Welsh Affairs — House of Commons, 2016-03-03
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen Nathan Kinnock (Labour, Centre-left): This outstanding project, made possible by EU and European Investment Bank funding, is one of the largest and most important knowledge economy projects in Europe, producing cutting-edge research focusing on science and innovation The "internet coast" is a plan for the future. It is a pity the same cannot be said of the Government’s draft Wales Bill, which does not provide anything like the lasting settlement that it was intended to create. Instead, it has thrown up more uncertainties around the legislative process, and succeeds only in generating reams of constitutional red tape. Just this week the Welsh Affairs Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies), called on the Government to pause the proposed timetable for the Bill so that there is opportunity to reflect fully. That is the least that is needed. My specific concern is about ministerial consent and the risk that the process is seen as tantamount to an English veto, but my more general concern is that the Bill has been drafted in a bubble, isolated from the broader debate about the constitutional reform that our country so desperately needs The UK is more centralised than any other leading industrialised economy, and the Scottish referendum demonstrated that the constitutional foundations of the UK are cracking beneath our feet. The British people need and deserve better. The piecemeal, make-do and muddle-through approach that is epitomised by this Wales Bill is simply not going to get the job done. We must, therefore, have a full constitutional convention that would formulate a bold, radical, rational, root-and-branch reform of our constitution. The convention would develop a written constitution that is anchored in a confederal UK, an elected senate, a more proportional electoral system, and properly defined devolution of powers to the nations and regions of the United Kingdom We have also seen the results of government by muddle in Wales with the Trade Union Bill. Having taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut, the Government have found that the nut is not entirely theirs to crack in the first place. I am delighted that my Labour colleagues have stood eyeball to eyeball with the Government, and it was the Government who blinked first. The Trade Union Bill, coupled with the changes in voter registration and the alterations in constituency boundaries, are blatant and disgraceful attempts to turn the UK into a one-party state, the thinly veiled agenda being to eradicate parliamentary opposition altogether. Vladimir Putin would be proud of such fixing. Wales is disproportionately hit by the boundary changes, losing around a quarter of our MPs, reducing Wales’s voice in the House and marginalising the Welsh people There is great potential in Wales, but we will realise that potential only with bold leadership. There is vision and willingness in Cardiff Bay, but we find those qualities abysmally lacking on the Government Benches. As we go into elections in May, we should remember all that we have to be proud of in Wales: a Labour Government delivering for working people, creating 50,000 apprenticeships and getting 15,000 young people back to work with Jobs Growth Wales; ground-breaking legislation on violence against women; a Labour Government who have improved the cancer survival rate faster than anywhere in the UK, and who are training more nurses than ever before; a Labour Government who stood up to Westminster to protect farm workers’ wages; a Labour Government who stood by Remploy, while the Tories were shutting it down across the rest of the UK Let us remember that it is the work of the Welsh Labour Government under the leadership of First Minister Carwyn Jones that has enabled the creation of 750 jobs at Aston Martin in St Athan. Under Carwyn, Labour will make use of the Welsh Government’s new powers by cutting business rates for small businesses and supporting entrepreneurship, growth and jobs. That is the kind of leadership we need in Wales.