Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

As I have said, our conversation with the Post Office is about the broad agenda of digital by default, and about how we can get more of our citizens online. Some 11 million of them are estimated still to be offline, so that is a big challenge. Alongside that, programmes are necessary to ensure that people who do not want to be online can still access Government digital services. I am sure that the Post Office and others will be able to help us in that process.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Is the Minister aware that the National Federation of SubPostmasters has reported that the income generated by the Government services that its members provide is fairly small? I am all in favour of sub-post offices providing Government services, but the Government must surely be made to pay for that properly.

[Mr Hurd]

Obviously, if post offices are going to provide a service, they need to have the capacity to do that. I have had conversations with postmasters in my area. In the Pinner post office, for example, I have tried out the new technology that is helping citizens to get online and access services locally and to become more digitally capable, and I did not get a sense from that postmaster that there was a problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman engages closely with his constituents and will know there is general dissatisfaction with the current settlement in Europe. We think our position in Europe should be renegotiated, and it is right to take sufficient time over that negotiation. At the end of that period, by 2017, we will put the issue of whether Britain should be a member of the European Union to the people of this country in an in/out referendum.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

All constituent parts of the UK ran trade surpluses in 2012—all except England. That puts paid to the caricature of Welsh business as failing in some way, and the surplus from Wales was £5 billion in 2012. What can be done to encourage micro-businesses such as those in my constituency to understand the value of exports and the opportunities they offer in the face of austerity from this Government, and indifference and incompetence from the Government in Cardiff?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that Welsh businesses have been successful, but we want them to be even more successful. I therefore encourage Welsh businesses of whatever size to engage closely with UKTI, which as I said has global reach and is in the best position to maximise opportunities throughout the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman tries to criticise the green deal programme. We are in the early weeks of a 20-year programme that will lead to real improvements in energy efficiency and help to tackle fuel poverty in Wales. Perhaps he would like to come with me on a visit to the British Gas green deal academy in Tredegar, where he will see the value of the green deal for Wales.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

It is intended that 10% of UK energy consumption will be carried across Ynys Môn and the Menai straits on pylons. At the same time, electricity from Scotland to England will not go through the Lake district, but be carried under-sea to the Wirral and across the Wirral underground. Why the difference?

[Stephen Crabb]

As I understand the project across the Menai straits, four options are being looked at and sub-sea is one of them. I shall certainly discuss the matter with National Grid, as I recognise the significant concern, and I will follow up with the hon. Gentleman in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend highlights very well the total incoherence of Labour’s position. It is even harder to justify maintaining a subsidy for spare rooms given the country’s financial condition and the need to reduce the deficit and restore financial budgetary discipline.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I draw the House’s attention to the motion this afternoon and encourage right hon. and hon. Members to participate in the debate and to join us in the Lobby.

DWP Ministers tell me that no assessment has been made of the flexibility of the housing market in rural Wales in order to respond to the bedroom tax. Has the Under-Secretary made any such assessment?

[Stephen Crabb]

There are different types of housing stock throughout Wales, but one problem facing the whole of Wales is that of overcrowding and long housing waiting lists. It cannot be justifiable that, at the same time as people are receiving housing benefit for spare rooms, in the same streets and on the same housing estates there are houses with three or four children in the same bedroom.

European Council

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

If my hon. Friend looks at heading 3, which is the money spent on home affairs, justice and Europol issues, he will see that that budget is going from €12.4 billion to €15.7 billion. I join him in saying that the horsemeat issue is extremely serious. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said, this is predominantly an issue of food safety, food labelling and truth telling to consumers, but we need to do everything we can to get on top of it.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The Prime Minister wants to repatriate regional policy. As a sign of his good intentions, will he guarantee to make up in full any shortfall in cohesion funding for west Wales and the valleys?

[The Prime Minister]

Overall, the amount of structural funds that will be coming to the United Kingdom at around €11 billion is a small reduction, but broadly the same—maybe 2% less. We then have to decide how that money is fairly divided up between the different regions. Of course, west Wales is one of the less developed regions so should benefit from that. We will be making final determinations about how the money is divided up when we know more about the overall figures and the proposal has been passed by the European Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am advised that coverage in north-east Wales will be similar to the previous analogue coverage. Where communities experience a loss following the switchover or the roll-out of 4G services, the Government will be happy to pursue that issue and take it up with the relevant agencies.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Does the Minister share my concern about services to people in north-east Wales from BBC Radio Cymru as the royalties dispute proceeds, and will the Government intervene?

[Stephen Crabb]

This is an issue of concern and the Wales Office is in very close touch with all parties involved in the dispute. This is not actually a matter for the Government—it is a contractual discussion between the BBC and performing artists—but we are hopeful that a resolution can be found very soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 28th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

It demonstrates nothing of the sort. The statistics published yesterday for the Work programme should not be the basis on which its overall success is judged, because it is a long-term programme. Many of the biggest gains from the programme will be seen in the second year, and statistics will follow this time next year.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Recently in Caernarfon 300 people applied for three jobs at a supermarket checkout and 30 people applied for a junior secretarial post, some of them with higher degrees, and I could give further examples. Why are the Government punishing people who are looking for work when that work is not to be found?

[Stephen Crabb]

We are not punishing people who are looking for work at all; we are incentivising them to go out and find work. I remind the hon. Gentleman that unemployment is falling right across Wales. There are pockets where more needs to be done, particularly in rural and isolated areas, but he should not doubt our ambition to see all of Wales enjoy some of the good things we are currently seeing in the Welsh labour market.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I met representatives of Network Rail earlier this month to discuss their plans for the rail network in Wales, including the re-signalling programme. The north Wales main line is due to be re-signalled commencing in 2015 as part of the Wales route modernisation programme.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

14. How much of the £9.4 billion that is going to be spent on rail infrastructure to 2019 will be spent in north Wales?

[Mr Jones]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that I am already holding discussions with the Welsh Government and local authorities in north Wales with a view to exploring the possibility of electrifying the north Wales railway line—105 miles, and an enormous economic benefit for north Wales.

G8 and NATO Summits

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. It is in Britain’s interests that the problems in the eurozone are dealt with. We have consistently made a whole series of suggestions about firewalls, about strengthening banks and about consistent and strong contingency plans. The point that I was making at the weekend is that it has become ever more urgent to make those contingency plans because, frankly, it is not in our power to determine whether Greece decides to stay in the eurozone. We have to prepare for every eventuality, however difficult that might be.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

This morning, the European Parliament passed, by a very large majority, a call for a financial transactions tax. Can the Prime Minister foresee what his stance, and that of other leaders, will be on that matter this evening?

[The Prime Minister]

My view is very simple: I am against a financial transactions tax, for the simple reason that the European Commission did a piece of research into such a tax and found that it would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. While it might sound as though it would tax the bankers and all the rest of it, it would actually put up the cost of people’s insurance policies and pension policies and drive all that activity offshore. I am not surprised that some other European countries support it, because they see it as a good way of taking a lot of tax out of the UK and spending it in Europe. Well, I am not falling for it.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. It is important that that dialogue is carried out appropriately. In this case the special adviser did not act appropriately or properly, and that is why he resigned, but I do believe that it raises some wider issues, and that is why I asked Sir Jeremy Heywood to write to all Departments to make sure that in any quasi-judicial matters we get it right.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

People in Wales will compare the privileged access that Mr Murdoch and his friends had to the Culture Secretary with the cavalier way in which the right hon. Gentleman treated campaigners for public sector television in Wales. That is a small matter in the grand scheme of things, but is it not just another example of his double dealing and double standards?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not accept that, because I think that we have done right by S4C and that broadcasting in Wales is a great success. Let me just make this point, which perhaps will get some all-party agreement. All media companies have their great causes and lobbies, and I would say, after seven years of being leader of the Conservative party, that one gets as much pressure from the BBC, from regional newspapers and from other papers about things that they are concerned about. It is worth putting that on the record.