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Delyth Jewell, who is the deputy leader of Plaid Cymru, is one of four regional Senedd Members serving the South Wales East region.

I would like to congratulate Eluned Morgan on becoming leader of Labour in Wales – and by this time next week, she is set to be Wales’ first female First Minister.

That Wales will shortly have its first female head of government is news which should be welcomed. It comes after Wales elected its highest ever number of women to Westminster a few short weeks ago, including three out of four MPs for Plaid Cymru being women. 

There is no denying, though, Eluned Morgan’s confirmation as Welsh Labour leader has come after months of chaos. The internal wrangling we’ve seen from the Labour party in recent months hasn’t just been unedifying: it has shamefully distracted the Welsh Government from its primary work, preventing it from focusing all of its efforts on making people’s lives better. 

And there is so much work which needs to be done to fulfil that need – and undeniably, the legacy which Eluned Morgan will inherit will be a challenging one. From NHS waiting times to bus services, and from the high costs of childcare to care services, there are too many areas of public policy where things simply aren’t working well enough in Wales. For the sake of Wales, I want Eluned to succeed – though she will certainly have her work cut out.

For this to happen, decisions must be made differently, and outcomes must be better. One deeply unhelpful result of how Eluned Morgan’s confirmation has happened is that uncertainty remains about what her priorities will be. We have seen no leadership manifesto, nor any new policy programme which could have been tested in an internal contest. We still wait to hear who will be given roles in her new cabinet.

Wales cannot afford for this new iteration of the Welsh Government to falter. I hope sincerely that Eluned Morgan will use her new position to fight Wales’ corner, and to make the case for a fairer funding settlement for Wales from Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.  

That fairer funding would enable us to invest in our NHS workforce, and to recruit more GPs into Wales after years of Tory cuts and Labour mismanagement in Cardiff. It would enable us to improve our transport services, to create more jobs – in short, it would help make things better and give hope to our people, at a time when that is so desperately needed.

Everyone in politics will approach problems from different perspectives, but surely all of us would want those with the ultimate power to get things right. For the sake of our nation, I wish Eluned Morgan well in this role. The challenges facing her are many – but that also means that there are multiple opportunities for improvement.