Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:06 pm on 31 January 2017.
Firstly, I thank him for what he said about the White Paper, not describing it as ‘The Beano’, of course, as we heard others in his party describe it. He talked about small and medium-sized enterprises—well, we’ve got our repayable fund to SMEs, which offers repayable finance to SMEs. Immediately following the referendum we did launch the business confidence plan, which is a series of actions we’re developing aimed at promoting business confidence, and that includes the announcement of the new growth and prosperity fund, so that Wales remains an attractive place for businesses to invest. On top of that, Finance Wales has increased one fund and introduced two new funds as well. For example, the Wales technology venture investments fund and the Wales business fund. So, we are determined to make sure that we can provide as much support as SMEs need. It’s right to say there is still some uncertainty as to what happens post Brexit. We don’t know what the arrangements will be for accessing the single market, and until those questions are answered, then it’s natural that some businesses who wish to export will wish to wait and see what happens before they take investment decisions.