4. What support has the Welsh Government provided to businesses in Blaenau Gwent during the coronavirus pandemic? OQ55643

I thank Alun Davies for that question. To date, a total of 199 micro and small and medium-sized enterprise businesses in Blaenau Gwent have been awarded funding via the economic resilience fund, totalling £3 million. In addition, we have awarded 62 start-up grants worth £155,000, and 1,420 COVID-19 non-domestic business rates grant awards, totalling £15.8 million in Blaenau Gwent alone.

I'm grateful to the First Minister for that answer, and I know that many businesses in Blaenau Gwent are also extremely grateful for the support they've received from the Welsh Government throughout the course of this pandemic. But we also know—and I welcome the publication of the statement this morning on how we will rebuild from this pandemic—we know that areas such as Blaenau Gwent will require continued and increased investment in order to maintain the viability of businesses in the Heads of the Valleys region. That investment will need to be holistic and comprehensive, investing in people and places. Will the First Minister confirm that the Welsh Government will continue to invest in the economy of the Heads of the Valleys, and Blaenau Gwent in particular, but will also continue to invest in areas such as superfast broadband and the rail network to ensure that we have the holistic industrial strategy that places like Blaenau Gwent will require in order to maintain business vitality and jobs into the future?

Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that. I entirely agree with him that our investment strategy has to be a combination of investing in people, in providing them with the skills, with the training, with the opportunities that they need to fashion their own futures, and investing in places as well so that those places are accessible and those places thrive. And through our transforming towns package, for example, which I know has proposals, practical proposals, in Blaenau Gwent, in Brynmawr, in Tredegar, in Nantyglo, those are places that people want to live in and recognise as being valued.

I was very interested, Llywydd, in what Alun Davies said towards the end of his question about the Welsh Government going on investing in superfast broadband and in our railway network. I read, over the weekend, an article by the leader of the Welsh Conservatives here, in which he said that, were he to be in charge at the Senedd, he would be bringing an end to expenditure by the Welsh Government on non-devolved responsibilities. Well, I remind him that, when it comes to superfast broadband, of the £200 million that has been spent in it by the public service here in Wales, £67 million came from the UK Government and over £130 million has come from the Welsh Government, on a non-devolved responsibility, specifically in order to make up for the market failures and the failure to invest of the Conservative Government in Westminster. So, I'm very happy to confirm to Alun Davies that this Government will invest in those things that make a difference to people in Wales, and, where we have to make good the failures of the UK Government, we will step in to make sure that people in Wales have the connectivity they need, whether that is by broadband, whether it is by public transport, that otherwise would be so shamefully neglected.

First Minister, businesses in Blaenau Gwent and other counties suffering from the effects of local lockdowns are able to claim support from you, from this Government's economic resilience fund, and that is very welcome. However, local lockdowns are having a serious and damaging effect on businesses in Monmouthshire due to a lack of people from surrounding areas who would normally, and obviously now cannot, travel there to shop, work and eat out. One small trader I visited yesterday told me they've gone from 200 customers a day to under 20. Tourism businesses are already reporting cancellations. Unless these businesses receive support, they're unlikely to survive, so can I support Monmouthshire County Council's plea to you and ask you, First Minister, to please extend the third phase of your £60 million economic resilience fund to traders in areas like Monmouthshire that are adversely affected from being surrounded by local lockdowns?

Llywydd, I thank Laura Anne Jones for that question, which is a proper and serious question that I know my colleague Ken Skates is thinking about and will have heard the representations from Monmouthshire. 

When I last spoke with Peter Fox, the Conservative leader of Monmouthshire, he was clear that local lockdown restrictions were not yet required in that county, and I hope that we will be able to avoid them altogether. Eighty million pounds of the phase 3 of the economic resilience fund—and I thank the Member for what she said about it—is, of course, available to businesses in Monmouthshire, as elsewhere, but I will make sure and I will ask my colleague Ken Skates to read what she has said this afternoon about the border impacts on neighbouring authorities where local lockdown restrictions are required.