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Public Expenditure

I belatedly welcome the Financial Secretary to the Welsh Grand Committee. We now understand the reasons for his lateness and wish his colleague a return to robust health and hope that he too is not finding it a little wearing. I thank the Financial Secretary for advance sight of the statement. He did not cover quite everything that was in it, however—particularly the reference, in the written version that I got, to the talks with the Royal Mail, which will possibly have been omitted quite purposefully since the announcement yesterday. The Olympics Minister has said that this is the worst recession that we have ever known. The Financial Secretary must know that in Wales we are seeing unemployment rising at a faster rate than in any other part of the UK. We have people losing their livelihoods across all industries and at all levels. This morning, the Minister was only willing to list, in a perfunctory fashion, the measures that his Government are taking—many of which are patently not working. He did not seem to address the reality of what is happening on the ground. Real people are losing real jobs, real houses and the security that they have built up over many years. I have some basic questions to put to the Minister. In Wales we are losing jobs from many major international companies. I want to know what the Government are doing to monitor international business confidence in Wales and to highlight Wales as a good destination for inward investment. Businesses in Wales are being refused credit. We have already heard that in questions today; it is quite obvious. I want to know why the Minister is not freeing up credit lines and adopting our national loan guarantee scheme, which will save jobs and address the heart of the credit crunch and which is now being widely welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses, the CBI and many other institutions. We are now losing highly skilled jobs in Wales, jobs for which people will not be able to find a replacement and from which they will find it difficult to retrain. What is the Minister doing to ensure that we keep our skills base in Wales and that our universities and our supply chains do not suffer disproportionately in this downturn? The unemployment figures published today will make grim reading. I want to know what the Minister will be doing to give employers the tax incentive that we have suggested to reward them for hiring the economically inactive, because we have large numbers of economically inactive people in Wales. With over 190,000 small businesses, what consideration has he given to cutting payroll taxes for small companies with fewer than five employees? There is no evidence that the cut in VAT has worked at all but those who have been spending, as now encouraged by the Government, are facing heavy credit card bills. What is the Minister doing to help people facing credit card debt, where people are being ripped off by huge store credit card interest rates? The cold weather approaches. What is he doing to stop the unfair price premiums on prepayment meters, which cause misery for the poorest households? We are the poorest country in the United Kingdom, and the Minister must know that Welsh families are disproportionately affected by those prepayment meter premiums. The Minister said that he had allowed the Welsh Assembly Government the option to bring forward £140 million of capital spending. Will he confirm that that has been or will be taken up by the Welsh Assembly Government and that it has to be deducted from future spending? Will he also confirm that he is still looking for a 5 per cent. cut in public expenditure through efficiency savings? Will he now tell the Committee—[Interruption.] I am just stopping as the Secretary of State is obviously giving some information. Will the Minister tell the Committee how much the Treasury is expecting the Welsh Assembly Government to find in efficiency savings and where those efficiencies will be found? It will not have escaped his attention that the First Minister in Northern Ireland has been calling in the Northern Ireland Assembly for a cut in public sector and civil service jobs and has estimated that he has to save £100 million on the 5 per cent. savings. How much do the Welsh Assembly Government have to find and where will it come from? I have heard the Financial Secretary’s statement today and am grateful to him for coming here. I hope he realises how serious the conditions are for the Welsh economy and that he will give straightforward answers to some of the straightforward questions I have posed.