Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 29 January 2019.
I thank the Member for that question and for the interest that he has taken in the mutual investment model, which is indeed designed to make sure that we learn the lessons from the past. It incorporates the best of the Scottish non-distributing model, and I noted with interest, Llywydd, that the First Minister of Scotland referred to developing their ideas on the basis of our model as they look to invest further in infrastructure projects in Scotland.
So, the mutual investment model will not, for example, be used to finance soft services, such as cleaning and catering, and they were often at the heart of the inexpensive and inflexible contracts in the historic PFI model, nor will MIM be used to finance capital equipment. A public interest director will be appointed by the Welsh Government to manage a public shareholding, which we intend to take in each MIM scheme, ensuring that the public sector participates in any return on the investment that we are making. As well as being of interest to the First Minister of Scotland, Llywydd, the United Nations, which has recently produced a compendium of innovative finance schemes—people-first schemes, it's called—highlights the MIM as a model of a way of doing things that promotes well-being, value for money and transparency in the way that the scheme has been structured.