1. Will the First Minister make a statement on delivering a COVID-19 recovery plan for businesses? OQ56423

Llywydd, to assist business recovery from COVID-19, the Welsh Government has provided the most generous package of support anywhere in the United Kingdom. On Wednesday last, the finance Minister announced that our 100 per cent business rate relief scheme, which supports over 70,000 businesses, will continue for the whole of the next financial year.

Thank you. Our strong Prime Minister has provided much certainty and support for our businesses. Only last week, our UK Government extended the coronavirus job retention scheme size and the VAT reduced rate of 5 per cent to the tourism and hospitality sectors. I am sure you will be enthusiastic to join with me and acknowledge that our UK Government's action has saved jobs and businesses in Wales, protecting nearly 400,000 livelihoods, supporting more than 100,000 self-employed people and backing over 50,000 businesses with loans. In fact, our Prime Minister has gone a step further than you, because whilst he's provided a road map out of lockdown for England, you continue to fail to deliver for Wales. Despite the concerns I raised with you in committee on 11 February about the need for clarity as to when hospitality might be opening, we have been left to focus on your tier system, which has completely collapsed, because it is noted that to be in level 3, there should be a confirmed case rate of more than 150 cases per 100,000. Last week, Wales recorded a rolling seven-day average of 57, and is already down now to 44. Do you agree with me that it is really, really awful what you are doing to businesses in Wales by refusing to provide a clear road map out of lockdown and not adhering to your own tier system? Thank you. 

Llywydd, I welcome all the support that the UK Government has provided to businesses in Wales, and have done so since the earliest days of the pandemic. Of course, here in Wales we have provided hundreds of millions of pounds over and above the help that has come to Wales as a result of those UK efforts. 

I welcome the Member's recognition of the success of the measures that this Welsh Government has taken to bring coronavirus under control, measures which she will remember she and her party vehemently opposed at the time that they were taken. Had we followed her advice then, we certainly wouldn't be in the relatively benign position that we are in Wales today. We will build from that position, mindful all the time of the continuing precariousness of the recovery from coronavirus, and with the circulation here in Wales of the Kent variant of coronavirus particularly to be borne in mind as we reopen our economy. 

On Friday of this week, Llywydd, I will set out further details of how freedoms can be restored in the world of business, in our personal lives, providing priority as ever for our children and young people, and that will give people the clarity they need, with the realism that is required as well.  

First Minister, whatever your plans for helping Welsh businesses, will you ensure that they are fair and equitable? I've previously raised the plight of high-street arcades, which your Government refuses to help. These businesses have suffered the same losses as other leisure businesses, and yet you are denying them any recourse to business support. Welsh Government will gladly collect their business rates, yet do not want to help these businesses stay afloat. Like other businesses in the leisure sector, their costs have continued to spiral, but, as they remain closed, they have no income. Without support, these businesses could close permanently, with the loss of many jobs, and these jobs are for their employees who will eventually bear the brunt of all of this. Their plight is now desperate, so will you please reconsider your position? Diolch. 

Well, Llywydd, it has been the aim of the Welsh Government throughout the pandemic to use the funding that we have to fill the gaps in the help that comes from the UK Government. It simply isn't possible with the funding we have to fill every single gap that exists. Nevertheless, £1.9 billion has left the coffers of the Welsh Government and is already in the hands of businesses here in Wales—tens of thousands of businesses, in every part of our country, benefiting from the schemes that the Welsh Government has put in place and the speed at which that help has left us and arrived with businesses themselves. The Welsh Government has set aside £200 million in our budget for the next financial year to be able to continue the support that we provide to Welsh businesses. And as we do that, we always review the schemes that we have, to see whether it is possible to do more to help more businesses in the future. But ,as I say, our funding has been used always to fill the gaps in the schemes that the UK Government has responsibility for, and it simply isn't possible to extend that to every eventuality.

The 'for Wales, see England' approach that the Conservatives seem to be adopting will actually lead to a reduction in business support, as we've seen over the last year or so. First Minister, in taking forward Wales out of the lockdown—we're able to do this because of the success, of course, of the approach taken by the Welsh Government—I'm particularly concerned about the support that you will be able to provide to small businesses. There are many businesses in my constituency in Blaenau Gwent who are very grateful for the support that's been provided by the Welsh Government over the last year or so. They're now looking towards beginning to trade again and looking at how they can rebuild their businesses. Is it possible to outline how those smaller businesses will be supported as we move forward over the coming months?

Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that. He's absolutely right, of course, as the Welsh Governance Centre report demonstrated only a few weeks ago, that, had we simply followed the schemes that are in place across our border, Welsh businesses would be millions and millions of pounds worse off than they are by being located in Wales, because of the help that we have been able to mobilise for them. And I know the Welsh Conservative Party doesn't like to acknowledge that; it does indeed, as Alun Davies said, have only one prescription for Wales, and that is that we should copy exactly what is done by people across the border—£300 million less would have been available to businesses in Wales. Almost all the help that the Welsh Government provides, of course, goes to small and medium-sized enterprises. We took a very conscious decision not to extend rate relief to businesses with a rateable value of over £500,000, and that released tens and tens of millions of pounds that we have put into the hands of small businesses here in Wales. I know that Alun Davies welcomed the extra £30 million that we announced for the sector-specific fund in leisure, tourism and hospitality only a couple of weeks ago. And the £200 million that we have in reserve, which we will use next year, will be targeted at those businesses that exist in every high street here in Wales. And they would, absolutely, as my colleague Alun Davies says, much rather be trading and they'd much rather be earning a living than waiting for the next cheque from the Welsh Government. But while the current pandemic persists, we will make sure that, where they cannot trade, the Welsh Government will step in to assist them.