The Wales Tourism Alliance, the Federation of Small Businesses Wales and CBI Wales told the committee that the tourism and hospitality industries would be disproportionately affected. I submitted an urgent written question to the First Minister on 30 April, asking him to respond to calls for a specific plan to support tourism businesses in Wales and for consideration to be given to models of international best practice that would help our rural and coastal tourism businesses to survive. Other than a holding response, no reply has yet been received.

The Wales Tourism Alliance told the committee that, although the support provided by Government at all levels had been quite generous, some businesses have fallen through the gaps, particularly wedding venues, bed and breakfasts and guest accommodation. Small bed and breakfasts are a mainstay of many local economies across north Wales—real businesses providing essential income for their owners. However, they have been unable to access the Welsh Government's £10,000 business grant, because the criteria states that they must be eligible for small business rates relief, but the rules say that they cannot be unless they provide accommodation for more than six persons.

When I questioned the economy Minister about this, he stated that the eligibility criteria checker for the second phase of the economic resilience fund, for new applications, would open mid-June. Having got their hopes up, when it opened, bed and breakfast businesses told me that, according to the checker, they were still not eligible. When I again questioned the economy Minister about this, he stated that he would have to understand why they were not eligible. I therefore wrote to him with evidence from legitimate bed and breakfast businesses in north Wales, detailing their ineligibility for this or any other scheme. In his reply last week, he claimed that the support package in Wales is the most comprehensive and generous in the UK. In reality, grants are available to bed and breakfast operators in England and Scotland who did not qualify for any other COVID-19 grant support schemes, but operators in Wales have been denied access to equivalent grants. As one told me:

'We're already £7,400 in debt in the past three months, and we've lost out on around £28,000' worth of sales in this time. This is a total emergency and grant help is needed.'

The Wales Tourism Alliance told the committee that changed Welsh Government requirements for self-catering properties to qualify for business grants were being used to penalise bona fide businesses. Although the local government Minister told Members that, if a self-catering business can prove that they are a legitimate business, the authority has the discretion to pay the grant, the Federation of Small Businesses Wales stated that some local authorities have been sending e-mails out, saying, 'This isn't discretionary. We've been mandated to do this by Welsh Government.'

I was contacted by a large number of legitimate holiday letting businesses whose experience with this was causing real hardship. They wrote that the guidance from the Welsh Government clearly discriminates against holiday letting businesses, and that there was no consultation with the industry. I have since successfully represented many of these businesses in north-west Wales, although it took interventions over many weeks before councils reviewed their applications and used their discretion to award them business grants.

Then, two weeks ago, I was contacted by a legitimate holiday letting business in Flintshire that had been told that their grant application had been unsuccessful because all of the Welsh Government's additional qualifying criteria have to be met. You must despair.

The committee's recommendation that the Welsh Government should revisit changes made to the guidance for non-domestic business rate relief and ensure that they are neither penalising legitimate businesses nor increasing the workload on local authorities is therefore pivotal.

On 15 May, the Confederation of Passenger Transport presented a proposal to Welsh Government that would enable operators to ramp up bus services with full costings for all Welsh bus operators. In correspondence last week, however, the industry states that they have still not received a considered official response, and Wales is now the only country in the United Kingdom that has not agreed funding for transport operators to begin to ramp up services to cover costs for additional services.

The committee's recommendation that the Welsh Government should inform the committee of its assessment of the current availability of buses and trains in Wales and whether this is sufficient to ensure effective socially distanced public transport services can be provided and give details of any action being taken to ensure that there is sufficient capacity is therefore also pivotal.