Westminster doesn’t care about Wales

I AM sick and tired of the manner in which the Conservative Party persists in feeding the Welsh public a totally false picture of Welsh public finances.

First it was Mr RT Davies in a Sunday paper talking about the “unprecedented support” of the UK Government, and now it’s Paul Davies in Thursday’s Western Mail claiming “financial support... on a scale not seen before”.

The pandemic virus Covid-19 has certainly required unprecedented attention, but there is nothing particularly special about the scale of Welsh funding. The £5bn to which Paul Davies refers is merely the guaranteed ‘consequential’ of extra English expenditure in government areas which match Welsh devolved responsibilities, in this case, health. Such ‘consequentials’, according to the Barnett formula, are calculated pro rata population. So, for future reference, ‘unprecedented’ just means a guaranteed 5% of whatever England plans to spend, a formula of which one hasn’t always been convinced that Westminster approves.

And matching England’s per capita is actually not enough to meet Wales’ needs. Paul Davies’ headline ‘Pandemic has exposed weaknesses in economy’ misses the point. We all already know the Welsh economy is not in good shape. The more important short-term issue is that Wales is likely to suffer more from the pandemic than the rest of the UK, and it is this that the UK Government appears not prepared to accept.

There already exist spending and borrowing limitations imposed on the Welsh Government which hinder economic growth, yet despite pressure from all political factions, including Mr RT Davies himself, Westminster refuses to loosen these restrictions to help Wales’ economic predicament.

Also, when Wales unilaterally decided to ‘lock down’, the UK Government claimed they were not able to meet the Welsh request to extend the job furlough scheme to cover the whole period of ‘lockdown’; that is until England decided to follow suit, at which

point the furlough scheme was immediately extended to next March. These actions demonstrate clearly how unimportant Wales is to Westminster.

And as for Paul Davies’ claim that the Welsh Government has continued to fail to use all of the fundings made available, according to the Wales Fiscal Unit, based at Cardiff University, the UK Government’s focus is always on restrictions employed in England irrespective of the devolved governments’ decision-making, and currently involves commitments to businesses which are open ended and dependent on future economic restrictions, making the eventual additional funding this will trigger for the Welsh Government as undefined and uncertain. The Welsh Government as a consequence is forced to hold monies in reserve.

So much for “unprecedented” Tory and UK Government support and Welsh Government inactivity. The actual experience of the pandemic is that our membership of the UK isn’t doing enough for our economy, and that Westminster doesn’t really care.

Peter Daniels Llantwit Major