Mark Drakeford has been slammed by the Welsh Conservatives for misleading the public in his press conference last week, saying his comments could fuel “recession-sparking behaviour”.
On Tuesday 9th January , the Labour First Minister said that “the UK economy is now in recession,” without any statistics to support his claim.
It since emerged that the British economy grew by 0.1% in November, dampening fears that the UK ended 2022 in recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.
Later that week, on Any Questions on BBC Radio 4, the UK National Statistician, Prof. Sir Ian Diamond was asked whether “the UK might now avoid a recession that was widely expected at the end of last year?”
He responded: “I would, to be honest, surprised given the data if, in the next month, we were to see a decline of that magnitude.”
Commenting, Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies MS said:
“Whilst there was some general commentary that 2022 might end in recession, the First Minister should know better than to claim it was a fact rather than a presumption.
“By using his privileged position to spout unverified beliefs about the state of the economy, not only does Mark Drakeford do his office a disservice but he is in danger of creating the very thing he is warning about in the name of naked party politics.
“By using his press conference to say the UK is in recession without actually knowing it, he could actually create recession-sparking behaviour.
“Maybe Mark Drakeford should look closer to home at wealth-killing actions as he seeks to impose default 20mph limits that would hit our economy by £4.5bn when, under Labour, Wales has the lightest pay-packets in Britain as it is.”
