Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, for calling me to speak in this very topical debate, as we move into an even more nail-biting time over our future relationship with the European Union. I'm not a member of the committee, but I did give evidence to the committee as chair of the Wales programme monitoring committee, along with Sioned Evans, the chief executive of WEFO, and Grahame Guilford, EU funding ambassador. The report certainly makes a strong case for the continuation of funding, at least at the level of the present European structural funds. And, in fact, as the Chair has already said in his introduction, Wales receives considerably more structural funds per person than any other part of the UK, so Brexit could hit Wales particularly hard.

Many organisations cited in the report gave evidence about the value of the funds, and many drew attention to the cross-cutting themes that have to be adhered to when European funding is agreed—the cross-cutting themes of equal opportunities and gender mainstreaming, sustainable development and tackling poverty and social exclusion. That is one of the great things, I think, about the European funds that we have had—that these themes have been built into all the projects. Chwarae Teg in particular drew attention to the projects that had been set up to look at women in the workforce and to tackle inequalities. I think it's important to remember that, in WEFO, there is a whole section of staff that is devoted to promoting the cross-cutting themes and ensuring that they're embedded at the beginning in all of the projects that are agreed to have EU funding. I think it is absolutely essential that, in any future funding that comes through the shared prosperity fund, these themes are also built in. We must make sure that tackling inequality is one of the main issues of these themes. I think it is also important to remember, as the Chair of the committee also said, about the huge amount of expertise that has been built up in Wales over nearly 20 years of EU funding—and that is recognised in the report—because the Welsh Government has been responsible for managing EU structural funds since April 2000 and, of course, has an in-depth knowledge of local views, local situations and local partnerships. It is vitally important that this is not lost, and it cannot be replicated by a Whitehall-down approach.

One of the most striking things in the report that struck me reading it was how it highlighted what an unequal country the UK is. I was particularly struck by the bit in the report that said that:

The UK currently has the largest regional economic disparity in GDP per person of any of the 28 EU Member States', with Inner London West having a GDP per head of 611 per cent of the EU average, while West Wales and the Valleys has a GDP of 68 per cent. I think it is very worrying that there are such extremes of wealth in the UK and that we have such an unequal society across the UK, because an unequal society will never be a cohesive society, and obviously the financial crash and austerity, which has followed, has made the gap between rich and poor get even wider.

But it was very good to hear in the committee report the strong support for the view that Wales should not be a penny worse off than it would have been within the EU, because this was, after all, one of the 'leave' campaign's promises to voters before the referendum.

Now, I know there have been pre-consultation meetings between different organisations in Wales in the Wales Office ahead of the formal consultation on the shared prosperity fund, which I'm told is planned to start before Christmas. It was interesting to hear in First Minister's questions, when I asked the First Minister about a meeting that was supposed to take, that did take, place last Friday—this was a meeting with third sector organisations and I know there was some concern amongst the third sector about who was being involved and who wasn't being involved in discussing the shared prosperity fund, but the First Minister said that his officials here were informed, but only the day before. So, I think, in response to Nick Ramsay's comments, that we only know a little bit and pretty late in the day. So, I think it is a matter of great concern. I think there is concern amongst organisations, and particularly organisations working on promoting equality and helping women to achieve and prosper are very concerned that there may be any change of emphasis if the UK Government controls the levers of the shared prosperity fund. So, I am very pleased that the Welsh Government is quite clear that anything that comes from the shared prosperity fund to Wales must be controlled and made in Wales.