Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:00 pm on 10 July 2019.
I thank the Member for that question and I recognise very much the sorts of challenges that she described companies and businesses in her constituency as suffering—the challenges in particular for small businesses, who may not have the resources or the breadth of time and capacity to address what are, for all of us, a very complex, interconnected set of challenges. Perhaps it's particularly acute for sole traders or for small businesses, and we've been mindful of that in how we've sought to tailor some of the support that we feel able to give, which we are clear is a partial contribution to what is a complex set of challenges.
She will know that we have established a Brexit business resilience fund, which enables businesses to apply to the Welsh Government for financial support for projects that might enable them to transition through difficult, turbulent times into a post-Brexit world. That's a match funded scheme, but it provides access to really quite significant sources of revenue. At the moment, it's over subscribed, but we are looking at that.
There is also a significant amount of funding that has been made available to the Development Bank of Wales to target businesses of different sizes, including small businesses, and some of that is around covering short-term financing problems and so on. But the sorts of challenges she identifies around exchange rate risk, and also, as I've heard elsewhere, companies that may have stockpiled their own stock leading up to the end of March or April now finding themselves at a competitive disadvantage, if you like—. So, these are absolutely complex challenges. We are hoping that we can provide some support through the Business Wales network and through the Brexit portal, which companies in her constituency can access through the Preparing Wales website. I hope and I expect that she will be only too glad to pass on that information to her constituents, companies and businesses.