Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 27 June 2017.
We’re not going to move on very far, Llywydd, I’m afraid, because I’m going to continue the line of questioning by the leader of the Welsh Conservatives. Isn’t it now absolutely clear why this decision has been delayed until after the general election? And what the Welsh Government has done today is actually to kill the hopes of the people of Blaenau Gwent and a much wider area. There is nothing that the Government was able to discuss this morning that couldn’t have been discussed weeks ago. There’s nothing new at all in this decision. The limit of the Welsh Government’s obligations would be a maximum of £8 million a year for 33 years—that’s once all the buildings on the site were constructed. It’s not so the whole thing would be telescoped upfront and the money would have to be found tomorrow or within the next three years. Therefore, what this shows is a pathetic lack of vision on the part of the Welsh Government to kill this massive private enterprise scheme, which offered not just hope to one town in Wales, but actually to the whole of south-east Wales.