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.
The hundreds of trade unionists, party members & community groups attending the rallies in Swansea (Friday) & Cardiff (Saturday) showed the strength of feeling against the savage cuts proposed by the ConDem coaltion
ReplyDeleteLets be part of the fightback to expose the hyprocrisy of the Lib Dem's election promises over student fees, and vote them out of office in the Assmebly elections (May 2011) and Local Government Elections (May 2012)