Last week we heard the very worrying news that Britain could lose its treasured triple A rating, the very justification the Chancellor has used for his overly severe austerity measures. Furthermore the experts explained that the threat of losing this prized rating is because there is no growth in the economy – something that Labour has been warning of for some time – the Chancellor is cutting too fast and too deep, choking off any economic growth.
You only have to ask local businesses to know that cuts and job losses mean that people simply have no money to spend. I hope last week’s warning will be a wake-up call to the Chancellor to change course, because we have only seen the very beginning of his planned cuts. Figures I’ve obtained from the House of Commons Library show that the Chancellor plans to take over £6 billion out of the Welsh economy in the next three years, including nearly £800m cuts in tax credits – cuts which will hit lower and middle income households hardest – leaving people struggling to make ends meet and cutting back even on very basic items such as food and heating.
Making hard-working families in Wales pay for the fallout from the banking crisis is not only blatantly unfair, it is economic madness as low income households spend their money most immediately back into the local economy – madness which will undermine the best efforts of the Welsh Government to create jobs and provide help for business. That is why I am calling on the Chancellor to listen to the experts, to change course, before it is too late, before more businesses go to the wall. Let’s have a proper strategy for growth.
While it may seem as if Christmas decorations have only just come down, the February half-term has already come and gone. School pupils struggling through A Level Winter modules or fighting off cough and colds have had a chance to recharge their batteries. School life for children and teenagers can sometimes be a mad dash between rugby and swimming and choir and homework; it’s important that every so often they get a chance to stop and rest.
The February parliamentary recess- Westminster’s version of half-term- gives MPs a chance to work in their constituencies – and I have had a very busy schedule including two very important public meetings about the hospital. But half-term is also an opportunity to take stock of the year so far. The economic outlook is again bleak as the impact of Tory cuts and disastrous economic policies continue to restrict economic growth and dominate concerns at Westminster.
However, some events in January were worth celebrating: Ed Miliband’s principled stand against huge pay-outs to bankers which has resulted in the Chief Executive of RBS handing back his bonus. We now need to pursue reform the financial sector. As the Labour Party looks forward to the rest of the parliamentary year, we will continue to push this Tory coalition to stop putting their top banker friends first, and instead focus on fairness for all.
Labour’s Shadow Wales Minister Nia Griffith MP has claimed that headline benefit cap figures based on London rents are masking what will be a grim reality for many households in Wales as the UK Government’s proposals will introduce a series of much lower local caps on housing benefit which will leave almost 50, 000 households in Wales with too little money to pay their current rents and put Welsh councils “in an impossible situation”, as they struggle to deal with families evicted by private landlords.
The Westminster government’s proposals to make substantial cuts to the Housing Benefit budget, part of the controversial Welfare Reform Bill, which has been criticised by a range of charities, will affect almost 50 000 Welsh households. Housing benefit is paid to people on low pay and low-income pensioners as well as those who are out of work. The range of reforms include local caps on the maximum allowance households can receive to help them pay rent, penalising those with spare bedrooms and forcing single under-35 year-olds into shared accommodation. The Department of Work and Pensions has predicted that the average loss in Wales will be £9 a week, and as families struggle with rising food and fuel bills, by the Chartered Institute for Housing Cymru estimates that 30,640 homes in Wales will be put out of reach of people on housing benefit as a result of changes brought in by the UK Government in 2012.
Ms Griffith said, “Government Ministers are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think that by cutting back on the money families receive to cover their current rent, private landlords will miraculously lower their rents. That is simply not going to happen, certainly not in the short term. The reality will be that we will see low income families either having to use money they now spend on essentials like food and heating to pay their rent or getting into serious debt. If private tenants then get evicted from their homes, it will be local councils across Wales who are left to pick up the tab for botched Tory cuts, putting them in an impossible situation. As Labour MPs, we have proposed amending the bill to say that a cap should not apply if it will make a family homeless. The precise effects will vary from area to area depending on what rented accommodation is available. The real way to lower the housing benefit bill is to stimulate the economy to create more jobs and get people back to work, and build more affordable social housing. ”
Local residents are warmly invited to join Nia Griffith MP to discuss meeting the challenges of an ageing population at 11 am Sat 21st January in the Lliedi Suite of the Selwyn Samuel Centre, a discussion on how we rise to the challenge of providing a high-quality, affordable care and support system for a rapidly ageing population.
“We all recognise that medical advances mean that more people are living longer, and that this in turn puts pressure on services. We can all have fine aspirations and we appreciate that many dedicated staff are working hard to deliver services. However, family members, particularly but by no means exclusively women, often find themselves both looking after an elderly parent, and helping out with the grandchildren. We know that women have been particularly badly hit both by the Chancellor’s budget and public sector job losses, but many may soon find themselves picking up the pieces as the Tory-led UK government cuts the block grant to Wales and leaves councils struggling to maintain services.
If we are going to improve services, we need feedback about how current support systems are working out in practice. We need to hear about people’s real-life experiences of what works well and where there is room for improvement. This is not about being negative; it’s about being constructive about how we could do things better. What is actually happening on the ground? Are needs being met? How easy are services to access? Are the right sort of services being provided? What could be improved? How should we be planning for the future?
I know many of you are already involved in discussing these matters, so let’s channel that thinking and feed back our ideas to the policy -makers.”
We in Llanelli believe firmly in our National Health Service, and so does our Labour Welsh Government – a very different picture from over the border in England where the Tory Government’s latest legislation threatens to destroy the NHS as we know it.
We know that with greater life expectancy and medical advances there is ever-increasing demand, and costs are escalating. At the same time we know that the Tory-led coalition at Westminster is making savage cuts, including cuts to the Welsh Government’s budget which is bound to put pressure on the health budget.
We are all quite naturally apprehensive when we hear the local Health Board talk about change, and whilst people accept that for very specialist services they may have to travel elsewhere, we want to keep more routine services here.
Impact on the ambulance service – the more people have to be transported long distances, the greater the burden on the ambulance service – and we have had some very worrying examples of long waits for an ambulance – which is why Keith Davies AM and I have set up a meeting with the ambulance service.
Board members should be constantly vigilant, and seeking to eliminate wasteful expenditure. We have recently seen figure of paying over the odds for agency staff.
The Health Minister in the Assembly government has made it clear that she wants to see a proper meaningful consultation.
At the end of the day, it is the local health board the Hywel Dda Health Board that does the detail on any plans to move services around and it is absolutely vital that we make our views very clearly known – we have to argue the case clearly and logically – that’s what the Committee for Hospital Services SOSPPAN campaign ( SOSPPAN stands for Save our Services Prince Philip Action Network) is preparing to do at present, with the first formal meeting between members of the Committee and Health Board chiefs scheduled for 25th January. I am working hard with the committee to make the strongest possible case t the Health Board to keep services at Prince Philip Hospital, the hospital that is in the largest town in West Wales and that is in within 20 minutes drive of 50% of the population of Carmarthenshire.
An important date for your diaries is Tuesday 14th February when the Health Board will be in the Selwyn Samuel Centre from 11.30 until 6.30 – a chance for everyone to find out more, and to make our views known. The SOSPPAN campaign will then be holding a public meeting – details on http://www.sosppan.co.uk
Does travel broaden the mind? By and large foreign travel and better communication, with pictures beamed instantly across the globe have helped to break down prejudice and make us realise how much we have in common.
Take the financial crisis in Greece, which has been in the headlines repeatedly this year. Mainland Greece and, in particular, the Greek islands, have become favoured destinations for many thousands of British holidaymakers. We can well imagine the feelings of the crowds in Athens protesting against what they see as very severe austerity measures being imposed upon them. After all, most of them will be like us – wage-earners who have had little to do with creating the crisis.
Whatever the relationships of the states of Europe, the peoples of Europe have grown closer. And yet, within the United Kingdom, the relationship between Government and people is very similar to what it was in the 1950s. Only those of us over a certain age will remember the days of SuperMac when our Prime Minister was an old Etonian who relaxed on the grouse moors of his friends. Now, there is no longer any need to look back to the past for an example of rulers who can have little perception of the lives of ordinary people.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, talking of the global financial crisis said not so long ago that we are all in this together. That’s a phrase which sounds very hollow, when we look round and see friends and family, young and old, squeezed by rising prices, worried about job security and a Cabinet populated by millionaires whose inherited wealth cushions them from worries about paying bills and job security. All in this together indeed!
This week sees the publication of the report by Mary Portas on how to breathe life back into Britain’s declining town centres. There have been many reports before on the subject but to little avail. The problems that we see in Llanelli town centre are by no means unique – even before 2008 financial crisis, the impact of out-of-town shopping and internet shopping were taking their toll across Britain. But over the last two years, with the Chancellor’s disastrous policies leading to stagnation and almost zero growth, consumer confidence has fallen dramatically and one in seven high street shops has closed.
I recently took the opportunity to go into the shop next door to Boots in the town centre where I had discussion with Andrew Shufflebotham, the town centre manager and saw the display of the various schemes in progress to help put the heart back into Llanelli.
Increasing footfall in the town centre is absolutely key – it’s a chicken and egg situation: we need to get enough people coming into the town to attract shops in and we need a sufficient range of shops to attract people in.
The refurbished Llanelly House, the new cinema complex and joint working with Trinity St David’s University who will run courses in the Furnace Arts Centre will all help bring more people into the town centre.
In addition work with soon begin on a facelift for shops in Vaughan St and Stepney St with new canopies to make the shop fronts more visible and plans for more seating in front of Boots.
Now we need some action from the Portas report and a proper growth strategy from the Chancellor.
James Griffiths, one of my distinguished predecessors as MP for Llanelli, became the first-ever Secretary of State for Wales when the Welsh Office he had long campaigned for was set up in 1964.
However, in the final months of the Attlee Labour Government after the Second World War, he served as Colonial Secretary.
This was a time of great change in the world. As late as 1958 Cardiff hosted the Empire Games, now known as the Commonwealth Games. James Griffiths met many of the leaders of the countries that would soon be independent, people like Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Neyrere.
Llanelli has a history of internationalism. We all know of the fight against Nazism in the last war, but many from Llanelli also served in the International Brigades defending Spanish democracy during 1936 to 1938. Last week I was pleased to back Sian James MP for Swansea East in welcoming a memorial to be unveiled in Swansea on 14 December honouring those from the area who served in Spain and recognising the Swansea seafarers led by Potato Jones who broke the Franco blockade. We should not forget all those who helped establish refugee homes across Britain, including in Brechfa, Carmarthenshire, to look after Basque children who fled the bombing of their towns and villages, including Guernica.
Today, we read about the “Arab Spring” as the drive for democratic change seems to be taking hold in the Middle East. We follow the events in Tahir Square in Egypt with interest and concern.
It is the UK Government that is responsible for our foreign policy. As your MP in Westminster I try to reflect your concerns in this as in other areas of politics.
Many of you will be familiar Reinhold Niebuhr’s ‘serenity’ prayer which asks for wisdom to tell the difference between those things that we can change, and those things which we cannot – so while the solutions to the global financial crisis may seem elusive, our government here in the UK can choose to implement policies which encourage investment in the manufacturing sector and stimulate growth.
Investors need certainty and consistency of policy. That is why it is utter madness for the government to rush in 50% cuts to the Solar Panel Feed-in Tariff subsidy, with just six weeks’ notice, which means that any panels that are not installed and up and running by 12th December will only get half the current rate of subsidy, making a mockery of the consultation which closes on 23rd Dec. Everyone accepts that the subsidies would decrease gradually but changes were not expected before April 2012.
Solar Panel factories and installers across Wales, like Filsol in Ponthenri, who have taken on new staff as a result of sales projections based on the original scheme, are now finding their markets collapsing. To make matters worse, firms are already having difficulty obtaining the necessary parts to complete existing jobs, because no manufacturer wants to be left with unsalable stock. Big projects to install solar panels on thousands of housing association homes in Wales are now at risk, threatening jobs and apprenticeships. It is a kick in the teeth for all those families who want to do the right thing by investing in solar.
We need a U-turn before it’s too late, which is why I am seeking an emergency meeting for solar industry representatives with the Secretary of State for Wales Cheryl Gillan.
With Unite members demonstrating against the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board.
It is a grim irony that, in this week that marks anti-poverty week, the Conservative-led government seems determined to do away with the Agricultural Wages Board. One of the key ways of reducing poverty is to ensure that people get a decent rate of pay for the work that they do, and that is precisely what the Agricultural Wages Board helps to do in rural Wales.
Many farms in Wales are family businesses with just one or two employees, and discussions about pay and conditions can be very tricky, so standard guidance from the Agricultural Wages Board on both pay and a whole range of conditions pertinent to agricultural workers, whose work schedules have to fit the seasons and weather, helps both farm businesses and the 12,000 farm workers in Wales. The FUW has expressed deep concern about the loss of the Board, and the difficulties that this will cause for both farm businesses and farm workers in Wales.
The Board sets wages for six grades above the national minimum wage, ranging from £6.10 to £9.14 an hour, which reflect the skills and physical effort involved in farm work, as well as setting a rate of pay of £3.05 an hour for under-16s, as they are not covered by the National Minimum Wage. Let’s be clear, abolishing the Board is not about cutting red tape, it’s about driving down wages and taking money out of the rural economy here in Wales, with the knock-on effects on local shops and communities.
That’s why in my new role as Shadow Minister for Wales, I am calling on the Secretary of State for Wales to persuade her government to drop plans to abolish the Agricultural Wages Board.
