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Mark Drakeford, outgoing first minister of Wales, has called for greater devolution within a more federal UK as a bulwark against attempts by London to chip away at Cardiff’s powers, which he said intensified in recent years.
It was a natural process for the Welsh people to receive more self-governance from London with the passing of time, he predicted: “The tide is only going in one direction.”
Drakeford endorsed recommendations from an official commission, which this week called for greater Welsh control over energy generation, justice and policing, rail services and Welsh broadcaster S4C.
The first minister, who is stepping down in March, said his “personal preference” was for a federal model for the UK, which would “codify” different responsibilities and powers for Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England.
Drakeford claimed that previous UK prime ministers had broadly respected Welsh devolution, which was first introduced a quarter of a century ago. But since Boris Johnson became prime minister in 2019, there had been several instances of Welsh devolution being undercut by Downing Street, he said.
The most egregious example was London’s decision to replace EU development financing, which before Brexit was administered at a devolved level, with a new “shared prosperity fund” run by central government.
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s national leader, has promised to return responsibility to those development funds to Cardiff’s Senedd if he wins the general election expected this year.
Drakeford said there had also been breaches of the “Sewel convention” under which UK ministers should not legislate in devolved areas without the consent of the Senedd.
“For 20 years that convention was upheld,” Drakeford said. “A Labour government had one or two differences of view, grey areas, but the convention was observed by David Cameron . . . and by Theresa May.”
Since 2016, there have been at least 11 breaches ranging from animal welfare to professional qualifications. “It couldn’t happen in a federal system,” said Drakeford.
Drakeford was speaking to the Financial Times after the publication of a commission on Wales’s constitutional future, led by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams along with Laura McAllister, professor of public policy at the Wales Governance Centre.
The cross-party commission — set up two years ago by the Welsh government — set out three options for Wales’s future: enhanced devolution, a federal UK or independence.
It recommended not only the transfer of some powers but also the removal of constraints on Welsh government finances including its borrowing powers.
Drakeford said he was not an “expansionist on fiscal devolution”, arguing that being part of a bigger UK was “a great engine for redistribution”. But he said Wales needed greater scope from London to manage their own budget in any given year. “Only Wales is tied to this very detailed model.”
The Welsh Conservative party dismissed the commission as “constitutional navel gazing” that would not help deliver better schools or hospitals.
Drakeford is set to be succeeded by either Jeremy Miles, Wales’s education minister, or Vaughan Gething, economy minister. He urged them to take “bold” decisions to ensure that Labour does not lose momentum after 25 years in power in Cardiff Bay.
The Welsh government is consulting at present on an overhaul of council tax to make richer households pay more and poorer households pay less. Drakeford said council tax was at present the most regressive tax in Britain.
“If council tax is reformed some people will pay more and others will pay less and that creates a lot of turmoil . . . but my own instincts are to do the most and do it as quickly as you can. When I talk about being bold . . . I mean using the opportunity of being in government to do difficult things.”
Asked about the broader debate in the UK about taxes and public spending, he said he understood why the Labour leadership was taking a cautious approach to fiscal responsibility.
“But I do believe we need a mature debate about the balance we strike between levels of taxation and public services,” he said. “We can’t have Scandinavian levels of public services on US levels of taxation.”
