At last year’s General Election, along with other Welsh Labour candidates, I pledged to work with Welsh Government to improve public services, with more money for the NHS and other key priorities after more than 14 years of Tory neglect.
Underpinning all of this was the promise of a transformed relationship between UK and Welsh Governments, and we have hit the ground running. In my role as Wales Office Minister, I have been working tirelessly with the Secretary of State, Jo Stevens, to deliver exactly that.
The UK Government Budget has provided a record settlement of £21 billion to the Welsh Government, with £1.7 billion extra next year.
I am pleased the Welsh Government confirmed in its draft budget that it will spend £600m of the additional money on health and social care to cut the longest waiting times, improve mental health services and strengthen women’s health services, making a huge difference to patients across the country.
There will also be funding to repair and monitor coal tips, £81m more to build extra homes for social rent, an additional £100m for education, £337m for farm support budgets, £181m to improve rail services and two new funds to maintain our roads – fixing potholes and repairing defects.
The Welsh Government’s budget also allocates an added £253 million to local authorities, including a £14.7m boost to Carmarthenshire County Council for frontline services including schools, social care and street cleaning.
Due to the way the Senedd works all of this investment will rely on opposition parties, such as Plaid Cymru, working with Welsh Labour to get the plans through. Only time will tell whether Rhun ap Iorweth and his colleagues will put party politics aside and support the investment that Llanelli and the rest of Wales has been crying out for since 2010.