UK GOVERNMENT SELLS SCOTLAND SHORT AGAIN

I challenged the UK Government over its handling of the Shared Prosperity Fund, which is supposed to replace EU funding across the UK post-Brexit.

The Tories pledged a fair and equal share of funding that would fully replace EU support, but the Treasury Committee has found that the fund itself will be worth 40 per cent less in 2024-25 than the EU funding it replaces.

Delays over the Prosperity Fund’s delivery has already robbed poorer areas of £1.5 billion in funding, and the reality is that Scotland is set to receive only 3.5 per cent of all levelling up funding, despite having 8.2 per cent of the UK’s population, whilst all the powers over the delivery of the funding remains in Whitehall and, despite their introduction next month, there has still been no meaningful engagement with Scottish Ministers, or indeed those of other devolved nations.

The UK Government’s approach to this funding is designed to undermine devolution. The so-called post-Brexit funding bonanza has not materialised and as a result important projects across Scotland and the devolved nations have been jeopardised.

Watch my contribution to the debate below.