Written question WQ88116

To help mitigate the consequences of the UK Government’s decision to bypass the Welsh Government and not replace EU funding in full through the Shared Prosperity Fund, we have taken a range of actions, including prioritising the ongoing delivery of vital national programmes which have been part-EU funded.

For example, having no access to the Shared Prosperity Fund creates a funding gap for around 5,300 apprenticeships per year. To mitigate this, we are investing an additional £30m of Welsh Government funding up to 2024-25 to fill this gap and ensure ongoing delivery of our all-age apprenticeship programme.

Similarly, we are investing an additional £20.9m per year of Welsh Government funding up to March 2025 to fill the gap and extend the core service of the Business Wales programme beyond the end of EU funding this year.

We have also completed a capitalisation of the £500m Wales Flexible Investment Fund in 2021 so it now has the capacity to maintain overall investment levels in Welsh businesses once the Wales Business Fund – which has been largely supported by EU funding – comes to an end.

The Shared Prosperity Fund does not support research and development (R&D). The Minister for Education has provided an increase in research funding through HEFCW and its QR fund for universities, and in February I launched a new Innovation Strategy for Wales, which creates a new approach to optimising R&D opportunities for Welsh organisations in light of the changed funding landscape.

To support the third sector, we are working with our local authority partners to help them engage with a breadth of third sector delivery partners, including through meetings of the Strategic Forum for Regional Investment.

However, the overall funding landscape continues to be heavily disrupted and financially diminished by the failure of the UK Government’s post-Brexit policies.