5. What measures is the Welsh Government taking to improve access to public services for residents in Monmouth? OAQ52303

We continue to provide significant support to public services in Monmouthshire.

I'm pleased to hear that, Cabinet Secretary. I listened with interest to your exchange with my colleague Janet Finch-Saunders earlier. It did strike me that it was very much groundhog day in terms of the conversation that you had. I have to say that I did agree with you on your comment that you should be—as I often do, actually; it's only big things we disagree. [Interruption.] I'm getting there. [Laughter.] I'm not used to being heckled by my own side. [Laughter.] We should be devolving powers to effective local centres of democracy, which is, I think, the expression that you used. I think also that you're right in saying that you, as Welsh Government, do need a meaningful relationship with local government. I think local government would love to have a meaningful relationship with Welsh Government as well. And I think there are two sides to this coin.

I think where we do differ, Cabinet Secretary, is that, whilst we all accept that there should be, over time, organic change and reform to local government and to structures of delivering public services across Wales—we've got the city regions as a classic example of how things change—what we have to do is put the citizen at the centre of this. Where our side differs from yours is that we feel that you're putting the structure first, and that is wrong. That hasn't worked in the past and that won't work in the future. So, will you go back to the drawing board, have discussions with your colleagues, in local government hopefully, or whoever you need to have those discussions with, but come back with proposals for how you're going to put the citizen at the centre and have a system that really does deliver the sort of regenerative, transformative change in local government that we all desperately want to see but which doesn't simply sacrifice everything on the altar of reorganisation? 

And he agrees with you. 

I thought that as well. There's a difference in tone and words, isn't there? Let me say this: I hear what my good friend and constituency neighbour has to say, and I understand the point that he makes. And I agree, at a terrible risk to myself, possibly, that putting the citizen at the centre of our democracy and how we deliver services doesn't simply depend on structures. I agree with that, as it happens. But we must be able to have structures that are resilient and sustainable in order to devolve those responsibilities and those services to them. We do need that and we don't have that at the moment, and local government accepts that. So, we need to find a structure that will enable us to devolve those powers and to provide for those responsibilities to reside at a more local level, and I'm happy to have that conversation. I've said on many occasions that I'm not wedded to any particular map and I'm not wedded to any particular structure. But what I am wedded to is sustainability. What I am wedded to its protecting the workforce. What I am wedded to is high-quality services, and what I am wedded to is effective democratic accountability.

What you can't say is that you want all these objectives but that you're not prepared to will any means in order to do it. So, there needs to be a serious conversation about that, and I very much welcome the contribution from Monmouthshire on this matter, but what I will say to him very, very seriously is that, in order to achieve those things, the conversation must move on from an argument over a map and an argument over lines on a map. What he has described is very similar to the sort of ambition that I have, which demands change; it doesn't demand staying as we are. Staying as we are is the worst possible solution for Welsh local government, because that will mean that, over the coming years, whoever sits in this seat and whoever sits in this place will manage decline and not expansion. I want to see a renaissance of local government in Wales; I don't want to be responsible for its decline.