1. What discussions has the Minister had with the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales about the possibility of increasing the budget available in 2020-21 for spend on the economy in Wales? OQ55724

I have regular discussions with the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales about the fiscal challenges facing the economy as a result of the pandemic. We have so far provided additional funding amounting to more than £1.7 billion to help support our economy across Wales in 2020-21.

Thank you, Minister. If the ever-changing details available from Business Wales on the website are anything to go by, it now appears that businesses in Aberconwy will potentially be awarded the same support as new businesses going into lockdown on Friday—new areas going into lockdown—as other regions, despite Aberconwy having been in local lockdown since 1 October. And I can tell you, many of my businesses are facing hundreds of thousands of pounds of loss. Now, the decision to make a further £1,000 discretionary to those areas who were affected by lockdown measures prior to this firebreak announcement is simply unacceptable. So, will you liaise with the Minister for economy to ensure that he does have the necessary budget allocation to provide additional financial support to businesses in local authority areas that were already in local lockdown and, by the end of it, will have nearly been in lockdown for approximately six weeks? And will you urge him to review the decision to enact a rateable value cap of £51,000 so that my local hospitality businesses get the support they actually need to support their business and, indeed, to support their employees? Thank you.

Both the Minister for economy and I do recognise what an incredibly difficult time this has been for businesses across Wales, but probably nowhere more so, I imagine, than in the tourism and hospitality sector. And that's why a total of 1,206 microbusinesses and small and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism and hospitality sector in north Wales have already been awarded funding through the economic resilience fund, and that totals £25.9 million. And in addition to that funding, in north Wales our regional tourism engagement fund and tourism product innovation fund revenue grants are supporting both public and private sector organisations to deliver nine projects, to a value of nearly £1 million. And in the north Wales tourism and hospitality sector, the Development Bank of Wales's COVID-19 Wales business loan scheme has provided over £5.7 million of support to 105 businesses. So, we and the Development Bank of Wales are doing our best to support businesses across Wales.

I do take the point that the Member has raised, but we've tried to reflect the additional challenges facing those businesses that have already experienced local lockdown, across the majority of local authority areas in Wales, by ensuring that there is additional funding available through the latest package. And it is worth recognising and never losing sight of the fact that businesses across Wales have, by far, the largest access to the greatest amount of support, compared to any other part of the United Kingdom. And I think that that's a testament to the priority that we're putting on supporting business. But, that said, I completely don't take away from the challenges that businesses are facing in this difficult period, and especially in the tourism and hospitality sector.

Let me begin just by welcoming the additional support that's come in yesterday. It's not going to help everyone, but it'll go a long, long way, I have to say, particularly the discretionary fund, to fill some of those gaps for people who've fallen between the stools so far. And I'm certainly speaking to local authority leaders in my area so that they can process the applications quickly and explain to people how they work as well. But could I ask, in your discussions with the economy Minister and with the First Minister, can you also make the representations to the UK Government, as well, for additional funding, both for jobs in particular—for job support—as well as business support, because our coffers are limited in Wales? And, whilst I agree with the previous Conservative speaker, who asked for more support to be forthcoming, that support needs to be forthcoming from the UK Government, not just the limited coffers we have available. So, will she make those representations, please? 

I absolutely will make those representations. In fact, I have a finance quadrilateral meeting with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury just later on this afternoon, where I'll be making exactly that point about the switch over from the job retention scheme to the job support scheme. It unnecessarily creates difficulties for businesses in Wales, where they'll need to apply to two different schemes over a period of two weeks in order to provide their staff with the support they need. And there's obviously that real problem with the quantum of support now that's available for each of those jobs and the way in which the UK Government has decided what kind of jobs are viable jobs. There are whole sectors that are missing out as a result of that. The arts sector is one of them. But I can give my colleague Huw Irranca-Davies the assurance that I will be raising exactly this issue later on this afternoon.