Why is the Welsh Labour/Plaid government running with the Tories' freeport scheme?

 Last May, the Welsh government reached an agreement with the UK government to establish a freeport in Wales. BBC reported the incentives offered:

Welsh ministers agreed to support freeports in Wales after the UK government agreed it would be based on a "partnership of equals" between the two governments.

UK Ministers also agreed to provide up to £26m of non-repayable starter funding for any freeport established in Wales, which represents a parity with the deals offered to each of the English and Scottish freeports.

Bidding closed in November. The front-runner is a multi-port (including Port Talbot) scheme backed by some large industrial companies as well as Neath Port Talbot CBC. Apart from the appearance of greenwash in its main selling-point, there are drawbacks to freeports in general which should give pause to a government which should be creating high-quality and better-paid jobs. Richard Murphy, Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School, lists ten on the taxresearch.uk website:  

1) Freeports are bound to reduce the protection for workers. Light touch regulation always does in the end. Employers NIC is already going. Maybe it will be pensions next, and then what? as desperate measures are taken to make this policy work.

2) Freeports increase the risk of criminals using the port, whether for drug or human trafficking, counterfeit goods or other illicit activity.

3) Having a border around the port will increase paperwork and costs for those using the port. Just look at Northern Ireland.

4) Regulation in freeports is going to be outsourced to the freeport operator. Really? Is that wise? Surely this creates the most massive conflicts of interest? Won’t they turn a blind eye to deliver their own economic success?

5) Unless anyone knows what jobs are going to be created in a Freeport, why do it? What jobs are going to be created in each freeport rather than be shifted into them?

6) Freeport jobs are usually "shed" jobs that usually attract fewer  women. Is that the basis in which we wish to build economic development?

7) Freeports in the UK  were abandoned in 2012 by David Cameron because they did not work. Why repeat the mistake now?

8) Jobs could simply be moved into the port with no real gain at all, and real losses in local areas that force employees to travel further to work.

9) It is still not clear how local authorities gain - and they may lose out from business rates cuts in freeports.

10) These are tax havens at the end of the day. The government will get less money - and when this government says that it needs to raise more tax that means someone else will pay. Why should we all subsidise those who want to free ride us  by using a freeport?

[My emphases and adjustments to formatting. The text has not been changed - FHL]

Private Eye's running history of the setting-up of England's prime freeport, Tees, adds to the list: the enablement of acquisition of land and other property (including publicly-owned property) by the scheme's promoters at a discount to its potential value.

It is clearly too late to stop the imposition of a Welsh freeport. I hope that the government will make the best of it and choose an area which will suffer least. In my estimation, that rules out Neath and Aberavon.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak hangs his reputation on this ripping wheeze, as Denis Healey might have put it. There will be plenty of time before the next scheduled general election to assess freeports' performance, which is unlikely to be inspiring. One must hope that the next government is willing and able to unwind the schemes.