Wales Bill
Debate between Owen Smith and Ian C. Lucas(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Owen Smith
The Secretary of State makes my point for me because I do not for a minute subscribe to the notion that Wales has money handed down to it from Westminster. That money reflects the taxes paid by Welsh people, and more importantly, in a Union that is meant to be about our ability to share resources, pool risk and redistribute from wealthier to less wealthy parts, it reflects the morality and values of our country. Unfortunately, that morality and that set of values are being undermined by the Secretary of State’s description of the Union as one in which one part is a supplicant and another is handing down money.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to be wary of the politics of the hospital pass in Wales? I am always suspicious of Tories bearing gifts, to mix my metaphors, and I do not trust the Conservative party to defend the interests of my constituents.
Owen Smith
Nor do I and, more importantly, nor do the people of Wales—that is why they do not elect Tories in Wales. The very least we owe the Welsh people is that we consider extremely carefully the likely impact of these radical changes to such a cornerstone of the redistributive Union as taxation. They will have an impact on the potential prosperity and well-being of the Welsh people, which is why, although Labour will not oppose the Lords amendments, as we have not opposed the Bill at other stages, we will continue to be clear that we want far more explanation from the Government about how and why they think the powers in question might be deployed in Wales, and what the benefits will be for the Welsh people.
Owen Smith
No, it is project reasoned analysis of the numbers, and that project shows clearly a £66 billion shortfall over the past five years and a projected further shortfall across the UK over the next five years. We will see a worse performance in terms of corporate and income tax receipts across the UK as a result of the low- wage, deeply insecure, second-rate economy that the Tory Government are building. Wales has been particularly ill served by what has happened because of the additional fragilities of our economy due to our industrial heritage and the preponderance of low-wage jobs in Wales.
The reality is that—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State shakes his head, but he should think about this. He said earlier that the indexed method cited in Holtham means that Wales would effectively be incentivised to grow its tax base at a faster rate than England’s to enjoy uplifts under these powers. The truth is that over the past five years the Welsh tax base has declined at a faster rate than that of England, as the figure is 4.8% in Wales whereas the UK average is 4.2%. That means that Wales would have been worse off under the indexation had the provisions applied in the last five years, which is a further illustration of the need for the Government to undertake some proper, detailed analysis to let the Welsh people know whether we would be better or worse off.
Owen Smith
My hon. Friend reinforces my point. We know that the Welsh economy has historic weaknesses because of the decline in heavy industry, and its distance from London and the powerhouse of the south-east. Those are well understood, but they are not reflected in the debate that we are having, which is largely politically motivated.
Some in Wales argue that we do not need a referendum to decide this matter, but we think that the Welsh people should have a debate and ultimately take the decision on what would be a radical change. The debate cannot be driven by the Tory party’s desire to insulate itself against the charge that it has reduced Welsh budgets by 10%, which it has; or by the need to support the Tory objective of reducing public spending to levels we have not seen since the 1930s, as was manifest last week; or even by the wish to sustain a partisan argument of English votes for English laws. All three of those rationales feature as part of the Government’s motivation for this debate, and we are disappointed that they have not provided any real response to these questions throughout the passage of the Bill.
It will now be for the Welsh Labour Government to consider what is best for the Welsh people. I have no doubt that they will do so using Welsh Labour values and thinking about the benefits for the Welsh people, as well as about how we deliver equality and improvements to the lot of working people across the UK.
Government Policies (Wales)
Debate between Owen Smith and Ian C. Lucas(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Owen Smith
The food banks are to be applauded, but the fact that they are required should shame us all, particularly the Government who are presiding over the explosion in their usage. It is very clear why they are required: the Trussell Trust has made it plain that the vast majority of people who use them do so because their benefits have been changed or stopped.
The emerging trend—at 22%, up from 15% last year—is for the recipients of food parcels to be in work. They are earning a living, but it is insufficient to pay for something as fundamental as food. That should surprise none of us, because we now know that, under this Tory Government, 13 million people in Britain are in poverty while in work. They are earning their poverty in this country, and that scandal and disgrace should shame us all.
Owen Smith
I am aware of that, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House about it. Right across Wales, wage inflation last year was just 0.6%, while price inflation was 2.2%. That real-terms fall in people’s wages comes on top of the fact that wages in Wales are already the lowest in Britain. Average weekly earnings in Wales are now just £473.40, compared with the UK average of £518. One in four workers in Wales earns below the living wage, which should shock the House in the 21st century.
Wales Bill
Debate between Owen Smith and Ian C. Lucas(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Owen Smith
My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda made Labour’s position clear. We are opposed to the gerrymandering shift from four years to five years to maximise the amount of time the coalition can hang on to power. However, we accept that the First Minister of Wales and the Welsh Government would like to see the term extended to guarantee, as the Secretary of State put it, that there will not be a clash between elections in Wales and Westminster. In explaining Labour’s position, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda is entirely right. We still feel that four years is preferable, and that five is far too long and diminishes accountability. That said, we will accept this shift and we will support this aspect of the Bill.
On double-jobbing, the third aspect of the electoral arrangements, Labour has always been clear. It has always had an internal party position whereby it does not support people having dual mandates, standing for election and holding office in the Assembly and in Westminster. We are therefore pleased that the Government are moving into line with Labour on this and we will support this aspect of the Bill.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
I am interested in my hon. Friend’s observation on double-jobbing. Does he agree that it is inappropriate for Assembly Members to stand as prospective parliamentary candidates while, at the same time, serving as AMs? In particular, is it not inappropriate for them to open up constituency offices in the seats that they are fighting? Will he support an amendment to prevent AMs from standing as prospective parliamentary candidates?
Owen Smith
I will have to look carefully at my hon. Friend’s proposal and take it into consideration. I would not want to discourage Members from moving back and forth between the Assembly and Westminster, which I think is a positive state of affairs that should be encouraged, but I note the point he makes so eloquently.
Elections (National Assembly for Wales)
Debate between Owen Smith and Ian C. Lucas(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Owen Smith
No, it very clearly does not. The Labour party is here today speaking for Wales, and it is a shame that the hon. Gentleman sought earlier to misrepresent the options in the Green Paper. He suggested that on the table was one option of keeping the status quo, and he knows that that is not straightforwardly true. The option is to keep 40-20, but to shift to a more equalised block of constituencies by changing all the constituencies across Wales, with none of the benefits of retaining coterminosity with the parliamentary boundaries. Even that minor change is so significant that the consent of the National Assembly for Wales, as proxy for the people of Wales, ought to be sought.
The Green Paper is partisan, and also arrogant, in that it completely eschews the tradition of seeking consensus on issues such as constitutional change. When in office, the Labour party sought change through cross-party consensus, including when we proposed changes to the National Assembly for Wales in election manifestos. Amusingly enough, even the Tory party is split on this issue, with the party in Westminster taking one position in documents, and the party in Wales, which is perhaps more in touch with the people of Wales, taking an alternative one.
This is essentially an anti-devolution Green Paper, at odds with the spirit, if not the law, of devolution, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen said. How else can we describe a proposal from a Westminster-based, Tory-led Government for changes to both constituencies and elections to the National Assembly for Wales—a proposal that does not require the consent of the Assembly or the people of Wales? The proposal lacks even a modicum of a mandate, and thus lacks legitimacy, and it should be called out for what it is.
The two options are clear. One is to keep the 40-20 split but change the nature of the boundaries. That has all the disbenefits of reorganisation and none of the benefits of retaining coterminosity. That is why, of course, the Secretary of State is not minded to take the option forward. It is a red herring, designed to deceive. The second option is to shift to 30 on a list and 30 first past the post, increasing the number of Members elected via proportional representation, and decreasing the number directly elected by 10.
No one is suggesting that the nature of the National Assembly should be set in stone or fixed in aspic. Nobody is suggesting that no changes should be proposed and no reforms undertaken. Many people in Wales have lots of ideas—we have heard some suggestions today—about how the National Assembly could be reformed, but few of those people would have the temerity to propose imposing those changes on the National Assembly and the people of Wales without seeking their consent in any meaningful fashion. Fewer still would have the nerve to propose changes without any real evidence or impact assessment of how they will affect voting patterns or election turnout in Wales.
However, our absent Secretary of State proposes to do just that, giving effectively one option, the justification for which is cut and pasted from the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, with nothing to back up either that or the alternative except the threat that if the option she favours is not adopted, the other even more destructive and disruptive option will be adopted. So much for the respect agenda.
That is happening despite the fact that in the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs last year, when I suggested that the Secretary of State had precisely such a plan in the back of her mind and warned her not to try to gerrymander the map in Wales, she told me that
“before anything goes forward to do with boundaries there would be a loud, long and large period of consultation”.
Consulting on a flimsy Green Paper for a few months over the summer, and treating the National Assembly as a consultee like any other individual or institutional consultee in Wales, while the Secretary of State for Wales refuses to submit to any meaningful scrutiny, does not constitute a loud, long or large consultation to my mind. It is certainly not appropriate to the changes proposed.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen said, consider the contrast between that and the attitude taken by this Tory Government when they sought to introduce changes to the nature of the voting arrangements for Parliament in Westminster. We had a three-month, significantly contested and well-resourced campaign, followed by a national referendum. I am not necessarily suggesting that that is comparable to the changes proposed in the Green Paper, nor am I necessarily suggesting, as some have done, that the changes necessitate a referendum. However, I put it to Members that at the very least, the consent of the National Assembly must be obtained as a proxy for that of the people of Wales if there is to be no referendum on the changes.
Consider, too, the changes mentioned in this debate in respect of the passage of the Scotland Act 2012. This Government explicitly accepted that the Scottish Parliament should have to consent to the views included in the Bill before it could become law in Scotland. Why does this Welsh Secretary, parachuted into Wales, not feel that a similar job should be done for Wales? Why does she treat the National Assembly for Wales with such disdain when her counterpart in Scotland treated the Scottish Parliament with such respect?
All that prompts the question: why these changes, and why now? Like others here, I cannot but conclude that it is about narrow party self-interest for smaller parties that will benefit from an increased proportion of Members in the National Assembly being elected by proportional representation. To proffer a piece of evidence in support of that contention, think back to 1999, when the Labour party was well supported by the people of Wales and did well at the elections, with the Tories winning just one seat by first past the post. What was the impact for them on the list? Eight seats were delivered. I suggest that a similar position might well come about, with similarly happy benefit for Conservative Members, if the proposals are adopted.
One cannot help thinking that the reason why Plaid Cymru is so quiet on the issue is that the party has cooked up a deal with the Conservative Secretary of State to accept the proposals, because it knows that they will benefit Plaid Cymru, too. The people of Wales will note Plaid Cymru Members’ absence from this debate and understand precisely what they are about.
Owen Smith
I find it absolutely amazing that Members from the so-called party of Wales should be absent from a debate on electoral arrangements for the people of Wales alone. It is an absolute dereliction of duty for them not to be here engaging in this debate.
Suspicions only harden when we consider the fact that No. 10 has now been dragged into the debate about Wales. That too strikes me as extraordinary. No. 10 is now reduced to the kind of weasel words that we read in the newspaper this morning and heard repeated by the Minister earlier today:
“the Assembly should be fully engaged in the process of deciding its future electoral arrangements”.
What does “fully engaged” mean? Does it mean consulted with, like any Tom, Dick and Harry in Wales, any public body or any MP? I suggest that that is not full engagement. Equally weaselly is the Prime Minister’s letter to the First Minister. He did not say that the changes in Wales should be decided by the people of Wales, but he certainly said, in the words of the First Minister, that the people of Wales should agree with the changes through the National Assembly. That is a bone of contention to which we will need to return later.
In conclusion, I have some questions for the Minister sent here today by his extremely busy Secretary of State to represent the Wales Office. First, what exactly does No. 10 mean by “fully engaging” with the National Assembly? Does it mean anything more than consulting with it, as with others in Wales?
What weight will the consultation accord the views of the National Assembly? To quote the motion passed there by the Tories, Plaid Cymru and Labour, it has already voted to:
“This Assembly recognises that there is absolutely no mandate to change the current electoral system in Wales and that any future change should be put to the people of Wales.”
Given this Government’s complexion, what notice will be paid in particular to the views of the leader of the Welsh Tories, Andrew R.T. Davies? He said:
“I think the Assembly should determine its own boundaries”.
In another interview, he said:
“I am in favour of the status quo”.
Ultimately, what will this Government do if, as seems likely, the National Assembly holds to its course and continues to submit evidence to the consultation saying that it does not believe that there is a mandate for the changes and does not support them? Will the Secretary of State for Wales continue to drive through the changes in the teeth of clear opposition from the National Assembly? If so, something has gone badly awry in the arrangements between Wales and Westminster. The Minister and his Secretary of State would do extremely well to consider the damage that will be done to that relationship if they press ahead. Devolution was intended not to diminish the voice of Wales within the UK, but to amplify it. It was intended to grant greater control over national affairs to the people of Wales via the National Assembly, within the framework of the UK. That framework is delicate, as events in Scotland are displaying only too clearly. All of us who believe that we in the UK are better together should reflect on that, and on the impact on that delicate framework.
Imposing ill-considered and ill-judged changes from Westminster on the National Assembly will only damage it. I am not playing games; I am simply stating the facts. I hope that the Minister has some answers on behalf of his Secretary of State.