2. What is the Welsh Government doing to ensure indigenous businesses seeking to expand and grow are able to do so within their locality? OAQ53412

Thank you. In line with our economic action plan, we are supporting indigenous businesses across Wales to expand and grow by providing advice, support and finance through Business Wales and the Development Bank of Wales.

I thank the Deputy Minister for his answer. We are very good in some places at being able to help people start up businesses. In my constituency, and particularly in Port Talbot, we have sufficient numbers of start-up units available for businesses to get into and spend their first year or two as they start to develop and grow. But what we are finding is, as they want to grow and expand, the next size of units—the 5,000 sq ft type of units—we're short of, and therefore businesses tend to actually expand and leave the area as a consequence of that. Now, it may be that this is down to the responsibility of local authorities—I appreciate the concept—but what are you doing to work with local authorities to ensure that we're able to ensure that businesses can start, grow, stay, and expand the workforce and keep the employment in the areas?

Thank you. The growth of indigenous, grounded firms is a central plank of the approach we're taking on growing the foundational economy. It's a well-recognised problem in the shape of the Welsh economy that we have numerous small and microbusinesses but that many struggle to grow to medium, and then beyond that. So, we'll be looking at a range of interventions to tackle that. One of those is the availability of property. As the Member will know already, in Port Talbot, using the European regional development fund-funded property infrastructure fund, there are two projects that are being developed to create some 6,000 sq m of new business premises, providing accommodation for up to 34 SMEs. And we're also in discussion with the Development Bank of Wales to examine the potential for a new commercial property development fund that will help also to provide additional premises.

Tourism is one of those parts of our economy where there is still plenty of scope for expansion, particularly for small enterprises. Actually, I'm just thinking of the Afan Valley, as it was David Rees who asked the question originally. A huge scope here for our indigenous businesses to grow here. Unfortunately, of course, some of our small businesses don't see themselves as part of our visitor economy, and I'm hoping that Welsh Government can give us some steer on this. In particular, I'm wondering if you can give us some information on how the Welsh Government is engaging with the whole process of the UK tourism sector deal. I think the consultation is due to come to an end fairly soon on that. We're quick enough to moan when VisitBritain, for example, doesn't help us on this devolved matter, but if we can get some advantage from this, then that's got to be good news for our small businesses.

Thank you. Yes, tourism remains one of the focuses in the economic action plan of the foundation sectors, and we've been working closely with the UK Government to see what advantages we can draw out of their work, and bringing our work together. We have the tourism infrastructure fund as well, which is proving successful, and I can assure the Member of our continued commitment in this area.

I had the pleasure last week of visiting an engineering company, BICO in Beaumaris in Anglesey, which does superb work in the area of engineering in very specialist technical areas. It’s a company that I’m sure we could see growing in years to come. You will be aware that I and my party are in favour of the regionalisation of economic development in order to ensure that economic prosperity is something that happens across Wales. Would the Government agree with me that there is scope to develop 'grow locally' campaigns, as a central part of that kind of regional approach?

Absolutely. I think a regional economic focus is essential, and the economic action plan puts this front and centre of our approach from now on. We are currently aligning the teams within the Welsh Government to make sure that the expertise and the capacity is there to take this forward. And it is also important to be engaged with local authorities in a spirit of mutual respect, working together, to take their view on how their regions should grow, and we work alongside with them, rather than imposing on them what we think the best interests of a region are. The foundational economy approach is also really important to this—the growth of SMEs and grounded firms—and how we can use the near public sector, the scattered array of small companies that depend on the public sector for much of their work, and how we can use procurement to make sure more value is captured locally and doesn't leak out. And we'll be making some announcements over the coming weeks about starting work in this area, and I'd be very keen to work with the Member to develop those thoughts, building on the joint announcement we made in the budget of our £1.5 million fund to develop the foundational economy with Plaid Cymru.