Part of 3. 2. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:25 pm on 23 May 2017.
I thank the First Minister for that answer, and I declare an interest that my sister is an employee of Network Rail. I wonder if the First Minister can provide updated figures on the amount of profit made by the current operator of that franchise. I have figures for 2012 that show that that company made a profit of £13.6 million, and of course, that’s a company that is entirely owned by the German Government, and bidding is under way for the next franchise. I wonder if the First Minister can tell us whether he remains committed to returning the rail network to public ownership, and if so, does he believe that an opportunity has been missed in not using the operator-of-last-resort provision in order to bring it back into Welsh public ownership as quickly as possible?