Brexit Deal: Referendum

Debate between Paul Flynn and Susan Elan Jones

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am not sure that the Tory writing in The Spectator would agree with the hon. Gentleman. If I read the article correctly, the writer was trying to save the Government and to stop the Conservatives knocking the spots off each other, so I am not sure that what the hon. Gentleman said is true. I will move on to some of the points he makes later.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

During the first referendum I said that the choice was between Operation Fear and Operation Lies. I believe that we need to have a second referendum. In the same way, Wales voted first against devolution and then for devolution. The public will have a clear idea of what the nightmare of Brexit will mean in a few months’ time. Do they not need to have their second vote, as second thoughts are always superior to first thoughts?

[Susan Elan Jones]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes his point well.

Let me return to that recent risk study by the Bank of England. In its stress test for British banks, the Bank modelled a 4.7% fall in output, a 27% devaluation of the pound against the dollar, and a devaluation of a third in house prices. Indeed, what if—to quote the Brexit Secretary—some of our key decision makers have just “slightly misspoke”? One minute the first part of a deal seems to have been done, and the next we are told that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Then, in the midst of it all, it seems that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has had a moment of epiphany—we all like those moments. Recognising that there may be trouble ahead, he reassures us:

“If the British people dislike the arrangement we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge.”

But would it not be much cleaner, quicker and simpler just to put the final deal to the British public?

Wales Bill

Debate between Paul Flynn and Susan Elan Jones

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Flynn]

I think that would be entirely appropriate. The hon. Gentleman reminds us of matters that were subjects of great passion at the time. I believe they did—as many points in history have—concentrate the feelings of those in Wales about their national identity and what was seen to be an injustice against the people of Wales. I remember the events vividly.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

On the subject of Tryweryn, will my hon. Friend be so kind as to put on record his admiration for Lord Thomas William Jones who was of course at the time the Member of Parliament for Meirionnydd and chaired the action committee? Originally, of course, he was a native of Ponciau as well,

[Paul Flynn]

I am very happy to record that. It is also worth mentioning that Tryweryn was opposed by every Welsh Member of this House. That opposition was not confined to any one group or party, although there were certain people who led it, as my hon. Friend has suggested. I look back with pride to the time when Labour MPs and peers took part in the early days of establishing a Welsh identity, particularly in the north Wales area. We had a large number of Welsh-speaking Labour MPs here, and they could only dream about a day like today when we are passing the legislation that their generation sadly failed to do, even though they and organisations such as Cymru Fydd were full of high hopes. We are now taking these steps forward, and the dreams of past generations are being fulfilled and honoured.

The scope of the Assembly’s legislative competence in this field is interesting. The Welsh Government are seeking full devolution of water and sewerage to be aligned with the geographical boundary with England, as set out in the Silk report and the UK Government’s St David’s day Command Paper. A joint Governments water and sewerage devolution programme board was set up following the publication of the St David’s day paper to consider the alignment of legislative competence with the national border. The programme focused on the impact on consumers and engaged with the regulator, consumer representatives, the water companies and both Governments. The work of the programme has now concluded, and I understand that the evidence confirms that these changes can be achieved with minimal impact on the consumers of water and sewerage services, so legislative competence for water should be aligned with the national border.

I shall take this opportunity to mention the related aspects of policy on water, including new clause 10 and the amendments to clause 44. Clause 44 would amend section 114 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 by adding to the grounds on which the Secretary of State can intervene to prevent the Presiding Officer from submitting an Assembly Bill for Royal Assent. Section 114 currently allows such intervention if, inter alia, the Secretary of State has reasonable grounds to believe that the Bill contains provisions which might have a seriously adverse impact on water resources, supply or quality in England. The Wales Bill would add to this by allowing intervention if a Bill might have a seriously adverse impact on sewerage services or systems in England.

In the view of the Welsh Government, with which I totally agree, the intervention power in respect of water should be replaced by a memorandum of understanding between the Welsh and UK Governments on how cross-border water issues should be managed. This was also the view of the Silk commission, which recommended that

“a formal intergovernmental protocol should be established in relation to cross-border issues”.

It also recommended that

“the Secretary of State’s existing legislative and executive powers of intervention in relation to water should be removed in favour of mechanisms under the inter-governmental protocol”.

It follows that the Welsh Government are opposed to the proposed extension by clause 44 of these intervention powers to sewerage, and would also wish to see sections 114 and 152 of the 2006 Act amended to remove these intervention powers in relation to water.

Wales Bill

Debate between Paul Flynn and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones]

If the hon. Gentleman looked back at the history, he would find that many people in the Labour party, including me, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and many others, supported that pluralistic system, and I still do. People talk about this in terms of partisan analysis, but we have to remember that we too, as a party, have list Members in Mid Wales and West Wales.

I am pleased that people in constituencies who feel that every time they go out to vote in a Westminster election or a constituency election for the Assembly, their candidate is not going to get in, can now feel that, yes, their vote is going to matter. I appreciate that there has to be a balance in terms of constituency representation in a region, but this remains important. We could have put, say, the candidates who stood and lost in the Pembrokeshire seats on a list. There is no partisan advantage for us, but there is a basic issue of fairness. This cannot be a two-way bet.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend may recall that the decision that many agreed to was taken on the grounds not of getting wider support but of its being good democracy. We have a system, as we still do, that cheats all but the two main parties. That is extraordinary. We had two elections where the Conservative party in Wales received 20% of the vote but had not a single MP in this House—a democratic outrage. The idea was that the Assembly was going to be set up not to have permanent one-party rule but to give all the other parties a fair chance of being represented.

[Susan Elan Jones]

That is right. It is important that on such constitutional issues we have this sort of open debate and are open to ideas, as my party certainly has been. It is possible to be progressive and pluralistic but to recognise that it would be nonsense to go back to the whole issue of dual candidacy in the Assembly. I am firmly of the view that someone should either stand for a constituency seat or be on the Assembly list. There is a very strong case—my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) made it—for open lists. These are the sorts of things we should be looking at.

Yesterday evening, I came across a leaflet. It was nothing to do with politics; it was to do with recycling. I spotted on it a comment that I thought was so good that I wrote it down. It is not exactly clause 2 of this Bill, but it could be. It said:

“Within as little as 6 weeks, the empty can you put into your recycling bin could be back on the shelf as a new can of cola or a new tin of beans.”

That is why we think that the Government have got it wrong on this one.

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Paul Flynn and Susan Elan Jones

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman could have made a much better intervention about funding. If the intervention that he made was intended merely to back up his party’s crib sheet, I do not think that that was very sensible. He could have pointed out that yesterday the Department said that it would remove the reference to S4C from schedule 4 and give it a clause of its own, but, unbelievably, no additional funds and no commitment to funding after 2015.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I would love to, but I am conscious that from now on there is no more injury time.

The Select Committee concluded that

“S4C provides value for money.”

This is no sweet little niche cultural project that is propped up out of the kindness of taxpayers’ hearts. The channel is already cutting costs, and has overheads of only 4.5%, compared to 12% at the BBC. It is popular and well watched. According to the Select Committee, its

“share of the viewing audience during peak times”

is holding up “remarkably well”, and viewing figures for key programmes compare favourably with those for their English language equivalents.

On top of all that, the channel supports 2,000 Welsh jobs and contributes £90 million to the Welsh economy. This is not an institution in desperate need of top-down reform. The Bill, however, will impose catastrophic changes that will not even comply with its own aims. Ministers talk the language of sustainability, but they refuse to guarantee S4C’s future beyond 2015. They talk about accountability and transparency, but this move will take S4C’s funding out of direct Government control and hand it over to an arm’s-length body. They talk about maintaining S4C’s independence—where have we heard about the independence of the media before?—but they have announced no change in the law on BBC Trust responsibility for every penny of the licence fee. The whole plan was drawn up on the back of an envelope by people with no knowledge of S4C or the language that it promotes, who wanted to cut costs without worrying about the consequences. S4C deserves better.

I am not saying that we cannot have a debate about improving S4C. Indeed, we appear to have been engaging in such a debate for the best part of the last year, and I think that that is right, as is the independent review. The first step, however, is to remove S4C from the Bill altogether. I will vote for its removal as soon as I get the chance, and I hope that the whole House will join me in doing so.