7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Regional Economic Inequality

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:16 pm on 6 February 2019.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 5:16, 6 February 2019

We've just had two very interesting speeches from Mark Reckless and Mike Hedges, all of which I agree with. I often think, if Mike Hedges were the leader of a political party, I might be tempted to join it, because I often agree with a lot of what he says in the Chamber. I hope that doesn't do fatal damage to your career. But I think he made some very positive, practical points.

It's too easy to talk about how Wales is at the bottom of the league of so many of the economic tables and how it's gone backwards in the last 20 years, and how there is an enormous disparity of income between, for example, west Wales and Cardiff and we need to plug the gap. But the reality is that what Wales needs to do is to raise the level of wealth creation in the economy and therefore to raise income levels more generally. [Interruption.] Sorry, I didn't—. I'm sorry.

So, this is something that has spectacularly failed to happen over the last 20 years. Now, I'm not going to heap all the blame on the Welsh Labour Government because, obviously, it doesn't have all the levers of economic power in its armoury. Unlike the Irish Republic, for example, it can't reduce corporation tax, or change the structure of the tax to favour certain growth industries of the future. And I've actually, over the years, become more positive towards devolution than I was 20 years ago, not just because I've got elected to this place, but because, if devolution were used in an imaginative way, and even extended in certain respects, then I can see that we could change the overall economic background in terms of taxation and regulation to give ourselves a relative advantage—[Interruption.]—compared with our neighbours. Yes, sure.