The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairman:
Mr.
Martin Caton
†
Ainger,
Nick
(Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire)
(Lab)
Brennan,
Kevin
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools
and
Families)
Bryant,
Chris
(Rhondda)
(Lab)
Clwyd,
Ann
(Cynon Valley)
(Lab)
Crabb,
Mr. Stephen
(Preseli Pembrokeshire)
(Con)
†
David,
Mr. Wayne
(Caerphilly)
(Lab)
†
Davies,
Mr. Dai
(Blaenau Gwent)
(Ind)
†
Davies,
David T.C.
(Monmouth)
(Con)
Flynn,
Paul
(Newport, West)
(Lab)
†
Francis,
Dr. Hywel
(Aberavon)
(Lab)
†
Gillan,
Mrs. Cheryl
(Chesham and Amersham)
(Con)
†
Griffith,
Nia
(Llanelli)
(Lab)
Hain,
Mr. Peter
(Neath)
(Lab)
Hanson,
Mr. David
(Minister of State, Ministry of
Justice)
Havard,
Mr. Dai
(Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney)
(Lab)
Howells,
Dr. Kim
(Minister for the Middle
East)
†
Irranca-Davies,
Huw
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Wales)
†
James,
Mrs. Siân C.
(Swansea, East)
(Lab)
†
Jones,
Mr. David
(Clwyd, West)
(Con)
Llwyd,
Mr. Elfyn
(Meirionnydd Nant Conwy)
(PC)
†
Lucas,
Ian
(Wrexham)
(Lab)
Michael,
Alun
(Cardiff, South and Penarth)
(Lab/Co-op)
Moon,
Mrs. Madeleine
(Bridgend)
(Lab)
†
Morden,
Jessica
(Newport, East)
(Lab)
†
Morgan,
Julie
(Cardiff, North)
(Lab)
†
Murphy,
Mr. Paul
(Secretary of State for
Wales)
†
Öpik,
Lembit
(Montgomeryshire)
(LD)
†
Owen,
Albert
(Ynys Môn)
(Lab)
†
Price,
Adam
(Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr)
(PC)
†
Pritchard,
Mark
(The Wrekin)
(Con)
†
Ruane,
Chris
(Vale of Clwyd)
(Lab)
Smith,
John
(Vale of Glamorgan)
(Lab)
Tami,
Mark
(Alyn and Deeside)
(Lab)
Touhig,
Mr. Don
(Islwyn)
(Lab/Co-op)
Williams,
Mr. Alan
(Swansea, West)
(Lab)
Williams,
Mrs. Betty
(Conwy)
(Lab)
†
Williams,
Hywel
(Caernarfon)
(PC)
Williams,
Mark
(Ceredigion)
(LD)
†
Williams,
Mr. Roger
(Brecon and Radnorshire)
(LD)
Willott,
Jenny
(Cardiff, Central)
(LD)
Alan Sandall, Mick Hillyard,
Committee Clerks
† attended
the Committee
Welsh
Grand
Committee
Wednesday 26
March
2008
(Afternoon)
[Mr.
martin Caton
in the
Chair]
Motion
made, a
nd Question proposed [this
day],
That the
Committee has considered the matter of the Budget Statement and its
implications for Wales.—[Mr. Paul
Murphy
.
]
2
pm
Question
again
proposed.
Adam
Price (Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr) (PC): Before the
intermission I was talking about super-tax evasion by
the super-rich. A number of mechanisms, apart from offshoring, are used
by the mega-rich, particularly by the barons of the private equity
industry. One simple mechanism is that because they are funded by debt
many of them do not make any profit and therefore do not pay
corporation tax. They make their money through the capital gain of the
business when they eventually sell it. So on the corporate side, they
pay no corporation tax. On the personal side, they have managed to
convince the Treasury that their income is taken in the form of a
profit share and they should therefore not pay income tax but capital
gains tax, which is at 18 per cent. That is why I referred earlier to
the iniquitous situation whereby the chief executive of a private
equity firm pays 18 per cent. on what is effectively their income, but
which, through a technicality—a loophole—is seen as a
capital gain. The Government closed that loophole in 2003, but only for
employee share ownership schemes, which was a good idea. They kept it
open for the private equity industry. They were lobbied hard by the
likes of Sir Ronald Cohen, the chair of Apax. He happens to be a big
funder of the Labour party, but I am sure that that was a mere
coincidence.
That
loophole is absolutely unacceptable. The TUC has estimated that we lose
£25 billion a year through the combined effect of these tax
loopholes for the super-rich, £13 billion on the personal
taxation side and £12 billion on the corporate. The argument
that we should be thankful that non-doms are living here, and that the
burden therefore has to fall on the rest of us otherwise they will go
off to Monaco, does not stand up. The argument, that those people who
work in the financial institutions in the City are extraordinarily
clever and therefore deserve to be treated with largesse, may have
sounded good in the good old days but we have now seen the difficulties
that the economy is getting into because of the massive mistakes made
by those same people. We now have to bail them out—the taxpayer
has to bail them out—and yet they do not contribute as they
should to the Exchequer. That has to
change.
In conclusion,
we need three basic changes in Government policy. As a general
principle, those of us on the left and centre-left of politics need to
create a progressive consensus in favour of the principle of tax
justice, that people who can afford to pay more should pay more as a
proportion of their income. We have
moved away from that in recent years and we need to restore it as the
basic principle behind how we as a society raise resources for public
services. We could do that in a number of ways. We need to close that
tax loophole for the private equity industry, and we need to look again
at upper tax bands, at the £100,000 or the £500,000
level. That would send an important message of fairness. It is
important that people, at whatever level they pay tax, feel that the
system is fair for all
concerned.
Mark
Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): On that point, would the
hon. Gentleman like to put on record what he thinks that higher tax
band should
be?
Adam
Price:
I can give a personal view, because we recently
launched a tax commission within my party. If you are going to take
evidence, Mr. Caton, I think that it will be wrong to give
out the answer in advance. My personal view is that we should introduce
a tax band at either £100,000 or £200,000. Certainly in
Wales that is a substantial income, and it is reasonable to expect at
that level a slightly higher proportion of tax paid. I am giving a
personal view and it may not satisfy the hon. Gentleman. In discussing
the detail of where that tax band should be there will be a range of
views.
The important
principle is this. For people who are on large, substantial
salaries—and from the perspective of my constituency, that is
most of us in this room—it should be acceptable, or expected,
that those who can afford to pay more should do so as a proportion of
their income. There should not be the situation where mega-rich
millionaires, who can afford tax planning, or tax evasion in some
cases, should pay less than people on very low incomes. That is
unacceptable.
Mark
Pritchard:
It is refreshing to hear some free thinking in
this place, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his honesty and for
being so candid. He mentioned his personal view that people earning
over £100,000 could be a starting point for a tax band. Can he
confirm, in the spirit of free thinking and transparency, what that tax
rate would be? I ask for his personal view, I understand that it is not
a party recommendation.
Adam
Price:
We are getting into levels of detail now. It would
be wrong for me to pluck a figure about the rate of tax out of my head.
I have been fair in stating the level where I think that a new tax band
should kick in. We need degrees of progression built into the tax
system. With the Conservative party, if we scratch a
Cameronite, we find a Thatcherite. The basic
disagreement is not about any rate or band that I could mention, but is
that the Conservative party, even in its new clothes, does not agree in
its heart of hearts with the principle of progressive taxation. In
philosophical terms, that is an honourable position for the hon.
Gentleman to take. It is the basis of conservatism, but is not
something that I share. I believe that those of us who can afford to
pay more should pay more as a proportion of income. That, for me, is
the hallmark of a decent society.
Mr.
David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): How would the hon.
Gentleman comment about the experience in the Baltic states where,
increasingly, flat taxes have
been adopted? That has led not only to a decrease in the avoidance and
evasion that concerns him, but has increased the tax take, thus
enabling the Government to spend more on matters such as social
provision, which I imagine he would hold
dear.
Adam
Price:
I am familiar with the Laffer curve from my days
studying economics. However, in terms of the Laffer effect—where
at a lower rate of taxation, the level of tax take increases for the
reasons suggested by the hon. Gentleman—the evidence is
stronger in relation to business taxation than it is to personal
taxation. With personal taxation the evidence is weak, other than at
very punitive levels such as the 98 per cent. marginal rate of taxation
that we had during the 1970s, where it is arguable that a lower rate
would have resulted in more tax. I am not familiar
with the evidence from the Baltic states, but I would be interested to
see it.
David
T.C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con): The hon. Gentleman seems to
accept in his argument the premise that lower rates of taxation can
lead to higher increases in revenue taken by the Treasury. The argument
is about where that level should be. In principle, he would presumably
agree with hon. Members on both sides of the Committee that setting
levels of taxation at too high a level is likely to decrease the take
to the Treasury.
Adam
Price:
Perhaps at the margins and in relation to business
taxation. Economists disagree, but I have never seen any compelling
evidence in relation to the Laffer effect and personal taxation. There
is some evidence on both sides of the argument in relation to business
taxation. In Ireland, for example, the rate of corporation tax was
lowered from 50 per cent. down, over a period of years, to 10 per
cent., and now up to 12.5 per cent. It saw a big expansion in its level
of tax take, but that was because it was a small country that had very
little headquartered corporate activity during the early 80s. Through
lowering its corporate tax levels, it was able to engage in fiscal
competition with larger jurisdictions that had higher rates. If
Germany, a large country, had done the same, would it have had the same
effect? That is unlikely because the effect would have been not to
attract more companies into Germany, but that the companies already
there would pay less. In certain circumstances, the Laffer effect can
work. We are in the position when a relatively small number of people
working in the hedge fund and private equity industry are abusing our
tax regime. According to the TUC, they are punching a massive
£25 billion black hole into tax receipts, and it is time that we
closed
it.
Secondly,
we need to look carefully at economic inactivity. There is a problem
with much of the Government’s policy at the moment, which
suggests that it is purely a supply side difficulty and that the reason
why people are inactive is purely to do with their level of skills and
so on. It is not always that simple. Demand side issues also compel
some people into inactivity. We need to be careful that we do not go
fully down the American workfare route because the experience there has
not been positive. We must remember that the United States of America
has the worst level of inequality in the developed world. It is often
said in relation to workfare in the United States that only 11 per
cent. of
people in Detroit are now on benefits, whereas it was much higher a few
decades ago. I wonder why that figure is now so low. Is it because
mortality rates are increasing in America? Are more people dying and
thus reducing the number of people on benefits? Is it because of people
in prison? The United States has the highest prison population in the
world. One way in which to get people off benefits is to lock them up.
People are homeless in Detroit because there is not the universal right
to housing that once existed. We have to be careful about going down
the American workfare route because there is a lack of effective demand
for the sort of jobs that would be attractive or amenable to the
population.
Lastly, we
need to do several things about low pay. We must maintain the value of
the national minimum wage at least with average earnings, and increase
it above that. Over the past 10 years, the national minimum wage has
increased by 50 per cent., which is above the rate of the increase in
average earnings. We need to accelerate that process so that we can
turn the national minimum wage into a living wage that will enable
people to have a decent standard of living.
Albert
Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman is giving
good advice about the minimum wage and saying how he believes that it
should move faster than indexation. However, as for welfare to work and
getting people off economic inactivity and into work, I did not hear an
answer, only advice to the Government to be careful. Is his party
advocating more stick or carrot, or
both?
Adam
Price:
There are no easy answers. Economic inactivity is a
deeply intractable problem. It would be wrong for anyone to pretend
otherwise. In short, I believe in more carrot and less stick. If we
want to look to the most effective models in the OECD area, the
Nordic countries have had active labour market policies for 15 to 20
years. They are far more successful than the American models but, for
some reason, do not receive the same
coverage.
Hywel
Williams (Caernarfon) (PC): The Government’s own
research, commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions, shows
that sanctions are less effective than work support, especially for
groups such as single parents who value, for example, the £40
per week, which will be taking effect in April. That will be very
valuable indeed, providing stable employment for extended periods.
Sanctions will not work that
well.
Adam
Price:
It is important that we stress the long-term
support element, rather than the sanctions which, as my hon. Friend
says, have not been as effective. From other examples, that would
appear to be so.
We need to
extend the adult rate of the minimum wage to 21-year-olds. We need to
have better enforcement, with more resources and with naming and
shaming of employers that are persistent abusers of the minimum wage.
We also need to look at what the public sector can do to set rates that
are above the minimum wage. The Government announced in the Budget a
new strategy, looking at an ethical public procurement policy, which
could include local and other public sector authorities setting living
wage rates, as the Greater London authority
has done—it has a living wage unit. I understand that the Welsh
Assembly Government are also exploring the possibility of creating a
living wage unit and setting a living wage for Wales that would be
above the minimum wage. That would send a message to the private sector
about the decency threshold for people living in our community. There
are no local authorities in Wales that set a living wage at the
moment—there is only one in England. Political competition at
election times is good. Perhaps we could have a competition between the
parties about how many local authorities—of whichever political
hue—will commit themselves to a living wage to all the
contractors engaged in providing their services, so that we can raise
the threshold or floor of decency for all workers in every community in
Wales.
2.17
pm
Albert
Owen:
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member
for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr, who gave a thoughtful and detailed
speech. He said that he did not want to go into detail—he did
not towards the end, but, at the beginning, he went into an awful lot
of interesting detail. Government has changed and tempered some of his
language. He started off being more new Labour than me, but ended by
reverting to type and having a couple of knocks at
the Government, which was fair comment. His analysis of the Labour 10
years was pretty accurate: a lot done and a lot more to do. I can
remember standing on that slogan in the general election. Perhaps our
parties are getting much closer than many people say. I welcome people
changing and tempering their language towards the Labour party, so I
make no apology for
that.
The
Budget was tough for many reasons. I agreed with the hon. Member for
Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr that it was also fair. The climate was
difficult for delivering a populist Budget. It was set against the
difficult global background of the rise in oil prices and the credit
crunch, which has affected every community in Wales. No one has been
exempt from those international conditions. The Budget was right for
the time and contained a lot of good things. The Secretary of State was
right to put it in its proper context.
My right hon.
Friend was also right to remind the Committee that, over 10 years, we
have had stability and economic growth year on year. We tailored the
Budgets to meet the conditions at the time, while looking to the future
so that we could cope with the difficulties that each economy in the
world is facing. I do not want to return to the ’80s and
’90s, when we had instability and the high interest rates of 15
per cent. plus. As someone taking out a first mortgage, I recall that
it was difficult.
The economy
in Wales is strong. It has low unemployment and high employment. Much
remains to be done, which is why I was teasing out matters about
welfare to work—there is an awful lot of work to be done on the
economically inactive. However, the priorities of the Government are
right, concentrating on areas of high unemployment and getting
unemployment down, in the first instance through welfare to work and
targeting groups such as the under-25s and the over-50s. In my
constituency, the claimant count has decreased by some 58 per cent.
since 1997 and last month’s statistics show
1,725 fewer claimants. So the Government’s policies to get people
into work are working, and there is much progress to be made on that in
difficult areas.
Hon.
Members talked earlier about the skills base, and we need to look at
that. The Secretary of State mentioned an economy fit for the 21st
century, and we need to get the skills base for that right. On several
occasions, I have called for local government, business communities,
the Welsh Assembly Government and the Westminster Government to have a
proper skills audit at local and national level,
which would look at what skills were available and provide the correct
training. We need to have the foresight to say what kind of economies
we want—what sectors we want in certain areas—and gauge
from that, linking up with universities, colleges and schools. There
needs to be more joined-up thinking.
Rather than just getting high
level graduates, we need to look at non-graduates and a mix of
engineering skills, for example. Yesterday the Secretary of State, the
Under-Secretary and I met people who want to invest in my constituency,
and they expressed concerns about the skills base. There is good
progress however, and the Budget referred to up-skilling people. The
nuclear industry, which is important to my constituency, set up a
nuclear academy in Staffordshire university with links to various
communities to fill a gap in that sector and help it grow.
It is also right to reflect on
the Budget with regard to help and benefits for small
and medium-sized enterprises. Tax relief from capital gains has been
mentioned, but there is also tax simplification. I agree that there has
been a lot of gold-plating, which hampers some businesses, and the
Chancellor was right to consider how we can simplify the tax system. It
has been built up over many years, and simplification will need
cross-party support. Small businesses are frightened of the tax
implications.
It is
right to reward enterprise, and the Budget gives Wales an extra
£5 million on top of the record amount that the Welsh Assembly
Government have to spend. Its budget has doubled
since 1997 and that kind of investment needs to be applauded. The Welsh
Assembly Government have welcomed the Budget and the extra £5
million. I would like to see that extra money—although we cannot
dictate to the National Assembly or the Welsh Assembly Government how
to use it—going into skills and focusing on the need for
economic growth through a highly skilled work
force.
The Government
are also right to concentrate on child and pensioner poverty. The hon.
Member for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr was right that we did that
deliberately, and we have helped the poorest and most
vulnerable—children and pensioners—over the past 10
years. There have been good results. The focus is on the 2010 target
and I am pleased that we have a target, but I am even more pleased when
I go round my constituency and see the practical help that has been
given to constituents. I am sure that all hon. Members feel the same.
That help is important. It is not just about statistics and targets,
but about alleviating poverty in families throughout Wales. We have
done a good job. The Chancellor was right to concentrate on that and to
lift more families out of poverty. Some 360,000 families will benefit
from the rise in child benefit that was announced. Child tax credits
will increase above indexation and that will benefit a
further 200,000 families. The priority is right and the mixture of
targeted and universal benefits is the best way in which
to—hopefully—meet those
targets.
The knock-on
effect of the high oil prices has a huge impact on utilities and on the
bills that every household in Wales and the United Kingdom pays.
Reports that bills are rising even higher in Wales need further
examination, because it would be wrong for a company that is based, for
example, in Scotland, and has a wide coverage—as Scottish Power
does—to target the Welsh population and increase its bills. I
welcome the fact that the Government have asked the regulator to look
into the matter, but the regulator usually takes two to three years to
carry out a comprehensive inquiry before coming up with
recommendations. In that time, the utility companies make huge profits
and hurt many families in Wales and throughout the United Kingdom.
I am sympathetic to
the idea of windfall tax on the utilities. In the Budget, the
Chancellor talked about a voluntary organisation that has been set up
to help people, and I know that some utility companies do that, putting
their profits back into smart metering and other methods of energy
efficiency. In the current climate, the effect of the high price of oil
is felt immediately, although we do not see a reduction when the price
of oil goes down. Something needs to be done and I favour some form of
windfall tax.
Before
the Budget, I lobbied the Chancellor and Ministers about utilities and
help for pensioners. I am pleased that pensioner households will
receive a one-off extra payment. In the past, Opposition parties have
criticised that as just a gimmick, but I emphasise to the Committee
that the people who receive it are the most vulnerable in our society.
They get that payment every year and do not see it as a gimmick but as
a necessary tool to help them through the cold winters. It is a good
way of getting those benefits immediately to vulnerable households,
particularly the over-80s who will receive an extra £100.
[
Interruption.
] Does the hon. Lady want to
intervene? She does not want to bother. Most members of the Committee
are bothered about the fuel-poor in this
country.
Mrs.
Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): Will the hon.
Gentleman give
way?
Albert
Owen:
I will make some progress; I offered the hon. Lady
the chance to
speak.
Mrs.
Gillan:
Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Albert
Owen:
No—
[Interruption.]
The
Chairman:
Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving
way.
Mrs.
Gillan:
On a point of order, Mr. Caton. I am
sorry if I was mumbling from a sedentary position. I
would like your advice about whether I can do so,
particularly since the hon. Gentleman was saying that something was
targeted towards the poorest households, when even the richest
households in the land receive the fuel
benefit.
The
Chairman:
That is not a point of order, but, since the
hon. Lady asks, I deprecate sedentary
mumbling.
Albert
Owen:
I will not be put off, but if the hon. Lady had
listened, she would have heard me say that I agree with a mixture of
universal and targeted benefits, and that I felt that the winter fuel
payment was welcomed by the people of Wales. Then the mumbling started,
which I think was just rude.
Mark
Pritchard:
Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Albert
Owen:
I will move on. I also lobbied Ministers about fuel
tax. I welcomed the Chancellor’s decision not to introduce the
2p increase in April as that would hurt vulnerable communities,
especially in rural areas.
Albert
Owen:
I will take an intervention as the hon. Gentleman is
very keen to
speak.
Mark
Pritchard:
On the earlier point about the rise in the cost
of fuel, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Does he agree that any
decreases in wholesale energy prices should be passed on to end users
far more quickly than they currently are? Furthermore, does he share my
concern that, despite the small increase in benefits for pensioners,
25,000 pensioners still die every year in the UK as a result of not
having their homes properly heated?
Albert
Owen:
Insulation is a matter of energy efficiency and I am
working with local groups and the Welsh Assembly Government to try to
alleviate that problem. I do not accept the argument that the winter
fuel payment is somehow a very small amount. For the household of
someone who is over 80, an extra £100 is a real benefit. It is
not a small amount and the Government were right to do what they
did.
On the point
about fuel tax, there is some agreement. In west and north-west Wales,
the price at the pump is already higher than in most of the UK. There
are difficulties not only for families who need the fuel for essential
transport, but for businesses and public transport. There are real
knock-on effects and we must examine the matter. I would like the
Secretary of State to lobby the Chancellor and encourage him not to
increase the price in October, because it hurts businesses
in my constituency and many other
constituencies throughout
Wales.
There
is a difficult balance to strike between green taxes and economic
growth in rural areas. The Conservative response was the fuel tax
escalator. That was totally wrong. The Labour party has since abandoned
that and the increases have been slower. More needs to be done to help
businesses in rural areas. A mechanism is needed that gives rural areas
some sort of Government levy to help
businesses.
Mr.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): I always
listen to the hon. Gentleman with great attention, but he seems to be
reaching the Liberal Democrat view that there should be a derogation to
reduce fuel tax in rural areas, as is exercised by several members of
the European Union such as France.
Albert
Owen:
I think it is totally unfair that
we already pay higher prices at the pump and then receive the same
increases in the Budget. I do not know the answer. Perhaps our parties
could come closer together. I do not always believe that the Liberal
Democrats have the answer, but, where there is consensus, we can work
on it. We are considering a serious issue and we need to work on it. I
am glad that I took that intervention, because I am about to consider
fuel taxes and green taxes in the Budget.
In an earlier
intervention, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire talked about
car manufacturers playing their part. That is essential. There is
consensus across the parties about dealing with climate change and
CO2 emissions. It should not just be down to the drivers of
vehicles or businesses or train operators; manufacturers should play a
strong part
too.
Mark
Pritchard:
The hon. Gentleman is making
some important points on the environment. Does he share my concern that
biofuels, which the Prime Minister mentioned again in the last couple
of weeks and the Chancellor mentioned in his statement on renewables
and sustainable fuels, add to the problem of climate change? They cause
soil erosion and deforestation, and the world’s poor will suffer
the most because farm food prices will go up. They are not the magic
cash crop that many people believe them to be for places such as
Africa. They are certainly not the silver bullet for climate
change.
Albert
Owen:
In a general context, the hon. Gentleman is
absolutely right. There is not one solution to the problem. Biofuels in
certain areas can play a part. Encouraging farmers in rural Wales to
grow those crops and perhaps having small, localised fuel facilities
would be one solution, but, generally, I agree with him. We need a
proper, balanced energy policy with many renewables, but we should not
put all our eggs in one basket. It would be dangerous to invest too
much time and attention in that form of renewable
energy.
Lembit
Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): I hope to catch your
eye, Mr. Caton, to talk more about the subject later. Does
not the hon. Gentleman accept that biofuels technology is still in its
infancy? Does not he share my optimism that, as we invest considerably
greater sums in biofuel research, we could find ways that are both
profitable for Welsh farmers and effective at reducing the carbon
footprint of our transport and other energy
needs?
Albert
Owen:
Yes, I think there will be benefits from research
into the matter that will help farming communities on a micro level.
That is a positive way forward. However, I agree with the hon. Member
for The Wrekin about the international aspect and putting too much
emphasis on biofuels. The car manufacturing point that I was making,
and which the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire mentioned this
morning, should be used as a model, not just for road transport but for
aviation and sea transport. That is important.
We cannot get away from the
fact that we need to reduce the amounts of CO
2 in Wales. We
need a proper energy policy to deal with climate change. It is
important
to consider the Budget together with the vast Bills that are before
Parliament. I was on the Committee that considered the Energy Bill,
which looks at mechanisms for getting energy security and how we can
put that into action. There is also the Planning Bill and the Climate
Change Bill. The burden of green taxes should not fall
disproportionately on vehicle owners; it should also fall on
manufacturers.
This
Budget, like all those since 1997, responds to internal and external
factors. It is fair and it calls for stability. I do not want us to
return to a period of instability, with high unemployment, low
employment opportunities and high interest rates such as we had before
1997. I therefore support the Budget. I accept that it is tough in the
current climate, but it allows us to build for the future and will
bring many benefits and opportunities for
Wales.
2.35
pm
Lembit
Öpik:
I welcome the Secretary of State back to the
Welsh Grand Committee. It is probably his first sitting since his
surprise appointment earlier this year.
Lembit
Öpik:
I am not sure that that is parliamentary
language, but I shall ignore it on this
occasion.
I
put on record my sadness at the demise of the Secretary of
State’s predecessor whom I feel was harshly treated under the
circumstances. In my view, he behaved in an honourable fashion and paid
the price for it. I hope that he will be back in a senior governmental
position in the near
future.
The Budget has
been described as tough, but I would describe it as extremely cautious.
Some people have sought to condemn it as boring. However, Budgets are
not designed for the media, but for the country. To that
extent, the accusation that it was not interesting
enough is rather fatuous. Having said that, it seems most likely that
the Chancellor is attempting to do as little as possible at this stage
and to keep his powder dry in the event of significant signs of
recession. Obviously, he has not said that to me, but I think that it
is fairly obvious that he wants sufficient resources in his Treasury
armoury to be able to act quickly if it looks as though we are heading
towards what used, euphemistically, to be called negative growth, but
what I would call the contraction of the economy. That being the case,
today is not the occasion to discuss any great radical policies
contained in the
Budget.
I understand
and, to a large extent, agree with, the Secretary of
State’s observations on inflation, unemployment and growth. The
Government have successfully presided over a period of substantial
economic stability, and they are to be congratulated on that. It would
be churlish to take away the deserved credit of the current Prime
Minister, the former Chancellor, for having put in place measures that
have secured the long-term viability of the British economy for many
businesses. Wales has had a proportional benefit from that, but, as has
been pointed out by other hon. Members, we still lag behind the rest of
the United Kingdom in some key
measures.
I
turn specifically to some of the big budgetary
concerns affecting my constituents in Montgomeryshire. They are debt,
salary levels and sustainability. With regard to
debt, we now know that more than £1.3 trillion is owed by the
public alone—excluding business debt—in personal and
private loans. The British public pay about £1
million every eight and a half minutes in interest on their private
borrowing. That is the greatest single source of potential instability
to the British economy. In Montgomeryshire, we have our proportion of
that debt. My concern is that the Government have remained relatively
silent on the
matter.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) was, with
prophetic accuracy, the forecaster of problems ahead some years ago.
The Northern Rock bank crisis took the Government by surprise, but not
my hon. Friend. He not only said in a modest way, “I told you
so”, but pointed out that it would be absolutely essential to
nationalise the bank to prevent the further decline and fall of that
bank in particular and the banking sector as a whole. The Government
resisted such action initially, but were forced eventually to
see sense by the expedience of the moment and they did the right
thing.
The Liberal
Democrats have not crowed about the fact that we were there before
anyone else, but we are willing to provide further assistance. If the
Secretary of State would like to pass on to the Prime Minister the fact
that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham might be an appropriate
next Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am sure that no reasonable offer
will be
refused.
Chris
Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab): Only if he
re-rats.
Lembit
Öpik:
It takes a statesman to re-rat, although my
hon. Friend is indeed a
statesman.
The
debt problem can be dealt with more proactively than it has been, but
it ties into house prices. Today might not be the best time to go into
a detailed analysis of the best housing policy for the country, but it
is obvious that underpinning personal debt is both the cost of mortgage
and rents in many area of the country, and the fact that the debt is
secured on housing. We all remember the dark days of negative equity 15
years ago when many house repossessions added further to the recession
that was presided over by the Conservative Government. My advice to the
Government is that, as the Treasury analyses the Budget and the further
steps that it might need to take to prevent a recession, they should
put in place some support whereby individuals do not end up paying as
much as three quarters of their entire income on their accommodation.
We are overstretched in respect of our debts as individuals in this
country, and the Government ignore that at their
peril.
I
referred earlier to salary levels. In Montgomeryshire, employment
levels are extremely high, but the salary levels are about 25 per cent.
below the national average. Although some local living costs are also
proportionately lower, we cannot pretend that everything is cheaper, so
it is logical to logically surmise that the standard of living in
Montgomery is suppressed to a degree by the suppressed wage rates. For
a long time, mid-Wales has suffered such disadvantage. It was an utter
tragedy of statistical circumstances that Montgomeryshire and, indeed,
Brecon and Radnor missed out by the tiniest
fraction of a percentage from objective 1 funding. In fact, by the time
that objective 1 was implemented, we would have fulfilled the criteria
for that funding. Our disadvantage was exacerbated further by observing
other disadvantaged parts of mid and west Wales receiving substantial
amounts of European funding while we watched on
helplessly.
Chris
Ruane:
What action did the hon. Gentleman and his party
take to make representations to the then Wales Office in 1998-99 to
secure objective 1 for his area? I inform him that Labour Members in
north Wales and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy made
representations, commissioned research at the House of Commons Library
and managed to get Denbighshire and Conwy in on the objective 1 bid at
the eleventh hour. That was against the advice of civil
servants and politicians from all parties but, by
pressing, we did it. What action did the hon. Gentleman
take?
Lembit
Öpik:
The hon. Gentleman has given me a
chance to bellyache briefly in an
uncharacteristically partisan way. I and my hon. Friend the then hon.
Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, now Lord Livsey of Talgarth,
stretched every sinew and met every individual whom we thought was
involved in the decision-making process in order to alter the
circumstances so that we could include the county of Powys in the
objective 1 area. I cannot recall whether the right hon. Member for
Torfaen was Secretary of State at the time, but those who were
Ministers at that time will remember that we met the Wales Office,
lobbied Parliament and made as much play of the matter as we could to
prevent what we considered was an economic and ultimately a social
injustice from being metered out on Powys. Unfortunately, while the
Labour constituencies that the hon. Gentleman—
Chris
Ruane:
And the nationalists.
Lembit
Öpik:
And the nationalists. Well, that is a
precursor for a coalition in Cardiff. While those constituencies won
through, Powys was excluded, and we have borne the economic and social
consequences of that
decision.
Mr.
Roger Williams:
That disadvantage continues, because a
business in my constituency, Mangar, which makes appliances for the
disabled, is unable to get the financial support to expand. It is
expanding in the Rhondda, which is good news for Wales, but not such
good news for Mangar and the people who generated the business in the
first
place.
Lembit
Öpik:
My hon. Friend illustrates the heart of the
problem in our area. We seem to be unable to raise salaries without
external assistance. We have near-full employment, and one would
normally expect that to increase salary levels, but Polish workers, who
work extremely hard and are welcome in Montgomeryshire, come to work
there, so we do not seem to have any positive inflationary pressure on
salaries in our area. That makes it an attractive place for companies
looking for cheap labour, but not for those who want a salary in line
with the national average.
It would have
been nice to see something in the Budget that took account of the
issues in Montgomeryshire and mid-Wales as a whole that have been
caused by our exclusion from objective 1 funding in the past and by the
continuing disadvantages that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and
Radnorshire has
described.
There were
many warm words in the Budget about the environment and sustainability,
but those warm words will add to climate change rather than taking away
from it. I do not believe that the Government are being sufficiently
courageous in regarding climate change as an opportunity for Wales
rather than as a hassle that needs to be addressed in line with other
third-world—I mean, other first-world countries. I will have to
check Hansard to ensure that that is accurately
reported.
Climate
change is a global responsibility and other Members rightly mentioned
the collective interest in doing the right thing in that regard, but I
also think that it is an economic opportunity for
mid-Wales.
Mr.
Roger Williams:
My hon. Friend might have had a slip of
the tongue, but it could be used to describe one of our problems. A
constituent of mine compared the provision of broadband in mid-Wales as
being poorer than it is in Madagascar. She has great difficulty in
carrying on her business because the provision of broadband is so poor,
and that is another disadvantage from which we
suffer.
Lembit
Öpik:
Indeed, that is exactly the example that was
on my mind when I made my brief slip a few moments ago. Many people
also feel that our farmers deserve a fair trade arrangement with those
purchasing their products. Those farmers are
continuously frustrated by high prices in the supermarkets and low
prices at the farm gate, and many of them feel that they are
effectively living in a second-world
environment.
Mark
Pritchard:
I know that the hon. Gentleman did not say that
Wales was a third-world country, because that would have been
inaccurate and unfair. Does he support me in seeking for BT to be more
candid with the people who pay its bills? It has claimed that
there is universal coverage in England and Wales for broadband
services, but the example given by the hon. Member for Brecon and
Radnorshire shows that that is clearly not the case. It is also not the
case in Shropshire. However, we are being asked by the Secretary of
State to support small and medium-sized enterprises and to ask
people to diversify to help the environment, perhaps by doing more home
working. Many people cannot work from home because they do not have
access to broadband services, so will the hon. Member for
Montgomeryshire support me in saying to BT, through
Hansard,
that it needs to get its act
together?
Lembit
Öpik:
The hon. Gentleman makes an erudite and
insightful point and speaks for us all, as that problem causes great
frustration for those who want to work from home and do high-value jobs
in the countryside in mid-Wales but are unable to do so because of the
lack of access to broadband services. I
hope that BT will consider his point and recognise
it as a cross-party plea, so that people can work from home, thereby
reducing the carbon footprint of travel and increasing the economic
wealth of remote and outlying areas such as my own and some parts of
other
constituencies.
Hywel
Williams:
I am concerned about the hon.
Gentleman’s use of the word “remote”. The
community of Rhiwlas, in my constituency, is near Bangor and the
fibre-optic cable but, despite my best efforts, BT seems unable to
connect
it.
Lembit
Öpik:
I hope that BT takes note. Perhaps it is
pay-back time for the hon. Gentleman’s area getting objective 1
funding when we did not, but who
knows.
What can we do
about all this? There is a self-evident strategy available for the
Chancellor and the Treasury to give mid-Wales a kick-start. First, on
debt, shared ownership schemes make a lot of sense. They open up a
number of vacant properties, which for reasons that I will not go into
in detail are not used as housing because the financial
arrangements—the Treasury’s tax conditions—make
that uneconomic. Such schemes are one way of beginning to stabilise an
overwhelming problem in this
country.
Secondly,
I would like the Treasury to consider the social consequences of some
of its decisions. I have highlighted how the cost of the Post Office
could be managed in a more constructive way: the universal service
obligation should cause a surcharge to be levied on private
competitors; the access headroom that the Royal Mail has to pay to
deliver its competitors’ post is an anachronism; and we could
re-evaluate the price of stamps. That could provide enough of a
cross-subsidy to make the existing postal service and post office
network viable—there is an economic connection between such
services and other aspects of our local economy. I hope that the post
offices in Abermule, Castell Caereinion and Llanbrynmair are saved,
because they play an important part in making those settlements
attractive to potential business people. Also, the farming community
deserves an investigation and action by the Treasury to ensure that
supermarkets cannot basically rip the community off and make huge
profits, which the suppliers—mainly the farmers—are
powerless to
affect.
Thirdly,
on sustainability, I am sure that Montgomeryshire and mid-Wales are
ready to help export the expertise in the Centre for Alternative
Technology, in Coed Cymru, which is doing outstanding work in creating
sustainable solutions using indigenous forestry, in recycling schemes
such as Phoenix, which collects furniture in Newtown, and in Cae Glas
and many others. They are just waiting for support from the Government
to do good work. They have one specific request—for the Minister
to intervene on the waste electrical and electronic equipment
directive. At the moment, the directive disadvantages at least one
company in my area, which is run by Benji who wants to rehabilitate
broken equipment that does not need to be recycled, just fixed, but is
classified as waste. I will not go through the details now, but I seek
the assurance of the Minister that he can help with that
issue.
As far as I
understand it, there is no resistance to what I am asking the
Government to do, just the inertia of implementing the specific
proposals. Benji is
completely clear about what he needs, and he speaks for an entire
sector, which must grow if we are to be more responsible about reusing
rather than recycling damaged
goods.
In conclusion,
I think that the Budget was cautious and I understand
why. I do not condemn the Chancellor for that, but I would have liked
to have seen more for outlying and remote areas such as
Montgomeryshire. The environmental opportunity is huge, right through
to the derogation that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and
Radnorshire and the hon. Member for Ynys Môn highlighted about
fuel. There are things that do not cost the Treasury a lot but that
would benefit those areas a great deal. We are in the foothills of
biofuels—we have a lot to learn. Virgin’s experiment with
biofuels recently shows that the technology can be evolved to preserve
something of our way of life without the carbon footprint. Wales can
profit from
that.
I
am not the kind of person to condemn other parties gratuitously. The
Budget is not to be condemned. However, I make a plea to the Secretary
of State to highlight the issues that I, and many other MPs with
constituencies in rural areas, have raised and continue to raise. Give
us the tools, and we will look after our own economies and help build
them up. Whatever happens, I hope that the Government will not allow
those areas to fall further behind in the way that many of the citizens
in Montgomeryshire whom I represent think that they
have.
2.55
pm
Nia
Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): I very much welcome this
Budget; it is good news for Wales. I should like to highlight three
particular aspects linked to contributing to creating a fairer and more
caring society. First, we are all aware of the vulnerability of the
elderly during the winter months, and I welcome the extra money of the
winter fuel payments for pensioner households. That
will benefit over 17,000 pensioners in my constituency, and nearly
500,000 across Wales. That is in addition to the many pensioners who
have already benefited from the home energy efficiency scheme, through
the installation of more efficient heating systems, or cavity wall or
loft insulations. Where there are pensioners who have not taken up
those opportunities, I urge all hon. Members to ensure that their
constituents do so.
Secondly, the increase in the
national minimum wage is very significant. It is
important in helping to eradicate poverty and to make work worth while.
There is more to do for the 16 to 18-year-olds and the 18 to
21-year-olds. Their rates have risen too, but it is something that we
must continue to improve both because our young people need and deserve
a proper wage, and to ensure that young workers are not used to
undercut older workers because they are cheaper to employ.
Thirdly, the focus on getting
money to families with children through increased child benefit and tax
credits is, rightly, a priority of the Budget. We all remember the
considerable concern earlier this year about the Assembly budget, and
how the local government settlement would be managed, and everybody was
rather dreading their council tax bills this year. In Carmarthenshire,
however, those have not proved to be quite the nightmare that people
expected and that is in spite of the continued increase in demands on
local
councils. The number of services that we expect
councils to provide due to the demographic changes that we are seeing
makes the pressures very considerable. There will always be moans,
disagreements and debates about local expenditure, but by and large, I
must congratulate Carmarthenshire county council on the way that it is
moving forward, building new schools and upgrading its council housing
and old people’s accommodation.
To return to
the UK Budget, I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to postpone
the 2p increase in diesel fuel until the autumn. We should not
underestimate the immense significance of making that change. It is
unusual for a Chancellor to grant such a big concession—he is
clearly aware of the significant impact of the increase in oil prices
on the whole economy, and has obviously listened to the concerns of
many in the haulage industry. People may criticise that decision for
not being very green, but a tax can only be a green tax if there is a
valid alternative, an opportunity for people to modify their behaviour
because there is a different option for them to take. Having different
levels of vehicle excise duty for different types of car gives the
consumer a genuine choice between a greener or less green vehicle when
they go to purchase a car.
Mark
Pritchard:
The hon. Lady is being very straight with the
Committee in saying that the delay in the increase in fuel tax was not
green. Does she agree that, when the increase is introduced in October,
it will still not be green?
Nia
Griffith:
I did not say that it was not green. I said that
a tax cannot be considered green unless it has the potential to modify
somebody’s behaviour. If the hon. Gentleman would wait, I will
explain what I mean a little further. If there are different options,
different cars with green ratings that attract different levels of
vehicle excise duty, that might influence a person’s
decision on which to buy and could, therefore, be
termed a green tax. However, the difficulty we have with calling a 2p
rise on diesel fuel a green tax is that it is hard to fine valid
alternatives. Sometimes there is no other way of doing something than
that which uses diesel fuel. For example, I would be a supporter of
increased rail freight but we have to be practical, we cannot always
expect rail freight to provide door-to-door delivery. In some places we
do not have the infrastructure that we might need. It cannot
automatically be assumed
that—
David
T.C. Davies:
Does not the hon. Lady accept that in the
1990s, one way to encourage rail freight was to allow lorries to have a
higher weight limit if they were taking freight to or from a rail
freight depot? That was done away with and all lorries now have the
same weight restrictions regardless of where they come from. There is,
therefore, less of an incentive to use the railway when something can
be put on a lorry at the port and delivered straight to the
door.
Nia
Griffith:
Again, the issue is extremely complex. It is not
just a matter of switching from lorry to rail by changing the fuel
duty. We have to look at the infrastructure and what the valid
alternatives are and, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, there may be
other ways to influence those decisions. If we look at just the 2p on
the fuel duty, we have to consider the knock-on
effect of that, particularly in our rural communities, as my hon. Friend
the Member for Ynys Môn
mentioned.
The
difficulty that haulage firms face is the competition from mainland
Europe. Mainland European operators initially just brought goods from
mainland Europe to Wales, or possibly across to Ireland, but they now
compete for contracts within the UK and are able to be more competitive
than companies such as Owens in my constituency, simply because of the
different level of duty on the fuel that they load up with before they
cross the channel. Family firms such as Owens—which originally
served the steel industry and has now worked in many
sectors—that have been built up from small family businesses to
extremely successful companies operating UK-wide, now find themselves
in direct competition with hauliers that can access different rates of
fuel duty. That is leading not only to those companies coming in from
abroad, but to some of our hauliers trying to base their vehicles in
places such as the Netherlands. That means that we lose out not only on
the fuel duty but on the vehicle excise duty. We have to think
carefully about whether increased duty is advantageous, because it
brings increased revenue, or whether by increasing the duty we drive
some of our people out of business and lose the revenue
altogether.
Mr.
Jones:
The hon. Lady is developing an interesting and
pertinent argument. Does she, however, share my concern that the
Government’s proposal to grant to the Welsh Assembly powers to
impose road charges on the trunk roads in Wales would exacerbate the
competitive disadvantage that Welsh transport is
sustaining?
Nia
Griffith:
I do not have any up-to-date information on
that, but whatever consideration is made of such charges there needs to
be careful thought about the impact on each of the regions of Wales and
about whether there would be any significant
disadvantages.
Mr.
Roger Williams:
The point I will make is, I hope,
supportive. The foreign vehicles that come to this country often do not
meet the thorough working conditions imposed on our vehicles. The
Department for Transport should ensure that any vehicles coming into
the country meet the same conditions as our transport organisations and
firms.
Nia
Griffith:
I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. In
particular, there has been such a rapid increase in the number of
vehicles coming through the country that perhaps
there is a case for an enhanced inspectorate to look at the conditions
of some of those vehicles. Our hauliers face considerable difficulties
because they are in direct competition with people who can access lower
fuel
duty.
Mrs.
Gillan:
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way,
particularly as she said that she did not have any up-to-date
information. She may find it helpful to know that the Local Transport
Bill is being read a Second time downstairs, as we
speak.
The
Conservatives have tabled a reasoned amendment drawing attention
particularly to the road charging
schemes, the tax-raising powers of which would be passed to the Assembly
under the proposed legislation. I invite the hon. Lady to consider
talking to her Whips and joining us in the Lobby tonight to show that
she agrees with our fears that the legislation is too widely drawn and
would result in Wales being used as a guinea pig for road pricing,
especially in light of the Chancellor’s Budget
announcement.
Nia
Griffith:
The hon. Lady must recognise the distinction
between giving the Assembly the power to do something, and what it
chooses to do with that power. We need to wait and see what proposals
it brings forward.
Adam
Price:
Is that not a classic example of the
anti-devolutionary impulses? The true voice of the Conservative party
split down the middle, saying one thing in the Assembly in Wales and
another entirely here in
Westminster.
Nia
Griffith:
I thank the hon.
Gentleman.
Mrs.
Gillan:
The hon. Lady is most generous in allowing me to
respond, as it enables me to point out the hypocrisy of the Plaid Cymru
Member. We are in agreement with the Conservative group in the Assembly
and we are asking for the measure to be drawn more tightly to protect
people in Wales, which is what the hon. Lady and I are interested in. I
will not accept any cheap jibes from the Plaid Cymru Member on the
matter.
Nia
Griffith:
I give way one last
time.
Lembit
Öpik:
Notwithstanding the hon. Lady’s
comments, does the exchange of the last few minutes not prove that the
torch of Welsh Conservative policy making has passed to a new
generation in the hon. Member for
Monmouth?
Nia
Griffith:
I shall make no further comment on the
interesting dialogue between Opposition
parties.
Let
us return to the matter of the six-month breathing space. I ask my
right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Wales, to impress upon
the Chancellor the need to consider exactly the best way forward for
this excellent opportunity. For example, is there a case for changing
the balance between fuel duty and VAT? Haulage companies can reclaim
the VAT. Such things must be considered in far more depth than can be
done in this Committee, but I ask my right hon. Friend to take up the
matter, to ensure that we do not lose that business and that our road
hauliers remain in business, doing a good job. We must not forget that
every item that is transported ends up either as part of the
manufacturing industry or as part of what is on the shelves for us to
buy, and therefore has a considerable impact on the
retail price
index.
I would like to
raise the difficult matter of regional pay, the idea for which has been
floated in some Departments. We all recognise the difficulties in
combating regional inequalities, whether at the Wales level, the UK
level or the European level. At the European level, we talk about the
motor regions. Those are areas such as the south-east of England,
France,
Germany, northern Italy and north-east Spain, where there is a
considerable amount of wealth creation, and, therefore, of spending
power.
European
programmes over the years have been geared to helping what we describe
as peripheral areas; those which are far away from key markets, and
need particular support in accessing them and developing their
economies. Wales has benefited enormously from those policies, which
feature not only in the main programmes of objective 1 and convergence
funding, but in many lesser known EU programmes, for which priority is
given to bids from areas such as
Wales.
However,
the UK Government and the Welsh Assembly also have a responsibility to
consider how to combat regional inequalities. The Welsh Assembly has
made a start by trying to be less Cardiff-centric and trying to move
some jobs out of the capital. On a UK level, London is particularly
significant, because of its worldwide acclaim as a financial centre.
That is distorting for the rest of the UK, because London is so
disproportionately wealthy in some respects. The question is,
therefore, how do we try to redress that imbalance? There have been
various regional incentive programmes over the years for industries to
relocate in various places. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
came down to Swansea, the UK Passport Service came to Newport and
similar institutions have gone to Sheffield, Manchester and Newcastle.
As my right hon. Friend said in his opening comments, there are now far
more job opportunities in Wales, and unemployment is at
a record low.
However, I am
very perturbed by suggestions to introduce regional pay in public
sector departments, because that would exacerbate the differences
between the wealthy and less favoured areas of the UK. It would also be
a factor in driving down private sector wages in Wales. Redressing
economic differences between areas is extremely difficult, so
deliberately pursuing a path that is likely to exacerbate the situation
does not make any
sense.
Hywel
Williams:
The hon. Lady talks about regional
pay as if it were something that might happen
sometime in the future, but it has already been brought in for court
staff in north Wales. Court staff near to Chester get more money than
those near to Caernarfon, and I cannot see why, because they do the
same job.
Nia
Griffith:
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point.
Certainly, the cost of housing is lower in Wales than in south-east
England, but all other costs that families face, such as food, heating
bills and transport, are just the same. In fact, in rural and
semi-rural areas, the costs are often higher, because there are fewer
suppliers to choose from, and often, people on low incomes struggle to
maintain a car, which is the only way in which they can get about in
those areas.
Public sector
jobs have traditionally been seen as a good option. Although pay has
not necessarily been sparkling, the public sector has offered the
security of tenure and proper holiday, sick pay and pension schemes. As
a result, Departments have been able to recruit and retain quality
staff, but there is a real danger that if wages are depressed, staff
morale will fall sharply, there will be recruitment and retention
problems, an increased
turnover of staff, a consequent lack of motivation and experience, and
poorer-quality services. I therefore beg the Secretary of State to use
his excellent and expert negotiating skills to raise the issue with
Cabinet colleagues and ensure that the suggestion of regional pay does
not eventually depress the economy of Wales. Having said that, I very
much feel that the Budget is a positive measure, and I welcome it for
Wales.
Adam
Price:
On a point of order, Mr. Caton. In the
previous exchange, the shadow Welsh Secretary accused
me of hypocrisy, which I would normally wear as a badge of pride,
coming as it did from a Conservative Member. However, seeing as it is
against the rules of the House for one hon. Member to accuse another of
hypocrisy, may I invite her, through you, to withdraw that
comment?
The
Chairman:
The simplest way forward would be for you,
Mrs. Gillan, to withdraw that particular word.
Mrs.
Gillan:
I have no problem with withdrawing it. The fact
that I used the word indicates the aggravation that I felt towards the
hon. Gentleman, who was behaving less than honourably in the
circumstances. I withdraw unreservedly
“hypocrisy”.
David
T.C. Davies:
Further to that point of order,
Mr. Caton. Would it have been fairer for my hon. Friend to
have said that an hon. Member said one thing in one place but appears
less consistent about saying the same thing somewhere
else?
The
Chairman:
The hon. Lady could have chosen those words. I
must say, however, that we are being a little unfair on those people
who have not had a chance to speak yet. If we can get back to the
debate, I hope that everyone will be able to speak, because I should
like to get on to the winding-up speeches of all parties very soon
after 3.30
pm.
3.14
pm
Mark
Pritchard:
I hope to be brief in order to allow colleagues
and other Members to speak.
Disappointingly, although there
was a reference to public services in the Budget statement, there was
no explicit reference to the national health service, and of course,
English taxpayers continue to subsidise Welsh taxpayers, especially in
the delivery of public services, and of health services in particular.
That is not a criticism of Welsh patients, but a recognition that many
border counties in England, such as Cheshire,
Shropshire and Herefordshire, feel a real pinch regarding their own
scarce resources and the requirement of English taxpayers continually
to subsidise the shortfall in Government funding for Welsh health
services. The diagnosis is schizophrenia at the heart of Government
policy, both here in Westminster and in Cardiff. The people of Wales,
Shropshire and the other border counties of England deserve
better.
The subsidy
in my area for the 60,000 Welsh patients who come across the border
each year is around £2 million. It is wrong that the
Government talk about a national health service when clearly it is not
national.
Approximately 10 per cent. of the population of Wales have to travel
outside their own country to receive basic health services in many
circumstances. That cannot be right either for the people of Wales or
the people of England. The Government need to come clean about whether
they have a national health service and they need to have quite robust
discussions with their colleagues in Cardiff. If Cardiff wants more and
more devolved powers and if it wants more health powers to be
devolved, there needs to be agreement on an appropriate form of funding
to deliver those services.
Hywel
Williams:
The hon. Gentleman said that 10 per
cent. of the Welsh population were treated in England. It would be a
great service to the House if he could tell us where he got that
statistic. I have been pressing for accurate statistics on this matter
for quite some
time.
Mark
Pritchard:
I will be completely candid. That is
an approximate figure based upon the number of
patients that my own local acute NHS trust—the Shrewsbury and
Telford Hospital NHS Trust—is seeing. I talked about 60,000. If
one adds to that the figures for Herefordshire, Cheshire and the other
outflows of patients from Wales to the specialist centres in Liverpool
and Manchester, the number gets quite high. The hon. Gentleman is
absolutely right. It may well be
higher.
Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): Would
the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that the evidence that we have heard
on the Welsh Affairs Committee shows that there is a benefit in both
directions from the provision of services in terms of numbers at the
Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust? The interventions in Wales
that have placed an emphasis on public health and therefore health
improvement, may well have an implication in terms of reduced patient
numbers, so it is not quite as simple an equation as he
suggests.
Mark
Pritchard:
There are three points in response
to that. First, I shall come on to public health in a
moment. Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The
matter is complex, but the complexity and confusion have been brought
about by Government policy. On the right hon. Gentleman’s
substantive remark about funding, of course there is a financial
benefit as Welsh patients come into my local NHS hospital trust.
However, the trust’s primary responsibility is to treat patients
within the county of Shropshire and within England. The Government
should adequately fund the hospital trust from English
resources to deal with English patients.
On the specific point about
Welsh patients—this is perhaps my material point—it is
incumbent upon the Governments in Cardiff and Westminster to ensure
that Welsh patients can be treated locally in their own country, and by
people they probably know, rather than those whom they probably do not
know if they have to travel 50 or 60 miles. So, yes, while there is
some benefit, it is not the optimum benefit that the people of Wales
would want to see.
Mr.
Roger Williams:
I am pleased that the
hon. Gentleman is raising this issue and there is the chance to debate
it. I do not agree with him on a number of points, but I wish to stress
that it is a two-way process because English patients come to Wales.
Only last night, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr.
Harper) talked about concessionary bus fares and the inability of his
constituents to get free bus fares to visit the hospital in
Newport.
Mark
Pritchard:
Of course, it is a two-way process. I am not
pitting Welsh patients against English patients or vice versa. It is
right that we should share health expertise throughout the
nation—that is the United Kingdom. However, the Government are
responsible both in Cardiff and Westminster for setting out a national
health strategy, so it is incumbent on them to ensure that, when they
have set out that strategy, it is clear and that people, commissioners
and providers understand it and that funding follows the services that
have been identified within the
strategy.
As for a
public information campaign, rather than it contradict or undermine my
argument, it underscores it. There are often conflicting information
campaigns. They are not the same in England and Wales. Their timetable
is often out of kilter. There are conflicting complaints procedures
between the two nations, such as different referral procedures,
different discharge procedures and even separate documentation for the
same illnesses. There is a lot of confusion. That does not help
patients and it certainly does not help GPs, commissioners and other
providers of the services. The Government need to ensure that they
tackle such issues before allowing Cardiff even more powers in
respect of
health.
The future
financing of acute and primary care services is critical for the
advancement of foundation trust hospitals. The acute trust in my
constituency will be looking for foundation status soon. I think that
it is the same in Hereford and Cheshire. It is the
Government’s policy to encourage more acute trusts to go for
foundation status. As that is the case, we move then to payment by
results. I wonder whether the Minister thinks a tariff that is
introduced in, say, Shropshire should be the same for patients
regardless of whether they are from England or Wales. At the moment,
the tariff for English patients is per patient and, as he will know,
for Welsh patients the tariff is based en masse—whatever the
commissioners decide. That is key to providing the right level of
services in Wales and in the border
counties.
It is
absolutely wrong that people in Wales should have to
wait to receive treatment for up to 26 weeks. The target is 22 weeks,
but at the moment the wait is about 26 for in-patient treatment,
whereas it is 18 weeks in England. There is a huge gap, and the Minister should explain to the people of Wales why they are
suffering in that way. For many people, it is a matter of suffering. It
is not about waiting for the phone call or watching the television. A
lot of patients are in pain and they need to get to hospital as soon as
possible. Does the Minister wish to comment on the British Medical
Association’s statement that Wales should not have a longer
waiting time target than England? Does he agree with that comment? That
is a pretty easy question. If the Minister agrees, I wonder
how he expects to deliver on his agreement and what he expects the
timetable to be.
I
want to touch briefly on housing, which was mentioned earlier. I have
great concerns about shared equity housing. Of course, we all want
housing to be more affordable for our key workers and public sector
workers. It is right that we get them into decent and affordable
housing, because they do a great job in our constituencies providing a
wide range of services. However, shared equity housing is the most
expensive way of buying a house, unless one buys a £1 million
mansion down the road in Chelsea.
Housing corporations and
associations are making money on the back of land
deals made—supposedly—to give people access to affordable
housing. I shall provide an example from my own constituency: a
landowner said, “I would like to develop this site,” and
the housing association said, “Fine, but we want 25 per cent. of
the housing to be affordable.” He replied, “Not a
problem. I agree with that,” and sold each plot of land for
£90,000. He thought that the housing association might add on
£20,000 or £30,000 in administration and staffing charges
and sell them for about £110,000 or £120,000.
Returning to the site some
months later, however, the landowner found that the housing association
had put the affordable houses on the market for £180,000. To
many people, that is not affordable—neither in Wales nor
Shropshire, where the average house price is about £135,000.
However, that also shows that housing associations are not passing on
the savings made by many landowners to the end-user, but are basically
pumping up their housing stock value—the capital value of their
housing stocks—and raising capital on the stock
market.
The fireman
who came to see me in my constituency about that issue was in a shared
ownership. He had a mortgage of £90,000—not the full
£180,000—rather than one of
£60,000, as he would have had had the property been sold for
£120,000. Of course, with shared equity comes responsibility for
the upkeep of the property as well. He therefore has a far higher
mortgage and far more overheads. I hope that the Secretary of State and
the Minister will speak to housing associations and ensure that the
savings are passed on to the
end-users.
Mr.
Roger
Williams:
Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Mark
Pritchard:
Briefly, because others wish to intervene and I
am about to
conclude.
Mr.
Williams:
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman’s
figures carefully. With plots at £90,000, and building costs on
top—
Mark
Pritchard:
It was the housing plot, not the land
plot.
Mr.
Williams:
I
apologise.
Mark
Pritchard:
That is fine. One or two of us lost the plot
earlier anyway—at about 2.30 pm actually. Forgive me, if I did
not make myself clear.
To conclude, I make a plea to
the Minister: let us sort out these housing associations. The majority
do a great job and are well-meaning, but let us ensure that our public
sector workers reap the full benefits of savings on either land or
building
plots.
3.29
pm
Chris
Ruane:
The theme of last week’s Budget was
stability, which is the new prudence. I counted the number of times the
word “stability” was used—23 times, I think. That
is quite right. If this had been a flash Budget or a giveaway Budget,
as suggested by the Opposition, it would not have been the right Budget
for our current economic circumstances. We need to consider the
backdrop in the UK and around the world: fuel and food prices are at
record highs and we are seeing, potentially, one of the worst banking
crises since 1929 and the Wall street crash. In ordinary circumstances,
any one of those crises alone could have sunk many
past Governments, especially the Conservative Government who were in
power for 18 years. The fuel crisis of the 1970s also had a big hit
around the world. We have been able to ride out these recent crises and
that is largely down to the policies of the Prime Minister when he was
Chancellor of the Exchequer and indeed those of our current Chancellor
of the Exchequer.
If
we look at the situation in this country and where we are in the world
economic cycle, it is a good position to be in. We have the highest
employment level that we have ever had; 29.4 million people are
employed in the British work force, compared to just over 26 million
people 11 years ago. We have the lowest unemployment level for decades.
We have the lowest inflation in the G8 and the lowest interest
rates compared to other European countries and the US.
Even under the difficult
circumstances that I have outlined, with the fuel prices, the food
prices and the banking crisis, the worst-case scenario—the
forecast from the Bank of England and other experts—is still
that there will be no recession. The worst forecast is of minimum
growth, of just above 0 per cent. Therefore, the worst-case scenario,
according to the current figures, is still that there will be no
recession. Again, that is down to the stewardship of the last 11 years
by the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by
the current Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
At
Prime Minister’s questions today, we heard the Leader of the
Opposition saying, “What we need is a give-away, we need to
lower taxes and get people spending”. Indeed, that was the
policy that was advocated, pursued and implemented under the previous
Conservative Government, and that was why we had two booms and two
busts. Today the Leader of the Opposition shouted out, “Can you
name any other country around the world that is increasing its
spending?” We are leaders, not followers. That is why President
Sarkozy is coming over here today, to develop bonds, to find out what
the formula is and what the policies are that we have adopted over the
past 11 years to put us in the strong position that we are in
today.
Right at the
outset, I think that that economic backdrop needs to be highlighted. I
will keep my comments short, as I know that we all want to try to get
away early to go to see President Sarkozy. The hon. Member for
Montgomeryshire, who is not in his place now, touched on the issue of
structural funds, which is an important issue for us. The settlement
that was announced in the Budget last week is not a massive increase
for the National Assembly, but it is enough to implement successfully
objective 1 and the objective that will follow it, which is convergence
funding.
When I was first elected to
Parliament in 1997, the whole Welsh block was £6.5 billion. As a
result of the settlement, next year it will be more than £16
billion. We have seen huge, historic increases, which, as I have
said, will allow us enough money to implement
successfully the convergence funding.
Again, I can compare and
contrast the position of my Government with that of
the previous Tory Government. That Tory Government did not apply for
structural funds; they were entitled to apply for them, but they did
not do so when they closed Shotton down. That was the biggest
industrial lay-off that Wales, indeed the whole of the UK, has ever
seen; 7,000 workers were out of a job in one day, and of course there
were consequences for the allied industries that supported
Shotton.
The
Opposition did not apply for structural funds when
they were in government and pursuing their vendetta against miners with
the pit closure programme. There were 275,000 miners in Wales in the
1930s. How many are there today? It was a deliberate political act in
1992 to implement the pit closure programme, when the Tories wanted to
“green” the valleys. They had a golden opportunity then
to apply for structural funds, but they did not apply for them. They
did not apply for them when we had the rural crisis, with BSE, they
dropped the temperatures at which carcasses were disposed of and that
terrible disease infected British agriculture. They did not apply for
them when we had alar in the apples, botulism in the yoghurt and
anthrax in the pig herds. We had all these crises under the Tories that
affected our rural economy and they did not apply for structural
funds.
David
T.C. Davies:
Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Chris
Ruane:
No, I will not give way; I am in full flow. Sit
down.
The Tories did
not apply for structural funds when we saw the slow decline in seaside
towns. The town that I was born in and grew up in, Rhyl and Prestatyn,
the seaside towns in the constituency of the hon. Member
for Clwyd, West, Kinmel bay, Towyn, Pensarn,
Rhos-on-Sea and Colwyn bay all saw 40 years of slow decline. The Tories
did nothing about it. Well, they did something about it, but I will
come on to that in a
moment.
Compare that
with what we did in 1997. From the outset, we said that we would apply
for the structural funds. The Conservative party said that we would not
get them and the Liberal Democrats said that we would not get the
matched funding. We delivered both. I pay tribute to
the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath. When we applied,
my hon. Friend the Member for Conwy, the previous hon. Member for
Clwyd, West, Gareth Thomas, and the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant
Conwy went to see my right hon. Friend. He was junior Minister at the
Wales Office and was being told by his civil servants,
“Don’t get EUROSTAT climbing all over these statistics at
the last
hour.”
Politicians
in Plaid Cymru and, dare I say it, one or two of my colleagues down the
south Wales valleys did not want Denbighshire and Conwy to get
objective 1.
That was given to Denbighshire and Conwy and, as a
consequence, over the past seven years £70 million has been
invested in the county of Denbigh and probably an equal amount in the
county of Conwy. Labour has delivered in our poorest wards, counties
and constituencies.
An
example of the way in which that money has been spent in my
constituency is the St. Asaph business park, which was built by the
Conservatives at a cost of £11 million. The flyover alone cost
£2.5 million. The 120-acre site was empty for 11 years under the
Tories and was filled to capacity under Labour and not with screwdriver
jobs or any old jobs. There are top-quality jobs, including at the
OpTIC Technium, which two weeks ago won a European award for the most
innovative technium in the whole of Europe. Those are the kinds of
quality jobs that Labour has delivered in my community. There are 3,000
jobs in that business park alone. Another example is the revitalisation
of Rhyl. Key buildings were bought out by the National Assembly and
there is the £4 million Drift Park, which gained objective 1
funding. I am proud of my Government’s achievements on objective
1. I have already mentioned seaside
towns.
I am not sure
if you are a keen and avid reader of The Sun, Mr.
Caton. If you are, you may have seen that two weeks ago there was a
front-page article giving the claimant counts of the worst 60 wards or
sub-wards in the UK, provided by the Tory party. Number two in the
whole country, which was not even at ward level, but sub-ward level,
was west Rhyl. It is one of the poorest wards in Wales for historical
reasons. The Opposition were rubbing their hands with glee with the
mischief-making that they could do with those statistics. They provided
them to The Sun, which used them. They were also used in my
local papers with headlines like “Dole on Sea”. However,
the position after 18 years of Tory rule was far
worse.
The Tories are
prepared to use those statistics for political knockabout, but they
should look at what the Labour Government have done in my constituency
with the new deal, pathways, want 2 work and the city strategy. Those
are schemes, policies and philosophies aimed at getting people back to
work and back into society. They compare very favourably with the
record of the Conservative party. Under the previous
Conservative Government, 3 million people were unemployed and about an
equal number were on incapacity benefit. They fiddled their figures 29
times because they were so embarrassed that unemployment was climbing
and climbing and climbing. Their catchphrase was, “Get on your
bike.” and their philosophy was, “Unemployment is a price
worth paying.” That is the party that supplied the figures to
The Sun to do a bit of mischief-making the other
week—disgraceful
behaviour.
People
should look at what we have achieved with these high employment
figures. That is on the back of the minimum wage. That shows how
incompetent and financially illiterate the Conservative party is. The
minimum wage, which for me is the proudest piece of legislation that we
have introduced in the past 11 years, shows which direction we are
travelling in. When we introduced it in 1997-98, the Conservatives said
that it would cost 2 million jobs. Jobs would have gone down from 26
million to 24 million, but that did not happen.
Instead, they went from 26 million to 29.4 million. The Conservatives
were 5 million jobs out with their
prediction.
David
T.C. Davies:
Is it not the case that it all depends at
what level the minimum wage is set? The Government have repeatedly set
it at a relatively low level—of course, it will not cost jobs if
they do
that.
Chris
Ruane:
Before one sets the level of the minimum wage, one
has to accept that there should be one, and the Conservatives did not
accept the minimum wage. They have made dubious use of out-of-date
statistics that were quoted in
The Sun. The statistics are from
2005, before we had want 2 work and the city strategy in Rhyl. The
Conservatives have used those statistics for political gain, but Labour
is working and unemployment is not a price worth paying.
The most recent Budget has
given us political and economic stability at a time of worldwide
economic instability. Stability has been the watchword of the past 11
years, and it has been maintained despite the dark forces out there.
That has given the public and private sectors the confidence to invest
in towns such as Rhyl, Prestatyn and Denbigh.
I shall give two examples of
that investment in my constituency. In Rhyl, there is an £85
million development, by Modus, on the old fairground site. The hon.
Member for The Wrekin was slagging off property developers earlier, but
Modus is involved in an £85 million development. Also, the Welsh
Health Minister last week gave the go-ahead for a £300 million
hospital in Rhyl. I hope that that public and private money will be
tied into the back-to-work agenda, to get people in the west ward of
Rhyl, upper Denbigh, south-west Rhyl and in other wards in my
constituency, as well as others around the country, back to
work.
Several
hon. Members
rose
—
The
Chairman:
Order. The Members who are still to speak know
that we have a limited amount of time left. I hope that they will take
that into
account.
Hywel
Williams:
On a point of order, Mr. Caton. When
do you intend to start the winding-up
speeches?
The
Chairman:
In a sense, this is the beginning of the
winding-up speeches. I had hoped that each of the political parties
would have a chance to respond to the debate, but I should like to call
the official Opposition at 4
pm.
3.43
pm
Hywel
Williams:
I have edited my speech fairly heavily, and want
to make just one point following the question that I asked the
Secretary of State this morning about capital gains tax. As I have
said, I see desperate couples in my surgery every week who cannot find
anywhere to live. Public sector housing is not really available because
of the sell-off of stock and the decanting of those with the worst
social problems to the worst stock. I even come across a lot of people
who say that they cannot rent in the private sector,
because landlords are selling off their properties rather than renting
them. Purchase is out of the question, because of mortgage
requirements. Some people have taken mortgages of six times their
income.
There is a
huge housing need and money is tight, which is why I was surprised when
the Government gave the nice present of taxpayers’ money to
second home owners by reducing capital gains tax from 40 per cent. to a
flat rate of 18 per cent. This morning, the Secretary of State said
that he doubted whether that would have a major influence, but I refer
hon. Members to the quote of the Local Government Association housing
spokesman in today’s Evening Standard. I shall not quote
him in full, as hon. Members can read his comments. He says that there
is a need for debate to ensure that people are not priced out of their
local communities, and that that holiday homes
can
“lead to desolate
dormitories that are bereft of spirit or life and drive house prices to
unaffordable levels for local
people.”
There is a good
deal more in that article, which hon. Members might like to take a look
at.
The
issue will certainly be of significance in my constituency and in
Gwynedd in general, where holiday homes represent 80 per cent. of
housing stock. The western part of my constituency has 3,000 holiday
homes in a population of 18,000 people, and that represents a
substantial problem. I fear that even more of our housing stock could
become holiday homes, fuelled, perhaps as an unintended consequence, by
the capital gains tax advantages that the Government seem happy to
afford to people who can buy two
houses.
Will
the Under-Secretary respond to some questions? Did the Government do
any modelling of the effect of the capital gains tax change on rural
and coastal communities? Was it examined when the matter was first
considered? Did he put the case for rural and coastal Wales, and what
response did he
receive?
I
fear that this is a similar case to that when self-invested personal
pensions were proposed a few years ago and people were allowed to put
their holiday homes into their pension portfolios. I took that up with
the Treasury repeatedly, and was repeatedly told not to worry. The
response I received from the Minister at the Treasury at the time was
that any capital gains would be mopped up by capital gains tax. Yet,
the Government are now potentially reducing the capital gains tax on
holiday homes from 40 per cent. to 18 per cent. I received a consistent
response then, so I am sorry to see this change being proposed
now.
Many
of us in this Committee like to quote Nye Bevan. I repeat what many
people have said in the
past:
“The
religion of socialism is the language of
priorities”.
Those
priorities seem skewed in this case, not only in respect of concessions
to non-doms, but in terms of capital gains tax, which will have a
profound effect on homeless people throughout Wales, but especially in
rural and coastal
Wales.
3.47
pm
Julie
Morgan (Cardiff, North) (Lab): I apologise for not being
present for the debate this morning. I had a long-standing commitment
to speak at a conference, so I missed the opening speeches, for which I
apologise.
I will take
only a few minutes and use the opportunity to concentrate on families
in Wales, particularly those with children, how the Budget has helped
them, and what more needs to be
done.
Hon. Members
have already welcomed the £20 child benefit
for the first child. When we came to Government in 1997, there were
fears that child benefit would be abandoned. I am sure that all hon.
Members remember that. However, child benefit has been one of the most
successful benefits there is. It is universal and universally claimed.
The fact that it has gone up to £20 for the first child is
tremendous, given that it was under threat when this Government came to
power. The extra £50 for the child element of the child tax
credit also recognises the difficulties of bringing up
children.
The Budget
has built on a strong foundation since 1997. The Government have had
the laudable aim of bringing down child poverty and
have made considerable steps towards doing so. There is a long way to
go yet, but we are making good progress. That has been based on a
combination of universal benefits, such as child benefit, and the tax
credit system, which has targeted low-paid families in
work.
I entirely agree
with the Government’s measures to encourage work, because that
is the way out of poverty. In Welsh families today, both parents and
many single parents have to work, and deal with the matter of child
care and how to manage working and looking after children and elderly
parents. That is one of the key issues that we have to solve in
Wales.
I want the
Chancellor to recognise the realities of family life in Wales today.
Many families are able to get access to registered child care nurseries
and book and use registered child minders.
Those services are acknowledged by the money that comes from the
Chancellor to support caring. Two thirds of the care in Wales is done
informally. That means it is done largely by grandparents, relatives
and friends.
One of
the main points that I want to make is that there ought to be a way of
recognising the reality of child care in Wales today and the role of
grandparents. During the women’s day debate, when I made a
similar point, the Leader of the House said that although our Labour
Government have often been mocked for encouraging a nanny state, she
would be happy for it to be a granny state, and I agree with that. We
need to acknowledge that sort of informal care, because that would
enable even more parents to work and to do so in a satisfactory way,
with good care for their children. It would perhaps also bring money
into economically deprived areas and help enormously in allowing such
things to happen.
I
have other proposals on how we could improve the lives of working
families in Wales, but I am aware that you are anxious to move on,
Mr. Caton. My main point is therefore that I would like the
Chancellor to acknowledge the role of informal care in the
future.
3.51
pm
Mr.
Roger Williams:
We have had an interesting and full debate
on a Budget that has been described, on the one hand, as sparse and, on
the other, as dull. There is nothing wrong with a dull Budget if it is
effective, but
this Budget has not managed to generate a huge amount
of debate within the Chamber. Indeed, a number of the allocated times
were not filled. However, we have filled the time in Committee today
very well, and the debate has been a tribute to the contribution of
Welsh Members from all parties.
I do not want to go through all
the contributions, because I know that the hon. Member for Clwyd, West
will want to do that, but I will comment on one or two of them. The
Secretary of State, in his usual assured and statesmanlike manner,
painted a rosy picture of the Welsh economy. We agree with him on a
number of issues, but much work remains to be done. Some of the issues
that are absent from the Budget are telling, so the Government and the
Secretary of State need to address
them.
The
hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham painted a picture that was not so
rosy. She was doing rather well until she started to refuse to take
interventions, and then I felt that the contribution was not as
productive as it could have been. One of the issues that she raised was
support for getting unemployed young people back into work. She
suggested that the Barnett formula had underfunded that work, and I
shall return to that point
later.
The
hon. Member for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr started in a philosophical
style, which contrasted with the contributions that he used to make in
Welsh Grand Committees, when he was rather less of a philosopher and
more of an attack dog. That was something that we used to look forward
to. Towards the end of his contribution, I think that the old Adam
seemed to reappear—and I mean that as a Biblical term, rather
than as an unparliamentary one—and we had some of the former
glory that we associate with him.
Members will be pleased to know
that I will start with a brief mention of the Barnett formula, which is
rather topical today. Those who listen to the “Today”
programme will have heard a contribution on that issue from the leader
of the Labour party in Scotland, who is the Deputy First Minister of
the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, there was recently a mention on the
front page of The Daily Telegraph that the Prime Minister had
initiated a research project to look at how appropriate the Barnett
formula was for present needs. The same article suggested that the
right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) was doing the
same work in the Conservative party. There was, of course, a rebuttal
from both parties that suggested that no one was doing any work on it,
although I believe that that was a shaving off of the truth. The
Barnett formula lies at the heart of the failure of the Government and
the Assembly to achieve the targets that they had set
themselves.
I wrote
to the leaders of the main parties in Wales asking them to talk about
the Barnett formula. I received a reply from the hon.
Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy who is not here at the moment,
but—with no disrespect meant—I do not think that the
difference between us on the matter would be great. However, I have yet
to receive a reply from the Secretary of State or from the hon. Member
for Chesham and Amersham who speaks for the Conservative party on such
matters. It was suggested that the all-Wales convention should look at
the Barnett formula, but we know that that will not be the case. One
Wales promised to set up an
independent commission to review it and I hope that that will still
happen but, in the meantime, I should like the Secretary of State and
the hon. Lady to reply to my letter. Many fear that we face an economic
storm. Indeed, one economist said that it could be a perfect economic
storm in which we have a decrease in growth and an increase in
inflation, and that we could not address the decrease in growth by
reducing interest rates substantially because we would get
stagflation.
The
lending practices of banks have created a credit binge with people
throughout Wales and the United Kingdom borrowing far more than they
can handle. The ready availability of credit has driven up house prices
to unaffordable levels in Wales, which was something that my hon.
Friend the Member for Twickenham had identified early on as a real
problem. We are seeing the unwelcome effects of the binge. There has
been a staggering 168 per cent. rise in bankruptcies in Wales since
2000 and repossession rates are also high. Meanwhile, Northern Rock has
had to be taken into national ownership. It is the most vivid symbol of
the Government’s failure to keep borrowing at an affordable
level and shows the lack of regulatory
control.
Many of us
were disappointed by the Budget. We knew that the Chancellor did not
have much to play with and that his hands had been tied by his
predecessor’s actions, but there was an opportunity to rebalance
the tax system in favour of families and low earners who find
themselves in difficulty as the credit crunch starts to bite. It has
been said that, when the Prime Minister was Chancellor, he did not tell
Tony Blair about the content of his Budget until the day before it was
delivered. After listening to this year’s statement, I cannot
help wondering whether he followed the same procedure with his
Chancellor. Bearing in mind more tax on low earners, more bowing before
big business and more use of green taxes to plug gaps rather than to
deal with people’s behaviour, all we have is more of the same
with no progress being made on any of the problems that face families
in Wales today.
I am
surprised that the abolition of the 10p rate has not been commented on
more widely today. Single people in my constituency without children
and who aspire to get back to work, often at low wages, now face a
barrier and a disincentive. The incomes of those earning less than
£18,000 who are not eligible for tax credits will be reduced in
money terms, let alone in value terms. The gap between the rich and the
poor continues to grow. We have seen the sad spectacle of Labour
stealing Tory proposals to put more money into the pockets of
millionaires. The proposal to charge non-doms a one-off payment of
£30,000 will either cripple ordinary workers or be small change
for foreign billionaires. Whatever soundings-off may have been heard in
recent weeks, I do not believe that too many of those billionaires will
turn down the chance to pay for the right to continue not to pay tax in
this country, no questions asked. It would be sensible for
non-doms to be charged tax like any other British citizen after
seven years.
The
Government’s capital gains tax reforms have not dealt with the
central problem of hedge fund managers paying less tax than their
cleaners, about which we have heard already today. Capital gains should
be taxed as
income, so that all people are
treated more equally. Some small businesses build up value to use for
retirement purposes, for which obviously there should be allowances.
However, people who structure their whole lives so as not to have any
income but capital gains should find those gains taxed as any other
income.
In 1997, the
Government pledged to eradicate child poverty by 2010, but progress has
been painfully slow. The latest figures show that 150,000 Welsh
children still live below the poverty line. For the last 10 years,
Wales has had higher rates of child poverty than the UK average. As a
result of this Budget, the expected shortfall in the targets being
achieved is £2.5 billion. To tackle child poverty, we propose
abolishing the current tax credit payment system and returning to
six-monthly fixed awards that cannot be demanded back because of a
change in
circumstances.
The
whole tax credit system is creaking and is a waste of precious
resources, with too many people entitled to claim tax credits who do
not need them. That clogs up the system, reducing the pot of money
available for the truly needy. The child trust fund should be scrapped,
and the money from it should be used to invest in children earlier on
in their lives, when far more difference can be
made.
If
you will spare me two minutes, Mr. Caton, I will draw my
comments to a conclusion. The abolition of the tax allowance on
commercial buildings is a retrospective tax. People who have planned to
put up new buildings on the basis that they would receive a tax
allowance, now find that they will not. The abolition of the tax
allowance on agricultural buildings is particularly difficult because
they decrease in value over the years, whereas the value of commercial
properties can sometimes increase. Therefore, people who invest in
agricultural buildings find that they are hit with a double
whammy.
The
encapsulation of my argument on green taxes is that they should be
there to discourage a particular type of behaviour, not to increase the
tax take. There should be opportunities for the relevant people,
particularly those on low incomes, to receive tax reductions more
substantial than those proposed by the Government. However, it gives
green taxes a bad name if they are regarded as a tax-raising initiative
rather than a behaviour-modifying initiative to tackle climate
change.
There can be
no doubt that we face turbulent times ahead. It is right to acknowledge
that the Government cannot be blamed for the global slow-down, but
their excessive borrowing has left us in a much weaker position than
other major economies. The Chancellor may have used the word
“stability” to death in the statement, but perhaps he was
experimenting with a form of hypnosis. I certainly felt that I was
losing the plot on one or two occasions. In reality, we face the
greatest period of economic uncertainty since the dying embers of the
last Tory
Government.
The Budget
is a green cop-out that dodges the difficult decisions on environmental
taxes and offers no help to the millions of hard-pressed families
struggling to make ends meet. It leaves loopholes for the super-rich in
place and bears down on the poor, particularly in that it does not
address the matter of regressive council tax. It also does far too
little to tackle the injustice of child poverty, which remains more
widespread in Wales than anywhere else in the
UK.
4.4
pm
Mr.
David Jones:
This has been a fascinating debate,
much of which has been about the Budget. It is
perhaps a tribute to the Committee that, notwithstanding the competing
attraction of President Sarkozy and his wife, so many members have
remained to the bitter
end.
The Secretary of
State rose to deliver what he said would be a brief
speech, but which, in fact, turned out to be reasonably lengthy, not
through any fault of his, but through the multiple interventions that
he accepted, although, they added considerably to the gaiety of the
Committee and contributed a lot to the political knockabout of the day.
However, the core of his speech was very brief. It revolved around the
theme of stability; a word that has been repeated by many Labour
Members today. Clearly, Labour business managers have rammed it into
Labour Members that they should repeat the word “stable”
again and again in relation to the
Budget.
The
hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire described the Budget as sparse
and dull. In truth, it was a sparse Budget because it had to be.
Frankly, the Chancellor had very little room for manoeuvre and he has
nothing left in the kitty. The Secretary of State was obliged, because
of the sparsity of the Budget, to rummage around to find some themes
that he could elaborate on in his speech. He referred to progress in
the relief of child poverty, a theme picked up by various
members of the Committee, including the hon. Members for
Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr, for Llanelli, for Ynys Môn and for
Cardiff, North, to mention but a few. Yes, there has been some progress
in relieving child poverty, but it is fairly clear that the Government
will not hit their target by 2010. Save the Children estimated that
they will fall short of that target by as many as 450,000
children.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham was challenged by
members of the Committee to say what Conservatives would do it they
were in the Chancellor’s position. I will give a flavour of what
we would do. We would end Labour’s couple penalty in the tax
credit system. We would increase the working tax credit from
£3,430 to £5,385—an increase of some £38
per week. The direct effect of that would be to lift 300,000 children
in two-parent families out of poverty. I commend that policy to the
Government.
The
Secretary of State referred to pensioners. Certainly, the winter fuel
payment increase is welcome, but I remind the Committee that it is a
one-off payment. Although there will be an increase, it will not
keep pace with increases in fuel inflation. Gas bills rose by
12.6 per cent. and electricity prices by 10.6 per cent. in
February alone. There is a considerable way to go before that sort of
increase is mitigated. In truth, inflation is running at a considerably
higher rate than it has for some time. For example, since February last
year the price of bread has gone up by 15.1 per cent., eggs by 30.8 per
cent. and butter by 36.3 per cent. Mortgage interest payments are up by
11.8 per cent. since last February. Notwithstanding that, the
Government persist with their suggestion that inflation is running at
between 2 and 2.5 per cent. per annum. That is because the Government
have adopted the consumer prices index as their measure of inflation.
The retail prices index, which was formerly used by the Government,
showed an increase of well over 4 per cent.
Many
hon. Members have referred to their constituencies. There were
thoughtful contributions from many hon. Members, in particular from the
hon. Member for Llanelli. She mentioned the effect that the increase in
fuel prices is having on rural communities, which are suffering most in
the present economic climate. The Chancellor has increased vehicle
excise duty. He has postponed the increase in fuel duty, but that will
be in place within a year. There are disparities in the cost of fuel.
In my constituency of Clwyd, West, diesel in Cerrigydrudion is being
sold at 118p per litre as opposed to about 110p per litre on the coast.
So, rural communities are suffering. That suffering has been
exacerbated by the post office closure programme, which often results
in closing the only shop in the
village.
Ian
Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give
way?
Mr.
Jones:
I shall not give way. I am sorry. The hon.
Gentleman has not been here for the debate and I have little time left
to me.
The hon. Member
for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr made an interesting speech, which
started off in philosophical mode and then developed into an
interesting discussion about the Laffer curve, which shows the degree
of erudition that can be expected of a Welsh Grand
Committee.
The hon.
Member for Ynys Môn referred to a tough Budget, but also to
there being global problems. Indeed there are, but the Government have
not been prudent, despite the repeated use of the word
“prudence” by the Prime Minister during his tenure as
Chancellor. We did not fix the roof while the sun was shining, so to
speak, and the Chancellor had no option but to deliver a
tough Budget. The hon. Gentleman made some
interesting suggestions about developing skills audits at a local
level, and referred to tax implications—perhaps he also had in
the mind the Laffer
curve.
The
hon. Member for Aberavon referred to his specialist subject of
education. He referred to the work of the Select Committee on Welsh
Affairs, on which I also serve. He referred to the example of China and
the extent to which Chinese universities are targeting their courses to
the needs of commerce and industry. I agree with him. That is a model
that could well be adopted in Wales and in the UK as a
whole.
The hon. Member
for Montgomeryshire referred to the Budget as cautious. He was the only
member of the Committee to use the R word—recession. He said
that the UK economy is showing signs of recession. If this country
takes its lead from America, as it frequently does in economic matters,
it may well be that he was not wrong to use that word, because it would
appear that at the moment the United States economy is in recession. He
also referred to disparities in salary levels in
rural areas. He was right to do so, because those disparities result in
disproportionately high rates of inflation experienced by rural
dwellers. Essential items are not disaggregated from the
calculation—in other words, rural dwellers have to spend more
proportionately on such staples as food, housing and
fuel.
My hon. Friend
the Member for The Wrekin made a speech in which he
referred to the funding arrangements for the Welsh Assembly Government
and pointed out
concerns already ventilated before the Select Committee about the
funding of hospital treatment in English trusts. That concern is
becoming increasingly evident. Many Welsh people wonder why they have
to wait considerably longer for treatment in English hospitals than
English patients do. At the moment the Select Committee inquiry is
certainly highlighting wrinkles in the devolution settlement, which
need to be smoothed out if a sense of injustice is not to be
experienced by patients in
Wales.
The hon. Member
for Vale of Clwyd mentioned stability. He trumpeted the achievements of
the Labour Government, but spoke little about the Budget. The hon.
Member for Caernarfon referred to the single issue of capital gains tax
and the effect that he feels the present regime has on the housing
market in his part of the world—a beautiful part of the world
and therefore attractive to second-home buyers. He and I have a problem
in that regard because I do not believe that it can be resolved as
simplistically as changing the capital gains tax regime. He
nevertheless made a pertinent point. The hon. Member for Cardiff, North
mentioned again the issue of child benefit and child
poverty.
The debate
has been interesting, particularly because of the themes that have
developed, especially child poverty and the effects on rural
communities. It is interesting that we have been able to devote so much
time to the discussion of the Budget, because it was not a Budget of
stability. It was a Budget of paralysis, paralysis experienced by a
Government that now faces extreme economic problems and has not been
sufficiently prudent to put by the wherewithal to deal with problems as
they have
arisen.
4.16
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Huw
Irranca-Davies):
In the minutes that remain I will try to
cover as many points as I can of this wide-ranging and stimulating
debate, which has proven the worth of the Welsh Grand Committee by
allowing its members to speak on a wide variety of issues relating to
the Budget.
One word
that has not been used today—it is often overused—is
partnership. Here that is the partnership between the Labour Government
in Westminster, the Labour-led Administration in the Welsh Assembly,
the local authorities and the voluntary and private sectors in Wales.
That is why we now have nearly 130,000 more people in jobs since 1997,
why manufacturing output in Wales rose by 1.2 per
cent. in 2007 and why construction output—I will return to that
in a moment—has risen by 6.4 per cent. over the past year. That
has not happened by accident. Many members—on both sides of the
Committee—have remarked on the stability and consistent
stewardship of the economy under both the previous and the current
Chancellors. That is why we are able to deliver investment. There are
1,500 more police officers and 688 more community support officers
since 1997. There are 8,000 more qualified nurses, 500 more
consultants, 1,700 more schoolteachers and 5,700 more school support
staff. Those are notable successes, delivered against a background of
good stewardship of the
economy.
Let
me deal with the detail of some of the contributions. In an intelligent
and considered contribution, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon
talked about the
Welsh Affairs Committee inquiry into globalisation, and highlighted the
importance of higher education and the skills agenda in
Wales—that is vital—and challenged both the Welsh
Assembly Government and the UK Government to rise to the global
challenges facing us. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and
his predecessor have been keen to promote links with China, India and
elsewhere to develop those educational and employment links.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Aberavon also touched on Neath Port Talbot county
borough council and I join him in congratulating it and celebrating the
remarkable achievements of one of the finest—if not the
finest —local authority in Wales. The National Institute
for Construction—Wales is an exciting prospect, which, if
successful, will enable Wales to move ahead and capitalise on the
massive demand for skills across all levels of construction. I am sure
that that will benefit not only his constituents but the wider Welsh
economy, particularly in south Wales. He also mentioned the recurring
issue of a small but clever country competing in a global
economy.
My hon.
Friend the Member for Ynys Môn talked about a tough but fair
Budget against a backdrop of global challenges, and about stability and
growth. He also mentioned the nuclear academy at Staffordshire
university. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I met him
yesterday to discuss that and other matters. Once again, that is
driving forward the skills agenda in Wales. My hon. Friend
remarked—as have other members of the Committee—on the
doubling of the budget for the Welsh Assembly Government since 1997.
That does not happen by accident, but under successive Labour
Governments.
I should
also mention biofuels, to which several people referred. I was
privileged the other day to visit Sundance Renewables in the
constituency of the hon. Member for Carmarthen, East and
Dinefwr—it does excellent work in a co-operative project. It is
concerned not with growing crops for biofuels but recycling fuels that
are taken from restaurants, chip shops and so on around the area. It is
a good green initiative. There are concerns about biofuels, but the
situation is not all bad.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli spoke about a Budget for a fairer,
caring society, and about the 17,000 pensioners in her constituency who
will benefit from it. She also spoke about the minimum wage. I was on a
bus recently to promote the minimum wage under the slogan, “Are
you on the £5.52?” However, within a week, it changed to,
“Are you on a £5.73?” The Government have
consistently increased the minimum wage. We remember being told that it
would lead to devastation throughout the economy and the loss of
millions of jobs, but the reverse has happened—there are more
people in jobs, who benefit from the minimum
wage.
My hon. Friend
the Member for Vale of Clwyd also commented on the stewardship of the
economy and its effects on his constituency. He used
the St. Asaph business park as an exemplar for the transformation of
the economy and his constituents’ lives under Labour. That is
true in north, south, east and west Wales. To echo his phrase, we do
not want a return to the rollercoaster of boom-and-bust
economics.
My
hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North rightly focused—it was
a constant theme in the debate—on families in Wales and tackling
child poverty. It was
good to see in the Budget the restatement in policy of Labour’s
drive to tackle child and pensioner poverty, and the
standard of living of working families. Grandparenting is an important
issue, and grandparents have a role in the provision of child care. The
Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government are addressing the
issue. As my hon. Friend said, more needs to be done because it is now
one of the hurdles that confronts us as we encourage people back into
work to benefit them and their quality of
life.
The
contribution of the hon. Member for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr was
generally balanced and thoughtful. He acknowledged the reduction in
relative poverty in Wales and mentioned that it was greater than in the
UK as a whole. He pointed out how we could go further—we all
want more progress—but he was right to talk about the
Government’s track record and what is happening in the Welsh
Assembly Government, which shows that we are going in the right
direction. On that theme, child benefit, working families tax credit,
pension credit, pension reform—which is the next
stage—welfare reform and the minimum wage, which I have
mentioned, are vital.
The income inequality that grew
rapidly in the 1980s has been largely arrested, excluding—I take
the hon. Gentleman’s point on this—the
extremes of distribution. The data show that the inequality for the
bulk of UK households has fallen since 1997. We can contrast that with
1979 to 1997, to pick a random period, when household income inequality
rose to its highest level since at least the early 1960s. We have
arrested the inequality; we will do more, but we are going in the right
direction.
The hon.
Member for Montgomeryshire had warm words for my right hon. Friend the
Secretary of State’s predecessor, and gave credit to the Prime
Minister and former Chancellor of the Exchequer for building a
stable and prosperous economy. The entente cordiale is
happening not only in the Royal Gallery today, but in this Room. He
mentioned Northern Rock and said that we had stolen one of the
Lib Dems’ flagship
policies.
Mr.
Roger Williams:
All of
them.
Huw
Irranca-Davies:
I heard that. With Northern Rock, we saw a
Chancellor of the Exchequer look at all the options, explore them
exhaustively and choose the right one in a timely fashion, as opposed
to leaping prematurely at any one option.
The hon.
Member for Montgomeryshire rightly mentioned objective 1 and how
mid-Wales and other areas that did not benefit from it could do so.
More must be done for mid-Wales and rural areas, but I recall that,
when the Government sought objective 1, they were met with either
downright hostility or complete scepticism, as has been remarked on.
However, we did it, and we have delivered on convergence funding as
well. We continue to deliver funding to Wales on that and other
matters.
The issue of
BT was raised. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is meeting
BT next week, and I am sure that he will be happy to raise the issues
mentioned by the hon. Member for
Montgomeryshire.
The hon.
Member for The Wrekin spoke about cross-border issues and patient flow.
Neither financial nor patient flow is one way. The Welsh Affairs
Committee is investigating cross-border issues. Also, the Minister of
State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter
(Mr. Bradshaw), whom I met recently to discuss the matter,
and a Welsh Assembly Minister will be working together on cross-border
protocols to ensure that the problems are resolved to
everybody’s satisfaction. The hon. Gentleman also spoke about
housing associations and gave some examples—from his
constituency, I believe—of housing associations that seemed to
be milking property and land values. If he has any illustrations of
that happening in Wales, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
and I will be more than happy to pass them on to the Welsh Assembly
Government, but we have not come across
any.
The
hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire spoke about the Barnett formula
and the reviews under way in the Welsh Assembly Government and
Scotland. We look forward to the outcome. Curiously, he was unusually
antagonistic—that is not like him at all. He has turned over a
new leaf; he is going to be the thorn in the side of Welsh Grand
Committees. In respect of the letter on the Barnett formula, we did a
quick check, and we do not have a record of it. That is not to say that
he did not send it, but if he sends it again, we will be happy to read
it. We cannot trace it at the moment; there must be a problem with the
post.
The
hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham spoke about small and medium-sized
enterprises in Wales. Total entrepreneurial activity in Wales has risen
to 5.5 per cent. from 3.9 per cent. in 2002. The SME sector
is vital. It employs nearly 1 million people in the UK and creates a
turnover of nearly £80 billion. Apart from what is in the
Budget, the Welsh Assembly Government have committed to a culture of
investment, drawing on the new single investment fund. She and others
made much of capital gains tax. The 18 per cent. rate is less than half
the headline rate paid in 1997. Under the previous regime, capital
gains were charged directly to income tax at rates of up to 40 per
cent. In terms of entrepreneurs and SMEs, the rate responds directly to
the concerns raised by business groups. It is targeted to provide a
special 10 per cent. rate for owners of small businesses and those who
invest a material stake in such businesses. On overseas trade, the
growth in Welsh exports between 1999 and the last four quarters was
39.9 per cent. above the total rate of growth for all UK countries and
English regions.
Many
hon. Members focused on child poverty, including the
hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. The measures announced in the
Budget will lift another 250,000 children out of poverty in the UK.
Child benefits such as the child tax credit and the child fund are
important measures introduced by the Labour Government. Every single
day, 240 children are lifted out of poverty in this country; every day
during the Tory years, 200 children went into it. That is the contrast.
We need to do more, but we are along the right
lines.
The UK economy
is enjoying the longest period of macro-economic stability on record,
an unprecedented 62 consecutive quarters of positive growth and
low
inflation. After the Wales grand slam, triple crown
and championship, to paraphrase Cerys Matthews of Catatonia,
“Every day I thank the Lord I’m a Welsh MP, and I thank
the Lord I’m a UK Minister.” Through Westminster and the
Welsh Assembly Government, working with local government and our
partners in the private and voluntary sector, we will continue to build
a world-class Wales strengthened by its place in the United Kingdom: a
clever country, a green country and a global player. I
commend the Budget, and this Chancellor’s and our previous
Chancellor’s stewardship of the economy, to the
Committee.
Question put and agreed
to.
Resolved,
That
the Committee has considered the matter of the Budget Statement and its
implications for
Wales.
Committee
rose at twenty-nine minutes past Four
o’clock.
