Welsh Labour leader Ken Skates speech to Labour Party Conference 2026

Ken Skates, Welsh Labour Leader, speech to Labour Party Conference 2026

"Conference, thank you so much. It is wonderful to be in Liverpool.

Of course, coming from North Wales, Liverpool has never really felt far away. Our families cross this border. Our economy crosses this border. Our culture crosses this border. And now, thanks to Labour working together, our trains cross it rather more often too.

This year we introduced the new direct service from Llandudno and Liverpool, part of a much bigger ambition to bring North Wales and this great city-region closer together. So, for me, this doesn't feel like an away fixture at all.

I grew up near Mold. My mum and dad met at Shotton steelworks. I was actually supposed to be born in Mexico, but after my family moved there when British Steel were opening a facility not far from Acapulco, my mum came home to North Wales just before I arrived. Which means I missed out on the sunshine and the food, but I did gain a lifelong appreciation for rain, lower league football, and marginal seats.

Now, Conference, Welsh Labour has had cause to rapidly change direction recently too.

Before I come to that, I'd just like to acknowledge the leadership that got us to this room today. Keir Starmer inherited our party after the devastation of 2019, restored our purpose, and led us back into government. Alongside Eluned Morgan and Jo Stevens - and now Stephen Kinnock - who gives Wales a fierce, trusted voice around the Cabinet table, they have shown what dedicated public service looks like.

And to Andy, who has asked this party and this country to believe again in hope and progress. Welsh Labour has your back every step of the way. Because Wales needs hope too. Now, more than ever.

I want to speak honestly today about what happened to us in May. The result was shattering. There is no point dressing it up. After more than two decades in government, the people of Wales delivered a profound judgment on us. We heard it. I heard it.

There are some things which, when they break, you can pick up the pieces, glue them carefully back together, and put them on a shelf. May was not like that. The judgment was too fundamental.

Our task is not to reconstruct a Welsh Labour Party that looks like the past. It is to build something new. Something confident. Something exciting.

Something for the future.

No more Ming-vase politics for Wales. There should be no steady as she goes for Labour. That is not what we were built to do. It is time to stop protecting what was, and start creating what could be.

Emily Dickinson wrote that hope is: the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stopsat all. I like that. But hope isn't about pretending the storm never happened. Hope is what survives it, and politics is what rebuilds after it.

Politics must go further than poetry. Hope needs substance. Hope needs purpose. And hope needs results. People need to feel progress in their daily lives, because once they stop feeling it, soundbites mean nothing. And this is the lesson we have heard and learned. Not grudgingly. Not partially. Completely.

I didn't join the Labour Party at fourteen to defend an institution. I joined it to change people's lives. When Shotton steelworks was devastated in the early 1980s, it ruined prospects for my dad and thousands of others. Later, he found work in Libya. During the Arab Spring, he escaped on the last British rescue flights out. He saw horrors that stayed with him for the rest of his life and had to say goodbye to friends who couldn't escape, some of whom he'd never hear from again.

And when he came home, he urged me to remember two things in everything I do. Never give up. And leave no one behind.

Those words guide me today. And being in opposition does not release us from our duty to Wales. Wherever the argument needs to be made, I will make it. Wherever Wales needs a voice, I will use mine.

Look at Welsh politics today. A fragile, fumbling Plaid Cymru government struggling to pass a basic budget, constant party-hopping, and chaos on the populist right. Welsh politics is deeply unsettled. But our response shouldn't be cheap political point-scoring. It must be serious leadership. To rethink, to learn, and to offer something worthy of the moment.

Because the next great argument in Welsh politics is going to be about power.

For a generation, the question was: How much power should move from Westminster to Wales? Welsh Labour answered that. We created devolution, strengthened it, and defended it.

But there is a new question now: What happens to power when it reaches Cardiff Bay? If we believe decisions are better when taken closer to people, why should that principle stop at the doors of the Senedd?

The first phase of Welsh devolution was about transferring power to Wales. The next phase must be about distributing power to the people. That means trusting our councils, our regional institutions, and our local communities with genuine responsibility. We didn't just create devolution just to reproduce a Welsh Westminster. And our Welsh Government must be strong enough to lead and redistribute, and strength does not have to mean central control.

So the principle is simple. Power from Westminster to Wales. Power from Cardiff to our communities. Power in the hands of people themselves. The destination of devolution should not be Cardiff Bay. It should be the people.

Because people don't care about constitutional process for its own sake. They care about outcomes. Can you see a GP when you need one? Is your child's school giving them the chance they deserve? Does a hard day's work provide a decent living?

That's what brought me into this party as a fourteen-year-old boy in North Wales. The belief that where you start in life should never ever determine where you finish.

May shattered something. We can spend our time mourning what broke, or trying to recreate the past. Or we can build something better. I choose to build.

A Welsh Labour Party that listens before it speaks. That changes itself before asking others to change. And that measures its success entirely by the lives our people are able to lead.

Hope, like courage, is looking directly at the difficulty and deciding to build anyway.

Never give up. Leave no one behind. Always, always stand up for the people of Wales. Conference, we heard the message. We have learned from it. Now we build again."