Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 8 February 2022.
Mark Drakeford
Labour
1:40,
8 February 2022
Well, Llywydd, I think Delyth Jewell has made those points very forcefully and I agree with them all. The 'Levelling Up' white paper is a friendless document, even by the Secretary of State whose name is on the cover. Its attempt to range far and wide across the mists of time is simply, I think, an indication of the lack of real content that there was there for this, despite the fact that this levelling-up fund, the shared prosperity fund, has been trailed by the Conservative Party since 2017. They have had years in which they could have produced something that matched their promises. What we have instead is a very thin document indeed—thin on money because the Treasury refused to provide the necessary funds to back it up, and very thin indeed in response to its claims that it is about transferring power and decision making beyond Whitehall because, as Delyth Jewell said, every single decision made about how money is to be spent in Wales will be made in Westminster, nowhere else. And that competitive way of pitting one part of Wales against another in order to bid for what is left on the table in this fund is guaranteed to mean that the money is not well spent. There will be no strategic plan behind it. It will be a series of minor dollops of money handed out on a basis in which it is very hard often to find any genuine rationale, and with no sense at all about how any long-term impact from that investment is to be secured for the Welsh public.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
A document issued by the Government laying out its policy, or proposed policy, on a topic of current concern.Although a white paper may occasion consultation as to the details of new legislation, it does signify a clear intention on the part of a government to pass new law. This is a contrast with green papers, which are issued less frequently, are more open-ended and may merely propose a strategy to be implemented in the details of other legislation.
More from wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_paper
Whitehall is a wide road that runs through the heart of Westminster, starting at Trafalgar square and ending at Parliament. It is most often found in Hansard as a way of referring to the combined mass of central government departments, although many of them no longer have buildings on Whitehall itself.
