Montgomeryshire Post Offices Under Threat Again?

Montgomeryshire could lose all its village Post Offices following a government announcement this week

In Britain as a whole the government plans to reduce the current network of 14,300 post offices to 11,760. If that pattern were repeated in Montgomeryshire at least 20 could close but Plaid Cymru fears it could be far more as the government withdraws subsidies and leaves only "viable" offices open.

The Labour government is complaining about a subsidy for the Post Office of £250m per year in the same week that, because of its own incompetence, it is writing off debts of £1.1 billion to the Child Support Agency. The Post Office is not a private company. It is a public service and basically does a lot of the government's own administrative jobs such as selling car tax.

Under Labour 4,000 post offices have already been closed and it looks as if rural Wales will bear the brunt of this next round of closures. Labour has downgraded post offices by siphoning off government services which makes them less viable businesses. Plaid has been campaigning against Labour’s plans to close Post Offices which are used by over 350,000 people in Wales to access their benefits and pension. I believe that Post Offices have an essential social role in preserving communities as living entities and help combat social exclusion. Plaid wants to use post offices as government shop windows, providing income for local sub postmasters and so enhancing an essential service to the community.

NOSON LAWEN PLAID CYMRU 19 01 07

On Friday 19 January in Neuadd Llanerfyl we're all looking forward to getting the campaign off to a bang with a Noson Lawen led by Arwyn Groe, one of our budding poets on the national stage and well known as a local commentator on the cultural scene. Arwyn will be joined by Dafydd Iwan, Sian James and local new band Gwiber. There'll be a few short speeches as well so that I, Nerys Evans and David Senior (Plaid Regional List Candidates) can get to know the audience and also at least one poetry competition for the audience to join in. Dyffryn Banw football club are running the bar and there'll also be a raffle.

With tickets at just £6 and £3 for concessions this promises to be an enjoyable and memorable evening so book yours on 01691 870642 as soon as possible.

Welsh Tax Payers Service Gordons' £161bn PFI Debt!

A statistic which passed almost unnoticed in the Chancellor's pre-Budget statement last week was that the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) Debt has now reached a staggering £161bn, up £13bn in just one year. That means that Gordon Brown has had to set aside an extra £13bn in one year alone to service this debt, a figure which is only £1bn less than the entire budget for Wales!

This should concern us all very deeply in Wales. There have been very few PFI projects in Wales because, wisely, local authorities have preferred only to use the money they have rather than mortgage their budgets for decades to come. Now however there is a squeeze on the capital provision for local authorities (Powys County Council will be at least £12m short of its requirements next year) and there are endless calls for "efficiency savings" whatever that may mean in schools and old people's homes. We are constantly being told that there is "no more money in the pot" for education and social services, yet clearly there is £13bn to service the PFI debt in 2006 - 07 as well as £25bn for Trident and £70bn de-commissioning costs for the new generation of nuclear power stations Blair is so keen on.

Is now clear that we, as Welsh tax-payers, are mortgaging our own futures since it is partly our taxes which are going to service this £161bn debt, nearly all of it used for schemes outside Wales. If Welsh authoriites prefer not to use PFI there should surely be a sizeable uplift in their dirtect grant since they are, effectively, saving Gordon Brown billions of pounds a year.

What is Jane Davidson there for?

Just what is the point of Jane Davidson? For the second time in three months she has been caught completely unawares by an announcement from Labour in London and then has had to pretend embarrassingly that she knew about it all along but just hadn't told anyone!

Millions of pounds of our (taxpayers') money is currently being spent on reviews of GCSE syllabuses, GCSE coursework, International GCSEs, A level syllabuses and now the International Bacalaureate. Every one of these has been a Westminster initiative which Jane Davidson has meekly complied with even though nobody in Wales wanted them. And it is just pathetic of her to pretend that nothing will happen unless "the three countries [England, Wales and N Ireland] agree" since Wales and N Ireland have effectively nothing more than "observer status" at the disucssion table. What England wants England gets.

Whitehall retains complete control over the curriculum and over GCSEs and A levels as well as over the pay and conditions of teachers i.e. everything it regards as "important". Only what it regards as trivial has actually been devolved to Cardiff.

Once again Jane Davidson has allowed herself to be pushed around by the Whitehall mandarins. She has lost control of the education agenda in Wales and has lost the confidence of teachers in all sectors. She should consider her position.

Does the Right Hand know what the Right Wing is Doing?

Why has Blair suddenly decided to make A levels "harder" when his government is currently spending millions of pounds of our money making them, arguably, easier by reducing the number of units to be studied from 6 to 4 from 2008 onwards? Does his government have money to throw away?

I'M BACKING THE DYFI BIOSPHERE

The Dyfi Biosphere is exactly the sort of sustainable development of the environment, in the broadest sense, which Plaid Cymru has been campaigning for over the past 20 years and I am very pleased to give it my full support.

The concept of having a core area surrounded by a buffer zone which itself is enveloped by a transition area seems eminently sensible to me. Economic activity to sustain employment is incorporated into this scheme so that the Reserve will not be some kind of museum piece but a populated and lively environment.

Preserving and enhancing the cultural distinctiveness of the Dyfi Valley, including its rich Welsh language heritage, is a central element to this plan and anything which helps to maintain our unique traditions must be a good thing.

£100bn NUCLEAR TAX SHOULD GO TO ENERGY CONSERVATION

The government is planning to spend £100bn of our money on ‘the nuclear option’ which would be much better spent on energy conservation and research into alternative fuels.

At least £30bn will be spent on the Trident replacement and £70bn will have to be put aside for decommissioning costs for the new generation of nuclear power stations. This sort of money, if it were invested in energy conservation and renewable fuels, could have a massive impact on the UK’s carbon footprint.

It is quite clear that we cannot continue to consume energy at the current rate. Developing countries have every right to enjoy the same standard of living as we do yet we are robbing them of the chance because we use fossil fuel energy to excess. One of the ways in which energy use could be reduced is by localising resources so that food, for example, travels less distance from producer to consumer. I am delighted that Plaid will make procurement of local food by public bodies a top priority in government after 3 May 2007.

Rhodri Morgan says DGHs have had their day!

It beggars belief that Rhodri Morgan should herald the end of District General Hospitals in favour of more community-based health services when his government is underfunding Local Health Boards to such an extent that, in Powys, at least 4 such hospitals which provide a wide range of very valuable services are having to virtually close their doors.

In addition Dr Bryan Gibbons, Labour's Health Minister, has badly miscalculated if he thought that the hospitals under threat would turn on each other and fight for each others' patients (or "clients" in the current market-based jargon). As the demonstration by CHANT (Community Hospitals Acting Nationally Together) at the Senedd on 22 November shows the ordinary people care more for the health of their community than Rhodri Morgan realised and his government will surely reap the consequences on 3 May next year.

FAREPAK COMPENSATION FOR MONTGOMERYSHIRE SAVERS


Many families in Montgomeryshire will be having a miserable Christmas because of the recent collapse of the hamper company Farepak and the fund set up for the victims of the collapse may not pay out any money until 18 December. This is an intolerable situation for these unfortunate people who have lost money through no fault of their own.

Farepak was a popular means of obtaining Christmas goods especially for people in isolated areas or for those with limited mobility. The most vulnerable have been affected and I am calling for the fund to be split up and redistributed much earlier than 18 December so that they can make alternative arrangements. The company Chairman, Sir Clive Thompson, who took £100,000 for his part-time job on top of his £894,000 salary with an investment company could also be doing more to help Farepak customers as this difficult time.

What's Labour Got To Hide?

On 6 November I asked Powys Local Health Board if they would send me a copy of the Agenda for their Briefing on 15 November when it is widely expected that, under pressure from Ann Lloyd, Chief Executive, NHS Wales, they will postpone any consultation about down-grading or closing Community Hospitals such as Llanidloes until after the Assembly elections on 3 May.

On 7 November I received a reply from Powys LHB promising to send me the Agenda as soon as it had been finalised but on 8 November I was told that no formal papers for the meeting were available for the public!

It seems that Labour's much-vaunted Open Government slams shut when it has something to hide.

Labour Assembly Government Fears Embarrassment Over Hospital Closures

May I congratulate the hundreds of demonstrators who turned out in Llanidloes last week to protest against the down-grading and possible closure of the local hospital.

At the time of the rally we all thought, quite reasonably, that Powys Local Health Board would keep to its published timetable of considering the issue at their meeting of 29 November with a view to completing the consultation process between January and April 2007, i.e. before the Assembly elections of 3 May.

Now however it appears that, in order not to embarrass the Labour Assembly Government by going into that election with a string of hospital closures around its neck, the Chief Executive of NHS Wales has conspired to head off any threat by calling an "informal" meeting of the Powys Local Health Board on 15 November at which the timetable for consultation will be delayed until June or July 2007 i.e. after the Assembly elections of 3 May.

Plaid Cymru resents this kick in the teeth for the hard-working campaigners in Llanidloes and calls for the agenda of the informal meeting of 15 November to be published now and for the minutes to made public well before the date of the formal meeting of 29 November. Democracy must not be frustrated by back-room political fixers.

Text of Speech given to Save Llanidloes Hospital Rally Saturday 28 October 2006

I should very much like to thank Mr Crisp and the Save LLanidloes Hospital Action Team for inviting me to speak today and I want to say that Plaid Cymru in Montgomeryshire and I, as the Plaid candidate in Montgomeryshire, stand alongside you because we who live in Montgomeryshire know that the trend to downgrade or close our hospitals, our schools and our libraries is part of a creeping trend towards centralising services in the bigger towns which will lead to the inevitable death, sooner or later, of our rural communities. Forget about trying to attract people into viable communities if there are no schools for our children, no libraries for leisure and education and no hospitals for our sick. If we do not stand up today for our local services then in a generation we will find that large swathes of Montgomeryshire are like parts of central France – depopulated, deprived and devoid of any community life.

I should like to congratulate you on your attendance today but we have to make a big, big noise because we need to be heard today not just in LLanidloes, where the people know we support them, but throughout Montgomeryshire. We want the people of Newtown to hear that we support them in the loss of their Birthing Centre and the overnight GMS service. And we support Welshpool hospital as it tries to keep open its kitchen to prepare fresh meals for patients instead of warming up frozen ones.

But we also need to raise our voices today so that they will hear us in Bronllys because that’s where the decision will be made on 29 November on how far to go with this plan and we need to make sure that Andy Williams, Powys Health Chief Executive, hears that we in Montgomeryshire have a proud tradition of caring for our ill as close to home as possible. Andy Williams are you listening because while it may be only 15 miles to Newtown from LLanidloes it’s another 8 to Staylittle and that 8 will take you as long as the 15 to Newtown. Sometimes I think decisions like this are made by people who can’t read maps – they think the landscape is all flat and straight like a piece of paper and can’t see the hills and valleys inbetween.

This document is called Doing More Doing Better. In Plaid Cymru we call it Doing Less Doing Worse and we reject its premiss and we reject its conclusions and we say to Andy Williams - Start Again. Go back to the drawing board. We reject the Loss of Day Hospital facilities in Llanidloes hospital, of Out Patient services, of GP beds, of X Ray facilities and of the Birthing Centre. Get up to date population figures Mr Williams not those from 2003, and work with other agencies which make up the patchwork of rural support in Montgomeryshire.

But it doesn’t matter how loud we shout today, even if our voice carries to Bronllys, because Andy Williams still won’t hear us. And do you know why? Because the architect of this plan doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of his actions because he doesn’t even live in Powys. He lives in Carmarthen. And bless him his local health board – and this too shows what happens when a committee gets divorced from reality - wants to downgrade the large District General Hospital in Glangwili in Carmarthen and do the same to Withybush in Haverfordwest and build a new one inbetween which will also be the main hospital for people from Cardigan. Do you know the Pembrokeshire/Carmarthenshire border?! There is no “inbetween” except Whitland and then you will be contending with all the holiday traffic in the summer.

But today we will make our voice heard in Bronllys and in Carmarthen and in Haverfordwest and in Bronglais, Aberystwyth, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Prestatyn, Llandudno, St Asaph, Builth Wells and Knighton and stand side by side with all these communities in their fight to retain local health services.

And finally we need to make ourselves heard in Cardiff Bay. Brian Gibbons, Rhodri Morgan, Carwyn Jones are you listening because we will not be treated in Montgomeryshire as second – class citizens. Rhodri Morgan do you want Montgomeryshire to survive? If so why is Powys County Council being funded as if wages here were equal to the average in Wales when in fact they only come to 76% of the Welsh average? And why is it facing a further 10% cut its budget in 2007 – 2008? Brian Gibbons are you listening? The health economics of the M4 corridor just don’t work in Montgomeryshire and Powys Local Health Board has to be funded accordingly. Get your priorities right for the WHOLE of Wales Rhodri or pass over the government of Wales to people who really care for it. And Carwyn Jones are you listening because if you scrap Tir Mynydd in 3 years there will be no upland farming left in Wales in a generation.

Can you make yourself heard today in Cardiff? If so then just one more thing – can you make your voice heard in London too? Goodness knows we pay enough tax and I’m fed up of paying Scandinavian-level taxes for US-level public services. It’s time we said to Tony Blair “Sort out your priorities Prime Minister”. I for one do not want to spend between 25 and 40 billion pounds on an “independent” nuclear “deterrent” if it means that the only places where a mother can give birth in the whole of Montgomeryshire in 2007 will be in Welshpool hospital or at home!

Since 1999 the London government has tried to fund Wales more and more each year as if it had the average wage of the UK instead of the 79% we actually have. Plaid Cymru has calculated that since 1999 Gordon Brown has effectively robbed us of £1.1bn. Our share in Powys of that would be £48m. That’s your money and my money. Raise your voices today and tell Bronllys, Cardiff and London – the people of Montgomeryshire united in a good cause will never be defeated.

What's Rhodri Morgan got against Opera?

What on earth was Rhodri Morgan talking about last week when he said in the Western Mail that cultural opportunities "will be open to the many, not reserved for the privileged few"?

Mr Morgan needs to get out a bit more! In Montgomeryshire, where the average wage is 76% of the Welsh average, the sole theatre, Theatr Hafren in Newtown, "gratefully acknowledges" the funding it receives from the Arts Council of Wales and, of 49 performances it is hosting in its Autumn season, only 8 (4 of plays, 2 by orchestras and 2 by dance companies) could be termed "high-brow". In fact the most expensive tickets of the season are for "The Counterfeit Stones"!

The sinister tone of Mr Morgan's remarks, however, is clearly revealed when he states that, when the Arts Council under Labour becomes politicised, he will "take on vested interests". This usually means the WNO for being so "elitist" but just what does Labour have against opera? Many of the plots champion the poor but resourceful ordinary people and many of the best tunes in Mozart and Verdi for example are variations of folk tunes. I can personally recommend the £5 seats in the opera at the Wales Millennium Centre to Mr Morgan and, even if he were to pay for the most expensive seat in the house, it would still be less than his dinner in a restaurant on a Saturday night.

Threat to Rural Post Offices

I am appalled at the latest proposal by New Labour in their attack on our Post Offices. To remove the ability to receive benefit and pension payments via the Post Office Card Account system is a callous move which befits the Thatcherite obsession of New Labour.

Under New Labour 4,000 Post Offices have closed and industry experts estimate that as many as 10,000 of the remaining 14,000 could close unless there is urgent action. This would have a devastating effect on communities across Wales and the rest of the UK.

The Federation of Sub Postmasters is therefore organising a lobby of Parliament on the 18th of October. The event is part of the Federation's ongoing campaign calling on the Government to deliver a sustainable future for the post office network. Federation representatives will deliver the national petition to the Government. Thousands of Sub postmasters and their customers will attend a rally at Westminster Central Hall, followed by a mass lobby of Parliament.

Plaid Cymru has also initiated a petition to coincide with that of the Federation, and we have collected thousands of signatures Wales-wide, as well as organising public meetings to inform constituents about the threat to local services if Post Offices are closed.

PLAID BACKS LLANFAIR LIBRARY CAMPAIGN

Closing Llanfair Library will be a disaster not only for the town but for the surrounding areas and will leave a whole swathe of Powys between Welshpool and Machynlleth without a basic community service.

I have written to the County Librarian, Ms Tudfil Adams, and have urged her to consider the effects of closing the library in a town like Llanfair which has both primary and secondary schools and has well below average internet uptake. Families and older people who need this public service most will find it most difficult to replace from their own incomes.

Unfortunately a mobile service will not come close to replacing the existing facilities and in any case might end up costing the same as the current library, £7,000 a year. Llanfair residents have been fighting for years to retain services in the town and are fed up at being treated as if they were a suburb of Welshpool.

I am supporting the Town Council and Mrs Viola Evans, Town and County Councillor, in their efforts to arrange an Open Day when residents can call and see just what the library has to offer these days.

PLAID CANDIDATE WELCOMES THE POLES


“Dobry wieczor. Witamy na naszym zebraniu”. This was how I greeted the audience at the opening of Plaid’s public meeting in the Raven Inn, Welshpool, on 28 September.

I want to get away from the mistaken idea that you have to speak Welsh or be Welsh to vote for Plaid Cymru. It doesn’t matter if you come from Welshpool, Wolverhampton or Warsaw and it certainly doesn’t matter what languages you can or cannot speak, if you live in Wales then Plaid Cymru is your local party.

The meeting heard from Ieuan Wyn Jones, Plaid’s leader in the Assembly, that a Plaid government in Cardiff would support graduates who stayed to work in Wales by helping them to pay off their student loan. “The cost of living and the price of housing in Montgomeryshire are forcing many of our graduates to look elsewhere for jobs” said Mr Jones. “Plaid Cymru will help them to stay in their communities and stem the “brain drain” from Mid Wales”.

Nerys Evans and David Senior, Plaid candidates for the Mid and West Wales seat, gave their support for the Save Llanidloes Hospital Campaign. “Rural Wales is under attack from the Labour Assembly Government” explained Miss Evans. “It wants to concentrate services like health and education in the bigger towns and is undermining the family farm unit by threatening cuts to Tir Mynydd. Plaid Cymru stands by local communities who deserve a decent level of public service”.

PLAID BACKS RESIDENTS’ CALL FOR NEWTOWN BYPASS

The so-called Manchester to Swansea trunk road grinds to a standstill in Llanymynech and Newtown and peak time jams are adding up to an hour on drivers’ journeys. No wonder it is so difficult to get people to invest in Montgomeryshire because for businesses time is money. Mid Wales deserves a decent transport infrastructure and a Newtown bypass would be a good start.

Plaid Cymru supports integrated transport and is pressing for more investment in rail and bus links as well. The Labour Assembly Government has neglected Montgomeryshire badly and the elections on 3 May 2007 will be a chance for long-suffering Newtown residents to show their disapproval. Newtown is at the centre of both north-south and east-west links yet both are totally inadequate for the current volume of traffic

Shameful closure of two Birthing Centres

One of the most serious effects of the round of cuts in Montgomeryshire hospitals announced last week by Powys Health Board is the loss of the birthing centres in both Llanidloes and Newtown. These facilities provide a homely and welcoming perinatal environment and their loss could reduce the options of giving birth in Montgomeryshire to Welshpool or a home birth!

The National Childbirth Trust estimates that 85% of the costs of a birth (in hospital or at home) are those of the midwife so closing these valued birthing centres will save Powys Health Board very little money. Also the increased likelihood of stress by giving birth further away from home and in more stressful surroundings is likely to increase the incidence of trauma and raise costs even more in the long run.

In addition Powys Health Board's cuts are based on a population projection worked out in March 2005 since when there has quite clearly been an increase of young workers from the EU accession countries including some young couples who may well require perinatal services in the near futrure.

The economics of the health service along the M4 corridor just do not apply to Montgomeryshire and it is time that the Labour Assembly Government funded these maternity services to give Montgomeryshire mothers the help they deserve.

Plaid helps first-time home buyers

I was very please last week that both "Nelson" in the County Times and Glyn Davies AM welcomed Plaid Cymru's analysis of the affordable homes crisis in Powys and, to lesser extent in Glyn Davies' case, Plaid's proposal to give first-time buyers a grant of £5,000.

I was most disappointed, however, to read the response of Mick Bates AM in the local paper. I have not spoken to any young people struggling to find a £15,000 deposit on a "starter home" of £150,000 who think that Plaid's proposal is a "simplistic and expensive gimmick".

Plaid Cymru takes the needs of young people in Montgomeryshire seriously and that is why we are proposing to help them in a positive and practical way by giving them a lift onto the first rung of the housing ladder. This crisis is causing serious concern to very many first-time buyers and I am astonished that the Liberals are so dismissive of their problems.

LibDems' massive tax hike for farmers


While I welcome the Liberal Democrats' attempts to tackle climate change their new green tax shows once again that they have completely forgotten about the realities of life in rural Montgomeryshire.

The Liberal Democrats want car tax to rise from £175 for the basic model Landrover, for example, to £1500 and anything more powerful to £2000! Their proposed 2% reduction in income tax which is meant to compensate for this increase would still leave farmers having to find between £1300 and £1500 extra per year per vehicle even after tax relief.

This anti-rural policy, along with the LibDems' proposed land tax, will drive a stake through the heart of farming in Montgomeryshire. The Liberal Democrats say they want to "discourage marginal journeys" so it is fuel consumption not the annual excise duty which they should tax.

To equate a Landrover (a farmer's essential tool for the job) with a Chelsea Tractor used for the suburban school run betrays a woeful indifference to our way of life.