Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:43 pm on 23 January 2018.

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Photo of Andrew RT Davies Andrew RT Davies Conservative 1:43, 23 January 2018

First Minister, this is First Minister's questions, and that's why we ask you questions and we look for answers from you. We don't seem to get many answers on a week-by-week basis.

But, last week, in the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, the senior civil servant who was dealing with this in the Cabinet Secretary's department indicated that the project cost was somewhere near £1.4 billion to £1.5 billion. The actual figures that have been lodged with the inquiry are £1.3 billion to £1.4 billion. They're actually lodged with the inquiry, those figures are. Only two years ago, you were stating that it was going to be nowhere near £1 billion and would be considerably less than that figure. One hundred and sixty civil servants at that time, as given to us by the Minister, were tied up with this particular project. I ask you again: what has gone wrong? This is the key infrastructure project that the Welsh Government is challenging to deliver. The project costs, if your estimations at that time were to be believed, have nearly doubled, by the civil service's own figures that they put to the inquiry and also identified by the Cabinet Secretary in that committee.