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Welsh Affairs

I hope that before the end of the debate one of my more gallant friends will give you a daffodil, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] I now see that you are already wearing a daffodil, but perhaps one of my hon. Friends will offer you a larger one. It is more than 25 years since I was a Member of the European Parliament, but I recall that we were often given only three minutes to make a speech. It is amazing how much can be said in three minutes. Back Benchers have a time limit this afternoon, although I hope to be much briefer than that. It seems a long time since we discussed the length of Front-Bench speeches in the House, and it is time we did so. I have sat on the Front Bench, but I know, too, that one of the most irritating things for Back Benchers is for Front Bench speakers to go on too long—[Hon. Members: ““Hear, hear.””]—and my criticism applies to both sides of the House. I want to thank the Wales Office, because there are many good news stories in Wales, although we would not think so from listening to the Welsh media and reading the Welsh press. Many column inches are devoted to disasters, such as the loss of X hundred jobs. However, this week we have saved 500 jobs in Wales at Ferrari, which is based in my constituency and has shops throughout south Wales. I am grateful to the Wales Office for its assistance, to the Welsh Assembly, my AM colleague, Christine Chapman, and the representative of the bakers union, John Jones, who was optimistic throughout—he was certainly more optimistic than me. I am pleased to welcome the new owner of Ferrari, Cameron Gunn, who is Australian. I must say that, were it not for the assistance of the Wales Office, and some of the Ministers and officials in particular, we would have had great difficulty. It has meant a lot of hard work, but we have done it quietly and persistently. Every day, and sometimes all of every day, we have been talking to prospective buyers and to people who could assist them. It is a considerable success that 500 jobs have been saved throughout south Wales. The bakery is in Hirwaun in my constituency. Some of the workers have worked in the bakery for 30 years and sometimes whole families have worked there. I am particularly glad for them, because they knew that they had a good product. I kept telling them, ““While the customers continue to buy, the workers will continue to bake,”” and they have continued to bake, despite the threat hanging over them. The Ferrari family started baking in south Wales in 1925. Like many other successful immigrants at the time, the Ferraris came from Italy, on boats used for trading Italian timber, which was needed to support the mines of south Wales. The family originally came from the Bardi region and worked as miners when they arrived in south Wales, until they saw the gap in the market and became some of the earliest café owners, along with Sid Doli’s ice cream, Benny’s cafés and many other well-known brands. The company was one of the many examples of the integration and success of migrant families, in an area famous for early integration. The other subject that I want to talk about briefly is homelessness. I am doing so in a non-partisan way. As somebody who has not been faced with the problem of homelessness in my constituency, to my knowledge, for a long time as a Member of Parliament, I have been shocked recently in Cardiff to see people sitting on the streets, by lifts, wrapped up in blankets, begging. I had conversations with some of those young people and asked what they are doing there and why they are not in some kind of accommodation. Each time, they told me, ““The hostels are full.”” I find it disgraceful that, in 2007, we should still be faced with homeless people in our communities. Some, of course, are homeless from choice and there will always be people like that in our community. Other people are homeless because they have quarrelled with their parents, or they cannot afford the rent and have lost their tenancy. There are all sorts of reasons. The situation was brought home to me a few weeks ago by an 18-year-old girl in my constituency. She did not have any previous problems. She was thrown out by her mother and, after some months of living with her boyfriend’s family, she found that she had no alternative but to go out on to the streets to sleep. I was shocked when I discovered that my local council, Rhondda Cynon Taf, was unable to provide accommodation for her because she was not considered to be a priority need as defined by Assembly legislation—despite the fact that she was a vulnerable young woman, sleeping rough on the streets at a time when the police in Aberdare were searching for a man who had committed a serious sexual attack against a woman in broad daylight in the same town only a few days previously. I was even more shocked to discover that there is not one direct access hostel in my constituency. The nearest one is in Pontypridd and has only 10 beds to deal with the 560 referrals it received last year. For those, mostly young, people who have nowhere to go and who do not meet the priority guidelines, there are few alternatives, certainly in rural and semi-urban areas, other than the sofas of friends and the streets. According to Shelter Cymru, over recent years more people than ever have experienced homelessness in Wales. Recorded homelessness in Wales has been at record levels: more than 20,000 people, 7,000 of whom were dependent children and who were accepted by local councils as homeless in 2005. Shelter Cymru dealt with 18,632 housing problems last year. There is obviously a need for more suitable accommodation for people who lose their tenancies, but that goes only part of the way to solving the problem. There is certainly a lack of emergency, direct-access accommodation, which is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. In my view more could be done to help people retain their tenancies by providing supported accommodation for those who need it, and social services and tenancy support services. In that way we could greatly reduce the numbers who come through the doors of our local housing advice centres and hostels, and who line our pavements and sleep in our parks. I commend the work of the Welsh Assembly. It has been much more progressive on this issue than the equivalent authorities in England. The Assembly has really tried to address homelessness and done a great deal to implement preventive measures. However, there needs to be yet more emphasis on such measures, including mediation between parents and children. It is crucial that housing associations, independent housing charities and other services work more closely together. Most people come into contact with the health service and social services before becoming homeless, and it is vital that those services address homelessness at that stage. In addition, there must be an increase in the number of drug and alcohol rehabilitation places, which is still disgracefully low. There must also be increased practical support and training, and emotional support for vulnerable groups such as care leavers and prison leavers. Let me end on an optimistic note, which is that in my constituency, as in many others in Wales, the percentage of people unemployed has almost halved over the past 10 years. That is a tremendous success, and I compliment my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on helping to achieve it.