Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 6 December 2017.
I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer. I note the answer he gave to a previous question about not wanting to create new institutions when existing institutions work well for us, and I agree with that. However, perhaps some contingency planning needs to take place, because the loss of access to the European Investment Bank would be bad news for Wales and for the Welsh economy. In which case, given the recent UK budget, where fiscal transactions capital has become ever more fashionable—Wales has received £650 million in financial transactions capital, Scotland £1.1 billion, Northern Ireland £375 million—given the nature of those consequentials, could they form the basis for devolved Governments to come together to create a kind of Celtic development fund of our own, with the intention, perhaps, for the future of looking to develop into a Celtic development bank that could try to mitigate the loss of access to the EIB? We could look, of course, to examples in Scandinavia, where the Nordic Investment Bank is a mixture of devolved and sovereign Governments coming together, pooling resources for shared fiscal and economic goals. I wonder if that's something the Welsh Government might be interested to look at, so that we are as best prepared as possible for the impending separation with the European Union.