Plaid calls on First Minister to condemn UK Government welfare cuts
Emily Price
Plaid Cymru’s Senedd leader has hit out at the First Minister after she refused to condemn welfare cuts imposed by the UK Government.
During Questions to the First Minister of Tuesday (March 11) Rhun ap Iorwerth said Baroness Eluned Morgan was “content to see the most vulnerable people in Wales condemned to more financial hardship”.
His comments come as the Chancellor is expected to announce billions worth of welfare cuts.
Rachel Reeves will deliver her spring statement on March 26 in response to the latest forecasts from the Budget watchdog.
Cuts
Increased borrowing costs and weak economic growth are likely to require spending cuts in order to meet her commitments on managing the public finances.
Curbing the cost of welfare is expected to be among moves to contribute to savings.
The UK Government has already cut Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners, refused to scrap the two-child benefit cap, and refused compensation for 1950s WASPI women.
In the Senedd Chamber, Plaid leader called on the Welsh FM to tell Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer that “enough is enough”.
Eluned Morgan hit back saying Mr ap Iorwerth needed a lesson “on how devolution works”.
Lesson
She said: “It works because I am responsible for certain areas and they’re responsible for others. I don’t know why you keep asking me about areas over which I don’t have responsibility.”
Mr ap Iorwerth said he failed to see how the decisions of the UK Government were not relevant to the people of Wales.
He said: “The UN said that the UK Government should ensure that benefits levels were reviewed to make sure that people have enough to get by, but the UN’s report also—and again this is directly relevant to the First Minister—called on the devolved Governments of the UK to assess the impact of welfare reforms.
“I say that that assessment must, yes, include reforms already introduced, but also those being proposed. So, as well as asking for confirmation that she will commission that assessment, I ask the First Minister again: does she support cuts to welfare in order to save money, yes or no?”
Baroness Morgan said that if Plaid’s leader was “so keen to protect the public in Wales” he would have voted through the Welsh Government’s recent budget.
Both Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Conservatives voted against the spending plans which were agreed after the Senedd’s only Liberal Democrat struck a deal with Welsh Ministers.
‘Flawed’
Mr ap Iorwerth argued the budget was “flawed” adding that party loyalty was stopping Baroness Morgan from holding the Prime Minister to account as a Welsh First Minister should.
Responding, the FM said: “My whole Government is focused on delivering on the bread-and-butter issues that people care about, that we got extra money for last week and that you voted against.”
Speaking after the exchange, Mr ap Iorwerth said: “In refusing to rule out Starmer’s sweeping cuts to welfare not only once, but twice today, the First Minister confirms that they are content to see the most vulnerable people in Wales condemned to more financial hardship.
“This Welsh Labour Government shamelessly finds itself defending the indefensible week after week – from cuts to the winter fuel allowance to keeping the two-child cap, turning their backs on 1950s women, hiking national insurance contributions, the family farm tax, and now welfare cuts.
“Wales deserves a First Minister who will stand up to Keir Starmer and stand with the people of Wales. Plaid Cymru is ready to offer Wales the leadership we need, with a fairer more ambitious Wales at the heart of everything we do.”
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The leader of Labour’s branch office in Wales complicit in the shameful attacks being waged by her leaders at Westminster on the most vulnerable people in our society. Plaid needs to remind people in Wales of this – again and again – in the run up to next year’s Senedd election.
Rhun also incredibly stated that the Welsh Gov should make up for the cuts etc by the UK Gov – winter allowance, Waspi women etc. This is not serious politics, it’s an absurd ask that would mean diverting hundreds of millions of pounds from health and education. Plaid should stop virtue signalling and come up with serious policies to convince the electorate to give them their vote.
Same old same old. Plaid demands.
Always the same no policies just condemnation. Student politics at best.
Since when has opposing billions of pounds of cuts to the benefits of the disabled been ‘virtue signalling’? Think you’ll find its a position the vast majority of the electorate share. Serious policies? How about plaid’s call for the labour govt at wesrminster to give Wales the billions we are owed from HS2?
‘Plaid calls on First Minister to condemn UK Government welfare cuts’ It won’t happen. It might, just conceivably, have happened – albeit very cautiously and tactfully – in the Drakeford era, but the current Welsh Labour leadership appears to me to rate loyalty to the UK Labour movement as its over-arching priority. So this initiative from Plaid is in reality just a waste of effort. Having said that, I do have some sympathy with UK Labour’s current predicament. Labour won power at Westminster in July on a commitment not to increase basic taxes on ordinary citizens. But, back in last… Read more »