echange F O R B E V A N F O U N D A T I O N M E M B E R S SUMMER 2016 Wales: The next five years ISSN 2059<8416 =PRINT> ISSN 2398<2063 =ONLINE> echange SUMMER 2016 Contents 18. EQUALITY 4. FEATURE 8. HEALTH 16. WELLBEING 2 Laura McAllister Wales’ politics gets exciting 6 Michael Trickey Wales’ public finances after the election and Brexit 8 Marcus Longley Obstacles to change: is the health service treading water? 10 David Egan A message to the Education Secretary 12 Calvin Jones The post-Brexit prospectus for Wales’ economy 14 Kevin Howell What could the next five years hold for Welsh housing 16 Paul Thomas A ‘Team Wales’ appraoch to health and wellbeing 28. SUBSCRIBER SPOTLIGHT 18 June Milligan Towards a fairer Wales 20 Lis Burnett Whole town regeneration: a case study 22 Mark Barry Rethinking Cardiff 25 Bevan Foundation News Subscribers’ News 26 SHOWCASE Samaritans EXCHANGE Emotional health and the school curriculum 28 Subscriber Spotlight Catherine A’Bear, Regional Manager, Rehab JobFit The views in articles, advertisements and news items in Exchange are those of the contributors and are not necessarily shared or endorsed by Bevan Foundation Trustees, Bevan Foundation staff or other subscribers. All articles are copyright Bevan Foundation. @bevanfoundation www.facebook.com/BevanFoundation www.linkedin.com/company/bevan-foundation www.bevanfoundation.org 1 Feature Laura McAllister Laura McAllister is Professor of Governance at the University of Liverpool’s School of Management. he 2016 National Assembly election was a Wales’ strange one. The campaign was initially Tdominated by UK-wide issues like reaction to the Tata Steel crisis and party leadership rows in London. Then, almost at its last gasp, attention turned politics back to the policy areas where our elected representatives might actually make a difference. When the results eventually came in it looked as if nothing much had actually changed despite the sound and fury EXCHANGE gets exciting of campaigning and several years of speculation about future governments and their complexion. Welsh Labour again emerged as the largest party but, with 29 seats was short of a majority. Every other party did worse than they would have hoped but to differing Bevan Foundation extents. The exception was UKIP, for whom the election campaign was always a complete irrelevance as, 2 nomination for First Minister for Welsh Labour leader Carwyn Jones, we began to hear that Plaid Cymru was planning to nominate its own leader, Leanne Wood. The drama of what happened next has been reported extensively, but what is more interesting and intriguing is why this happened in the way that it did and, more The lack of change importantly, what might happen next. at the very top of Much of the stand-off that followed dates back to a our politics has damaged and increasingly toxic relationship between ‘meant‘ Wales Labour and all of the other parties in the last Assembly, continues to be but especially with Plaid Cymru. It culminated in the ill- dominated by a advised "cheap date" comment from the then Minister “you're either with for Public Services which resulted in the collapse of the us or against us” Public Health Bill on the very last day of Assembly business. That was childish, public and shocking but, in attitude. truth, the relationship has been conditioned by far longer, deeper and private historical factors. These, in provided its vote held up, the party was guaranteed its my view, have their roots in a disturbing lack of first multiple representation in a domestic legislature. pluralism in both attitude and thinking across the whole For those who deduce from this that Wales is somehow political scene in Wales. inclined towards UKIP, it's worth noting that the party's It would be wrong to blame one party, as there is no actual share of the vote in the forty Welsh doubt that all of them are a million miles away from the constituencies went down from last year's General electorate’s views of the Assembly, of Welsh politics and Election - from 13.4 per cent to 12.5 per cent - but our of sharing power. The lack of change at the very top of semi-proportional electoral system meant a fair reward our politics has meant Wales continues to be of seven seats for a consistent and evenly spread dominated by a "you're either with us or against us" EXCHANGE performance across the nation. attitude, where proper scrutiny and regular, robust Election over, there we were gearing ourselves up for challenge are at best tolerated and at worst the ‘excitement’ around the state theatre of the undermined and discredited. investiture of the new Presiding Officer and Deputy Equally, post-election events would also suggest that Presiding Officer when the docile and usually little real, strategic thinking around the brave new world predictable world of Welsh politics was thrown into a of coalitions, minorities, deals and arrangements has Bevan Foundation spin. Rather than the simple confirmation of a single occurred in the political parties or, if it has, no-one has 3 In George Orwell’s words: “The slovenliness of our ‘language‘ makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” thought to share its take with each other. As several of us commented after the One Wales Coalition agreement between Labour and Plaid in 2007, there was scant recognition that the deal meant that nothing in Welsh politics would be the same again. However, a much improved result for Labour in the 2011 election, coupled with a divided and fractious set of opposition parties seemingly incapable of mounting a strategic challenge within or without the Assembly chamber, miraculously wiped organisational memories and, as if by magic, the political equilibrium was restored. So, by 2016 normal service was to be resumed: the largest dominant party in charge, parent-child relationships to be continued. But from Plaid Cymru's perspective, this was Plaid government, although it could, in theory, have not on. Now relationships between the leaders of the worked with deals struck with all the other parties on a two biggest parties have been imperfect for some case by case basis. time. This time, post election, there was no soothing As we know, the confirmation without a vote of presence in the teams around each leader to seek out Carwyn Jones as First Minister a week later put a clear party objectives in the critical negotiations temporary halt to the phoney spin war that was necessary within what is effectively a hung parliament. damaging for both 'sides’. Labour (MPs mainly) The decision by Plaid to nominate Leanne Wood was accused Plaid of jumping into bed with the Tories and an incredibly brave and bold one. That's fairly obvious, UKIP - a slight that was somewhat weakened by later but it was also one that reflected a new spirit of risk suggestions that Nathan Gill (UKIP's leader in Wales but within Plaid's ranks as well as symbolising the new not of its Assembly group) might do a proper deal muscular approach from a new team of AMs less rather than just vote for a rival candidate for First EXCHANGE naturally consensual in style and keener to stake out Minister. One is tempted to say if the deal wasn’t done the party's political position in the new landscape. then, then surely it could have been done at some That's entirely natural of course, but every political point in the future, say over the M4 relief road route intervention of this kind should be clear what its goal perhaps? Meanwhile, Plaid reminded Labour that in any or end point is. The truth is that, with only 12 AMs, parliamentary institution without an outright majority Bevan Foundation Plaid's goal wasn't clear. This was understandable as for one party, any party can nominate a candidate for few had faith in the workability of an ultra-minority First Minister. There are plenty of precedents, for 4 It is worth noting that at any time an average of two- ‘thirds‘ of governments of EU member states are coalitions - majority is the new minority. example the Scottish Conservatives' Ruth Davidson bows to signal political intent, especially around a challenging Nicola Sturgeon's coronation after she took change in the operating culture for the Fifth Assembly. over the SNP leadership from Alex Salmond in 2014. Equally, the fact that the ensuing talks were held Several people have used terms like ‘shambles’ and quietly and constructively between two respected embarrassment to refer to these events, and described figures from the parties and without leaks is a positive what happened next as ‘grubby, dodgy deals’ and surely? Parliamentary and political interchanges in ‘climb-downs’. Now, I understand that the public were a pluralist systems are always messier and less smoothly bit baffled by what went on in the chamber, but I played out in public than in strictly majoritarian ones. suspect that the Assembly website has had more hits in So is this simply about the communication and that week than it ever did during its various admirable, representation of our new political realities? This was but mostly ignored, public engagement campaigns. In exciting because we genuinely didn’t know the eventual truth, this is a learning process for us all as we adjust to outcome (although we could speculate). proper minority government, rather than the ‘majority- There was no real risk to the citizens of Wales and lite’ of the last Assembly when Labour’s job could their good governance in this instance.