The Welsh Government has been accused by one local AM of having a ‘lamentable record’ of delivery for rural Wales and of ‘failing a generation’ of Welsh citizens during its 15 years in office.
Montgomeryshire AM and Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Russell George, used his speech to the Welsh Conservative Party Conference in Llangollen last weekend (11-12 April), to attack Welsh Ministers for failing to listen or stand-up for the interests of rural communities right across Wales.
Mr George said that reduced public funding and the need to do ‘more with less’ was something that everyone in Wales would need to adjust to beyond this decade but that the effects on rural areas would continue to be more acute than in urban centres and that had to be addressed.
However, he said the challenge was made more difficult by having a Welsh Government in Cardiff who would rather blame others for public service failings than be prepared to take responsibility itself.
Mr George shared a platform with many speakers over the weekend, including MEP, Dr Kay Swinburne, Welsh Conservative Assembly Group Leader, Andrew R.T Davies and the Prime Minister, David Cameron.
Montgomeryshire MP, Glyn Davies, also took to the stage to lead a panel session on ‘Wales in the Global Race’, examining the issues that Wales must address if it’s to compete and succeed economically in the coming years ahead.
During his speech, Mr George said:
"As a politician, I regularly hear the call of…"doing more for less"; and yes I think that it’s a concept that we are all going to have to get used to and not just for the rest of this decade – it’s going to require a fundamental change of culture and mind-set.
"However, when you live like I do, in one of the most rural parts of not just Wales but the UK, attempting to fully understand the implications of that is not easy.
"Trying to deliver good quality public services like health or social care across a large rural area is tough, particularly when there is a lack of integrated transport provision – it costs more in both time and money.
"Yet, that challenge is made considerably more difficult when you have the Labour Party running the government.
"Unfortunately it has been, other than a few wistful glimmers on a bleak horizon, a wasted generation.
"However, for those of us who work in Cardiff Bay, we know only too well that it’s never the fault of the Welsh Labour Government – "not us Guv…it’s those Tories in Westminster" or "nah we’re not to blame, it’s those in local government or in the health boards who cannot deliver."
"And yet in the very next breath they say…only Welsh Labour understand the Welsh people; only Welsh Labour can run the NHS; we are the only ones making the rural economy more sustainable; we are the only ones fighting in Europe for Welsh agriculture… this is what I hear every week.
"The fact is there is only one party that continues to stand up and represent the interests of rural Wales – and that’s the Welsh Conservative Party."
Mr George went on to set-out some of the challenging issues that communities in rural Wales were facing, including uncompetitive changes made by the Welsh Government to the Common Agricultural Policy, the spike in Bovine TB cases in some parts of Wales and the downgrading of key health services.
He said the reality of the situation was that the Welsh Government ‘did not have a clue’ about rural living and never would.
He added:
"If we were in Government in Cardiff Bay, we wouldn’t be making rural farm businesses more sustainable by taking nearly £290m away from direct agricultural production; its peculiar implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy will ensure that Welsh farm businesses will be the least competitive, not just in the UK but across the EU.
"If we were in Government in Cardiff Bay, we wouldn’t be trying to tackle Bovine TB by ignoring the views of rural Wales.
"The Minister says Wales is leading the way in the UK in tackling Bovine TB yet it refuses to get to grips with the reservoir of disease.
"In Montgomeryshire we have seen a considerable spike in Bovine TB cases over recent months. Just this week I visited farms in and around Llanfair Caereinon which have been infected. I sat around one farm table after another and listened to the frustrations and sobering details of what it’s like to live with the devastating impact of the disease.
"Despite these farmers spending considerable amounts of money on cattle controls, surveillance and testing, they are still losing cattle to TB.
"This situation cannot be allowed to continue; the Government must address the disease both in cattle and badgers.
"If we were in Government in Cardiff Bay, we wouldn’t be trying to improve access to good quality health care by downgrading services in key rural hospitals, forcing patients to travel further to receive treatment.
"Instead of tackling issues that have become barriers to access in rural Wales like the acute shortage of doctors and dentists, the lack of out of hours services and the closure of rural surgeries, the Government wants to centralise services and force people to travel further to gain access.
"This failure repeats itself in relation to rural housing supply, rural educational attainment, rural deprivation, rural transport and communications connectivity. Moreover, as it continues to preside over an unfair local government funding formula, which doesn’t properly take into account the complexities of delivering public services in rural areas, things are not going to change.
"The reality is that this Welsh Labour Government hasn’t a clue about rural living and with its urban-based Cabinet, it never will."