7. 7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Borrowing and the Economy

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:24 pm on 10 May 2017.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 5:24, 10 May 2017

Thank you. Well, if you weren’t aware that the Welsh Conservatives believe in strong and stable leadership before this debate, you are now, and our motion and the contributions made today, certainly from this side of the Chamber, have reiterated the need for that UK leadership to continue beyond 8 June. Now, of course, whilst there is a tangible threat posed to the UK’s economy and well-being by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Welsh Labour Government should be tarred with the same brush. You are probably the most sensible bit of the Labour Party left in the UK. That’s not the greatest of compliments, I know, but take it in the spirit that it’s meant. How ironic that it fell to the Cabinet Secretary for infrastructure, Ken Skates, to mount a defence of Jeremy Corbyn—not probably the most Corbynite Member of the front bench, but there we are. The irony wasn’t lost on me, Ken.

You can imagine our disappointment when the First Minister endorsed the proposal to borrow an extra £500 billion. To ratchet up by £500 billion the borrowing requirement that Britain currently has would be nothing short of outrageous. Mind you, you can see that the UK Labour Party may now feel that they have to adopt such outrageous fiscal policies to fund their growing list of unfunded spending commitments—a spending list that would risk sinking the economy, if implemented, into the coalition of chaos that we have spoken about so many times today. And, if that situation happened to the UK economy thanks to the UK Labour Party, it would be the Welsh Government here that would ultimately suffer, whatever political colour that is. Because, if you have an uncontrolled fiscal policy and an uncontrolled borrowing requirement going up over the years to come, then you would not have the money to spend, ultimately, because the money would not be generated across the UK level to come here to support you.