It is a pleasure, Mr Bone, to serve under the chairmanship of the star strike bowler of the parliamentary cricket team. I had not intended to speak, so I will keep my speech brief. I will be probably more disjointed than I usually am in my parliamentary contributions.
The report is hugely important—I congratulate the Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee—and has been well-received, especially by the Welsh media, who gave it significant coverage. As we know, economic growth is driven by four interconnected factors, the first of which is household expenditure, which accounts for 62% of GDP growth in the UK. That is perhaps testament to overdependence on that specific component during the Labour years. The factor second is Government expenditure. We are witnessing more than £80 billion of cuts during the current comprehensive spending review, which is a major head wind for the course of the British state. The third and fourth factors are exports and business investment, in which foreign direct investment—FDI—plays a huge part. The report was very timely.
At one time, Wales was a world leader, or definitely a leader within the UK, in generating FDI. Behind my family home in Capel Hendre is an enormous industrial estate, with companies from Korea, Japan, the US and, indeed, all over the world, which is testament to its success. There have been concerns that we are over-reliant
on foreign direct investment and not sufficiently promoting indigenous businesses, but there is now growing agreement that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Unfortunately, Wales is now among the worse-performing constituent parts of the UK in terms of FDI.
We are living in an age of reductions in Government expenditure and of contraction in household expenditure. Recently, the consumer confidence index was at minus 30 —the lowest it has ever been—showing the huge economic head winds that are being faced. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) wanted to appoint me as an exponent of austerity, but I assure him that I do not support the experiment of cutting Government expenditure. That policy was set by the Chancellor, so concentrating on the promotion of FDI in Wales is key to our economic well-being, and it is the one element that can help to stimulate the other two components—business investment and exports.
I want to highlight some of the report’s important recommendations. First, we need to work closely with UK Trade and Investment to help promote Wales as a destination for FDI, and I agree with comments made by Members from all parts of the Chamber. I welcome the announcement, following our report, that UKTI has based an official in Wales. We were the only component part of the United Kingdom not to have such a representative, so I am glad that that has been rectified.
I want the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to instruct UKTI to pursue a similar path to Germany Trade and Invest, which has a remit to set specific targets for directing investment to the poorest parts of the state. That policy does not exist in the UK, but it would help to drive FDI into those areas, such as Wales, that are underperforming. Indeed, we could learn a lot from the example of German economic policy, which has enabled Germany to address huge wealth inequalities following reunification. It is incredible that, following 50 or 60 years of communism, its wealth levels are far more equal than the UK’s, but I shall not go down that road.
The signature recommendation in the report and the one most trailed in the press was the need to reuse the Welsh Development Agency brand. As a Plaid Cymru politician, I should take some credit for the original creation of the WDA, because it was the Plaid Cymru economic commission in the 1960s and 1970s—under Dafydd Wigley, Phil Williams and Eurfyl ap Gwilym—that first had the idea of the dedicated economic investment arm that later morphed into the WDA. I am not talking about reconstituting the WDA as it was when it was swallowed by the Welsh Government, but about reusing the brand. It is a global brand that, to this day, everybody recognises. The reality is that the successor bodies set up by the Welsh Government have nothing near the recognition of the WDA, so I want them urgently to reuse the brand.