7. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to protect its investment in capital projects? OQ56426

Llywydd, the Welsh Government makes every effort to maximise the value of its capital investments, in line with best practice for the stewardship of public money.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. If Welsh Government hadn't just given Cardiff Airport a £42.6 million grant, it could have recruited 1,000 new NHS nurses and paid them for two years. Recently, the transport Minister blamed the COVID pandemic for the need to write off £40 million of debt that the airport owes to the Welsh taxpayer and award them this further eye-wateringly large grant, but it isn't COVID that is responsible for this, is it? Cardiff Airport has never made a profit under Government ownership, and in the year up to last March—when, according to Mr Skates, it had the highest passenger numbers ever going through the airport—it made its biggest loss ever, even when you take into account the one-off expenditure for that year. It's true that COVID has tipped all our airports into making a loss, but Cardiff was already making big losses before, losing the taxpayer £20 million a year. Passenger numbers aren't expected to recover to pre-COVID levels for more than three years, so, for the foreseeable future, you will have to grant Cardiff Airport at least £20 million a year, the same amount of money as a further year's salary for those 1,000 extra nurses you could have recruited instead. This isn't just a bad deal for north Wales, it's a bad deal for the entire country. Isn't it the case, First Minister, that you're keeping Cardiff Airport in public ownership for political reasons, because you're too embarrassed to admit that it's never going to be viable and you should never have invested a single penny of Welsh people's money into it in the first place? The latest bail-out for Cardiff Airport is so unsound commercially that even the Development Bank of Wales, which deliberately takes greater risk than the market, wouldn't have lent it any money. So, First Minister, is the sky the limit for the amount of good money after bad you're prepared to throw at Cardiff Airport, or will you now protect Welsh public money, stop funding the airport, and spend it on improving the Welsh NHS instead?

Llywydd, I don't share the Member's hostility to Cardiff Airport. Her account was as mistaken as it was lengthy. In fact, from top to bottom she misrepresents both the case for investment in Cardiff Airport, the success of that investment, and she is just—. It is just so basically mistaken to assert that the money that has been provided for Cardiff Airport could be used in the Welsh NHS. It's simply not available in that way, and the simplest—the simplest—understanding of how funding operates would have prevented her from making that mistake. Because it's not a mistake, is it? It's just a political assertion that she tries to make. She's wrong about the airport, she's wrong about the funding, and I don't think anybody who has the interests of Wales at heart would be prepared to follow her in the argument she's made.