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Welsh Affairs

Given the time and the fact that a neighbouring hon. Member and friend, the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), wants to speak, I will be very quick. I want to raise three or four issues relating to Ceredigion, all of which are economic in nature. The first is funding for higher education and research in Wales. I am concerned that the suggested restructuring of IBERS at Aberystwyth university raises the prospect of up to 70 job losses. That is a blow not only to those individuals and the economy of north Ceredigion, but to the Welsh research base. Given the circumstances—a shortfall of £2.4 million and a changed emphasis in research funding priorities—I should say from the outset that I understand the rationale behind the university's strategy, but that does not mitigate the blow that north Ceredigion will face. This has been an ongoing saga, affecting the funding of the plant breeding station, of which my noble Friend Lord Elystan-Morgan reminded me, the funding of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research and now the funding of IBERS. In the wake of the emergence of IBERS—the merger of IGER with Aberystwyth university, with significant funding from the Welsh Assembly Government, which has been greatly welcomed—we faced early concerns about the high expectations of the university's capacity to compete in the global environment. I am sure that the university has the potential, the hope and the experience to compete from a global perspective, but there are great concerns among the work force. IBERS has chosen to focus its core research on the necessary areas of climate change, biofuels and food security—a narrowing of its research. They are major issues now and they will be major issues in the foreseeable future, but my concern is that we will lose the broad research base and that the new focus could be too prescriptive. I have no doubt that the expertise at IBERS will ensure that it remains competitive in the global market, but I worry that the agenda of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, in pursuing a narrow set of objectives for universities, will expose further education and research to many commercial pressures. There is also a broader picture, involving the relationship with the UK funding councils in their provision of research funds. The university of Aberystwyth has always had a good relationship with the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. However, Wales receives only about 3 per cent. of the £2.8 billion that is distributed by the UK research councils. Applications should obviously be assessed on merit but, given that Wales accounts for 5 per cent. of the UK population, it is reasonable to ask why Welsh higher education institutions underperform in terms of research funding. That point was raised by the Welsh Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, and I believe that it needs to be highlighted again. IBERS offers outstanding value, not only to my constituency but to Wales as a whole. It provides a core base of 300 skilled jobs. We used to be an objective 1 area, and we need those skilled jobs. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell me what representations he has made, and what plans he can outline for the institute's future. I understand the university's strategy and its need to focus its research on the new environmental agenda, but we must none the less take a broader perspective on the research base. The Secretary of State mentioned the delegation of businesses from Cardigan that came with me to see him yesterday. Those business people had three fundamental concerns. A survey in the Daily Mail a year ago looked at the balance between public sector jobs and small enterprises across the UK as a whole. Surprisingly, given that it is a large rural constituency, Ceredigion was in the top 10, with 40 per cent. of our jobs coming from the public sector. There are great pressures relating to education at the moment, as I have said. We rely on our county council and the national health service for jobs. We also have a huge reliance on small businesses. The business people of Cardigan were concerned, first, about the potential impact of the increase in business rates, despite the remedial action that has been taken by the Assembly Government. It is clear that large areas of Wales are suffering as a result of the revaluation process, including Aberystwyth and Cardigan, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) could highlight areas of his constituency that are suffering as well. Our meeting with the Secretary of State was very positive, and, to his credit, he agreed to take up these concerns with the First Minister. Some of the figures involved are quite staggering, with businesses facing increases in their business rates of between 25 and 40 per cent., sometimes equating to about £7,000 a year. The highest reported increase in Cardigan was £12,000 a year. In a small town whose economy is reliant on small businesses, such figures can make the difference between having staff in a business and losing it completely. I wish the Secretary of State well in his deliberations with the First Minister. We need this point to be made, because the general feeling is that many businesses that face very high business rates are being ignored. Those attending the meeting yesterday also made the point about the lack of a threshold on corporation tax. For a business that is just starting to be profitable, that is a kick in the teeth, and it makes the growth of a small business harder to achieve. The Secretary of State promised to raise that issue with the Chancellor, and I look forward to hearing the response that he gets. We have heard a lot about the banks. At yesterday's meeting, we heard stories of solvent businesses with good prospects wanting to expand, but having to turn down loan offers because the interest rates being offered were as high as 10 per cent. That is wrong, and it is bad for the economy. People do not understand the mismatch between state ownership of a bank and the way in which they are being treated on the high street. We are experiencing particular difficulties in securing mortgages on affordable section 106 properties, which is undermining attempts to expand affordable housing. I had a young couple in my constituency surgery last week. They had been promised a deal by one of the high street banks, but the terms of the deal have changed and they will now lose the property because they have no access to the 20 per cent. deposit that the bank is demanding of them. They had been saving for the past seven years to realise a deposit, but that property is now beyond their means because the bank has changed its tune. The third issue that the small businesses raised was broadband provision. How many of my small businesses can function without it? This is not an issue about broadband speeds; the problem is one of no broadband provision at all. Of course we welcome the Government's commitment to the universal service obligation but, as this week's Business, Innovation and Skills Committee report identified, we do not yet have a mechanism to deliver broadband across Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. Briefly, I want to talk about the legacy of the post office closure programme. I recently hosted a reception by Consumer Focus Wales, which has drawn up a report on the matter. To be fair, hon. Members from all parties attended the reception to listen to its concerns. Many of us remain implacably opposed to the post office closures that took place, and we all share a desire to see the remaining network thrive. However, the report found that the most disadvantaged communities in Wales have lost out, and that those closures have broken many community ties: elderly people, consumers with disabilities, those with long-term sickness, those on low incomes and those who rely on public transport have found it more difficult to access services. Many of my constituents have had that experience. Outreach services have had teething problems, and the Government still have a job to convince us that they are not just a staging post to future closures. Hours of operation do not match up with public transport services and they make it difficult for many to access the post office, or post office van, and there have even been incidents of vans not being able to find a place to park. I welcome the Government's decision to consult on additional funding streams for post offices, particularly the creation of a Post Office bank, which I support. The Minister will surely understand the cynicism of many who feel that the move should have been made before closure, not after. There was a huge mismatch at the time of the network change programme. On the one hand, there was the spectacle of closures, and on the other, there was the National Assembly sensibly and wisely creating the post office diversification fund, for which I pay tribute to it. People could not understand why those things were not working in sync. I wish only that the UK Government had taken the lead of the National Assembly on that. My final point is a parochial but important one for my constituents. We had assurances that the Driving Standards Agency would continue to look for a suitable site for motorcycle testing facilities in west Wales, so that my constituents would not have the choice of travelling to Swansea or Shrewsbury. We had meetings with the chief executive and the Minister with responsibility for road safety, I initiated a debate in Westminster Hall, and an assurance was received that the DSA would continue to look for a site in mid-Wales. A letter from the DSA last week says that it is now giving up on that attempt. Will the Minister speak to his colleagues in the Department for Transport and the DSA, preferably before my meeting with its chief executive in the week after next, to see what can be done? We need such a facility. In many ways, that epitomises how many of us feel in west Wales—that we are still on the periphery, still left out, and still forgotten. I will not be completely pessimistic; there has been good news. There has been more money in schools in Ceredigion, and there are encouraging signs about investment in the national health service. However, there is still a lot to do. If our National Assembly is to mean anything, particularly when we hand over powers—I hope that we have our referendum next autumn—it must be for the whole of Wales, not just the M4 corridor.