Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I move the motion tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian.

Why have we called for this debate today? I could launch straight into detail about different pots of funding and rehash well-worn Brexit arguments, but I'd like to start in more simple terms: we are facing a cost-of-living disaster. Most have already started to feel its effects after the 1 April energy price hike, and yesterday's headlines reported that the typical household energy bill is set to rise again by another £800 a year in October. Whilst all this is going on, Wales not only is lacking the financial and welfare levers that are currently held by Westminster to tackle this crisis, but we have also been denied funding as we have exited the European Union, funding that could make all the difference now. Rather than the disjointed projects that tinker around the edges, Plaid Cymru is calling for the levelling-up funds to be used to deliver genuine transformational programmes such as retrofitting Wales's housing stock, one of the oldest housing stocks in Europe, to save households over £600 on energy bills. Plaid Cymru is also calling for the shared prosperity fund to be devolved, and for a needs-based funding formula to be adopted, thus giving us the opportunity to correct the arbitrary top-down approach adopted by the UK Government.

Devolving the shared prosperity fund to the Welsh Government is necessary to ensure that the funds are directed properly to tackle the cost-of-living crisis head on. Inflation figures and economic growth rates add to the mounting evidence of UK stagflation; the Conservatives' record is of 12 years of failure to create an economy that delivers well-being for people across the United Kingdom. From the banking crisis to the present day, the Westminster Government has sought out every opportunity to impose austerity and to bring about a hard Brexit of its own making. Those have combined to aggravate the UK's cost-of-living crisis. Yes, there have been other causes that have been beyond our control, but these are ideological choices that will go down in history as Tory creations.

The levelling-up fund does nothing to correct past mistakes or deliver for the future. By the Welsh Government's own figures, this Government's post-Brexit funding arrangement for Wales falls short by £772 million of structural funds alone for the period of 2021-25, and we face in Wales a loss of more than £1 billion in unreplaced funding over the next three years. That's not only an assault on Welsh devolution, as the economy Minister has already said, but also a broken election promise. The Conservative Party promised in 2019 to replace EU regional funding with a programme that is fairer and better tailored to our economy. However, so far, the amount of funding allocated to this end has failed to match the promise of the UK Government's levelling-up rhetoric. That is not what was promised on page 15 of the 2019 Welsh Conservative manifesto, which said that

'no part of the UK loses out from the withdrawal of EU funding'.

Nor is it what was promised on page 29, which said that

'Wales will not lose any powers or funding as a result of our exit from the EU'.

To be fair, the Welsh Conservative benches here must also be disappointed, as their 2021 manifesto set out their hopes to see delivered a UK shared prosperity fund that tackles inequality and deprivation and levels up the whole of Wales. A year on from this manifesto, and inequality and deprivation have only deepened. Three years into its term and six years on from Brexit, the UK Government cannot articulate or deliver any clear benefits to Wales. We need an honest funding settlement, devolved engagement, and a focus on delivery rather than glossy announcements.

The UK levelling-up agenda excludes the Welsh Government from the management of the shared prosperity fund with allocations made to local authority areas based on investment plans with approval granted by UK Government Ministers. This is a purposeful bypassing of the Senedd's democratic oversight. Fundamentally, there is a principle at stake here: decisions for Wales should be  made by Wales. It should be for a democratically elected Welsh Parliament to decide how to spend what money is left. Where there is a problem, it always seems the UK Government's answer is to patch together a solution that serves a small cohort of the population. Out of ideas—other than to centralise powers that they do not possess—the UK Government sit on their hands as the economy that they're responsible for fails to work for households and businesses not just in Wales, but across the UK.

To close, Dirprwy Lywydd, this message should have landed a long time ago. It was the UK Government that promised it, after all. We'll never stop repeating it, and we'll always remind them of it: 'Not a penny less, not a power lost'.