Labour first minister of Wales Eluned Morgan told The Irish Times the party in Westminster has “lessons to learn” from a “messy week,” after British prime minister Keir Starmer was forced into a humiliating climbdown on disability benefit cuts.
Labour rebels in Westminster forced the prime minister to gut a Bill designed to save £5 billion (€5.8 billion) by tightening eligibility for top-up payments for disabled people, to avoid his government suffering a damaging defeat in a parliamentary vote.
Ms Morgan said her devolved administration opposed the plans originally advanced by Mr Starmer’s government, putting her in alignment with party rebels.
“We were always concerned [by] the proposals. So we’re pleased they listened on that, and pleased they listened on winter fuel payments [where the UK government is also U-turning on cuts],” she said.
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“We’re all human. We’re always learning and there are always opportunities for us to do better,” said the first minister. “There are obviously lessons to learn. It has been a messy week.”
Ms Morgan, the only woman in the history of the Labour Party to have led a government in the UK, also expressed sympathy for Rachel Reeves, the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer who cried in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
Ms Reeves, Britain’s first woman chancellor, was under severe pressure as a target of Labour rebels’ ire – her treasury department wanted the disability cuts to personal independence payments.
She appeared to burst into tears as Mr Starmer declined to say in the Commons on Wednesday if she would stay in her post. He later suggested she would be in the role “for years to come”, while she said her emotional state was due to a “personal issue”.
Yesterday, Ms Reeves said she is “cracking on with the job” of chancellor after unexpectedly joining the prime minister and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, at the launch of the NHS 10-year plan at a health centre in east London.
Ms Reeves said: “Clearly, I was upset yesterday and everyone could see that. It was a personal issue and I’m not going to go into the details of that,” she said. “My job as chancellor at 12 o’clock on a Wednesday is to be at PMQs [prime minister’s questions] next to the prime minister, supporting the government, and that’s what I tried to do.
“I guess the thing that maybe is a bit different between my job and many of your viewers’ is that when I’m having a tough day, it’s on the telly and most people don’t have to deal with that.”
She rejected suggestions that her upset was connected to an interaction with Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, or with a government colleague.
Mr Starmer said: “She has made clear on a number of occasions that yesterday was a personal issue, and I am certainly not going to say anything more about that.”
Asked if he should have noticed what was happening during PMQs and consoled the chancellor, Mr Starmer said that was unrealistic given the format of the Commons exchanges.
“I didn’t appreciate what was happening because, as you’ll probably appreciate, PMQs is pretty wired,” he said.He added: “I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber.”
Ms Morgan said: “It’s a really difficult role to be a woman leader in politics.
“I have a lot of empathy for her. I have no idea what was behind her concerns. But I do know it is hard to be in the spotlight.”
Ms Morgan also said next year’s Senedd (Welsh parliament) elections would be “different and difficult” for Labour. A new voting system is being introduced.
“You’ve also got to remember we have been in power for 26 years here,” she said.
Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist Reform UK party is in a three-way tussle to be the biggest party after next May’s election with Labour and Plaid Cymru, the left-wing Welsh nationalist party. Some polls suggest Reform could come out on top although it is likely that the other parties would then band together to keep it out of government.
“There is a lot of political turbulence out there,” said Ms Morgan.
She spoke on the fringe of the Wales-Ireland Forum, a bilateral summit between the two governments. In Swansea they released a “shared statement” detailing co-operation on issues such as language, culture and, most notably, green energy out to 2030. – Additional reporting: Guardian
