Treasury Spending: Grants to Devolved Institutions — House of Commons, 2018-07-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
David Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru, Centre-left to left): I cannot promise to be equally brief, but I will endeavour to stick to the six-minute limit. It is a pleasure to speak about bread and butter issues—the Barnett formula, Barnett consequentials, Welsh funding—considering that we seem to have been talking entirely about Brexit for the past two or three years. The Welsh Government total departmental expenditure limit budget sought for 2018-19 is £15.827 billion, a reduction of 3.3% in both resource and capital budgets compared with last year’s final budget. I understand that this reduction has primarily arisen because last year’s revised budget included £300 million of additional funds for student loan impairments, and £278 million carried over from the previous year, neither of which has been repeated. It is also down £269 million because of the block grant adjustments arising from the devolution of stamp duty and landfill tax I acknowledge the fact that some significant adjustments have been made, but compared with the original spending review settlement plans for 2018-19, which include £18 million extra for the Cardiff and Swansea city deals, I would argue that the estimates in front of us are symptomatic of a negligent Westminster Government, with a comatose Secretary of State for Wales. Where is the money for the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman)? Where is the money for rail electrification? Rail experts calculate that it would now cost only £150 million to electrify the line between Swansea and Cardiff, Wales’s two largest cities, in a stand-alone project. This compares with a cost of £400 million per mile for HS2, so the whole project in south Wales could be delivered for less than the cost of a third of a mile of HS2 When it comes to the Swansea Bay city deal, 90% of the money is Welsh public and private money, yet the British Government are propagandising in the west of my country about how they are about to spend £1 billion in our communities. As it happens, that project is being delivered by Plaid Cymru-led Carmarthenshire County Council, definitely not by the British Government. The excuses given by the Secretary of State for Wales when delivering the bad news centre on the projects not being good value for money for the taxpayer. It is very disappointing that the Secretary of State believes that, and some might really question whether the £4.6 million investment for the Wales Office, which is included in the estimates, is value for money There is an adjustment of £16 million because of the 5% uplift on the Barnett consequential in the Welsh fiscal framework. For the first time—this is to be welcomed—a needs-based factor has been added to the calculation in these estimates with the aim of ensuring that Welsh funding converges to a level based on the needs of our country. However, we are still left languishing compared with Scotland and Northern Ireland. Welsh public funding per head will be about £10,076, but in Scotland the figure is £10,651 and in Northern Ireland it is £11,042, which is before we start talking about the £1 billion bung for Northern Ireland. Welsh funding per head also languishes behind that for London, where the figure is £10,192. Wales is certainly getting the bad end of the stick. As David Phillips of the Institute for Fiscal Studies argues: "Although the inclusion of a need-based element in the Barnett formula is to be welcomed, the agreement makes no provision for updating the assessment of relative need in future. Even at the point of introduction the calculation will be based on an already decade old assessment. This could become a source of tension, if it emerges Wales’ relative need is changing, and the agreement is therefore unlikely to end debate around Wales’ fiscal framework." Following the devolution of stamp duty and landfill tax this year and the partial devolution of income tax in April 2019, the Welsh Government and our local authorities—through business rates and domestic rates—will control nearly £5 billion of tax revenues, which equates to about 30% of the combined spending of the Welsh Government and local authorities. However, this is far less than the fiscal power available to Scotland and Northern Ireland. While the Welsh budget will be largely protected from UK-wide economic shocks, by means of the block grant adjustment mechanism agreed in the new fiscal framework, devolved revenues will need to keep pace with comparable revenues in the rest of the UK to avoid a shortfall in the Welsh budget. As Guto Ifan recently wrote in relation to his report for the Wales Governance Centre: "Increased transparency and budgetary information on the underlying block grant, devolved revenues and the adjustments made for tax devolution will be crucial in boosting fiscal accountability and aiding understanding of annual changes to the budget." I welcome the fact that we have got to the point where the Welsh Government now have to raise their own revenue to spend on public services; that will incentivise them to consider programmes that develop the Welsh economy—at the moment, of course, they are merely a spending body However, if the formula is to be based on population growth, there is going to be an issue. Even if we turned around the Welsh economy so that it was performing better than the UK economy, which should result in better revenues, there might be no net benefit because our population would be likely to lag behind. That cannot be right: we cannot be running a population-based revenue-related risk. We must look at that again, and I would be grateful if the Treasury agreed. This comes back to the argument made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North: in the post-Brexit environment, if the formula is to decide the funding available to our respective nations, devolved power over immigration will be important for Wales and Scotland The lack of transparency and accountability in Welsh funding could be a problem in the long term. The promised boost in funding to NHS England is a case in point. The British Government have set out their estimated Barnett consequentials for the Welsh Government as a result of the extra £20 billion per annum for NHS England by 2023-24. However, those are yet to be finalised and we are none the wiser as to exactly how the uplift will be funded in England by increases in tax—and how that will impact on Wales, once income tax is devolved in April 2019. I hope those on the Treasury Bench will explain exactly how that is going to work Although partly devolving income tax is an important step towards fiscal accountability and responsibility, Plaid Cymru has always advocated for the full powers over income tax that are being made available to Scotland—especially the power to set our own bands. Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, there will be no legal or legislative barriers to the Westminster Government’s devolving taxation powers that would allow each nation of the British state to have the fiscal arrangements that suited its needs—not those of domineering London and the south-east of England We need to consider devolving three key taxes following Brexit: VAT, corporation tax and air passenger duty. VAT is particularly important to the Welsh economy. Welsh VAT revenues have been far more resilient than any other major taxes, with about £5.2 billion raised in 2014-15. VAT has become the largest fiscal source of revenue in Wales and performed far higher than the UK average; in contrast, income tax remains the dominant tax in the rest of the UK. VAT would be a very good tax to devolve to Wales.