Albert
Owen: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have heard
another example from constituents who have been for a medical
examination and not been given the results or told whether they are fit
to continue to work for several weeks. That causes people with mental
health conditions extra anxiety, and administrators and the Department
for Work and Pensions must consider it. I agree that we need proper
measures in place to assist people into the workplace. We need a little
more carrot than stick, so that when the economy goes in the right
direction, such people can benefit and become part of and contribute to
the wider economy.
The
Queen’s Speech contains important measures. Obviously, it has
been overshadowed by the economic downturn, but it starts off by
saying, rightly, that the economy is a priority. I welcome child
poverty measures and welfare reform, but I have some issues with border
controls; I would like the Secretary of State and the Wales Office to
consider their impact on Welsh ports. The marine Bill is excellent and
has been a long time coming. It is very technical. I want it to work
for the benefit of the people of Wales. The measures are radical and I
support them, but we must keep attention focused on the economy of
Wales. 10.57
am
Mr.
Roger Williams: Thank you, Mr. Clayton.
[Interruption.] Mr. Caton; I am sorry.
I have a constituent called Mr. Clayton, who sometimes takes
more time than perhaps I should devote to
him. It
is a great pleasure to speak once again in the Welsh Grand Committee.
Although it is good to reflect on the implications of the
Queen’s Speech for Wales, I cannot help but think that we are a
little bit behind the times. We have seen even more worrying
developments in the banking crisis this week, yet we are debating a
legislative programme introduced some weeks ago, before we could
understand the full implications of the problems faced by the
banks.
Mr.
David Jones: The hon. Gentleman is right, of course, but
does he not agree that that is probably why the Queen’s Speech
is so thin: because the Government will have to spend so much time
firefighting with the economy?
Mr.
Roger Williams: I agree with the hon. Gentleman; I was
going to make a comment along those lines a little later. I appreciate
why the Welsh Grand Committee is not necessarily the best place to
discuss the issues of the day, but some planning is necessary if we are
to have regular debates on set-piece occasions such as the pre-Budget
report and the Queen’s Speech. It would be helpful if we could
arrange them to be a little timelier. In passing, a number of hon. and
right hon. Members have said how much they appreciate the question time
that sometimes precedes the Welsh Grand Committee, particularly because
we have to wait for longer and longer before getting Welsh questions in
the Chamber. Welsh questions in Grand Committee would be very helpful
and would freshen up the occasion. It has also been mentioned how much
the statements made by Ministers working in Departments dealing with
reserved matters are appreciated. They can address the relevant
departmental concerns of Welsh
Members. As
the hon. Member for Clwyd, West said, the Queen’s Speech was
pared down in recognition of the exceptional challenges that we
face—and perhaps also in response to our having so few days to
debate legislation in this Session. We have talked about how many
Members of Parliament we should have from Wales; what about the number
of Members of Parliament from the United Kingdom in general? Of equal
concern to the electors out there is how many days Members of
Parliament spend scrutinising legislation in this place; that is a key
task that Members of Parliament should involve themselves in. With
fewer and fewer days to hold the Government to account, the Government
have more time to act in ways that are entirely responsive to
Members’ questions and
concerns. I
am delighted that the proposed communications data Bill had been
dropped. The giant database of e-mails and phone calls that was, if not
the centrepiece, certainly a central element of the Bill, would have
made a pernicious and wholly unhelpful intrusion into the lives of
ordinary people. As a party, we are concerned with people’s
freedom and their ability to communicate with others and with
organisations. The Government should not have the intrusive power to
listen in on those communications and hold them for whatever purposes
Governments might want to hold them. I hope that that will be the end
of those plans, but I fear that a modified form of the Bill could well
be put forward in a future Parliament, if this Government remain in
power. I
was not the only person disappointed by the lack of more framework
powers within the legislative programme. We have seen the problems that
can be caused by legislative competence orders, although we had many
champions of that process earlier in the debate. It is well known that
my party would prefer more powers to be transferred directly to the
Welsh Assembly. After the row about affordable housing powers, I was
surprised that more use was not being made of framework powers. I would
be interested to know whether that was due to a lack of ambition in the
Assembly Government or an unwillingness on the part of the Secretary of
State for Wales. We identified new powers on business rates, policing,
building regulations, equal status for the Welsh language and
possibly—as the Assembly wants—affordable housing. My
party’s long-term goal is for the Assembly to have full
law-making powers, but while we do not have them we must make maximum
use of the powers available.
Albert
Owen: The hon. Gentleman talked about additional powers. I
have supported devolution for many years, and I support a more federal
United Kingdom, as does his party. Would he make clear his
party’s position on what we asked the Conservatives today? The
Labour position is clear—that we want to have the full
allocation of 40 Members of Parliament. Does his party have plans for
what powers will go and how many Members will remain in this House to
represent Welsh interests in the United Kingdom
Parliament?
Mr.
Roger Williams: I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising
that question, because it gives me the opportunity—with the
Chairman’s permission—to outline my party’s
proposals, which might appear in a Queen’s Speech of the future.
Our proposals are not specifically aimed at Wales with any purpose of
political advantage for ourselves or political disadvantage for other
parties.
The hon.
Member for Newport, West used the term “gerrymandering”.
I do not know whether I want to use that term, but certainly some of
the recent proposals seemed to be for political advantage rather than
better government. Our proposals are for better government. We wish to
have decision making closer to the people who are represented and who
have to bear the full effects—both the beneficial and not so
beneficial effects—of that legislation. It is our ambition to
have elected bodies in regions in England, which would mean fewer MPs
not only for Wales but for England as well.
Mr.
Llwyd: I do not know about the word gerrymandering in
connection with the Conservative ideas or misunderstandings—call
them what you will—but according to the Liberal Democrat plans,
150 seats will disappear. I am more relaxed than most people about that
issue, as it happens, but we are talking about nine seats from Wales.
Therefore, there is only a difference of three between the proposals of
the hon. Gentleman’s party and those of the
Conservatives.
Mr.
Roger Williams: I do not entirely understand the
Conservative proposals. As I understood it, it was a unilateral
proposal for Wales, and not a common proposal for the whole of the
United Kingdom. The ratios that the hon. Gentleman proposed bear
scrutiny. We saw a reduction of MPs in Scotland when Scotland got full
law-making powers, and I am not sure how Plaid Cymru responded to that.
That reduction has been accepted, and it would be accepted if Wales had
full law-making powers. We should like such a scheme to be drawn out
across the UK, with more directly elected regional governments, rather
than having regional government pursued and carried out by unelected
bodies, which we feel does not represent the needs of the people in
those
regions. Notwithstanding
the current difficulties in the economy, an unambitious programme has
been widely recognised. Even when there are big ideas, such as in the
Welfare Reform Bill, there are significant problems within the
legislation. My party has expressed its concern at the language used.
We should give incentives rather than impose rules. The Government have
rightly included provisions for training and skills, which have been
de-emphasised while they concentrate on the tough rhetoric against
incapacity benefit claimants. It is regrettable that the Government and
the Conservatives feel the
need to engage in horse trading on who can sound the toughest. I hope
that when we debate the substance of the Bill, we will move away from
such a
practice. Lembit
Öpik: I am sure that my hon. Friend, like me, has
experienced constituents coming to his surgeries to explain that, while
they are obviously incapable of work, they are being forced to go
through humiliating tests and are then told that they qualify for work
and that their benefits will be stopped. Does my hon. Friend agree that
if this legislation is to be meaningful, it will protect the interests
of people who are genuinely incapacitated and incapable of working,
rather than being an opportunity to cut further the incapacity benefits
budget?
Mr.
Roger Williams: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
Some individuals have been humiliated by being put through tests that
have tried to show that they are fit for work when clearly they are
not. Our party believes that we should encourage people back into work,
rather than force them through other means.
Mark
Williams: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that across the
UK, some 1 million disabled people have expressed the desire to return
to work? The key issue is building an individualised and tailored
approach to assist the specific needs of such people, so that they can
return to work. I have been working with groups of people suffering
from autistic spectrum disorders. Some of the challenges that those
groups face in navigating their way through the Department for Work and
Pensions do not augur well if we do not build in an individualised
approach to the
measures.
Mr.
Roger Williams: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s
work with people on the autism and Asperger’s spectrum, and he
makes a very good point. Disabled people living in areas that are not
economically very active find it more difficult to get back into
employment. When Remploy closed the factory in Ystradgynlais, people
directly employed there had to travel large distances to continue their
employment with Remploy or to find employment in mainstream situations.
That led to a number of people taking early retirement when they could
still have been employed by Remploy. I found that rather difficult, and
it is an issue that I am sure will be returned
to.
Julie
Morgan: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the approach of
the Department for Work and Pensions has been individual—by
appointing individual advisers? I have had many people coming to me
saying how they have benefited from the advice that is being offered.
That is the pattern that we should follow, bearing in mind the concerns
for vulnerable groups.
Mr.
Roger Williams: I thank the hon. Lady for that point. That
was the issue I was raising, which is that we want a positive approach
and we want encouragement. I know that a number of people have had
positive experiences of that approach. My hon. Friend the Member for
Montgomeryshire and I have both had a number of people coming to us
with rather negative experiences. We do not think that encourages them
back into employment—rather the opposite.
The proposal
to force lone parents to begin preparing for a return to work when
their children are 12 months old goes too far and Liberal Democrats
will oppose that measure. There is a real danger that the children of
lone parents could be pushed further into poverty by these changes,
which is something that we all wish to avoid.
There is
another banking Bill to follow on from the one approved in the last
Session. It will tighten the regulatory framework, giving the Bank of
England a stronger role in overseeing financial stability. I welcome
this change—there has been far too much short-termism in the
banking and financial sectors over the past few years and we must use
the opportunity we have to reshape the banking system into something
that offers more long-term stability. I do not think that this Bill
will go that far, but it at least acknowledges some of the
problems.
When I talk
to local bank managers in my area they tell me that they have been
sitting in their local banks, making loans to businesses and
individuals, creating few losses for their banks nationally, while
creating wealth for them. All that good work that they have been doing
in sustaining their local economy has been undone by over-ambitious and
too-risky adventures by senior managers in their operations. We have
seen that investing in exotic, high-risk and ill-conceived financial
instruments has undermined our local economy. When we think about that
we should be looking more and more at our financial institutions and
our co-operatives.
Robert Owen,
who was born in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for
Montgomeryshire, had a great vision for that type of economy, which is
one we must go back to. I voted consistently against demutualisation of
various organisations in which I participated, such as Standard Life,
which has just about survived, and the Halifax building society, which
is still there although in a much weakened form. It is quite clear that
those mutuals that decided to demutualise have really suffered from it.
The structure of local people doing their own thing should be looked at
again.
Mr.
David Jones: Was not Equitable Life a mutual
organisation?
Mr.
Roger Williams: It may well have been a mutual
organisation, but it does not mean that the mutuals must not be well
run and less insured. However, what we have seen is that those
organisations that went from a mutual status to another status seem to
have suffered from that move.
Lembit
Öpik: My hon. Friend rightly points out that Robert
Owen was born in my constituency. As such, the co-operative movement
was born in my constituency. Does he agree that the tenets of Robert
Owen are exactly the values that appear to have been lost by modern
banking, and that although local bank managers are working hard to
encourage lending and borrowing in local communities, they feel an
overbearing pressure from above, which limits their sphere of
operation? Therefore, would he encourage the senior management to put
positive mood music out there that would help local bank managers who
are keen to help to restart the economy to do
so?
Mr.
Roger Williams: I thank my hon. Friend for that—he
set things out very well indeed. Unfortunately, some of the banks are
now in such a parlous financial state that the resources are not
necessarily there to make the loans that local businesses need. That
message should certainly go out to the national banks. They need to get
back to their core business, from which they have made a lot of money
for a very long time. The pressure put on them by institutional
investors to expand exponentially has proved disastrous and the people
who are really suffering are local businesses and those who were the
source of their wealth in the first
place. The
news that the Government are to undertake another bail-out of the banks
has caused considerable concern. Although everybody wants lending to
businesses and wants us to move out of recession as swiftly as
possible, it increasingly seems that the crucial questions are not
being asked. We do not know all the details of the bail-out. We are now
told that proper controls are being put in place to safeguard
taxpayers’ money; it is astonishing that those were not put in
place before, given the vast amounts of money that have been given to
the
banks. The
Liberal Democrats have supported much of the action that the Government
have taken to prevent the collapse of the banking system, and it is not
unreasonable to expect that they have been keeping an eye on the
liabilities to which the taxpayer is being subjected. I should like to
make it absolutely clear that we will support constructive proposals
that will lift Wales out of recession, but we will also ask serious
questions.
The Policing
and Crime Bill introduces a series of apparently unrelated provisions
covering police, prostitution, aviation security and extradition, among
other things. Of course there are some perfectly reasonable clauses,
but as a whole the Bill does not seem to hang together. Some elements
of it are of real concern to the police, particularly to the
Dyfed-Powys force in my area, which is concerned about plans to
implement the funding formula in full. The four Welsh police forces
would lose out on £15 million through the withdrawal of the
funding floor, and £6 million through the loss of the rural
policing grant. Dyfed-Powys police will lose out on £6 million
through the scrapping of the floor, and £2.6 million through the
loss of the rural policing grant. Police forces are given more targets
than ever, but in the case of Dyfed-Powys and many other forces, fewer
resources with which to achieve them. Dyfed-Powys has an excellent
detection rate and has been praised for introducing cost efficiencies
in the past, yet it will be starved of central Government funding.
Also, the policing pledge has caused some concern for Dyfed-Powys,
particularly because of the 20-minute response time, which it feels is
impossible to achieve in such a rural
area. The
child poverty Bill typifies much of what the Government are currently
doing. The website of the Leader of the House says this:
“The main
elements of the Bill are...Subject to further
consideration”. To
me, that means that they know what they would like to achieve, but have
no clue how to do it.
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