Peter Hain and Paul Murphy failed Wales as it was short changed

The News that Andy Burnham, frontrunner for the Labour leadership, said he knew Wales was getting an unfairly low share of UK spending while he was a Treasury minister eight years ago. is hardly surprising . He would have not been very god at his job if he didn't 

He told BBC Wales when questioned on the Barnett formula

"I think it gives a rough deal to Wales if I'm honest. I was chief secretary to the treasury and I remember looking in detail at the BF and I do think Wales gets short-changed by it.
"So I think it needs to be looked at and it's one of the reasons I've asked Carwyn Jones to chair a UK constitutional convention so that we can look not just at the balance of powers between the UK centrally and Wales but also financial questions and how we get fairness across the UK in terms of the distribution of finance. So all of these questions are on the table and rightly so because I don't think Wales has had a fair deal out of the current financial settlement."

Asked why he rejected calls to change the formula while in office, he said: "That was the government line at the time, and obviously I wasn't in a position to over-rule that.

"I wasn't number one at the Treasury, I was number two [to Chancellor Alistair Darling

So thats alright then 

Maybe the real story is not that Andy Burnham knew that Wales was being short changed  but the then Sectaries of State Peter Hain and Paul Murphy appear to have done nothing .

Peter Hain was Welsh Secretary between the Period 2002 - 20p8 and Paul Murphy 2008-2009 with Hain back 2009-2010

Paul Murphy back in 2007 from the back benches knew something was wrong .

Mr Paul Murphy: 

"To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he plans to review the Barnett formula for allocating the block grant for Wales."

Andy Burnham: "The Government have no plans to review the Barnett formula."

So why when back in the Job didn't Murphy do something? Why did Peter Hain when he was in the Job fail to back Wales's  Interest.

The answer is is simple the job of Welsh Secretary is not to represent the interest of Wales in the Cabinet  it is to represent the interests of the Cabinet in Wales.

But that  does not mean Paul Murphy and  Peter Hain in particular should not be answering how they could let Wales be short changed for so many years under their Watch.