Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 11 July 2017.
You were asked on 7 April 2016 why the proposal had been rejected the day before, and you said, and I quote, ‘What happened originally was that they were looking for a guarantee of £30 million from us, it then went up to £357 million.’ When asked when that happened, you said, and I quote: ‘In the last few days.’ You, again, said to Wales Online on 11 April, and I quote again:
‘It was in the last few days beforehand. We weren’t to know the guarantee would be inflated.’
Yet a senior director of Aviva investors, Mark Wells, contradicts what you said. He denied that Aviva had requested a 100 per cent underwrite a few days before the rejection. He says and, again, I quote:
‘this deal had been worked up with the Welsh Government (through civil servants) for many months and nothing in our funding structure changed in the run up to this announcement.’
First Minister, only one of the two of you can be right. Can you tell us today which one of you is right and which one of you is wrong?