Welsh Affairs

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

There were different ways in which the problem could have been addressed. I think we all agree that constituencies ought to be the same size. For those who think that there has been gerrymandering, I can only say that had something been done about the situation during the 13 years of Labour Government, we would not be where we are now. Perhaps we would have had 650 constituencies of equal size instead of 600. That might have led to some slightly less glum faces in this Chamber.

I came here to talk about the report, “Inward Investment in Wales”, which is a relevant document for this debate. As Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, may I say what a pleasure it has been to work with Members from all parts of the House? Committee members have acted in the highest traditions of Select Committee work in leaving their political affiliations at the door, as I have tried to do myself. [Laughter.] Within the Committee Room, that is. We are not in the Committee now, so I am not necessarily in that mode.

I want to make it absolutely clear that the report is not meant to be a criticism of any Government or any political party. It simply aims to draw attention to certain problems. I will put the report down, having commended it, and talk about what we can interpret from it. Obviously, other people may interpret it in different ways. The main issue we faced was that inward investment in Wales over the past 20 years has fallen off a cliff. During the ’80s and early ’90s, Wales was getting 15% of all investment into the UK. The latest figures that I have seen suggest that it is now about 3%. I hear that it might be even lower, but I have seen no official figures for that yet. Clearly, there is a major problem that needs to be addressed.

I cannot go through the whole report, but something that will have leapt out at people is the recommendation for a dedicated trade promotion agency to go out and sell Wales to the world. That must not, of course, be the Welsh Development Agency, because although that brand is recognised around the world, I do not think that there would be much support for setting it up again as it was. We heard all sorts of evidence, some of it anecdotal but coming from officials, to suggest that this simply is not happening. We heard that International Business Wales is not cutting the mustard when it goes abroad, that people have been trying to sell Wales abroad who do not even speak the language of the country that they are working in, and that UK Trade & Investment has had little contact with Wales in comparison with other regions and nations in the United Kingdom, in particular Scotland.

Clearly there is a major problem. I am not laying the blame at any particular door. However, it needs to be addressed as quickly as possible and I hope that the Welsh Assembly Government will take note of the strong recommendation that there needs to be one dedicated body within the Welsh Assembly whose job it is to go out and sell Wales to the world.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s commendation of the excellent Select Committee report. Does he agree with the recommendation in it, and the evidence that we heard from many bodies including Admiral car insurance, that such a body should have private sector experience among its members? One of the strengths of the old WDA was how it brought private sector experience to bear on the job of bringing inward investment to Wales.

[David T. C. Davies]

I absolutely concur. There needs to be a mixture of skills in that body. There certainly needs to be a lot of private sector experience, but given the evidence that we heard, it is also important that the people involved can talk to different arms of government in different parts of the world.

Another issue that came out of the evidence that we heard was a general concern about skills. A lot of employers said to us in evidence and outside the Committee that people coming out of schools and universities simply were not equipped for the world of work. The recent programme for international student assessment report suggested that skills among Welsh school leavers in certain areas were well below the OECD average and the lowest in the UK. That ought to worry people.

I have expressed personal concern before about some of the university courses being offered. I do not know if it is still happening, but at one time Swansea was offering a four-year degree in surf studies. As somebody who has spent 20 years surfing, I do not think someone needs a degree in it. I did not get any degree in anything, but that is another story. I certainly do not think I missed out by not spending four years studying something like that. There are a lot of Mickey Mouse courses about, and people come out of them expecting to be able to walk into a £30,000 or £40,000-a-year job, having spent years of their life and quite of a lot of their money on such a course, and are surprised when it does not happen.

When the Committee went to GE Aviation, I talked to some of the directors, a lot of whom had come up from the shop floor. They were quite happy to take on hard-working, bright people who did not necessarily have great academic qualifications, show them all about the job and allow them to rise to the top.

It is interesting to think about the image of heavy engineering and manufacturing in Wales, and perhaps in the rest of the UK. Having worked at British Steel in the late 1980s, even I went into some factories with the Committee expecting loud and perhaps slightly dirty places. That is no longer the case, as those of us who went on the factory visits know. Some of them have to be so clean, to keep dust out of the atmosphere, that they are like hospitals. It was very interesting to talk to Tata and hear that it had taken it upon itself to bring school leavers on to the premises, and to hear how excited those school leavers had been. Some of them had gone on to work at Tata. Why are not all companies doing that?