By Paul Dicken
The Welsh Assembly Government missed out on more than £700m in 2006/07 as a result of the Barnett Formula, Plaid Cymru’s economic adviser has told peers.
The Welsh Assembly Government missed out on more than £700m in 2006/07 as a result of the Barnett Formula, Plaid Cymru’s economic adviser has told peers.Eurfyl ap Gwilym was putting Plaid Cymru’s submission to the Lords select committee on the Barnett Formula. He said that if public expenditure in Wales had increased at the same rate as in England since 1999/2000, the devolved administration would have been in line for £778m extra in 2006/07.
Plaid, a partner in the Welsh coalition government, said the formula failed to account for the drastic fall in economic activity per head in Wales caused by industrial decline.
Ap Gwilym said the formula was a stopgap that had been allowed to continue. ‘This failure by Westminster has led to increased poverty and lack of resources for the people of Wales.’
He said that figures from the European Union statistics service, Eurostat, showed the UK was the most regionally unequal member state of the EU.
Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones said that when the formula was introduced in 1978, Wales had a successful economy based on the coal, steel, agriculture and slate industries. But in subsequent years, thousands of jobs were lost. ‘Despite all the efforts of the One Wales government, unless we receive a fair slice of UK funding then it is very difficult for the Welsh economy to close the gap with the rest of the UK.’
Plaid is also calling for the creation of an independent commission to allocate funding to the devolved administrations according to need, rather than seeking convergence in funding per capita across the UK.
