Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 8 April 2020.
Well, again, Llywydd, I thank Paul Davies for those questions. Can I join him in reinforcing the message that we have sent over the last two weekends and want to send again in the clearest possible terms? In advance of the Easter weekend, the stay-at-home advice means you; it's not advice to somebody else, for somebody else to follow, it's advice for every one of us and every one of us is under an obligation to follow that advice. And a journey to a second home is not an essential journey, and where the police in Wales stop people who are doing that, they will take enforcement action against them.
Now, we have a call with the chief constables prior to the weekend and immediately after the weekend to make sure that they are geared up for the very important work that we are asking them to do and then to receive a report from them on how they discharged their responsibilities. On Monday of this week, the reports from all four chief constables were that while there had been incidents right across Wales, they were sporadic rather than organised, they did not, in the view of the chief constables, represent affraying of the astonishing levels of observance that Welsh citizens have shown to the obligations that we all face, and that, where they had come across incidents, the powers that they currently have—including road blocks, for example, as well as fines—that repertoire of enforcement actions was still sufficient for them to be able to deal with the infringements they saw. And I once again made it clear in those discussions with chief constables that, if that view were to change and their advice to the Welsh Government was that they needed a strengthened repertoire of enforcement actions, we will not hesitate to do that. At this point, their advice to us was that what they currently have is sufficient to meet the challenges that they face and I will be guided by that advice.
Even in these really very difficult times, work does go on to try to strengthen broadband where it is not as good as we would like it to be and I recognise the context in which Paul Davies set out why that is particularly important. I don't have with me the detail of the additional work that's going on, but I'm happy to supply that, of course. As to business support, I think there are two roles that the Welsh Government fulfils. One is that, because we are a participant, every day, in sub-groups of the COBRA system, we are able to convey directly to UK Government Ministers the gaps in the provision that people are finding as the very welcome measures that the UK Government put in place are rolled out in practice. It's not a criticism at all to suggest that as ideas move from being on paper to being delivered on the ground some glitches will emerge in the way that those things are happening.
Our direct face-to-face contact gives us an opportunity to put those points on behalf of Welsh businesses directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who chairs some of these meetings, and directly to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, who chairs some of these meetings. That's something that we're very pleased to do—to be a direct voice for Welsh businesses in helping the UK Government to improve the practical delivery of the schemes it has put in place.
Next week, when we make announcements on the remaining £400 million of business support that we intend to make in Wales, focusing that help on gaps in help that is otherwise already available has been a key test for us in shaping that package. We do it in discussions with others—the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Small Businesses and so on. Challenging as it is, given the scale of need out there, our aim is to focus that £400 million in the way that Paul Davies suggested, so that its impact lands in those places where other forms of help are not currently available.