The Shared Prosperity Fund

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:20 pm on 16 March 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:20, 16 March 2021

The fact that nonsense is spoken on the floor of the House of Commons doesn't make it any less nonsensical. And it's plainly nonsensical. Next year, the community renewal fund—the latest rebadging of the shared prosperity fund—is worth £220 million for the whole of the United Kingdom. Wales alone had £375 million in structural funds. And we're not guaranteed—to use that word—a single penny of it. It is a UK fund on a bidding basis. There is no money in it that says 'Wales' on it at all. You'll be able to bid and then a Tory Minister in Whitehall will make decisions against the track record that I just set out for Members here. In what possible sense—in what possible sense—could anybody defend that as a way of treating Wales? We are being cheated out of money, we are being stolen from when it comes to our powers, and the unfolding record of the UK Government in Westminster short-changes Wales every single day.