WELSH Secretary Simon Hart has said he is "sorry" after the Treasury wrongly announced Wales would be receiving £227 million in additional coronavirus support.

He told the Welsh Affairs Committee that the figure "was not new money" and was instead included in the £5.2 billion Covid recovery funding already committed to Wales.

Mr Hart said: “I accept with a degree of humility that these messages aren't always perfect first time. I realise that did cause some confusion.

“But I'm hoping, taken in the context of the overall financial contribution made across the whole of the UK to try and help people through this crisis, that everyone understands there's no malice intended in that.

“It is important to stress that was not new, and I'm sorry if anybody got the impression that it was new money.”

Mr Hart also said there is a “significant balance” of coronavirus vaccines being held up in the Welsh health system which could have already been administered.

Welsh Affairs Committee chairman Stephen Crabb MP (Preseli Pembrokeshire) asked Mr Hart whether there was a supply problem getting vaccines to Wales from the UK Government, after he was told supplies of vaccines had not arrived at a surgery in his constituency.

Mr Hart said: “Somewhere in the system in Wales there is a significant balance, even as we speak, of vaccines which have been delivered and haven't been issued to either GP surgeries or other clinical settings where they might be administered.

“So I don't know why that is the case. All I do know is that the 300,000 vaccines have been delivered. And yet only roughly a third of those have been administered. I'm not in a position to answer why that might be.”