2. What discussions has the Cabinet Secretary had about the future of EU structural funding? OAQ52364

Well, the First Minister and I take every opportunity to discuss with the UK Government, and interests here in Wales, the need for the promise made to people in Wales two years ago to be made good: that not a penny in funding would be lost as a result of leaving the European Union.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response. This Monday, I went to visit the new bay campus of Swansea University to see how European structural funds have been used there. And I was extremely impressed with the quality of their projects, particularly with their built-in, cross-cutting themes of sustainable development, tackling poverty and social exclusion, and particularly with the materials and manufacturing education, training and learning programme, which is a programme to upskill more than 360 people, from 30 different companies, in the field of advanced materials and manufacturing, also proactively encouraging women to participate. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree that we must ensure that such high-quality projects can be maintained in the future and that any future regional development progress must absolutely include high-quality standards, such as we see with European structural funds?

Well, can I thank Julie Morgan for that, and thank her, of course, for the work that she does in chairing the programme monitoring committee for Wales? And I know it's been a theme in recent considerations at the programme monitoring committee of the way in which European funding can be used to assist with those cross-cutting themes of equality and sustainability. And I know we've talked in the Chamber here before about the way in which European Union funding has been used specifically to encourage women to participate in advanced manufacturing and in materials as well. We are currently working, Llywydd, to the Chancellor's guarantee, which is that, if we commit European funding by March of next year, he has given an undertaking to cover all of that. My hope is that, at the October Council of Ministers, we will get a period of transition, and that will mean that we can go on using European funding up to the end of the current seven-year period, and for two years beyond. And that will allow us to do what Julie Morgan said—to make sure that the quality of the projects we're able to bring forward will equal that of existing projects.

Cabinet Secretary, I wonder whether you've had a chance to look at Professor Graeme Reid's report into research funding. He concludes,

'I have found great strengths and national assets in Welsh Universities and in research and innovation centres that have been developed in Wales during the last decade but I am not convinced that the potential of these assets is fully exploited for the benefit of Wales.'

And he goes on to say that the research community needs to work together to become more influential in pursuing competitive funding. And that's really important if we can continue at the European level for a little while or at whatever is going to come through the UK level in terms of shared prosperity funds or other mechanisms that may now be agreed. 

Well, I thank David Melding for that. I am familiar with the Reid review and with the conclusions that it draws. David Melding is absolutely right to highlight the fact that that review and others have shone a spotlight on Horizon 2020 funding from the European Union, in which Wales punches well above our weight. We get a considerably higher return through Horizon 2020 projects than you would expect for a higher education sector of our size, and that means that securing ongoing access to programmes of that sort beyond our membership of the European Union is vitally important for our research community. They do need, as Reid says, to go on increasing their capture of grants from major funders, such as the Medical Research Council and other UK councils, but the capture that they have, working with colleagues right across Europe from Horizon 2020, means that its successor programme and our ability in Wales to have access to it is especially important to research bodies here in Wales.