Speaking in today’s Welsh Conservatives Debate on Economic policy, North Wales MS Mark Isherwood said “a quarter of a Century of Labour Welsh Government has left our economy underperforming and the people of Wales losing out as a result”.
He referred to the fact that Wales has the lowest employment rate, lowest pay packets, lowest total GDP output per head and highest economic inactivity rates in the UK.
He said:
“Devolution was supposed to reinvigorate the economy and liberate the life chances of people in Wales.
“However, although Wales can be an agile Nation with a thriving, high wage economy, its entrepreneurial spirit has been kept on the leash and this has sadly not been the case.
“A Quarter of a Century of Labour Welsh Government has left our economy underperforming and the people of Wales losing out as a result.
“Rather than succumbing to the siren calls from Labour and Plaid Cymru to take actions which would have boosted inflation and generated bigger future cuts, making everyone worse off, the UK Conservative Government has taken the action necessary to cut inflation from over 11% to near 2% , above the interest rates independently set by the Bank of England,, with real wages growing for the 11th month in a row, nearly 4 million more people in work and youth unemployment down 370,000 since 2010, and economic inactivity lower than at any point under the last UK Labour Government.
“However, the dead weight of Labour Welsh Government has left Wales with the lowest employment rate, lowest pay packets, lowest total GDP output per head and highest economic inactivity rates in the UK.
“This, despite Labour Welsh Government having received Billions in temporary funding intended to close the prosperity gap both within Wales and between Wales and the rest of the UK.”
Mr Isherwood highlighted that Wales has received over £2.5bn of UK Government Levelling-up funding via a number of different schemes aimed at spreading prosperity and giving communities more of a say in how the money is spent.
He also referred to the £2 billion UK Government investment for Network Rail and £340 million for enhancements in Welsh rail from 2019 to 2024; Network Rail’s £5.2bn, five-year plan for the railway in Wales and Western, that sees £1.9bn investment in the Wales and Borders route; and the UK Government’s plans for rail upgrades in Wales, including £1 billion into electrification of the North Wales Main Line, and £700,000 for Transport for Wales to explore upgrades to Shotton and Chester Stations and increase North Wales Main Line capacity.
He added:
“In order to deflect attention from their own gross failings, they present austerity as a policy chosen by the UK Conservative Government, Although Blair and Brown were the Architects of Austerity.
“By 2010, the UK budget deficit was the worst in the G20, behind only Ireland and Greece in the EU.
“If you have a big deficit, someone owns you and sets the terms – and would have imposed greater cuts if we had followed the economic policies advocated by Labour and Plaid Cymru, as happened in Ireland and Greece - and as happened when the UK Labour Government was forced to borrow from the IMF in 1976. I’m old enough to remember that; my Father lost his job a couple of years later.
“They seek to deflect blame on to Liz Truss’s temporary tenure, dodging the reality that the pound, the cost of borrowing and markets rebounded as soon as Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt restored stability.
“And only a very Silly-Billy would claim that the current cost-of-living crisis was made in Westminster, as they do, when 33 European Countries, the Euro Area and 17 G20 Countries currently have higher inflation rates than the UK, in consequence of the global cost-of-living crisis.
“There is hope for the future, provided a UK Labour Government is not elected to wreck the economy once again.”