20 Most Recent Stories From TheyWorkForYou.com Search: in the 'Westminster Hall debates' speaker:Roger Williams

Wed 7th Jul 2010:

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services — [Mr Joe Benton in the Chair] (7 Jul 2010).

Roger Williams: It is a great pleasure and privilege to contribute briefly to the debate. I congratulate the hon. Members for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) and for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on making contributions based on their personal and family experience of this matter. Many of us have not had that experience and our comments come from a different level of understanding. However, the...

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair] — Fuel Poverty (Rural Britain) (7 Jul 2010).

Roger Williams: It is a great privilege to take part in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on securing it and I warmly welcome her to the gang. I am sure that her contributions will always be valued. Without prejudging the Minister's response, which will be very helpful, let me say that this is an issue to which we will return from time to time. I shall...

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair] — Fuel Poverty (Rural Britain) (7 Jul 2010).

Roger Williams: The hon. Gentleman anticipates a point that I was about to make. Let me repeat though that a reception will be hosted tonight by Calor Gas, which is one of the major LPG suppliers. The Minister may like to go along-he may even be speaking at it-and make some of the points that he has heard during this debate. One of the key issues about fuel poverty, which has already been referred to by my...

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair] — Fuel Poverty (Rural Britain) (7 Jul 2010).

Roger Williams: The hon. Lady is right to say that some of the issues that we will debate this morning are devolved. However, other issues such as competition policy are not devolved and are matters for Westminster.

Wed 3rd Mar 2010:

[Frank Cook in the Chair] — Home Energy Efficiency (3 Mar 2010).

Roger Williams: I apologise, Mr. Cook, for your not being informed that there was a change in the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for today's debate. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) on initiating the debate at this most opportune time and on raising a number of issues that affect my constituency and that of our hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch...

[Frank Cook in the Chair] — Home Energy Efficiency (3 Mar 2010).

Roger Williams: I thank the Minister for that comment, which indicates that the Government recognise the value to the fuel-poor of being on mains gas. I would like to refer briefly to a concern about LPG supply that I raised with the Minister during Energy and Climate Change questions. Following my predecessor's work on competitiveness in the LPG industry and pressure I put on the Office of Fair Trading, it...

Wed 10th Feb 2010:

[Sir Nicholas Winterton in the Chair] — Fuel Duty (Rural Areas) (10 Feb 2010).

Roger Williams: I am very well aware of the particular situation in the hon. Gentleman's Ynys Môn constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) said that he would not want to speculate as to why the Treasury would resist this demand so strenuously. Does the hon. Gentleman think that Treasury officials in France and indeed in Greece are resisting a derogation so...

Wed 27th Jan 2010:

[Dr. William McCrea in the Chair] — Dairy Farming (27 Jan 2010).

Roger Williams: Thank you, Dr. McCrea. I will try to be brief. Much has already been said about the plight of dairy farmers. Indeed, in my own constituency, I think that we are down to fewer than 10 dairy farmers at the moment and that is in the biggest agricultural constituency in England and Wales. So we have suffered. However, one of the remaining herds in my constituency has 350 cows, showing the way...

Wed 4th Nov 2009:

Probation Service (4 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: That is certainly reflected in the Dyfed-Powys probation service, where seven or eight trainees were trained at great expense and only one was given full-time employment at the end of it. Several were given temporary employment until next March. That is surely a waste of resources that could have been put back into employing trained probation officers who could have coped with the case load a...

[John Cummings in the Chair] — Thalidomide (4 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case, as have other hon. Members. It seems to me that if a similar incident occurred today, the sums of money awarded would be far in excess of those awarded by Distillers and Diageo, because we have greater expectations of what kind of life people with disabilities can and should lead and of the cost of achieving that. What was awarded is completely...

Tue 3rd Nov 2009:

Farm Animal Welfare (3 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: My hon. Friend is making very important points. Egg producers in this country often complain that eggs are imported from areas that have lower welfare conditions, but they also complain that eggs are imported not only as whole eggs but as egg products-liquid egg and powdered egg-so it is almost more difficult to ascertain their source of origin. Those products go into the manufacture of...

Farm Animal Welfare (3 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the market driving improvements in animal welfare, with 50 per cent. of eggs sold in supermarkets being free range. Surprisingly, all the eggs served by McDonald's, for instance, are free range now. That is a testament to the power of the market.

[Robert Key in the Chair] — Affordable Housing (Rural Areas) (3 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: An example of that in my constituency is in Newbridge-on-Wye, where a development for 12 affordable houses has not gone ahead because the condition that the local authority wanted to put on them meant that no mortgage provider would provide the facilities to purchase them.

[Robert Key in the Chair] — Affordable Housing (Rural Areas) (3 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: I intended not to make a speech this morning, but to attend the debate and perhaps make an intervention. However, I am surprised by the lack of enthusiasm for this subject because it must be a constant theme that representatives of rural areas encounter in their surgeries. I did not think that housing would be a big issue when I was elected, but it has turned out to be one of the most...

[Robert Key in the Chair] — Affordable Housing (Rural Areas) (3 Nov 2009).

Roger Williams: The hon. Gentleman speaks positively about community land trusts, and rightly so, but my experience is that every time we wish to implement one, we seem to have to reinvent it, with a lot of effort. One thing that the Government or the agencies could do is to derive a model that could be used consistently and persistently.

Wed 13th May 2009:

Rivers (England) (13 May 2009).

Roger Williams: It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. O'Hara. It has been a privilege to hear the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) and his colleagues speak so enthusiastically about the chalk streams in their constituencies. We have had the benefit of the experience and knowledge of the hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter), who is an acknowledged expert...

Rivers (England) (13 May 2009).

Roger Williams: I knew that I would be able to incite the hon. Gentleman.

Rivers (England) (13 May 2009).

Roger Williams: I thank the Minister for his intervention. I believe that that is the correct approach. There must be give and take on both sides. David Jones Powell holds the ring for riparian owners on the River Usk and has negotiated an agreement with the BCU. It has signed that agreement on a fairly regular basis, but I understand that lately the BCU has been unwilling to sign the document because it...

Rivers (England) (13 May 2009).

Roger Williams: I am sorry; I got a bit carried away with my enthusiasm for the rivers. Another problem is pollution. Mention has been made of specific problems in specific places. Farming must play its part in ensuring that rivers are improved. Everything must be done to prevent the massive pollution incidents that occur from time to time, but those are not the only problems. There is also diffuse...

Tue 5th May 2009:

[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair] — Fibromyalgia (5 May 2009).

Roger Williams: I congratulate the hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) on obtaining the debate, which will come as a great encouragement and boost to the morale of many who suffer from fibromyalgia. They will take satisfaction from the fact that the illness has been given prominence through this debate. Part of the problem for sufferers is that the condition takes so long to be recognised by the...

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