Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 22 November 2016.
Well, First Minister, public money has gone to this company, as I’ve highlighted—£1 million just on consultancy fees, £9 million in total, with bank loan guarantees paid by the Welsh Government. And we do know of other things that have been paid: there’s a loss-making race at Silverstone; £35,000 for gardening and also the purchasing of a motorbike company, FTR Moto, for £400,000, that has gone bankrupt. It’s hardly a success story, when the evidence is clearly pointing that civil servants were warning Ministers about making this money available and wanting more information. We saw last week that the governance chairman, Lord Kinnock, of the company, was lobbying excessively, I would suggest, with at least five or six calls to the leader of Blaenau Gwent council, as well as using House of Lords notepaper to actually write letters on to make the point that he wanted to make. That cannot be acceptable and now I have invoices here—[Interruption.]—invoices here—[Interruption.]—invoices here that show at least £750 paid for an event in north Wales to the Labour Party, £2,400 again to the Labour Party, and £960 paid to the Labour Party—three different invoices paid by Aventa and Michael Carrick, to have access to Welsh Government Ministers, I would suggest. Are you confident that there has been the proper transparency and, above all, the assurances when the initial £9 million was being handed over, because, as I said in my opening remarks this project does offer great opportunity but it is the execution—? [Interruption.] And the company that has been brought forward to promote this company clearly has evidence to the contrary of having the—[Inaudible.]