Budget Priorities in Pembrokeshire

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 17 March 2021.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:01, 17 March 2021

The Welsh Government put in place some formal evaluation processes, particularly of the non-domestic rates grant support, to ensure that the funding was reaching those businesses that we intended for it to reach, and we've been keen to ensure that we have those monitoring and evaluation points built into our projects. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses in Pembrokeshire have received over £91 million from the economic resilience fund, and our other restriction-based funds. For example, our latest restrictions-based fund has seen 4,380 grants paid to businesses in Pembrokeshire, worth £14.1 million. We've also provided 628 businesses with £10.1 million of support under phases 1 and 2 of the ERF, and that's safeguarded in Pembrokeshire alone 4,585 jobs, which I think is a tremendous achievement in very difficult times. And, of course, through the loan scheme, then, through the DBW, we've provided over £5.4 million to 80 businesses in Pembrokeshire, helping to safeguard a further 915 jobs. So, there certainly is significant funding going into Pembrokeshire, but, again, there will be businesses that we have not yet been able to reach, and I'm always interested and keen to understand where those gaps in provision are. If there is further information that you can share with me about specific businesses, I'd be very interested to receive that.