Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:35 pm on 1 October 2019.
I thank Dai Lloyd for raising this issue. Of course, the taskforce to which he refers is being led by Swansea city council, on behalf of the Swansea bay city region. And the membership is drawn from a wide range of statutory and regulatory bodies, which will be required, in order to take forward any potential projects, should a suitable financial model come forward. Welsh Government has provided funding for that taskforce already to undertake a number of packages of work, procured from independent experts, which is looking very much at the financial modelling, the business case and the infrastructure delivery issues. And that work is intended, really, to develop a financial model that could include a mixture of revenue and capital streams, wider regeneration—and you've given some examples of that—and energy-related innovation proposals, and some other aspects as well. So, it's potentially a very exciting scheme. Welsh Government's very interested in it. You'll recall that, under the previous scheme, Welsh Government had agreed that there would be up to £200 million of financial transactions capital available to support that, and I can confirm that that funding would still be available should a viable and value-for-money model come forward.