5. What support has the Welsh Government provided to businesses in Bridgend during the coronavirus pandemic? OQ55613

Can I thank Carwyn Jones, Llywydd? Four hundred and seventy-four Bridgend micro and small and medium-sized enterprises have been awarded funding through the Wales-only economic resilience fund, totalling £88.1 million, with at least 2,500 jobs safeguarded up until the present time. We will continue to support businesses throughout Wales to stay viable through the pandemic and to respond to the inevitable challenges of Brexit.

I thank the First Minister for that answer. Businesses in Bridgend and across Wales, First Minister, will be very pleased to hear the announcement this week, from the Minister for Economy and Transport, of an extra £60 million-worth of funding for businesses across Wales as they continue to face the challenges of coronavirus. In terms of businesses in Bridgend and across Wales, how might they go about accessing that funding and accessing help, and what sort of sums might they be reasonably expected to receive as a result of those applications?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Carwyn Jones for those supplementary questions. There's £140 million altogether in this third phase of the economic resilience fund. The eligibility checker for this latest phase will open on 5 October, and, of course, I hope that any business who, having seen the detail, think that may be eligible for help will make their way to that eligibility checker to make applications as soon as they are able to do so. Microbusinesses will be able to apply for up to £10,000; SMEs will be able to apply for up to £150,000; and large businesses will be able to apply for up to £200,000. Now, of course, there are conditions and rules that apply around all of that, but that gives, I hope, an indication of the sort of scale of help that will be available.

Llywydd, just to give another sense of how the scheme has been working: I answered questions here in the Senedd earlier in the summer about the £5 million fund that we launched at that time to provide help for particularly small businesses, sole traders and so on, and over £4 million of that £5 million has already been awarded. So, I think that that demonstrates that we have a system in place that is not only responsive to the needs of Welsh businesses, but is able to respond, as quickly as we are able to, to get the money from us and into their hands so that they can go on being successful businesses into the future.