EU funding enriched the communities I represent. From town-centre developments to financing infrastructure projects, it created opportunities. When we left the EU, we were promised not a penny less by the UK Government, but, Llywydd, there is already plentiful evidence to suggest that my area will be short-changed by the successor schemes.

Earlier this year, the Tory Government in Westminster announced a list of 100 priority areas for the community renewal fund, as has been suggested already—areas that would likely be prioritised; that is, to get the funding. Those living in Caerphilly were dismayed to discover that the area was not included, this in spite of the fact that the area benefited from EU funding, and something didn't add up. So, in April of this year, my team conducted research. Before I share the findings of that research with the Chamber, I would point out, Llywydd, that the UK Government website claimed that any data used for the fund should be publicly available so that the calculations behind the rankings are fully transparent—a laudable aim, and yet, when I wrote to Robert Jenrick on 13 April asking for those data to be made publicly available, answer came there none. The UK Government has also refused to release the data to the Western Mail, and indeed, they refused to release them under a freedom of information request put in by the Caerphilly Observer.

My team analysed how Caerphilly stacked up and whether it should qualify to be a priority area, and they used the metrics that the UK Government claims to have relied on when deciding on the prioritisation—that is, productivity, skills, employment, population density, household income. And can you guess what I'm going to tell you, Llywydd? Caerphilly of course scored highly on all of the metrics, particularly productivity, which was meant to be the weightiest of them. That is, Caerphilly's scores should have meant that they would qualify. To add insult to this injurious discovery, we found that of the 100 areas that were prioritised, 35 had higher productivity rates than Caerphilly. That is, they should have scored more lowly than the area and have been less likely to qualify for support. Of those 35 areas, where question marks hang over why they've been included, let me enlighten you: 22 have Conservative MPs, 10 are red wall seats prioritised for quite specifically Tory interests, and eight of the seats are the seats of Government Tory Ministers.

I asked Mr Jenrick to re-examine the calculations and, indeed, to make them public to avoid any possible suggestion that these calculations were political rather than mathematical, and, to date, I have not received a response from the UK Government. I mentioned that the Caerphilly Observer had put in an FOI request for the data, and last week they finally received a response that of course refused to release the data, owing to the fact that it wouldn't be in the public interest to release them. This in spite of the fact—I think the point bears repeating, Llywydd—that their own website claimed that any data used should be publicly available to aid transparency. The UK Government now seems intent on pressing ahead with awarding the funds before it releases the data and before any of these concerns are cleared up. The reason seems clear to me: these Tory successor schemes are designed to enrich Tory party interests, not our communities. 'Not a penny less', we were told. Well, a penny for your promises, Prime Minister, because that's about all that they're worth.