Support for Businesses

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 2 March 2021.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:02, 2 March 2021

Llywydd, I thank Dawn Bowden for those questions. I'm pleased to be able to tell her that the £30 million, which is the latest investment that we have provided in the hospitality, leisure and tourism sector specific fund, that the eligibility checker for that fund will open on 3 March, tomorrow morning, and that the fund itself will open on 9 March. I know that there will be businesses in the Member's constituency that will be looking to get further help and assistance from that fund, and I'm very glad that we've been able to find that £30 million to extend the help that is available to businesses, not just in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, of course, but across Wales.

The budget that will be laid this afternoon, Llywydd, will show a further major sum of money set aside by the Welsh Government to go on supporting businesses in Wales next year. I agree with what the Member said about the need for the UK Government to go on investing in the help that it provides people to go on being employed as we come, we hope, to the end of the current wave of the crisis. We will go on using the money that we have available as a Welsh Government to provide the most generous package of support to businesses anywhere in the United Kingdom. As the Wales Governance Centre recently confirmed through its own independent analysis, we have already well exceeded by some hundreds of millions of pounds the consequential funding that we've received from the UK Government for business support purposes.