Welsh Affairs

Debate between Craig Williams and Kevin Brennan

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[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.

Cardiff Central Station

Debate between Craig Williams and Kevin Brennan

Tuesday 8th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Craig Williams]

I will touch shortly on GRIP 2, which is where we are at, and GRIP 1, to which there was a significant private sector contribution, and also a contribution from Network Rail. I want to work with everyone. I will work with Cardiff’s current Labour council—I was a member of the council for eight years—and I want to work with the Labour Welsh Government. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the UK Government have been given significant powers and moneys, in the form of £1.2 billion for infrastructure and the city deal. The money is not a great amount in the context of transforming the station now, in phase 1, but bigger ventures are being looked at. If I and the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth agree on something we are bound to be right. I welcome us all working together.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

As a former member of Cardiff City Council, I completely agree that it is very important that all parties work together positively to achieve this objective for our wonderful city. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the city deal from which, as he knows, the redevelopment of Cardiff Central station was specifically excluded by the Government. Does he agree, therefore, that it is really important that progress is now made? I think that is what he is calling for today.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a Treasury Parliamentary Private Secretary, and I, as a former Treasury Whip, hope that this debate has been informed by a little nod and a wink from his boss that we might make some progress in the autumn statement. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell the House whether that is true.

[Craig Williams]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to get me into terrible trouble, so I will happily skirt that matter. As well as the huge infrastructure fund, I have mentioned the city deal and the Welsh Government having access to borrowing powers. It is not always a case of looking up the M4 and waiting for important investment from the UK Government; it is about, quite rightly, working together, across parties, and also with the private sector. I will touch on the developments and on how transforming Central Square enables us to access moneys; it does not always have to be the public sector stepping in.

I want to touch on the situation on match days. The autumn internationals are happening at fast pace—the latest Wales game had a sad outcome, but I am sure we are going onwards and upwards. The struggle at Cardiff Central station was evident during the 2015 rugby world cup, when we hosted more than half a million fans at the eight matches at the then Millennium stadium —now the Principality stadium—in addition to the 160,000 watching in the Cardiff Arms Park fanzone. Considering that only a quarter of the tickets were sold to Welsh postcodes, the stress on the system is evident. I feel for the train operators—for Great Western—because only three of the platforms at Cardiff Central can accommodate trains heading to England. Match days therefore cause capacity problems. A further constraint is that one of those three platforms—platform 0—is too short to accommodate long trains on the services to the east.

The geography of Cardiff city centre is, in my opinion, world leading and brilliant for any sports fan or tourist. The station is certainly world-class for the 20th century—not quite for the 21st, which is why we are here. When someone walks out of the station, they see the Principality stadium—the finest rugby stadium in the world. There is also the SWALEC stadium, where Ashes test cricket takes place, and there are football, athletics and many other stadiums in the city centre. That is a great experience, but it puts more pressure on a station that is already struggling.

The Welsh National Assembly’s former Enterprise and Business Committee produced a very good report, entitled “Rugby World Cup Transport Planning”, which picked up many of the issues, and reiterated the need for substantial investment in the station to meet the expectations of today’s travellers. The agencies involved learned lessons and made substantial changes for the few final rugby world cup games.

The report also highlighted some of the issues with the current arrangements, which I want to dig out. Compared with many newer redeveloped stations, the platforms at Cardiff are narrow and people cram to the edges waiting for trains. That is not what we expect of a modern station. Leading from the platforms are staircases that are no longer fit for purpose at peak times and the subway forces nearly all travellers into a confined area below the platforms, before they spill out into extremely cramped ticket areas. The experience is very similar to that at a crammed London underground station. I can see the hon. Members for Cardiff South and Penarth and for Cardiff West nodding—we have our own experiences up and down that railway.

If we factor in Cardiff’s projected increase in passenger demand, which I have touched on, it is clear that the station, although magnificent, was fit for the 20th century but not the 21st. Waiting outside in the car park to go up old staircases onto narrow platforms is not what a modern rail network wants, or what passengers expect. According to satisfaction surveys, there is a risk that if that issue is not addressed future events might decide to go elsewhere. A busy station that cannot accommodate its current passengers is a disincentive to organisers who could bring prestigious events to our Welsh capital city. Those events are the bread and butter of not just our local but our national economy, and I am incredibly proud of that as a Welshman and as a Welsh MP. I question whether Cardiff would be successful in securing the champions league final in 10 years’ time, for example, if no enhancements were made. I regret deeply the fact that we are not bidding for the Commonwealth games in 2026. If we were, as part of that bid, investment in Cardiff Central station would have been one of the key things scrutinised in looking at how public transport is organised in and around that region.

Any redevelopment must respect the existing structure, and it is good to see that the initial artist’s proposals from Network Rail do just that, working around the building’s existing frontage and protecting its listing. The frontage is far more than bricks and mortar. I reiterate that for decades it has been the first part of Cardiff that people see. Investors come out and they see “Great Western Railway”. It is something to protect and cherish. I pay tribute to WalesOnline, which helped in the run-up to the debate and invited businesses and constituents to contribute. It was clear from the reaction in my inbox and on my Facebook group that people want that heritage protected. They do not just want a brand new, 21st-century station with all its modern attributes; they want our heritage protected, too, but that does come with a price.

The graphics suggest new access above the platforms, an increase in retail space and a canopy across to the new bus station, which we are shortly to hear a lot more about, I hope. Those are much-needed and overdue improvements that will address issues with travellers’ experiences. Additionally, a number of constituents have been in touch with suggestions of improvements around Cardiff Central, including not only the link with the bus interchange and some kind of canopy, but also things to the south of the station, such as the redevelopment of the Brains site and potential drop-off points. I am incredibly interested to watch what happens in the constituency of the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, which is so important to my constituents in the north of the city. Constituents have suggested that the redevelopment must respect the heritage, but they do not want one of those “plastic shopping malls” that increasingly happen in so many major developments. We want something that protects the arcades of our city and nods to our heritage, although that all comes with a price tag.

I will now focus on the pressing issue behind the redevelopment of Cardiff Central: funding. The hon. Members for Cardiff West and for Cardiff South and Penarth have alluded to that. The Government are investing in our railways, particularly on the London to Wales route. I would welcome a comment from the Minister on how this morning’s announcement on electrification will affect progress up the line to Cardiff. The Great Western main line is being electrified, reducing the journey time from Cardiff Central to Paddington, and I welcome that. Talking yesterday to our terrific team in Wales operating the Wales and Borders network, it is the largest investment since Victorian times. It is hugely complicated and hugely expensive, but hugely welcome. I know that the team have got the ambition and the plan to deliver, and they are getting more commercially minded in looking at alternative funding methods for some of the projects I am talking about. I pay tribute to them.

We have seen the money spent in Reading on widening platforms and increasing capacity. It is clear that as capacity is increased up the line, it adds pressure to where we have not done that. Newport station was wisely invested in for the 2010 Ryder cup. I do not for a second bash Newport for that, but it is the third busiest railway station in Wales and it has been redeveloped. We should look at the busiest railway station in Wales, which is, unabashedly, Cardiff Central. Without funding from the Department for Transport, the Welsh Government and a contribution from Cardiff Council, the scheme could falter. Network Rail advises that it has done as much as possible within the existing funds. It has completed its initial vision, but it now anticipates it needs something in the region of £4 million to £5 million to move forward with GRIP 2 and the affordability study. Network Rail can then put forward its business case. To my mind it will be easily made, because of the growth projections and the capacity bottlenecks.

We all agree that Cardiff Central needs enhancing, but there is concern over where the money comes from. I do not pretend that it is unlimited—the hon. Member for Cardiff West alluded to our experiences in the Treasury—and I get the concerns that the Department for Transport has expressed about investing everywhere in the UK all at once. The redevelopment represents value for money, but it needs innovative funding solutions. Network Rail is keen to work with partners and current developers around Cardiff Central. A flagship BBC building and new office blocks are going up, and a big Government building is happening somewhere in the city centre, and they need to liaise. We also have the south Wales metro, which will happen mainly on the back of the Cardiff city deal. Once the Welsh Government let us know what they want—whether it is light rail or heavy rail or something else—that will free some contributions to the network so that it becomes a fully functioning transport interchange hub.

The crucial issue for the station’s enhancement is timescale, especially as the Central Square redevelopment is under way at pace. Designs have been published, but they must be completed before Network Rail’s control period 6 starts in 2019 if we are to get there in a timely fashion. Only through that can the Cardiff Central station redevelopment be delivered quickly and completed before the end of CP6.

The station can also match some of its competitors in other ways. I want to dwell on this point. I know that the Arriva Trains Wales franchise is being transferred to the Welsh Government and is coming up for tender in 2018. There is massive potential there. Cardiff Central station is organised and run by Arriva Trains Wales. I am not going to bash it, but I will say that most major stations are run by Network Rail. I get that the Minister will have to be careful, given the cross-devolution issues here, but Network Rail needs control of that station. It can then be innovative and work with private sector partners. Cardiff is going to grow and grow, and its residents want to travel using Cardiff Central station. Network Rail told me that we need a Reading-style station at Cardiff Central, but with a nod to our Welsh heritage. Great Western Railway cites examples such as Edinburgh’s Haymarket station, which was rebuilt in 2013. To dwell on the point, Arriva Trains Wales’s customer satisfaction is heavily affected by Cardiff Central and its capacity issues. Whatever new station we base it on, Cardiff Central desperately needs enhancing.

While I am delighted to talk about that major vision, I conclude on a shorter-term, phased approach. I have spoken more broadly about the big vision that we all support to get the station there by the time we have the huge projected growth, but speaking to interested parties and developers in the run-up to the debate, it has become clear that there is an easy, deliverable, quick solution. In fact, a leading developer and other stakeholders have plans for an early delivery phase to coincide with larger phases going forward, although that would take time and money to get into a future control period.

In closing, I dwell on that point for a moment. The plan is for a quick phase. With all Brunel’s foresight, the station as it is currently constituted goes under the platforms quite well. There is currently a WH Smiths, but there is a way of reconfiguring the station, in my opinion and in the opinion of experts. The staircases could be reversed and things could be opened up. I am led to believe, although I am not an expert, that a similar sum to the £4 million to £5 million for a GRIP study could—we do not want that money redeployed, because we need it for the study—in an early phase transform the experience of people walking out into Cardiff Central. I implore the Minister to enlighten us about his plans and vision for our great station. I implore him, or someone in his Department, to come down to Cardiff to have a roundtable with Network Rail, stakeholders and the four Members of Parliament for Cardiff and to talk to developers to see what can be done in the short term with the Welsh Government and the council. Through that, we can ensure that we tackle the capacity problem now while looking to the longer term for the 2030s and 2040s. With that I will conclude. I hope that we can phase the Cardiff Central enhancements.

Cardiff Coal Exchange

Debate between Craig Williams and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Craig Williams]

There is a direct comparison between the scale of regeneration in Cardiff under the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, which was formed under the previous Conservative Government, and the city deal in partnership with the Wales Government. It is a national disgrace that we are debating the future of the coal exchange and that it has been left to fall down through the inaction of the Labour Welsh Government. The impression has been given that the officers run City of Cardiff Council, which has a Labour cabinet.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Speech!