7. Statement by the First Minister: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 11:11 am on 24 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 11:11, 24 March 2020

I’ll check the point about the Business Wales website. Of course, we are doing our best to keep it up to date. It has had a huge number—thousands and thousands—of views over the last week, and it is one of the main ways in which we get information to people. So, I’ll make sure that it is—. Well, I’ll raise it with Ken Skates who will do that.

How we get the money to firms, the administration arrangements are still being finalised. I know that it’s frustrating, but I have to repeat, in a way, the point I made last week that, while we are as keen as we can be to get the money to people, in the end, it is public money, and you can’t simply just write people a cheque for £25,000 simply on their say so. So, you have to have some basic administration so that we can be sure that when this is over, we can account properly for the way in which the money was disbursed.

Of course, Russell George is right, the business rates demands that have landed on people’s mats are overtaken by events, they’re no longer relevant and people will be able to know that. I’m not certain that I have the same figures as he does about the £51,000 level in Wales, and the number of businesses that are actually above that, and we are providing local authorities with some additional discretionary rate relief funding so that businesses that don’t quite fit the normal rules, people who are close to the ground and understand why that business might need help, are able to make that decision. I will talk with my Cabinet colleagues, and Russell George is quite right; Cabinet colleagues will be listening to proceedings and there’s a Cabinet meeting after this session is over, so I’ll take up the point about the best way for Assembly Members to get advice.

Finally, can I express our real sympathy for those employees of Laura Ashley? As Russell George said, in any other time we would be spending a lot of our time talking about that, and Welsh Government is very closely involved in that situation, particularly in relation to an alternative buyer, and what such a buyer might want to do with that business and how it would affect employment in Newtown, in particular. So, we are focussed on the future and trying to make sure that where there are opportunities for that business to continue in a different form, and under different arrangements, we’ll do our best to support that and to deliver that for the people of that part of Wales.