Llinos Medi MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 6 Feb 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  This is a leadership discussion—it is about the leadership we are asking the Government to show in giving Wales the fairness it deserves. We are asking for clarity around public money. I am a bit concerned that there should be a commercially sensitive discussion around public money, which is meant to be transparent. We can get it through freedom of information requests, so it should be easy to collate that information so that the people of Wales and across the United Kingdom can see how their local authorities are spending their money on the Crown Estate and where that is spent afterwards. In addition, I am unclear about the role of the commissioners. The information that we are asking for in these new clauses would strengthen the role of the commissioners and give them the ability to fulfil their role for the benefit of those regions whose concerns they are there to voice. I will press this matter to a vote. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

• 6 Feb 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am unsure how the Minister can say that we would not receive any profits when the Government cannot work out what profits Wales generates. It feels a bit difficult to understand that argument. I am fighting the corner for fairness for Wales. We have lost all our natural resources and that has been feeding the UK machine. Unfortunately, we are seeing poverty on the rise and deindustrialisation in communities. The new clause would see the profits that are generated given back to those communities, to be spent in those communities and on their future. Question put , That the clause be read a Second time.

• 28 Jan 2025 · Agricultural Property Relief · Hansard source

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  Tenant farmers on Ynys Môn are expected to be impacted by the change to APR because landowners there will have no option but to sell their farms to cover the additional cost. The landowners have a good relationship with their tenants but they have no choice but to sell, leaving generational farmers to lose their homes, businesses and future, with long-lasting effects on the rural community. Does my hon. Friend agree that the realities of agriculture in Wales, including for tenant farmers, must be fully considered by the UK Government in a Wales-specific impact assessment?

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  A trained and skilled workforce is central to a successful defence policy, and I saw that at first hand during my visit to RAF Valley, where I met Babcock apprentices who attend Grŵp Llandrillo Menai. The Babcock programme supports young people to develop skills, so can I ask the Secretary of State to ensure that any increase in defence spending includes significant investment in training and apprenticeships?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Holocaust Memorial Day · Hansard source

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  Diolch, Dirprwy Lefarydd. It is a privilege to be here, hearing words of kindness and joining with others against hate on the day when we remember one of our worst times in history. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia. As we look back and reflect on those horrors, we remember the stories of those who fell victim to unspeakable crimes, and take lessons from history. The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “For a better future”; as we consider what it means to build a better future, we must all look at what can be done to create a future that is no longer blighted by prejudice. Recent figures show that there is much work to be done to fulfil that promise. Eighty years on from the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, religious hate crimes in England and Wales are at a record high. Home Office statistics show a 25% increase in religious hate crimes in the year to March 2024. In October, the monitoring group Tell MAMA UK said it had recorded 4,971 incidents of anti-Muslim hate between October ’23 and September ’24—the highest annual total in the past 14 years—while the Community Security Trust recorded 1,978 reports of anti-Jewish hate incidents from January to June 2024, up from 964 in the first half of 2023. The rise in these appalling hate crimes is a cause of deep concern, and all those who have been the victim of these crimes deserve our friendship and solidarity. Among those murdered in the Holocaust was Helene Melanie Lebel. Born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother in Vienna and known affectionately as Helly, she loved to swim and go to the opera. After finishing her secondary education, she entered law school. At 19, she began showing signs of a mental health condition and was forced to give up her law studies and work, and was later diagnosed as schizophrenic. A year later, she became one of the thousands of mentally and physically disabled people murdered in the Brandenburg killing centre. After the second world war, many ordinary Germans and Europeans claimed that they were not involved in the events of the Holocaust—that they were bystanders. Their indifference teaches us that passively remembering the Holocaust is not enough. We must continue to learn from and listen to the stories of the victims and the survivors—the Jewish, the disabled, and the gay men and women whose lives were ended because the Nazis decided that they did not deserve to exist. As we look to the future, it is incumbent on all of us parliamentarians to speak out against genocide denial and distortion. We must forcefully speak out against prejudice and hate wherever it is found, whether here in Parliament or in our communities. Holocaust Memorial Day is a reminder to all of us that the fight against prejudice and intolerance must never cease. Only by continuing this fight, in memory of Helly and the millions who died as she did, can we secure a better future.

• 22 Jan 2025 · Competition and Markets Authority Chairman · Hansard source

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  Diolch, Llefarydd. The Government say that the CMA’s chair had failed to convince them that he was sufficiently focused on growth, but at the same time, reports suggest that the Government plan to freeze all rail spending except for on three projects in England. A lack of transport funding is stifling growth in the Welsh economy. To prove his commitment to growth, will the Minister outline the transport funding that his Government have committed to Wales?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The Crown Estate owns 65% of Wales’s foreshore and riverbeds, and more than 50,000 acres of land. Recent rising demand for renewable energy projects has resulted in the value of the land sky-rocketing. In 2007, the asset value of the Crown Estate in Wales was £21.1 million, and in 2023 this reached £853 million. Correspondingly, profits generated from these assets have also increased. Net revenue profit across the Crown Estate rose from £345 million in 2020 to £1.1 billion in 2024. Profits generated from Wales’s natural resources are, however, not retained for the Welsh public purse; instead they leave Wales and are sent to the Treasury and the sovereign grant. In contrast, in Scotland the Crown Estate is devolved and profits from Scottish natural resources are transferred to the Scottish Government. In 2024 the sum was estimated to be a record £108.3 million. How can the Government justify Welsh profits being sent to the Treasury and the monarch when in Scotland they are held back and put back into the Scottish purse? The situation is worse than that, with Welsh councils having to pay lease fees simply to use the land which is owned by the Crown Estate. In 2023 the sum was nearly £300,000. With huge pressures on council budgets, how can that be justified? In the age of coal, Wales saw a huge extraction of wealth from our communities. In 2025, Wales is now experiencing a similar process of extraction of our green wealth.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I will come on to that, too, because as an energy champion for my constituents for many years I am fully aware that we do not want any delay but there is a way of working that through slowly while also benefiting from Scotland’s experience. Plaid Cymru has been leading the calls for devolution of the Crown Estate for many years, and in July 2023 the Senedd passed a Plaid Cymru motion calling for the devolution of the management of the Crown Estate to the Welsh Government. Only through the devolution of the Crown Estate can the people of Wales have democratic control over their natural resources. Plaid Cymru will be bringing forward an amendment to devolve the Crown Estate to Wales. Although we will be looking to engage constructively with the Government, including on how to support the Welsh Government, the Crown Estate and energy developers to prepare for devolution, they cannot simply ignore the direction of travel. There is an overwhelming consensus in Wales for devolution. It is supported by the Welsh Labour Government and the independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales as well as 58% of the people of Wales. It is time for the Government to listen and devolve the Crown Estate to Wales.

• 7 Jan 2025 · Crown Estate Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I will come on to answer that question and perhaps show a pragmatic way of working forward. As I said, in 2025 Wales is now experiencing a similar process of extraction of our green wealth and we cannot let this happen. As in Scotland, it is for the people of Wales to have control and derive the benefit from all profits generated from our own resources. However, the Bill makes no mention of devolving the Crown Estate to Wales despite the fact that the new investment and borrowing powers under the Bill may allow the Crown Estate to generate £100 million more a year in profits for the Treasury. None of this will be retained by the Welsh Government. In the other place, Lord Hain’s amendment, supported by Plaid Cymru, has ensured that there will be Welsh representation on the Crown Estate board. While we welcome that as a step forward it still does not address the fact that membership of the Crown Estate board is largely outside of democratic control as it is the monarch who appoints the commissioners who make investment and borrowing decisions, not Parliament or the Senedd.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Health and Adult Social Care Reform · Hansard source

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  During 14 years of austerity, the NHS has been starved of the resources it badly needs. Four months ago, the Secretary of State for Wales made a big announcement about cross-border NHS partnership to tackle waiting lists; however, the First Minister of Wales later poured cold water over the idea, and today’s plan for England does not mention Wales. Was this so-called partnership ever real, or was it just another empty promise?