Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:19 pm on 15 January 2020.
Can I thank Jack Sargeant for his questions? First and foremost, with regard to the position at the Mondi site, we'll work with company management—we've already made contact; we've visited the site—we'll work with the local authority, and we're working with staff representatives through the unions, throughout the consultation phase that is now under way, and we are hoping to reach a solution that will see the activities at the site maintained into the future. Now, whilst we hope that closure will be avoided, we stand ready to work, with the Department of Work and Pensions, our own ReAct team and other relevant stakeholders, to provide a comprehensive package of support to employees in the eventuality that the site cannot be saved.
Jobcentre Plus and Flintshire County Council have already been contacted, and they'll provide support and advice through the rapid response service that we've now established in north Wales. I'm pleased to say that Mondi has already said that it will hold a job recruitment day with local employers as part of the rapid redundancy support measures if closure is confirmed. We'll be working very closely to support this, and, if the need arises, to discuss any future use for the Deeside facility.
In terms of wider investment in the Deeside area, of course, the Heathrow logistics hub offers an enormous opportunity to provide sustainable high-quality work for many people in the area, and I would join Jack Sargeant also in saying that the second phase of the advanced manufacturing research centre—that being the advanced manufacturing research institute phase 2—is absolutely vital to promote the area and the region as a centre of excellence in electronics. We are proceeding with those plans for AMRI at pace.
I should finally say as well that in terms of skills demand in the area, employment numbers are such now in Flintshire—Flintshire, Llywydd, has the highest rate of employment in Wales, and it has the lowest rate of unemployment at just 2.3 per cent, which means that there is huge demand within the area for skilled people. As part of the work that we'll be undertaking with the company itself, we'll be carrying out a skills audit of the workforce to ensure that if it should close its doors, those people who are employed by Mondi will be able to be matched up as soon as possible with appropriate work elsewhere—for example, perhaps at KK Fine Foods, where, in the last 24 hours, we've been able to announce the creation of a further 40 jobs with investment of just over £0.5 million from the Welsh Government.