Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 7 February 2018.
Diolch, Llywydd. The Permanent Secretary and other officials appeared before the Public Accounts Committee on Monday to give evidence in relation to the Circuit of Wales project. In that session, the Permanent Secretary told us, I believe for the first time, that you'd arrived at the conclusion that any solution could only be achieved if the Welsh Government guarantee was to be reduced by at least 50 per cent, effectively reducing it to around 25 per cent of the overall project cost. Could I ask the Cabinet Secretary, given that you previously announced a target of 50 per cent of the overall cost and 50 per cent of the risk, I believe in July 2016, why you did not tell the Assembly that that had, effectively, changed to 50 per cent of the risk and 25 per cent of the project cost, particularly as this wasn't the first time, of course, that the goalposts had been changed? More pertinently, could you specifically address questions that officials were not able to answer on Monday? Was the company or were the other private sector partners told, in advance of the Cabinet decision, that it was necessary to reduce the guarantee further in the way that the Permanent Secretary described? And were the company's principals told on the preceding Friday that there were no major problems or outstanding issues that had been identified through the due diligence process?