Can I thank the Minister for his statement this afternoon? Although, I have to say, I find it bizarre that he's making this statement when the UK Government has already committed to consulting on the shape of the new UK shared prosperity fund in the future, and has also given a commitment to making sure that it respects the devolution settlement in terms of the way that that fund is going to be administered. I find it very strange that we have the Cabinet Secretary for Finance coming here today, telling us that he's going to spend yet more precious taxpayers' money setting up a parallel universe, as far as the distribution of regional funds is concerned, through the establishment of the regional investment steering group—yet another quango, frankly, with more jobs for the boys and girls that the crony Government that we've got wants to be able to distribute.

Let me put on record right now that I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in the ability of the Welsh Labour-led Government to distribute any funds across Wales in a fair and just manner to those parts of the country that need them. Just look at the local government settlement—just look at the local government settlement that we had last week: it's very clear that you like to distribute cash to certain places in Wales, to the detriment of others, including north Wales, mid Wales, and west Wales. In fact, what you like to do as a Government is to distribute the cash to your friends in the Labour Party, in other parts, in terms of local authorities that are run. So, I would be grateful if you could give us more clarity on what the precise costs of this body—this regional investment steering group—are going to be, and why you are jumping the gun in terms of making these statements now, when you are yet to receive any kind of consultation document from the UK Government.

We all know that the Welsh Government wants to try to crow about the success of European structural funds to date. But the reality is that they've been far from a success. In fact, we've gone backwards in terms of our relative gross value added in the UK, as a proportion of UK GVA. That's an embarrassment. The only reason that the jobless totals have been coming down in these areas is because we've got a Tory Government over the border, in London, that has been bringing the jobless total down, creating thousands of jobs each and every week since we got into power back in 2010. So, I'm very disappointed that you're jumping the gun, that you're making this statement today, that you're going to be spending yet more hard-earned cash that belongs to taxpayers in a wasteful way, setting up this parallel system, when it's absolutely likely to be completely unnecessary.

Will you accept that there has been a failure over the past two decades in terms of the way that you've invested—as a Government, taken the lead in investing these European structural funds? We know that there's been this failure to lift Wales out of poverty. We're still the poorest part of the UK as far as the figures demonstrate, in terms of the European regions within the United Kingdom. That is diabolical. It's an embarrassment. It's a shame that Wales is in this situation, but that's where we're at as a result of your Government's decisions in terms of the management of EU structural funds so far.

Can I also ask how you will ensure that the different regions within Wales have as local decision making as possible in the future? You've already heard from the UK Government that they're going to respect the devolution settlement in terms of these arrangements. But how are you going to ensure that any cash that becomes yours to distribute, under any future UK prosperity fund, is actually going to reach all parts of Wales and will deal with the poverty that there is across the country? We do know, of course, that we have a new opportunity with the UK shared prosperity fund to reach out into poorer communities that are not in west Wales and the Valleys. At the moment, we have this geographical straitjacket, which we are in as a result of EU decision making, which forces us to spend the money in certain places to the detriment of those places in east Wales.

So, I wonder whether you can tell us: is the removal of that straitjacket something that you feel that Wales can benefit from? How do you intend to make sure that those poorer communities in other parts of Wales are going to get the cash that they need in order to raise prosperity levels? And do you accept that simply having more of the same, which I think is sort of what you're proposing, is not going to work and is going to fail again in the future?