Speeches by Stevens.

“Ninety minutes and twice a year is a bit different from the once a year for 60 minutes that we started off with in January. I am obviously very happy to come. It would be helpful, because of the broad nature of the portfolio, if there were specific areas that the Committee wanted to focus on in particular sessions; we …”

“That is why the announcement that we made as part of the industrial strategy, about the help that is going to be provided to energy-intensive industries and manufacturing in those sectors that you have set out, is so significant. I am sure that that will be a factor in Dow’s decision. It is about future investment. Tha…”

“It is not good news at all and it is very worrying for the people affected. I always come to these situations on the basis that, where there is restructuring or a business decision about continuing or not continuing with particular product lines, the main red line is to try to achieve those reductions through volunteer…”

“Thank you for inviting us both back. It is good to see everybody. In January, I came and set out those three priorities. How has it gone over the last six months? I want to talk very briefly about the economic context in which we have delivered those priorities. Wages have increased in Wales. The Committee will know ab…”

“Absolutely, and there is more to come. In our manifesto, we made a commitment about devolving employment support to Wales, so that decisions about how those sorts of programmes are designed and led are made as locally as possible. On those trailblazer projects, local leaders in the local authorities are designing the s…”

“Yes, it is a manifesto commitment to review it. It is important. We have had a year, and quite a busy year so far, but we are in discussions with the Welsh Government about it. We have to spread our priorities out over the parliamentary term, but I am very clear that the framework is out of date. It was set up a decade…”

“We said that we would review the framework, so we will review it in its entirety. There are different settlements and arrangements for the different nations. Scotland and Northern Ireland have had theirs reviewed. We have not had ours reviewed. That is why we made the promise to do it. It could have been done in previo…”

“I am not sure that I would agree with the assessment that local government will face cuts. There have been record budget settlements for Wales in the autumn Budget last year and in the multi-year spending review, so there will be nearly £5 billion extra for the Welsh Government to spend on public services, and local au…”

“That is a matter for the Welsh Government and the Welsh Local Government Association to determine between them. Under the funding arrangements, spending per head of population in Wales is £1.20, compared with £1 for the rest of the UK, so there is already an uplift in relation to that. On the national insurance contrib…”

“We now have a multi-year settlement on local growth funds, protecting that 22.5% share of the UK pot and the quantum. We had a manifesto commitment that there would be a role for the elected representatives of Wales in the future SPF funds. The Prime Minister made a commitment about decision making for the Welsh Govern…”

“The funding is there in order to support businesses, particularly SMEs, of which we have a huge number in Wales. Over 96% of our businesses are SMEs. It is support for them and support for places to make sure that our villages, towns and cities are safe and pleasant places to live, but also to help growth in local area…”

“Let me start with the £445 million. At least £445 million was announced in the spending review. You will recall that, in the lead-up to the spending review, there were some major transport announcements in English mayoral combined authority areas. There is a Barnett consequential from those to Wales of just over £200 m…”

“No, not that I am aware of, but I know that work is starting on it pretty imminently. I would hope that it would not be too long, because now that we have the funding secured, we have to get on with delivering it. We have the advantage that the projects that you referred to, for example the Burns report, the changes on…”

“On your latter point, that is not a question that I think is appropriate to be asked of me or the Minister. That is a matter for you to take up elsewhere. On energy, I will hand over to the Minister to deal with the substantive question. Our clean power by 2030 mission is designed to give us energy security, create tho…”

“We have continued discussions with Tata and other investors about different future steelmaking methods as part of our overall steel strategy. The UK steel strategy will be published later in the year. In terms of the electric arc furnace, I am pleased to say that everything is on track. Planning has gone on time. Watch…”

“Where we are in terms of the timeline is that we expected that the transition within Tata, and the restructuring, would have been much further along the line by now. In fact, there are quite a lot of people still working at Tata who we originally anticipated would have left by now, so that is good news. As a board, we …”

“Absolutely. We promised that we would look after our steel communities and that is exactly what we are going to do. We hope that all the things around, for example, port redevelopment, floating offshore wind and the industrial strategy will drive Port Talbot to be a clean energy hub, creating thousands and thousands of…”

“The discussions are ongoing. There are intense discussions ongoing. There was a deadline this week, which has been shifted by President Trump to 1 August. That gives us more time to resolve an issue that we know is there. We are absolutely determined to reach an agreement. I know that everybody is working very hard to …”

“No, absolutely. We were the first country to do a deal with the United States. We have done a trade agreement with the biggest economy in the world, the fastest growing economy in the world and our largest trading partner, the European Union. I do not know whether you were at President Macron’s address yesterday—”

“You missed a treat.”