In the supplementary budget, to be published next week, we will allocate more than £2.4 billion in support of our COVID-19 efforts. And that will include: nearly £0.5 billion extra to the health and social care budget to ensure that it has the funding it needs to protect the health of the people of Wales; an additional £1.3 billion to the budget for economy and transport, providing a wholly unprecedented level of support for the economy and a package of measures more substantial than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. This includes the £500 million economic resilience fund, which itself includes £400 million in revenue and £100 million in repurposed capital funding. Less than eight weeks from the launch, the fund has already provided loans from the development bank worth more than £87 million to more than 1,300 businesses and grants worth more than £100 million to more than 6,000 businesses.

The budget has also seen £0.5 billion extra provided to the housing and local government budget, with local authorities delivering key elements of the COVID-19 response, such as continued free school meal provision, increased support for care homes and for recruiting and managing volunteers. Llywydd, this funding also includes our support for businesses in the hospitality, retail and leisure sectors, in the form of business rate relief, and the £10,000 and £25,000 grants that follow. Thanks to the enormous efforts of our local authorities, nearly 51,000 grants have already been paid out, at a cost of £621 million, and this support is a vital lifeline for all eligible businesses across Wales. Wherever possible, we have focused this support on businesses headquartered in Wales, and we have made it clear that businesses based in tax havens will not be eligible for COVID-19 financial support from the Welsh Government.

Llywydd, the impact of our investments has been felt across Wales, and especially amongst the most vulnerable. We have provided £40 million for free school meals, reaching an estimated 60,000 children in Wales. We have provided £24 million to support the third sector and volunteering. Over 17,500 new volunteers have been recruited in Wales during this crisis, more than double the previous number, and because we have an existing national system for volunteers, we have been able to make rapid use of that huge willingness to help. And, so far, 7,000 volunteers have been deployed to help directly in the coronavirus effort.

One of the purposes for which these volunteers have been deployed has been in helping to get food and medicines to people in the shielded group. There are now 130,000 people on the shielding list, with nearly 13,000 added by GPs since the system began. Fifteen million pounds has been provided to make food boxes available to people in the shielded category and thousands of boxes have been delivered to those individuals, and 77,000 priority home delivery slots have been made available for that group to be booked with supermarkets.

Llywydd, thousands of people work in our social care system in Wales; they have been at the forefront of the national effort to save lives. We have set aside £32 million to provide a £500 payment to the 64,000 people delivering personal care in residential and domiciliary care services.

For the very poorest in our society, the discretionary assistance fund has provided help of last resort here in Wales, ever since the social fund was abandoned by the UK Government. During the coronavirus crisis, the fund has become an ever more important lifeline for many families. To date, 13,679 payments have been made at a cost of more than £850,000, and so that we can continue to offer this vital assistance, the fund has been increased by £11 million in recent weeks.

Llywydd, the past eight weeks have seen a transformation in the capacity of our health service: an additional 368 beds have been created through field hospitals, with a further 4,666 available if required; as of 18 May, 220 extra critical care beds were available through the huge efforts of our staff; testing capacity has increased to over 5,300 a day, and 11,000 tests are being carried out every week—capacity will increase further in the weeks ahead; and 98.4 million items of PPE have been issued since 9 March, of which, just under 30 million have gone to staff in care homes and in domiciliary care. 

That scale of provision has only been possible because of our relationships abroad and our ability to make things at home. To mention just one example, manufacturing company Hardshell is creating a new factory in Cardiff to produce up to a million fluid resistant face masks every day for front-line workers in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. And it is because of this enormous effort, right across Wales by our public services and our people, that we have protected our NHS and saved lives.

The death toll, with all its human heartbreak, continues to rise, but the number of deaths reported in yesterday’s weekly Office for National Statistics publication showed that figure falling in each of the previous three weeks. And, as we move into the world in which lockdown is cautiously and gradually lifted here in Wales, so we will need to adapt our approach. This week, the Minister for Health and Social Services announced changes to testing in care homes and in the wider community. We are moving to a wider system of surveillance of the circulation of the virus, beyond key workers and key settings, through the 'Test Trace Protect' strategy published last week.

Llywydd, I have illustrated the breadth and depth of the Welsh Government’s activity in response to the pandemic. Our approach has been distinctive in building on our social partnership model, and in assisting those in greatest need. We will continue to work with the UK Government on measures that require a common approach, and will shortly make regulations dealing with border controls. Although borders are not a devolved matter, public health regulations covering the operation of these measures in Wales are a matter for Welsh Ministers. We are currently considering the right arrangements for implementation here, within the UK-wide system.

And, Llywydd, I will end by mentioning the impact of the virus on children and young people in Wales. Last week, we launched a new survey asking people between the ages of seven and 18 for their views during the coronavirus pandemic. 'Coronavirus and Me' asks about their health, education, the impact on social aspects of their lives, and the needs of specific groups. Understanding the experience of young people will be vital to our work on moving out of lockdown, and on planning for the future of our economy and society in a post-COVID Wales. All our futures have been at stake in this crisis, but for our children and young people, that has been most acute. We will continue to report to the Senedd on all the actions we are taking to support them and wider society here in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.