The UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Part of 4. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 12:49 pm on 15 July 2020.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 12:49, 15 July 2020

I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for that question, and also thank him for his chairing of the steering group on regional investment in Wales, which has put the Welsh Government and Welsh businesses and stakeholders at large in a very good position to understand what use we would be able to make of those resources if, as we hope, those promises are kept. So I'd like to thank him for his role in relation to that in particular.

We are frustrated, as is clear, I think, from what I've said already about the lack of progress on the specifics of the shared prosperity fund. As I said, there have been constructive discussions with the Secretary of State for Wales. I want to acknowledge that, but what we need is progress on the ground so that we can put these programmes in place, and that is lacking. I do think that that contrasts with the proactivity and the programmatic way in which we've approached that here in Wales. I don't have confidence going into the summer that we will have that information, in all candour. I think that we don't now expect that announcement until the comprehensive spending review in the autumn.

It may be that other factors around devolution in England and plans for post-COVID economic recovery are causing an impact at this point in time, but that now provides a really difficult context—and that's an understatement, really—for some of the projects and programmes currently in place. A rationally organised system would have ensured that those decisions had already been taken so that, going into 2021, there would have been a degree of continuity, which seems very, very hard to imagine can be possible if certainty isn't provided until the comprehensive spending review in the autumn, and that is a very serious missed opportunity.