House of Commons Library analysis debunks Labour’s £11,000 Welsh independence claim
House of Commons Library analysis debunks Labour’s £11,000 Welsh independence claim
Jo Stevens caught ‘peddling dodgy numbers to distract from her own failures’ – Liz Saville Roberts MP
Independent House of Commons Library analysis obtained by Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts MP has exposed the Secretary of State for Wales’s claim that Welsh independence would cost “£21 billion a year”, or £11,000 a year in tax rises for the average working age taxpayer as incorrect.
The Secretary of State claimed during Labour Party conference that Plaid Cymru’s vision for an independent Wales “would cost Wales over £21 billion each and every year just to maintain the same level of services we have today – that’s more than £11,000 for every working-age adult in tax rises and austerity cuts every single year.”
Labour refused to share its analysis in full with the BBC during the conference. However, a new House of Commons Library analysis, commissioned by Liz Saville Roberts MP, confirms there is no data source to support the claim that this represents “the cost of independence”.
Asked by Liz Saville Roberts MP whether the Secretary of State’s figures show what Wales’s public finances would look like in year one fo independence, the House of Commons Library service says:
“While estimates of Wales’s fiscal deficit within the current constitutional settlement offer a starting point for discussing the challenges for an independent Wales’s public finances, they don’t show what the situation would be in year one of an independent Wales.”
The independent analysis concludes clearly that the ONS data on which Jo Stevens’ claim is based is rather a “backward-looking estimate of Wales’s fiscal deficit within the UK”.
It adds that “the public finances of an independent Wales on day one would differ from those outlined in the ONS’s data, due to the policy positions of an independent Welsh Government and the terms of any UK-Wales separation treaty."
The analysis also concludes that Ms Stevens’ claims ignore the fact that “an independent government would be able to borrow to fund a deficit”, as is the case for all sovereign countries.
Liz Saville Roberts MP said:
“The Secretary of State has been caught red-handed peddling dodgy numbers in a panic to distract from her own failures.
“Independent House of Commons Library analysis has exposed her lazy attack for what it is - a distortion of official statistics, not a serious assessment of Wales’s future.
“The House of Commons Library has now confirmed that this so-called ‘£21 billion cost’ is nothing more than a misuse of ONS data. The figures describe Wales’s fiscal position within the current UK system, not what our finances would look like after independence.
“Wales’s fiscal deficit is the direct result of Labour and Tory policies that have held back our economy for decades. Jo Stevens is only exposing her own party’s failure to grow the Welsh economy within the UK – it says nothing about what an independent Wales could achieve.
“While Labour is mudslinging out of desperation, Plaid Cymru is busy working on bold policies to improve people’s living standards as we approach the crucial Senedd election in May.”