Welsh Conservative Debate - Prosperity for All
Janet Finch-Saunders
Only yesterday here we spoke about the importance of open data collection, and recording useful data to inform and develop strong policies. So, how bizarre is it, then, that this strategy is so lacking in measurable targets, giving such little allowance for Assembly or public scrutiny. We are sixteen months into the fifth Assembly term, and the people of Wales are quite right to be questioning why a party that has been in power for over 18 years is unable to establish and work to coherent, clear and, again, measurable goals for delivery. Local authorities do it all the time. Where are they in this document?
Maybe this Welsh Labour Government is dissuaded from drawing attention to their record on the economy, business, housing, health, education, infrastructure, rural communities, because they have so consistently failed in those areas. Health and social services—we know that, in their current form, health and social services in Wales will not be sustainable in the near future. Health boards in Wales are facing significant deficits, overspending by £149 million this year alone. Since 2013 there has been a 400 per cent rise in the number of patients waiting over a year for surgery, yet the Welsh Government reduced funding for health and social care by 8.2 per cent in real terms between 2009-10 and 2015-16, exacerbating the pressures on the service, whilst the Health Foundation estimates that health spending in Wales will need to rise by 3.2 per cent per year in real terms to bridge the projected funding gap.
Dawn Bowden
Can you tell us what representations to the UK Westminster Government to improve the funding to the Welsh Government?
Janet Finch-Saunders
I would say that’s a job, actually, for the First Minister, and for your party. [Interruption.]
Housing waiting lists in Wales are a national embarrassment, with 90,000 people currently on a housing list in Wales, the same figure as in 2011. Even more worrying, 8,000 families in Wales have been on an affordable housing waiting list for more than six years, and a further 2,000 have been on the waiting list since 2006. Homelessness in Wales is a further scandal. [Interruption.] During 2016-17, 9,210 households in Wales—
Y Dirprwy Lywydd / Deputy Presiding Officer
Can we all settle down, please?
Janet Finch-Saunders
[Continues.]—were assessed as facing homelessness within 56 days, increased by 29 per cent of households, temporary and bed-and-breakfast accommodation by 75 per cent —
Y Dirprwy Lywydd / Deputy Presiding Officer
Can we all settle down, please?
Thank you. You might not like these facts, these figures, these stats, but they are true. We know we have 23,000 empty properties in Wales. Conwy alone has over 1,500. Yet the ‘Prosperity for All’ document doesn’t even mention this. This is a national resource, the use of which is a no-brainer.
On infrastructure and transport, seamless infrastructure is key to economic growth in Wales. However, the rate at which infrastructure is being delivered in Wales is a national embarrassment. We continue to see chronically poor broadband coverage in rural areas, with over 94,000—that’s three in 10 properties—unable to obtain a connection of over 10 Mbps. The number of registered bus services in Wales dropped from 1,943 in March 2005 to 1,283, leaving many of our rural communities and our residents facing increased isolation. The Enterprise and Business Committee stated last year that the Welsh Government’s response to a report on community transport in 2013 was disappointingly slow, despite the Welsh Government pilot project, Go Cymru, being completed in April of that year. Community transport is an essential service for older people and rural communities, enabling many to get out and about and reach vital services that they would otherwise struggle to access.
Deputy Llywydd, this document does little to reassure the people of Wales that Welsh Labour are making a targeted effort to work for them. I believe that this document will go exactly where the programme for government is—it will just go on a shelf, gathering dust. There are no deliverable or measurable targets. There are no outcomes. This Government is failing the people of Wales. You are failing the people of Aberconwy as well. [Interruption.] I rest my case.