Ex-minister joins race to be Welsh Labour leader

OGMORE AM Huw Irranca-Davies, who has served as a minister in both Westminster and Cardiff, will today announce his intention to stand as Welsh Labour leader.

He becomes the fifth AM known to be interested in the role, which will become vacant later this year when Carwyn Jones steps down after nine years as First Minister.

So far, however, only Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford has secured the four nominations he needs from colleagues to get his name on the ballot paper.

Now Mr Irranca-Davies, the Minister for Children, Older People and Social Care, joins Health Secretary Vaughan Gething, Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning Minister Eluned Morgan and Counsel General Jeremy Miles as a potential candidate.

At this afternoon’s launch of his campaign, Mr Irranca-Davies is expected to say: “This summer should be a battle of fundamental new ideas for the future of Wales, not just a battle for nominations. This is a chance to look outwards and renew the Labour Party in Wales.

“If all this is a coronation, or a scrabble for nominations, then we will have lost the chance to refresh our great party in Wales, and to renew our vision for this great nation of ours.”

Stressing that this must be about more than Cardiff Bay, he will say: “I will be reaching out to members in all parts of Wales, to places where Labour has struggled to get its voice heard, to invite their ideas and to share my ideas with them.

“But I will also reach out to people beyond the Labour Party who share our progressive ideals, because we must be willing as a party to be open to the very best ideas wherever they are.”

Mr Irranca-Davies will unveil the first of a series of pledges at the launch event at Sarn in his constituency this afternoon.

Without revealing what the pledge will be, he said: “It’s something that hasn’t been done in the UK before and if carried out would see Wales as a global trailblazer.”

From 2002 until 2016 Mr IrrancaDavies was MP for the seat he now represents in the Senedd. At Westminster he had stints as a Wales Office Minister and an Environment Minister.

A document in support of his candidacy says he has received “a few knocks along the way”, including being made redundant in his late 20s when the leisure management firm he was working for was taken over and made cuts.

For a period he worked 12-hour nightshifts as a security guard as he pondered what to do next in his life.