Welsh Agenda raises an excellent point that is almost never discussed in Welsh politics but that cuts to the heart of the idea that Wales could ever be an independent state.
There are two aspects to this issue. One is the elephant in the room- the large amounts of older people moving into Wales from other parts of the state, across the open border we share with England.
The other side of the coin is that Wales is providing the English economy with a stream of young, productive graduates whose education has in the vast majority of cases been paid for by the Welsh state. This is a double whammy- we are taking in people who have increased public service needs (through no fault of their own, just by being elderly), and swapping for them people that would usually be working and paying taxes.
In mainstream Welsh nationalism I have only ever seen the idea of Welsh independence being discussed in a way that includes an open border with England, the free movement of people and the free movement of goods, in line with the (quite flawed) liberal doctrines prevalent in modern Europe.
This is obviously realistic- you're never going to get people to sign up to the idea of putting up border posts between Wales and England.
But it also has serious implications for the viabiliy of Wales as a potential state. Mainly the following-
* We could probably never have a different VAT rate or excise duty to England because it would lead to smuggling across the open border (imagine paying different VAT in Chester than you would in Wrecsam). Using a different currency to England would also encounter problems, and both governments on either side of the open border would be dependent on each other when it comes to these matters.
* Public services will continue to cost even more than usual to provide in Wales because we already have a higher ratio of older, retired people (without even going into the issue of ill or injured former industrial workers in Wales, poverty, obesity, and so on).
* And at the same time, less economic production to create the wealth to pay for those public services takes place in Wales, as the profile of the Welsh population becomes older. Welsh Agenda notes the cosy idea that Wales "is a nice country to come and live in" with beautiful scenery etc, but this also reflects the fact that very little economic activity is taking place in much of our country.
In Scotland these are manageable problems, because either side of their open border with England is sparsely populated. They could witness some limited issues with people going to somewhere like Berwick to buy goods that are taxed under an English policy if a divergence happened (or vice versa) or if products and fuel were priced radically differently, but nothing that doesn't already happen in similar European countries. The major cities and conurbations in Scotland are far enough away from England to ensure that people couldn't move en masse from one state to the other if a significant divergence in tax policy took place.
As ever, Wales is simply not the same as Scotland, because the north-east and south-east of our country (the most economically dynamic regions) have huge cross-border flows including people commuting to work in different countries, and doing shopping etc. In Ireland these kind of flows provide an impetus to reunite the country. In Wales they logically have the same effect- but to keep us united with England.
So while nationalists are now more open than usual about articulating independence, and such a thing is achievable, to be remotely popular any such case will inevitably be wrapped up in liberalism, accepting globalisation, and "normalising" independence to make it as un-controversial as possible. The problem is that accepting all of those comfortable caveats potentially makes actual independence either impossible or meaningless. These issues will all come to light when Plaid Cymru undertakes further work on this subject- there might well be ways around it through sharing services and negotiating agreements as equal partners and so on.
At the same time this isn't a nationalist or constitutional obsession. Even if Wales does not become an independent state, the net in-migration of retirees into Wales stores up a demographic problem for future Welsh Governments. We will still have to fund services for many of these people from within the block grant, because devolution is now here to stay and in fact the people of Wales want more independence. It follows that for as long as Wales is within the union we also need to be funded on a needs-basis. Otherwise Wales as a country will not be able to afford the various requirements of these people that are moving in (and also Welsh-domiciled people who are ill or in poverty and need assistance). And with every year that we aren't fairly funded, any future viability or closing of the wealth gap becomes more difficult as services become more expensive.
The Welsh Government's response to these issues is complacent, stating only that "
we welcome the fact that people want to come and live and work in Wales". They are welcoming the fact that skilled professionals are leaving Wales and the Welsh Government bills for social services and health will be going up. Clearly this is not just an issue for independence but an obstacle to financing a devolved Wales as well. It is not just Plaid Cymru that needs to resolve this but the unionist parties- in fact it could be argued that there is more of an onus on unionism to defend the current arrangements.
What is clear to me is that free trade zones are not always ideal for the development of a country and shouldn't really be celebrated or promoted as a great thing. Even whilst accepting that the current arrangements are here to stay, there needs to be a recognition that free trade zones, open borders and the easy movement of capital tends to promote migration and driving down wages and making the relocation of jobs easier. We have already seen this in Wales having lost the jobs subsidised by the WDA to the cheaper eastern European and Asian economies. Policies to mitigate this must be the way forward, based on training up people from Wales rather than bribing the footloose multi-nationals to come here. This is why the report by MPs last week is not really useful from a long-term perspective.
In debating the relationship between Wales and England in the future it also now needs to be clarified that Wales is in fact subsidising England to a significant degree by taking on many of their elderly people and sending them many of our skilled young people.