Old Colwyn (East) Residents’ Association
Minutes of a talk by David Jones MP for Clwyd West
at the Open Meeting Wednesday 12th August 2009
David Jones MP began his talk by thanking the association for inviting him to what would be his last visit in this Parliament as there will be a General Election by June 2010. He recalled that he had visited the Association every year since his election and hoped that he would attend in the capacity of MP after the next election but said that he realised that that relied on the public and not him.
He expressed his appreciation of the work done by the secretary who he said does an excellent job for the association and keeps in close touch with him.
Cliff Prout MBE
He also paid tribute to Cliff Prout; a man who he said had done tremendous service for Old Colwyn, Colwyn Bay, Llandulas and other areas. He described him as a most remarkable man. The way he has been bearing himself in his illness at present shows that he is a very brave man too. He spoke of his tremendous respect for him and said that he would like to echo the remarks made in the meeting by the Chair and secretary. We are all thinking of him.
David started by saying that he was present to listen to what those present had to say and answer any questions and also take up any issues that they may have. He had a couple of matters to discuss which affected Old Colwyn and the immediate area.
Local issues
He had been disturbed to hear on the agenda and police report about drug dealing in the area, as he travels around the constituency he forms the opinion that drugs are an increasing problem and something which must be tackled. Drugs and the associated problems lead to other criminality and wreck the lives of an awful lot of people before they have a chance in life. Tackling the problem is a top priority in his view; the police should be properly resourced to deal with the problem but also that they should be properly motivated. That message should come down from the top level of government to the police officer on the beat that the matter should be an absolute priority.
He noted that there is continuing problem which remains from last year, that of the
consumption of alcohol on the street and the antisocial behaviour that that leads
to. He explained that properly regulated pubs are one of the defences of alcohol
abuse but it worries him that about fifty pubs are closing every week because they
cannot make it pay. The supermarkets have a large element of blame because they regard
cheap alcohol as loss-
The Victoria Pier
David then spoke of another issue which was still astonishingly unresolved since last year, that of Colwyn Bay Victoria Pier.
He summed up that the pier belonged to Steve Hunt who was made bankrupt by the Council who pursued him for rates. As a consequence the Pier vested in his Receiver, Mr Wythenshawe, an accountant from Manchester. Mr Hunt is at present involved in litigation against the Council and has complained to the police about various issues of the case. He has now been discharged from bankruptcy but the Pier remains vested with Mr Wythenshawe whilst Mr Hunt tries to get his Pier back.
The condition of the Pier is dangerous and Mr Hunt has complained to Mr Wythenshawe, with whom the responsibility for the Pier resides, about the condition of the Pier. David was glad to hear in the meeting that the Council is pursuing Mr Wythenshawe about the state of the Pier.
Colwyn Bay is benefiting from money due under Strategic Regional Assistance: one of the matters comprehended within that grant will be the renovation and refurbishment of the promenade. A problem is that the Pier is sticking out like a sore thumb and it seems impossible to comprehend the renewal of the waterfront without including the Pier as part of the process at a cost of maybe £6million. The SRA money is match funded so whatever money comes from the scheme, half of it will be paid by the community. £3million is a tall order in the current economic climate.
David said that he believes that the Pier is a severe problem and that the community have got to engage with Mr Hunt or whoever owns the Pier to find a way forward because without it the Waterfront refurbishment Project cannot realistically go ahead.
Landfill Tax
This had been mentioned in the agenda and David said that there is another side to it which he wanted to mention. The Landfill Tax also provides money
for regeneration which is administered in North Wales by WREN, (Waste Recycling Environmental
Limited -
He mentioned it because he thought it worth reminding everyone that the fund is there, if there is a community project that funds are needed for, WREN are anxious to disperse money in their catchment area.
Parliament generally
David reiterated that a General election will be upon us by June next year at the
latest. There is not a huge amount going on in Parliament at the moment. One major
bill going through at present is the Marine Coastal Access Bill which should be finished
by October. Beyond that there is not a lot of major legislation coming through and
we are very much in the pre-
It is important that politicians treat people as adults and not hide the fact that the next few years will bring financial pain. He said that there are reasonable services in Clwyd West and there will be choices to be made, whether Council Tax increases possibly way beyond inflation, or whether cuts are made or a balance between the two. That will happen at a National level also, hard choices to be made and people will have to decide what their priorities are.
A consequence of that type of decision will be that people will have to do a lot more for themselves. Charitable and voluntary bodies, the third sector as a whole is going to become much more important even than it is now.
He summed up by saying that groups such as this residents’ association will probably have a lot more influence and responsibility than they have at the moment. People will be resorting increasingly to self help to decide if they want services of a particular sort in their area and whether they should group together in order to deliver those services. The effective communities will be those that have got a strong community ethos of the sort that we have got in Old Colwyn.
David said that he keeps in touch regularly with our local councillors. In his opinion it is important that representatives of the community at all levels should be working very closely indeed and even more so over the next few years. The days are gone when citizens of this country can expect the state to do everything for them. We will live through a very tough period indeed. Strong communities will pull through.
He thanked the group for inviting him to speak every year since election and asked if there were any questions. There was a spontaneous round of applause.
Councillor Brian Cossey. “As someone from a different political party, I am absolutely certain that you will be here this time next year. I think it important that people understand that as county councillors we can only deal with certain matters. Those of us who are County Councillors in Clwyd West always know that no matter what their political party you can go to David Jones MP. It is important that people know how closely you work with us and how much you do to help us in our role”.
David Jones MP interrupted to say “It works both ways”
Councillor Cossey continued “Of course it does but it would be quite easy as has happened in the past for our MP to go off to Westminster and then you don’t see them for four years. That does not happen with you, you are always available and I congratulate you on that”
A resident asked of the current economic climate, so much money has been lent to banks who in turn are not lending to business. Can the Government not do anything to make the banks play fair?
David replied What the Government had to do as a matter of priority was to recapitalise the banks, Confidence had gone out of the system. There were queues outside Northern Rock. Elsewhere in the world banks were collapsing.
To be recapitalised the need capital and a lot of the money that has gone into the banks in cash or guarantees, has been given on the basis that they improve their balance sheet or liquidity. Previously the banks were operating on 6% liquidity reserves. As a consequence of the recapitalisation, that has increased to 11%. In other words, the Government has lent the money to the banks but a lot of that is sitting with the banks in order to fulfil the new liquidity criteria, double the money that they required previously. The money is not moving around.
We also have a lot of toxic assets still in the system and we don’t know where they are. We are waiting for the Government’s proposals about that. One of the possible proposals is that there should be a “Bad Bank” where the toxic assets are diverted. We still have to identify where the assets are.
Although the Government has lent the money to the banks, it is lent at a rate of 12% via bonds. The banks are lending some of that money back to the Government at a rate of 4%, an 8% disparity.
A further problem is confidence because some industries such as builders cannot borrow money at all. The confidence can take years to build up and can be destroyed in an instant. The shock has been such that it will probably take several years to work through.
So there are many problems and the Government cannot simply say “lend the money”. It is helping to a certain extent, we the taxpayers now own several of the banks, RBS: 40% of Lloyds TSB: the Government can do something but is acting on an arms length basis. It has set up a corporation to hold the National Interest in the banks. That is behaving as an ordinary shareholder and not as a shareholder with a special interest in directing the banks to lend money.
The Government has so far secured the banking system from collapse. That is along way from getting the money flowing again.
The Bank of England has said today that this recession is going to be much deeper and much longer than even the Bank of England expected.
We need to look at regulation, it was lax. Mervyn King has said that he could see Northern Rock collapsing but because of the “tripod” setup of the regulatory system: Treasury, Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority, he could not intervene. Northern Rock fell through the gap between those three bodies. The Bank of England should have overall responsibility as the ultimate regulator for the system and that must happen.
It is not as simple as the Government saying to the banks “You have had the money, now pass it on”; It does not work that way.
A resident commented that there does seem to be a lot of greed associated with the banking system and the Government does not appear to have approached that issue.
David replied about bonuses that the FSA only yesterday came up with guidelines as to the granting of bonuses by banks. So it is being addressed. The difficulty is that the working of the financial system has always been and will be the balancing of fear on the one hand and greed on the other.
Speaking personally he expressed a view that the bankers did behave very badly indeed but if someone does really well and makes a large amount of money for his company he may be rewarded with a bonus. What he objects to is when he can destroy a bank and destroy peoples businesses and livelihoods and still get a bonus, as happened in the case of Fred Goodwin’ the CEO of RBS who presided over the destruction of his bank and managed to persuade Lord Myners, the minister in charge that he should have an enormous pension out of the RBS pension fund.
The Chair added that there is a lot of bad feeling about this issue which passes on elsewhere of course.
David replied that if the Chair was talking about MPs expenses, it is pretty small beer compared with Fred Goodwin. About twenty to thirty MPs behaved extremely badly. He holds the view that the vast majority of MPs did not behave badly. Nobody sensible believes that you can send a Member of Parliament to London to look after the interests of his or her constituency without giving them a roof over their head, a bed to sleep on and so on.
The Telegraph quite disgracefully decided that they would tar every MP with the same brush. Ultimately that does not just affect MPs but also peoples’ trust in the Institution of Parliament.
Overall, the Telegraph did some good but they did a lot of bad also.
It caused great stress for MPs and their families. The Telegraph reporters did their business by email asking MPs to answer questions by a certain time: in his own case there had been no wrongdoing in two allegations that were made to him and then the paper did not acknowledge the emails that were sent, this caused more stress necessitating phone calls and these were treated in cavalier fashion with a “sorry about that, we are not running that story” attitude.
One of the allegations made against David was “You spent £9.79 on purchasing a Welsh-
David said that be believed that the people who behaved particularly badly were the
people who were flipping their houses, designating and re-
He also raised a degree of merriment from the audience when he said that he had not bought a Daily Telegraph since.
The Chair pointed out that David had stood up and spoken at length on the issue, it was good of him to have done so as openly as he did.
David added “having said that I did not feel that I had anything to hide”
A resident said that with relation to the Victoria Pier, he hoped that something is done because he would not like to see it demolished. It is dilapidated but he also would not like it to delay the improvements to the promenade. He had seen a hole in the promenade a couple of weeks previously; it was just larger than a person’s foot, later it was coned off and dug out and twenty feet of prom was cordoned off.
Councillor Cossey added the whole of the promenade is honeycombed with tunnels where the sea has gone through.
The resident continued to say that the sooner the better we see something being done with the promenade to. It is a main thoroughfare for people from Old Colwyn.
David added that it is important; everyone wants to see the Waterfront Regeneration going ahead as quickly as possible. So far as the Pier is concerned he had met with Colwyn Bay Civic Society who recommended that the Pier be demolished as it is in their opinion beyond rescue. We cannot sit around for another couple of years while the Pier continues to disintegrate. We need some impetus to engage with Mr Hunt and his Receiver.
David continued that he believes that the Council were precipitous because the sum of money involved in the bankruptcy was not great. As a result of the litigation, we have effectively lost twelve months while the Pier has continued to decline. His view is that there will be more litigation. It may be that the demolition of the Pier is the only solution. It is a highly emotional issue in Colwyn Bay. Some want it demolished, others have memories of years ago vested in the Pier. He asked how long people can live on a memory when we have something which is doing Colwyn Bay no credit at all. It looks awful.
Mark Chatham said that with respect to Mr Hunt who has been there for perhaps 5 years but nothing has changed. Structurally nothing has been done. It looks worse than it has ever done and he could not see a prospect of Mr Hunt doing anything meaningful with it.
There was a short discussion about the fact that work has been done on the inside of the building and that he is the owner and someone has to engage with him. He is not being awkward in any sense, he is happy to talk. There was a point of view that Mr Hunt was not easy to work with.
David Jones summed up that Mr Hunt is the owner and he is the person to talk to.
A resident asked when the pier at Rhos on sea was removed were there any differences with the tidal flow and would that pertain if the Victoria Pier was removed.
That question was beyond David’s experience to comment on. Another resident stated that she was working in the area when the Rhos pier was removed and the water came over and went down Penrhyn Avenue.
Councillor Cossey said that he was at a regeneration meeting that day and the pier is always on the agenda. A lady was present from the Welsh Assembly Government and she said that the Assembly would not deal with someone who was bankrupt.
The official position is that when the Waterfront is redeveloped, the pier has either got to have a plan to upgrade or a plan to demolish. We cannot just leave it as it is.
David Jones continued that when the issue of the ownership of the pier is over, if Mr Hunt does not recover it, David wants to hold a public meeting so that people can give their views. His own view he stated as moving to a position where the pier is beyond rescue.
Councillor Cossey said that he believed that there is a third way, where the most dangerous part is taken away and the pavilion to the shore is retained.
Mark Chatham asked if there had ever been a structural survey done.
David replied that one had been done but not for some time and that is another worry, he is of the view that the receiver has not had a structural survey done.
A resident stated that he had walked under the structure recently and the wood and the metal was bowing and appeared dangerous.
The secretary stated that he had read an article recently that the Crown Prosecution Service had made a statement that they should be seen as acting in the public interest, not as the champion of the victim. He stated that he did not see how the two things could be taken apart; you defend the victim you act in the public interest.
David Jones replied that it seemed to him that in prosecuting a person for injuring another, the prosecutor has to some extent take the side of the victim. It is the damage to the victim that has instigated the prosecution.
The secretary continued saying that CPS only take forward cases which have almost 100% chance of success. They are not really acting in the public interest and what is the Conservative party going to do about it?
David Jones clarified that the situation has got worse since the CPS took over in terms of only taking forward cases that have nearly 100% chance of success. He stated that he is not the Front Bench Home Affairs spokesperson and therefore cannot give policy on the CPS.
He did say however that Conservatives disapprove strongly of plea bargaining. They also disapprove strongly with fixed penalty notices for shoplifting. Fixed penalty in this respect becomes an overhead or tax for a shoplifter. This is just put in place to speed up the administration process of prosecution. He offered to arrange for his colleague Chris Grayling to attend a meeting.
The Chair mentioned human rights, 99% of people behave correctly, would not offend or hurt anyone and yet when offenders claim protection of their human rights they are upheld.
David Jones replied that the Human rights involved usually meant the rights of everyone other than the person whose human rights have been infringed. The most undeserving people have their human rights taken into account.
He spoke of an incident which had made him angry this week; the mother of the murdered child from Haringey and her boyfriend. He expressed his outrage that this country will have to spend a million pounds protecting these people after their discharge from prison. We no longer have a death penalty, some would say more is the pity. He could see no justification for persons who had behaved in such an outrageous manner to expect the country to expend those sums of money to protect them from persons who were outraged by their actions. They should take their chances with the public; the poor baby never had a chance.
The Conservatives he said will scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights which will rebalance the issue.
There is always stress placed on rights and no stress is placed on a person’s obligations which are the other side of the coin of a right. Rather than the word right, David said he would prefer the word liberty. You would have certain liberties as part of the payback for the obligations that you owe the society that you live in. This is a much better model than a society that says that you have rights, come what may no matter how undeserving you are and no matter how badly you have behaved to your neighbour.
A resident expressed an opinion about the expenses of MPs issue she had heard a brave woman on a radio 4 program a while ago by a lady who works in Parliament. It highlighted the effect that the Telegraph stories were having on innocent MPs and their families.
David replied that he had heard the program; some of his colleagues on both sides of the house had behaved badly especially in the house flipping which was a flagrant massaging of the system for financial benefit. In a few months time after all the innocent people have been pilloried you will see little apologies in small print on page 15 instead of the front page. People should be exposed if they have behaved badly but to suggest that every member is on the fiddle is nonsense. He detailed some of the long hours that he and his colleagues works and suggested that they are due to some respect for that. It is offensive to suggest that every member is junketing at taxpayers’ expense and it is undermining the democratically elected Parliament. If Parliament fails, the country fails.
A resident asked how much power does this Parliament have? most things seem to be overruled in Europe.
David replied that Parliament should have more power, its influence has been diminished a lot under this Government. Bills come along and the Government first of all asks for a Program Motion, limiting debate on the Bill. Heavy legislation such as the Companies Bill and Planning Bill and the Marine Bill is affected in this way. There was not 100% debate on all the clauses of the first two Bills because a guillotine had been put on debate. The third Bill is set to be the same soon. This is extremely bad because a well organised society relies on good quality legislation. If legislation is not scrutinised properly at committee stage then it will be inevitably defective. The Companies Bill is massively important and also the Planning Bill is almost as important and David said that when you think that they have not been properly scrutinised, that is a worry.
In terms of Europe, more and more legislation is coming from Europe and it is not democratically produced. The European Commission produce it. The European Parliament has negligible power to develop legislation. David pointed out that he is deeply sceptical about the continuing encroachment of Euro Legislation into our National life. We should be pulling back a lot of power from Europe. David said that Pan European legislation is sensible in some areas such as environmental issues but when so many facets of our life are controlled by Europe developed by an undemocratic body then we should be very worried. The treaty of Lisbon is also very worrying as it is in David’s view a step towards a Federal Europe. He said that he hoped that the Irish will not ratify it on 2nd October.
There should have been a referendum on the treaty as promised by every political party. All three major Parties promised a referendum on the European Constitution. The Lisbon Treaty is the European Constitution in all but name. Clause by clause it is 95% the same as the draft constitution. Conservatives would hold a referendum on it if it has not been ratified, the Conservatives will be announcing what they will do if the Irish ratify the treaty.
The Chair asked if the drinking problem is to do with the taxing system on alcohol in supermarkets against the taxes in pubs.
David answered that in his view the supermarkets are paying the tax on alcohol and
using it as a loss leader to get people into their premises. It is being debated
in Parliament as to whether changes can be made. The major chain-
The Chair spoke about the recession and the loss of jobs but often in the papers there are adverts for public sector jobs, council etc, and asked how can they do so?
David replied that they will not be able to do so, there will be spending cuts and people have to get used to that. There are still jobs advertised. On the day of the meeting, unemployment went up 220,000 over a period of three months and 800,000 over twelve months. Unemployment in Clwyd West has doubled over twelve months. An increasing number of people will come to be depending financially on a declining pool of wealth creators. Whichever party wins the next election, the public sector is going to contract by natural wastage or whatever. The present growth is unsustainable.
An interesting job recently was a walking advisor £20,000 to advise people who don’t get out to walk that walking might be a good idea. The idea was to tackle the obesity crisis. The public sector may be bloated.
David said that the NHS now has more managers than it has beds. The civil service as a whole is of a size equivalent to a city the size of Sheffield.
Mr Evans asked if this meant that our system of local democracy was not working because surely our elected councillors should be scrutinising the jobs and rejecting them.
Councillor Cossey replied that the Welsh Assembly Government has signalled reduction in Conwy Council budget of £4million each year for the next five years on a £180million budget. Some services will disappear
David added that if the impact of recession is factored in it will probably get worse. He added that he thinks that the third sector is going to get increasingly important and applauds community efforts because that is the way forward. People will get used to getting together to do things for themselves. Things will be changing across the board.
A resident stated that the news had stated that Welsh unemployment had dropped.
David replied that economic inactivity had increased. Unemployed figures are of those eligible for work and claiming benefit. Economically inactive includes people on the sick and in Wales a much higher percentage are registered sick, claiming invalidity and sickness benefit, than in other parts of the country. The economically inactive in this country is about 80,000 short of 8 million people probably increasing to 10 million before the recession is over.
The Chair brought the session to a close and thanked David Jones MP for Clwyd West for a very enlightening talk. There was a round of applause.
