A view from Sam Rowlands – Welsh Conservative North Wales Member of the Senedd

Wrexham.com has invited the four North Wales Members of the Senedd to write a monthly column with updates on their work. You can find their updates – along with contributions from the local MPs and MSs – here.

In this month’s column, Welsh Conservative Member of the Senedd Sam Rowlands writes:

This week, Wales gets a new First Minister – Eluned Morgan.

The outgoing FM, Vaughan Gething, didn’t last very long! Despite winning the Welsh Labour leadership election by a narrow margin a few months back, it’s clear that the Labour group in the Senedd never really accepted him.

Not only was he unpopular with the public at large, but he was unpopular with people who were meant to be loyally serving in his Cabinet! The co-ordinated resignation of four Ministers demonstrates that, and frankly he never had a chance.

His polling ratings with the public plummeted for a number of reasons, including his acceptance of a £200,000 donation from a company run by a man who was convicted twice for environmental offence. Then there was also the murky sacking of a junior Minister and alleged skullduggery regarding the ditching of a trade union endorsement for his opponent, Jeremy Miles.

I appreciate that this will be a personal blow for the outgoing First Minister, but his behaviour and actions have brought this upon himself.

Naturally, I wish Eluned well as First Minister and hope that she succeeds for the people of Wales. Unfortunately, the track record isn’t exactly stellar and I won’t be getting my hopes up!

Her time as Health Minister has seen Wales being lumbered with the longest NHS waiting lists on record, with around one-fifth of Welsh people languishing without treatment on a list – as of May 2024, there were a staggering 611,500 people waiting for treatment.

Since she first became Health Minister in 2021, the key numbers have all been getting worse. For example, the total number of patients waiting to start treatment has grown by 179,627 and the percentage of Red Calls receiving an emergency/ambulance response within the eight minute target has fallen by 14.1%. Additionally, all health boards are now in some form of enhanced oversight/special measures, including Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.

Make no mistake – despite the efforts of hardworking people on the ground, the Welsh health service is in a mess. Eluned Morgan, just like Vaughan Gething and Mark Drakeford before her, have done absolutely nothing to turn the situation around and have actually made things worse.

The whole situation also brings into question the UK Labour Party and the new Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Gething was widely seen as the Starmer candidate, and indeed he called the Welsh Government a ‘blueprint’ for his UK Government.

Given the terrible health outcomes that I have outlined, in addition to the worst education outcomes in the entire United Kingdom, holding up Labour’s failures in Wales seemed like an odd decision.

Whether it’s in Cardiff Bay or Westminster, it’s pretty clear that Labour don’t have the best interests of people in Wales at heart and the relationship between Welsh and UK Labour will be one to keep an eye on over the coming months and years!

One of the things that the last UK Conservative Government committed to was £1 billion for rejuvenating the North Wales main line, which would have brought huge benefits to our part of the world and boosted the North Wales economy, strengthening links across the region and indeed the North-West of England.

Combined with other Conservative initiatives like the Wrexham-Flintshire investment zone, Freeport on Anglesey and investment in the Wylfa nuclear site, it was all pointing to a huge economic renaissance for our part of the world – and the main line investment would have played a big role in that.

Now, Labour’s Secretary of State for Wales has cast doubt on that project. The previous UK Conservative Government wanted to move money from HS2 and use it to level-up railways across the United Kingdom, particularly for us in North Wales. For Labour to now shun that and not deliver shows us exactly what their intentions are for our area – and it’s not good.

The Welsh Government should be putting pressure on their party colleagues in London to deliver that investment and that improved rail line. I will be encouraging them to do so, but sadly I’m not confident that they will!

As a Welsh Conservative, the main opposition party in the Welsh Parliament, it is up to us to keep holding the Labour-run Welsh Government to account for all the mistakes they are making – and there are a lot of mistakes being made.

As ever, if you have any queries or issues you’d like to raise with me, then you can get in touch by emailing [email protected]