Draft Welsh Ministers (Transfer Of Functions) Order 2018

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 General Committees

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Following various threats and encouragements from people around me, I will keep my contribution brief. I do not intend to say anything about the background process or the legislation we passed that has led to the order we are discussing this afternoon, but there is one item in the order that I would draw the Minister’s attention to.

Article 39 transfers ministerial functions on teachers’ pay and conditions under the Education Act 2002. The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd alluded to this provision as one of the most significant in the draft order. It was also probably the most contentious part of the discussions we had in the run-up to the St David’s Day agreement in 2015. The hon. Gentleman made some quite churlish remarks about the nature of the agreement, or lack of it. The truth is that when it came to teachers’ pay and conditions, the biggest resistance to devolution came from Labour Members—specifically, from the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith). The concern he raised at that time, which was quite legitimate, was whether devolving teachers’ pay and conditions to Cardiff is a step towards breaking up unified national pay scales for teachers across England and Wales.

That is not just a theoretical point; the issue is very much live at the moment, particularly among supply teachers. A number of supply teachers in my constituency have contacted me about what they feel are the differential rates of pay they get for working in England and working in Wales, and the fact that they do not get access to the teachers’ pension service. They believe that the agency system that the Welsh Government’s national procurement strategy has set up to govern the way the teaching supply industry works in Wales does not work in the best interests of teachers. Does the Minister believe that this transfer of functions will give Welsh Ministers in Cardiff all the powers they need to address the problem that has emerged in the devaluing of supply teachers, with underpayment leaving them feeling worthless?

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

The report also points out that the percentage of households with financial liabilities in the four lowest wealth quintiles fell between June 2010 and June 2014. The Government are fully committed to helping the poorest households, and just last year the Money Advice Service spent £49 million on giving 440,000 free-to-client sessions to assist those in difficulty.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

The UK has the second highest level of household debt in the G8. On our high streets, loan sharks are masquerading as household goods stores. Does the Minister agree that we have a rather unhealthy addiction to consumer debt in this country?

[John Glen]

My right hon. Friend makes a sensible point. The Government have empowered the independent Financial Policy Committee to advise them on these matters, and to keep a close watch on the level of debt.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am surprised that the hon. Lady should raise the issue of corporation tax, because we have brought corporation tax down from 28% in 2010 to 19% and we have further plans to reduce it further, to 17%, and yet the hon. Lady’s party wishes to inflate those rates of tax to 26%, which would destroy jobs, destroy wealth, destroy growth and lower the amount of tax that we can collect to support those vital public services that we all wish to see thrive.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

One way that companies avoid tax is, of course, by employing people illegally. We still have too many illegal jobs in our economy in sectors such as construction. So will my hon. Friend and his colleagues resist those calls that are floating around to place new and additional burdens on legitimate work, and instead redouble their efforts at enforcement through HMRC to root out illegal work in our economy?

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As the Minister responsible for strategic oversight of tax, I am always concerned to ensure that the measures that we put in place are proportionate, and do not carry extra burdens for those who are rightly carrying on their business and running their companies in exactly the correct fashion.

The Economy and Work

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

It is a real pleasure to conclude this debate on the Gracious Speech. I thank all hon. Members, on both sides of the House, who have made contributions today. A wide range of subjects has been covered by Members from all parts of the United Kingdom and from both rural and urban communities. It has been a very good debate.

As the Prime Minister made clear, the Queen’s Speech is about using the strong economic foundations we have built to make a series of bold choices that will help to deliver opportunity for all at every stage of their lives. Improving life chances starts as a foundation for ensuring a healthy, strong and growing economy. Through our long-term economic plan, that is what we are doing: the deficit is being cut, the economy is growing and it is forecast to grow faster than in any other G7 economy this year.

It is true that, thanks to the strength in the economy, we have seen some remarkable things in our labour market in recent years: we have seen the highest level of employment on record ever and the annual rise in the employment rate is the largest anywhere in the G7. Now, we are not complacent. We know we need to go further. However, we also know that behind this picture of national economic recovery are hundreds of thousands of individual stories of people whose lives have been transformed. In the past year alone, over 400,000 people have moved into work. We have more women in work than ever before. In the past two years, more than 300,000 more disabled people have moved into work. We have also seen big increases in youth and long-term employment. I am delighted that the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, for the very first time in six years, has at the Dispatch Box welcomed the fact that unemployment is falling.

Let us just remind ourselves that since 2010 more than 2.5 million people have moved into work. That is more than the whole population of the fantastic city of Leicester moving into work each and every year we have been in government. It means 764,000 more households in work. It means nearly half a million more children growing up seeing a mum or a dad go out to work each day. By any measure, that is a really encouraging record. We salute, in particular, our small businesses and our entrepreneurs who are the real engines of this jobs recovery, something recognised in the excellent contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena).

This recovery has not happened by chance or by accident, and we know that we need to go further. It happened because we had a clear economic plan for jobs and growth. I see a couple of Opposition Members shaking their head. Let us remind ourselves of what they left behind in 2010. Unemployment had risen by nearly half a million. The number of women out of work went up by a quarter. Youth unemployment rocketed by 44%. Long-term unemployment doubled. Nearly 1.5 million people had spent most of the previous decade on out-of-work benefits. That was an appalling record of wasted lives and wasted potential left by the previous Labour Government. The fact is that during 13 years in government, the Labour party stopped believing in the power of work to transform people’s lives. The Labour party gave up on welfare reform. It became the party of welfare over work. It was far too relaxed about parking people for a whole lifetime on benefits. That is why it takes Conservatives in government, with Conservative values, to bring the reforming spirit needed to transform the life chances of people in our—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. It is impolite to make a noise when the Secretary of State is speaking. Members should be arguing with him, not chattering about him.

[Stephen Crabb]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As one nation Conservatives, we will not be complacent, write people off or walk by on the other side, and that is why we are developing a plan for transforming life chances.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State talks about life chances and the Queen’s Speech talks about parenting classes for families. Will he reflect on what use parenting classes will be given that low-income, in-work families are ever more reliant on food banks to put food on the table? What use is a parenting class if they cannot afford to put food on the table?

[Stephen Crabb]

All the evidence shows that the top three drivers of disadvantage and poverty are worklessness, low educational attainment and family instability. The hon. Gentleman talks down the value of supporting parental stability and families, but they have an important contribution to make.

It is a sign of the underlying strength of the economy that there are more than 750,000 job vacancies across the country, but there is another story here too. For a teenager leaving care; for a father coming out of prison wanting to turn his life around; for a single mum shouldering enormous burdens, on which point my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) touched insightfully; for someone overcoming an addiction to alcohol or drugs; for a young person with a mental health condition—for all of them, I want those job vacancies to represent a world of opportunities too. But for too many, taking one still feels a world away. That is why we are determined to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged in our society. We are not just talking the language of social justice but, as the Queen’s Speech shows, taking the action needed to make a real difference to people’s lives.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Government for accepting the amendment, in my name and that of many other right hon. and hon. Members, calling for a Bill to protect the NHS from the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when the Bill will be published or its contents made known and assure us that it will be before the referendum? If it is not, we will know that something fishy is afoot and that the only way to protect the NHS is to vote to leave the EU.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am absolutely clear that our national health service is protected from TTIP.

One group in society who have faced particularly difficult barriers are disabled people. We are committed to our ambition to halve the disability employment gap, which we must do by learning from and listening to those who know most about what works—disabled people themselves. That is why I will be publishing a Green Paper later this year. I want to consult and engage fully with them and their representatives to build a strategy that we know will work. I hope that Members on both sides will see it as an opportunity for us all to move forward together.

The Queen’s Speech demonstrates the Government’s commitment to improving the life chances of the most disadvantaged while delivering security for people in work and strengthening our national security so that we keep our country safe. I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) on our Bill to improve adoption. Our education for all Bill will ensure better outcomes for children, especially those in disadvantaged homes and communities. Our higher education and research Bill will allow the creation of new universities so that young people have more choices for continuing their education.

That is the kind of society I believe in, but I also believe in a society that gives people a second chance, which is why we welcome the prisons and courts reform Bill, which will put a greater focus on rehabilitation in our prisons, greater support for prisoners with mental health conditions and better education and training. At the heart of the Queen’s Speech are real reforms that provide support for the most disadvantaged at the start of life; support for people making those big leaps in life, such as leaving care; and support later in life for those looking for a second chance. None of those reforms would be possible without the foundations of a strong economy, but at no point in the last six years has Labour shown any willingness to recognise that point. We will never forget how night after night, in the last Parliament, Labour trooped into the Division Lobby to vote against every single measure we introduced to fix our national finances. It opposed all our efforts to reform welfare and restore the value of work.

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made.

Wales Bill

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Murphy]

It certainly is not a wrecking tactic. I have made the position clear. I am just a Back Bencher, but Labour Front Benchers will also make it clear that the Labour party is committed to reserved powers for Wales. In the light of what is likely to happen in Scotland, that becomes much more important.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

I am grateful to the former Secretary of State for giving way. He is definitely not just a Back Bencher, but does he genuinely believe that moving to a reserved powers model is a panacea for all the difficulties and challenges of a devolution settlement between England and Wales—issues such as water, transport, and the populous border, which the shadow Secretary of State described earlier? Does he genuinely believe that moving to a different starting point is a panacea to overcome the challenges in the current devolution settlement?

[Paul Murphy]

I do not think for one second that the model is a panacea for all the issues and problems that we face, but I think that it will give tools to the National Assembly and the Welsh Government that they currently may not have and make it easier for them to resolve various issues. I do not suggest for one second that the model means that we will have to end the important cross-border co-operation that exists, or that there will be no need for the Governments to discuss matters. Of course that will have to happen, because of points Members made earlier; large swathes of the population live on the border in Wales, in contrast to Scotland. I agree with the Minister that this model is not the complete answer but it is an answer. It is also an answer in the light of what both parties are thinking with regard to Scotland. Whatever happens in Scotland—like me, the Minister will argue for a no vote—it will undoubtedly change the political and constitutional landscape of our country and so Wales must be in a position to take part in that. Otherwise, we will be seen as an adjunct to a very large England, with Northern Ireland, with its own special issues, on one side.

Therefore, I agree with the new clause. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli will be able to make the points that I have not made and that have been discussed by Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David]

That is a fair point, and I will touch on it a little later. We have asymmetrical devolution in the United Kingdom; we have different forms of devolution in different parts of the UK. While there are good reasons for that, it does not help the general public’s understanding of what is devolved and what is not devolved. If we had greater consistency in the bedrock of devolution between Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, that would help that public understanding. Some may say that strictly speaking the Northern Ireland settlement is not quite akin to the Scottish settlement, but nevertheless in effect we have a reserved powers model in place and it would be advantageous if Wales were to follow their examples.

As Members, and in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), have said, there has been an unfortunate conflict between central Government and the Welsh Government through the Supreme Court. There have been three referrals of legislation to the Supreme Court. We have heard about the then Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Bill, which the Government here in London questioned. They asked for the Supreme Court to make an adjudication, and the position of the Welsh Government was upheld, but we must consider the amount of time and effort that went into questioning such a relatively small measure and whether that meant there was better government.

I feel I must quote the Counsel General for Wales, Theodore Huckle QC, who has said that

“it took five Supreme Court Justices…several of the UK’s leading constitutional lawyers and a great many officials across three Governments to decide it was lawful to make minor changes to the way Welsh local councils deal with things like dog-fouling and loitering in public lavatories.”

That raises this question: what sense is there in that? How on earth can that be defended as good government? It cannot be.

[Stephen Crabb]

I genuinely wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is suffering from amnesia, as he was a part of a Government who created that exact system. If he does not think the Supreme Court is the relevant mechanism for resolving disputes between two Governments over legislative competence, then what is, under the reserved model he supports?

[Wayne David]

I just think it is very important to learn. I know that is anathema to the current Government, but if we recognise that devolution is a developing process, it is vital that we learn and make things better and, when things are clearly not as they should be, make improvements. That is a good way to approach government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wayne David]

I have no qualms at all about talking about England, because we are a United Kingdom, but if I deviated from my notes and spoke at length about England, you would take me to task pretty quickly Madam Deputy Speaker.

It is important to recognise that the Local Government Byelaws (Wales) Act was not a one-off. We have seen an attempt—perhaps most significantly, politically—to prevent the Welsh Government from carrying through their legislative plans for the agriculture sector. That is a far more emotive issue, particularly for workers who are directly affected by this Bill—or, as may happen, the lack of it. However, that reinforces the constitutional point that the current situation is unsatisfactory, facing as we do ongoing legal challenges on the basis of politics, rather than, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) said, Members sitting down together where there is a genuine dispute between the two legislatures and working things out.

The conclusion I come to is that we need a system that transcends party politics: a constitutional arrangement that is seen to be fair to everybody, and that respects the integrity of the United Kingdom but also the development of devolution in Wales; a settlement based on a reserved powers model that is far more intelligible to people in Wales, and that will help them to understand far more easily the basis of our devolution arrangements in Wales and the United Kingdom as a whole.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) said that the purpose of amendment 8 is to ensure that the Welsh Government can use their new borrowing powers to invest in projects that they, rather than Her Majesty’s Treasury, want to take forward. I should point out that the Bill already provides Welsh Ministers with complete flexibility to decide how to use their borrowing powers, in much the same way that they have complete flexibility regarding their resource and capital budgets. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman was confusing the requirements for the early borrowing powers with the wider borrowing powers the Bill sets out. Regarding the former, he is right that there is a specific agreement between the Welsh Government in Cardiff and the UK Government—specifically the Treasury—to facilitate early movement on a strategic project of importance to the Welsh nation and economy: namely, the M4 upgrade. So, rather than it being a project imposed from above by the UK, it is very much demand-led from within Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The Bill as I read it states that the Treasury has the final say on what the Welsh Government will be able to use those borrowing powers for, and the UK Government have made it crystal clear that their priority is the M4 relief road.

[Stephen Crabb]

There is a line in the Bill that refers to Welsh Ministers being able to borrow with the approval of the Treasury. That merely refers to the overall borrowing limit, which the Treasury will agree with the Welsh Government. It is not about the Treasury signing off on individual projects. We want to give the maximum possible freedom to Welsh Ministers to use their borrowing powers to decide on exactly the infrastructure projects they want to take forward. I am very happy to continue this discussion with the hon. Gentleman another time, but that is the situation.

On new clause 2, the Welsh Government already have the power to provide guarantees in relation to their devolved responsibilities. Section 70 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 states that

“Welsh Ministers may give financial assistance (whether by way of grant, loan or guarantee) to any person engaged in any activity which the Welsh Ministers consider will secure, or help to secure, the attainment of any objective which they aim to attain in the exercise of any of their functions.”

So there are no handcuffs or binds on Welsh Ministers. For example, they already have the powers to support the Circuit of Wales with a guarantee, should they choose to do so. Conversely, the UK Government would not be able to provide a guarantee under the terms of the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act 2012 as the Circuit of Wales project does not meet the infrastructure criteria set out in the legislation.

Furthermore, it is the size of the UK Exchequer that enables the UK Government to guarantee substantial infrastructure projects, such the Wylfa Newydd nuclear plant that has been guaranteed with Hitachi. Wales, therefore, benefits from UK Government guarantees in relation to energy and other infrastructure, while the Welsh Government can decide how to provide financial support to help deliver their own devolved responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

I can base my position only on the list of prequalified projects, which was last updated by the Government on 16 June. I have a list here of a page and a bit, which has not a single Welsh project on it.

[Stephen Crabb]

All I can do is reiterate the information that I have received from the Treasury that there are indeed Welsh projects at the prequalification stage. We are currently talking about infrastructure guarantees to Welsh businesses and other companies that want to invest in Wales. I will happily write to the hon. Gentleman with further information to clarify the situation. On that note, I hope that Members agree that the existing arrangements and the Bill before us are therefore optimal and will withdraw amendment 8 and new clause 2.

I turn now to new clause 3, which would allow the transfer of responsibility for referendums to the National Assembly for Wales. I am afraid that with this new clause, we once again find Plaid Cymru trying to shoehorn far-reaching and fundamental changes to the wider devolution settlement for Wales into this specific Bill, which takes forward the recommendations of part 1 of the Silk commission.

Referendums, such as the one this Bill provides for, are intended to allow the electorate to decide on key constitutional issues. Competence for the conduct of referendums, except in very exceptional circumstances, such as those around the Scottish independence referendum, rests at a UK level. I have seen no evidence yet to suggest that there should be any change to the existing devolution settlement.

It is also worth noting that the Silk commission made no recommendations about that issue when it examined the devolution settlement in its second report. Furthermore, there have been no calls from the Welsh Government or the Assembly for this competence to be transferred.

This Bill is focused on delivering new fiscal powers to Wales that were recommended by the Silk commission in its first report, and new clause 3 forms no part of that. I therefore ask Opposition Members to withdraw this amendment as well.

Finally, I turn to new clause 4, which bares a striking resemblance to an amendment tabled by Opposition Members in Committee. The new clause seeks to postpone the commencement of part 2 of the Bill, apart from the referendum provisions and clauses 19 and 20 in relation to borrowing powers, until the Secretary of State has laid a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out the steps needed to move to a reserved powers model of devolution. That report would need to be laid within nine months of the Bill’s enactment, generously giving the Government three months longer than the Opposition permitted in their Committee stage amendment.

With these new clauses, Labour Members once again seek to connect directly the commencement of the parts of the Bill that will devolve tax-raising powers to the Assembly with one of the most far-reaching of the Silk commission’s part 2 recommendations. Other hon. Members have described that as a delaying tactic; some have even described it this afternoon as a wrecking tactic. It reveals yet again the Welsh Labour party’s opposition to the proposals in the first Silk commission report to devolve income tax powers to Wales. It is merely a smokescreen for Labour Members’ deep and widely held scepticism and suspicion—they have used those words this afternoon—and they fundamentally oppose fiscal devolution, which is the next important stage of devolution for Wales.

As this Government have made clear on a number of occasions, a move to a reserved powers model would be a fundamental change to the devolution settlement in Wales. We have also made it clear, as did the Silk commission, that this should be a matter for party manifestos at the next election. Therefore, there is nothing to be gained by requiring the Government to report to Parliament on the legislative steps needed to move to a reserved powers model.

Once again, the Labour party seems to be mired in confusion about its position in relation to the Silk commission’s recommendations in the part 1 and part 2 reports. As is typical of the Labour party, it wants borrowing powers, but it does not want the means to pay back the money borrowed. It does not want true accountability for the devolved Government in Wales; it just wants public spending on the never-never. Just such a reckless attitude by the Labour party got this country’s finances into such a mess in the last Parliament.

This coalition Government have no intention of returning to that sorry state of affairs. We are committed to devolving the tax and borrowing powers in the Bill as soon as possible, so that the Welsh Government can become accountable for raising the money that they spend and for repaying the money that they borrow. I therefore invite Opposition Members to consider the full implications of new clause 4 and not to press it.

[Jonathan Edwards]

We have had an interesting debate on this group of new clauses and amendment 8, three of which Plaid Cymru tabled: first, to allow the Welsh Government to issue a guarantee to enable them to boost economic development; secondly, to release the handcuffs on borrowing powers to enable them to choose their own priorities—the borrowing capacity in the Bill will be more or less completely consumed by the M4 project that the Treasury favours; and, thirdly, to hold binding referendums based on the Edinburgh agreement.

Labour tabled new clause 4. Obviously, as a party, we fully support the move to a reserved powers model for Wales. It is a pity that the Labour party decided to spoil the new clause with a second element, which is obviously a delaying tactic. The Welsh economy needs these powers now, rather than waiting for a report. It is obviously a wrecking new clause, typical of Labour’s attitude during progress on the Bill in all its various stages. Plaid Cymru is not a tribal party—we vote as we see fit—but we cannot support new clause 4 because of the wrecking element in its second part.

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I intend to press amendment 8 to a vote at the appropriate time, but I will not press new clause 3 and ask leave to withdraw new clause 2.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 4

National Assembly for Wales: reserved powers

‘(1) The Secretary of State will lay a report before each House of Parliament on the further legislative steps needed to move to a model of reserved powers for the National Assembly for Wales and shall lay the report before each House of Parliament within nine months of this Act receiving Royal Assent.

(2) Part 2, except the referendum-related provisions and sections 19 and 20 shall not come into force until the report has been laid in accordance with subsection (1).”—(Nia Griffith.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Wales Bill

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Llwyd]

To be frank, it is probably an observation, but one can look at what would have been the Severn barrage; what is going on in Swansea at the moment; various other projects off Ynys Môn, such as wave power; and the way in which the Crown Estate is seeking vastly to increase its mooring fees, for example at Abersoch in my constituency, doubling, trebling and quadrupling the annual fee for mooring a boat, of which there are several hundred in that bay. Fees for mineral exploitation are also being increased and there are common land rights from which it is entitled to receive revenues, which are increasing. Taking all that in the round, and if there is to be further exploitation of natural resources offshore, and indeed onshore—whether that will happen, I know not, but it probably will—I can only conclude that there will be a substantial increase in revenue in the years to come. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman hard figures, but I surmise and I believe that the case is made that there will be a substantial increase in the future.

The new clauses are probing amendments, but I will be very interested to listen carefully to the Minister’s response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the final part of day two of the Bill Committee on the Floor of the House this evening, Mr Crausby, and I thank the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) for the way in which he presented the new clauses and the spirit in which he spoke to them. He is always constructive and informed on these matters.

In tabling the new clauses, the right hon. and hon. Members from Plaid Cymru seek to establish a mechanism by which the Crown Estate in Wales can be devolved. New clause 7 sets out a mechanism to devolve the Crown Estate in Wales to the Assembly; new clause 8 requires revenue from the Crown Estate in Wales to be paid into the Welsh Consolidated Fund; and new clause 9 specifies that one of the Crown Estate commissioners shall have “special responsibility for Wales” and

“shall be appointed on the recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer”,

who must consult Welsh Ministers before making a recommendation.

As hon. Members will be aware, the Silk commission made several recommendations in its part II report relating to the Crown Estate in Wales. It recommended that a Welsh Crown Estate commissioner be appointed in consultation with the Welsh Government, that a Crown Estate office be established in Wales, that the existing memorandum between the Crown Estate and the Welsh Government should be published and regularly updated, and that more emphasis should be given by the Crown Estate to the Welsh supply chain.

The Silk commission did not recommend transferring ownership of the Crown Estate to the Welsh Government. Typically, Plaid Cymru seek to go further than the commission recommended, and in doing so are pre-empting proper consideration of the commission’s recommendations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have repeatedly made it clear that the Government do not regard the Bill as an appropriate vehicle for implementing Silk II recommendations. It will come as no surprise to Opposition Members that we also do not regard it as a vehicle for going further than Silk recommended.

Silk recommendations that require primary legislation should be matters for political parties to consider in preparing their election manifestos. Those that do not are being actively considered by the Government. I therefore urge the right hon. Gentleman not to press new clause 7, 8 and 9.

Wales Bill

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards]

And the Rhyl Journal, although I am not an avid reader, I must admit.

Most people get their political news from London papers. If we have a Westminster election and an Assembly election in close proximity, there is a great danger that the issues for which the national Assembly is responsible will be dropped completely. The Minister has indicated that there is no intention to bring the elections closer and that there are protections in the Bill to ensure that there will be a gap of at least a year between them, so I am happy not to press my two amendments.

On the Labour amendments, the Electoral Reform Society has lobbied extensively against amendment 9, arguing that

“good governance and greater stability is achieved through fixed terms and this should not be a power that is given to the Executive to decide.”

It points out that, as the electoral system for the Assembly makes coalitions more likely, fixed terms also provide stability and security for parties of government. Two of the four terms in the Assembly have seen coalition Governments, so I agree with that point.

Amendment 10 appears to have been drafted with the aim of ensuring that Assembly and Westminster elections are not held on the same day. I would have been happy to support that if it had been pressed to a vote.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

I, too, would like to start by welcoming you to the Chair, Dr McCrea. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the Committee for their contributions to this early part of the first day of our deliberations.

Amendment 9 would give the Assembly the power to decide, by resolution, when Assembly elections are held, and would remove the Secretary of State’s powers in relation to varying the date of Assembly elections and proposing a date for extraordinary Assembly elections. Amendment 10 would prevent the Assembly from setting a date for an election on a day on which it knows, or reasonably expects, a parliamentary general election to be held. The amendments would permit the Assembly to determine the date of Assembly elections and consequently the length of its own terms. That reflects a recommendation made by the Welsh Affairs Committee arising from its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Wales Bill.

It is worth pointing out that the Silk commission considered the matter of legislative competence for Assembly elections to be outside its terms of reference and made no recommendations in this regard in its second report. Nevertheless, the Government believe that the devolution of further powers to the Assembly should not be undertaken in a piecemeal fashion, and that the issue would best be considered in the wider context of possible changes to the Welsh devolution settlement arising from the recommendations made by the commission in its second report. The Government made clear, on publication of the report, that recommendations requiring primary legislative change should be a matter for the next Parliament and the next Government, and consequently that they should be for political parties to consider in preparing their election manifestos. We believe the same principle should apply when considering whether legislative competence for Assembly elections should be devolved to the Assembly. It is important that electors are clear on how long they are electing Assembly Members for when they vote in the 2016 Assembly election, and that five-year Assembly terms are in place by then to ensure that Westminster and Assembly elections do not coincide in 2020.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 moved this House to a fixed five-year cycle and consequentially provided that the next ordinary general election to the National Assembly for Wales would be moved on a one-off basis by one year from 7 May 2015 to 5 May 2016. This responded to concerns raised by the Assembly that holding general elections to this House and to the Assembly on the same day could lead to the Assembly elections being overshadowed. I am encouraged that Members of all parties seem to be in agreement on the position that we do not want the two elections coinciding. I particularly welcome the Labour party’s support in seeking to minimise the risk of that, which is evident in amendment 10.

Similarly, amendments 30 and 31, tabled by right hon. and hon. Members from Plaid Cymru, are intended to ensure that an ordinary Assembly general election does not take place within six months of a UK general election. I am encouraged that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) has been reassured by the debate so far and by our previous discussions, and that he is not going to press his amendments on that basis.

There is cross-party support for the principle that, as far as possible, we should seek to ensure that ordinary general elections to the Assembly and to this House should not coincide. With the next Assembly election scheduled for 2016, if the Assembly remains on a four-year cycle, the two sets of elections would coincide every 20 years, starting in 2020—something that all parties are clearly keen to avoid. Clause 1 makes it far less likely that Assembly elections and parliamentary elections will coincide in future. I therefore ask Opposition Members to support the clause, to consider the further devolution of powers to the Assembly in the context of preparing their own parties’ manifestos and consequently to withdraw or not press the amendments.

[Owen Smith]

I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging that our amendments reflect the views of the Welsh Affairs Committee and, indeed, as I said earlier, those of the Welsh Government, and that they were tabled in good faith. I am equally pleased to hear that when it comes to looking at the Silk commission part I report or any legislation that might arise from it or be reflected in the manifestos before the next election, the Government will be open to considering whether the Assembly should be responsible for—or at least have the ability to consent to—when the elections should take place. In the light of the Minister’s remarks, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Removal of restriction on standing for election for both constituency and electoral region

--- Later in debate ---

The Welsh Government

[Stephen Crabb]

I beg to move, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Temporary Chairman (Mr Christopher Chope)]

With this we may take new clause 5—The National Assembly for Wales—

‘The Government of Wales Act 2006 is amended by adding at the end of section 1 (The Assembly)—

(a) The Assembly may change its name by means of a resolution agreed to by a simple majority;

(b) on the first occasion a resolution under subsection (6)(a) is passed, the expression “National Assembly for Wales” shall be replaced wherever it occurs in the GOWA 2006 by the name contained in that resolution;

(c) on any subsequent occasion, the name contained in a resolution under the terms of subsection (6)(a) shall replace the previous name in the same manner;

(d) unless the context requires otherwise, in any enactment, instrument of other document passed or made before this subsection comes into force any reference to the National Assembly for Wales is to be read as, or as including, a reference to the Assembly as renamed.”.’.

[Stephen Crabb]

Let me begin, Mr Chope, by welcoming you to the Chair. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

Following the 2011 Assembly election, the First Minister of Wales announced that the Welsh Assembly Government wished to be known instead as the Welsh Government. That change was made in order to make clearer the respective roles of the Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales following the devolution of full law-making powers. Since then, the term “Welsh Government” has increasingly been used by people throughout Wales, and it is now the commonly used term for the Executive. However, “Welsh Government” remains an informal moniker, and “Welsh Assembly Government” is still the formal legal name in statute.

In recognition of the widespread use of “Welsh Government” as the generally accepted term, and following the request from the First Minister, clause 4 provides for the name of the Executive to be changed formally. That will mean that, for the first time, the new title can be used in formal legal documents, in keeping with common parlance. The clause provides that any reference to “Welsh Assembly Government” in existing legislation should be read as a reference to the “Welsh Government”, unless the specific context requires the former name to be used.

As usual, Plaid Cymru Members wish to go even further and have tabled new clause 5, which seeks to devolve to the National Assembly for Wales the power to change its name through a resolution passed by a simple majority. In renaming the Welsh Assembly Government we are simply reflecting what the Executive are now commonly known as. The same is not the case in respect of the National Assembly; people within and outside Wales know the legislature as the “National Assembly” or the “Welsh Assembly”, and I detect no popular clamour in my constituency or any other part of Wales I visit for a change in the name of Wales’s legislature.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Is the Minister aware that the leader of the Conservative party in the National Assembly has made a manifesto pledge to change the name of the Assembly and make it a Parliament?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am aware of all kinds of views from individuals across Wales on what the name of the legislature should or could be. I also recognise that the Silk commission recommended that if the Assembly wishes to change its name to the Welsh Parliament, that should be respected. However in tabling new clause 5 and other amendments Plaid Cymru seems to be doing exactly what it has wrongly accused this Government of doing: cherry-picking the Silk recommendations for implementation through this Bill.

The Secretary of State’s written statement on 3 March made the Government’s view clear: we do not regard this Bill as an appropriate vehicle for implementing Silk II recommendations, that those recommendations requiring primary legislation should be matters for the “next Government and Parliament” and, as such, they are for political parties to consider in preparing their election manifestos. That remains this Government’s approach, so I urge Plaid Cymru Members not to press their new clause to a vote.

[Jonathan Edwards]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.

I rise to speak in favour of new clause 5, which stands in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. We will not be pushing it to a vote, because we want to save time and to have a discussion on income tax powers, which is what we really want to discuss in detail. However, I say to the Minister that, regardless of his opening remarks, our new clause is in the spirit of clause 4, which he has just presented. I hope the Government will see sense in due course, either in the later stages of the Bill’s progress in this House or in the other place.

New clause 5 would give powers to the National Assembly to change its name to the “National Parliament” or to any other name should it so decide. I stress that the new clause does not call for the institution’s name to be changed in this Bill, but rather that the power to take this decision should be granted to the National Assembly, as proposed in the Silk II recommendations. The Minister was being somewhat mischievous in saying that we were cherry-picking from the Silk recommendations, because our new clause is in line with the Silk II recommendations, in that it is a matter for the National Assembly if it wishes to change the name of the legislature. The new clause would empower it to make that decision rather than having to make a request to the UK Government of the day, as it has done for the name of the Executive.

The new clause would mean that the National Assembly would be able to change its name by means of a resolution agreed by a simple majority. It is gratifying that clause 4 officially changes the name of the Executive to the “Welsh Government”, a title that has been used widely for practical purposes since the 2011 election. There was a Scottish precedent for this change of title in 2007, when the “Scottish Executive” were renamed the “Scottish Government”. There has been broad agreement that the term “Welsh Assembly Government”, which had been in use since 2002, had been confusing and anachronistic after the separation of the Executive and legislative functions of the Assembly in 2007. It also gave rise to the unfortunate acronym WAG—being given the same label as a premiership footballer’s better half has done little for the democracy of our country. I have never used the term since I was elected, instead always using “Welsh Government”, so I was delighted that following the 2011 election the First Minister made the case that the Executive would be known as the “Welsh Government” thereafter. So I fully support clause 4, which makes that name official in legislation.

Now that the National Assembly is able to pass its own laws, it should be called a Parliament. However, I appreciate that others hold a different view, and that in the European tradition, the meeting place of a legislature is generally termed an Assembly. In France, for instance, the national legislature is called the Assemblée Nationale—if my memory of international rugby trips to Paris serves me correctly. Surely it should be a matter for the democratically elected Members of the national legislature of Wales to determine the name of the legislature in which they serve. That is what we are trying to achieve in new clause 5, but I will not press the matter to a vote. I expect there to be greater deliberations on this topic when the Bill reaches the other place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr Chope. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

We support clause 4, which renames the Welsh Assembly Government. That is what the Welsh Assembly has long said that it would like to happen and it reflects normal custom and practice across Wales, so we are pleased that the Government have decided to change things and use the term Welsh Government in future.

On new clause 5, we accept that there is a debate to be had about the name. Silk part II refers to the prospect of a Welsh Parliament and it is ironic that the leader of the Conservative party in Wales holds that view. I admire the chutzpah with which the Under-Secretary glossed over that, as it is an irony that the Opposition see clearly. However, this is an area of debate that ought properly to be dealt with in any legislation that reflects Silk part II rather than under this Bill, which properly reflects the preponderance of Silk part I. For that reason, even if the new clause were pressed to a vote, we probably would not support it.

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree very much with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). There are two elements to the debate. The first is about what we call the legislature and the second is about where the decision is taken. As for the first, there is an emerging debate in Wales about what we should call the National Assembly and whether it should have its name changed. The leader of my party’s group in the Assembly has a view that I fully respect. He is an excellent colleague and I am sorry if I gave the impression that I was glossing over his views, but I still maintain the position that the debate is emerging and has not yet engaged with the public consciousness. Until we get to that point, it is probably a debate that will not be resolved.

As for the second part of the debate, the Silk commission referred to the decision on where the decision should be made in part II of its recommendations. We have been clear and consistent all along that decisions about the Silk part II recommendations are not for this Bill but for a future Parliament and a future Government and for the parties to consider in their manifestos. I stand by my earlier remarks and ask the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) not to press his new clause to a vote.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 4

National Assembly to set number of AMs

‘Her Majesty may by Order in Council provide for the transfer of responsibility for setting the number of Assembly Members to the National Assembly for Wales.’.—(Jonathan Edwards.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

North Wales Economy

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen]

I am happy to take an intervention if my hon. Friend wants to make one, but other hon. Members want to speak, and some hon. Members have spoken for a long time. We need to make the case for the tourism sector in north-west Wales.

The Governments in the Republic of Ireland and in France, our near neighbours, have reduced VAT to stimulate the economy. A campaigning group has carried out a study which shows that a cut in VAT in the first year would result in a loss to the Treasury, but would be cost-neutral in the second year, and result in profit thereafter.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

Labour Members, particularly the hon. Gentleman, continue to use the example of France, where 1 million jobs have been destroyed. Here in the UK, more than 1 million jobs have been created, so he should be wary of harking back to the French example.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) on securing the debate, which has been excellent, and on making a very good and full opening speech. I do not wish to repeat all of that; nor do I wish to dwell too long on the issue of transport infrastructure, as we had a debate about it last November, but it is crucial that we have joined-up thinking UK-wide whenever we talk about transport infrastructure. We have to be certain that north Wales is fully connected not just to Crewe but to the north-west of England more generally—to the Liverpool and Manchester airports, and then across the trans-Pennine route to the north-east. It is also vital that we are part of joined-up thinking across Europe and that people can go right through to Holyhead and across to Ireland. Transport infrastructure remains extremely important, and I hope that the Minister will continue to stress both that and the need for investment and careful thought about how we can link the north Wales economy to the rest of the economy of the UK.

The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) mentioned the skills sector. The point was reiterated by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who spoke about the recent investment by the Welsh Government in that sector, particularly with respect to the energy sector. The hon. Member for Aberconwy also mentioned the reluctance of the banks to lend. That point was picked up by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who explained the important way in which we could use a regional banking system, which would take money from the local economy and put it back into the local economy. It would make money available for local businesses to grow organically in their home towns, thereby securing that investment for many years to come. That point was broadly echoed in the call by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) for a return to something like the Welsh Development Agency, the demise of which he much regretted. Those were important points about growing the local economy.

The hon. Member for Aberconwy also referred to the modern crowdfunding for a local coffee shop and stressed the importance of the food sector.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd talked about small businesses, and I certainly enjoyed meeting people from small businesses when they came to this place. He also mentioned the issue of the low-wage economy and asked what the Labour party policy was. Our policy is clearly that we very much want to incentivise employers to move up to paying the living wage by giving them a tax break to do so. While they were getting that tax break, we would obviously be saving on the additional tax credits that would have to be paid if people were paid less than the living wage.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned zero-hours contracts. He knows full well that zero-hours contracts are zero-rights contracts. One of the key issues is that if people do not have a proper contract, they have no rights at all. We have said clearly that where there is abuse of zero-hours contracts when people are working on a regular basis, they need to be issued with proper contracts rather than being kept in that awful situation of having insecurity not only from week to week but about whether they will even keep their job. He also mentioned the need to increase the spend on tourism—in other words, to try to attract in more money per person than we have in the past.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn talked about the huge investment in the nuclear sector on his island and the importance of that to the north Wales economy, but also about the importance of wind and solar investment. Again, he mentioned the importance of skills for the energy sector. He also made a key point about ports. I know that the Minister would not like to appear partisan; he would not like to appear to be looking for money just for his own constituency port. I ask him to take up my hon. Friend’s point that we did have money secured for ports that is now not coming to the Welsh ports. If the Minister could take the point up with the Treasury and see whether he can do something for investment in the ports in Wales, that would be a welcome outcome of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) mentioned job losses. That point was emphasised strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham—we have seen significant job losses in Wrexham. That brings me to the two major points that I want to make today. One is about the importance of giving a strong and clear message that we are fully committed to staying in the EU. I serve on the European Scrutiny Committee, and believe you me, Mr Hollobone, there are members of that Committee who wish not only to renegotiate the Lisbon treaty and go back to the Maastricht treaty, but to renegotiate the 1972 accession treaty. Those are the sorts of messages that people in Asia are getting, which is extremely damaging. If we look at the Welsh economy, we see that 150,000 jobs in Wales depend on our membership of the EU.

The uncertainty is worrying for existing firms that want to invest. They are thinking, “Shall we invest further in the UK, or play safe and invest in the Netherlands, Germany or France—in mainland Europe, where we know we will be okay and will not suddenly find ourselves outside the EU?” The uncertainty also deters new investors, particularly from outside the EU, who want access to that market. They do not want to invest in a part of the EU that might suddenly not be there any more. They do not want to think that they might face tariffs of anything from 5% to 200%. Nor do new investors want to be left out of the negotiations on the EU-US treaty. They do not want to be in a country if the head of that country is not at the negotiating table and is not at the centre of the negotiations on what will happen in the EU in future.

It is concerning that we hear all these noises and that there is talk of uncertainty right up until 2017, with the issue of a referendum hanging over people. There is a real worry about whether we will get investment in jobs in Wales, and whether there will be certainty for the companies that are currently there and for new companies to come in. Of course, that is not to mention the huge support for the agricultural sector in north Wales through the common agricultural policy, or the European structural funds, which help north-west Wales. That uncertainty is one of the key factors in this debate, and I hope that the Minister will take back that message to his party.

The other point on which we want certainty is industrial policy on energy prices and on what is happening to things such as the carbon price floor. The Chancellor has now put in a freeze, but it is rather late in the day. Manufacturers are still concerned, because they see that a unilateral tax was imposed by the UK Government and they then had to go to the EU to try to get some state aid funding to mitigate it.

[Stephen Crabb]

You backed it; you supported it.

[Nia Griffith]

The Minister says from a sedentary position that we supported it. We did not support it at the level at which the Government set it. What is important is that we try to get some help in as soon as possible, rather than having to wait another two or three years, because that will be vital for investment in some of our industries and for whether they will be able to stay in north Wales.

We have mentioned on a number of occasions the failure of the banks—the way they change their terms and conditions and do no service to many of the small businesses in our region—and the work that needs to be done to increase bank lending and foster a much more positive attitude towards local businesses.

I would like to finish by mentioning the importance of borrowing. Borrowing is important to the Welsh Government and it is important for investment in north Wales. We very much support the measures in the Wales Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, on the issue of borrowing. We hope that the Minister will not only facilitate the interim funding that is supposed to come to south Wales, but ensure that the mechanisms are in place for borrowing by the Welsh Government to improve the economy of north Wales. That will mean that we can have a vibrant economy that is supported by investment on the English side in transport infrastructure and mechanisms that will help north Wales, and on the Welsh Government’s side by investment in transport and broadband infrastructure. In that way, we can have a flourishing north Wales economy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to follow the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). I congratulate the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) on securing this important debate, and for the positive, constructive and intelligent way in which he set out his case. He emphasised the positive aspects of what is going on in Wales and the need to do more to secure the future of the excellent developments and facilities that he talked about so eloquently.

This morning, more people than ever before in north Wales went out to work. When we came into office in 2010, the overall employment level in north Wales was at a nine-year low. Over the past four years, notwithstanding the remarks of some Opposition Members, we have seen some really healthy growth in the labour market across Wales, but particularly in north Wales. Unemployment across north Wales is 6.3%, which is lower than the Welsh average and lower than the UK average.

One of the pleasures and privileges of my job at the Wales Office is that I get the opportunity to go out across Wales. Some of the most exciting, interesting and encouraging things that I see in the economy in Wales are happening in north Wales, so I concur with all the positive remarks made by Opposition Members about what is happening in the north Wales economy. I underline that we are seeing a sustained fall in unemployment. During the previous Parliament, unemployment in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) increased by 50%, but it has fallen by 10% since 2010. In Delyn, unemployment increased by 110% over the five years of the previous Parliament, but since 2010 it has come down by 17%. Of course, we want that to progress and go further, but the trend is positive. I will say a little more about that in a moment.

The right hon. Member for Delyn made an urgent point about Creative Foods. We are aware of that situation and have had a discussion about it at the Wales Office. In that case, as in the case of First Milk, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), and of the recent announcement by Avana bakeries in Newport, the Wales Office engaged closely with the companies to see what we could do, in conjunction with Welsh Government colleagues. It is no accident that all three of those companies, which announced significant job losses, are in the food sector. The hon. Member for Clwyd South raised an important question about supermarkets creating vulnerabilities for the food sector in Wales, and that is something that we should explore on another occasion. I reassure the right hon. Member for Delyn that we are certainly engaged on that matter.

Returning to the subject of jobs growth, there is positive growth across Wales, and particularly in north Wales. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) said that the important thing was the quality of jobs, not the quantity. In fact, the quantity of jobs is important, because one of the ways in which we can drive up wage levels is by creating more job competition. More competition for job opportunities drives up the wages that employers will offer.

It is worth pointing out that over the past three years, average wage levels in north Wales have increased by more than 6%. They are not back to where we want them to be. There was a huge destruction of value in the economy following the crash of 2008, which happened on the watch of the Labour Government, and that fed through to wage levels. Real wage levels fell for people right across the country. With the recovery, wage levels are starting to creep back up. Of course they are not where we want them to be, but there is progress. Average wage levels in Wales are increasing at twice the rate of inflation, which also happens to be at a four-year low. There is positive growth.

[Ian Lucas]

Since April 2010, real wages for women in Wrexham have fallen by 4.6%. That is on this Government’s watch, and it is having a real effect on our local economy.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not disputing the fact that the situation as regards wages and jobs across Wales is patchy. Of course it will be, during the early stages of a recovery, but the trend is positive and will continue, bringing in new investment and creating more jobs.

As Members in all parts of the Chamber have highlighted, manufacturing is one of the bright points of the Welsh economy; there is the involvement of companies such as Airbus, Kimberly Clark—in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Delyn—and Kronospan. Growth has not simply been generated by a housing bubble in the south-east, as the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) argued in debate last night. There is real, balanced growth across all sectors in Wales.

On energy costs for manufacturers, the package of measures announced in the Budget by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was welcomed widely across the manufacturing sector in Wales, particularly by the energy-intensive industries that are so heavily represented in the Welsh economy. The measures directly address the concerns that the industry has raised with us. Companies such as Kronospan and Kimberly Clark are classified as energy-intensive industries and will benefit directly from that package.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the Minister do everything he can to bring forward those measures? The message from the industry is that it does not want to have to wait one or two years; it would like help sooner. We would be most grateful for anything that he could do in that respect.

[Stephen Crabb]

We are taking action. We are making available £240 million. We can make those substantial resources available only because of difficult decisions that we have taken to cut the deficit and to put the national finances back in order—measures that the hon. Lady opposed on every single opportunity over the past three or four years. We are taking action where we can, and those measures have been welcomed by industry across Wales.

I move on to transport, which quite a few Members have mentioned. We at the Wales Office totally understand the concerns and the desire for electrification of the north Wales main line. That is something that the Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), is personally very engaged in, and on which we are in close dialogue and discussion with the Welsh Government and the Department for Transport. The right hon. Member for Delyn is quite right, because electrification of the north Wales main line and the development of the High Speed 2 hub at Crewe will open a hugely expanded range of opportunities for travel and for the economy of north Wales. That is something that we very much support.

I cannot offer any immediate good news on the Halton curve, which has been mentioned more than once this morning. The UK Government have no immediate plans to reopen that section of line, but we want to hear the arguments. If the right hon. Gentleman is engaged in work on the business case for reopening the Halton curve, I would like to see that, and I am happy to facilitate discussions with the Department for Transport where possible.

On the point about ports, we have discussed before the £60 million fund that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) raised. I salute him for the work that he does in championing not only his local port, but the port sector across Wales. The fund that was announced was an economic development fund designed to attract wind turbine manufacturing to port areas. He will be aware that economic development is devolved to the Welsh Government, so the Welsh Government received the Barnett consequentials of that £60 million fund. They received the resources, so if it had been a priority for them, they could have initiated something similar for Wales.

[Albert Owen]

The Minister is trying to say that that is an economic issue, but the Government changed the rules because they were worried about the impact of state aid rules. On port development, will he join me in condemning Stena Line, which is talking about changing wages and conditions instead of investing in the ports of west Wales—something that I know he is greatly concerned about? Stena Line wants to cut wages and conditions and race to the bottom, rather than investing for the future.

[Stephen Crabb]

No, I will not join in criticising Stena. I met with the company recently, and it faces a really tough battle to stay competitive and keep those services. It is a good company that has invested in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and in mine. We have to work with it to see that it continues to make that investment.

The question of Europe was raised by several Opposition Members, and I repeat what I said at Wales Office questions last week: the vast majority of businesses across the UK and in Wales strongly support our desire for a change in our relationship with Europe regarding the level of regulation and the burden of cost that our membership places on the private sector. Businesses do not want to rush headlong to the exit and leave the European Union, but they want change. That is backed up by comments made by those who run the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce and the CBI.

The point about multinationals being based in Wales and using it as a springboard into the European Union is important. I received a letter this morning from one of those multinationals, in which it welcomes the action that we have taken on energy costs but raises concerns about a regulation at the European level. Small and large businesses in Wales understand our issue with the European Union, and they support the action that the Prime Minister is taking to reduce costs and the burden of regulation for Wales.

In the few seconds that I have remaining, I again thank the right hon. Member for Delyn for securing the debate. I look forward to discussing the issues again in future.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I thank all Members who took part in that very interesting debate. Will those who are not staying for the next debate please leave quickly and quietly? We now move on to the important subject of Government support for grassroots football. I call Mr David Crausby.

Fairness and Inequality

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards]

It comes down to the fact that Governments of small countries are far closer to the aspirations and requirements of their people, whereas larger states find that far more difficult to achieve, especially where the state is very centralised, as ours is in the United Kingdom, with power heavily concentrated in Westminster.

Symptoms of what I am describing include the privatisation of the health service in England—the current Tory policy of building on the layers laid down by Labour, with its introduction of foundation hospitals and use of the private finance initiative. The privatisation of services and assets has carried on unabated. For example, Labour's plan to privatise Royal Mail has been carried out by the Tories and Lib Dems during this Parliament. Is it any wonder that Scotland is now beginning to believe that it can do things better and differently, or that the people of Wales increasingly demand that we have more powers to control our lives and better reflect our political values?

The most detailed research since devolution began was undertaken by the Silk commission, which has been tasked with pathfinding the next steps in the Welsh devolution journey. The findings of that detailed research are extremely encouraging: 62% want more powers for Wales, with only a paltry 20% against—that reflects all the geographical areas of my country; 80% believe that the National Assembly defends Welsh interests better than Westminster; 80% want responsibility for energy policy to be in Wales; 63% want powers over policing; 58% want powers over broadcasting; and there was also a clear majority for devolving social protection—or at least its administration, as is the case in Northern Ireland, which has enabled its Government to stop the implementation of the bedroom tax. However, only 20% support devolution of defence and foreign affairs, so clearly there is a bit of work to do to progress those two areas in my country.

In many areas of the UK, it is taken for granted that the Tory party long ago discarded any pretensions to a one-nation paternalist conservatism that sought to mould itself around social democratic values. Instead it embraced Thatcherism and its resultant rise in economic inequality. Of greater concern, however, is the complete dereliction of duty by Labour in its failure and unwillingness to deal with rising inequality. Westminster is now synonymous with inequality from its representation to its policies.

Following the 2010 Westminster election and the aftershocks of the 2008 financial crash, a new UK coalition Government pledged to rebalance the economy of the British state by sector and on a geographical basis. Who can forget the Chancellor’s triumphant claim, “We’re all in this together”? He told us that he was creating an economy

“carried aloft by the march of the makers.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 966.]

What is more worrying is the Government’s admission that this is failing. The Business Secretary now fully admits that London

“is a giant suction machine draining the life out of the rest of the country.”

Yet the Government do precious little to rectify that. Only last month the Financial Times reported that the wealth gap between London and the nations and regions is set to widen. A professor at the London School of Economics has noted that London is the

“dark star of the economy, inexorably sucking in resources, people and energy.”

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at the most recent economic data for gross value added growth in Wales and across the UK, he will see that growth in Wales is rebounding stronger than the UK average. It is closing the gap rather than, as he purports, increasing it.

[Jonathan Edwards]

We welcome the fact that Wales has moved up. None the less, we are still at the bottom of the wealth league. West Wales, the area that both the Minister and I represent, fell by 4%. That is a record of failure. It says something about the Welsh Government’s policies as well—I am not just slinging my sticks at my friend on the Government Benches.

Today, Aditya Chakrabortty’s article in the Guardian highlights how public money and private wealth are being hoovered up by London. He notes that last year, the Institute for Public Policy Research published research that showed that the transport spending system is broken. Transport spending is £2,731 per head in London, compared with £5 per head in the north-east of England. In Wales, we receive only 0.7% of the transport infrastructure spend, yet we represent 5% of the population. There is still not a single mile of electrified track in Wales, which puts us on a par with the likes of Albania—so much for Labour standing up for Wales during 13 years in power. We welcome the announcement by this Government that they will electrify the line to Swansea. However, the pressing issue for us is whether we will get our fair share from the vast expenditure on High Speed 2, which the Government are intent on pursuing. As everyone has noted, that expenditure on HS2 will hoover up all transport infrastructure spending for generations to come. Given that it is an England-only railway—the last time I looked on a map, Manchester, York and Birmingham were all in England—Wales deserves at least 5% of that expenditure.

After decades of increasing wealth inequality under successive Westminster Administrations, it was hoped that finally there would be a change of direction. Instead, what we have seen is ideological austerity and ultra-loose monetary policy, which has seen redistribution in reverse. Amazingly, Labour has signed up to the same fiscal strategy if it forms the next UK Government. It is an incredible strategic decision that overrides all others, but it has barely been mentioned in dispatches by a London-centric media that views it as par for the course.

Plaid Cymru, the party of Wales, believes that Wales is best served when we are free to decide our future and set our own course. That is why it is so important that the job-creation and economy-boosting financial powers recommended by the UK Commission on Devolution in Wales are implemented as soon as possible; they are a bare minimum. However, on their own they are unlikely to reverse the decades of inverted wealth distribution. For as long as Wales continues to be a part of the UK and Plaid Cymru MPs are in this place, we will seek to reform it. An economic fairness Act would force the UK Government—whoever they were—to implement a range of measures to ensure that more economic and job opportunities are created outside the south-east of England with statutory obligations to tackle individual inequality.

Such an Act would concentrate minds on a genuine rebalancing of the economy, turning us away from financial services and banking towards areas such as manufacturing and engineering. It would allow for measures such as prioritising poorer areas for infrastructure spending and investment, bringing jobs and growth. Legislation based on the Communities Reinvestment Act in the US would be included to ensure that the private banking sector operates fairly in terms of which geographical areas it prioritises for lending. I need not remind the House of the enormous problems that Welsh businesses have faced as a result of banks’ activities since the crash. It is a complete disgrace that in 2008 £1.4 trillion of taxpayers’ money—100% of the country’s wealth—was put into loans, grants and guarantees and used to pull up the banking sector.

In Wales, a national public development bank should be set up to ensure businesses in our country are able to access finance to grow and develop. The devolved Government would be empowered with the job creation levers to incentivise economic development.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards)—my hon. Friend—who spoke with trademark passion. He gave us a treat by dipping into Welsh political traditions. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I greatly enjoyed his history lesson. I, too, went to school in Wales, and I remember some of that history. I caution the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr against looking back to the days of Hywel Dda through rose-tinted spectacles, as it was a brutal and unpleasant time.

I would also caution the hon. Gentleman against drawing a direct, continuous line from the days of Hywel Dda to 20th-century state socialism. If we are talking about the long-term economic problems with which Wales is still struggling, I would point out that state socialism was part of the problem for much of the 20th century, not part of the solution. I would also refer him to other political traditions in Wales that point to a stronger civic society and a culture of self-help. There is a more communitarian tradition, which risks being emasculated by any return to state socialism.

I pay tribute to the SNP and Plaid Cymru for choosing the topic for today’s debate, and I am happy to have the opportunity to set out what the Government are doing to reduce inequality and ensure fairness in society. Where the hon. Gentleman’s speech was a little disappointing, if I may say so, was in—

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

The content.

[Stephen Crabb]

The content was marked by the absence of a really attractive vision for what the Welsh economy could be. I was sitting expectantly, hoping that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr would set out a vision of what small-country, successful economics might look like under a Plaid Cymru Administration, but we heard precious little about that. I hope that some of his colleagues will be able to enlighten us on that. Instead, there was a familiar return to the talk of more spending, more borrowing and more debt—exactly the things that will shackle the people of Wales and their children for generations to come with more economic problems.

[Andrew Selous]

Does the Minister agree that there is nothing fair at all about getting the next generation to pay even more of this generation’s debts?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. There is nothing fair, progressive or just about loading future generations with more debt and the consequences of debt. If we are a responsible political generation in the House, we will take care to ensure that our decisions minimise the impact on future generations.

This country continues to face deep-seated, long-standing economic challenges. The UK underwent an economic trauma between 2008 and 2010, and we are still living with the consequences. As a result of that trauma in those two years, there was a huge destruction of value in the economy, and a destruction of wealth, and we are still recovering from that, even in 2014. Although it is difficult for Opposition parties to admit, the Government have made difficult, challenging decisions and taken practical steps to reduce the deficit and restore stability and order to our national finances, which is the starting point—the foundation—for tackling all the other social and economic issues that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and others have begun to raise in the House this afternoon. As a coalition Government, we are ambitious that the emerging economic recovery should be a recovery for all parts of the UK, including Scotland and Wales, and for all people from all walks of life in our country. That is at the heart of our vision of fairness as a coalition Government.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the socialist remedy is so often to think of tax and regulations to get rid of the rich from London to abroad, and hopeless in thinking of ways of promoting other people to good jobs and success so that they can enjoy and share the prosperity?

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. There seems to be a blind spot in the left in that respect. We have begun to discuss fiscal powers for Wales and Scotland, and as that debate continues, what we should see from all the parties in Wales and Scotland are new, creative ideas to increase wealth and incentivise entrepreneurialism in those two challenged parts of the country.

Before I set out what the Government have done to tackle inequality and build a recovery for all, I want to deal with some of the issues that are already starting to be raised in this important debate. On the issue of spending and the necessary cuts to spending that we still have to make, the simple truth is that the previous Government left Britain borrowing more than £400 million every single day to pay for Government spending. As a result of the difficult decisions that we have taken, the deficit is now down by a third and we are borrowing nearly £3,000 less for every hard-working family in the country. However, there is still a long way to go. We are still borrowing around £100 billion a year and paying half that a year in interest just to service our debts, so there remain some difficult and challenging spending decisions further down the line. Whichever party or parties are in government after the next election, they will have to meet those decisions and challenges head on.

[Caroline Lucas]

For the benefit of us all and to enable a more enlightened debate, it would be helpful if the Government stopped pretending that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown)was responsible for the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I blame the Labour party for a lot, but the idea that the current economic crisis was somehow caused by that is ludicrous. It was a global economic crisis and—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think the Minister has got the message.

[Stephen Crabb]

I applaud the hon. Lady for her attempt to rescue the reputation of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister. The truth is that the trajectory of public spending was already far too high, even before the banking collapse. There was a structural deficit that placed at risk the stability of the UK finances even before the banking collapse.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that official statistics show that the debt-to-GDP ratio was lower in 2008 than when we came into power in 1997? Those are the official figures.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not sure that I recognise the figures that the hon. Lady gives.

[Richard Fuller]

Will the Minister assure the House that he understands the figures even if the Opposition do not, and that between 1995 and 2010 the total indebtedness of the UK went from twice the size of the economy to five times the size of the economy, making us the most indebted major economy in the world?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend explains it very well for the benefit of Members of all parties. Under the previous Labour Government, the trajectory of public spending was set on a reckless course, and when the banking crisis hit, the true consequences were felt by hard-working families throughout the country.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. When I say “Order” I expect the hon. Lady to sit down. The intervention is becoming a ramble, but more importantly we are talking about a Member of Parliament, not by name I hope.

[Stephen Crabb]

The choice still facing the United Kingdom is either to stick to the long-term economic plan to secure a better, more financially secure future for hard-working people and their families throughout the country, or to listen to the Opposition parties and the motion before us calling for a return to the days of spending and borrowing beyond our means, leaving our children and their children to pick up the bill.

[Angus Robertson]

As we are talking about getting the record straight, recent quotes of the Business Secretary have been raised a number of times. He said that London

“is becoming a giant suction machine draining the life out of the rest of the country”.

Does the Minister agree with the Business Secretary?

[Stephen Crabb]

We touched on this point during the opening speech of the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. I remind hon. Members that the most recent gross value added figures show that parts of the United Kingdom far from London are rebounding strongly with growth and starting to narrow some of the economic gap that we are all concerned about.

[Mr Redwood]

I think the Minister could agree that the former Prime Minister and Chancellor was not responsible for Lehman Brothers, but by the same token, should my hon. Friend not remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for the competition and banking regulation regime that led to the collapse on his watch of the Scottish banks RBS and HBOS?

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend makes the point perfectly well.

It is the firmly held belief of this Government that it must pay to be in work, and we are restoring the incentives to work; restoring the value of work in our society. That is one of the reasons why we have brought in the benefit cap, opposed by the Opposition parties, to ensure that families are always better off in work rather than claiming benefit. We are also increasing the incentives in the tax system, putting money back into the pockets of working people by raising the income tax personal allowance to £10,000, taking 2.7 million people, many of whom are on the lowest wages, out of income tax altogether. In Wales alone, that will benefit 1.2 million workers, taking 130,000 people out of income tax altogether. For the record, in Scotland 2.2 million workers will benefit and 240,000 will be taken out of income tax altogether.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The Minister is very quick to talk about taxation issues, but surely the net effect of the Government’s policies on tax, on payments of benefits and tax credits, is that people on lower incomes have suffered a loss.

[Stephen Crabb]

I simply disagree with the hon. Lady’s argument. The Government are determined that, as the economic recovery emerges throughout the country, people on the lowest incomes should be at the front of the queue to benefit from that recovery.

We recognise that for those on the lowest pay things remain challenging. Wage levels are not where we want them to be. That is why we need a strong minimum wage. I am proud that the coalition Government have not only implemented the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission in full, but that last year we were able to go beyond its recommendations and increase the apprentice rate too. We can afford that only because we have taken difficult and responsible financial decisions.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Minister is exactly right. The coalition Government have taken tens of thousands of people out of paying tax, but does he agree with his Liberal Democrat colleagues, that if they raised that tax-free allowance any higher, people who are not paying tax at the moment will see no benefit from that?

[Stephen Crabb]

I have just given the House the numbers of people who are benefiting from the steps that we are taking to increase the personal allowance. With that measure and the other steps that we are taking, such as strengthening the minimum wage, we are providing real practical tools to ensure that those on the lowest incomes start to see the benefit of the economic recovery.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

The Minister omitted to mention that 279,000 people in this country go to work every day but do not even receive the minimum wage. I want to take him to the point he made about making work pay. What would he say to a low-income worker in Wales, England, Northern Ireland or Scotland who will see the work allowance of universal credit frozen this year, next year and the year after, taking £600 million away from low-paid workers?

[Stephen Crabb]

In Wales, when universal credit is rolled out fully, 200,000 households will see their entitlements increase. Alongside that are all of the incentives brought in to encourage work and more hours of work, so that people are not penalised for choosing to work rather than stay at home on benefit.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr started his contribution by referring to Hwyel Dda and the position of women in society in Wales in the 15th century, so I want to take a moment to look at the role of women in our society, which I expect will be raised more as we get further into the debate. There are more women at work than ever before. Nearly 14 million women are in employment—an increase of more than half a million since May 2010. Let us compare that with the record of the previous Government, who oversaw a rise in female unemployment of 30%. We recognise that for some women the work that is available might be part time or reduced hours, and we should not be tempted to fall into lazy thinking that women always prefer to work part time. A great many do not; a great many women want to work full time.

[Caroline Lucas]

I certainly agree with the Minister on that. Does he agree that it is a scandal that we still do not have equal pay for equal work? Will he join me in calling for compulsory equal pay audits for larger employers, as well as legislation to require that within five years 40% of board members of larger companies are female, so that we can begin to address this fundamental inequality?

[Stephen Crabb]

I absolutely agree with the aspiration to have greater fairness in the workplace and to narrow the gender pay gap, but I will not be tempted to agree with all the compulsory measures and burdens that the hon. Lady would place on businesses. We want businesses to be the engines of job creation for both men and women in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, so we should resist the temptation always to call for more regulations and burdens to be placed on them. The best way to increase the availability of work that fits the needs of women, and indeed the needs of all those seeking work, is to grow the economy and create more opportunities for work.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr also mentioned food banks. Unlike the previous Government, who did not want even to admit that food banks existed and refused to allow them to be advertised in jobcentres—Labour Members still try to duck the fact that the number of food banks increased more than tenfold when they were in government—we take a positive view of their role. I have been the trustee of a food bank in my constituency in west Wales. I am proud that this Government are working in partnership with food banks, which are a vital part of a social economy at what is still a difficult time for a great many families.

[Gordon Banks]

Despite the Minister’s rhetoric at the Dispatch Box, can he not just for once agree, openly and honestly, that the number of food banks and the number of people in work who are using them have gone through the roof on this Government’s watch?

[Stephen Crabb]

The number of food banks has been increasing for a great many years, as has the number of people using them, but the hon. Gentleman is wrong to pretend that 2010 was somehow year zero. The food bank that I was a trustee of was set up in 2007, under the previous Labour Government. We should not forget that one of the reasons people are driven to use food banks is household debt. The Labour party, as well as being intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, was also far too relaxed about people being pushed into excessive household debt.

[Mr Weir]

I accept that 2010 was not year zero for food banks, but the reality is that they are increasing exponentially, mostly because of the benefit changes introduced by this Government, who are clobbering many low-paid families, and often the people using them are in work.

[Stephen Crabb]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the reasons that drive people to use food banks are complex and it is a mistake to try to single out any one cause. When I speak with food banks in Wales, they do not tell me that it is the benefit changes that are responsible in most cases. Household debt is a far more important factor.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I thank the Minister for giving way again; he is being very generous with his time. Citizens Advice has analysed why people are going to food banks and found that inappropriate sanctions as a result of welfare reforms and low pay are the key contributors.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady talks about inappropriate sanctions on benefits. I recall hearing one of her Front-Bench colleagues say only a few weeks ago that the Labour party would be even tougher on benefits than this Government have been. I think that she needs to get some consistency with her Front Benchers on whether they support sanctions.

The best way to reduce economic inequality is to have a growing economy and to ensure that people are in work. Today, more people in Wales have gone out to work than at any time before, with economic inactivity at its lowest level since records began. However, the tragedy is that there are still 200,000 people in our country who have never worked a day in their lives. I hope that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr agrees wholeheartedly that that represents an enormous waste of talent, potential and skill and that a small nation such as ours cannot afford to lose that potential. I hope that he shares my ambition for welfare reform to see those people who have been locked in worklessness brought back into the labour market to achieve their full economic and social contribution.

[Mr MacNeil]

Does the Minister think that the situation he describes is the result of something inherent in those people or the result of the circumstances and structures they are living in?

[Stephen Crabb]

That question probably warrants a separate debate. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people want to work. I believe that human beings are hard-wired to want to make an economic and social contribution, but the welfare system, which too often the Opposition parties run to the barricades to defend, blunted that inherent instinct that people have to want to better themselves and to choose work over dependency.

[Mr MacNeil]

The Minister has accepted that it is not the result of something inherent in those people, so why do they not work, and why can they not work? I contend that it is the structure of the United Kingdom that leaves them in that situation.

[Stephen Crabb]

I think that I answered the hon. Gentleman’s question the first time.

More than 1.6 million private sector jobs have been created since 2010, and the way to ensure that that number keeps growing is to maintain this Government’s economic discipline and not to follow the discredited plan-B economics of the Opposition parties, which would see growth slow down and inequality widen.

We recognise that the economic situation is still challenging for many people across the UK, but we are committed to reducing the burden on the cost of living where we can. Inflation is at its lowest for four years, benefiting families and businesses across the UK. The Government recognise the impact that persistently high pump prices have on the cost of living and on business costs. We have taken action to support the motorist by freezing duty for almost four years. Had we continued on the path set by the previous Government and followed their taxation plans in full, petrol would be 13p higher per litre than it is today and the average motorist would be paying more than £7 extra for a tank of fuel.

Under the previous Government, energy prices escalated, with the average domestic gas bill doubling between 1997 and 2010. It is this Government who have brought forward changes to help reduce energy bills. We are ensuring that the most vulnerable get direct help with their bills: 230,000 homes will be warmer this year by getting energy efficiency measures installed under the energy company obligation; and 2 million households will get help under the warm home discount, including more than 1 million of the poorest pensioners.

[Gordon Banks]

The Minister now has an opportunity to say whether he will support Labour’s plan to freeze energy prices to cut the burden on hard-pressed households.

[Stephen Crabb]

I will not be tempted to support an unworkable and generalised plan that has been criticised by industry stakeholders and the people who really know about these matters. What I support are the practical steps that this Government are taking on a broad range of fronts to return money to the pockets of hard-working people and insulate the most vulnerable against the challenges that remain in our economy.

Hon. Members would not know it from the interventions of Opposition Members, but inequality surged when the Labour party was in government. It is the party that was, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr said, intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich. This Government are determined to see inequality fall. It is under this Government that those with the broadest shoulders are facing the greatest burden. The richest members of society now pay a higher proportion of tax than they have ever done, with the richest 1% paying almost 30% of the total income tax take and the richest 5% paying almost half.

There is nothing fair about ignoring or ducking the challenge of welfare reform. If we are serious about tackling inequality, we must be serious about tackling the wasted opportunities we see before us. In Wales, 92,000 children are growing up in households where no one works, and 200,000 people in Wales are yet to work a day in their lives. That is the result not of this Government’s policies but of years of failing to stand up to the problems of dependency and the decline of work incentives. I make no apologies for the fact that it is this Government who are taking this once-in-a-generation opportunity to embrace welfare reform.

The Labour party championed welfare reform 20 years ago. Where have all the Labour party’s welfare reformers gone? Labour MPs 20 years ago were among the first to recognise the problems of dependency and the decline of work incentives that were emerging in our welfare system, but these days no one on the Opposition Benches speaks up for people caught in welfare traps. Instead, they turn poverty into a political football. They have opposed every sensible measure that we have put in place to restore fairness and opportunity to our welfare system.

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

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[Stephen Crabb]

I will not give way.

This Government are working for a recovery that benefits the whole of the United Kingdom. We recognise that there are specific challenges for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland—challenges for devolution but also the long-standing economic challenges that these parts of the UK have borne. Devolution provides the best of both worlds. Strong devolved legislatures ensure that key decisions are taken closest to those affected, but so too can this Parliament make decisions in the shared interests of the whole of the United Kingdom. The devolution settlements are flexible. We have seen this most recently with the Scotland Act 2012; the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, currently in the House of Lords; and, most recently, the draft Wales Bill, currently being scrutinised by the Welsh Affairs Committee.

I am sure that we will hear more today about Labour Members’ apparent position on the proposals to devolve an element of taxation to the Welsh Government in Cardiff. Previously they seemed to be supporting the consensus on the Silk commission’s proposals, but, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr rightly highlighted, since a week ago they seem to have reneged on that cross-party agreement and are now full speed in reverse in trying to backtrack and ditch the proposals.

Before I conclude, it is only right that I focus briefly on the situation in Wales as part of the broader devolution settlement. There has been much positive economic news for Wales. Over the past year, the employment rate has increased by more than in any other region. The number of unemployed people has fallen by 24,000 since the election—it is down by 12,000 only in the last quarter —and the number of economically inactive people in Wales has never been lower. The majority of jobs created in the past year were full-time. The number of people in part-time work who want full-time work is only 18%, and through growing the economy we can help those 18% to find the full-time work they want. A positive future for Wales has been set out by the Silk commission, whose work I praise. The Government have responded to part 2 of its work by bringing forward ambitious proposals in the draft Wales Bill. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and his party have welcomed the moves towards greater devolution for Wales. There are of course areas on which we do not agree, but we have at least set out a positive vision for Wales that we share on this issue.

By contrast, Labour Members in Westminster seem to be suffering from a complete lack of vision for the future of Wales and its part in the UK and seem to have run out of steam as regards devolution. Rather than embracing the proposals in the draft Wales Bill and the Government’s response to the Silk commission, they have shied away from anything other than borrowing. When they speak, I hope that they will set out their plans for tackling economic inequality, although I am yet to see any evidence from them of such a vision for Wales or beyond.

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[Mr Brown]

The net gain will be significant. It will be some 11% more than is currently being raised.

It is notable that there is no mention in the motion of creating a fairer tax system. The Scottish National party’s plans for independence include slashing corporation tax, but it has been unable to provide any certainty on whether it would follow Labour in introducing a 50p tax rate. In fact, the SNP Finance Secretary in the Scottish Government has resisted making the party’s tax policy clear in any way.

We now accept that the driver of inequality has been the rate at which salaries at the top have increased in recent years. Again, however, the motion makes no mention of that. It says nothing about how we are to get to grips with high pay in the UK. The Labour Opposition have accepted the recommendations of the High Pay Commission, and we have outlined three key tests that the Government must meet to show they are serious about executive pay being at such high levels. First, we want firms to publish details on the ratio of employee average salaries to executive pay, and for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to publish a league table showing the highest ratios. Secondly, we want to see an employee representative on the remuneration committee of every company. Finally, we would repeat Labour’s tax on bank bonuses to fund a compulsory jobs guarantee for any young person on unemployment benefits for 12 months or more. These young people are not our future—they are part of today, and they need to be employed today and well into the future. That is real action to bring about fairness in our society, but what we have heard from the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru this afternoon often bears closer resemblance to what those on the Government Benches have been saying.

Yesterday, during a question on economic inequality, Lord Newby stated that

“according to the latest ONS statistics, income inequality in the UK is at its lowest level since 1986. The Government are committed to ensuring that all families benefit from the return of growth to the economy”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 February 2014; Vol. 752, c. 408.]

That is not what far too many individuals and households are actually experiencing. Any economic recovery here in the UK is patchwork in its nature. As I have said in the Chamber previously, there are many rural localities where households are in a desperate plight, with below average earnings.

[Stephen Crabb]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he does not believe the statistics and that he does not believe that income inequality is dropping in the UK at the moment?

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[Mr Brown]

I will come to that in just a moment. It is not that I need time to think. [Interruption.] Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that I am a solid believer in devolution.

We put three welfare reform Bills through the House. They were designed to ensure that those with the greatest need received benefits not just to exist but to live. We were able to recover that money by getting others into work. We were making progress on that when the banking crisis hit and turned the world upside down.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman’s party may have introduced three Bills on welfare reform during its 13 years in government, but the records show that it ducked all the really difficult decisions on welfare reform. It was frit on that and, as a consequence, there are 200,000 people in Wales who have never worked a day in their lives.

[Mr Brown]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but there is an element of him trying to rewrite history. We were making progress. I cannot say what he experienced in his constituency, but there were people in my constituency, some of whom had been out of work for a long time, were disabled, or had been seen as people who would never work, who got into employment, and that was thanks to the excellent work of the Department for Work and Pensions staff. We did make progress; it was just that it was not as much as we would have liked.

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[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Fairness and equality are fundamental to Labour’s vision for society. Our roots are in the philosophy and movements that worked for a fairer society, such as the democratically controlled non-conformist chapels, friendly societies and trade unions. We believe in a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few. We want to see a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. However, it is not just the less well off who benefit from a more equal society. As has been well documented, more equal societies deliver better outcomes not only for the less well off, but across the whole community —not only are the least well off less disadvantaged, but people feel more secure, safer and less threatened, and society is more cohesive.

Tackling inequality is about challenging those structures that perpetuate inequality and about creating the necessary structures to challenge and mitigate that inequality. It is about challenging and ending exploitation in its many guises. It is about responsible trade unions negotiating with managers to ensure a fair share of rewards for working people and, as we saw in 2008, safeguarding jobs and retaining skilled workers, even if that meant their accepting temporary reductions in pay or hours. Tackling inequality is about siding with ordinary people against the powerful, against whom they feel they have no redress. It is about empowering them and giving them the means to achieve that redress. It is about setting priorities to try to redress inequalities and developing the tools and structures to continue to tackle inequality.

Things do not stand still. We need to continue to tackle inequality. For example, we have said that we will impose a freeze on energy prices, but that is not enough. It is the immediate first step. We will then break up the energy market to make it work better for the consumer. In other words, we need an ongoing solution. We will also introduce a tougher regulator to ensure that the market works for people. It will have the power to tackle the off-grid issues that many hon. Members have mentioned today. With this Government there is absolutely no redress for the ordinary person. They are not standing up to the energy companies, which are making massive profits, but instead are just moving the green taxes on to general taxation.

The Government have imposed massive cuts to legal aid and introduced disproportionate charges for employment tribunals. Someone who is wrongly dismissed from a low-paid job will have to pay £500 up front to go to an employment tribunal, but because they were on low pay they might not have any savings. The Government are trying to tear up employment legislation and make people feel even more insecure than they do now.

The Government are using the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 to attack trade unions that are standing up for workers’ rights. Despicably, they have been using the same Act to attack charities standing up for, and highlighting the needs of, vulnerable people. They are charging people an up-front fee to go to the Child Support Agency to get an estranged parent to pay their fair share of child maintenance.

Everywhere we look, the Government are making it harder for ordinary people to get what they are entitled to: harder to get a fair wage for a fair day’s work; harder to get energy supplies at a fair price; harder to make ends meet if they fall sick, lose their job or cannot find more hours to work; and harder to stay in their house, which might have been specially adapted, if they are hit by the bedroom tax—a cruel and ill-thought-out tax that Labour would reverse.

We all understand that the banking crisis has led to severe financial restraint, but there are still different options and priorities that Governments can adopt. They can choose to give tax cuts to millionaires, as this Government have done, or they could ask the better-off to bear a greater share of the burden. Under this Government, however, we have seen the very poor get even poorer.

Successive Governments have uprated benefits in line with inflation, mostly using the retail prices index until 2011. Since then we have seen the breaking of the link between inflation and the rates at which benefits rise. Do not forget that 68% of those affected by the Government’s benefits changes are in work. Universal credit will be subject to annual review, but not to mandatory uprating. There is a huge danger that it will fall behind inflation.

However, well before we get to universal credit, with its myriad problems, which are not helped by the sheer incompetence with which it is being introduced, the Government should look at the impact of the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013. Most working-age benefits have been limited to rises of 1% a year, yet the cost of basic items, such as food and energy, are rising by significantly more. Even Government estimates suggest that there might be 200,000 more children living in poverty, and the Child Poverty Action Group estimates that there could be 1 million more children living in poverty by 2020.

Let us look at some of the benefits that have been affected. The first is tax credits, which have a huge impact. We have called the cut to tax credits a strivers’ tax, because it affects the very people who are desperately trying to make ends meet, often working two or three jobs and patching together a few hours here and a few hours there. Then they are told that they have to find more hours, but they are simply not available—otherwise, they would be working them. Those are some of the issues that I think the Government need to address. In particular, they need to look at how they are hitting those who are in work and doing their best to try to make ends meet.

We all know the proverb, “Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; give them a fishing rod and they can feed themselves for life.” In the same way, we need measures that can make an immediate difference to inequality. For example, Labour introduced pension credit as a fast and targeted means of taking the very poorest pensioners out of poverty. Many of them were women who had had little opportunity to earn much money outside the home.

We also need mechanisms and structures that can continue to make a difference. In 1998 Labour introduced the national minimum wage despite fierce opposition from the Conservatives—I welcome their late conversion— and complete indifference from the Welsh nationalists, who absented themselves from the vote. During our time in office, we raised the national minimum wage to above the rate of inflation, but what has happened under this Government? As I warned when speaking for the Opposition in the debate on this Government’s first statutory instrument on the subject, the national minimum wage has been weakened by galloping inflation. I am glad that the Chancellor is now talking about the need to raise it to £7, but the question is when, because as the national minimum wage moves forward, so does inflation. Any rise needs to be tied to a particular time and we need to know exactly what is planned.

We have clearly stated that we want to strengthen the national minimum wage and pursue firms that are trying to find ways of avoiding it by, for example, exceeding the limit for deductions for accommodation. We introduced the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to tackle abusive exploitation of workers, and we want to extend such provisions to the construction and care sectors, yet many Government Members want to get rid of it, just as they got rid of the Agricultural Wages Board.

We want to incentivise wider adoption of the living wage, so we will bring in tax breaks for the first year to encourage employers to introduce it. We could make £3 billion-worth of savings simply by helping people to earn more and pay more tax, and then we would not need to pay out so much in tax credits. As the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), has said, and has been quoted today as saying, we will get the benefits bill down. We will do that by putting people back to work, by ensuring that the national minimum wage keeps up with inflation, and by bringing in measures to encourage employers to introduce the living wage. In those ways, we can save on tax credits, make sure that work pays, and bring the benefits bill down without hitting the poorest hardest.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady talks about Labour’s promise to bring the welfare bill down. I remember that on the eve of the 1997 general election, the Labour leader, Tony Blair, promised to do exactly the same thing. What went wrong over the 13 years that Labour was in power?

[Nia Griffith]

We are saying now that we want to tackle the reasons why people are on such poverty wages. If we try to reduce the price of fuel, that helps people with the amount of money they have in their pocket. If we look at the amount that they earn, that helps them to get the right amount of money in their pocket without it having to be topped up so much by the tax system. There are ways forward and we have to tackle these issues. It would be very welcome if this Government were prepared to look a bit more at ways of doing so.

We will also tackle zero-hours contracts. In September, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition announced Labour’s plans to tackle zero-hours contracts where they exploit people. This would be achieved by banning employers from insisting that zero-hours workers be available even when there is no guarantee of any work, by stopping zero-hours contracts that require workers to work exclusively for one business, and by ending the misuse of zero-hours contracts where employees are, in practice, working regular hours over a sustained period.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

In some ways this is a triangular debate, because there so many different views across the House.

We were treated to what I can only call a reprise of the 1930s from the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is no longer in his seat. Many of his arguments were made in this place in the 1930s on issues such as unemployment benefit. Many people said then that unemployment benefit, such as it was, was holding people back from working because it made them lazy and they did not try very hard to get jobs, and it was a very bad thing. Indeed, we could probably go back even beyond the 1930s. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman’s great, great, great, great ancestor in the early 19th century was probably saying something similar about the poor law—that provisions had to be made really tough and that people should not get out-relief but in-workhouse relief, because it was making them lazy and unwilling to work for low wages. This argument is constantly reproduced. Nobody—I think nobody—would say now that high unemployment went on for so long in the 1930s because unemployment benefit was too generous. Blaming the problem of unemployment on the unemployed is no new thing, but it is, frankly, wrong, and it is too simple an explanation.

At the other extreme, we have the “wouldn’t it be nice if we could do everything” brigade, which is how much of the yes to independence campaign is being waged in Scotland. This is the idea that we can do it all and can have everything: a lower retirement age, better social security benefits and lower taxes all at one and the same time, and that this is the solution to all our problems. Back in the real world—which, I have to say, will be the world facing a Scottish Government whether under independence or not—there are real challenges and we have to consider how we can deal with them properly.

Other myths have been perpetrated. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) wanted us to feel that he and many of his colleagues would like to reduce inequality, too, and that the way to do it is to get the economy back on its feet; there would be no reason why inequality would not then be reduced. The problem—he is no longer in his place to intervene to tell me I am wrong—is that I suspect he thinks that the Conservative Government in the years between 1979 and 1997 were right in the way they ran the economy. The trouble is that during those years inequality rose at a very fast rate. In these debates, Members frequently say that it continued to rise under the Labour Government, but it rose far less and the big rises in inequality came during the years of Conservative government. During those years—when, in the view of Members such as the hon. Member for Bedford, the economy was getting back on the right path—inequality rose substantially, so if some of us are less than convinced that this Government want genuinely to deal with inequality, we have historical precedents on which to base that opinion.

[Stephen Crabb]

We have had some discussion about income inequality. Let me put it on the record once again that income inequality reached record levels during the previous Parliament and under the previous Labour Government. Income inequality is falling under this Government.

[Sheila Gilmore]

The big increase in income inequality was clearly between 1979 and 1997. Any graph will make that quite clear.

There is a danger in perpetuating the myth mentioned by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards). I apologise to the House for missing some speeches, including the one by the Member who represents the Western Isles—I am sorry, but as a lowland Scot I genuinely find it difficult to pronounce the name of his constituency in Gaelic so I shall just call it the Western Isles. I missed his virtuoso performance because I was sitting on a Public Bill Committee, not because I did not want to hear what he had to say.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr said that there was no difference between a Labour Government and the current Government. As I have said in some of my interventions, that is not correct. It is dangerous to say so, too, because it makes a lot of people think that there is no point in voting or trying to change things because Governments do not make any difference and because there is no difference between the parties.

For example, the reduction in pensioner poverty during the years of Labour government should not be forgotten. Many pensioners will not forget that. A lot of what that Government did created the base on which this Government propose to build with the single-tier pension. As I have said before, it was not the triple lock that produced the highest cash payment to pensioners but inflation—an inflationary rise made necessary by the Government’s own—[Interruption.] I apologise to the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, of which I am a member, for not seeing her try to intervene.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

With the leave of the House, I start by thanking the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) for summarising the debate in her usual intelligent way, and all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in this wide-ranging and interesting debate on subjects of huge importance to Members on both sides of the House—fairness and inequality.

I will meet head on some of the criticism that has been levelled at the Government by saying that no Government Member is painting a rosy picture about the challenges that many households and families still face. None of us is complacent about the issues that we have been debating. As the country is still recovering from the economic trauma that it was subjected to between 2008 and 2010, much progress remains to be made in seeing wages increase, seeing the emerging economic recovery spread to all parts of the country, and ensuring that people from all walks of life in all parts of the UK can share in that emerging economic recovery.

We are not painting a rosy picture about that recovery, but neither do we subscribe to the view that has been put consistently today by Opposition Members that the growth is somehow not real; that it is somehow patchy and fuelled by London and the south-east and what is happening in the housing market. If they take time to look at what the statistics tell them, they will see that the emerging recovery is broadly balanced across all the sectors of the economy—manufacturing, construction, tourism, services and exports. Progress must still be made to ensure that the recovery reaches all parts of the UK, but just as three years ago they were deficit deniers, as we come to the end of this Parliament they have become growth deniers. They deny that the growth and the recovery are taking place.

This evening I will be urging hon. Members to reject the motion, because at its heart is the biggest risk of all to the emerging economic recovery, which is a return to the failed economics of more spending, more borrowing and more debt. Just as so many Government Members this afternoon have asked where the equity is in saddling our children and grandchildren with yet more debt, the fair, compassionate, progressive thing to do is to meet that challenge head on and see the deficit come down.

In the minutes that remain I will refer to a number of the speeches made by hon. Members. I pay tribute to the opening speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards), who spoke with typical passion and made a plea for fairness. However I take issue with his description of Wales as a colonial economy. I absolutely reject that term. Wales is not a colonial economy. The economy of Wales is highly integrated with the rest of the United Kingdom. One reason why support for separatism is so low in the Principality is that real people out there understand how integrated the Welsh economy is with the rest of the United Kingdom. They reject the separatism of Plaid Cymru and the Opposition.

We had a long and interesting speech from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). He started by introducing the philosophical challenge of what to do with a box of chocolates among children. I disagreed with a lot of his economic analysis, but I strongly agreed with him when he said that behind all the economic statistics that we are talking about are real lives. Members on both sides of the House should not lose sight of the fact that when we talk about record numbers of people returning to work and unemployment falling in our constituencies, those are real lives. People are making their way back into the jobs market, upping their skills and getting new confidence, which will make a powerful difference in our communities.

The hon. Gentleman also made an important point about the decline of social mobility. I put on record that both his nation of Scotland and mine of Wales at one time were beacons of social mobility. There was a time in Wales and Scotland when increasingly it did not matter who one’s mum and dad were, what street one grew up in or what jobs one’s parents did. There was a progressive trend of social mobility. We have gone into reverse on that, and that is one of the great tragedies of what has happened in the economy in recent decades.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) made what I think was the speech of the day. He spoke with expertise and experience about small businesses being the engines of job creation, not only in Wales but across the UK. Members on both sides of the House should pay tribute to him for the work he has done, particularly on interest rate swaps and on challenging the banks on the way in which they have treated small businesses in recent years. He spoke powerfully and passionately about the ethical and moral underpinning of our welfare reforms and what we are trying to achieve. It is not just about deficit reduction, and it is not about attacking the poor or anything so absurd; it is about seeing lives changed and communities that were blighted by worklessness unlock their potential so that they can increasingly share in the emerging economic growth.

The hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) drew on his expertise on fuel poverty and energy markets. I promise to write to him, or to ensure that one of my ministerial colleagues does, on the specific point he raised. He mentioned pensioner poverty, as did other Members, so let us remind ourselves of the figures. In 2011-12, 1.6 million pensioners were in relative poverty, which is close to the lowest rate recorded. Pensioners are less likely to be in relative low income than the population as a whole. The Government want all pensioners to have a decent and secure income in retirement.

The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) seemed a little confused and uncertain about what is happening to income inequality, so let us put on the record what the statistics show: income inequality is falling under this Government, having reached record levels under the previous Labour Government. I very much agree with his comment that young people are not only our future—they are more important than that—but our today. That is why we are making efforts to see youth unemployment fall, just as unemployment is falling right across the country. We take seriously the opportunities facing our young people and are in no way complacent about the challenges that today’s generation of young people will face. However, let me remind Opposition Members that if we are serious about the kind of future young people will face, we absolutely must reject the terms of the motion, which calls for a return to more borrowing, more spending, more deficit and more debt.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made a characteristically entertaining speech in which he made some extremely important points about business being the generator of growth and the creator of jobs in the economy. He used the analogy of a rising tide carrying all boats, but it is business and private sector growth that makes that tide rise. We absolutely agree.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) drew on her expertise in health inequality and made a characteristically well-judged speech. I just remind her that in the nations of Wales and Scotland, which we have focused on today, many of the policy levers that relate to health inequality—housing, health and education, for example—lie with the devolved Governments. I encourage her to look at what is happening in Wales. If she studies that in detail, she might have some serious and difficult questions for her Labour colleagues in Cardiff.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) made an excellent speech reinforcing the point that if we are serious about fairness, we must take seriously the issue of what kind of future our young people and their children will face. That is why we remain absolutely committed to reducing the deficit and restoring stability, discipline and order to our national finances.

The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) spoke about zero-hours contracts, which she clearly regards as a negative thing. The number of zero-hours contracts in the economy was the same in 2013 as it was in 2000, so the idea that there has been some kind of explosion in the number is just not correct. If she really regards them as such a bad thing, she should speak to her colleagues running Carmarthenshire—

[Pete Wishart]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

Transport Infrastructure (North Wales)

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

It is a pleasure to serve again under your excellent chairmanship, Mr Caton. I thank the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) for securing the debate and congratulate him on that. It has been a very good debate, largely free from partisan tribal politics. During the past hour and 20 minutes, we have had a very good discussion about some key issues for people and businesses in north Wales. I commend the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he addressed the issue, for the strategic oversight that he brought to the debate and for his detailed knowledge. He has proved himself to be an effective voice for economic development in his constituency and region.

Transport infrastructure plays a vital role in the economy of Wales and in north Wales. It enables people to access job opportunities and is a key determining factor for the attractiveness of a location for business investment. As the debate has demonstrated, there is a great deal that we can be proud of in north Wales. The north Wales economy, and particularly what we see in Wrexham and Deeside, is a jewel in the crown of the Welsh economy at this time. Opposition Members have demonstrated their pride in what is happening in their constituencies and in the region. It is right that they should take pride in that but want to go further.

I take four broad messages from the debate. The first is the recognition on the part of all hon. Members present of the huge economic importance of north Wales, as a region, for the economy of Wales, but also for the United Kingdom. It is a strategic location for business investment. What we have there with the likes of Toyota, Airbus and all the other companies that hon. Members have mentioned is an engine of job creation in north Wales. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside that we should not take any of that for granted. He has been around long enough to have seen huge economic change in his constituency and region. Companies that were once huge employers there have disappeared altogether to be replaced by other companies, so we cannot take that economic success story for granted.

Key to underpinning that economic success story is continuous investment in transport infrastructure. That is the second conclusion that I take from the debate—a joint recognition, on the part of all hon. Members present, of just how important transport infrastructure is in securing the future economic development for north Wales that we all want to see.

The third conclusion is the recognition that, because of the nature of the cross-border issues and economic development in the region, there is huge interconnectedness between what is happening on the Welsh side of the border and what is happening on the English side. There is a shared interest on the part of the UK Government, who are responsible for transport in England, and on the part of the Welsh Government, who are largely responsible for transport on the Welsh side; and because there is that shared interest, there is also a shared responsibility.

That leads to the fourth conclusion that I take from the debate, which is the need for far better and more effective working together. The point about devolution is not that suddenly the UK Government here in Westminster become uninterested in what the Welsh Government are doing on transport priorities and vice versa. Actually, this debate has demonstrated that the need for the two Administrations to work together becomes even greater. That can be difficult. Hon. Members have highlighted some of the complexities in relation to the devolution boundary. I am thinking in particular of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and the issue of the bypass in his constituency that he mentioned. That highlighted a specific issue that we need to overcome to get the Administrations working better together to tackle some of those cross-border transport priorities.

That brings me to the fourth and final broad conclusion that I take from the debate, which is about unity. Yes, we need far better working together between the Administrations, but one of the things that can help that, and which has come to the fore this morning—largely—is north Welsh MPs working together and speaking with a united voice as champions of further economic development and further transport investment in their region.

[Albert Owen]

Will the Minister take a fifth point from the debate? I am referring to the development of Welsh ports and the importance of their having a level playing field with the rest of the United Kingdom. That is a reserved matter; it is the responsibility of the UK Government, although economic development is devolved.

[Stephen Crabb]

I wanted to use the last five minutes to highlight a number of specific points that different hon. Members raised, so let me deal first with the issue of ports. I absolutely recognise the point that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) makes. He is a powerful voice for and champion of port development. Yes, ports are a reserved matter, but many of the decisions about the infrastructure that supports the development of ports are of course devolved, so this is a classic case of the two Administrations needing to work together.

During international shipping week recently, we at the Wales Office hosted a function for the Welsh ports and shipping sectors. It proved to be a very successful opportunity to bring together different interested players, and involved the Department for Transport as well. There is no intention on the part of the UK Government—ourselves at the Wales Office and colleagues at the Department for Transport—of ignoring the needs of Welsh ports. We absolutely want to see Welsh ports share in the future success of all UK ports.

What else are we are doing at the Wales Office? One thing that I do is chair the Wales Office infrastructure working group. Transport infrastructure is just one component of the body of work that we are taking forward. I am pleased to say that the Welsh Government are represented on that working group, as are a number of key private sector players and a number of public sector agencies and organisations. We try to focus our mind on some of the big strategic infrastructure priorities for Wales for the future—the things that will make a difference to the Welsh economy in the years ahead—and start to identify hurdles and barriers that need to be overcome in order to see Wales benefit from the larger infrastructure projects that we know are so important to it.

Moving on to some of the specifics that have been mentioned, I shall deal first with HS2, which a number of hon. Members mentioned. HS2 is a hugely strategically important project for the UK, and for north Wales in particular through the new station at Crewe. That will unlock the opportunity for businesses and individuals in north Wales to benefit from access to high-speed services. Crucially, HS2 strengthens the case for electrification of the north Wales main line, which a number of hon. Members mentioned. If we are interested in building the business case for that electrification of the north Wales coastal main line, HS2 strengthens that case. I see a number of hon. Members nodding their heads, and I am pleased by the level of support for HS2 that has been expressed here this morning.

The other thing that HS2 will do, of course, is bring north Wales closer to other parts of the north of England. I think that it was the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside who talked about commuters coming to his constituency from Derby, and said that he was surprised at the distances that some people were travelling to come to there. With HS2, we will see the journey times to other parts of the north of England coming down even more and there will be even more commuting, both from north Wales into different parts of England and from England into north Wales, so there is a huge economic opportunity there.

With regard to the Wrexham to Bidston line, I do not want to throw out too much excitement and optimism, because, as I think the hon. Gentleman recognised, a number of intermediate improvements could be made to the service on that track before we get to thinking about electrification. From a Wales Office perspective, we are looking at the business case for electrifying the line. It is part of the package of transport infrastructure improvements for north Wales that we are keen to progress, and we are in dialogue with the Welsh Government and the Department for Transport about that.

With regard to the Halton curve, I cannot offer any immediate cause for optimism. It has been looked at previously. Again, it is part of the package of improvements that, in the longest term, we want to happen. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, as I will to other hon. Members who have mentioned specific projects.

We have had an excellent debate about the transport infrastructure needs of north Wales. There is a lot of work to be done if we are to see all those projects realised and bringing about the economic benefit that we want to come to north Wales, but I thank all hon. Members for their contributions and I will write to the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) about his desire to see a renaissance of the hovercraft on the Mersey estuary.