Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales – in the Senedd at 2:09 pm on 26 February 2020.
What I was going to talk about is the university sector. We've got two outstanding universities in the Swansea bay city region and the ability to use them in order to grow major new industries and to build on some of those that are coming out of it. You have a choice, really, with economic policy, to prioritise low-wage areas to try and bring branch factories in, but actually developing within your own area, building up, the skills of your own people, who aren't going to be footloose and fancy-free, as Dawn Bowden has discovered with some of those companies that have come into her area, then you've got a chance of keeping them; they're going to grow in your area. What is the Welsh Government doing to work with universities to get more success out of some of these things coming out? I know 'technium' has a bad reputation, but that's because the Welsh Government used it to brand—they gave the name to every branch factory they opened in Wales. The idea of techniums, of spinning out of universities and developing skills and making their way into high-quality and high-value companies, is something that can work, has started to work in Swansea, but what more can be done?