Lee Waters: Last week, I launched our economic resilience and reconstruction mission, which offers grounded optimism for the future and will help our people, businesses and communities succeed and flourish amid a backdrop of incredibly difficult circumstances. Three hundred and nine business in South Wales West have received £6.8 million via our business development grant, amongst other funds available.
Lee Waters: The Welsh Government continues to provide emergency support for businesses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our latest restrictions fund has already seen over 4,415 grants paid to businesses in Rhondda Cynon Taf, totalling over £14.1 million. We are actively considering the economic position and exploring further options for supporting businesses.
Lee Waters: We made a COVID commitment to support people into education, employment or training. We acted swiftly and, in July 2020, invested £40 million in jobs and skills to boost front-line services and programmes, to support individuals at risk of redundancy, or seeking new or alternative employment or skills.
Lee Waters: I think one of the exciting things about the agenda, which also is one of the most difficult things about the agenda, is the richness of its diversity. There are so many different elements to it, but at its heart it is about iteration, experimentation. So it's in that co-operative, guild spirit of local enterprise and adaptation to local circumstances. And so that's why community ownership...
Lee Waters: Well, this is a pro-business agenda. It's pro local business, small business, grounded firm, and we want capable Welsh firms to grow, to innovate, to have higher productivity, to export. This isn't about some sleepy backwater of the economy that we want to keep sleepy; we want to disrupt this part of our economy, where fair work is a part of its features and higher wages too. Thinking of...
Lee Waters: Thank you. I entirely agree with that analysis, and the point about key workers, I think, is very well made, and it helps address one of the questions we have: what is the foundational economy? It's a clunky phrase; it's not a terribly elegant political concept. But I think people can see now who key workers are, and how valuable they are, when the chips are down especially, and how they have...
Lee Waters: Well, thank you for that and for the endorsement of an experimental approach. Just to take the final point first, I think it's a really legitimate point about businesses in the food sector falling between the food division and the economic development division, and one of the challenges of the foundational economy is it does cut across a number of different silos. And I think that also speaks...
Lee Waters: Well, my goodness, a dozen or so questions, which is going to be impossible to do justice to in the time. So, I'm not sure which one of the dozen Russell George really wants me to answer, because I can't answer them all. So, let me try and give an answer in the round. He rightly quoted me using the Basque phrase of 'building the road as we travel'. I'd originally road tested a more flippant...
Lee Waters: Cheap, cheap points, which on the one hand makes contributions in the Chamber welcoming our different approach, and on the other hand in political propaganda belittling it. So, I was disappointed to see that, but not surprised. But what we're really trying to do is—. He asked what we'd learnt, and I think through the provision of PPE—. He nods his head, but he can't score cheap political...
Lee Waters: Today, we are setting out the plans that will guide our economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The COVID crisis has shown us very clearly the importance of an economy that is more resilient to external shocks. It has underlined the critical role played by key workers, and the importance of everyday goods and services to the well-being of our communities and to our economy. The...
Lee Waters: I think that's an excellent and timely point. I was just reading earlier the report from Sheffield Hallam University by Steve Fothergill and Christina Beatty on the impact of coronavirus on older industrial Britain. I believe that they are soon to speak to the cross-party group on industrial communities that Vikki Howells chairs. They were making the point in their report that the downturn...
Lee Waters: Our strategy is to lay a strong and positive foundation for change across the area. To date, the Tech Valleys programme has made commitments of over £27 million, which will facilitate at least 600 sustainable jobs. The Transforming Towns programme, too, has a strong Heads of the Valleys focus as part of its £110 million investment.
Lee Waters: Although the responsibility for broadband rests with the UK Government, and is not a power devolved to Wales, we continue to engage regularly with colleagues in Westminster to ensure that Wales benefits fully from roll-out initiatives including the £5 billion 'Outside-In' full-fibre deployment programme and through collaborative funding of support schemes.
Lee Waters: We continue to support the economy throughout Wales, including the Swansea city region, with our COVID-19 commitment, ensuring those who are in need of financial support are able to get it. We are also pressing on with the Swansea bay city deal, which will boost the region by £1.8 billion over the next 15 years.
Lee Waters: I entirely agree with that last point, and that's why it's important that, through the creation of the joint transport committees, we put the planning of our bus network on a regional footing, so that these connections can be laid out and achieved. As I said, I had a very encouraging conversation with regional and local government leaders earlier this week on supporting that vision. I think...
Lee Waters: That's why the new Wales transport strategy is so important, because it puts all these sorts of options on the table, and they'll be different for different communities. So, I think the demand-responsive network I mentioned, particularly for areas like yours, Nick Ramsay, which doesn't have inherent railway infrastructure, is a way of getting people out of cars and moving people around in the...
Lee Waters: I'm certainly prepared to look at that proposal. Of course, what we are doing in Newport is rolling out a pilot of our demand-responsive bus project there—we're calling it Fflecsi—and that's built on a tried-and-tested model of providing people with an on-call bus network, if you like. That has already proved to be very successful in the parts of Newport where we've tried it. In fact, its...
Lee Waters: Well, I can agree with some of that, but I think you're pushing your luck on all of it. [Laughter.] It's certainly the case that there are things that we can be getting on with while we do the work with Network Rail and the Department for Transport on the rail planning process. As I say, we've started that work already, and of the six new stations that Burns identifies, three are under way....
Lee Waters: I appreciate Mark Reckless's comments about what a substantial body of work has been carried out by the report, which does command both respect and support across the virtual Chamber. In terms of the funding of it, rail infrastructure, which forms a large part of the report—apart from the central Valleys lines, which have now been devolved to the Welsh Government—lies with the UK...
Lee Waters: Laura Anne Jones is telling us that there's no practical solution been presented, and here we are discussing a practical solution that has been presented by a commission of experts on transport planning. We have a practical blueprint for the next 10 years, so I've no idea what she's on about, that there's no practical solution presented. That's exactly what we're talking about, Laura Anne....
