Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that tempting question. It is business as usual in the Wales Office, and that is why I am proud to repeat what I said just now: we are getting on with the levelling-up fund, the community renewal fund and the shared prosperity fund. We have investment across every part of Wales, and despite all her protestations, there is so much evidence that being part of the Union is part of the success of Wales in creating sustainable, long-term jobs. I dearly wish she would come and join us in the endeavour to improve the life of people in Wales, rather than using cheap political opportunities to do the opposite.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

3. What discussions the Government have had with the Welsh Government on the adequacy of cross-border healthcare provision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (David T. C. Davies)]

The UK Government will continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure that everyone across the UK gets the healthcare they need. There is a memorandum of understanding with the Welsh NHS, which has been essential in resolving a number of long-standing issues over patients’ rights across the border.

[Craig Williams]

I thank the Minister for that answer, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) is to the left of me. We have been working hard to try to get the Welsh Government and the Department of Health and Social Care together to talk about ambulance times. My constituents are suffering, because if they get into a Welsh ambulance or an English ambulance, they still go to the same district general hospital in Shrewsbury. Will the Minister pull together the two Governments to talk about ambulance waiting times in Shrewsbury?

[David T. C. Davies]

I would certainly be happy to write to the Department of Health and Social Care. I am afraid that I am not responsible for the Welsh Government, but I would be pleased to see them working harder to ensure that patients in his constituency get access to the healthcare they need. For 21 years, the NHS in Wales has been run by the Labour party, and one in four people are now waiting more than 12 months for treatment, and that is an absolute disgrace that Opposition Members are responsible for.

Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Everybody in work—30 million workers—will get a tax cut in July, on top of everything that we are already doing, but that is not the end of what this Government are going to do to look after people. I told the House before this afternoon that we will continue to use our fiscal firepower to look after the British people through the covid aftershocks and beyond.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

On Monday at 3.25 pm, a school bus crashed into a group of schoolchildren in Llanfair Caereinion. Three children were airlifted to hospital, with another child and the bus driver taken by ambulance, and a fifth child was discharged at the scene. Everyone is in a stable condition. Clearly, this is a tragic accident that will stay with the community for some time. Will the Prime Minister join me and, I am sure, the whole House in sending our love and prayers to those in hospital? Will he also praise the teaching staff of both the primary and the high school, Wales Air Ambulance and Dyfed-Powys police for their heroic and continuing response to the community?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very sad incident. I am sure that the thoughts of the whole House will be with those who have been affected. I want to join him, in particular, in paying tribute to the emergency services and, of course, the teachers and staff at the school, who did so much to help.

Welsh Affairs

Craig Williams Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wayne David]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend has made, and is making, a huge contribution to this debate through his able chairpersonship of the all-party parliamentary group on the shared prosperity fund.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way, and I will pay a broader tribute to him when I speak.

I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s description of issues such as the community renewal fund. We secured 23% of that fund for 165 projects in Wales, which is above and beyond the UK share that we would have got from any European project. Will he reflect on that sharing of the fund and hope that we secure more? When I talk to local authorities, they tell me that they are very welcoming of the schemes and the fact that they engage with them directly rather than through third parties.

[Wayne David]

It is a complicated situation. Initially, we were extremely concerned because, objectively speaking, areas of obvious need were being excluded for no good reason at all. That situation has changed, and I have to say that is because of our strong lobbying. It is very important to recognise that.

If we look across the border, we see that the situation in England is very worrying indeed, because in many cases resources were allocated not on the basis of need, but on the basis of a perverse formula that was concocted to help areas that most of us would agree do not need support. I am concerned about what has happened so far and the implications for the future.

The Government have apparently moved away from a competition mechanism whereby local authorities and others compete against each other. However, given the performance of the community renewal fund, I am worried that we will get another perverse formula that does not recognise what most of us would consider to be objective need. That is what happened with the European funding, but we are concerned that it may not happen with the shared prosperity fund.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) touched on my final point about the shared prosperity fund. He said that he was concerned about how it would relate to devolution. It is extremely important that we ensure that different tiers of government—central Government and the Welsh Government—work together. There must be, to repeat the phrase I used earlier, mutual respect between the two institutions. They need to pull together so that resources are used to maximum effect. It worries me greatly that there is, unfortunately, quite a lot of friction between the Welsh Government and central Government. I have to be honest: it seems to me that that is because central Government refuse to co-operate fully with the Welsh Government on economic development. I plead with the Wales Office and central Government to move away from that approach and to recognise that, at the end of the day, our interest is in the wellbeing of the people of Wales. We need to pull together in the interests of all our people, not indulge in petty squabbles and friction, and the onus is on central Government to do that.

It is very important that the Secretary of State issues a clarification today on the shared prosperity fund and sweeps to one side the fog that has descended over the replacement for European funding. We need clarity on what is going to happen in the very near future.

The second issue that I would like to address is the cost of living crisis in Wales. I referred in the Welsh Grand Committee to the Bevan Foundation’s excellent December report, which gave information on poverty in Wales in winter 2021. Two of its conclusions are very worrying. First, it said:

“Households are struggling to make ends meet—Nearly four in ten Welsh households (39 per cent) do not have enough money to buy anything beyond everyday items, up from 33 per cent in May”.

It also concluded that living costs were still rising, stating:

“Households across Wales have seen their living costs increase. More than half have seen the cost of food increase with more than six in ten seeing the cost of their utilities increase.”

As we all know, since that report was written at the end of last year, things have become much more difficult for many families—for all families, in fact—in Wales.

We all know that the fuel crisis is an important part of the general crisis. Unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine and Russia is making it worse—we cannot get away from that fact. I am extremely concerned about how it impacts directly on my constituents. I will give two examples. One constituent recently got in touch with the constituency office in Bedwas, Caerphilly to let us know that she would usually pay £80 a month for her fuel bill but that it has now jumped to £210 a month. That is a 162.5% increase. She told us that she is going to have to choose between heating and eating for her and her child. That is the reality, and that is just one example.

Another constituent said that his combined energy utility bill was £101 a month, but from this March it will increase to £340 a month. That is a huge increase—it is phenomenal. He is a retired gentleman and says that he has a good pension, but even he will find it difficult to make ends meet.

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[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I join in the tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), who has announced his retirement at far too young an age? There is plenty of life left in him yet. I wish him and his partner Jayne well when, eventually, in some considerable time, perhaps in a couple of years, he stands down from the House. May I also extend that to you, Madam Deputy Speaker? With both you and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly announcing your intention to leave the House at the next election, we will be poorer on these Benches in the future. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly is not leaving because in one of the last Welsh affairs debates I claimed the title of Tad y Tŷ—the Welsh Father of the House—as the longest serving Welsh Member of Parliament, having sneaked in before everybody else back in 2001 and taken my oath first of the Welsh intake at that time. I know it was dispiriting for all the other Welsh Members to suddenly realise that their hopes of ever being Tad y Tŷ were threatened by my claim to that title.

We meet to celebrate that patron saint of Wales and St David’s Day, and to discuss Welsh affairs, as we usually do each March. As I have said before, this should be a permanent fixture and we should not have to go to the Backbench Business Committee with a begging bowl to ask for this debate each year. As other Members have said, we meet at a time of great peril for Ukraine and for the world. I want to take this opportunity to express the solidarity of the people of my constituency, in Wales’s capital city, with the people of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and the whole of the Ukrainian people. Hon. Members may not be aware, although some will, that one of my predecessors had strong Ukrainian ties. In what can only be described as a temporary historical blip, the voters of Cardiff West broke habits that were decades old and returned a Conservative MP in 1983. I am afraid that the experiment was not a success and after four years they returned to Labour, and have done so ever since, to my considerable benefit. The name of the late Conservative MP for Cardiff West was Stefan Terlezki, who was born in what is now western Ukraine in 1927. I should make it clear that his politics and mine could hardly have been more different, but his extraordinary life story, where he was both enslaved by the Nazis and conscripted into the red army, from which he absconded, is a reminder of the suffering that the people of Ukraine have endured through war in their history. When Ukraine became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he warned of the dangers of maintaining overly close ties with Russia and pressed for Ukrainian membership of the European Union. We now see his fears being realised before our eyes.

Hon. Members also may not be aware of this Welsh connection with Ukraine, but we are learning more about Ukrainian history, perhaps for the first time. For example, the city of Donetsk in Ukraine owes its creation to a man from Merthyr Tydfil, John Hughes. Towards the end of the 19th century, he left the Welsh valleys to start a new life in what was then one of imperial Russia’s industrial centres. In 1869, Hughes, along with dozens of others, embarked on a daunting journey of more than 2,000 miles, boarding eight ships and heading eastwards, ultimately using the opportunity to set up a state-of-the-art steelworks and ironworks of his own in what is now Ukraine. He chose the Donbas region, because of its rich mineral deposits. As word reached the ears of skilled workers, engineers and managers back home, around the site there gradually grew up a thriving town of expatriate Welsh people, which was christened Hughesovka and later Yusovka. It had grown to a population of 50,000 by the turn of the 20th century, although its Welsh influence would come to an end with the Soviet revolution in 1917, after which it was renamed Stalino and later Donetsk. Today, there still remains one part of Donetsk known as Yusovka, and we, as Welsh MPs in the UK Parliament, send a message, across political parties, of solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

However, Wales is the focus of today’s debate and I wish to talk a little about Welsh leadership. The past two years of the covid pandemic have highlighted the issue of leadership and styles of leadership, providing a case study in different types of leadership at a Wales and a UK level. There is no doubt that the people of Wales have been glad to have had my friend and constituency colleague Mark Drakeford as First Minister during the past two years of the covid crisis. His thoughtful, serious and empathetic approach has provided a contrast with the shambolic, chaotic and irresponsible behaviour of the UK Prime Minister; while a bevy of drunken parties, in breach of the Government’s own regulations, were proceeding at the heart of the UK Government, in and around No. 10 Downing Street, the First Minister of Wales was devoting every ounce of his efforts and attention to protecting the Welsh people against the deadly virus, even taking the precaution of occupying a small separate building in his garden to avoid spreading it. Throughout, he was prepared to take difficult, potentially unpopular decisions for the good of the nation. In short, he was faithful to the facts, not a hostage to the headlines—that was the approach the UK Prime Minister, in his desperate desire to not upset the right-wing press, pursued.

We see further evidence of that compassionate leadership in Wales’s response to the Ukraine crisis. As I mentioned in an intervention, the First Minister has made it clear that Wales is proud to be a nation of refuge and has set aside £4 million from the Welsh Government’s own budget for financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. I still do not understand why the UK Government were content until recently to provide passports and privileges to Putin’s pals but are still refusing to waive visas for Putin’s Ukrainian victims in their desperate hour of need. The quality of that Welsh leadership has been reflected in the polls. In a recent poll, in January, in Wales, more than 1,000 people aged 16 and over were asked about leadership during the pandemic and the different approaches that were taken in Wales and England. They were asked which approach they preferred, and 60% preferred the Welsh approach, 17% preferred the English approach, 10% did not know and 13% expressed neither opinion. Other polls have shown that even voters in England preferred the Welsh approach to the covid crisis than the one that has been taken in England. We need to reflect on the whole issue of leadership and what it means, and I think that Mark Drakeford been an exemplar of good political leadership.

I also wish to mention the excellent leadership of Wales’s capital city, Cardiff, by council leader Huw Thomas and his Welsh Labour colleagues. During the pandemic they acted so that no one needed to go hungry, setting up an advice line, and co-ordinating with Cardiff food bank and delivering 13,271 food parcels. On refugees, Cardiff hosted one of the highest numbers of people seeking sanctuary per head of any local authority in the UK; 50% of all asylum seekers in Wales have been hosted in Cardiff in recent years, and the people of Cardiff have been generous in doing this. On the environment, Cardiff has been recognised by the Queen’s green canopy, the UK-wide tree planting initiative for the jubilee, as a champion city. Cardiff Council has planted more than 25,000 trees and started work to increase canopy cover from 19% to 25% of the city. This year, 16,000 trees will be planted in a single planting season.

On culture, the post-covid-lockdown “Live and Unlocked” music gigs at Cardiff castle last August, funded by the council and the Welsh Government and curated by grassroots venues and supporting performers, who have struggled during the pandemic, were a huge success. Successive Purple Flag awards for excellence in the night-time economy have been given to Cardiff since 2019, and £130 million of business support was distributed by the council during the pandemic. The council also adopted a new street-naming policy that I particularly welcomed using Welsh language names by default, with an expert panel proposing names that reflect local history and historic place names. Cardiff Council is working towards parity in the number of English versus Welsh language street names across the city.

That kind of leadership needs to be praised, and I hope that it will be added to at the forthcoming local elections in Wales in May by the candidates for Welsh Labour in my constituency, who I think will all make excellent councillors, including Jasmin Chowdhury, Stephen Cunnah and Susan Elsmore in Canton; Leo Thomson, Kanaya Singh and Caro Wild in Riverside; Peter Bradbury and Elaine Simmons in Caerau; Russell Goodway, Maliika Kaaba and Irene Humphreys in Ely; Laura Rochefort and Peter Jenkins in Llandaff; Helen Lloyd Jones and Tyrone Davies in Radyr; John Yarrow in Pentyrch; and Claudia Boes, Saleh Ahmed and Lorna Stabler in Fairwater. I believe that great leadership requires clear vision, integrity, the ability to see round corners and a willingness to take on difficult decisions. Both the Welsh Government and Cardiff Council have shown that.

I will move on to one final point: the pig-headedness of the Home Office post Brexit on certain issues, and its impact on the Welsh economy and, particularly, Welsh tourism and tourism across the UK. I refer in particular to school trips that are undertaken by children from member states of the European Union. I was formerly a chair of Cardiff castle when I was a member of the local authority in Cardiff. It is a wonderful centrepiece of our capital city, and was bequeathed to the city by the Marquess of Bute and the Bute family. It is a major tourist attraction in Wales and in the city of Cardiff, and a big attraction for coach parties of school children from the continent of Europe, particularly from France, Italy, Germany and other EU countries.

As a result of Brexit, the Home Office has decided that any child visiting the UK on a school trip has to have a full passport. Previously they need only have carried an identity card or some group identity passport. That was all that was required to participate in the school trip. As a result of that decision, it was reported in The Guardian at the end of last year—this evidence was confirmed by Bernard Donoghue, the chief executive of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, at a recent meeting of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee—that 80% of some travel companies’ customers are now going elsewhere than Wales, or the rest of the UK, as a result of the policy.

[Craig Williams]

Would Welsh schoolchildren—British schoolchildren—going into the European Union Schengen area in the past couple of decades have got away with a driving licence, or would they have needed a passport to enter?

[Kevin Brennan]

I took many school trips over, and they did not require a passport in order to travel because group travel arrangements can be made within the European Union.

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[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a great delight to take part in this debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) for opening it. I know we all say that there should be a staged item on the parliamentary programme every year, but through the usual channels we seem to have it on an annual basis, so clearly something works, and I hope that that continues long after his retirement. I pay particular tribute to him; his Unionist credentials have never been in doubt and since I have been elected his sage advice and warm words for our United Kingdom have been incredibly welcome. They will be missed on the Labour Benches—although hopefully there are still years to come before then in which he can move the debate.

I echo the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) on energy policy and in particular the role of nuclear in Wales. I wish him and other colleagues championing it success—I had better mention my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) and her long-haul campaign to deliver nuclear power on Wylfa and Trawsfynydd.

I also echo the points made around the Royal Welsh battle group. We have leaned heavily on our armed forces during covid with military aid in response to civil authorities’ requests, and the strength of the United Kingdom can be seen nowhere better. I know that from my own experience nigh-on two weeks ago, when we called the Welsh Ambulance Service because I was helping a dear lady who had fallen over on Welshpool High Street. Ten minutes later, an ambulance turned up and out jumped a paramedic and a member of our armed forces. It is great to see that support continuing. Clearly it is not sustainable, but that is what our armed forces and the United Kingdom Government are there to do: to provide support where we need it the most.

In this debate more than most, our thoughts are with the armed forces as they forward deploy to support our NATO friends in eastern Europe. The Royal Welsh has done a tremendous job for us in this country during the covid crisis, the floods and other crises; now we lean on it again to ensure the defence of the realm and to support our NATO allies.

I also pay particular tribute, as we have all done this week and in years gone by, to Wales Week. I am sure most Members of the House have been to a Wales Week event this week. Wales Week London—Wales Week world, as it is now—has become a feature of the diary. I pay particular tribute to Dan Langford and Mike Phillips, who are bastions of the championing of Wales, our culture, our heritage and our business and are positive about the opportunities that Wales, the Welsh people and the Welsh business community have. They have brought Governments, communities and businesses together.

I implore the Secretary of State to continue his great work with Wales Week, working with the Foreign Office to ensure that not only is the Welsh flag flying at our embassies around the world every St David’s day, but that business communities and the Department for International Trade are invited and that our businesses are championed at UK level, as they rightly deserve. There were 90 events in London throughout Wales Week—an historic high. I am in no doubt that the whole House will wish Wales Week continued and greater success.

We have heard a bit about the UK shared prosperity fund, and I want to discuss not just the words but the commitments to date surrounding the replacement of European money. I accept the benefit of the doubt given by my hon. Friend—I call him that to reflect St David’s Day—the Member for Caerphilly, and that was kind of him, but this is not just about words. The community renewal fund gives 23% of the UK funding to Wales—way above any Barnettised formula in the past. That is a clear direction of travel. We have secured 7% from the levelling-up fund. Again, that is way above what we would see from a UK Government scheme if we just were just going to honour the commitment.

[Wayne David]

rose—

[Craig Williams]

I fear that this is the last time I call him my hon. Friend; it will be back to hon. Member.

[Wayne David]

If it is indeed the direction of travel that the Government should be generous to Wales, why on earth do they not come forward with some hard figures to prove that assertion?

[Craig Williams]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point given that I have just given him two hard figures. The latest schemes coming out of the United Kingdom Government show that this is not about words, but action—actual funding leaving the Treasury and the levelling-up unit and going into Wales. We have 23% from the community renewal fund going straight into schemes across Wales and 7% from the levelling-up fund—way above any Barnettised formula. The figures are there, so he need not ask for them. Now we need to work together.

The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who is not in his place, talked about an attack on devolution. With the objective 1 funding, we qualified once, we qualified twice, and we continued to qualify. That was not a great thing to continue doing, as countries in eastern Europe managed to use the funding programmes organised by the European Union to grow their GVA and so no longer qualify because their prosperity, skills and poverty indicators were all going the right way. In Wales, we are still under the Welsh European Funding Office. This is not just a political assertion from the Conservative Benches. The Audit Wales, Committees of this House and the European Union itself wanted to know time and again why the European funds that were going to Wales were not getting any better outcomes than countries in eastern Europe—the outcomes that our constituents wanted. I remember during the referendum, when we were on the same page, wondering why the response was so bad in the south Wales valleys.

[Nia Griffith]

Does the hon. Member accept that many of the financial levers are not in the control of the Senedd, including the whole taxation and benefits system, which affects the GVA of the population of Wales very significantly? Therefore, there are 12 years in which the Conservatives share responsibility for whatever deficit he is referring to in terms of where he thinks the development should have gone to? In addition, why is there this aversion to including the Welsh Government together with his Government and local government to talk about the priorities of the levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund, instead of just ignoring them?

[Craig Williams]

I could make a 10-minute speech on the irony of that intervention, but I can see the Deputy Speaker looking at me funny so I will not. Most of those arguments could be made for most of the eastern European regions, as they have different constitutional settlements and local government as well. We could go back and forward on that, on an academic level, for a while.

Going back to the attack on devolution, I have seen the discussions around what mutual respect means for Labour Members. They do not mean mutual respect; they mean that they want the Welsh Government to control all decisions. It is not about putting things together; it is about having a veto over what this Government are doing. I find that completely frustrating, given what I have described as happening with former European programmes. The leader of Powys County Council has been unequivocal in welcoming the levelling-up fund and community renewal fund—schemes that, for the first time ever, provide real investment in mid-Wales. This is hugely significant.

I reflect on the exchange between the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes). Looking at the political map of this place, above the Brecon Beacons there is beginning to be a political discourse of two countries—or three with mid-Wales—where there is a palpable feeling of neglect coming from the south Wales Labour party, as we see it.

[Nia Griffith]

rose—

[Craig Williams]

Two speeches are enough.

I would push back heavily on the willingness of communities in north, mid, and, no doubt, south Wales to access funding directly from the UK Government to work with us on strategic issues. Mutual respect is always chucked around in this Chamber, but in the Union connectivity review, for the first time ever, the UK has looked at taking responsibility for connecting the United Kingdom. When the European Union did that through its trans-European network, there was not a single utterance in this place. In fact, there probably were some utterances from the Conservative Benches, for a very different reason. It was absolutely fine for Welsh Labour and the Welsh Government to have the European Union dictating where infrastructure spend should go in the United Kingdom in connecting the whole of Europe, but the second the United Kingdom Government say how to connect our great four nations together, there is outrage, saying it is an attack on devolution. [Interruption.] That intervention from Scottish Members will feature independence, I am sure.

Montgomeryshire has a strongly cross-border population. A good chunk of the workforce, if not the majority, cross the border to work every day. Our district general hospital is in Shrewsbury in England. Our sixth-form colleges are over the border. We are a community that certainly does not see, or want, the huge policy divide that is being asserted on the Opposition Benches.

[Simon Baynes]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the bits that is missing from mutual respect in Wales is from the Senedd to local authorities, and that one of the enabling and exciting aspects of the new funding arrangements, particularly with regard to the levelling-up fund, has been to put local authorities in the driving seat and give them the respect that they deserve in this process?

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Williams]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. We have seen that time and again. It is ironic that anyone should say we are attacking devolution given that those on the Treasury Bench and former Secretaries of State have empowered the Welsh Government and the Welsh Parliament with a plethora of new powers. I well remember when planning powers were devolved and an aspect of those, for energy, was devolved directly to local authorities. The first thing the Welsh Government and the Welsh Parliament did was to take those powers from the local authorities and centralise them. That is the theme of devolution since Labour has been at the helm—power and control. I very much welcome the increase in funding to the local authorities, especially the rural ones. I am big enough to say from the Conservative Benches that the First Minister of Wales got many of the decisions right during covid, and he did a good job in the round, but now is the time to restore the civil liberties to my constituents and to Wales. Now is the time to back off from the day-to-day control and, I am afraid, the nanny state, to a certain degree, that seems to develop around the covid rates.

Let me return to my central point—the great opportunities in trade going forward. Hopefully in the next St David’s Day debate we can leave the old Brexit arguments aside and start really focusing on what is great for our Welsh agriculture and businesses. It was hugely terrific to see the investment go into Randall Parker, one of the biggest sheepmeat abattoirs in the country, through Pilgrim’s UK. Members will reflect that for decades we have been worried about our sheepmeat market, the process, our abattoirs and our capacity. For the first time ever, money is following actions and words, and we are seeing investment, growth and new markets.

I implore you, Secretary of State, in my final concluding remark, to ensure that by the next St David’s day debate, the New York market has access to the most sustainable, net zero meat in the world—Welsh lamb—and we can be championing that success and that emerging, burgeoning market.

I think I have taken enough time in this St David’s day debate. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] If Members would like me to continue, I could move on to page 2 —[Interruption.] The Welsh Grand Committee will, I am sure, meet before long.

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[Simon Hart]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the leader of our Conservative group in Cardiff is Andrew RT Davies, and the leader of the Conservative party is Boris Johnson. The hon. Gentleman should know that by now, I would have thought.

I have to resist the hon. Gentleman’s attempt to talk about an English approach or a Welsh approach to the covid response. If anything epitomised a UK approach, it was our response to the covid pandemic, and what better example of that than the vaccination programme, which was originally conceived, researched, contracted, delivered and paid for by the UK Government. It was then distributed, with some professionalism, I might add, by a combination of the Welsh Government—tick that box, we can credit our opponents when necessary and appropriate—with the huge help of the Ministry of Defence, as represented rather conveniently by the Minister for Defence Procurement, my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin), who is sitting next to me on the Front Bench, and NHS Wales. The suggestion that there was either an English approach or a Welsh approach is demonstrably untrue.

I add one last thing. The hon. Gentleman made a rather unnecessarily snide comment about integrity, but when it comes to promises to the electorate, the First Minister and the leader of Plaid Cymru both said just before the Senedd elections that the one thing they would not do is get into bed with each other. Within months of making that pledge to voters in Wales, they did precisely the opposite.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), with rather good timing—it was a relief at that moment—decided to celebrate everything that is good about Wales, having been treated for a few minutes before that with apparently everything that is bad. I thought that his message to the outside world about what Wales has to offer, and in particular what his part of Wales has to offer, and the strength, value and opportunities that the Union presents, was incredibly well-timed and reminded me of the visit I paid with him to the Trevor Basin back along, where we were able to see for ourselves the joy on the faces of the people who had received funding courtesy of some of the new initiatives from the UK Government to engage in projects that they have hitherto not been able to do.

The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) rightly made some powerful comments about how we should be helping communities in need at this time, but she went on to mention one or two things that make that more difficult in terms of the relationship with the Welsh Government. The solutions to the very problems that she rightly pointed out are not necessarily always achieved just by dishing out cash. I do not think that the Labour party has a remotely compassionate record to look back on. The undeniable truth is that, every time a Labour Administration have held office for goodness knows how many generations, more people were unemployed at the end than at the beginning. That is nothing to be proud of; it is no sign of compassion at all.

We want to be as fair and as reasonable as we can to as wide a number of people in vulnerable positions as possible not only by making sensible, fair and humane interventions but by creating the best circumstances for job creation and proper well-paid sustaining jobs across the whole of Wales. That is compassionate and that is levelling up. It is not simply about handing out cash, tying people down into the benefits system and offering no hope of being able to move on from that position to a different state of their lives.

My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams), again, echoed the armed forces’ contribution and made some great comments about the levelling-up fund and how Powys County Council had never been able to qualify for funding of that nature before. I thought he was going to launch into a lengthy speech, because I have heard it often before, on the subject of the Montgomery canal.

[Craig Williams]

On that point, will the Minister give way?

[Simon Hart]

I do not think I will.

That initiative, provided courtesy of the UK Government, unleashed private sector funding at the same time. My hon. Friend put his finger on what devolution really means. It is not whether power is held in Cardiff or Westminster; it is about how many people in frontline decision-making positions, who live and feel the opportunity and challenge every day, are brought into the decision-making process in the way we have in Powys—and I hope it will be reflected across the rest of Wales as well.

I was overjoyed that the speech of the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees), unlike others from the Opposition, did not talk down the fortunes of our country, but talked up the record of her great friend Hywel Francis. He was the first and about the only Member of her party who came up to me after my maiden speech in 2010 and, probably through gritted teeth, congratulated me on what I had said.

Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[David T. C. Davies]

I am sure that my colleagues in Westminster will be doing absolutely everything they can to improve connectivity links between Wales and England, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman could have a word with his colleagues in the Welsh Labour Government, who have decided to abandon road building in Wales. Traffic congestion is bad for the environment, and a good road network is good for a flourishing economy.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The Llanymynech-Pant bypass proposal is the most important connection for my constituency, although it is 90% in England. I welcome the Treasury Bench’s commitment of £45 million to get it to the next stage, but will the Minister meet with me to ensure that the Welsh Government, with their road blocking and lack of vision on Union connectivity, deliver this road?

Strengthening the Union as it Relates to Wales (First sitting)

Craig Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 General Committees

[Jo Stevens]

That is a perfect example of non-co-operation between the UK Government and the devolved Government —completely the opposite of the examples that the Secretary of State gave. The UK Government’s approach towards the Welsh Government has basically been, “Less say and less money.”

Labour introduced devolution to empower Wales and Welsh communities, bringing decision making closer to the people of Wales, but the Government’s deliberate policy of disrespect for the Welsh Government and the people of Wales is undermining the devolution settlement and doing the opposite of strengthening the Union.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

On that point—[Laughter.]

[Jo Stevens]

We will need a new and durable constitutional settlement, which is why the Commission on the Future of the UK, led by the former Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will chart a new course for our Union of nations. I am pleased that I will be part of the commission, along with the First Minister, Mark Drakeford, but remember that it was a Labour UK Government who delivered devolution from that knife-edge referendum win in 1997. Regardless of whether the Conservative party likes it or not, devolution now consistently enjoys high majority support among the people of Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

It will be open in the early part of next year. Any local authority that was not successful in the first round will have a chance to discuss its bid with officials to see how the application can be nuanced to achieve success next year.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Montgomeryshire has not seen such a level of investment for decades. I welcome the Secretary of State’s levelling-up fund and community renewal fund—the list goes on. Mid-Wales has never seen such investment, and I implore him to continue with this proper devolution of working with local councils and asking local people about their priorities, and to get more investment into mid-Wales.

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that every single area of Wales has benefited from these schemes, which was not the case under the previous funding arrangements. It has been a joy to have the feedback and contributions we have had from local authorities across Wales, which really welcome and are getting engaged with this process.

Climate Change: Wales

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Dowd. I first of all pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), both for securing the debate and the tone in which you opened it. Your tone made me rip up half my speech, and I appreciate that balance. I also echo your comments on digital services and the engagement around this debate, which I think is terrific.

I could touch on the comments of other Members but, in the good old tradition of Welsh Westminster Hall debates, the Welsh Government are good and the UK Government are bad, unless the Member is a Conservative, in which case the UK Government are good and the Welsh Government are bad. We have approached this debate in the usual fashion. I will try to break that down a little bit. I appreciated a lot of the global context that the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) introduced. I was taken aback today at Prime Minister’s questions when it was noted that 52% of the world’s urban global greenhouse gases come from 25 cities, of which 23 are in China. Clearly, the pressure on COP26 this year is immense.

There is excellent best practice coming out of Wales, and there is excellent best practice coming from Powys County Council and the Welsh Labour Government. There is also a huge amount of work, finance and regulatory change coming out of the UK Government, and it would be churlish for Labour Members speaking after me not to at least acknowledge that, if those before me have not. It is absolutely fascinating to see the pace of change. I will touch briefly on an issue that I have a little bugbear with the Welsh Government about— I have been nice, but I will have a little bash—and that is new road building.

Montgomeryshire is blessed with clean air and low emissions. The one thing that has helped Montgomeryshire more than anything to tackle emissions and improve air quality is the Newtown bypass, with Welsh Government studies and independent studies unquestionably showing that emissions have dropped around Newtown—the biggest town in my constituency—and the quality of air has improved. That is to be hugely welcomed.

In conjunction with the banning of new petrol and diesel cars, that means that road building in the future will be very different. The vehicles on the roads of the future will emit very different pollutants, if any. It is old-fashioned and traditional thinking to see road building in the traditional sense—that the roads will have heavy-polluting vehicles on them. They will not. Clearly, that is demonstrated by the ban on petrol and diesel vehicles. Clearly, that is demonstrated by great companies such as Riversimple in Powys investing in hydrogen cars. Clearly, that is demonstrated by the huge investment in hydrogen production and electric car production in this country. I hope there is time for a pause for thought. I welcome that this is a review and not a blanket ban, but road building projects in the future should not be judged on the environmental effects of the past. That is incredibly dangerous thinking as we see smaller, better, cleaner cars emerging on to our roads.

Equally, I want to be nice: Wales has led. The plastic bag tax is hugely welcome. To give credit where credit is due, the Welsh Government led on that issue, and now the UK Government are following. We must do that more in future: where there is best practice across a border—in Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland or across the channel into Europe, or even further—we need to share best practice. We should not be shy in stealing ideas; after all, I read Hansard regularly and we normally steal each other’s speeches, so we might as well share each other’s policies.

In closing, I will draw the private sector into this. Of course, there is a lot of public money and regulatory change, but tomorrow I will visit Garth Holiday Park in Machynlleth, in the middle of Wales, to celebrate its private investment in electric vehicle charging on the site. A huge amount of EV charging facilities are going in now. Wipak in Welshpool—if you pick up a pack of Cathedral City cheese in this country, the packaging comes from Welshpool, in the middle of Wales—is investing hugely. It is a European-based company that manufactures in Wales, and it is investing millions over the next years to improve its production and to help us achieve our net zero ambitions.

If we do this together—the UK Government, with their sheer scale and international leadership, the Welsh Government, with their devolved powers and regulatory functions; and the private sector as well—we can achieve it. I fear that if we continue with a dogmatic, narrow vision of, “We are bad, you are good. This is right, this is wrong,” we will not get anywhere near the achievements that we need, and we will do a great disservice to the constituents that really care about the issue.

Mr Dowd, I have added to the greenhouse gases with my six minutes, so I will sit down, but I very much welcome this debate.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I remind Members not to use the second person singular unless addressing me. I call Jessica Morden.

Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

It is all very well the hon. Gentleman shaking his head in disbelief, but the reality is that there has been more investment in all the infrastructure projects than at any stage in recent history. That is largely thanks to the energy of this Government and our commitment to levelling up in Wales.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

The Cefn bridge at Trewern is a bottleneck between mid-Wales and the west midlands economy. Will the Secretary of State meet me and stakeholders to ensure that the Union connectivity review, which I very much welcome, tackles this bottleneck?

[Simon Hart]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is the epitome of energetic campaigning on road improvement and other infrastructure schemes. Who will forget the Pant to Llanymynech bypass as one of the great achievements of the MP for Montgomeryshire? I am happy to confirm that, so excited am I by that prospect, I will be there on Monday next week.

Welsh Affairs

Craig Williams Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, for this important debate. Although the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) brought us together on the rugby, I am afraid that the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) has divided the Chamber on many of the issues he mentioned—but it is still a privilege, of course, to follow him.

This St David’s Day debate is of course set in the context of covid, but the covid crisis has brought our four nations together, and the vaccine programme is an exemplar of the strength of our Union. I very much welcome the figures from the Welsh Government and from the UK Government on securing the supplies that have made possible the pace and speed of the roll-out. I pay tribute to the frontline NHS, the Ministry of Defence, the volunteers in Montgomeryshire and Powys and the local health boards for delivering so much care and support throughout this covid pandemic. Let us look at the economic support that has been mobilised from this Parliament and this Government across the United Kingdom: 10% of workers were furloughed in Montgomeryshire, leaning on the support of the Union to get them through this crisis.

I pay particular tribute to the Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations and Carl Cooper, its chief executive. He rightly said before covid that Powys is the volunteering capital of Wales, and we see at the moment 60,000 volunteers out of a population of 120,000—half of our population in Powys and Montgomeryshire is mobilised, supporting people who need it.

During my short, three-minute contribution, I want to mention the pet projects I have been pushing as a Member of Parliament: the Llanymynech-Pant bypass, where there is a feasibility study at the moment; the Carno station, which we hope to see under the new stations fund; and, more importantly, the Montgomery canal, which we seek to reconnect to the UK network and which those volunteers are still delivering. That is happening right now. I will not say exactly how many yards or metres they have delivered while I have been speaking, but those volunteers represent spades in the ground and it is great to see that continuing.

In closing, I wish to pay tribute to Robert Owen and acknowledge his 250th birthday. He is a great export from Montgomeryshire. He was born in Newtown in 1771, and we have a museum in the heart of my constituency’s biggest town. I want to end with a quote. Robert Owen campaigned throughout his life

‘to promote the well-being and happiness of every man, woman and child without regard”—

to

“sect, party, country and colour”.

That is a nice way for me to end my contribution to the St David’s Day debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I do not know how “urgent” would be defined in the EU at the moment, but certainly there is an urgency to resolve some of these problems. As I have mentioned, there are some teething issues that can be resolved quite quickly. If there are longer-term structural issues, they need to be looked at in more detail. I have sheep farming interests in my constituency, as does the hon. Member, and it is worth pointing out that there are some big opportunities across the rest of the world that we should be exploring, rather than necessarily just concentrating on some of the difficulties with the EU.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Welsh lamb is a premium product that is wanted across the world. Welshpool livestock market, which is usually the heart of my farming community, is quieter because of covid, but the sheep meat prices are still robust. Will the Secretary of State meet me, farmers and slaughterhouses in Montgomeryshire to discuss the health certificates and the wider SPS issues on the EU border, which are clearly out of order?

[Simon Hart]

I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and his constituents; I used to live in his constituency, so I know some of them quite well. He is right to raise this issue. One of the companies in question is meeting the Cabinet Office later this week; that is progress. I am delighted that Welshpool mart has done some good business. I see that lamb prices have increased by around 17% in 2021, and consumer spending was £652 million, but the rest-of-the-world opportunities that I mentioned—particularly the Gulf, the middle east and the US, once we get the small ruminant rule resolved—will help the lamb industry across Wales and the UK.