North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called on the First Minister to respond to calls for the devolution of powers to North Wales.
Mr Isherwood raised the matter in the Assembly Chamber yesterday.
He said:
“At the CBI North Wales Dinner a week ago last Thursday we heard that the North Wales Growth Deal Bid was nearing completion and then ready to go to UK Government and, obviously, Welsh Government. When the UK Government first made the Growth Deal offer, it said it would be looking to work with the Welsh Government to devolve powers down.
“In his stakeholders update in April, the Chief Executive of Flintshire Council, who is leading the team putting together the bid for the six North Wales Councils, said ambitions for the devolved powers to be granted to the region include transport functions, strategic land use planning, business innovation, advisory functions, careers advice and taxation, by which he means devolved taxation powers, all powers which are within the gift or otherwise of Welsh Government.
“How will your Government be responding to this call?”
The First Minister replied:
“Well, ‘carefully’ I think is the word that I’d use. Firstly, if we look at business rates, if they were to be devolved to local authorities then 17 of the 22 local authorities would lose out. So, we must be careful that we don’t see that situation arise. We will look to devolve powers to appropriate bodies where we can. It’s fair to say that not all local authorities are able to exercise those powers effectively. We want local authorities to work in regional bodies, but we are fully committed to the Growth Bid and, of course, we will work with the UK Government in order to take that bid forward.”
Mr Isherwood added: “The Welsh Conservative General Election Manifesto 2017 states that a UK Conservative Government will ‘deliver a North Wales Growth Deal , working with local partners and the Welsh Government’. It is therefore concerning that the Welsh Government’s First Minister is dodging this key issue and apparently even failing to understand that Team North Wales is not asking for the devolution of business rates to our region, but instead to deliver projects via Tax Increment Finance borrowing funded by the future growth in business rates receipts which will result from these projects.”
ENDS