1. What action is the Welsh Government taking to ensure businesses in Wales can recruit the skilled workers they need? OAQ54239

Llywydd, we will deliver 100,000 apprenticeships in this Assembly term. We will deploy our flexible skills programme to support businesses, and we will continue to oppose migration policies from the UK Government that would deny those businesses access to the skilled workers they need.

Thank you for the reply, First Minister. The Open University business barometer, which monitors the skills landscape of the UK, shows that 92 per cent of organisations surveyed in Wales struggle to find workers with the right skills. Over 50 per cent said their organisation had struggled as a result of the skills shortage, and 64 per cent struggle to hire for a management or leadership position. They forecast the shortfall is now costing organisations here in Wales an extra £355 million a year in recruiting fees, inflated salaries, temporary staff, and training for workers hired at a lower level than intended. First Minister, what action are you and your Government taking, in light of this report, to help Welsh organisations to bridge the divide between the skills they need and the skills available in the labour market in Wales? Thank you.

Well, Llywydd, I agree of course—the importance of actions that Government can take to make sure that public services, businesses, have the skilled labour that they need. It's why the actions that this Government has taken have seen that, between 2011 and 2018, the percentage of working-age adults in Wales with no qualifications fell from 12 per cent to 8 per cent, and, over the same period, the percentage of working adults qualified at higher skills level rose from 32 per cent to 38 per cent. It's why we have our commitment to 100,000 apprenticeships during this Assembly term. It's why we are moving our policy in the apprenticeship area, to put new emphasis on higher level skills. There is much that the Government is doing and will continue to do. But the Member also has to face the facts that businesses, public services and universities in Wales rely on our ability to recruit people from other parts of the European Union, and other parts of the world, to come and make their futures here in Wales. Not only will Brexit be an impediment to that, but the policies being pursued by his Government in relation to migration will make those difficulties even greater, and that's why we will oppose those ideas as vigorously as we can.

First Minister, on the back of the recent launch of an upskilling at work event at Merthyr College, I had the opportunity to discuss with them the importance of skills and apprenticeships to small and medium-sized firms in the constituency. And, from what I heard, it seems that there may be a reluctance on the part of some SMEs to actually take advantage of the apprenticeship schemes, possibly due to lack of awareness, or concern about what they might consider to be bureaucracy or a burdensome responsibility taking people on in that way. So, I just wanted to know what more the Welsh Government could do to encourage more SME employers in particular to take up apprenticeship opportunities in this vital sector in communities like Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney.

Llywydd, I thank Dawn Bowden for that. I want to congratulate Merthyr College for the work that they do in this area. One of the great success stories of devolution, Merthyr College, in its development over the period since 1999. And no doubt partly as a result of the sorts of events that Dawn Bowden mentioned, then 57 per cent of apprenticeship starts in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney constituency are already identified as being with a small or medium-sized enterprise, and that 57 per cent compares with 51 per cent across Wales as a whole. So, there clearly is good work already going on in the Member's constituency. But she's right, of course, that, for a very small company, the responsibility of taking on an apprentice can appear difficult, and it's why we have developed the idea of shared apprenticeships in Wales, where employers, particularly small employers, can share an apprentice and share the responsibility and the administration that goes with it. The Aspire project in Merthyr Tydfil is one of those schemes. It's been a success already and there's more success to come. I understand that there's a celebration event planned for the Aspire project in the autumn that my colleague Ken Skates will be attending, and it will be an opportunity both to celebrate the success there has already been in the Merthyr and Rumney constituency and to highlight the opportunities that exist for small and medium-sized enterprises in the apprenticeship field in exactly the way that Dawn Bowden suggested.