Autumn 2020 Budget

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:35 pm on 23 September 2020.

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Photo of Joyce Watson Joyce Watson Labour 2:35, 23 September 2020

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?