Election 2024: Welsh devolution thrust to centre of UK election campaigns

If there was any doubt about it before, the Wales Debate has proven once and for all how much Wales and, in particular, Welsh devolution is being thrust to the centre of this UK General Election campaign.

In itself, that’s not new. I remember 2015 when David Cameron repeated his line that Offa’s Dyke had become “the line between life and death,” highlighting what he said were Labour’s failures in running the health service on this side of the border.

But that was nothing compared to the way that in 2024, Conservatives are repeatedly highlighting Labour’s record here in Wales, gleefully quoting Keir Starmer saying two years ago that he saw Welsh Labour as a “blueprint” for a UK Government.

It’s not just the Conservatives doing it either. Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and now Reform UK are all taking a similar approach.

In the debate, David TC Davies, repeatedly said that the Welsh Government gets £1.20 for every £1 spent on the health service in England, making the point that ministers in Cardiff chose not to waste that money on other projects.

It’s certainly true that there are rules in place to ensure that when money is spent on services in England that are devolved, it triggers funding for Wales of at least 115%.

Devolution means there’s no obligation on the Welsh Government to spend the money on the same priorities. It makes its own political choices, political choices that can and are being criticised by opponents within and outside Wales.

Welsh Labour also argues that the Conservative UK Government has gradually eroded the overall budget it could expect to receive for specific services, leaving its ministers to make up the shortfalls from parts of the budget it would rather ring fence.

Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts also criticised Labour’s record in Wales during the debate. She said that “when it comes to health … I greatly fear the model that is set by Labour here” and that it is “intolerable” that "19% of the Welsh population" is waiting for treatment here.

She set out her party’s pledge to recruit 500 new GPs and to pay people working in the care system more in order to increase capacity there.

Labour’s Jo Stevens used her time in the debate to make the point that there would be an “immediate cash injection” for the NHS in Wales from a Labour UK Government and, while she wouldn’t be drawn when I asked her if Keir Starmer would insist that Vaughan Gething passed on that money, she did say that Welsh Labour leaders had signed off the manifesto and would want to align itself with the UK Government plans.

Now, this is where, for me, questions begin to emerge about how two Labour governments would work together.

If you remember, Vaughan Gething pledged in his leadership campaign that the Welsh NHS won’t be privatised.

There’s a big argument about what privatisation means, but here in Wales there has long been a reluctance to use the private sector - something raised by David Davies in the debate.

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting has faced controversy by openly talking about using the private sector to help cut waiting times in England, saying that not to do so would be a “betrayal” of working-class people by “middle-class lefties.”

In the debate, Jo Stevens hailed the prospect of two Labour governments working together, saying that the last time that happened the NHS had the “highest satisfaction levels".

But the last time there were two governments, senior Welsh Labour figures felt the need to distance themselves from the market-oriented, private-public reforms of the Blair and Brown governments - a distancing summed up with the phrase “clear red water” coined by Mark Drakeford, used by Rhodri Morgan and continued by Carwyn Jones.

After July 4, if the polls are right, there could be a large bloc of newly-empowered Welsh Labour MPs assertively promoting the ideas of a highly-energised Starmer government with a super-majority in the UK Parliament. And, if what Wes Streeting has said comes about, that could mean a very different approach to running the health service than that which has been followed by Labour in Cardiff Bay.

What would that mean for Welsh Labour? Would it, as Jo Stevens suggested in the debate, align itself with the UK party or would it reinvent Clear Red Water for a new generation?

You can watch the full ITV Wales Debate on ITVX. Reform UK, Liberal Democrats and the Green Party will take part in the ITV Wales Interviews, airing Monday June 17 at 11:10pm, ITV Cymru Wales.

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