Plaid Cymru calls on First Minister to publish Liz Kendall response ‘without delay.’
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has written to Wales’ First Minister urging her to publish the response she has received from the UK Government regarding sweeping reforms to the benefits system “in full” and “without delay”.
Speaking on BBC Wales’ Politics Wales programme on Sunday (March 30) Labour MP for the Vale of Glamorgan, Kanishka Narayan said: “She’s written to the Work & Pensions Secretary. I understand that she’s received a response.”
Baroness Eluned Morgan originally wrote to the UK Government on March 11, requesting an assessment of the impact of welfare changes on Wales before any plans were published.
However, on Wednesday the First Minister expressed her disappointment that she had not received a response ahead of the Chancellor’s spring statement.
Supportive
Tensions escalated further later in the week when the FM refused to back changes to social security spending, despite the Secretary of State for Wales, Jo Stevens, claiming the First Minister was supportive of them.
Baroness Morgan told the Senedd’s Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister that she had yet to get a “firm understanding” of how the reforms will impact on Wales.
In the spring statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said changes to the “broken” benefits system will save around £4.8 billion by the end of the decade, and £1 billion will be invested “to provide guaranteed, personalised employment support to help people back into work”.
An impact assessment of the reforms has warned that 250,000 people – including 50,000 children – could fall into relative poverty as a result.
Vulnerable
Plaid Cymru says the UK Government has a responsibility to support the most vulnerable in society and has called for details on how the changes will affect Welsh people.
In his letter to the First Minister of Wales, the leader of Plaid Cymru, Rhun ap Iorwerth MS, said: “On BBC Wales’ Politics Wales programme this morning, Labour’s Kanishka Narayan MP suggested that you have received a response from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall MP, to your original letter regarding the impact of Welfare reforms on Wales.
“Given the significant consequences these reforms will have on the people of Wales I urge you to publish the response in full, without delay.”
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Does anyone take her seriously…!
The baroness🤡
More like the baromess 🙂
A completely inept First Minister with some very questionable Cabinet Secretaries.
Lynne Neagle – Education… blimey. Could do with some lessons in being a good person herself. When did she last inhabit Torfaen? The 1990s? #PenarthMafia
It should be clear by now that the London government is only interested in London no matter which party is in power. It’s unbelievable that another £6bn tunnel under the Thames has just been approved just months after a new railway for Oxbridge got a fat cheque when limited infrastructure spending should be focused in the UK regions and nations where it can deliver the greatest GDP uplift. That’s what a pro-growth government should be doing, not letting the unelected bureaucrats look after their own patch.
*£10bn
It’s obvious that main stream Labour in London want to keep as faraway from Welsh Labour as possible. Looking at the way Welsh Labour runs its team to London Labour government it’s looking at a Corbyn style and they want nothing to do with them
Or there’s the reality view that the unelected mandarins in SW1 are running the show and the politicians are only there to make the announcements. It all makes a lot more sense when you remember that Whitehall was set up to run an empire not run a modern state.
Do UK Labour WPM Liz Kendall & WS Jo Stevens give a fudge about the effect of these cuts on Wales? Like hell they do. They were quite happy to see us robbed of billions HS2 consequential that could have cushioned us from its ill effect. Career politician and Whitehall plant Eluned Morgan to Wales is the equivalent of a car with square wheels. Totally useless. We are forever stuck in the slow lane. And thanks to her Whitehall masters at Westminster Wales, as with Brexit, Wales always suffer the most out of all the UK nations with these benefit… Read more »
Absolutely disgraceful by the Firt Minister.And for Eluned Morgan to say she is concerned about the welfare benefit cuts.She wasn’t that concerned about the stopping of the OAPs winter fuel allowance.As she said it was nothing she could do as it was a Westminster decision.So what is the difference why is she showing concern about the welfare cuts ??
This response from the UK government must be published today….And unedited.
Any delay will will lead to suspect that the FM has sold out the people of Wales to the UK government.
You have to admire the political audacity of the “Wales” Labour Party! Not content with digging a hole, they then widen it to a ditch and then excavate an industrial sized quarry with a JCB!!
The shear bloody ineptitude is breathtaking. They deserve all they get.
By not releasing the contents of the letter she shows her ineptitude and lack of openess. The relavation will obviously be damaging and put her in a negative light, which she entered not long of her she took a job she did not want in times past.
How do they deal with this in federal states. I can’t believe Democrats in the US states keep quiet when Democrats in Washington arrange things to suit themselves. Or Labor in Australia. Or sister parties in Canada, Germany or anywhere else decentralise government is a perfectly normal arrangement.