Chamber of Commerce
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.
