Mark Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether local planning authorities can only grant hydraulic fracturing consent for a well after an environment impact assessment directive compliance assessment has taken place.
Mark Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what her Department's policy is on restricting the import of cheap, inferior-quality coal to the UK.
Mark Williams: Some 242,000 jobs are directly or indirectly dependent on a successful tourist industry. Will the Minister concede that we could boost those small businesses either by reducing VAT on hospitality and tourism or by raising the threshold on which they pay VAT?
Mark Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if his Department will raise with the Moroccan ambassador to the UK the death of Brahim Saika in Gulemin police station on 15 April 2016.
Mark Williams: Would the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is a problem with labelling? We have just had a debate on agriculture. Many of the products produced in the occupied territories, which is how some of us refer to the area, are labelled as products of Morocco when clearly they should be labelled as products of Western Sahara.
Mark Williams: It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Rosindell. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for her speech, and particularly to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who initiated the debate. He is a much valued member of the all-party group on Western Sahara, which I chair, and he has done the people of Western Sahara a great...
Mark Williams: I am grateful for the opportunity to thank all hon. Members, including those on the Front Benches, for their contributions. I am not sorry we asked the Minister 31 questions. I know that if he was unable to answer any as fully as he wanted, he will write to us. I thank him for his contribution and those of the Front-Bench spokesmen. Many points of note were made, some following from my...
Mark Williams: I beg to move, That this House has considered the UK dairy sector. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan, and to address the state of the UK dairy sector. This is an important debate, and I am glad that there are so many people here, not only from Wales and the devolved nations but from across the United Kingdom. I suspect there may be some interventions...
Mark Williams: I completely concur with the hon. Lady, who has experience of the farming industry both in England and in Wales. I will address the Groceries Code Adjudicator later, but I agree with her sentiments. In Wales, the dairy sector continues to suffer from months of continuing low prices and poor profitability, and many of the farming unions are not convinced that there is likely to be a recovery...
Mark Williams: I give way to a neighbour of Wales.
Mark Williams: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I refer him and the Minister to the report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. The hon. Gentleman has a fine pedigree in championing such issues. He set up the all-party dairy group in the last Parliament, and he initiated many of the 12 debates that I mentioned. I thank him for his contribution. I mentioned rural communities. I reflect on...
Mark Williams: The hon. Lady is quite right, and she represents a rural area, as I do. For people who do not live in a rural area, it can sometimes be very hard to understand the extent to which the agricultural community and the agricultural economy are engrained in rural areas and every aspect of life in those areas. We have had a big debate in our area about the closure of village schools. If families...
Mark Williams: I know that the hon. Gentleman has done a lot of work on this issue, so I give way to him.
Mark Williams: Again, I completely concur with that comment. I think the hon. Gentleman secured a debate on the Groceries Code Adjudicator in this Chamber a few weeks or months ago, and he made that point very strongly then. He is quite right; we need the opportunity that this review presents. I supported the creation of the adjudicator, as did my party, and I commend the cross-party efforts to create the...
Mark Williams: I give way to my neighbour from Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.
Mark Williams: I totally concur with that. I think there is an emerging consensus. It took some time to give the adjudicator the capacity to levy fines. I think this is the next step, but it cannot come quickly enough for many of the farmers in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and elsewhere. We are told that more dairy farmers are supplying supermarkets on a dedicated contract, which is true, and that many of...
Mark Williams: I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) for initiating this debate and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for speaking with even faster delivery than normal, to ensure that I can say a few words. I am speaking on the back of an event we held in Speaker’s House yesterday with the all-party group on global education for all, which I co-chair, ParliREACH, Results UK and the...