4. Statement by the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales: Response to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 10 June 2020.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 2:21, 10 June 2020

Well, can I thank David Rees for his question? He's absolutely right that only the UK Government has the financial resource to be able to support the sectors with the sort of intervention that's required, particularly aerospace and steel. They are two sectors that are now standing items on the quadrilateral calls that take place between myself and the economy Ministers in the devolved administrations and with BEIS.

Project Birch, of course, should be utilised to support sectors and businesses across the UK, but in a way that recognises the needs rather than—as Helen Mary Jones touched on a little earlier—what might be considered a fair and equal split through Barnettising support. We have to ensure that support for steel and aerospace through Project Birch—and I am hopeful that UK Government are listening to our calls for support through that particular intervention—that the support that comes our way recognises that, in those two vitally important sectors, we have a disproportionately high number of people employed in Wales, and therefore we would expect, through Project Birch and, in the longer term, through the industrial strategy, the new iteration of the industrial strategy, to have a larger share of the financial resource from those particular interventions.

Finally, I should just say that the third sector that is always, always discussed on those quadrilateral calls is tourism, and I've been at pains to stress the role that UK Government has in developing a support scheme that recognises that, even if businesses within the tourism sector reopen in the coming month or so, they are still going to face challenges in terms of generating enough revenue. They are not going to see the sort of revenue generation that was apparent in 2019, because public confidence is not going to be returning to what it was before coronavirus, and therefore there will need to be a support scheme, regardless of whether or not businesses reopen within the tourism sector. And, again, only the UK Government has the financial firepower to be able to deliver such a scheme for the tourism sector.