Plaid Cymru welcomes Senedd backing for devolution of powers over water.
Plaid Cymru has welcomed the backing of the Senedd for the devolution of powers over water.
Following the debate called by Plaid Cymru in the Senedd, the party’s spokesperson for Climate Change, Energy and Transport, Delyth Jewell MS welcomed the ‘historic call’ that would ‘go a long way towards righting the many of the wrongs suffered by Wales over our most abundant natural resource.’
Plaid Cymru had recently uncovered that the Welsh Government had asked the UK Government to delay the devolution of Water, as set out in the 2017 Wales Act, despite claiming that the UK Government had been dragging their feet over devolving the powers.
A disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that in December 2018 the Welsh Government’s Environment Minister Hannah Blythyn wrote to the UK’s then junior Environment Minister Therese Coffey asking her to delay the transfer of full powers over water to Wales – something that had become possible following the passing of the Wales Act the previous year.
Anomaly
Following the debate, Ms Jewell said: “The message from Wales is clear – we must fix this geographical and ecological anomaly. The Welsh Parliament has backed Plaid Cymru’s calls for water to be fully devolved to Wales.
This is a historic call, which will go a long way towards righting the many of the wrongs suffered by Wales over our most abundant natural resource.
“The mechanism has been available to us since 2017 to gain the devolution of Water, but the Welsh government wrote to the UK Government to ask them to postpone the transferal of powers in 6 years ago.
That’s 6 years we’ve been waiting for this to happen. In that time, water rates have soared, our rivers have been polluted with sewage and water that has been exported from Wales at minimal cost, has been available to companies based in England to sell on at profit.
“The time has come to turn the tide: for our future water bills to be stabilised, the cleanliness of our rivers to be secured, and for Wales’ most abundant natural resource to be used to benefit the communities of Wales.”
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This is great news. Credit to Delyth Jewell & Plaid Cymru for this debate & vote. What we now need to see is action regarding it’s devolution so we can finally financially benefit from our natural resource, although I fear anything that threatens England’s lust for Welsh resources will be face hostility by Whitehall. It’s like expecting a tick to willingly detach itself from its host. It’s ridiculous that English water companies & shareholders make hundreds of millions off our backs ,and we have to go cap in hand and beg for structural funding from Europe/ Whitehall to fund projects… Read more »
Why didn’t Plaid Cymru bring this to the attention of the Senedd in 2018? It was known at the time! Strange workings of the special arrangements of Labour and PC in Cardiff.
It’s a bit more complex than that. Severn Trent, as the name suggests serves the Severn catchment, and now the Dee valley since it took over the privately owned, and cross-border Dee Valley Water PLC. Hereford is served by Welsh Water. Apart from United Utilities, (which supplies Liverpool, the city which behaved so reprehensibly in the past), all Welsh water is abstracted by Severn Trent and Welsh Water. No other England-only water company is extracting water from Wales, the vast majority of English people live in England only water catchments and drink water from reservoirs which flooded English land. Those… Read more »
Well done the Senedd. Time for Wales to benefit from it’s water and now.
Wales needs to benefit from its water and stop using English hospitals. Why are Welsh ambulances lined up at border hospitals? We cannot lay claim to our water till we are free of English health provision