Speeches by Stevens.

“Thank you very much, Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. Congratulations to everyone on your membership of this Committee, and thank you for the invitation to appear today. I echo your sentiments, Chair, about hoping to have a very constructive relationship with the Committee while we are in office. Thank you for lett…”

“To deal with your first point, it was not a deliberate omission from my opening statement, because I did say, “My priorities include”. It was not a definitive list of priorities. I strongly believe that Wales benefits from being part of the Union, and that the Union benefits from having Wales in it. That has always bee…”

“I will be perfectly frank on the first part of your question, which is that it is not good enough. That is a direct consequence, I am afraid, of the last 14 years of underfunding by prior Governments, and that is why I am determined to change that. I cannot change the past, but I hope that we can change the future. In …”

“First of all, thank you for your correspondence, Llinos. You have had a reply from me. I obviously share the frustrations and the worries of all those who were affected by the closure. As you say, it is very good news that one of the berths will reopen tomorrow. That has been confirmed literally as I was walking into t…”

“We have not had. I want us to. I cannot pre-empt the spending review, but I am going into it with rail as the number one priority for Wales. We all know that building rail infrastructure drives economic growth, job creation, house building, employment and improved social cohesion, because people have public transport t…”

“It definitely is, and the siting of Bangor University in north Wales, and Cardiff University, Swansea University and others, have played a part in the Celtic Freeport. We have great universities with great talent in them, and we need to foster that talent and innovation even more.”

“We confirmed the freeport programme in the autumn statement. I am very pleased that the Celtic Freeport is now open for investment, following tax site activation last November, and we are working at pace with MHCLG and the Welsh Government to progress the Anglesey Freeport tax sites, which I am hoping will activate nex…”

“As we know, we have a proud steel-making history in Wales, like we had a proud coal-mining history in Wales. At one point, we had 250,000 miners just across the South Wales pits. You will know, David, that, when the election was called—in fact, on polling day, on 4 July—both blast furnaces in Port Talbot were due to sh…”

“I am very happy to do that, Chair. Thank you for the invitation today. Thank you, all, on behalf of Nia and me, for the questions. We would be delighted to come back in 12 months’ time.”

“As I said, we said in our manifesto that decision-making on structural funds will be made by elected representatives of Wales. There was a change under the previous Government, where Welsh Government were completely cut out of it. Welsh Government have a key role to play in the delivery of new funds, alongside other pa…”

“The role of the council, which the Prime Minister chairs, is to facilitate that partnership working between UK Government, devolved Governments and the various categories of mayors in England. It will not make policy directly for Wales, but it does provide a really important vehicle for Governments and authorities with…”

“I know how important that line is in south Wales, cross-border, as well as in north Wales, in terms of people living, working and socialising right across the border, all day, every day. It is a huge channel for economic growth on both sides of the border at both the bottom and the top of Wales.”

“As I said earlier, I want us to have a sustainable pot of rail infrastructure funding for Wales. We need to stop deriving the future of rail in Wales from HS2 alone. I cannot change what has gone on in the past, but I can change what happens in the future. We need sustainable funding of our own. That is what I am aimin…”

“On the intergovernmental relations structures and those three tiers that you mentioned, we have clearly not seen, in the past few years, the engagement and activity that one would have expected between the two Governments through all levels of that structure. It differed from level to level. Certainly, we did not have …”

“At the risk of repeating myself, we should not derive our future based solely on what has happened with HS2 in the past.”

“Phase 1 is being completed. The latest Welsh Government estimate of the money that has been spent would have, had it been classified differently, attracted a consequential of £350 million. There are lots of figures that have been talked about over previous years, but what we do know is that only phase 1 of HS2 is being…”

“The Secretary of State is definitely on their side. I hope that that is evident from what I have said today and from the exchange of letters. I cannot pre-empt what the spending review will do, but I have indicated and we have set out what the priority projects are. We are committed to the current projects. There are a…”

“It has been very important in Wales, and very significant, and it is important for the future too. In terms of what will happen, as you say, we have sorted out what is going to happen for 2025-26. That was as a result of discussions between MHCLG, the Wales Office and colleagues in Welsh Government, and we were able to…”

“On the reduction of Welsh MPs, I would say something that my mum always used to say to me, which is, “It is quality, not quantity”. We have a large intake of very enthusiastic and talented MPs in Wales, as well as more seasoned ones, including some of us around this room. I know that every single colleague in this room…”

“Both the UK and Welsh Governments are seized of the need to drive down waiting lists. The spending review provided the Welsh Government with an additional £1.7 billion for next year to invest in public services such as the NHS. The Welsh Government recently announced an additional £50 million in this year to reduce the…”