Can I thank Helen Mary Jones for her questions and also thank Helen Mary Jones for the very constructive part that she has played, and indeed other Members of the Chamber have played, in shaping the economic resilience fund during the various phases of this support?

I'd like to just make a number of points at the outset. First of all, as Members are aware, the Welsh Government is offering the most generous and comprehensive package of support to businesses anywhere in the United Kingdom, but as Helen Mary Jones has rightly identified, it would simply not be possible for any Government to support every single business with both emergency cash for operating costs and with support for business development, and therefore we do have to approach this in a targeted way, as Helen Mary Jones identified, and I'll come back to that point.

The second important issue to raise with perceptions of the third phase of the economic resilience fund is that there are two parts to it, and the majority part remains open, and I'd urge businesses to apply—if they're looking for emergency cover for their businesses—for the £200 million lockdown business fund. The £100 million business development grant was for development projects, and I'll come back to the reason why they were different. But the third point to make regarding the overall package of support is that there has been some misunderstanding of the purposes of the development grants, and it does appear that a number of businesses have been attempting to access emergency support either through, first and foremost, the development grant online system, or through both the non-domestic rates-linked grants and the development grants. As a result of this, we've already been able to sift a significant number of applications and we've found that there will be a rejection rate that will be quite high because a significant number of businesses who submitted applications on that Friday did so without supporting evidence, or did so without a strong plan for the development of their business, or because they didn't provide any cash-flow data, and were simply after support for cash flow, or because their projects were ineligible, for example because a number of applicants were applying for deposits on holiday lets.

We ensured that it was a targeted approach, and all of the guidance pointed businesses to the fact that it was targeted, it was for the purpose of developing their businesses, creating jobs or securing jobs. They had to comply with our principles of value for money, they had to be of a high quality, and they had to enhance the business prospects for the medium and the long term. Now, I can tell Members that there is a further £300 million that the finance Minister has earmarked in principle for business support in the first quarter of 2021. In addition, there remains unutilised budget from the original round of the COVID-19 NDR-linked grants, and officials are working very closely at the moment with local authority treasurers to confirm how much of this funding remains unused across the 22 local authorities and what options might be available to potentially repurpose it. I can also tell Members that, with regard to the £100 million development grant fund, we will appraise, as a priority, all of those applications that have come in. I am currently seeking further advice on the next steps in relation to what we do with the development grant fund, and I hope to make a further statement in the very near future. 

But just in answer to some of the other points that Helen Mary Jones raised—capacity within Business Wales. We constantly review capacity within Business Wales. We increase capacity when necessary and decrease. I'm not so much concerned about human resource capacity as I am with the way that those people who operate on the helpline service are being treated by some—a tiny minority. But I have had reported to me that some of the Business Wales helpline staff have been verbally abused, and I'm sure nobody in this Chamber would condone such behaviour. I know that this an incredibly tense and anxious time for business owners, but it's important that we also respect those people who are trying to help us, and so I would urge all people who are calling the Business Wales helpline to be courteous and to be respectful to the Business Wales staff.

Then, finally, to the point that Helen Mary Jones made—again, an incredibly valuable point—about the importance of considering how we hibernate businesses that may not be able to operate through the winter and until next year, but which we know are viable businesses. That, of course, can be provided through an extension of the job retention scheme and, of course, with any support from the Welsh Government that would aim to plug any gaps or to provide an additional safety net to complement the JRS. But, of course, that does require the UK Government to agree to a further extension of the job retention scheme, and, for that matter, a further extension of the self-employment income support scheme until such a time that parts of the economy can truly reopen safely, and whether that's with an array of vaccines or through further adaptations and through suppressing the virus to a level where we can do so. But it's absolutely essential that the UK Government considers, as a matter of urgency, a further extension to JRS and the self-employment income support scheme.