Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:29 pm on 4 October 2022.
Thanks for letting me sneak in, and thank you for the statement. I'll just make the case that, as well as spreading prosperity through regional working in general, I encourage Governments at all levels to think sub-regionally; it's not just the north, but Ynys Môn feeling that it gets a crack at the whip, and within Ynys Môn, places like Amlwch, that have suffered so much, feeling that they are being prioritised too.
Just very quickly though, I just wanted to explore your reference to free ports. You know I've always sought honesty, and honesty about what was being put on the table in the first place—£8 million for Wales, £25 for England. We held out and we got that. We sought honesty about assurances on workers' rights and on environmental regulations. But there's an ideological context here; the masked slipped, didn't it, with the economic policy published by the UK Conservative Government—tax cuts for the top at the expense of people at the bottom. Now, that's the context in which the free-ports policy exists. So, whilst looking at how we can maximise benefits from Anglesey—the Anglesey council-led bid—and try to make it the best bid that comes in front of you, we need to make sure that it's the workers who will benefit. How can you give assurance that we are dealing here in people, in communities, and not just in profits, in pound signs that we'll probably see very little of locally?