North Wales Economic Infrastructure

Owen Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Roger. Also, given the north Wales connections with the aircraft industry, I add my words of condolence to those of my right hon. and hon. Friends on this sad day after the air crash in France.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) on securing his second debate on the economic infrastructure of north Wales. I also congratulate all right hon. and hon. Friends on their contributions to the debate—a measure of their continued determination, as it is of all north Wales Members, to see north Wales prosper. We have heard excellent contributions from everyone.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) said it was a shame that he is the only representative of north-west Wales present; no other parties from the north-west are represented in the Chamber. It is a shame that Plaid Cymru Members are not here—perhaps they have something else on of rather more importance.

That, however, is one of the lone party political points that I want to make today, because the debate has not been party political; it has been a constructive debate with an enormous amount of consensus—

[Chris Ruane]

I did try!

[Owen Smith]

For all my hon. Friend’s attempts, we were largely consensual.

There was a huge amount of agreement in the Chamber about the challenges that face north Wales on the economy and its infrastructural links and what we need to do about energy, transport, rail, road, schools building, housing and so on. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside summed things up when he talked about north Wales as an industrial powerhouse. We have terrific, world-beating companies in all the constituencies represented in the Chamber today. We need to ensure that those companies are nurtured and grow, and that the certainty required in terms of investment is maintained by whoever wins the election in May. Any uncertainties such as those about the future involvement of the UK in Europe need to be eradicated.

Another point made with great force and vigour by my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside was the need for investment in education and apprenticeships in north Wales and throughout the UK. The connections that have already been made between companies such as Toyota and Airbus and the local colleges, Coleg Cambria and Glyndwr university, are exemplars for the whole of the UK. We need to ensure that we maintain those connections.

The former Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), made an extremely positive contribution on two key points, first, on the vital cross-border links. I agree that too often in all parties our public dialogue on Wales concentrates on the border. We need to get past that. The next phases of devolution must be about greater partnership and integration, acknowledging the fact that companies do not recognise the border in the way in which public policy often does.

The right hon. Gentleman’s points about connecting the two enterprise zones through the Wrexham to Bidston line, making it a 15-minute journey, and about the benefits that can be derived from thinking more holistically about the whole of Deeside and north-west England as an economic powerhouse and zone were extremely well made, as was his contribution about English votes for English laws. I agree with him wholeheartedly that we must carefully guard against short-term political expediency for some parties getting in the way of the vital need for our constituents, in particular in north Wales, to have a say on services and decisions that affect them as much as they affect people in England.

Those points were well made by the right hon. Gentleman and were reflected in the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). He, too, highlighted the interconnection of our north Wales economy with that of the north-west. For example, on HS2, my right hon. Friend made it clear that in order to derive the full benefits for north Wales we need the Crewe interchange to be delivered and real investment in and understanding of the benefits. Crucially, he made a point about the recent rhetoric from the Chancellor about the northern powerhouse—welcome rhetoric and welcome emphasis on the north of England from a Tory Chancellor.

However, recent comments by Ministers in the Wales Office about creating a north Wales powerhouse are perhaps a bit muddleheaded. We need to think more along the lines of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn said, that north Wales is in many respects connected inextricably to the north-west and the north of England. When we talk about the northern powerhouse, as I suggest whoever succeeds in May must continue to do, we should be thinking about north Wales as an integral part of it; we should not talk simply about something within Wales, of north Wales versus the south.

My right hon. Friend also made some excellent practical suggestions about the need for better transport links between his constituency and north Wales generally and the airports that serve north Wales—not Cardiff Wales airport, but Liverpool and Manchester. Such points of connection are vital. Other practical suggestions included extending Flint train station in order to allow the new trains to continue stopping there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn made a characteristically ebullient and passionate defence of his island, describing it as being at the heart of the whole of the British isles. I would not dare contradict him. He also challenged the Hansard reporters with his excellent pronunciation of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrn- drobwllllantysiliogogogoch—they can do it twice now, if they would, please. He, too, spoke about the three key challenges: energy, transport—rail and road—and tourism. The Horizon project on Anglesey is supported throughout the House and it will be an enormous benefit to Wales, with 6,000 to 8,000 jobs in construction, as he said, and a further 1,000 jobs to maintain it. Cross-party consensus in support of nuclear energy in Britain is vital, to the benefit of not only north Wales but the whole of the UK and our energy security in insecure times.

My hon. Friend made two unique points in his contribution, one about our ports, and Holyhead to Dublin becoming as important a connection as Dover to Calais. That is a vision to which we should all subscribe. Cross-party consensus on devolving power over ports to the Welsh Assembly Government is important. I anticipate and hope that his suggestion will be picked up. He was also the only one to mention mobile phone coverage, which is enormously important to modern business. Coverage remains far too patchy in Wales, and north Wales is one of the areas in which we must do more.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) made an excellent contribution. In particular I highlight his description of the benefits to Wales of our continued membership of the European Union. He mentioned Rhyl harbour, Rhyl promenade and the OpTIC research and incubation unit, which are only three examples of the £1.2 billion of investment in Wales as a result of our membership of the EU. He emphasised the risk to the great companies in north Wales—I have mentioned some, such as Toyota and Airbus. As my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside said, they would not leave overnight were we to leave the EU, but their continued investment in north Wales and in Britain would inevitably be in jeopardy. The risks to our constituents in north Wales in respect of their security and to the long-term prospects for the economic health of north Wales should be clear to all of us.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd also highlighted the excellent work of the Welsh Government in recent years in the teeth of big cuts to their budget— £1.5 billion less and 30% of the capital budget removed. That is part of the picture under the UK Government: according to the National Audit Office, there has been a £15 billion reduction in infrastructure investment. However, despite such problems, as my hon. Friend said, £70 million has been invested in schools in Denbighshire. He could also have mentioned the £64 million invested by the Welsh Government and local government in schools in Flintshire or the £30 million invested in schools on Ynys Môn by the Welsh Government. Such schools are also a vital piece of economic infrastructure investment for our future—perhaps more vital than some of the road and rail projects that we have discussed. The schools projects are a testament to the continued dedication of the Welsh Labour Government to investing in the future of our children in Wales, in contrast to—a final party political point—how the Building Schools for the Future programme was cancelled in England.

I shall bring my remarks to a conclusion with a brief reminder that we have an election just 40-odd days away now; in case Members had not noticed, this Parliament is coming to an end. There is a vast amount of agreement that north Wales requires further investment. Whoever wins on 7 May, Welsh Members across the House should put their shoulders to the wheel. I am confident that if, as I hope and believe, we have a Labour Government, we will see proper partnership once more between Wales and Westminster—in contrast to the war on Wales over the past few years under this Tory Government—and a proper contribution to delivering economic success and prosperity for the people of north Wales.