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Open PDF 523KB Welsh Affairs Committee Oral evidence: Responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Wales, HC 96 Thursday 28 May 2020 Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 28 May 2020. Watch the meeting Members present: Stephen Crabb (Chair); Tonia Antoniazzi; Simon Baynes; Virginia Crosbie; Geraint Davies; Robin Millar; Beth Winter. Questions 32 – 106 Witnesses I: Rt Hon Simon Hart MP, Secretary of State for Wales; and David T C Davies MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales. Examination of witnesses Witnesses: Simon Hart and David T C Davies. Q32 Chair: Good afternoon to the Secretary of State, Simon Hart, and Minister David T C Davies. Welcome to the Welsh Affairs Committee. We are grateful that you have made yourselves available for the very full agenda that we want to get through. For the next two hours we will be asking you a range of questions, principally on the subject of the response to the coronavirus emergency in Wales and the particular roles that you are playing in that as members of UK Government. Individual members may want to ask other questions that are broadly relevant. Thank you again. What I would emphasise to us all, members and yourselves as witnesses, is if we could be really concise with questions and answers this afternoon, that will enable us to get through all the material and all of the ground that we want to cover. Forgive us if at any point we interrupt your answers. No impoliteness is intended; it is just to keep us moving. I will start, Secretary of State, with a question to you. On 22 May you tweeted that, following a discussion with all of the police and crime commissioners and the chief constables of the four police forces across Wales, there was a consensus that being able to travel, drive, 10 to 15 miles from home to fish, play golf, surf or exercise was fine. I retweeted your tweet because I thought it was a significant announcement. That has since been described by the Dyfed-Powys Police Chief Constable as incorrect. What was actually said at that meeting and what is your understanding of what the actual rules are in Wales around exercising? Simon Hart: Thank you, and thanks also for your introductory comments. Of course, David T C and I are both very happy to deal with any questions as they apply to our job in Wales. That particular question is perplexing for me, you will not necessarily be surprised to hear. We had a formal meeting, which was minuted and both Ministers were part of it. We asked for some clarity on certain expressions—for example, “in general” and “local” are expressions used in Welsh Government guidelines. We asked the police for their definition of “in general” and “local,” and that is the explanation we got. The reference to traveling 10 to 15 miles to play golf or fish was actually Chief Constable Mark Collins’s own words, not mine, and it was not disputed by anybody on that call. It seemed to us a helpful bit of clarification. That is going to the beach to fish, and we have taken some subsequent legal advice on what would be the view if you went to the beach, for example, to undertake yoga or something like that. The advice came back that it would be in exactly the same bracket. That is what we said, and we were quite surprised, I will not deny it, when that comment was somehow interpreted as being incorrect. We took an official record and legal advice, and we sought the opinion of the chief constables. We didn’t think there was any dissent to that comment, and that is what we did. Q33 Chair: Is it your understanding that the chief constable put out that clarification, or made his comments about your tweet, following advice from the Welsh Government to do so? Simon Hart: I do not know whether he had any contact with the Welsh Government. He and I certainly had quite a lot of contact, subsequent but in private, which helped clarify the situation somewhat. His response was that Welsh Government guidelines refer only to fishing and golf and, therefore, nothing outside those two activities is covered. That is not the interpretation we had, and hence why we said what we did. Q34 Chair: The way it is left is that you are both saying each other is basically wrong in their interpretation. The reason I am asking this line of questions, Secretary of State, is that it is important because there are now significant differences between the rules in Wales and the rules in England. At the Liaison Committee yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister described the differences in rules as—I think he used this word—marginal. They are not marginal at all, are they? They are really quite significant. There are things that you can now do openly in England as part of the rules on exercising and going out of your home that will get you fined in Wales. Are you comfortable that there is now this growing disparity in the rules and regulations in Wales and in England? Simon Hart: It is that problem that got us to raise this question with the police in the first place. Not only that, but there is now a £1,000 fine that comes with some of these transgressions. That is a lot more serious for people who are trying to weigh up what the advice actually means. What I was trying to establish was what the law thought about it. Precision is important in these situations, and I have to say that I think the less divergence the better for disease control purposes, for economic purposes and, indeed, for some of these other areas that we are talking about now. Every time we have a meeting with the Welsh Government, we have this discussion about trying to minimise divergence for those reasons. I think that works quite well eight times out of 10. As you are quoting the PM, I am going to quote the PM, too. The PM has made it very clear from an early stage that if there is some evidential basis for divergence between England and Wales, and if the Welsh Government need to take a different approach because the evidence supports it, we have never been precious about that, but we have always wanted it to be evidence led. Q35 Chair: Have the Welsh Government ever shown you evidence to support any of the divergent rules that you are talking about? Simon Hart: Not as such, no. Not in those stark terms. We have had conversations about the R number and whether the R number was slightly different in Wales than the rest of the UK, which gave Welsh Government arguably less headroom to make bolder statements around, for example, relaxing lockdown. We have attempted to engage Welsh Government, suggesting maybe we could come to some of their meetings and have some face-to-face discussions around this so that, when it comes to making public announcements, we are as closely aligned as we can be, and if we are not we can explain why. Q36 Chair: Why do they not want to be as closely aligned as you are urging them to be? Simon Hart: We totted up, as I think we did for your last meeting, the fact that there have now been well over 100 meetings—I think I announced 103 or 104—between Welsh Government and UK Government on all of these issues. We suggested to Welsh Government that perhaps we could have a reciprocal arrangement where some of our officials or Ministers were at their planning meetings, for reasons I pointed out. That has not met with an affirmative answer. We have had a limited offer of engagement. To some extent this is about devolution and the Welsh Government’s right to take decisions within the devolution settlement. We have tried to respect that, but we have also tried to respect it in the context of a global pandemic that requires a UK approach to a very significant UK problem. Q37 Chair: On that point about the legitimate exercise of devolved competencies, over the last three months we have seen Welsh Government use its law-making powers to create Welsh regulations and guidance for the movement restrictions as part of their response to the pandemic. Welsh police forces are enforcing those Welsh regulations. Does the experience of the last few months in that respect give you any reason to change your view or the Government’s position on future devolution of policing to Welsh Government? Simon Hart: None whatsoever. The existing arrangement of policing remaining a UK reserved matter, along with the criminal justice system, is absolutely right. I have heard nothing during the last few weeks that has changed that, including the views of people working within law enforcement. Q38 Chair: Do you accept that in enforcing the rules of this current period— the most important issue facing the nation at this time—they are taking their guidance from Welsh Government rather than UK Government? Simon Hart: They have to. I don’t think there is any dispute about that. My biggest concern is that they can only do what those regulations permit them to do. My criticism of this is that those regulations have been, at times, quite opaque and unclear, which makes the job of policing all the more difficult. If I have a concern, it is about the clarity of the regulations.
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