December 6th, 2023 London Welsh Centre
Conference Report
Should the focus of economic development be more on individuals and less on infrastructure? Are teachers’ expectations of their pupils in Wales too low compared with other parts of Britain? Are negative, downbeat attitudes a drag on economic performance? Does Wales suffer from the lack of long-term thinking? Should the Welsh Government have ditched the WDA?
A keen debate followed a presentation by Professor Robert Huggins of Cardiff University at the first event – Can Wales Compete? – in the joint Wales Matters series launched by the Cymmrodorion and the London Welsh Association earlier this month.
A packed hall had gathered to hear Professor Huggins unveil the findings of the latest UK Competitiveness Index, a project he has been developing with colleagues over the past 20 years, the latest iteration of which was published in August 2023. This showed that while Welsh local authorities were still heavily concentrated in the lower reaches of the table of British local government areas, the trend was slowly upwards. Not exactly promotion to the Premier League but a few steps closer to lower league play-off places in some cases. Cardiff turns out to be a solid performer, 11th out of 362, and as a wider core city region, fourth, after Edinburgh, Manchester, and Bristol.
Many of Wales’s problems relate back, the meeting was told, to chronic low productivity, with output per job second from bottom among UK regions and nations – the main reason Wales has lower incomes per head and often props up economic league tables. An entrepreneurial spirit was taking hold, however, with three businesspeople in particular – Terry Matthews, Chris Evans and Drew Nelson, pioneers in telecommunications, biosciences, and Information Technology respectively – pointing the way ahead.
Attitudes among the population were important, too, with those regions such as London and the South East where people were open and extrovert much more likely to be dynamic centres of new business than those where the population was less optimistic and more downbeat. The size of the public sector in Wales was a further problem. Either the public sector needed to be reined in or the private sector had to grow so that public spending did not account for too big a proportion of the Welsh economy.
Those attending expressed a range of concerns, not least the recent disappointing Pisa results which put Wales below England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland in educational attainment, which some saw as resulting from the failure to implement reforms like those that had been put in place in England. Other concerns were the debilitating impact of the brain drain on Welsh society, the dissipation of the strong Welsh brand offered at one time by the Welsh Development Agency and the consequent impact on inward investment, and the apparent absence of any coherent and lasting strategy for the Welsh economy. The improvement in the Welsh environment which had seen the industrial scars of the past disappear was a positive development, but this change had not been related back to coherent and consistent economic or industrial strategies.
Professor Huggins was hopeful, however. Some gains were being made and the process of bedding in devolution – now approaching a quarter century old – was bound to take a generation. “We have gone uphill but have discovered how to govern in doing so.” As was pointed out, however, in the early years there were the funds to make changes. It might be more difficult to govern effectively in the straitened circumstances of modern times.
Professor Huggins talk, complete with charts illustrating the findings of the Competitiveness Index, as they relate to Wales, will appear in a forthcoming edition of the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion. Report (cforic.org).
The second in this series of debates will be held in April 2024. Watch out for details. And if you have any comments on the themes discussed in the first of these talks, do let us have them.
RAD
December 16th, 2023
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