Welsh FM will ‘call out’ UK Labour government when they get it wrong for Wales
Eluned Morgan was speaking in Cardiff Bay on Tuesday morning, one year away from the Senedd elections.
The Welsh First Minister has said she will “call out” the UK Labour government if they “get it wrong for Wales”.
In a major speech one year away from the next Senedd elections, Eluned Morgan insisted Welsh Labour will “do things our way, shaped by our Welsh values, our people and our priorities”.
She said: “If, in our eyes, Westminster gets it wrong for Wales, we will call it out.”
Referencing the TV show Gavin & Stacey, the Labour First Minister added: “There will be times when what’s right for Essex is not right for Barry.”
She used the speech to call for ministers to rethink cuts to the winter fuel allowance, and demanded Wales gets more funding to make coal tips safer and for the Crown Estate to be devolved in Wales, as it has been in Scotland.
But Plaid Cymru branded the speech a “desperate attempt by a floundering First Minister to reset her premiership”.
And the Welsh Conservatives called it a “desperate attempt to save the Labour Party’s bacon in Wales”.
Speaking in Cardiff Bay on Tuesday, Baroness Morgan said: “We know that splits and spats make for easy news, but this isn’t drama. This is honesty, this is responsibility. This is what leadership looks like.
“So, when we disagree, we will say it. When we see unfairness, we’ll stand up for it.
“When Westminster makes decisions that we think will harm the Welsh communities, we will not stay silent.
“This is not a split. This is grown-up, modern government. This is not disloyalty, this is patriotic responsibility.”
She said the UK Government’s welfare reform proposals “are causing serious concern” in Wales, there is a higher number of people dependent on disability benefits than elsewhere.
She said: “In some of our former coalfield communities, over 40% of working-age adults are in receipt of disability benefits.
“We know that disability cuts are likely to hit Wales more than six times more, proportionally, in some areas in Wales compared to England.”
She called on the UK Government to look at the approach being adopted in Wales to get people into work.
“In Wales, we believe in an opportunity welfare state, one that supports people to move forward when they can and stands beside them when they can’t. But partnership in power should work both ways.
“We ask the UK Government, come and take a look at our alternative approach to supporting people into work in Wales, where the system has already proven its worth because our young persons’ guarantee scheme ensures that every young person has the offer of education, training or employment.”
She also called on Sir Keir Starmer to rethink the means-testing of winter fuel payments.
“The cut in winter fuel allowance is something that comes up time and again, and I hope the UK Government will rethink this policy,” she said.
But following the speech the Prime Minister’s official spokesman ruled out a U-turn.
He said: The policy is set out, there will not be a change to the Government’s policy.”
He added that the decision “was one that we had to take to ensure economic stability and repair the public finances following the £22 billion black hole left by the previous government”.
The press secretary said Baroness Morgan was “absolutely right that Welsh Labour is in a unique position to deliver for Wales” accepting the two groups “won’t agree on everything”.
Responding to the speech, Darren Millar, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said: “The First Minister’s speech is a last-ditch, desperate attempt to save the Labour Party’s bacon in Wales at the next Senedd elections.
“But it’s too late; she and her colleagues have been rumbled. The people of Wales have been taken for granted by them for far too long and are crying out for change.”
Plaid Cymru Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth MS said: “(This was a) desperate attempt by a floundering First Minister to reset her premiership nine months into the job.
“It won’t wash with the people of Wales.
“From the betrayal of steelworkers and pensioners to the cruel welfare reforms, Eluned Morgan has been cheering Keir Starmer on. She even gave a name to their relationship, ‘the partnership in power’.
“This is nothing more than a cynical branding exercise, more jargon and empty rhetoric from a First Minister and a Labour party unable and unwilling to stand up for Wales’ interests.”
