Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 2:04 pm on 7 July 2021.
Yes. In fact, in my initial response, I should have been clear that, when I talk about working with them, the retail sector, I do mean businesses and trade unions. USDAW have been very constructive in their retail recovery plan that they've proposed, and I'm actually going to be meeting with businesses and the trade union side over the next week. Because what we have been doing already is looking at what we can do here, within Wales, to make sure that we help the retail sector recover as far as possible. And the future vision relies both on what we're prepared to do, as well as what businesses are prepared to do as well, to think about the offer and how they survived in the pandemic. But it also relies on the behaviour of us as consumers. For a long time during the pandemic, people bought into buying local and supporting local traders. The challenge is that if more people move to online and remote purchasing that can have an impact on high street and in-person retail. So, we've got to think about what we're prepared to do and how people feel about going back into environments that many of us haven't been in for some time. So, there's a challenge here about personal behaviour, but we look forward to working with the retail sector, both businesses and trade unions, to make sure that there is a positive future for retail here in Wales.