Thank you, and thank you for contacting me this morning. I should make this clear, Dirprwy Lywydd: when redundancy events take place, it is often the case there has been a conversation with the council, with other support officials, with Business Wales, sometimes the development bank, sometimes directly with teams of Welsh Government officials, in this case Lesley Griffiths in her role as Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales. The food division have contacts with this sector, and of course, during the pandemic, I spent more time than I'd wish to finding out more about this particular sector, because there were COVID outbreaks, and we looked at some of the challenges. So, the company are aware of the existence of the Welsh Government, the fact that we've been actively engaged around this company, and they knew how to contact people in both the food division and the economy department. What hasn't happened is there wasn't contact with the Welsh Government. The news this morning was a surprise. There was no prior warning or engagement with us.

I did take a call from Unite the Union about what was likely to happen today, and they are obviously concerned about the direct loss of jobs that is signalled in the announcement. They are concerned about the health impact on their members of a large-scale redundancy event. There is almost always a health consequence for the workforce and the surrounding community. They're concerned about what the redundancy terms will be, and the room that may or may not provide people to deal with both the shock of the loss of employment with the final pay packet, and the opportunities that do or don't exist to seek further work. There are broader points about the supply chain and all those other people who will be affected by the closure: how genuine is the consultation, or not? What will be the future of the site, as well—a significant site in terms of its scale—and what might happen there if 2 Sisters go ahead with their closure? They're all points where we don't have answers yet. They're all points that we do need to work together on. I am grateful for the constructive approach taken by both Unite the Union and the council, and I'll look for a proper and constructive response from the company. I will of course work with elected representatives from across the political spectrum to try to get the best possible outcome for the workforce that are there and the surrounding community.