Brexit: Dominic Raab rejects claim Wales is down £1bn

Dominic Raab says Wales is benefitting from the UK government's "levelling up agenda"

UK Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has denied that Wales will be £1bn worse off by 2024, after losing access to EU funding.

The Welsh government says UK ministers broke a manifesto promise that Wales would not lose money after Brexit.

Wales used to get about £375m a year in EU aid money for its poorest areas.

This year it received £46m Community Renewal Fund cash - a bridge between EU aid funding and the UK government scheme replacing it in the longer term.

• What does 'levelling up' mean for Wales?

• Scheme to replace EU cash for poor areas unveiled

• Wales to get £46m of EU fund's replacement pilot

• UK Treasury to control Wales' 'levelling up' cash

Last year UK ministers repeated the promise that the new scheme - the Shared Prosperity Fund - would give the home nations "at least the same amount" that they had from the EU.

But, on a visit to Wales on Thursday, Mr Raab said the UK government was also spending money on levelling up Wales.

"If you look at what the chancellor has set out, there's clearly the extra money," he said.

"This levelling up agenda is precisely to make sure that right across Wales we can boost opportunities and do so across the United Kingdom."

Wales received £120m for ten projects to boost tourism and improve infrastructure at the time of the budget in October.

Mark Drakeford has accused UK ministers of using a "fraudulent' argument"

First Minister Mark Drakeford told members of the Senedd earlier this week that the UK government had abandoned its manifesto promise that Wales would not lose out and was double counting money that had already been committed by the EU.

"The UK government now says that it will count towards the money that they will give us, money we have already got from the European Union.

"That argument is fraudulent - the argument that you can count money you've already got towards money that they promised they would give us is simply not to accurately describe what is going on here."

The full interview with Dominic Raab will be broadcast on Politics Wales on BBC One Wales on Sunday 13 February at 1000 GMT