Former MP for Caerphilly
I welcome what the Minister has said. However, to revert to the rather cursorily treated question of Aujeszky's disease, does not the Minister feel in retrospect that the levy represents a substantial inposition on the industry? When it is quite clear that the disease can be eradicated, to the benefit of all, should not the Government contribute to this exercise?
asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the current level of unemployment in (a) Wales and (b) Mid-Glamorgan; and what are the corresponding figures for the same dates in 1982 and 1981, respectively.
Does the Secretary of State agree that the figures show an unemployment rate for mid-Glamorgan of 17 per cent.? Will he take note that In the Bargoed travel-to-work area in my constituency the current figure is 20 per cent. unemployed—one in five? Nearly every house has someone unemployed residing within it. Will the Minister consider this, not from a political stance, but on grounds of...
Although one wishes to recognise the work of the Welsh Development Agency, does the Secretary of State concede that it is in the end occupancy rather than buildings that matters? How much of the 8 million sq ft already built is at present unoccupied, either through having been vacated or through failure to obtain tenants?
asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the current level of unemployment in Wales; what percentage increase this represents since the same date in 1979; and what are the corresponding figures for mid-Glamorgan.
How can the Secretary of State blandly state those figures without expressing horror at the enormity of the unemployment problem in Wales, which has been created by the Government's policies? Is he aware that, in human terms, the 34,102 unemployed in mid-Glamorgan equate with only 752 vacancies? For every 45 people unemployed, there is only one vacancy. In Bargoed in my constituency the...
I declare the minor interest of someone who tries to maintain the old Welsh tradition of keeping one, sometimes two, and once three pigs in a year. That hardly puts me in the producer category. As a number of hon. Members have said, this Bill seems to be a case of some praise and some blame. The Government have come out of it well in the end. I feel that the criterion that has been used by...
The hon. Gentleman seems to suggest that the ownership of pigs is almost irrelevant. Surely the implication of what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that even if a farmer has no pigs at all, his opinion could have weight. If the main pig producers felt strongly about this, it must make sense in terms of approval of the scheme. In fairness to the Government, that must be so.
