Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 4 December 2019.
Well, I'll thank the Member, if I may, for that question and also for his work chairing the group to which he referred in his question, which is doing very innovative and creative work, I think, in identifying, not least on the basis of international best practice, how we can best deploy regional investment funds into the future. He talks about relationships between the Welsh Government and various departments of the UK Government. It is my experience that, in relation to the areas that he has specified in his question, those discussions have been—to the extent they've been productive at all—more productive in direct discussions with the relevant departments concerned.
He talks about research and innovation, and he will know, I know, how dependent, for example, our higher education sector is on funds from Horizon 2020. It is absolutely the case that we have insisted at every opportunity with the UK Government that we must have full replacement for the funds that we will lose if we leave the European Union. He will, perhaps, have seen observations in the Conservative manifesto that, whilst repeating the broad assertion that we've heard routinely from the UK Government without any substance to date, also implies within it that control of those funds could operate on a UK-wide level. And I know that he shares with me and with most Members in this Chamber an absolute aversion to that way of dealing into the future. It is essential, both from democratic and a devolution point of view, but also from the point of view of effective investment in priorities across Wales, that those decisions in relation to how that funding is spent are done by the Welsh Government, based upon the sort of advice that I know will emerge from the work that his committee is doing.