Leighton Andrews AM

Strike

I was pleased to join members of the GMB, Unison and Unite on 3 Rhondda picket lines this morning, at Clydach Vale, Ty Elai and Bronwydd.

National Eisteddfod - Cymdeithas Cledwyn speech

 
A few weeks ago I posted a short blog about my visit to the Eisteddfod, referring specifically to my speech at the Cymdeithas Cledwyn fringe meeting. During this speech I set out the steps we are taking in Government to develop the language, building on the work started by the One Wales Government and Labour’s manifesto. I also discussed the approach I feel Welsh Labour should take towards Welsh language issues.

The text is now online and can be viewed in Welsh or in English.

 

National Eisteddfod 2011

 
I enjoyed my visit to the Eisteddfod, where I spoke at the Cymdeithas Cledwyn fringe meeting, outlining the steps we have taken as a Government to swiftly implement the Welsh Language measure and advertise the post of Welsh Language Commissioner. I also articulated the need to maintain a consensus on the language and set out Labour's agenda for this issue. The meeting was chaired by Eleri Edwards, a long-time Labour campaigner for devolution and the language, who is pictured with me in the photo above.

I also spoke at the Trade and Industry reception, re-launched Sgiliaith for Coleg Llandrillo, and celebrated further steps that have been taken by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol. It was good to see some of my fellow ‘Yes for Wales’ campaigners like Gwenllian Lansdown, whom I hadn't seen since the referendum victory. Congratulations also to Susan Elan Jones MP, who launched a new campaign about online banking in Welsh.

 

Media coverage:

Strategy to boost use of welsh in everyday life

Angen cadw’r consensws, meddai’r Gweinidog Iaith

National Eisteddfod: Future events must prove their worth to get funding, says minister

Eisteddfod must show positive results to get more Government cash Minister says

 

No mandate whatsoever

I do not believe that Plaid Cymru Assembly Members are as naive as their Westminster colleague who represents Carmarthen East, who told the Western Mail today that Plaid would be putting forward proposals for the Assembly to be elected by STV. A Conservative Party which led the campaign against electoral reform in May's referendum is scarcely going to grant an Assembly elected by STV - as he himself admitted on his own website some weeks ago. (Though I recall an 80 member Assembly elected by STV used to be the preference of the Conservatives' Montgomeryshire MP when he was an AM.)

There is no mandate for changing the current seat distribution in the Assembly from 40 constituency and 20 list to 30 constituency and 30 list. No party put it in their Westminster manifesto last year, and no party had it in their Assembly manifesto this year. So there is no mandate. It would be a democratic outrage - an act of Parliamentary Leninism - to make such a change.

It is odd therefore that a Plaid Cymru MP has called for it. Such a move would probably disadvantage Plaid in the Assembly as well in the constituency section, and I doubt that that will have escaped their AMs in North-West Wales. Plaid Cymru AMs need to decide whether they are happy with one of their MPs acting as Cheryl's little helper. Helen Mary Jones was surely right to say that Plaid's refusal to rule out a deal with the Conservatives was a strategic error in their election campaign which contributed to their loss of seats. Dafydd El also got it right when he criticised Plaid's broader electoral strategy of spending most of its time attacking Labour. Plaid need to decide what their attitude to the UK Conservative-led coalition's assaults on Wales really is - and whether they are willing to have Westminster impose a new system on the Assembly.

 

 

Daily Politics

Debates this week

Literacy

 

 

Education Measure

Teaching makes a difference

My speech on Wednesday.

Download Teachingmakesadifference

Education questions 26th January 2011

Portrait with the artist

Rhodri Morgan's portrait by the artist David Griffiths was unveiled in the Senedd tonight.

 

It is Westminster’s higher education policies that are wrong, not ours

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at the backlash following my announcement that Welsh –domiciled students would not have to find the additional money for higher fees charged in our higher education institutions in Wales – or those in England. I have worked in the BBC in London after all. Metropolitan provincialism defines the culture of most of the national newspapers and indeed, the television newsrooms. Senior figures in the BBC have told me that our announcement in Cardiff suddenly brought home to the BBC network newsroom what devolution actually meant.

And yet – the ferocity of response from some of the newspapers has been revealing. The use of the word ‘apartheid’ in both the Mail and Telegraph to define Welsh policies on the day after our announcement suggested either collusion or a collective narrowness of vision. Perhaps both.

I want to see English students continuing to come to Wales to study. However, I am responsible for the student support arrangements for students domiciled in Wales. The Scottish government is responsible for students domiciled in Scotland. Northern Ireland Ministers in their Assembly for students domiciled in Northern Ireland. And – wait for it – Vince Cable and David Willetts in the UK coalition government for students domiciled in England. They are welcome to follow our example in Wales. We are making a policy choice. So are they.

So the Daily Mail, which tells us it ‘has reservations about the plan to treble the cap on fees’, should direct its fire at the UK Coalition Government, rather than wittering on about Wales ‘exempting its nationals from Whitehall’s increases in tuition fees’. The UK Coalition government has chosen to levy in England the highest tuition fees in the world outside the United States. Facing a cost of between £70-110 million to support Welsh students attending English universities, the One Wales Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition government has found a route which protects our students and at the same time gives our own higher education institutions a fighting chance of holding their own against universities east of the border.

Let there be no mistake – I would prefer not to have to raise fees in Welsh institutions. I would prefer to leave them at about the current level. But I am not prepared, and nor are my Cabinet colleagues, to see a one-way transfer from the Welsh Assembly Government budget into the English higher education system, which is what would happen if we did not raise fees in Wales but supported Welsh students who wanted to study in England to do so. Fees are rising in England, not as was originally intended, to provide additional income for higher education institutions in England, but instead to plug the 80% cut in the university teaching grant in England.

Of course, the suggestion that under EU laws, EU students could benefit, was guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of the Daily Mail. But then, in most EU countries, tuition fees are far, far lower than in the UK. So why they would be racing to study here is an interesting question. This is precisely why I doubt the long-term sustainability of the UK coalition government’s policy. It is the policies made in England which are out of kilter with those of most of Europe. In any case, Welsh and English students studying in EU countries will enjoy the same fee regimes as the inhabitants of those countries. Remember all the stories in the summer about students from the UK, unable to get places at UK institutions, studying in Maastricht or elsewhere with lower fees than at home?

Welsh graduates will, of course, pay a contribution and will be repaying the loans that they require to pay the fees that will be levied on them. But they will be at a more affordable rate, not at the full-cost or near full-cost level others will face.

By the way, though you wouldn’t think it, we also pay taxes in Wales. We do not live off English subsidies. Taxes collected in Wales exceed significantly the budget of the National Assembly, as the independent commission on the financing of Wales chaired by Gerry Holtham found.

This is a policy choice we are making. We are continuing to provide more generous support for university teaching than in England. We will not be saying that there are academic subjects not worthy of subsidy. We do not believe that the market will protect culture, history and language and we will intervene to protect these. We will plan the development of our higher education system in Wales. If that puts us in the European mainstream, while England swims in a different direction, so be it.