It’s pretty much the last day of term at the Assembly which some have suggested is the reason why the Welsh Conservatives issued their shadow budget with relatively little fanfare today.
They say they’re not hiding though and certainly the party’s Director of Policy, David Melding, was making himself available to journalists like me who wanted to quiz him.
It’s mostly headline figures, set out by department, showing what the Tories think needs to be cut off other budgets to pay for their pledge to protect health spending.
Others have noticed that that pledge seems to involve a rather different definition of of protecting a budget than had been used before.
But what else is in this shadow budget? You can see the figures at the bottom of this post.
There are some details: a pay freeze for those in the public sector earning over £21,000, “a further postponement in the trunk road building programme” and the end of the Communities First scheme.
Perhaps the biggest surprise though comes in the highly sensitive (and topical) area of tuition fees.
This shadow budget states that there will be “no further increase to offset student fees (ie frozen at current level).”
I checked this with David Melding, the party’s policy director and double-checked it with a party spokesman. It is what it seems to be: under a Conservative Assembly government, Welsh students would pay full tuition fees, potentially up to £9,000 a year.
That would reverse the Labour-Plaid Cymru plan to pay the fees of Welsh students over the current £3,290 and seems destined to make life difficult for the Welsh Conservatives in the run-up to next year’s Assembly election.
David Melding told me that producing these figures was necessary to show that protecting the health budget can be achieved and to set out an alternative programme to cuts already being announced by the Assembly Government.
Several people from the other parties have described the shadow budget to me today as an early Christmas present. They can’t believe the Conservatives have played their hand so early.
Plaid sources reckon that the percentage cuts mean that local councils will lose a further £228m; economy and transport will lose £111m and Education £78m.
The Liberal Democrat AM Peter Black called it “ill thought out, lacking in detail and irresponsible.”
However, perhaps the Conservatives in Cardiff Bay should be more worried about the views of other Tories. Before the shadow budget was published, senior party figures outside of the Assembly were saying to me, “They don’t need to do this, why are they?”
Shadow Budget proposed cuts (Assembly govt planned cuts in brackets)
Health and Social Services NIL (WAG -7.6%)
Social Justice & Local Govt -12.5% (WAG -7.4%)
Education, Children, Lifelong learning – 12% (WAG -8%)
Economy & Transport – 30% (WAG 21.3%)
Environment, Sustainability & Housing – 25% (WAG -21%)
Rural Affairs – 15% (WAG -12.7%)
Heritage – 20% (WAG – 13%)
Public Services & Performance -30% (WAG -24.4%)
Central Services & Admin -25% (WAG -19.1%)
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