Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 26 April 2022.
It's good old-fashioned pork-barrel politics, isn't it? We heard recently that Ynys Môn would be getting some £16 million from the so-called shared prosperity funds. And whilst any funding is to be welcomed, of course—and I'll work with partners to make sure that projects on Anglesey will benefit as best as possible—there's no escaping the fact that this is a fraction of the funding available under EU structural funds, and falls way short of the UK Government's promise that we wouldn't lose a penny after Brexit, which the Conservatives clearly don't mind one bit. Now, it's a mess, but my question relates to the fact that this is an unstrategic mess. Does the First Minister agree that there's no joined-up thinking here from UK Government, no long-term plan? And can he tell me what pressure Welsh Ministers can try to bring to bear on their UK counterparts to try to make subsequent funding rounds at least a little bit more strategic in nature?