A withering of devolution?

Paul Griffiths

Next May 96 candidates will be elected as members of the Senedd. In 2029 the Senedd will acknowledge the 30th anniversary of its creation.

The newly elected members will reflect on whether they are contributing to the positive development or the decline of self-government within Wales.

Prior to Brexit, the Welsh Assembly was basking in the 2011 referendum which saw Wales gain new legislative and financial powers. Over 63% of those voting endorsed devolution and the extension of its powers. The Senedd gained primary law-making powers and the ability to vary a range of taxes. Devolution appeared to be on a one-way ratchet, powers were being regularly gained and never withdrawn. There was much anticipation of further devolved powers related to the justice system, welfare benefits, transport, the crown estate, etc., etc.

The tide has turned. Devolved powers are already diminishing. Rather than feel comfortable with past achievements we should always recognise that the powers of all institutions are continuously in flux, continuously negotiated and renegotiated, continuously dependent on the public’s willingness to defend or promote this institution or that.

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Negative pressure

The public’s support in a UK referendum in 2016 for withdrawal from the European Union created significant negative pressure on the devolution of powers in the UK. The European Union had elevated Welsh Government to be its agent in the administration of European funds for social and economic regeneration.

When those powers were transferred to the UK Government in 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson enthusiasm for muscular unionism ensured that any continuation of regeneration funding was administered across the United Kingdom by the UK Government.

Johnson had promised that the level of funds coming to Wales would be maintained but the money coming to Wales from the UK Government’s Levelling Up Fund and Shared Prosperity Fund declined under the Conservative Government and has continued to decline under Kier Starmer’s Labour Government.

In opposition Kier Starmer announced that regeneration funding would, under a Labour Government, be devolved once again to the Welsh Government. Since Labour was elected in May 2025 all that we have had is a muddled uncertainty. The Boris Johnson arrangements were carried forward for a ‘transitional’ year but there have been no announcements on what might happen from April 2026. 

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Creative solutions

Ministers and civil servants in Welsh and UK Governments continue to tussle over their roles. As the tussle continues, the administration of £millions stagnates with no ability to reflect on objectives, evaluate programmes, cast out for new creative solutions to Wales’ most pressing economic problems.

In Monmouthshire, we have £1 million of programmes to help 16 year olds not in education or employment, to help adults gain literacy and numeracy skills, to help school leavers gain employment skills, to support those who have had long periods economically inactive. All these programmes are at risk because Whitehall and Cardiff tussle with little regard to what happens in local communities.

What has been announced in the last week is that UK Government will directly allocate funds for the piecemeal regeneration of town centres in Wales. This is an affront to the devolution settlement which defined such regeneration as a devolved matter.

It is an affront to those many people who have spent the last few years working with the Welsh Government to develop Placemaking Plans for their towns in expectation that those plans will be funded by the Welsh Government.

Why has this happened? It has happened so that Labour’s Starmer Government can wrap the union flag around the park benches and flower beds of our town centres. It has happened so that Welsh MPs can be handed some raw meat as they jostle for prominence among the notables in their communities. It is a deliberate and provocative ploy to put the Welsh Government into the shadows of history.

How does this happen? Why is it so easy for the Starmer Government and the Westminster Parliament to trample over terrain once considered devolved? The vehicle is the 2020 Internal Market Act which allowed the UK Government to step into the role once held by the European Union in regulating markets.

Those who study constitutions across the globe will not be surprised by the extraordinary reach of the Internal Market Act. Since its origin in 1789 the Constitution of the United States gave the Central Government the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states and with the Indian Tribes”. It is this one little clause in the US constitution which allowed Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930’s and Trump’s contemporary Big Beautiful Bill.

Assumptions

Until Brexit we had an understanding that the UK Government managed tax and benefits, but that the devolved governments sought to shape national economies, supporting regional clusters with cultivated supply chains, aiding research and skill development, developing land use and transportation in support of economic goals. The Internal Market Act throws doubt on all those assumptions.

We need to recognise that the balance of powers in any constitution relies not on the rules but on the mobilisation of political sentiment for this or that balance of power. How will the newly elected Senedd members respond to the move to re-centre political power in the United Kingdom. Labour is divided with the anti-devolutionists apparently ascendent. Reform is using the Senedd elections as a stepping stone to credibility which they will cast aside once it has served its purpose. How will Plaid Cymru react? Will they judge that a discredited and diminished devolution settlement serves well the ultimate goal of independence? 

We will all do well to recognise that in the long run of history, thirty years of devolution embeds very little. In the few months left for this Senedd, many should recognise that as they strive to make budgets and shape resources for the coming year they will be setting a path which allows the next Senedd to manage either decline or progress in the self-government of Wales.

Paul Griffiths is Deputy Leader of Monmouthshire County Council and served as Senior Special Adviser to the Welsh Government from 2000 - 2007.