<p>Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders</p>

Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:53 pm on 7 February 2017.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:53, 7 February 2017

And that was the judgment that we took. It’s not possible suddenly to train and have a pool of skilled people in a very short space of time. Those people are in London, in the main, at the moment; they are specialists, and we’re looking to recruit them. The skills don’t exist, in the main, in Wales.

In terms of transport, the metro was our idea. Of course we want to promote it. The north-east Wales metro was our idea, the south Wales metro was first mentioned by me in Bedwas rugby club in 2008, of all places, and we are seeing movement on that. The development work on the north-east Wales metro is moving forward and, of course, we will continue to support transport in all parts of Wales. We have called incessantly for the electrification of the north Wales main line as far as Holyhead, and that is something we want to see the UK Government deliver in the future. We want to make sure, as we look at the north-east Wales metro, that, in time, it can look then to expand west. These are not metro systems that are designed to be self-contained; they are systems that are designed to be extended in the future.