Welsh Affairs

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Welsh affairs.

Diolch, Mr Deputy Speaker—thank you. Can I start by saying what an honour it is not just to be opening this Welsh affairs debate in celebration of Saint David’s Day, but indeed to be Welsh? I take great pride in standing up for our little corner of the world, and in representing the city where I was born and raised, and which I am lucky enough to still call my home. I also take great pride in representing Welsh Labour in Swansea East, here at Westminster, and right across the country and beyond.

Some of the most influential MPs to sit on these Benches have done so representing the Labour party in Wales—none more so than Aneurin Bevan, who spearheaded the creation of the NHS; Ann Clwyd, who before the groundbreaking 1997 general election was one of only four women to represent a Welsh constituency; and the fantastic Neil Kinnock, an outstanding Leader of the Opposition for almost a decade, and without doubt the best Prime Minister this country never had. It is a real honour to follow in the steps of such committed and powerful politicians.

I want to use today as an opportunity to step away from politics a little, and to talk about Wales in general. While times are tough for many and the world remains in turmoil, our priority must be to focus on what is best for our communities. The year 2022 was a turbulent one globally, and UK news was dominated by political chaos and the death of our longest ever reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. Her death brought the country together in morning, and brought with it a new era under King Charles III. His accession to the throne meant that we welcomed a new Prince and Princess of Wales, and I would like to take this opportunity, in our first Welsh affairs debate since their appointment, to say how delighted we are to have them.

Earlier this month I visited the headquarters of Peace Mala in my constituency. This multi award-winning project for peace was set up by local schoolteacher Pam Evans in 2001 following the atrocities of 9/11. Across the world, the aftermath of the terrorist attacks led to widespread Islamophobia, and in her school she was witnessing worrying levels of racial prejudice and bullying of Asian and Muslim students, causing real concern. Pam’s simple but effective response was to create a symbolic rainbow bracelet that the young people could make and wear to represent unity, harmony and peace. It reminds wearers that our communities are filled with colour and difference, but that we are all connected.

While meeting with Pam and learning more about how this simple initiative has progressed across the world, she told me about an article she had written about St David—also, interestingly, the patron saint of Peace Mala—and she kindly shared it with me. As a proud Welsh woman, I naively thought I knew everything there was to know about our patron saint, but I was fascinated to learn so much more about his history, particularly his links to Swansea. A stone altar that he was gifted by the Patriarch of Jerusalem was brought back to Swansea and placed in Llangyfelach, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), just a couple of miles from my constituency.

As we celebrate St David this week, I am especially drawn to his most famous miracle, which is thought to have taken place in the present-day village of Llanddewi Brefi, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake). While speaking to a large crowd, people towards the back were struggling to see and hear him, at which point the ground beneath his feet is said to have opened and risen up to form a small hill, elevating him so that he was easier to see and hear. I am not sure that anyone would struggle to hear me, but I do quite like the idea of the ground opening and elevating me—and I am sure the Secretary of State for Wales would also like to see that.

I take great pride in visiting projects and organisations around my constituency, such as Peace Mala, and in supporting their work and learning about what they are doing to help our communities. Over the last few months I have visited numerous businesses in my constituency and also those of the shadow Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), and others to discuss menopause, and I am delighted that so many Welsh organisations and businesses are now stepping up to the plate to provide the right environment for menopausal women, and if they are not providing it now, they are listening to the message and giving consideration to women in their workforce. I have been delighted by the number of massive companies that have contacted me asking for help to devise menopause initiatives. I would love for Swansea, and in fact Wales, to become world leaders for menopause awareness. I would love to work with colleagues across the House to make sure that in all their constituencies the menopause message is delivered to the women who need to hear that we care.

We already have the great advantage in Wales of free access to prescriptions, so women have free hormone replacement therapy. Unfortunately, women in England have had to wait 500 days so far to get anywhere close to where we are in Wales by being able to access an annual prepayment certificate. It would be wonderful if women in England could be in the same position as women in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and have access to free HRT.

I have spoken regularly in this Chamber about my Everyone Deserves campaign, which aims to tackle food poverty and hunger across my constituency and those of others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). Last Christmas we made and delivered over 800 festive hampers and cooked and delivered over 200 Christmas dinners; we deliver them to vulnerable people and to those struggling financially or who are alone—those who need a little more support. We are now preparing for our Easter campaign to ease the burden on families who are currently struggling and to ensure that children across our constituencies get to enjoy a chocolate treat over the Easter break.

But all of this is only possible with support both from those who are able to be there and physically fill the boxes and those who are kind enough to make financial contributions. A couple of years ago, Welsh football legend Gareth Bale stepped in to help, donating £15,000 towards the project. At the height of the covid pandemic, when so many more families than ever before needed our help, this gesture made an enormous difference to our efforts. So as Gareth retires from professional football, after 17 years, I think it is only right that he gets a mention today, not just as one of the greatest wingers of a generation and arguably the best football player ever to wear a Welsh shirt—although I must include Neville Southall as well—but as a true gentleman who has used his platform to help others.

Last Christmas the Everyone Deserves hero was another truly great and talented Welshman: Michael Sheen. I have worked with Michael on numerous projects over the years and, as ever, he got in touch before Christmas to ask what he could do to help. He then proceeded to have a 2023 calendar printed, full of stunning artistic shots of him taken in Margam park in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, with every penny, which was nigh-on £10,000, being donated to the Everyone Deserves campaign. That enabled us to know we could provide support and help to Welsh families at a time when so many were struggling.

It is not just big celebrities who help, but so too do local heroes, like Mal Pope and Kev Johns and the cast and crew of the Grand Theatre, where the pantomime played twice a day and at the end of every day they passed around a bucket and asked the audience to give something to the Everyone Deserves campaign. At the end of the pantomime’s run they had raised £18,500, which is allowing me to do more work this Christmas, this summer, this easter. And there is the fantastic Valley Rock Voices Welsh women’s choir from all across south Wales, who every week do a raffle and a collection, and are constantly giving us support and money, allowing us to help other people. Without these local heroes and the generosity of the Welsh people in our communities, so many people would be struggling to provide the basics for their families.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a beautiful and inspiring speech, and I am in awe of her work, particularly with the Everyone Deserves campaign. Does she agree that a particularly wonderful thing about Wales is not only the help in communities for the disadvantaged—I think of the Moorland centre in Splott in my constituency, which helps older people with hot lunches; I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests —but that we do not stop at our borders? Welsh people have always been proudly internationalist; along the road from that centre is the Oasis centre, supported also by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), which assists people fleeing persecution around the world. In Wales, we help our own as well as those who flee to Wales.

[Carolyn Harris]

Yes, and what makes us unique is that not only do we want to help everyone but we sing while we are doing it.

Last year has been tough for many across Wales. Few will have escaped without feeling the pinch of rising prices in our shops, rocketing fuel bills and the daily struggle to keep in control of family finances. Every community the length and breadth of our nation is facing the same stark reality, and it is the job of every one of us in Westminster and in the Senedd in Cardiff to do everything in our power to change that.

I look forward to hearing other contributions today; I suspect they will celebrate successes and achievements, and no doubt we will have political banter, and I hope we highlight what is best about Wales. But I say to all colleagues that all of us here who represent Welsh constituencies should be and are proud, and we should make our constituents proud of us. It is our job to represent them, and we need to do our very best to make sure their lives are more tolerable.

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[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Stephen Doughty]

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

[Stephen Crabb]

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

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

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

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

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

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[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Diolch yn fawr iawn. I give great thanks to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for her excellent speech, and to my other neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for introducing this great St David’s day debate. I also thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), partly because my father is from Aberystwyth in Ceredigion. That part of the family goes back, through my mam-gu, to Henry Richard. On my mother Betty’s side, the family has been in Swansea for five generations.

I will use this opportunity to mention Betty Boothroyd. Shortly after I was first elected to this place in 1997— I am the longest serving Member in the Chamber apart from you, Mr Deputy Speaker—Betty Boothroyd gave me her autobiography to give to my mother, and it was signed, “From one Betty to another. Keep your son in order!” My mother was very happy about that. As you will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, Betty Boothroyd was a great authority, a warm person and a fantastic tribute to this House.

We are all proud of Wales, of what Wales has done, and of the opportunities that we had in Wales, but I think we in here all accept that Wales has been particularly hard hit by years of austerity and now by the cost of living and inflationary crisis, with people who are, on average, poorer, older and sicker than the rest of the UK. The average earnings in Wales are something like 73% of the UK average, compared with Scotland, where they are 93% of the UK average. Because of that, we get a Barnett consequential of £1.20 for every £1 spent on services. Incidentally, Scotland gets £1.26, even though it is richer.

In recent years, and in the last 13 years in particular, austerity has hit public services, jobs and benefits disproportionately hard in Wales. I credit the work that has been done in various constituencies to help the poorest in need. We have seen the amazing emergence of food banks, and I regret the normalisation of food banks. Across the UK, one in four people are in food insecurity, and that is not where we should be. We need to think again about how we can move forward from this situation.

There were complaints from the hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts) about the health service. It is worth mentioning that the cost of treating someone who is malnourished through poverty is three times the cost of treating someone who is well nourished. In Wales, the health service is facing more people, and it is costing more to treat them, because of the level of austerity that has been inflicted. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) mentioned the need for a proper windfall tax to get the country back on track. It is important to remember that we need to get our fair share of investment in Wales.

I mentioned rail investment at Transport questions this morning. Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, we are not getting our so-called Barnett population share of the High Speed 2 money. The estimated cost has gone up to something like £100 billion, which works out at £3,500 for every household in the UK—it is an amazingly high cost. HS2 is a north-south spinal route that will reduce the time it takes to get from London to Manchester from two hours and 10 minutes to one hour and 10 minutes, but it still takes three hours to get to Swansea. It will displace investment from south Wales in particular to Manchester and elsewhere. The Barnett consequential should be a £5 billion investment, but we are not getting that. This is on the back of us getting 1.5% of the UK rail enhancement investment over something like 20 years for 5% of the population and 11% of the rail lines. It is time the Government looked to give us some money so that we can modernise, electrify and increase productivity and the wealth and health of the nation.

As I pointed out this morning, Transport for Wales has generated £2.5 billion of shovel-ready schemes to be delivered over the next 15 years—they are ready to go. I hope the Secretary of State will support me in calling on the Department for Transport to work with Transport for Wales and co-fund shovel-ready projects, to move them forward sooner rather than later. We want to increase productivity, we want wages to go up, and we want to deliver net zero, and that is vital.

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend is making important points about rail infrastructure. He will know that I have long campaigned for St Mellons Parkway to be built in the east of Cardiff, and we now have crucial funding from the levelling-up fund to create an essential link in the centre of Cardiff. I heard again and again from businesses that those rail links to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool would help to grow their businesses and opportunities. For that, they need investment from the UK Government in those lines into Wales.

[Geraint Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I would go further: in south Wales specifically, one of the things we need to look at is the link between Swansea, Cardiff and Bristol. That is a regional economy of 3 million people, and obviously it is part of the Union because it goes outside of Wales, but we only get about one service an hour, compared with Manchester to Leeds, which gets something like eight services an hour. There is a lot of talk about the northern powerhouse, but we need linkages in Wales, and between south Wales and the west, to make that hub work. Rather than everything having to go out of London, we should have localised economic prosperity in that way.

The point I am trying to make is that we need to alleviate poor health and low wealth through investment in infrastructure. We also need to invest in research and development, and in a green future. Something else that I raised this morning is that we are at a cliff edge in Wales, where we face the loss of 1,000 jobs in universities from 60 projects that are focused on generating green growth in the future. The structural funding from the EU is suddenly coming to an end, and the shared prosperity fund is delivered through local authorities, rather than being centrally divided among universities across the UK, as the structural funds have been in order to fire up new green projects.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon mentioned one of those projects, which is the cladding of homes to create their own power stations. There are also projects to dig up plastic waste from landfill and convert it into carbon nanotubes to be used in electric car batteries, medical instruments and mobile phones. There are projects to convert slag heaps from steelworks that represent billions of pounds of liabilities into billions of pounds of assets by a simple process using water, which converts them into iron ore, zinc and hydrogen. There are projects that take off-peak renewable energy that is currently not being used—the renewable energy that is not going into the grid at breakfast time and teatime—and convert it into hydrogen to be put into the gas grid, for instance, or into hydrogen transport.

All those cutting-edge projects are suddenly going to end unless we get bridge funding of £71 million for Welsh universities in particular, and £170 million for 166 projects across the UK. Again, that issue has been highlighted in the Financial Times. I hope the Chancellor will stop those projects from collapsing, because that R&D is vital for future green growth and exports, and that the Secretary of State will urge him to provide that bridge funding so that we can move forward.

There is a lot more we could be urging the Government to do, including a carbon border tax to ensure that if we do get the steel in Port Talbot and elsewhere to be produced through arc furnaces, so that it is less carbon intensive, carbon-intensive imports from China and elsewhere pay a tax, as will happen in the EU. Otherwise, we will end up in a situation where we are substituting clean south Walian steel with dirty Chinese steel. Following what is, in my view, the good news of the Windsor framework, which recognises and acknowledges the opportunities for Northern Ireland to link into the single market and trade with the United Kingdom, I also hope that trade from Wales to Northern Ireland and to Ireland will be facilitated through more rail infrastructure, so that we ensure our economy is vibrant and we do not simply see businesses moving from Wales to Northern Ireland.

I very much hope that we can get back on track. We are in an awful place. There has been a normalisation of food banks. They are meant to be one-off crisis points, but people are now increasingly dependent on food pantries and other facilities for an ongoing supply of food. We need to move away from that position by investing in transport and in our prosperity and productivity, and reach a situation where there is less strain on the health service and where we can be strong again. That requires investment across the piece, so that as a Union and a nation, we can be strong again for the future. Happy St David’s day.