Shared Prosperity Fund: Wales

Debate between David T C Davies and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 14th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I would regard nothing that Mr Davies has said thus far as out of order, but I note Mr David’s objections and I am listening closely to all contributions made by all Members. I draw Mr Davies’s attention to the clock. He has just over a minute left.

[David T. C. Davies]

None of these is an accusation. They are all in the Auditor General’s report, which only came about as a result of the information that I gave them, because nobody in the Welsh Assembly—neither Members nor Government—was particularly interested in the fact that millions of pounds of their money was being spent. The reason I sent the information off was that the directors of that company came into my office and told me that their project was being backed by BMW and General Electric. It was not, because I checked with them afterwards. Then the directors sent their lawyer, Jonathan Coad, to try to take legal action against me, Martin Shipton and Trinity Newspapers, for falsely alleging General Electric and BMW’s involvement, but they did not realise that my tape recorder had accidentally been left on at the time and I had the whole thing on tape.

I say to hon. Members that the Welsh Assembly Government have failed over and over again. At least one civil servant’s name comes up every single time, many of the people involved in the decisions are all known to each other, and a lot of them have links back to the Labour party. I have touched on only three or four projects, but we all know that there are various others—Kukd was another one, as well as Kancoat and Blurrt. One after another, projects have received large amounts of funding, often running into millions, from the Welsh Government, and no proper checks and balances have been pursued.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Mr Ben Lake.