Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 4 July 2017.
The issue is this, isn’t it: the problem has always been that if this project had strong support from private investors, it wouldn’t need a guarantee from the Government, and it would be able to stand on its own two feet without that guarantee. As we said in the Chamber last week, the difficulty that we have faced is that no final decision will be given by the ONS or Eurostat as to whether this financial deal will be on or off the balance sheet until the contracts are signed, by which point it’s too late. And, of course, at that point we are in a position where, in two or three years’ time, if the circuit didn’t work out, the guarantee is called on. That is the problem with this. Now, we cannot take that risk. We know that we would not get a final decision from them. The fact is that, as the deal is currently structured, it does not appear to have met our conditions. If a new proposal comes forward then, of course, we’d examine it. But we cannot take the risk with public money and take the risk of this money appearing on our balance sheet. If that were to happen, we would be treated as if we had already paid that money over and the money would be cut from our capital budget, which would mean, for example, potentially having to make cuts in this financial year. That’s not something that we as a responsible Government can take a risk with.