6. Will the Minister provide an update to the development of a city deal for the Swansea bay city region? OAQ(5)0027(FLG)

Thank you very much to the Member for that question. The Welsh Government is committed to securing a successful city deal for the Swansea bay region. It’s a matter for the region itself to put together an investment proposal to pursue funding for the city deal. Regional stakeholders do receive support from my officials and Welsh Government and UK officials with that task.

Thank you very much for that response, Minister. Naturally, when this was announced earlier this year there were very ambitious plans that had been brought forward, but people said at the time that they needed to know the details. People at a local level are still awaiting those details. So, could I just push you a little further on: what discussions, and how many discussions have you had with partners, including the UK Government, on working on these important details to ensure that we can achieve our aspirations? Thank you.

I’m pleased to be able to reassure the Member that the Swansea bay city region and the city deal for it are very regularly discussed, both in my contacts with the United Kingdom Government—I’ve raised it with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury; I’ve talked directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about it—and that that is mirrored in a series of very active meetings that go on between local partners. I met all four local authority leaders, on this topic alone, back on 9 August. It does remain true, and he’s right to point to this, that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done in a short period of time. At the United Kingdom end, my discussions have been constructive but they are taking place, it seems to me, against a wider background in which the enthusiasm for city deals at the UK Government may be reducing as a result of changes in personnel in the UK administration. This means that it’s urgent for all those players in Swansea and its wider city region area to apply themselves now to the business of the significant prioritisation of projects, which is needed, to identify the spatial and economic impact that is to be obtained from any deal, and to set that out coherently and in a co-ordinated way, and to confirm the governance arrangements that will oversee such a deal if it is to be successful. I’m optimistic that that work can be done, but there is still a lot that has to be achieved and needs to be focused on in an urgent way.

Can I associate myself with the remarks that Dai Lloyd made? I think that almost everybody, if not everybody, who represents the area, and certainly the people who live in the area, are concerned that it seems to be taking a long time for the city deal to actually come to fruition in Swansea as opposed to other places in Britain.

What I would like to ask the Minister is: what further needs to be done by the Welsh Government to ensure the city deal finance is released to the Swansea bay city region? If you’re saying, from what you answer was earlier, that the Welsh Government has done everything they can, then the pressure will need to be put on the local authorities and the Westminster Government, but what I don’t want to happen to me and to others is to have bounced back, ‘Well, it’s the Welsh Government that has not done everything they need to do’.

Well, Llywydd, it’s important to set out a certain tension in the position of the Welsh Government in relation to the Swansea city deal. I continue to want us to play our active part in shaping that deal, advising on it, making sure that it comes to a successful fruition, lobbying on behalf of it with the UK Government and so on, but, in the end, those who propose the deal have to make a case to the Welsh Government to release the funding that is there. So, we have to have some distance in which we can challenge the deal, as well as being part of helping to make it happen, and we do our best to provide both of those roles in relation to it. So, it’s my job as finance Minister to do what is necessary to make sure that funding is available, if a deal is successful. Through my officials, we continue to participate in all those discussions that are there to shape the deal, but, in the end, it is for those local partners in local authorities, in the university, which has played such a constructive part in this deal, in the private sector partners as well—they have to do the hard work that is necessary at this point in the process to make sure that they have a compelling proposition to unlock the funding that’s available.

Yes, can I also be associated with those remarks? And Mike Hedges is quite right to say we’re all rather concerned about this.

The membership of the board is pretty evenly balanced between public sector and private sector, but there’s no place on it for business membership groups like the Federation of Small Businesses or other key organisations that really could help maximise use of local supply chains in what should be an ambitious vision for this region. I met the Association of British Ports at a recent reception in Cardiff Bay and was surprised to hear that, at that stage, they’d not been involved in any discussions on the city bay deal vision at all. Could you remind the Assembly how the membership board was decided, and do you have any concerns about whether the very individualistic nature of the representation of the private sector—and I make no comment about the individuals involved—compared to the more corporate representation by local authorities might be limiting the speed at which the deal is progressing at all? It’s going to take a major buy-in from a wide private sector in the bay to advance any ideas for a potential ‘Mittelstand’, for example, and I just don’t see any sign of this stuff being publicised to any of us. Thank you.

I thank the Member for those points; I’ve listened carefully to them. I suppose my immediate response is that those people who have been involved in all the work that has gone on to the deal so far need to stick with it now and get it over the line. Once we’ve got a deal that is agreed and is able to be funded, then I think the point she makes about making sure that the people around the table have a representative ability to reflect business in the area will be very important, and I’ll make sure that that is reflected in the discussions that we have with them.