Welsh Affairs

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

What a terrific privilege it is to follow the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who opened this annual debate on Welsh affairs in the very best traditions of the debate. She has never been afraid to work on a bipartisan, cross-party basis. She demonstrated again her values and her genuine desire to improve the communities she represents, and communities more generally across Wales. I add my voice to that of Mr Deputy Speaker a moment ago in commending her for the work she does, particularly at Christmas time with disadvantaged families in her constituency and throughout the Swansea area. It is really tremendous.

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for calling me so early in the debate. I wish you, belatedly, a happy St David’s day. I did not get to see you yesterday evening at the Guildhall. Maybe you were there, maybe you were not —who knows? There were so many people there. One distinctive thing about celebrating St David’s day, perhaps in contrast to St Patrick’s Day or Burns night celebrations, although this might just reflect my own narrow experience of those two events celebrated by our Celtic cousins, is that it is first and foremost about children.

In opening the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, you referred to the schoolchildren who sang yesterday at the entrance of Downing Street when people were going in for the Prime Minister’s St David’s day reception. In New Palace Yard yesterday, Mr Speaker hoisted y ddraig goch, the red dragon flag, at the start of the day. We also had a choir of schoolchildren. It was wonderful. For generations —you will remember it from your own boyhood, Mr Deputy Speaker—wearing a daffodil or a leek, or more recently a rugby shirt or Welsh national costume, has been a part of the Welsh childhood experience. That is one reason why, as much as I want to maximise St David’s day celebrations—I love the way they seem to grow every year, particularly in London—I am not persuaded that St David’s day should be a national holiday. Would the cultural richness of St David’s day be the same if it was a day for children to remain at home? Schools play a tremendous role in nurturing the St David’s day traditions, giving children a sense of Welsh identity. I put on record my thanks, gratitude and respect to teachers, particularly in Pembrokeshire, for the way, in schools across the county, they nurture St David’s day and help to ensure the traditions pass from one generation to another.

For us in Pembrokeshire, St David’s day has a special resonance. He was one of us, reputedly born on a clifftop on the Pembrokeshire coast. The wonderful holy city of St Davids, in the wild and beautiful north-west peninsular of my constituency, ensures that his memory and legacy will live on forever. For any Member who has not had the opportunity to visit St Davids, it is a wonderful city. It is the smallest city in Britain. It is a beautiful, holy, peaceful place to visit. I know, because I bump into them every so often, that various Members have a particular interest in the area around St Davids and they are very, very welcome. They are also welcome to bring more colleagues.

In Westminster, we are in the middle of Wales week, which seems to grow every year—it is almost a month now! One day is not enough to celebrate; we need more time. This year, Wales week in London is bigger, better and louder than ever. I pay tribute to Dan Langford and the team for the way they have grown this series of events. He told me on Monday that this year there are more than 100 events across London for people with Welsh heritage, Welsh people and people with an interest in Wales to come together and learn something new about Wales and to celebrate.

I referred to the amazing event at the Guildhall in the City of London. It was the first time that I had been and it was a joy to be there in that atmosphere. When the anthem was sung, it was a tremendous spiritual moment for us all. At the event, I heard probably the speech—no disrespect to any speech today—of St David’s day this year. Lowri Roberts is the head of women and girls’ football at the Football Association of Wales. I participated in an event with her on Monday for Wales week in London. I heard her speak then and was extremely impressed, but the speech she gave last night was remarkable. She talked about the role of football in our national life in Wales and the way it has changed, particularly in the last 12 months. Football has a special place for women and girls, and we are seeing a huge exponential growth in women and girls’ football in Wales. It was as much a speech for the men and the boys as it was for the women and the girls, because she spoke not just about sport, gender or Wales, but values, social justice and equality.

I often think that sport plays a bigger role in how we project our identity as a nation than perhaps it does for other countries. When I travel internationally, I say that I am from Wales. I meet people who are not necessarily familiar with the slightly complex structure of our United Kingdom family of nations. When I go to north America, I find that they understand Ireland and the Irish national story, and perhaps the Scottish national story, but sometimes the Welsh national story is less well understood. Sport is an incredibly powerful vehicle in helping to tell that story, especially with the values that our footballers, men and women, have shown over the last 12 months. I am talking not just about their success and achievements in qualifying for various tournaments, but how they, and the team of coaches and administrators around them, have conducted themselves on and off the pitch, representing the very best of who we are in Wales and helping us to tell a very positive and strong story about the Welsh nation.

At the start of this year, we in the Welsh Affairs Committee had the great opportunity, over five days, to visit the United States: New York, Washington DC and Atlanta in Georgia. We were pursuing three inquiries, including how Wales is promoted internationally, particularly in relation to attracting tourism, and the role that Wales plays in delivering net zero and energy security. I want to thank our consul general in New York for facilitating an excellent set of meetings, and our ambassador in Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, for welcoming us to Washington DC. It was a great privilege to present her with a fine bottle of Penderyn whisky.

It was helpful to see the roles played by the UK Government teams and the Welsh Government teams in promoting Wales. I confess that over the years I was one of those people who was a bit sniffy and sceptical about the Welsh Government investing in offices overseas. I have probably been guilty of criticising the Welsh Government for trying to duplicate activities that I thought were rightly the responsibility of UK Government trade or diplomatic teams. What we saw—I hope other members of the Committee agree—was an incredibly strong sense of alignment between the UK Government teams and Welsh Government personnel in trying to further the strategic objectives of promoting the UK and capturing more trade and investment, but the points of difference were really interesting. The teams representing Wales out there, as well as working in very close harmony with their UK counterparts, have an eye on that particular mission to capture something extra for Wales. It was a fascinating visit.

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned sport, but another of the ways in which Wales is making waves in the world is in our creative industries. We have seen particular growth in my constituency. Obviously, we have “Doctor Who”, “His Dark Materials” and others, and fantastic music artists. We have the fantastic Aleighcia Scott—it was kind of the Secretary of State to invite her to be a lead singer at the Lancaster House event this week. Wales is punching above its weight in all the creative industries, particularly music, TV and film.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He is exactly right, and I encourage him to follow the output of the Welsh Affairs Committee as we continue our inquiry into broadcasting in Wales. He may have seen a few weeks ago that Netflix chose to use the incredibly important forum of the Committee to announce its investment in its first Welsh-language drama. It is great to see Welsh-language productions from Wales, made in Wales and projecting the Welsh language through new global streaming platforms. It is an opportunity to project Welsh culture and identity, and perhaps a challenge and even a threat to some of the traditional broadcasters. Overall, he alludes to a healthy picture.

I referenced our visit to north America, where there are huge opportunities. I often think that we perhaps make too much of the slightly odd colonial experiment in Patagonia and not enough of the Welsh diaspora that moved to the US, particularly in the late 18th and early 19th century. Welsh people were at the heart of the US industrial revolution experience. When the Welsh Affairs Committee was in Washington in January, we had the opportunity to visit Capitol Hill and were hosted by the Friends of Wales Caucus in Congress.

I thank Congressman Morgan Griffith from Virginia for welcoming us and for the fascinating discussion that we had in his office about the links between our nations. He has people in his district with strong Welsh heritage, and there are towns and villages in his district and throughout Pennsylvania that bear the names of Welsh towns and villages that we are familiar with. That means that there are opportunities for us. Sometimes, I think that the Irish and Scottish make far more of their diaspora and use it more intelligently to further strategic and economic objectives than we do. We were looking at that as a Committee. I pay tribute to Ty Francis for his work in creating New York Welsh, a diaspora community in New York City, and for his further work to create a network of people with Welsh heritage internationally who all want to feed back and support the growth of Wales back home.

I will conclude on an area where I feel upbeat and optimistic this St David’s day—energy. Wales has an important role to play in helping the UK to meet energy security objectives and to make strides towards achieving net zero. Wales already has an enormous heritage when it comes to energy. In my constituency, Milford Haven has a history of 50 years of oil and gas processing and import. The opportunity in front of us is the launch of a brand-new industry—floating offshore wind. We have made great strides with fixed-bottom offshore wind in this country, particularly on the eastern seaboard of the UK. But with floating offshore wind, we can have bigger turbines, go to deeper waters where it is windier, get a better load factor on the turbines and create more electricity.

With this new industry we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past. I am looking forward to the remarks by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who has been working hard on that. If we do this right, we can create new domestic economic opportunities and genuine supply chains here in the UK and in Wales, and centre this new industry around Port Talbot and Milford Haven. It is great that our ports are collaborating on the Celtic freeport bid. It would be wonderful to hear from the Secretary of State when we might hear the outcome of that bidding process. That is the prize in front of us that is worth capturing. Big industrial economic opportunities do not come along that often in Wales, as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have one now and we should seize it.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech and some very good points about floating offshore wind. On ensuring that we capture the benefits in Wales, does he agree that a very hard line should be taken with the Crown Estate to ensure that when leasing the seabed, there are clear conditions on the developer to ensure that the manufacturing, the supply chain, the jobs and the skills stay in Wales? We must not make the tremendous and awful mistakes of the past, when we allowed all the supply chains to go overseas.

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree. We need to achieve alignment between the Crown Estate’s leasing auctions, the Treasury’s contracts for difference process and the commitments that developers make. The hon. Gentleman is exactly right that we need to hold their feet to the fire—whether the developers’ or the Crown Estate’s. When companies make promises to create x number of jobs and apprenticeships in his constituency or mine, we want them to be realised. That is the opportunity in front of us.

I have probably exhausted my time. I hope that you feel as upbeat and optimistic as me, Mr Deputy Speaker. We spend a lot of time in this Chamber debating the problems and challenges facing Wales. Sometimes, as a nation we are prone to a little too much negativity. I hope on this St David’s day we can be positive and upbeat, and certainly follow the spirit in which the debate was opened by the hon. Member for Swansea East.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The right hon. Gentleman reminded me and all of us who grew up in Wales of the school eisteddfod, which I thoroughly enjoyed when I went to Dynevor School. We mostly got the afternoon off, so it was great.

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[Rob Roberts]

It was the case this year. On a per capita basis, Flintshire was 20th out of 22, as was recently stated by the council’s chief executive. There is no denying it whatsoever.

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend made an interesting point earlier about structural challenges in the NHS. He has now moved on to the subject of local authorities. Does he think that, for a nation of 3.3 million people, a total of 22 local authorities is too many?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

It is not often that I agree with the hon. Member, but sunlight, transparency and asking those questions are the best things.

I find it hard to believe that there have been such a number of grievances and non-disclosure agreements at the Welsh Rugby Union. Let us make no bones about it: all organisations will have grievances and non-disclosure agreements, but it is important that someone sitting on an executive board should be told how many there are and what their nature is, otherwise they might go to a Senedd Select Committee and not be able to tell it how many grievances and non-disclosure agreements there are. I find that difficult, because the data should be held by human resources and available to at least the executive committee. What does it tell us when there are no minutes of meetings and the minutes are not routinely published or available? It tells us that there is no sunlight, which we need to have.

When I am told that what has happened at the WRU is bigger than at Yorkshire cricket, and that is confirmed by others who know what is going on, I hope that we will all—I am not precious about it—stand up and ask those questions if we have the opportunity to meet the WRU. We need a root and branch review of rugby in Wales and what it means for everybody in all those clubs across Wales, from a small child starting off in tag rugby to those in our elite male and female games, as well as the mums and dads watching on the sidelines and washing the kit. I have met with my clubs since this has all come out and, interestingly, they have been quite engaging. We all need to ask our rugby clubs—although this is not just about rugby—how they engage with women and girls. They do not have to have a women’s team, because it is not all about playing. It is about being part of a club, being a rugby wife, rugby mum or rugby sister—a fan of the sport. If we can get clubs to audit the skills of the women and girls involved in them, that will encourage them to get more women sitting on their committees. Having more women give up their time to do that is how we will get more parity and equality of representation at the top of the WRU.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady is making a remarkable and important speech. She was at the Guildhall last night. Does she remember the remarks of Noel Mooney from the Football Association of Wales about its transition from being dominated by men to something approaching parity between men and women, and how that led to better quality of decisions? An audit of how clubs involve and work with women—the kind of exercise that the hon. Lady talks about—is valuable in its own right, but it will also lead to better decision making because more diverse viewpoints help the decision-making process.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution, because he is right that Noel Mooney, the chief exec of the Football Association of Wales, did say last night that the dynamic has changed and that different ideas have been brought to the table, leading to better leadership and management.

I have a good friend who lives in Australia. She sits on the board of Rugby Victoria, which has imposed 50:50 representation. She has been ridiculed by other people that she is only on the board because of certain body parts, which is ridiculous. It is actually brilliant, however, because she is not a rugby player, but her daughters are, her son is, and her husband was. That is what I am trying to say. We had all-women shortlists to get better representation in the Labour party. That is the kind of thing we need to do in order to move forward. Clubs need to change their perception of what a woman’s place in rugby is. It is a cultural issue that all sports have problems with.

A word that has been said to me is “tokenism”. People say, “It’s just tokenism, Tonia. We don’t buy into it.” I do not buy into tokenism, because this is not about that; it is about being the best we can. However, we did see tokenism, disappointingly, in a knee-jerk reaction from the WRU when it decided to say, “We’re banning Tom Jones’s famous song ‘Delilah’.” I had not heard “Delilah” for donkey’s years, but I went to a rugby match, and everybody in the bar and on the train was singing it, and it was uncomfortable. I am not going to rant on about “Delilah”. It gets sung. We know the words. We all know that the words are wrong, and it would be great if we could change some of them, but hey-ho.

The word tokenism strikes at me. At the time of the WRU decision, Louis Rees-Zammit tweeted:

“All the things they need to do and they do that first…”

It is true; the WRU needs to do better for everybody involved in the sport, be they our little ones playing, the regions—that is a whole other debate—or the elite team. The Secretary of State is well placed to have those conversations, and I know that he has spoken with Nigel Walker, the interim chief executive. I know what a great man Nigel Walker is, and I hope that he and Ieuan Evans can turn this around, but it needs a massive shift.

I think I have finished talking about Welsh rugby union and rugby in Wales, but I hope that everybody in this House will join me in saying that we absolutely love rugby and want to big up our players, and that it represents who we are at every single level, whether we have played, watched or just gone along to help out. It is everybody’s; it is ours.

On another note—still on rugby, but with a different edge—the people who go to rugby clubs are all volunteers. I know that the Secretary of State met Rachel, one of my constituents, at Lancaster House. Rachel runs Tempo Time Credits, which is a brilliant way of getting people to do more volunteering and of encouraging more diverse groups of people to volunteer and support their local community. Rugby is a sure-fire win to get people involved. Our Tempo Time Credit volunteers can provide support to local rugby clubs, and they then get rewarded, perhaps with tickets to go to the Scarlets or the Blues—they could go to the Ospreys, but I suppose it depends. [Interruption.] Definitely. I do not want to cause a war in the Chamber. I just wanted to give a really big shout out to all those volunteers, because they make sport happen, not just in Wales but across the United Kingdom. For us, that is really important.

I will bring my comments to close. I thank everybody who has made this debate happen. I am grateful for the diversity of debate when we talk about Welsh Affairs. I am a very proud Welsh-Italian, and I am proud to have been able to stand up in the Chamber today and speak for those who feel that they do not have a voice.

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[The Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

I wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and everyone in the Chamber dydd gŵyl Dewi hapus.

I begin by offering my hearty congratulations to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who always talks a lot of sense and always has something worth listening to. I would like to think that we all share the values she espouses when she talks about the charities she supports in her constituency—I think they rang bells with all of us—but we know that she does not just talk the talk, but walks the walk in what she does. She has been campaigning on menopause and mentioned the difference in treatment between women in England and Wales. I have been informed that, as of April, women in England will be able to get a one-year prescription payment certificate, partly as a result of her campaign, so that is worth mentioning. She has been a campaigner on many issues and I thank her for securing the debate.

In the brief time I have, I will try to go around the Chamber and mention something from all the speeches and pick up on some of the questions. If I leave anything out, forgive me—I am sure it will be taken up at a later date. My right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) spoke next. He started by talking about the importance of football, including women’s football. As a parent who has watched many football matches, I believe a lot can be learned from women’s football and the way it is played in a supportive and nurturing environment. I welcomed listening to the inspirational speech by the head of women’s football yesterday in London.

My right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) spoke about the importance of steel and FLOWMIS. On floating offshore wind, the Government are very supportive and we look forward to bringing 4 GW by 2035 in the Celtic sea. I have been engaging with the companies involved and the Crown Estate about how quickly we can bring that forward. There will be an announcement shortly on FLOWMIS—I am told that it will be very shortly indeed, but I am unable to give a date. The Government also very recently brought in an energy-intensive users scheme to ensure that steel companies, which the hon. Member for Aberavon feels very passionately about, are not losing out, in competition terms, to companies in the rest of Europe, which are paying less per megawatt hour for the electricity they use.

[Stephen Crabb]

What the Secretary of State says about the FLOWMIS announcement is really significant. It is very good to hear confirmation from the Treasury Front Bench that there will be an announcement. I do not expect him to go into detail, but that pot of money is meant to be shared between ports in Scotland and Wales. Wales should get its fair share and that has to mean at least half.