Autumn Budget 2025

Lord Jones of Penybont Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones of Penybont (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth for his maiden speech. As I know, it is always nice to get it out of the way. There is a build-up towards it and it is a relief when it finishes.

It was my destiny—some might say my misfortune—to spend most of my term as First Minister of Wales dealing with a UK Conservative Government. There were occasions on which there was genuine co-operation. The city deals were one example but, by and large, we saw our budgets cut in real terms year after year through the block grant. Each time that happened we were accused by the Government in London of not spending the money we did not have in the first place. It is a relief and a joy now to see the money that has been allocated to Wales as a result of this Budget—£505 million extra on top of £425 million as the result of the reshaping and reconfiguring of the fiscal framework. This is welcome news indeed.

I will also refer to some of the projects that have been announced in Wales. In the past decade, I sat and watched the ending of a subsidy for solar panels, which was removed in the middle of a consultation on precisely the same point. I saw the effective banning of wind farms in England. I saw the failure to support the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon.

On top of that was the failure to support the Wylfa nuclear power station on Anglesey. This was a very good project with a reputable Japanese company involved in delivering it, so I was delighted to see that it has been resurrected in the form of an SMR. Six hundred jobs were sustained on the island of Anglesey as the result of Wylfa being there. I hope to see those jobs return to the island. I ask the Minister to consider whether Trawsfynydd, the previous site of a nuclear power station, could also be considered for an SMR. These are rural areas, but they are also areas of strength for the Welsh language. Without the jobs to sustain them, young people have to leave, with the consequent detrimental effect on the language, so this announcement is very welcome.

I also welcome the announcements regarding Cardiff Parkway and Cardiff Central railway stations, which are long overdue. I suspect that Cardiff Central is one of the most overcrowded stations in Britain; there are trains that queue to get into that station. Reshaping it and bringing it up to 21st-century standards is hugely important, and I welcome that. I contrast that with the promise made by a previous UK Conservative Government to electrify the south Wales main line to Swansea—a promise that, sadly, was never kept. The people of Wales will welcome this investment in their transport network, together, of course, with what is being done by the Welsh Government through the establishment and financing of Transport for Wales.

We have also seen extra money from the Budget for the freeports, first with £25 million in Holyhead—not too far from Wylfa—and £4 million for land reclamation at Port Talbot within the boundary of the Celtic Freeport. These are all examples of a Labour Government in London and a Labour Government in Cardiff delivering for the people of Wales. It was also good to see the investment in AI in both north and south Wales, and the proposed semiconductor cluster. Wales is one of the world leaders in the production of compound semiconductors, so to see that being taken forward and invested in is hugely important.

Many of us on these Benches will applaud the lifting of the two-child cap. Some 69,000 children in Wales alone will be taken out of poverty as a result, and many more will benefit as a result of the lifting of the minimum wage. Does the Minister agree that Wales is best served when there are Governments in London and Cardiff of like mind? That is the best way to deliver. This Budget has delivered and I look forward to seeing further delivery from both Governments working together in the future.