7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Regional Economic Inequality

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:11 pm on 6 February 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 5:11, 6 February 2019

In point 1 of our motion, we speak about increasing inequality as evidenced by GVA, then in point 4(b) we speak about our objective to grow wages and to grow prosperity across Wales. I'd just like to emphasise that there is a difference between GVA and wages and prosperity, because GVA looks at production in a particular area. As I think Mike mentioned, a lot of people commute into Cardiff from outside, and the value of what they produce is captured within the Cardiff GVA, rather than, say, the west Wales and the Valleys GVA, for some of those Valleys commuters. And I think this is something we need to work with, rather than something we can sensibly resist. Mike was also right in saying that various industries—and he gave ICT as a well-paying one—tend to cluster together, and that trend has become greater over at least the last 20 years, and we have seen greater benefits to agglomeration. We need to work with the grain of that, rather than set our face against it, if we are to promote wages and prosperity of those that we represent.