‘Abandon austerity and scrap pay cap’ – plea to Treasury
THE Finance Secretaries of Wales and Scotland yesterday joined forces to push the UK Government to scrap austerity and lift the public-sector pay cap ahead of next month’s Budget.
The Welsh Government’s Mark Drakeford also urged the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to back the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon and raised concerns about post-Brexit development funding for Wales.
He called for the UK Government to “do the right thing and lift the 1% pay cap for all public service workers and provide the devolved administrations with the funds to do likewise”.
Pushing for greater investment, he said that austerity was a “failed and flawed policy”.
Mr Drakeford is concerned about the possible impact of cuts that have yet to be allocated and fears the Welsh Budget could take a hit of up to £175m.
Newly released figures from the Office for National Statistics have highlighted low wages in Wales, showing the nation has the lowest median weekly earnings in the UK at just £498.40, compared with £692.50 in London.
WELSH and Scottish finance secretaries have joined forces to demand an end to the 1% public sector pay cap at a Treasury meeting ahead of the UK Government Budget.
They also want the UK Government to abandon its “austerity” policies, with Welsh Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford arguing that “now is the time to move on”.
Mr Drakeford and his Scottish counterpart met with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss in London.
He is adamant that the UK Government should fund a pay rise for workers and not expect the Welsh Government to find the extra funds.
He said: “Those who implemented the cap must be responsible for funding its removal... I urge the UK Government to do the right thing and lift the 1% pay cap for all public service workers and provide the devolved administrations with the funds to do likewise.”
The Cardiff West AM warned that if “they claim to have lifted it without providing the money that is needed to make that good, then that will be a fraud on the Welsh public”.
Scotland’s Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said: “We have committed to lifting the 1% pay cap and in the forthcoming Budget we will deliver a pay policy that is both affordable and acknowledges the real-life circumstances of our public servants. However, the UK Government Budget will be a key factor in determining the resource that the Scottish Government has available to invest in public services and public sector pay.”
The Welsh Finance Secretary also used the meeting to:
Push for the green light on the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon;
make the case for investment in rail infrastructure in Wales;
demand that post-Brexit Wales will still get development cash that would have previously come from the EU.
The UK Government has yet to respond to the independent review it commissioned into the Swansea lagoon, which in January gave a thumbs-up to the landmark tidal energy project.
Mr Drakeford said: “I called on the UK Government to make that move, to give the go-ahead to that very important new project.”
The UK Government has pledged to replace EU funding with a United Kingdom Shared Prosperity Fund, but the Finance Secretary wants clear guarantees.
He said: “[People] who voted to leave the European Union in Wales did so on the basis that Wales would not simply be no worse-off but would be better-off as a result. Wales benefits from European funding and I said to the Chief Secretary today, we need a guarantee that we will go on benefiting from that money into the future...
“We are best-placed to go on making a success of regional economic policy. We have the infrastructure on the ground to make that happen – the UK Government simply doesn’t...
“There is money that comes to Wales from Europe for regional economic development. That money needs to be put in our baseline, guaranteed into the future, so our partners can have the confidence they need to plan ahead, to invest ahead, and to go on making a success of regional economies across Wales.”
He was also emphatic that the Welsh Government has not dropped its goal of seeking the replacement of the Barnett Formula – which is used to allocate Treasury cash to the devolved administrations – with one based on need.
Calling on the UK Government to take a new approach to the economy, he said: “Austerity is a failed and flawed policy. It simply has not delivered for the UK economy and it has certainly not delivered for Wales or Scotland.”
He wants the Treasury to use this “period of historically low interest rates” to invest in the “conditions that will create a successful economy for the future”.
However, he did not strike an optimistic note, saying: “In general, I would say that there is very little sign that this Government is learning from the history of the recent past. It seems more or less wedded to the failed policies that it has used.”
Ahead of the meeting, he warned that the “threat of a further £3.5bn of unallocated cuts to public spending for 2019-20 continues to loom large”, adding this “could mean a further cut of up to £175m to the Welsh budget, depending on where these unallocated cuts fall”.