2 Sisters Food Group

Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 4:02 pm on 25 January 2023.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 4:02, 25 January 2023

We'll work at the fastest pace possible to deliver economic benefit to not just Ynys Môn but to every community in Wales. What I can't do, though, is to try to say that, in the period of weeks that there is available to us, we can fast-forward all of those investments. Some of them just won't be ready. If you think about Menter Môn and the work they're doing, I think there's a great future on the island, but you can't pretend that work is going to be available at the start of April or indeed that the workforce that work at 2 Sisters are going to be able to take up all of those jobs.

There will be a need to think about the training and the skills requirements to actually think about all the different jobs that are available. So, I'm afraid that the ability to backfill 700 plus jobs in this sector in a matter of weeks isn't something, to be honest, for me to claim that I could do. What I will do, though, is I will carry on doing what I said in response to Rhun ap Iorwerth, that is working with every partner to understand not just what has happened and why, but to make the case in the first instance to see if we can support and keep the jobs—that's the first line—and then if that isn't possible, what comes next, how do we work with the community, how do we work with our stakeholders.

It's a positive that the Member of Parliament raised this in House of Commons with the Prime Minister, but you actually need more than just raising the issue. You need to see what steps the business is prepared to take and what steps the UK Government is prepared to take. Because on the trading terms with the European Union, there was a choice made about that—a clear-sighted choice. On some of the challenges around inflation, on some of the challenges around the change to the energy support, these are active choices that were made and have real-terms consequences that we are seeing today, I'm afraid.