8. Plaid Cymru Debate: The Economy and COVID-19

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:41 pm on 10 June 2020.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 4:41, 10 June 2020

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and my thanks to all Members for their contributions, and I certainly welcome this opportunity to respond to them. Since publishing our road map and plans on how we propose to return to normal, or as best as normal, here in Wales, on 15 May, we've been planning the next stages, and it's important that we prepare for the future ahead of us. I think all Members in the virtual Chamber today are agreed on this.

We've always been clear that our approach to easing restrictions must be based on science and also that workers' safety must be at the forefront of decisions that we make. I've been meeting with the shadow social partnership council regularly, and I'll continue to do so, in order to discuss our shared issues and measures that we can introduce in order to continue our response to how we deal with COVID-19. And my task, of course, is to ensure that, when the time is right, our businesses, our transport network and our skills system are ready, not only to adapt and transition for the post-coronavirus world, but, crucially, that we are ready and able and wanting to build back better for the sake of this and future generations.

Now, as I've repeatedly said, in Wales we've put in place the most generous package of support for businesses in the UK—in total, £1.7 billion-worth of support. But a recession is unavoidable, and so unprecedented support for people who are going to be affected in the longer term from coronavirus must be needed.

We know that, currently, around about one third of the workforce is unemployed or furloughed here in Wales, with further jobs at risk, depending, of course, on what sort of shape the recovery ultimately takes. And as in previous recessions, as Helen Mary Jones identified at the outset, it will be the most vulnerable people in the labour market who will be hardest hit, and young people are one of the groups most likely to be disproportionately impacted. 

Now, employability support is vital in times of economic uncertainty, and so our vision is to support the return of the current workforce, to restart an individual's employment journey and to reskill individuals to return to new sectors, whilst preparing the future workforce. We'll prioritise support for young people to mitigate a rise in youth unemployment and to protect young people from the long-term scarring effects that a long period of unemployment can have.

Through Jobs Growth Wales, I think we've fairly and adequately and proudly demonstrated our willingness and ability to help young people to avoid long-term unemployment. In some parts of England, between 2010 and 2015, we saw long-term youth unemployment rise by thousands of per cent, whereas here in Wales, because of Jobs Growth Wales, in some parts of our country, we saw a fall during that period in long-term youth unemployment. So, we'll use that scheme and other schemes to support this generation of young people. 

We'll also deploy our re-employment interventions now. We'll be using ReAct, Job Support Wales and the Employability Skills programme to swiftly support people back into work, whilst our community employability programmes will provide intensive support to those further away from the labour market.