Job Losses in Barclays in Cardiff

Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:24 pm on 20 June 2018.

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Photo of Julie Morgan Julie Morgan Labour 3:24, 20 June 2018

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response. I'm sure he's aware that 170 jobs are going to Northampton, and a small number of jobs are going to India. But I think it's important to make the point that these are not the first losses of jobs in Cardiff, and in Cardiff North in particular, of financial services jobs and call centre jobs, because we fairly recently lost 1,100 jobs at Tesco, from Tesco House. Last year, Barclays also closed its mortgage centre in Llanishen. That was a loss of 180 jobs. There have also been five bank branch closures by Barclays, NatWest and HSBC within my constituency of Cardiff North. So, that all adds up to 1,500 jobs lost in the last two years in the financial and call centre industry.

So, I don't know what the Welsh Government can do to try to persuade financial services companies and call centre bosses to stop this outpouring of jobs, because the jobs don't necessarily end—they're just going to other places, such as Northampton, and the Tesco jobs went to somewhere else. What can he do to keep up an ongoing dialogue with the financial services, with Barclays? I wonder is there any forum where they would discuss with the Cabinet Secretary what their future plans are, what are their plans for the city, because I think the loss of all these jobs in this particular service is very dismaying.