WAG, Cuts and Public Opinion

While WAG is still making up their mind over whether they will defer the £163 million budget cuts until the next financial year, there was an article in the Times last week following the Joint Ministerial Committee that included a forecast of the size of the cuts for 2011- 12 for Scotland that might help them decide.

It says ‘Last month it was confirmed that the devolved administrations had the option of deferring until 2011-12 all or part of the budget cuts for this financial year set out in George Osborne’s UK-wide £6.2 billion package of savings.

Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, who attended today’s meeting along with the First Ministers of Northern Ireland and Wales, has already taken up the option to postpone the £332 million of cuts.

They will, however, be in addition to a forecast further £1.3 billion of cuts due next year in the £30 billion Scottish budget.'

Seen as Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones and Budget Minister Jane Hutt are on record as having not planned for Wales share of the £6 billion of cuts widely expected this year if the Conservative won the General Election, we can only hope that they are making plans for the bigger cuts to the Assembly budget for next year.

Despite all the talk of cuts there has been little evidence of what the public thinks on the issues but YouGov have just released new figures reported on the UK polling website and they make interesting reading.

It states ‘The most topical questions at the moment are on the government plans to cut the deficit. 49% think this will be good for the economy, with 31% thinking it will be bad. The public are more evenly divided over whether the government will make the cuts in a fair fashion – 37% think it will be done fairly, 33% unfairly. 48% of people say that the cuts are already having an impact on their own lives. The government does seem to be in strong position to blame their predecessors for harsh cuts though, asked who they blame for the cuts in public spending, 48% say the last Labour government, compared to 17% who blame the coalition (19% blame both, 9% neither).'

Given that Wales is generally more left wing and reliant on the public sector it would be interesting to see the results of a Wales only poll (unlikely to happen) asking the same questions.Any source