Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ann Clwyd and Chris Bryant(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
10. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the under-occupancy penalty on social housing in Wales.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
12. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the under-occupancy penalty on social housing in Wales.
Remploy
Debate between Ann Clwyd and Chris Bryant(13 years ago)
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Ann Clwyd
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Uncertainty is having a very bad effect, both on the morale of the people who work in the factory and on that of their relatives. Everybody will want to make points about their particular areas and factories. Before I take another intervention, I want to mention the last round of redundancies in the Aberdare Remploy factory in 2008. Of the 18 disabled employees who took voluntary redundancy, only one person ever returned to work, although many others would have liked to have had a job and were able to have one had one been available.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who is my constituency neighbour, because uncertainty is even affecting those Remploy offices, such as that in Porth in Rhondda, that have a very strong record and a very strong order book. It seems a dereliction of duty if the very strong parts of the business end up being undermined just because clarity is not provided.
Ann Clwyd
I could not agree more. I have two quotes, the first of which is from the general secretary of Unite:
“This report spells the death knell of Remploy factories—it is a blueprint to run-down and close the factories. The government needs to commit itself to making substantial pump-priming available to guarantee that the plants become successful as businesses in their own right—they won’t succeed without such cash.
The prospect for those who will have to battle it out for mainstream jobs is grim—it is a major blow for them. What will happen is that disabled people will be at the back of the employment queue and when they do succeed in finding work, too often, they are bullied and forced out of work. It is a vicious revolving door.”
Welsh Grand Committee (Scrutiny)
Debate between Ann Clwyd and Chris Bryant(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ann Clwyd
I thank my hon. Friend, who is one of my neighbours. At one time we shared a constituency, when it was Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare in the time of Keir Hardie. However, Keir Hardie, who fought for so many rights for the people of Wales over the years, would be very aggrieved today if he saw what was happening in the House of Commons.
I draw attention to one or two things in the press today. The Archbishop of Wales has thought it necessary to make various points, criticising how benefit claimants are being portrayed by the UK Government. We all feel the same way. He said that the mark of a civilised society was the way that it cared for its worst-off members and that the UK Government
“talks about benefit frauds, as if the country is full of people who are out to milk the system.”
Some people are out to milk the system, but it is not the benefit frauds—it is the bankers and the people the Conservative party represents in this place.
The Conservatives have failed to penalise the people who put us in this financial situation. It was not the people we represent, the people of Wales who will now be affected by the cuts that the Government will put in place and the thousands of people who will lose their jobs in the public sector and, we are now told, in the private sector as well. Because of the VAT increase to 20% in January, tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs in the private sector.
Dr Morgan went on to say:
“One of the great characteristics of the mining communities was that they did care for the less fortunate—they made sure that widows and orphans had enough to eat and coal to heat their homes. They knew what it meant to be members of one society. The Big Society concept would not have been strange to them—they implemented it long before this Government thought of it.”
Chris Bryant
Archbishop Barry said all those things at St Andrew’s church in Tonypandy on Sunday evening. He was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Tonypandy riots, which falls at the end of this week.
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to point to the many other issues on which we should also be having Welsh Grand Committees, in particular the effect of the comprehensive spending review. Is she worried that we might have no debate in the next few months on how that affects Wales? We might have no St David’s day debate next year and, because it is a two-year Session, no debate on the effects on Wales of another Queen’s Speech or legislative reform. All that is making the voice of Wales more marginalised in the House.