Support for Business

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 18 March 2020.

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Photo of Helen Mary Jones Helen Mary Jones Plaid Cymru 3:02, 18 March 2020

I thank the Minister for his response to Alun Davies's question. I think it is undoubtedly true that because of the structure of our economy we will need a higher level of support for business, potentially, and I'm encouraged by what the Minister says that he's getting some positive response from the UK Government to acknowledge that. I'm sure that we can have every faith in the finance Minister that she'll be making that case really, really powerfully, because we do have a very different structure. We're more dependent on tourism, for example, in some communities. We have still—thank goodness—more manufacturing capacity than many other parts of the UK, but, again, those businesses may be under threat. And we also have—and this is my first question to the Minister—an awful lot of micro businesses, as my colleague, Leanne Wood, was mentioning yesterday, an awful lot of people who are one-person organisations or one-or-two-people organisations. I think it's very important, as we move forward, that any package of business support can be really easily and effectively passed on to them. The fact that there'll be earlier access to sick pay is not going to solve the problem for people who are self-isolating not because they're ill but because somebody else is, and it certainly isn't going to solve the problem for somebody who's not self-isolating but is just not having any business, if, for example, they're a builder and they would normally go into people's homes and they're just not getting any business coming through.

So, I'd like to hear a bit more from the Minister today about what his proposals are to ensure that that support can get to those micro businesses. I was going to raise the points about the access to the helpline that Russell George has already raised, but there's no need to repeat that. But I think it's particularly—. For those businesses it's particularly important that access to support is easy and that information is easy to get hold of, because they don't have big admin departments to back them up in those particular regards. 

I was encouraged to hear what the Minister said about rate relief for some of our bigger tourism businesses. I'm thinking of organisations like the Harbourmaster Hotel in my region and the Llywydd's constituency, which is an independent Welsh-owned business, but, as the Minister's said, absolutely crucial in the supply chain in that area. It's a destination business that people come to that town to visit, to stay in, to use the excellent restaurant, and we know we've got hundreds of those all over Wales. So, if I can ask the Minister to keep that business rate relief under advisement and to look again at whether we can make a difference, potentially, between those locally owned businesses who we would want to be subsidising, if you like, and the big chains that we may or may not want to support. Because I certainly don't think that there would be any intention on the Minister's part for those businesses not to be supported.

And finally, Dirprwy Lywydd—I take it that this goes without saying—I hope that, in this very fast moving picture, the Minister will be able to keep us all informed about what's going on about the response from the Westminster Government. I hope that colleagues on the benches opposite will also support any representations that are being made to Ministers at the other end of the M4, because I'm sure that they do understand the different structure of our business. But the more that we are all informed about what's going on, the more we can share that information with concerned constituents, and the more that we can, as far as we can, operate as Team Wales. The Minister knows that he'll always get rigorous scrutiny from these benches and from the rest of the opposition, but, in these circumstances, where we can, we will want to work together.