Drakeford urges UK to consider scrapping the Wales Office

Jones rejects Drakeford call to scrap Wales Office as foolish

Former Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said it is time to consider scrapping the UK government’s Wales Office, arguing the department has been largely hollowed out since devolution began in 1999.

In an interview on the Welsh-language channel S4C’s current-affairs programme Y Byd yn ei Le, Drakeford — who served as first minister from December 2018 to March 2024 — said “the time has come” for policymakers to think about abolishing the office. Asked directly whether he would be happy to see it go, Drakeford told the programme: “Yes, I think the time has come for us to think about that. Of course, Tony Blair thought of this too. This has been part of discussions in Westminster not only now but for more than a decade.”

The proposal drew pushback from Labour MP Ruth Jones. Speaking on BBC Radio Wales Breakfast on Friday, Jones dismissed the idea of abolishing the office and defended the role of Welsh Secretary Stephen Kinnock at the UK cabinet table. “In terms of the Wales Office, the only person from Wales actually at the [UK] cabinet table is the secretary of state for Wales, and he is there fighting the corner for Wales,” Jones said. “So I would say to disband that would be foolish.”

Jones also pushed back on Drakeford’s standing to make the call, saying he had stepped back from frontline politics. “I’ve got tremendous respect for Mark Drakeford but, let’s be honest, he’s now retired and, therefore, let the politicians who are elected to get on with the job get on with the job,” she said.

The Wales Office has been the subject of periodic speculation since devolution began in 1999, when the Welsh Assembly — now known as the Senedd — took on responsibility for health, education, environment, agriculture and transport. What remained of the UK government department kept the title of Wales Office, and successive UK governments have since weighed whether to fold its remaining functions into a single department covering Scotland and Northern Ireland as well.

The post of Welsh secretary, or secretary of state for Wales, was created by Harold Wilson’s Labour government in October 1964, with the Wales Office opening the following April. Under a previous UK Labour government, Peter Hain combined cabinet responsibility for Wales and Northern Ireland between 2005 and 2007.

Earlier in 2026, then-First Minister Eluned Morgan said there remained “a role” for the Welsh secretary, but argued the post should be “the voice of Wales at the cabinet table” rather than acting as the UK government’s voice in Wales.

Kinnock was appointed Welsh secretary by Andy Burnham in July, according to a Getty Images caption carried by the BBC. The devolution settlement put in place in 1999 has been under periodic reassessment by successive Westminster governments ever since, with the question of whether to fold the Wales Office into a single territorial department raised repeatedly.