Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 14 February 2017.
I accept what the leader of the Welsh Conservatives has said—that he understood the situation in terms of the initial grant of support. This was a start-up business. Start-up businesses are inherently risky, but there must be an acceptance of risk by Government. Otherwise, we wouldn’t support anything. It’s the same for commercial banks; they will find themselves in that situation from time to time. This organisation, of course—the business, rather—was set up at a time when the economic situation was precarious in the aftermath, or the near aftermath, of the financial crisis. As I said, the Cabinet Secretary will go into detail in terms of what the timetable was, but I can say that we are proud to say that unemployment in Wales is so low. It’s lower than in England, it’s lower than in Scotland and lower than in Northern Ireland. Historically, that has been a tremendous achievement. We have supported over 1,000 businesses to create jobs in Wales. We’ve brought investment into Wales—the best foreign direct investment figures for more than 30 years. It’s correct to say that, on occasion, there will be businesses that fail and it is difficult then to have the money returned to Government. But in the context that we operate here, 97.6 per cent of the businesses we support are successful in providing jobs for the people of Wales.