Extract from Welsh Assembly questions to the First Minister - May 7

Darren Millar AM: First Minister, we hear a lot of crowing on the Labour benches about European money post Brexit, but, of course, the reality is that it's not European money, it's our money that has been sent to the European Union and is being sent back to this country having had a slice of it taken away. Do you accept that, post Brexit, Wales has the opportunity to be able to invest in areas that are currently outside of the European funding programme because of their location and yet deserve some investment? So, do you welcome the opportunities that could be presented to Wales as a result of a UK shared prosperity fund, so that those deprived communities outside of west Wales and the Valleys can receive the support that they also deserve?

Mark Drakeford AM (First Minister of Wales): I'm not as sanguine as the Member about the UK prosperity fund because we know next to nothing about what that fund proposes. We know next to nothing about the money. The chair of the Finance Committee is pointing out to me that when the Secretary of State for Wales has been invited to give evidence to Assembly committees so that we can have the detail that we need, he refuses to come here to answer those questions. So, I am by no means as sanguine as the Member is. Let me say this: we are working hard inside the Welsh Government, and through a group involving people beyond the Welsh Government, chaired by Huw Irranca-Davies, to make sure that we are prepared for the day in which that money continues to come to Wales, and where there are opportunities, if there are, to use that money in new and more flexible and more effective ways, of course, we will be ready to take those opportunities. But we know nothing about the money, we know nothing about where the powers lie, and it's the UK Government's responsibility to make sure that both of those things flow to Wales and remain in Wales in the future.