Wales (Cymru)

It is the end at one of the biggest steelworks in the world as the last blast furnace shuts down, leaving it unable to make its own steel.

Nearly 2,000 jobs will be lost at Tata Steel UK’s Port Talbot plant as blast furnace number four ceases production meaning it will no longer be able to make virgin steel.

The ironworks will enter a transition phase until 2027 when steelmaking will resume through a £1.25 billion electric arc furnace.

The new furnace uses electric current to melt scrap steel or iron to produce steel, whereas blast furnaces use coke, a carbon-intensive fuel made from coal to produce steel.

The latest National March for Rejoin is scheduled for this coming weekend in London, on Saturday 28 September. It comes at a time of mixed fortunes for those campaigning to take the UK back into the EU. On the one hand, the level of support for rejoining has never been higher. The social and economic effects of Brexit are becoming clearer, and Brexiters sound increasingly defensive.

On the other hand, the political outlook remains challenging. Labour in office has stuck to its red lines on freedom of movement. It talks about “resetting” the relationship, and at least – unlike its predecessors – behaves maturely when dealing with European counterparts. But it persists in its stance that there’s “no case” for joining the Single Market and Customs Union, let alone rejoining the EU as a full member. While there are some hopeful signs, its position on free movement for young people remains a barrier to substantive changes in the relationship.

A three week-long celebration of music is coming to Cardiff from tomorrow (Friday, September 27).

According to organisers the Cardiff Music City Festival is set to push the boundaries of music innovation, performance and tech.

A spokesperson said: “The Welsh capital has a rich history as an exciting and energetic music city and this autumn Cardiff’s streets will pulse with immersive music happenings, secret gigs, headline shows and inventive pop-ups.

The first minister says she has not given up on bringing HS2 funding to Wales.

Despite the high-speed rail project being entirely in England, Wales received no extra cash from the previous Conservative UK government to make up for the scheme.

So far, Eluned Morgan's UK party colleagues have been reluctant to commit to consequential funding.

Further savings and cuts may need to be found as a health board grapples with a budget deficit of just under £23 million – which could balloon to around £35 million.

The dire financial situation facing Powys Teach Health Board (PTHB) was discussed at a board meeting on Wednesday, September 25.

PTHB had initially planned to post a £24.9 million deficit budget this year, but in May they were asked by the Welsh Government to look at the figures again.

This saw the figure brought down to £22.9 million, which has yet to be agreed by the Welsh Government.

A consortium of Welsh climate activists has set out a series of measures it would like to see pursued in 2025.

Climate Cymru is an active network of 370 partner organisations from every sector of Welsh society, and a movement of over 15,000 individuals from across Wales who say they share a desire for urgent, fair action to address the climate and nature emergencies.

The network’s campaign coordinator David Kilner said: “We’d like to see the Welsh Government join the global Fossil Free Treaty – a concrete, binding plan to end the expansion of new coal, oil and gas projects and manage a global transition away from fossil fuels.

To imagine a Wales and a world where peace reigns is not just to imagine the absence of war. It’s to imagine a place where we all live free from fear, where our rights are respected, and where everybody is equal. It’s to imagine conducting all our relationships – with ourselves, neighbour to neighbour, stranger to stranger, community to community, country to country – with justice and fairness. Imagine if this kind of positive peace was part of our national identity, a value that drove all of what we do.

Ahead of the United Nations Summit of the Future, a global cooperation event held in New York last weekend, Academi Heddwch Cymru (Wales’s Peace Institute) worked on a paper exploring how Wales can become a ‘Nation of Peace’ – Cymru fel Cenedl Heddwch. Imagine that.

Senior councillors have backed plans to buy and set up a new waste depot, to tackle the county borough’s low recycling rates.

But the clock is ticking on a potential deal for a site, which Caerphilly County Borough Council must effectively agree to buy in October or the landowner will reportedly “pursue other options”.

The depot will be key to the council’s waste strategy, launched after it recorded Wales’ worst recycling rates in 2023.

You can read part one in the series here.

One of the most common arguments used by Unionists against Welsh independence is that Wales cannot afford to pay its own way. They repeat that Wales receives £18bn a year as a ‘handout’ from the UK, and cannot survive without this ‘subsidy’. They overlook that Wales also generates taxes and revenue, collected directly by the UK, and the £18bn is largely a return of that.

However, it’s been difficult to refute such claims as there was long a shortage of reliable data on the economic performance of Wales. There’s a huge body of economic statistics and data published by the UK Government in its National Accounts – commonly referred to as ‘The Blue Book’ – but it’s difficult for the average person to follow, let alone extract the necessary data in a Welsh context.

Reform UK is to hold events in Wales, Scotland, and across the English regions, as it eyes up representation in the Senedd and town halls, Nigel Farage has said.

The Reform leader announced a Welsh conference, a Scottish gathering, and regional events in the North East and South West, as the party rounded off its national conference.

Mr Farage on Friday laid out a plan to professionalise the party, giving its members a stake in its ownership.

A battle to save Blackwood Miners’ Institute from being “mothballed” looks set to drag on, complicated by the venue’s charitable status.

Caerphilly County Borough Council leader Sean Morgan announced today (Thursday September 19) a decision on the historic site’s future would be postponed while the local authority takes legal advice.

The council has proposed mothballing the cultural venue – which it currently subsidises to the tune of £347,000 annually – because of the need to make a further £45 million in budget savings over the next two years.

A Welsh Labour minister defended cuts to winter fuel payments for most pensioners in a debate on Wednesday.

Conservatives challenged Labour in the Senedd to back calls for the UK government to reverse the plans, warning they will have a "devastating impact" with an estimated 500,000 losing up to £300 this winter.

But Jane Hutt, Social Justice Secretary, said "difficult decisions" were being taken because of a £22bn "black hole" in UK public finances.

Plaid Cymru will lead a debate in the Senedd this afternoon calling for the Welsh Government to honour NHS commitments made by the last three First Ministers.

Former FMs Mark Drakeford and Vaughan Gething both made promises to tackle long waiting lists which now stand at a record breaking high in Wales.

In an interview with Politics Wales at the weekend, the newly installed First Minister Eluned Morgan sparked a row with health bosses after saying she would hold them to account on getting long waits down.

The junior minister who was sacked by Vaughan Gething after being falsely accused of leaking messages to the media has been elected the Chair of the Senedd’s Standards of Conduct Committee.

Hannah Blythyn was removed from her Welsh Government role of Social Partnership Minister by the former First Minister in May.

Mr Gething claimed she was the source of a screen grab leaked to Nation.Cymru from a Covid-era ministerial group chat.

Both ‘the Prince of Wales’ as a title and the person who holds it have a unique but controversial place in Welsh culture and society. There are some in Wales who dislike both and want them gone, and some who love that the title exists and see the person who holds it as being an honour for Wales as a country and as part of the UK. Some view the very existence of the title as proof that Wales is, or is seen as, inferior or beholden to England.

Yet the title itself holds no true power and its holder performs no real function in modern Wales. Perhaps it should either be endowed with real meaning, or done away with, one or the other?

The Welsh Government has withdrawn a Bill that would have introduced a legal mechanism aimed at ensuring the Senedd was gender-balanced.

Instead it will issue voluntary guidance to political parties in advance of candidate selection for the next Senedd election in 2026.

The decision does not come as a great surprise, given that there were serious doubts about whether enforcing gender balance was within the Senedd’s competence. Laws relating to the policy area of equality are reserved to Westminster.

A Welsh Scout leader has made his fiftieth delivery of life-saving medical aid to Ukraine.

Shaun Hopkins, a 45-year-old IT expert and Scouts volunteer from Newport, began making the 2,500 mile round trip shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Since then, he has spent around 500 days on the road ferrying medical equipment to Ukraine in a transit van and this week delivered 12 hospital beds donated by Cardiff University.

“Like many people, we were sat at home as a family watching the full scale invasion unfolding on TV,” Hopkins told Nation.Cymru from the town of Ivano-Frankivsk. “We had a discussion, with my teenage sons and my wife, about what was going on.

First Minister Eluned Morgan says she will "undoubtedly fall out" with the UK Labour government as she tries to realise her own plans for Wales.

She told BBC Politics Wales that as first minister she would have a "country first, party second" approach.

Asked whether she would be prepared to have difficult conversations with her Labour colleagues in Westminster when it comes to asking for more funding for Wales, Morgan said she would be "standing up for Wales".

The election of a Labour government in both Cardiff and London has been heralded as a "restart" in the relationship between the Welsh and UK governments following hostilities with the Conservatives.

Tears flowed as relatives of the victims were in the audience for a premiere of a poignant new opera to mark the 90th anniversary of the Gresford Colliery Disaster.

There was a standing ovation at the end of the emotionally charged performance of Gresford – Up From Underground on the opening night of the North Wales International Music Festival at St Asaph Cathedral.

It told the story of how 266 men and boys were killed when a massive underground explosion and fire ripped through the pit near Wrexham on September 22, 1934.

For many, deep in the Valleys of South Wales, poverty is the grim reality of daily life.

Utility bills rise, school transport is cut, shops in the high-street close down and inflation bites. Austerity has done a lot to decimate the coalfields of Wales, leaving the population reeling in it’s wake.

These people are scared, poor, confused and unsure how to dig themselves out of this hole. Snake oil salesmen like Nigel Farage have opportunistically seized this shared plight in an attempt to elevate themselves materially and politically.

First Minister Eluned Morgan has today announced above-inflation pay awards for hundreds of thousands of public sector workers in Wales.

NHS staff, teachers and public sector workers in many devolved services will receive pay rises of between 5% and 6% in 2024-25.

The announcement comes as the Welsh Government has accepted the pay recommendations from independent pay review bodies in full

After months of denying it would be closing Ynyslas Visitor Centre, National Resources Wales (NRW) announced its intention to close, not just one, but three of the successful and much-visited mid-Wales visitor centres it manages – Ynyslas, Coed y Brenin, and Bwylch Nant y Arian.

This area of Wales relies heavily on the visitors from all over the world it hosts each year, bringing much-needed money and employment to the area. These three visitor centres provide for over 750,000 people annually.

To commemorate Owain Glyndŵr, the last native Prince of Wales, children will be able to visit all Cadw locations across Wales for free.

On Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 September, families will be able to visit monuments and learn about the history of Wales and its people – including Owain Glyndŵr – who played such a pivotal role in shaping the history of Wales.

Owain Glyndŵr Day is celebrated annually on 16 September and marks the proclamation of the Welsh national hero becoming Prince of Wales in 1400.

Welsh athletes have brought home a grand total of 16 medals from the Paris Paralympics.

The haul includes 7 Golds, 5 Silvers, and 4 Bronzes.

That's an improvement on Tokyo 2020, where athletes won 4 Gold, 3 Silver, 7 Bronze- totalling 14 medals.

Vaughan Gething, the Labour former first minister of Wales who stood down following a series of scandals, has announced he will not seek re-election for the Senedd.

Mr Gething, the MS for Cardiff South and Penarth, said it had been “an immense honour” to serve his constituents and in the Welsh Government as he made the announcement.

On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: “I have spoken to the First Minister to confirm that I will not be seeking a role in government and that I will support her leadership as a backbencher.”

Campaigners have accused the Welsh Government of committing a democratic outrage by allowing work to start on a controversial new cancer hospital before the Full Business Case has been approved.

Members of the Save the Northern Meadows group have argued that the New Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff should be built next to an existing general hospital rather than as a standalone unit on a much-loved green space that has now been destroyed.

The UNESCO Convention (the Convention) for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) came into force in 2006, but was not ratified by the UK until this year. It is now being implemented here.

Heritage helps to define who we are. Heritage has an historical aspect, but can also be contemporaneous as heritage is (re)created. It can also be destroyed, forgotten, or unacknowledged. For instance, in Wales, Anglicisation has had a negative effect on heritage rooted in the Welsh language – although that same influence has created heritage in the Anglo-Welsh realm.

Up to 50 jobs could go in Wales as the BBC implements budget cuts, starting in 2025.

BBC Wales said cuts will come from 746 staff members, with 25 to 30 editorial and production roles, and 20 jobs in the operations department set to go.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) called for urgent reconsideration of the cuts saying it would "further hollow out local news provision".

“BBC Wales, like the rest of the corporation is having to make savings to achieve the overall target set out by the director general in March," BBC Cymru Wales director Rhuanedd Richards said in a statement.

The Welsh Government has confirmed that all pupils in maintained primary schools across Wales are now able to receive a free school meal from this week.

The roll-out of the programme has now been completed as pupils return from the summer break, meaning every child up to and including Year 6 is now able to receive a free school meal from Monday to Friday during term time.

The introduction of universal free school meals for primary school pupils was part of the Co-operation Agreement between the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru.

A council leader has slammed the Welsh Government funding formula used to calculate how much money the local authorities receive annually, claiming his council has been short-changed by more than £210m in seven years.

Conwy Council leader Cllr Charlie McCoubrey says the amount of money given to Conwy in its local government settlement is not enough, arguing it compares drastically unfavourably to the sums received by Gwynedd and Denbighshire.

In December both Conwy and Gwynedd came bottom of the local government settlement table of 22 Welsh authorities with just a 2% budget rise.

A notice of motion has been submitted calling for the removal of a council leader and his cabinet following the ‘disastrous’ botched launch of a new recycling scheme.

The independent group on Denbighshire council, who submitted the motion, has called for an extraordinary meeting to discuss the removal of leader Cllr Jason McLellan and his nine cabinet members due to a ‘public loss of confidence’.

There is alarm about plans to build a dam on the Afon Cynfal near Llan Ffestiniog in Eryri. It would divert, at times, just short of 70% of the water around the iconic waterfall of Rhaeadr y Cwm, as part of a hydroelectric scheme.

Plans have been submitted for a hydroelectric scheme at Cwm Cynfal three times over the past 30 years. Three times they have been either refused or withdrawn. But in July this year the developers formally submitted another application. The deadline for objections is 20 September. Can you help?

The economic case against independence is infected by old thinking.

It has long been assumed, largely without challenge, that Wales is simply too small, too weak and too poor to make its own way in the world.

It follows from this attitude that we are doomed to eke out a living, subsisting and dependent on Westminster subsidies and being told what to do by the London establishment is an intrinsic part of the bargain.

The price of being a perceived subsidy baby is obedience.

Secretary of State for Wales Jo Stevens has been lobbying for disgraced former First Minister Vaughan Gething to be given a seat in the House of Lords, Nation.Cymru has been told by a political source.

But while Ms Stevens herself has not responded to our questions on the matter, the suggestion that she has been pushing for Mr Gething to get a peerage has been denied vehemently by a UK Government source.

Mr Gething resigned as First Minister in July following a succession of scandals. He accepted donations totalling £200,000 from a waste group whose owner David Neal had been given two suspended prison sentences for dumping toxic sludge in the precious landscape of the Gwent Levels

The Bank Holiday weekend is expected to draw crowds of walkers to Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), many of whom will queue patiently for their turn to take a summit photo. Most will pause for a drink, a bite to eat and some well-deserved rest.

Whether intentionally or not, some will contribute to the litter problem that has marred the mountain in recent years. The British Mountaineering Council (BMC), one of several groups striving to keep the peak rubbish-free, suggests that many items are discarded unintentionally.

"In our experience, most people will try to pick up what they have dropped," said a spokesperson. "But they can't if their litter has blown out of reach and in an inaccessible location."

Every now and then, I come across a group of people fighting for a cause so passionately that it inspires me to look closer. Often these causes are worlds away from me personally, and so I spend a while admiring the voracity of those fighting for what they believe in, and ultimately move on. This was until I discovered a group seeking safety and security for their children in Rhondda Cynon Taff, my own backyard. What I found in this group was a collection of parents fighting tooth and nail, not just for their children, but all those in their community as well.

This is their story, their fight, and my way of trying to help their cause in whatever way I can.

Welsh Labour has been accused of a “cynical attempt to harvest data” after launching a “listening” consultation asking for the public’s views on Welsh Government policies.

Labour MSs posted a link to X, formerly Twitter, encouraging people to fill in the online form on Friday (August 23).

Sharing the link, MS for Cynon Valley Vikki Howells posted: “👂First Minister @Eluned_Morgan wants to know what your priorities are for Wales.

You can let the First Minister, Deputy FM @huw4ogmore and the @WelshLabour team know by completing this online feedback form.”

With the summer recess, when theoretically politics take a break, it’s been three weeks since the last instalment of Wales on Wednesday. What a turbulent few weeks it’s been. We’ve seen shocking scenes as race riots raged up and down the UK, with several attempted pogroms taking place.

Hundreds have been arrested and many sent to prison so far for their parts in these shameful episodes. People have received significant custodial sentences for racial hatred, looting Shoezone and other shops, assaulting police officers, attacking members of the public, and inciting racial hatred online.

YesCymru Penybont is organising an exhibition and competition in collaboration with Queen Street Gallery in Neath, with the prize of a solo exhibition at Studio 40, Neath in 2025. This is a fantastic opportunity for artists to raise their profiles – and anyone can enter, amateur or professional.

The theme for this competition and exhibition is the ‘Art of Independence’. You’re invited to explore what nation-building and self-determination mean for you. How do you feel we can make and remake Cymru, developing new ideas and giving artistic expression to problem-solving and innovation? How do we turn imagination into reality for a better Cymru?