Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:03 pm on 18 June 2019.
Well, Llywydd, I don't know if there is a great deal to be learnt from the Member on manifestos. He stood for the Conservative Party on a manifesto; he abandoned that in an instant. He stood for the UKIP party on a manifesto; he walked away from that. I don't think there are any lessons anybody here is ever likely to take from him on the subject of staying true to things that you stood for in an election.
As far as the CBI is concerned, I was very pleased to meet with the chief executive of the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Trades Union Congress last week to talk exactly about the decision that has been made, and I want to thank them for the way in which they came to that meeting in an entirely constructive spirit. They came wanting to contribute to the new pool of ideas that are there to address the difficulties that are faced at the Brynglas tunnel. They came to say how keen they were to participate in the group that will now be established to come up with those solutions. I think it's hard to imagine a greater contrast between the constructive spirit in which the CBI and other colleagues came to that table and the carping tone that we have been offered by the Member again this afternoon.
He has no grasp at all of the way in which decisions are made in Government; he has no grasp at all of the proprieties that have to be observed in making those decisions. I am entirely comfortable that, in this case, the decision was properly made, respected the rules within which that decision had to be made, and that the decision that is now made is something that we need to gather round, get on with and make sure that we have solutions that we can put into place far more quickly than a relief road would ever have brought for people in Newport and the difficulties that I've said every time I've been asked I recognise are there and need to be solved.