The five leading parties in Welsh politics have all, at some stage, endorsed the idea of a Welsh bank holiday for St David’s Day. If ever adopted, one of the biggest impacts will be on the Welsh political calendar because 1st March has become a focal point.
Twelve months ago David Cameron and Nick Clegg announced the St David’s Day agreement. This was the latest stage of devolution to Wales. In the following months Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb brought forward a draft Wales Bill. While much of the content was non-contentious a few issues caused significant opposition across political lines. On the eve of St David’s Day 2016, Crabb acknowledged a need to pause and revisit elements of the Wales Bill. In particular, the so-called “necessity test” has been removed. The earlier inclusion of it had led to the suggestion that disagreements between UK and Welsh Governments could regularly end up in the Supreme Court. It also appears that the list of matters reserved to the UK Government will be slimmed down from the original 267! There remains resistance to a distinct legal jurisdiction for Wales, but it appears that some issues which traverse devolution such as teachers pay may be included in the revised package. Although on that particular example the National Union of Teachers are resistant to change.
At First Minister’s Questions there was some backtracking by Carwyn Jones when challenged by Lib Dem Leader Kirsty Williams. She picked up on his answer a week earlier in which the First Minister had dismissed concerns of a “crisis” in GP surgeries in North Wales. This week, he changed tack acknowledging “challenges” and stressed that his Government were working with the British Medical Association to try to resolve them.
Conservative Leader, Andrew RT Davies attempted to put Labour on the spot over local government reorganisation. While it seems inevitable that there will be a reduction from the current 22 councils, Labour took a risk in timing their proposals to be part of the Assembly election manifesto. Expect many a Tory leaflet in Monmouthshire, Vale of Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire to be pointing out that Labour want to abolish their local authorities.
The opening day of March also marked a major change in planning policy in Wales. Planning application for “Developments of National Significance” including energy projects of between 10-50MW, reservoirs, railways and airports will be decided by Welsh Ministers. Shadow Rural Affairs Minister, Russell George responded by accusing the Welsh Government of becoming “the most centralising Government in the Western World”.
St David’s Day was also the moment, ten years ago, that the Senedd building was opened and a series of events have been taking place to mark the anniversary. On Tuesday Lord Rogers and Ivan Harbour, the architects of the building, addressed an invitation-only audience talking with real passion about the creation. On the ten year and one day anniversary the power went out in the Senedd, but one probably should not link the two events.
While politicians may continue to sign up to the popular idea of an extra Bank Holiday, one has to wonder what the replacement landmark date for events and legislation would be.