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Remploy

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said, and also for the work of Joyce Watson, the local Welsh Assembly Member. She came to see me last Friday to discuss a plan that she had talked about with the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr (Adam Price) to establish whether European convergence funding could be put to a different use, perhaps involving some sort of training facility on the Brynamman site. We are also looking at what can be done on the Ystradgynlais site, but I cannot hold out any prospect of retaining the existing furniture work distributed between those sites, because that would put at risk the Baglan site—a new, state-of-the-art facility that I opened a few years ago. The matter needs more work as a result of the problems that have built up, but let us see what we can do in respect of those two sites outside the Remploy network.