---

Welsh Affairs

If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we should stand by and allow our agricultural sector to decline, I am not with him. Our farmers deserve our support. However, our countryside is not just farms, but our wildlife and parks. A balance must be struck by future Administrations to protect that heritage, while allowing development to deliver greater prosperity to as many as possible. Our seaside towns, in particular, deserve much greater attention than they have received under this Administration. They have served generations of holiday makers well in the past and, under Conservative plans, will be given a new lease of life to provide the holiday destinations of the future. With award-winning beaches such as Oxwich bay on the Gower, and as awareness of carbon footprints rises, so too, with some encouragement, could the demand to holiday closer to home. We must be ready to meet that demand. We must be ready in Wales—here I agree with the Secretary of State—to meet the demands of the ever more challenging globalisation of our world and the competition that is eating the heart out of some of our traditional industries in Wales. We agree with both sides of the House that we must all support Airbus, which provides leading-edge technology and engineering capabilities in our Welsh economy and supports almost 7,000 jobs in Wales. Those jobs also impact on a further 50,000 jobs in the supply chain. I hope that the Government can give us assurances that they will continue to ensure that research and technology, which is vital for this company to secure work in the future, will be available. We need an improving economy in Wales.