Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 17 November 2021.

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Photo of Lesley Griffiths Lesley Griffiths Labour 2:36, 17 November 2021

You make a very important point, and certainly, the UK Government have clearly let down our farmers and our rural communities here in Wales. As you say, we will lose out on over £106 million of replacement EU funding over the spending review period. That's on top of last year's £137 million that wasn't provided for my budget from the UK Government. That netting away of that funding would not have happened if we'd still been in the European Union. As you probably are aware, and you will have heard the Minister for finance in her questions saying, this rhetoric—and it was rhetoric, wasn't it—around not a penny less is just not coming to fruition, and I know both myself and the Minister for finance have continually complained about the methodology that has been used by the UK Government. And I'm very disappointed that they didn't take a different approach this year following our representations last year.

So, it does leave rural Wales with significantly less funding than if we had remained within the European Union. So, obviously now, we will all have to take this into consideration as a Cabinet ahead of our budget being announced on 20 December.