Labour’s 1997 referendum campaign promised Wales that the National Assembly would make a difference. Just over half way through the Assembly’s first term, that difference is beginning to show. There is no big ideological divide between Welsh and English Labour – but there are differences of emphasis and priority that lead us to take the Welsh way.
Wales’ three million population and its radical and community-based traditions keep society a force in our lives. We are poorer in general than our neighbours: most of Wales has either Objective 1 or Objective 2 European support. Good public services are important to all of us. Devolution is enabling us to cater for these circumstances and tie in with our traditions.
The sixth century Saint David, with his radical vision for Wales, said: ‘Gofalwch am y pethau bychain’ – ‘Look after the small things’. Separately, the Assembly’s numerous initiatives may look small; together they improve our quality of life.
We have introduced free bus passes for pensioners and disabled people, with free bus travel following next April, along with a 20 percent funding increase for local transport and bus services. We have frozen prescription charges and abolished them for sixteen to 25 year-olds and the over-60s. We have abolished dental charges for the same age groups and abolished eye-test charges for the over-60s. During the Assembly’s first term there will have been 37 percent real growth in NHS expenditure.
Our radical Wales NHS Plan will get service management closer to users and frontline staff, and improve teamwork, both within the NHS and between the NHS, councils and other service-providers. We are considering the role of PFI. We have used it for several major projects – schools, hospital buildings, roads – which could not have been financed within normal expenditure limits. But in this year’s Welsh Labour manifesto we made clear that, in health service PFIs, no part of the clinical staff team would be transferred. We are now moving towards a redefinition of the clinical team, taking in porters, cleaners and catering staff.
As a keen athletics fan I sometimes had difficulty at Conference 2000 resisting the alternative distraction of the brilliant Sydney Olympics. I was impressed by the example of the New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr, whose partnership with the trades unions – identifying needs and how to achieve them – delivered the best Olympics ever. With the Wales TUC I have set up a standing forum for regular meetings between Welsh union leaders and the Welsh cabinet. I want to build a similar partnership in Wales, delivering a radical reform programme for better public services, without assuming that this necessitates privatisation.
We work in partnership also with local government: councillors are locally elected and close to their localities. We prefer not to bypass them, for example by giving funds straight to schools. We have scrapped the publication of school performance data in the traditional form. We are keeping the community-based comprehensive schools which fit our circumstances and have the confidence of our people. We have also set up a pilot project for a Welsh baccalaureate to complement other opportunities for sixteen to eighteen year-olds.
Labour’s use of positive action to ensure 50 percent women Labour candidates in 1999 fed through to an Assembly with over 40 percent women members. This has enlightened both debate and policy, and the agenda is taken forward by a cabinet which is over 50 percent women.
We took ironic delight in the moment when my fellow Assembly minister Carwyn Jones told the plenary session: ‘What Margaret Thatcher took away, the Welsh Assembly restored today.’ The irresistible symbolism of the Assembly’s restoration of free school milk for children in Key Stage 1 – in itself, a small enough change – demonstrated that a Labour-led Assembly means a return to Welsh values in government.
So, we have made some small steps, and some large, on the Welsh way. We look to a brighter future for Wales, and travel on confidently.