Simon Hart
Main Page: Simon Hart (Conservative - Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)Department Debates - View all Simon Hart's debates with the Wales Office
(4 years, 2 months ago)
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David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)
I have regular discussions with Welsh Ministers on a range of issues, including EU negotiations. The Joint Ministerial Committee on EU negotiations meets regularly. My Cabinet and ministerial colleagues frequently meet Ministers from the devolved Administrations.
David Linden
Tomorrow is the day the Prime Minister has set as the deadline for a trade deal with the EU. So far, the devolved Administrations have been left out of the loop or deliberately kept in the dark on some details. Does the Secretary of State believe that withholding key information and detail at such a stage as this shows respect or disrespect to the devolved Administrations?
Simon Hart
I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s accusation. Given the number of meetings I have personally been in with Ministers from the devolved nations, let alone other colleagues, it would be a difficult charge to land to suggest that they have not been closely involved with the process right from the beginning. I suspect his comments are based on the fact that he does not like the reality of what is going on, rather than being a legitimate comment.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Last week, it was revealed that the Secretary of State’s Government have actively sought to conceal information from the Welsh Government. This information included the likelihood of food shortages and their intention to grab new powers. That does not sound like inter- governmental parity of esteem. Where does his role to represent the Tory party in Wales stop and his role to build trust and mutual respect start?
Simon Hart
The first responsibility in this particular context is to respect the fact that 55% of people in Wales voted to leave the European Union, and it seems astonishing that the party of Wales, represented by the right hon. Lady, is still so out of step with the people of Wales when it comes to that. The clock is not being turned back, and what we are attempting to do is to deliver a deal that respects that decision and all the institutions in Wales, which I thought we both valued.
Liz Saville Roberts
Trust in politicians is sadly diminishing, because politicians are not seen to answer the question at hand. Back to the matter of trust, transmission rates indicate that Wales stands on the brink of a circuit-break announcement. Businesses in Wales, and people who need to self-isolate, seek assurance that they can trust the Treasury to back up covid-19 control measures made in Wales for Wales. Can the Secretary of State guarantee to the people of Wales that they can, indeed, trust the Government to do this?
Simon Hart
Having seen the Chancellor ensure that the Welsh Government have had £4.4 billion-worth of UK taxpayers’ money for exactly that purpose, I hope the right hon. Lady would share my view that we are looking at the UK in the round. Covid is an international problem, and it does not respect political boundaries. The Chancellor’s announcements make it very clear that he sees all the UK as a priority, not just individual component parts, and I would think the numbers speak for themselves.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote to the hon. Gentleman last week to confirm that he is expecting to provide £2.5 million needed for the tip repairs in Tylorstown, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. The letter also clarifies that the Chief Secretary is waiting to hear further from the Welsh Government on an additional request to access the reserve.
Chris Bryant
That was useless yet again. I have been asking for the money for the Rhondda for months. The Prime Minister wrote to me in June saying that he recognised that Wales had been particularly badly hit by Storm Dennis and that the UK Government would look seriously at any requests for funding. I am delighted that we have got the £2.5 million for the Tylorstown tip, but we need £60 million to mend culverts and drains and to make people’s houses secure in Pontypridd, the Rhondda and across the whole of Rhondda Cynon Taf. Make sure you earn your money by getting us the money in the Rhondda.
Simon Hart
What a contrast with the conversation the hon. Gentleman and I had last when I reported this news to him; he was charm and diplomacy itself then, yet when he gets in the Chamber with an audience, he becomes a different personality. I will remind him, just in case he has forgotten, what the Chief Secretary’s letter actually says. Among other things, he says, “I am expecting to provide the required funding.” That is in relation to the Welsh Government confirming they will make a reserve claim for 2020-21. So this process is under way. It does require the Welsh Government to come to the party, too, but they have not yet done so. Of course a lot of this is in the devolved space, so the hon. Gentleman cannot just pick and choose which bits of devolution suit his desire to make a statement in the Chamber.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)
I have regular discussions with the Chancellor, and we spoke only last week. He has since announced a significant package of further job support and an additional £400 million of funding for the Welsh Government.
Tonia Antoniazzi
Tourism and hospitality is the backbone of the economy of the Gower peninsula. My constituent Lara Joslin runs the Kings Head in Llangennith. She is fighting to keep her family businesses alive. Lara runs a popular rural pub with accommodation, which, like many others in Gower, provides vital part-time jobs for local people. Why is the Secretary of State not banging on the door of the Treasury to right the wrong of the job support scheme failing to support independent hospitality businesses such as Lara’s?
Simon Hart
The hon. Lady and I have a similar dependence on tourism in our constituencies, so I understand absolutely the argument she makes about its value, but I remind her that so far UK taxpayers have contributed £1.1 billion by way of bounce back loans; £490 million in self-employed income support; £303 million in coronavirus business interruption loans; £30 million-worth of eat out to help out; future funding of £7 million—I would carry on, Mr Speaker, if only you would let me—and that is not to mention the 401,000 employees on furlough. The Treasury has gone above and beyond the international average and tried to get to every single business in every single area of the UK, and that includes Gower just as much as anywhere else.
Jessica Morden
For those who are able to access the Government’s new job support scheme—many are locked out or deemed by the Government to be in unviable jobs—a cut of a third of wages for the low paid makes it extremely hard to pay bills and feed families. Does the Secretary of State really get this? If so, will Wales Office Ministers fight to get a better scheme?
Simon Hart
Often in this questions session we have talked about the fact that there will always be those in all our constituencies who do not quite fit every single one of the intervention measures that the Chancellor has announced over the past few months. In those circumstances, of course we want to be as flexible as possible and to try to find ways, through either the intervention schemes or universal credit, to support the hardest-hit families as best we can. If the hon. Lady brings to my attention individual examples of those gaps, I will of course do my best to address them.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Throughout this pandemic, Welsh businesses have done all they can to stay open and stay trading, with so many drawing on the support grants and loans that have been so important in keeping them afloat. But as more areas of the country come under local restrictions, with trading halted or severely limited, and amid fears about public confidence, many businesses feel that they have absolutely maxed out on their borrowing and are worried about the future. What plan do the Government have to support businesses that are now heavily in debt, to make sure that the burden of repayments in the coming months does not mean that they go under?
Simon Hart
I start by expressing some confusion: on the one hand, Opposition Members are articulating a Welsh Government view that the existing interventions are not strict enough, but on the other, the hon. Lady gets to her feet and says that the interventions are almost imposing undue hardship. It is quite difficult to know exactly where the Opposition stand on getting the balance right between disease control and the maintaining of a vibrant economy. At each and every stage of this process, the Chancellor has been flexible and adaptable and has recognised that the situation is changing, often by the hour, let alone by the day or week. The financial interventions, which up to now have been about £4.4 billion by way of Barnettised contributions to the Welsh Government—and we could probably double that for the other interventions, which are more direct—have supported business in Wales. But of course, as the circumstances change and our reaction changes, so we will remain flexible.
Nia Griffith
Indeed, we have always said that any restrictions need to be backed up with proper financial support measures for business. To reduce the spread of the virus it is also vital that workers who are unwell or asked to self-isolate do actually stay off work, but as hours are reduced in sectors such as hospitality, an increasing number of Welsh workers will find themselves falling below the minimum weekly earnings threshold needed to qualify for statutory sick pay. To expect them to live off nothing for a fortnight is totally unacceptable. Will the Secretary of State urge the Chancellor to do the decent thing and extend the statutory sick pay scheme to all workers?
Simon Hart
I know from my personal contact with the Chancellor over the past few weeks that he is looking at all these options. That is why the winter resilience measures were brought in a week or so ago, on top of all the other measures he has introduced, which recognise the very difficult situation in which so many people find themselves. I am not going to stand here and say that we are never going to consider another option; of course we will. We will always look at the individual circumstances, particularly of those who are hardest hit.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]
Further to our recent meeting, with the various covid funding measures being announced by the Government sometimes seeming haphazardly and causing some confusion—the bid for football here, the bid for the arts there and now, apparently, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy funding for universities in Wales even though the matter is devolved—will the Minister consider publishing a regular simple table of the Government’s covid funding with the consequential amounts for Wales if there are such?
Simon Hart
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about universities. Of course, that is a devolved matter and yet hugely dependent on the Union effort. In answer to his very direct question, I can give him a very direct yes.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)
The UK Government have provided a support package for Welsh businesses and communities in recent weeks, including the Government’s £30 billion plan for jobs. Our ambition remains to secure jobs, stimulate growth and provide opportunities to level up Wales.
Joy Morrissey
I thank the Secretary of State for his financial support for Wales and for the devolved Welsh Government. Does he agree that, if the Welsh Government want to trigger further restrictions and go beyond Government measures, which should ultimately be used as a last resort, they need to provide plans for how they will financially support the industries that will be hit as a result?
Simon Hart
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Barnettised numbers, which total £4.4 billion so far, do give the Welsh Government a degree of flexibility in addressing issues if the evidence supports doing it in a slightly different way. There are one or two examples of where they have introduced their own interventions, courtesy of money provided by UK taxpayers, but the overriding point is that there does need to be a degree of collaboration and co-operation that straddles all the countries of the UK, because this is an international and a national challenge.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Like me, the Secretary of State will have welcomed the vision set out by the Prime Minister last week for expanding renewable energy and, importantly, the commitment to boosting floating offshore wind power, which represents such a big opportunity for us in Wales. May I ask him if he would use his good offices to ensure that all the relevant players in this—the private sector developers that have projects ready to go, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed—are all on the same page, working towards a shared goal so that we get decisions made in a timely way?
Simon Hart
Absolutely. I agree with my right hon. Friend and neighbour’s assessment of the situation. We were all encouraged by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary’s comments just now in that respect. I can, I hope, encourage my right hon. Friend by saying that I am meeting the Crown Estate the day after tomorrow, I think, to discuss the potential delays, which at the moment look like being its problem, and we need to unblock that.
Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)
I have frequent discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. At least 510,000 people in Wales have been directly supported by the measures we have so far put in place. However, the best possible support we can provide is to get behind the national effort and public health guidelines to ensure that we overcome this crisis sooner rather than later.
Rosie Cooper [V]
With the UK’s unemployment rate at its highest level in three years, it is clear that many workers in Wales will need to rely on social security in order to get back on their feet. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is only fair to update legacy benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance to match the increase in universal credit that was announced earlier this year?
Simon Hart
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. Conversations I have had with the Department for Work and Pensions, and indeed the Chancellor, have touched on this very issue. This is why the arrangements on universal credit have been as flexible as they can be. The Department is making an effort to ensure that everybody is accounted for and that those who might fall into the gaps we referred to earlier are properly looked after. That is very much uppermost in the minds of Cabinet and ministerial colleagues. I can give her that assurance.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)