The Executive of the Welsh Communist Party, meeting in Cardiff over the weekend, welcomed the Richard Commission Report as an overall progressive contribution towards tackling the powerlessness of the people of Wales.
The Communist Party in Wales has been at the forefront of the campaign for a Parliament for Wales since the original launch of the campaign back in 1950 but the Communist Party has always called for a Parliament of a new type.
The Communist Party advocates that the Assembly should be given the powers and resources to control and develop the economy, to create the best framework for the provision of vital services, to protect the environment and to strengthen the cultural identity of the Welsh people. To increase public investment in public services, to stop the PFI privatisation of our Health Service and Local Government and to provide investment for our run down council housing without requiring them to be sold off through Housing Stock Transfers.
To this end, economic, law-making and revenue-raising powers are inter-connected.
In welcoming the Richard Commission Report, Rick Newnham the Communist Party’s Welsh secretary, stated, “The Richard Commission has done a great service for the people of Wales in identifying the need for the Assembly to have law-making powers and to have an elected body that reflects the true will of the people (through the use of the STV electoral system) but has failed to grasp the reality that revenue raising powers are not only desirable but essential to the project of making the Assembly into a real power for progressive change.”
Rick Newnham went onto say, “It is clear that the Assembly doesn’t currently have sufficient resource to meet the needs and aspirations of the people of Wales, the Communist Party believes extra resources can be obtained by revising the Barnet Formula to take into account the needs of Wales not just the population and by shifting the burden of taxation from the poor to big business and the rich.”
Rick Newnham ended by calling on the Wales Labour Party, when it holds its recall conference in September, “To take hold of this historic opportunity to fundamentally shift the balance of political power towards ordinary people, don’t fudge the issue but accept all of the reports findings including the desire for fund-raising powers and incorporate them as part of a socialist manifesto for Wales.”
For more information contact:
Dominic MacAskill – Communist Party’s Richard Commission spokesperson
On 07779140118