Flintshire based politician Mark Isherwood delivers Senedd farewell after 23 years and five terms
Mark Isherwood MS has delivered his farewell speech in the Senedd after 23 years as a North Wales regional member, saying it has been “an honour” to serve the people of the region since his first election in 2003.
The Welsh Conservative MS gave his valediction during Wednesday afternoon’s Plenary session at the Senedd in Cardiff Bay, reflecting on five terms in the chamber.
Mr Isherwood, who attended approximately 1,600 Plenary sessions during his time as a member, described his career as “23 sometimes fun, always frantic and frequently frustrating years in this role”.
He thanked members across the parties and said he had formed friendships when he arrived at what was then still called the National Assembly, though he noted that “almost all of that early friendship group have since moved or passed on”.
Mr Isherwood said he arrived in Cardiff Bay in 2003 with experience from the building society sector and from voluntary roles including as a housing association board member and chair of governors at a school.
He said those roles had given him “a working knowledge and understanding of many of the issues affecting the people of Wales”, including poverty, housing pressures and what he described as “systemic barriers facing children with what we then called Special Educational Needs”.
He told the chamber he had spent his Senedd career highlighting those issues and said: “Woe betide any principled whistleblower who dared tell the truth, a theme which has continued throughout my years as a member here and remains prevalent in Labour Wales now.”
Mr Isherwood highlighted the passage of his British Sign Language (Wales) Bill as a personal legislative landmark, saying it had been a privilege for the Senedd to enable the bill to become legislation.
He also reflected on his role as chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee during the Sixth Senedd and thanked clerking teams and committee members.
Mr Isherwood said he had chaired cross-party groups on disability, autism, deaf issues, neurological conditions, hospices and palliative care, fuel poverty and energy efficiency, violence against women and children, and North Wales, among others.
He has also served as Wales Species Champion for the curlew since 2016, working with Gylfinir Cymru/Curlew Wales on efforts to support the species’ recovery.
In his closing remarks, Mr Isherwood said around 30% of children in Wales are currently living in poverty and argued that child poverty in Wales reached its highest level of any UK nation, at 32%, before the 2008 financial crash — “when there were Labour Governments at both ends of the M4”.
He called for “a wholly different approach from future Welsh Governments in practice as well as in word”, saying those who know what is best for their communities are the people who live in them.
Concluding his speech, he said: “It has been an honour to do so.”
Welsh Labour was asked to respond to Mr Isherwood’s remarks on child poverty and whistleblowing.
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