7. What discussions has the Minister had with the UK Government regarding the Shared Prosperity Fund? OAQ54547

I continue to raise the importance of replacement EU funding in full and for the Welsh Government to retain the autonomy to deliver it. I pressed the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on this matter when I met with him at the most recent meeting of the finance Ministers.

Well, thank you for that answer, Minister. Of course, I appreciate the difficulty you have in getting a response. Now, for those of us who watched live broadcasts of the Conservative Party conference, we would have had a very adequate answer, because the Minister was actually there in public giving public pronouncements at meetings, making it absolutely clear that the shared prosperity fund is something that is going to be controlled and regulated in order to strengthen the union, and that means very clearly, I think, that it's going to be used in a way that undermines the whole principles of our devolution settlement. Now, bearing in mind that the Minister seems to be capable of doing that live on television, I wonder if, perhaps, an urgent response is required from Welsh Government demanding that we also be given the same privilege or luxury of an answer so at least we can tackle those issues head on.

Yes. I can confirm that the Counsel General and Brexit Minister reinforced our position as a Welsh Government—and one which I know is shared across parties in this Chamber—with Ministers at a meeting of the JMC last week on 10 October. And, of course, we've been very active raising these points consistently, reflecting the views of Welsh Government, but, as I say, the shared views that we had the opportunity to put on record through a debate in this Assembly, which said that the Welsh Government should retain the autonomy to allocate the funding for those schemes because we have the experience, the networks and so on in order to do that most effectively, and also that principle of 'not a penny less'. I was very concerned when I raised this with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and he almost batted that off, saying, 'Well, that was a leave campaign promise, not a Conservative Government promise', but, of course, the Prime Minister was the leader of the leave campaign, so I think that we can certainly be reasonably expected to hold him to account on that.