Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm afraid my natural cynical and sceptical way of viewing the world might bring down the jovial contribution by the economy spokesperson for the Conservative Party, but I don't think it will surprise Members to learn that I'm not a supporter of the free-port concept. There are a number of ways that we can achieve what my colleague set out, and I am taking a lot of what we're being told about the bids with handfuls of salt. When people are bidding for support, they often fall into the trap of telling people what they want to hear, and I think we all need to be aware of that, and we all need to scrutinise what we hear.

The whole free-port concept is yet another policy that we've tried before, and which has had little success. Let's be clear: the free-port concept is trickle-down economics; something that many Members in this Chamber lambasted Liz Truss for just a few months ago; something that every group, bar one, in the Senedd attributes as a failure of Thatcherism. 

Now, turning to some of the arguments in favour, one of the key arguments is the creation of jobs and, on the face it, great, but I do think the numbers touted are incredibly optimistic at best and I would ask how many of those would be new jobs and not jobs displaced from elsewhere. To be fair, the bids have recognised this risk and have said that they will focus on new job creation, but I've yet to receive anything other than a verbal reassurance that guarantees that displacement won't happen. The reality will be that it will happen, and it will be to the economic detriment of areas outside of any designated free-port zone. We only need to look at enterprise zones. Forty-one per cent of jobs in enterprise zones, established in the 1980s, were jobs relocated from elsewhere in the UK. And, by the way, I was told to think of free ports as enterprise zones rather than traditional free ports, which only emphasises the risks of displacement in my view.

Now, I note that the terms of any bid here in Wales will be different to England. There are requirements for bids to recognise trade unions and the principles of social partnership, collective bargaining and the rights of the worker. Again, it looks good on paper, but it's easy to say that all this will be respected in a bid. The proof will be once a bid is successful. Every time I've asked this question related to this element, be it to the Government or the bids themselves, all I get back is a verbal guarantee. When asked about mechanisms to deal with employers who breach these requirements and the mechanisms for monitoring them, the answers are far too vague to provide any comfort. The best I've had was that the benefits of being a part of that free-port area will be taken away from companies in breach. But let's think of the practicalities of this. The reason these companies are coming in the first place is so that they can benefit from the tax breaks. Remove these benefits and they'll no doubt threaten to leave—a story almost as old as time—taking all those jobs that we've been told they'll create with them. I'm not confident that any Government would be willing to lose that, especially if the company in question has a large workforce. So, in essence, the true power, yet again, will be with companies. When your support is based on job creation, of course you don't want to lose those jobs. That would be the reality and the Government, local authorities and free-port authority would be placed in an impossible situation.

I'll close, Llywydd, by referring to something that all of us here in this Senedd, cross-party in this Chamber, support, or at least say we support, and that is retaining wealth within Wales. Wealth won't be retained in Wales through free ports; quite the opposite: it will flow out via its usual means and there will be no means of taxing the profits of those businesses operating within them—profits that Welsh workers will have made for those companies. We talk about building the Welsh economy through supporting Welsh enterprise, supporting local businesses, co-operatives—that's where investment and focus should be. Our way may take a while, but it's the more sustainable way and the way that will bring the most benefit to Welsh workers.

I think the question we should all ask ourselves is whether or not we believe businesses should pay taxes and contribute to public services like everyone else, especially during a cost-of-living crisis. If your answer is 'yes', then, in my view, you have no business supporting free ports.