Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure – in the Senedd at 1:40 pm on 11 October 2017.
Can I thank the Member for his question and say, yes, we will go on investing in business in Wales—businesses that provide work opportunities for tens and hundreds of thousands of people in our communities. Our support since 2011 has provided work for 185,000 people. In the last Assembly period, it was 150,000 jobs that we created and supported through helping businesses to grow and expand. And the Member raises the important point about business failure. Well, I think I’ve already stated in this Chamber before, but I’m happy to write to Members again with the data, that the proportion of companies that failed was lower amongst those that we’d supported than in the entire economy. I think that demonstrates that whilst, yes, there were losses and there were failures, by and large, our support has acted as an enabler for growth in the economy. And it’s as a consequence of this that we can now with some confidence say that we have a sustained low unemployment rate that goes way beneath what we experienced in the 1990s and the early 2000s, and that’s as a consequence of pursuing every possibility to grow the economy and create jobs.