Situation with farmers incredibly tense – Jeremy Miles

By David Deans and Mark Palmer

BBC Wales

A Welsh Labour leadership candidate has admitted the situation with protesting farmers is “incredibly tense”.

Mr Miles made the comment at a live TV debate where both he and his rival Vaughan Gething vowed to hear concerns over changes to farming support.

The education minister acknowledged people in rural communities “were feeling anxious” about the plans.

Earlier the current First Minister Mark Drakeford was followed by protesters into a Rhyl college.

He had angered opposition parties earlier in the week when he said farmers could not decide how subsidies were spent.

Both Mr Gething and Mr Miles are competing to replace Mr Drakeford next month, with voting having opened last week.

Labour members, and members of affiliated trade unions, can take part.

In a live TV debate on BBC One Wales, former Health Minister Vaughan Gething denied having ever ignored a briefing on a pandemic.

Mr Gething had told a Covid Inquiry hearing last year he had not read a key document on preparing for a pandemic.

Farmers have been protesting over plans for new farm subsidies to replace EU-designed schemes, which will require trees to be planted on 10% of land. A consultation is ongoing.

Mr Miles said it was “clearly an incredibly tense situation where people are feeling anxious”.

“This is public money, so the government is entitled to put conditions on how that is spent,” he told the audience in Cardiff.

“But clearly we need to have a dialogue with those who are concerned about that”.

Mr Miles has previously said the 10% plan was the “right policy”.

Asked about that, Mr Miles said: “I think the key is to make sure that there’s sufficient flexibility for that to be practically delivered.

“There are already farms who clearly are not going to be able to achieve that and this scheme acknowledges that. Is there room for more flexibility?”

Mr Gething said: “We need to recognise at the outset that a lot of people are concerned in rural communities.”

He said both he and Mr Miles had spoken to farmers at the Newtown hustings at the weekend, where a go-slow protest took place.

Mr Gething said farmers were “not universally opposed to any form of action” on climate change.

“In fact, in the conversation we had, they were clear that they thought that there was a need for changes,” he said.

Both candidates will be appearing before the Covid Inquiry when it comes to Wales in the next few weeks.

At an earlier appearance before the inquiry in London, Mr Gething faced criticism after admitting he had not read a report into a 2016 pandemic simulation he had taken part in while he was health minister.

Following the session, he explained that he had not read it because it was produced by a government agency in England.

Asked about this in the debate, he replied: “I’ve never ignored a briefing on potential pandemics, or the one that we had.

“I am confident about the role that I undertook on helping to lead Wales through the pandemic alongside the first minister.”

Mr Miles said all ministers had things to learn from their experience of the pandemic.

He said: “I became education minister in the second half of it so my predecessor dealt with the intense early stages of education in schools, but there are things which we could all do better and differently and, actually, it’s really important as part of this process that we’re upfront about that to the inquiry.”

The wide-ranging debate touched on the Welsh government’s switch to 20mph on largely urban streets.

Both candidates are committed to the policy, but Mr Gething, who had admitted that the way it was communicated could have been better, promised changes if the public took part in a review of how it is implemented by councils.

“I think there’ll be change that comes as a result of asking the public what they think,” he said.

He said ministers would “need to think about the economic impact, but the broader impacts across the country as well”.

Mr Miles said he was not true that government ministers did not listen to the public on the speed limit, “but clearly the work that we did hasn’t meant that people felt entirely heard”.

The candidates were asked how they would try to resolve the junior doctors strike. Mr Miles said it was “perfectly reasonable for people to want to be fairly paid for the work that they do”.

He said there were “obviously real limitations to the budget” but it was “really important to be in that dialogue”.

Mr Gething said: “I don’t think the position we’re in now is where I’m comfortable”.

He said there will be UK government budget in March as to whether there will be more money.

“If we’re going to find more money within the current budget, that either means deprioritising other NHS services or it means making other people redundant.”

There was a moment of tension between the candidates when a story on Mr Gething’s £200,000 worth of donations from a company run by a man convicted of environmental offences was raised.

Mr Gething said the donations have been “checked and filed properly with the Electoral Commission and indeed declared to the Senedd”.

Mr Miles declined to comment, but he said he would have the “most stringent environmental regulations”.

“To be fair those are commitments in both manifestos,” Mr Gething said.

At the end of the programme, both candidates said they would be happy to offer each other ministerial jobs in their cabinets if they were successful.

“I’d be delighted”, Mr Gething said.

Mr Miles added: “I both offer him a job and take a job.”

You can watch BBC Wales Live: Welsh Labour Leadership Debate on BBC iPlayer or listen to the BBC Radio Wales News Special on BBC Sounds.

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