Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 14 February 2017.
Isn’t part of the problem that the investment panel that provides advice to Ministers wholly consists of civil servants, who are accountable to the same Minister? And that doesn’t really therefore constitute independent advice, particularly in cases where the Minister may be thought to have a particular view about a project.
Now, of course, we have the Welsh Industrial Development Advisory Board, which was set up precisely for this reason, is independent—actually, where the Minister goes against their advice, they have to report to the Assembly, so that we can have proper transparency. Surely, every decision on business support should be given over to that independent body, or, actually, if the Minister wants to go even further, he could take it out of Ministers’ and civil servants’ hands completely, and give it to the new development bank, which will probably, it seems, be led by Finance Wales, which, in this particular case, showed themselves to have a better assessment of the risk that this represented than his own officials. And, finally, could I ask him, since the head lease that the Welsh Government entered into represented a contingent liability, was it listed in the Welsh Government’s consolidated accounts?