2. What discussions has the Minister had with HM Treasury regarding the UK Government's levelling-up fund? OQ58438

The UK Government has bypassed the Welsh Government and the Senedd on this fund, which fails to address persistent regional inequalities across the UK. I have repeatedly raised with a succession of Chancellors and Treasury Ministers the disruption and the substantial loss of overall funding impacting communities, businesses and charities in Wales.

And it's causing a real problem; the change of leadership in the Treasury and in the Government has left a lot of uncertainty, although there was already uncertainty there. We've currently got a Government that is pushing the accelerator and the brake on the economy at the same time, and burning out the engine—no wonder they have not got attention to levelling-up. Perhaps they have got attention to levelling-up—levelling-up for bankers, but not levelling-up for our communities. [Interruption.] You might not like it, but it's the truth. Caerphilly County Borough Council has been able to access some of the funding, but the problem is it comes with very tight deadlines, and that increases the amount of risk and uncertainty involved in the delivery of the funding. They've got to spend that money this financial year, but the advice and the delivery of the funds are very uncertain. So, would the Minister do her best to raise this with the UK Government? Caerphilly council are doing their part, and surely now it's time for the UK Government to do their part.

I'd be more than happy to continue to make these arguments in regard to both the levelling-up fund and the shared prosperity fund to the UK Government. We do have our next meeting of the inter-ministerial standing committee, which is what the quadrilaterals used to be, where all the Ministers for finance from the UK get together, and we've asked specifically for a discussion on replacement European Union funding. The short deadlines are a real concern. Of course, with European funding, you'd have a number of years over which to profile the spend, and the short deadlines for both applications and delivery, I think, are really concerning. Also, the size of the fund is a real worry as well. I know that Caerphilly has bid for more than £66 million of funding from the second round of the levelling-up fund, but the fund itself is only worth £800 million across Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, so it will do very little to level up, and we fear that there may be a good number of disappointed local authorities in terms of the bids that they've put forward. But we will absolutely continue to press the UK Government—I do so with my colleague Vaughan Gething, who leads on this—to have a more timely approach and also just to increase the level of funding that is available through these funds.

The UK Government's levelling-up agenda has brought great benefits to mid Wales, with the last autumn budget seeing a total of £22 million being invested in Powys for elements of social care, tourism and housing, most of which are truly needed in my community. Does the Minister agree with me that funding like this from the Conservative UK Government is a huge boost for rural communities, money which would never have been received from the EU or the Welsh Government under old bureaucratic funding systems, because the UK Conservative Government are interested in levelling up, as you are only interested in levelling down?

Well, I was wondering where to even start with that contribution, because we know that the methodology alone results in the fact that Wales will receive £1 billion less in replacement funding from the United Kingdom as compared to what we would have had from the European Union. So, Wales is being absolutely ripped off on this point. And if you think that £20 million in one area of Wales is a great success from the fund, it's absolutely ridiculous, because the amount of funding that is now coming to Wales is so much smaller than it could have been, and we'll be able to do much less across Wales.