1. What discussions has the Minister had with the UK Government regarding the autumn 2020 budget? OQ55560

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there have been seven meetings of the finance Ministers' quadrilateral, where we have discussed a range of issues, including the fiscal response to the crisis, the UK Government's autumn budget and the forthcoming comprehensive spending review.

Thank you for that answer. But at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Welsh Government capped the eligibility scheme for business rate holiday and excluded all retail, hospitality and leisure premises with a rateable value of more than £0.5 million. And that targeted approach enabled Welsh Government to add £100 million to the economic resilience fund that, in turn, helped safeguard thousands of jobs and support thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises during that period. That didn't happen in England, and they don't have an equivalent economic resilience fund, so many of their businesses lost out. So, could I ask you, Minister, when you have your round of talks with the UK Chancellor, will you ask him to take a more targeted response in the autumn budget in order to save those most-at-risk jobs and businesses by a catch-all scheme, whereby you have a situation that large supermarkets, who had a rise and an increase in their profits, benefited at the cost of those smaller businesses? 

I thank Joyce Watson for this question and for her ongoing and evident concern for small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly, I have to say, in the more rural parts of Wales. And Joyce is absolutely right to point to the fact that businesses in Wales have access to the most generous package of support anywhere in the United Kingdom. So, the Office for National Statistics have recently published some data that shows that 34 per cent of businesses in Wales have benefited from support, as compared to 21 per cent in Scotland and 14 per cent in England. So, that really does show the added value that devolution has brought to the response to this crisis.

And, again, Joyce is right that we do need a much more targeted approach now, as we move into the next phase of addressing the crisis, looking particularly at those sectors of society that have suffered greatly and continue to suffer as a result of the crisis. Hospitality, tourism, for example, stand out, as does aerospace—Jack Sargeant raised that sector in the Chamber just yesterday—and, of course, the automotive industry, the steel industry and so on—all industries that are absolutely vital to Wales, and of which we have a greater share than elsewhere in the UK. So, I give my assurance that I will absolutely be continuing to press for that more targeted approach as we move through our response to the crisis.

Minister, I'm looking for some detail from you about what you're trying to secure by way of further consequentials in that budget from further education spending. Further education is obviously going to be one of those sectors that we rely on to help us recover from COVID, and while the specific pressures are obviously for another Minister, the £23 million that came from the Welsh Government's COVID pot, welcome though it is, is only partial compensation for the £47 million education budget cut, which was inflicted in order to help feed that COVID pot, and it doesn't really completely reflect the additional COVID consequentials from the UK Government. Can you commit to making it clear where consequentials have come in for FE, as a result of the autumn budget, and also make it clear for us to see whether more, the same or less ends up being committed net by Welsh Government? 

Yes, I'm very happy to be extremely transparent in terms of the data on consequentials that we receive from the UK Government. So, very recently I wrote to the Finance Committee giving the latest detail of the consequentials that Welsh Government has received, and in relation to what UK Government spend. Although I will make the point that, of course, the Welsh Government isn't an administrative arm of the UK Government, and money that does come, as a result of consequentials, is deployed in relation to particular Welsh pressures and Welsh priorities and Welsh concerns. I'll also add that we were able to negotiate with the UK Treasury an agreement that we would have consequentials in advance of announcements that have been made across the border in England. So, our total consequentials thus far have been £4 billion, but for part of that we don't yet know to what those consequentials relate, and that was something we were able to negotiate because it did give us the ability, then, in Wales to provide additional funding to health, additional funding to local government, to give them the certainty and ability to plan, rather than waiting for each and every small announcement from the UK Government. So, that's been a really good example of good working between Welsh Government and HM Treasury, although I think there's some way to go yet in terms of the flexibilities that we're seeking.

Minister, 2020 has highlighted how vulnerable our economy actually is—vulnerable to COVID and vulnerable to a changing climate. We are woefully unprepared to cope with such shocks to our systems. What discussions have you had with colleagues across all four nations about ensuring funding goes towards mitigating the risks of future pandemics and the challenges we face from climate change?

I'm really grateful to Caroline for highlighting the fact that, even though we've been dealing with a pandemic, which has been all-consuming in so many ways, actually, that huge issue of climate change hasn't gone away, and, absolutely, we must be continuing to address it. So, our mind is very much focused, as we continue to address the acute end of the pandemic, also on looking ahead to the recovery and the reconstruction. And the discussions that we're having right across Government are very much framed within the lens of our Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, but with that particular focus on how we can create a green and fair recovery. 

I know that Jeremy Miles has been working very hard across the summer, engaging with stakeholders right across Welsh life to better understand the concerns and ideas there, and he'll be saying something more about the particular steps that we will take in terms of that recovery shortly. But I can give you reassurance that the decarbonisation agenda, the green agenda, is at the heart of that.