Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:16 pm on 16 July 2019.
I thank Rhianon Passmore for setting out the challenging circumstances in which we find ourselves, but I want to emphasise that Welsh Government is doing absolutely everything it possibly can to prepare for Brexit, whichever form it takes, and to try and take whatever mitigating action we possibly can. So, you’ll recall I recently announced a capital investment package, which was a first tranche of a stimulus package worth £85 million: £50 million of that was invested in social housing to support the delivery of up to 650 affordable homes across Wales, which could create employment for up to 1,000 people for a year; £5 million allocated to the maintenance of the Welsh Government’s strategic road network, ensuring well-connected, reliable, resilient road networks in all parts of Wales; and £10 million was allocated to the economy futures fund to support the delivery of the economic action plan, and this additional funding will help boost resilience and sustainability for Welsh businesses and encourage inward investment in a post-Brexit environment. And then there was an additional £20 million for local government capital funding, and we will work closely with our local authority partners to ensure that that funding is deployed in the most impactful way.
So, we're doing everything that we can to support businesses, especially in these times of uncertainty, and we'll shortly be making an announcement of further funding that will be made available through the EU transition fund, which colleagues will recall is a £50 million fund that aims at helping businesses, organisations and society in Wales to transition through the Brexit process. Over £35 million of that has now been allocated, but, as I say, I’ve been having some discussions with colleagues as to how we can best deploy some further funding there. So, Welsh Government's working extremely hard in difficult circumstances to provide as much certainty as we can to business and as much assistance as we can to our communities.