Strengthening the Union as it Relates to Wales (First sitting)

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 General Committees

[Jo Stevens]

And in energy, indeed—my hon. Friend is quite right.

Finally, we probably could have had a whole Welsh Grand Committee on the issue of respect, because it is at the very core of strengthening the Union. Respect for people and places must be at the heart of our Union of nations. Everyone has a right to be treated with respect and no place should be left behind. Everyone matters. Respect between the four Governments of the United Kingdom needs to be embedded in everything we do.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Surely it would be a matter of respect to the nation of Wales and those who have suffered from covid for the Welsh Government to hold their own inquiry into the covid crisis, as is being done by the Governments of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Is that not the ultimate respect that the people of Wales are due?

[Jo Stevens]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman but, in fact, it was his own party leader who promised a UK-wide inquiry into the covid pandemic response, and I am sure that within that there will be specifics on each nation. However, that is what the Prime Minister has promised, and that is what we are still waiting for. We have not seen it yet.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto contained an entire chapter on strengthening the Union. I looked at it yesterday: a nice little script for the Prime Minister, guaranteeing that promises would be delivered. However, there have been broken promises already, such as his pledge not to raise national insurance. We have also seen a deliberate effort to undermine and roll back the devolution settlement. How about the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 for starters, or the promise that Wales would not receive a penny less in replacement funding than it had received from EU structural funds? We are £375 million down and counting. There is the deliberate bypassing of the Welsh Government on areas of devolved competence within the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund, of which we have not yet had the details.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Baynes]

Bore da—good morning. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Like my Welsh colleagues here today, I take great heart from the fact that under this Conservative Government, the Union, specifically as it relates to Wales but also across our United Kingdom, has grown stronger and continues to do so. It gives me particular pleasure to be seated next to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham, with whom I share the county borough of Wrexham. It is a great pleasure to work hard with her on a wide range of issues that affect our two constituencies—in particular, recently, city status and city of culture status for Wrexham.

There has already been much mention in this morning’s debate of the way in which the UK Government have assisted the Welsh Government, and Wales overall, during the pandemic. There are two particular points that I would like to draw out and perhaps have not been mentioned so far. The first is that the vaccines are of course the way out of the pandemic, and the UK Government have secured and purchased vaccines on behalf of the whole United Kingdom; over 6.5 million doses have now been delivered across Wales. I think it is very important to stress that the speed and scale of that programme would never have been possible if we had stayed in the EU, which is very much the avowed policy of the First Minister and many members of the Welsh Labour party.

Secondly, the UK’s armed forces continue to play a crucial role in the fight against covid-19 in Wales and we are hugely grateful for their commitment and expertise. Four hundred and eleven military personnel are currently available to support the pandemic response in Wales. That includes 313 personnel supporting the Welsh ambulance service and 98 personnel deployed to assist the seven health boards across Wales. That is an absolutely key example of the benefits of the Union to Wales and across the rest of the UK.

There has been much talk about the financial benefits that have flowed from the UK Government’s policies, so I will not go back over those, but I know from my own experience in my constituency of Clwyd South how many businesses have said to me, when I have visited them, that they are extremely grateful for the prompt, well directed and generous support that has been provided by the UK Government to businesses across Wales. My constituency of Clwyd South has historically been starved of investment by the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff Bay, but under the UK Government over the last two years we have seen renewed vigour to correct that injustice, with unprecedented levels of funding coming into the region. A key example is the £13.3 million levelling-up fund bid, developed by Wrexham and Denbighshire councils and which I sponsored, which has been successful. It will be matched by £1.7 million of funding, giving a total package of £15 million.

There are three interconnected projects that make up this levelling-up fund bid, which will transform parts of my constituency. First, there is the Trevor Basin Technical Masterplan. Not only does it improve the famous site with the great aqueduct created by Thomas Telford, but it will be highly regenerative to parts of the constituency that are suffering under a post-industrial situation. It is a combination of regeneration and of valuing our heritage and assets, which are so important to us in the constituency of Clwyd South.

The second area that the fund will benefit is Denbighshire. The project supports cross-border visitor connectivity in the Dee Valley at the Horseshoe Falls, the Four Great Highways and Plas Newydd in Llangollen, and also the Llangollen active travel corridor, including the old railway line and Chirk. The third part, which is perhaps for me the most exciting part, is in the Corwen area. Corwen is a beautiful town, but it has been left behind because it has not received much investment—indeed, hardly any at all—from the Welsh Government over a long period. It will enable us to create a new and improved Western Gateway to the Dee Valley and the world heritage site, and it will improve connectivity and infrastructure.

The funding will improve the town centre assets in Corwen and the area between the railway and the car park, including a new platform canopy. This links together the famous Llangollen steam railway, and it will take visitors up along the railway to Llangollen and then links into the canal. It is doing what we desperately need in Clwyd South: bringing hope, vigour and investment to a key heritage asset and to important parts of the constituency. It will not only provide jobs and a much-needed economic boost, but will improve the wellbeing of our residents by widening access to recreation, outdoor and other amenity activities. It will also celebrate the amazing history, language and culture of our part of Wales and bring them to a wider audience.

Another example of UK Government investment has been the step-free access at Ruabon railway station. I was pleased to welcome the Secretary of State for Transport on a visit to the station last year, and he has said that the station can now progress to the next stage of the Access for All programme to help secure step-free access for station visitors. That comes after many years of campaigning by representatives, organisations and residents in Ruabon, and I believe it also highlights the commitment of the UK Government to our communities in Clwyd South and the rest of north Wales, which for so long have been taken for granted by a complacent Labour party in Cardiff Bay.

Finally, in contrast to the investment from the UK Government, we can see a corresponding lack of interest and funding from Welsh Labour. For example, I had the opportunity recently to visit the landslip on Newbridge Road in my constituency, where I was able to see first hand the damage that had been caused on the road, which has severed the vital link between Newbridge, Cefn and the wider communities of Chirk, Plas Madoc and Ruabon.

I used the visit to call on the Welsh Government to urgently conduct essential repairs, which have been badly needed since the storms hit a year ago. Since the visit, funding of £175,000 from the Welsh Government has been confirmed to make technical studies regarding the repair, which is a small step in the right direction on fixing the damage to Newbridge Road, but clearly a great deal more needs to be done. It is astonishing that the Welsh Labour Government have taken so long to react, and there can be no further delays on their part in ensuring that these repairs are done as quickly as possible. To quote a frustrated local,

“If this road had been in South Wales, we would be talking about the opening date by now.”

That is the opinion of my constituents about the care of the Welsh Government when it comes to major infrastructure projects in Clwyd South.

In conclusion, it was my pledge in the 2019 election to work constructively to deliver the change and investment that Clwyd South needs. I am proud to have worked closely with the Secretary of State, the team at the Wales Office and many Ministers across the UK Government. But it is high time that Mark Drakeford and the Welsh Labour Government step up and deliver, particularly for our communities in north Wales, if we are to make a difference and improve the lives of the people of Wales.

[Jo Stevens]

Has the hon. Gentleman seen the polls in Wales recently?

[Simon Baynes]

The polls come and go, but the essence of what I am saying is that we are delivering a constructive and particular project. I have tried to focus on my own constituency, so that my remarks are not generalised but particular. In a part of Wales that has been left behind and has significant deprivation, the UK Government are stepping in where the Welsh Labour Government should have been for decades.

I would like to finish on the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). He referred to the way in which the Welsh Government are playing a dangerous game consorting with the nationalist cause. As someone who grew up in Wales and has lived there most of my life, I think the value of the Union is of huge importance. It is extremely dangerous that the Welsh Labour party is not providing the support, vigour and representation for that cause.

[Hywel Williams]

First, may I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on winning Clwyd South? He, myself and the Prime Minister have stood there, but the hon. Gentleman is the only won who has ever won. I invite him to say, or perhaps not say, that co-operation between us and the Labour party to bring forward a large number of positive policies—46 points in the agreement—is not necessarily damaging to the Union.

[Simon Baynes]

I am pleased that I am the one of the trio who made it across the line in Clwyd South. I have every respect for the hon. Gentleman as a Member of Parliament and a vigorous representative of his constituents. With regard to his point about the programme put forward jointly by the two parties, it is important that there is clear accountability for Plaid Cymru in that arrangement. It strikes me that they are trying to have their cake and eat it by supporting the Government but not being quite part of them, and not being willing to be held to account for what they are doing. There needs to be clarity in how they operate and what they are trying to do.

To go back to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, the Labour party in Wales needs to be clear whether it is really supporting the Union, or whether political expediency is allowing it to blur the line. There are two particular quotations that its members have come up with recently: they have called the UK nothing more than “an insurance policy” and said that support for the existence of the UK “is not unconditional”. Welsh Labour needs to be clear about where it stands on the Union, to the benefit of everybody across Wales.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that saving lives is above everything? The Welsh Government have put saving lives above everything. If that runs contrary to what the UK Government are doing in England, they are doing more to cause the break-up of the Union than anyone else.

[Simon Baynes]

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution. I have listened to many of her contributions in the Chamber and I have a great deal of respect for the vigour and integrity of what she says, but in this case, actually, the death rate is higher in Wales than in England. This is not a statistic that I particularly wanted to dwell on, because we are all in this together, but to be specific, the death rate is 260 per 100,000 in England and 289.5 per 100,000 in Wales.

With reference to the intervention by the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the Welsh Government cannot have it both ways. We have seen some of that already this morning: they try to blur the line on whether they are responsible for the death rate and the way the covid crisis has been dealt with, but on the other hand, day to day, they are always saying how good they have been in treating the pandemic. All I am saying is: let us have a bit of honesty and accountability on these matters. I think that would benefit everyone.

In conclusion, the last two years have shown the huge support that the Conservative Government are delivering for Clwyd South and the rest of Wales. Only the Welsh Conservatives can be trusted to defend Wales’s place in our strong United Kingdom.