Let's get cracking

It didn't take Scotland's First Minister long to set out a basic list of expectations to the UK government following national elections at the beginning of May. This week he's managed to secure £2.7 billion worth of borrowing powers while continuing to bang the drum for control over other taxes and the Scottish land and marine holdings of the Crown Estates.

Contrast this energy and dynamism with Wales's First Minister. We've had a few weeks of farcical First Minister's questions with no programme to scrutinise. Question Time has been little more than an opportunity for the First Minister to opposition-bash. A good from of entertainment, no doubt, but isn't it all really a bit pointless? No doubt, the best form of defence is attack when nothing is happening. There have been no committees. There have been no list of demands to Cameron, but it'll all be ok because says he's written a letter about the crisis in Welsh broadcasting, although he's against devolving it, indicating his belief the Welsh media is safer in Cameron/Hunt's hands.

We all know the Welsh economy is weak. Job creation through the creation of new, home-based markets as proposed in the Valleys Greenprint is what is urgently needed and is something we could be getting on with now. Some of the ideas would need legislation, others could be helped by the Assembly having borrowing and other powers. Instead, as Eurfyl ap Gwylim pointed out in the Guardian more than a year ago:

"Because the Welsh government has no taxation or borrowing powers, it will have to take the cuts imposed on them and decide where the axe will fall."

Instead of creating jobs, Wales is losing them fast in the public sector. Instead of planning to stimulate the Welsh economy and standing up for Wales in talks with the UK government, Wales's First Minister seems to be on go-slow.

The deflection strategy can work for only a limited amount of time. I hope in next week's Assembly questions we'll get a clearer picture as to how the Welsh government intends to handle the problems facing Wales over the coming five years, that we'll have a programme to scrutinise. I hope that members get some answers to our fair questions about the government programme, the economy and how Wales's case is being pushed forward with the UK government. I'm not holding too much of my breath.

The legacies of DJ Davies & Raymond Williams, Plaid Cymru Summer School 2010

This is a video of a lecture I gave at Plaid Cymru's Summer School, July 2010. DJ Davies, his wife Noelle Ffrench and Raymond Williams' ideas feature heavily in A Greenprint for the Valleys - a link to the PDF version can be found here.

Warning: the video is 39 minutes long.

PCS Union - 5 pledges

The PCS Union in Wales have asked all Welsh election candidates to respond to five pledges as part of their 'Make Your Vote Count' campaign. This is my response.

1. I pledge to oppose all job cuts and proposals to close offices - such as Newport Passport Office and the Driving Standards Agency in Cardiff - and to support the PCS ‘There is an Alternative’ campaign, which prioritises closing the annual £120 billion tax gap, along with investment in jobs & public services.

As chair of the all-party PCS group in the last Assembly, I have actively supported the PCS union in its' campaigns against job losses and office closures. Many of the office closures to date have been from non-devolved departments, carried out by a government in Westminster which places little value in strong public services with a well-treated workforce. Plaid seeks further devolution so that the people of Wales, who value public services highly, have a greater say about public services in Wales. So far in Wales, any job losses at Welsh Assembly Government level have been with the agreement of the relevant unions. I will continue to support this way of doing things and I will continue to condemn those public bodies acting without trades union support, like, for example, the situation in Rhondda Cynon Taf. I fully support the PCS 'There is an Alternative' campaign to close the tax gap. I also support the work of UKUncut.

2. I pledge to support the principle of universal entitlement to welfare services paid for through general taxation and to oppose the UK government’s cuts in welfare and housing, which target the sick and disabled, families with children, those on low incomes, and pensioners.

It is wrong that those who can least afford it, will end up paying for the the problems caused by financiers. The Westminster government works to protect the financial interests of their friends, while pushing through ideological cuts to public expenditure in the name of balancing the books. The political right are setting about reducing the welfare state, Shock Doctrine style. I support comprehensive, universal public services and I believe they should be paid for by progressive taxation.


3. I pledge to address the disproportionate impact of spending cuts on:
• groups who already suffer from entrenched inequalities – such as those covered by the Equality Act 2010;
• economically deprived areas such as Wales, especially its rural and valleys communities, and on the Welsh language.
I will support efforts to overcome the long-term underfunding of Welsh public services - £300 million annually - identified by the Holtham Commission.

I support this statement. Plaid Cymru has called for the full implementation of the Holtham Commission proposals to overcome the funding disparity brought about by the Barnett Formula. We are already seeing the cuts fall disproportionately in Wales's economically deprived areas with faster job losses, fast depreciation of wages and cuts to the benefits on which a greater percentage of the population rely. I have recently published a consultation document which proposes a green jobs creation plan for the valleys. A PDF version can be found here

4. I pledge to support the PCS campaign to protect public sector pensions as affordable and sustainable, including calling on the UK government not to increase pension contributions or make cuts in the value of pension payments.

Agree.

5. I pledge to protect public services and work alongside PCS, other trade unions and community organisations in fighting to ensure that no further services are outsourced or privatised.

If re-elected to the Senedd, I will continue to support Plaid Cymru policy and trade union campaigns against privatisation and outsourcing. I have argued on many occasions that the introduction of a profit margin into public services that previously had no shareholders to pacify, makes no sense economically. Quality or workers' terms or more ususally, both have to be reduced to plug the gap and over time and the lack of investment results in a failed service. I have opposed PFI for similar reasons. I will continue to makes these points whenever I get the opportunity.

Ambition is Critical*

Blaenllechau is beautiful. Nestled at the top of the Rhondda Fach, it is surrounded by mountains and forestry, a rural idyll with no through road. If it was in south Dorset, where I recently spent a weekend with an old friend, the houses would be worth at least half a million each. But this is the valleys, where good quality former chapel buildings, with planning permission for conversion to a residential property are on the market for offers of around £30,000.

In the last five years, tiny Blaenlleachau has lost its post office, shop, primary school and its community centre has closed. They used to have a polling station on election day, but the council has taken that away now too.

Just outside Blaenllechau, a social enterprise called Rhondda Life has rebuilt the local rugby club and have plans to promote the area to tourists as well as activities for local people.

And on the mountain just above Blaenllechau is one of the valleys hidden gems, my personal favourite of the Valleys Essentials - the Brynffynon in Llanwonno.

And Vic Doyle is linking up with the Bryncynon Strategy to turn the land at Ffaldau Farm into a permaculture food production business, training local young people in horticultural and business skills.

All of these give Blaenllechau hope. But ambition is critical.

Vic is backing the Greenprint for the Valleys because he sees the proposals as one way to stop the decline in places like Blaenllechau, a chance to turn things around, because he has ambition for Blaenllechau. And he'll have the chance to tell Wales's Minister for Economic Development all about it next week.

* with thanks to David Hughes, Swansea poet, 'Ambition is critical'.

What future for our youth?

Youth unemployment rates are shocking. UK-wide, 18-24 year olds make up one fifth of all unemployed. However, in the valleys of South Wales, they make up a third of all job seekers' claimants.

According to the ONS, there are a total of 2470 people claiming out-of-work benefits in the Rhondda, 960 of whom are under 24, as of April 5th 2011. The youth unemployment levels as a percentage of the total figure for the Rhondda is 38.8%, while in the Cynon Valley it is 37.4%, Neath 36.3% and Caerffili, 35.7%. The number of job vacancies in those constituencies varies from 151 in the Rhondda to 264 in Caerffili.

The chances of current incapacity claimants finding work in the valleys are not high.

In remarks reminicient of 'unemployment is a price worth paying', Tory Energy Minister Greg Barker gives the ideological game away by telling a US audience that his government is "making cuts which I think that Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980s could only have dreamt of.”

This is not a new problem - youth unemployment rates for the valleys were shocking under the Labour UK government too.

It is safe to assume that these areas in Wales which have deep, structural and long-term economic problems are unlikely to receive any special attention from London. As the late DJ Davies, one of the founders of Plaid Cymru said in 1931, "Let us cease looking to others, or to Westminster either for help. It is Wales alone that can lift Wales from the dust."

The aim of the Valleys Greenprint is to put DJ's words into action. It is the beginnings of what I hope will be an action-based plan to create jobs, opportunities and an economic future for the valleys, by doing things for ourselves.

A willing Welsh government could help by making sure public sector purchasing power is used to help create local jobs and train people. It could bring together the various players to make finance available for people to take out no-up-front-cost loans to maximise their home energy efficiency and invest in micro-generation which would significantly reduce home heating bills and help to create more work. Government could make public land available and it could provide practical support for people to set up and run the businesses to undertake the work that needs doing. And it could make sure that the training courses are available to ensure that people have the right skills.

But a plan like this can only work if people want it to. Can we rekindle the famous community spirit and the self-belief, self-confidence and self-determination of our mining forefathers who built the institutions that were the backbone of the valleys before the days of the welfare state? Welfare halls, schools, libraries, hospitals were all built using collective resources. In previous recessions, the miners could not afford to hope that Westminster would bail them out. And neither can we.

I have already received expressions of interest from business people interested in the ideas and I have set up a facebook group for anyone who is interested in registering to help develop the job creation ideas in the Valleys Greenprint. Do you want to help turn around the economy, fortunes and future of our valleys? Why not sign up?

Time to control our own resources

One of the themes of this weekend's Plaid Cymru conference was the economy. Wales's economy is in a poor state and not getting better despite billions of euro-cash.

With public sector cuts resulting in job losses and cuts to workers' wages hitting at the same time as big rises in the costs of living, allowing the Welsh economy to continue to decline is not an option.

As Dr Calvin Jones pointed out in a Stop Climate Chaos Cymru fringe meeting, Wales will need three nuclear power stations to replace oil, which is fast increasing in price as world reserves run out. Calvin presented a chilling picture of what can be expected: he asked how Mrs Jones living at the top of the valleys will be able to get to hospital when there are no buses, taxi's are unaffordable and the NHS can't afford to put fuel in its ambulances. This is the sort of consequence we can expect from peak oil, if we continue to live the way we do.

It's important to understand our history if we are to avoid making the same mistakes. One of the reasons that Wales's economy is in the state it is, is that we failed to control our own natural resources in the past. Those areas which produced the coal which fuelled the Britsh Empire should today be wealthy. Instead the land and the people of those areas were exploited, colonial-style, as the profits from coal lined the pockets of those elsewhere. It is those former coalfield areas, the valleys, which are among the most deprived part of Wales, the UK, even Europe - which is why we still qualify for EU structural funds. If Wales is to host another energy revolution, control over and the ability to realise the profits from those energy sources is going to be vital.

The valleys and parts of our coasts are due to see a vast expansion of wind power. Wind turbines being contructed already. Opposition continues, with one of the chief objections being that local communities will see little benefit. Electricity will not be cheaper and any benefits from compensatory 'wind-falls' to local councils are likely to be swallowed up by the cuts. In future, all renewable energy developments should have an element of community ownership and tangible benefits for the local communities before they are allowed to go ahead.

Decisions about large energy projects should be made in Wales, by devolving the power for energy consents for power generation of more than 50 MegaWatts. And the land owned by the Crown Estates in Wales should be owned by the people of Wales, with the profits being invested back into green infrastructure instead of into the coffers of the Windsors.

And there are more proposals in the Valleys Greenprint to make sure small communities in Wales see the benefits from controlling and owning the renewable energy we have to produce.

A green revolution has the potential to provide a vital boost to the Welsh economy. If we can make sure people have the right skills - green construction, co-operative and business skills and access to finance, co-operatively-based, where possible, and we can implementing some of the other proposals contained in the greenprint and those put forward in the conference fringe by Stop Climate Change Chaos and recently by Friends of the Earth Cymru, we have the potential to create thousand of jobs and prepare Wales for a future less reliant on carbon emitting fossil fuels AND save people money on their home energy bills. No brainer? What are we waiting for?

Greenprint

A PDF of the Greenprint for the Valleys - a green jobs creation plan can be found on the Plaid Cymru site.

There are more reports here and here. An introduction can be listened to here.

Copies of the Greenprint will be available tonight at a public meeting in Cwmaman Institute, Cynon Valley, 7pm. Another will be held in the Rhondda next Monday.

A Greenprint for the Valleys

Next Monday, I am launching 'A Greenprint for the Valleys'. The launch meeting will be held on 21st March at 7pm in Cwmaman Institute in the Cynon Valley, with Plaid Cymru’s Cynon Valley candidate, Dafydd Trystan Davies.

The Greenprint is an attempt to offer ideas which will provide solutions to the varied problems we face in the valleys from public sector cuts, high levels of unemployment, especially among young people, low skills levels as well as potential future problems like fuel and food price rises, benefit and pension cuts and the weather-related effects of climate change.

Proposals include establishing a Green Construction Skills College, implementing an integrated transport plan for the valleys, providing financial support for home energy efficiency measures and for the setting up of green co-operatives, as well as creating a land bank for renewable energy and food production and a programme to renovate heritage buildings.

Can we wake up the community spirit that was strong in the valleys during the 80s miners' strike? Can we recreate the ethos of our forefathers who built the miners’ welfare halls, the libraries, the hospitals and the workingmen's clubs in the days before the welfare state existed?

With the ConDem government in London intent upon tearing apart our hard-fought-for welfare safety-net, I hope that this consultation document will at least help to start a debate among people in the valleys about how we can use our own skills and resources to build protection against these attacks and to make sure the area has a future.

A second public meeting will be held at 7.30pm on Monday March 28th in the Soar Ffrwdamos Centre, Penygraig, Rhondda, with Plaid’s Assembly candidate Sêra Evans-Fear.

Copies of the Greenprint will be available at the public meetings and in the form of a PDF on the Plaid Cymru site from next Monday.