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PLAID Cymru’s manifesto for the Welsh elections has taken just a bit of inspiration from Scotland and the SNP.
Aside from the two parties having independence from the UK as a common thread, Plaid Cymru have picked out a few policies from north of the Border that they evidently believe will help their bid to oust Labour from leading the Senedd.
Crucially, Plaid Cymru say that if they win the election, held on the same day as Holyrood’s, May 7, they would demand that powers be devolved to allow Wales to hold its own referendum.
“We will therefore formally request that the right to decide on the timeline, question and process for an independence referendum be devolved,” the manifesto reads.
This is something that Holyrood doesn’t have: the Supreme Court’s ruled in 2022 that the matter is reserved to Westminster, and the Scottish Parliament can’t hold a referendum without the UK’s sign off.
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Something that subsequent Conservative and Labour prime ministers have refused to even engage with, despite repeated pro-independence majorities.
It begs the question that if Plaid Cymru win the election – which they might, recent opinion polls have put that party’s leader Rhun ap Iorwerth in pole position to be first minister with a minority government – and they demand the powers to hold a referendum, then why can’t Scotland’s parliament have the same?
We are still waiting for the SNP’s manifesto to be published – rumours are currently circling that it will be sometime next week – but it will be interesting to see if there are any similar calls for powers to be devolved in it.
Plaid Cymru, however, have said that even with the powers devolved, they would not seek to hold a referendum in their first five-year term in power, seeking to prove that they could responsibly run Wales and prove the merits of independence from the UK.
And to do so, ap Iorwerth’s party have taken a bit of inspiration from the SNP.
One thing that immediately stuck out was they would set up a National Commission for Wales that would look at devolving a number of areas, but would also lay the foundations for independence and a referendum
Plaid Cymru said they will engage voters in an “ongoing national conversation about the options for Wales’s constitutional future” and research “key political and economic questions relevant to Wales’s constitutional future, to inform debate and decision-making”.
They say this will lay the foundations for a future White Paper on Welsh independence which will address the “challenges and setting out the opportunities and positive changes independence would bring for Wales”.
Remember the Build a new Scotland papers series, anyone?
There are also numerous calls for Welsh to be given the same level of devolution as Scotland.
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Plaid Cymru point out that control of the Crown Estate in Scotland has been devolved – it isn’t in Wales – and the Scottish Government “retains the full profits” from leasing assets, which they can reinvest.
“Revenues generated from Welsh land and waters are returned to the Treasury in London, with a share allocated to the Royal Household,” the manifesto reads.
“There is no reason why people in Wales should not benefit from their nation’s natural wealth in the same way as people in Scotland.”
There are also calls for devolving policing and justice to Wales, for the Welsh Government to have control over rail services, for full devolution of port regulation, of Air Passenger Duty, powers over water, regional development funding, and calling for further powers to allow them to tackle child poverty.
As well as rolling out a childcare offer that they describe as the “most generous in the UK” – Plaid Cymru say this would be worth over £30,000 to a family in the first four years of a child’s life – they would also seek to introduce a “direct child payment pilot”.
The Scottish Child Payment, introduced in 2021, has been repeatedly hailed as one of the main drivers tackling child poverty north of the Border.
In response to the manifesto commitments, an SNP spokesperson told The National: "In May, for the first time ever, we could see first ministers in Scotland, in Wales and in Northern Ireland elected, who are all committed to independence from the UK. That would be an absolutely seismic moment.
"For people watching around the world, there could be no clearer sign that Westminster’s time is up.”
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