The Economy of the Heads of the Valleys

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 11:53 am on 24 June 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 11:53, 24 June 2020

Well, Llywydd, it's nonsense to suggest that the people of the Rhondda have been ignored; they certainly haven't. And if they have, then she'll be asking herself what she herself has done as the representative of that area to put it right. It wouldn't be a very proud record for me as a representative to stand up and say that my area had been ignored, and it hasn't been—she knows it hasn't been.

But, I want to reply to the substantive and sensible point that she made that, of course, our concerns have to be for those parts of Wales that are particularly vulnerable to an economic downturn. We are working very hard inside the Welsh Government to bring capital money together, and capital projects together, so that if, as we hope, the UK Government responds in the Chancellor's statement in July by putting a new set of investments into infrastructure to create jobs, but to create the conditions of the future, that we are as well placed as we can be to have projects ready to use that money and to use it for the advantage of communities across Wales, with a particular emphasis on those places where the coronavirus impact will be felt the greatest. And that certainly does include the Rhondda, and it certainly does include a number of the measures that Leanne Wood mentioned in the opening part of her question. She can be assured that those things are very much part of our thinking and will continue to be so.