North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has made a fresh appeal for the Welsh Government to respond to calls for devolved powers to be granted for the region.
Mr Isherwood, who in May challenged the First Minister over the North Wales Growth Deal call for the devolution of powers to North Wales, this week asked the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Mark Drakeford AM, what consideration he is giving to the taxation aspect of the request, stressing that Team North Wales is not asking for the devolution of business rates to the region, but instead to deliver projects via Tax Increment Finance borrowing funded by the future growth in business rates receipts which will result from Growth Deal projects.
Speaking in the Chamber, he said:
“Building on the North Wales Economic Ambition’s Board Growth Vision document last summer, the team developing the Growth Deal bid have called for devolved powers to be granted to the region, including skills, transport, strategic land use planning, business innovation, advisory functions, careers advice and taxation.
“By taxation, they’re not referring to business rates, but to tax increment financing. What consideration have you given, or are you giving, to that call, where such financing, which I believe is available to local authorities in England, relates to borrowing funded by the future growth in business rates receipts resulting from the projects developed through the Growth Deal?”
The Cabinet Secretary replied: “I certainly agree that both city deals and a North Wales Growth Deal has to be more than just an argument about the sum of money. It has to be about a wider agenda of driving collaboration, speaking with a single voice on key ambitions. And with that may go devolution of some of the sort of responsibilities that Mark Isherwood just outlined. It will be for the proponents of the deal to make that case.
“Of course, I am aware of TIF and the way that it operates elsewhere. I met the Society of Welsh Treasurers in local government on Friday of last week and had a useful discussion with them about a range of these issues, including the potential for a shared-gain approach to growth in business rate receipts, where it is possible that local authorities coming together in these city and growth deals can demonstrate that there is an additional flow of income as a result of their combined efforts.”