The news of Wales’s position at the bottom of the GVA heap should be no great surprise. This is no great surprise because Wales was bottom of the league in 2000 as well. However, while Wales’s poor relations of the North East of England and Northern Ireland have just about held their position relative to the UK over the last ten years, the gap between Wales and the UK as a whole has actually widened.

Unpick the Welsh figures and some sort of explanation begins to emerge.

First, it is not Wales as a whole that is poor – East Wales, at 94% of the UK figure, has the third highest GVA per head among NUTS 2 regions in England outside London and the South East. It’s the poor performance of West Wales and the Valleys that is the truly shocking figure, at 62.6% of the UK level.  If Wales’s GVA per head is to grow, it is imperative that there is major investment in the economy in the Heads of the Valleys.

Second, current trends do not look good for either East Wales or West Wales and the Valleys.  East Wales’s GVA has shrunk from 99.2% of the UK average to 94%, with all areas within it except Cardiff contracting.  West Wales and the Valleys’ GVA has also decreased over this period, with particularly striking decreases in the Central and Gwent Valleys. That this should occur at the same time as the Objective 1 / Convergence programme and Heads of the Valleys programme is all the more worrying.

Third, the poor performance on GVA seems to be less to do with the overall structure of the economy and more to do with a failure of almost all sectors to thrive.  Manufacturing’s GVA, for example, which accounts for nearly a quarter of Wales’s total GVA, has remained virtually constant over the last 10 years, despite shedding thousands of jobs.  Almost all other sectors – with the notable exception of agriculture – have seen their GVA increase.  But the crunch is that they have not increased at anything like the same rate as elsewhere in the UK. In other words, Wales was left behind in the boom years, whilst the recession has had a big impact.

There are some serious questions to ask about the Welsh Assembly Government’s strategy during the last 10 years, which in GVA terms seems to have achieved very little.  It certainly suggests that Wales is generally uncompetitive as an economy, as well as suggesting that much greater efforts in the Central and Gwent valleys, and also rural north Wales, are needed.  The figures make the impact of the cuts in capital spending and Wales’s lack of UK investment all the more worrying and the challenge of improving educational achievement all the more urgent.

But Westminster also has a role. As well as setting the framework for the UK economy, which arguably matters much more than WAG policies anyway, it’s high time there was an effective regional policy which spreads some of the benefits of London and the south east’s wealth.  It’s unfashionable to take jobs to workers these days, but it’s almost certainly cheaper than taking workers to jobs – especially when the jobs are more than a bus ride away.