Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 17 March 2021.
I'm very happy to debate the comparative performance during the pandemic of Governments on health issues, but my question was about support for businesses and the apparent gap between your statement, that full use of the consequential funding for Wales had been made, when the figures from Wales Fiscal Analysis suggested that the figures were far greater.
After the Welsh Government issued revised grant eligibility criteria for self-catering businesses last April, Isle of Anglesey County Council's chief executive told me that the change in the guidance was designed to ensure that councils did not pay grants to people who had simply switched their property from the council tax register to business rates in order to avoid paying the council tax premium on second homes, and that the council is using the discretion allowed by the guidance to make sure that they pay genuine self-catering businesses and are not automatically disqualifying applications simply because the businesses could not show that the property generates at least 50 per cent of the owner's annual income.
When I previously wrote to you regarding eligibility, you also confirmed in writing that local authorities are not obligated to withhold payment, if they're otherwise satisfied that the application is from a legitimate self-catering business. However, a view has recently been expressed to me that local authorities should only use discretion on whether or not to award a grant where a self-catering business applicant falls just short of one of the three criteria, and they would expect local authorities to use their discretion only in such circumstances. For clarity, will you therefore confirm that both your original response to me and that of Anglesey's chief executive still stand?