John Davies has been appointed for six months commencing 1 April 2018. Sian Lewis and Guto Harri have been appointed for two years commencing 9 July 2018.

John Davies

John Davies FRAgS, MRAC was Leader of Pembrokeshire County Council from 2004 until his retirement in 2012.
John has over the years been involved with the media in Wales having been a S4C presenter in the early years of the channel and is currently a regular contributor to current affairs programmes both on Television and Radio.

From 2008 till May 2012 he was the Principal Leader of the Welsh Local Government Association. He was a member of Dyfed – Powys Police Authority and Chairman of its Finance Committee for 9 years.

In recognition of his efforts to Local Government in Wales he was anointed the title of ITV Wales Local Politician of the Year in December 2008. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society. At the 2009 Royal Welsh Show he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Agricultural Societies of the UK for his services to agriculture and rural Wales.

For 9 years John was the farming and rural voice on the Electricity Consumer Council and subsequently became a member of Energywatch Wales. He is also a member of the Gorsedd of Bards. He holds a number of public non-executive directorships.

Sian Lewis

Sian graduated in Business & HR from UWIC. After a brief period working for independent television company, Fflic TV, she joined Urdd Gobaith Cymru (Wales League of Youth) as a Development Officer and later Area Manager. She was later invited to join Cardiff’s Welsh language initiative, Menter Iaith Caerdydd.

As Chief Executive of ‘Menter’ her role was to promote and expand the use of the Welsh language within the Cardiff Community. Sian established successful partnerships with a multitude of stakeholders which have been key to her strategy to increase the local community’s engagement with the language.

In December 2017, Sian was appointed Chief Executive of Urdd Gobaith Cymru. The Urdd’s aim is to provide the opportunity, through the medium of Welsh, for the children and young people in Wales to become fully rounded individuals, developing personal and social skills that will enable them to make a positive contribution to the community. The Urdd is the largest Welsh Language Youth organisation in Wales, with over 55,000 members, 10,000 volunteers, 300 workforce and a turnover of over £10 million.

Guto Harri

Guto began his career as a BBC journalist, spending most of it covering UK politics for the Corporation’s main television and radio outlets. He presented a number of flagship shows and was Chief Political Correspondent at Westminster before taking 2 foreign postings to Rome and New York.

Guto left the BBC to handle communications for Boris Johnson and helped mastermind his re-election as Mayor of London in May 2012. He joined Liberty Global in February 2015 as managing director of external communications.

The roles

The roles are remunerated at £9,650 per annum. These reappointments have been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments.

The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election.

John Davies has declared that he has acted as a County Councillor as an Independent Member for Pembrokeshire County Council since 1999 and Guto Harri has declared that he worked for the former Mayor of London in 2012. Sian Lewis has declared no such political activity.

Commenting earlier this evening, Mrs Bradley said:

Tom Moran was a hugely successful businessman and well-regarded philanthropist and who was a true friend to Northern Ireland. He took an active role behind the scenes in supporting the Belfast Agreement and the Northern Ireland Peace Process over many years.

We are indebted to him for his work over the past decades and for his efforts to help bring about a lasting peace for all in Northern Ireland.

My sincere condolences to his wife and entire family circle at this very sad time.

A waste transfer package has been lifted into the building for the first time.

The 50-tonne package was safely placed onto one of three machines that will begin grabbing waste out of the building’s 22 silo compartments from next year.

Originally constructed as six silos in the 1960’s and then extended three times, MSSS stores magnesium cladding or ‘swarf’ that was stripped from Magnox fuel prior to reprocessing.

The swarf is stored underwater in the 16 metre-deep silos but over time the magnesium releases heat and hydrogen meaning the facility requires constant management and monitoring.

Since the early 1990’s this type of waste has been immobilised in concrete instead as this makes it more passive and practical to manage.

The radioactive inventory and lack of modern standards in MSSS makes it the most complicated and highest-priority mission in the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s estate.

Preparations for removing the 11,000m3 of historic waste from the silos and placing them into safe, modern storage have been over twenty years in the making.

Next year three 360 tonne Silo Emptying Plant (SEP) machines will start reaching in to the silos and removing the waste with a hydraulic grab.

The waste will then be loaded into the shielded transfer packages and safely stored on the Sellafield site until a permanent geological disposal facility is constructed.

Head of Programme for MSSS, Chris Halliwell, said:

The transfer package is the essential link in the chain to safer storage.

It’s a big moment to see it finally being attached to the SEP machine inside the silo.

Never before have these two bits of machinery met inside the place where they’ll be carrying out our biggest job in hazard reduction.

The first transfer package to enter MSSS was manufactured by Workington firm TSP Engineering and is one of nine original packages they have built and modified for Sellafield Ltd.

TSP is currently competing with Cavendish Nuclear to build the next batch of 15 transfer packages; an advanced manufacturing contract worth tens of millions of pounds to British Industry.

I thank the representative of Bolivia for his statement and I shall now make a statement in my capacity as a representative of the United Kingdom.

I’d like to thank our Special Envoy Kafando for his briefing and I also agree with my Russian colleague on the value of the Peacebuilding Commission and on Ambassador Lauber’s work. He’s unfortunately on vacation, but it is really important that we bring all elements of the UN’s abilities and capabilities to bear in these situations.

The Arusha Accords brought peace to Burundi after over a decade of civil war and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. It is crucial for the long-term stability of Burundi that the spirit and the letter of the Accords are preserved. We welcome President Nkurunziza’s announcement that he will step down at the end of this term. It was an important step and an important message for the people of Burundi, the region and the international community. A genuine, inclusive dialogue with all parties remains the only viable option to resolve the political situation. And so as President Kafando has made clear, progress on the EAC-led Inter-Burundian dialogue remains crucial for the future peace and security of both Burundi and the region.

We echo your call for the parties to engage openly and constructively and call upon the region and sub-region to remain fully engaged to ensure swift progress is made over the coming months and weeks.

The human rights situation in Burundi is deeply concerning. The United Kingdom urges the government of Burundi to take steps to make swift progress to improve the situation so the country is better prepared to move towards elections in 2020. Firstly, the government should signal its commitment to upholding human rights by completing its negotiations on an MOU with the OHCHR to allow that organisation to operate effectively in the country. And secondly, the government should implement Human Rights Council Resolution 36.2, endorsed by the African Group of States – including Burundi – and adopted at the 36th session of the Human Rights Council in September 2017. And we urge the government to engage with OHCHR to facilitate the return of the three human rights experts whose visas were revoked in April.

A Downing Street spokesperson said:

“The Prime Minister and the President of Colombia, Iván Duque, spoke this afternoon following his inauguration this week.

“The Prime Minister congratulated President Duque on his election victory.

“They agreed the UK and Colombia were old friends who have grown even closer over the last two decades. They agreed that they had much to look forward to continuing to work together on, including security, trade, economic development and tackling climate change.

They agreed that there were many opportunities to develop future trade and in particular to strengthen ties in areas such as infrastructure, culture and the creative industries.

“They agreed co-operation on security issues such as countering drug trafficking. The Prime Minister said she was pleased to see development on a sustainable peace process in Colombia and that she hoped to see that continue. She also thanked President Duque for Colombia’s support in strengthening the ability of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to attribute responsibility for chemical weapons attacks.

“They ended the call by looking forward to meeting in person and to developing their working relationship further.”