Yn Gymraeg

• I have spent all my working life in South Wales : I started my career as a reporter on the South Wales Echo, then worked as a youth worker in Cardiff, before serving as a councillor and then MP for Cardiff South & Penarth for 25 years.  I was Secretary of State for Wales and First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly and worked across the South Wales area.  I have been a leading member of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee in Parliament.

• My political roots are in making local communities more powerful.  I was a Youth & Community Worker for many years and it was my experience of working with young offenders and unemployed young people in Butetown, Grangetown, Llanrumney and Ely that brought me into politics.  I was also a Youth Magistrate and chaired the Cardiff Juvenile Bench.  As an MP I have helped local communities to stand up to powerful authorities, such as the four-year campaign to stop Cardiff Council building on the Rumney Recreation Ground.

• I have a proven track record on policing issues.  As Deputy to the Shadow Home Secretary – first Tony Blair and then Jack Straw – I developed Labour’s policies on Youth Justice, Policing, Crime Reduction Partnerships and the Voluntary Sector.  In 1997 I became Deputy Home Secretary, and established local crime reduction partnerships, youth offending teams, the Youth Justice Board and Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.  As a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee I contributed to a series of reports on policing issues and a major investigation of the riots of August 2011.  I was also a member of the expert delegation to examine gang-related crime, radicalisation and elected police chiefs in Los Angeles in 2011.