Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to begin by thanking Members across this Chamber, as well as my officials, social partners and our colleagues in local government, as well as, of course, our public services in Wales for the huge amount of work that they do each and every day supporting our national response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And I'm proud of what we've done so far to help mitigate the economic impact of this awful disease, and I am hugely appreciative of the hard work that everybody has put in.

I should say, Dirprwy Lywydd, that in terms of our response to coronavirus, we have now had a huge amount of businesses generate financial support from the Welsh Government in ensuring that they can survive the short-term period that we face, and that we are looking at the longer term recovery from coronavirus in a way that builds back a fairer, greener, more resilient economy.

Since publishing our road map for the recovery on 15 May, the Welsh Government has been planning the next stages of its work to ease the lockdown. We have always been clear that that work must be grounded on the science that is available to us, and with worker safety at the forefront of every single decision that we take. I've been meeting with partners through the shadow social partnership council regularly and I'll continue to do so in order to discuss the shared measures that we can take to gradually reopen our economy in a safe, sustainable and fair way, whilst continuing to support public health and our NHS. To help us achieve this we've used the dialogue with social partners to develop and to publish detailed guidance, setting out what employers and employees need to do to operate safely and, of course, lawfully.

The guidance that we have set out on the Welsh Government website is for all workplaces and does not replace legislation or industry-specific guidance. Dirprwy Lywydd, nor should it be considered as a substitute for legal advice, which employers and employees should consider obtaining where necessary. Each workplace is unique, and every one needs to do what is right for their own specific workers and customers. The Welsh Government has published in-depth guidance to support a safe return of the manufacturing sector, and further guidance for other key sectors will be published over the coming weeks. And we're consulting with Welsh businesses and with trade unions to ensure that our approach is proportionate and also fair to businesses and to workers. We want workplaces and workers in Wales to be safe, so we'll be asking all employers and employees to show care by acting with compassion and understanding; to comply with laws designed to keep us all safe; to involve everyone because safety is a shared endeavour; to adapt workplaces and behaviours; and to communicate with clarity and consistency.

As we begin the work of the economic recovery, I've been clear that the UK Government should not withdraw the important suite of support that they've put in place over the last few months. That's why we strongly welcomed the announcement on 12 May, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to extend the job support scheme on the current basis until the end of July, and on an amended basis until the end of October. The job retention scheme has been essential to enable large parts of the economy to hibernate through the last few weeks of lockdown.

In moving forward, we will continue to make the following arguments to the UK Government: first, that there should be no reduction in support in respect of businesses that cannot legally open; that reducing the volume of an employer’s workforce that can be furloughed would be preferable to a general tapering of the intensity of support; that any action must not push employers to jeopardise safe working because of financial pressures; and that the UK Government should make available grant support for businesses to make physical adaptations to ensure safer working.

In Wales, we have put in place the most generous package of help for businesses anywhere in the UK—a total of £1.7 billion of support. Yesterday, I was delighted to launch the new eligibility checker for the next phase of the economic resilience fund. The fund aims to plug the gaps in the support schemes announced by the UK Government, including the job retention scheme and the self-employed income support scheme.

Phase one of the ERF covered any sustainable business operating in Wales, of any age or type, that is VAT registered, that employs people via pay-as-you-earn and that has suffered a significant turnover impact. Phase two of the fund will operate in broadly the same way as phase one, but with an update to the eligibility of the micro scheme to enable limited companies that are not VAT registered to access the fund. The full applications phase is expected to open on or before 29 June. The second phase of the ERF will enable access to the remaining £100 million of the £300 million already approved and allocated to support micro businesses, SMEs and large businesses. Work is under way with stakeholders to develop further support options for those not yet reached—for example, start-up businesses—and I will make further announcements on that in the coming weeks.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I have said before that, in planning for the recovery, I want us to build back better: to use coronavirus as a moment for fundamental change in our economy, so that what comes after is fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable than what went before. And that's why I was extremely pleased this week to attend the socioeconomic sub-group of the BAME expert advisory panel. The sub-group, chaired by Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna, is helping the Welsh Government to identify the range of factors influencing adverse COVID-19 outcomes in BAME groups, and to look at wider inequalities in our economic life in Wales. I have been deeply impressed by the work of the sub-group and am under no illusion that, in Wales, we still have—despite a huge amount of good progress—structural and embedded inequalities in our economy that contribute to the unfairness and discrimination that still impacts black, Asian and minority ethnic groups. So, when we talk about building back better, it is to the work of the sub-group that I think we should turn for guidance and evidence in our quest for something fairer, and I want to put on record today the support of myself and my department to doing that work over the coming months and years. Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm happy to take questions.