Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Jonathan Edwards

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman should understand that the Government have a sacred duty to take care of how taxpayers’ money is spent. Despite all the problems we were left with in 2010, the truth is that we maintain a very strong UK Government footprint in Wales, and the growth in private sector jobs in Wales over the past five years far outstrips any reductions we have seen in public sector employment.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Partial income tax powers are of course a welcome step in helping the UK rebalance geographically, but it is vital that those powers are accompanied by a fiscal framework that genuinely preserves non-detriment to Wales. Given the Scottish Government’s successful struggle to achieve a no-detriment agreement, what specific representations has the Secretary of State received from the Welsh Government on their chosen deduction method, and what is his chosen deduction method? Is it not the case that partial income tax powers make it more difficult to achieve genuine non-detriment?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the need to get the details right—we have just seen a very prolonged negotiation on the Scottish fiscal framework—but that is further down the line. We still have an ongoing discussion with the Welsh Government. They want to avoid taking on any income tax powers whatsoever. They want to avoid the additional fiscal responsibility that that would entail. They are running from having that fuller financial accountability that we believe is really important for Welsh democracy.

Draft Wales Bill (Morning sitting)

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Jonathan Edwards

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 General Committees

[Stephen Crabb]

Of course we own the Bill that we write. The purpose of being a Government is to write legislation. The hon. Gentleman will recall that what was enumerated in the St David’s day document was a recommendation about a set of powers that all parties agreed on. We were absolutely clear throughout the process and on the day that the Prime Minister and the then Deputy Prime Minister made the announcement in Cardiff that it was entirely up to other parties to go further than the St David’s day recommendations. In fairness to Plaid Cymru, they did that. In fairness to the Liberal Democrats, their manifesto at last year’s general election went further than St David’s day. St David’s day represented a baseline around which the process showed consensus among all parties.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Does the Secretary of State think that the St David’s day process was more comprehensive than the Silk Commission, which took a number of years and consulted widely with the people of Wales and all political parties, whereas the St David’s day agreement was a couple of backroom meetings with Westminster politicians?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman can caricature the discussions in that way if he wants to, but he will remember that they were a lot more meaningful and substantive than he gives them credit for. The Silk Commission, which my right hon. Friends the Members for Chesham and Amersham and for Clwyd West established, took a broad range of evidence not just from politicians but from stakeholders, who included representative of the parties. If hon. Members read the Silk document, as I have done several times in great detail, they will see that some of the recommendations lack a lot of detail; some of them do not give a precise, clear policy steer. There is a lot of good in the Silk Commission documents, but it is up to elected politicians to decide how to take forward the recommendations, which is why the official Opposition, the Labour party, could not sign up to the recommendations around the devolution of policing and justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

We absolutely do want it to be a law-making body. We want it to have the freedom to give expression to its law-making powers. That means having the ability to change the law to enforce its legislation—I think that is the point the hon. Lady is getting at. Nothing in the Bill prevents the devolved Government from doing that. We do not want inhibitions around the Welsh Government making law in the areas that are devolved to them. However, when there are spillover effects from making law, the Bill, rightly in my view, raises a safeguard—a boundary, a hurdle—so that those spillover effects are not more than is necessary.

[Jonathan Edwards]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

In the details of the report that came out today, and in other academic reports, there are some good and important points. We have taken the report away and are looking at it very closely. The whole point of having pre-legislative scrutiny is to use it as an opportunity to think again and take views from a very broad range of stakeholders.

I have to say, having read some of the evidence presented to the Welsh Affairs Committee and to the Welsh Assembly’s Committee, sometimes the people giving that evidence are asking a different question from the question we are asking. The question they are asking is, “How do we craft a piece of legislation that expands the remit of Welsh government and Welsh law-making?” If that is your only question, of course you will find failings and limitations in the Bill. If you are trying to balance that question with the question of how to regulate the interface between the two legitimate Governments for Wales: the UK Government and the Welsh Government—how to ensure clarity about who is responsible for what, how to build in respect for the devolution settlement so that we do not get Governments crossing over one another’s boundaries, changing each other’s functions without a clear consenting process in place—then you cannot avoid coming up with some of the procedures and mechanisms in the Bill.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The Secretary of State is a well-known pragmatist; I was hoping he would come to the Committee this morning with a slightly more flexible approach, but it seems to me as if he is digging a trench around the Bill as it stands. As he knows, even his own party will vote against the Bill in the legislative consent motion when it comes before the Assembly. Will he respect the vote in the National Assembly if his party decides not to support the Bill?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to take me down a road that we are not going down today. On the earlier point of his intervention, as I said to the Welsh Affairs Committee and to the Assembly’s Committee, we will be using this process to look again at some of the details and I have listed three broad areas that we are looking at: reservations, ministerial consents and the necessity test. My purpose today is to remind Members from Wales, who perhaps have not participated in the Welsh Affairs Committee proceedings or followed what the Assembly Committee has been saying, of some of the broad principles behind our approach to what is a really complicated and difficult issue.

The second bit of what I regard as a new, emerging orthodoxy in Cardiff Bay is this: they believe that the Welsh Government and the National Assembly should have completely unfettered freedom to legislate in devolved areas. They believe that they should have complete freedom in those policy areas that are clearly the competence of the Welsh Government. That is a proposition I agree with and am very comfortable with. I want the Welsh Government and Welsh Assembly to exercise their law-making powers freely. I do not agree with what they then go on to say about these law-making powers—that when Welsh legislation has a spillover effect in affecting reserved matters, in affecting the law as it applies to England or in the way it affects the underlying principles of English and Welsh law—the single jurisdiction—somehow the Welsh Government should have the unfettered ability to make changes in those areas.

That is what the necessity test in this Bill is designed to do—not to stop the Assembly enforcing its legislation, but to make clear where the boundaries of their competence lie. However, this test has now become a point of warfare because they do not believe there should be any boundary or safeguard to those powers. When I put the question to them—when I asked the Presiding Officer and Carwyn Jones why the Welsh Assembly should have unfettered ability to make law without having any regard to the impacts on England or on reserved matters—I simply got a shrug of the shoulders in response. That is not a proposition that we can endorse.

The Bill is not designed to serve the agendas of those who believe that the next stage of devolution should be about driving a wedge between England and Wales and creating more separation. The purpose of the Bill is to provide clarity and to ensure that the two legitimate Governments for Wales, the UK Government and the Welsh Government, can work together in clarity so that Ministers in Cardiff Bay and in Westminster understand which areas of policy they are responsible for.

The answer to the complexities around this is not, as the First Minister now suggests, to create a separate legal jurisdiction. A separate jurisdiction would be expensive, unnecessary and, in the words of a partner of a major law firm in Cardiff, would result in a flight of legal talent from Wales. Let us be clear. If the Labour party had won the general election and had taken forward a devolution Bill, it would not be entertaining the creation of a separate jurisdiction.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Jonathan Edwards

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in making that suggestion and recommendation. It is worth putting it on the record that our sympathy and thoughts are with all the families and businesses in Wales, as well as with those right across the UK, that suffered damage due to flooding over the Christmas period. All the new money that the Government have announced to address flooding issues has delivered Barnett consequentials for Wales. It is up to the Welsh Government to decide how to use that money, but we certainly want them to use every single penny to help to address flooding issues. I am afraid that we will have to come back time and again to such issues and discuss them in this place.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Further to the question from the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), the Minister will undoubtedly share our concern about press reports over the weekend. What contingency plans do the UK Government have for a worse-case scenario? Would he support a Welsh public stake in the Welsh operations of Tata, as was afforded to the banks of London during the financial crash of 2008?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Jonathan Edwards

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

With his eagle and sharp eye on the care of the public finances, my hon. Friend makes a really important point. I was actually shocked by some of the examples from the TaxPayers Alliance that we have read. Clearly, the Welsh Government and the entire public sector in Wales need to get a much stronger grip on the disciplines of cost control and to get on top of managing the national finances.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Provisional results from the annual survey of hours and earnings by the Office for National Statistics show that Wales is at the bottom of the pay table and is the only part of the British state where earnings have gone down. Does that not indicate that the Welsh Government need to be empowered with a wide portfolio of fiscal powers—the Secretary of State has supported that for Scotland—as direct control from Westminster is clearly failing?

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Welsh Government need more fiscal tools. They need the responsibility of income tax devolution to encourage them to be a more financially responsible Administration. The point that he makes about earnings is also important. That is why he should be giving full-throated support to the steps that we are taking to drive up wage levels and end the curse of low pay in Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stephen Crabb and Jonathan Edwards

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not sure the hon. Gentleman quite knows about these issues. We are totally committed—I cannot be clearer than that—to electrifying the Great Western line all the way through to Swansea, as part of a programme of infrastructure investment bigger than anything this country has seen since the days of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Over the summer, it was reported that electrification of the Great Western line was costing four times more per mile than the UK’s last major infrastructure project, the east coast main line, which was completed in 1991. [Interruption.] One reason for the escalating costs are the compensation payments to train operators, which did not arise in the case of the east coast main line because the service was in public ownership. With the cost to the public purse now reportedly £1 billion more than projected, does the Secretary of State believe that the schedule 4 payments are justified, and does he agree that the profit-for-dividend model must be taken out of rail services? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We must have a bit of quiet. I could hardly hear the hon. Gentleman’s mellifluous tones. Let us hear the Secretary of State.