Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 18 July 2017.
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?