Lee Waters: I'm happy to write to the Member with the exact details of the plan. The main focus is going to be a new timber-framed building that will be a site for outreach and community involvement, as well as considerable environmental schemes too, but I'm happy to give him the full details of that. It is a site that was a late bid. We reopened the bidding to allow new bids. I was initially sceptical...
Lee Waters: Of course.
Lee Waters: I'm hopeful the scheme will bring palpable benefits right across our Valleys communities. Llywydd, an empty property is not only a home going to waste, it's a blight on an area: overgrown gardens attract vermin and broken windows scar a street. By tackling the problem of empty homes, we will nurture the fabric of our communities and we'll also help the second of our strategic priorities:...
Lee Waters: Diolch, Llywydd. I'm grateful for the opportunity to update Members on the work of the Valleys taskforce and outline its direction for the remainder of this Assembly. We should all be grateful for the huge amount of work done by my predecessor, Alun Davies, in establishing the taskforce, and to those who made significant contributions as its members. I've been keen to take the opportunity to...
Lee Waters: Fewer.
Lee Waters: Thank you for the question. The Member is right to point out the very significant investment the Welsh Government has made in the Heads of the Valleys through the dualling of the road. She also notes there have been community benefits delivered as part of the delivery of the scheme, including apprenticeships and training, employment of local people, spend with local companies, engagement with...
Lee Waters: The Welsh Government’s priorities are set in our economic action plan, and the Valleys taskforce delivery plan aligns and focuses on actions that make a real difference, including strengthening the foundational economy.
Lee Waters: Thank you very much for the question. I think that's an excellent example of good practice. I know from my own constituency, where, in local schools, children themselves are unhappy at having to have plastic bottles to drink their milk with, but the local authority doesn't have the flexibility in their contract to amend it at this stage and we're talking to them about that. So, the work we're...
Lee Waters: Well, thank you for the question. This is an area that we are actively working hard in. You mention Carmarthenshire and Caerphilly as examples of good practice, and we could add Ceredigion and Cardiff to that. There certainly are a number of local authorities who are doing good work in this area. One of the issues we have is that the performance across Wales is patchy, and the skills and the...
Lee Waters: Thank you. The Minister for Finance and Trefnydd has received a commissioned report on how progressive procurement can develop local spend with local businesses. We are now developing a structured approach for delivery that encompasses public services boards across Wales to look at methods to achieve this.
Lee Waters: As we begin our journey with TfW to change Wales's network, the complexity and volatility of the drivers for change that the Welsh Government needs to respond to are unprecedented. The advent of new and emerging technologies in the transport sector will transform how people use transport in their everyday lives over the next decade. I was launching this morning, Dirprwy Llywydd, a new fleet...
Lee Waters: Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I thank the committee for the considered way that they undertook their inquiry and for their report? The role of Transport for Wales is evolving, and it's useful for the committee to do this work at this point in the cycle. I was keen, as a member of this committee when it was drafting its work programme, that the committee put its nose into this...
Lee Waters: Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. Earlier today, a Great Western Railway train struck two people between Port Talbot and Bridgend at Margam. The Welsh Government, and I'm sure the entire National Assembly, is deeply shocked by this tragic incident involving railway workers and our thoughts are with their families, their friends and their colleagues. I know this will send shockwaves through...
Lee Waters: As I've already said, the company had made no direct approach to the Welsh Government for help. We are now helping the employees to be able to find alternative employment and to retrain. The efforts we are making to accelerate the building of council houses and social housing more generally I think have been well rehearsed in this Chamber, and we certainly are alive to the need to support the...
Lee Waters: Yes, we'll do some further work on this. We were already supporting the company through the Development Bank for Wales. They had a loan outstanding within the business, which is secured. So, support has been provided from our development bank, but the point that the Member for Aberavon makes is entirely right. We are doing some mapping work around procurement and grounded firms as part of the...
Lee Waters: I wasn't aware of work still going on in Bristol, and I'm happy to check that. As I understand it, the company is in the process of entering into administration, but has not yet entered administration, but I'll certainly look into that and reply to the Member. It is clearly disappointing to see a company like this enter into trouble, because it is a grounded firm, a part of the foundational...
Lee Waters: Thank you. I can confirm the Welsh Government had no advance notice that the Port Talbot-based company was entering administration. We were not contacted by the company to advise that they were in difficulty. Therefore, we could not pass that on to Powys County Council. As soon as we heard, we did try and contact the company directly to better understand the situation that they were in and to...
Lee Waters: Thank you. This will be devastating news for the 66 employees and their families and our focus now is on finding alternative local employment for the talented Jistcourt workforce.
Lee Waters: Certainly, we announced yesterday in the supplementary budget that we are increasing resources to be able to be nimble enough to respond to the changing needs of the economy as we hit increasingly turbulent times. But certainly in this case, this is simply a matter of the market changing. This was a factory, as I understand it, that produced bread. It didn't produce other pastries or higher...
Lee Waters: Thank you for that question. As I said, we share the disappointment of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, who are deeply disappointed with the news too. As far as we understand it, this is a straightforward commercial decision. The nature of the market for bread has changed. Demand has reduced as people's diets are changing and people are eating less bread. The company, therefore, is...
