Westminster must stick by its promise

THE UK Government’s failure to be candid about how it will keep its promise to maintain regional aid funding to Wales at an equivalent level to what it was receiving from the EU is very disappointing.

Last week’s Spending Review was the perfect opportunity to set out its future spending plans in detail, but it decided not to do so.

It now suggests that an “investment framework” originally due in Spring 2021 may be published before the end of the year.

There is, of course, no guarantee that the framework will spell out in explicit terms how the pledge to Wales will be kept.

We hope we are wrong, but it has to be said that, on past form, nothing can be taken for granted.

There can be little doubt that the UK Government’s overriding priority will be to retain the support of voters in former Labour “red wall” seats, many of whom voted Conservative in 2019 for the first time.

The great majority of such seats are in England, so concerns about Wales may be low down the pecking order.

In the last seven-year round of EU regional aid funding from 2014 to 2020, only two UK regions qualified for top-level allocations: West Wales and the Valleys and Cornwall and the Scilly Isles.

This poses an obvious challenge for the Westminster government.

How does it satisfy the expectations of “left behind” communities, mainly in the north of England, while simultaneously keeping its promise to Wales?

There are no prizes for guessing which communities could be most likely to be let down.

Regional aid funding is unlikely to have as immediate a positive impact for individuals as raising the minimum wage, for example, and the UK Government knows that.

But spent wisely it can improve levels of prosperity in the area concerned generally.

It’s important that the UK Government is forced to stick by its promise to Wales, and it’s the responsibility of Welsh politicians and anyone else with influence to hold Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Simon Hart to account, not letting up until the pledge is redeemed.

Apart from the money, there is also the issue of trust.

If politicians can cynically disregard promises they made, democracy is dead.