Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:43 pm on 11 June 2019.
The first line of defence here, of course, is to fight this unconscionable proposal by Ford and we, on this side obviously, as Bethan Jenkins said, wish to express our total solidarity with the members of the GMB and Unite unions who will be balloting for industrial action on Friday. But, obviously, the Government's—. One of the Government's roles is to prepare contingency plans, and I was wondering if you could just share a little bit more of your thinking on these. I can understand why you can't be drawn on specific companies, but I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about the scale of ambition. In essence, is there an opportunity here to turn what, I believe, was the largest manufacturing plant in Europe at one stage in the twentieth century, to a gigafactory for the twenty-first?
We know the future of cars is electric, and one of the leading companies in the field is Tesla. It's opened two gigafactories in the United States. It's looking to open one in China and one in Europe. So, why not in Wales? Elon Musk has specifically said, in recent months, that, if GM closes plants in the US, he'd be interested in taking them over. Could that principle be applied here? Another major company in the field is the Swedish company Northvolt, which is building a gigafactory producing battery cells with the help of one of the biggest ever investments by the EU's European fund for strategic investments and the European Investment Bank. Nothvolt's CEO has said recently there could be scope for as many as seven such gigafactories across Europe by 2025. Again, is there an opportunity here for us? First Minister, I believe you're visiting Brussels tomorrow. Why not ask the European Commission for the EFSI and the EIB, to which we're still entitled to make an application because we're still in the EU, to make a similar and, in many ways, timely investment here in Wales?