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Opportunities for the Next Generation

The average spend in Wales is less, but the reality is that the Welsh Government have given an undertaking to increase that spend year on year. In fact, because the Government are cutting local authority funding by 7% a year for four years, there will be less money for education in England. What there is will be funnelled into middle-class free schools, to the cost of poorer communities. Wales will put a cap on health spending, and more money will go into education. It will have a comprehensive system in which there is more money, instead of cuts, and a system in which people are enabled to go to university. That is investing in the skills of the future. As I have mentioned, UK Trade & Investment has historically been very effective in promoting inward investment and trade in Britain, but crucially, that relied on regional development agencies, which have been abolished. When I spoke to UKTI in Brussels, Belgium, and in Düsseldorf, the same message came back: German companies would come back with a computer platform, saying, ““We want to put a factory somewhere.”” Where are the RDAs to draw that down? They have been abolished. Well done, the Tories and the Liberals. On infrastructure and construction, the Government have abolished the scheme to renew schools, which basically means that construction workers are being laid off. As for future markets, we have to look at companies such as Tata Steel near Swansea, and Airbus in north Wales. Those big consumers of energy are being penalised by the Government and their unilateral carbon pricing. The Government forget that we operate in a European market, and do not understand how the markets work at all. Those companies are part of the solution. Tata Steel has a new generation of steel, with seven layers, that generates its own heat and energy; that reduces the carbon footprint by cladding a building. Airbus has a new generation of planes that use 30% less energy. That is part of the solution, and we should be supporting, not penalising, those big employers and companies. Let me talk about Swansea. I am proud that people in companies such as Amazon are flying the flag and saying, ““Come to Swansea.”” We are in the premier league, so we are a global brand. What is stopping us are the Government, who are cutting the coastguard, which undermines confidence in tourism and investment in wind farms offshore, and are stopping the electrification of the railway from Cardiff to Swansea, which would link us to the European network. We just need a helping hand so that we can keep going for success, can build on the intellectual clusters in the two universities in Swansea, can build on our team spirit in marketing Swansea, and can make our contribution to a sustainable, inclusive, growth-focused future for the rest of Britain. There is enormous opportunity for Britain to get up off the floor and fight, but it is being held down by the Tories' and Liberals' ineptitude.