Devolution must fulfil its promise
WALES and the world have been transformed in the two decades since 1997. The era of New Labour has come and gone. Smartphones are ubiquitous and the internet revolution has had consequences nobody who sat 20 years ago in front of a grindingly slow web browser could have anticipated.
Optimism charged our politics in 1997. New Labour had yet to crash into the quagmire of Iraq, there were still strong hopes that the end of the Cold War would unlock a new era of global peace and prosperity, and nobody imagined the horrors of the September 11 attacks were around the corner.
It was in this season of change and possibility that Wales decided – by 6,721 votes – to start a journey of profound and truly historic consequence and go on a journey of self-government.
Most of the pop stars and many of the politicians from 1997 have vanished but the Assembly that got that flickering green light from voters is now housed in the architectural triumph of the Senedd and its powers have been turbo-charged in recent years.
Polling shows that voters may be sceptical about its achievements, but there is little support for pulling the emergency brake on devolution. Far from it.
Politicians in the UK should not go into this line of work looking for gratitude and backslaps. Voters may be doubtful that the Assembly has actively improved their lives but this does not mean they want to hand decision-making power in key areas back to Westminster.
Welsh independence remains the wish of a small minority so it is possible that Wales’ constitutional arrangements – though perhaps not the most exciting in the world – are fairly in line with what a good proportion of the population would desire. We have a strong (and strengthening) Assembly and there is a clear demarcation of responsibilities between it and the UK Parliament.
The truly radical change which is unfolding is in the European sphere. Tony Blair had been expected to lead the charge for deeper integration, but instead of joining the euro the UK has voted for Brexit.
The withdrawal from the EU will force a rethinking about how Britain operates and how its nations trade with one another and support their own populations and businesses. There is the potential for many rounds of constitutional debate.
Important though these discussions might be, the duty of everyone in the Senedd is to show over the next 20 years that laws made in Wales deliver better results for families across our nation than those crafted a couple of hours’ drive away along the M4.
At its best, the Assembly has been a laboratory of policy innovation. Politicians were prepared to risk controversy with policies such as the carrier bag charge and free prescriptions, and the impact of the organ donation legislation will be studied at an international level.
The coming challenges will require boldness, intelligence and compassion if we are to craft a prosperous and fair future for all. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%