Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:30 pm on 30 January 2019.
Thank you for that answer. Obviously, increasing the level of local spend in the context of public procurement is something that the Welsh Government has talked a lot about over the past two decades, but the stats show that talk is cheap. We continue to receive concerns from local companies who are frustrated at the lack of support in bidding and winning local contracts. Now, Scotland are light years ahead of us in this regard, and we hear of other parts of the UK—Preston, for example—where a concerted attempt has seen an increase in local spend by £200 million over a six-year period. When is the Welsh Government finally going to get to grips with this agenda and start to work effectively with local and regional bodies to properly support Welsh-based companies?