Committee Chair calls on Welsh Government to put recession battle at heart of its budget

The Chair of the National Assembly for Wales’ Finance Committee has told AMs that the Welsh Government needs to change its budget priorities.

In today’s(Nov 17) Plenary debate on the Welsh Government’s draft budget the committee chair told the AMs that the Welsh Government has not made any significant change to its baseline budget in response to the recession.

She added that the proposals effectively ‘roll forward the spending patterns of the last couple of years’.

That she said has lead to efficiency drives across the board, including a disproportionate % within higher education, an area which the Finance Committee claimed needed more investment in order to transform Wales into a knowledge-based economy and drive the economy out if recession.

“The Committee does not have a view on the Government’s priorities,” said Mrs Burns.

“But given that Wales is trying to come out of a major recession and given the tight public expenditure restrictions ahead, the Finance Committee finds it difficult to understand how the same priorities will be deliverable by simply rolling forward the same patterns of expenditure.

“ The view of the Finance Committee is that unless a much greater priority is given to driving the economy forward out of the recession the Government will face serious difficulties in delivering these objectives.”