Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:48 pm on 10 January 2018.
Diolch, Llywydd. Happy new year, Cabinet Secretary. Over the Christmas recess, part of my bedtime reading was your economic action plan—[Interruption.] I did plenty of other exciting things as well. But what struck me was not what was in it, but what was not in it. So, I would like to touch on a few of those items today.
Now, earnings in Wales are the lowest in the whole of the UK. Gross weekly earnings for full-time employees in Wales stand at £498. That's 10 per cent lower than the UK as a whole. Now not only is Wales stuck at the bottom of the earnings pile, but the gap between Wales and other parts of the UK has significantly increased over the past two decades. So, 20 years ago, a Welsh and Scottish worker took home identical pay packets. Today, a Welsh pay packet contains £498 and a Scottish pay packet contains £547. So, a critical focus of any new action plan, in my view, should be about raising wages across Wales. So, can I ask: why doesn't the new economic strategy contain any targets for raising wages across Wales?