Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 25 February 2020.
I thank Jayne Bryant for that, Llywydd. I'll focus, if I may, just on the final part of that supplementary question—the help that is available for businesses. We made it clear last week at the summit that councils are able to use their discretionary powers to suspend council tax and non-domestic rate obligations on properties that have been flooded, and that the Welsh Government will reimburse those costs to local authorities under the emergency financial assistance scheme. So, that's immediate and direct help, and local authorities now know that they can offer that help and that the cost won't fall on them; they will be picked up through the Welsh Government's emergency financial assistance scheme.
Business Wales has been very active over the last week. There's a helpline that businesses can use to get through directly to a help desk that Business Wales is providing, making sure that businesses have the advice they need to deal with cash flow issues, liquidity issues. There was a surgery held in Pontypridd on Friday of last week that Business Wales was involved in, together with Mick Antoniw, the local Member. It was repeated on Monday in Coleg y Cymoedd, again making sure that businesses have that help directly provided to them. The Development Bank of Wales are targeting smaller businesses that may benefit from their £25,000 fast-track loan, again to try to make sure that where businesses need immediate help, we use that route to assist them, and my colleague Ken Skates has indicated that he is looking within budgets that he has, provided originally to assist businesses in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit, to see whether we might be able to repurpose some of those funds to assist businesses who find themselves in the circumstances set out by Jayne Bryant.