Select committee: Welsh Affairs Committee
Recommendation 2
4th Report: Wales and the Shared Prosperity Fund: Priorities for the replacement of EU structural funding
Published 2 Oct 2020
Paragraph 17
Addressed to Wales Office
Welsh Affairs Committee Wales and the Shared Prosperity Fund All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The UK Government must urgently work with the devolved governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to agree priorities for the Shared Prosperity Fund and to co-create the details regarding how the Fund will work. It must provide evidence of progress being made in October ahead of finalising arrangements during November. At that point, the plans the UK Government has co-created with the devolved administrations must give full details of what the Fund will look like, how it will be funded and how it will be administered. The UK Government must guarantee that there will be no cliff edge ending to funding arrangements after the transition phase ends in January 2021, particularly as ESI funds have been used to assist the Welsh Government in responding to the economic challenges of coronavirus. It is important that this work can continue beyond January and throughout the pandemic.
From: Welsh Affairs Committee, 4th Report: Wales and the Shared Prosperity Fund: Priorities for the replacement of EU structural funding (HC 90), paragraph 17, 2 October 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 December 2020 (deadline 2 December 2020).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government responds to each of the Committee's six recommendations, setting out its plans for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and intending to work with the Welsh Government, without stating that it accepts or rejects individual recommendations.
- On funding levels, the government says it "will ramp up" UKSPF investment so that UK-wide domestic funding "will at least match current EU receipts, on average reaching around £1.5 billion a year".
- It states it will provide £220m of additional funding in 2021-22 for local areas to pilot programmes and new approaches, with further details "in the New Year".
- On bureaucracy, it "recognises the bureaucratic burden" of EU structural funds and says details of the UKSPF's operation will be set out in a UK-wide investment framework "published in the spring".
- On working with the Welsh Government, it says it "intends to work with" it and local communities, and that the UKSPF's funding profile "will be set out at the next Spending Review".