Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:17 pm on 12 November 2025.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Chair, Financial Services Regulation Committee, Chair, Financial Services Regulation Committee
3:17,
12 November 2025
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that this is not actually about the amount of funding going to Wales but about fairness? I draw his attention to the 2009 report of this House’s Select Committee on the Barnett formula, which clearly showed that Wales loses out and that we should move to a funding system based on need. Surely that would be fairer to the people of Wales. Simply citing numbers does not deal with the problem, which is the basic unfairness in the way the Barnett formula has operated towards people in Wales.
An economic mechanism used by the Treasury to adjust automatically the amounts of public expenditure allocated to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to reflect changes in spending levels allocated to public services in England, England and Wales or Great Britain as a whole.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
