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Welsh Affairs

I think that bankers have made themselves even more unpopular than politicians in recent times, and that is saying something. I do not like that level of bonuses. The chief executive of RBS has said that he is not taking a bonus. Obviously, the high bonuses for high earners have been restricted in all sorts of ways as a result of Government intervention, but the banks need to explain to the public, whose money has bailed them out, how they can possibly justify those very large bonuses. They need to give those explanations to the citizens of—in this case—Wales. On the banks, how can anyone take the Tories seriously when they say that they will cut the deficit further and faster, now that they are planning practically to give away bank shares? Their deficit reduction plan is a total farce. As for shares in the banks, the public rightly demand that we should focus on getting back their money—the £70 billion that was handed to the banks by the Government. We were right to bail the banks out because we had to save the banking system so that the recession did not become a prolonged depression. However, it should be obvious to everybody that any responsible Government who are really committed to cutting the deficit and getting those billions of pounds of public money back must not discount those shares but sell them at a time and in a way that will maximise their value to the taxpayer. The Conservatives have merely offered the people of Wales and the United Kingdom an irresponsible and costly political gimmick. By contrast, we have supported businesses and our intervention has avoided unemployment rising as high as many predicted it would. Unemployment in Wales has fallen slightly in the past two months, but we cannot be complacent; unemployment may rise again and every job loss is devastating for those concerned. We know that young people across Wales have been hit particularly hard by the recession but we will not condemn a generation to unemployment like that in the 1980s and 1990s. To prevent another generation from being lost to work we have extended the young person's guarantee so that young people receive training and support after six, rather than 12, months, to ensure they have the necessary skills for permanent worthwhile employment. That said, youth unemployment in Wales is still a quarter lower than it was at the height of the early '90s, and long-term youth unemployment is nearly two thirds lower. Alongside those measures, we are looking to the future. We are not cutting back, but are investing to promote growth in the new industries of the digital, low-carbon economy that my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) mentioned earlier. We have used the strategic investment fund in Wales to invest in a £44 million high-performance computing institute—a world-class facility to build a world-class Wales. By giving companies in Wales improved access to the latest IT and training, we can ensure that Welsh businesses are able to compete on a global stage alongside other world-leading innovators. Faster growth means more people going back to work, thus cutting the costs of unemployment and cutting the deficit. If we had walked by on the other side, believing that unemployment was a price worth paying, then the deficit would be even greater and unemployment rates even higher. That is the reality of a Tory recession. We saw it in the 1980s and '90s: will they never learn? I say it again: Welsh citizens need a Government who are on their side, not a Government who leave them on their own. That is why we celebrate—