LABOUR ARE NOT EVEN TRYING

Plaid Cymru have revealed that there has been no official correspondence between UK and Welsh Government on East West Rail

A recent Plaid Cymru FOI request has confirmed that there has been no official correspondence between the Welsh Government and the UK Government regarding the reclassification of the East West Rail project.

The response to the FOI request, which requested ‘all ministerial correspondence’ on the reclassification of East-West rail, revealed that the information ‘is not held by the Welsh Government’.

Since the revelation that the UK Labour Government have re-classified the East West rail project, Plaid Cymru have consistently made the case that the Labour Welsh Government is taking Wales for granted on the issue - given that they have failed to challenge Keir Starmer’s decision to ‘take money away from Wales’.

The Labour UK Government decision to reclassify the rail project between Oxford and Cambridge as a ‘England and Wales project’ means that Wales will lose the Barnett consequential funding for the project, projected to be around £360 million in this new spending review period.

Plaid Cymru’s transport spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths has accused the Labour Welsh Government of prioritising party loyalties over fighting for ‘the millions of pounds that Wales is owed’.

Plaid Cymru transport spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths, said:

“The Labour UK Government have chosen to take hundreds of millions away from Wales by reclassifying East West rail as an ‘England and Wales’ project – and this FOI only further confirms that Labour in Wales have chosen to do nothing about it.

“Geography dictates that this project won't benefit Wales - it’s yet another blatant example of how we’re being denied the funding that we’re owed.

“We were told that two Labour governments would mean a ‘partnership in power’ delivering for Wales. Yet, when Keir Starmer actively, consciously, takes money away from us, Labour in Wales is silent – in another case of putting party loyalties and their Westminster bosses before the people of Wales.

“At risk of rocking the Labour boat, it appears that Eluned Morgan won’t even send an email to ask for the millions of pounds that Wales is owed.

“Time’s up for this Welsh Labour Government that has taken Wales for granted for far too long. 2026 offers the people of Wales a chance to elect a government that will be relentless in standing up for Wales – that is a Plaid Cymru Government."

- END - 

SHORTCHANGED AGAIN

Westminster is shortchanging Wales by £4bn from the HS2 project Plaid Cymru have said. The party pledged to fight for the funding Wales is owed.

High speed rail project HS2 has been designated an ‘England and Wales project’ despite not an inch of track being in Wales.

Plaid Cymru’s candidate for Ynys Mon in the general election Llinos Medi argued that Wales should receive its fair share of Barnett consequentials – estimated at around £4bn – if the project were designated as ‘England only’.

Plaid Cymru candidate for Ynys Môn, Llinos Medi, said:

“For Wales, HS2 is a scandal. A scandal that shows just how much Westminster disregards the needs and voice of Wales.

“Not an inch of HS2 track will be in Wales and yet Welsh taxpayers are having to pay for it. This is unjust and unfair.

“If the project were to be reclassified as an England-only project, as Plaid Cymru has been campaigning for, Wales would get £4bn in consequential funding. But neither Labour nor the Tories have pledged to put this right.

“These are billions of pounds that could be used to connect our communities, north to south, and restore Labour imposed cuts to bus services.

“Only Plaid Cymru has the ambition to deliver a Welsh transport system that our communities deserve. We are the only party that is demanding the billions we deserve in rail funds and the full transfer of power over our railways to put this right once and for all.

“And only by voting for Plaid Cymru on 4 July will Wales get a strong group of MPs who will shout for Wales in Westminster and demand the fairness our communities deserve. 

ENDS 

 

EDITOR’S NOTES / NODIADAU I’R GOLYGYDD

On Wednesday 4 June, the Senedd led a debate calling simply for the fair share of funding to Wales from HS2 funding. The motion passed unopposed, but Plaid Cymru has called out the hypocrisy of Labour and the Conservatives, who despite supporting calls in the Senedd have failed to persuade the leaders of their parties in Westminster to treat Wales fairly.

If Wales were treated the same as Scotland and NI, we would be owed at least £3.9m from HS2 consequentials, even after the second phase being cancelled HS2 classed as an England and Wales project, and, while transport is devolved, rail infrastructure isn’t. If it was reclassified as England only, Wales would receive its fair share, as not a single metre of track laid in Wales.

·   Up to a quarter of Wales’s bus routes are at risk of being cut or facing significant amendments in the coming year

·  Cost of reopening Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line, and Afon Wen to Bangor would be £2bn, only half of the money we are owed from HS2

·   In October 2023, Sunak promised to electrify the North Wales mainline, at a cost of £1bn

·   WG has refused to pursue a legal challenge against the UK government to withhold the HS2 money - labelled “A worrying sign of things to come should Keir Starmer become the next PM” (Rhun 17 April)

CITY OF LONDON 1 WALES 0

Our Senedd is quite unique, it is the only devolved legislature within these islands not to have any control over its nation’s police forces. 

Now it’s worth noting, that control over Policing is devolved to Scotland (effectively since 1945), Northern Ireland, England, London, Manchester and even the City of London.

Even the Crown dependencies: the Channel Islands, the Isle of Mann and even the overseas territories (some of which are a focus for tax avoidance / tax evasion) have democratic control over their own Police services. 

Back in 2017 Plaid Cymru called a vote on devolving policing during the passing of the Wales Bill through the Houses of Parliament. 

We should remember that given an opportunity to devolve Policing to Wales, the Conservatives voted it down and the Labour in Wales MP’s abstained. 

This provides yet another example of the way the Conservative Party and Labour Party happily co-operate at Westminster to disadvantage Cymru / Wales. So much for standing up for our national interests. 

Aside from direct control of policing, it also comes down to numbers. Boris made much of his plan to boost Police numbers during the last Westminster General election (in November and December 2019). 

Even with the impact of Covid19, in relation to police numbers, it has gone rather quiet over there, which may prove that Boris’s plan may well not be quite as easy to as achieve as the soundbite it was. 

At the time, Home Office officials suggested that Boris’s promise to recruit 20,000 new police officers in England and Wales within three years just simply would not work. 

They estimated that some 50,000 officers would be needed, because so many officers were set to leave the service - more than a few perhaps demoralised by the impact of nearly 10 years of Conservative (and for some of the time willing Liberal Democrat) government. 

Of course from Boris’s perspective, 20,000 was such a nice round number. 

It was slightly ironic that the pledge to recruit more Police officers, was a direct result of the cuts to fall in police numbers was mostly brought in by the Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition. 

Boris's much trumpeted election promise of 20,000 extra police officers - was nice, save for the fact that we were already 19,704 police officers down in Wales and England and Wales since 2010. 

Here in Cymru / Wales, since 2010 we were at least 500 fewer police officers are on our streets. 

So even if Boris could achieve his extra 20,000 Police officers he would basically take us back to were we were in 2010 - with a next gain of 296 police officers in Wales and England as a whole. 

Save of course that they would not all be coming to Cymru / Wales, so even if we got 5% of them (say 25) that would still leave down by 480. 

If policing was fully devolved and funded on a population basis as is the case with other policy areas our Welsh police forces would receive upwards of £20 million more funding per year. 

Police budgets however were slashed, something that directly resulted in far fewer officers on our streets. 

The end result was that Welsh forces have been hit harder than those in the rest of the UK, due to an unfair funding formula. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of police officers in Wales decreased by 9%.

The full devolution of policing would have meant the Welsh police forces would have been exempt from the Tories’ £32 million cut to their budgets and would have benefitted from an additional £25 million through being funded through the Barnett formula.

This would have meant a total difference in Welsh police budgets of £57 million between Plaid Cymru and Conservative policy. 

Plaid Cymru would have recruited an extra 1,600 police officers – two for each community – to keep us safer. 

This would mean that our officers will be better rooted in our communities, instead of being stretched to cover large geographical areas with fewer resources. 

This would give the police the ability to focus on the priorities we need to keep us safe. 

As argued by the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales, we need to create integrated people-centred services – from prisons to counselling to housing – to undo the damage done by Cameron / Clegg and May and to replace the present callous approach that prioritises targets over people’s needs. 

Extra police officers would help facilitate community engagement in which the police and the community can relay issues of mutual concern with targeted, community based problem-solving approaches to improve crime reduction and rehabilitation.

Plaid Cymru, alone amongst all the other political parties operating within Cymru / Wales, is committed to the devolution of policing and justice to Cymru / Wales to empower us to implement and pursue policies that actually serve the interests of our citizens and communities. 

It is simply unacceptable for Cymru / Wales to be the only devolved nation in these islands without powers over its policing and justice policies. 

The problem we now face, is that with an openly centralist Conservative government in Westminster, which is hell bent on undermining, weakening and destroying devolution, is one of where do we go now? 

Let’s be honest, with ourselves, Cyrmu / Wales will get no additional new devolved powers, and few of any powers that have been repatriated from Brussels are going to find their way to Cardiff, Belfast or Edinburgh. So what’s next? 

FOR WALES, SEE WESTERN ENGLAND…

The Conservatives in Cymru / Wales, with some honourable exceptions have never been happy with devolution, deep down they would probably like to get rid of it (along with the very idea of Cymru / Wales). Boris' mutterings about intervening to over rule the Labour in Wales Government's decision not to build the M4 relief road, last week, or the lead Financial Times article (Monday 13.07.2020) about Westminster’s plans to retain control of state aid at the expense of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, should not surprise anyone. 

Boris and his ilk, in what's probably the most narrow elitist English governments (if not one that appears to be increasingly out of touch with English thinking on the Union) anytime since the 1700’s, have serious barely concealed disdain for the concept of devolution and an unconcealed contempt for Cymru / Wales. The creation of the Union Policy Implementation Committee (chaired by Michael Gove) aims to strengthen the union and 'bind' the UK's nations, at the expense of our interests.

Poor West Britons?

I have little doubt that the Conservatives will happily work to weaken if not abolish devolution in Cymru / Wales and work to weaken and undermine it in Scotland. They have certainly played fast and loose with the political process in Northern Ireland in a desperate but ultimately successful (in the short term) attempt to stay on office - something that threatened to undermine the hard won peace process. 

Now none of this is new - when one of the more recent failed Conservative leaders started talking about reviewing devolution and strengthening the Union at a time when BREXT threatened to deliver a rollback of powers then any one who believes in democracy and devolution to the nations and regions of these islands should have been concerned. 

Despite the spin and the claims to the contrary, devolution was not Teresa May’s legacy, her legacy was political chaos and economic uncertainty, and a use of BREXIT to attempt to roll back devolution and strip away powers from Wales and Scotland and to undermine the devolved institutions and constitutional settlement within these islands. As late as the 2005 Westminster general election the Conservatives (and Teresa May) were still publicly uncommitted to devolution for Cymru / Wales. 

For a Conservative leader to talk about constitutional diversity was particularly rich. The soon to be former Prime Minister is correct in one key area, the fact that some Westminster government departments have failed to recognise the reality of devolution. The Conservative party, under Cameron, May and now Boris has reluctantly paid lip service to devolution, but, many suspect that it will actively work to weaken the powers of the devolved governments post BREXIT. 

None of this is new, back in 2015, after David Cameroon, won his first Westminster majority, and before he messily ended his premiership over BREXIT, there was, at least from this end of the M4 / A55, the perception of a faint brief whiff of what could best be described as devo rollback in the air. As the then unconstrained Conservative government settled in at Westminster, what's was in it for Cymru / Wales - potentially nothing good. 

Scotland, as far as the Westminster unionists may have been concerned may be quietly (and honestly) be perceived as a lost cause (perhaps a literal case of 'when' rather than 'if' in relation to independence). Cymru / Wales on the other hand may yet offer far more constitutional room to meddle with, to tinker with or even rollback parts of our deeply flawed constitutional settlement - something that could take us back to an 'England and Wales' polity for the first time since pre 1601.

Here in Cymru / Wales we have all seen and experienced the Westminster wobble in relation to the commitment to complete the electrification of the Great Western line to Swansea, the failure to develop the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, and the threat to cancel promised public borrowing powers after the proposed M4 Relief road was dropped.

Our constitutional settlement, such as it is is, even to the disinterested, remains deeply flawed, second rate and simply unfair, not coming remotely close to either Scotland or Northern Ireland when it comes to powers which could be used to influence and shape economic matters. 

The Conservative Party appears happy to be appealing to the type of nationalism that saw the rise of UKIP in the past. With the Europe issue potentially off the political agenda, devolution is next. The Brexit Party (along with the Abolish The Assembly Party) has just publicly committed itself to challenging devolution and effectively destroying our young democracy. 

There are times, when you can be excused for feeling that Cymru / Wales not only has an unpredictable future but also has an unpredictable past. As a former observer of the old Soviet Union the emergence of a nominal political party actually dedicated to abolishing our embryonic parliament from the inside during the Newport West By-election) reminded me of the activities of interfront in the Baltic republics in the late 1980's and early 1990's - save without the backing of the Kremlin (Westminster). 

Here in Cymru / Wales we have two (or three) political parties that have wrapped themselves in the Union flag and openly expressed a version of political reality based on British exceptionalism and nostalgia. This problem existed long before BREXIT and has the potential to unleash a combination of a deep devo rollback and a BritWash of pretty much everything - be it sport (Team GB, etc), culture, history, economics or politics. 

Wrapped in a flag...

That this is the partial triumph of what could perhaps best be described as an aspirational nostalgia of a view of the past that never existed over reality should disturb most people. Now it would be too easy to pass off the mutterings and musings of the far right as a collection of nutters and eccentrics (they may be). They appeal to a heady combination of nostalgia for a questionable view of the past, hostility to the concept of devolution and perhaps a yet to be articulated hostility to the very existence of Cymru / Wales - politically and culturally. 

There should be something disturbing about people who live (or perhaps reside) within a nation that has been badly governed for generations by a narrow minded corrupt unresponsive political institution, in our case, on the bank of the Thames, actively campaigning to remove a new accountable democratic national parliament.  That said the right has little concern for Cymru / Wales or any other the the devolved nations within these islands beyond an arrogant expectation of taciturn obedience. 

Boris Johnson is on record stating that Westminster is an English Parliament. Our nation, is at best an afterthought and more than likely an irritation to the current Conservative Leader. What we are looking at is not so much a case of for Wales see England, more like for Wales, see Western England.

THE THICKENING BLUE LINE

Facing the prospect of a much thinner Blue line...

Boris’s plan to boost Police numbers, may not be quite as easy to as achieve as he thinks. Home Office officials have suggested that Boris’s promise to recruit 20,000 new police officers in England and Wales within three years - won’t work - as they estimate that some 50,000 officers will be needed, because so many officers are set to leave the service - many perhaps demoralised by nearly 10 years of Conservative government. 

From Boris’s perspective, 20,000 is such a nice round number, even if ironically the pledge to recruit more Police officers, is direct a result of the cuts to police numbers introduced by the Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition. Boris's much trumpeted election promise of 20,000 extra police officers - is nice, save for the fact that we are already 19,704 police officers down since 2010 in England and Wales. 

Here in Cymru / Wales, since 2010 there are at least 500 fewer police officers are on our streets. So even if Boris could achieve his extra 20,000 Police officers he would basically take us back to were we were in 2010 - with a next gain of 296 police officers in England and Wales as a whole. 

Save of course that they would not all be coming to Cymru / Wales, so even if we got 5% of them (say 25) that would still leave down by 480. If policing was devolved and funded on a population basis as is the case with other policy areas our Welsh police forces would receive upwards of £20 million more per year. 

Policing is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland, making our National Assembly the only devolved legislature not to have any control over its nation’s police forces. Once again, we remain the poor relation amongst the devolved institutions across these islands. We definitely need to take back control… from Westminster.