Will austerity increase devolution?

Bevan Foundation
Image: Manband.co.uk
ViewsOctober 28th, 2013
Image: Manband.co.uk

Image: Manband.co.uk

Welsh public services have been relatively protected from austerity to  date.  Yes, the NHS and local government have been squeezed in the last two financial years, but most Welsh Government-funded public bodies have yet to wield the big axe.  What cuts there’ve been have mostly taken the form of snipping round the edges.

Until now.

The 2014/15 Welsh Government budget means it’s time to put away the manicure scissors and reach for the scythe.  Funding for local government will be cut by 5.8 per cent in real terms next year, and 9 per cent by 2015/16.  A 10 per cent cut, at a time of rising demand, is unprecedented in recent times.

Local authorities are being forced to make some tough decisions. In Rhondda Cynon Taff for example, Cabinet members are considering delaying the age at which children start full-time school to save £4.5m a year, closing  half its libraries and day centres and stopping meals-on-wheels services at weekends.

For the first time, the majority of people will feel the austerity. Middle income Wales has been largely immune to the cuts in Housing Benefit and the effects of the Work Capability Assessments, but it may well notice that the local theatre is closed, the leisure centre’s shut at 5pm, the car park costs more, there are no new text books in school and that the rubbish is only collected monthly.

The current cuts are not just short-term pain either. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that far from spending starting to increase in 2017/18, ‘sustained reductions in spending power’  could go on to 2021/22.  Couple this with rising demand, and the Welsh public sector faces a shortfall of between £2.6 billion and £4.6 billion by 2025.  By then cuts to libraries and leisure services, street lighting and gritting could like a mere drop in the ocean.

The acid test is are people in Wales willing to tolerate this?

Several surveys suggest they aren’t. One by Beaufort Research in July 2011 found that nearly six out of ten people felt the cuts went too far, while one by Cardiff University in 2010 found that 45% (the largest proportion) felt the cuts were bad for the economy.

The miners’ strike and recession in the 1980s are widely credited with changing hearts and minds in favour of devolution.  The experience of a government with a limited mandate in Wales imposing deeply damaging policies was enough to tip the scales in favour of a “yes” vote in 1997.

Could the same happen again?

This time round, the position is slightly more complex.   Certainly the Conservatives have no more of a mandate in 2010 than 1979 (8 MPs compared with 11 in 1979 and 14 in 1983). Even with three 3 Lib Dem MPs in the coalition, just over a quarter of Welsh parliamentary seats is hardly ringing endorsement.

It could be that the Welsh not UK government gets the blame for austerity, but Ministers have been very careful to point the finger up the M4 and the Coalition are probably too closely identified with austerity for them to blame someone else.

Austerity could be the trigger for the next steps along the devolution process.

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation. 

3 Responses

  1. RedundantSwine says:

    It’s a bit disingenous to look at the number of seats held at the last general election and claim a lack of a mandate. Vote share is a far better measure as it reflects the real opinion of those who voted in Wales last time around.

    Labour clearly won that vote, but the combined Tory and Lib Dem vote is was actually larger, at 46.2%, compared to Labour’s 36.2%.

    There are many arguments both for and against austerity, but don’t try and use the awful results thrown up by FPTP as one against.

  2. victoriawinckler says:

    Fair point re FPTP – but the share of the vote isn’t reflected in the survey results, which show pretty substantial opposition to austerity – before the cuts even began to bite!

  3. David says:

    I suppose you could also add the Plaid vote to Labour’s 36.2%.

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