, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Short term, areas that have got moneys, I'm sure, will spend them. Local authorities have gone through 13 years of being cash strapped, the reality of austerity, and it's made a really big—. It's been a really significant challenge for every local authority…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Well, that's generous of you.
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
I've sought a meeting with Dehenna Davison. I read the article that she wrote where she said historians will look back on this as a giant leap forward in levelling up. I don't quite share her view, but I've not actually managed to secure any time in her busy…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Well, look, local authorities are pressing the UK Government for clarity on whether they can use this money to address essential skills more broadly. If there was clarity in that, we could look at how best to use the money and how that could be used to…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Well, if it had been designed with us, and if you had the ability to not use Multiply for a single purpose, and if it was not just about numeracy but was about essential skills, you could do something with it. But it comes back to the lack of willingness to…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Bore da, Dr David. I think the Multiply programme is a significant problem. It's a deliberate transgression into a plainly devolved area, and I don't think it's going to deliver significant benefits to citizens in Wales. It cuts across and competes with our…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
I'm not sure there's something you'd describe as a plan. The approach, I think, from the UK Government is that, within some meetings, some Ministers acknowledge that it's a reality that there are jobs that are going to go—the 1,000 jobs at Welsh higher…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
I’ll answer the last question first. We regularly have explained in direct ministerial engagement, in correspondence, and between officials, that there is a gap that is being created, and there is not the budget to fill it in, and we’ve got the fund that…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
It’s really hard, because of the deliberate design of the fund, and that’s a problem not just for the Welsh Government but local authorities themselves as well. We’ve tried to maintain a group of stakeholders to understand what’s going on. The strategic forum…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
I think it's very hard to see how transformational change will be delivered. We've gone through before about when the pilot rounds, the community renewal fund, for the SPF was introduced and the levelling-up funds. The levelling-up funds are discrete bids…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
The problem was that we were denied a meaningful role in discussing how the funds would be delivered. We wrote seeking meetings, we raised them when we had other ministerial meetings about needing to have a conversation. I know there were letters saying that…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
The UK Government said that, in bypassing the Welsh Government, they were actually directly devolving greater power and responsibility. Actually, it has not done that. What it has done is it has undermined regional policy in Wales, and it has put local…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
No, it's the concentration of need. So, if you consider this: Merthyr Tydfil, as an area that I don't represent—I'm deliberately choosing somewhere that I don't represent—has a concentration of significant need. It's concentrated in that area. That doesn't…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
But the index covers income, employment, education and distance from services, so actually, those things do matter wherever you live in Wales. And the difficulty is here, Sam, if you think, 'Actually, let's make sure the money goes everywhere', then you're…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Well, we proposed using the Welsh index of multiple deprivation for the overwhelming majority of how the funds will be allocated. Now, we knew that the UK Government would not agree to allocate all of the money on the basis of that index. We knew that they…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
There's always been a possibility that you could lose money in any funding envelope. That depends on delivery, it depends on people being able to use their plans, and the flexibility is narrower now at the end of the funding programme. But I think the idea…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
All of the moneys have been allocated, and so they're earmarked for spend. There's always a risk about projects being able to deliver against that. I think the headline doesn't actually match the reality. There isn't a realistic risk that we're going to lose…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Three? Even better. So, you get to run off that period of time, and that isn't netted off against your next entitlement if you still qualify. The problem with the shared prosperity fund is when it looks at annualised settlements, it avoids the ability to have…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Well, I haven't seen the exact comment of those and what they say is or isn't reasonable. What I can tell you is it isn't reasonable to avoid providing Wales with £1.1 billion that we would have had if we were still within the structural funds framework, and…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Because they never have been. If you look at all the periods of EU structural funds that have been delivered, then you get a window for the seven years, you then get some time to run those off. You never get those netted off against the next period of…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Well, when it comes to the difference of opinion, yes, it's a difference of opinion, but, actually, there are just facts in this as well, and the fact is that, at the end of the multi-year budget settlement, that final year will be roughly equivalent to the…
, Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Post-EU regional development funding: Minister for Economy
Diolch yn fawr. Bore da, Cadeirydd. I'm Vaughan Gething, I'm Minister for Economy.
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Economy: Tech and Cyber Sectors
I thank the Member for the comments and questions. I'm more than happy to recognise again the success of St Joseph's high school and, indeed, the work that is taking place in and around Newport. It's a genuine hotbed of activity, and I think there is…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Economy: Tech and Cyber Sectors
I thank the Member for that. I think it's helpful Mike has given us three examples of companies that were previously tech giants that are now no longer seen in that way: Nokia, BlackBerry and IBM. For those Members in the room who are old enough to remember…
, Plenary
Statement by the Minister for Economy: Tech and Cyber Sectors
On Tech Valleys, I don't have the information available to give him. I'll happily look at information we can provide not just on the spend, but on employment outcomes as well, and where that money has typically gone and the radius within which it's been…
