8. What action will the First Minister take to counter-balance the UK Government’s job centralisation programme in relation to the Department for Work and Pensions? OAQ(5)0742(FM)

The Minister for Skills and Science met with Damian Hinds MP, the Minister for employment, last Thursday. Our Minister stressed our profound concerns and urged that the DWP work with the Welsh Government to explore alternate solutions, including co-location where feasible, to ensure that good jobs can be kept locally.

Thank you, First Minister. I too met with Damian Hinds last Wednesday, along with the MP for Llanelli, Nia Griffith, and once again found him to be urbane but indifferent to the plight of the workers in Llanelli, where the 150 jobs will be relocated. An estimated 50 of them will not be able to take up that offer of relocation because it simply isn’t practical on part-time work to be able to travel to Cardiff. The impact will be significant in areas like Llanelli. Despite the pledge of the Prime Minister as part of her industrial strategy to spread the wealth, and, as you say, despite the offer of the Welsh Government to help to relocate the offices to assist the Department for Work and Pensions, there was no intention to engage seriously with the Welsh Government on this. When the Welsh Government brings forward its economic strategy later in the year, will you make sure there are specific provisions to rebalance the economy to compensate for this centralisation programme that the Tories are pushing through?

Well, our mantra is ‘better jobs, closer to home’. That guides what we do. We know that it’s hugely important that Government jobs are available across Wales. We’ve done that; we’ve opened our offices across Wales. Those offices that existed in Carmarthen, in Caernarfon and Llandrindod, we’ve always resisted the pressure to do away with them. They are still there, because we know how important they are to the local economy. Unfortunately, the same principles and values are not shared by the DWP.

It’s very disappointing in terms of what’s happened in Llanelli, specifically the fact that so many people aren’t able to relocate. But in turning to your response to Lee Waters, your own jobs strategy does talk about the closure of offices too. You talk about reducing the number of offices to some 14 or 15. So, in reality, how are you different to the DWP?

Well, some offices have closed over the years—very few people worked there and they were very close to other offices. What we will never do is centralise jobs in the future. That’s why jobs have been moved out of Cardiff over the past 10 years, and that is something that we wish to take further.