North v South row as Welsh Sec claims WG ‘Levelling Up’ skewed

A ROW over Levelling-up cash has broken out with the Welsh Secretary claiming that North Wales would have had “barely any money” under proposals from Welsh Government.

The UK Government has launched the Shared Prosperity Fund to ‘level-up’ the UK - with the money replacing European funding after Brexit.

There has been criticism that it leaves Wales with £1bn less than the money promised if EU funding was matched and the Tories accused of favouring constituencies with Conservative MPS.

But yesterday, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart told the Welsh Affairs committee that North Wales would have been almost “excluded” under suggested funding formulas from Welsh Government.

He claimed they would have targeted money at Cardiff’s “hinterland” and other parts of south east Wales.

EU funding had previously been targeted towards Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy and Denbighshire, west Wales and the Valleys in a bid to revive economically deprived areas.

The Welsh Government yesterday said its proposals were aimed at supporting the communities most at need and left behind areas in need of levelling-up, with a formula using the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Mr Hart told the committee: “In the original discussions with Welsh Government about this there was barely any money for North Wales at all, or Mid Wales or rural areas, almost completely excluded.

It was almost entirely Cardiff centric, south east Wales proposal. There was an area of disagreement with Welsh Government but we thought it was fairer to make sure that money from these huge funds we are able to release goes to every part of Wales because areas of deprivation aren’t limited purely to the hinterland of Newport and Cardiff.”

On accusations that powers for distributing the funds had been moved from Wales to London he said they were giving powers to local authorities to decide where cash would be spent.

He added: “We trust the judgment of local authorities - the accusation this compromises the devolution settlement is utter nonsense. This is devolution as it should be, we are taking devolution to the next level. We are not getting stuck in Cardiff.”

In response a Welsh Government spokesperson said: “The UK Government’s

funding formula for allocating Shared Prosperity Funds simply does not reflect the needs of Welsh communities. We remain concerned that far too little will reach those communities most in need.

“The Welsh Government suggested an alternative formula, which would have distributed funding more fairly across Wales according to economic need, but this was rejected by the UK Government. The result of this is that funding has been moved away from our most disadvantaged communities.

“Despite the manifesto promises made by the UK Government, post-eu funds leave Wales with less say, over less money.

“It remains the case that Wales will lose more than £1bn that could have been used to grow the economy and support some of our most disadvantaged communities. This is not Levelling Up, it’s Levelling Down.”

They added: “The Welsh Government suggested a formula using the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation, a wellestablished and widely used composite indicator of economic need.

“The index takes account of a comprehensive range of socio-economic factors, including income, employment, education and distance from services.”