Shadow Finance Minister and North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has criticised the First Minister for failing to get onboard with the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which will replace European Union structural funding, and recognise the opportunities it will provide to Wales.
Last week, Mr Isherwood questioned the Minister for European Transition over his engagement with the UK Government and Welsh Councils in relation to the fund, but was disappointed by his “doom and gloom” response, and received a further negative reply when questioning the First Minister over the matter in today’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament.
Mr Isherwood said:
“Speaking in the House of Commons last month, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Wales said “the amount of money that is going to be spent in Wales when the Shared Prosperity Fund comes in will be identical to or higher than the amount of money that was spent in Wales that came from the European Union” and “that the UK Government will continue to engage with the Welsh Government as they develop the Fund’s investment framework for publication”.
“Speaking in the joint meeting of the Senedd’s Finance and External Affairs Committees last week, the Secretary of State for Wales said: “the funding being made available to Wales … underpinned by the not-a-penny-less guarantee” will “provide opportunities for Wales to do even better than it has previously done in terms of funding streams” – and that they are asking local authorities to join with stakeholders, their MSs, Welsh Government officials, and with MPs, to “come up with really innovative ideas, either as individual authorities or joint with other authorities, and bid for the available money” … where the lessons learned from that this year “will form the basis of the Shared Prosperity Fund, which is a much larger packet of money from the end of 2021 onwards”.
“How will you engage with that?”
In his response, the First Minister said: “The fact that nonsense is spoken on the floor of the House of Commons doesn't make it any less nonsensical. And it's plainly nonsensical. Next year, the community renewal fund—the latest rebadging of the shared prosperity fund—is worth £220 million for the whole of the United Kingdom. Wales alone had £375 million in structural funds.”
Speaking outside the meeting, Mr Isherwood added:
“Once again, he has proven himself incapable of acting other than in a narrow, partisan and politically motivated away, shining a light on where the real barriers to progress lie. Labour Welsh Government has spent billions of EU funding on not closing the prosperity gap either within Wales or between Wales and the rest of the UK. Contrary to his spin, the £220 Million Treasury funding for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund initially announced is only for pilot programmes and it was made clear from the outset that ramped up funding would follow.”