Welsh Affairs

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

The first lesson is that nobody should be able to make £13 million on a project before it has even been built. Secondly, this whole thing is an outrage. People are being sold a pipe dream. Politicians who support it are being taken out for lunch, and those who ask difficult questions are being threatened with legal action by a group of expensive City lawyers. Some £9 million of taxpayers’ money has been wasted. The only infrastructure we have seen so far has been the £35,000-worth of work done to Mr Carrick’s mansion in Grantchester, and the only sports car in evidence is the Aston Martin that he drives around in. It is time to pull this project.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Wales Audit Office is looking into the affairs of that company? Has he contributed his valuable information to the WAO?

[David T. C. Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Yes, I have contributed quite a bit to the Wales Audit Office, and I am looking forward with great anticipation to the result. It is time to pull the plug on this scheme. If the Welsh Government want to put £200 million of our money at risk, there are better ways of doing it and better people to be doing it with.

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[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) on his opening speech. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies); I am a great fan of Swansea cockles, so I was interested to hear what he had to say. I represent the university constituency of Cardiff Central. We have three universities—Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, and the University of South Wales—so I shall focus my remarks on the importance of the higher education sector to Wales.

People in Wales have long understood the value of a good education, from the late 19th century, when working men pooled their wages to help to fund some of the earliest Welsh universities, through to today, when our seven universities are thriving like never before. They performed extremely well in the latest research excellence framework audit, when 77% of their submitted research was placed in the top two tiers of world research, and Cardiff University has been judged as the fifth best research university in the whole UK.

Welsh universities now stand at the cutting edge of research into renewable energy, new agriculture methods and new health research. In my constituency we have the brand new Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre, which brings together world-leading expertise in brain mapping with the very latest in brain imaging and brain stimulation. CUBRIC, as the centre is known, plays a pivotal role in the global endeavour to better understand the causes of neurological and psychiatric conditions such as dementia, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis, and to identify vital clues for the development of better treatments.

The higher education sector now accounts for almost 5% of Wales’s gross value added, generating £1.38 billion itself and powering £1.41 billion in other industries every year. Although universities in Wales are often portrayed as urban, they are in fact based in diverse areas and benefit the whole nation. Of the nearly 50,000 jobs created by the higher education sector in Wales, more than 11,000 are in local government areas that do not have a university based within their boundaries, which highlights how success in higher education helps to deliver success not only for its local communities, but for every community throughout Wales.

We know, however, that success is not inevitable. It has taken an incredible amount of work from teaching and research staff, students, administrators, and university managers and leaders to make our universities what they are. It has also taken a lot of hard cash, a major source of which has been the European Union, not only through research programmes such as Horizon 2020, but more generally through European regional development funding.

I am reminded of that every time I drive past CUBRIC, because without the £4.5 million of European funding that Cardiff University received for the building, the land where the centre now stands would have remained wasteland—a home for rats rather than researchers. Such examples explain why, during the referendum, the Welsh Conservative leader pledged that Wales would not get a penny less in funding after we left the EU, yet the Secretary of State has repeatedly refused to guarantee a replacement of the EU funding currently available to Wales and, by extension, to Welsh universities.

Given the Prime Minister’s quips about Labour cheques bouncing, it would be bitterly ironic for Wales if we discovered that the Welsh Conservative leader had been writing cheques that his boss could not cash. The refusal to offer guarantees to future EU students, the nonchalant attitude to pan-European student programmes such as Erasmus, and the general tone struck towards those seen as different echo far beyond our shores, and Wales is already paying the price.

Applications to Welsh universities from EU students are down by 8.45% on the previous year. Those students put more than £130 million into our universities and local economy. The reduction in the number of applications means that some of the brightest people in the world are now not choosing Wales—that is our loss.

The Government could take a simple step now to halt that decline and reduce the widespread and growing perception that EU students are unwelcome here. They could give a guarantee, as they have done for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 student cohorts from the EU, that EU students who start courses next year will have identical tuition fee status and access to financial support. Last week I heard from representatives of university medical students who are really concerned about NHS workforce planning, because while current medical students have been factored into that planning, many of them are from the EU and do not know whether, when they finish their degrees after we have left the European Union, they will be able to stay and work here.

Our ability to attract and retain the best academic talent is at risk. Some 17% of Cardiff University’s academic staff are EU nationals, which is why it is essential that the Prime Minister shows some leadership now—

[Paul Flynn]

Does my hon. Friend believe that the amendment passed by the House of Lords yesterday would be very useful, if it is supported by this House, to help the people whom she mentions?

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said, 17% of Cardiff University’s academic staff are EU nationals. Universities across Wales, and indeed across the UK, are concerned that we will lose not only EU national teaching staff, but UK national teaching staff who have EU spouses, because they will leave the UK to work abroad.

The Welsh higher education sector represents everything to which a global Britain should aspire—a world leader punching above its weight, and ready to work with its friends across Europe and the world. We need to applaud this success, but also to recognise that it is not inevitable. We have a responsibility—a positive duty—to provide an environment in which Welsh higher education not just survives, but thrives.

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[Mrs Moon]

I have had assurances that Ford will have the same deal as Nissan. I have asked today for an automotive symposium that will involve the manufacturers, Ministers here in Westminster, the trade unions, and local Members to see whether we can move this forward. I hope the Secretary of State will support that. There are also productivity issues at Bridgend that we must deal with, and the GMB and Unite unions are working on that with the workforce.

[Paul Flynn]

We are delighted with my hon. Friend’s comprehensive invitation to Bridgend. However, she has not mentioned the Emmaus centre, which I think is the only one in Wales.

[Mrs Moon]

I could spend hours giving Members 101 reasons to visit Bridgend. The Emmaus centre is changing lives. It is offering people who thought they had nothing a chance to get back on their feet, to have dignity and to start giving back to society. It is an amazing opportunity, and I am so proud that it is based in Bridgend.

There has been some discussion about alternative sources of heat coming into Wales. Bridgend is one of three local authorities selected to be deliverers of major renewable energy projects, involving the piloting of the latest heat pump technology through the smart system and heat programme. It is valued at £5.2 million and has been sponsored by Wales & West Utilities and Western Power.

Come and see Bridgend. There is so much there to be proud of—so much that exemplifies the best of Wales and explains why people and companies, once they get to Wales, do not want to leave. Our quality of life is amazing and our environment is fantastic, but, most of all, it is our people whom we should be proud of.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

In the spirit of brotherly and sisterly love that characterises this debate, I will advance my main career task of adding to the glittering career of the Secretary of State for Wales. He had the good sense to marry into a family who live in my constituency, which shows that he is a man of ambition.

I urge the Secretary of State to challenge his Cabinet, who seem to use Wales as a kind of Aunt Sally for making comparisons. He could advance his career by promoting some of the great achievements of Wales, and particularly of the Welsh Government. He could start with the Welsh Government’s Bill that introduced presumed consent for organ donation, which has already saved lives and proven to be advantageous. There is a Bill to that effect before this House, and I urge him to persuade the Cabinet of the advantages of introducing the same system in England.

I want to ask the Secretary of State about one of the other great successes of the Welsh Assembly, which was buying Cardiff airport for the bargain price of £52 million. That was derided by some of his friends in Wales, but since the airport was bought it has paid more than £52 million in air passenger duty back to the Government. The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), who is next to the Secretary of State, took a great deal of time in our debate on the Wales Bill and seemed to give more support to Bristol airport than to Cardiff airport. I say to him that Cardiff airport is another shining success.

In a Select Committee, I reminded the Secretary of State that he was born four years after Wales started paying double tax on the national road system and the Severn bridge tolls, and asked whether his ambition was to ensure that those tolls continued until he retired. That is the way that it is going. By next year, however, the bridge will be all paid for.

I asked the Secretary of State how the toll of £3.70 that he proposed at the time was 50% of £6.70. He and his officials went back to the Wales Office and recalculated, and the next figure I saw was £3. Recently, a question was asked here about how the £3 was calculated. The strange answer was that that was something equivalent to the Humber bridge. We are happy for it to be treated in the same way as the Humber bridge, where £150 million of debt was wiped off. That would give us 10 years at least. Now, the only justification for the tolls is that they are a cash cow, and the Government and the Treasury refuse to give them up.

When the Severn bridge was first opened, Harri Webb wrote a poem:

“Two lands at last connected

Across the waters wide,

And all the tolls collected

On the English side.”

If the ghost of Harri Webb is still about, he might write something along these lines:

“Now all the tolls are collected

The debt is paid in full

But Tory snake oil salesmen

Still rob us with their bull.”

The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) made several interesting observations, and I would like to know how they will be followed up.

[David T. C. Davies]

Fifty per cent. is better than nothing, and does the hon. Gentleman agree that Mr Webb might have written:

“The Secretary of State

We think no less of him

Because 50%

Is better than dim”—

as they say in Welsh?

[Paul Flynn]

There is a delightful picture, which I have produced with pride on my website, of the hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for Transport and the Secretary of State for Wales—a trio of snake oil salesmen—lined up against the background of the bridge, saying “Well, it used to be £6.70. Now, we’re going to make it £3.70.”; “No, we’re not—it’s £3”; and “We’ll charge you each way, so it’s £1.50”. These are the techniques of the fairground.

The charge should be nothing because we have already paid the bill. How many Members were in the House for the Severn Bridges Bill in 1992, when we were told by Wyn Roberts, “This is the end of it”? We have already paid £1 billion of public money. We pay our taxes for every road within the British Isles—we have to pay our share of that—and, in addition, we pay this extra tax to get into Wales. It is a barrier to Welsh life and it should go. I am looking forward to hearing how Ministers came up with the idea of charging £3. There is no justification for it. The largest element of it will actually go on collecting the tolls themselves. This is a totally unfair tax on Wales.

I am sure that the Secretary of State will announce, in under an hour’s time, that this is over and that he will now crusade on the issue and build himself up as the new symbolic or legendary figure of Welsh life, so that when he lays down his political role and joins the choir invisible he can discuss with Harri Webb his verses on the Severn bridge and contemplate the opportunities he has had in life, such as the ones I am sure he will take up after today.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is right. The British Government are notorious for being the ringleader of a group of member states that consistently blocked the European Commission’s attempts to give the anti-dumping regime more teeth. That is a matter of great regret, which reflects the “China first” policy, rather than a “Wales first” policy, that the Government have pursued.

A thriving steel industry must also be a catalyst for the regeneration and development that will happen if the Government get on and approve a city deal for the Swansea Bay area. That will help to regenerate and manage the impact of de-industrialisation. It also makes sense for the Government to give the green light to the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, an idea whose time has clearly come. The lagoon would create and sustain thousands of jobs and meet 11% of Welsh energy needs with a clean, green, reliable source of sustainable energy.

The Government’s parliamentary boundary review has rather less support in Wales than elsewhere. It disrespects local communities. It proposes to slice Port Talbot town centre in two, leaving the high street and adjacent shopping centre in different constituencies. It is absurd. The review disregards the 2 million people who registered to vote in the referendum campaign and seeks to stifle the voice of Wales by removing more than a quarter of Welsh seats. All that is taking place while the UK Government seem intent on using Brexit to turn the UK into a European version of the Cayman Islands.

[Paul Flynn]

With all our constitutional problems—a grossly bloated House of Lords, not enough Members in the Welsh Assembly and the constitutional chaos that will flow from Brexit—is it not astonishing that the Government are interested in only one reform, which will give them more Members here?

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is right—it is a barefaced gerrymander, which we regret.

I urge the Government to take action on steel and economic regeneration, and to rethink the boundary reviews. I wish all hon. Members a happy St David’s day.