But the manifesto is clearer on what it wants to do than on how it would fund it.
Party leader in Wales Darren Millar at the launch of its Senedd Election manifesto.(Image: WalesOnline/Rob Browne)
On first reading the Welsh Conservative’s Senedd Election manifesto offers a much clearer economic pitch than that of Labour.
It is more openly pro-business, more willing to discuss tax cuts, more supportive of road construction, and far more explicit in arguing that Wales needs a stronger private-sector-led growth model.
It also vows to eliminate business rates for small firms, pubs, and post offices, reduce the basic rate of income tax by 1p, abolish Land Transaction Tax on primary residences, support sectors such as energy, defence, aerospace, tourism, and financial services, and deliver 125,000 apprenticeships over the next Senedd term.
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That gives it an immediate political advantage over Labour, and it reads like a party that at least understands that economic growth requires more than warm words about fairness, partnership and strategy. Indeed, what the Conservatives are trying to offer something simpler and more direct including lower costs, better infrastructure, less bureaucracy, and a clearer effort to make Wales more attractive to investors and employers.
The strongest part of the manifesto is probably its willingness to say that the government has made it harder, not easier, for parts of the Welsh economy to grow, arguing that the Welsh Government have undermined confidence through rising costs, anti-motorist policies, poor infrastructure and hostility to sectors such as tourism and farming.
Their answer is to reverse the 20mph default, build the M4 relief road, upgrade the A55, scrap the tourism tax, reduce burdens on holiday lets, and replace the current farming scheme with one they say is more focused on food security and rural economic strength.
The promise to re-establish a Welsh Development Agency is also politically significant as, we will discuss later this month, they are not the only political party to conclude that Wales needs a stronger institution dedicated to attracting investment and supporting jobs. That stands in contrast to Labour’s First Minister, who has rejected such a move.
But that is where the harder questions begin because while the manifesto is stronger than Labour’s on rhetoric about growth, it is much less convincing on how all of this would be paid for, prioritised and delivered.
There is a long list of costly commitments, including tax cuts, abolition of business rates for small firms, road building, rail investment, airport support, tourism funds, more apprenticeships, and major health and education pledges. The document talks a lot about cutting waste, abolishing bodies and curbing what it sees as frivolous spending, but there is little sense that these savings would realistically cover the scale of what is being promised. In other words, the Conservative manifesto is clearer on what it wants to do than on how it would fund it.
There is also a second weakness as much of its economic thinking leans heavily on inward investment, infrastructure and tax reduction, which are important, but not enough on their own. Wales does not just need more investors coming in, but also more local firms scaling up, more innovative businesses, and more Welsh-owned companies growing to meaningful size.
On that question, the manifesto is thinner than it first appears, and whilst there are warm words about manufacturing, freeports and growth zones, there is little on what it will do to build and grow those local businesses that are critical to the future of every community in Wales.
That matters because if the Conservatives want to argue that Wales has underperformed economically for decades, then they also need to show they understand the modern drivers of growth. Yes, roads and rates matter, but so do business innovation, scale-up finance and retaining the best talent, and on those issues, this manifesto is less developed than its headline tone suggests.
The same applies to universities, and it is fair to say that the Conservatives do say more than Labour in some respects. They promise a £1,000 tuition fee discount for STEM subjects, support for intensive two-year degrees, more data on student outcomes and tuition fee refunds for key shortage professions who remain in Wales.
Those are all good ideas, but they are peripheral to the real financial problems currently facing the sector, and there is still no broad vision of universities as central economic institutions and no plan to turn the higher education sector into a stronger engine of innovation and productivity.
So, the Welsh Conservative offer is both more attractive than it first appears because it claims to be more unapologetically pro-growth, and more prepared to challenge the anti-business instincts that have crept into Welsh policymaking over the last five years. However, it is more vulnerable because it risks mistaking a more business-friendly tone for a fully worked economic strategy.
In many ways, the manifesto’s real strength is its political clarity as it says Wales should cut taxes, back roads, support tourism and farming, and restore a stronger development agency. However, its real weakness is that it still does not fully answer the deeper question of how Wales becomes a richer, more innovative, more productive economy over the long term and, most importantly, how to pay for it.
Therefore, the Welsh Conservative manifesto presents a sharper critique of the status quo in the Welsh economy than Labour’s and, in some areas, a clearer sense of what they think businesses want to hear. However, it remains more persuasive as an opposition document than as a fully credible plan for economic transformation and, more importantly, it knows what it is against but less certain what it is for and what a genuinely modern Welsh economy should look like.
