Out campaigning in Tirymynach recently, I spoke to a lady who has been waiting four years for a hip replacement. Clearly the NHS care she receives is badly broken. Indeed over in England, the Labour Government have acknowledged that. We know that the situation in Wales is worse despite more money being available per capita.

Sir Keir Starmer likes to blame everything on someone else. Invited recently to confirm that the NHS in Wales was broken, he failed to do so. Because of course it would have involved acknowledging Welsh Labour failure. There are plenty of examples of this to choose from, with healthcare perhaps the most egregious.

So it has been interesting to watch the Budget, trying to figure out what it may do for and to us in West Wales. Most Budgets involve a bit of smoke and mirrors, and I am writing this just after the Chancellor has sat down. The devil is always in the detail, so forgive me if my first impression changes.

Rachel Reeves has just increased taxes by £40 billion, assuming all those taxes materialise. Her spending commitments are much higher, and involve a huge splurge in borrowing. She has “modified” her fiscal rules, to count much of this spending as “investment”, hoping that this will drive economic growth. Having looked at her Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts for growth are lower in four of the next six years than the growth rate Labour inherited. That’s a big worry!

The bond markets will decide whether her plans stack up. If they don’t, Ms Reeves may just have created her very own Liz Truss moment!

Massive increases in NHS and education spending (nearly £26 and £7 billion respectively) presumably apply to England. The Barnet Formula (no change) means that Wales gets an extra £1.7 billion per year, along with £25 million to stabilise coal tips and a couple of Green Hydrogen plants. Over in England, some of that NHS money is going to spent on surgical and diagnostic hubs, probably provided by the independent/private sector. That will make a difference to waiting times.

Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru are viscerally opposed to private involvement in NHS provision. So it is by no means certain that we will enjoy similar improvements. Which means that the poor lady in Tirymynach may be waiting a little while longer.

What else has changed?

Well, the cost of creating and maintaining jobs has just gone up quite a lot. An increase in the National Minimum Wage of 6.7 per cent (16 per cent for young workers) plus a big hike in employers’ National Insurance contributions, isn’t going to be easy for small businesses on tight margins to suck up. The OBR have forecast that this will result in lower pay or fewer jobs. Certainly in my business (agriculture) a realistic ambition to create another full time job this year, has just gone down the pan. Sadly, stupidity has negative consequences.

Raising Capital Gains Tax, and making pension pots liable to Inheritance Tax, are going to penalise many hardworking people’s retirement plans. This seems to be a direct assault on the private sector and the self-employed, who will pay much more, not least to subsidise gold plated, index linked public sector pensions.

The loss of IHT Agricultural Property Relief on farmland over a million pounds, may sound like a first world problem. But do some basic sums, and you will soon realise just how hard that’s going to hit family farms in Wales, including the tenanted sector. This is ugly for rural Wales, and will impact our way of life, culture, the language etc .I think we will see a lot of land getting bought up by foreign companies. They will take Welsh Government subsidies to plant trees, export any profit along with the carbon credits and probably be IHT exempt. One politically motivated and spiteful tax grab will destroy Welsh farming, whilst raising very little tax.

Just to bring that message home, social media reports suggest that a farmer committed suicide in the last few days, to ensure that his farm passed to his successors IHT free. He may not be the last. That’s a caring Labour Government for you.

Sitting behind the Chancellor during the Budget, Sir Keir looked like a nodding dog, failing to understand most of what she was saying. If this budget fails to deliver growth along with massive productivity increases in the public sector, it’s going to be bad for West Wales. With Labour in power at both ends of the M4, there’s nowhere for them to run and hide, and sometime soon, they and their fellow travellers are going to have to own this.