Nick Bourne AM

The barbaric murder of Tom ap Rhys Price in the streets of Kensal Green, North London, is painful and awful beyond words.    

His fiancée, Adele Eastman, who was about to marry him, has had her life destroyed along with the loss of her soul mate.   

What has made this awful murder so moving has been the dignified and gracious and forgiving way that she and Tom ap Rhys Price’s parents have risen above this awful killing.   

I heard the victim’s father on the radio yesterday saying that he felt sadness for the killers.  The family have launched a fund in their late son’s name to help inner city youths like the killers through education.    

Rio Ferdinand, the footballer, commented that ‘Knives are not cool’, and it is important that that message gets out to people, and especially young people, throughout our country.   We have had a largely successful anti-gun culture in this country, and we must now extend that to knives if something positive is to come out of this dreadful killing.   Let us hope it is a turning point in the fight against the mindless killings that we see all too often in our towns and cities.  

On Tuesday evening I had a meeting with the Post Office in Wales to discuss a variety of Post Office issues.  Our Group was also represented by Alun Cairns, Mark Isherwood, William Graham and Richard Hazlewood.  

To my way of thinking the Post Office performs a marvellous function.  I have much sympathy with them on the fact that they have to compete with other providers now and at the same time have to offer a universal service within the UK at uniform prices - something I wholly approve of but can only be done with cross subsidies from other services.  

I do raise with them the issue about closures of rural Post Offices as these have been coming through thick and fast in my own area and elsewhere.  Just this week Lawrenny has been under the spotlight in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, and recently Pumsaint in Carmarthenshire also closed.  The problem relates very often to the government.  It recognises the importance of the network of Post Offices, or so it says, but then there is a withdrawal of government or quasi government services like renewal of passports, renewal of television licences, and so on.  It strikes me we have to look at imaginative ways of providing the network.  Sometimes this will be mobile Post Offices, sometimes it will be Post Offices in unusual locations like Churches or Pubs. I have no problem with that but what I do think is that the Post Office provides a unique service and should not be judged just on economic grounds.  

It is a very useful gathering and we always meet up with the Post Office just before Christmas so we know that Christmas is not far away when we have these meetings.  I personally find them very useful.

Today Peter Hain presented the Queen’s Speech in the National Assembly for Wales.  Each year, under the Government of Wales Act 1998, he is required, or one of his juniors is required, to come to the National Assembly to outline the impact of the Queen’s Speech on Wales.  

The Secretary of State is the architect of the Government of Wales Act 2006, and he is at pains to stress what a good arrangement this is for Wales.  Opposition parties do not agree with this assessment.  It is my own belief that it represents a very fragile compromise between different warring factions in the Labour Party. 

The First Minister, when the Richard Commission report was published, welcomed it whole-heartedly, but has since backtracked and supported this compromise arrangement whereby powers are sought from Westminster and where the Secretary of State for Wales is the gatekeeper.  Herein lies the seeds of conflict as Lord Richard himself recognised. 

The Queen’s Speech itself represents a massive diet of measures on law and order and security.  This has been the hallmark of Labour over the last several years.  There is a positive legislative binge of law and order measures.  The Climate Change Bill, although welcome in that it puts it on the agenda, should have provided for an independent body to monitor carbon emissions and should set out annual targets.  These are serious deficiencies. 

I also welcome a provision on mental health, though it is my own belief that we need to move away from a system that is purely criminally driven to look at therapy too.  It has been estimated that one in four adults needs mental care during their lifetime.  This is clearly an issue where there should be a different approach from the one presented in the Bill.

Today we launched our rural manifesto at the Winter Fair at Llanelwedd.  The launch took place in the Young Farmers’ Pavilion.  Brynle Williams, our Spokesperson, Suzy Davies, our candidate for Brecon and Radnorshire, and I dealt with the issues (after moving furniture around together with a team of people).     

 The policies that we focussed upon were:   

• the need to restore Tir Mynydd to its former status  

• the need to provide help for our Dairy farmers  

• to provide support to Post Offices by helping with business rates and an expanded Post Office Development Fund  

• listening to the concerns of the countryside and helping to solve problems such as the spread of Bovine TB  

• and, importantly, action to promote increased recycling and to limit packaging in supermarkets.   

We committed ourselves to give priority to the development of renewable energy technologies like solar, tidal and bio mass which have been very much underdeveloped and which have massive potential.

These were the ambitious policies that we set out today at Llanelwedd. 

On the way to Cardiff I stop off first in Llandod and then Brecon. Today is
the Brecon Beacons Food Fayre and courageously the decision has been taken to hold it al fresco in the town centre.

As it happens the weather is fine despite threats of gales and rain. I buy a range of Christmas presents and foodstuffs including dragon chutney! This one has obviously got under the Trading Standards radar but if they find out no doubt they will sink their metaphorical teeth into it!
 Before the rugby  match at the WRU lunch there’s a fitting tribute from Gerald Davies to Keith Rowlands and at the match a one minute’s silence later there’s the clash itself with the All Blacks.

We are truly overwhelmed in every department they are foirmidable in defence and superb in attack, Incredibly fast.
The All Blacks dispense with the on pitch Haka having done it in their dressing room before hand. Apparently there has been some dispute about the timing of it and that’s why the Al Blacks performed it behind closed doors!
 Anyway visible Haka or not they were worthy winners.
 

Since 1999 we have seen 298 sub post offices close in Wales. Often these were village post offices. Currently the fight is on to save Lawrenny Post office in my area and  recently there was the very unwelcome news that Pumpsaint Post Office was to close permanently.
The Labour Westminster Government must bear most of the blame for this state of affairs.

The withdrawal of the Post Office card account from 2010 sends out a very clear. message about the Government’s intention to run down Post Office services. In the area I represent, which is an area of villages and small communities with small market towns, the largest town in the area is Llanelli which is quite untypical of the rest of the area.

 
 If there is no local Post Office then often customers, who may have no car, are forced to travel to the nearest town ( which may be some distance away.) to use a bank or Post Office.  The problem is compounded. by the withdrawal of other services from post
offices. It is no longer possible to apply for a TV licence or a passport at a post office, for example.

 
 I believe the local post office whether rural. or urban is something worth fighting for Post Offices should not be judged by economic factors alone they perform a suberb social function too.

Last night a motion of no confidence was passed in the Conservative administration that has successfully run the Vale of Glamorgan Council over the last several years.  I feel immensely sorry for Jeff James who has provided excellent leadership there and it is not clear what position parties hope to gain from the instability that now ensues.  I have spoken to Jeff this morning and sympathised with the decision last night.  Fortunately Jeff is robust and has a very good sense of humour but he must be feeling the truth of the adage that there is no gratitude in politics.    

I am sure he will be back and I am also sure that the people of the Vale of Glamorgan will feel that he has been badly done by.  

Today there was a massive and effective peaceful protest urging the Welsh Assembly government to save threatened community hospital services throughout Wales. The co-sponsors of the event were Mark Isherwood and Kirsty Williams and the CHANT Wales  group dedicated to community hospitals attracted support from three of the political parties in the National Assembly, namely the Welsh Conservatives,  Plaid Cymru, and the Liberal Democrats. Labour did not lend support…

 
Dr. Brian Gibbons the Minister had been invited to attend and speak. The crowd was calling out for him, not quite in the way that an excitable audience might call out for a pop act admittedly but more like “where the hell is the pantomime villain “… No sign of the Doctor but under the pressure of probing cross-examination in the Senedd he confessed to me that he had apparently had to attend to some pressing engagements in Carmarthen.

 
Now this must have been incredibly frustrating for him and no doubt he expended a great deal of time in trying to re-arrange his diary. I feel sure he will now be seeking to make time available to speak to the protestors and holding off pressing demands from communities throughout the western world.

Later in the Chamber the excitement continued when Glyn Davies asked the Culture minister to do his utmost to make May 1st a public holiday. What was this? I know we are in the process of putting the finishing touches to our manifesto but this one had not crossed my desk!

 
Labour meanwhile looked stunned and horrified at being outflanked! But wait May. Day is a Bank Holiday already! Had Glyn misunderstood which flag we are waving - the Welsh flag not the Red one. Glyn claimed he had meant 1st March but our Chief Whip is keeping a close watch on him for any further signs of Old Labour behaviour (it would certainly stand out in. today’s politics!)  So Glyn hide those Lenin posters, delete “Dear Leader” Kim from the contact list and burn those little red books before William Graham’s dawn raid!

Today the Welsh Conservatives have selected Mental Health as the topic for our minority debate. We have discussed this area in group and feel that it has been neglected by the Labour Welsh Assembly government.

In the morning I visited Tegfan Mental Health Centre with Jonathan Morgan. It is on the site of Whitchurch Hospital and is threatened with closure. There is no notion of a successor service and this is deeply worrying.
 Jon and I spent some time talking with the patients and it is clear that they have not been meaningfully involved in talking about their future. These are vulnerable people and I find it worrying some of them have been coming to the hospital for forty years or more.
Jon and I talk to patients and staff but as regards the management we would have probably had a warmer welcome if we had been bailiffs coming to repossess the furniture! It is not a good advertisement for the trust!

   
The debate itself is in general a constructive one although surprisingly from the Labour side only the minister speaks and he is obliged to do so. As the Minister responsible

Today I am speaking to the Chamber of Commerce in Cardiff at the Royal Hotel.  The Royal is in St Mary’s Street and has been impressively revamped inside.  The outside is still not imposing but inside is really very much state of the art. 

I am speaking to the Chamber about the forthcoming Assembly elections and the Welsh Conservative approach to these elections.  Each of the Party Leaders is speaking in turn to the Chamber of Commerce.  The Chairman’s President, Paul Gardner, welcomes me and there is a very good lunch of steak and ale pie, and then I am put through my paces setting out the general themes of our approach to Assembly issues, and I take questions from the audience. 

There is a good range of people there, and not just from Cardiff, as the Chamber covers as far as Bridgend and the Valleys as well, so there are some very interesting questions from different parts of South Wales. 

The Chief Executive of the Chamber these days is Russell Goodway, and he seems to have done a very good job of pulling things together.  The Chamber has a very interesting programme, not least Ronnie Corbett addressing the Christmas lunch.  Interestingly and unsurprisingly it is the only event that is an absolute sell out and no doubt they could have sold it out many times over. 

The issues that concern the chamber are issues of transport and infrastructure, business costs, education, and certainly the funding gap with Higher Education in England raises it head as well as planning issues and climate change.  It is a very varied discussion of political issues.  The need for action to tackle Cardiff’s congestion is also a feature that arises during the discussion and I have much more sympathy with this on the return journey to the National Assembly for a meeting with the FUW and I am held up for a protracted period in Callaghan Square.