Welsh Assembly Government response to ConDem spending review

Today’s announcement is a hammer blow for the people of Wales, the worst since devolution and the lowest settlement of all the Devolved Nations.

Our Budget next year will be almost £900m less than this year and comes on top of the savage Budget in June, representing the deepest public spending cuts since World War 2.

The Welsh Cabinet is meeting early tomorrow morning to discuss the impact of the settlement. The Assembly Government has always said that it will play its role in reducing the UK budget deficit.  But the cuts announced today are too fast and too deep.  They will endanger the fragile economic recovery and threaten devastating and long-term consequences for the most vulnerable people in our society. They will undoubtedly hit Wales harder than other parts of the UK because we are already underfunded, as recently demonstrated by the independent Holtham Commission.

The reductions for the Assembly Government’s Budget fully vindicate the prudent approach to planning assumptions we have adopted since the Spring. Although the cuts are towards the lower end of the possible outcomes for revenue expenditure, the capital cuts are as grim as predicted. Cabinet now has the opportunity to consider the implications for our Budget, which will be laid on 17 November.

These cuts come with no clarity over the decision to proceed with the electrification of the Swansea to London railway, the proposed closure of the passport office in Newport and the unprecedented £18bn cuts in welfare payments that will affect the most vulnerable people in our society.

Against this background, the Labour-led Welsh Assembly Government will continue to take a distinctive Welsh approach to safeguard essential services in Wales. We have a duty to promote fairness and equality in the way we allocate resources which will be best for the economy, as well as the social fabric of Wales. That is why we are committed to protecting investment in schools, skills and healthcare, and committed to maintaining universal entitlements – including the successful concessionary fares scheme, free prescriptions, free swimming and free breakfasts and milk for primary school children.