Hospitality Sector
Llinos Medi Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)
Diolch, Madam Dirprwy Lefarydd. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for hospitality, events, major food and drink businesses in Wales.
The hospitality sector in Wales has enormous economic value. It contributes £4 billion to the Welsh economy and employs more than 165,000 people. It also has immense social value, creating strong communities and providing opportunities for local people, often young people whose first job is in hospitality. However, the tax changes introduced by this Government have placed huge pressure on the sector.
This summer, a report by Family Business UK showed that on Ynys Môn changes to business property relief and agricultural property relief could result in a more than £10 million reduction in gross value added, as well as the loss of 167 local full-time equivalent jobs. That pattern is seen across Wales. The report also finds that Wales will see some of the steepest forecast declines in investment, turnover and employment due to the changes to BPR and APR.
Beyond the statistics are the real impacts on family-run businesses, such as Kingsbridge caravan park in Beaumaris, which has been family-owned for 26 years. Those running it say that the increases to employer national insurance have already forced them to reconsider employing wardens next year and have affected their ability to reinvest in the caravan park.
Analysis by UKHospitality Cymru shows that of the 164,641 job losses in the UK since the Budget last October, some 89,000 have been in hospitality. About 2,600 of those are in Wales—roughly equivalent to the number of jobs lost at Port Talbot due to the closure of the blast furnace, but spread across our communities throughout Wales. The sector is crying out for the Government to recognise the urgent situation and to acknowledge that many businesses are barely treading water, unable to invest or grow.
Hospitality is an important source of skills and growth for Ynys Môn and Wales, yet this Government are putting the brakes on that growth through short-sighted decisions. Thousands of jobs have already been lost and future investment has been cut. To prevent a bad situation from getting worse, the Government must rethink their damaging increases to employer’s national insurance contributions and the upcoming changes to business property relief, and give the Welsh hospitality sector the breathing room it needs to flourish.
Pride Month
Llinos Medi Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)
Let me start by wishing a happy Pride Month to members of the LGBT+ community on Ynys Môn and beyond.
Pride Month is, of course, a time for celebration, a time to reflect on the vital contributions of members of the LGBTQ+ community to our society, and a time to renew our conviction that everyone deserves to love and live freely and openly, without the threat of bigotry. But this Pride Month is also a time of deep unease for many members of the community; in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex and gender in the Equality Act 2010 and the ensuing interim guidance published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, many trans people are living in fear of what the future holds.
The words of the trailblazing Welsh trans author Jan Morris seem particularly pertinent today. She found fame in 1953 as the sole reporter on the successful British Everest expedition, and became a prolific historian and travel writer. In her groundbreaking 1974 autobiography, she wrote:
“I never did think that my own conundrum was a matter either of science or of social convention...What was important was the liberty of us all to live as we wished to live, to love however we wanted to love, and to know ourselves, however peculiar, disconcerting or unclassifiable, at one with the gods and angels.”
It is, of course, in this place that many of the landmark decisions on allowing people to live and love freely have taken place, but work remains to create a society that is fairer and more inclusive for all. One of my constituents is an LGBTQ+ veteran, discharged from the military owing to his sexuality—before 2000, when the ban on open service of LGBTQ+ people was lifted. The late Lord Etherton reported on a number of recommendations in 2023 to provide redress for the injustice, but shockingly, in response to more than 1,000 applications, only 24 payments had been made as at 21 May this year. I urge the Government to do all they can to expedite the process, and to apologise formally for this historic wrong.
This month we rightly reflect on the huge strides forward that have made our society a more open and inclusive place for the LGBTQ+ community, but as the injustices facing the trans community and LGBT veterans demonstrate, we must redouble our efforts to build a society in which everyone has the liberty to live as they wish. Let us all recommit ourselves to that work together.