MP to lead delegation over border issues - including funding for Shrewsbury hospital and farmers
A Shropshire MP is to lead a delegation calling for a level playing field for farmers operating on the Welsh border.
Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said the growing powers of the Welsh devolved assembly were 'slowly unpicking' the cohesion of the UK, and said different rules for farmers in England and Wales were making it impossible for some of them to compete.
He has now organised a meeting with agriculture minister Victoria Prentis on June 11, which all MPs representing English constituencies along the Welsh border have been invited to attend.
Mr Kawczynski said he was particularly concerned that the Agriculture Bill, described by the National Farmers' Union as the most wide-ranging legislation on farming since 1947, would hand more power to the devolved Welsh administration.
"As power is being brought back from Brussels, it is being transferred to the Welsh parliament because agriculture is a devolved matter," he said.
Mr Kawczynski said that while subsidies to English farmers would end in seven years' time, they would continue in Wales.
"How can Salopian farmers compete when their neighbours, a few hundred metres away, are getting subsidies, and they are not?," he said.
Mr Kawczynski said many farmers had land which straddled the border, making it it difficult to deal with problems such as bovine TB, which was a growing threat to farmers.
Damage
"In 2000, we culled 50 cows in Shropshire as a result of bovine tuberculosis, now it's about 2,500 cows a year being slaughtered, and the economic damage that is causing to the beef industry is colossal," he said.
He said he would be asking Mrs Prentis at the very least to set up a task-force to come up with short- and medium-term solutions to tackle problems such as this.
Mr Kawczynski also said there were anomalies over funding for the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, which was used by patients from both England and Wales.
"We have wiped out the debts of the hospital trust overnight, £83 million disappeared from the bank balance to help them cope with Covid," he said.
"But when I asked what support had come from the Welsh parliament, I was told 'nothing'.
"How can the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital have a fair level of funding when people are coming from across the border, but the authority there are not helping them?"
Mr Kawczynski said he hoped unionists on both sides of the border would come together to make sure their voices were heard.
"I'm a unionist, I'm British, and I think unionists wherever they are, whether they be in Wales or England, need to link up with one another in this debate, for too long we have stood in the shadows of the nationalists," he said.
"The increasing divergence between Cardiff and London is a threat to the long-term cohesion of the UK."
