Plaid Cymru claimed Wales has been offered crumbs and told to be grateful, but a Labour backbencher accused the opposition of acting like petulant children.
Heledd Fychan led a debate on June 11 following chancellor Rachel Reeves’ announcement on the UK Government’s spending review, which sets department budgets.
Calling for fairer funding, Plaid Cymru’s shadow finance secretary warned that future governments in Wales will always be constrained by the whims of Westminster.
Ms Fychan said: “Wales continues to be shortchanged by Westminster and disproportionately affected by many of the decisions taken. How we are funded is fundamentally flawed and does not meet the needs of our population.”
She added: “I find it frankly insulting that we’re supposed to celebrate and be grateful for whatever funding is offered, even when it falls considerably short of what is owed.”
‘Where’s the rest?’’
“It’s like being owed money and being happy and grateful when you receive only 10% of that money due. You’d say ‘Thanks’, but you’d also question ‘Where’s the rest?’”
The Plaid Cymru politician called for an economic fairness bill to replace the “outdated” Barnett formula, the mechanism used to allocate additional funding to Wales.
She called for a wealth tax, greater powers to create new income tax bands – as in Scotland – and an increase to the Welsh Government’s borrowing powers.
Ms Fychan also urged the UK Government to end the “cruel” two-child benefit cap and plug a £72m gap in the Welsh budget from costs associated with national insurance.
She described an announcement of £445m over 10 years for rail as “nowhere near enough”, with Wales still £4.15bn “short” of the consequential funding due from the HS2 project.
‘Playing politics’
The Conservatives’ Peter Fox described the spending review as a missed opportunity, saying: “Today’s spending review is just more of the same from Labour: some catchy headlines but burying the real truth, which is that Labour does not care about Wales.”
Mr Fox welcomed additional funding for rail but cautioned it comes “nowhere near” the billions that Labour politicians were demanding while his party was in power.
“Now, they’re happy to settle for a fraction of what they wanted before,” he said. “Clearly, this is Labour simply playing politics again.”
Plaid Cymru’s Peredur Owen Griffiths pointed out that Wales has 11% of the UK’s rail track, and argued should be due £1.65bn from the £15bn announced for infrastructure in England. “Instead, we are getting just £445m over 10 years,” he said.
He told the Senedd: “Whether it’s Tories or Labour in Westminster, the results are the same: underinvestment in Welsh infrastructure.”
‘Moan, moan, moan’
Labour’s Joyce Watson was taken aback, saying: “I must be reading another script…. For the very first time, we’ve had a historic settlement into the Senedd. It is historic and it is the largest ever settlement for Wales. I want to welcome it.”
Ms Watson said the spending review provides nearly £5bn extra for Wales, with an average of £22.4bn a year allocated to the Welsh Government between 2026/27 and 2028/29.
She warned public services took an “absolute battering” when the Conservatives were in power, saying she had had enough of moaning from opposition benches.
Turning her ire towards the Plaid Cymru benches, she told the Senedd: “If I offered my children a few sweets and they didn’t feel it was enough, they might have a tantrum. It sounds a bit like that to me…. And that’s your attitude all the time: moan, moan, moan.”
Responding to the debate, Mark Drakeford welcomed the multi-year settlement as the “first time in many, many years, we now have budgets that allow us to plan for the future”.
‘Different world’
He said Wales will receive an extra £1.6bn in each of the next three years which is a “different world” to what the Senedd had to live in during 14 years of austerity.
The finance secretary clarified that £350m of the £445m for rail will come in the first three years, adding that £118m for coal tip safety would also be “over and above” the £1.6bn.
Prof Drakeford accused Plaid Cymru of “running down” the spending review before it was even announced – deciding whatever would be in it would not be enough.
He said: “For a government, for this Labour government, the chancellor’s statement today is about a future in which choices and not speeches must be made.”
Senedd members voted 35-11 against Plaid Cymru’s motion before Conservative and Labour amendments were also defeated.