5. What negotiations have taken place to ensure that post-Brexit structural funds will be managed by the Welsh Government? OAQ52725

Both the First Minister and I have repeatedly raised this matter with UK Ministers. I will do so again at the finance Ministers' quadrilateral attended by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on Wednesday of next week.

Picking up on the fair funding of local government, here in Wales we have a really transparent formula, but the research from Cambridge University published yesterday indicates that there's been a land grab by Tory shires, paid for by the poor in the post-industrial areas of the north of England. So, places like Liverpool, Gateshead and Wigan have suffered up to 50 per cent cuts in local government spending, compared with the leafy shires that have merely suffered single-digit cuts in their funding.

Now, this does not bode well for the way in which the UK shared prosperity fund is going to be operated, if it's going to be done through pork-barrel politics, because it's been crucial—[Interruption.] It's been crucial that—. The EU structural funds have been absolutely vital in creating thousands of jobs, getting thousands of people into employment. The reason we have the largest amount of money from Europe is because we are the most deprived area, and that continues to need to be the case in the way that this so-called shared prosperity fund is going to be operated. So, what assurances, Cabinet Secretary, can you give us that the UK Government recognises that, under the Wales Act 2017, economic development and regeneration is not a reserved matter? And how are we going to resolve this major constitutional and financial issue?

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank the Member for that question. She's quite right that the Cambridge University study published earlier this week suggests that it is devolved powers that have allowed Scottish and Welsh Governments to mitigate the harshest cuts experienced in local government in England, where they describe 'intensifying territorial injustice' as the guiding principle of UK Ministers' actions.

On the shared prosperity fund, while I disagreed with what was said earlier by Steffan Lewis when he conflated the shared prosperity fund and the inter-governmental agreement, when there is no relationship between the two, I did agree with the substantive point that he was making. Wales gets money through the European Union because we have a need that that money is there to meet. It is for UK Ministers to deliver on the promise that members of the governing party there made in the referendum: it was a cast-iron guarantee, as I remember, that Wales would not lose out a penny from—[Interruption.] Not a penny—a cast-iron guarantee that Wales would not lose out. So, we must make sure that the money that comes to Wales today delivers on that promise that was made, and, secondly, it must come to Wales. It must come under the control of this Assembly. That must be guaranteed. The shared prosperity fund consultation should be England only, just as the consultation on common agricultural policy reform was an England-only consultation. That, I think, is consistent with the conclusions drawn by the Finance Committee and by the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee when they looked at this matter. When I go to London tomorrow, and again next week, then, together with Scottish colleagues, I will be making that abundantly clear.