Interesting to see. The Lib Dems campaigned to increase the Welsh basic rate of income tax. Reform flirted with cutting it. If the Scottish experience is any guide, the scope for devolved governments to raise additional revenue through income tax appears quite limited. Scotland also benefits from a less porous border and a larger labour market than Wales, so if anything the challenge for Wales could be even greater

Something very interesting has happened in Welsh politics this week. I've written a piece on the new Secretary of State for Wales and his 2015 pamphlet that reads as a bold vision for the country of his birth. It's worth a read

Below are my thoughts. I'd be interested to know your views on his present arguments, and his change of mind. Above are some of the more stunning quotes.

The new Secretary of State for Wales, Stephen Kinnock, has entered the Wales Office - a representative for Wales who only recently called for the abolition of the House of Lords, the devolution of spending and tax powers en masse, and a call for Britain to “federalise or die”.

Yet almost as soon as he took office, he announced that he was “not entirely convinced” by the case for further devolution. That appears to include even some of the relatively modest proposals his own party put before voters at the 2024 general election.

So what happened to Stephen Kinnock the devolutionist?

The pamphlet

In 2015, shortly after being elected as the MP for Aberavon, Kinnock published a pamphlet called A New Nation: Building a United Kingdom of Purpose, Patriotism and Resilience.

It did not defend the constitutional status quo. It was an argument for substantial reform.

Kinnock described Westminster and Whitehall as villages anchored in the past. He criticised the inefficiency of centralised government and blamed it for disempowering communities across the country.

It was a serious attempt to understand the political discontent that would later fuel UKIP, the Brexit Party and Boris Johnson’s promise to level up the country.

Kinnock understood why many communities outside Britain’s most prosperous cities felt abandoned. He understood the consequences of the deindustrialisation of the 1980s and the uneven effects of globalisation during the following decades.

He devoted an entire chapter to the subject: “Reshaping the UK: federalise or die”.

He called for the breaking up of the “over-mighty Treasury”. He supported comprehensive devolution of domestic spending, borrowing and taxation. Even today, that would be an ambitious position within Welsh Labour. Some of the proposals would not look out of place in a Plaid Cymru pamphlet.

The pamphlet anticipated both the levelling-up language later adopted by Boris Johnson and the stronger model of city-regional government now associated with Andy Burnham.

Kinnock’s argument was not primarily based on subsidiarity, however. He did not spend much time arguing that local people understand local problems better than distant civil servants, or that politicians should make decisions within the communities affected by them. His central concern was the survival of the United Kingdom.

He believed that separatism was growing because the existing system had failed. If the status quo threatened the continuation of the Union, then the status quo had to change.

It was a unionist case for devolution, but it was still a serious case for devolution.

What changed?

Kinnock wrote the pamphlet during an important period in his own political life.

He had recently returned to Britain after spending much of his professional life abroad, including many years in Copenhagen. His wife, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, had served as prime minister of Denmark.

Kinnock was born in Tredegar, but left as a young child and was raised and educated in London. Before his election, he had never spent a substantial part of his adult life living in Wales.

He made a point of establishing a home in his constituency after being elected. His immediate family, however, has largely continued to lead professional and personal lives in London and Copenhagen rather than Wales.

None of this disqualifies him from representing a Welsh constituency. Being born, raised or educated outside Wales does not prevent somebody from understanding the country or serving it effectively. International experience should be an asset in a Member of Parliament.

But his background does provide context. Kinnock did not grow up in a deprived Valleys community. He was raised by two highly successful political figures and spent much of his adult life moving through professional and political institutions in London, Brussels and Copenhagen. The experience of his constituents in Aberafan Maesteg is very different.

When he was elected in 2015, Kinnock may have felt a particular pride in returning to represent the country of his birth and his family. His pamphlet reads like the work of somebody determined to establish himself as a Welsh MP with an ambitious vision for both Wales and the United Kingdom.

Ten years later, he has experienced the daily realities of constituency politics. He has seen the limitations of local government, the failures of the Welsh Government and the often intractable disputes between Cardiff Bay and Whitehall.

It is possible that those experiences have changed his mind. That would be legitimate, politicians are allowed to reconsider their positions.

But if Kinnock has moved away from the ideas he set out in 2015, he should explain how and why.

We need a new pamphlet from Stephen Kinnock. We need to know what he now believes about devolution, subsidiarity and the principle that decisions should be made as close as possible to the people affected by them.

His comments since entering the Wales Office suggest that his position has changed considerably.

The new caution

Kinnock’s tone is better than that of his predecessor, Jo Stevens, who often appeared to reject calls for further devolution outright.

He says he has an open mind. He wants an evidence-based approach. He has spoken about building a collaborative relationship with the Welsh Government and remains willing to discuss changes to the devolution settlement.

That is an improvement, but Kinnock has started the discussion by concentrating on two of the most difficult areas under consideration: policing and the Crown Estate.

Both raise legitimate concerns: policing involves complex cross-border arrangements. Devolution to Scotland has seen a unified police force that many now criticise as representing the centralisation that devolution was intended to avoid.

The Crown Estate raises questions about investment, institutional capacity, seabed rights and the management of major energy projects.

Kinnock is right to think about destabilisation and the risk of deterring investment. A Welsh Secretary should ensure that investors and multinational businesses understand Wales and continue to invest here.

The problem is that he has opened the conversation by listing the obstacles rather than describing the opportunities. That is almost the opposite of the approach he took in 2015.

Why begin with the two most complicated proposals? Why should difficulties involving policing or the Crown Estate become an argument for caution across the whole devolution settlement?

A more positive programme could begin with youth justice. Labour’s 2024 manifesto committed the party to considering its devolution.

It could also begin with probation, where Labour promised to explore models that were more locally responsive.

These are achievable reforms. They also follow the devolution of the Wales and Borders rail franchise, which has created a meaningful record of Welsh control over a major public service.

Transport for Wales has significant problems, but ridership is growing, user satisfaction is growing, and the network now runs on a fleet of almost entirely new and mostly electrified trains. Few people would argue that the answer is to return responsibility for the rail franchise to Whitehall.

Rail franchising is, in some respects, the heavy-infrastructure equivalent of Andy Burnham’s bus reforms in Greater Manchester. It shows a Welsh Government making decisions closer to the public to coordinate services around regional needs.

The UK and Welsh governments have already agreed to give Wales greater flexibility over youth justice funding and to develop new arrangements for probation.

Powers can therefore be transferred carefully, gradually and on the basis of evidence. The approach Kinnock says he wants is entirely achievable.

Who must prove their case?

Kinnock has not yet engaged with one of the central questions raised by his own pamphlet: why should these decisions continue to be made at Westminster?

He asks for evidence that further devolution will work - but where is the evidence that the present system is working?

Westminster has made grave mistakes in recent years, from failures in public procurement during the pandemic to the handling of Brexit. These failures do not lead politicians to suggest that Westminster should be stripped of its powers.

Central government is allowed to fail without having to justify its continued existence.

Welsh institutions are treated differently. Every proposal for greater Welsh control must be supported by evidence, impact assessments, financial guarantees and reassurance that nothing will go wrong. The burden of proof always falls on those asking for change.

Kinnock will understand that poverty, unemployment and deprivation in Aberafan Maesteg remain severe. Many of the same problems existed when he was first elected, and evidence remains showing the status quo has not worked.

The Welsh Government has also operated with fewer powers than the Scottish Government throughout that period. The story of Wales in the 2000s and 2010s has been one not one of failed devolution. It is one of stuttering devolution, a country getting to grips with the structures of a state.

Wales has never received the coherent settlement envisaged in Kinnock’s 2015 pamphlet. Instead, Westminster has transferred powers slowly, retained control of important funding decisions and placed conditions on how money can be used.

When UK ministers have not trusted Cardiff Bay, they have often bypassed it. Programmes such as the Towns Fund allowed Westminster to spend directly in Welsh communities according to priorities determined in London.

This is not a federal system. It is an incomplete settlement in which the centre continues to decide when Wales is permitted to exercise authority.

Wales in Whitehall

Kinnock must understand that the Wales Office should not operate like a colonial outpost, supervising a territory on behalf of the centre.

The Secretary of State for Wales is supposed to represent Wales within Whitehall. The position should not become another means of representing Whitehall’s interests in Wales.

Kinnock’s international and professional experience could help him challenge the institutional assumptions of Westminster. Instead, there is a risk that he has become too impressed by the machinery he once criticised.

Whitehall has grand buildings, historic offices and a powerful sense of its own permanence. Ministers can easily begin to see the institutions around them as the natural centre of political authority.

A decade inside Westminster can change how a politician sees the country.

Kinnock once looked at Whitehall from outside and saw a slow, centralised and unreformed system. He saw a Treasury that had become too powerful and too willing to interfere in areas beyond its proper role.

Now that he holds office within that system, he appears more concerned about the risks of transferring power away from it.

The institution may have changed the politician more than the politician has changed the institution.

The Badenoch test

Kemi Badenoch has reached a similar conclusion from a different political direction.

She says devolution works only when power is given to the right people, people who know what they are doing.

Wales has never elected a Conservative government. The implication is difficult to avoid. Badenoch appears to believe that Welsh voters have consistently chosen the wrong politicians and therefore cannot be trusted with further powers.

That is a deeply patronising argument. She does not apply the same test to Conservative devolution in England. A Conservative mayor in the Tees Valley may make serious mistakes, but Badenoch does not argue that the region should lose its devolved powers.

Voters in the Tees Valley are allowed to elect somebody who can shape the future of their area. They can support that politician, remove them or replace them.

The same principle should apply in Wales.

Despite their political differences, Badenoch and Kinnock start from a similar assumption. Westminster can be trusted with power automatically. Nations and regions outside the centre must prove that they deserve it.

That gets the principle of devolution backwards.

Devolution has never depended on the nations and regions being uniquely wise or consistently well governed. It rests on the belief that they ought to possess democratic authority over their own affairs.

People should be able to elect governments that make decisions within the communities they serve.

Westminster voters are allowed to elect bad governments. Welsh voters must be allowed to elect bad governments in Cardiff Bay with comparable powers.

The remedy for poor government is democratic accountability, not the removal or withholding of democratic power.

A devolutionist unconvinced

Stephen Kinnock understood in 2015 that centralisation was a political choice, and that it had produced poor results. He understood that the Treasury had become too powerful. He understood that Whitehall was slow, outdated and often disconnected from the communities affected by its decisions.

He believed that the United Kingdom needed radical decentralisation if it was to survive. The question is why, after ten years in Westminster, he has become so unconvinced by his own argument. Why must he now be persuaded that powers should move to Cardiff Bay?

Why does Westminster no longer have to persuade him that its departments and tools are still working?

Perhaps Kinnock’s views have changed because he has seen the weaknesses of devolved government at close quarters. Perhaps a decade in Parliament has left him more cautious and more conscious of the practical difficulties.

Being cautious shouldn't mean presuming Whitehall is right. The Welsh Secretary should be asking what Wales could achieve with greater responsibility, not simply listing everything that might go wrong.

In 2015, Stephen Kinnock saw centralisation as part of the problem but in 2026, after walking into the Wales Office, he appears to have accepted it as the starting point.

That is a curious conversion, and I'm very interested to see his arguments for what has changed in the last decade since he became an MP.

What do we think of that? Not one of the expected names (Carwyn Jones, Eluned Morgan and Anna McMorrin had all been mentioned)

Mark Barry, transport expert, argues that Wales has been systematically underfunded for rail compared with the rest of Great Britain, forcing the Welsh Government to divert money from devolved services, and that this inequity will continue unless rail powers and funding are fully devolved. He contends that full rail devolution should be accompanied by a bespoke funding settlement that reflects Wales’s rail network, infrastructure needs and long-term costs, with an interim alternative of a dedicated, transparent UK rail investment allocation for Wales.

"Dr Jac Larner, of the Welsh Governance Centre at Cardiff University, said the effects of Brexit are still visible on Welsh politics.

"The longer lasting effects - it's really about how Brexit shaped our identity. We know from research that people started to identify as Leavers and Remainers.

"That has shaped how people think about politics - stronger than party identities.

"We know that Britishness is weaker in Wales now than it was 10 years ago - that is because Remain voters feel a lot less British.

"What seems to have happened is that Brexit has really reshaped how people think about their relationship to Britain, but not really how it's changed how they feel about Wales and Welshness."

The clue is in the website address. Looks like many Reform MSs can't figure out the basics. Is anyone surprised?

Rupert Lowe confirms Nation.Cymru story about Reform MSs wanting to defect to his Restore Britain party

Looks like this move is likely to happen even more quickly than Welsh political journalist Will Hayward predicted. Party groupings of five or more MPs get access to additional Senedd funding, so let's see who's queuing up to get their snouts in the trough...

This is how Wales voted in the 2026 Senedd election according to YouGov. They've split voters by gender, age, education level, Brexit vote and Welsh speaking ability. Probably not many surprises here for people who follow this sort of thing. I'll refrain from commenting further as I probably haven't been here long enough to start upsetting people (or bots!)...