Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 2 July 2024.
Vaughan Gething
Labour
1:50,
2 July 2024
I’ve enjoyed campaigning in Mid and South Pembrokeshire and I look forward to doing so in the coming few days. I also look forward to what the people of Wales do choose. As those ballots are counted through the evening of 4 July and into the morning of 5 July, we’ll see whether people will believe Andrew R.T. Davies’s rosy view on how successful the last four to five years and the last 14 years have been across the UK. There’s nothing condescending about the cost-of-living crisis. It is very real and unavoidable for far too many of our families. I just wish the Member could show a bit more understanding for what far too many Welsh families are going through and recognise the responsibility of the current UK Government in the choices that they have made. No amount of factually challenged claims about what is not in the Labour manifesto is going to change that; people understand how their lives have changed. The figures show that most people are not better off compared to 14 years ago. The figures show this is the only Parliament in history where records have been taken where living standards are lower at the end of the UK Parliament than at the start. The figures show that working people are paying higher taxes now than in the last 70 years, all on the Conservatives’ watch. I admire his bravery in trying to claim that none of these things are true, but I look forward to the verdict of the people. A real change across the UK, two Labour Governments working together for Wales and Britain—that is what is on the ballot paper, and as I say, I look forward to the verdict of the people of Wales at the ballot box.
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With a lower-case ‘c’, ‘conservative’ is an adjective which implies a dislike of change, and a preference for traditional values.