Extracts from Welsh Parliament: Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European transition - Jan 27

Thursday, 28 January 2021 07:40

Alun Davies MS:...We've seen a number of different reports published over the last few days, and without spending time listing them all, they all say essentially two things: first of all that the depth of the economic challenge facing us post COVID and post Brexit is far greater than, perhaps, we would have recognised some time ago, and the second thing they say is that the depth of this challenge is also not borne equally, that we're seeing equality across different communities and different parts of the country having an impact whereby the poorest communities are affected far more harshly than richer communities. One of the issues that's facing the Heads of the Valleys, of course, is that an economy requires support and needs continued investment. We've seen the UK Government respond to this by cutting back on the European funds that they promised us—not a penny less—and also breaking their promises over the shared prosperity fund and other things. How is the Welsh Government going to make good the broken promises from the Conservatives? How will the Welsh Government look towards the investment to take forward the Heads of the Valleys in the future to ensure that the reports we're seeing this week do not become a reality for the people that we all seek to represent?

Dai Lloyd MS: Thank you. Finally, I raised the issue of the UK shared prosperity fund with you, Minister, back in December and how this will impact the Welsh Government's ability to implement their own framework for regional investment in Wales. You stated, in response to my question, Minister, that,

'the UK Government ought to engage with us about how we can, even at this late hour, make sure that the people in Wales have the promises they were made kept, both with regard to how the funds are spent, but also crucially what those funds are.'

Last week, the UK Government announced that they intended to plough ahead and bypass the devolved administrations and replace European structural funds with a centrally controlled fund in Whitehall. Where does this leave, therefore, the Welsh Government's own framework for regional investment, given that you yourself have said that the delivery of this framework is dependent on positive engagement with the UK Government—your words. Are these plans now dead in the water?

Jeremy Miles MS (Counsel General and Minister for European Transition): They are not dead in the water; they are the fruit of very considerable joint working with the private sector, public sector, third sector, universities, and so on, right across Wales, and they remain the Welsh Government's ambition for supporting regional investment in Wales through the shared prosperity fund and, indeed, in any other way. We are working with stakeholders to understand, obviously, what is a shifting landscape in Westminster in relation to this. What I would say to the Member is that we have not had the close discussions we would have expected to have at this stage, even, as it were, at this late stage, with the relevant Whitehall department. I think there has been a woeful lack of ministerial engagement with us around that. My understanding is that there has been a delay in the piloting—in the prospectus for the pilots—which won't now, obviously, be happening in January, and I think may not even happen in February. I do want to reiterate that the framework provides an approach for the future that has a broad base of support in Wales, which the UK Government would, I think, do well to engage, because that represents what businesses, local government and, as I say, other public bodies across Wales want to see as the future of regional funding in Wales. We have a plan. It's a plan that has been consulted on and co-designed and co-developed, and that is the framework that I think best represents the way for the shared prosperity fund to be put to work, and that should be done in partnership with us, rather than attempting to circumvent the Welsh Government.

Joyce Watson MS: What assessment has the Counsel General made of the impact of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?

Jeremy Miles MS: The UK internal market Act seeks to hollow out the Senedd's legislative competence in a number of areas. That is why I have initiated legal action. It also gives the UK Government financial assistance powers, as they're called, which are already being used to circumvent devolved competence, most blatantly through the so-called shared prosperity fund.