Support for Business

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:07 pm on 18 March 2020.

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Photo of Joyce Watson Joyce Watson Labour 3:07, 18 March 2020

Minister, I'm really pleased that this question has been put forward—and I thank Alun Davies for doing that—to give us an opportunity, and you an opportunity, to represent our areas. The Mid and West Wales economy does rely heavily on tourism and small businesses, but that, in turn, has a high percentage of part-time and zero-hours workforce to support it. I do welcome the announcement of the UK Government support in as far as it's gone, but I am concerned, and you've reiterated it here several times, that it is aimed at the bigger businesses and not necessarily going to support the multitude of small and medium enterprises that we have in Mid and West Wales.

But what I want to really focus on today is the workforce, and particularly statutory sick pay. Can you please tell me what discussions you've had with your counterpart in the UK to ensure that the part-time and zero-hours workers who don't currently qualify for SSP receive it? And will you urge the UK Government's Department for Work and Pensions to pay that quickly to those who are on sick or who are into forced self-isolation at a rate that matches the real living wage? That, in turn, will help the families and the individuals survive this crisis, because it is, indeed, a crisis that they find themselves in, and not of their own making.

And I hope that you will urge the UK Government to remove the five-week wait for universal credit. I'm really assured to hear from the Tory benches here that they want to work with us and support us, and I hope that they will start writing to the Ministers in their Government, asking them for that statutory sick pay, and I look forward to copies of those letters.

Easter, we know, is coming. We know that, unfortunately, it isn't going to necessarily be the happy celebrations that we were all hoping for, but, nonetheless, I'm sure that everybody here will join me in hoping that everybody does have as peaceful and as good an Easter as they possibly can have.