3. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:59 pm on 24 November 2020.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:59, 24 November 2020

I'm grateful, again, to Leanne Wood for raising this issue this afternoon, and I know that she'll be taking up that first specific case with the council in RCT in order to establish what has happened with that particular grant application. It is the case, of course, that Wales does continue to have the most generous package of support for businesses anywhere in the UK, and the third phase of the ERF has already seen over 35,000 businesses offered over £106 million to date, and, in addition, more than £20 million has reached tourism, hospitality and retail businesses with a retail value of between £12,000 and £50,000, in the form of that emergency funding. So, that funding is absolutely getting to businesses, although inevitably we're not going to be able to support every single business in Wales. But we are absolutely keen to learn from the experiences of the third phase of the economic resilience fund as we develop our future support for business.

And I absolutely share the concerns about taxi drivers in particular. I think that there is a social justice element here. I had a good discussion with Professor Ogbonna, who has been doing some work for Welsh Government on how the black, Asian and minority ethnic community in particular has been badly affected by the coronavirus. And taxi drivers are eligible to apply for that discretionary element of the ERF, and I'm really keen that we get that message out to taxi drivers. But I know that Ken Skates has also been having some discussion on specific issues affecting taxi drivers and others, with Unite and others who are affected.