Leanne Wood Wales Bill Speech

Plaid Cymru has decided to vote against the Wales Bill because it seeks to claw back powers from Wales to Westminster. 

Plaid Cymru's Dr Dai Lloyd AM has confirmed that his party's Assembly Members intend to vote against an LCM (Legislative Consent Motion) on the controversial Wales Bill in the Assembly today.

Dr Dai Lloyd AM said that the deal on offer to Wales represented a significant roll-back of powers to Westminster and was forcing the National Assembly to choose between a bad bill and no bill.

He added that his party cannot, in good conscience, support a bill which undermines the democratic will of people in Wales who voted for more powers in the 2011 referendum.

Speaking ahead of the vote, Dr Dai Lloyd AM, Chair of the Plaid Cymru Assembly Group, said:

"Plaid Cymru exists to put the national interests of Wales and its people first at all times.

"This is an undemocratic bill which represents a significant roll-back of powers. Plaid Cymru cannot, in good conscience, support a bill, which undermines the democratic will of people in Wales who voted for more powers in the 2011 referendum.

"If this Wales Bill was already enshrined in law, the National Assembly would not have been able to pass key legislation such as the organ donation act and laws on education, the environment and the Welsh language.

"The Westminster government is forcing Wales to choose between a bad bill and no bill. Plaid Cymru refuses to settle for that.

"While the Wales Bill may deliver a fair fiscal framework, this should never have been conditional upon a deeply flawed bill, which simultaneously takes powers away from our National Assembly.

"If this legislation passes, the debate must immediately move on to focus on the real empowerment of the Assembly with responsibility over areas such as justice, policing, and welfare.

"The days of Wales gratefully accepting crumbs from Westminster's table must end."

CRISIS - WHAT CRISIS?

The last time there was a great economic collapse, some major political and economic changes followed it. Now this was a combination of the legacy of failure to deal with the political, economic, and social consequences of the economic collapse, combined with a desire not to return to a grim pre war world and the positive legacy of the combined effort to win the war and defeat fascism. This 'economic revolution' was established or perhaps enshrined at the Bretton Woods conference (in 1944) and lasted until the late 1970's.

This time around following the greed and stupidity induced banking crisis which triggered economic collapse there has been no 'economic revolution', there appears to be no collective desire to make sure the same mistakes does not happen again – at least amongst the political elite. We are collectively stuck with the same old deeply flawed unregulated 'free market' theories that helped to contributed to the banking crisis in the first place - there is apparently 'no alternative' but simply to hope that the failures of the past don't come back to haunt us in future years.

Yet, the version of 'free market' unregulated capitalism, where the big banks pretty much hoovered up their smaller competitors in the years before the collapse (the one legacy of Thatcher that's never talked about is the eradication (with a few exceptions) of our building societies). The same thing happened with the electricity and gas companies, which were rapidly smothers and absorbed to leave us with the unpalatable, untouchable 'Big 6' cartel members - who continue to squeeze their customers and monopolise the so called 'free market'.

Somehow, while Westminster and Washington were distracted or disinterested we ended up with privately owned, privately funded institutions that had become 'too big to fail'. Their financial misdemeanours largely went unchallenged, un-investigated and unreported (save by a few honourable individuals at Westminster who did their level best to shine a light on the nefarious activities of an increasingly unregulated banking sector).

One take on this is that the Westminster elite (elected and non- elected) have for far too long been far too closely involved with the pernicious influence of the city. It has always been too easy for the Westminster elite to flit back and got into and out of lucrative employment in the City (and back again) with little beyond half-hearted ineffective scrutiny.

This was as true under the long Conservative period of governance between 1979 and 1997 as it was under the New Labour governments between 1997 and 2010 and to a great extent remains largely unchanged if not unchallenged. The questionable privatisations under the Conservative, New Labour and Con Dem governments certainly provided plenty of opportunities for cosy well salaried non executive jobs on the board. 

This combined with the blending of private capital with the public sector, begun under John Major, accelerated by Blair / Brown and continued by the Con Dens blurred the boundaries between the public meant that when the crash happened there was real panic, followed by the handing over of significant amounts of public money to private business (banking) concerns pretty much will little regulation of what was done with it (hence the continuance of the business as usual banking bonus culture even within those banks that ended up effectively under public ownership).

After the current crash, unlike after the crash in the 1930's there has been no period of reflection of reform and very little legislative or regulatory action to try to ensure that the circumstances that led to the crash don't happen again. The speed with which the current unrestrained Conservative government has moved to lighten the tax load on the big banks and to reduce corporation tax - something that a former New Labour government would have probably done - reflects the continued unhealthily close relationship between the City and Westminster.

When the crash happened governments and internal financial institutions stood blinking like rabbits gazing into the headlights of an oncoming car - the hard impact that followed left the rabbits stunned and in shock rather than dead. There has been no fix beyond collective wishful thinking that it won't happen again and perhaps a silent hope that some other financial rabbit will take the head on impact next time.

The 'free market' ideology that we have got lumbered with is perhaps the adoptive child of all those other financial experts who were proved so wrong by John Maynard Keynes (back in the 1940's). Certainly the 'free market' economists have re-shaped (shattered) or shaken our world since the late 1970's and unleashed a ‘free market unregulated capitalism' onto the developed, the developing and the former communist worlds - with some pretty dire consequences.

Whether you live in Russia or the old West by and large (although with a few healthy exceptions) former state / publicly owned enterprises and assets are largely no more. They were depending on how you see it, privatised (on the cheap) or plundered by a new class of carpet baggers who enriched themselves at our collective expense. In the East the process was more brutal and profits of the oligarchs larger and even more unregulated. Embedding and developing democracy was always secondary to making a profit - something that has not helped ordinary people very much at all – but has made the city traders very happy!

HANDBAGS AT 50 YARDS?

I have a small degree of sympathy with the view expressed by the Welsh Government that London should pay for rail electrification projects, as control over Network Rail (in Wales) has not (yet - if you read the Silk Commission report) been devolved to Wales. Now I would qualify that by saying that London (as the senior partner) in the Union should pay for UK wide infrastructure projects, and the electrification of the railway from London to Swansea would tick the box for most people as being a UK infrastructure project.

Rail electrification in the South?

The electrification of the Valley lines into Cardiff, possibly Swansea and hopefully Newport may well be another matter, having not been on the cards when the original electrification projects were planned. It is worth noting at this point that the last New Labour Westminster Government never intended the proposed electrification of the old Great Western line to go beyond Bristol – so much for standing up for Wales. As for electrifying the Valley lines, I would personally suggest getting on with it, it has been calculated that the Welsh Government could pay for that from its own transport budget, even after the Con Dem imposed cuts.

The problem comes from the fact that when it comes to transport infrastructure projects we in Wales literally have one hand tied behind out backs, because, unlike in Scotland, we have no control over transport infrastructure planning. It should be obvious by now that this (and the previous Westminster government) have little more than a passing interest in Wales, let alone any concerns for our national interests.

Handbags at fifty yards?

There is an old diplomatic service / civil service adage about crisis management, which goes along the lines of first you create your crisis, and then you manage it. That said there is more than a distinctly manufactured feel to this latest spat between the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay and the Con Dem coalition government in Westminster. Perhaps rather than a constitutional crisis or even a disagreement about more powers or a clash over point of principal, it may be more of a case of handbags at fifty yards.

The party formerly known as New Labour, when in Westminster government proved to be largely indifferent to Welsh interests, beyond political token gestures. This view can be said to have been backed up by the Welsh MPs voting record on matters of interest to Wales, since their party lost power in Westminster. Sadly this latest spat merely serves to strengthen the illusion that our nominally Welsh Labour government is standing up for Wales, the danger is that this dispute could end up delaying the much needed electrification of the valley lines for a few more years. 

We should have learned by now that we cannot rely on any Westminster Government to deliver for Wales. Let's electrify the Valley lines and the Ebbw Vale line (initially) into Cardiff by using some of the National Assembly's 0.78 billion transport budget. Here  in the South East, we need railway stations at Caerleon and Magor and better facilities for passengers and more stopping services at Severn Tunnel, Chepstow and Abergavenny along with more secure park and ride schemes and better integration with local bus services – it’s time to stop asking and to start demanding that government actually delivers for our country. 

A HAPPY NEW YEAR (NOT)!

No end in sight for Tolls!

The UK (Westminster) Government has announced (via a written answer in Westminster) that commuters and drivers using the Severn Crossings will get hit by an inflation-busting toll rise of 3.3%. From January 1st cars crossing the Severn bridges on the M4 and M48 crossings will pay £6.20 – up from £6 this year. Stephen Hammond, the Con Dem Transport minister also revealed that the charge for vans and minibuses crossing the bridges will rise from £12.10 to £12.40 (2.5%) and from £18.10 to £18.60 (2.8%) for lorries and coaches.

The new toll levels will be confirmed in an order made by the Secretary of State in December While the Westminster Government has been happy to subsidize the Humber Bridge, which had its tolls reduced by 50% nothing has been done to reduce the impact of tolls on commuters, motorists and small to medium sized businesses based in Wales. Whether we have a New Labour or a Conservative run Government it should be pretty clear that Wales or Welsh interests are unimportant.

Barely a year ago, a major cross-party report revealed that the Severn Crossings had a yearly income of £72 million pounds but running costs of just £15 million pounds. The Welsh Affairs committee recommended that with tolls as low as £1.50 for the bridge to be self-financing.  Meanwhile in Scotland, tolls on the Skye Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge have all been scrapped.

The new toll increase have been revealed less than a fortnight after Labour in Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones demanded talks to transfer control over the Severn Bridge tolls to the Welsh Government. The UK Government ignored the First Minister and publically stated that there would be no change to ownership agreements which will see control of the bridges and the lucrative income from the Severn crossings go back into UK Treasury. News that the First Minister has half an eye on the income from the tolls which might be used to improve the M4 (and maintain the crossings) will bring no comfort to commuters and businesses as it suggests that there will be no end to the tolls.