Vale of Glamorgan MP Alun Cairns joined the front lines of the UK Government in March, when he was appointed secretary of state for Wales in March. Politics reporter Ian Craig met the Conservative minister at his Cardiff Bay office to talk about his role and the biggest issues facing Argus readers.

OF the limited number of politicians who have sat in both the Senedd and the House of Commons, Alun Cairns is among those who have risen the highest.

The Conservative was among the first group of AMs to be elected to the Senedd in 1999, winning one of the South Wales West regional seats. Re-elected in 2003 and 2007, he left the Assembly in 2010 after winning the race for the Vale of Glamorgan seat in 2010.

Re-elected in 2015, Mr Cairns was appointed to the role of Welsh secretary in March this year after his predecessor Stephen Crabb was appointed work and pensions secretary, only to quit four months later following reports the married MP had sent explicit text messages to a young woman.

Growing up near Swansea in what he described as “the deepest Labour community”, Mr Cairns said it was the 1980s campaign for nuclear disarmament and the Falklands War which first ignited his interest in politics.

“I was twelve-years-old and just forming views at the time and I felt that a nuclear deterrent was very important at that stage,” he said.

“And also protecting the rights of the Falkland islanders was really important.

“That put me on the opposite side of the debate to the establishment within my school and community.”

Mr Cairns also credited John Craven’s Newsround programme for developing his interest and understanding of politics from a young age, along with watching the experiences of his grandmother, who ran a village shop in Clydach.

“She had strong faith and she never let any children go without food,” he said.

“So if any families came in without money, and they had children, she would always give them credit knowing in full knowledge that she wasn’t going to get the money back from some of them.

“She ended up having to work for 50 years or more running this shop and, when she retired, worse off than many of the people who had never worked and still owed her money from the credit that she had extended them.

“I just felt at that stage that, hang on, this was wrong.

“This was someone who had taken a risk and started their own business, been extremely generous in the community and then ended up worse off than someone who had never worked, who had claimed anything that the state could provide at every stage and ended up in a situation that seemed not to reward hard work and almost incentivised those people to stay at home.

“That is what motivated me specifically to join the Conservative Party although, ironically, she was not a conservative.”

He said he saw his main role as secretary of state was to both champion Wales within the UK, and the UK within Wales.

“We are all part of the same family of nations,” he said. “When the UK succeeds Wales generally succeeds and when Wales succeeds I want that to be contributing to the UK as well.

“The Olympics is a great example – it was Team GB and I took the same delight in an English athlete winning a gold medal than I did with a Welsh athlete."

One of the main responsibilities Mr Cairns inherited when he was handed the Welsh portfolio was the Wales Bill. The draft legislation is intended to be the latest stage in the devolution process but has proven deeply controversial in Wales, with first minister Carwyn Jones claiming a previous draft amounted to “an English veto on Welsh laws”.

But the situation seems to have improved since Mr Cairns took over responsibility, with the most recent draft receiving “a cautious welcome” from the first minister, although he has continued to state he is unhappy with various elements of the plan.

With the bill currently passing through Parliament and due to enter the House of Lords soon, Mr Cairns said he was committed to creating a final version which was acceptable to all parties.

“This is about allowing the Welsh Government to legislate on the things that matter so there is no finger pointing anymore, people know who is responsible and they are rightly held to account for that," he said.

“So when someone walks through Newport high street they will know absolutely who is responsible for what – if someone increases their business rates they will know it is the Welsh Government, if someone reduces their income tax rate they will know the Welsh Government would have done that."

But he added he believed it was important powers were only devolved if there was a genuine and positive reason for doing so.

“If there is a genuine positive purpose behind it let’s make it happen,” he added. “That is the way I look at it.

“If we are devolving powers for the sake of it, because it is another sort of kudos to someone who feels more important or better off because of something, I am not sure that is the right reason to do something.”

Mr Cairns, who supported the Remain campaign ahead of June’s referendum, has repeatedly said getting the long-planned M4 relief road around Newport built is one of his top priorities.

Mr Cairns said: “If there is anything I want to do as secretary of state for Wales it is to make sure that road is built.

“It is needed, not only for Newport and South East Wales, but for the whole South Wales economy.”

He said traffic bottlenecks at the Brynglas Tunnels were damaging the Welsh economy by stopping people from coming into the area.

“More importantly for me is the reputation damage where people are actually withholding investment because they see it is a hindrance to them doing business,” he added.

“There will be businesses in Newport requiring deliveries to supermarkets, manufacturing companies and to a whole range of organisations or simply to a customer but they are being held up for an hour or half an hour, two hours, half a day or even a night.”

Saying “anything short of a three lane motorway is wholly unacceptable”, Mr Cairns said he was firmly in favour of the black route option.

A revamped motorway around Newport has been on the cards for around 20 years, and Mr Cairns thinks “enough is enough".

“Think of the opportunity we have lost in the interim," he said.

“I do not want to get into a debate about who is responsible and why decisions were taken when money was available and government spending was increasing at large, that would have been the ideal time to do it.

“There is no point having that debate, let’s deal with what we have in front of us.

“We have a motorway on stop that is sending the wrong message about Wales, which is causing reputational damage.

“Let’s just build the thing.”

Reflecting on his career, Mr Cairns said he believed his experience as both an AM and an MP stood him in good stead in his role as secretary of state.

“In the very early days (of the Assembly) in 1999 almost everyone came together from all parties because they felt they were trailblazers setting out the path for Wales as a nation,” he said.

“That evolved and developed and the party divide continued to develop by the time I left in 2011.

“There was a big change in the Assembly between then and now so I’m not pretending for a second my experience of the Assembly lets me know the exact culture of the Assembly now.

“But knowing how the Assembly works has given me an insight how the UK Government and Welsh Government, and the Assembly and Parliament, can work together where there is common cause.

“After all, we all want the same thing – Wales to have greater prosperity, better paid jobs, good public services, and high standards of education.”