The man who could well have found himself as Labour leader shocked everyone when he said he was quitting politics. For the first time, he details why
Despite most other people in the Senedd buildings being able to tell you to the day, if not the minute, when the Senedd term finishes, Jeremy Miles says he is anything but. As Wales’ health minister he says it’s not about seeing out the last few weeks because actually improving the NHS is exactly what Labour needs, what Wales needs, any day of any year.
But, he will admit he is starting to look at life plans after May 7, when he will stand down as an elected politician in Wales and the job he has held for 18 months will go to someone else, potentially, probably, someone outside the Labour party.
The last time we spoke at length for an interview, Jeremy Miles was adamant he would be standing for election again, despite all the drama and stress that he’d gone through in his attempt to become First Minister of Wales in the months before. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here.
Defeated by Vaughan Gething, the man who beat him, lasted just months before he was ousted after questions over donations received in his campaign.
Then, when in summer 2024, Eluned Morgan put her name forward to replace him she did so unopposed. Jeremy Miles didn’t enter another one-on-one battle.
In spring 2025, he said he wanted to be returned to the Senedd as the member for the new Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd constituency and was widely expected to be one of a relative handful of incumbent Labour MSs who wanted to be in a new-look Senedd from 2026.
But fast forward a few months, in the dying days of summer, I remember getting a message telling me he was about to announce he was withdrawing and would actually be standing down.
Shortly afterwards, his statement explained more: “I have had the opportunity to reflect and have come to the conclusion that the end of this Senedd term is the right time for me to stand down, to seek a different challenge – one which may allow me more time to better balance work with my commitments to the people in my life.”
It’s taken till now for diaries to align, and dust to settle for him to explain more.
What changed, is my first question, when we meet with just a handful of weeks of this, the sixth Senedd left.
“We spoke last springtime, didn’t we, and you asked me if I was standing, and I said absolutely I was standing,” the 54-year-old recalls.
“What happened, was the Senedd went on recess, you go back to the constituency and you reflect about things and it felt to me as though I’d had almost 10 years in the government…I got into a cabinet, the year after I got elected, really quickly, and it’s been, I think, an incredible 10 years, in terms of what it has meant I have been able to do, but it’s also been a very challenging 10 years in many other ways, both in terms of the politics, but also in terms of the world around us, so Brexit, Covid in particular, but also other things.
“And I suppose I reflected over the summer and thought now is probably a sensible time, whilst I was still at least comparatively young to do one more thing, one more opportunity to do something in my life,” he says.
It has, he says, nothing to do with Labour’s then dwindling polling numbers – numbers which have got considerably worse since he made his decision.
“No, not at all,” he states. “It’s obviously a challenging context in which to be standing down from the Senedd and that makes me feel sad.
“However, our task now is to make sure we put everything on the field to get the best possible outcome at the next election and I’m absolutely playing my full part in that.”
You can’t talk about his time in politics without referencing that leadership loss. It was bitterly felt by him, and his team. His face, as he left the result announcement showed just how much it had meant to him.
His team called out, at the time, some of Vaughan Gething’s tactics, and when that £200,000 donation emerged, they watched as his leadership floundered. Jeremy Miles was one of four cabinet members who quit, en masse, and delivered the final blow to Mr Gething’s position. Hours after that he quit as Welsh leader and First Minister.
The divisions in the party then were entrenched, and they do remain to this day, some have never forgiven what happened in those weeks. The group, while publicly at least unified, has never fully recovered. There are still people from both sides of the campaign who cannot, and do not speak.
“I think I was pleased that I stood to be leader. I felt I would have done, I hope, a good job,” he says.
“I had things I felt very strongly about that I wanted to do, I felt that I had fresh ideas about how we could do things better in the future. and obviously I didn’t become leader, but I was genuinely heartened by the campaign that we ran, which I thought was full of vision and full of integrity.
“I was also really pleased to get the level of support that I had, obviously, I would have liked to have had more support,” he smiles. “It told me that huge numbers of people in the party wanted to embrace a fresh way of doing things,” he adds.
Does he replay the leadership campaign still?
“No, I don’t,” he says. “Genuinely.”
“I know in a sense I would say this, wouldn’t I? But I’ve always felt very deeply, really it’s important to reflect on what happens and what you learn from it and what you could have done differently and what could have been better.
“All of that is very important, obviously, as in any job but essentially, once I’ve done that, I’ve always been good at looking forward and I think that’s why when the leadership became vacant later in the year I was able to look forward at that point.
“Obviously, I was thinking at that time about whether I should stand again but having reflected about the months that have gone before and what I’ve just said to you, I actually don’t find it that challenging to look forward.”
If he had been elected leader, would he still be standing down from politics now? “No, absolutely not,” he says without hesitation.
“I think if you are the leader of the party, you lead the party into the election. I think there’s an absolute responsibility on you to do that. So I think that it will be a different scenario. But in a sense that wasn’t part of the reason, but it will obviously be a different scenario,” he says.
“My task is to be sure that we do absolutely every single thing that we can to improve the performance of the health service. That is my my sole focus.
“Sometimes asked when I’m doing the monthly statistics about the numbers of people waiting and how long they’re waiting, I’m asked by journalists if because I’m standing down am I taking foot off the accelerator.
“I think, I hope at least, we can see that isn’t happening, because things are improving.
“There’s a long way to go till it’s back to exactly what we want obviously but things are getting better. So that’s my task. My task is to make sure that gets into the best possible place by the time I stop being a health minister.”
Health is the thing the Eluned Morgan administration has put the most resource and energy into, but the very nature of health is while he will quote the number of people off waiting lists, or the extra cataract operations, opposition politicians will pull another figure to show they haven’t done enough.
“We set very stringent targets and we are doing really well at hitting them.
“We’ve seen for the seventh month in a row, you know, the waiting list come down. I’m absolutely confident that pattern is continuing and we’ll see the same with the longest waits as well.
“We’ve got 40,000 cataracts being done this year and the expectation most years is that we manage to do 17,000, but there will always be something.
“The two decisions I made early on as health minister were firstly, was it my role to be the political voice of the NHS or was it my role, to be, the political voice of public and patients, seeking the best possible NHS?
“I made a very clear decision at the start that the latter was my responsibility and that has meant whenever there have been challenges or whenever there’ve been opportunities to help shape things I’ve had a very clear rule of thumb to apply to that,
“The second thing I decided early on was that it was not about the data.
“Obviously the data has to be going in the right direction and actually I’ve put more and more data into the public domain than we have in the past and I’m continuing to do that, but really people will not decide on whether Welsh Labour run the NHS well in the last 18 months or whether I was a good health minister not based on whether we’ve removed 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 from the waiting list this particular month, they will decide that based on whether they feel they’re getting the care and the service that they need and their family and friends are.
“It’s definitely getting better, there’s absolutely no two ways about that.
“People are definitely being seen faster, more people are being seen faster on the things that matter most to them.
“People are being called in for outpatient appointments, on Sunday evenings on a Thursday late afternoon when they otherwise wouldn’t be, and I think that tells people that we have a system which is operating differently and pulling all the stops out,
“People expect that, obviously they should, they deserve it. But the practical effect of that is people feeling, actually, I’m seeing all this in the news, but actually I did get my hip done faster, so that’s positive.
“I don’t mean to sound pious about it, but for me it has never been about the election. It’s about getting people the care that they need faster.”
After 10 years around the table where big decisions were made, from being in Brussels for Brexit, the days of Covid press conferences, and now the health brief, is there sadness, relief, or excitement about what’s to come, I ask.
“I’m excited about what will happen next.
“I’m essentially somebody who looks forward and I’m essentially an optimist so I don’t have any particular plans yet but I’m optimistic.
“The reason I’m standing down is because I want to be able to do one other thing for the next 10 years I guess before I start thinking about retirement which doesn’t feel so far away.
“I still have a vast amount of energy and ideas about doing things.
“Before I was a member of the Senedd, I spent 20 years actually in legal practise and in the commercial sector, I’ve done a range of roles in government which I really couldn’t have imagined having had the opportunity to do really, both in terms of being the law officer, education, the Welsh language, briefly the economy department and now health and social care.
“That’s genuinely touched most aspects of government. People will always say this, but it’s genuinely true, it’s been an incredible privilege to do that.
“It has been very tough for quite a lot of it, but that’s the nature of the job,” he says.
He referenced the personal sacrifices political office brings, something he agrees with.
“Family doesn’t get the attention they deserve. Friendships don’t.
“You don’t see your friends as often as you want to.
“People say to me, what are your hobbies? And you sort of sometimes bluntly have to scratch your head and think, ‘oh, that used to be a hobby and I still do a bit of it’.
“But I’ve never felt, firstly, that you get any sympathy for it. Secondly, I don’t think you should because it’s a choice that you make.
“Politics isn’t a career. No careers are predictable anymore are they, but there’s no pattern to it.
“We know in our Senedd that elections come at fixed points, so there’s at least that level of predictability to it, which isn’t the case in Westminster, but if you’re in government you can lose your responsibilities in your role overnight or be switched into a new role if you are fortunate to be.
“Some roles are more demanding perhaps than others. I think I’ve done quite a range of quite demanding roles.
“However I’ve been fortunate genuinely because I’ve found them all in different ways fulfilling and I loved being education and Welsh language minister, I felt that it was playing to many of my strengths and what brought me into politics in the first place.”
I remember him denying suggestions he had initially refused the health job, but he does admit in this interview he “felt differently” about health compared to any of his other government jobs.
“I probably felt a little differently about health because people talk so much about how difficult it is, how challenging it is, for good reason.
“I probably had less of an instinctive feel for some of the main issues but I decided early on that my task, since I was only likely to have them all for 18 months was to focus absolutely relentlessly on quite a small number of things because that’s the only way really that you can make a difference quickly.
“I think that is happening, which I’m really very pleased about.
“Obviously I want things to go faster and you know better all the time. I’ve felt that in all the jobs that I’ve had but I’ve focused in on a comparatively small number of priorities and I feel I’ve driven those hard, in partnership with a lot of other people.”
A loyal Labour member, the Neath MS is someone who is privy to the data the party holds ahead of May’s election, he is well aware of the problems and challenges they face.
Does he worry about what the new Senedd will look like after May?
“We don’t know what the result is yet. I’m not a commentator on the election and my job, along with my colleagues, is to fight hard and support the candidates who are standing. The main way I can do that is make sure that the health service is delivering for people to work.
“What I want to see, as you would expect me to say, is a Labour-led government after the next election, and I will do absolutely everything I can between now and the election to make sure that that is a reality.
“If we don’t have that, then as we know from previous Senedd’s, and it will certainly be true in the next Senedd, what the electoral system we have encourages people to work with each other, and, I feel very strongly there is still a progressive majority in Welsh politics, and it’ll be the responsibility of parties in the Senedd to work together to find a government which can deliver on that commitment to people in Wales.
“I think the worst possible outcome for Wales would be, we see people speculating about a Reform government or a Reform Conservative government.
“The worst possible outcome for people in Wales is that.
“We saw Plaid Cymru ditch their green pledges. We are constantly, as Labour ministers, being criticised in the chamber that we’re not spending enough on this, that and the other.
“If you add up all of Plaid’s spending pledges, you’d need twice the Welsh government’s budget to meet them.
“Now, I understand that parties going into election make promises, but the challenge, I think, is, if you have a party which is making wild promises which cannot be delivered with no sense of reality that leads to cynicism in politics,” he says.
“That cynicism will lead to an increase in support for Reform.
“It is incumbent on us to be straightforward with the public about what the choices are that have to be made and to deliver those choices once we’ve committed to them.
“I actually think that part of the reason we have done well as a Welsh Labour government in the time of devolution is for each election we’ve been able to say ‘all the things we said we would do, we’ve done’.
“I know it sounds a very straightforward thing, and it is, and it should be a straightforward thing in a sense to be able to say that but firstly, it’s difficult to deliver and secondly, I think that’s quite a powerful message for the public because they say, well, ‘these are people who’ve kept their word’.
I put it to him there seems, this time, to be a move away from that for Labour, that seems to be wearing off resulting in a feeling, in poll projections, which seem almost insurmountable.
“I’m not saying that’s sufficient for ever,” he says. “It definitely is not, and frankly nor should it be.
“It’s also about what you’re promising and how you engage with the public in terms of their priorities.
“I’ve been really clear when we last spoke, you were asking me about the months ahead and what that looked for politics, and I was saying to you, ‘Look, the only way the Labour Party will continue to succeed in the way that we have is by standing true to what Keir Starmer says by the way, which is country first, party second, which I completely agree with.
“It’s that standing up for Wales, that voters in Wales have an absolute confidence that when there are choices to be made, the choice which Welsh Labour will make is one which is in the interests of Welsh people, even when that’s difficult or inconvenient,” he says.
Has Labour stood up for people?
“Absolutely,” he says.
But he cannot be immune to those people on the doorsteps, their members, who are fed up.
“Clearly, when you’ve been in government for a long time, fighting the next election is always the hardest election to fight. That’s been the case for every election that we’ve fought. It’s definitely the truth for this election.
“Not a single one of us is under any illusions about how hard it is when you’re out campaigning but that’s not specific to Labour, by the way.
“I think people are genuinely more disillusioned with politics broadly.
“I think the challenge that you have as a government that’s been in for a long time, when for a lot of that time recently we’ve had a government of a different colour in Westminster, is that the public understandably aren’t making a distinction between the two.
“From my point of view as the health secretary, what I would absolutely say is, at the point when the demand on the NHS was increasing most, that was the time when the kind of investment you want to be able to make in the NHS in the new hospitals, in the new technology, in new facilities, all those things which we need, was the time when the capital investment coming from Westminster to Wales was at its lowest.
“Those two things came together.
“Now, when I’m knocking a door explaining that to people obviously that’s challenging as a message to convey. It is however the truth.
“So that’s why it’s important for us to be able to make progress on the NHS, because we are then able to say, despite that backdrop, we’re still improving,” he says.
In response to whether people are listening to them, he says: “I know that from my local patch, it feels very different on the doorstep from the polls.
“I’m not naive, obviously it’s challenging and it’s more challenging than it’s been in the past, which is why we’re all working so hard.
“I’ve always felt it’s really important to be straightforward with people. I don’t say honest because everyone’s being honest, but it’s complex to make sure we can get public services to where we want them to be, whoever is the government in the new Senedd isn’t going to find a different context, it’ll be the same set of challenges.
“All I can say as health minister when you’re looking for ways to improve the service, we all want more resources, we want more time, we are all want less demand.
“None of those things are going to be different over the course of the next few years and so the choices that incoming government, whichever its complexion have, are not likely to be very different from the choices which a Labour government have in this Senedd”.
Whatever this election throws up, someone new will become health minister, so what’s his advice for them?
“I think that the challenge for any health minister is distinguishing between the things which you can have an effect on by setting clear targets, providing the funding, putting in place the performance management, describing a vision of where you want to go, being prepared to make choices which prioritise some things and not others.
“You have to be able to do that. As a Health Minister, if you want to try and support the system to move forward.
“You are not in direct control of the day-to-day operations of the health service and in something which is so complex as the health service, inevitably things happen every single day, which will end up as a question for me in the floor of the Senedd, as it absolutely should be, which is not something which I as a minister could ever expect to have direct control over.
“Being very clear about which side of the line things are on is really important as a minister.
“I think that will be one of the main things that I would recommend to whoever is my successor and also fundamentally, the health service isn’t a big machine where levers can be pulled and outcomes can be delivered.
“It’s tens of thousands of people. Going into work every day, making different choices, feeling good about the day, feeling less good about day, feeling tired, feeling energetic, feeling well-supported, feeling unsupported, feeling all the things that colour the days that you and I have.
“The health service is the outcome of that.
“It’s more of an organism than a machine, really, and so making sure that you try and motivate people and encourage people as well as setting those targets and having clear expectations about how they’re delivered, that is really important.”
As he looks forward to his new chapter, is there sadness too, I ask him.
“Yes, hugely. It’s been an enormous part of your life,” he says.
“It has brought political opportunities to make, I hope and I feel, a big difference in the areas that I’ve been able to have and there aren’t that many roles in life which give you the breadth of potential impact, if you like, or the long-term nature of that impact.
“That’s one of the challenges looking forward. I want the next 10 years really to be as impactful in my life as the last 10 have offered the opportunity for me to be.
“There obviously aren’t that many roles that provide that opportunity really but I guess you know mixing the work that I did before being in the Senedd and the work I’ve done as a minister there might be something in the future I’ve no idea.”
As for him, personally, there is a new job to find, and free time that he hasn’t had in quite some time. So, what’s first on his list when he’s handed in his pass and no longer has spreadsheets landing in his inbox about waiting times.
“The thing I think that I’ve tried to do for a long time which has definitely been a victim of the last 10 years, but to be honest, I was a victim of frankly all the jobs I did before that as well, so it’s really more about my personality and my failure to achieve a work-life balance for many decades probably, is learning Spanish.
“So I try and visit Spain whenever I can and I speak a bit of Spanish, but not well enough.
“So I’m hoping I’ll have the opportunity to go to Spain for a period to learn Spanish, which would be great.
“I think that would be a good way of having a break from my current world, but also would give me time to think about what’s next.”
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