The upcoming UK budget should be a chance to change things, but all signs point to the contrary. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves seem determined to answer people’s anger and anguish with not compassion but cuts – and cuts in all the wrong places.

In the Senedd this week, I challenged the Deputy First Minister about UK Labour’s continuing policy to penalise families with the two child benefit cap.

The Welsh Government must demand that Westminster scrap this cruel policy, and do more to help families with the cost of living. What’s more, it should bring in a wealth tax to fund our struggling public services properly. Because those with the broadest shoulders - the millionaires and billionaires - should be paying their fair share.

The Westminster government should also take this opportunity to change the funding formula for our public services, because Wales loses out of vital funds because of the way we are funded through the Barnett formula: we are funded not based on need, but per-head population. It is a blunt, outdated instrument: even Lord Barnett himself has conceded as such.

And the Westminster government should use this moment to right the historic wrong of HS2, and give Wales the billions we’re owed from this scheme that’s been, disastrously, mis-branded as an “England and Wales” project.

All of these opportunities for change exist, and the UK Labour party has the ability to make each a reality. If they fail to do so, there will be a reckoning.

In the byelection last month, the people of Caerffili sent Westminster and the Welsh Government a message – we demand better. It is a feeling being felt across the communities I represent. It’s about time the governments listened to what we’re saying – and acted on it.