The Mersey Dee Area

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 1:53 pm on 23 March 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 1:53, 23 March 2022

Well, we'd like to be able to do just that. It does require, though, not just a level of honesty but a level of practical ability to work together, and that can't be on the basis that the UK Government decide what's going to happen and then demand that the Welsh Government falls into line. Now, in the Mersey Dee area you've got local authorities on both sides of the border who are having that productive conversation, and again including different political leadership, so it is about recognising the wider benefit to it.

But a range of the areas that you've mentioned in your statement and question actually come from reserved responsibilities. It's the UK Government's responsibility to invest in rail infrastructure and of course that investment can provide significant additional economic benefit. And of course the union connectivity review you mentioned, one of the things it highlighted, as indeed has the Conservative chair of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, is that HS2 is going to be a problem for the economy of Wales. It should be seen as an England-only project, not England-and-Wales, and that would actually allow us to have significant additional investment within connectivity and transport infrastructure here in Wales, and I hope the Member will join with other people across the Chamber in calling for the UK Government to change its mind on the way that HS2 is categorised, because at the moment Wales will lose out.