Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:55 pm on 4 July 2017.
Carwyn Jones
Labour
1:55,
4 July 2017
We can’t ignore the reality of the fact that there is a high risk, in our judgement, that we would see £373 million lost to the Welsh capital budget. That is something that no responsible Government could ignore. I come back to the point that if the project was able to stand on its own—. This isn’t a Government project; this is a project that’s come forward from a private consortium. The question that’s never been answered is why the project can’t stand on its own two feet. If it is deemed to be that successful by the private investors, then people will ask the question why that is. We have worked, of course, with the business, they’ve brought forward several schemes over the past few years and we’ve tried to help them in any way, but they did not meet our conditions that we set down. We’ve examined all the risks, and it’s quite clear that the risks are too high to proceed with this scheme.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.