Peter Black

This is my latest article for Liberator magazine.  The magazine can be downloaded here.

Whisper it softly but are the Welsh Liberal Democrats on the verge of a revival? We are taking small steps, but so far it has all been forward momentum and there is growing optimism within the party that we can exceed expectations in next year’s Senedd elections.

The first buds of this political spring came in a council by-election in Penllergaer, a suburb of Swansea that has been an independent stronghold for some time. Realistically, nobody was going to beat the former councillor’s widower, but this was an area being targeted strongly by Reform, and there were signs that they had some pockets of strength there.

Despite this, a very active community-based campaign enabled Liberal Democrat Howard Evans to secure second-place, ahead of Farage’s self-described ‘pugilist,’ in a ward we have never fought before.

And then a week later, Welsh Lib Dem Susan Grounds took a council seat in Ystalyfera and Cwmllynfell on Neath Port Talbot Council (I challenge Ed Davey to say that on live television), a ward held previously by one Labour and one Plaid Cymru Councillor and one in which we have never stood before. This ward is now part of the redrawn Brecon, Radnor and Cwmtawe seat, which in accordance with the boundary commission’s wishes stretches all the way down the Swansea Valley as far as Pontardawe.

The fourth of July was the 40th anniversary of the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election that saw Richard Livesey come through the middle in a Conservative-Labour marginal to win by just 559 votes. In all that time the local party has neglected to target the local government wards in the south of the constituency.

Fortunately, David Chadwick has taken a different stance and is now properly organising in the Swansea Valley part of his constituency. As a result, an effort was made to find a candidate for Ystalyfera and Cwmllynfell, following the resignation of the Labour councillor for the area, and a full-scale campaign launched.

The result was a dramatic win, 34 votes ahead of Plaid Cymru, who threw the proverbial kitchen sink at the contest, with Labour coming fourth behind Reform. On the same night we won two seats on Mold Town Council in North Wales, while a week later we won a by-election for Ystradgynlais Town Council in Cwmtwrch, also in the Swansea valley.

We have now selected lead candidates for our five leading Senedd constituency seats and are in the process of selecting for the other eleven. Each of these seats will elect six members of the Senedd by a closed d’hondt list system.

At the time of writing, opinion polls for the Senedd have us on just 5%, but we don’t believe that this reflects what is possible next May. As I have set out above, actual votes in real ballot boxes place us in a much stronger position. There is evidence to show that where we campaign hard, we can pick up disaffected Labour and Tory votes, and outpoll Reform, who the media seem to be believes are best placed to attract disaffected voters.

We won’t do this everywhere of course, but in our target seats, where we are working hard, we think that we have an excellent chance of success, aided by differential turnouts and the policy positions we are now developing.

And it is this policy platform that underlines our relevance to people all around Wales, in contrast to the view expressed by one former member and naysayer on the Nation Cymru website.

As a party we have taken the lead in campaigning on water quality issues. The figures show that that over 937,000 hours of sewage dumping took place in Wales last year. It is estimated that Wales is the worst-affected part of the UK for sewage discharges in rivers, seas and beauty spots. On this side of Offa’s Dyke, it is the Welsh Labour Government who are responsible for the sewage crisis, and it is getting worse.

But we are not just talking about and campaigning for change, we are delivering it on all our key priorities.

The budget deal that was struck by our sole MS, Jane Dodds with the Labour government earlier this year saw over £100m being devoted to several important policy areas. The two biggest allocations were an additional £30m for social care, targeting hospital discharge delays and supporting community-based care, and £30m to extend childcare for all two-year-olds in flying start areas and to provide an increase in hourly rates for providers to £6.40.

Crucially, we insisted that the money for social care should not be a one-off but be mainstreamed into council budgets in future years.

We also agreed a local authority funding floor so that no council in Wales would receive a revenue support grant increase of less than 3.8% and doubled the amount set aside for a supported borrowing initiative that will now make an additional £120m available over a two-year period to fix the nation’s deteriorating road network. That will be a very popular FOCUS success story.

The budget deal also enables us to deliver on a long-standing Welsh Liberal Democrats policy of cheaper bus fares for those under-21 years old. This pilot will run from September 2025 to August 2026 and will deliver a flat-rate £1 single fare (£3 day ticket for unlimited travel) for all passengers aged five to 21 anywhere in Wales at a cost of £15m.

Nor did we forget to use the negotiations to help with local community facilities. The deal included £5m to help make local leisure centres more energy efficient and £5m to improve playgrounds. We also asked for and got, an additional £5m for Natural Resources Wales to enforce better water quality in our rivers and on our coasts, tackling some of the pollution and sewage that is blighting our environment.

Finally, we ensured that extra money was also directed to help areas where we have elected representatives. This included over £2m to be shared between four projects: scoping/technical work for the Wyeside Arts Centre in Builth Wells, for the North Powys Wellbeing Campus, for Pont y Bat road junction and for the Brynamman Lido. There was £1.25m to restore a fifth train service on the Heart of Wales line, an issue the Welsh Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for in Knighton, and £10m for rural investment schemes.

This budget deal was an example of the party using its political leverage to improve the lives of everybody across Wales, as well as showing how with just one MS we can make a difference. We could do so much more with a full team of MSs after the next set of elections.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats are the only party in Wales who want to empower individuals and communities, who are opposed to the over-centralisation of power in the hands of the Welsh and UK Governments that is being promoted by the Labour, Tory and Plaid Cymru parties, and who have demonstrated by actions and words our commitment to tackling climate change and improving our environment.

We recognise the need to reform the health service at a local level by investing in social care, and to improve education provision for all children through the curriculum reforms and changes to additional needs provision introduced by Welsh Liberal Democrat Minister, Kirsty Williams, as well as the pupil development grant that is paid to all schools to assist with the education of our poorest children, introduced in a previous budget deal by the Liberal Democrats.

And we have also shown our commitment to improving poor housing, tackling homelessness, building up rural communities and improving our economy. David Chadwick’s championing of Tata Steel in particular, has shown that we will not stand for Labour or the Tories treating Wales as second best.

It is for all these reasons that we believe that we have grounds for optimism as we approach the Senedd elections in 2026. We believe that we may be taking small steps now, but in a year’s time they will amount to a giant leap forward for the Welsh Liberal Democrats.