Welsh Affairs

Beth Winter Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lefarydd, am y cyfle i siarad yn y ddadl y prynhawn yma. Mae e’n gyfle pwysig i ni drafod materion o bwys i ni fel Aelodau Seneddol o Gymru. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak today, as it is an important opportunity to deal with matters of importance to us as Welsh MPs.

Two recent events that have affected my particular constituency, Cynon Valley, and the local authority area of Rhondda Cynon Taff, have given me food for thought on a more general level. One has obviously been the devastating floods we have suffered and the other is the future of services in one of our local hospitals, the Royal Glam—the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.

The flooding has been a tragedy for individuals, with over 650 homes and 500 businesses seriously affected, roads and bridges damaged and individual lives traumatised. I have been in tears seeing how people have lost so much that was precious to them. I also pay tribute to all the local residents, councillors, the fire services and the First Minister for the work that they have done.

Dealing with the aftermath of that event is going to be hard on an individual constituent level and on a wider scale, in terms of local authorities and the Welsh Government having to deal with the immediate and longer-term consequences of what has happened. However, this is happening after 10 years of Tory austerity policies and the underfunding of the Welsh Government since the Barnett formula was set up. Our Welsh Government get less money than they did 10 years ago. My local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taff, lost £90 million in funding over the last years of Tory austerity policies, but if I say that, I am accused of playing politics with the flooding. I am not ashamed of or going to shy away from the reality of inadequate funding—the underfunding —of Wales over these years of Tory Government. It is not me who is playing politics with the lives of the people of RCT; the Tories have done that with their policy of austerity. That was their political choice.

If that argument does not work, the Tories come back with, “Ah, but flood defences, or the health service, are devolved—nothing to do with us folks”. Rubbish—neu swbriel yn Cymraeg! Yes, those services are devolved and the Welsh Government take their responsibility seriously, with progressive policies to combat climate change and on free prescriptions, and having introduced organ donation changes seven years before that was considered in England. But who holds the purse strings? Westminster, and our health and social care system throughout the United Kingdom is straining to survive, and we will strain even further to do so if the immigration policies being proposed get through. All this is happening against the backdrop of Wales being one of the poorest areas of the United Kingdom, where people have to use food banks to manage and where benefit cuts mean that families must decide whether to eat or heat their homes. This is unacceptable.

My final thought is that we need to make our politics here in Westminster relevant to the people we represent. This argument about devolved services is used by the Tory Government to wash their hands of their responsibility and we need to make it clear that we will not let that happen. One of my grandfathers was a miner and the other was a steelworker. What little they had, they earned by hard work. They did not make millions by speculating on the stock exchange. We have a responsibility to the people of Wales at every turn to argue that the wealth that exists in this country, much of which was created by them, needs to be shared out so that we reverse the position where 10% of the population owns 45% of the wealth. As I said in my maiden speech, we need state intervention to help our people. It has helped wealth and privilege for far too long. A alla i orffen trwy ddymuno Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus i bawb? Diolch yn fawr.