Gross Domestic Product: Wales and the UK

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I reassure the noble Lord that levelling up is not viewed through the prism that he says it is. When it comes to the looking at the needs in Wales and the funding to be matched to them, that is what we do through the Welsh fiscal framework. In the 2021 spending review, the largest annual block grant in real terms was assigned to Wales since the devolution Acts were passed.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, for around 20 years, west Wales and the valleys qualified for EU Objective 1 funding, precisely because our GDP was among the lowest in the EU. With the figures for Wales published in May showing a decrease of 2.1% in GDP over the longer term in Wales, compared with the figures for the rest of the UK showing an increase of 2%, are we in Wales, in the Minister’s opinion, facing a short-term blip, or are we heading for a gradual return to our pre-Objective 1 status, as a result of the loss of EU funding?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The statistics that the noble Baroness refers to are more experimental than the ones that I used in my Answer, but they are being refined all the time and they can be subject to greater volatility due to the smaller size that they represent. However, the Government are delivering on their commitment to replace European funding in Wales. As I set out in my earlier Answer, that is just one of the UK Government’s investments in Wales that recognise its great potential to grow even further.

Devolved Budget for Wales: Inflation

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right about the importance of reducing inflation. That is why it is so important that the measures we have taken in the Autumn Statement and today’s Budget mean that, when we get to the end of this year, inflation is more than halved, meeting one of the Prime Minister’s five pledges to the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, last month the British Dental Association warned that NHS dentistry in Wales could disappear. In Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan alone, around 15,000 people are on two-year waiting lists, more than 8,000 of whom are children. Given the financial constraints already referred to and the imposition by the UK Government of a 3.5% cap on the dentists’ remuneration body—leading to 13% saying that they would hand back their contracts this year—how can the Welsh Government run an efficient and viable service?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that is a question for the Welsh Government, as it is a devolved area. On funding, I just go back to the point that the Welsh Government have had a record settlement. At the Autumn Statement we put increased money into the NHS and social care, which of course would have flowed through to Wales as a result of the Barnett consequentials. What the Welsh Government choose to do with that money is a matter for the Welsh Government.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, in my short contribution to this debate on the gracious Speech, I intend to make a few comments on the Wales Bill and some matters relating to Wales. The Wales Bill, which has completed its passage through the other place, will give the National Assembly some powers over taxation, establish a five-year term for Welsh Assembly Governments, allow for dual candidacy in future elections and put an end to double jobbing where successful parliamentary candidates continue to hold on to their Assembly seats. I look forward to the debates on those issues.

It is now 15 years since the National Assembly for Wales came into being and the end of May marked the 15th anniversary of the Queen opening our Assembly. The Minister—my noble friend Lady Randerson—and I share a birthday with the official opening of the Assembly, and I remember very well the birthday celebrations over breakfast that day. We were not, of course, celebrating only the opening of the Assembly; we were celebrating the fact that the National Assembly had actually come into existence and we were among its first members. For those of us who in the 1980s and 1990s were committed to devolution, it was the dream becoming a reality. Liberals and Liberal Democrats have long believed in home rule, and it is ironic that this long-standing Liberal policy was enacted by a Labour Government but, I would argue, it was delivered by a coalition of parties for the yes campaign in Wales. The abiding, iconic image of the devolution quest for most Welsh people is not the image of Her Majesty opening the National Assembly, although that is valued and admired; it is, rather, an image from two years earlier of the Welsh party leaders, including the late Lord Livsey and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who were part of the yes campaign, with arms aloft in celebration after Ron Davies’s simple, historic words, “Good morning—and it is a very good morning in Wales”. Those of us who stayed awake the previous night through the tension of the referendum count, who bemoaned the losses and cheered the gains, will never forget the sheer joy of the last result from Carmarthenshire: the referendum had been won.

Now, 15 years later, this week has seen the BBC in Wales mark the 15th anniversary of the opening of the Assembly with a series of programmes looking at a different aspect of devolution each day. The inevitable question put to all Welsh politicians is, “Have your dreams for the Assembly been realised?”. To answer that question one has to begin by being charitable. The National Assembly for Wales is only 15 years old; in terms of the age of other democratic institutions all over the world, it is a mere child. The reserved powers model granted to Scotland was not granted to Wales. The Assembly was given an arbitrary number of members—60 members is fewer members than in a great many unitary authorities in Wales and presents problems in terms of scrutiny of measures emanating from its current powers. Estimates suggest that the application of the Barnett formula has deprived Wales of £300 million every year.

Devolution has certainly given the Welsh Assembly Government the freedom to make their own decisions and to do things differently, but herein lies the challenge. The challenge is to follow a different path but to be as successful as, or even better than, one’s neighbours. Doing things differently means that the Welsh Government’s record in key areas is disappointing. On the economy, Wales continues to lag behind, with the lowest GDP per head in the UK, at 74% of the UK average, down from 84% in 2007. In education, where we compete not only against our neighbours but against the world, Wales has slipped down the PISA rankings. Wales’s NHS continues to miss its own targets on waiting times.

My response to the BBC’s question has been that the dream has been tempered significantly by reality, but that new reality fires a new ambition to ensure more effective government for the people of Wales.

Economy: Inflation

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

The noble Lord is not alone in hearing that the economy is improving: the economy is indeed improving. The British Chambers of Commerce increased their growth forecast to 2.8% only yesterday; the growth in permanent jobs, according to KPMG, was last month at its second highest since records began. As far as VAT is concerned, the noble Lord is asking the Government to spend somewhere in the region of £12 billion to £14 billion extra. We have not eliminated the budget deficit: the only reason we have what now looks like sustainable growth is that we have a credible path for the public finances and interest rates and we are not going to throw that away.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, the items which undoubtedly have the greatest and most disproportionate impact on the household budgets of those on low incomes are energy bills. Will my noble friend give some indication as to what action the Government can take to reduce these bills for low-income households?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, as my noble friend is aware, we took action in the autumn to reduce household energy bills. In the longer term, the key aim is to ensure that we have sustainable energy supplies; the Government’s energy policies are designed to do just that.