Kirsty Williams AM has written a piece for WalesHome on the implications of the spending review for Wales:
THE CSR settlement means that for the Welsh Government, revenue expenditure will be down by less than 2 per cent in real terms each year, less than the three per cent they were planning for. Overall, the budget will be reduced by 12% over 4 years; the Government were planning for 16.5% over 3 years. Despite the obvious glee with which ministers have been playing the victim card, Wales has a better settlement than the UK overall.
This week, we have seen crocodile tears from a Labour party that is in denial both about the mess they created and the measures needed to get us out of that mess. It is pretty clear that the Welsh Government had decided what its response would be before the announcement was even made. Now it needs to get on with making the best of it in the interests of the people of Wales.
The next five years will be tough, of that there is no doubt. But this is not the doomsday scenario that many were predicting. It is three years since Labour’s Finance Minister admitted that cuts would be coming. WAG’s own plans would suggest that they have considered more substantial cuts than they now find necessary.
The First Minister now needs to show some leadership and ensure that his Ministers concentrate on making the savings required, in a way that minimises the impact in Wales.
Kirsty goes on to push for more efficient spending and an end to gimmicks at election time – what she calls “happy meal politics”.
She also stresses the need for the Welsh government to show that devolution can work in advance of the referendum next year.
Read the full piece at WalesOnline.
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14 Comments
Kirsty, we here in Cerdigion are looking forward to the AV vote and WAG elections next year.
I was a supporter of Mark William’s our Lib Dem MP, thinking he was a good local MP who worked hard for his constituency. I told people to vote for him on those grounds, and judging the Lib Dem policies on so many things.
But now I am apologising to those people for that terribel advice I gave them.for
Many people are incensed that they voted Lib Dem here and massively increased Mark’s majority only to find almost whole hearted support for policies that will impact on the disabled and those needing housing benefit etc.
No to AV, keep FPTP to keep the Lib Dems as far from power as possible.
Vote anything but Lib Dem, that’s the poster I’ll have in window next May, not the vote Lib Dem one displayed this year.
Sorry, mangled spelling and punctuation.
Whenever I think of how ashamed I feel about asking people to vote Lib Dem, my typing goes awry.
“No to AV, keep FPTP to keep the Lib Dems as far from power as possible.”
Bizarre. Are you honestly telling me that people have listened to your reasoned advice in the past?
On the Spending Review- the extra cuts over and above Labour’s plans were predicted by the NIESR to lower growth and GDP and therefore tax revenues enough that we would be left with a structural deficit of 3.6% by 2014/15.
The OBR predicted Labour’s plans from Alistair Darling’s budget would leave a structural deficit of 2.8% by 2014/15. Your extra hurts are hurting deficit reduction, you deficit-deniars.
@mike you are so right. The more we borrow the more the deficit goes down.
Take it up with the OBR and the NIESR, I’ve used their figures. And from those figures, the impact on growth from the extra cuts will lower tax enough that it hurts rather than helps with reducing the deficit. The disabled are losing their mobility *despite* the deficit, not because of it!
Alex Salmond [where did you pick that name up from I wonder ?]
Criticising me won’t stop other people from voting No to AV.
They don’t want to have to wait another four years and a half years to express to Clegg and the other Lib Dem leaders what they think of them.
Mike [The Labour One]
Thanks for your post at 1.17pm
The last Lib/Tory coalition that tried to repay debt from WW1 quickly did so well didn’t they ?
Ended up in a worse position than they began with, and suffering for millions.
All totally unecessary, not an accident, but deliberate.
The Coalition may be lazy, unprinicipled but thay are not totally incompetent.
They now what the outcomes will be.
The question that will dog any remaining Lib Dem MPs after the next election is the same as that thrown at Labour and Tories who voted for the Iraq war ? Why on earth did you support wrecking the economy ?
We are not repaying the debt – we are merely reducing the rate at which the debt is increasing. We won’t be repaying the debt for a long, long time.
Yes, and it will continue to rise further under the government’s plans than under Labour’s. In reducing the deficit you need to look at two factors- income and spending. Slash spending too much and too quickly, growth falls, and tax revenues fall further than otherwise.
The analogy isn’t of the household that gets in debt and cuts back on luxuries until it’s repaid. The analogy is with the person who cuts his budget for bus fare to repay a bit of debt, finds he can’t get to work on time and loses his job and his income that would go to servicing the rest of the debt.
“@mike you are so right. The more we borrow the more the deficit goes down.”
For crying out loud, you don’t exactly have to be a genius to be able to understand that if the cuts depress the economy that tends to reduce tax revenue – and if that process goes too far the net effect is that you end up borrowing more, not less!
Funnily enough, this is exactly what Nick Clegg said that his eight-year-old ought to be able to work out during the election campaign …
Poppie’s mum:
You want the Lib Dem MP to lose a seat where he had a big majority (50% of the vote) under FPTP by voting in May to keep FPTP?
‘Anyone but LD’ gets you maybe Plaid, if there’s a huge swing (they got 28% in May) and it all goes to one party. I presume you don’t want the Tories. And Labour got a whopping 5.7%.
Poppie’s Mum:
Ha yes, he was on the tv when I needed to think of a name.
Not the real one… promise! 🙂
“Wales has a better settlement than the UK overall.”
That should save us a few seats in Wales….
… at the expense of several in England!