Despite wide acceptance in all areas of Welsh civic life that the Barnett formula, which determines how much money the Assembly gets to spend, the Treasury has confirmed that it is not going to play ball.
A House of Lords Committee had suggested an independent funding commission to allocate funds to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but the Treasury replied that “notwithstanding the potentially substantial costs of establishing and running such a system, [we] currently have no plans to set up such a body.”
In their official response the mandarins said: “The Government’s view is that the Barnett formula has a number of strengths, among them the merit of allowing the devolved administrations to determine their own assessment of needs and priorities in devolved areas.
“The Government will continue to keep all aspects of public spending under review, including the operation of the Barnett formula, and welcomes the careful analysis presented in the [Lords] report.”
As Liberal Democrat Wales spokesman Roger Williams said: “We’ve waited months for this response, and yet the best the Government can come up with is ‘No, but we’re not going to tell you why’.
“The Committee put forward a serious proposal on a needs-based system, and yet this has been dismissed without any reasoning whatsoever, which frankly is an insult to all of those who have worked hard to put the Committee’s report together.
“It’s no secret that the Treasury are determined to carry on with Barnett, but having been repeatedly and comprehensively informed of the funding gap faced by Wales, we should expect a lot more than a shrugging of the shoulders.”
Clearly, in the light of such stubborn resolution by the Treasury, Peter Hain’s solution of a floor in funding to prevent Wales losing out looks even more hollow than it did when he suggested it. No matter what, it looks like Wales will be at a disadvantage for some time to come.
In the meantime we have no choice but to make do with what we have. That means setting our own priorities within existing budgets and, in the case of Plaid Cymru, to stop blaming the Westminister government for everything that goes wrong and start taking responsibility for their own decisions.
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Typical Treasury not realizing that it isn’t their own money they’re dealing with, but taxpayers’ money. And they won’t understand until taxes collected in Wales stay in Wales, apart from any subsidies to non-devolved departments that are agreed by the Assembly.