Price: Wales should have independence vote post-Brexit unless demands met
WALES should have an independence referendum after Brexit if it is not given greater powers, Plaid leader Adam Price has said.
During his speech to the party’s spring conference in Bangor, Mr Price set out a series of demands to the UK Government about how Wales should be treated if the UK leaves the EU.
He said Wales should receive from Westminster “every penny” of the EU aid it would have received, that there should be cuts in VAT for tourism and construction, the devolution of Air Passenger Duty and the ability for the Welsh Government to set its own immigration policy.
He added: “If you deny us these reasonable demands then we only have one left. And that’s the right to ask our people whether we would be better to take control of our future as an independent member of a European Union, not a second-class region in a failing British state.”
Describing it as a “dangerous” time for Wales, Mr Price called for “every penny” of the £2.5bn funds Wales receives from the EU to be replaced – and then doubled to give us “a fighting chance for us to rebuild our own fortunes”.
In his speech, Mr Price also said an incoming Plaid Cymru government would place a legal obligation on the Welsh NHS to provide inpatient and day-case treatment within 12 weeks.
Mr Price also pledged to cut bureaucracy for teachers and create two new development agencies tasked with creating jobs through inward investment and developing local businesses.
He said: “Improving our health and social care services will be among the most urgent priorities of an incoming Plaid Cymru government.
“We have under way within the party a Care Commission which will be reporting before the end of the year. Some priorities are already clear.
“We will introduce a National Care Service, providing social care free at the point of delivery to all who need it; slash bureaucracy in the health service, ensuring democratic accountability; and target resources in the community, nearer to people’s homes and not always at the hospital, delivering services through flexible multi-disciplinary teams.
“All these will take time to come on stream. Meanwhile, the people of Wales want immediate improvements. A major problem for many patients is getting hospital appointments and the time they have to wait before receiving treatment. The challenge is achieving effectiveness in terms of delivery.”
Mr Price said that during the five years to 2017 the money spent on Welsh hospitals rose from £4bn to nearly £5bn. Yet during that time the number of patients waiting more than 26 weeks to begin their treatment more than doubled, from 12,000 to nearly 26,000.
He said that in the UK, Scotland has the best performing health service for waiting times: “One reason for their success has been that in 2011 the SNP Scottish Government passed a Patient Rights Act.
“Amongst its provisions it places a legal requirement on health boards that once in-patient and day case treatment has been agreed, patients must receive that treatment within 12 weeks.
“So today I pledge that in 2021 an incoming Plaid Cymru government will be committed to introducing a similar Act, which will also include other rights beyond waiting times – for example, to transparency over medical records, mental health support, and carers support.”
In terms of job creation, Mr Price said that under Labour there had been “a catastrophic decline” in Wales since the 2016 Brexit referendum.
“Once again we’re slipping to the bottom of the league table.The average fall-off in inward investment projects across the UK was 16.5%. But for Wales that figure was 46%. The worst performing region after Wales was, as ever, the north east of England. But it outperformed Wales by a margin. Its fall off was only 31.5%.
“Given our extremely poor performance, there is now a powerful case to reinstate an arms-length agency, led by business people with expertise and a track record. It must be significant that Scotland and Ireland have continued to benefit from such institutions and they have performed much better than us.
“So I pledge today that in 2021 an incoming Plaid Cymru government will establish a Global Wales Agency, responsible for attracting new businesses, talent and industry from around the world, but also for putting Wales onto the global map for our exports.
“We will also establish, as in Ireland, a separate National Enterprise Agency, responsible for development inside Wales. A particular responsibility for this new body will be to ensure equitable investment and sustainable growth throughout Wales, in the north and west as well as the south-east.”
The Plaid leader said his party was committed to spend more on education: “It is internationally recognized that countries should spend at least 6% of their GDP on education. In Wales that would equate to £3.7bn. In fact, we spend £2.6bn, which is just over 4% of our GDP. So there is a spending gap which we will endeavour to fill.
“But effective delivery is not always about money, and it is certainly not always about making policy initiatives and interventions. This is especially the case with education policy. Quite simply, in this field we are suffering from policy overload.
“This is what Colin Skinner, a recently retired primary head teacher in Cardiff for 22 years, told the Western Mail in January, referring to the Schools Inspectorate Estyn: ‘Heads are unable to cope with impossible demands set from on high by a range of bureaucratic people who have no idea what schools bring to their communities.’”
Mr Price said: “An incoming Plaid Cymru government will have this pledge for teachers. After 2021 we will call a halt to unnecessary interference and new initiatives that get in the way of what you do best, teaching in your classrooms.
“When the Finns introduced their world-beating education reforms in the 1970s the next thing they did was crucial – they then committed to stop the endless merry-go-round of initiatives and central diktats.
“We will follow what the Finns did with such success.
“We will do our utmost to raise the status of teachers by ensuring they are better qualified and better paid. Then we will say, let our teachers teach.”