Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:34 pm on 6 May 2020.
Can I turn my attention now to the other part of your statement that dealt with tourism, if that's okay? So, I was very pleased to hear you refer to tourism, because, of course, it is a little bit disappointing, I have to say, that we haven't had statements on this particular theme in our virtual Plenary sessions since the start of this pandemic.
Tourism, of course, is a vital part of our economy, as you've already recognised, and you will have seen that there was a recent report from the University of Southampton and the Centre for Towns that made reference to the fact that it looks like coastal communities are going to be particularly hard hit as a result of this current pandemic, and find it perhaps more difficult to be able to recover than others. And that's, of course, because most coastal towns, certainly on the north Wales coast, are heavily dependent on tourism for their economic well-being.
You made reference to the taskforce that's been established on tourism. I'm pleased that there is some focus within Government on this issue. Can you tell us who sits on that taskforce? Can you also tell us what particular action the Welsh Government is taking, given the more significant contribution of tourism to our economy, to actually have a look at how it can modify some of its economic resilience funding in order to support better the tourism industry? We know that we've got lots of seasonal workers, for example, who didn't qualify for the coronavirus retention scheme, but a good proportion of their income would be spent locally, and they're not able to do that because they don't have sufficient spending power.
The UK Government has also established a zoos support fund recently, to support animal attractions across England. Do you have plans to establish something similar here in Wales? We've got the Welsh Mountain Zoo, in my own constituency, Anglesey Sea Zoo, and a whole host of other attractions across Wales that might be able to benefit from that. And I do think that it's about time that we tried to plug some of these gaps that we've currently got in the industry. Because what we don't want to do is lose some of these fantastic attractions, which were thriving businesses before the pandemic, and can continue to be, providing they get the right support to get through.