Infrastructure Projects

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

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 11:53, 1 July 2020

I thank John Griffiths for that important set of remarks and his question, Llywydd. He's right, of course, to point to the way in which the COVID crisis has had disproportionate impacts on different sectors of our society. I was very pleased last week to receive the report from Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna on the socioeconomic context of the impact of the crisis on people of black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. When we let contracts for our infrastructure work, we will, of course, draw on the principles of our economic contract, in which the investment that the Welsh public makes derives a benefit for the Welsh public beyond simply the jobs created. So, employment levels, training, apprenticeships, wider community benefits, all of that will be at the centre of the way in which we construct those contracts—very much part of the contract that we have struck for the completion of the Heads of the Valleys road; a major infrastructure project that we were able to move forward last week. But those principles will be applied more generally in order to make sure that those people who have been most adversely affected by the impact of coronavirus have a disproportionately greater benefit from the rebuilding of our economy.