Friday, April 1st, 2011

Journal Column – 30th March 2011

My work this week has centred on highlighting how Wales is treated by the Westminster government.  The Conservative and Lib Dem budget last week will do absolutely nothing to help protect the people of Carmarthenshire from the pending savage cuts.

The Secretary of State for Wales has said the Welsh Government should use the “extra” £65million it is so generously getting from Westminster to provide Enterprise Zones.  Senior economists have already blown that idea out of the water suggesting that isn’t necessarily the way Wales should go.  But the people of Wales will not forget how much Wales has lost already since the Tories and Lib Dems came in to office, nor the hundreds of millions we have lost since the creation of the Assembly.

The budget last week was an opportunity for the Conservative and Lib Dems to prove they actually do care about Wales.  Instead the Westminster government solidified their contempt for our communities.  We will continue to lose £300million a year through the unfair Barnett formula; we have lost £385million in our Year End Flexibility; the fuel duty stabiliser has now been revealed to have been smoke and mirrors for a whopping rise next year and our local authorities will continue to send enormous sums of money, already at a reported £1billion, back to the UK Treasury.  Whose side are those parties on?

Over the past 13 years with successive Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem governments, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened.  In 1997, 12% of the UK’s growth was generated in London and by 2007, that figure had climbed to 19%.  Labour gambled the country’s economy on the financial square mile of London whilst our communities continued to lose £300million a year.  The polarisation of the rich and poor will inevitably grow as the Westminster cuts start to bite.

This is my last column as an Assembly Member before the dissolution of the National Assembly on Friday.  I look forward to meeting up with you once again to present Plaid’s vision for a Better Wales.

News Releases