6. 6. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Welsh Government Performance

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:17 pm on 15 March 2017.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 4:17, 15 March 2017

That doesn’t account for it, Mike. What I do know is that in the figures that were given to us at the start of devolution, that gap was £32. It’s now £607. That’s happened on your watch—the Labour Party’s watch—and this Government is not giving us any confidence that it is dealing with that particular issue. When you look at teacher numbers, a vital component of any successful education system, again, the evidence shows that there are less teachers in the classrooms in Wales, and there are over 3,500 teachers registered to be in the profession—[Interruption.] Fewer teachers. I will be corrected grammatically by my peers.

When it comes to the economy, when we look at the business rates fiasco: we were told in the Labour manifesto that there was going to be a new business rate regime brought forward that would unshackle businesses from the business rate revaluation that was coming around the corner. And what have we had? We’ve had business upon business lobbying Member upon Member to say that their livelihoods and their futures were being threatened. When you look at the general take-home pay conditions here in Wales, nearly £100 less a week is in the average pay packet in Wales, as opposed to other parts of the United Kingdom. We have the lowest take-home pay anywhere in the United Kingdom. How does that give us confidence that this Government is dealing with these deep-seated issues and deep-seated problems? And when we look at the way the infrastructure developments are processed via the Welsh Government, as we heard in the previous debate, it just seems that it’s pork barrel politics when it comes to the Llandeilo bypass, as part of a budget deal, when there’s a village just down the road from here, Dinas Powys, which is the largest village in Wales, and has been calling out for a bypass for the last 50 years, and doesn’t even get a look-in on having a bypass. [Interruption.] I’ll gladly take the intervention.