Speaking in today’s Assembly Debate on the Welsh Economy, North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has warned that in endorsing Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to borrow an extra £500 Billion, First Minister Carwyn Jones is failing to tell the people of Wales that bigger cuts will be the consequence.
Mr Isherwood stated that Corbyn and Carwyn offer a “coalition of chaos” compared to the strong and stable leadership of Theresa May.
He said:
“On leaving UK Government in 2010, Labour bequeathed an economy on the brink of collapse, with the highest budget deficit in Europe, excepting only Ireland – but Conservatives delivered the fastest growing G7 economy in 2016.
“In endorsing Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to borrow an extra £500 Billion, Carwyn Jones is failing to tell the people of Wales that bigger cuts will be the consequence.
“Carwyn Jones is not a modest man. But he has a lot to be modest about. He keeps stating that Wales has lowest unemployment in the UK, but the latest published figures show unemployment in Wales above England, Scotland and UK levels.
“He keeps taking the credit for inward investment into Wales, when the UK Department for International Trade played a part in 97 of 101 Foreign Direct Investments into Wales last year, with the UK continuing to be the third largest recipient globally.
“It is in the interest of Wales and the UK to have a strong, stable and prosperous European Union as our immediate neighbour. Although we will not enter Brexit negotiations as supplicants, he preaches Brexit doom.”
Mr Isherwood went on to highlight that Labour has given Wales: the highest percentage of employees not on permanent contracts; the highest levels of underemployment across the 12 UK Nations and Regions; The lowest prosperity levels per head in the UK; The highest percentage of employees not on permanent contracts; Rates of low pay, poverty, child poverty and children living in long term workless households above UK levels; an increased percentage of children living in workless households in Wales’ most deprived communities and a housing supply crisis, with the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four UK countries from 1999 and therefore the biggest cuts in new, social and affordable housing.
He said: “UK Labour is in the hands of a Trotskyist Tribute Act, fundamentalist followers of a discredited and dangerous 19th Century ideology. But Wales has been a pilot for them - and a warning to people across our islands.
“Welsh Labour think they are entitled to rule and tell the people what is good for them. In contrast Welsh Conservatives seek to empower people and communities, doing things with them rather than to them.
“Instead of the Coalition of chaos offered by Corbyn and Carwyn, the people need the strong and stable leadership of Theresa May.”