Wales is getting screwed over the Treasury (again). A deliberate decision has robbed public sector bodies in Wales of money while protecting those in England. This is fiddly but really outrageous. You can either watch the video or read below... [Thread]

Last year, Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that on April 6 this year, employers will have to pay higher National Insurance contributions. Obviously this will hit public sector employers as well as private sector ones.

To make up for this, Ms Reeves had said that the UK Treasury would cover the increased public sector costs for public bodies. Fair enough right? However Wales has a proportionately larger public sector than England.

Why is this a problem? Well it wouldn’t be if the Treasury were simply going to give Wales the cash to make up the shortfall. Alas, they are not.

Instead they are calculating the amount of money using the Barnett formula. Under this, Wales only gets an increase in funding proportional to England which means… Because England’s public sector is smaller, Wales proportionately gets less money.

If you want this in plain simple English then here it is:

Mark Drakeford has said that he had pointed this out to the Treasury but they haven't changed the decision... He said:

Seriously, is this what a partnership in power looks like? Yet again the UK Treasury is using accountancy sleight of hand to leave Wales worse off for the sake of what would be not much more than a rounding error on their spreadsheets.

This is exactly why it is not acceptable for Labour to say they do not want to engage with constitution debates. These arguments are not important just to constitutional anoraks.

It's about enshrining into law the safeguards to Wales’ future funding. It is simply not acceptable for Cymru to rely on Mark Drakeford making supplications to his fellow party members in London. Wales’ prosperity should not be dependent on the goodwill of a Treasury official.

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