How significant would income tax powers be for Wales?

  • Author, David Cornock
  • Role, 大象传媒 Wales Parliamentary correspondent

Now where were we? The autumn statement may have grabbed the headlines but it wasn't the only political event of the week - or even the day.

Here's . Yesterday's event was a warm-up to the warm-up (PMQs) to the warm-up - the Autumn Statement.

Cross-border issues - health and transport - featured prominently. City of Chester Tory MP Stephen Mosley was worried about that the Welsh government will soon have responsibility for a rail franchise that includes services that start and end in England from Chester to Manchester, Chester to Warrington and Chester to Crewe.

Former Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan appeared to join the Plaid Cymru campaign for Wales to get a share of extra rail spending on HS2 in England - or "Barnettising the investment" as she put it. Her idea may owe more to her desire to see HS2 strangled at birth than to her wish to see higher public spending in Wales but Plaid will welcome her conversion to their campaign.

But back to the Autumn Statement, which delivered 拢123m more for the Welsh government - a lot of money, certainly, although less than one per cent of its annual budget.

Politicians have been trying to make sense of the first Welsh tax forecasts from . They suggest that if Wales gets all the taxes currently on offer (apart from business rates), by 2020 the Welsh government would still only be responsible for raising less than one fifth of the money it spends.

One of the arguments for devolving the tax powers is that it would make the government more accountable, although the bulk of its funding would still come from Westminster. So why would the Welsh government bother?

Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb told last night's The Wales Report: "It is absolutely in the Welsh government's and the people of Wales' interest to have that tax devolution because what that does is unlock a whole swathe of borrowing powers that can be used to improve Welsh infrastructure, which will help grow the economy in the long-term.

"That's exactly what the economy of Wales needs, that's the kind of tools that need to be used in Cardiff to improve the economy of the whole of Wales."

Labour fear income tax devolution could be a trap that would see Welsh spending decline but Mr Crabb said: "If tax devolution happens - we want it to - that doesn't affect the way we will distribute money to Wales and we can always look again in future at how we do that to make sure that Wales gets the very best settlement but the risks are overblown here."

In other news, shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt has joked (I think) of