Shared Prosperity Fund: Wales

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your esteemed chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I welcome the Minister to his place, for the second time this afternoon. He is the fourth Minister in one year; let us hope he stays around during this crucial period in our political history. I give a big thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) for securing the debate and for speaking so lucidly. A reflection of the importance of this debate can be seen in the number of Labour Members who attended it—nine MPs, I believe, which is almost a third of the Welsh parliamentary party.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham made an excellent speech in which he drew out some important issues, such as the lack of clarity in the whole Brexit process—I share that concern—and ensuring that Wales stays a net beneficiary of the funding. He also, rightly, talked about the disparity within Wales, between east Wales, and west Wales and the valleys.

The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) went off on one, I think. He had an opportunity to highlight some important issues, but he made some unsubstantiated claims and did not even mention the issue of EU funding. He was one of two Conservatives who argued for extra centralisation of powers with the shared prosperity fund. That worries me.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) mentioned the importance of rurality—I share those concerns too, as I have a rural constituency myself—and the fact that he does not want the shared prosperity fund to be Barnettised. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) mentioned the importance of funding for universities and schools. That is key, because our universities should be driving our 21st-century economy.

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on his all-party parliamentary group for post-Brexit funding, which is taking a cross-party approach, which is the way it should be. He drew out several points: that the devolution settlement should be respected, that there should be no power grab or financial grab, that we have had a lack of detail so far and that we do not want Wales to suffer financially as a result of voting for Brexit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) listed the many benefits of being a member of the European Union and a recipient of the highest levels of European grant in the whole of Europe. He is a great campaigner on energy, which is his specific focus, and he dreamt up the name “Energy Island” for Ynys Môn—he is Mr Energy Island himself. He said that there should be more devolution to the areas of Wales. All around, we had some excellent contributions.

From my own perspective, I am very worried about the slipping timescale for the consultation on the shared prosperity fund. There have been 113 written parliamentary questions about the shared prosperity fund, two of them from me about the timing. We were promised that the consultation would take place in 2018, but on the last day in Parliament before the summer recess, it was slipped out that the consultation would be by the end of 2018. We are now almost at the end of 2018 and there has been no mention yet. Please, may we have some detail on the timing?

I share concerns expressed around the Chamber about how much funding we will receive. Before the Brexit referendum, the Brexiteers came into Wales to say, “Wales will not suffer. It will have exactly the same funding after Brexit as it did before.” We want to ensure that that will be the case. Another of my concerns about the European funding is that we had both capital funding under the ERDF and revenue funding under ESF. We want to ensure that that continues. In Wales, we benefited tremendously from it.

This is not all just from a party political perspective, so I will finish with the words of the Federation of Small Businesses:

“The FSB calls for the devolved nations to retain the powers to set their own allocations and frameworks for how funding should be prioritised, which takes account of local economic needs.

Regional policy is fundamentally about balancing economic outcomes. As economic development is a devolved function, we believe Welsh Government are best placed to deliver any replacement funding through the Shared Prosperity Fund”.

So please, no power grab by the centre. Leave those powers and that finance in Wales.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Adams]

It was my first visit to Wales, so I thought it was worth bringing up.

[Chris Ruane]

Has the Minister ever been to the Vale of Clwyd?

[Nigel Adams]

I do not think I have, but I am sure it will be on my agenda shortly. I am looking forward to going to north Wales, and I was in Cardiff on the second day of my appointment.

I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, and for their kind wishes on my appointment as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales. It is a great honour to be asked to join the Department and to carry on the work of my predecessors. Although I have not yet been in the job a week, I understand and recognise many of the issues that have been raised. Someone said that they are a passionate lot in Wales; that has been exemplified this afternoon, and it is an incredibly important debate to have.

As the hon. Member for Wrexham pointed out, Wales has been a net beneficiary of funding from the EU. By the time the current cycle finishes in 2020, Wales will have received more than £5 billion. The hon. Gentleman’s constituency has benefited from that funding to the tune of more than £14 million between 2005 and 2016. Projects such as the community resource centre in his constituency, Coedpoeth Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Centre, and the west Wrexham learning project have received funding from Europe. It is understandable that they, like other organisations in Wales, both large and small, will want to know what comes next.

The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) mentioned that as part of our 2017 manifesto, we set out proposals for a UK shared prosperity fund, which would

“reduce inequalities between communities across our four nations”.

As part of that commitment, we recognise the role that the Welsh Government and other devolved Administrations have played in delivering structural funds over the last 20 or so years. We are absolutely committed to engaging with them as we develop the proposals. The Government have already begun discussions, which will continue, at official and ministerial levels.

Since 2016, we have worked together to agree deals; the Cardiff and Swansea deals are together worth £2.5 billion. We are working on a £120 million deal for north Wales, which I have already had a briefing on and am very keen to get involved in, to see what I can do to help deliver those projects. That was announced in the Budget, as Members will be aware, along with a commitment to start work on a deal for mid-Wales. Those are examples of our Governments working together across administrative boundaries to strike deals that will power economic growth throughout Wales.

The shared prosperity fund provides the UK with an enormous opportunity to redefine the way we invest our money in line with priorities unique to the people, communities and businesses across all nations of our Union, not least Wales. It is right that these groups be afforded the chance to express their views directly to all Governments on the priorities and most effective structures for future funding. Our forthcoming public consultation is an important first step in shaping those discussions, and will ensure that interested parties from across the UK are given the opportunity to inform the debate.

[Chris Ruane]

The Minister says that the consultation is upcoming; can he give us the exact date?

[Nigel Adams]

This debate is a starting point, but the consultation will begin before the end of the year. It will be for others in Government to announce the date, but given that we are halfway through November, it is probably easy to work out that the hon. Gentleman will not have long to wait for the consultation to begin.