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

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 General Committees

[Simon Hart]

If I could get into my stride and warm up a bit before I take interventions, I would be very grateful.

The question for today is, “What have the UK Government delivered for Wales while covid has been the dominant news story?”. I will not share it with hon. Members because it would take far too long, but I have two and a half pages of very varied, but very significant, achievements that the Government have been able to deliver—sometimes in collaboration with the Welsh Government, sometimes not. For example, £121 million has been directly invested through the first round of the levelling-up fund. The diversity of this is worth noting.

The Government have increased the Army footprint in Wales, the only part of the UK that saw an increase—from 6.7% to 7.3%. The Queen’s Dragoon Guards will return to Wales, to Caerwent, in the constituency of the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth. There will be a new reservist unit in the constituency of Wrexham. We are saving Brecon barracks—such an important part of the social and economic heartlands of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire. We put £30 million into developing the first centre for rail excellence, which is between Port Talbot and Brecon, and will create 150 direct jobs.

The small ruminant rule has been lifted. Who would have ever thought that the small ruminant rule would play such a significant part in our lives? The lifting of it, which is enabling Welsh lamb to be marketed in the United States for the first time in nearly 25 years, is a significant moment for our farming industry. With the Welsh Government and the First Minister, we set up the coal tip safety taskforce—jointly chaired by the First Minister and me—securing £31 million for the Tylorstown tip and creating the first register of coal tips and their safety in Wales. No doubt there will be more on that.

There are other things, too: the £4.8 million investment in Holyhead hydrogen hub, and accelerated funding for the Cardiff city, Swansea bay, north Wales and mid Wales city and growth deals. The mid Wales growth deal, worth £55 million, was signed by the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth only last week. We have invested £31.9 million to develop electric propulsion systems in Cwmbran, and there is Wales-specific funding through the British Business Bank of £130 million. I could—and I will—go on, and I know my hon. Friend will go on later.

There is lots to say, and it is all positive, imaginative and innovative. It is all about jobs—sustaining existing jobs and creating new jobs as we come, we hope, out of the pandemic for the last time. Probably the best example of the strength and value of the Union is the way in which we have been able to join forces with so many people in our pandemic response. I could go through a long list, but hon. Members should cast their minds back to the furlough scheme: one in three jobs in Wales was protected, at very short notice, by the might of the UK Treasury.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity to thank the TUC? It was its representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that led to the furlough scheme.

[Simon Hart]

I am very grateful for the intervention, because I would like to thank a number of people. I do not think this scheme was the particular brainchild of any one group of people or other, but it was an urgent response to a serious and potentially catastrophic issue, so I extend my thanks to anybody who may have had a stake in that process. However, I particularly commend the Treasury. In all our time as Members of Parliament, we have probably not always thought of it as an organisation that moves at lightning speed, but on this occasion it did move at lightning speed, and it has saved hundreds of thousands—millions—of jobs in the process. The Chancellor took decisions that nobody thought possible at the time and implemented a scheme at a speed that nobody thought feasible at the time, and one in three of our constituents on the payroll in Wales had their job secured as a result.

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[Jo Stevens]

Bore da, good morning and thanks very much Mr Davies. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today with all Welsh Members of the House. After four years, we finally have a Welsh Grand Committee debate.

Where to begin? Shall we start with the Minister for the Union––the Prime Minister, whose job it is in everything he says and does to strengthen the Union? He holds the most important office, one vital to the integrity of our politics, our government and our democracy. How shameful is it for the Union to have a Conservative Prime Minister mired in law breaking, deception and incompetence, leading a Government whose Ministers, at best, attempt to deflect from his inherent personal failings and, at worst, publicly and repeatedly endorse both them and him? Far from being strengthened by the Prime Minister and the Government, the Union is being degraded and weakened. For all his flag waving and plastic patriotism, no Prime Minister has done more to undermine the Union than this one. He has irretrievably damaged public trust and confidence in the UK Government and in UK politics. That is a bad enough legacy at any time, but during a health emergency it is unforgivable. As the Leader of the Opposition has quite rightly said, the Prime Minister is

“the worst possible Prime Minister at the worst possible time”—[Official Report, 15 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 1051.]

It is not just the Prime Minister who degrades and devalues our Union. Denigration and disinterest towards all our devolved nations runs through the core of the Conservative party. Only last week, the Leader of the House branded the leader of the Scottish Tories a “lightweight”, just for calling for the Prime Minister’s resignation in the wake of Downing Street’s law-breaking parties. The following day, when challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, the Leader of the House could not even remember the name of the leader of the Welsh Conservatives. These are not just slip-ups; they lay bare the true attitude of the Conservative party to Wales and to the Union.

Labour believes that our Union is strengthened through valuing the importance of our common endeavour, fostering co-operation between the nations and Governments of the UK, and sharing wealth according to need. We are better together than any of us would be apart, and each of our nations can speak with a progressive voice.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Treasury has banked nearly £4 billion of surplus from the miners pension fund. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should change the arrangements so they are much fairer to miners and their widows in our coalfield communities?

[Jo Stevens]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, and he is absolutely right. That is a perfect illustration of how the Government could act to do the right thing by our mine workers not just across Wales, but across the United Kingdom.

All our energies, at all levels of Government and across every nation of the UK, must be focused on recovering from the pandemic, but also on rebuilding our economy and addressing the climate emergency. That is why our Union of nations must be based on and strengthened by security, prosperity and respect.

I will deal first with security. Obviously, the first duty of any UK Government is the security of its citizens—that is, security for the United Kingdom, for Wales, and for every community, large and small, wherever we live. Instead of strengthening the Union, successive Conservative Governments have weakened the fabric of the UK and torn communities apart—nations, regions, cities and villages; north and south, and east and west. These policies are driven by the aim of creating division, controlling power and, despite what the Secretary of State says, undermining devolution.

There is no clearer example of the impact on our security than the rising numbers of victims of crime. The Government have decimated police staffing numbers, with cuts of more than 25,000 police force staff across the country, including 11,000 fewer police officers, 8,000 fewer police staff and 7,000 fewer police community support officers. The Welsh Government have stepped in and funded 500 PCSOs in Wales, and will fund a further 1,000 during this current Senedd term, but these political choices by the Conservative party have resulted in less safe communities and more crime in Wales.

[Chris Bryant]

When I met with my local police recently, they told me—it was not the first time they have told me this—that the number of domestic abuse cases in the Rhondda far exceeds the number of three local constituencies added together, and in addition, that the numbers for the Rhondda Fach far exceed those for anywhere else in Wales. The police need resources because each case is complicated and difficult. We need far more resources to ensure that we tackle those issues. How are we going to get those resources if the Government in Westminster will not provide them?

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. If we look at the statistics, we know that there is an epidemic of violence against women and girls across the UK and in Wales. Women and girls feel unsafe at home and on our streets. The number of women homicide victims is at its highest level for 15 years. Rape prosecutions and convictions are at a record low. Labour has set out dozens of proposals in our Green Paper, but the Government have rejected them. A Labour Government would take our security seriously and provide crime prevention teams in every neighbourhood. New police hubs would be visible in every community, because security, for Labour, is a matter of social justice.

We would also introduce new employment rights and protections, so that people felt more secure at work. The Conservative party promised an employment Bill—its manifesto has turned out to be a complete work of fiction—that would make Britain the best place in the world to work. That would strengthen the Union, wouldn’t it? But where is it? We have not seen it.

The pandemic taught us that everybody needs decent pay when they are sick. But that is not the case for millions of workers across the UK—for those on low wages or who have insecure work, or who are self-employed. When they have been ill or have had to self-isolate, it has been disastrous for them. The sorry state of sick pay in Britain was an issue before the pandemic, but the Chancellor’s inaction has made people poorer and led to an increase in the spread of the virus. We know that Ministers have had advice throughout the pandemic from SPI-B that decent statutory sick pay was the key mechanism that the Treasury could use to ensure that people could afford to self-isolate. The Secretary of State talked about the Welsh Government apparently not following advice, but his own Government did not follow the advice of SPI-B.

We have the least generous sick pay scheme in Europe, at just £96.35 a week, which the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), admitted he could not live on. Two million workers, mostly women, do not even qualify for statutory sick pay. The Chancellor continues to ignore that—yes to national insurance rises, but no to increased or improved statutory sick pay. A Labour Government would improve the level of statutory sick pay and increase its coverage to reflect the modern world of work, and we would value the many employers who do provide decent sick pay for their workforce.

The Secretary of State gave us a list, and I will do my own list of how to keep citizens safe during the pandemic. The Prime Minister missed five Cobra meetings at the start of the pandemic; he delayed three lockdowns; he allowed people to enter the UK without checks; he handed contact tracing to private companies with no record of it; and he handed personal protective equipment contracts to cronies with no record of supplying it. The Government created a scheme to help the hospitality sector that actually helped the virus. They overpromised and underdelivered every step of the way. Contrast that with the actions of the Labour First Minister in Wales, who listened to the science, considered the evidence, took the advice of experts and did absolutely everything he could to keep Wales safe.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

In the list of examples of the First Minister following the scientific advice, would the hon. Lady explain where the delay in stopping hospital discharges to nursing homes comes? That policy led to many people dying needlessly in Wales.

[Jo Stevens]

I do not recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s description. I am sure that when we have the UK-wide public inquiry into the pandemic response that the Government have promised—we are still waiting for it to start—those issues will be addressed.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Alun Cairns]

rose—

[Jo Stevens]

I am going to make some progress because, as you have indicated, Mr Davies, 21 Members wish to speak.

Coming out of the pandemic, and after 12 years of the Conservative party starving our public services and failing to invest, we need to rebuild. Instead, we have inflation rocketing to 5.1%; GDP growth for this quarter has been revised down; and the Government are trapping all four nations in a low-growth, high-tax cycle, hitting working people with tax rise after tax rise, with national insurance and council tax going up in just a couple of months. By 2026-27, the average household will be paying over £3,000 more in tax than when the Prime Minister took office. Households are dealing with the cost of living crisis, and we heard about that from the Culture Secretary yesterday. There is a growing cost to businesses, with petrol, food and energy bills rocketing.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the cruellest cuts in the past few months was the £20 cut in universal credit? That has hit thousands of families right across Wales at the worst possible time.

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[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Probably every single Conservative Member here voted for that £20 cut.

[Chris Bryant]

Not everybody—the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) did not.

[Jo Stevens]

I apologise—nearly everybody.

We want the UK to be a prosperous country again, with a proper industrial strategy to improve our productivity and ensure that we buy, make and sell more in Britain, and that we equip people with the skills and opportunities to contribute to that.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Let me take my hon. Friend back to the BBC point. Does she not find it rather perplexing that while the Government will not deal with the increased costs of energy or food prices or tackle inflation, the Secretary of State for Culture says that saving people a few pennies every month—a few pounds every year—will somehow deal with the real problems faced by many constituents in Wales and across the UK? It is truly absurd that the Government think that will solve the cost of living crisis.

[Jo Stevens]

My hon. Friend is right. As my colleague the shadow Culture Secretary said yesterday, it is focusing on red meat rather than the dead meat of the Prime Minister.

The example of the BBC—vandalising an envied British institution in its centenary year—is a pathetic attempt to divert attention from the Prime Minister, whose premiership is hanging by a thread. Did the Secretary of State not tell the Culture Secretary that the BBC’s role in our creative industries in Wales is a huge success story? Every £1 of the BBC’s economic activity in Wales generates £2.63 in our economy. Growth in the number of creative jobs and businesses as a result of the BBC’s integral role in Wales has outstripped growth in the sector across the whole UK. Was the Secretary of State even consulted before the Culture Secretary was let loose on her Twitter account over the weekend? I know he will say that S4C is getting £7.5 million a year to support its digital offering, which is welcome. However, in 2010, S4C’s annual budget was nearly £102 million. This year, it is £81.3 million. That is a real-terms cut of £51 million by this Government.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

All this is taking place within a succession of stories about this Government wasting Welsh taxpayers’ money. We have the PPE contracts that we have talked about; the Ministry of Defence and its £13 billion of procurement; the Ministry of Justice and its lost projects; and the Department for Work and Pensions losing control of universal credit fraud. Just yesterday, the Treasury gave away billions from the relief schemes that it is not chasing up. Is that not a criminal waste?

[Jo Stevens]

Absolutely, and the list could go on. I could add the privatisation of probation services, which was a huge waste of money.

The Union could also have been strengthened if the Government had made a better fist of negotiations over post-Brexit trade deals and tariffs. We have the humiliating failure of the International Trade Secretary to get agreement from the US Administration for face-to-face talks on steel and aluminium tariffs. If the Prime Minister did not have to focus solely on his disintegrating premiership, he would be able to heed our call to personally intervene on this issue and show the leadership required to protect Welsh and UK jobs in steel and aluminium—

[Jessica Morden]

And in energy.

[Jo Stevens]

And in energy, indeed—my hon. Friend is quite right.

Finally, we probably could have had a whole Welsh Grand Committee on the issue of respect, because it is at the very core of strengthening the Union. Respect for people and places must be at the heart of our Union of nations. Everyone has a right to be treated with respect and no place should be left behind. Everyone matters. Respect between the four Governments of the United Kingdom needs to be embedded in everything we do.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Surely it would be a matter of respect to the nation of Wales and those who have suffered from covid for the Welsh Government to hold their own inquiry into the covid crisis, as is being done by the Governments of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Is that not the ultimate respect that the people of Wales are due?

[Jo Stevens]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman but, in fact, it was his own party leader who promised a UK-wide inquiry into the covid pandemic response, and I am sure that within that there will be specifics on each nation. However, that is what the Prime Minister has promised, and that is what we are still waiting for. We have not seen it yet.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto contained an entire chapter on strengthening the Union. I looked at it yesterday: a nice little script for the Prime Minister, guaranteeing that promises would be delivered. However, there have been broken promises already, such as his pledge not to raise national insurance. We have also seen a deliberate effort to undermine and roll back the devolution settlement. How about the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 for starters, or the promise that Wales would not receive a penny less in replacement funding than it had received from EU structural funds? We are £375 million down and counting. There is the deliberate bypassing of the Welsh Government on areas of devolved competence within the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund, of which we have not yet had the details.

[Stephen Doughty]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that there also has to be respect over issues of cross-border importance relating to the environment? There were proposals to build an incinerator on the edge of my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West. The Welsh Government have now introduced a moratorium on incineration, and the project will not go ahead. The UK Government were advertising for investment in the project, which was opposed by residents in Cardiff and Newport.

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[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.

[Alun Cairns]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Stevens]

I have already given way to the right hon. Gentleman.

Respect for devolution, respect for the devolution settlement and respect for the Welsh Government has to be at the heart of our Union of nations. With a UK Labour Government in Westminster and a Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff, we will see that happen.

[The Chair]

I would now like to invite Ben Lake to speak on behalf of Plaid Cymru.

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[Stephen Crabb]

I am talking about our response to the pandemic and the Prime Minister’s determination to get this country through it as one United Kingdom, in the spirit of teamwork, as far as politics allows. I find the posture of Welsh Government towards UK Government throughout the pandemic disappointing and somewhat dismaying, because it is in contrast to the politeness from the Prime Minister about the Welsh First Minister and the sense of team UK that the Prime Minister has been trying to foster.

The stance of the Welsh Government has been constant, incessant criticism, complaint and grievance towards UK Government. I will highlight a few examples of the complaints from the Welsh Government, which are corrosive and not grounded in reality.

The most common complaint from the Welsh Government over the years is financial—they never get enough money from the UK Treasury. As Welsh politicians representing our constituencies, we always want more for our constituents if possible, but I have always regarded with a bit of suspicion the complaint that they do not have enough money. I look at some of the money that they have made available to Cardiff airport, to take a stake in sports car company TVR and some of the other odd investments the Welsh Government have made in certain property deals. I am a bit suspicious when they complain that they never have enough money. Certainly, when it comes to the pandemic, the sums of money that the Treasury has made available to the Welsh Government are unprecedented, really significant and really welcome.

One of the other grievances of the Welsh Government, as you know, Mr Davies, is about a lack of communication and dialogue between them and the UK Government. We both sit on the Welsh Affairs Committee, Mr Davies, and have had the chance to ask the Secretary of State about that, as well as other UK Ministers and Welsh Ministers. We are very grateful that Welsh Government Ministers make themselves available for our evidence sessions. The testimony we have heard from so many Welsh Government Ministers is that their own Departments’ dialogue with the UK Government is really good—lots of meetings and discussions. That backs up the point that the Secretary of State made in his testimony to the Committee that there has been an almost unprecedented number of meetings and forums between the UK Government and the Welsh Government during the pandemic. Far from it being a period when, somehow, the UK Government have been snubbing or not valuing the opinion of the Welsh Government, the pandemic has set a high water mark of engagement between UK Government and devolved Government.

The third grievance we have heard continuously from the Welsh Government, which is demonstrably false, is that somehow the UK Government were taking unsafe, reckless decisions about reopening the economy. We heard that very recently from the Welsh First Minister. The data just do not support that. As I said, every death is a tragedy in this country, but there is no evidence to suggest that the stricter—sometimes oddly strict—measures that the Welsh Government have taken have been based in sound science and have achieved any better outcomes. I look at some of the decisions that the Welsh Government have made around their restrictions, such as that nonsensical ban on outdoor parkruns, criminalising people wanting to go to their workplace—they could go to the pub but they could not go to work. There is a whole range of these things that are odd and divisive, and have made the Welsh Government and Wales an outlier in the United Kingdom.

[Jo Stevens]

I am rather confused by the right hon. Gentleman describing the Welsh Government’s recent covid measures as an outlier. The UK Government are the outlier. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not outliers in this case.

[Stephen Crabb]

I disagree, and I would point the hon. Lady to the most recent set of decisions on responding to omicron, which included some—what phrase did the Prime Minister use?

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[Simon Baynes]

Bore da—good morning. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. Like my Welsh colleagues here today, I take great heart from the fact that under this Conservative Government, the Union, specifically as it relates to Wales but also across our United Kingdom, has grown stronger and continues to do so. It gives me particular pleasure to be seated next to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham, with whom I share the county borough of Wrexham. It is a great pleasure to work hard with her on a wide range of issues that affect our two constituencies—in particular, recently, city status and city of culture status for Wrexham.

There has already been much mention in this morning’s debate of the way in which the UK Government have assisted the Welsh Government, and Wales overall, during the pandemic. There are two particular points that I would like to draw out and perhaps have not been mentioned so far. The first is that the vaccines are of course the way out of the pandemic, and the UK Government have secured and purchased vaccines on behalf of the whole United Kingdom; over 6.5 million doses have now been delivered across Wales. I think it is very important to stress that the speed and scale of that programme would never have been possible if we had stayed in the EU, which is very much the avowed policy of the First Minister and many members of the Welsh Labour party.

Secondly, the UK’s armed forces continue to play a crucial role in the fight against covid-19 in Wales and we are hugely grateful for their commitment and expertise. Four hundred and eleven military personnel are currently available to support the pandemic response in Wales. That includes 313 personnel supporting the Welsh ambulance service and 98 personnel deployed to assist the seven health boards across Wales. That is an absolutely key example of the benefits of the Union to Wales and across the rest of the UK.

There has been much talk about the financial benefits that have flowed from the UK Government’s policies, so I will not go back over those, but I know from my own experience in my constituency of Clwyd South how many businesses have said to me, when I have visited them, that they are extremely grateful for the prompt, well directed and generous support that has been provided by the UK Government to businesses across Wales. My constituency of Clwyd South has historically been starved of investment by the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff Bay, but under the UK Government over the last two years we have seen renewed vigour to correct that injustice, with unprecedented levels of funding coming into the region. A key example is the £13.3 million levelling-up fund bid, developed by Wrexham and Denbighshire councils and which I sponsored, which has been successful. It will be matched by £1.7 million of funding, giving a total package of £15 million.

There are three interconnected projects that make up this levelling-up fund bid, which will transform parts of my constituency. First, there is the Trevor Basin Technical Masterplan. Not only does it improve the famous site with the great aqueduct created by Thomas Telford, but it will be highly regenerative to parts of the constituency that are suffering under a post-industrial situation. It is a combination of regeneration and of valuing our heritage and assets, which are so important to us in the constituency of Clwyd South.

The second area that the fund will benefit is Denbighshire. The project supports cross-border visitor connectivity in the Dee Valley at the Horseshoe Falls, the Four Great Highways and Plas Newydd in Llangollen, and also the Llangollen active travel corridor, including the old railway line and Chirk. The third part, which is perhaps for me the most exciting part, is in the Corwen area. Corwen is a beautiful town, but it has been left behind because it has not received much investment—indeed, hardly any at all—from the Welsh Government over a long period. It will enable us to create a new and improved Western Gateway to the Dee Valley and the world heritage site, and it will improve connectivity and infrastructure.

The funding will improve the town centre assets in Corwen and the area between the railway and the car park, including a new platform canopy. This links together the famous Llangollen steam railway, and it will take visitors up along the railway to Llangollen and then links into the canal. It is doing what we desperately need in Clwyd South: bringing hope, vigour and investment to a key heritage asset and to important parts of the constituency. It will not only provide jobs and a much-needed economic boost, but will improve the wellbeing of our residents by widening access to recreation, outdoor and other amenity activities. It will also celebrate the amazing history, language and culture of our part of Wales and bring them to a wider audience.

Another example of UK Government investment has been the step-free access at Ruabon railway station. I was pleased to welcome the Secretary of State for Transport on a visit to the station last year, and he has said that the station can now progress to the next stage of the Access for All programme to help secure step-free access for station visitors. That comes after many years of campaigning by representatives, organisations and residents in Ruabon, and I believe it also highlights the commitment of the UK Government to our communities in Clwyd South and the rest of north Wales, which for so long have been taken for granted by a complacent Labour party in Cardiff Bay.

Finally, in contrast to the investment from the UK Government, we can see a corresponding lack of interest and funding from Welsh Labour. For example, I had the opportunity recently to visit the landslip on Newbridge Road in my constituency, where I was able to see first hand the damage that had been caused on the road, which has severed the vital link between Newbridge, Cefn and the wider communities of Chirk, Plas Madoc and Ruabon.

I used the visit to call on the Welsh Government to urgently conduct essential repairs, which have been badly needed since the storms hit a year ago. Since the visit, funding of £175,000 from the Welsh Government has been confirmed to make technical studies regarding the repair, which is a small step in the right direction on fixing the damage to Newbridge Road, but clearly a great deal more needs to be done. It is astonishing that the Welsh Labour Government have taken so long to react, and there can be no further delays on their part in ensuring that these repairs are done as quickly as possible. To quote a frustrated local,

“If this road had been in South Wales, we would be talking about the opening date by now.”

That is the opinion of my constituents about the care of the Welsh Government when it comes to major infrastructure projects in Clwyd South.

In conclusion, it was my pledge in the 2019 election to work constructively to deliver the change and investment that Clwyd South needs. I am proud to have worked closely with the Secretary of State, the team at the Wales Office and many Ministers across the UK Government. But it is high time that Mark Drakeford and the Welsh Labour Government step up and deliver, particularly for our communities in north Wales, if we are to make a difference and improve the lives of the people of Wales.

[Jo Stevens]

Has the hon. Gentleman seen the polls in Wales recently?

[Simon Baynes]

The polls come and go, but the essence of what I am saying is that we are delivering a constructive and particular project. I have tried to focus on my own constituency, so that my remarks are not generalised but particular. In a part of Wales that has been left behind and has significant deprivation, the UK Government are stepping in where the Welsh Labour Government should have been for decades.

I would like to finish on the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). He referred to the way in which the Welsh Government are playing a dangerous game consorting with the nationalist cause. As someone who grew up in Wales and has lived there most of my life, I think the value of the Union is of huge importance. It is extremely dangerous that the Welsh Labour party is not providing the support, vigour and representation for that cause.