1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement following Virgin Media's decision to close its call centre in Swansea resulting in the loss of over 700 jobs? 166

I issued an update on this matter to Members on Friday. This is deeply disappointing news, and my sympathies go to those who are affected by the company's decision. I've asked my officials to establish a taskforce to ensure the best possible outcome for the workers affected by this corporate decision.

Thank you for your answer and, of course, for your letter. I think we were all pleased to see that. As you know, Virgin Media has announced plans to completely exit its Swansea site, which is pretty serious; we are talking about the best part of 800 jobs here, after all. But the reason for that is that they're merging from eight sites down to four sites. Of course, two of those sites are in the Philippines and India, so the offers for relocation to these places are pretty laughable. Even those to Glasgow and Manchester are a bit ambitious, shall we say.

I just wanted to ask you—. I've got three or four questions here. The first one is: I'm not particularly clear what support Welsh Government has offered to Virgin Media in the past. I know there were injections, shall we say, into the local economy in 2013 and 2015, but I'd be grateful if you could clarify whether there was any direct Welsh Government support and whether any of that is recoverable, bearing in mind that it's 2018 now. They haven't been there as long as perhaps you might have wanted them to be.

Obviously, you'll have heard the news that some staff found out about this happening through the press. I’d be very keen to know when you, yourself, found out. I know that Dai Lloyd mentioned yesterday that when this happened with Tesco in Cardiff, the Welsh Government didn’t know about it. So, that would help, particularly as, in the past, we've been very keen to hear from you, with both Tata and Ford, what kind of conversations you’ve had.

I see, from your letter, mention of a taskforce, and you’ve just repeated it, but I’m not clear whether you or perhaps even the First Minister have spoken directly to management. If either of you have, I’d be particularly keen to hear what they say, bearing in mind—. I’m just going to quote them here, with your indulgence, Presiding Officer. It says, specifically about the Swansea call centre—and these are Virgin Media's own words here:

'Solving problems like Sherlock, our 850 legends are so good at fault management and technical support that Swansea is Virgin Media’s official centre of excellence for those areas. We’re not the only ones who reckon it’s great. Swansea has won a whole heap of awards, including Welsh Contact Centre of the Year 2012. We’re gonna need a bigger display cabinet.'

So, my obvious question is: why isn’t one of these four hubs in Swansea? And I hope you’ve asked that question. If you haven’t, I'd like you to ask it pretty quickly.

Then, finally, I think we all will welcome First Priority's indication that they will be offering some jobs to those who are losing their spaces at Virgin Media. With the taskforce, who do you think the key stakeholders are likely to be? I don’t know if you’ve made a decision yet. Because bearing in mind—and I don’t know this for certain myself, obviously—the likely age profile and experience of the people working in their media centre, it's not going to be particularly clear to me who those key stakeholders would be. So, if you can give us any steer on that, I’d be very grateful—and particularly if you're able to give us any steer, as well, on any specific new attempts you’re making to promote investment into the area and perhaps secure a suitable employer for the site. I appreciate you’ve not had long to do that. Thank you.

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.   

As someone who was made redundant by British Steel in the 1980s, I have huge sympathy and huge empathy with those who have been affected, many of whom are my constituents, and some of whom I actually know and will meet over the next week or so. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for the action that he has taken. I don't think that we could ask for any more. I'm very pleased about the taskforce, and I hope that all those people who are currently there and who wish to continue in employment will be able to do so. But we will lose 800 job opportunities in the Swansea area. We're not that well off for jobs that losing 800 job opportunities will not have an effect on the local economy. So, what is the Welsh Government able to do in order to try and bring more employment into the area?

One of the reasons that has been given—I don't know whether officially or unofficially—is that Manchester has such good connections to London, including the expected high speed 2 line, and we can't even get electrification to Swansea. Will the Cabinet Secretary continue to press the Government in Westminster on the importance of electrification to Swansea? It's the signal that it sends out and, as I have said on more than one occasion, it's the importance of saying, 'This is somewhere worth going to, worth creating employment in, because we put electrification there.' Of course, the converse is also true.

Well, the Member is absolutely right that good connectivity, principally with London, given the size of the economy of London, particularly with regard to financial and professional services, creative industries and the services sector as a whole—. It's essential that we are better connected to that particular city. Many investors identify a two-hour time limit in terms of where they wish to invest. It is particularly the case, for example, within the creative industries. So, upgrading the south Wales main line between Cardiff and Swansea, following the cancellation of the electrification of that particular piece of infrastructure, is absolutely vital, and we expect that work to be carried out at pace, as I said yesterday.

I can assure the Member, as I said to Suzy Davies, that all options for alternative employment are being explored at the moment. I can't go into any details regarding the companies that have already expressed an interest in taking on people who will be affected by this announcement, but we are aware of at least five to date—major companies that are looking at taking on significant numbers. I've already identified Virgin Atlantic, and I wouldn't wish to go into any detail about the other companies. But in addition to this, we are also looking at bringing forward a number of investment opportunities. There is a very strong pipeline of investments in the regulated contact centre sector, and many of these opportunities are due to be landed in the Swansea area. 

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

It's fair to say it's been a huge, devastating blow to Swansea—772 jobs, or 800 in round figures, lost, and a knock-on effect on dozens of families locally. My first question is: where can we signpost individual workers who are getting in touch with us as Assembly Members expecting us to have some details to hand with regard to what they do know? I'd be grateful for some practical advice like that to start off with, and I'd be grateful, Cabinet Secretary, for assistance in directing these people, who are in a distressed state now, to the right sort of advice.

I won't rehearse the arguments that others have brought forward, but in terms of proactivity from Welsh Government in these situations, we're aware, obviously, that large amounts of the Welsh economy are based on call centres—call centres largely run by large private businesses. I was just wondering how, as Welsh Government, you are developing relationships with those same big businesses so that there's some sort of empathy, or some sort of working behind the scenes, before we have these huge announcements that, all of a sudden, 800 jobs are going and nobody knows about it—least of all you to know about it. You discovered it the same time that the rest of us did, or as some of our workers did in Swansea—they discovered it from the media.

I would hope there would be some proactivity behind the scenes. It's not without warning. We had the Tesco call centre losing 1,000 jobs from Cardiff last year. We all discovered it at the same time, when it was announced in the media. We were asking then: what about some proactivity? What's the role of Government here in supporting people, or at least working things out before the large balloon goes up and then we have to sort it out there and then? So, in terms of just some more detail on how you're developing those relationships with these large private companies so that we can do something proactively to help our people—. And in terms of alternative jobs, I would press again that we do need alternative jobs, as Mike Hedges has alluded to, in the Swansea area in particular. We've talked a lot about the tidal lagoon, but it's desperately, seriously required now— quality jobs in Swansea bay because we are losing jobs like this all of the time. Diolch yn fawr.

Dai Lloyd is right to point to the Swansea bay tidal lagoon as a project that could offer, and should be offering, high-quality jobs. The whole point of the economic action plan is to drive up the creation of higher quality, better-paid, more secure employment opportunities. And I think the announcement by Virgin Media demonstrates why we (a) need to supercharge the industries of the future, but also make sure that existing employers within Wales are futureproofed. That's why we've commenced work, the study, on digitisation and automation within the Welsh economy. It's why one of the calls to action concerns futureproofing of businesses, and so we're absolutely determined to make sure that existing jobs are retained, that businesses are futureproofed for the change that is inevitable and will come within the next decade, but also that we're focusing new job creation in those areas of economic activity that are sustainable in the long term.

I think Dai raises the important question of relations, not just between Government and some businesses, but also between trade unions and some businesses, and also stakeholder groups and some businesses. The fact that this particular business is non-unionised and that the Welsh Contact Centre Forum were not made aware of the decision demonstrates that this was a decision that the business reached and wished to keep for sensitive commercial reasons within its own ranks until the point at which the media were informed. But as I said in response to Suzy Davies, I do not think that that's a fair way to treat their own employees.

There are 772 people who have demonstrated great loyalty to the business. Two hundred and twenty are subcontracted to Sitel. Now, I wouldn't wish to raise hopes too high at this stage, but I've asked my officials to explore the potential of Sitel to remain in Swansea. We are hoping that Virgin Media will be supportive of this and will perhaps continue with the existing accommodation, as an interim offer would be particularly helpful in trying to secure as many of those jobs as possible. Notwithstanding this, we will be offering signposting services, primarily to the DWP and Careers Wales—they're certainly the two agencies that I would suggest the Member refers his constituents to in the first instance. But I am also hopeful that Virgin Media will allow on-site workshops to take place involving those partners who will form the taskforce. It's what Tesco allowed on-site when they made the decision last year and it made a huge difference in terms of making sure that people could segue from employment in Tesco to another job, and it also made a very significant difference in minimising the emotional damage of redundancies. So, I'm hopeful that Virgin Media will accept the request from us to allow taskforce partners to go on-site and to offer those people who are going to be affected by this decision valuable workshops in how to get into employment and how to make sure that their well-being is safeguarded in the interim period.

Cabinet Secretary, I make no apology for repeating a lot of the things that have already been said, but as these 800 people are within my region, it's important to emphasise that my thoughts are with these people who've lost their jobs and wanting to know exactly what we are trying to do and what we are going to do to find alternative employment for these people. Swansea has become something of a specialist in the call-centre sector, and everything must be done to enhance its position by providing a skilled workforce, a low tax environment and world-class infrastructure, and possibly the tidal lagoon, as has already been said by Dai Lloyd. So, Cabinet Secretary, what more can be done than has already been said to make Swansea an attractive place for entrepreneurs and large businesses alike? Thank you.

Can I thank the Member for her questions? Swansea has a fantastic future ahead of it. The progress that's been made locally in ensuring that it's a more attractive place in which to live, in which to learn and in which to invest should be admired by all. Indeed, I think Swansea sets the template for many other towns, cities and regions in Wales and the UK when it comes to place building and ensuring that the quality of place is at the centre of any economic development strategy.

In terms of what else we can do, I'm absolutely determined that employment opportunities existing elsewhere, or which are going to be created elsewhere, are brought to those people who are affected by this decision within house, so that we can not only offer within Virgin Media employment workshops, but also ensure that we are taking information about alternative employment into the workplace, so that people don't have to scramble around searching for jobs, worrying whether they're going to be able to make ends meet when Virgin Media finally close their doors. So, again, I would call on Virgin Media to accept our request for those workshops and for those stakeholders that will form the taskforce to be able to have access to their premises.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.

The second topical question this afternoon is by Hefin David and it's to be answered by the Minister for Housing and Regeneration. Hefin David.