Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:04 pm on 1 November 2016.
I welcome the announcement, but I should add that to say it’s been a long time coming would be something of an understatement. I’ll get straight into a number of questions. A £350 million centre is worthless without the skilled staff necessary to work in it. I should ask: is the Cabinet Secretary sure that recruitment won’t be a problem? I guess what answer I will be given, but a state-of-the-art facility such as this should be a real attraction for people to work in the NHS. How does the Cabinet Secretary plan to use the SCCC facility as a recruitment tool in itself?
Secondly, how flexible is it intended for this building to be? I’m thinking here of future adaptations and what future adaptations the Government might have in mind. Thirdly, what intentions are there to use this project as a procurement boost for Welsh companies, including the use of Welsh steel in its construction?
And finally, in transport terms, I’m concerned that here we have a major development built with the car in mind, rather than public transport and rather than, certainly, rail, as it is not on the rail network. What commitment can the Cabinet Secretary give on ensuring that sustainable transport is genuinely taken into consideration in planning future NHS infrastructure developments considering that, perhaps, the synchronisation between transport and health needs hasn’t been achieved as well as perhaps it could in this particular case?