2. Will the First Minister make a statement on what the Welsh Government is doing to support the aviation sector in Wales? OQ55393

Well, Llywydd, following the overnight news about Airbus, I wanted to be absolutely clear that the Welsh Government will do all we can to support the company and its workforce in these very difficult times. But the global nature of the current crisis in aviation means that local solutions will not be sufficient by themselves to ensure the future of this important strategic industry. And we continue to work with the UK Government to press them to provide targeted assistance for the aviation sector.

Thank you for that, First Minister, and I appreciate the continued support of the Welsh Government. But I must say I am absolutely furious and, frankly, upset. For months now, I have been telling the UK Government that they must intervene to support jobs in the aviation and aerospace sector, and, honestly, I've heard nothing back.

This is an industry that had full order books. This is not the fault of the company nor its workforce. When the Governments needed ventilators a few months ago, this workforce stepped up to the plate and produced 10,000 ventilators. The UK Government has a—[Inaudible.] First Minister, will you speak directly with Boris Johnson and tell him that he must act now?

Llywydd, I thank Jack Sargeant for that and for his long-standing commitment to Airbus and to its workforce. When I last visited there on 30 January, it was with Jack, and we were there to celebrate apprenticeship week. We met a fantastic group of very talented, very bright, very committed young people, looking to a successful future in an industry in which, at that point, had a very successful future in front of it.

What we have to do, working together with the UK Government, is to find a way of helping this industry to bridge between the difficulties it faces today and the successful future that is still there for it, provided we can help it through the difficult couple of years ahead. And there are many actions that can be taken—things we will do to continue to support apprenticeships, to develop skills of the workforce, to invest in research and development, and then there is the part the UK Government has to play.

Our colleague Ken Skates spoke yesterday with Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He was talking to the Secretary of State at BEIS on Friday. This week of course I will talk to any Minister in the UK Government to press the case for the sort of sector-specific help that is now needed, as the French Government has done, as the German Government has done, to demonstrate that the world-leading aviation sector that we have in Wales and in the United Kingdom goes on being supported by Governments here at all levels.

Mark Isherwood. Mark Isherwood—

I've unmuted. Thank you. I received a briefing, alongside Welsh Conservative MPs in north-east Wales, from Airbus last night. We note that tomorrow, when the announcements are likely to have detail added to them—we hope that it is going to be dealt with without compulsory redundancies. But I hope to touch on that later in a topical question.

On 9 April Airbus announced it was cutting production because of new rules on distancing and said that it was reducing temporary production and support labour supplied by Guidant Global. On 28 April Guidant Global furloughed their almost 500 workforce at Airbus and served them with a risk-of-redundancy notice. And yesterday Airbus announced that the job losses were in addition to reductions of more than 700 temps and subcontractors at UK commercial sites. But in addition to the work the Welsh Government will be doing directly, and with the UK Government, for Airbus, what support have you been providing, or what will you be providing, for those Guidant Global employees?

Well, Llywydd, the Member makes an important point that the difficulties in the aviation sector go beyond Airbus, go beyond the direct employees of Airbus, but go into the supply chain as well—150 firms, we think, with 1,500 additional jobs that rely on Airbus as part of their business futures. So, the response that the Welsh Government will make, including bringing together in a submit all those local players and Welsh national players who have a part to play in responding to the difficulties that Airbus itself faces and the knock-on effects that that has for others in the supply chain more broadly, will be a way in which we will look to design together the sort of response that supports this sector, because it has a successful future. We need to get it through the next couple of years, and we need to do that without losing really experienced and very skilled people who this company will need again when order books pick up and the global economy recovers. Our efforts will be very much directed at that impact in the round that we will see across the economy of north-east Wales.

I thank the First Minister for his answers, and I'm sure that we're all thinking of the staff members and their families who are living through this very uncertain time. I fully understand, of course, the points the First Minister makes about the vital role of the UK Government, but we may find ourselves in a situation where there will be some Airbus jobs that will be lost, and, obviously, our priority must be ensuring minimising the number of those jobs that are lost here in Wales. So, to a certain extent, there's an element of competition there.

I wonder—. The First Minister mentions the summit, and that is obviously very welcome. I wonder what discussions the Welsh Government has had or will have with Airbus about what steps we might be able to take to give the Welsh workforce the best possible advantage. Are there, for example, things that need to be done in the field of infrastructure, whether that be digital infrastructure, practical infrastructure, that could be offered as not an immediate solution, but as a short-term solution to make it more attractive for Airbus to stay here and keep the work here if there is some inevitable loss—not that we would wish, of course, any workers to lose their jobs anywhere?

Well, I thank Helen Mary Jones for that. She's absolutely right: our thoughts today must be focused on those people whose futures are now so uncertain. I had a meeting at 10 o'clock this morning with Unite the union, who represents the bulk of workers at Broughton. There were members of Broughton staff involved in that call, and it's a very sober and shocked atmosphere at the plant this morning.

Helen Mary Jones is right, as well, that the plant at Broughton has always had to compete with other Airbus sites elsewhere in Europe. It's because of the joint working with the trade union that the management there will tell you that it is at the leading edge of production, of efficiency, of health and safety—all the things that the company values, Broughton has been at a leading edge. That's partly because of the help they've had from the Welsh Government and others. Our investment in the advanced manufacturing research centre was absolutely designed to give Broughton an edge in attracting the wing of the future research to north Wales, and we will go on doing that. If there are things that we can do that will help Broughton persuade Airbus globally to bring more work to north Wales, where they have this dedicated, skilled and very committed workforce, then, of course, we will do that, as we have in the past, and will intensify whatever efforts we can to assist them in that way.