The fifth floor of Ty Hywel is where Welsh Government ministers have their offices. The corner office, with its views over Cardiff Bay is reserved for the First Minister.
The pictures on the corridor wall outside are of six other politicians, all Labour. The new First Minister, Rhun ap Iorwerth will be the seventh when it is added.
No-one who wears a rosette other than Labour has ever occupied it before, in fact, its current occupant, Rhun ap Iorwerth had never been in it before last week.
Then, on May 12, watched on by his family, he was voted in as Wales’ First Minister.
He was then whisked to Cathays Park, the government building in the city, where he posed for photographs and waited for the official acceptance of that vote by the King.
That, it’s fair to say, took a little longer to come than expected, but when it did, he took the oath, and finally made it out for dinner with his family. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here
Long before the election results were announced on May 8, this was Plaid’s race to lose. But as soon as election results started coming in, from all of Wales’ 16 constituencies on May 7, the party could see it had been an exceptionally good night. They had 43 people elected.
As Rhun ap Iorwerth arrived in Llandudno, to hear his own name announced as one of those elected, it kickstarted a chaotic five days.
He’d packed a bag to bring with him to Cardiff, and left it by the door. Having completed his interviews, he went to see a friend, but forgot the bag. As he travelled south with his family, it was in Merthyr he realised the bag was still in orth Wales and it contained the key to his Cardiff flat.
After visiting his sister in the capital, he found himself checking into a Premier Inn for the night. The next morning, he strode into Ty Hywel, the smile obvious. Before that, the new members of his group had made their way into the only room big enough to house them all – the old Senedd chamber in Ty Hywel.
He waited outside, making small talk with journalists, before entering to a heroes welcome. After that, he went out onto the steps of the Senedd, telling the hundreds of people, all with flags in their arms that “it was so good to see you all here”.
The new First Minister wouldn’t be drawn on the detail of what he said to Keir Starmer in their first phone call, but said it was he who brought up independence with the beleaguered Prime Minister(Image: John Myers)
One of those was his dad, Edward Morus Jones. Speaking to WalesOnline, he explains he had called his Dad as that celebration event was being planned to see if he would travel down to be part of it – when he agreed, his son asked if he could bring his bag (and the missing key) with him.
As we meet just after he spoke in his first plenary session as First Minister, the walls of his office are still bare, the nails are empty after the pictures the previous occupant, Eluned Morgan, had up are gone.
He has a handful of items on the sideboard – a board full of pin badges he has accumulated in his time as a politician, a picture with him as chair of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and a picture, given to him by Gail Davies, the mum of the late Plaid politician, with a quote from her son.
The absence of personal items is something everyone else notices, he explains, but not something he has paid much attention to. Instead, his priority, he will tell WalesOnline, is what is to come. It is less than two weeks since his party won the most seats in the Welsh Parliament, and it’s understandable therefore there isn’t masses of detail. To each real policy question asked, his answer tends to be, to paraphrase, “give us 100 days”.
The party published, in the campaign, a document laying out what its government would do if it were successful. He knows that all eyes are now on that document, and the clock is ticking, about what is can deliver.
In the interview he spoke about:
- His party’s plans for free childcare to be expanded
- A promise to look at congestion on the M4
- His first conversation with Keir Starmer
- His plans for independence for Wales
- The ‘chaotic’ night he won his seat, and how a forgotten key meant a very late check-in to a hotel
Here is the interview in full:
Ruth Mosalski: How’s the first week been?
Rhun ap Iorwerth: “Intense, massive privilege, learning curve, getting down to business, that real sense of we have planned for this, we have thought about this, we have a vision that we have wanted to put into practise and here we are, not so much cranking the wheels into motion but really speeding along in in the early days.
The real opportunities opening up in front of us a recognition that we had called it right on some of the ambitions that we have set.
So yeah, amazing.
The response, the encouragement from people out there every day has been remarkable because that sense of people wanting change played through clearly in the election results, but if that’s possible that’s become even stronger from my experience of people’s response to us coming into government.
RM: On a personal level, what’s it like? Do you have to wake up in the morning and sort of pinch yourself that this is your new gig now?
RaI: It is a remarkable honour and if little out-of-body experience like to be called First Minister still and to be called as First Minister to address your Senedd, and to have First Minister written on the door of your office.
It’s not the title that I have coveted but it’s very much what being in this role allows you to do for Wales.
It very much is a pinch me moment, daily, to think ‘yep here we are, this is what the work was for, to allow us to really get on with the work.
RM: On that drive down from your camp in Llandudno down to here, I know it was late at night, there was a missing key, you got to see your sister to celebrate. Just tell us a little bit about that night.
RaI: It would have been about sort of seven o’clock at night, probably a bit later, I popped into a friend’s house, said goodbye, bag by the door, headed south with a family and I think it was Merthyr Tydfil by the time I realised, ‘ah, I haven’t got the bag’ including the key, so we booked into a hotel.
A rather well-known story by now, as it happens, and it brings a smile to my face to remember that chaotic, brilliant, night but there was a beauty to that story in that I phoned my dad and said we were going to be having a photo of the new Plaid Senedd members on the steps of the Senedd.
We didn’t expect anything like what we saw, but I thought it might still be nice for dad to be there, and he said ‘yeah I’ll come down’ so I said ‘could you bring the bag?’ If I hadn’t left it, Dad would have missed all of that, so it was serendipity.
The new First Minister, Rhun ap Iorwerth(Image: Ben Birchall/PA Wire)
RM: So at the age of 53 you still need your Dad?
RaI: Absolutely, absolutely. He’s been a big influence in my life and still is, as is my mum who’s no longer here but who’s been on this journey every step of the way.
RM: You’ve spoken to Keir Starmer now, do you worry about the uncertainty that’s going on with Labour and with him about what that could mean for Wales?
RaI: I will focus on doing the right thing for Wales, negotiating the best deal for Wales whoever is in power.
RM: But say we get to a Labour leadership election, that could delay all of those things.
RaI: Clearly, as with everything, you want stability in order to be able to have those negotiations.
Now, I will work within the context that I find myself in, and that is currently with Keir Starmer, still as the Prime Minister. I spoke to him still as Prime Minister. It is not up to me, it’s up to the Labour Party whether he remains Prime Minister in a few months’ time.
I have to get on with the business of standing up for Wales as I promised to do. Whatever the situation in Westminster, and who knows, in years to come it might be different parties, it might be different colours, it may be different people that I deal with, but my focus will be exactly the same and I have to take that approach.
So that conversation with Keir Starmer was important to me, I hope it was important to him, and we were both eager to have that conversation very early on.
I trust that they were keen to have conversation early on, and I had promised to be constructive in the relationship and it was a very constructive relationship, where I laid out to him what was important to, not so much me, but to the people of Wales and the basis on which I would be negotiating.
When asked the detail of policy, the First Minister said the party will need time but that he hopes some changes will be delivered quickly(Image: John Myers)
RM: You mentioned today that you did bring up independence in that call. What did you say to him?
RaI: I’ve been remarkably consistent on this.
We deal with what we have, but it’s very important that the Prime Minister and everybody, as I’ve always spoken about politically, I have ambition for my nation and that ambition is about creating the opportunities for people to flourish, for the economy to grow, for fairness to be able to really embed, to tackle child poverty, and we want the tools to do that, and I am of the belief ultimately that we need to have all those tools at our disposal. The kind of tools that come from an independent nation, working in a redesigned Britain.
So it’s important that the Prime Minister understands that I want to lead that conversation towards Wales becoming confident enough to become an independent nation, but I made it very clear that my job now is to negotiate with him those tools that we really need to get.
RM: So did you bring it up or did he bring it up?
RaI: I brought it up, it’s very very important.
People have suggested to me in the past that somehow this is a difficult issue for me, independence, well of course it’s not. I’m ambitious for Wales, that is a big part of me, but I’m also a pragmatist with a plan and a vision for what we can do right now.
So what I said was, that’s my vision, but let me negotiate with you on the powers over policing, on funding, the enhanced devolved powers.
Of course we have a majority, including Labour members, as I have reminded him, and will again and again, in favour of enhancing the powers, enhancing the toolkit as I said in the Senedd today, arming ourselves with the tools that we need to build a better Wales.
RM: What was the context? Were you reassuring him you don’t plan it in this term, but you want it? Why was that one of the first things you brought up with him?
RaI: Wales was the first thing I brought up with him, what else would it be? I said I want to have a constructive relationship with him, I want to negotiate on the things that can help us build a better Wales, on fair funding, on more powers, I made it clear that I believe we’re on a constitutional journey and that my aim is to make the people of Wales more confident in order to be independent.
But right now we’re dealing with negotiations on how we take things forward in terms of our relationship with the UK Government. That’s exactly the context that I talked about throughout the recent election, throughout my time in politics, throughout my life. I believe in Wales.
RM: Did he reference independence back?
RaI: Well, the Prime Minister doesn’t believe in independence.
RM: But did he answer, did he respond?
RaI: The content of the discussion we don’t need to go into, but we know that he is opposed to independence. But what’s important to me is the willingness that was shown to engage on those other elements of devolution. I understand that Keir Starmer is not in the same place as me on that ultimate constitutional journey.
I have a higher level of ambition for Wales than he does, and a deeper understanding of Wales’s needs than he does. I want to be able to have a constructive relationship with him on negotiating the things that are important to us right now.
RM: When you met your new health minister, what was the first thing that you said to him that he needs to get on with?
RaI: We have a clear plan for health and it is twofold. One, crack on, right now, with the plans that we have in place on bringing down waiting times and it includes recruiting more GPs and it includes the surgical hubs and so on.
But also, crack on, right now working with the wider health and care ministerial team on that longer term programme of making health and care sustainable because the answer to health isn’t putting more and more money into it every year, we can’t do that.
We’ve got to have a further foundation of a healthier population of plans for the long-term more preventative health, that’s what we’re getting to grips with now.
RM: What was your top ask of your education minister?
RaI: Education, to me, it’s about raising the profile of the importance of education in Wales. Again, we’ve let it slip. People have forgotten the importance that education plays in creating the citizens with the skills and the qualifications and the drive that they need to succeed.
I want to drive up standards in schools and my cabinet minister [Anna Brychan] has her sleeves rolled up to do that immediately.
RM: And economy?
RaI: On the economy, we have a central plan, of course, to establish a development agency for Wales to offer a new impetuous drive to the job of improving productivity, encouraging growth in Wales, encouraging Welsh businesses in particular to be able to grow and take on more staff, improve wages and so on. We know what we need to do with that core principle also of making sure that growth and that increased prosperity is felt Wales-wide.
We can’t be satisfied with an overall improved picture in the economy, but focused on particular pockets. We need that growth to be felt on the ground by people so that we give opportunities for people whether they’re in the north, or in the west, or in rural Wales, or in our cities, to know that they have a government that has their back on creating better jobs.
Rhun ap Iorwerth says the title of First Minister wasn’t something he coveted, but that hearing himself referred to as it, and seeing the signs on the door is a ‘pinch me’ moment(Image: John Myers)
RM: In the campaign, you mentioned the M4 and the need to ease congestion. When will you be able to tell people the options or the plan? I accept you’re a week in but it’s something people have been waiting a long time for. So what is a reasonable time frame for them to know what you’re thinking?
RaI: Again within the first hundred days this is really important. I’ve called that role enterprise connectivity and energy for a reason. That connectivity refers to a lot of different things. It is about strengthening public transport and trains and buses which is so, so important but it is also about recognising that our road network is also important in terms of linking communities up and because of the economy.
Yes we want modal shift but those roads are really important and people will be able to expect what that direction of travel is, no pun intended, within these initial months.
RM: Not just generally but in terms of the M4 specifically?
RaI: This has been a policy of my party for many, many years that somehow we need to strengthen the road network as part of something wider. We want to take people off the roads as much as possible, but the road and strengthening that is a part of this too. That now is how this government will approach the Brynglas issue.
RM: During the campaign, every time I said to you, ‘who are you going to work with and how will it work as a minority’ you said, ‘I’ll talk to you about it afterwards. I’m not doing it now. I don’t know how the Senedd is made up’.
Now you sit there seeing the different makeups of parties. Do you envisage getting things through will be easier than you expected? Harder than expected? Where will you be looking for that support now you know the makeup. You must have sat there and sort of played fantasy football politics.
The First Minister says people should expect an M4 congestion update within the first 100 days of his administration(Image: John Myers)
RaI: Yeah, I mean, the principle that I laid out in the election is what guides me now. We didn’t know during the election what the make-up was going to be, and I said what my preferred option would be, that we were in a position where the mandate given to a Plaid Cymru government was strong enough for it to be able to govern as a minority.
We clearly now have a set of results that does provide that clear mandate.
What I said throughout recent weeks and months was that it would be a government that would be explicit in seeking cooperation and building cooperation and finding common ground. I am confident that anybody listening to that session in the Senedd today, following my statement, would have seen that being acted out now in government.
There will always be challenges in making sure that we find that common ground to get things done but that real opportunities including opportunities for other parties to work with us.
I’m confident that it will be suitably hard where it needs to be, but that this is deliverable as well. It’s not an unusual situation to be in.
RM: You mentioned today Cynnal, your pilot scheme to offer a weekly direct benefit to support those who need it the most. When do you envisage that being in place for people?
RaI: Again, it’s the first hundred days in terms of getting the ball rolling. There’s a fair bit of detail to be done around this, as you can imagine. There is how and where the pilot works, and the mechanisms through which it is put in practise.
We don’t have the powers that Scotland has to roll out a direct child payment, so we’re having to be innovative in the way that we do it.
There’ll be elements of discussions with UK Government, potentially, on parts of it but again mapping out how that works we’ll be able to share that again within the initial months of this government.
RM: Same question about your childcare offer. When do you expect any families to benefit from that?
RaI: That one is a little easier because we know that this is a four-year rollout, nobody’s expecting this to come in in one go.
There are elements of what we need to do now, which is to finish off what the last administration was unable to do, things that Plaid Cymru was able to influence when we were in opposition, now as a Plaid Cymru government, we focus initially on finishing out those particulars.
RM: That’s getting it out to all two-year-olds.
RaI: Yes, and I think that people accept that the rollout is something that will need some time.
People tend to focus on the costs, the costs obviously and releasing that money is something we’re confident that we can do, but the workforce is the other big issue that I’m eager to be as honest as I can with people when you’re looking at 1,000 plus people to deliver this over the next four years plus.
RM: So is your hope a full rollout within that four years?
RaI: “That’s what we’re aiming for. It’s a significant offer. It is a significant delivery challenge. We start from that point and we move as quickly as we can.”