Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves holds up her ministerial red box, as she poses for the media outside 11 Downing Street, London, before delivering her Budget in the Houses of Parliament, October 30, 2024
LABOUR’S Budget will “feel like austerity to many” in Wales, Plaid Cymru said today.
The party’s Treasury spokesman Ben Lake said that Chancellor Rachel Reeves “missed an opportunity to chart a bold new path,” with the Budget falling short of the promises made during the general election.
Ms Reeves said the Welsh government would get an extra £1.7 billion in April in what she called the “largest real-terms funding increase since devolution.”
But Mr Lake criticised changes to National Insurance that “will disproportionately hit businesses employing lower-paid workers,” the “failure to deliver billions owed to Wales” under failed HS2 plans and changes to agricultural property relief.
“The uplift to Wales’s block grant will not rebalance Wales’s fiscal settlement,” he said. “Welsh councils alone face a £559 million budget gap in 2025-26.
“Additionally, by keeping cuts to the welfare budget planned by the Conservatives, failing to help pensioners keep warm this winter or bring an end to the two-child cap, this will still feel like austerity to many.”
Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan welcomed the funding, saying that Ms Reeves has “set out her plan to fix the foundations of the economy and look to the future.”
