Shadow Welsh secretary Lord Davies accuses Labour of ‘taking Wales for granted’
The new shadow secretary of state for Wales has accused Labour of “taking Wales for granted” after his party, the Conservatives, were wiped out there.
Lord Davies of Gower, who sits in the House of Lords, has taken on the shadow Cabinet role after the Tories lost every MP in Wales.
Lord Davies told peers that Wales was only named once in the King’s Speech and urged the Government to match the previous government’s commitments to the Welsh people.
“Reality check”
He claimed that the difference in delivery between the last government and the current one “seems very stark”.
He asked: “Who was it that delivered an additional £18 billion, the biggest block grant in the history of devolution to Wales? It was the Conservatives.
“Who delivered two freeports and two investment zones for Wales? The Conservatives.
“Who delivered two cuts to national insurance to help Welsh workers? The Conservatives.
“And who protected more than 100,000 jobs from being lost with an ambitious furlough scheme? Yes, it was the Conservatives.
“In fact the last government didn’t stop there.
“We started to announce even more bold policies for Wales which were all designed to reverse the sad decline in our public services that have been grossly mismanaged by the Labour Welsh Government.
“We committed some £1 billion to deliver the North Wales Main Line, which would have spread economic prosperity and created jobs.”
He added that he was “bitterly disappointed” that the King’s Speech did not include the last government’s pledges to allow Welsh patients access to NHS England to relieve the backlog of people on waiting lists.
Tata
He also lamented the absence of any mention of Tata Steel and how Labour will help the Welsh steel industry, saying: “The last government pledged a £500 million support package to save the Welsh steel industry plus an additional £80 million to help those who will lose their jobs.
“Labour’s response was to criticise the package, but so far they have failed to offer any credible alternative.”
He concluded by saying the King’s Speech is “severely lacking” from a Welsh perspective, adding: “That is why I call on the Labour Government to, at long last, place party politics to one side and recommit to the previous pledges made for Wales.”
As shadow Welsh secretary, he said his priority will be to “ensure Wales is not forgotten by this Government” and that he will hold ministers to account “at every opportunity”.
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Hate to agree with him, but do true. Labour barely has to fight for many seats here, leads to bad politicians like our current Pontypridd MP. Who did turn up to debate and ignores anger on many subjects Because she feel entitled.
Not sure what land he is living in. Cons ripped wales apart for years. Freeports are a con, furlough was pretty much the only way to get through the worst of covid and any government would have had to do it and his government added to the doom of covid, cuts to NI is a con to garner votes and run down services ripe for privatisation (think tanks in control to reap the rewards), you know, privatise NHS and stuff. I don’t know where Labour will go but he cannot sit there on his nice red seat and think his… Read more »
Whilst we need challenge to the Labour party in Wales, the right wing (Tories) and extreme right wing (Farage latest branding) will never be the answer. Plaid led by Rhun are starting to offer promise.
Unfortunately few people realise how dangerous Farage and his ilk are to Wales.
” match the previous government commitment to Welsh people” he said, well I hope not, as his Gov denied us our share of former EU money, introduced the internal market bill, which undermines devolution, and instigated things like HS2 which denied us infrastructure money. As the saying goes, with friends like that, who needs enemies.
Lord Byron Davies says that Labour taking Wales for granted, lol. Pot calling the kettle black. Both Labour & Conservatives take Wales for granted. Period! Labour in Cardiff have taken advantage of Wales for 25 years and UK Labour has always taken Wales for granted using us as a voter cow opting to focus predominantly on England. My I remind Lord Haw Haw of Gower of his hypocrisy. The Tories who were recently in power for 14 years before being wiped out have equally disrespected Wales. The Conservatives in their sorry history were responsible for the Blue Book slur. The… Read more »
When, as an undergraduate brought up in the north of England, I first came to live in Wales way back in the 1960s, it gradually dawned on me that the Tories pretty much ignored Wales because there were too few votes for them here, and that Labour pretty much took Wales for granted because there were so many.
Sixty years later, it seems not that much has changed!
So says a political party who have denied the Welsh electorate an election to rid ourselves of Labour ….
I hope they are finished…
There may be some truth in what Lord Davies says (I’m not giving an opinion on this). However, I think the Conservatives need to put their own house in order and look at why Welsh people largely rejected them. Under Nick Bourne and David Melding, the Conservatives became more electable for some in Wales, as those two excellent politicians realised that the party needed a more independent Welsh identity, while retaining a centre right vision (which Wales now lacks). Sadly, this progress was rolled back by later leaders, and the ‘muscular unionism’ of Boris Johnson et al. David Melding actually… Read more »