Part of 5. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 4:22 pm on 26 June 2019.
Deputy Minister, as you know, Jistcourt are actually located in my constituency and the majority of the employees live in the locality, and it is very distressing for those employees and their families, but I appreciate the work the Welsh Government is doing to look to how we can ensure that those find other employment elsewhere. But this does highlight, as Rhun ap Iorwerth says, a reflection of the construction sector. We've seen Dawnus, Cuddy Group and now Jistcourt all within the very same region struggling, and some are struggling because of cashflow problems, and those cashflow problems are sometimes because the long-term payments or the payment period in which they get returns for the work they do is getting longer and longer. Can you look at how the Welsh Government can support the construction industry to try and make sure that any procurement the Welsh Government are involved in actually have a very short payment time, so that construction companies can be assured of payment in, at the most, 30 days, because I know that some are actually on 120-days payment, to ensure that the cashflow is minimised so that they can get on with their business? Because as you've rightly pointed, this company had contracts in the millions of pounds. It therefore had a projection. It didn't have the cashflow to keep on going now. I think we need to look at how we can support those types of companies with their cashflow, so that they can continue to deliver on contracts they were winning, because they were winning based upon their experience and the quality of what they do, but they just hit a problem. So, will Welsh Government look at how we can help the sector with that type of problem?