I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing this important St David’s day debate, and on his work to champion the steel industry. Today he mentioned not just the steel industry, but the need for
clear and consistent messages from the UK Government if we are to encourage more investment from a range of different industries.
The right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) emphasised the importance of transport links to the economy of north Wales. That theme was taken up by many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) who suggested the need to upgrade the busy M6, and to think beyond Crewe for HS2 so that it serves Chester and north Wales. Along with other Members he stressed the importance of staying in the EU, particularly for the success of big companies such as Airbus, as well as a host of other companies in his constituency and over the border.
The hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) reminded us that Gordon Brown was right in keeping the UK out of the euro, and the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) made a strong case for the EU, mentioning peace, political stability, social justice, economic matters, and the fairer distribution of resources from which Wales benefits. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) explained why it is important to campaign for proper links to Heathrow airport and to support its expansion, and he made a strong case for the need for better rail electrification to Wales. He also referred to the Wales Bill, and the fact that the Secretary of State was not here.
The hon. Member for Cardiff North (Craig Williams) spoke of the Cardiff city deal, as one would expect, and of the importance of interesting young people in science and innovation. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) spoke of the Wales Bill and thanked the Welsh Affairs Committee for all its hard work on that. He also pointed out some of the considerable problems with the Bill. The hon. Member for Gower (Byron Davies) mentioned the importance of the cockle industry and of getting to grips with the causes of those cockle deaths. We must get more information so that we better understand exactly what is happening.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) talked about the need to get on and secure the tidal lagoon project and the jobs for the area. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) also mentioned tidal power, referring to the eternal nature of the tide. He stressed again the importance of the Welsh language. My predecessor as Llanelli MP, Jim Griffiths, was the first Secretary of State for Wales. I know he would very much have approved of my hon. Friend’s speech today.
How could I possibly skip over what my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) said about the Severn bridge tolls? That issue is absolutely crucial for us across the whole of south Wales. She emphasised the point about the end of the concession. When is it happening and what will the reduction in price be? We want something much more substantial than the mere reduction in VAT.
The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) mentioned dairy farming. I am sure he will be supporting the farmers’ march in London on 23 March. We shall certainly be speaking as one voice with them on the need to increase the powers of the Groceries Code Adjudicator to get a fairer price for our farmers. He also spoke of how the ground rose up around St David,
propelling him above the crowd. We wondered today whether the Secretary of State is showing himself as a reverse St David, disappearing into the earth and appearing for only a few minutes at today’s debate—that is utterly disgraceful, I have to say. This comes in the week when he has treated the House with complete disdain by announcing a major U-turn on the Wales Bill at a press conference in Cardiff and refusing to come to the House to answer questions. Does the Secretary of State for Wales not think that a debate on Welsh affairs and the Wales Bill are worthy of his time?
I can only assume that the reason the Secretary of State is hiding in the Wales Office is that he is as embarrassed as he should be that his flagship constitutional Bill has run aground. What we saw on Monday was quite remarkable: large parts of the Bill that the Secretary of State was defending to the hilt just last month have now been binned. This amounts to a major change in policy in the one piece of proposed legislation for which his Department is responsible. It is shameful that he was more than happy to take questions from journalists but not from Members of this House whose constituents deserve to know what powers their Assembly will have. The Wales Office even tweeted on Monday to suggest that MPs should be happy to wait until today’s Backbench debate to have their say. I hope he is listening.
It is a shocking discourtesy to Members and is reminiscent of the arrogance the Secretary of State has shown towards the Welsh Government and to those who have disagreed with him. Let us not forget that shortly before we met at the Welsh Grand Committee, he said those of us who dared to challenge his rosy view of the Bill had given up on the Union. We were told that we had basically gone and joined Plaid Cymru because we suggested that the necessity test should go, the rules on ministerial consent should change and that the list of reservations should be drastically reduced. Now, he apparently agrees with us. Has the Secretary of State had a last-minute conversion to the separatist cause, or does he recognise that his hysterical comments were just a desperate attempt to deflect from the shambles of his draft Bill?
I am glad the Secretary of State has seen sense and will not now push ahead with a deeply flawed piece of proposed legislation, but let us not pretend that all this is business as usual. It is not a normal part of pre-legislative scrutiny to then go on and dump the Bill, and nor is this an example of a Secretary of State in listening mode. He wanted and fully intended to go ahead with a Bill that was complex, unworkable and which rolled back the powers of the Welsh Assembly. He only changed course when it became clear that literally no one supported him.
The Welsh Affairs Committee, with its Conservative majority, has produced an excellent report on the draft Bill. I would like to place on record my thanks to the members of that Committee for all their hard work. Their report, like the report of the Assembly’s Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee before it, shows that the Secretary of State has mismanaged the process from start to finish. Instead of producing a Bill with a robust set of reserved powers, he allowed Whitehall free reign to decide which powers it thought Wales should have. That resulted in 34 pages of reservations, covering 267 areas. How could the Secretary of State possibly have thought that this was the clear and lasting devolution
settlement that he himself promised? We are now told he wants to reduce and simplify the reservations, but why did he not do that to start with? Is it because he did not actually know what was in his own Bill? How else can he explain saying to the Welsh Affairs Committee:
“When I read through the list of reservations I can see for myself that there are things where I think, you know, ‘For goodness’ sake, why is that being held back as reserved?’”?
We have a Secretary of State who did not do his job. He did not make sure that the draft Bill was fit to be published, and that is what has led to this wholly unacceptable state of affairs. We are told that the Bill will now be presented sometime in the next Session, but there are reports that this current Session of Parliament will run until after the European referendum. That means we will not see the Bill until July at the very earliest, with a real possibility that it will slip into the autumn.
So in the Secretary of State’s absence—well, I see him here now and perhaps he will listen—will the Minister respond for him and tell us when he expects the Bill to be published and when its provisions will take effect? Is it not the case that the Assembly will now have to wait even longer before having these powers devolved to it, because of this avoidable delay? In light of the Welsh Affairs Committee’s stinging criticism of the fact that
“the final Bill will be significantly different to that which they have been scrutinising,”
will the new Bill be submitted to the Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny?
I cannot help feeling that if the Secretary of State had spent less time attacking those of us who disagreed with him and more time fixing his Bill, this unnecessary delay could have been avoided. I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to produce a Bill that delivers the powers he promised, but his abysmal record so far hardly fills me with confidence.
On Monday, the Secretary of State also made reference to the Barnett funding floor, which we Labour Members welcome, although we recognise that it makes virtually no difference at a time when the Government are cutting the budget of the Welsh Assembly. In light of recent argument about a fiscal framework for Scotland, we now need to establish a framework for Wales that will underpin our future funding arrangements for the long term. The Smith Commission made it clear that Scotland should suffer no detriment from the transfer of tax-varying powers to Holyrood. It is imperative that the same principle is used in relation to Wales and that any arrangement is subject to review to ensure that it provides a stable financial settlement. Can the Minister update us on what progress has been made?
The Secretary of State and I have our differences, but I think we agree that we want to move past the debate about the process of devolution. We need a Bill that establishes a strong, fair and lasting settlement that achieves what the Welsh people want—a Welsh Assembly, a Welsh Parliament with the powers to make a real difference to the lives of people of Wales.
4.47 pm