Found: She was granted a peerage in 2011 and is formally known as Baroness Morgan of Ely.

Found: She was granted a peerage in 2011 and is formally known as Baroness Morgan of Ely.

Found: She was granted a peerage in 2011 and is formally known as Baroness Morgan of Ely.

Found: As the former Welsh MEP and now Baroness Morgan of Ely, Eluned Morgan, explains: There is no formal

<p>Deputy Llywydd, it's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon. I'm always conscious when I'm one of the final speakers on the list that I don't try to repeat things that have already been said, but I think the remarks I've drafted today would be in no danger of doing that, given that I don't believe the subject has been raised in most degrees in the entire length of this sixth Senedd thus far.</p>
<p>What I'd like to focus on is point 2 of the Welsh Conservatives' motion today, which states that we regret</p>
<p>'that the First Minister has failed to stand up for Wales and deliver the improvements&nbsp;that the people of Wales deserve.'</p>
<p>And the area I want to focus on, which applies to part 2 of our motion, would be the lack of commentary or acknowledgement from the First Minister in response to the UK Labour Government's plans to impose 20 per cent VAT on private schools across the UK, and removing their current charitable status. Although I recognise that this specific area is not devolved to Wales, given that it's a value added tax matter, it equally has an impact on education systems in Wales, which, no doubt at some point, fall onto your table, and also that of the Cabinet Secretary for Education and her deputies.</p>
<p>Although the Labour Party are ideologically opposed to the very existence of private schools, they still have a profile and a voice within the parameters of a Welsh context. And what we've actually seen over time since devolution and the one-party state, which Wales has become, is a significant reduction in private school provision in Wales since the 1990s, with swathes of closures of schools that, historically, had a long-standing presence in many communities across Wales. Personally, I'm, unfortunately, old but young enough to remember and be a beneficiary of the assisted places scheme of the 1980s and 1990s, where the UK Conservative Government actually paid private school fees for children who passed an entrance exam, and the opportunity that gave to gifted children from less wealthy backgrounds, which achieved social mobility and fluidity for people from backgrounds who wouldn't have had that opportunity to flourish otherwise.</p>
<p>I'm not advocating that we wind back the clock and go back to those times at all, but it's more to highlight the speed of societal change, driven by the left, in abolishing opportunities for kids from less wealthy backgrounds to prosper, through the abolition of new grammar schools in 1998 and the discouragement and universality of what the Welsh education system has become since devolution, in creating a singular exam board that all state schools have to adhere to, no matter what their needs or location are. A harsh critic might say it's a forced egalitarianism that Lenin himself would be proud of.</p>
<p>But what I've increasingly become concerned about is the lack of acknowledgement from the First Minister and her Government in response to this news, and what the Welsh Government's view is on this matter, because no matter how you look at it, the policy around private schools in Wales and across the UK has gone from one polar opposite to the other in the space of less than 30 years. And the fact the Welsh Government has given no commentary on this matter is a cause for concern, given the historical status and presence of private schools in Wales, and the role they continue to play in society, albeit through a watered down framework compared to the halcyon days of 30 to 40 years ago.</p>
<p>What impact assessment has the Welsh Government made in response to the news about the potential impact such decisions will have on the state school system in Wales? And how robust is the state school system to the potential of a mass populating of this system, given that the decision to apply 20 per cent VAT will impact the most upon the parents, children and families who make painstaking sacrifices in their personal lives in order to give their children the best possible start in life? The rich and the super rich won't be impacted, nor will the Chinese-backed private schools, of which we have many in Wales and the UK. It will be those private education providers and families who live hand to mouth—like Rydal Penrhos in Colwyn Bay, St David's College in Llandudno, and St Gerard's in Bangor—who will suffer the most.</p>
<p>So, in 100 days of Baroness Morgan of Ely taking the reins of the Welsh Government, we've had no directional statement by her or any of her deputies or officials in terms of the future of education in Wales, given the substantial ideologically driven—</p>

<p>I'm glad that the First Minister recognises my commitment to Wales in being here fighting for Wales in the Welsh Parliament. We know that she has her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Morgan of Ely, of course. We hear Labour talking about tough decisions, don't we? I wonder if the First Minister cares to comment on the very tough decisions that pensioners in poverty have to make now in choosing between heating and eating. It's a pretty tough choice, is it not? What we see, sadly, and I feared this, is the unwillingness of Labour in Wales to actually stand up to its London masters and fight for Wales and for what's in the interests of the most vulnerable in society. Now, this isn't standing up for Wales from the First Minister; it's keeling over and putting party, again, before country.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Now, I want to move on, if I can, to another issue. In 2007, another predecessor of hers, Carwyn Jones, promised Labour would scrap the Barnett formula. It could not be defended, he said. Why, then, in her recent letter to me was the First Minister still defending it, and why did Labour fail to keep its word?</p>

<p>I appreciate that ambition, Minister, but it's still the case that patients are still waiting 10 years, so I think it's going to take more than just warm words to address those more global issues, sadly. But, sadly, the failure in endometriosis diagnoses is the latest debacle in a long list of Welsh Government's failings on health more generally. This may well be the last opportunity to question you, Minister, whilst still occupying the health portfolio, so I'd be grateful to you if you could make an assessment of your success in the role. We are a year on from the Minister narrowly missing a vote of no confidence, due to her mismanagement of failings in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in north Wales, a health board that was pulled from special measures for reasons of political expediency and then placed back into special measures by this Labour Government after the election. But where are we today? And what will the legacy be of Baroness Morgan of Ely in the health Minister's role?</p>
<p>The Minister's legacy will be of having presided over a health service in which every single health board is in some sort of enhanced monitoring or special measures, A&amp;E targets missed, cancer waiting targets missed, two-year waits on elimination targets missed twice. So, can the Minister tell me that, when she looks back over her time in the portfolio—and without making a single excuse if possible—does she agree with me that the health service in Wales is in much worse shape today than when you first assumed office?</p>