Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 27 June 2017.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, this morning, the Cabinet took the decision to not proceed with the funding package for the Circuit of Wales—and I appreciate that the Minister will be making a statement later on this afternoon. Yesterday, the most senior civil servant in the department gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, where he talked of this project having a very high impact project in the status that it was held in the department, and he also said it did deliver value for money—and these are his words I’m quoting to you—and it was a project that was ready, subject to finance, to be delivered.
Now, the Cabinet Secretary, with his statement this morning, says that, actually, the claims around the project were significantly overstated, and he says, historically there was little evidence, on an international scale, of any track on its own acting as a catalyst for further local employment. Those two statements—from the senior civil servant, and from the Cabinet Secretary—are completely opposed to each other in the views that they are trying to create. Who’s right and who’s wrong when it comes to this project?