Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:37 pm on 8 May 2019.

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Photo of Darren Millar Darren Millar Conservative 2:37, 8 May 2019

I'm here to ask questions of this Government that serves the people of Wales. And I think that it's very important that people recognise the failures of your Government, and previous administrations, to properly manage the European funds that were at their disposal. We've gone backwards in terms of our wage growth when compared to—as a proportion—other parts of the UK. And I find it pretty appalling, frankly, that you're not prepared to acknowledge the failures in a way that other Labour backbenchers, and Ministers previously, have acknowledged in terms of the way that those funds have been spent.

Can I ask you a question in terms of the way that your Government hopes to distribute those funds? You will be aware that the UK Government is keen to establish a shared prosperity fund, that those funds will be available to Wales, and that there are many parts of Wales that are not able to benefit from the current European structural funds that would likely be able to benefit under different arrangements through a UK shared prosperity fund. Do you accept that many people don't trust the Welsh Government to distribute funds in Wales, given the way that you carve up local government settlements, given the way that you carve up other funding, and seem to distribute it in places according to your political preferences, rather than those places that actually need the sort of investment that is actually available?

And can you tell us what the timetable for the work of this steering committee that has been established actually is, in terms of the recommendations that it might make, and whether you will put in the public domain all of the minutes of those meetings, who attends them, and precisely the agenda that those meetings have going forward? Because I think many people will want to see the range of activity that is being undertaken by the Welsh Government in order to look at how you might manage structural funds in the future, given the failures of the past.