Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 30 November 2022.
Okay, thank you for that, but I think we can surmise, therefore, that it isn't true to say that there isn't any at the moment. I respect your wish not to offer a running commentary, but when we have different messages coming from different people, I think we need a degree of transparency around that. I fully concur with the point you made about end-of-year flexibilities, and this, again, reflects on the current settlement and arrangements around funding, which, obviously, are ones that we've highlighted and come at from a very similar standpoint, I'd imagine.
Now, it just underlines, of course, the need to make sure that every pound works as hard as possible, particularly in the current financial climate. I noticed in the Welsh Government's response to the Finance Committee's report on post-EU funding, which I know is the subject of a debate later on this afternoon, but there's one particular point in that response that I just wanted to highlight to you, the Government says in its response that,
'The remaining ERDF and ESF programme spend in Wales is £619 million,' as of the end of October just gone. Now, the projected spend from that by the end of January is £170 million. So, that leaves £450 million to be spent on activity to be delivered up to the summer and, obviously, claimed for by December next year. Are you confident that that money will be fully utilised? Can you assure us that there won't be any underspend in that respect and that no funds will actually be sent back or lost to Wales? Do you acknowledge that if that does happen, then it will represent a huge failure at a time when, as I say, Wales needs to utilise every single penny that we can?