A HOME WIN!

Wales is home to a strong entrepreneurial spirit and it is no wonder that over 230,000 small businesses now operate with 94.6% of them employing 1-10 people. These businesses lie at the heart of our communities and our smaller and larger towns and city centre’s.

Some 99% of Welsh businesses are SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), which are the backbone of the Welsh economy. Which is why Plaid is committed to easing the financial burden on them by implementing a rates relief system that would assist 83,000 SMEs and take 70,000 out of business rates altogether.

The small towns of Monmouth constituency contain a rich web of small to medium sized businesses which contribute to a rich and diverse local economy selling their goods and services to the local and not so local people and also trading with each other retaining generated income within our communities and sustaining and generating jobs.

Our country has a wealth of aspiration and talent, which has led to the creation of some fantastic businesses and enterprises across all of Wales. All too often our small businesses miss out on public contracts, which are awarded instead to companies from outside Wales.

This is why Plaid Cymru wants to see more contracts go to local Welsh firms which will generate jobs and make sure that wealth generated in Wales stays in Wales. If we could add 25% to our current procurement level of 52% then we would be able to create nearly 50,000 jobs - that is our goal.

At next May’s Westminster General election the people of Wales will face a choice between Westminster parties who have clearly shown themselves to be on the side of the City elite, and Plaid Cymru whose vision is to deliver a stable and prosperous Welsh economy for the benefit of everyone in Wales.

WALES AND TRANS-ATLANTIC TRADE

On the 3rd December Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood led a debate in the National Assembly on the importance of increasing trade between Wales and the USA. Plaid believes that public services, including the National Health Service, should be exempt from the effects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

TTIP – RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

France has announced that it will not sign up to the TTIP in 2015, and will not agree to the inclusion of the highly controversial ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement). This is highly significant and follows Germany’s earlier indication that it could not agree to the inclusion of ISDS. Other European governments, including the UK, are pushing ahead.

ISDS is a secretive arbitration process whereby multinational corporations can sue democratically elected governments if they feel that the national law in a country not only reduces their actual profits but also prevents them from making potentially greater profits. This is something that Plaid strongly opposes, as it could lead to privatisation of our public services by the back door. 

The European Commission suspended the TTIP talks on the Investor State Dispute Settlement in January to carry out a public consultation. The influential Corporate Europe Observatory gives another example of what this means in practise. It revealed that oil and gas company Lone Pine is suing Canada for CAN$250 million after the province of Quebec imposed a moratorium on shale gas extraction (fracking) because of environmental concerns. 

The ISDS consultation recorded 150,000 responses, with the majority calling for it to be taken out of the agreement. 

There has also been analysis of the promise of millions of new jobs. The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) was asked by the UK government to analyse the impact on the economy. Their figure of £10 billion in gains by 2027 depended on scrapping three quarters of non-tariff barriers in the chemicals, automotive and business/ICT sector. This is not even being discussed in TTIP and is simply not credible.

The CEPR, in another report for the Commission, could not predict any general impact on employment from TTIP, but it did see a risk of EU and US jobs actually being lost! 

The European Parliament will adopt a report with recommendations to the Commission on TTIP. It will be wide-ranging and discussed by many committees, including the Culture and Transport committees on which Plaid’s Jill Evans MEP sits. The Conservative group, the ECR, opposed having this report. The timetable is expected to be short, with the vote possibly as early as March 2015. 

Some of the committees will hold public hearings to examine the detail of different aspects of TTIP.

Plaid Cymru adopted a strongly worded resolution opposing TTIP back in our October conference. Members of the RCN and Unison gave strong backing to our position. Plaid will continue to campaign against TTIP. 

REBOOTING OUR RAILWAYS

The recent devolution of the rail franchise should be welcomed along with the news that the Welsh Government will seek for the rail franchise to be run on a not for profit basis (something that Plaid have been calling for several years). For the first time, we in Wales will be able to choose who operates its own railway, the not for profit option makes the most sense as any profits made will remain within the franchise area rather than paying share holder dividends. The current and next Welsh Governments will face a significant challenge when it comes to preparing for and delivering the next franchise; it is a task that must be accomplished.

One of the key elements in rebooting our economy is infrastructure investment and investing in our neglected railways.  Many of our existing railway stations suffer from some pretty significant gaps in services, and so are underused. The final stage of the rail-link from Ebbw Vale to Newport needs to be completed and new railway stations at Caerleon (which has been in the local UDP since the 1980’s), Llanwern, Magor and Little Mill would provide local communities with a regular rail service and reduce the ever-increasing traffic burden from already overcrowded roads.

We need our railway stations to be real transport hubs with fully integrated local bus services and expanded safer secure reasonably priced parking. We also need better facilities at Abergavenny, Caldicot, Chepstow, Pontypool, Severn Tunnel Junction and Lydney railway stations. We need feasibility studies into the development of a Parkway Station at Little Mill and the possibilities of re-opening the old line from Little Mill to Usk along with the development of a new railway station at Usk.

Driver training on the Gaer spur (Ian Brewer) 

In Scotland, significant strides have been made to reopen, redevelop and build a coherent and integrated public transport system. In Wales over the last 15 years there have been two successful railway re-openings carried out by Network Rail at the request of the National Assembly; the Vale of Glamorgan Railway Line (re-opened on Friday 10th June 2005) and the Ebbw Valley Railway Line (which was partially re-opened on Wednesday 6th February 2008). Unlike in Scotland here was not any real political dynamism at work here; these were administrative rather than legislative projects.

Plaid Cymru believes that a revitalised not for profit railway service in Wales can and should lead to more areas of our country being opened up to both new and revitalised rail services. This combined with the deal over electrification of the valley lines along with the Great Western mainline to Swansea is good news, but the job remains only half done until full control of railway infrastructure is devolved to Wales so that both the development of the franchise and the development of our railway infrastructure can be planned together.

FIND(ING) THE MONEY

The UK's growing inequality and concentration of wealth and resources in the South East of England means that most people are not seeing any signs of economic recovery. The bad news that by election day we may be around 40% through the planned cuts something that is unlikely to bring much comfort as we (save for the happy sons of bankers) will all face the consequences of future cuts which will only lead to more suffering. 

The austerity experiment has failed failure to balance the books, yet there is still time for the Chancellor to change course so that the economy can recover. The recovery has not been helped by the Labour in Wales Welsh Government's decision to effectively blow the Welsh borrowing budget on a single infrastructure project – the few miles of the M4 – at a time when every corner of Wales is crying out for infrastructure investment.

Responding to the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, Plaid Cymru Treasury spokesperson, Jonathan Edwards MP said:

"While we welcome the devolution of business rates which the Labour Welsh Government must now use to secure a far more business-friendly environment in Wales, there is little here on offer to our nation.

"Northern Ireland is set to be offered powers over corporation tax and, as the Smith Commission recommended last week, Scotland will get powers over income tax. Wales should have the same powers without delay and Westminster needs to stop treating Wales as a second class nation.

"The current Wales Bill is now no longer fit for purpose. If we are to tackle unemployment and generate economic growth, Wales must be handed the same job-creating powers as Scotland or risk being left behind.

"Plaid Cymru is committed to a genuine Wales-wide recovery driven by well-paid, high-skilled jobs. Our policy to pledge an extra 1% of UK GDP to infrastructure investment would have delivered £800m to fund Welsh roads, railways, schools and hospitals. Sadly this was a missed opportunity for the Chancellor.

"With Labour and the Tories fully signed up to further austerity after the Election, it is clear that Wales must return as many Plaid Cymru MPs as possible after May if our nation's best interests are to be protected from the Westminster elite."

WOOD SMOKE IN THE MORNING

I first began to notice it last winter when going to and coming from work. It took a while to make the connection, which may relate to a combination of the time I have to get up to go to work and that grim pre-serious coffee state of mind. It ties in with cold snaps and also the housing stock – the ‘it’ in question is the smell of wood smoke. When it is particularly cold the smell of wood smoke in certain parts of Newport and Treforest can be overwhelming in both the morning and the early evening.

The smell of wood smoke rather than a sign of affluence is a sign of austerity. It’s a sign that people are up against it when it comes to heating their homes and trying to save money. If you are lucky enough to live in an older house, anything pre- 1970’s then you may be lucky enough to still have old fireplaces in situ, which are so I observe increasingly being put back into operation. The increased demand for firewood, may explain what a few friends have said in recent years about periodic spikes in the price of firewood. 

Rather than affluence i.e. wood burners, this is a visible symptom of austerity. More people are struggling to pay their heating bills and are being reduced to making a grim choice or heat or eat, but does not need to be this way. In Wales we pay on average 5-10% more for our energy than elsewhere and some 30% of households are living with fuel poverty.

If you are fortunate enough to be able to re-open an old fireplace and make use of an alternative source of heating or well off enough not to have to worry about your heating bills then there is a fair chance that you are living in one of our urban areas. For people who live in rural areas, then for a start they are not on mains gas – energy bills can be pretty grim for urban residents.

The situation is even worse for those customers living in rural areas who are off the mains gas supply. Here it can literally come down to a choice of leaving the heating off to save money and choosing to put food on. In Wales around 400,000 customers are not on mains gas, and they often face higher energy prices having very little consumer protection.

Plaid Cymru wants to speed up the government’s slow commitment to provide mains gas for households. At this rate it would take approximately 100 years to get those within a 1km of the grid linked up.  People can’t afford their heating bills now – we need to act more quickly. They are asking people who want mains gas to come forward and sign up to the campaign at www.offgridcymru.org so that they can press for action on their behalf.