Funding Settlement

2. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the funding settlement for Wales.

13. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the funding settlement for Wales.

The Welsh Government are well funded to deliver for Wales. The spending review provided the Welsh Government with a record block grant of £18 billion a year. As a result of the Budget, Welsh Government funding is increasing by a further £180 million over the next two years. This is all on top of the additional £1.2 billion announced at the autumn statement.

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but the UK Government, as he has just alluded to, have recently clawed back £155 million from the Welsh Government Budget, rather than allowing it to be carried forward into the next financial year. I can only assume that, in clawing back these funds, for some bizarre reason the Secretary of State thinks the UK Government are working in the best interests of the Welsh people. Can he tell us if that is so?

The funds were not “clawed back”, and there was no “bizarre” reasoning about it. The money was not spent by the Welsh Government; they managed to fail to spend £155 million in the midst of a pandemic, which is extraordinary. The Welsh Government are receiving £1.20 on the NHS for every £1 spent in the United Kingdom, and that money is not being passed on in full. That is why in Wales, under a Labour Government, we wait longer for our ambulances, longer on hospital waiting lists, and we have less access to the treatment that people are now taking for granted in England.

The Secretary of State is making the case for precisely the kind of financial flexibility that the devolved Administrations require. The reality of inflation and the mishandling of the economy is that the Welsh budget is worth £4 billion less than it was when it was first agreed, and the same thing is happening in Scotland. If the Government will not adequately finance the devolved institutions, why will they not devolve reasonable borrowing powers, so that we can ensure that adequate budgets are set for the benefit of our constituents?

If I ever decide that I want to have lessons in sound management of public finances, I probably will not be asking the Scottish National party. The Welsh Labour Government have had a real-terms increase in spending over the spending review period, and it is for others to answer for why they are unable to deliver the same level of healthcare and education, why they are not building roads, and why they are spending the money they are getting on paying the legal bills of asylum seekers.

Under this UK Government, my constituency has been awarded £17 million from the levelling-up fund to regenerate Holyhead, £20 million to refurbish the Holyhead Gateway, £16 million from the shared prosperity fund, £2.7 million from the culture recovery fund, hundreds of new jobs at the inland border facility, £175 million for the RAF Valley, and now Anglesey has freeport status, with the potential to create 13,000 jobs and £1 billion to the economy. Does the Secretary of State agree that this Conservative UK Government are determined to level up places such as Anglesey in north Wales that have been forgotten by Labour in Cardiff—

Order. Can we try to help? I want to get more people in, and the only way I can do that is with shorter questions.

Others in the House may try to shout down my hon. Friend, but they will not succeed, because she has been unstinting in her support for her constituency. It is no coincidence that the Prime Minister wanted to make Ynys Môn the first place he visited as Prime Minister, to celebrate the announcement of growth deals that will deliver growth and levelling up across the whole of Wales and the United Kingdom.

I call Michael Fabricant.

Many of my constituents, including me, visit Tywyn in Gwynedd. Is my right hon. Friend aware that people need healthcare there, funded of course by the grant, yet Tywyn Hospital has closed its minor injuries unit and its in-patient ward? Will he speak to the Welsh Minister for Health and Social Services and discuss how English tourists will get proper healthcare when they are on holiday in Wales?

I am, as ever, grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments, but unfortunately I am unable to give a detailed answer because the national health service is devolved in Wales. I very much hope that Welsh Labour Ministers will want to explain why, with all the extra money they are getting, above the money that is given to the national health service in England, they are unable to deliver the same standards of healthcare, or for that matter education, as those we take for granted under a Conservative Government run in Westminster.