07/07/2013 Sunday Politics Wales

the shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith as Ed Miliband says he wants

to mend Labour's relationship with the unions - not end it - in the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2166 seconds

Wales we hear from the Health Minister at the end of a week he's

called historic and what's the future direction for farm subsidies.

But first, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, says he wants to mend his

party's relationship with the unions, not end it, in the row

that's blown up about selecting a candidate in Falkirk. Labour have

called in the police to investigate alleged irregularities. The Unite

union has been accused of trying to pack the selection process with its

members which it has dismissed as a smear. Earlier, the former Labour

Minister Kim Howells said Labour couldn't be seen to be being fixed

by union bosses. I think it is a huge exaggeration

anyway, that it is very, very difficult for the unions to do that

kind of thing. Within the Labour Party, there is a resolution to stop

them doing it. Ed Miliband has to be seen to be above this and seem to be

completely in control of the party and he has to make sure it never

happens again. It will be a tough job but I think he is probably

capable. Joining me from our Cardiff newsroom

is the current MP for Pontypridd and shadow Welsh Secretary, Owen Smith.

Good morning. This story is not going away. It has been running for

more than a week. What damage is it doing to your party's chances of

winning the election in 2015? I think Kim Howells had it right a

minute ago. He said it was being blown out of proportion and it is an

exaggeration. I think the prospect this will have any real, meaningful

outcome on the election in 2015 is even more fanciful. Let's be clear.

We have a problem in Falkirk. That much is evident. I have not seen the

litigation report that has been handed to the police but Ed

Miliband. Decisively with this issue and has suspended the party and the

individuals responsible. He has now handed the matter over to the police

and I don't think we could have acted more properly or decisively

and if there were other instances for in Britain about this sort of

improper behaviour, we would act decisively about that as well.

But that would mean that damage hasn't been done?

I am telling you clearly that I don't think it will. Our opponents

will often help that it will force some in the party to make as do

something about our nature of the relationship with the unions. It is

one of the big strengths of the party it is rooted in communities

and real people's lives through the union movement and through our

attachment to the unions. The unions gave birth to the Labour Party, if

you like, and we don't intend to spoil a great relationship.

That relationship, I think, needs to change. We know that Ed Miliband has

called Ken Livingstone over the weekend to make sure the link

continues but in what form? I think it will continue in the

strong form at which it currently exists. We may need to have some

sort of reform in the nature of that relationship. Harriet Harman is

suggesting that perhaps one of the reforms would be selection procedure

so that we limit the amount of money anyone can spend on getting selected

in this seat. That would take out of the equation the prospect of people

having union many used to get them selected but in reality, selections

go on in the Labour Party all the time. Yesterday the Labour Party

selected a counsellor to be our prospective MP in the Vale of

Glamorgan. Last week the selected a teacher here in Cardiff to be our

respect and candidate for Cardiff North. That is the everyday, mundane

reality of selections in the Labour Party and it is fanciful to suggest

that Falkirks happen all over the place, all the time. It is not true.

Stay with us. Glyn Davies, Owen Smith suggested there that this

won't have any impact on the 2015 election campaign but it will if

your party has anything to do with it, will it?

Perhaps it is too soon to say what will happen in 2015. I don't think

anyone should let it lie. I don't think the Labour Party MPs should

let it lie. We have seen Labour Party MPs themselves being

incredibly worried about what is going on in Falkirk. I think Ed

Miliband was very slow out of the box to deal with this. There is an

element of orchestrating a row with the unions, I think, for electoral

purposes. Change the public view of the Labour Party. I think we all

want people to fight elections that are there because they are thought

to be the best people to carry the party flag. No doubt the Unite union

influence is that is far wider than anybody thought.

Dafydd Elis-Thomas, you were in the house in the 70s when the unions had

a tight grip on the Labour Party. What has changed since then?

And I then paid the political levy. I didn't get any money back towards

eight Plaid Cymru campaign in Dwyfor Meirionnydd. I see the relationship

between the unions and the political parties as essential to what happens

in democracy throughout Europe. In the mainland tradition, there are

different unions with different parties. I think we have to move to

a situation of greater primitivism and there should be more freedom for

trade union members and activists to be able to support different

political candidates in different situations and I don't think this

should be a monopoly for the Labour Party. What should not happen is

that trade union members should be automatically signed up into

membership of a political party. When Smith, Glyn Davies suggested

that Ed Miliband had been slow to react on this. Give us your

thoughts? Ed Miliband did what he always does.

He acts decisively. It has been a hallmark of his leadership and his

campaign for the leadership. We know there is a problem in Falkirk and we

looked at the evidence and Ed Miliband responded extremely

strongly and decisively. I don't think he could have done any more

and if there were incidences as well, I think he would respond

similarly strongly. The reality is that while the Tories may wish it,

it is not true and Falkirk does looks to me as a one-off incident

and we need to move forward and put this behind us and continue the

strong and powerful relationship between the Labour Party and trade

unions. Are you satisfied that your leader

has nipped it in the bud? Yes.

Thank you for joining us. The Agriculture Minister says he wants

to create a "transparent and fair" system of farming subsidies. Alun

Davies said payments had to strike a balance between supporting farmers

in different parts of Wales. He'll make a statement on reforms to the

EU's common agricultural policy this week. It comes after hill farmers

lost one of their subsidies this year and criticised the Welsh

Government's response to the heavy snow that fell in the spring. Daniel

Davies reports. Summer is here and the cold winter

seems to be a distant memory but for this farmer who farms the hills

overlooking the Romney Valley on the back of the neck and becomes -- in

the Brecon Beacons, it looks like a harsh winter.

We won't see that until the sales are completed in the autumn but

because of the weather, we have a lesser product to sell because the

winter took it told. As the snow fell, costs rose. This

was the scene on another farm in North Wales. Farmers appealed for

help while their sheep and lambs died but they weren't happy with the

response they got. Upland pharmacy to get the cheque at

the start of spring called Tir Mynydd. It was a subsidy under the

common agricultural policy. The Welsh government has changed system

and this year there was no Tir Mynydd payment. Farmers say that

happened at the worst possible time. It is now, following the winter, it

has not arrived. We have had an extreme weather pattern which

obviously affected us. You look back and you think, that money hasn't

paid the bills that they've normally do but we have also got extra ones

because of the winter. The farming Minister, Alun Davies,

relaxed the rules so farmers could bury livestock. He made sure another

subsidy was paid early but it wasn't enough, say the farming unions. Hill

farmers in other parts of the UK still got their payments. If their

farms were on less favoured areas. What farmers say that has put them

at a disadvantage but ministers are resolute and say most farmers get a

good deal from the Welsh government. Mr Davies is now signalling more

changes on the way for farming subsidies. Last month, EU

negotiators agreed reforms to the common agricultural policy. The

Minister will make a statement on it this week and says it will start a

process of designing a new payment system that he calls transparent and

fair. Whatever system we have, we want to

minimise the winners and losers to minimise the disruption. We want to

ensure that the payment system we have in Wales maintains the

integrity in the rural economy and we want to see a payment system that

ensures that there are payments to our most pride of communities in

Upland Wales so they secure the future and develop the business of

agriculture whilst at the same time, not undermining the economic

integrity of people who are farming in the low lands of Wales as well.

Mr Davies has traded blows over the fate of farming with his opponents

in the Assembly. They are waiting for his next move.

We need clarity from the minister about what he intends to do about

the situation. If he feels they have got it wrong in 2013, they need to

admit that and they need to come forward quickly with an alternative

plan. As he said, farms and businesses need stability and they

need to be able to plan. Without clear direction from the Welsh

government about what support is available, I fear that for some

businesses, it may be too late. Agriculture employs 15,000 people in

Wales and makes up around 1% of the economy. This did Davies says he

wants the industry to stand on its feet instead of relying so heavily

on subsidies. Farmers may well agree but that has done nothing to soothe

their prickly relationship with the Welsh government.

Dafydd Elis-Thomas, there is a suggestion that the relationship

between the Welsh government and farmers is not great as a result of

the poor weather. The Minister suggests that he proposes

transparent and fair payments, will that do anything to get the farmers

back onside? It is not as bad as the relationship

with the UK farming Minister and the NFU in England. What will happen

here now is that the minister has to respond to the agreement we have

got. Huge condiment to the Irish president in the European Union for

having done that in the last six months. What is important now is

whatever is established in Wales relates to and fits into that. The

Tir Mynydd payment was abolished by a previous minister in the

government, Alan Jones. The reason for that is it was not compliant

with the way we saw the European policy progressing. There are issues

about how the payments are transferred between the direct

subsidy payments and those that go to other aspects of policy. There is

the green direction. I was relieved to hear the minister said just now

that he did not want to complicated things and create hardship. That is

a signal to me that he is going to use the cut-off point, which is 60%

of the average payment in Wales, to maintain or farming incomes at that

level. I look forward to the statement on Tuesday.

Politicians are experts at Reading between the lines. What did you take

from what he just said? I welcome what I heard Alun Davies

saying. He intends to strike a better balance than we have now

between Upland farming and lowland farming, which I think is right. We

will have to wait and see the detail of that but what we have now is a

significant debate about how we fit in the CAP agreement. That is going

to be quite an issue in England, I must say. I have meetings lined up

with the NFU and the Minister to talk this through in England because

we are going through a period of potential significant change.

We know the relationship. We saw some farmers talking about a meeting

they held with Alun Davies. They didn't storm out, they walked

out in orderly fashion. I was chairing the meeting.

They left the meeting, didn't they? Actually, they came back.

There was an issue and I try not to comment about whatever happens in

the Assembly, really, but I do sometimes.

This was in Allah. -- Bala. The farmers had gone through a

traumatic period and I think there was a lack of understanding.

Can we see his interview with us and possibly a statement on Tuesday as

an olive branch? I think there have been discussions

and will be ongoing discussions with the farming unions and the list and

officials. There are, within the European union, there are these

areas of natural constraint which are part of the new CAP structure

and I hope if we see what we think we saw this winter or this early

spring, really, the effect of climate change, then we have to look

at the whole way in which we have been running on the hills with a

traditional Welsh mountain sheep. If that is the outcome, then obviously

we have to keep the business going. We export 95% of Welsh lamb and that

is a brilliant thing for a small country to do.

He wanted to come in? I don't think last winter was, it

was a serious winter and there was an issue when the snowfall was late

which caused, on top of other issues, problems. I was farming in

1953 and we had a snowstorm that lasted for six or eight weeks and it

was far colder. I was up for a fortnight, digging sheep out. It

isn't something unique and it may happen again in the future.

Thank you. The NHS qualified for its bus pass this week - free bus pass

in Wales, of course - celebrating 65 years on Friday. The Health Minister

was in Ebbw Vale to celebrate the milestone at the Aneurin Bevan

stones in memory of the man who established the National Health

Service back in 1948. A good time to speak to the man in

charge of the NHS at the end of what many have described as an historic

week in Welsh politics. Roger, the core of the organ donation Bill, I

think, are some of the values that were there at the very beginning of

the NHS. People are willing to contribute to people who they will

never meet and never know but whose lives will be connected for ever as

a result of the gift of an organ and the NHS is just that gift

relationship writ large. That was the week that has been. We

know politics moves quickly. Looking ahead to the week ahead, you are

going to hand before the -- stand before the Thanet and talk about the

mid Staffordshire health trust. What have you learned from the report?

The first thing we learned was not to believe that what went on in mid

Staffordshire could not happen in Wales. That is my starting point. We

have to take that reports deviously -- report seriously and we have to

say that there are some dealt into the NHS in Wales that make what

happened in mid Staffordshire less likely but it still could happen in

some places and therefore, we need to make sure that we do everything

we can to try and prevent that from happening.

In his written response to the crisis at Stafford Hospital, the

Welsh government recognises it must do more to prevent unnecessary

suffering and in some cases, potentially avoidable deaths in the

Welsh NHS. I want to be clear that I think the

culture across the Welsh NHS is one of care and compassion. Most people

who use it are treated with dignity and respect. In the small places and

the small instances where that doesn't take place, we have to learn

from that and put those things right.

Glyn Davies, an honest assessment from Mark Drakeford, there,

suggesting there is always room for improvement but it is not just the

NHS in Wales that will be responding to this report, is it?

There have been responses already to what happened in mid Staffordshire

and Morecambe. There are a number of examples of quite shocking examples

of mistreatment in the NHS. I think what is good, listening to Mark

Drakeford and Jeremy Hunt in Westminster, is now there is a

willingness to speak openly about the failings and successes of the

NHS. Dafydd Elis-Thomas, I am sure you

will be hearing the response in the chamber. There is a report that the

government has published that suggest it's possible there will be

legislation that stems from it, that's just the Welsh government

really is taking on board what the Francis report says.

I think they have to and we have to respond. We already have a piece of

legislation on integrated health and social care which is going through

now and I am keen to see the issues that are exposed in North Wales in

this matter, being addressed. I have complete faith in Mark Drakeford as

a minister because I believe he has an integrity about him and a

knowledge of both health and social care that will enable him to take

this on. That is as looking forward. Let's

look back. Mark Drakeford described the vote in the debate over the

organ donation system that we propose, as historic. Do you agree?

Yes. I was extremely proud of that. I remember talking to the British

Medical Association long before we had lawmaking powers about what we

could do and they were keen on doing this. I was so pleased on the night

that we got a strong, free vote across parties that meant that we

have a system that is based on citizenship in Wales including the

sharing of organ donation and I think that is a fine time of the

kind of country we are. That is not your take on it, is it?

I defend the right of the Assembly to do what it thinks is right for

Wales. I am a huge champion of organ donation but I don't think this will

make any significant difference and I think it is a mistake. I'm

interested in seeing what difference it will make to UK organ donation

and I think it will be negative but I defend the rights of the Assembly

to do what I disapprove of. That's what I like to hear!

There is just time for a quick look back at some of the political

crime commission said he would not resign after an MP said he should

reflect on his position. Last month, Mr Johnson admitted forcing out the

Chief Constable, Carmel Napier, but she and Mr Johnston appeared before

the home affairs committee of MPs to give their versions of events.

You get any p, John Bufton, said he was still opposed to devolution to

despite Nigel for much saying he was relaxed about the idea. And for more

parties selected candidates for the Ynys Mon by-election. Nathan Gale is

standing, the Conservatives selected the fell and the Liberal Democrat

candidate is Steve Churchman. Catherine Jones is standing for the

Socialist Labour Party. And Carwyn Jones lead congratulations to the

British and Irish Lions as they beat Australia 41-16 to secure a 2-1 win

in the test series. We mentioned the Ynys Mon

by-election. Plaid Cymru and Labour are fielding candidates to. I cannot

let this moment pass that making reference to your tie, Dafydd

Elis-Thomas. There is something the pair of you were discussing

regarding Warren Gatland. I have been wearing this tie every

match day. This is the Welsh Lion. I will keep wearing it until so Warren

Gatland and the rest of the team are properly recognised by British and

Irish and Welsh people. Is that a call for a knighthood?

So Warren Gatland, absolutely. I made a prophecy and it was right. So

Warren Gatland, definitely. In terms of a weekend for sport, I

was driving to work this morning and was reminded that Andy Murray is in

the final of Wimbledon. He managed to distract us, or the Lions managed

to distract us yesterday. Where did you watch it?

I mustn't mention Anglesey but I did watch it in a public house in

Anglesey and saw the end of it but it has been an amazing thing. Carlin

James was one of my mentors in life and he would have loved this.

I have watched it twice. I watched it live in the morning and the

beginning of the second half, I thought, here we go again! We had a

magnificent 20 minutes of rugby. Since I saw...

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