Clash in Senedd over Levelling Up funding

Welsh Conservatives and Welsh Labour traded stats in the Senedd yesterday over ‘Levelling Up’ funding.

North Wales MS Sam Rowlands challenged Economy Minister Vaughan Gething, following up on an exchange on the ‘Levelling Up’ and Wrexham Gateway project (report here from yesterday).

Sam Rowlands MS said, “I’m pleased to hear the Minister’s positive response in terms of the ongoing discussions with the Wrexham Gateway partnership, and that engagement with the football club in Wrexham, to see that important project become a success for the city of Wrexham. I’m also pleased to note that Wales received over £200 million worth of levelling-up funding, supporting projects up and down Wales, with nearly £50 million of that in my region of North Wales.

“I’m also pleased to see that Wales received the highest amount of money per capita, compared to the rest of Great Britain, through the levelling-up funding. I’m also pleased to see that Wrexham, through the shared prosperity fund, received £22.5 million, as well as being very much engaged with the growth deal in north Wales as well.”

“In light of all that, Minister, and in light of all the positivity that we can see in Wrexham and the opportunities that are ahead for us in Wrexham, what specific plans do you have to ensure that Wrexham is able to grasp hold of those opportunities over the coming years, to make sure that Wrexham is able to be the economic powerhouse that it is?”

The Minister replied, “We continue to work constructively with representatives for Wrexham. That’s why we continue to engage in both the Wrexham Gateway project and indeed the shared discussions taking place on the broader Mersey Dee Alliance as well.

“I won’t join the Member in celebrating the levelling-up fund round 2. There was an extraordinary delay in projects. The Member might want to consider whether celebrating and asking others to join in celebrating the levelling-up fund outcomes is really appropriate when you consider that Wales got 10 per cent of the last funding round.

“In contrast, we used to receive 22 per cent of the UK’s allocation of previous EU structural fund programmes.

“We are still being short-changed and the way that replacement moneys are being allocated is a direct breach of very clear repeated manifesto pledges that Wales would not lose out by a single penny. The Conservatives really need to decide whether they want to celebrate Wales getting less or join the campaign for Wales to get its fair share, because the levelling-up fund is doing anything but that.”

Top pic: Sam Rowlands MS posing the question