9. Debate: Cardiff Airport

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:04 pm on 10 March 2020.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 4:04, 10 March 2020

Can I just say that I've got a longstanding interest in the airport, because, when it was in public ownership, when it was owned by the three counties, I was a member of the airport committee at that time, as a councillor? I remember the annual reports, really, of public investment to actually build up the airport and to actually fund the first major international-length runway that enabled jumbo jets to land. Year on year, that airport expanded and, in actual fact, its passenger numbers were on a par at that time with Bristol. So, there is an ignominy to the fact that you had a publicly owned airport that was part of an integrated economic plan, that was serving the public and business within Wales, and then a bizarre ideological decision was taken by the Tory Government that it had to be sold off. 

I appreciate, when I put the intervention to Russell George that the privatisation was a disaster—. I appreciate that he has difficulty admitting that it was, but you know it was and I know it was an absolute disaster. In actual fact—