Public Sector Pay Cap

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that the flexibility we give to pay review bodies is such that they can decide to give higher rises to those on the lowest incomes in the public sector. I would also point out that those on the lowest incomes have benefited most from the raising of the personal allowance. There are various ways of ensuring support for those on the lowest levels of pay.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It will interest the House, I am sure, to know that the Scottish Government announced last week that they are lifting the pay cap. The Labour Welsh Government have the ability to do exactly the same thing, but in reality Labour in Wales is the Conservative Government’s gwas bach, taking their lead from Westminster. Thirty thousand Welsh nurses are having their pay cut in real terms. I ask those on both the Government and Opposition Front Benches to explain to thousands of Welsh workers why Wales remains the poorest paid country in the United Kingdom.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady will be aware that that is a devolved issue and a decision for the Welsh Government.

HMRC Estate

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

I am pretty certain that that was not the rationale for the choice of locations. Very careful discussions took place. I will, of course, read the report and reflect on it, as will we all, and, as I have said, HMRC intends to respond in detail, but a great deal of thought went into choosing the regional centres. I acknowledge that some people will not be able to move because the distances will be too far to travel, and we certainly want to retain experienced staff. Those who will not be able to move will have a number of different levels of experience, but if we can retain their skills and ensure that they are at the service of the taxpayer through other Departments, we will obviously try to do so.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

HMRC Porthmadog is earmarked for closure, and in all likelihood the Welsh language unit will be centralised in Cardiff, four hours away. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how these services can best be provided in a region where 71% of the population can speak Welsh and where Welsh is the working language of a county administration?

[Jane Ellison]

We have considered that issue, and we intend to work on it with other Departments. As I have said, I am always happy to have a conversation with colleagues—[Interruption]—not in Welsh! I will write to the hon. Lady, because the Welsh language has been raised with me before, and I know that it has been thought about in some detail.

HMRC: Building our Future Plan

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and others on securing this debate. I am proud to have added my name to the motion.

HMRC has been dismantling its services in Wales for over 15 years. Where there were previously 21 tax offices in towns and cities across the country, it is now proposed there only be one, in south-east Wales.

HMRC’s Porthmadog office in my constituency is one of those threatened by the latest round of closures. This is the home of the Tax Office’s Welsh language unit and of needs enhanced service staff. It is well placed to attract and retain fluent Welsh-speaking staff, and offers a naturally Welsh-speaking workplace. Needs enhanced service staff, by the nature of their work, have to be close to the clients whom they need to visit in their own homes. This service and, of course, the Welsh language unit serves the region of Wales where demand for Welsh language services is at its highest.

As one of the users, I would urge every Welsh speaker, even those who lack confidence to use the language to discuss financial matters, to take advantage of these services, because English words can always be dropped in as well. This is good not only for the good of the language, but particularly because the Porthmadog staff are excellent at their job.

Beyond Porthmadog’s limited Welsh language remit, HMRC’s commitment falls far short of the statutory requirement to treat the Welsh and English languages as equal when providing public services in Wales, particularly as regards the opportunity for businesses and charities such as chapels to have access to services in Welsh, as is their right. To be honest, the proposal that the service can be maintained just as well in Cardiff needs to be questioned. The county of Gwynedd is home to 77,000 Welsh speakers, 65.4% of the county’s population. Cardiff has fewer than half that number of Welsh speakers and, of course, is a capital city where those speakers are not so concentrated. HMRC is intent on moving the service from a rural region where Welsh is the language of everyday life and civic administration, to an urban centre, 150 miles and over four hours’ drive away—about as far from the great majority of its Welsh-speaking users as it would be physically possible to go and still be in Wales.

If the Porthmadog office building itself—Mapeley’s Ty Moelwyn, I might add— is the problem, I would strongly urge the Government to look at alternative sites in that area and to urge HMRC to do the same. I have corresponded with the Financial Secretary on a number of occasions, requesting that this be done. Porthmadog county councillor Selwyn Griffiths and Town Councillor Alwyn Gruffydd have met the Under-Secretary for Wales, following a public meeting and petition earlier this year. Discussions have been held with HMRC’s regional implementation lead officer, and I am—I hope—right to be quietly optimistic.

The DWP office in the same town is perfectly suitable to house the Porthmadog HMRC staff, as is the Gwynedd Council-owned canolfan galw Gwynedd, nearby in Minffordd. Both these offices are excellent Welsh-language workplaces, ideally placed to attract and retain experienced Welsh-speakers in the area where Welsh is both a community and professional language. This is an important point. Although Cardiff might look like an ideal centre for Wales, if we want to keep good staff, who are used to working in the Welsh medium and want to work in Welsh-speaking workplaces, this is the ideal place to locate and keep them. Simply closing these offices will also be a body blow to plans to devolve tax powers to Wales.

On the one hand, the Tory Government extol the virtue of Wales taking more control over our taxes—something that Plaid Cymru, of course, warmly welcomes, as we have done for years—yet on the other hand, the means of administering these powers is being systematically reduced. The level of reorganisation proposed should be subject to proper public and parliamentary scrutiny at the UK level, and I welcome today’s debate, but there are specific issues unique to Wales that must be addressed before any final decisions are reached.

First, we must recognise that increasing Wales’s fiscal powers will require increasing staff capacity, as opposed to moving jobs across the border and centralising down in south-east Wales. Secondly, an independent economic assessment of the impact of moving HMRC’s Welsh language unit and needs enhanced service jobs from Porthmadog to Cardiff must be undertaken. Thirdly, HMRC must work with the Welsh Language Commissioner to undertake a language assessment of the impact of moving these jobs from a Welsh-speaking community in terms of their effect on the rights of Welsh-speaking taxpayers and Welsh-speaking staff. Finally and most importantly, HMRC officers must consider alternative locations in the Porthmadog area, including co-location with Gwynedd Council or the Department for Work and Pensions, in order to agree a cost-effective solution to retain jobs in the area.

I urge the Government to commit to reconsidering the impact of HMRC proposals on their services in Wales, their services to Welsh speakers, their services to the nation as a whole in the light of the devolution agenda and the significance of well-paid public sector jobs to a low-wage economy such as Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

Iraq Inquiry Report

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point well, but one of the issues that the report will face up to, one hopes, is the veracity of what was told to the House that day. That will be one of the key issues, which is why the argument between Sir John Chilcot and Whitehall is very important. Reading between the lines of his letters, that argument was very much about what decisions were taken before the House made its decision and after—what was told to the House, whether it was accurate, whether it was based on impartial briefings and whether, indeed, the politics of the issue coloured the views of important components of the state. I am not going to attempt to answer those questions today, but I would be incredibly disappointed if the commission’s report did not actually answer them in plain English. That is why I would not be drawn by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, who is a very great friend of mine. The report has to answer those questions; what the tabloid and other press do with the report the day after publication is not for me.

I will press on, briefly, with the lessons to learn not just about the war but about how we should conduct these inquiries. The Government now intend to review the Maxwellisation process, in which those who have been criticised in a report are given the chance to respond. That is to be welcomed, as Maxwellisation has been responsible for half the delays here. It is clear that strict time controls are needed for future inquiries. It cannot be right that those who are to be criticised can delay publication for their own interests, so I hope that strict time controls will arise as a result.

There is no reason for further delay. It has been suggested that the delay between the report being security cleared and its publication is because it needs to be proof-read and typeset. That would be unacceptable if true. The report is already in electronic format. It has already been repeatedly checked for accuracy, and will be checked again by the security services. It will have been read by more people than some newspapers. The fact is that the report has been pored over by many people for five years. We are in the 21st century, not the era of hot lead typesetting. Someone said to me this morning that I might have summarised the rather long motion rather more crisply by saying, “This House instructs Sir John Chilcot simply to press ‘send’.”

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that the public at large, and bereaved families in particular, deserve answers, so redactions must be kept to an absolute minimum. Those families should not have to endure any further suggestions of a cover-up.

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right, but, to be honest with her, I will be astonished if there are any redactions in the report. I remember that once, when I was Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, a report was given to me about the overrun of MI5 and MI6 on their buildings. It had four chapters: the introduction, the chapter on MI6, the chapter on MI5 and the conclusion. The chapters on MI5 and MI6 were virtually identical, except that all the redactions were different. We rang up MI5 and said, “MI6 has agreed to all these,” then we rang up MI6 and said, “MI5 has agreed to all these,” and then we removed nearly all the redactions. They were political—they were redactions to preserve the interests of the bureaucracy involved, not the national interest. The simple truth is that the facts in the report have already been cleared. That is what two years of the argument was about. If there is a single redaction, I and others will be looking at it very closely and asking why it was not redacted years ago instead of now. The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the rights of the families in this affair.

There is no doubt that the whole country is fed up with waiting for the final report, but none more so than the families of those 179 British soldiers who died fighting for their country in Iraq. The families have suffered for years as this inquiry has dragged on and on, and it would be disgraceful to make them wait for months longer, just because the Government are worried about what effect—if any—the report will have on the referendum. I cannot imagine what impact that might be, given that there is no party political advantage in this to either side.

The Conservatives and Labour both supported the war. As the hon. Member for Nottingham North said, half the Labour party stood back or voted against it, and there is no advantage either way. The inquiry was started by Labour and supported by the Prime Minister. It is therefore inconceivable that the Government should seek to wait until after the June referendum to publish the report, and I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate, he will make it clear that that will not happen—I am sure he will address that point directly.

Let us put this issue in context. If the report waits until June, it will be seven years since the inquiry started, and some parents of the dead soldiers will have been waiting 10 or 12 years for an answer. To give the House a simple comparison, the Israeli Government appointed the Winograd commission in 2006 to investigate the war with Lebanon. It produced its interim report not in seven years but in seven months, and it was highly critical of the existing Government that had set it up. The final report was produced after 17 months. Any argument for delay on grounds of political sensitivity or national security would be far more pressing in Israel, where that is a matter of daily life and death to all its citizens. Because of that, it is also a matter of very high and extremely important politics. If Israel can produce a report in seven and 17 months, we should be able to do it in a lot less than seven years.

Some people will, of course, be held to account in this report; otherwise it will properly be dismissed as a whitewash. That is to be expected and must be right. However, this is principally about learning from mistakes that we made as a nation, and ensuring that we do not make the same mistakes again. It is also about remembering those who have suffered great loss, and giving them some measure of solace in the truth and some degree of closure. This is about doing the honourable thing by those who have made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their nation, and to delay any further for no good reason would be an insult to those brave soldiers who died in the Iraq war, and a cruel insult to their families who have waited more than six years for a proper answer.

House of Lords Reform

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on what has so far been a very colourful speech. He has been very clear about the SNP’s position, but his partners in this House are Plaid Cymru, which does have Members in the other place.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

We do not have a separate jurisdiction.

[Martin John Docherty]

My very hon. Friend has given the answer from a sedentary position: Wales does not have a separate jurisdiction. That in itself is a disgrace and one of the main concerns for my hon. Friends in Plaid Cymru.

As I said, all this could be seen as pure Celtic hyperventilation about the unaccountability of the House of Lords, yet there are Members from beyond the Celtic fringe—although I wonder where they are today—who find the unelected and unaccountable nature of the House of Lords an affront to liberal democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) on securing a debate on this most overdue of reforms to the UK’s political system. As he said, what might seem like Celtic hyperventilation and hyperbole to some, to others is passion to mend that which is wrong.

As we have heard, membership of the House of Lords is fast approaching 1,000. As we have also heard, it is one of the largest Chambers on earth, second only to that in China, which, it is worth remembering, has a population 28 times the size of the UK’s. Of course, not one of the 1,000 peers in the other place is elected by the public, although a few are elected by their peers, which is interesting. The House of Lords does not reflect the political views of the people or society in general. Over three quarters of peers are male and over half are over 70. I wanted to work out their combined age, but it was far too difficult, and we would have got into dinosaur aeons, I suspected. Seats are guaranteed for bishops of the Church of England, but not for the Church in Wales or the Church of Scotland, let alone for any other faith. Do the Government consider a non-Christian to be less of a citizen than a Christian? I hope not, but the existence of the House, in its present form, suggests otherwise.

I was astounded to learn that the fudged compromise whereby 92 excepted hereditary peers, who survived the cull of 1999, not only continue to attend the House of Lords and influence the democracy of the UK, but are replaced by yet more hereditary peers in in-house elections. I thought they were a tail that would gradually disappear, but, no, they are self-perpetuating. The evident democratic injustice of people being there because they were born to that position is perpetuating itself. The House of Lords is crying out for reform.

Plaid Cymru sees no place for a patronage appointments system in a modern democracy. None the less, for as long as decisions affecting Wales continue to be made there, we will push for Wales to have an equal voice in that Chamber. After all, we are not as fortunate as Scotland. Wales has not had a separate legal jurisdiction since 1536.

[Wayne David]

I hear what the hon. Lady says about the Acts of Union in 1536 and 1542, but what on earth does that have to do with membership of the House of Lords?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Most of the laws made here also affect Wales, and if we are to influence them, we must take part. We have long been cursed with the “for Wales, see England” mentality, although things have changed since 1999 and might well change again in the elections this spring.

The House of Lords should be elected through the single transferrable vote system, with a Welsh constituency and weighting to ensure that Wales is heard in all matters. Some value the apparent freedom with which the second Chamber can hold the Government to account, but I remind them that more than 70% of peers vote along party lines and that 25% of those appointed since 1997 are former MPs who either resigned or were voted out by the public. It is the only legislature in the world where losing an election helps a person win a seat.

I appreciate that many in the other place are considered experts in their fields, but we have heard mention of the ex-experts. I do not accept that this is an argument against democracy. If they are experts in their fields today—as opposed to 20 years ago—they should be persuaded to stand for office in a local public election. I also suggest that the House takes note of figures from the Electoral Reform Society, which found that 27% of peers had “representational politics” as their main profession prior to entering the Lords. Most of them were MPs. A further 7% were political staff, and twice as many peers worked as staff to the royal household than worked in manual or skilled labour, which is extraordinary, given that most people work in the latter.

[Bob Stewart]

I am listening intently and enjoying this debate a great deal, because I agree with so much of it. Would it be a good idea for sections of society, such as doctors, teachers, dustbin men—if that is the right term these days—and nurses, each to have a part of the House of Lords that they appoint, so that they can decide who represents them?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Were we to legislate for such a thing, we would need to consider that in detail, but we ought to consider whether these representative bodies actually represent society, and we should be judging them accordingly.

The House of Lords is not the oracle of all-encompassing knowledge that many would have us believe. I remind Members that while the Houses of Parliament include almost 1,000 Lords and, at present, 650 MPs—it is interesting to note that the number of Lords is going up and the number of MPs down—the Welsh Parliament, which is responsible for the NHS, education, economic development and many other vital policy fields in Wales, has only 60 AMs. When we discount Welsh Government Ministers and other office holders, only 42 of those 60 AMs are available to hold the Welsh Government to account and scrutinise legislation. That is 42 Members to scrutinise everything from the NHS to education, from business support to inward investment, and—soon—to hold the Government to account on income tax policy. That is 42 Members in Wales in comparison with the Palace of Westminster in England, which has in excess of 1,500 MPs and peers holding the UK Government to account on their performance.

I suggest that a proportionately elected second Chamber with a drastically reduced number of peers, coupled with an increase in the size of the Welsh Parliament, would make the UK a far more modern, balanced and effective democracy. This debate has indeed shone a light on the long-overdue need for reform, but it is now up to the Government to bring forward proposals to ensure that our democracy adheres to modern standards and reflects society and its views.

Connaught Income Fund

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Guto Bebb]

Again, I fully endorse those comments. We are in this House this evening almost giving a cry for help to the Minister, where the all-party group and Members of Parliament have failed to deliver on behalf of their constituents. I sincerely hope that she can intervene and ensure that at least a degree of clarity is offered.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I wish to raise a wider issue. Unregulated collective investment schemes are not permitted to be marketed to the general public, as one would expect, but does the hon. Gentleman not agree that this needs proper enforcement and that it may not always take place?

[Guto Bebb]

That is a point that I subscribe to and agree with, and it should be considered in due course.

The questions that I have for the Minister are pretty clear. First, in view of the FCA’s recent decision to cancel its proposed review of banking standards and culture, can we have a guarantee that the investigation will be completed by the FCA? Many people affected by this issue have contacted me, expressing their concern that, in view of the delays and the lack of information from the FCA, the review will be completed.

Secondly, the FCA unilaterally withdrew from the mediation process, without any consultation with stakeholders or investors. Can the Minister assure us that the FCA will, upon completion of its investigations, publicly justify its decision to curtail the process of mediation and the subsequent delay in compensation and redress?

Thirdly, it has also been implied that the reason for curtailing the mediation process was a result of a realisation within the FCA that the financial compensation on offer from the mediation process would not be sufficient. Is that the case? As we have had no clarity or confirmation that that is the case, will the Minister give us some assurances on the matter? If it is not the case, will the FCA be able to explain why it therefore curtailed the mediation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose]

I see that the conspiracy theorists are out in force this morning. The entries that will have been crossed off the register as a result of the introduction of individual elector registration—a measure that was supported in principle by the Labour party—will be those for people who have died or moved house. Anybody who is a legitimate elector and who has a pulse will have been confirmed on the electoral register. If anybody is worried that they may not be registered, they can register online before May—it takes under three minutes, which is less than the time needed to boil an egg—and they will get their vote.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

2. What steps the Government Digital Service is taking to ensure that Government Departments treat the Welsh and English languages equally on their websites when providing services in Wales.

[The Minister without Portfolio (Robert Halfon)]

Mae’r fonheddiges anrhydeddys yn gofyn cwestiwn pwysig.

The Government Digital Service is committed to ensuring that the needs of Welsh language speakers are recognised and met. For example, the introduction of gov.uk now gives every Government organisation the ability to publish web content in Welsh. GDS has helped to produce exemplar Welsh language versions of the new digital services, such as the “register to vote” service, and it has put forward its digital design recommendations for Welsh language Government services.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Diolch yn fawr iawn am y rhagymadrodd—roedd o’n arbennig o dda ac yn gynsail pwysig i’r Ty yma.

I thank the Minister very much for his introduction in Welsh. However, considering that not a single gov.uk departmental website states on its homepage that services are available in Welsh, people do not know that they can use Welsh. When will the digital service stop preventing Government Departments from fulfilling their legal duty to Welsh speakers?

[Robert Halfon]

I acknowledge that the hon. Lady’s Welsh is more fluent than mine, and I look forward to her giving me a lesson or two at a future date. The Government are doing a huge amount to ensure support for Welsh digital services in Departments, and importantly, that is about quality, not quantity. She will know that every page of direct.gov.uk—the predecessor to gov.uk—was translated into Welsh. That ran to nearly 4,000 pages, but 95% of them were seen by fewer than 10 people per month, and half received no visits whatsoever. For gov.uk we are starting with user need, and working with Departments to ensure the best service for the user.

HMRC Office Closures

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The Government have been dismantling their tax services in Wales for 15 years, and the “Building our Future” location proposals are the final nail in the coffin of a tax service that used to operate a very effective network for taxpayers across Wales. Not so long ago, there were offices to be found in 22 towns and cities. Fast forward five years from today and the Government propose that there will be only one centre, and that will be in south-east Wales.

HMRC’s Porthmadog office at Ty Moelwyn in my constituency is once again earmarked for closure. It is the home of the tax office’s Welsh language unit. This is not just about offices, but about staff. There was no mention of the Welsh language unit in the mail merged letter I received during the recess. The office in Gwynedd is well placed to attract and retain fluent Welsh-speaking staff. It offers that rare thing—a naturally Welsh-speaking workplace. Importantly, it also serves the region of Wales where demand for Welsh-language services is highest. As one of its users, I urge every Welsh speaker to take advantage of using the office, even those who lack the confidence to discuss financial matters in Welsh, not for the good of the language, but because the Porthmadog staff are good at their job.

Beyond Porthmadog’s specific and limited Welsh language remit, HMRC’s commitment falls far short of the statutory requirement, according to the Welsh Language Act 1993, to treat the Welsh and English languages as equal when providing public services in Wales. I am currently working on behalf of a constituent who has been told that he cannot use Welsh to resolve a chapel’s tax affairs. Business customers tell me the same about their businesses. Others complain of waiting for 40 minutes and more before the telephone system will allow them to access the service in Welsh.

The proposal is that the service can be maintained just as effectively in Cardiff. The county of Gwynedd is home to 77,000 Welsh speakers, which is 65.4% of the county’s population; Cardiff has fewer than half that number of Welsh speakers. The Government are intent on moving the service from a rural region where Welsh is the language of everyday life and civic administration to an urban centre 150 miles and four hours’ drive away, which is about as far from its likely users as it is possible to go and still be in Wales.

The tax office has had the honesty to admit that it is not realistic to expect workers from Porthmadog to travel to south-east Wales. Workers at Wrexham and Swansea are being offered the option of transferring to Liverpool or Cardiff. That sounds fair until we recall that former reorganisations offered workers the option of moving to workplaces that are now in turn threatened. This is in the month when it was announced that unemployment in Wales rose by 3,000—news that was described by the Secretary of State for Wales as a “disappointing set of figures”.

The closure of the offices is a body blow to plans to devolve tax powers to Wales. On the one hand, the Tory Government extol the virtue of Wales taking more control over our taxes—Plaid Cymru has proposed that for years—yet, on the other hand, the means of administrating such powers is shuffled across the border to England. The level of reorganisation proposed should be subject to proper public and parliamentary scrutiny at UK level, as well as with the PCS Union.

There are specific issues unique to Wales that must be addressed. First, changes to how Welsh language services are provided should be the subject of a language impact review, as is customarily required for public sector Welsh language schemes. Secondly, the administrative requirements of increasing tax devolution should be identified and the views of the National Assembly for Wales sought.

I urge the Government to reconsider the impact of their proposals on services in Wales, on services to Welsh speakers and on services to the nation as a whole in the light of the devolution agenda, and in particular to reconsider the significance of well-paid public sector jobs in a low-wage economy such as that of Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, particularly as today we commemorate a most significant day in the history of Parliament. Although I have not signed the motion and am minded to abstain, I understand entirely the perspective from which it has been approached.

The financial crisis of 2008 did much to rock public confidence in the UK’s financial sector, with the collapse of several household names in banking. It could be argued that to a great extent the banks brought that fate on themselves. Years of overambitious and risky lending practices led to kegs of bad debt being piled up around the foundations, so it all came unstuck in an explosive fashion. Members will be pleased to hear that is the end of my joke this afternoon—[Hon. Members: “Shame.”] We might, perhaps, be able to discuss the punishment inflicted on Guy Fawkes, which some Opposition Members would like to see replicated for the bankers.

The Government in 2008 had to perform significant bail-outs and interventions and introduce stimulus packages, leaving us in with large state-owned holdings in financial institutions, most notably the Royal Bank of Scotland, in which the Government have a share of 73%.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The National Audit Office issued a highly critical report in September on how the Government manage their £222 billion of assets in RBS and 53 other financial institutions. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that a transparent portfolio approach should be taken towards the management of such assets, as recommended by the NAO, and that a fair share of the profits arising should be directed to the areas most in need of real economic investment, such as Wales?

[William Wragg]

I am glad that the hon. Lady, representing Plaid Cymru, managed to refer to Wales in her question. I am not sure whether it is quite within my remit to say how the Government should direct such profits towards Wales.

The return of RBS to private ownership is an important first step, but the motion provides the opportunity to debate some particulars of RBS’s business and some important aspects of the aforementioned lending practices, which occurred both before and after the crash. I am sorry to say that RBS, in particular, was found wanting in that regard.

I want to highlight certain negative practices that have been shown by independent sources to have occurred in RBS that affected its small and medium-sized business clients, particularly one business in my constituency. I want to place my concerns on the record and am keen to hear from my hon. Friend the Minister how such practices will be investigated and what action will be taken to restore public trust in RBS and the banking sector more widely in the run-up to any further share sales.

The Government will no doubt be aware of the report by the businessman Lawrence Tomlinson, to which the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) referred. It was published in 2013, when Mr Tomlinson held the position of entrepreneur-in-residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Mr Tomlinson’s report considered the lending practices of banks and in particular the treatment of businesses in distress. It considered several banks in general, but took a particularly in-depth look at RBS’s turnaround division, the global restructuring group, or GRG. Tomlinson received large bodies of evidence on RBS’s practices, including from its business customers. The report found

“very concerning patterns of behaviour leading to the destruction of good and viable UK businesses”,

all for the sake of profit for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Individual Electoral Registration

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I thank the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for securing this debate. There is a sad irony to this issue. Individual electoral registration is to be adopted as a replacement for household registration, where previously one member—the patriarch, if you like, Mr Davies—doled out the franchise to his dependents. By bringing forward the transfer to the new system a year early, the Government will effectively maintain the electoral advantage and status of long-established households at the expense of transient and, in particular, young voters.

The measure could be interpreted as a cynical exercise in the further disenfranchisement of young voters, in urgent haste to influence the next round of elections in the Scottish Parliament, English local authorities and the Welsh Assembly. That approach to voter registration as a whole is bad news for democracy. More and more young people will either lose or never even have the opportunity to adopt the practice of voting. There is a real need for sufficient time and greater imagination and innovation to ensure that the new system works effectively.

I will make a few suggestions. A voter voucher could be sent to every 18-year-old—or even to 16-year-olds, when we come to that question—on their birthday to encourage them. We could have registration events in schools, colleges and universities. We have heard something about the activities that are already happening at some of them. Importantly, we could have citizenship on the curriculum. It is especially important to teach young people the nuts and bolts of how to vote and not to assume that people can do it automatically. People are shy of putting themselves in unfamiliar situations; they need to be helped to do that and supported along the way. There are wider questions about voting technologies and how to make the individual voter’s vote actually make a difference. There are also wider questions about young people’s engagement with democracy, voting for 16 and 17 year-olds, youth councils and youth parliaments.

I take this opportunity to decry how the Welsh national identity is ignored on election registration forms and to demand that the Minister makes good that archaism and commits to ensuring that people can record their nationality as Welsh, rather than British. Wales has a Welsh Government working on behalf of the Welsh people, and I am glad to say that we can record our nationality as Welsh on census forms. The Government do themselves no favours, however, with that lack of respect on registration forms. However inconvenient Wales may be, we cannot be defined out of existence.