Mr Llwyd
Right. Well, I will not go further on that, but the Secretary of State is in the Chamber and he will no doubt make some comments in due course. He was party to those discussions so perhaps his recollection will be useful, to see whether he agrees with me or with the hon. Gentleman. In any event, I will move on.
The Command Paper is not an agreement in the full sense. Obviously, we have all been discussing for some months what should or should not be included in it, and there is a promise to legislate after the election. The proposals would still leave Welsh devolution far behind that in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and despite what the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire said, the announcement of the Barnett floor leaves Wales worse off compared with Scotland. We are unable to celebrate proposals that amount to a row-back on a compromise that already existed in the Silk commission.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)
I am grateful for the incredibly constructive and principle-led way that the right hon. Gentleman engaged in our discussions in the run-up to the St David’s day announcement. He says that the package is not as advanced or radical as he interprets the Scottish package to be, but does he genuinely believe that the people of Wales, given the centre of gravity of Welsh public opinion, want a devolution settlement that is the same as Scotland’s?
Mr Llwyd
I would argue yes, because we need to get away from this pattern of asymmetrical devolution, which is complicated, time-consuming and ends up in references to the Supreme Court and so on. I know the reserved powers model will assist there. Yes, I do believe that. The major problem—I say this quite sincerely—is that we are not hitting on a fair funding formula for the future. The right hon. Gentleman knows that we discussed that issue in Committee and that the Barnett floor is of assistance. He also knows, as I have said before, that it is not the be-all and end-all or the ultimate answer to fair funding for Wales.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Alun Cairns)
When talking about a funding settlement, does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that Wales’s current settlement falls within the Holtham recommendation at £116 for every £100 spent in England? His recommendation was a figure between £114 and £117.
Mr Llwyd
My point is that the way the Barnett formula operates in Wales is still unfair in comparison with the amount paid out in Scotland—I am sure my friends in the Scottish National party would hit me over the head if they were here, but I will take advantage of the fact that they are not. It is a difference of £1.2 billion per annum, which is a lot of money. I remind Members that the current process on further powers for Wales began about four years ago. The issue of funding was then outside its remit, which I believe was a mistake, whether deliberate or not. Fair funding for Wales has gone for the time being, and it continues to be a major issue that the commission could have settled or commissioned work on for the future.
We entered these discussions in good faith and attempted to be constructive, as the Secretary of State said. I am not jumping up and down and screaming about the result—there are good things in the Command Paper, which I will refer to in a moment. However, we have missed an opportunity to have all the tools further to develop the economy of Wales, and to give the Welsh people further accountability for and control over the way they run their lives, and over the way money is spent for the economic good of Wales.
David T. C. Davies
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman’s relationship with BT is better than mine. I do not know, but there are certainly parts of Wales that broadband is not reaching and Monmouthshire is among them.
Alun Cairns
I remind my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) that the scheme the hon. Gentleman talks about includes significant taxpayers’ money from the UK Government, as well—that is, £70 million. A higher level of funding comes from the UK Government through the UK taxpayer than from the Welsh Government in that process.
David T. C. Davies
There we have it. There is money aplenty going in to it from the Welsh Assembly, the British taxpayers and the European Union, but it is still not getting to Monmouthshire. Perhaps we should return to that point. I appreciate the co-operation between members of the Committee. People outside the Committee could perhaps take a lesson on it. I do not want to be too critical of anyone on this Thursday afternoon, but it was interesting that we found in one of our inquiries that there was not quite the co-operation between International Business Wales and UK Trade & Investment that one would like. When the First Minister, or indeed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, goes off to sell Wales, they should go as part of a joint trade mission so that we can show investors from the far east or elsewhere that the Welsh Assembly and the national Government are speaking with one voice on the importance of inward investment. Whether politicans are Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru or from some other party, in the Assembly or Parliament, we all agree on the importance of getting investment into Wales.
Stephen Crabb
The Chairman of the Select Committee is making an important point about inward investment. It is worth putting it on the record that last year saw the highest level of inward investment in Wales for almost 25 years. The crucial point, which I think is what he is implying, is that almost all the inward investment projects were secured with the backing and support of UKTI. So collaboration between the Welsh Government and UKTI is vital.
David T. C. Davies
I accept that. I am trying not to be too critical of members of other parties. I simply make the point that co-operation is important not only in business but in tourism. I was surprised to learn that VisitBritain and Visit Wales do not have that many discussions with each other. I believe that the Welsh tourism Minister has not met senior people in VisitBritain and vice versa. That is disappointing, frankly, because they all have an interest in making sure that when tourists come to London they are told that the Principality of Wales is only two hours away by train and are encouraged to come and have a look at it.
One of the most topical issues that the Committee has looked at and that I suspect whoever chairs the Committee after the election will want to have another look at is the Severn bridge. The money to be returned to Severn River Crossing will have been paid by 2017. At that point the Government, whoever they are, will have to make a decision on whether to carry on using SRC or some other private company to collect the tolls or to bring the bridge back into public ownership.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), I want to talk about jobs. In part, I want to do so because yesterday at Wales questions the Secretary of State said that Opposition Members were
“peddling a gross caricature of the Welsh economy”—[Official Report, 4 March 2015; Vol. 593, c. 928.]
when we talked about the rise in low-paid insecure work in Wales. I say gently to the Secretary of State that he talks about a recovery bearing fruit, but not for the many of my constituents who come to see me week on week with their experiences of what it is like trying to find work out there. It is harder now to find a job with decent pay, predictable hours and security than it was before the financial crash.
We must of course all welcome unemployment coming down. I certainly do. We all want to see more people in work. However, we should not repeatedly ignore what is certainly the reality for many workers in Wales. We should not kid ourselves that everything is fine. The number of people in temporary employment in Wales since 2008 is up by 28%. The number of full-time jobs is down according to some estimates by about 51,000. There are 100,000 minimum wage jobs in Wales and 260,000 people earning less than the living wage. That is about a quarter of the work force, which is much higher than the UK average.
As we heard earlier, the Office for National Statistics estimated last week that about 1.8 million people were working zero-hours contract jobs, a statistic that could equate to about 90,000 workers in Wales on zero-hours contracts. These are often jobs without holiday pay, sick pay and pension rights. It is not always bad to be on a zero-hours contract—for example, there are students who hope that it will tide them over—but for many others, as my hon. Friend said, it is about financial security and the ability to plan for the future. Many of these jobs pay on average about £300 less a week than other jobs. Figures last week from the Office for Budget Responsibility show that the taxpayer has been hit with a bill of about £90 million for top-ups such as tax credits, because many of the new jobs are so low paid.
Stephen Crabb
The hon. Lady is of course absolutely right to describe the insecurity people feel when they are doing jobs that do not give them enough hours, or minimum wage jobs that do not bring home enough money to provide for their families. However, the ONS last week was very clear that the 1.8 million figure refers to the number of contracts in the British economy, not the number of individuals on zero-hours contracts. We have to be very careful. The actual, correct figure—I should have come back to the shadow Secretary of State yesterday on this—for the number of people in Wales on zero-hours contracts is 35,000. That represents less than 3% of all employees.
Jessica Morden
But 35,000, even if it is that figure, still represents a huge number of workers in insecure work who cannot plan for the future because they do not know what their weekly income will be.
There is now an extra bill for topping up pay with things such as tax credits because so many of the new jobs in the economy are so low paid. We can debate the figures, but we also need to think about the issues that people bring to me week after week. It is only fair in such debates that I give a voice to some of the people I have seen recently. Last week, a man contacted me about a jobs issue facing members of his family. A Newport company had changed its cleaning contract, presumably to save money, and the new contractors told the staff that they would have to work for six weeks before they were paid, and then they would be paid only for four weeks. That is how they were to keep their just-above-minimum-wage jobs that they had had for 10 years.
I met a graduate who works for a sports shop on a zero-hours contract and who had lots of hours before Christmas but is now being offered one or two shifts a week if she is lucky. She is a graduate who wants a long-term career, but she is having to hang on to that job because that is all there is. A constituent who is in the same boat is working in the care industry on a zero-hours contract. She is struggling to get any kind of mortgage because her weekly take-home pay is so insecure. A construction worker’s pay is being reduced because he is being paid through an umbrella company that is owned by the contractor he is working for, which then deducts unnecessary fees from his take-home pay. I am glad that that practice has been outlawed by the Welsh Government, particularly for the work on the heads of the valleys road, but it should be outlawed more widely, and I hope it is.
I recently spoke to a group who volunteer to work in food banks across south Wales. They said that the rise in the number of people going to food banks is due to welfare changes, but also that they are seeing more people who are in low-paid work. One of the volunteers asked me, quite reasonably, “Why won’t Government Ministers come and talk to us on the front line so that they can see the reasons why people are coming to use food banks and act on it?” I told her about the inquiry by the all-party group on hunger and food poverty, led by the Bishop of Truro. It has produced an extremely comprehensive and readable report called “Feeding Britain” that has come up with some very sensible recommendations. The report said that, yes, welfare changes, sanctions and the bedroom tax are all factors in the rise of food banks, but it is also due to the fact that a quarter of people using them are in low-paid work. I had to say to her that groups like this have been doing this work, and they have gathered the evidence, but the Government are choosing not to hear it.
We need decent work and decent pay. That was recently the subject of a Wales TUC campaign. I hope that a future Labour Government will pledge to take action on the minimum wage, encourage more people to pay the living wage, tackle zero-hours contracts, and begin to put some of this right.
I know that it is nearly time for the main act, but I want to talk about one more thing that I hope we get right in future. It was mentioned by the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) and is probably one of the few things on which I agree with him. It is the thorny issue of the Severn tolls, which are, as we repeatedly say, the highest tolls in the UK. That is felt most keenly in constituencies such as mine, by commuters, by businesses and by hauliers. The concession has not served us well, and we hope that it will end in 2018. Every time we ask when it will end, the period extends and extends again. That indicates how difficult the issue has been. It is now time for us to start to make sensible decisions about tolling levels in future. We all want the tolls to come down, and I think we should consider creative options such as off-peak travel for hauliers and concessions for people who live locally. The Welsh Affairs Committee has done some excellent work which I think could form the basis of a solution. I hope that we can cut those tolls dramatically, and ensure that high tolls are not used as a cash cow for the Government in the future. That—along with persuading First Great Western to increase its capacity on commuter routes such as the one from Bristol to Cardiff—would go some way towards resolving some of the transport problems in my part of the world.
Let me end by wishing a very happy retirement—well, it is not strictly a retirement, but it is a retirement from the House—to the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), and also to my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), who has given fantastic support to me over the years, both in this place and in my former job. I know that we shall miss him greatly.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to wind up this important debate on behalf of the Opposition. I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) on securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it.
We have heard many excellent and diverse speeches, to which I pay tribute. The right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) spoke without a trace of irony of his desire for a reduction in the level of VAT applying to Welsh tourism businesses—failing, of course, to mention that he was a member of the Government who raised the level of VAT applying to tourism and, indeed, to everyone in Wales. However, he spoke extremely well about Wales, with great passion and conviction.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams), who spoke mainly about the tourism and farming industries in his part of Wales. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), the Chair of the Select Committee, who spoke with his customary verve and chutzpah, and, with his customary diligence, managed to reprise the “flat earth” speech which is so dear to me and which we have heard so many times in this place. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) spoke eloquently and passionately about the realities of the world of work in Wales, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) spoke about the problems of heavy industry and remediation of the open-cast works in her constituency and others in south Wales. I hope that when we, as a Labour Government, succeed the present Government, we will pursue that issue with great vigour.
Let me also pay tribute to the Members who are retiring from the House. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) is always—well, perhaps a little less so today—a courteous and wholly accurate contributor. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I shall explain what I meant by that later. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman is always courteous in contributing to the life of the House. He will be missed when he retires from this place, but I am sure that he will continue to serve Wales extremely well, and I count him as a friend despite our slight contretemps today.
The speech made today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy) was heard with the usual deference and respect, owing to the experience and sagacity that he has brought to his role. He has been a noble and excellent servant of his community, his party and the House during his long time here. He has twice been Secretary of State for Wales, and he has been a great friend to Wales and to me. I know that everyone in the House will join me in paying great tribute to him.
Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn, my right hon. Friend drew attention to what an important event this is. It is, in effect, the St David’s day debate, although it is not actually taking place on St David’s day as it has in the past. The debate is important because it puts Wales in the spotlight, at the heart of our national conversation in our national United Kingdom Parliament. It is important because we are of course a minority nation of just 3 million people among 60 million, and there is always a danger that, as a minority part of the UK state, our voices are drowned out in the babel of voices from other parts of the UK, in particular of course the lion’s share of people who live in and come from England. This Parliament is in institutional terms the greatest expression of this United Kingdom. My right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen spoke for me and many on the Opposition Benches, and indeed for many on the other side of the House, when he expressed his concerns about the way in which the voice of Wales has been diminished and is at risk of being diminished to an even greater extent as we move forward. The Government have, I fear, played fast and loose with some of the constitutional arrangements in this country, and have engaged in attacks on parts of this country, notably Wales, as a proxy for attacking Labour, and have failed to appreciate the lasting damage they are doing, and will continue to do if they persist with these attacks, on the social and economic union of Great Britain, the most effective and successful social, political and economic union ever created in the world. That is a theme I intend to return to later.
First, I shall do two simple things: I want to reflect on how the last five years of this Tory-Liberal coalition have impacted on Wales—on our people, our prosperity and our public finances; and I want to reflect on how the relationship between Wales and the rest of the UK has evolved under it, both in terms of the business of government and the attitudes of the Welsh people to the governance of our country.
It may have escaped your notice, Mr Deputy Speaker, and it certainly escaped the notice of many people in Wales, that the Prime Minister has been reflecting on the very same theme in this last St David’s week of this Parliament. Perhaps because he was admonished by the Secretary of State, along with his other Cabinet colleagues, for speaking ill of Wales—told to mind his language when talking about the Land of our Fathers—the Prime Minister has been love-bombing Wales in the last week. He came to Cardiff at the weekend to speak at the Tory party conference, singing Sam Warburton’s praises and resisting, I am glad to say, even a glimmer of gloating at the fact that we lost to the English. Then he hosted the St David’s day reception on Monday, which I was unable to attend. I think I am right in saying that it is the first St David’s day reception—the first for a long while—that the Conservative Prime Minister has held at No. 10. [Hon. Members: “More than one!”] If I am wrong, I happily withdraw that. It is certainly the first one to which I and other Labour Members have been invited, shall we say? So it was a pleasant surprise to receive the stiff card, but I am afraid I was unable to attend. Obviously Conservatives have previously been invited, but we were not.
Throughout this period of love-bombing the Prime Minister has been looking back at the relationship between his Government and Wales. Some of it has been pure fantasy. In one speech he was musing about the prospects of Tory candidates winning seats in the valleys, ousting sitting and prospective Labour Members and wishing our candidates a cheery “da iawn” on coming second. The Prime Minister, I am told, even had to have lessons in pronunciation—
Owen Smith
The Secretary of State shakes his head, but, as he ought to know, the speech was released to the media accidentally with the “da iawn” included in it and some suggestions as to how the Prime Minister ought to pronounce that, but if he thinks there is any prospect of Tories in the valleys ousting our Members I have another bit of Welsh for him: “Yn dy freuddwydion,” which means “In your dreams.”
Owen Smith
I will happily give way. Is the hon. Gentleman about to correct my Welsh?
Alun Cairns
May I suggest that, having made such an attempt at Welsh, perhaps the hon. Gentleman needs some lessons in pronunciation?
Owen Smith
I would accept that, as a native English speaker and a failed Welsh learner. I am still trying, although I have not reached the same standards as some, but I think that was a fair attempt at “In your dreams.”
Other examples from the Prime Minister have been pure comedy gold—not weak gags like that. We have had some excellent examples from the Prime Minister. He channelled his Welshness in trying to come up with a nickname for the Secretary of State. There is a great tradition of nicknames in Wales—Dai the Milk, Evans the Coal, and we even had Jones the Jag at one point in this place—but so impressed was the Prime Minister at the way in which the Secretary of State has warmed to devolution, indeed undertaken a damascene conversion, I am told that he referred to him as being known now in Tory circles as “Stevolution”. It has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? I am not sure that it is the ring of truth, however. I am not entirely persuaded that he is now so devo-friendly that he could be known as “Stevolution” in Tory circles.
What certainly does not have the ring of truth are some of the other claims that the Prime Minister has been making on behalf of the Tories. He claimed this week that it was the Tories who brought Pinewood studios to Wales, despite the fact that the UK Government had nothing to do with it—
Owen Smith
Well, I am terribly sorry, but I have read the Prime Minister’s speech, and that is precisely what he said, despite the fact that that was nothing to do with the UK Government. It was delivered entirely by the Welsh Government while this Government were slashing arts funding.
The Prime Minister also claimed that the Tories were responsible for Hitachi rebuilding Wylfa power station, despite the fact that it was of course the last Labour Government who signed the contract for that new generation power station. He even claimed credit for Airbus making wings for the A380 in Wales, despite the fact that the company has been making aircraft at Broughton since the second world war. The most shameless in this series of porkies was the suggestion that the Tories had secured the funding for S4C, when in truth they had cut it by a third.
Stephen Crabb
The shadow Secretary of State was doing really well up to this point, but he has now let himself down. The important point that the Prime Minister was making when he referred to all those positive things that are happening in the Welsh economy was not that politicians are taking the credit; he was giving the credit to business. That is the crucial difference between our party and the hon. Gentleman’s party: we praise business; Labour attacks it.
Owen Smith
I would fully accept that, were it consonant with the facts. The Prime Minister actually said in his conference speech, after listing all those achievements:
“We need to tell everyone who did all this…it’s us.”
This clearly is not true.
A bigger truth is that the Tories have done precious little to help the economy of Wales, but they have done plenty to hinder it. The people of Wales know that. When they hear the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister claiming credit for creating jobs in Wales, they know that 90,000 contracts or jobs in Wales, not 35,000 individuals, but that might also be right—[Interruption.] No, I said “jobs” yesterday. The Secretary of State should read the Hansard. They know that too many of those jobs are Tory-style mini-jobs involving zero-hours contracts, zero security, low wages and low productivity. They also know that a quarter of Welsh workers earn less than the living wage. Wales has the lowest disposable incomes in the UK.
The people of Wales know that these facts give the lie to the notion that there is a Tory-led recovery, as does the fact that we are £68 billion short on tax receipts and spending £25 billion extra on social security. The price of this failure in Wales under the Tories is a tenfold increase in the volume of people using food banks and £1,700 less in the pockets of Welsh families.
In stark contrast, the Welsh Labour Government have shown that they can get Wales working again. Jobs Growth Wales, designed and built in Cardiff, has got 17,000 young people back to work, showing that local solutions with bespoke ideas can deliver jobs in Wales. So it is inexplicable that the Tory party—the “party of real devolution”, as I am told it now calls itself—is still refusing to devolve the Work programme to Wales, as Labour will when we win in May. Inexplicable, too—to many in Wales—is why fair funding for Wales is being promised only if Wales agrees to raise taxes.
Last week, the Welsh Secretary made some important announcements about his Government’s intentions to take forward the recommendations of the cross-party Silk Commission if—heaven forefend—they are back in government next time. The Opposition agree with many of those extra measures. Putting the Welsh settlement on to the same statutory footing and making the Welsh legislature a permanent part of the UK constitution are proposals that we can agree on. We also agree with proposals to give powers to Wales over elections and energy, and additional powers over ports and marine matters. Indeed, we said all those things first. But we will go further. We will give Wales powers over policing, which is why I was disappointed at the mischaracterisation of Labour’s position by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. I am sure the Secretary of State will recall our position during those talks, which was, “Reserved and then announced at the party conference for Labour in Wales.”
Lastly, fair funding for Wales was one of the most important aspects of the talks. It is disingenuous of the Secretary of State now to talk about delivering fair funding, given that his Government have cut £1.5 billion from the funding for Wales and he knows that their plans to cut funding to the rest of the UK back to the levels of the 1930s will have a deeply damaging effect on Wales. Cutting spending back to the level it was when the NHS was just a glint in Nye Bevan’s eye would be devastating for Wales. So we agree with the Secretary of State that there should be a funding floor in Wales, but we want to see the detail and to know precisely where they will set that floor. Only then will the people of Wales trust this Tory Government—
Alun Cairns
What detail is the hon. Gentleman prepared to put forward on Labour’s funding floor proposal? The shadow Chancellor said in Cardiff today that Labour would be presenting no detail this side of the election.
Owen Smith
We will stand on our record of having trebled the funding for Wales during our period in office. While the Under-Secretary has been in office, the spending for Wales has been cut by £1.5 billion. So we will stand proudly on our record and we can rest assured that the people of Wales will understand that we will deliver for Wales.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)
It is a real privilege to speak as Welsh Secretary for the first time in a St David’s day debate. We have had a good debate, with a good selection of contributions from Members from across the parties representative of Wales. We have heard from Members from right across Wales in an interesting and stimulating discussion. It is fitting that we should use this St David’s day debate to draw to a close a good week for Wales and to reflect on what this Government have achieved in Wales during this Parliament. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for securing this debate, and it is important that we do have it every year. Of course, the Wright reforms recognised that as we transferred more days in a Session to Back-Bench control, the territorial debates should be part of that. So today’s debate is entirely in keeping with that tradition.
The opening contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire was wise and as insightful as ever. One thing that caught my ear was his saying that no one can really understand Wales unless they are Welsh, and I believe he quoted someone as saying that no Englishman truly understands Wales. I happen to think we have a Prime Minister who does get Wales and does understand why it is different. As a result, he understands far better than any of the other UK leaders the importance of the Union and why devolution matters. Perhaps the Prime Minister gave us a hint at his own St David’s day party on Monday night as to why he understands Wales so well. Of course, he revealed that he has Welsh ancestry, and does not have to go that far back to find that one of his forebears was Llewellyn, a tin-plate maker in Glamorgan. So I think all of us in the House this afternoon from Wales will welcome the fact that we are cut from the same cloth as the Prime Minister.
As I look back, I think 2014 was a great year for Wales. I think it was the best year for Wales since the devolution era began. It was a year for Wales to look upwards and outwards, a year of ambition—a year when the Prime Minister brought the NATO summit to Wales. Indeed, he brought the world to Wales, when the largest gathering of international leaders that the UK has ever seen came to Newport and Cardiff in south Wales. It was a year when Wales’s international profile could not have been higher. Two months later, we brought the international investment summit back to the Celtic Manor in Newport, where more than 150 global investors came to look at why Wales is such a great place to invest. It was the year, as I mentioned earlier, when inward investment for Wales was at its highest level for almost 25 years. At that investment summit, we announced our commitment to electrifying the south Wales and the valleys rail lines—a project that has been discussed for years, but which it took a Conservative-led coalition Government to take forward.
Last year was also a year of reaching for the stars, a year of ambition—a year when Team Wales, the Welsh Commonwealth games team, smashed every one of its targets, up at the Commonwealth games in Glasgow. It was indeed a year of reaching for stars—the year when three Welsh companies participated in that amazing project that landed a probe on a comet travelling at 36,000 mph, 300 million miles from earth. We have some great Welsh companies, and as the economy continues to improve in Wales, we are seeing some of the best innovation anywhere in the UK coming out of Wales.
I will return to the economy, if I have time, in a moment, but it is telling that just before this debate started, I was at the First Minister’s own St David’s day reception, which was hosted by the Foreign Office. He too praised the NATO summit coming to Wales, and said it was even better for Wales given that the UK Government were paying the bills for it. The other important point he made at this afternoon’s event was about the improving economy in Wales. We have a First Minister—a Welsh Labour First Minister—who recognises and praises the economic recovery that is happening in Wales. Unfortunately, he has party colleagues in this place who talk down the economic recovery. One of the great themes of the last two years is the way that Welsh Labour in Westminster faces one way, while Welsh Labour in Cardiff faces another when it comes to thinking, reflecting and talking about what is going on inside the Welsh economy.
Now would be a good moment to pay particular tribute to the contribution from the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), a distinguished former Secretary of State who has achieved an incredible amount in his lifetime, not just for Wales, but for Northern Ireland, the other great country that he has huge knowledge of and passion for. He reflected on his first St David’s day debate, back in 1987, and talked about some of the parallels that he sees in Wales now in respect of funding. Of course, 1987 was also a time when Wales was attracting some 20% of all UK inward investment; a time when the Welsh Development Agency was achieving great things for Wales. We need to get back to some of those strong points about Wales, which he reflected on.
We also had a superb contribution from the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), who, like the right hon. Member for Torfaen, is standing down at the general election. He used his contribution to talk about devolution. In his view, the St David’s day process was a missed opportunity, because he would have wanted to go further. Of course he would: he is Plaid Cymru; he is a Welsh nationalist. However, I hope he appreciates that we had good, constructive conversations and that this was a good example of politicians from across Wales thinking about things in a way we have not done before, rolling up our sleeves and trying to be pragmatic. I appreciate the spirit in which he participated in that exercise and the contribution that Plaid Cymru made to the process.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) made a great speech. The first Westminster Hall debate that I secured, almost 10 years ago, when I was first elected, was on the future of the dairy industry. He made a powerful contribution in that debate about the dairy industry in Wales. I guess it is sad that we are still focusing on some of those issues, looking at market imbalances and unfair practices in the way suppliers are treated by large processors and large supermarkets. It is a testimony to his tenaciousness that he keeps banging the drum and fighting the fight for dairy farmers, particularly from west Wales, which is such an important part of our economy.
We had a good contribution from the hon. Member for Ynys Môn, who talked about energy production and food production. I am sure he is aware that the food that was served up at the Prime Minister’s St David’s day reception on Monday night was prepared by a team of chefs from north Wales. They were part of the Welsh Culinary Association. [Interruption.] We will make sure that the hon. Gentleman is down for it next year. Some of the ingredients used were indeed from Ynys Môn. He is quite right that the annual Anglesey day has become an event of almost international renown; on display is a superb array of quality.
I probably do not have time to discuss all the contributions. I was particularly struck by what the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) said. He gave an incredibly optimistic, upbeat and bright speech about Wales and its future. As he was speaking, I scribbled the words, “Sunshine and daffodils”, which are perhaps not characteristic of his usual contributions. His comments about the paradise of 10th-century Wales were perhaps slightly rose-tinted, but we are grateful to him for the air of daffodils he brought to this debate.
Two issues were mentioned that the Wales Office needs to follow up, the first of which concerns the 2 Sisters Food Group, with which we are currently dealing. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) has also written to me about a matter we have talked about on at least two or three occasions. I apologise that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has not secured the meeting she wanted. We have been pushing on the issue and will continue to do so. I promise to try to make that meeting happen before Parliament wraps up for the general election. I know she has worked hard on what is an incredibly difficult issue, but she has her teeth into it and we wish her every success in getting to the bottom of it.
In the two or three minutes remaining, let me focus on the economy. We have two counter-narratives going on. On the Government Benches, we say not that the job is done or that everything is rosy in the garden, but that really good progress is being made. We say that the fall in unemployment across Wales is remarkable. It is completely contrary to everything that Welsh Labour had been predicting four years ago. We say that the drop of 39,000 in the number of children growing up in a home where neither mum nor dad are working is not just economic transformation but social transformation, and we want that to continue.
I am proud to be part of a Government who are tackling the abuses of zero-hours contracts. That did not happen under Labour’s watch, but under this coalition Government’s. We have taken steps to ban the exclusivity clauses that are the really pernicious parts of zero-hours contracts. If the moral outrage from Labour over zero-hours contracts was genuine, why are so many Labour councils employing people on such contracts? Why do I read in the press all these reports of Labour MPs employing staff on zero-hours contracts? Let us have a little less of that faux moral outrage, and a bit more realistic and honest reflection on what are difficult issues.
I will wrap up now to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire to sum up the debate that he helped to secure. I think 2014 was the year in which the economic recovery moved up a gear in Wales; 2015 will be the year in which the people of Wales will start to feel it and share in the benefits. What will put it all at risk is the barrage of anti-business negativity and criticism which has become a dominant theme of the Labour party—certainly the party at Westminster.