North Wales Growth Deal

6. What recent progress has been made on the development of the north Wales growth deal.

Together with the Welsh Government and the leaders of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, heads of terms for the north Wales growth deal were signed in November 2019. The opportunities provided by that deal are the latest example of the Government’s commitment to levelling up communities across the United Kingdom.

I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. In the past 20 years, the people of north Wales, and the people of Aberconwy, have grown used to being overlooked and underfunded by a Cardiff-based, Labour-led Welsh Government. It will not have escaped the attention of the House that seven of the nine MPs from north Wales are now Conservatives. Does my hon. Friend agree that that represents a new chapter for north Wales?

May I offer the warmest welcome to my hon. Friend? This Government note that the people of north Wales appear to have rejected 20 years of Labour government, and have already begun to build an impressive piece of infrastructure—a political blue wall that now stretches from Ynys Môn to Clwyd South. I look forward to seeing that political infrastructure followed up by physical infrastructure, as we release hundreds of millions of pounds in the growth deals into north Wales.

I welcome the Minister to his place. I hope he lasts longer than his predecessors, and that I can meet him more than once about the north Wales growth deal—more than I did any of his predecessors. May I ask him for more money, because the money on offer is not enough? I also ask for a strategic growth deal, not a series of pet projects across north Wales.

We have absolutely no intention of allowing the sort of pet projects to go ahead that we have seen money wasted on in previous years. All growth deal projects will be rigorously scrutinised to ensure value for money, but at the end of the day, if the right hon. Gentleman wants to criticise the Government for putting hundreds of millions of pounds into the north Wales economy, then I plead guilty and I am absolutely delighted to be a part of the Government who are doing it.