1. Will the Counsel General make a statement on how many businesses have sought support and advice from the Welsh Government's Brexit portal? OAQ54438

To date, there have been over 37,000 users of the Business Wales Brexit portal, with over 52,500 page views.

Can I thank the Counsel General for his answer? In a response from the economy and transport Minister yesterday, there does appear to be relatively few businesses that have sought business advice from the Welsh Government's official Brexit portal. In what ways is the Welsh Government looking to engage with small and medium-sized businesses particularly, particularly businesses who may not be members of other bodies as well, to help them realise the challenges and opportunities that Brexit brings? I wonder how many people are aware—or rather small and medium-sized businesses are aware—that the Brexit portal actually exists also.

I thank the Member for that question. We do all that we can, clearly, to communicate the advice and guidance that is available. As I think the Member's question implicitly acknowledges, there are many businesses, because they don't have full active membership, if you like, of trade associations and so on, that may be harder to reach. We have taken every opportunity, I think, when we meet with the stakeholders with whom we have relationships who are themselves parts of broader business networks—to take the opportunity to make sure they are highlighting the availability of advice in their networks. Clearly, we meet regularly with the representative bodies, but, equally, we’ve met with professional business advisers like lawyers and accountants, to whom perhaps smaller businesses may be quicker to turn for advice. So, we’ve sought to cascade information out through those networks as well, and also, in addition to that, looking at the networks that we have through arm's-length bodies, such as the Development Bank of Wales, Careers Wales and so on, to make sure that they are communicating information to their network of businesses. But I would say that any Members who are happy and keen to disseminate those sources of advice, I would urge you to do so in your own networks and in your own constituencies as well. I thank the Member for the question.