In his regular blog for Caerphilly Observer South Wales East AM Lindsay Whittle gives his take on recent news.
Senghenydd Disaster
I will be in Senghenydd on Thursday when the First Minister launches an appeal for the first ever Welsh National Mining Memorial.
With the centenary of the disaster – when 440 men and boys died at the Universal Colliery – next year it is important to have a landmark tribute to those that died and, indeed, others across Wales who have lost their lives in mining accidents.
As Caerphilly Observer readers will be aware the impact of this disaster is very close to my heart as my great grandfather Evan Hopcyn James was one of those that died in what was the UK’s worst colliery disaster.
My grandad, who was then aged 13, recovered the body from the mine. The teenager brought his dad home in the family’s tin bath to be cleaned up and laid out.
Benefit Cuts
Nothing should surprise you about the Tories. David Cameron is trying to placate his right wingers with an announcement about plans to change the welfare system.
In layman’s language they are lining up for another attack on the poorest in society.
We have had the idea of regional benefits floated along with linking out-of-work benefits to wages rather than inflation, if wages are lower and scrapping housing benefit for the under-25s.
Plaid leader Leanne Wood made the point earlier in the week that it makes no sense to cut support people when there are so few jobs and opportunities available to them.
Plaid is seeing more and more people coming to us for help because they have lost their benefits, and introducing regional benefit levels will mean that even more people will struggle to cope in Wales.
The First Minister now needs to live up to his pledge to protect the people of Wales from cuts to welfare provision. More needs to be done to protect jobs, bring forward capital investment and support people into work.
A living wage would go a long way towards reducing the benefits trap which exists because wages are too low, not because benefit levels are too high.
Lindsay Whittle
Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales East
I thought this blog might have been about why you were half way across the world watching rugby rather than attending assembly debates and votes in the chamber!
Rather petty, Hannah, the Senghenydd disaster, affected the lives of many families in the area,not only in Senghenydd, and in one way or another a century after, we still bear the scars, but we have learned to get on with our lives, not forgetting what could have been and the lives and hopes ruined. Its about time there was a memorial, because, some commentators have written that the casualties in the south wales mining industry were higher than those in a small war.