But, within the context of the shared prosperity fund, it is—. It's nice, actually, to see Nick Ramsay struggling and squirming, trying to explain what information whatsoever has been given from the Government. You did the best you could; I think that's probably a fair comment. But what I do get annoyed about is, certainly from the Secretary of State for Wales, in talking about it, and saying, 'Well, of course, the past system hasn't worked very well'—I have to tell you, in Rhondda Cynon Taf, in the Pontypridd and the Taff Ely area, it has been phenomenally successful in a constituency that's suffered from deindustrialisation. We had the £7 million of money for the lido, which connected with the £10 million for the pedestrianisation. We had the £100 million for the Church Village bypass, which has made a massive transformation. We've now got the £119 million for the rail enhancement part of the metro, £27 million of which is within the Taff's Well area, and, of course, the announcement more recently—I think an excellent announcement from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance—in respect of the £100 million in respect of further research and innovation. Those things, together with the way in which Welsh Government has moved Transport for Wales into the Pontypridd area, and the engagement and the partnership—it's actually transforming and regenerating. It has been vitally important, vitally useful, and a really serious consequence from not having it.

But my reason for going on about the shared prosperity fund—. Sometimes you make these glib comments, you know, that the Welsh Conservatives and the Conservative Government has been sharing prosperity ever since it was elected in 2010. The only problem is that it's been sharing prosperity with the people who are already prosperous, not with the people who actually need it. But the Secretary of State for Wales, when he's been asked about this and been challenged about this in Westminster, this is what he said on 24 October 2018:

'The UK's exit from the European Union provides us with an opportunity to reconsider how funding for growth across the UK is designed and delivered. In our manifesto'—

I presume that's the 2017 manifesto, coming up to two years ago—

'we committed to engaging with the Welsh Government on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and that work is under way.'

Well, from what I can see, that's been a manifesto commitment that's been broken from day one. There is no engagement, there has been no sharing of information, and there is no realistic work that is under way. And no doubt the Cabinet Secretary will say that's wrong. But more importantly than that, of course, is that the Secretary of State for Wales, who apparently seems to be confused about what his role is, or, in fact, that if he actually has a role that delivers any benefit to Wales whatsoever, he says, in an event that he had that, as far as I'm aware, was done without the engagement with Welsh Government:

'The creation of the UKSPF creates several risks and concerns. Will it be devolved? If yes, how will the governance and management work? Who will decide the investment priorities? Perhaps a UK Common Framework would work better for Scotland’s third sector? Will it be less money than we have now? Will the sector have a voice?'

Now, those were the questions that were being raised in the event at which he was the main speaker, and I think it raises the concerns that we all have, and we have to speak completely openly about, that what we are seeing is a re-centralisation of UK policy, a clawing back on devolution by using the finance—the so-called finance—that will go into the shared prosperity fund to actually control the political direction within Wales. We can have all the powers we want in this particular Assembly, but if we don't have the finance to enable us to implement them, then that power becomes sterile, and that is my real concern.

In a situation where the UK Government is telling us nothing, is clearly breaking its promises for engagement, will not give any commitment whatsoever in terms of how much money we will need, even if it's to guarantee that we will not get less, what it is actually talking about is how it will control that finance, how it will use that finance, to redirect policy, and even a question as to whether it will be devolved at all. That is the challenge I see, and, in a Conservative Government that is so abysmally divided, that it is in danger of, on the brink of, a general election any day now, it is a real concern that we have no idea, no capacity whatsoever, to plan for the future in terms of the so-called shared prosperity fund. There is only one commitment that will satisfy this, and that is that we will not have less money than we had before. And then there was a second commitment—it wasn't just the one; there was a second commitment—and that is that it will not be in any way used to undermine devolution, that those resources will come here to this place, the local, democratically elected Assembly of Wales, to decide how best it can be used. The decisions taken in my constituency have been very wise, prudent and are bearing fruit, and there's no reason to expect that not to happen in the future, unless there is a recentralisation policy, a secret agenda that the Tories have in the UK, to actually undermine devolution and recentralise power.