5. What assessment has the First Minister made of the impact of the UK Government's shared prosperity fund on Mid and West Wales? OQ57944

Thank you very much to Cefin Campbell for the question. Llywydd, the UK Government has failed to honour the commitment to replace EU funding in full. Neither has it honoured its commitment that no devolved power would be lost to Wales. Communities in Mid and West Wales will have less of a say and there will be less funding available. Those places that are most in need will not receive adequate support.

Thank you very much. It's clear that you've had a few opportunities to rehearse an answer to this question already, but we need to emphasise, of course, that the European funding had been given to the most disadvantaged areas in Wales, and Mid and West Wales had benefited significantly over the years from funding from various European sources—for example, £2.8 million to develop Llanelli town centre and millions for the development of ports in Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock. So, despite the pledges, as we've heard, that not a penny less would be given to us here in Wales, your analysis does suggest clearly that some £1 billion is to be lost in those most disadvantaged areas of Wales.

So, with decisions being taken in London, there are two questions that merge here. What conversations have you had with Westminster in order to ensure that the Welsh Government and this Senedd have a stronger voice in that decision-making process? And what assessment have you made in terms of filling those financial gaps where deprived communities and organisations, often third sector organisations, have lost out because of the deficiencies in this spending by the Tories?

Well, Llywydd, thank you very much to Cefin Campbell for those supplementary questions. May I say this to him? When I speak to the Government in Westminster, I am not content just to have a voice in the decisions that they're going to be making. That doesn't reflect devolution here in Wales, the powers of the Senedd, or the fact that it is the Government here in Wales that is responsible for the subjects that we're talking about. What I want to see is collaboration together to make those decisions; not just having a voice, but powers here for us to use.

Now, I am willing to continue to have those conversations with the United Kingdom Government, but at the end of the day, before they had announced everything about the fund, we hadn't agreed on how that could be implemented and put in place. It just isn't adequate and sufficient for this Senedd to be just a part of the things, one of the bodies that the UK Government just hears what we have to say. That doesn't reflect what has happened over the period of devolution as a whole.

On the other point, about filling the gaps, it's important for me to state clearly, Llywydd, that we don't have the money as a Government to fill every gap that the decisions in Westminster are going to create. We're doing everything that we can do to use the programmes that we already have, to work with local authorities and so on, but when Wales is to lose out to the tune of more than £1 billion, it's impossible to think that the Government here in Wales can just find the money at that level.