Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 3 December 2019.
Minister, as I'm sure you're aware, this Saturday coming is Welsh Small Business Saturday. A great opportunity for all of us, as Assembly Members, to support local homegrown businesses, both in the high street and elsewhere. Last week in this Chamber, the First Minister made the important point that the high street of the past cannot simply be resurrected, no matter how much we sometimes might like that, but the future will lie in a combination, a fusion, of the physical high street and online sales.
When I was Chair of the Enterprise and Business Committee, back in 2014 I think it was, we reported about how the high street could be improved and we suggested this approach. So, five years, six years have gone under the bridge since then, and I wonder if we could have an update from the Welsh Government on how we might achieve that more modern, more sustainable high street with a rebalancing of business rates so that businesses, whether online or in the physical high street, can better compete and survive.
Secondly, could we have an update from the Welsh Government on proposals for a national forest? I know that this is something that is in the pipeline and there have been different ideas about how it might be achieved. It's very much in vogue at the moment, with many parties in the UK general election looking at ways that we can plant more trees. I think all of us would agree that that is a good way to go, but the issue is how you do that, how quickly you do it and where those trees are planted, whether it's done on a local authority basis, which I think is the Welsh Government's plan, rather than having it in one place. So, I wonder if we could have an update on the Welsh Government's strategy for making sure that we make Wales greener in the future and we make a lead across the UK to show that we can be the most sustainable and environmentally friendly part of the UK in the future.