Latest news with #DavidChadwick
Powys County Times
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Powys County Times
Powys MPs support assisted dying bill as vote passes
Mid Wales MPs voted in favour of the bill to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales as the law cleared its initial stages in the House of Commons. As the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill reached its final stage in Parliament on June 20, the bill passed through the House of Commons by a narrow margin of 23 votes, ending with 314 votes in favour and 291 against. Among the MPs who voted in favour of the legislation were Mid Wales representatives, David Chadwick of the Liberal Democrats who is MP for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, and Steve Witherden of Labour, MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr. Following the vote, Mr Chadwick said: 'After carefully considering the arguments on both sides, I voted in favour of the Assisted Dying Bill because I believe people with terminal illnesses deserve the right to die with dignity and control and that the legislation has the necessary safeguards to do this in a safe way. 'This was not a decision I came to lightly, and I'd like to thank all the constituents who contacted me to let me know their views on the issue, whatever side of the debate you were on. 'I have heard too many stories of families forced to watch loved ones suffer unnecessarily, and as a Liberal and someone driven by compassion, I feel the law should allow for someone to make a clear, informed, and voluntary choice at the end of their life in a dignified and humane manner. 'Throughout this process, I have been struck by the thoughtful and respectful debate on both sides, driven by compassion and deep personal conviction, and while people may disagree, we have done so and continue to do so civilly and with empathy.' Mr Witherden had already expressed support for the bill before the final vote, saying in November 2024: 'At a pre-election hustings, I made it clear that I supported changes to the law to legalise assisted dying, provided I was satisfied that safeguards against any abuse would be enshrined in the new law. 'I am aware of the opposition to the legislation and understand fears, especially from some disabled people, those with mental health conditions and groups suffering from specific diseases. "However, I believe the proposed legislation enshrines sufficient protections for such groups, ensuring their voices will not be marginalised.'
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Free mental health charity event returns to Bolton next week
A mental health charity is hosting an event in Bolton next week. The Mental Health Independent Support Team (MhIST) and Onward are hosting the Healthier Together event, which is set to take place on June 11 on the first floor of Moorland House, Bark Street, from 12pm to 3pm. The event is free and aims to inform the public about local happenings while offering interactive sessions. Last year, the event was attended by approximately 300 people. (Image: Henry Lisowski) These include Qi Gong, a sound bath experience, and workshops from Stars & Stitches Crafts and NW Brick Community LEGO. Bolton College will also offer a British Sign Language session. Other attractions include VR headsets and a session titled Your Music, which uses headsets. Organisations such as Achieve, ABL Health, Healthwatch, and Age UK are also set to attend. Refreshments will be provided, including cakes from Park Cakes. The new mayor of Bolton, David Chadwick, is also set to make an appearance at 1pm. READ MORE: Fans cry soap is 'robbed' at British Soap Awards as 'chaos' halts start to show Officers ramp up night time patrols to tackle crime in this part of Bolton Two young girls have gone missing - have you seen them? Last year, the event was attended by approximately 300 people. MhIST, established in 1992, is a Bolton-based mental health charity that runs more than 20 self-help groups, offers counselling, and has an advocacy team. For more information, contact 01204 527 200 or
Powys County Times
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Powys County Times
Opinion: Our valued farmers are being badly let down
Farming is more than just a job, it's a way of life, writes David Chadwick MP. Our farmers care for the land, keep food on our tables and support the wider rural economy. Yet right now, they are facing an onslaught of pressure, and both the Welsh and UK Labour Governments are failing to stand by them. Across my constituency, I hear the same thing from farmers - that it has never been harder to do what they do. And instead of backing them, governments are making things worse through careless policy, unfair taxation, and more foreign imports. One of the most damaging examples is the family farms tax. This proposal is causing real fear among farming communities, making it harder to pass on farms to the next generation. That is why in Westminster, I have backed cross-party calls to pause this damaging policy immediately. Our farmers should not be punished for handing down the family farm. Fairness in the supply chain should be a key concern too. Farmers are also being squeezed by powerful supermarkets and retailers who dictate prices, with producers feeling like they have no real choice in negotiations and are forced to accept deals that leave them struggling to break even. That is why I secured a debate in Parliament on the Groceries Code Adjudicator. A decade after its creation, the supermarket regulator is still falling short. I am pushing for it to be strengthened and made truly independent, so that farmers finally have a regulator in their corner. Another crisis is unfolding with the loss of small abattoirs. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of red meat facilities fell by a quarter, and small poultry abattoirs dropped by 40 percent. These services are essential to animal welfare, food traceability, and our rural economies. In Parliament, I criticised the closure of the Small Abattoir Fund and condemned the 20 percent increase in meat inspection fees, which is threatening small operators with closure. I also have called for investment in mobile units, proportionate regulation, and clear food labelling to support local meat producers, these decisions are no-brainers for our rural communities.
Wales Online
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Wales Online
The £6bn rail line argument that masks what you should be really angry about
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info Over the last few days, there has been one hot topic in the world of Welsh politics - a train line which will run between Oxford and Cambridge. Given these two cities are roughly 200 miles from Wales, you can be forgiven for asking why. East West Rail is a railway project which will link Oxford and Cambridge at an estimated cost of £6.6bn. Any money spent on it will trigger extra payments to Scotland and Northern Ireland so they can spend it on their transport systems. But, just as has been the case throughout the HS2 debacle, there won't be any extra money for the Welsh Government. The reason for this is both incredibly simple and reasonable on the surface but devillishly complicated and truly unfair beneath it. It may not necessarily be a scandal in itself. But it symbolises everything that is wrong with how rail funding is allocated in England and Wales. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here On the face of it, this issue isn't linked to the spending review that has been happening in Westminster for the last six months or more and of which chancellor Rachel Reeves will stand up in the Commons on Wednesday and deliver the conclusion. Yet it helps shed a light on why that will be enormously complex to understand and why the real story may not be the one you read in headlines that evening. So bear with us while we go through it. The fury from politicians Opposition politicians in Wales have been fulminating about East West rail. They say that the rail line should have been classified as an England-only project like Crossrail so that the Welsh Government would get a guaranteed share. Lib Dem MP David Chadwick said Wales will lose out to the tune of between £306m and £363m as a result. Describing it as another HS2, he said: "Labour expects people across Wales to believe the ridiculous idea that this project will benefit them, and they are justified in not giving Wales the money it needs to improve our own public transport systems. 'It's a disgrace, and it shows there has been no meaningful change since in the way Wales is treated since Labour took power compared to the Conservatives." Plaid Cymru's leader Mr ap Iorwerth took a similar tack, telling plenary: "For all the talk of the UK Government acknowledging somehow that Welsh rail has been historically underfunded, this is some partnership in power." Yet, while there's a lot of truth to what they're saying, it's also much more complicated. Which is where the spending review comes in. Comparability factors There will be so many numbers in the paperwork that accompanies Wednesday's spending review that finding the most important ones isn't straightforward. Yet if you want to know just how much of the England and Wales transport pot is going to be sucked into paying for massive rail projects in England like HS2 (£66bn) or East West rail (£6bn) or all the tram/train projects being promised in England outside London (£15bn), then look out for the overall transport comparability factor for Wales. Very simply, this is the number that the Treasury uses to work out how much the Welsh Government should get for every £1 it spends on transport in England. The reason everyone has been so, so angry about HS2 and the massive billions being poured is that back in 2015, Wales used to get a comparability factor of 80.9%. Yet when the number crunchers in Horse Guards Road sat down to work out how much the Welsh Government should get at the last spending review in 2021, that comparability factor fell to just 33.5%. Ouch. For every £1 spent on transport by Westminster, since the last spending review the Welsh Government has received a population adjusted share (5%) of 33.5%. Or about 1.6p. For context, it used to be around 4p. If Mr Chadwick and Mr Iorwerth are right and the UK government plans to plough even more money into rail in England in the coming years on projects like HS2, East Coast and what the Tories used to call Northern Powerhouse rail, then the new comparability factor that the Treasury mathematicians will conjure up this time could be even lower. But even that is massively misleading. Because if the UK government also promises to plough vast sums into rail in Wales then the comparability factor for the Welsh Government would not rise - it would fall further still. Is your mind boggling yet? We said it was complex. What the Welsh Government wants Because the Welsh Government isn't responsible for rail infrastructure spending, the transport comparability factor really just reflects how much money is going on rail. The less that's spent on rail, the higher a share of the overall transport pot the Welsh Government gets. The more that goes on rail, the lower a share of the overall transport spot the Welsh Government gets. The real problem for Cardiff Bay then is not the comparability factor. Neither is it the fact that East West rail isn't classified as England-only. The problem, as far as the Welsh Government is concerned, is the fact that the England and Wales rail pot itself isn't shared fairly. HS2 and East Coast rail are the symbols of a system that is broken that pours vast sums into English rail projects while Wales misses out. Even if they were classified as England-only, the money would go to the Welsh Government which isn't responsible for rail infrastructure spending. "The way that the system operates at the moment—for years I've been saying—is redundant," Wales' transport minister Ken Skates has said. "The east-west line, which has been in development, I believe, for around about 20 years now, is part of the rail network enhancements pipeline, where everything in a large footprint, a substantial footprint, including Wales, is packaged together. "Where you have all schemes in England and Wales packaged together in what's called the regional network enhancement pipeline it means that projects in Wales are always going to be competing on the business case with projects in affluent areas of the south-east, of London. That means that we are at a disadvantage. "I want to see it change. I've been saying it for years. There's nothing new in this story. I've been saying that we need reform for years and suddenly people have woken up to it." Wales' First Minister Eluned Morgan has said the same. "What we have is a situation where there is a pipeline of projects for England and Wales. Are we getting our fair share? Absolutely not. Are we making the case? Absolutely." "I've made the case very, very clearly that, when it comes to rail, we have been short-changed, and I do hope that we will get some movement on that in the next week from the spending review," she said. What does this mean for the spending review When Rachel Reeves stands up in the Commons on Wednesday, we fully expect she will announce some funding for rail in Wales, as you can see in our piece here, and our expectation is that will be about the rail stations earmarked in the work by Lord Burns after the M4 relief road was axed. They would be in Cardiff East, Parkway, Newport West, Maindy, Llanwern and Magor. But what matters is how much and when - and how that compares to the money being spent in England. Imagine the chancellor announces a few hundred million pounds for those rail stations in Wales in the spending review, what we do not - and will likely not know for many years - is whether that amount is a fair reflection of the mass spending she has announced in England because we know she has also touted £15bn of improvements in England. It will likely take years for academics to assess what kind of share of the rail pot has been spent in Wales. In the past, it certainly has not been fair. In 2018, a Welsh Government commissioned report by Professor Mark Barry estimated that the Network Rail Wales route, which covers 11% of the UK network, received just over 1% of the enhancement budget for the 2011-2016 period. In 2021, the Wales Governance Centre told MPs on the Welsh affairs select committee that had rail been fully devolved to the Welsh Government, Wales would have received an additional £514m for enhancements via Network Rail had rail infrastructure been devolved as it is in Scotland. So when Leeds West and Pudsey MP Ms Reeves gets to her feet in the Commons on Wednesday, you can pretty much guarantee there will at least one or two headlines relevant Wales. But we may not understand what they really mean for a while yet and East West rail won't help us understand either.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
IRONMAN Night Run: This year's winners
Ironman's Night Run was back with a bang on Friday to kick off the 2025 weekend. A record-breaking number of residents gathered in Bolton town centre to complete either a 5km or 10km run around the streets. Runners set off at Le Mans Crescent to the sound of an air horn, blown by borough mayor, Cllr David Chadwick at 7pm – with the first runner crossing the finish line at Victoria Square just over 17 minutes later. Daniel Harrison was the first to finish the 5km race, with a time of 17 minutes and three seconds, thirteen seconds before second place Lucas Gregory. Rachel Sidebotham was the first woman to finish the 5k Night Run. (Image: Leah Collins) Rachel Sidebotham was the first woman to cross the finish line for the 5km just minutes later. READ MORE: Rachel also came first place during the 2024 run and managed to retain her title. Rachel, who is from Wigan, said: 'It's been great, I've been training since last year. 'I've also been training with an injury so overcoming that has been really good for my confidence! 'I'm volunteering to help for Sunday's Ironman, so I'm excited to see others cross the finish line!' Lewis McGee was the first man to cross the finish line for the 10k race. (Image: Leah Collins) The first to cross the line in the 10k race was Lewis McGee, who crossed the line just after 7:35pm. Speaking to The Bolton News Lewis said it felt 'incredible' to have won. Lewis described winning as 'incredible' (Image: Leah Collins) He said: 'I've been training a lot, I wasn't expecting at all so it's a great achievement. 'I've also come straight from work so I'm knackered but so proud to have finished first!' Melanie Walls was the first woman to finish the 10k race. Melanie Walls was the first woman to finish the 10k race. (Image: Leah Collins) Speaking to The Bolton News she said: 'It feels so special and rewarding to win – I'm amazed!' Ahead of the event, Mayor of Bolton David Chadwick praised the event: 'The Bolton Ironman is a fantastic event, it celebrates Bolton's fantastic community. Mayor David Chadwick praised Bolton's 'fantastic community'. (Image: Leah Collins) 'This evening is an important one as anyone can take part, it's great to see such a fantastic turn out and I wish all runners the best of luck for the race.' Deputy mayor Andy Morgan and deputy mayoress Karen Holdsworth were also in attendance. Deputy Mayor Andy Morgan and deputy Mayoress Karen Holdsworth. (Image: Leah Collins) Speaking to The Bolton News Cllr Andy Morgan said: 'This evening has seen a glorious turnout, tonight's fun run is one of the largest sports events in Bolton and is the perfect start to such a fabulous weekend.' The program of events continues this weekend, with Ironkids set to take place on Saturday and Ironman 70.3 set to take place on Sunday.
