arithmetical formula for determining in a Bill how our constituencies should be organised henceforth. Is the Minister telling his constituents that that is all that matters these days and that their identities do not?

[Roger Williams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I just leave him with this thought. MPs have to deal with important issues, such as education and health, and we in Wales have democratic representation in the Assembly for that. There is nothing equivalent for the regions of England, so the democratic deficit will lie more in England than in Wales.

[Owen Smith]

I do not accept that at all. The critical point is that in 1997 Wales voted for devolution—[Interruption.] Perhaps hon. Members will listen. It voted for devolution and not marginalisation within the affairs of the United Kingdom. Marginalisation by the back door is happening under the Bill. I am pro-devolution and in favour of further devolution for Wales, as I know many Opposition Members are; but I am not in favour of having as a corollary a reduction without reference to the Welsh people of their voice in Westminster. We did not vote for a lessening of our say here, and we still want a proper say as part of the UK. We are not getting that under the present Government.

It is a disgrace that we have not had a Welsh Grand Committee. We face a crisis of constitutional issues, but also, as The Western Mail noted this morning, a crisis because of the unfair cuts’ impact on Wales. I challenge the Minister to tell us today whether, if we cannot have a Welsh Grand Committee on the constitution, we will get one to discuss the economy and its impact on Wales.