National Grid (Montgomeryshire)

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

I thank the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) for raising that point, which I intend to raise, because it is hugely important.

Over the past year or so, I have had countless frightened constituents ring me, terrified by the bailiffs employed to enforce the National Grid’s will by the agents, Bruton Knowles, who are based in Birmingham. One constituent rang me recently to say that bailiffs had entered his property without permission, using profane language and frightening his wife and children, who fled to a back room. The police were involved. Another constituent, who lives in an isolated property, rang me to say that eight men from National Grid suddenly appeared on her drive. She sent her children upstairs, locked all the doors and rang her husband, who was at work, and my office. She was terrified. An 85-year-old constituent was advised by her friends to co-operate, because of concerns about her personal welfare.

At one meeting I attended, National Grid had brought along a Gene Hunt lookalike as an enforcer to stand in the background. Police officers were also there, as they have been throughout the supposed consultation exercise. I received an e-mail two days ago from the son of an 83-year-old constituent. He had had to come home to protect his frightened father, who had encountered two strange men emerging from behind his garage, uninvited and unknown. I could go on, but I have made the point.

I am also told that National Grid has failed to share information with the local highways department. There has been non-stop lack of openness and transparency. It is all laughably described as consultation, but it is nothing more than outright bullying, using size and money to crush a local population.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I have listened to many passionate speeches by my hon. Friend. From what he is saying, is it any wonder that members of the public have lost confidence in institutions such as National Grid? They have even lost confidence in MPs and Assembly Members because of this kind of story.

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That is the fourth point that I will be making in my speech, but for now I come to my third point.

The whole basis of National Grid’s approach has been to create an assumption that its proposals and all the consequent wind farms are inevitable. The spin has been, “You can’t stop us, so you might as well help us and make the best of it. There is no point in protesting, it’s inevitable.” Up to November more than £15 million had been spent on the project. It is a blatant attempt to influence the planning process.

I was chairman of a planning authority for seven years. I knew that I could never be influenced or seen to be influenced before a decision was taken. I was also part of the planning appeals process in the National Assembly for Wales when I was an AM. Again, I knew the importance of avoiding any perception of influence when dealing with planning applications. That is why I fully respect the Minister’s position today. Yet here we have National Grid spending £15 million to portray another 500 turbines in mid-Wales—probably 20 or so per wind farm application—as an inevitability, before any applications are decided. That is blatant pressure on the planning system.

Recently, the chief executive of Ofgem, Dermot Nolan, giving evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Committee, questioned the position of National Grid and spoke of the need for a more independent body to develop the network. At present, National Grid has a huge financial interest in expanding the network—it expands its influence—and all the costs involved are transferred to the consumer by one means or another.

The whole mid-Wales connection project is financial madness. I have never known anything so financially crazy. There has been no value for money assessment whatever, although from the perspective of National Grid, that does not matter, because the consumer will pay. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that unusually dominant position of National Grid. It seems to me, as it does to Dermot Nolan, that there is a conflict of interest and a strong case for separating the roles of transmission operator and network expansion. I must add that I am shocked that Sir Peter Gershon, the chairman of National Grid and a man of great standing, would put his reputation on the line defending what must be becoming a huge financial and totally illogical embarrassment.

My final point this morning is specific to mid-Wales and north Shropshire, but more generally relates to the confidence that the population of Britain have in the democratic process. We have seen reduced engagement with the democratic process, in particular by young people, but National Grid has been granted the power to act beyond any democratic control, spitting in the face of public opinion. Any localism agenda has been thrown out of the window and, in my view, National Grid is acting contrary to any sort of human decency.

I hope that the Minister will consider asking National Grid to scrap such a crazy project or, at the very least, to suspend it until planning permission is in place for wind farms that might need a connection.

S4C and Welsh Identity

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

Indeed. I was not aware of the precise way in which the creative industries had developed in Wales, but it is generally known that over the period leading up to the break in the funding link, there was a real fall-off, with too much concentration on Cardiff-based companies. Members for Cardiff might feel cross about that remark, but the key thing about S4C is that small companies can operate in areas where the language has traditionally been strong. We must not forget that. We do not want to return to complacency—a comfort zone in which we have what we have and S4C does not look to continue to develop new companies that can become the big successes of tomorrow.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will have heard that S4C is moving its headquarters to Carmarthen. The economic contribution that that will make across west Wales is profound. His point is a good one, and one that S4C is beginning to realise itself.

[Glyn Davies]

I agree with my hon. Friend. There will obviously be views on whether S4C should move from the capital, where political activity is mainly based and the creative industries are concentrated, but the move is the right one. Where the language is under most threat is in what I term the heartlands, where Welsh is still the language of the street—Carmarthen is one of those places. Those are the areas where we have seen the biggest loss in Welsh speakers and where S4C can play a role in helping to stabilise any decline in the language.

Badger Cull

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Wednesday 11th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

This is a very difficult, complex, sensitive and not straightforward issue, but despite all that, I have always been in favour of a targeted pilot cull; I just need to explain why. Perhaps it will be helpful if I describe a bit of the context from which I come. Before I entered public life, I was a livestock farmer; that was my occupation. We lambed the sheep out on the hills, and nothing ever gave me more pleasure than seeing a badger. It was a rare sighting 30 or 40 years ago and a great thrill. I have always been very proud of the fact that we had badger setts on my farm and we protected them. I do not farm those animals any more, but I still insist that the badger setts and, indeed, all wildlife are protected.

Another aspect of the context in which I speak is that I have always had a huge interest in wildlife. I was a trustee of the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust before coming here and retain an active interest in developing diversity and balance in our wildlife.

The aspect of the context in which I speak that is perhaps most relevant to today’s debate is that I was a Member of the National Assembly for Wales for eight years until 2007, and for most of that time I was the Chairman of the rural affairs Committee—it had one or two different names. During that period, bovine TB and the control of it was a huge issue for the Welsh Government. In fact, we went to Ireland on a fact-finding mission. We met the various bodies in Ireland, including the badger protection association. When we came back, it was interesting that one of the members became a Minister in the Labour-led Government in 2007 and introduced a piloted cull. It was complex at that stage to introduce a law in Wales, and they made a mistake in the legislation. The intention of that Government for four years was to introduce a targeted piloted cull in Pembrokeshire, and that is what would have happened, only they made a mistake in the legislation.

In 2011, a new Minister took over and decided to introduce a system of vaccination. There is now another new Minister. If I had been allowed to intervene on the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), that would have been the question that I asked: what discussions have there been in terms of the view that he was taking and the Welsh Minister? To me, this is crucial. If vaccination would work, everybody would be in favour of it.

[Simon Hart]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the advice of the chief vet in Wales to the former Government in Wales was exactly the same advice as she gives now to the current Government, which is that a cull is the best way forward?

[Glyn Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, principally because it gives me another minute. I actually welcome the fact that there is a different process involving vaccination taking place in Wales, because a number of people are saying that it would be much preferable to move to a system of vaccination, and how could I not agree? But ever since I have been involved in this issue, which is probably about 40 years, I have always been told that an effective vaccination is probably about 10 years away, and the situation is not much different today. It is possible to vaccinate badgers; I am told that in Wales, it costs about £662 per vaccination. Every badger has to be caught every year. All the discussions I have had suggest that what is happening in Wales will not work, will not be cost-effective and probably will not be repeated.

One or two Members have referred to different types of vaccinations. I think they are great, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that he is open to all such suggestions. We want a way of dealing with a hugely complex issue that causes the death of huge numbers of perfectly healthy animals, which disrupts and causes massive distress to a huge number of farming families, and which disrupts and causes disease among our wildlife. We need a way of dealing with this. In the short term, I think we need a targeted pilot cull to make certain that we know that going down the cull route is the best way to deliver what we want.

National Parks (Planning Policy)

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hart]

I am grateful for the third intervention on this point. My hon. Friend is right, but the 1995 Act, which I will quote in a minute, prescribes in law the requirement that where there is conflict between economic and ecological factors, a national park planning authority has to give precedence to the ecological consideration. Whether Northumberland national park is keeping to the letter of the law is a matter for it, but a simple solution would be to adjust the 1995 Act.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

We appoint skilful people to serve on national park authorities. Does my hon. Friend agree that we ought to give them the flexibility to strike a balance between benefits to the economy, to biodiversity and to all other interests? What is the point of appointing skilful people to those positions if they are straitjacketed and prevented from taking sensible decisions?

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on the point. One of the beauties of this debate is that the solution is simple to deliver. The Minister does not have to have an argument with the Treasury; it can be done. There is an Act of Parliament that needs a simple, one-line amendment to free up the expertise to which my hon. Friend refers and to reassure businesses and individual householders that national parks can consider a wider range of factors than is sometimes the case.

I will press on, because I have two further points to make on accountability and confusion, which the FSB Wales has highlighted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams) said, although national parks might argue that they are democratic bodies because of the presence of elected councillors, there is a feeling that the planning system is impenetrable and at one remove from the reach that a local authority planning department may provide. The FSB report reflects the absolute conviction that the planning system is slow, confusing and therefore expensive, and that the system is only there for the well advised or wealthy.

Agricultural Wages Board

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great knowledge because he represents an area suffering those hardships.

I shall not speak for long. I find it bizarre that last night when my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) was fronting a debate on the hardship facing upland farmers, I was reprimanded by Mr Speaker for mentioning cattle when I should have been speaking about sheep. Never mind. Here we are debating something which is not relevant to the hardships facing the agricultural industry, certainly in my area, when we should be devoting our energy to other matters. I am surprised that the shadow Secretary of State was not there to hear the debate, which was important and involved her party as much as it involved ours. I am surprised that we are engaged in the present debate when we know that the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board will not leave agricultural workers, certainly in my area, exposed or vulnerable.

[Glyn Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if we believed that abolishing the Agricultural Wages Board would lead to some decrease in the wage agricultural workers are paid, we would not be in favour of it? It will not make any difference at all. The Opposition are keen to emphasise that it will, and they are wrong because they do not understand the countryside. They are driven by a completely different motive.

[Simon Hart]

I think that my hon. Friend is wrong on only one point: he says that the Labour party does not understand, but I think that it understands only too well. It is caught in a difficult position because its union sponsors are saying one thing and its constituents in certain areas are saying another.

Welsh Affairs

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Thursday 1st March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

My hon. Friend is determined to claim rugby superiority over me, but he cannot claim, as I can, that at least three members of the Welsh squad were educated at the local school in Whitland, so he will have to try a little harder if he is to outdo me on that score.

In the brief time available to me, two things need mentioning. First, there is national tourism week, which is taking place for an obvious reason: its critical importance to the economy in Wales and, in particular, my part of Wales, south and west Pembrokeshire. I hope that the Chancellor will take a number of points on board in the next few weeks before he announces his Budget, because it is important to recall that there are 100,000 people in Wales alone who are employed in that industry, and that foreign people undertake almost 1 million trips to our country. That is SME territory if ever there was any, and I hope—perhaps through the Secretary of State—that even in these last few days leading up to the Budget we can make the case for any proposal that makes life easier for the tourism practitioners in our part of the country.

Pembrokeshire has a particular claim as far as that is concerned, because Members should not forget that it was recently voted the second best coastline—not in Britain, but in the world. There is no regional stuff for us, only the best or, as it turned out, the second best, but we should not underestimate the significance of that for our county and country.

Secondly, there is the significance of the Milford Haven waterway, and the proposal, in vague terms at the moment, for an enterprise zone covering that area. As hon. Members will know, Milford Haven waterway is the only thing that divides me from my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb). It is a centre of incredibly important economic activity. It has a number of companies, including RWE, which is about to launch the biggest gas-fired power station in Europe; Valero, the welcome new refinery in our area, which has taken over from the previous very good refinery, Chevron; Ledwood Engineering; and Mustang Marine. All those companies are doing important things but see themselves not as Welsh companies or Pembrokeshire companies but as UK companies competing in a UK context in a global market. Passionate though they are about their place in Wales, it is very important to them that they compete on the global stage as UK businesses. We must not do anything that undermines that or diminishes their status in the valuable work that they do, not only for the businesses in our area but across the whole UK and the rest of the world in their respective sectors.

If there is one message that we should pass on to those whose responsibility it will be to say yea or nay to an enterprise zone, it is this: let us not fixate too much on the money. So often in these cases, the money is tempting but comes with so many conditions and over such tight time scales that it is almost impossible for most reasonable people to comply. Let us focus a little more on regulation. If the enterprise zones delivered a more relaxed attitude to regulation, be it on the environment, where possible, or in planning, where that is possible given the extraordinary significance of the Milford Haven waterway, that in itself would unlock entrepreneurial skills and business opportunities for everybody in the area and, equally importantly, for those who wish to move there to engage in beneficial activity. That is absolutely crucial in the message that we send about the enterprise zone proposals.

A less rosy story in Wales is the health service, which was touched on by the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy). I refer the House to a Mr Colin Ross and his wife Ann, who wrote to me only this week. Ann is a former NHS nurse who is suffering from a very serious form of cancer and requires the drug Cetuximab, which she and her family have had an endless struggle to obtain. She and her husband say:

“Politics should play no part in the care of the sick. The reality of political ploys in the Wales NHS are free prescriptions, free car parks and recently, the inequality of, where there is clinical need, PIP transplants will be remedied at the expense of the Welsh NHS. These are all transparent examples of the lack of judgement in the care and well being of the community in Wales and these ploys speak volumes as to the morality and self serving actions of our political representatives.”

It does not matter whether that is right or wrong; if that is what our nation is thinking, if that is what people are suffering when they are trying to deal with—

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I believe that the person of whom my hon. Friend speaks is suffering from bowel cancer, and I want to make a couple of points about that which I hope that he will associate himself with. First, the Wales parliamentary team were successful not only in defeating England last Saturday before the big match on Sunday but in raising over £10,000 for Bowel Cancer UK. Secondly, there is the importance of awareness. Bowel cancer is a disease that can be caught early, and that is why I am enthusiastic about the screening programme that has developed right across Britain. If someone has bowel cancer and it is caught early, they can live an absolutely full life. They can not only set up and become captain of a rugby team, but may even become a Member of Parliament.

[Simon Hart]

When it comes to this subject, my hon. Friend has no equal in this House and outside. We all recognise and respect the work that he has been able to do on behalf of so many people.

The moral of the story is that we should be very wary about the unforeseen consequences of devolution. We have discussed devolution as though it were the most important subject in itself, but the things that really matter are the health service, housing, jobs, and economic activity. However, devolution can have a profound effect on those matters, and often it has an adverse effect. I wonder whether Opposition Members agree with what the former Prime Minister, Mr Blair, said when he expressed caution about devolution:

“You can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins”.

That is a lesson for all of us. It was right when he said it and it is right now. We are here because we are proud to represent Wales and inspired by what it has to offer. Let us ensure that, in extolling the virtues of our country and supporting the aspirations of our constituents, we do so as part of the United Kingdom and are not marginalised by petty party political interests.

Intensive Dairy Farming

Debate between Simon Hart and Glyn Davies

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies]

I heard that the original Nocton proposal was for 7,000 cows. Once we reach 1,000, the principle is much the same—we are dealing with a big unit in which the animals are housed for almost the whole time. That is a different way of producing milk. I accept my hon. and learned Friend’s point.

Let us go into the reasons for not doing it. The first was in the more significant part of my hon. and learned Friend’s introductory speech: the driving out of small farmers as a result of the economic conditions that the larger farmers might create. I am not sure that I accept that reason. When I was milking 70 cows, I was accused of driving out small farmers. That was the position then. In truth, a person hand-milking seven cows was just not economic—that was the reason for stopping the business. In those days, the 70-cow unit was economic, but we reached a stage when it was not.

Small farmers will be and have been going out of business—we heard the numbers earlier. That has happened and will continue, irrespective of the large farming unit. I do not think that there is a direct correlation between the two issues.

[Simon Hart]

We are in danger of muddling two things, one of which is the size of the unit. Plenty of farmers have gradually crept up from seven cows to 70, from 70 to 170 and, in my family’s case, from about 100 to 400. Is there some cut-off point, above which they should not be allowed to go? That is one of the issues we are discussing. The other issue is whether it is appropriate to be milking cows indoors 365 days of the year. We are in danger of confusing the two issues.

[Glyn Davies]

Several issues are probably involved, so I want to make my second point, which is that we might want to resist the development on welfare grounds. We can include housing for 365 days a year as a welfare issue. Even with a seven-cow herd, the animals were indoors for six months of the year. Being indoors is not particularly unusual. I think that the application for a 1,000-cow unit in my constituency proposes that the animals should be indoors for almost two thirds of the year. I suspect that the application for the 7,000-cow unit proposed having the animals indoors, apart from the followers, for 12 months of the year. What we have to keep at the core of our thinking is high welfare standards, and we must be guided by science or we shall lose the argument in the end.

[Mr Edward Leigh in the Chair]

I do not accept that it is necessarily more difficult to meet welfare standards with a large herd than with a small herd. I know that some people will disagree, but I just do not think that the large size of a herd is a proven reason for that. In fact, we can argue a little bit the other way, because for a large herd, there will almost certainly be professionally trained staff, and a large unit will be able to afford to keep them professionally trained. It will be able to do the training that smaller units cannot. A large dairy unit will almost certainly have an ongoing relationship with a veterinary surgeon, who will call in regularly. The smaller units do not have that. Most farmers with herds the size of mine considered themselves to be veterinary surgeons. We were not willing to pay what I thought were excessive bills at the time—we did it ourselves. I think that we shall find that the welfare standards in large units will be very impressive, and if they are not, they will not get permission.

There are many other, environmental reasons why one might want to refuse an application for a large unit, and I think that planning authorities should be willing to turn down applications, unless they meet their exacting standards. The application in my constituency is within view of Powis castle. The local planning authority will have to consider that issue. The Environment Agency will have to examine all the implications for the environmental impact. All such issues will have to be considered by a planning authority before approval is secured.

I want to deal now with the public resistance element. During my eight years in the National Assembly for Wales, I was a huge enthusiast for organic farming and farmers’ markets. We should continue with that, but we have to persuade people to come and buy from these units. The reality is that most customers—consumers—will buy where the price is cheapest. The supermarkets will drive down the price, and unless British farmers produce the product, they will import it. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr Gale) made a very good point about exporting a problem. That is exactly what might happen in the dairy industry unless we deal with the matter. In relation to public resistance, we need a balanced and open mind and a view based on scientific knowledge.

I want to appeal not only to my hon. Friend the Minister but to everyone who participates in the debate—because it will be an ongoing debate; the issue will not be dealt with in the short term—not to take an instinctive view. Mine might be one of antipathy. We must examine the science, because in the end that is what will rule the decision. If we in this House are to have an impact on the issue, we have to present the facts and have an influence, we hope, on the purchasers, which are mostly supermarkets. Only the Government can do that now, because supermarkets have reached such a state of dominance in the market. By taking a balanced approach, we may well have some influence and, while not necessarily returning to the image of my childhood, staying rather closer to it.