The Economic Resilience Fund

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:20 pm on 4 November 2020.

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Photo of Helen Mary Jones Helen Mary Jones Plaid Cymru 3:20, 4 November 2020

I'm grateful to the Minister for his answer. I'm sure he will acknowledge that because of the oversubscription to this fund, there were many businesses who were disappointed and some business owners who were quite distressed not to be able to make the applications that they expected to be able to make. And I say this while fully understanding the pressure on the Minister's budgets and the fact that he won't ever be able to help every single business, and that there are UK responsibilities here as well.

Can I ask the Minister, with regard to the administration of the scheme, whether he is confident that there is sufficient capacity within Business Wales to deal with this level of pressure of work? Particularly bearing in mind that this is not a one-off, as we might have expected it to be, perhaps, or hoped it might be at the beginning of this crisis, but this is pressure that's going to be on Business Wales for some time to come, unfortunately.

And can I also ask him, given that resources are limited and that the Welsh Government can't do everything, is it time now for Welsh Government to take a more targeted approach to the businesses that you continue to support, prioritising those businesses that are most in need now, perhaps, in the short term, but also those businesses that were completely viable before lockdown that can't trade at all during the pandemic but that will be viable afterwards? Do we need a specific hibernation scheme for businesses like those, and should you be targeting support, Minister, to businesses like certain businesses in hospitality, some businesses in tourism, cultural businesses that may not be able to open at all, until we reach a point where we have a vaccine? I would put it to the Minister, Deputy Presiding Officer, that if he can't do everything—and I understand that perhaps he can't—is it now time to do the things that need doing most in terms of business support?