Westminster steps back, Wales must step up

Simon Hobson

Last month, the United Kingdom Government pulled its £870 million support for a Mozambique LNG project.

Ministers claimed the decision was about human-rights concerns and regional instability. The Department for Business and Trade led the withdrawal, and UK Export Finance followed. Westminster framed it as a principled stand.

It wasn’t. It was a retreat that leaves the UK weaker abroad and Wales paying the heaviest price.

When the UK steps back, others step in. Those with less transparent human rights laws and democratic accountability, look to fill these gaps. These are opportunities for them to shape Africa, a continent rich in mineral wealth and a young motivated population: the next economic superpower. And neither countries, such as China, nor many of the African leaders, much care about labour rights.

They don’t care about governance. They don’t care about long-term democratic stability. They seek political influence for financial gain and for power. The UK’s exit removes its influence but does nothing to halt the project or improve conditions on the ground.

A wasted opportunity for Welsh engineering

This is not an isolated incident. Successive UK governments have cut overseas industrial projects from their budgets for over a decade. Those projects could have included skills development, structured engineering exchanges, and international work programmes for young people from Wales and across the UK. The opportunity was there. Westminster chose not to take it.

Why Wales needs control over its industrial future

Wales cannot rely on Westminster to act in our interests. Wales needs the powers to shape its economic and industrial strategy, manage immigration, and build international skills partnerships. With the right powers, Wales could: secure overseas placements for Welsh students and apprentices, help Welsh firms win roles in global infrastructure projects, build long-term relationships with emerging economies in Africa. Wales must be able to protect its future. We cannot keep waiting for Westminster to realise Wales exists.

The Senedd must have:

1. Powers over economic and industrial strategy, so Wales can build international partnerships that bring training, investment, and skilled work into our economy.

2. Powers over immigration and skills mobility

Wales needs its own workforce programmes:

a Welsh international skills visa

a Welsh overseas engineering exchange

a Welsh global work placements strategy for all STEM student.

3. The authority to strike bilateral cooperation agreements
Welsh universities, renewable-energy firms, mining-tech companies, and engineering consultancies already operate globally. With proper powers over finance, borrowing, tax, and immigration, Wales could scale those links dramatically.

Wales must stop waiting for Westminster

The Mozambique LNG project decision is a recent example which reveals Westminster’s deep strategic failure. It cannot think long-term about the UK’s role in the world, and it certainly isn’t thinking about Wales. But Wales also needs to take responsibility. We cannot keep seeing risk where other nations see opportunity. The UK’s retreat should spur future Welsh Governments to act internationally, build new alliances, and secure Wales a global voice. Because no one else is going to do it for us.

If Wales wants a global future, it needs global powers

This is not constitutional theory. It is economic necessity. Without more powers: Welsh students will continue losing global engineering opportunities, Welsh firms will remain locked out of international industrial projects, Wales will remain constrained by Westminster’s short-termism.

Wales needs a government that acts as an executive with real authority, not an administrative branch waiting for permission from London. If decisions like the Mozambique LNG project withdrawal continue being made over our heads, without consulting the Senedd, Wales will stay exactly where Westminster wants it: out of sight, out of mind, and out of the conversation.