European Communities (Finance) Bill

I must disagree. We have ways in which to disburse funding and we are beginning to make a genuine difference in our peripheral areas through many projects, including the settlements that have been given to the devolved Administrations. Clearly, one cannot make up a huge difference in a short time. The comparison with London is therefore unrealistic, but a huge leap forward has been made. We had a difficult coin to toss on convergence funding in Wales. Would our position be so improved that we would not get the convergence funding, or would we continue to be classified as needing it? It was a strange dilemma, because on the one hand we wanted to be poor enough to get the European money, but on the other, we would have liked to celebrate being not so poor as to attract it. However, we were clearly borderline, and we have been lucky because we have made progress, but we have also benefited from another £1.4 billion for Wales.