4. Statement by the Minister for Economy: Stronger Regional Economies

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:24 pm on 18 January 2022.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:24, 18 January 2022

Thank you for the series of comments and questions within those. I'll take on board what the Deputy Llywydd asked.

In terms of the broad sweep of what the Member has been saying, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding about the regional economic frameworks. That helps us to define a vision for the future of each region, with a common set of priorities for economic development. They go hand in hand with the work that's taking place within the growth deals, where we have committed sums of money. The same money has gone in from the UK Government and the Welsh Government, and then our public sector partners, led by local authorities, who are key to regional economic development. It's then about being able to lever in additional investment and jobs. That's actually about trying to understand, within each region, where the opportunities for growth are, and the fact that each region will be different. Rather than the Welsh Government determining for those regions what their plans should look like, it's actually about working alongside them as genuine partners to produce those frameworks. It's really important for all the things that are moving together in the same place to have a shared vision. It's why it's so disappointing that we do have a UK Government that is prepared to simply ignore all of that work that is taking place. 

When we talk about the constructive partnership that could exist between the Welsh Government and the UK Government, it is, of course, typical that Conservative politicians demand that there is no criticism of the UK Government. I've never once heard a Welsh Conservative express any concern about the cut in our budgets, about the reduction in money from the shared prosperity fund. I've never heard a single point of concern either in this place or outside it, and that is just extraordinary. When we're talking about skills and about listening to businesses and working with them, we have the architecture to do that already. The regional skills partnerships that now exist in each part of Wales that some Members in this place were part of helping to draw up and wanted to see—they tell us where we want to try and invest more in skills to support each part of the economy, even more important now with a tightening labour market with people having left it at one end, as well as those people that have returned to European countries and are unlikely to return to the UK. 

Our ability to invest in skills, though, is directly affected by the broken manifesto promise on replacing EU structural funds. We are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds, Paul. That's the undeniable truth. Having sucked that out of the money we would have used to support the economy and to invest in skills, it just isn't good enough for Conservative politicians to claim that they're desperately concerned about everything apart from the damage the UK Government is doing.

We'll have more to say as we move forward, not just about where we go with regional economic frameworks and the work that we'll do alongside regions in co-producing those investment priorities, but also the work that we have got the OECD to do to make sure that we're continuing to look at how we further improve regional economic development. We'll publish the work we get from the OECD and the action plan that we'll look to develop alongside our regional partners. It's also going in line with other work we have in train as well. I expect to come back in the coming weeks and months to talk about the future employability strategy for Wales, where, again, we have been able to work constructively along with some parts of the Department for Work and Pensions, as they are more active in some parts of employability support. We need to ensure that our support is properly tailored to people who are furthest away from the labour market, where the DWP are least active.

It is about refining where we are to make sure that we're pointing, as far as possible, in the same direction. Goodwill on both sides, between the UK Government and the Welsh Government, will allow us to do much, much more, but I won't make any apologies for standing up and being clear that a failure to adopt even a modestly constructive approach from some parts of the UK Government affects our ability to do so. The refusal to replace former EU funds will continue to be a challenge for the future of the Welsh economy, regardless of the Welsh Conservatives' silence on the matter.