Can I thank Suzy Davies for her questions, and can I thank Members across the Chamber for their keen concern regarding this dreadful news for very loyal and dedicated workers? All of our efforts within Government, and with stakeholders, now turn to supporting the award-winning workforce employed at the site who face a period of uncertainty over their future employment. I think we should also say—and Suzy Davies has alluded to it—that the decision by Virgin Media in no way reflects on the workforce, with their excellence in delivering customer services of the highest order, long recognised and regularly held up as best practice. Indeed, as Suzy Davies has said, it's award-winning best practice. It does appear as though Virgin Media have reached a decision based on the lowest cost options for consolidation.

Our assessment of future job trends within this particular sector is such that we believe that Wales is well placed to retain a significant proportion of people employed in contact centres. It's the lowest level of operations that will face the greatest threat from automation and artificial intelligence generally. Those lowest levels of operations have already been offshored outside of Britain. So, it could well be, in the future, that we see a return of employment opportunities to the higher levels of operations at tier 1 and tier 2, and Wales is actually well placed to capture a good chunk of that work.

Meanwhile, what we need to do, and what we have immediately begun, is assess employment opportunities in other established businesses and to assess what the pipeline of opportunities—the pipeline of inward investment—means for the existing workforce. There is already a significant interest in the workforce at Virgin Media by other businesses in the area, including Virgin Atlantic, who may be part of the same Virgin group but operate in an autonomous way. There are other businesses within the contact centre sector who are keen to look at employing and taking on those who will be affected by this decision, unless the decision is reversed.

The Welsh Contact Centre Forum, like us, were notified on the day of the announcement, and I’m also aware of employees learning about the announcement through the media, which I believe is unacceptable. It's not fair and it's not right, and I'd like Virgin Media to reflect on the way that some of their employees were notified about the decision.

We are liaising with the company. I am also, as the Member has outlined, putting together a taskforce that will include Careers Wales, the Welsh Contact Centre Forum, the Department for Work and Pensions, Public Health Wales, trades unions and also Welsh Government officials. I'm hoping that Virgin Media will also form part of that taskforce. The work of the taskforce will replicate what we did with regard to Tesco last year. Members will be pleased to know that the vast majority of people who were affected by that particular decision were helped into work elsewhere within the local economy. We hope the same will happen to Virgin Media staff. We are, indeed, very confident that there will be significant opportunities for the people who today face uncertainty. We are determined to work for them and with them to ensure that they have every opportunity to get work secured as soon as possible.

The human cost to this, of course, can be considerable, and for that reason Public Health Wales will be part of the taskforce, offering signposting services to employees who may face anxiety, depression or other mental health issues—to the right support. I'm also keen to ensure that any opportunity for relocation available to staff is taken up if they so wish. However, it must be said that we expect very few employees to relocate to Manchester or Scotland, and we do not anticipate seeing any employees relocating to Manila. I will endeavour to update Members on a regular basis on the progress that we are making in regard to this particular announcement. As I say, I am confident that the vast majority of people who wish to remain in employment will be able to be supported into alternative jobs within the local area, given the immediate interest that we have been able to ascertain in the days following the announcement.