21. Welsh Conservatives Debate: The Future of Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:14 pm on 24 March 2021.

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Photo of Delyth Jewell Delyth Jewell Plaid Cymru 6:14, 24 March 2021

I move our group amendments. It's fitting that we should close this Senedd with a debate that looks towards our future. That future is full of possibility if we choose to believe in ourselves as a nation, to stop putting our faith in the recalcitrant wreckers of Westminster and, instead, empower our people. I must applaud the audacity of the Conservative group for tabling this motion, the party that cut billions from the Welsh Government budget through austerity, stole powers from Wales without mandate and broke promises on funding the Swansea barrage and electrifying the south Wales main line. Theirs is a party that wishes to contain and constrain our nation, a party of the Jacob Rees-Moggs who sniggeringly told MPs last week that Welsh is a foreign language, the casual contempt of Westminster for all that is not English. It is only when Wales will elect a Government that will enable the people to determine their own future, away from Westminster, that she will reach her full potential. A country the size of Wales that can build a prosperous economy, boast of a government and society that reflect the values and that will nurture our culture and language, while welcoming everyone who wants to make Wales their home.

The Westminster system may currently constrain us, but hope finds a way, because there is a defiance in the hearts of all who live in Wales, a determination to battle on. It is a defiance that has deep roots. We are, after all, an ancient, vibrant nation that has had to overcome great tribulations. It was the bard David Jones who pointed out that in the terrible winter of 1282, Bleddyn Fardd, in his 'Marwnad Llywelyn ap Gruffydd', still had the superb audacity to refer to a totally stricken Wales as 'Cymru fawr'—Cymru fawr when all was broken and lost. So, we have come from that cruel lance thrust on the banks of the Irfon on that fateful wintery night to this hopeful spring of 2021, surveying much that is broken in our society, how much we must rebuild.