Tory leadership: Truss and Sunak attack Welsh government

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have attacked Mark Drakeford and his Welsh Labour government at a Tory leadership hustings.

Frontrunner Ms Truss accused Mr Drakeford of being a "low energy version" of Jeremy Corbyn who was "ashamed of our history".

Meanwhile Mr Sunak said he would be an "activist prime minister" who would call out "failures of devolution".

The pair answered questions from party members in Cardiff on Wednesday night.

A small group of climate change protesters greeted Conservatives at the All Nations Centre ahead of the event.

The Welsh government is declining to respond to comments made by the leadership contenders.

In his opening speech, the former chancellor said he "call out the fact that in spite of receiving 20% more funding, here in Wales waiting lists are the worse in the United Kingdom".

He attacked plans for more Senedd members in Cardiff Bay, saying money should be spent on cost of living issues instead, and said a freeze on road building projects would cause "enormous economic self harm".

Mr Sunak indicated he was opposed to more devolution for the Senedd and said he would be an "activist prime minister when it comes to Wales" who would call out devolution "when its failing".

He said "we need to be more prepared to call out the failures of the devolved government here, because this path of onward devolution has not worked in actually delivering better health care and education for the people of Wales."

"If the UK government is sending billions of pounds over to Wales, and it's being squandered, it's not being spent properly, and children are not being taught properly in schools and people are waiting unacceptably long for health care treatment, we need to call that out and we need to make sure we improve it."

Ms Truss said: "The fact is that there are too many people in this country who are ashamed of our history who talk our country down who say the best days are behind us. They are completely wrong.

"I'm afraid one of them is Mark Drakeford."

"Whether it's stopping the M4 relief road, whether it's whacking a tax on our tourist industry, I will crack down on his negativity about Wales, and about the United Kingdom."

Asked if she'd ignore Mark Drakeford like she said she would ignore Nicola Sturgeon, she said it was a "very different situation" where the resources of a government were being used to run an independence campaign.

She said she would build the M4 Relief Road. The project was ditched by the Welsh government, which has responsibility for motorways in Wales, in 2019.

If your question was whether Rishi Sunak will devolve more powers to the Welsh Parliament as prime minister, it seems clear he will not.

He told Tory members - often assumed to be more devo-sceptic than some of their elected members in Cardiff Bay - that the answer to problems in Wales was "not more devolution", and intimated that he would get more involved in Welsh affairs.

Would he intervene in health and education? There was nothing concrete - but he said he would be an "activist" prime minister - the suggestion was there.

Sunak walked into the All Nations Centre with what sounded like a plan to win over sceptical Welsh Tory voters. But there was no arms race on the subject with front runner Liz Truss.

She had little to say when it came to the constitution of Wales - the nearest she got to the subject was where she said it was right that the Welsh government run the NHS - which it has since 1999 and is only interesting because of the comments of her rival.