The Devolution Generation: Growing up knowing nothing but, yet little about, devolved Wales

Bethan, Many people in Wales are unaware of the complexities of devolution.They are shocked when told that thousands of English retirees settling in Wales have their pensions and health care paid by Welsh funds.This money is drained from other devolved responsibilities e.g. education. None of this is mentioned when Wales is referred to as being in "the lowest league" of health and education.

Interesting perspective Bethan - my kids are roughly your age and tell me that their friends are all "into" Corbyn's Labour without ANY idea what his policies are or that Labour is currently running Wales. The biggest problem we face is a weak Welsh media and a dominant UK narrative that constantly tells us that it's either Tory or Labour. Unsurprisingly, Wales isn't Tory so people tend to plump for Labour. This anti-Tory sentiment has kept Labour in power for the past century now. Our challenge is to expose their lousy record in office plus Corbyn's contradictions.

My goodness, if it isn't one of Neil McEvoy's staff piping up when he is indisposed. Will he be wearing his blue scarf today? He was all for the rebrand when it happened Bethan. Did he ever mention that to you? Why doesn't Nation.Cymru do a piece discussing why the Plaid group voted unanimously to suspend Bethan's boss? Think about this. McEvoy was found to be a bully after a case involving a woman in rent arrears on her council home. He says he was sticking up for a single parent. Fair enough. But now he wants to retain right-to-buy! There are plenty, PLENTY of people renting ex-council houses in Cardiff from private landlords in Cardiff who are paying £800 a month, which is roughly double what the rent would be if the house had remained in the public sector. Does McEvoy realise that these private tenants are at much greater risk of rent arrears if his plan to continue selling off public stock to the private sector is realised? He's not a deep thinker. More of a blustering egotist who likes litigation. That is your "messiah"

Hi Bethan, Interesting to read your report and I accept the points you make. You are however more fortunate than my generation (born 1941). The only history I had at scool was English monarchs, no Welsh history at all. English speakers had lessons in Welsh but because I chose French and German I hD to teach myself to read and write in Welsh. Fortunately things have improved. Keep up the enthusiasm that ibviously have being Welsh. Cymru am byth oddiwrth un sydd yn byw yn Ffrainc

One of the problems I find is the lack of useful information from The Senedd about what is and is not devolved. Some sort of newsletter addressed to those of us who are interested would help. A newsletter sent out by email would be very welcome. By way of example only I mention the issues of Town and Country Planning and conservation of buildings (listing etc). I am a retired lawyer whose home is listed. I would very much like to know whether these issues are devolved and,if they are, would like to have the legislation identified so that I can look up my rights and obligations. I can look up the English legislation and even the delegated legislation without much difficulty. Why, in Wales, is it not made equally easy to look up the law as it is in Wales? Another example: I know that there is Welsh legislation concerning the registering and licensing of landlords and rental property, but have never seen the legislation itself as distinct from the publicity materials sent out by Rent Smart Wales (which were enouigh to get me lawfully regfistered and licensed) .To a person in my state of iinterested ignorance the devolution of this subject area raises the question of how much of the vast body of what used to be English and Welsh landlord and tenant law applies to Wales. and what, if any, new legislation applies to Wales only. How to find out and if I need to ask, who to ask? The Welsh government could do better!

Can anyone point me to an explanation of what the difference is between the Senedd and the Welsh Government? This article is right on the nose - I'm really unsure of where the responsibilities lie and agree completely that it enables Welsh Labour and Corbyn to get away with blatant lies such as claiming to be the party that opposes student fees.

I believe Gillian is referring to Welsh expenditure in the GERW (Government revenue and Expenditure Wales). Indeed when an English retiree crosses the border into Wales, the state pension of that person is allocated to Welsh expenditure. Likewise they access NHS Wales without the funding required for the costs of elderly people. Of course the Wesh Government has been bleeding Welsh education funding on the cutie to finance the elderly English immigrants. We obviously need immigration control or things will get worse, the labour government is complicit in all this, without opposition.

Davy Gam probably doesn't realise that there is a massive number of retired English people in Wales, whereas we lose young people to England. In the 2011 census there were less Welsh people in England than vice versa. The crucial thing is 24% of English in Wales were over 65 in 2011. The Welsh born population in Wales was only 17% over 65. The population of Wales only older than England because of elderly immigration from England. Our health service overloaded and not funded for these elderly immigrants hence Welsh Labour robbing education. We know there are nearly three times as many people waiting longer than a year for surgery in Wales than in England, despite the vastly bigger population in England. Also the elderly immigrants impact adversely on GVA (Gross Value Added) per head in Wales? This shows our economy in a bad light and also the English immigrants having their pensions allocated to Welsh expenditure show us to have a large deficit.

Bluebird has made several comments which really don't belong here. I support Bethan's right to her own opinion and I applaud her writing as an individual. I note that so called "Bluebird" doesn't even reveal her/his name. I enjoyed the article and look forward to many more.

Just a quick point about the unpleasant smearing and trolling of Bethan. The article is good, I don't know who Bethan is, and nothing she says is offensive. It therefore ill behoves 'Bluebird' to come in with his innuendo and superior tone, his knowing misogynistic implications that a young woman talking about politics is obviously the mouthpiece of a man, and his pseudonymous sneer. She doesn't even mention McEvoy. Ideally, Bluebird would apologise before being allowed back on to comment here, or take his poison elsewhere.

It is disappointing if young people still aren’t receiving good civic and citizenship education. Devolution, as we are told, is “a process not an event” and the powers of the Welsh Government are therefore in flux. It might be useful in the run up to Assembly elections if households in Wales were to receive a document – possibly produced by the Assembly Presiding officer – about the Assembly and the Welsh Government. Anyone born ~1997 has not only been brought up under the Assembly, but is also of a generation who have been exposed all their lives to the online world. Never before has there been such easy access to knowledge. Don’t wait to be spoon fed. Real democracy depends on the citizen acquainting him or her self with the issues, wading through the propaganda and fake news, the paranoia and lies or the simply down right boring stuff and giving real thought to what are often complex issues and then getting out and voting – even if it’s for the least worst choice!

That bitter comment from Bluebird shouldn't have been published. Nothing to do with Bethan's excellent article. Diolch Bethan. I was in Asia when I heard we had a 'Yes' vote. I had voted myself by proxy. I screamed with joy whilst watching the result on BBC World Service. I won't forget it.

Although a large amount of people on this comments board agree with Bethan, there is a large amount of bias and emotive language in this article. There is also a large amount of prejudice and unsubstantiated description. I feel if more research was actually done into the reasons for the zero-hour vote in the Senedd, due to legal non devolved powers, and also the way HE Education is funded, you would understand that the Welsh Labour Government does work hard to limit the adverse effects of a Tory provided Block Grant! WAG provides a large amount of bursaries and grants, approx 2/3 of the tuition fees to counterbalance the negative impact of the tuition costs on Welsh students. They have decided to do this because Welsh children are already at a disadvantage with the level of deprivation and poverty, due to the Tory insistence of their adherence to the 1970s Barnett formula, which should be means-tested due to our uniquely highly-aged demographic, which creates a stronger stress upon our NHS costs. If these aspects were known or researched in the first instance, perhaps this article could be assumed as balanced. Without this, it certainly is anything but...

Is the author asserting there is a deliberate and ongoing process to keep the Welsh population ignorant of the system of UK governance in order to maintain the labour parties position as the largest party in the assembly. That this position gives individuals within the labour assembly group the opportunity to enrich and protect themselves through corrupt practices. This is all carried out with the full knowledge and compliance of the Labour party, the Conservative party, The liberal democrat party, Plaid Cymru, UKIP, individual civil servants in wales and the UK, offices of scrutiny in Cardiff, London and Brussels, the local press, the UK press, the international press, all of the police, all of the judicial system, all of the financial system and all the individuals associated with those areas of governance? That seems to be the claim in the article with absolutely no evidence.

Sam I can't believe what your saying. When labour were in power in London and in Cardiff they did nothing in fact Rhodri Morgon in his autobiography said that Wales was given a hard time with labour in Westminster. So English labour and English Conservatives are equally to blame. Your right about the demographics we need to cantrol immigration into Wales. We can't afford take elderly English immigrants without limit its destroying NHS Wales and our economy. Without elderly English immigration Wales would not have an older population than England. The English Labour Party and English conservatives want to control immigration. We need to do this in Wales if the current immigration is bad for our physical and economic health.

The headline to this article makes no grammatical sense.

We keep coming back to this basic issue: when Welsh people worry about the impact on their economy and culture of massive English immigration, mostly made up of people who have no interest in Wales, or where applicable learning Welsh, or even accepting they're in a different place, it's racist. When English people complain of tiny numbers of mostly hard-working foreigners coming here, we're told to 'understand their concerns', and it's all 'common sense'. The politicians kowtow to them and the tabloids whip them up. But still, it's 'common sense'. The game is rigged and it's rigged in favour of the English, because they dominate the UK. That's no surprise. Asking how sustainable it is to have Wales go on along this route is not racism. Indeed, most of our political and financial problems over the 20 years of devolution have come from an inability to grasp this basic fact. Wales should have - either at devolved level or at local authority level - a mechanism for being able to choose who comes here, why and what they do. That's not racism, since it's what Britain apparently voted for in Brexit. It's just that the UK establishment doesn't accept the logic that some of this 'control' might be applied to themselves...

"The Assembly does not have tax wielding powers, which is partly the problem. Albeit, if there were only Welsh-born people living and working in Wales, then there would not be enough tax paid, due to population size, to sustain our country, never mind, the lack of inward investment." Can you prove this, Samantha? Also, Welsh people in the rest of the UK work and are generally younger. Wales has the oldest and fastest ageing population in the UK. It's nonsense to pretend that doesn't affect services, money, health and the distribution of budgets. It's certainly not because Welsh people live longer! Am I being racist?

Samantha to start with the Welsh population is not older than the English in England. We have an older English population in Wales, call it colonialism, these elderly English are depleting our health service for which we do not receive funding. We have to take funds from the education of our children to finance the health and social care of these immigrants. You say that we are living on English taxes, well it may come as a surprise that we pay taxes in Wales. The elderly English immigrants, and there are few other elderly immigrants, also impact negatively on the GVA (Gross Value Added) per head in Wales, and this declining with further immigration. This is bad for our economy in Wales. In England the 2011 Census (ONS Office of national statistics) show immigrants at 16.5% of the population, from a diverse range of countries. Immigrants were younger than the English population with only 11.5% over 65yrs while the English were 17.2% over 65yrs. Low numbers of immigrants received benefits and state pension. As the Office of Budget Responsibility put it in 2013 "to the extent they leave in later years...they will not require access to long term care and support". Studies on immigration indicate that young and healthy immigrants are an economic benefit (as in England). Immigration studies do NOT praise the benefits of large numbers of sick and elderly immigrants. You say that Welsh people are incapable of sustaining our country - which I find rather derogatory (racist)- if so it is because of the huge number of dependent on our economy from England. I notice the English Labour Party and the English conservatives want to stop uncontrolled immigration. Why not us in Wales. Our labour government has not spoken about the cause of the failings of NHS Wales. This labour government we have can seriously damage our health, and our education. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/simple-way-wales-could-spend-13562214#ICID=sharebar_twitter http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-41334105

I propose an adequate health and education system on a par with England, and an immigration which is suitable for Wales as the English Labour Party and English Conservative party want for their country. Nothing less.

Samantha why should immigration be considered as a wholistic issue. I have explained that the structure of immigration into Wales is diametrically opposite to that in England. So the one system which prevails is the one that suits England only. Not the one harming Wales, in many ways. Obviously an independent Wales would address the issue.

Good write up here Bethan. Dal ati!