HELP WELSH STEEL WORKERS

Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards has accused the UK government of singularly failing to protect the Welsh steel industry from market volatility and called on the Government to implement measures such as an employer’s national insurance contribution break for West Wales and the Valleys to support against the impact of job losses. 

Following an urgent statement in the House of Commons, Jonathan Edwards MP said,

“Today’s announcement is a devastating blow to the workers and communities of Port Talbot, Llanwern and Llanelli. The steel industry supports thousands of workers across the region, with Tata Steel contributing around £3.2 billion annually to the Welsh economy.”

“The UK Government has singularly failed to protect the steel industry from the volatility of the markets, despite repeated warnings. Artificially cheap steel is being dumped every week from countries such as Russia and China, drowning the UK market and undercutting Welsh-produced steel.”  

“The dumping of Chinese steel is one of the biggest contributors to this crisis. But the UK Government has done little to help the flailing steel industry at home, choosing instead to promote China’s bid for market economy status which would further decimate our steel industry.”  

“Ensuring market fairness for our steel industry should be a top priority for the UK Government. It should be pursued with the same drive as we saw when the banks were bailed out in 2008.”

"The UK Government should also be pressing to implement measures such as an employer’s national insurance contribution break for West Wales and the Valleys. This area is one of the most economically disadvantaged areas in Western Europe and contains the steel plants at Trostre and Port Talbot. Measures such as this would support against the impact of these job losses and provide a boost for the area."

“Plaid Cymru has put forward constructive proposals to save the steel industry in Wales and called on the Welsh Government to urgently consider all options, including taking a temporary stake in Tata Steel to protect workers and guard this key industry, a backbone of the Welsh economy, against these challenging economic conditions.”           

“So far the Welsh First Minister has chosen to ignore these calls, including those made by his own party leader, choosing instead to treat Welsh steelworkers as pawns in a political blame game between the Welsh Government and Westminster.”

“Whilst the Tories and Labour refuse to step up to the plate, Plaid Cymru will press both the UK and Welsh Government to do all they can to protect the jobs of our steel workers.”

AFTER THE STORM IS OVER...

The Welsh and Westminster Governments need to make rational long term sustainable choices when it comes to flood defence. We in Wales need to develop a comprehensive planning system for our country that hardens our communities and infrastructure against the effects of severe weather events.   We need to focus on flood prevention and develop flood preventative schemes rather than end up clearing up after the flood is over again and again.

This winter is proving to be hard one when it comes to sea and riverine flooding, the persistent bad weather has meant that some of our communities have had some pretty close calls and other communities have been inundated. There can be no blank cheque for flood defences so we need to make rational cost effective sustainable choices when it comes to flood defence whether for coastal or riverine flooding on the Gwent levels or the Wye, Usk or Monnow valleys. 

The debate taking place around flooding needs to focus on re-engineering the whole water system in Wales to ensure that water is retained in the uplands to prevent downstream flooding. Here in Wales, those agencies responsible for our environment need to take the lead and work to ensure that potential flood waters are retained our uplands for longer and flood prevention avoidance schemes are comprehensively built into our planning system.

Where possible we should avoid building in those areas that are particularly vulnerable to flooding or at least when building to take into account the possibilities of flooding. If we are going to build on flood plains or other areas that are vulnerable to flooding then we must use flood resistant or at the very least flood hardened modern intelligent design techniques to limit potential damage, loss and inconvenience as are used elsewhere.

Here in Wales there is a good example of what is possible, as one of the largest flood preventive scheme is being developed in Llanelli.  Welsh Water, a not-for-profit company, has developed the scheme because the town's sewerage system repeatedly flooded homes and polluted the River Lliedi. The scheme involves digging up stretches of tarmac and paving to create catchment pits for storm water, diverting water into the pits from gutters and then putting grass and plants on top of the pits.

This means that water is held in the soil and slowly seeps away or evaporates. The ideas have been praised by the water regulator Ofwat. If these ideas are built into the planning process then we may help to reduce runoff and flooding. Who knows, perhaps the major supermarkets will demonstrate their much trumpeted claims over social responsibility by breaking up their car parks and installing porous surfaces to catch runoff – personally I won’t hold my breath.

The Llanelli scheme is a good example of what is possible, but, we also need to work to ensure that our power network and our communities are hardened to the effects of severe weather events. Those coastal roads and railways that have been damaged by the recent combination of bad weather and high tides will be eventually repaired.

None of this is new, after the bad floods of 2007, which saw the loss of thirteen  lives and much devastation, the then Labour Government commissioned Sir Michael Pitt to undertake a thorough review of the UK's flood defences. The full report, which is now published, makes interesting reading and  contains 92 proposals need to be implemented if communities are to be better protected. It is a pity that the recommendations were not fully implemented.

We also need to take a longer sustainable view and seriously consider the possibilities of building railway lines, roads and key infrastructure projects away from those areas that are and may become more susceptible to flooding. In England recent changes in planning law oblige all new developments to catch water from their own site and prevent it adding to floods, although the full implementation of the law has been delayed by what critics claim is disarray as the government is under pressure from housing industry lobbyists.

The retention of water in upland areas is by cramming gorse into streams from peat bogs, blocking young rivers with fallen trees and creating low-level earth dams to contain water so it soaks into the soil. There has even been talk of changing policies to incentivise farmers to re-forest upland areas to catch water and stop soil running off into streams. Some (in including the World Wildlife Fund) think farmers should be obliged to change the way they farm in order to obtain their grants from taxpayers.

Trying to retrofit the decade’s long legacy of flood-inducing buildings in our communities, our towns and cities will be costly and challenging.  The legacy of building on flood plains (and on potentially vulnerable the Gwent levels (aside from people’s homes and businesses which has been estimated to contain £3 billion pounds worth of infrastructure) will be more difficult to fix in the short term, but, not perhaps as expense as repeatedly clearing up the chaos, misery and destruction that follows every flood.

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE...

Loughor viaduct nearing completion

I have always been surprised when it comes to what can be achieved if you have the will and the funding to achieve it. Network Rail has just completed a £48 million pound project to replace the Loughor railway viaduct near Swansea and double five miles of track through Gowerton to Llanelli (in just over two weeks). As a result of this a further fourteen services will run able to call at the new platform at Gowerton station and all single carriage train services will be doubled on the route between Swansea, Carmarthen and Pembroke Dock. Additionally the Cardiff to Swansea service will be extended to Llanelli in the afternoons with a new morning service between Swansea and Cardiff. This project was funded by the Welsh government and Network Rail in partnership with the South West Wales Integrated Transport Consortium (Swwitch). The new service improvements will start from the 19^th May. I can think of a few other parts of the Network in Wales that would benefit from other improvements. 

CONDEMS’ HAMMER BLOW TO NHS

The impact of the ConDem government's planned increase in VAT will be a crushing blow to the Welsh NHS. That was the message today form Plaid Cymru’s health spokesperson Helen Mary Jones AM. Ms Jones has obtained figures from health boards across Wales which estimate that the impact of the VAT increase on revenue allocations will be at least £13.2m, while the impact on the current NHS capital programme would be £7.7m in a full year.

It is worth remembering that back in June the Conservative-Lib Dem Westminster government announced that VAT would rise from 17.5% to 20% on 1st January 2011. Plaid’s Helen Mary Jones, who is the AM for Llanelli, warned that increasing VAT will put a strain on public services, like those provided by the NHS, at a time when they need to make best use of every penny that they can get.

This comes on the back of savage cuts that have already been imposed by the ConDem government on the communities of Wales. The VAT increase is yet another hammer blow to our public services. The Plaid driven government is working hard to protect the people of Wales from the ConDem axe and has secured a level of budget protection for community and secondary health care. Sadly the Welsh government has no powers to stop this VAT attack on our health service.

That £20m is a significant chunk of health board and trust budgets and is really only part of the story. The actual cost of the VAT increase to the NHS in Wales will be even higher. The ConDem government has taken an axe to our public services already, it's absolutely ridiculous for even more money to be clawed away from our public services only to end up in the treasury's coffers. This increase in VAT will put a huge strain on health, and other public services, at a time when they need to make best use of their resources.

Any Tory claims about protecting health are a sick joke, the reality is that the conservative/Lib Dem government's policies are going to have a damaging direct impact on our National Health Service in Wales. Plaid Cymru is committed to a Welsh NHS that is free at the point of delivery.

Plaid's actions in government are proof of this, what with putting a stop to the previous government's disastrous hospital closure programme and ruling out the use of PFI in the NHS. The Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat little helpers in Westminster need to think about what they are doing and put a stop to this blatant attack on our public services in Wales.

This table details the estimated full year impact on revenue budgets for each Health Board and Public Health Wales NHS Trust arising from the VAT increase from 17.5% to 20% announced in the UK Budget on 22nd June. Estimates were not provided by Velindre NHS Trust. It is estimated that the impact of the increase on the current NHS capital programme would be £7.5 million in a full year. This information is not available by Health Board.