Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:18 pm on 26 October 2022.
Yes, I do agree with those points, because in my view the impact of Brexit has been very much camouflaged by the pandemic and now by the cost-of-living crisis. I think that the example that you've given, which compares our position with Germany, really does spell out the damage that has been done by Brexit and that will continue to be done unless the UK Government takes a different approach to trading with our most important trading partners.
I think the issue around replacement EU funding, as well, is an important one. We were promised that we wouldn't be a penny worse off. Well, that's true; we're £1.1 billion worse off in terms of the lack of available European funding. The shared prosperity fund has just been an abject failure in terms of being a replacement. As well as having that funding gap, no funding has reached Wales yet, whereas of course if we were still in the EU those EU programmes would have already started in January 2021. And not only that; they would have been programmes over a number of years, which would have allowed more strategic deployment of that funding, rather than funding small pet projects across Wales, decided by Ministers in Westminster. [Interruption.] I hear the Conservatives behind me, but I find it quite hilarious that anybody is still willing to defend the current situation, where we are worse off financially, and also our reputation across the world has been damaged, probably irreparably for some time, by the Conservative Party.