Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wayne David and Simon Hart

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about devolution. Of course, it frustrates Opposition Members that we are taking devolution to its literal limit as far as the funds are concerned; we are going to 22 local authority stakeholders across Wales. I find it absolutely perplexing that for some reason, the Welsh Government think that devolution stops in Cardiff and simply do not trust 22 democratically elected local authorities spread across the whole of Wales to make sensible decisions on behalf of their constituents.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Given the timescale involved, there is a lot of concern among local authorities in Wales that moneys allocated under the shared prosperity fund will not in fact be spent by them, and the money therefore will be clawed back by central Government. Will the Secretary of State say that that will not happen?

[Simon Hart]

I got the gist of the hon. Gentleman’s question. Of course, the shared prosperity fund is an absolute cast-iron commitment. It has thousands of jobs at its disposal. We think it has great potential across the whole of Wales and we are very happy of course, if he has individual examples that concern him, to address them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wayne David and Simon Hart

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

On that particular point, I agree with my hon. Friend—I would probably describe him as my permanent friend. It is perfectly right that we wait and see what the Chancellor says. We have tried to set out short, medium and long-term measures that will help with the current challenge and we will of course hear more in due course.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Wales on the shared prosperity fund.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)]

I have regular discussions with the First Minister of Wales on a range of issues, including how Wales’s £585 million share of the UK shared prosperity fund will level up communities across our country.

[Wayne David]

Does the Secretary of State share my concern that according to a number of independent analyses, the shared prosperity fund is likely to shift resources away from the valleys, the poorest parts of Wales, to more prosperous parts?

[Simon Hart]

Unsurprisingly, I contest the hon. Gentleman’s assertion. I would just say this: by 2024-25, the annual funding from the shared prosperity fund will match the average annual funding that Wales would have received from the European Regional Development Fund after adjusting for inflation. If he does not take that from me, or does not believe me, I can tell him that it is from Guto Ifan, research associate at the Welsh Governance Centre. That indicates that we are going in the right direction with the shared prosperity fund. Would it not be good, just for a moment, if the Welsh Government supported those very ambitious opportunities?

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Wayne David and Simon Hart

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I will not give way for a bit, but I anticipate that the hon. Gentleman will want to intervene when I get on to his speech.

On the hon. Member for Caerphilly’s points about the cost of living, all of us representing seats in Wales will have examples not dissimilar to the ones he has raised in respect of this particularly difficult challenge. While the UK Government have attempted, and continue to attempt, to intervene in all the ways that he suggested so as to be as generous, rapid, thorough, fair and humanitarian as possible, the Treasury must of course balance that with trying to control the inflationary effect of those significant interventions, which, if allowed to run rampant, would end up with greater hardship being suffered by the very families that we both agree need the help that we can all provide.

[Wayne David]

I would respectfully point out to the Secretary of State that inflation is already very high and that at the same time we have a cost of living crisis for some of our poorest people. The two things go together.

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is precisely why we have to take considerable care with the measures that we are taking, because if we do not, then the already quite pressing inflationary pressures can only get worse. We are in the same place on that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) rightly introduced early on in the debate a tribute to our soldiers of the Royal Welsh currently stationed in Estonia. That was a sobering and passionate reminder of the role that they are playing and have played in many other pressures facing the nation over the past few months and years. He mentioned, as did others, the potential in the renewables sector, especially in north Wales. He is right to have the ambitions, as is our hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), for large-scale and small-scale nuclear at Wylfa. The other day, I met representatives of the floating offshore wind sector to talk about the potential in the Celtic sea, particularly off the west coast of Pembrokeshire. There are unbelievably exciting prospects in that regard, so we need to aim high. When I refer to the comments of the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) about devolution of the Crown Estate, I will explain why that would limit our ambitions rather than enhance them.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West mentioned the tidal lagoon at Colwyn Bay. That was an argument well made. When visiting north Wales with the Prime Minister the other day, we looked out across the potential site for that. I might add that the Prime Minister has been to that particular part of Wales more often than the First Minister, in fairness to him. That is how seriously we take levelling up and the potential in that part of Wales. I resonate with the comments that my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West made about the Mersey Dee Alliance. That can be just as easily extended to mid Wales and its relationship with the west midlands as it can to south and west Wales and their relationship to Gloucester, Swindon, London, the south-west of England and beyond, as represented by the Western Gateway.

I quickly turn to the comments of the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), who seems to have generated more use of my highlighter pen than any other contribution today, which is probably what he intended to achieve, so full marks for having done that. He made some interesting comments about leadership, most of which I had some sympathy with, but in his glowing tribute to the First Minister, it struck me that if the First Minister’s choice of leadership had been successful, we would be confronting our problems across the globe with the potential of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) as Prime Minister. I am not sure that would necessarily have provided the leadership and robust response to Vladimir Putin.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hart]

The obvious statement to make in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s claim that somehow Wales and Scotland were not involved in the negotiations is that I was one of the lucky ones who had to sit and listen to his colleague Mike Russell putting the case, as he did loudly and persuasively in the numerous meetings we had on the Brexit negotiations. It is simply not correct to say that the devolved Administrations did not play a very full and active part in those discussions.

Today’s debate has had its moments of optimism, its moments of hope and many moments of respect for our friends and colleagues in Ukraine. I hope it has also served to show what we have in store on levelling up, and also the huge amount of funding. People sometimes question the amount of funding coming to Wales and make an erroneous comparison with what might have been the case had we remained in the European Union, but actually the numbers and the facts show that there is everything to be cheerful about. I want the relationship with local authorities and the Welsh Government to be positive, because if it is, and if we do not get strung up on the minutiae of power and instead concentrate on our important jobs and inward investment agenda and are prepared to enter those negotiations in the spirit intended, we have a real opportunity of the Welsh Government being able to demonstrate they are good and competent at what they do and the UK Government demonstrating we have an important strategic and economic role to play in Wales as well. That is the challenge that faces us, and today’s debate has enabled us to move just a few small steps towards achieving it.

[Wayne David]

This afternoon’s debate has been good and extremely worthwhile. It is particularly good that many Members referred to Ukraine and the solidarity the Welsh people are demonstrating to the people of Ukraine; I thank everyone for that.

My only hope is that the St David’s Day debate does not have to be applied for every year but becomes automatic. I ask the powers that be in Parliament for the St David’s Day debate to be a permanent feature of our parliamentary calendar.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Wayne David and Simon Hart

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend points to a crucial approach, and it is worth pointing out that these awful crimes do not respect political or geographical borders; they are international problems and UK problems. Therefore, one way of approaching this is to make sure UK police forces can collaborate effectively cross-border, and that is what they are doing. My hon. Friend might have heard of Project Adder, the trial in Swansea bay, and of course seen some of the benefits from the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Wales on the UK shared prosperity fund.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Simon Hart)]

I have regular discussions with the First Minister of Wales and his ministerial team on a range of issues, including the UK shared prosperity fund. The Government will continue to engage with the Welsh Government as we develop the fund’s investment framework, which will be published later this year.

[Wayne David [V]]

Will the shared prosperity fund allocate resources on the basis of need?

[Simon Hart]

Absolutely; that underpins the entire thrust of a number of these funds. We are attempting to prioritise areas with greatest need and where there is opportunity and challenges so that we get the money to the right places at the right time as fast as we can. One of the bits of feedback we get from local communities is that there seems to be a lot of money talked about but it never quite gets to the right place; this new initiative provides a much quicker and better way, involving local authorities, to get over that problem.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Wayne David and Simon Hart

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

No, no, hold tight. I liked the idea of a £20,000 dragon statue in Ebbw Vale, but the test of these things must be how they have contributed positively to jobs and growth. My challenge to the Welsh Government is for the UK and Welsh Governments to work collaboratively on the shared prosperity fund to make sure that those objectives are met and are driven by local demand.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. It really is a travesty for him to attempt to depict European funding in this way. European funding has been a huge boost to the Welsh economy. We need only look at road infrastructure, the colleges, the voluntary sector that has benefited and the training that we have put in place. All those things are very positive, but what he has presented is a gross caricature of reality.

[Simon Hart]

It is in fact quite the opposite. I suspect that what I have done is cause a certain amount of embarrassment. We all know and understand that the funding does not always work in the way that it should. I made it absolutely clear that the examples I gave are the exceptions, not the rule. My point is very clear. There should be a collaborative approach by the Welsh and UK Governments to prioritise jobs and growth. If the Welsh Government or Welsh Labour cannot live with that, that is their problem, not mine.

Employment in Wales

Debate between Wayne David and Simon Hart

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I am glad that I took that intervention because the hon. Gentleman completely misrepresents my view. No Conservative Member and no colleague in Plaid Cymru or in the Liberal Democrat party—indeed, no politician, candidate or Government—has a monopoly on brilliant ideas, wisdom or compassion. It is crazy to suggest otherwise. I am well aware that there are significant difficulties in my own constituency, which is why I have organised five jobs fairs since I have been a Member. That is why I spend most of my working day trying to resolve such hardships and to point people in the right direction on future job prospects. That is why I deal every day, as we all do, with difficulties when things go wrong.

It is wrong to suggest that we live in a bubble of complacency and that the future is gloomy. The distinction that I am trying to make is that there are plenty of success stories in Wales of which we should be proud. Plenty of indicators suggest that we are pointing in the right direction. I absolutely accept that we are halfway along the road to success. Nobody is suggesting that we have got there and nobody is suggesting that it will not be a hard crawl from here to our destination. What we are suggesting is that to alter the course now would damage the prospects of not only people who are working their way back into employment, but those who already have a secure job.

[Wayne David]

Is the hon. Gentleman happy that so many of his constituents who have recently found employment are on extremely low wages?

[Simon Hart]

I find that question extraordinary. It is like asking whether I am happy with an outbreak of incurable disease. Of course I am not.

[Wayne David]

So what is the hon. Gentleman going to do about it?

[Simon Hart]

What I am trying to do is to be part of an economic policy that creates greater opportunity, higher wages and better long-term prospects for families and individuals in my area. That is what I am driving towards. It is wrong to suggest that I could sit back and feel content if even a single person in my constituency was unemployed for avoidable reasons. I would be upset and disappointed, and I would strive to help them back into employment. The same is true of anybody on an unsustainable wage. The point I am trying to make is that the direction of travel—I hate that expression, so please forgive me for using it—is correct.

I could point the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd to numerous people in my constituency who have been able to make the transition from the gloomy position that he describes into a more prosperous world with better pay, better conditions and a better job. That is a consequence of confidence among UK, European and global companies, which are investing in our area, and it might not have happened under a different form of economic leadership. That is the point that I am trying to make. Of course we are not there yet—we are some years away—but I think we are on the right path to that kind of success story, which was lacking from the hon. Gentleman’s speech.