Honda

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:16 pm on 20 February 2019.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 3:16, 20 February 2019

Thank you. The Wales Automotive Forum is seeking early engagement with all the companies—all 18 Wales-based companies in the Honda supply chain—to understand the positions they're in and how the Welsh Government can help mitigate this loss. As I say, we have a suite of interventions available and we do have three years. There are going to be no major redundancies from this announcement, the factories will continue to have their order books guaranteed under their contracts for the next three years, and we will then have time to help them to prepare. But, of course, this is a fast-changing environment in terms of the way the car industry is developing. The automotive sector and the aerospace sector are undergoing profound changes to their industries, which makes it all the more important that we have a stable framework of regulation and law and trading arrangements through a good deal. And I agree with the comments that Lynne Neagle has made—it is fanciful, as the former ambassador to Japan has said, to claim that the decision is unrelated to Brexit. Brexit clearly is not the only factor, but it is, nonetheless, a factor for all companies who are trading in the international environment at the moment.