United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Shaun Bailey Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fay Jones]

I absolutely will. My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which I will come back to later.

I want to look quickly at the notion of a power grab. If I phoned the police and said that my car had been stolen, but when they arrived explained that I never owned the car in the first place, I do not think I would be taken seriously. That is absolutely how we should treat the hysteria of Opposition Members.

When the UK left the European Union, we did so as one United Kingdom. The powers that are returning through the Bill, outlined in clause 46, were ceded to Brussels as part of our membership of the European Union. As sovereignty is restored to this Parliament and the devolved Administrations, it is right that powers should also be restored. Members of this House will recall a long drawn-out legal case brought by Gina Miller, which confirmed that this Parliament was and remains sovereign, and this Bill reinforces that. In addition, the Welsh Parliament will be handed responsibility for 70 new policy areas while none of the existing areas of legislative competence is being removed, so to those who argue this is a power grab, I simply say, “You cannot lose something you never had.”

The Bill will give the UK Government the power to do exactly what they should be doing—strengthening even further the most successful political and economic union in history. It is about doing more at a reserved level, not less at a devolved level. It will give the UK Government the power to invest in Wales’s economic development, something that successive Governments in Cardiff Bay have refused to do. Broadband is a good example of that; according to the House of Commons Library, Brecon and Radnorshire lags at 648th in the league table of 650 constituencies for broadband speed. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) chuntering from a sedentary position, but that is in the House of Commons Library. Her party is responsible for it.

Schemes such as the Welsh Government’s Superfast Cymru have been enabled by taxpayers in Brecon and Radnor, despite them barely having felt the benefit of that money, while the south Wales valleys—a hotbed of Labour party support—are fully connected up with high-speed internet access. Areas that do not vote Labour in Wales are punished with second-rate public services and we must correct this.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend clarify something for me? If I am right and have interpreted the Bill correctly, in theory, the UK Government could put together the M4 relief road, which the Labour party has just decided not to go with. Am I correct in that analysis?

[Fay Jones]

That is certainly a good point and one that has been hotly contested. The Welsh Government wasted an awful lot of money on it, but never even arrived at a decision.

Through the Bill, there are huge opportunities for Brecon and Radnorshire. I can get my shopping list out and bid for funding for a new general hospital. Considering we are the largest constituency in England and Wales by land and we do not have a district general hospital, that will be very welcome. Constituents are forced to travel outside Powys to hospitals in Hereford, Swansea or Aberystwyth for treatment. I see the Minister making notes. I assure her I would bite her hand off on this. The same can be said for railway infrastructure. We can utilise the nascent Marches growth deal and reopen the railway between Hereford and Brecon, boosting our tourism opportunities while providing greener public transport solutions.

The Bill delivers on exactly what we said we would do at the general election. It enables us to level up in all four corners of the United Kingdom. It will be warmly welcomed in mid-Wales, which has been ignored by Labour and the Liberal Democrats in coalition in Cardiff Bay. Sadly, there is no doubt that the opposition parties will use the Bill as an opportunity to reignite their campaign of talking down our potential as a sovereign, independent nation. Rather than strengthening our Union and empowering our Parliaments in all four nations, they would prefer to be subservient to Brussels for decades to come. I say to them that now is not the time to remain in the past. Rather, it is time to look forward to a new chapter in our shared history, laying the foundations for making this the most prosperous chapter yet. This Bill and this clause do exactly that.

--- Later in debate ---

Prior to coming into this House, I was a financial planner. One of the elements of planning was to ensure the right money in the right hands at the right time, and these clauses are about getting the right money to the right places in a timely manner for the benefit of the people, bringing more powers to each devolved nation and supporting every part of the United Kingdom. Today’s Opposition amendments simply take away from this, and I urge those sitting across from me in the Chamber today to stop playing political games and to recognise the benefits this will bring to us all.

[Shaun Bailey]

Before I start my comments, I would like to say that it is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts). Obviously, it is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). When I saw his name on the call list, I was filled with excitement, and he has not disappointed. His remarks were an oratorical smorgasbord, with words I had not even thought of. Was it “slap a jack”, or whatever it was? To get that into Hansard is an achievement. While I disagree with pretty much everything he said, as always, in his usual way, he has not let us down, so it is always great to follow him.

I want to be a bit parochial in my comments today because, for me, clauses 46 and 47 of this Bill are, ultimately about our communities. That is the core of this, and I want to talk about my communities today because, like many people who have spoken and contributed ahead of me, I have real problems in my communities, which can be resolved and dealt with, I hope by utilising the provisions in clause 46 of this Bill.

Let us look at the deprivation element and how we can use the investment angle to tackle deprivation. In my constituency, Tipton—a town many Members have heard me talk about time and again; many call it the forgotten city—is in the lowest 20th percentile of deprivation in this country. People in that community have felt abandoned and ignored—by successive Governments of every colour—for years and years. Yes, they have benefited from the funding that had come from the EU, and it is this Government’s commitment to ensure, through the shared prosperity fund, that those communities still have a lifeline and still have a way in which we can ensure that we can truly level them up.

The reason people sent me here and the reason they voted to leave the European Union was a simple one: it was that they felt this place spoke at them. They felt they had been ignored. They had seen their communities degraded, they have not seen the benefits lauded by those who wished us to remain in it and they felt that their communities had been let down because they felt they did not matter. That is how they had been left to feel. So this is about ensuring that this Government, as we leave the EU, can fulfil that pledge on a UK basis.

In my communities, I still have parents coming to me in tears because they fear for their child’s future because of where they come from. I have people saying to me, “Ah, when you’re from Tipton, the police will stop you because of the community you come from”. That is why this matters. That is why I am surprised to a degree by the opposition to this, because surely the betterment and empowerment of our communities is why all of us are here. It is absolutely the core fundamental principle of being Members of Parliament. I think as well of what we can do and of the potential of clause 46, and again I am going to talk about my own community, because that is why I am here. [Interruption.] Sorry, Mr Evans, I am looking at clause 46 in terms of rejecting the amendments, and clause 46 does provide us with such an opportunity across the UK.

I get the points that have been raised about devolution and I have heard the points made by Opposition Members, but I would say that the elephant in the room, which we have missed actually, is English devolution and how that squares with this. I think of the West Midlands Combined Authority. That is an example of devolution and of a devolved administration engaging with the UK Government, through our Mayor Andy Street. It has lobbied for investment in infrastructure and is lobbying the UK Government to fulfil their pledge to ensure that the areas that require those benefits or require such funding do get it. It is by a proactive approach that the fears that Members are trying to combat with these amendments can be allayed. Surely it is about a proactive approach.

[Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I have gladly worked with my hon. Friend across the Black Country. He will know that Andy Street has been very proactive in his approach and that we are seeing the benefits already. Does my hon. Friend think that he is key to our achieving a very bright future across the west midlands, and that we need to see him elected next May in order to see a prosperous future?

[Shaun Bailey]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend, but I want to focus my remarks on devolution and on this accusation of a power grab. Ultimately, the core of the opposition to these clauses today is that, actually, it is believed that this Government are taking away powers. As my hon. Friends have said, my communities do not mind where the money comes from as long as they see the benefits. I am sure that Members from all parts of the Committee will agree with that. Investment is investment. As I have said, we were sent to this place to ensure the better empowerment of our communities, especially for the vulnerable people in those communities. We have seen these back and forth arguments before, and I do not want get dragged into them and I do not want to be repetitious. I appreciate though that, at this point, it is difficult not to be repetitious, but what I would say is that the opportunities that come from this Bill will allow us, on a UK-wide level, to truly commit to levelling up to ensure that we can seize those opportunities as we go forward and to ensure that we can deliver, particularly in areas such as mine, on that election mandate and on what people believed they were voting for four years ago and in December last year. That is absolutely crucial.

I want to bring my remarks to a close because I am incredibly conscious that other Members want to get in, so I will simply say this: I disagree entirely with those who say that this is a power grab. I reject the amendments. We have so much potential with this Bill, particularly with clause 46, to ensure that we can hold feet to the fire. We should engage and work together. I know that Opposition Members are probably thinking, wahey, a new Member with his lovely naive approach, but we need to have that. We really do. Sometimes that little bit of naivety, that little bit of pushing forward and thinking that, yes, we can talk and put our covers aside means that we can actually bring about change. If we do that, then we will truly see the benefits of this Bill. That will happen through engagement with the institutions. There is still a respect for devolution. As I have said before, I want kids in Tipton to learn about Rabbie Burns as much as anywhere else. I want them to understand the shared culture that we have as members of this Union of nations and understand the cultures of every part of this Union of nations. Ultimately, what this Bill comes down to is engagement with those institutions. We have seen it in England through our combined authorities and the work that they have done to bring in investment using a model that is very similar to the one proposed in this Bill. I support this Bill wholeheartedly.

[Anna McMorrin]

Let us just get this straight: this Bill is pure political opportunism from a Government so wrapped up in their own fiction that they have forgotten what reality looks like. As it stands, this Bill will set in motion the biggest re-centralisation of power from Wales to Whitehall in over two decades.