Mrs.
Gillan: Can the Secretary of State confirm that the
Labour-Plaid Administration in the Assembly have returned £77
million of funding to the European
Union?
Mr.
Murphy: No, I cannot confirm that. I shall write to the
hon. Lady when I get that figure. I am sure that she has researched it
well, but I shall have to get back to her on the detail. She should
accept, however, that the ProAct scheme, for example, which everyone in
the room understands is probably one of the most successful initiatives
that the Welsh Assembly Government have introduced, is very largely
funded by European money, as are ReAct and the JEREMIE—joint
European resources for micro to medium
enterprises—fund. Alun
Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): Will my
right hon. Friend acknowledge that, whereas fluctuations in exchange
rates occasionally make it difficult to spend funds 100 per cent.,
under the Conservative Administration, the then Secretary of State, the
right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), was sending
back millions of pounds, for no reason other than the unwillingness of
the Conservatives to invest in Wales? Will he remind his opposite
number, the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, that these matters
are fresh in the minds of people in
Wales?
Mr.
Murphy: Indeed they are fresh. Of course, the reason why
the right hon. Member for Wokingham sent that money back was that he
did not like Europe very much and consequently did not want to use the
money for the people of Wales. He decided, from the fastness of his
constituency in southern England, to ensure that the money that we
should have had went back to
Brussels. Mark
Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): It is a great shame that so
many Labour Members want to talk Wales down. What is fresh in the minds
of many people throughout Wales and, indeed, the United Kingdom is
the failed Administrations of the former Prime Ministers Callaghan and
Ramsay MacDonald. That is fresh in their minds as
well. In
the Budget statement, there was reference to the future of coal. I
would be interested to know whether the Secretary of State believes
that jobs will be created because there is a future for coal. What does
he think the impact will be on the former coal-mining communities
throughout Wales, given that many homes and schools have been built
since the coal mines were shut? Does he think that those coal-mining
areas should be used again, given those facts, and before carbon
capture and storage facilities have been put in
place?
Mr.
Murphy: As the hon. Gentleman knows, carbon capture is
being worked on strenuously by the Government and various companies.
Aberthaw in Vale of Glamorgan is being used as one of the pilots for
that type of energy. I am sure that if that is successful we will see
coal used
more. Returning
to jobs. I touched on Jobcentre Plus— £1.7
billion in our country and 550 new jobs by October. In addition, the
future jobs fund will, we think, give Wales some 7,500 new jobs in the
months ahead. We are helping young people under 25 who have been out of
work for a year, and the Welsh Assembly Government have given Wales the
highly successful ReAct and ProAct schemes. I remind Members that there
have been 118 applications to the ProAct scheme, 31 of which
have been successful so far: £5 million has been spent and 2,400
jobs have been protected, but that is just the start. It is one of the
most successful schemes in the United Kingdom, of any Administration.
It is half-funded by European money, which has been used wisely and
successfully by the Welsh Assembly
Government. On
businesses, the HMRC business payment support scheme has meant that
4,710 small and medium-sized businesses in Wales have been helped, and
£66 million has been set aside. Under the enterprise finance
guarantee scheme, which ensures that lending comes from the banks to
our small and medium-sized companies, nearly £10 million has
been guaranteed so far, helping more than 100 businesses in Wales.
There has been help for businesses to invest in capital projects,
trading loss carry-back has been extended to help nearly 5,600 Welsh
businesses, a trade credit insurance scheme was brought in at the
Budget, and, to help our car industry, a scrappage scheme has been
introduced, which could assist up to 385,000 people in Wales who own
cars that are more than 10 years old. Those are all very practical ways
in which businesses in Wales have been helped because of the positive
policy of intervention by both the Government here in London and the
Welsh Assembly Government in
Cardiff.
Mrs.
Gillan: I am delighted that the Secretary of State is at
last coming forward with some facts and figures about the businesses
and jobs that have been saved under the proposals in the “Real
Help Now” publication that he put out at the end of last year.
Will he now undertake to list all those companies and jobs, and write
to me with the full details of what amounts were given to which
companies, and which jobs have been saved?
Mr.
Murphy: Under ProAct, the companies have been helped by
the Welsh Assembly Government and so it is a matter for them to decide
how to issue the statements; we make such decisions about the
enterprise guarantee fund. I am certainly prepared to let the hon. Lady
know the details, in so far as that does not breach commercial
confidentiality, which is obviously an issue. If I had a company that
was receiving funds, I would perhaps not want the world to know exactly
what they were, so long as that was within the rules. If the hon. Lady
suggests that those figures are wrong, she is very mistaken. The
figures are right, and I will ensure that, as far as possible within
the rules of commercial confidentiality, she and other members of the
Committee are given the
figures. Mr.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD): My first
instinct is always to be constructive, so I will try that in the first
instance. The guarantee scheme, which ensures that banks lend to small
businesses, extends, as far as I understand it, to 75 per cent. of the
loan, with the other 25 per cent. carried by the bank. However, many
banks now ask sole traders and managing directors to provide a
guarantee and security for that 25 per cent., sometimes
including their own home. As one or two of them have said to me,
“We have confidence in our business but we are coming to the end
of our careers and the last thing that we want is to see our home lost,
just as we are coming up to retirement”. Will the Secretary of
State look at that and see if anything can be done, intervening with
the banks when they insist on doing
that?
Mr.
Murphy: Yes, the issue is still very real. It has got a
little better in parts of Wales, certainly in terms of those banks that
have had a great deal of public money put into them, but there is work
to be done. A few weeks ago in Swansea the all-Wales economic summit
concentrated heavily on the issue of banks in Wales. The regional
directors of banks in Wales were there to answer points rightly made by
businesses and others, including the points the hon. Gentleman raises
with me. The issue is that in particular sectors—construction is
a good example—lending is still very slow, if it happens at all,
and in others it is backed up. Until the lending happens—and
that is the purpose of these guarantee schemes—there will be
difficulty in cash flow and therefore difficulty in reviving the
economy. It is crucial to the whole Welsh economy that the banks play
their part in being banks and do what they are supposed to do. That is
why we as a Government are encouraging them and the Welsh Assembly
Government are doing the same.
Lembit
Öpik (Montgomeryshire) (LD): On that very point,
the Secretary of State will be aware that on a number of occasions I
have highlighted the concerns of my local businesses that, although
they are viable and willing to invest, the banks are reducing overdraft
facilities pretty much unilaterally and making it hard for those
businesses to invest. Has he been able to make any progress with regard
to Welsh banking facilities, to make sure that banks do not rein in
overdrafts for businesses that are healthy and clearly desperate to
invest but are not able to do so because the banks are making it
virtually impossible?
Mr.
Murphy: Overdrafts are in the same category as
straightforward lending. If overdrafts are withdrawn from perfectly
viable businesses, we are in difficulty. I and others are constantly
making that point to banks in Wales, that they have to ensure that
these small and medium-sized—sometimes bigger—businesses
survive. As both the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Brecon and
Radnorshire have mentioned, the burdens that are placed on people
sometimes in later life are to be avoided.
Perhaps it is
important to say today, the 10th anniversary of the election of the
Welsh Assembly, that the partnership that exists between the Government
and Parliament here and our colleagues in Cardiff is a real one. It has
shown in a stark and successful way how important it is to Wales to
have a Welsh Assembly Government able to enhance and improve on the
sort of help that we can give to businesses and families in our
country. We must bear it in mind that about £1 billion has been
committed over the past number of months by the Welsh Assembly
Government to help in this recession—on procurement, business
rates and schemes for home owners, families and businesses. Those
things would not have happened had there not been a Welsh Assembly
Government specifically able to do that for the people whom all of us
here
represent.
Mr.
Hain: I agree with my right hon. Friend that the Assembly
Government deserve great credit. However, will he raise with the Deputy
First Minister, the Plaid Cymru leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, the question
of continued funding for Wales Rally GB? Around £2 million a
year has been provided for the Welsh Assembly Government to the
promoters of the rally and there is a five-year contract which is now
in danger of being breached as a result of the Deputy First
Minister’s decision. Many businesses in the valleys, in
Carmarthenshire and in Powys depend on that investment. For £2
million of public investment, £10 million of spending is
injected into the economy. Apparently, the decision was taken because
there is a question whether the rally will be in the world rally
championship next year. My understanding, as a result of the decision
taken in Paris last week, is that it will be. Will my right hon. Friend
please talk to the Deputy First Minister and write to me about this
matter? It really needs
reversing.
Mr.
Murphy: Yes, I give my right hon. Friend that guarantee. I
will certainly do that in the next few
days. Returning
to the issue of the Assembly Government and the UK Government working
together, there are special problems in Wales which affect us in a
different way from other parts of the country. The very strong working
relationship between the Assembly, the Government and local government
in Wales is evident in the economic summits that we have been holding
throughout Wales. Some people have said that they are of no use, but I
entirely reject that. Indeed, the schemes that I have just outlined to
the Committee, including those on procurement, rates and many others,
flow directly from those economic summits because of suggestions made
by businesses, trade unions and others who attend them. We could not
have that sort of arrangement on a United Kingdom basis—it is
too big—but on a Welsh basis we can bring people together to
deal with such issues. The next summit will be held in
the valleys. We have had one in Swansea, two in
north Wales and one in Cardiff. They allow us to talk to our partners
in Wales at every level about how we can best deal with the problems
that affect Wales economically. Julie
Morgan (Cardiff, North) (Lab): I am sure that my right
hon. Friend is aware that the Federation of Small Businesses, based in
the Heath area of my constituency, is positive about the summits and
praises them highly.
Mr.
Murphy: I am indeed. Suggestions from the federation, the
CBI and other representatives of business in Wales are not only taken
seriously but acted on by the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK
Government. We also act to help home owners. People do not have to lose
their home as well as their job. The combination of those things is
devastating for any family, so the various mortgage rescue and support
schemes initiated by the British Government and the Welsh Assembly
Government will benefit Welsh people
especially.
Mr.
Llwyd: I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman says,
but he should mark the fact that there was a mortgage rescue scheme
active in Wales from 1 September. I understand that it has come in over
the border only in the last few
weeks.
Mr.
Murphy: Which explains why it is useful to have a Welsh
Assembly in Cardiff.
As well as
the question of jobs in Wales, and the schemes that help businesses and
people struggling with mortgages, there is also the question of
families and people who are more vulnerable than others. All the
schemes that have been introduced in the past few weeks—whether
they are helping pensioners get more money directly into their pockets,
helping families with children through extra tax credits and child
benefits or benefiting 1 million people in Wales through tax
reductions—are helping people alongside the other measures that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the other
week.
Dr.
Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab): I warmly endorse the right
hon. Gentleman’s support for the economic summit. Does he agree
that the recent involvement of education bodies such as universities in
the summits is important for building the knowledge economy across the
whole of Wales?
Mr.
Murphy: Indeed. My hon. Friend was with me in Swansea some
weeks ago for the economic summit, and the university of Swansea was
playing its part—a very real part—in regeneration and
ensuring that we invest in new technology in south-west Wales, in
particular. The use of our universities and colleges throughout Wales
to help us through the recession is something that can be done uniquely
through the constitutional structure that we now have in
Wales.
Mark
Pritchard: As a humble Back Bencher I do not have access
to Short money, so I hope that the Secretary of State can find time to
write to me to tell me how many homes have been saved in the past 12
months as a result of the Government’s so-called mortgage rescue
scheme. I would be grateful for that
information.
Mr.
Murphy: Yes, we will certainly provide that information
for the hon. Gentleman, who I am sure will not linger long on the Back
Benches, as soon as we can.
Mrs.
Gillan: Will the Secretary of State clarify something for
me, because I am sure that he would not wish to mislead the Welsh Grand
Committee? He has given the impression that there are special
individual schemes for helping home owners in Wales. Will he confirm
that all the schemes available to help home owners are UK-wide schemes?
Although the mortgage rescue and affordable housing funding schemes are
delivered through the mechanism of the Assembly, those schemes also
exist in the rest of the United Kingdom, and all the other schemes are
UK-wide, so there is no special treatment for
Wales.
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