North Wales & over the Irish Sea

Being a member of the Petitions Committee is a good way of knowing what issues worry people locally.
For example, last week on Friday, I met in Barmouth Library a delegation from the Mawddach Bus Users group. I knew about their worries because they had presented a petition to the Welsh Assembly. I am an Assembly Labour Member for Mid and West Wales.
Many concerns were raised. Amongst them was the difficulty in travelling across the area by bus. It is often hard to link up to another bus route. We hear a lot these days about joined-up thinking. This was a good example of theory needing to be put into practice. Joined-up thinking should lead to joined-up travelling. Too often it doesn’t. We need to make sure that it does. The hour-long round-table discussion was, I hope, an important step in getting that put right.
From there I went on to a local WI branch meeting in a hall in Llanfair. It was a joint meeting with the Harlech branch. Rosy showed me the way as the hall was not far from her house. In the photograph you can see me having a chat with the local WI president. I was given the chance to say a few words.
One of the other Committees in the Welsh Assembly that I have chaired and helped set up is concerned with domestic violence which is a rural problem as much as an urban one. Neither is it a campaign that involves just one half of the human race. For that reason I talked about the white ribbon campaign. It is a visual commitment to being against domestic violence. We want to recruit more men to the campaign and I asked the members at the meeting whether they would help me to do that.
Later that weekend I was in Dublin for a joint Parliamentary meeting about human trafficking. There was a real buzz in the air. I have to admit that it was nothing to do with me. Michelle Obama was in town!