Welsh Affairs

Beth Winter Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab) [V]]

I too want to begin by paying tribute to Professor Hywel Francis, who was a long-standing friend of my family. He made an invaluable contribution to Wales and the miners here in the valleys, and my condolences go to his family.

“Mae’n bleser i siarad heddiw ac i gael cyfle i ddweud tamaid bach yn fy mamiaith. Rwy’n caru Cymru—ein hiaith, ein diwylliant ac yn bennaf ein pobl.”[Translation: It is a pleasure to speak today and to have the opportunity to say a little in my mother tongue. I love Wales—our language, our culture and above all our people.] People make a country, and I am so proud to be Welsh and to share my national identity with so many wonderful people. That is why I am so angry and sad to see people in Wales suffering hardship and poverty. I read the statistics that show that my constituency has the third highest death rate from covid in the UK, and that one of the wards in my constituency has a rate of child poverty of 45%. Wages are low and jobs are insecure. We have high levels of digital exclusion and health inequality.

It is always the poorest in society that suffer the most. Successive Tory Governments’ austerity policies have undermined their ability to fight the pandemic, attacked the benefits system on which so many of my constituents depend, and stripped our Welsh Government and local authorities of much needed funds, with £90 million of cuts in my local authority. At the same time, we have seen the resilience of local people in the way they have stood together. Local people here in Cynon Valley kept the museum going and fought to keep the children’s pool open. They are volunteering at the food banks and have formed a committee to stand up against projects that could damage our environment. They have set up a community hub and they are being good neighbours and friends.

No woman or man is an island. We all need each other, and that forms the basis of my philosophy and the philosophy of many of my forebears. Wales has a radical socialist tradition driven by that sense of community and togetherness, and it stretches from the Chartist movement to the “clear red water” statement of Rhodri Morgan. It continues in so many of the policies of our current Labour-led Welsh Government, with the maintenance of free prescriptions and the protection of the NHS as a publicly owned service. Work has been done on a social partnership Act, and in my constituency my economic advisory group is looking at how we can develop and support community wealth building.

The present UK Government are determined to ride roughshod over the devolution settlement and recentralise power in Westminster. My call today is for radical constitutional reform that puts the four nations of the UK on an equal footing, and that gives all the nations a fair funding arrangement based on the needs of the people. We need a new political and constitutional consensus aimed at delivering power, wealth and opportunity back into the hands of the people, and communities underpinned by the core values of democracy, fairness, climate stability and equality. I know from my home in Cynon Valley that people in Wales have the ability and the appetite to do things differently. They can see the way forward. They just need the tools, the financial support, the decision-making powers and the political determination to get there. “Mae gan bobl Cymru a phobl Cwm Cynon y gallu i greu byd sy’n fwy gwyrdd, cymdeithas fwy cyfartal a dyfodol tecach i bawb.”[Translation: The people of Wales and of Cynon Valley have the ability to create a greener world, a more equal society and a fairer future for all.]