The Heads of the Valleys Road Enlargement Scheme

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 22 November 2017.

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Photo of Adam Price Adam Price Plaid Cymru 2:49, 22 November 2017

I was wondering if possibly the Cabinet Secretary could address the key point in the question, which is the concern about the soaring cost, potentially. In the interests of transparency, it is true, isn't it, that this is effectively a modified private finance scheme with a public sector equity stake, but the standard form that is being used was based originally on the Department of Health private finance initiative model standard form, which was then used for the Scottish not-for-profit distributing scheme that was called PFI by another name by his colleagues in Scotland. Can he say whether the operation and maintenance role for the road will cover those sections built under the mutual investment model contract only or will they also encompass the capital-funded sections as well? Are there other options available to us? Could the Welsh Government—it doesn't have the power currently to issue bonds itself, but local authorities do—back a joint local authority bond, say, I don't know, at 2.5 per cent interest with some degree of inflation indexation, marketed to public sector pension funds? And might that not be a better alternative than a private finance scheme, albeit a modified one as currently proposed?