EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The lack of clarity and detail over the potential loss of funding three years after Brexit is a cause for general alarm. Those critical funds are extremely important in my constituency of North Ayrshire and Arran, where they fund employability initiatives and measures to tackle poverty and the promotion of social inclusion. Three years later, we still have no idea how much cash the replacement shared prosperity fund will have to distribute. We do not know what charities and voluntary organisations will be eligible for funding. We do not know how the funding will be administered and which programmes that currently benefit from the fund will be left staring a black hole in the face. I urge the Minister to give much-needed and much sought after clarification on this issue. Will we have equivalent like for like replacement funding post-Brexit, and can he guarantee it whether or not the UK leaves the EU with or without a deal? A yes or no would be interesting.

We need answers, we need honesty and of course we need an unequivocal commitment from the Government that the communities who need the fund and who benefit from it will not be sacrificed, abandoned and forgotten as the Government drag us off the Brexit cliff-edge. I remind the Minister that the Government must respect the devolution settlement, and that it is imperative that the UK Government work with all the devolved Administrations to reach agreement on future funding arrangements that make sense for all parts of the UK. I look forward to hearing what he has to say about that. My constituency and country must not be short-changed.

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[Jake Berry]

I will in a moment. I will develop this point first.

Once the negotiation had taken place in Europe, the British Government would bring that figure into the comprehensive spending review and negotiate how it was distributed—which parts should go to European structural funds, to the Department for Work and Pensions and to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Only after that would any of the bodies have certainty about how much they were going to receive.

In fact, if we accept that the quantum of the UK shared prosperity fund should be negotiated through the comprehensive spending review, people will find themselves with exactly the same certainty under that fund as they would have had if we had continued with European structural funds. There is of course certainty until January 2021, when the current spending period ends, and the Government have been clear that the UK shared prosperity fund will start in 2021, so there will be no gap.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jake Berry]

I have to give way first to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, who opened the debate.

People talked about crashing out of the European Union with no deal. Frankly, I do not expect that to happen. Nor do I accept that, even if it did happen, it would look like a crash out of the European Union. However, even if we accepted that analysis—I do not—the Treasury has given a guarantee about the current spending period for European structural funds, which means people who are in receipt of them or want to apply for them should carry on as normal, regardless of Brexit.

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[Jake Berry]

The hon. Gentleman needs to make a decision. It is all well and good debating what we would get if we remained in the European Union, but we will not remain in the European Union. He has to decide whose side he is on. There are 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit. Is he on their side, or is he on the side of the cabal of politicians in this House who have sought repeatedly to block Brexit? I know whose side I am on. I am on the side of the hundreds, thousands and millions of people across the north of England who voted for Brexit. They gave this Parliament a clear instruction. To debate what life would be like if we remained in the EU is, frankly, an irrelevance.

I hope I can now move on to address some of the other points—

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jake Berry]

I will, because I said I would, but it has to be brief.

[Patricia Gibson]

I came to this debate to ask for clarity. If I heard the Minister correctly, it appears we now have clarity. Although he has not told us what will happen to this money in a no-deal situation, he has, if I have understood him correctly, clarified that the Government are giving no guarantees to the projects that currently benefit from structural funds about the next funding period. Is that correct?

[Jake Berry]

I hope the hon. Lady goes back and reads the Hansard report of my opening statement. I have limited time, but she will find that I answered both those questions. Many people—including the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, who is chuntering and chuckling to himself—have said that the problem is that places do not have certainty. I was simply pointing out that even if we remained in Europe—I sincerely hope we do not—they still would not have the certainty they seek in any event.

I want to mention briefly the comments of the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who said we should start some form of consultation. Although, clearly, the consultation has been delayed, I know he is aware, because it has been said in the House when he has been present, that more than 500 people have already been involved in a consultation with the Government—what we might call a pre-consultation consultation. I have consulted widely with the metro Mayors both about this subject and more widely about the impact of Brexit in places such as South Yorkshire, where the hon. Member for Barnsley Central is the Mayor. We are already involved in detailed discussions with officials in the devolved Administrations about the form and function of the UK shared prosperity fund, of which I am sure the SNP spokesman is aware.

I wish I had time to talk in more detail about the brilliant speeches that were made by many others, but I will move directly to address some of the points made by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for City of Durham, and I am sure many others. The Government have been absolutely clear that we will respect the devolution settlement when it comes to the UK shared prosperity fund. That has not changed, and it will not change. We have been clear that we will consult widely in order to get right the UK shared prosperity fund, which is designed to tackle inequality.

I know that, in many cases, the people who spoke about the benefit of European funds know they are not perfect. The SNP spokesman said he sees a wee European flag on many projects. One of my jobs in Government is to take back the money from projects that forgot to put that wee European flag on them, because it is one of the requirements of the hugely complicated and bureaucratic EU structural funds that if someone does not put that wee European flag on their project, the money, in many cases, has to be recovered. We are consulting on a UK shared prosperity fund to ensure that funding is simplified. We will be consulting shortly, and the quantum of the fund will be set during the comprehensive spending review, in the same way that EU structural funds would have been.