Plaid Cymru's Treasury spokesperson Jonathan Edwards MP has responded with concern to newly released figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that show that the UK economy shrank by 0.5% in the past three months. Plaid has previously warned that the UK Government's reckless policy of deep cuts is too fast, too soon. Following today's revelations, Mr Edwards has raised new concerns that Wales is set to face a double-dip recession once tax rises and public sector cuts start to bite. Plaid's Jonathan Edwards MP said: Although these figures are preliminary and we expected a slowdown in growth because of the poor weather conditions, these are nevertheless absolutely disastrous figures for the Conservative and Liberal Democrat UK Government and their cuts agenda. Those of us who offered concern about a double-dip recession as a result of cuts were ignored as scaremongers - but today's drop in output puts us firmly in that territory. Worryingly, this is even before we feel the effect of the VAT increase, and when other tax rises and public sector cuts really start to bite after April. The question now is – is Wales going to end up back in recession because of the reckless economic gamble that the UK Government has embarked on? These figures again back up our position that the UK Government is cutting too far, too fast and threatening the recovery. In Wales it is ordinary families that are likely to feel the pain from them being squeezed for employment and in the family budget, and rising inflation meanwhile will hurt those on fixed incomes. As yesterday's Centre for Cities report suggested, economies such as ours in Wales are likely to suffer disproportionately as a result of the UK Government's policies because growth is likely to be concentrated in the south east of England. This is simply a continuation of the damaging legacy of individual and regional wealth polarisation witnessed under the last Labour UK Government.
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