Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 17 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:51, 17 March 2020

I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for those further questions. There is a dedicated helpline for businesses here in Wales; it is the Business Wales telephone helpline. We're using that helpline because it's already well known in the sector. There's no need to find something separate, new and different: use the Business Wales helpline. It is set up to respond to people in these circumstances. 

On the wider points, of course, I agree with the points that Rhun ap Iorwerth has made. The impact of coronavirus on our economy is absolutely enormous. The efforts that are needed to combat it to make sure that the economy remains solvent, that businesses that are viable today will still be viable after the crisis is over, and that individuals whose incomes are affected are provided with incomes now to see them through the crisis—all of those are very important points. All of them are covered in the letter that I sent earlier today to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in advance of what we are promised will be his statement later in the afternoon. This is classically the moment at which the levers that lie in the hands of the UK Government—fiscal levers as well as monetary levers—are used, and are used in a way that is commensurate with the scale of the challenge that we face. Nobody wants a business that is viable today and will be viable afterwards to go out of business during the crisis. Nobody wants a livelihood and a family that is thriving today not to be able to go on thriving the other side of coronavirus, and it is to the UK Government that we have to look to take the actions that will secure those futures.