David Chadwick
MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Q3. Two weeks ago, the news leaked that Powys teaching health board is considering taking the beds out of all but two community hospitals in Powys. Some 2,500 people have already signed my petition against those cuts.”
“The imposition of tariff barriers alone is not sufficient to address the shortcomings in our steel industry. The Minister said that it is important to provide more opportunities to help people buy British steel, but there is a difference between saying that and making it happen.”
“I am intervening because the hon. Lady mentioned Port Talbot. Last year, I met the Associated British Ports in Port Talbot. It raised concerns that the current rail link into the docks may not have the gauge needed for the large structures that will be brought in for assembly or to get freight out from the new freeport that will be create…”
“My constituency is home to the Sennybridge training area, an area of vital national importance that borders Merthyr Cynog. The military training area exists only because local farmers surrendered their farms for the national interest.”
“The Foreign Secretary will know that the ongoing violence continues to take a horrific toll on civilian populations across Lebanon, Gaza and the wider region.”
“Powys has no general hospital, so my constituents are dependent on access to English hospitals for the treatment and operations they need. However, last July, Powys teaching health board made the decision to extend waiting times for Powys patients awaiting operations, with the result that many have now been waiting years, often in agonisi…”
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“Member for Monmouthshire mentioned, the previous Government had several roundtables on how to clean up the Wye, but what happened? Very little. The impact of the inability to clean up our rivers is hurting local communities in my constituency. We know there is a housing crisis, caused by a shortage of affordable homes. In Talgarth, a moratorium on new homes has been in place since 2022, meaning several much-needed housing schemes are frozen. Oversight from the Welsh Labour Government has fallen short. Although it is a non-profit organisation, for years Dŵr Cymru failed to invest in infrastructure and still diverted funds into executive pay, and it is one of the worst offenders on sewage dumping.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) for securing the debate. Like her, I am privileged to represent a constituency that is home to some of the UK’s most powerful rivers, including the Rivers Wye, Usk and Towy. However, these national treasures are drowning under a barrage of pollution. The Wye, Usk and Towy are heavily polluted, harming the environment and local wildlife, and jeopardising industries such as tourism, leisure and angling. I fully support the concerns raised about the previous Conservative Government’s failure to tackle water pollution. Conservative neglect allowed water companies to pollute rivers with impunity while siphoning off profits to pay excessive bonuses and dividends. People want swift action now. As the hon.”
“Farmers in my constituency are very concerned by this news, as Powys was one of the hardest-hit regions in the 2001 outbreak and the trauma remains for the 2,000 livestock farmers affected. Can the Minister provide us with some further details on the conversations that he has had with the Welsh Government, and will he confirm that the Welsh Government will commit to working with local authorities?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. He is well aware that the south-west and Wales are connected by the Severn tunnel, which is often closed—it is likely that the closures are in his region. Does he agree that that is impacting economic growth in south Wales, and is all the more reason for Wales to receive the consequentials from HS2 funding to invest in our own railways in Wales, including the Heart of Wales line in my constituency?”
“I rise to make a point about Wales. I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, which has particular relevance to my consistency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe. Rural crime is defined as crime and antisocial behaviour occurring in rural areas, where we have plenty of social housing. In my region, just 0.24% of staff in the local police force are dedicated to rural crime units, despite the significant impact that that crime has on places such as Brecon and Ystradgynlais. Does he agree that antisocial behaviour is a significant issue across mid and south Wales too, and that police resourcing should reflect that challenge?”
“I thank the hon. Member for giving way and for securing this important debate. My constituency has one of the highest levels of off-gas-grid properties in the UK, with over a third of my constituents dependent on heating oil to keep their homes warm. Does the hon. Member agree that it is vital that the Government bring forward plans to help off-grid homes to decarbonise not only to help the environment, but to help to bring their bills down?”
“I thank the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for securing this debate; I have two children under three, so I am delighted to come and contribute. Does the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) agree that an extra benefit of investment in playgrounds is that they bring footfall into our town centres and nearby shops and cafés, thereby benefiting the local economy, too? I have one such example in Brecon at the King George V playing field, which I hope will help to regenerate our town centre.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that this legislation should have set out a framework for devolving the Crown Estate in Wales, as is the case in Scotland?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. Wales is very proud of its reputation for producing great musicians, actors and actresses—I will not try to name them all lest I forget people. My hon. Friend talked of the difficulties faced by people entering the profession and the worrying fact that the numbers might be dropping off. How does she think our state would be best placed to encourage people to go into the profession? Would that be through investing in buildings and education, or something else?”
“In my own constituency, the already limited service along the Heart of Wales line is being cut further. Altogether, it seems that, despite Labour promising a change in how Wales is treated from when the Conservatives were in power, they have continued with a business-as-normal approach. It is completely inappropriate that my constituents, and people across Wales, are now expected to deal with a further reduction in services for several years, for a project in London that will provide no benefit to them, while they continue to be robbed of investment in their own local services. This Labour Government must listen to the Welsh people and ensure that this disruption is minimised and that Wales receives its fair share when it comes to rail funding.”
“HS2 does not involve a single mile of track in Wales, yet the previous Conservative Government decided to class the project as an “England and Wales” project, a designation that Labour has taken an active political choice to keep, despite their own Ministers in Wales admitting it is deeply unjust. This means that Northern Ireland and Scotland both received consequential funding to spend on transport, while Wales received not a penny more—particularly none of the estimated £4 billion that it should have received as a result of the project. Even ignoring HS2, Wales is already underfunded, as the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) has mentioned, when it comes to investment in rail, receiving just 1% of rail investment in the UK despite having 11% of the country’s rail network. That is having tangible real-life impacts.”
“Construction work at Old Oak Common is set to impact services along the south Wales main line until 2030—five whole years during which Welsh travellers will face slower and more disruptive journeys into London. In addition to longer journey times, the disruption is expected to reduce the number of available seats, diminishing the already poor capacity and connectivity, with fewer direct trains to London reducing resilience to recover from any delays. The disruption in services for residents across south Wales, including those in my constituency who use Great Western Railway services at Neath and Newport, comes without any significant long-term benefit to them.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for securing this important debate. Wales is a proud industrial nation, which was built on the back of the railways, with the world’s first train operating at Penydarren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil. It did not carry passengers—it carried coal—but it was a train none the less. However, Wales’s proud contribution to rail in this country has been diminished in recent years by both Government neglect and diminished services from rail providers. As the development of HS2 continues, the work at Old Oak Common station in London may seem like an isolated project in the heart of England, with little consequence elsewhere. However, the implications for Wales are substantial and far-reaching.”
“I should declare an interest in that many of my relatives across south Wales are former miners. In the autumn Budget, the Government quite rightly made the decision to end the pension injustice for miners who were part of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, but they did not do the same for the 40,000 miners who were part of the British coal staff superannuation scheme, including 151 former miners in my own constituency. Will the Government guarantee that these men and women get the pension they deserve and explain why they will have to wait longer for justice than many of their former colleagues?”
“Can the hon. Member explain why his Government are choosing to raise taxes on GPs’ surgeries, which did not crash the economy or the public finances, rather than opting to raise the revenue from the big banks, as the Liberal Democrats suggest?”
“I urge the Government to reconsider their decision to raise income in this manner and to make exemptions for the health and social care sectors as well as for charities.”
“It already has the worst outcomes of any nation across the United Kingdom. Charities and local authorities will suffer too from this decision. In my constituency, the chief executive officer of Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations has stated that the national insurance increase will “place considerable financial pressure on voluntary sector organisations, many of whom are crucial partners in delivering essential services.” That is the reality of the decision taken by the Government to use such a blunt tool to try to fix the nation’s finances. Many of my constituents are asking why Labour has chosen to go after the small businesses, charities, and health and social care providers rather than target the big banks, the oil and gas giants, or the social media giants.”
“We know that the scenes of ambulances left queueing for hours outside our hospitals are the result of them being unable to discharge patients due to shortcomings in social care. It is not just care homes that are affected, but primary care too. Our GPs, dentists and pharmacies will suffer from this tax rise. A local GP practice in my constituency told me that it will have to cut one day of practice nurse time and one day of GP time from April 2025. That is a direct result of the projected £30,000 increase in its national insurance bill, alongside an overall lack of funding for GPs. A second surgery is projected to have an increase in its NI bill greater than £100,000 in April 2025. Both are clear that without an exemption for health and social care providers, the NHS in Wales could face collapse.”
“The Liberal Democrats agree that the country’s finances are in a mess thanks to the previous Conservative Government. However, we do not agree that increasing national insurance is the way to address the problem, as doing so will undermine efforts to improve public services across the United Kingdom. For example, last month Care Forum Wales issued a stark warning that the rise in national insurance could cause a collapse in the social care system in Wales, creating a £150 million funding gap. Social care in Wales is already on its knees. Over the past four years, 40 Welsh care homes have closed. If yet more are forced out of business due to increased costs, we will have even fewer social care spaces available.”
“China is clearly trying to infiltrate all areas of UK society. Will the Minister outline the meetings that he is having with the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that the UK strengthens its foreign direct investment screening and cyber-defences, and focuses in particular on increased data transparency requirements, in order to become more economically resilient?”
“Despite the River Wye being probably the most famous case of river pollution in the UK, it might surprise some to learn that the other two rivers in my constituency, the Usk and the Tawe, are in even worse health, with all three sadly placing in the top 30 most sewage-filled rivers in the UK. While I welcome the legislation strengthening the monitoring of emergency overflows, it is important to recognise that citizen scientists, such as the Friends of the Upper Wye and Save the River Usk, have been doing most of the legwork when it comes to telling us what exactly is in our rivers and where particular areas of concern are. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for community groups to have the right to representation on water company boards, so that we bring back that local expertise on board.”
“Wild swimmers, anglers and kayakers are just three groups affected by sewage dumping and the knock-on impact that has on our local economy, yet in Wales, the environmental regulator—Natural Resources Wales—is chronically underfunded and has faced decades of budget and staffing cuts by the Welsh Labour Government. Those cuts have left it unable to fulfil its role, meaning that the current legislation is not being properly enforced. NRW requested a minimum of 50 extra staff members just to do its job properly, and 250 additional staff members to do it well. The expansion of regulatory powers must be matched with the necessary resources to strengthen the regulator’s hand and to enable enforcement.”
“As the MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, I am in the honourable position of representing a constituency containing three mighty rivers: the River Usk, the River Tawe, and the world famous River Wye all rise in the hills and mountains of Mid Wales and pass through this giant constituency. All the water in the Wye ought to be considered a national treasure, stretching as it does across some of the most picturesque landscapes, providing habitats for an array of wildlife, and supporting multiple communities through tourism and recreation. Yet sadly, the Rive Wye is dying at an astonishing speed. That is why strengthening the regulation of our water companies is understandably a major priority for my constituents. I know that my constituents are disgusted by the reality of sewage dumping, as many of them have told me so.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Large banks are leaving our high streets at an alarming rate. Ystradgynlais, the biggest town in Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, has been denied a request for a banking hub, despite the billions of pounds of profit that Lloyds bank made in 2023. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that communities such as Ystradgynlais, which has some of the most deprived areas in Wales, should be at the forefront of moves to expand banking hubs across the UK, and that the big banks should treat their customers well and deliver a fair share of services for local residents?”
“Can the Minister clarify whether Link is covered by the growth duty, which requires regulators to consider the economic consequences of their actions? A point has been made a couple of times about the impact of these closures on local businesses.”
“Residents in rural Powys are suffering as a consequence of delays to ambulances turning up, or, in some cases, of those ambulances not turning up at all. In one recent example, the family of a stroke victim in my constituency had to drive their paralysed and vomiting mother in a car to a hospital in Hereford, after being told that there would be a four to seven-hour wait for an ambulance, and that was after they had already been waiting two hours for an ambulance to arrive. Shockingly, that is not an isolated case; it is an experience to which many people across rural Wales can relate. Will the Secretary of State tell me what action she is taking to reassure my constituents that an ambulance will turn up in their hour of need?”
“I join the House in paying tribute to the emergency services, including Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service and Dyfed-Powys police, as well as Powys county council in my constituency, which have been working tirelessly to keep people safe over the past few days. Communities across Wales, including in my constituency, have been battered by this storm only a few weeks after already taking significant damage from Storm Bert. Many of my constituents in the Swansea valley were left without power for over 48 hours and some may not have power restored until Thursday. Likewise, many water supplies have been disrupted and towns such as Builth Wells have experienced significant flooding. What support are the UK Government providing to Wales to ensure that power is restored as soon as possible to those households?”
“Last month, I spent a very enjoyable afternoon scoring the senior young farmers at Radnor young farmers club. These are really admirable young people who spend their afternoons and evenings looking after youngsters, often those as young as 10, and trying to encourage them into farming. Is the hon. Gentleman not concerned about the message that this change sends to our young farmers?”
“What kind of conversations are the Government having with counterparts in Georgia to ensure that the right to assemble and the freedom to protest are being respected?”
“Rural crime is defined as crime and antisocial behaviour occurring in rural areas, which is very logical, but in my region just 0.24% of staff in the local police force are dedicated to rural crime units, despite the significant impact on communities in places such as Brecon and Ystradgynlais. Does the Minister agree with the Liberal Democrat proposal that every police force should have a specialist co-ordinator in its rural crime team, in line with recommendations from the National Rural Crime Network?”
“People living in former mining communities across south Wales deserve greater reassurance on what the Government will do about coal tips. Can the Secretary of State explain what exactly they will do to make these tips safe, particularly when it comes to the live monitoring of any movement and early warning systems?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for giving some excellent examples, particularly from the Netherlands, which is wonderful at water management. Like him, many across my constituency have to deal with the impact of flooding year after year. Does he agree that to tackle flooding, we must improve the management of land upstream, including the restoration of peatlands, heathlands and native woodlands, and that our farmers are great allies in this quest?”
“In 2012, I was run over by a car in the Netherlands. I woke up in hospital several days later, with some fairly severe injuries. I am thankful that the resulting police investigation was swift and efficient. Unfortunately, that is not the case for such incidents in the UK, because forensic collision units across the country are facing severe challenges in preparing cases, resulting in large delays to trials and ultimately to justice, prolonging the agony for impacted families. What is the Department doing to help the police tackle those resourcing challenges and ensure road traffic collision cases come to a swifter conclusion?”
“We will continue to hold this Government, as well as those in the devolved Parliaments, to account to ensure that that is not the case.”
“They exist due to our state’s failure to address poverty within our communities, and are needed to support adequately those struggling to make ends meet. Tackling food poverty requires a cross-sector approach. Rising energy and housing costs are pushing more and more people into poverty. The cost of energy itself makes producing food in this country even more expensive. In Wales, we urgently need more investment and well-paying jobs should be brought back in deprived areas. Former mining communities, such as those in the south of my constituency, are still waiting for new industries to arrive. The new Government cannot afford to continue to make the mistakes of the past. We cannot end up in a situation in which the same number, or even more, children are relying on food banks in 10 years’ time.”
“An estimated 6% of households in Wales accessed food aid last year, and one in four households in Wales are either eating smaller meals or skipping meals altogether. In Wales, child poverty rates are significantly worse than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. In my own region, a staggering one third of children in Neath Port Talbot council and 20% in Powys live in absolute poverty. These high child poverty rates have remained stubbornly high across Wales, moving barely at all since the early 2000s. That can only represent a failure of policy and political will across successive Governments on both sides of the M4. Volunteers often say that, although the work they do is valuable, food banks should not need to exist at all.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing this important debate. The work that food banks do is invaluable. I would like to thank all the dedicated volunteers in my constituency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe who run food banks—they do tremendous work across our communities. There is PANTRY food bank in Pontardawe. There are food banks in Brecon, Knighton and Presteigne, Llandrindod Wells, Rhayader, Ystradgynlais, Ystalyfera and Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, all of which provide vital support to people in our communities and help those in need. That need is growing across Wales. Food-bank parcel distribution has increased by 77% since 2018.”
“The closure of the last blast furnace at Port Talbot has resulted in the loss of several thousand highly skilled jobs across south Wales, prompting another economic contraction across our region. The global centre for rail excellence at Onllwyn is one project that could reverse the trend of deindustrialisation and bring back good, well-paid jobs to south Wales. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the UK Government intend to make further investments in that project, and give an update on what conversations she has had to ensure that the project gets going?”
“Time is running out for many of them, and we urgently call on the Government to provide some reassurance to them. We have less favourable views on other elements of the Budget, including the changes to agricultural property relief, which are causing a great deal of genuine anxiety across my constituency and Wales as a whole. If the Labour Government do not change course, they will be throwing family farms to the wolves in the same way that other industries have been let down in the past. The impact will be felt not just by young farmers unable to take on a viable farm business, but in wider consequences. The entire rural economy is dependent on farming incomes, so the changes will threaten jobs across Wales. We do not understand why the Government are not raising the revenue from other sources.”
“With 800,000 people stuck on waiting lists in Wales, which is nearly a third of the population, this could not be more urgent. We want to see further action on social care. Some 50% of beds in Powys are currently blocked, and the patients are unable to be discharged to go back to their homes and families. That is something that must end. Fixing our health services is key, and it is for this reason that we have called for the national insurance hike to be removed for care providers and GPs. I am proud to have mining heritage in my family, and I welcome the boost to former miners’ pensions, but confusion remains over the future of the British Coal staff superannuation scheme, which has over 41,000 members, many of them across south Wales. Further clarification has not been provided so far for those former miners.”
“It was a pleasure and a privilege to listen to some excellent maiden speeches. As a Welsh Liberal Democrat, I am pleased to play my part in constructive opposition. I want to see things get done for Wales, and there are certainly parts of this Budget that we welcome—for example, the increase in the carer’s allowance that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and the Liberal Democrats have campaigned so hard for. Around 10% of the Welsh population are estimated to be unpaid carers, and many of them will see a real difference thanks to this initiative. We also thank the Government for listening to our calls for extra funding for the NHS and social care. It is now over to the Welsh Government to ensure that all consequential money is spent on health and social care, which has not always happened in the past.”
“I thank the hon. Member for bringing forward tonight’s debate so that we can pay a special tribute to the role that Wales has played in forming our democracy over the years, but is she not concerned that the proposed new system for elections in Wales, whereby one vote will return six Senedd Members, threatens to undermine the spirit of democracy as the Chartists understood it?”
“I pay tribute to the two excellent maiden speeches that we have heard so far in this debate, from the hon. Members for Erewash (Adam Thompson) and for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet). I hope that people from former mining communities are listening to this debate, because I am sure they will have some choice words to say about a Conservative talking about de-industrialisation. In Wales, we will never forget what the Conservatives did to our industries, and the jobs and futures they took away from people.”
“It will be developed from the start in consultation with the community. It will be managed by the community and the profits will benefit the community itself. We Liberal Democrats are firm believers that this is exactly the model of community ownership that will provide communities with security and prosperity well into the future. It is for this reason that I urge all Members to support amendment 5 and ensure that the Bill puts the principle of community ownership at the very front and centre of what the Government are trying to achieve.”
“I thank the hon. Member for that contribution. De-industrialisation has been happening for a very long time across the United Kingdom, and we are yet to see a real industrial strategy that would restore the wealth, prosperity and jobs that used to exist across our industrial areas in the entire United Kingdom. Wales stands ready to play its part in powering the United Kingdom once again, but this time Wales would like to experience the tangible benefits from these projects. In my constituency, Llangattock Green Valleys has the ambition to develop plans for a large, community-owned renewable energy scheme to supply premises in the Crickhowell region. The scheme will have a mix of technologies, such as solar, hydro, wind and storage, to give a year-round supply of energy.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this terribly important debate on the fact that rural communities are not being paid sufficiently to host the infrastructure that we need to get to net zero. Earlier this month I visited Awel Aman Tawe, a community energy charity based in my constituency that uses the revenue that it gets from a turbine that it erected itself to pay for regeneration in that deprived area of Wales. Does he think that is a preferable or more desirable outcome in comparison with other projects, such as Bute Energy’s project in Powys, where the developer is hiding the community energy funds behind layers of bureaucracy that might make them inaccessible to local residents?”
“We love reading about other people, which is why my constituency sustains three local newspapers— The Brecon and Radnor Express , The County Times and The Mid Wales Journal —as well as the Ponty Mag , The Beacon and the Rhosgoch Gossip . Finally, I thank my partner, Gemma, whose bravery and resourcefulness continue to inspire me; my son, William; and our next soon-to-be-born child, who does not have a name yet. I am opting for Enzo, so I would love the House’s support for that. I dedicate my work here to fighting for the future they deserve.”
“One of them climbed the ladders at Port Talbot, but now those ladders have been taken away. Those jobs must be replaced for the families in my constituency who are now facing unemployment before Christmas. If this Government want to back Welsh industry and Welsh jobs, they can show it by backing the global centre for rail excellence in Onllwyn. Great Britain has no all-purpose testing centre for railway vehicles and infrastructure, but a former mine has been repurposed to be that facility. Give us the tools and we will get on with it, for we still know how to dig ourselves out of a hole in Wales. We are a creative people. We love music, words and singing.”
“During the past week, we have seen an important campaign by Riverford, holding supermarkets to account for misleading shoppers with fake farm brands and driving Britain’s family farms to the brink. That is just one example of the challenges that farmers face. We need to champion local food systems, not imports. Let us support the movement towards rebuilding local supply chains, driven by a new generation of rural entrepreneurs, who are opening restaurants, building brands, bringing back jobs and remaking our high streets. That spirit of innovation still flourishes in Wales. We once had the lead in industrial sciences. We were the world’s first industrial nation, but now Wales is £10,000 a head poorer than England, and still shedding jobs. For both of my grandfathers, the steel industry was the first rung on the career ladder.”
“The Government must be aware of the agriculture budget’s massive multiplier effect for the rural economy, and they should give farmers the stability and funding they need. Food security is a major concern. Some 61% of farmers are considering giving up, and the farming workforce is dwindling. Our farmers and growers produce world-class produce, battling harsh weather and constantly changing market conditions. These market conditions are often set by the retail giants, and I know that my predecessor, Roger Williams, fought to level the relationship between retailers and farmers by strengthening the Groceries Code Adjudicator. It is a shame that the Conservatives did not do more to strengthen that code during their time in office. I will carry on that fight.”