I obviously welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s statement, but I have to take issue with him that the course of this period from 2000 to 2014 has been somehow an unalloyed economic success for those of us who live in west Wales and the Valleys. He was very selective in the figures that he quoted. Because we’re talking about a European programme, if we look at where west Wales and the Valleys are in relation to the whole of the European Union, they’ve gone down in terms of GVA per capita: 73 per cent of the EU 27 income per capita in 2000, 69 per cent for 2014, the latest year for which statistics are available. We compare that with Poland, 47 per cent at the beginning of this period, now up to 68 per cent; Saxony, 79 per cent rising to 94 per cent—other areas that have benefitted and used the European structural funds, I have to say, far more strategically and successfully than this Government over the course of this period.

I’ve a number of particular questions to him. Obviously, we’re living in a time of economic turbulence. What effect does the volatility of the exchange rate have on the amount of allocation available? I note in the rural development plan that the planning exchange rate has been revised, but it seems to have been revised the wrong way in terms of the exchange rate movement. The co-financing rate as well in the rural development plan has been revised downwards—the local Welsh UK contribution—from 57 per cent to 47 per cent. I note that First Ministers have lost their heads in this Chamber before as a result of additionality questions, so I’d like him to say if that co-financing rate change also applies more widely to the structural funds.

On WEFO, surely the important thing now is to get the money committed and programmes all set up, because the real danger—the gravest danger of all—is that we lose funds and funds are de-committed because we do not change the decision-making pace, which is still, unfortunately, grinding very slow, as far as I can see, in WEFO.

Finally, on the programme monitoring committee, is it true that the programme monitoring committee is now going to meet less often? I heard ‘longer meetings’, but surely, shorter meetings more often would actually meet the challenge of the times that we’re facing over the course of the next two and a half years as we’re leaving the European Union. While I admire Julie Morgan, surely what we need is not a pan-Welsh Government approach to European structural funds, but a pan-Wales approach. Why was the opportunity not taken to actually appoint a member of an opposition party to chair that important committee, because surely, on this issue, we should be working together across Wales—[Interruption.] Why not release them? Absolutely. It’s always been a Labour Member. Why was the Chair of the programme monitoring committee subject to Cabinet collective responsibility, when, the last time I checked, they’re not even in the Cabinet?