Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 3 March 2021.

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Photo of Russell George Russell George Conservative 1:45, 3 March 2021

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, can I also say that it's been five years of bringing forward questions to you during spokespersons' questions and can I thank you, in the same way that Helen Mary did, in terms of the constructive way that we've worked together, especially during the pandemic? I think that's what the public would expect us to do and I thank you for that. 

With that, Minister, I'm going to use my last set of questions to do what I have been doing in terms of scrutinising your decisions and the Government's. This morning, you announced a huge sum of taxpayers' money to be provided to Cardiff Airport to the tune of £130 million. Now, from my perspective, the aviation sector has been hugely hit by the pandemic, and governments across the world need to support the industry—I have no doubt about that. But from my perspective, we've seen thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money already invested by your Government and much of that has been written off to Cardiff Airport and that was before the pandemic even hit.

So, I think the question that small businesses will have across Wales is: have you got the balance correct in terms of support for them versus the huge sums of money that have been put into the airport and have been written off in that vein as well? I ask the question in the spirit of this—I asked you a written question last week: when is the fourth phase of the economic relief fund expected to open? And I had an answer back at the end of last week that said that the Welsh Government is currently exploring further options for supporting businesses. Well, businesses will need to know when that next round of the economic resilience fund is coming forward. That's the information that they will need to know.

And finally, if I can ask you in terms of this first question, I've got your 2016 manifesto in front of me: what commitments that sit in your portfolio area have not been achieved during this five-year term?