§ 4. Mr. Martyn JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many road projects are currently receiving substantial European aid in (a) Clwyd and (b) Wales. [37831]
§ Mr. JonesWill the Secretary of State ensure that some grant aid, be it from Europe or anywhere else, will go towards forming a link between the A55 and Denbigh to replace the jobs lost as a result of the loss of the North Wales hospital there?
§ Mr. HagueThe good news for the hon. Gentleman is that £1.5 million is being secured from the 1995 trans-European network fund for projects on the United Kingdom sections of the Ireland-UK-Benelux road link, which includes the A55 trunk road across north Wales. I shall always consider suggestions from around Wales for spending on other projects, but in each case we have to decide our priorities and balance the economic case for roads spending against the environmental consequences.
§ Sir Wyn RobertsMay I congratulate my right hon. Friend on unblocking the European funds that were due to Wales from Brussels, after his recent meeting with Commissioner Wulf-Mathies? Does not that suggest that the howls of anguish from Opposition Members both here and in the European Parliament about additionality were transparently much ado about nothing?
§ Mr. HagueI thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. There has never been any question about addionality because the money that the European Community paid is additional to United Kingdom public expenditure. I am glad that we have now clarified those difficulties. I hope that next time Labour Members of the European Parliament want to question addionality, they will discuss it with me instead of making complaints in Europe, which leads to the funds being held up wholly unnecessarily.
§ Mr. Ron DaviesThe Secretary of State and I seem to have missed each other on the first occasion on which he appeared at Welsh Questions, so may I put on record my congratulations on his good fortune at being appointed to the Cabinet? As he knows from his recent trip to Brussels, his predecessor tried to divert to the Welsh Development Agency funds that had been earmarked for other purposes. I am glad that the Secretary of State has put that matter right. Will he answer the question that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards), signally failed to answer? When the present programme of forced asset stripping of the Welsh Development Agency comes to an end in 1997, will the WDA's grant be restored in real terms to its previous level?
§ Mr. HagueI thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome and I welcome him to Welsh Questions. We did miss him a little last time—it was like a performance of "Hamlet" without one of the grave diggers—and it is a great pleasure to see him here. I congratulate him on his re-election to the shadow Cabinet and look forward to many more exchanges.
My predecessor did not divert funds as the hon. Gentleman described. All that we did in our recent agreement with the Commission was to change the transparency of the presentation. It is agreed that the money has always been additional. On the future funding of the Welsh Development Agency, he will know that, in the Welsh Office baseline, the grant in aid to the agency rises sharply once property sales are completed. I expect that to be the case, although it is, of course, subject to public expenditure decisions between now and then.