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The press release issued by Plaid Cymru on 5 October 2022.

“As a mark of respect to the campaigners, the First Minister should reflect on the choice of words he used yesterday” – Rhun ap Iorwerth MS
Rhun ap Iorwerth MS, Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson on health and care, has written to the First Minister asking him to withdraw comments which “misrepresent” a group campaigning for justice for families bereaved from COVID-19.

In Plenary, the First Minister indicated that the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group “are moving on” from wanting a Wales-specific independent inquiry into the pandemic, but the campaigners were quick to point out on Twitter that the First Minister had “lied”.

Rhun ap Iorwerth has written to Mark Drakeford asking him to withdraw his comments regarding the campaigners having “moved on”.

In his letter, Mr ap Iorwerth also points out that the campaigners feel that the First Minister suggested he wrote to the UK Covid Inquiry to support the group’s application for Core Participant status – a claim they refute by way of a letter they received from the First Minister that confirms he would not do so.

Mr ap Iorwerth has asked the First Minister to “reflect” on his contribution “by way of respect” to the campaigners who have “done an outstanding job gathering evidence in the hope of getting to the truth in relation to the response to the pandemic.”

Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for health and care, Rhun ap Iorwerth MS said,

“The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru group are rightly angry that they were misrepresented by the First Minister Mark Drakeford in Plenary yesterday.

“They have not ‘moved on’ and, like me, remain convinced that COVID-19 decisions taken in Wales should be scrutinised in Wales. While some decisions were made at UK level, much of the response to the pandemic here in Wales has been in the hands of the Welsh Government, and the only way to truly learn lessons of the pandemic would be to have our own Wales-specific public inquiry.

“There is also a suggestion that the First Minister had written to them earlier this year supporting their application for core participation status, which they have shown to be inaccurate. As a mark of respect to the campaigners, the First Minister should reflect on the choice of words he used yesterday.”

The press release issued by Plaid Cymru on 4 October 2022.

“Plaid Cymru saw this coming. Scottish Government have acted. Meanwhile Welsh Labour are dragging their heels. Wales needs a rent freeze and eviction ban now.” – Mabon ap Gwynfor MS

Plaid Cymru pressure has forced Welsh Government to look again at enacting a rent freeze and a moratorium on evictions.

Plaid Cymru’s housing spokesperson, Mabon ap Gwynfor MS, has accused the Welsh Government of “dragging their heels” over starting this “critical work”.

Last week in the Senedd committee for Local Government and Housing, Mr ap Gwynfor called again for a ban on all evictions and for all rents to be frozen until after winter, as has been announced in Scotland.

In response, the Minister responsible for housing, Julie James MS, confirmed she was looking at options and was “actively in contact” with the Scottish Government, however, had not yet reviewed their research.

The announcement from the Scottish Government to freeze rents and ban evictions came on 6 September, and the Scottish measures are expected to remain in place until the end of March 2023.

Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson on housing and planning Mabon ap Gwynfor MS said

“The Labour Welsh Government is fiddling while Wales freezes. There’s no sense of urgency, and in the meantime, the cold fingers of winter creep ever closer.

“That work should have been commissioned and completed as soon as possible, and yet we find out that the Welsh Government are still at the stage of gathering evidence.

“Plaid Cymru saw this coming down the tracks and have repeated our calls at every opportunity. Numerous anti-poverty campaigners and charities, including Shelter Cymru have been calling for this. Scottish Government clearly did their work. Meanwhile the Labour Welsh Government has been dragging its heels.

“Time is very short, and Welsh Government urgently need to set out their timetable for when action could be taken, because winter will be on us before we know it.”

 

The press release issued by Plaid Cymru on 30 September 2022.

New research published by Plaid Cymru and undertaken by a leading academic shows that an independent Wales’s fiscal gap would be a fraction of the figure previously reported.

Heralded as a “game changer” in the Welsh independence debate by Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price MS, the analysis conducted by Professor John Doyle of Dublin’s City University concludes that the fiscal gap in the early days of an independent Wales would be approximately £2.6bn – significantly lower than the frequently quoted figure of £13.5bn.

This is based on the 2019 estimate of total Welsh economic output at £77.5 billion and would be equivalent to just under 3.4% of GDP. This compares with an average fiscal deficit across all OECD countries of 3.2% in 2019.

As a result, the fiscal deficit that an independent Wales would face would be normal for comparable countries and in no way presents the major obstacle or impediment which others have sought to present.

This has major implications for the debate on the desirability, feasibility and timing of Welsh independence. Because of the assumed scale of the ‘fiscal gap’, incorrect as demonstrated by Professor Doyle’s paper, the assumption hitherto has been that Wales needs to become a stronger economy within the UK before independence can be considered as ‘realistic’.

The real question that needs to be posed is whether there is any realistic prospect of Wales significantly improving its economic performance inside the UK. Rather than something that has to wait until Wales is in a better position inside the UK – an unlikely prospect in light of the record of the past half century – Plaid Cymru believes independence is the necessary first step towards a stronger and fairer economy.

Professor Doyle, whose work has contributed towards Plaid Cymru’s submission to the Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, said:

“It is not for me as an Irish academic to advise the people of Wales on their future constitutional choices, but the figure of £13.5bn, frequently quoted as representing the UK government annual subvention to Wales, is a UK accounting exercise, and not a calculation of the fiscal gap that would exist in the early days of an independent Wales.

“The way in which the fiscal gap for Wales is calculated by the UK’s Office for National Statistics is sufficiently clear for a political analysis to determine which aspects of this subvention will be relevant for an independent Wales. My analysis has determined that the figure will be approximately £2.6bn, significantly lower that the figure of £13.4bn, frequently quoted in the media.”

Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price MS said,

“This research further debunks the argument that Wales is too small and too poor to thrive as an independent nation.

“Not only does Professor Doyle’s work further build the body of evidence that supports the case for an independent Wales, it is also a game-changer in the debate surrounding its viability.

“Time and again, we have heard wild estimates about the likely fiscal gap that would exist if we were to become independent that bear no relation to reality. This shows once and for all that “fantasy economics” are peddled by those against not for independence.”

“Independence will also present Wales with the opportunity to improve our economy through policies designed to create a more diversified economic base with more locally owned SMEs, improving productivity and innovation in the private and public sectors, maximising economic benefit through local procurement policies, and investing in the infrastructure of the future.”

Professor Doyle analysed the main components of the fiscal gap – including pensions, UK national debt repayments, and defence spending, together with under-estimates of Wales’s share of tax revenues – and finds that the elements of these that would likely transfer to an independent Wales would amount to approximately £2.6bn.

Professor Doyle concludes, “The economic impact of an independent Wales is therefore not hugely constrained by the existing fiscal situation.”

Professor Doyle added, “The classic cautious approach has been to argue that the Welsh economy, Welsh productivity, and Welsh incomes need to grow in order to close the fiscal gap and to make independence more ‘practical’.

“But this is a classic ‘chicken and egg’ argument. What if it is not possible to grow Welsh productivity and the economy without the policy levers available to an independent state?

“For 50 years Welsh GDP per capita, has remained relatively fixed at 75% of UK average GDP per capita, with little sign of the type of convergence seen in Europe between the income levels of EU member states.

“It would take a very radical policy change to make a credible argument that the next 20 years are likely to deliver a different outcome for Wales. It would certainly be worth exploring in some detail, what policy instruments were deployed by small EU member states who have been the beneficiaries of such convergence with wealthier economies.”

“The conclusion of my paper is that Wales’s fiscal gap is not sufficiently large to close off the possibility of a viable, independent Wales. The fiscal gap could be closed by relatively modest economic growth, together with a different tax policy. These are the areas where the public debate on the public finances of an independent Wales should focus.”

“Economic analysis needs to move on from a focus on the fiscal gap to an exploration of the reasons for that lower economic performance in Wales and the lack of convergence more generally between the different parts of the UK.

“Wales’s geographic position and the decimation of its traditional industries are often offered as explanations, but if geography is a determining factor, why is Wales’s performance, close to that of Northern Ireland rather than the performance of the Republic of Ireland – both more geographically peripheral than Wales?”