Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 13 July 2022.
Of course I'm aware of the announcement on free ports. I was the Welsh Government Minister who made that announcement with Michael Gove in his then role at the time. And that's because, from the noise that existed before, where the previous Secretary of State had regularly said a free port can't go ahead and it's the Welsh Government's fault, we eventually got the decision-making department in the UK Government talking directly to us. And we were able to move fairly rapidly then to have agreement on a joint prospectus for bids, where the Welsh Government and the UK Government will be co-decision makers. That includes things that are important to us like, if your remember, our agenda on fair work and environmental protection. So, that's important.
The challenge, though, is that, having secured agreement on funding parity for a free port, which was a previous sticking point, we now have a different Minister in post, in Greg Clark. And this is no point of aspersion about Mr Clark, but the reality is I don't think we're going to make all the progress we might otherwise have done, because I would be surprised if the UK Government were able to make decisions on this until the leadership contest within the Conservative Party is finished. In the interim, though, Welsh Government officials will continue to work with the UK Government to make progress on the work of what the prospectus would be like. That will mean talking with a range of stakeholders, a range of interested parties in the industry, but also trade union colleagues, and then we should be able to move, as soon as UK Government have the stability to match our own in the Welsh Government and they can make choices about the bidding prospectus.
I won't, of course, be involved in putting together individual bids, as I will be a decision maker in determining the bids coming from a range of areas in the country and I know there will be backers for different bids right across the geographic chamber.