4. What additional funding will the Minister allocate in the budget to support the Pontypridd area in light of COVID-19? OQ55926

We'll continue to respond to the challenges of the pandemic and build on the funding we've already made available this year, including £70 million for businesses in Rhondda Cynon Taf, £50 million for the local authority, and funding provided to the third sector and art organisations in Pontypridd.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I've just been listening to the Chancellor's financial statement, and the first part of it is, basically, a broken promise over replacing EU money, and we remember the promise, wasn't it, 'Wales won't lose a penny.' Well, it's true—we haven't lost a penny, we've lost hundreds of millions of pounds. The second part of it is obviously a kick in the teeth for many public sector workers by imposing a pay freeze on them. But, thirdly, the Prime Minister promised to passport funding to us for the flood infrastructure damage. Minister, can you tell us, have we received the promised funding or is it yet another broken Tory promise?

I'm afraid to let Mick Antoniw know that we have not received the funding that has been promised on the floor of Parliament by the Prime Minister to address the impact of the flooding that we had earlier this year in Wales, which affected us disproportionately to anywhere else in the UK. Ahead of the spending review today, I did write to the Chancellor, setting out that this was an excellent opportunity for him to set out, within his plans for infrastructure investment over the coming years, his response to those floods and to enable us to have that certainty of funding over the coming years. But, unfortunately, that clearly fell on deaf ears. I do have a meeting planned with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in December to discuss exactly this issue, but I think it was a missed opportunity today. 

Obviously a missed opportunity for many businesses in Rhondda Cynon Taf, and in particular the Pontypridd area, was the ability to access Welsh Government funding, which shut after 24 hours. The Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales has said he's hopeful that a new round of funding will be made available. When he closed the funding after 24 hours, he said that pot of money was fully subscribed, finance Minister. Have you had a bid from the economy Minister to release additional moneys to his department so that many businesses that lost out on this support would be able to bid in the future to acquire that support to carry their businesses forward?

Well, I do have to tell the Member that 2,379 payments worth over £7 million have been made from the lockdown business fund, covering over 22,000 jobs. A total of 750 micro and small and medium-sized enterprise businesses have been awarded funding through the economic resilience fund, totalling £11.6 million, and 707 payments worth over £1.9 million so far have been made from the ERF phase 3 lockdown business fund. And these are all relating to businesses in RCT. And through the COVID-19 non-domestic business rates grant, a total of 3,767 awards have been processed to businesses, totalling £43.8 million. And, of course, the Development Bank of Wales has been busy lending to businesses in RCT and has provided over £6 million to 66 businesses, safeguarding 900 jobs. So, Welsh Government has been very effective and busy in supporting businesses in RCT, as you'll see from the figures there. Clearly, we want to do more, and we want to better understand the particular challenges relating to the ERF phase 3, and I have constant discussions with the Minister for economy and transport regarding future funding and future support for business.