Plaid exposes ‘fallacy’ of post-Brexit regional aid
A PLAID Cymru researcher has exposed the fallacy that a decision to exclude impoverished Welsh communities from a list of areas prioritised for postBrexit regional aid was based on a fair assessment of their needs.
Math Wiliam, who works for Delyth Jewell, Plaid’s MS for South Wales East before the dissolution of the Senedd, found it impossible to believe that Caerphilly deserved to be left off a priority list of council areas that would benefit from the UK Government’s Community
Renewal Fund.
Last month we reported how Caerphilly and Bridgend had surprisingly been excluded from the list when Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s prosperous Richmondshire constituency had been included.
When challenged by opposition politicians, the UK Government maintained that decisions on which areas should go on the list had been worked out on the basis of a fair and transparent formula.
Mr Wiliam has spent time investigating how the complicated formula works. It’s based on five “metrics” – productivity, skills, unemployment rate, population density and household income.
He said: “I used productivity data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to calculate the productivity rates for each area included on the priority list.
“Caerphilly county comes under the region called Gwent Valleys, which also includes Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent.
If the Treasury has an alternative way of measuring productivity on a more localised basis, then they need to explain how they’ve managed to do this since the data doesn’t exist publicly.
“They measured skills by the rate of people with no qualifications in each area. These data are only collected on a national level. Again, if the Treasury has another means of measuring it, they should explain how they’ve done it. According to ONS the no qualifications rate in England is 8.2%. In Wales it’s 7.5%.
“Unemployment rates are collected on a constituency basis. The unemployment rate for Caerphilly was 4.5% according to the latest data, exactly the same as the UK average.
“Caerphilly is more densely populated than the UK average area, so this is the only metric which would count against it. Caerphilly’s population density is 727 people per square kilometre. The UK average is 275. Manchester, which is included on the priority list, is a thumping 4,735!
“Caerphilly’s average household income is £15,399 a year. The UK average is £21,109. Every single English region has a higher average household income too.”
Ms Jewell said: “The Tories’ decision to exclude Caerphilly from the Community Renewal Fund isn’t just a disgrace – it’s unjustifiable, particularly given their promise to replace every penny of EU funding Wales would lose due to Brexit, and the fact that there’s clear and incontrovertible evidence that Caerphilly should have been included as a priority area.
“Their method for choosing which areas to prioritise was based on a series of indicators with the main one of these being productivity. My team analysed the productivity data, as published by the Office of National Statistics, and found that 35 places included on the list were in areas with higher productivity than Caerphilly.
“Out of these 35, 22 contained constituencies with Tory MPs, 10 contained red wall seats they won in 2019, a further eight had Tory Ministers and least surprising of all, Hartlepool is included, where a by-election that the Tories hope to win is imminent.
“To put this into context, Hartlepool has a productivity rating of 96.5% of the UK average, whereas the Caerphilly area’s productivity rating is 83.9%.
“Given that the Tories refuse to publish their calculations for working out the priority areas to target this funding, the conclusion that many people will draw is that these decisions are made using political rather than mathematical calculations, hanging places like Caerphilly out to dry.”
A spokeswoman for the UK Government’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is responsible for the Community Renewal Fund, did not attempt to dispute Plaid Cymru’s calculations. Instead, she would only say: “Although open to all places, to ensure the UK Community Renewal Fund funding reaches the most in need, we have identified 100 priority places based on an index of economic resilience across Great Britain.
“We are committed to transparency and have published a methodological note explaining how the 100 priority places were determined.
“More information can be found in the Community Renewal Fund prospectus: https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/uk-community-renewal-fund-prospectus.”