5. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Tourism

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:33 pm on 27 April 2022.

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Photo of Carolyn Thomas Carolyn Thomas Labour 3:33, 27 April 2022

Actually, I don't. It was the banking crisis at the time and the way that the finances had been handled across the world, and that's how it was dealt with. Austerity went on for far too long. We're not discussing austerity at the moment, but I did want to bring it in because it does impact on public services. I still have the scars of 14 years of being a councillor, 10 years of year upon year of cuts as restructuring had to take place in councils. We went down from six depots to one depot at Flintshire council where I was cabinet member, and we see now how posts have been deleted over the years. We've got vacancies we can't fill now, and services are stretched. These are the service areas that I mentioned, such as street cleaning, footpath officers, and toilets as well. Over the years, they've been offloaded onto town and community councils or closed, basically. But if we'd had the money in place, we could have kept them open. Another one I have to clarify quite often is that council tax covers 25 per cent to 30 per cent of delivery of these services. Very often, people say, 'What does my council tax go to? What do I pay council tax for?' The rest comes from Government and a small proportion comes from income charging. Thank you.