Vaughan Gething: I'll deal with your second point first, and that is with regard to the free trade agreements around Australia and New Zealand. We do think that the agreements in principle may change when it comes to final text. You will have seen there has been lots of speculation in public about that as well. I can't provide you with an updated statement at this point in time because they're not concluded....
Vaughan Gething: Yes, I am of course interested in the assessment of impact of each of the courses that we run and how they're rolled out in different parts of Wales to meet business need that's assessed there. I think on your broader point around the sorts of courses that are run and the provision to help businesses to grow, actually, this is a point that came up in conversation with the Member for Cynon...
Vaughan Gething: That would be a matter for discussion with business sectors themselves, about what courses they would offer directly and what our more broad offer is on the skills and training agenda. I'm interested in the future of work and young people coming into the world of work for the first time and are looking to move on. That's why, of course, we've launched the young person's guarantee. The young...
Vaughan Gething: Yes, I'll happily deal with those points. It will be of no surprise to you that I'm not going to preannounce the budget. The finance Minister and the First Minister would not be wonderfully happy if I attempted to preannounce parts of the budget that will be published at the end of the year, but I have heard, as indeed has the finance Minister, calls from a range of business organisations for...
Vaughan Gething: Yes. So, on the additional funding that I was pleased to announce— and I'm particularly pleased to have announced that we'll be delivering that in partnership with local authorities, who will deliver the funding and they'll be able to make choices within the local authority area, so it will cover every single local authority in the country. And the figures that we provided on the number of...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. The difficulty with the omicron variant is that we don't have a fully formed picture of its overall impact. But we are genuinely concerned that it appears to spread even more rapidly than the delta variant. You'll have heard Conservative Ministers in the UK Government talk about that as well, but about the fact that collectively within the UK we don't understand...
Vaughan Gething: Well, I could agree with much of what the Member said and support it, until the last 'Give me a guarantee on the future.' Look, the reality is that if we see the new omicron variant, and if it is something that spreads much more rapidly than even the Delta variant, and if it has the same level of harm over the population and for each person, then, actually, by the fact that it spreads more...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. And I should say, Wales has a good track record of not just attracting but gaining real benefit from major events, and there is real credit to the Member for his time in Government in helping to move that forward. We see the events that we help to fund having a return on the investment of around about 10:1, so it does provide significant economic benefit, but also,...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. We're committed to building on Wales’s success in hosting major events. We work proactively with event owners across the whole of Wales, and I was pleased to see events like Focus Wales and the Curtis Cup delivering economic, cultural and social benefits to north Wales this year.
Vaughan Gething: Our tourism recovery plan, 'Let’s Shape the Future', published in March 2021, outlines how we will address spread of benefits, encourage increased spend in our economy and tackle seasonality by repositioning Wales as a nation you can visit all year round.
Vaughan Gething: In addition to our £136 million Transforming Towns programme, our £3 million town-centre business fund and £3 million town-centre entrepreneurship fund, alongside our Business Wales offer, will be vital for businesses to plan projects to support their economic growth, embed digital technology and support their future planning and marketing activities.
Vaughan Gething: We continue to help businesses grow beyond the impact of COVID-19 and Brexit. This includes £45 million for small and medium-sized enterprises across Wales and training support to thousands of people in key sectors. Our business productivity enhancement programme in south Wales is supporting SMEs in Islwyn to improve their productivity, efficiency and growth.
Vaughan Gething: Working from home remains crucial to controlling the spread of COVID-19, and that is why we continue to ask people to do so where possible. Our guidance to employers is that there should be no pressure to return to a workplace if there is not a clearly demonstrated business need.
Vaughan Gething: Yes, I'm happy to do so. I did actually deal with Paul Davies's question, in that I indicated that I'd have a further announcement to make on the detail of that support, but I also indicated that I was looking at previous practice that had had some success on a number of start-up grants, as well as the business support that is provided as well. It isn't just the money; it's the actual support...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the question. I think it's a very practical example of where we're already engaged in supporting a major employer, but looking at a sector that provides really well-paid jobs. The investment we've continually made in broadly more skills, and I'm pleased to hear the Member reference the fact that it was Welsh Labour funding that helped him to achieve his own apprenticeship, and...
Vaughan Gething: I remember many debates around the role of school, and by the time people are of school leaving age, the fact that many of your patterns for life are already set: your expectations about who you are, for better or for worse, but crucially also, the way you see yourself and whether you think a career is a realistic option for you. Many people have not necessarily consciously ruled out careers...
Vaughan Gething: I thank Joyce Watson for again highlighting the point that the youngest people have been one of the hardest hit groups from the pandemic, and the loss of work opportunities in the work that they were already in and the direct impact. Equally, I too am very proud of what previous Welsh Labour Governments have done with Jobs Growth Wales, and the more than 19,000 job opportunities that we've...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you, and I recognise that the last decade has been more challenging than we'd want, both coming out of the global financial crash, and then measures that the UK chose to take at the time. And, to be fair, I know that the Member wasn't an enthusiastic supporter of the austerity that was introduced and the challenges, the very real challenges, that that provided, but, even during that...
Vaughan Gething: I thank the Member for his questions, and I want to reassure him that he'll be young in this place, comparatively, for some time to come. On your starting point and your endpoint about fair work, essentially, and what our expectations around fair work are, you'll see things that aren't just part of the guarantee. You'll see the legislation we're going to be introducing on social partnership...
Vaughan Gething: Thank you for the series of questions that I'll try and address in time. About your point about the national conversation with young people, we've of course been having a conversation with young people, as part of the regular interaction that we have, about how the guarantee could and should work. We haven't done as much as I would have wanted in a more structured national conversation. We...
