Wales Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

The Assembly can do that, but that issue strikes me as rather tangential to the one that we are debating, which is the nature of the electoral arrangements that this House lays down for the Assembly, which the Secretary of State is seeking to change.

I will return to the guts of the matter, which is the evidence of the need for the change. I think that the evidence supports our view that no such change is required. I return to the evidence provided in the impact assessment by the Government. Although they concede that a majority of respondents to the consultation—a “small majority”, admittedly—were

“in favour of retaining the ban”,

they state that

“the Government does not think that a strong enough case for this was made in the consultation responses.”

[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Wales suggests that those were Labour responses. He really ought to take his consultation seriously. If the Government want their policy to be supported by the public, they ought to reflect the evidence, rather than dismiss it out of hand when it happens to be counter to their narrow, partisan interests.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am intrigued and surprised that none of the three Plaid Cymru Members have stood up to defend their leader. In the interest of their silence, may I suggest a possible tweet for at least one of them: “We cannot answer what the shadow Secretary of State is saying, so we are silent and looking sheepish #nationalistsconfused”?

[Owen Smith]

I look forward to reading it on Twitter later this afternoon. To return to the evidence, the Government concede that this measure is solely designed to benefit the smaller parties in Wales—the Conservatives, the Liberals and Plaid Cymru—and that a majority of people responding to their consultation did not agree with their proposals to change it.

High-speed Rail

Debate between Owen Smith and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree totally with my hon. Friend. When the north Wales main line is electrified, a small number of trains—one or two a day, for example—could be diverted off the main track at Crewe or another convenient point to travel along that track. A passenger would therefore be able to travel from continental Europe to Rhyl, Bangor or, indeed, my hon. Friend’s constituency. Of course, I would also argue for the inclusion of Wrexham directly. Wales, and north Wales in particular, is on the periphery of Europe, but a high-quality transport plan could bring us into real contention for business.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is ahead of me because she is talking about the benefits that HS2 will bring to north Wales passengers via Crewe. Does she agree that the Secretary of State for Wales does not need to look as far as Lille for evidence of that? She could merely talk to the Secretary of State for Transport—her colleague in the Cabinet room. In an answer to the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), he said that HS2 will bring significant benefits to north Wales rail passengers, with all the obvious economic benefits that my hon. Friend is talking about.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree totally with my hon. Friend. Technically, there is nothing to stop such a plan in the long term. High-speed trains in France make some journeys across regular track, such as to Cannes. If the routes of Brussels to Bangor, Rotterdam to Rhyl, or Frankfurt to Flint sound a bit far-fetched, that is evidence of how inaccessible some of our towns are perceived to be.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Owen Smith and Susan Elan Jones

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Is not the point that my hon. Friend is making—and making very eloquently, I might add—that we should consider the aggregate effect of the Bill on Wales to be just as legitimate a question? We should not just compare one seat with another, but compare England with Wales.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree, and Government Members are showing that they have absolutely no understanding of the historic nature of Wales inside the Union.