The local economy was delivered a blow in the last month with the news that 100 redundances are to be made at Newport Wafer Fab by owners Nexperia.

As unfortunate as these job losses are, they were predicted months ago by staff due to the UK government’s actions towards the facility over the last year or so.

By recklessly moving the goal posts following Nexperia’s acquisition of Newport Wafer Fab and turning down all offers to visit the site or meet with workers, the UK government has left this crucial component of the semi-conductor industry of Wales in real jeopardy.

I doubt that events would have panned out the way they have if this site was located in a Tory constituency in the south east of England.

Having met with workers and visited the site, it is fair to say there is a great deal of anger and frustration at what has happened.

There is also a high degree of resolve to ensure that these job losses are not the tip of the iceberg. They are working flat out to apply political pressure to ensure that Nexperia’s sale of the facility goes through smoothly to safeguard the remaining 461 jobs and the many more which exist in the supply chain.

I understand there are interested buyers but they will no doubt want certain assurances from the UK government after Nexperia’s experience.

The workers are also keen to ensure that the colleagues who are being made redundant are supported and given the training they need to transition into alternative employment.

With this in mind, I had the opportunity to ask the First Minister in the Siambr this week what assistance his government could offer. He assured me that the government is working to support those earmarked for redundancy and also stated his desire to see the sale of the facility expediated as quickly as possible.

On a wider point, this whole sorry episode has underlined the importance of Wales gaining control of all the fiscal and economic levers of powers. Until that happens, decisions will continue to be made in Westminster by out-of-touch Ministers with no mandate from people in Wales. They can make decisions like this and the decision to make us pay for England-only rail projects like HS2 without the fear of suffering the consequences at the ballot box.

That is not just and it is not democratic.