Welsh devolution should go further - Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

Former Labour leader Gordon Brown said he had huge respect for Mark Drakeford

By James Williams
BBC Radio Wales presenter

Welsh devolution "should go a stage further" but there are "certain issues" that have to be resolved, according to former prime minister Gordon Brown.

He defended his report on how the UK could look under a Labour government in Westminster.

It fell short of backing calls from senior Welsh Labour Senedd members for Wales' justice system to be run from Cardiff.

Plaid Cymru previously called the report a "damp squib".

The Welsh Conservatives said there was no public appetite for further devolution.

Gordon Brown said he had "huge respect" for outgoing First Minister Mark Drakeford.

Speaking to BBC Radio Wales for the documentary, Mark Drakeford: Legacy of a Leader, Mr Brown said Mr Drakeford was one of the "greatest persons committed to social justice that I know".

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Mr Drakeford has been in the Welsh government throughout the last decade, and for much of the last 20 years

Mr Drakeford stands down as first minister on Tuesday after more than five years in the job.

He has long supported the idea of "radical federalism" across the UK and the devolution of policing and justice to Wales.

The devolution of policing and justice is also supported by his successor, Vaughan Gething, who was elected as the new Welsh Labour leader on Saturday.

Mr Brown's 2022 report only recommended a future UK Labour government shift powers over youth justice and probation from Westminster to Cardiff, falling short of backing the devolution of policing, prisons and adult courts to Wales.

He said he believed his commission's report "got to a position that promoted Welsh devolution, that it should be able to go a step further".

"Obviously there are certain issues that have to be resolved, and some of them are detailed issues, but in principle, they should be able to go further."

His report was published before the final conclusions of a Welsh government-established Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, which was co-chaired by Prof Laura McAllister and former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

Published in January, the report called for powers over justice, policing and rail infrastructure to be devolved to the Senedd.

Mr Brown said it was "now over" to UK Labour leader Keir Starmer to decide what to include in his party's manifesto for the next general election.

But shadow Welsh secretary, Jo Stevens, had recently rejected the devolution of policing and adult criminal justice to Wales.

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Less government money is spent for each person in Wales than in Scotland or Northern Ireland

Senior Welsh Labour figures in Cardiff Bay have also called for the way the Welsh government is funded through the Barnett formula to be replaced with a new system.

Under the formula, every time the UK government decides to spend money on something in England which is devolved in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, it applies the formula to work out an amount to give to those nations.

On the funding issue, Mr Brown, who was in charge of UK public finances as Chancellor for a decade, said: "Wales should do better as a result of allocation according to need because of many of the social problems that arise, for example from the decline of the mining and steel industries.

"I was in the Treasury for 10 years, we looked at changes that we could make. For example, do you allocate resource on the basis of national income per head?

"Or, as we did, say: 'Look, the Barnett formula is one way of dealing with this, but Wales should have more'.

"If we had done a root and branch closure of Barnett, I don't think we would've got a consensus throughout the United Kingdom."

He added giving Wales more than it does currently under Barnett was the right thing to do.

You can watch the interview on BBC Politics Wales at 10:00 GMT on Sunday, 17 March on BBC One Wales and iPlayer, and listen to Mark Drakeford: Legacy of a Leader? on BBC Radio Wales and BBC Sounds at 18:00 on Tuesday 19 March.

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