7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Regional Economic Inequality

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:26 pm on 6 February 2019.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 5:26, 6 February 2019

Well, Neil Hamilton is calling for us all to be more cheerful and we've got to that point of the evening when Mike Hedges is being urged to create a new political party. So, I think it's clearly time we all packed our bags and wound up this debate, which I will allow—[Interruption.]—which I will allow my colleague to do after the Minister has spoken.

Look, I think, as Mohammed Asghar said towards the start of this debate, 2019 marks 20 years of devolution, and we remember some of the great promises that were offered to us back at the dawn of that process. One of the key promises, of course, was that the Welsh Government would have control of its economic levers and would be able to boost the economy. Well, to be fair to that early Welsh Assembly, the powers were limited. We now stand at a crossroads with the devolution of tax powers and more tools in the toolbox—I remember that expression that we've heard so many times—and we've been through many referenda to enhance powers.

As Russ George said in opening this debate, we need to boost the economic fortune of Wales's poorest areas—that's what this debate is about. And there is no quick fix. There is no place for platitudes and pretending that any single party here has all the answers and by simply changing policies overnight then you would suddenly get to a magical never-never land that doesn't exist. The only way to resolve this situation is through supporting small and medium-sized enterprises and also developing our transport network, and, indeed, our networks, not just transport but also broadband, which I don't think has been mentioned today, and making sure that our digital infrastructure—sorry, Mike, you mentioned it; one of your manifesto policies, obviously, for the new party—developing our transport network and our broadband infrastructure in both urban and rural areas. Because, yes, there is a lack of parity between urban and rural areas of Wales, and, yes, the north and the south and the east and the west, but that cannot be solved by one quick fix.

New tax powers must be part of the solution, increasing the accountability of this place on the one hand, accessing new borrowing powers to invest in infrastructure—and, of course, developing a competitive and sustainable tax base that encourages wealth generation is key, because, without developing that wealth generation, you do not have the wealth to divide up; you do not have the wealth to tax and to spend on all-important public services. And I welcome the Finance Minister's renewed commitment to keeping income tax on a par with English levels, at least until the next Assembly election. As the First Minister said towards the end of his tenure as Finance Minister: if you raise the basic rate of income tax, you take away money from people who can least afford it in challenging times. And we know there currently aren't enough higher-rate taxpayers in Wales—a far lower proportion here than in England—for those to be taxed in any way like they would need to be to raise the sort of money that we would need to without really increasing economic growth. So, we need to grow the tax base.

The Cardiff city region has been mentioned, and, indeed, the Swansea region, and I really take Mike Hedges's point: the city regions are all well and good, but we've got to look at the companies within those city regions, and it's no good having lots of small and medium-sized enterprises of the type we all want to encourage if we then have a break between those companies going on to be really big players on the European and, indeed, the international stage.

So, there are all sorts of things that need to be looked at here, and as I say, I don't think that there is any single policy that will alleviate this. It falls to Ken Skates, the economy Minister, to be responding to this debate, but, actually, I think it's pretty much covered every portfolio and every ministerial department in some way or another—it's one of those debates. But, one thing is clear: we need the next 20 years of devolution to deliver on economic growth and growing prosperity in the way that the last 20 years, quite simply, didn't.

I think we do stand at a crossroads on devolution where the times when we can turn around and say, 'This place doesn't have the powers to achieve that', are soon going to be behind us, and it will fall to the people in this Chamber to make sure that we do deliver that sort of improvement in the Welsh economy that we all want to see. You don't have to give me a membership form for a new party quite yet, Mike Hedges, but I, for one, am very happy to work with yourself and any Member of this Chamber who wants to move Wales forward now and in the future.