Welsh Affairs

We will have a challenge in the next Parliament, as we will have significantly fewer Members of Parliament from Wales, which—I say this with great sadness—will inevitably mean a weaker Welsh voice in this institution. Both in absolute and relative terms, Welsh representation will be smaller in the next Parliament. In terms of ensuring that the Welsh Affairs Committee can continue to build on the good work we have done—I have a great interest in this—I think we will have to change how the Committee works. The Welsh Grand Committee is effectively moribund, and nobody is mourning its slow death, but the Welsh Affairs Committee has proved its worth.

I would like to us to move to a situation where all Welsh Back Benchers have the opportunity to participate in different inquiries, depending on their interests and availability. I have written to the Leader of the House and the Chair of the Liaison Committee about that issue. A lot more work is to be done to get progress on that. I would like Members who hope to be back in the next Parliament to bear that in mind as we think about how to ensure that Welsh representatives make their presence count here at Westminster.

My final note is about Senedd reform, because that is the other side of the democratic coin in Wales. The Welsh Government plan to expand the Senedd quite significantly, with 36 additional Members, and different figures have been put on the cost. My big concern is about how they intend to elect those Members. I have questioned the First Minister about the fact that there will be multiple Members for the same constituency. The First Minister did not think it presented such a problem, and suggested that one of the strengths of the new system will be that someone who might want to take an issue to a Conservative Member of the Senedd could do that, or they could take it to Plaid Cymru Member, because that might reflect their political preference. That is a fundamental shift from how we go about our business as Members of Parliament in our constituencies. I do not care whether someone voted, how they voted, or whether they put up a sign for me or did everything they could to get me out of office. I will represent that person to the very best of my ability.

I fear that with a “plurality of representation”—to use the First Minister’s words—in these new supersized constituencies, we will end up with a fuzzier, more diluted sense of democracy in Wales at a time when both in Westminster and in Cardiff we need Welsh politicians to be much more effective and show value to all our constituents and get the change that we want in Wales, as it desperately needs. I will bring my remarks to a close here, and I look forward to hearing what other Members have to say.

I would like to take a moment or two to recognise the boundary changes, which the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire mentioned. They will affect me: should I be successful at the next election, I would lose my constituents in Clydach. I would like to thank them for their commitment to me and for their support. In October last year, I was lucky enough to be at the opening of the restored Clydach lock. I pay tribute to the work of the Canal & River Trust and especially to Councillor Gordon Walker, who handed me an axe with which to open the lock. No damage done, Members will be pleased to know, but it was one of the highlights of my seven years in this place.

The Gower constituency may be losing Clydach, but it will gain Cockett, Dunvant and the rest of Killay, Mayals, and the newer ward of Waunarlwydd, so I thought I might include a few fun facts. I will have to cut them short, but the Cockett ward includes Fforestfach, which used to be home of not one but two greyhound racing stadiums. On Dunvant and Killay, Dunvant is most famous as the home of the Dunvant male voice choir, the oldest continuously singing choir in Wales, founded in 1895. After campaigning for years, the Mayals ward is now home to Mumbles Skatepark, a fantastic addition to the Mumbles seafront. Finally, Waunarlwydd—or “one eyelid” to the locals—is a ward that split out of Cockett. I had the pleasure of playing women’s rugby there for a little bit and I have many, many good friends as a result—I had to get rugby in one more time.

It is a testing time in Wales at the moment, and Tata Steel jobs are having an impact on people in my constituency, but I am always there to support them. It is also a testing time in agricultural communities across Europe, not just in Wales: this is not a singular particular issue. We have to work together cross-party and with our farming communities, and encourage all constituents who want to make their voice heard to respond to the consultation with the Welsh Government before it closes on 7 March.

I look forward to hearing the rest of today’s speeches. I speak better French and Italian than I do Welsh, but I will dust off my famous phrase and say, “Dydd gŵyl Dewi hapus, pawb.”

The Welsh Government’s plans, quite simply, will damage agriculture in Wales, and that is not just my view. It was also the conclusion of the Welsh Government’s own impact assessment, which predicted that the policies would result in

“a 10.8% reduction in Welsh livestock numbers; an 11% cut in labour on Welsh farms; and a £125.3 million hit to output from the sector and a loss of £199 million to farm business incomes.”

Given that their own impact assessment has predicted such dreadful consequences, it is almost impossible to understand why the Welsh Government think it is a good idea to plough on, so to speak, with what is clearly a catastrophic policy.

There is no doubt that climate change is a reality, which needs to be addressed and, indeed, is being addressed very effectively by the Westminster Government. However, when deciding whether the Welsh Government’s proposals are sensible or proportionate, we should take into account the fact that Welsh greenhouse gas emissions are already very low indeed. In 2021, the United Kingdom contributed only 0.77% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Of those emissions, Wales was responsible for just 7.5%, and the Welsh agricultural sector was responsible for only 15% of those Welsh emissions. Welsh agricultural greenhouse gas emissions therefore constitute just 0.008866% of the global total. Nigel Lawson famously observed that to govern is to choose. It is clear that the Welsh Government have deliberately chosen to penalise Welsh agriculture, damage Welsh farming incomes and decimate the ranks of those employed in the rural economy in order to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that will, in global terms, be wholly insignificant.