Latest news with #Glyndwr
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Welsh Labour MP to vote against disability benefit cuts
A Welsh Labour MP has told the BBC he will vote against the UK government's proposed cuts to disability benefits. Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr MP Steve Witherden said he had taken the "very difficult decision" because he believed "really, really vulnerable people" would be placed at risk by the changes. He is among Labour MPs across the UK who have particular concerns about plans to tighten some of the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) – which assess claimants using a scoring system. Witherden said he believed the scoring changes were not being consulted upon, although they are referred to within the public consultation into the wider welfare reforms. Witherden added that the cuts include "changes to the way you will be scored if you require assistance to go to the toilet, if you require assistance to eat, if you require assistance getting dressed". It would see "a lot of people, a lot of my constituents, deprived of their PIP if it goes ahead". Witherden said he believed it was "inappropriate" that MPs were being asked to vote on the PIP reforms in the coming months, despite being told a full impact assessment would not be published until the autumn. The UK government previously announced that the changes to PIP and to Universal Credit would save around £5bn a year by the end of 2030 and get more people into work, but it is believed Wales will be hardest hit by any cuts because it has a higher proportion of claimants relative to its population size. Witherden insisted he was not opposed to welfare reforms, saying that some aspects of the green paper, such as getting people back into work, were "positive". But he maintained that his "feeling" was that the government should not be looking to make cuts. He added: "We won in July what was effectively a cost-of-living election and I don't think it was a vote for further austerity. "So, I feel rather than cuts we should be looking at wealth taxes… these are the kind of things we should be looking at rather than cutting welfare for disabled people." Mr Witherden said that he had been clear since being elected that he would "speak up" for his constituents "whenever I thought there would be a proposal that could cause them harm and detriment and that's what I am doing here." BBC Wales has contacted every Welsh Labour MP to ask whether they will be voting with the government to approve the welfare reforms – so far none has replied, except Steve Witherden. However, Wrexham MP Andrew Ranger previously issued a statement saying that he could not support the changes to PIP in their "current form". Rethink "absolutely crucial" Witherden told BBC Wales that the welfare reforms had come up on the doorstep while he was campaigning ahead of the Runcorn-and-Helsby by-election, which Labour lost to Reform UK last week. He admitted that next year's Senedd election would be "challenging" saying that he was concerned that with only a year to go, there was not enough time for the public to see enough positive change as a result of Sir Keir Starmer's agenda. He said: "Unfortunately for the Senedd elections, we don't have that time because they're taking place in about a year's time so I am not naïve that those elections are going to be challenging. "But I am speaking to people in Welsh Labour all the time and they are optimistic about their campaigning and about the approach they are going to take." Mr Witherden said he believed that rethinking the PIP changes would be "absolutely crucial" if the UK government is to turn around its dwindling poll ratings. 'Difficult not to get angry' Asked if he was angry about how things had gone so far for Sir Keir Starmer's administration, Mr Witherden said it was "hard not to be angry about some things". "I like to think I got into politics for all the right reasons, I want to improve the lives of my constituents not make them worse. So It's very difficult not to get angry," he added. Asked if he believed the government was listening to his concerns about PIP, Witherden said he "hoped so" but admitted he had not had "many" discussions with ministers about the welfare reforms. Witherden said it "remained to be seen" whether there would be enough Labour rebels to defeat the government on welfare reforms, but said he was "one of a chorus" of MPs expressing concern. "I would never want to speak for anyone else but I do think there is growing anger and growing discontent in particular about this PIP issue," he said. "This is going to be a very, very big issue for a lot of MPs and a lot of people across the country." BBC Wales has contacted the Department of Work and Pensions for a response.
Times
26-04-2025
- Times
Kate Humble: What I learnt about Wales on this untamed trail
I step out into the golden light of the morning, walking past the clocktower and up Knighton's steep, silent high street to a network of narrow paths that lead me out of town. I follow a track through oak woods, scattering rabbits and squirrels, then out into more open country where my path rises and falls with the gentle contours of the green hills. There are sheep, horses and cattle, all plump from sweet summer grass. The rowan trees are vibrant with orange-red berries, verges bright with harebells and rosebay willowherb, and blackberries are ripening in the hedgerows. I walk through the village of Llangunllo where a solitary dog walker and I exchange greetings before I once again leave the tarmac and follow the route up onto Beacon Hill Common. It is bleaker up here. Tussocky heather, dark, boggy soil and ponds of inky water. The sky is huge, a panorama of greys, yellows and blues. I feel both insignificant and uplifted by this splendid, wild isolation. This is Glyndwr's Way, a long-distance walking trail in mid-Wales named after Owain Glyndwr, who, in 1399, led a campaign against the English Crown for an independent Wales. His guerrilla tactics were so successful that by 1404 he controlled most of the country. But his heartland was here in central Wales, and this route celebrates a part of the country that fought hard for its sovereignty. Even today it retains the frisson of a place untamed. The route heads southwest from the Powys border town of Knighton, where Glyndwr's men overthrew the English garrison, as far west as Machynlleth inland from the coast where he held his first parliament. From there it turns northeast to skirt Lake Vyrnwy and finishes in Welshpool, a distance of 135 miles covered comfortably in nine days of walking. But at Welshpool I joined the Offa's Dyke Path, which turns the walk into a satisfying loop, returning walkers to Knighton, victorious, after 160 miles. This is the third long-distance trail I've walked in my home country of Wales, but this is the first time I am walking between B&Bs, my luggage transferred for me each day, rather than camping. I have always enjoyed the sensation of being completely self-sufficient, of carrying everything I need on my back, but in the coming days I discover that the luxuries of warm showers, comfortable beds, home-cooked meals and cold beer are all eclipsed by the greatest luxury of all — walking unburdened by anything more weighty than a small day pack. Coming down from Beacon Hill Common, I reach the small village of Felindre. My map tells me there's a pub, but it has the desolate look of a building that has not been open for some time and I press on, munching nuts and trying not to think about cider. At the top of a hill, beneath whirring wind turbines, I phone Ray, my host for the evening. We meet on the valley road and he drives me to the village of Llanbister, where he and his wife run the Lion Hotel, my home for the night. I've covered 22 miles today. I've seen a couple of farmers out with their sheep, the dog walker and a man stacking wood outside his garage, and no one else. Yet this is August bank holiday Monday — a day forecast to be dry, with a gentle breeze and temperatures in the high teens. Perfect walking weather. And this is a national trail — a status it shares with the Pennine Way, the South Downs Way and others — for the beauty of the landscapes it passes through. • Read our full guide to Wales And it really is beautiful. I'm now in the heart of the Radnor hills, which roll and fold like a big, lazy ocean swell. Steady climbs bring me onto ridges golden with flowering gorse before I descend through woods and over chattering streams to the remnants of a 12th-century Cistercian monastery. Red kites whistle and soar overhead. Further on, as I walk through the small settlement of Bwlch-y-Sarnau, I spot the Glyndwr Café, which proves to be a kettle, instant coffee and teabags in the porch of the community centre where, for a donation, walkers can make themselves a hot drink. I reach the small town of Llanidloes with its distinctive 17th-century timber-framed market hall, bakeries and bookshop, and cross the River Severn to follow forest tracks beneath towering beech trees. A soft rain falls, stopping as I emerge onto the open hill, and I join the rising mist as it curls its wispy way from the unseen depths of the valley — the breath of a sleeping dragon. The solid heft of a dam wall comes into view and my path follows the bank of the huge reservoir held behind it, sailing boats bobbing on its glassy surface. The landscape is changing. There is slate beneath my feet and the hills are choppier, the climbs and descents steeper, the views more dramatic. I pause at a hide on the edge of the Hafren Forest. Visible through binoculars is a large, unruly bundle of sticks wedged into the top of a pine tree. Two ospreys sit sentinel beside it, guarding the pale-headed chick cocooned in its twiggy nest. This is what I love about travelling through a landscape at walking pace. It is immersive and intimate and visceral. After a long climb I reach a plateau and a lake — a pool of light against its backdrop of dark rock. The sun is bright now, casting deep shadows in the gullies and sharpening the ridges, making all around me seem bigger and more expansive. And I, in turn, feel like a shrinking Alice in my Welsh Wonderland. After a riotous open-mic night at the White Lion Hotel in Machynlleth, I follow corduroy-like ridges and furrows east and north. I stop for coffee and a sandwich at Caffi JoJo, the social hub of Llanbrynmair ( A man writing his journal at another table tells me I'm the first person he's seen walking the Glyndŵr Way since he set off a week before. 'I'm from the East Midlands, which is very flat. It's why I love Wales. I've done the Severn Way and Offa's Dyke, which I really enjoyed, but this route feels really off the beaten track. I can't believe how varied it is, and beautiful, and yet there is no one on it.' The Right to Roam movement criticises the fact that public access to the countryside is restricted and causes honeypots like Scafell Pike and Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon). Yet according to the Ordnance Survey, there are about 140,000 miles of public rights of way in England and Wales — enough to keep even the most energetic of walkers walking for decades. The issue is not the lack of a right to roam, but that we are drawn to places of repute, which in turn sustains the cafés, shops and hotels that add to their appeal. Less well-known areas, like the ones I'm walking through, don't have the necessary footfall to fund the facilities that attract visitors, so they remain — often undeservedly — less visited. Rachel Thomas, the fantastically energetic proprietor of the Cann Office Hotel in the tiny hamlet of Llangadfan, says the problem is confounded by the near impossibility of finding and keeping hospitality staff in rural areas. Her business, like everywhere I stay on route, is entirely run by her and her family. • 12 of the best things to do in Wales An upland path beyond Llanwddyn leads to forest tracks a-flutter with peacock butterflies and a network of quiet lanes which bring me to the village of Meifod. From here it is just ten miles over a series of hills to Welshpool, the official end of Glyndwr's Way. But I head on, out of town along the canal, looking at a great wall of land rising ahead of me — the fortification against the Welsh that King Offa had constructed in the 780s. I pause to catch my breath before reaching the spectacular viewpoint at Beacon Ring, an Iron Age hillfort. From here it is a long descent, passing the village of Montgomery — its ruined castle visible on the horizon, to recharge in the town of Cwm before a final 14 miles of ups and downs bring me, elated, back to Knighton's clocktower. Ultimately Glyndwr couldn't hold onto his dream of an independent Wales, but the trail that bears his name is a rugged, glorious testament to the country he fought so hard Humble was a guest of Celtic Trails, which has five nights' B&B from £615pp ( What's your favourite walking trail? Let us know in the comments
