Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 15 January 2019.
Thank you for the response to the question on this. Just a couple of questions from me, based on promises that you made back in 2016. At that point, when Ford was potentially in trouble at that stage, you said that Welsh Government would be prepared to invest in the plant, and I'm glad to hear you praise it yet again for the high level of commitment of the workforce there, but that you would be expecting a minimum of five years of sustainable and secure employment for a specific number of workers there. So, perhaps you can just fill us in a little bit on what support, financially in particular, you have given them in the interim, and whether you're confident that the promises they will have given you—obviously, that finance would have been conditional—whether those promises have been fulfilled.
You've mentioned that you've been talking about new technology since then, and you've mentioned the Dragon engine; obviously, there's a question mark about the long-term sustainability of that work because of Jaguar Land Rover's announcement—but what other technology, apart from electric cars, have you been talking about? Because one of the considerations I'm sure you've thought of is, of course, that Ford globally is now working in partnership with Volkswagen, and Volkswagen itself already has the infrastructure available to produce electric cars, which, for me, places a question mark over the possibility of Bridgend being used for that. But there are other options; you've probably come across Projekt Grenadier and the potential for off-road vehicle development. Obviously, Jaguar Land Rover has had its problems, but there were huge pre-sales for the Suzuki Jimny announced relatively recently. So, I wonder what kinds of conversations you've had about that, alongside anything to do with electric cars.
And then, finally, from me, when Tata was in trouble, Welsh Government was very keen to talk about the new opportunities it would offer anybody who was made redundant on the back of Tata changes, particularly in retraining. We've already had, for some months now, criticism of Welsh Government because it doesn't have a skills strategy, but I'm hoping that this may have concentrated the mind and that you have some idea of what you might tell Ford plant workers, should they be made redundant, about the training opportunities that they can be offered at this stage. Thank you.