Many people are talking about the event in the coming months: the first national election since 1997. Strictly speaking, that is not the case in Wales. We had our National Assembly election back in 1999. Our sixty Assembly Members do not face another one until 2003. What makes this election historic is that it is the first post-devolution General Election. But what does the Westminster election mean for Welsh voters when the Assembly is halfway through its term?
A close partnership between Westminster and the National Assembly is key to achieving the best for Wales. We’ve seen this time and again, from the Comprehensive Spending Review, which gave an unprecedented increase in funding for Wales, to the appointment of a Children’s Commissioner for Wales.
Wales benefits from the UK Government successfully steering a course of economic stability which has delivered low inflation and interest rates. The Assembly needs a second term UK Labour Government to ensure continued investment in public services. Of course, we do not miss an opportunity to represent Welsh needs, to speak up loudly for the interests of Welsh manufacturing industry or Welsh farmers, but the strong economy is good news for the Assembly and the Welsh people.
So this is most definitely our election too. It might be business as usual in the National Assembly, but we are determined, and confident, that our close collaboration with the wider Labour movement will continue. In 1997, Wales became a Tory-free zone. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalists, were contained in their West and North reservations. Rural Mid-Wales returned two Lib Dems. Otherwise, Wales was overwhelmingly Labour.
I am confident the people of Wales will no longer put up with being duped by the Welsh Nationalists. It is clear to all that the Nationalists in Anglesey are a world apart from the Nationalists in the Rhondda or Rhymney valleys. People want to know exactly what they are voting for, and on almost every issue – not least an independent Wales – Plaid Cymru is split from head to toe. That, at least, is one thing that you can’t criticise about the Conservative Party. Vote for them, and you clearly vote for an inward-looking Britain cut off from its European neighbours and a £16 billion cut in spending on clear priorities for the Welsh people.
Welsh Labour will not look backwards or be inward-looking. Voting for Welsh Labour means looking outwards, looking at the opportunities for the Welsh economy, including maximising the potential from Objective One funding for the more deprived parts of the country. Ambitious projects to transform the economy are already off the ground. One of the biggest challenges is to develop a highly skilled, well-educated workforce which can respond to the opportunities of an international economy.
Opposition parties resent Labour because Labour delivers. They said we would not deliver on Objective One, but we did: first in Europe and then in Whitehall. When we entered into partnership with the Liberal Democrats in the Assembly, it was because we wanted to continue to deliver for Wales as a stable majority administration.
I am convinced that the Welsh people recognise the benefits for Wales from the re-election of the UK Labour Government. This might not be the Assembly’s election, and Wales has its own distinctive priorities and policy direction in many areas, but we need our strong partnership with the Westminster Labour Government to continue to succeed in getting long-term change, prosperity and social justice throughout Wales.
Tony Blair’s Government has been constitutionally bold and radical and has promised to be more so in its next term. I am confident that this is something worth voting for, and will be seen as such by people across Wales.