---

Welsh Affairs

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The great paradox that people in my constituency do not understand is why, when public spending was being ramped up so rapidly, they did not see the benefit of it and instead saw cuts to important local services. If Labour wishes to bring its election campaign to west Wales to argue that a Labour Government would mean continued spending and a Tory Government would mean cuts, it will not get far with the people of Pembrokeshire. I say with no disrespect to the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire (Nick Ainger) that Labour faces the prospect of not having a Member west of Swansea after this coming election, because of what it has done to rural west Wales. I conclude by making a few remarks about transport infrastructure. I have spoken before about the inadequate state of the road network connecting west Wales to the rest of the United Kingdom. The A40, which is the principal route running east-west through my constituency, forms part of the strategic European road network linking the west coast of Ireland with continental Europe, yet the people who use that road and make the long journeys—I am thinking of the lorry drivers to whom I have spoken—say that the very worst section of that continental route is the bit through Pembrokeshire. It is a single carriageway, it is overused and it is dangerous. Pembrokeshire contains a quarter of the UK's remaining oil refineries, the liquefied natural gas plants that will provide up to 20 per cent. of the UK's gas supply, and two major ferry terminals, yet this pathetic single carriageway A40 goes through it. Labour in Westminster and Labour in the Assembly has been completely resistant to any argument put to it by the business community, Assembly Members, MPs or local authorities for improving, upgrading and dualling that section of road. I am sick and tired of seeing Labour Ministers make the journey down to my constituency to have their photographs taken at the new LNG sites, the oil refineries and the other developments in my constituency, and to praise those developments, given that they will not listen to the views of the management of these companies—the foreign investors who have pumped money into these projects—who say, "For goodness' sake, why can't we improve the transport infrastructure?" Part of the reason why is that as we now have the Welsh Assembly, a Cardiff-centric body is making the decisions about transport spending. Pembrokeshire and other parts of west Wales are a blind spot for the Welsh Assembly.