Labour Assembly Government repeats Redwood quango pay-off

3.13.35pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 4th Apr 2006

Research by the Welsh Liberal Democrats can reveal that Rhodri Morgan and Andrew Davies may have repeated a quango pay-off last exposed during John Redwood's tenure at the Welsh Office.

During First Minister's questions in the Assembly today, Assembly Welsh Lib Dem leader Mike German revealed that approximately 16 WDA staff left the organisation between September and December 2005, taking redundancy on the more advantageous Assembly Government terms, not the more restrictive WDA terms.

This change of financial procedure was only approved retrospectively by the Labour Assembly Government earlier this year.

Mr German said:

"It is unacceptable that changes to financial procedures concerning redundancy schemes should be made retrospectively by Rhodri Morgan's government. It does nothing to promote the so-called transparency that the new EIN department is supposed to have."

In 1994, when John Redwood was Welsh Secretary in the last Conservative Government, a previous case of retrospective changes to the WDA redundancy schemes were much criticised in parliament by Rhodri Morgan and other Labour MPs.

In questioning the First Minister, Mike German said:

"This time, it was your minister who authorised these payments, and your minister who didn't want them to become public.

"Do you believe, particularly with your record on this, that it's acceptable for your ministers to be involved in cover-ups?"

The First Minister was forced to admit that there had been "a few hiccups" during the quango merger process. He refused to deny that his government had made the same payments as the Conservative Government had in the early 90s.

Mr German added: "By brushing the issue off and saying it was a matter for officials and ministers, the First Minister was effectively condoning what he condemned under the Tories."

Notes:

In 1994 John Redwood revealed that the Welsh Office had given "retrospective approval to excess payments" as part of the WDA's redundancy scheme.*

*Answer to parliamentary question from Jon Owen Jones, the then Labour MP for Cardiff Central.