Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 16 January 2018.
Well, it's clear that the answer to my question is that both the Government and Transport for Wales sat on their hands during that period, but I'll leave that there.
Does the First Minister share my amusement that Philip Green, the chairman of Carillion since 2014, was an adviser on corporate responsibility to David Cameron and Theresa May as Prime Minister, and that the previous chief executive of Carillion, Richard Howson, was allowed to leave the company a few months ago with a 12-month payoff of £660,000 in salary and £28,000 in benefits whilst the company has been making small firms wait for up to 120 days for payment on their contracts? The Welsh Government has a policy on social responsibility with the companies that are contracting with it. Surely prompt payment is one of the essential elements in that. The Welsh Government has a policy of paying all invoices on time, and when the Welsh Government receives bids from firms for large contracts that it's going to award, or agencies like Transport for Wales, what protection is going to be given to small firms who are now left, as in this instance, probably, high and dry, and lots of them will not be paid? That could be pivotal in the question of whether small businesses themselves, as a ricochet effect from the collapse of Carillion, also go out of business.