North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has slammed the Welsh Government’s performance this week in a Welsh Conservative debate which highlighted 11 specific areas where the Welsh Labour-led governments of the outgoing First Minister have taken Wales backwards in the economy, housing, education, and health.
Closing this week’s ‘Welsh Government Performance’, Mr Isherwood stated that “Wales is suffering from one of the worst Governments endured by any part of the United Kingdom since the arrival of the universal franchise”.
The Conservatives called on the National Assembly to regret that since Carwyn Jones became First Minister in December 2009:
- referral-to-treatment waiting times in the Welsh NHS have increased;
- performance against both the 4 and 12 hour targets in Welsh A&E departments has deteriorated;
- cancer treatment targets have never been met in Wales;
- the number of beds in Welsh hospitals has fallen;
- GCSE performance has deteriorated in Wales with attainment of A*-C grades for summer 2018 the worst since 2005;
- Wales’s OECD PISA scores are worse in reading, maths and science with the most recent results being worse than in 2009, placing Wales in the bottom half of the OECD global ranking and at the bottom of the UK rankings;
- scores of Welsh schools have permanently closed;
- gross disposable household income as a percentage of the UK average has fallen;
- Wales has had the poorest average wages growth rate of the UK nations;
- business rates in Wales have become less competitive than other parts of the UK
- the annual number of new homes being built in Wales has fallen.
Concluding the Debate, Mr Isherwood said:
“From recent official reports, Wales is the least productive nation in the UK. Poverty and deprivation are higher in Wales than in any other nation in Britain. Median hourly earnings in Wales are lower than England and Scotland.
“Average earnings in Wales are lower and have grown slower than in other UK nations. Wales has the lowest long-term pay growth among the nations of the UK. Wales has a higher relative income poverty rate than England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, a higher proportion of working adults in poverty than any other UK nation, and a pensioner poverty rate in Wales far higher than in any other UK nation.
“Wales is suffering from one of the worst Governments endured by any part of the United Kingdom since the arrival of the universal franchise. Not only that - one of the most reactionary Governments, whose only action is to react against the UK Government and whose only policy is to blame the UK Government for its own serious and successive failures over far too long, fanning the flames of public confusion over their responsibility for the mess we're in and adding to the lack of public accountability that has kept them in place for so long, and so much pain.”
