Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes in practice to support the new hybrid arrangements. Timings of debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made for the next debate. There will be suspensions between each debate. Members participating physically and virtually must arrive at the start of debates in Westminster Hall, and they are expected to remain for the entire debate. I must also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to one another and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks’ email address, which is [e-mail].

Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and when they leave the room. Mr Speaker has stated that Members must wear masks in Westminster Hall unless they are speaking. I also remind Members that those who are sitting in the Public Gallery should move to the horseshoe just before they are called to speak. If Members sitting around the horseshoe could kindly facilitate that, that would be fine.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund in Wales.

I am very pleased to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Rees. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) for helping to secure this important debate, and Mr Speaker for the opportunity to lead it. The debate gives the House the opportunity to address the broken promises made by Tory Ministers and the empty words of the Prime Minister, who has done nothing but let Wales down. Most important of all, it gives us all a chance to give voice to the thoughts, concerns, needs and wants of the people of Wales. I know my colleagues on this side of the House agree with me, and I suspect that many on the other side do, too, because funding for our communities is vital and much needed, but it is crucial that the funding is transparent, fair and balanced. Its distribution must not be another example of doing to people; we must focus on doing with people. As things stand, the levelling up fund and the community renewal fund fail on both those counts.

The levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund pit nations such as Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland against the many regions up and down England. That simply is not good enough. Is it any surprise that the constituencies represented by Cabinet Ministers have received funds ahead of other parts of the United Kingdom? That is what happens when control is left in the hands of Ministers in Whitehall rather than in the hands of local communities up and down the country.

The so-called levelling-up fund will see decisions made in Whitehall rather than Wales, and will be driven by Departments with no history of delivering projects in and across Wales, no record of working with communities in Wales—north, south or mid—and no understanding of the priorities of those communities now or in future. That is why the First Minister of Wales, my right hon. friend Mark Drakeford MS, was correct to say that the Tory attempt to level up the economy in Wales is, simply put,

“a plan made for Wales – without Wales”.

That simply will not do.

I am a very proud member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, where we heard evidence on this subject just a few weeks ago. We heard from four council leaders across Wales, the Minister for Economy in the Welsh Government, the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, and the director of policy, cities and local growth unit—quite a mouthful. Some key themes emerged from that important evidence session: there is not enough money in the pot to replace what Wales currently receives from the EU; there has been insufficient communication; the bidding criteria are not clear, and the mechanisms to decide on successful bids are submerged in confusion and chaos; the element of competitiveness is unwelcome, and Welsh areas are pitted against not just other Welsh areas but England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Those of us living and working in Wales prefer to work collaboratively to get the best for our communities, rather than compete aggressively to win small amounts of funding. Another key theme we found in our evidence session is that the timeline is too short; the deadline for bid submissions is impossibly short. Next week is the deadline for the very first round of bids; that means that councils have to submit shovel-ready projects rather than the most important and useful projects. That is not the best way of working.

When speaking to our Committee, Vaughan Gething made it abundantly clear that the Welsh Government had effectively been cut out of the bidding process completely, and that relationships with the Westminster Government were in a very cool phase at present. But the final part of our evidence session was perhaps the most concerning, as we heard two Government Ministers give different accounts of the bidding process and how the successful bids would be judged. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales was clear that he expected the Wales Office to be involved in the scrutiny of bids, but the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government was adamant that the Wales Office would not be involved, but that his Department would be setting up additional teams of people in Wales to get involved in the process. I am still not clear why this additional layer of bureaucracy is necessary.

The levelling-up fund money is not new money. If it was not being funnelled through this fund, it would have been allocated to Wales through the Senedd, the democratically elected Parliament of the people of Wales, and it would have been allocated in accordance with the priorities of the Senedd, decided by the people of Wales. However, rather than respecting democracy and looking to work with the Welsh Government, Tories in Westminster have decided to trample over our democracy and have by-passed the Senedd completely. That is probably why, at the most recent opportunity the people of Wales had to express their view, they re-elected their Welsh Labour Government for a record sixth term of uninterrupted government. This is true to form for the Tory Ministers on the other side of the House, because they ride roughshod over democracy by taking decisions on devolved matters in Wales and remove most means of being held accountable by creating a system in which the people of Wales will have no say. It is unacceptable.

It is clear to me, and I know to many on this side of the House, that the way this whole sorry affair has been handled shows that the Tories know they have lost the trust and support of the people of Wales. On taking office, the Prime Minister made himself the Minister for the Union. Far from unity, every decision he has made and every step he has taken has sown discord and disunity across our country. As each day passes, the situation and future of the Union grow ever graver. I say this with no relish, but with increasing fear and concern for our Union.

The strong ties of family, faith, support, solidarity and togetherness that bind this Union are continuing to fray because of the failure of Tory Ministers to recognise that unions are formed of voluntary, consenting parties that need and deserve respect. Importantly, as I have already indicated, this Union is made up of four equal and proud partners. Nobody disagrees with the creation of the means to support and empower our communities, by using these funds, but as is so often the case with this Government, it is how it is done—or not done.

These funds could have been a step towards greater, more equal co-operation between Whitehall and the devolved Governments in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh, but it has not happened. That is why I call on the Minister today to give us a reasoned explanation of what is actually going to happen, because we need to know and we need to know now.

The Secretary of State for Wales is a decent man, but it is a matter of regret that his decency has not stopped him from going along with the Prime Minister’s dismissive approach to the Welsh Government, the Senedd, devolution and the devolution settlement. This sits at the door of the Prime Minister, and it is time that he steps up or stops letting Wales down.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

If Back-Bench speakers could confine themselves to five minutes, we should get everyone in. The Opposition spokesperson can speak for 10 minutes, the Minister can speak for 10, and Ruth Jones will have time at the end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones), a fellow member of the Welsh Affairs Committee, on securing this debate.

I strongly support the key principle that lies behind these two funds—namely, the UK Government’s commitment to levelling up the whole of the United Kingdom, all parts of the Union, to ensure that no community is left behind. A very important feature of the funds is that they involve decentralising power and working more directly with local partners and communities across Wales and the UK, who are best placed to understand the needs of their local areas and are more closely aligned to the local economic geographies to be able to deliver quickly on the ground. I am an MP for North Wales, which often feels forgotten by the Labour Welsh Government in Cardiff so, for me, this decentralised approach is particularly welcome.

I welcome the UK Government’s provision of an additional £220 million funding through the UK community renewal fund to help local areas prepare for the launch of the UK shared prosperity fund in 2022. I welcome the fact that the community renewal fund, which is largely revenue based, aims to support people and communities most in need across the UK to pilot programmes and new approaches, and that it will invest in skills, community and place, local businesses and supporting people in employment.

I have seen the benefits the levelling-up fund could bring to my own constituency of Clwyd South through the bid currently being prepared jointly by Wrexham County Borough Council and Denbighshire County Council, which focuses on projects along the Dee Valley, including the regeneration of the Trevor Basin, as well as improved travel connectivity and investment in Chirk, Llangollen and Corwen. It provides a unique opportunity for the councils to access funding from the UK Government to bring forward significant development and regeneration opportunities, which both councils have been developing since the inception of the 11-mile world heritage site in 2009, making the most of the Llangollen canal and steam railway.

The levelling-up fund is a game changer and will help to deliver a fundamental shift in aspiration, confidence and opportunity. That is all the more important to an area with a desire to emerge from the worst recession in living memory and a worldwide pandemic with a renewed vigour and determination to put the world heritage site where it belongs: at the heart of the visitor economy in the region and at the centre of the drive for prosperity in north Wales.

I am very pleased that at least £800 million of the total £4.8-billion levelling-up fund will be invested in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and that, for the first round of funding, at least 5% of the total UK allocation will go to Wales. That is as much as, if not more than, what would have been received through the Barnett consequentials. Further to this, of course, each of the 22 local authorities in Wales will receive £125,000 in capacity funding to help build their relationship with the UK Government and draw up top-quality proposals. Wales has proved to be at the leading edge of those councils putting forward proposals, with 13 out of the 22 local authorities in Wales having applied in the first round of funding—the highest percentage of any part of the Union.

The UK Government intend to create careers, not just jobs. Their objective is to make sure that wherever you are born and grow up, you will have a fair opportunity to succeed in life and do not have to leave your home town to find a good career.

In conclusion, levelling up is about not just the physical infrastructure of communities, but the social infrastructure, supporting local transport, high streets—[Interruption.]

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be frozen and I do not think we will get him back.