EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions Debate
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Geraint Davies
Main Page: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)Department Debates - View all Geraint Davies's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions
Geraint Davies Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A feature of the wider debate on Brexit is that so many critical issues that will shape the outcome—structural funds, immigration and others—are just being kicked down the road. I hope that the Minister will respond directly to my hon. Friend’s point.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
In Wales, our wages are 70% of the UK average and we receive something like £440 per person in structural funding. Is my hon. Friend aware that with a new plan, we will lose some of that, and that in the case of a new deal, we will have no money at all? Only today, I was talking to representatives of the Swansea universities who said that they were shedding hundreds of jobs. The background to that is the doubling in size of Swansea University thanks to EU money. We are in a critical place in Wales, with closures at Bridgend, Tata and Airbus because of Brexit, so the structural funding is imperative.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the impact on all our areas if there is not adequate investment in economic development.