3. Will the First Minister provide an update on Welsh Government plans to create better jobs closer to home? OAQ(5)0521(FM)

A cross-Government team is taking forward the Better Jobs, Closer to Home programme to better align a range of commercial projects with other interventions to support creation of meaningful employment in communities with high levels of joblessness.

It’s worth remembering that it was in October 2015 that the Wales Trades Union Congress launched its excellent campaign for better jobs, closer to home, to benefit Valleys communities such as the one I represent in Caerphilly, and, indeed, I received a very friendly note from them last week emphasising that, and I was pleased to see the same principles contained in the programme for government.

I’d like to welcome the speech the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure made yesterday at Coleg y Cymoedd, where he recognised the importance of addressing regional differences and taking a regional focus to creating resilient communities and indeed better jobs, closer to home. With this in mind, will the First Minister provide more specifics about the Welsh Government’s approach that will tackle those economic challenges faced by the northern Valleys of south Wales, helping develop our own specialised sectors, building on existing strength, and the social capital that exists there?

Well, firstly, the commercial pilots are starting to test the interventions to see how they can be as effective as they can be. We’re looking to implement a specific strategy, both regionally in the northern Valleys, and across the whole of Wales. There is a ministerial taskforce that’s been set up cross-Government in order to address some of these issues. The challenge for us is that there are differences within the Valleys themselves in terms of performance. We know that Merthyr is doing particularly well in terms of attracting investment. That is not reflected in every Valleys community. So, what we’re looking to do is ensure that we can even out economic development and improvement over the course of the next few years, rather than seeing some parts of the Valleys do well and others less well—commercial interventions and pilot projects apart. Of that, the taskforce is another limb of that.

Better jobs, closer to home—for my constituents, what this means is creating quality jobs in north-west Wales, and the Welsh Government is duty-bound to show the way in this regard and to have deliberate policies to ensure that Government jobs are distributed across Wales. When, then, does your Government intend to reform its job location strategy? We need to include specific new criteria that would lead to the distribution of Welsh Government jobs in an equal way across Wales. I suggest that you do amend and reform this strategy as a matter of urgency, before the people of north Wales lose all confidence in your Government.

I think that’s totally unfair, bearing in mind that it was us, as a Government, that opened the Llandudno Junction office, and it was us, as a Government, that had an office in Caernarfon, and it was us, as a Government, that has moved more jobs out of Cardiff than ever under the Welsh Office, with jobs across the whole of Wales. It’s not possible to have an office in every location, obviously, but our record is an extremely good one in relation to moving jobs, particularly in north Wales. There are more people working for Welsh Government in north Wales than was ever true under the old Welsh Office.

First Minister, if we want to have more people working closer to home, then what about homeworkers? One of the problems that homeworkers face in my constituency and in other parts, particularly of north Wales, is poor broadband connectivity. We saw a report last week that said that some of the slowest speeds can be found in north Wales, and there are still many people who don’t have access to superfast broadband. What are you doing to hold BT and Openreach to account to make sure that they deliver on their promises and their obligations under the scheme? And what action are you taking to address those 4 or 5 per cent of properties that are currently outside the scope of the scheme, so that those people too in those areas can also have the opportunity to work from home?

As the Member knows, we are looking for 96 per cent of premises to have access to superfast broadband by the summer. Many of those premises would never have had access without Government intervention because the market was never there. It’s right to point out, of course, the roughly 4 per cent of people who wouldn’t be part of superfast Cymru—they are in particularly remote areas. There will be other alternatives that will have to be explored for them, such as, for example, the use of satellites rather than using the cables. These are issues we are aware of. Even though Superfast Cymru focuses on the 96 per cent, the 4 per cent are not forgotten about.

First Minister, I’m given to understand that there are at present 175 businesses on waiting lists for council-owned units in Caerphilly, some for up to five years. Can you therefore indicate whether there are any Government plans to help councils like Caerphilly construct new units to accommodate such surpluses, given the fact that, obviously, these companies have the potential have to create thousands of jobs close to home?

Well, I’m not aware of the situation in Caerphilly as he describes it. I will write to him on that, because it’s specific to Caerphilly council rather than to Welsh Government. We need to avoid a situation where we build speculatively lots and lots of different factory units because we know that a lot of them remain empty, or they did remain empty in the 1990s. What we look to do is to identify existing buildings that are appropriate for businesses who want them, and to look at where units can be built where we know there will be a demand. And that is something certainly that forms part of our economic strategy.