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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.

In the past few weeks we’ve seen the final Welsh Government budget and a UK budget. We’ve also had the UK Covid inquiry come to Wales. 

The Welsh Budget – which will impose painful cuts across a range of policy areas – reflects the stark reality of how chronically Wales is underfunded by Westminster. The block grant we receive isn’t enough to support our struggling public services, and there is a clear cross-party consensus in the Senedd that the current fiscal framework for Wales is simply not fit for purpose. The leaders of both Westminster parties must listen to what their representatives here in Wales are telling them loudly and clearly. 

We must also go further, and demand a fair deal for Wales through the replacement of the Barnett formula, which leaves us short-changed year-on-year, and has denied us billions of pounds from the England-only HS2 rail project. 

If we want to see Wales realise its potential as an ambitious and prosperous nation, we must be equipped with the requisite resources – and addressing the unfairness of the current funding model from Westminster would be the crucial first step in this process.   

I acknowledge the constraints that have been imposed on the Welsh Government while developing this budget – but at a time when every penny of public money must be spent as effectively as possible, their management of the resources that are at their disposal still leaves much to be desired.    

Instead of delivering substantive improvements in the quality of public services, we are given short-term sticking plaster solutions, and instead of a clear vision for a dynamic and prosperous economy we are presented with managed decline. 

Wales deserves better – and Plaid Cymru will always be unstinting in demanding better from both the Westminster and the Welsh governments.           

Much of the discussion in Westminster ahead of this budget has been utterly detached from the reality faced by ordinary people across the UK. The NHS is on its knees. Councils across the UK are facing bankruptcy. Young people can’t afford their rent, let alone a mortgage. We’ve had over a decade of cuts. 

Austerity has failed, and the Conservatives’ obsession over minor changes to the tax system that favour higher earners in London and the south east of England reveals a government in its dying days. They are only focused on desperately trying to halt the electoral wipeout the polls are suggesting. But rather than tackling this long-term weakness in the UK’s economy, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, prioritised the short-term electoral fortune of the Conservatives.

We could have had a bold programme of public investment, funded fairly through windfall taxes on companies which are profiteering from the cost-of-living crisis while families and small businesses are struggling. 

We should have seen investment in the green economy, in the energy grid, and funding for community energy schemes. I am left underwhelmed and angry by what the Tories have chosen to prioritise. One thing is clear – this is a budget that doesn’t work for Wales.