<p>Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 4 July 2017.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 1:46, 4 July 2017

Thank you, First Minister, for your remarks about the tragic death of our deputy chief of staff, Ben Davies. Politically, we are divided in this Chamber, and that’s what this Chamber is for: debate and discussion. But, actually, the human spirit unites us all, and from a party perspective, a group perspective, and from Ben’s family’s perspective, I’d like to thank all the Members who have expressed their condolences and wishes to be passed on to the family in the support that they will need in the days, weeks and months ahead. They’ve gone from being in a position of planning a wedding to arranging funeral. That really does put everything in perspective when we focus on what we debate and discuss within this Chamber.

But if I could go back to my line of questioning, if I may, First Minister, I do take the point that the alternative offer that the Welsh Government have put on the table of this £100 million over 10 years and the opportunity to open up the door for 1,500 jobs in this alternative offer is most probably sincerely made by the Welsh Government, but the evidence that the Circuit of Wales pointed to was that, actually, in their extensive discussions—and you referred to this in your answer to me—about the development of a technology park based on the automotive industry, you would need a track for testing, and that opportunity for testing facilities to be coterminous with the technology park, to be successful. Time and time again, we have seen the Public Accounts Committee reports and scrutiny reports about the ‘build it and they will come’ mentality of previous governments having failed, and considerable sums of public money being put on the table and actually thinking the money will solve the problem. How can you have this confidence this time round, when the evidence points to the fact that, actually, you have to have the two working together to make the technology park a success in an area that desperately needs that success to create quality employment opportunities?