Welsh Affairs — House of Commons, 2017-03-02
Topic: International Affairs
Albert Owen (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House has considered Welsh affairs I thank the Backbench Business Committee for selecting this debate. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Craig Williams) for joining me and others in putting the case for securing it I am proud to be a Welsh MP, proud to serve in the House of Commons, proud to be Welsh, proud to be British and proud to be an internationalist. Wales has made an enormous contribution to Britain and the globe. I was hoping to make my opening remarks as the Welsh team were on the way, as Triple Crown winners, to winning the Six Nations championship. That is not so, but we are still a very united country and it is unity that is the theme of my speech today Yesterday, as Welsh people, we celebrated with patriotism. We had an excellent service in the House of Commons, where the Speaker’s Chaplain officiated in both English and Welsh. It is now on the record that we are allowed to use the Welsh language in future Welsh Grand Committees. I say to Mr Deputy Speaker that he should take a leaf out of the book of the Speaker’s Chaplain. He should attend a Welsh Grand Committee debate and, as a great visitor to my constituency and many other parts of Wales, speak in both Welsh and English Before I move on to some of the issues that have shaped the past 12 months, I want to say that there has been some good news. I remind the House of the excellent performance of the Welsh football team in Euro 2016, when we led the way for the United Kingdom. I remind Members, particularly those on the Labour Benches, that Labour was returned to government in the Welsh Assembly and that we again have a Labour First Minister of Wales Since St David’s day 2016, there have been some issues that have divided the country and the world. Brexit divided many of our constituencies—it divided Wales and the United Kingdom—and Bush was elected President of the United States. To talk of building walls—I said Bush, but I mean Trump. I have made that mistake before, but he is worse than Bush. The serious point is that Trump talks about building walls. To talk about building walls is to ask on which side of the wall people belong. We need to put an end to that kind of divisiveness. Of course we need political debate, critical thinking and broad opinion to shape our future, but we need to stop talking about Brexiteers and remainers. We need to talk about the 100% we are elected to represent. In Scotland, they still talk of the 45%, but if we are to move forward we have to move away from tribalism and towards unity As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, Welsh MPs have played a pivotal role in the House of Commons. They have introduced policies and concepts that have united the United Kingdom. I am talking about Nye Bevan and the national health service—something we all support, because it has helped all our people—and Jim Griffiths, the former Member for Llanelli, who introduced the National Assistance Act 1948, again to give social protection to everybody in the UK. Those things have helped to shape the politics of the UK We must now build a consensus across parties on the big themes that can unite Wales and the UK. For one, we must provide social care for all our people, and we should have that debate here in the House as Welsh MPs. Over the last few years, I have been saddened to see divisions over the health and social care service being used politically by parties to divide us, when it should unite us and help the most vulnerable in society The digital revolution is something else that can unite us. We need to find 21st-century solutions, and one of those is superfast broadband. [Interruption.] Does my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) want to intervene? No? Superfast broadband liberates communities and families—I know of Welsh families with sons, daughters and other relatives around the world who now speak to them regularly because of the digital information technology facilities available—yet many people in rural and peripheral areas of Wales do not have the same facilities as those in larger towns and cities.