Well, with what's happened this week, whilst it couldn't have been predicted with confidence, there was clearly a high possibility that Carillion was going to get into difficulties from which it couldn't extricate itself. After all, we had the first profit warning in July. In September, the shares in Carillion fell by 60 per cent in two days. Three weeks after that, there was another profits warning. On 17 November, Carillion warned that it was on course to breach its banking covenants, which must have gone to the heart of the credibility of that part of Abellio's bid, and considering they were the preferred construction partner, this obviously had immense implications for the credibility of that bid.

Was there any action taken by Transport for Wales, or any involvement by Welsh Government in the period after July to try to protect the bidding process against the possibility of the collapse of Abellio's bid? Because, if Abellio had been able to obtain some other construction partner, or to keep one in the wings in the meantime, that might have been able to save this element of the bidding process.