I think the big concern for the committee and myself is the fact that all available budget for the pandemic in terms of business relief has not been drawn down, so it would seem—if I'm incorrect, the finance Minister can outline that. So, I would be interested to know and understand, if the Welsh Government is not drawing down all the money that's available to it in terms of business support, if that is correct, why that is the case. Because, clearly, I think the Government need to explain their approach in that regard. In terms of planning and drawing down funds as well, which could be used for further rounds of the economic resilience fund, or further rounds of that fund, I think it would also be helpful if the Government provided an explanation setting out how the Welsh Government will use this money, and ensuring that none of this money will be lost to Wales. 

One of the recommendations we made was we asked that the Welsh Government should provide further details on the uptake of the sector-specific business support funding, which was launched the middle of last month, including details on the uptake, because we're interested in what the Government's expectations were and the action by Welsh Government to ensure that everyone who was eligible—every business that was eligible—to receive funding was aware of the scheme.

There's also a concern, I think, about maximising the take-up of business support as well, and certainly as a committee we thought that the Welsh Government should set out what robust evaluations there have been of the effectiveness of the Business Wales website and support services, to identify if there are any other further measures that are needed to help businesses understand the entire suite of business support on offer.

I think what was important is also to understand this point: the Welsh Government often states and repeats that they offer the best business support package across the UK. So, we have been offered by the Minister on a number of occasions to get some comparison information in terms of Welsh Government support versus support in other parts of the UK; we haven't received that to date, despite a couple of offers being made. Now, it would be useful to see that comparison. I do appreciate that there are going to be some elements of difficulty with that, because sometimes it's difficult to get like-for-like information, especially when support schemes start and finish at different times, but I think if it would give the businesses confidence that that's correct, I think that comparison needs to come forward. And certainly, from my own inbox, I hear of retail shops on the high street, cafes on the high street, hair and beauty salons, believing that if their business was situated somewhere else in the UK, they would have a higher level of support, because they'd be able to access additional funding. The Welsh Government only says, 'No, we've got discretionary funding, we've got the sector-specific funding', but often these types of businesses are not eligible because they're not on PAYE, they haven't got employees on PAYE, they're not VAT registered. So, there are a number of barriers that prevent businesses from obtaining some of these additional funds that the Welsh Government point to. And I certainly think—or we as a committee think—that the Government's got to look at that eligibility criteria again.

And when it comes to the discretionary fund that local authorities have ability to access, there's a question of how discretionary that actually is. Because local authorities seem to report back that, 'Well, actually, no, we haven't got the same level of discretion that—' or, 'We're concerned about using that because we're not sure whether we can claim back all those funds from Welsh Government.' So, is it truly a discretionary fund? Are there some better criteria that can be given to local authorities to allow them to be more discretionary as well?

And the final point I would make is that I would be particularly interested in having that data from the Welsh Government in terms of business breakdown support, but also looking at the breakdown of the uptake by characteristic groups of people, if you like, in terms of uptake, whether they are small or large businesses, or women in business, because I think it's also important to have that data and compare that as well, and contrast that against other parts of the UK nations as well. Thank you, Presiding Officer.