Given their form over many years, Labour Welsh Government denials of long-standing calls for an independent public inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales have not been unexpected. However, this issue is too important to be dodged in this way. Yes, we need a UK-wide inquiry, but the people of Wales also need their Welsh Government to be held accountable.

The Welsh Government's handling of the pandemic has failed many north Wales businesses, and I say this not as a party political soundbite but because I have been inundated by desperate businesses telling me this. The economic damage wrought by the pandemic has caused the worst recession in the UK for 300 years. In response, the UK Government have provided over £400 billion of support to protect jobs and businesses, with the Welsh Government receiving its full share.

Peak UK unemployment is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, now, to be 2 million fewer than previously feared, and the unemployment rate in the UK is lower than the US, Canada, France, Italy, Spain and Australia. UK job vacancies are around 29 per cent higher than they were pre-pandemic, and the number of people in jobs has now grown for five consecutive months. UK consumer confidence has returned to pre-crisis levels. Business confidence and intentions to invest are at historically high levels, and business insolvencies in 2020 were lower than in 2019.

However, the employment rate in Wales lags behind that of the rest of the UK. Even before the pandemic hit, Wales had the lowest amount of goods or services produced by each job in all of the UK. Average weekly earnings in Wales are almost £50 behind the UK average, and, not surprisingly, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that Wales's output will not recover to pre-COVID-19 levels until months after the UK next year.

Each time the Welsh Government has announced financial support to help businesses survive the pandemic, it has excluded small bed-and-breakfast businesses. On each occasion, I've been contacted by despairing small B&B businesses unable to understand why this vital part of local tourism economies has been denied support. On each occasion, I've raised this with the Welsh Government to zero effect.

Ambiguous Welsh Government guidance following revised criteria for the payment of business grants to holiday letting businesses allowed one north Wales council to take a position that directly contradicted the practice confirmed in writing by every other north Wales council. This also directly contradicted the position made clear by Welsh Government Ministers from the outset, on the record, namely that if a business has been unable to satisfy the criteria but can prove they are a legitimate business, the local authority still has discretion to pay the grant out.

Many of these businesses asked for my help. All subsequently received their grants in five north Wales counties, but struggling, legitimate businesses in Flintshire are still being denied the help they would have received if located elsewhere, yet poor public administration by the Welsh Government has allowed this.

Since the May election, I've continued to receive e-mails from many other struggling north Wales businesses condemning the Welsh Government's lack of financial support throughout the pandemic for them, stating, for example, that the Welsh Government had stabbed them in the back and that the Welsh Government grant announcement was a 'slap in the face'.

Thanks to the UK Government's decision to procure vaccines swiftly, and the fantastic delivery of jabs into arms, Governments across the UK have now been able to safely ease the most stringent of regulations. However, the Welsh Government, which is responsible for the vaccination programme in Wales, only prioritised this after we repeatedly highlighted that it was running massively behind the rest of the UK on both first and second jabs. Even then, constituents contacted me with comments such as, 'I've received a letter today. I will have my second vaccination. I will still be up to four weeks behind my contemporaries in England in particular. I still feel that the Welsh Government is trying to win a first-vaccination race, whereas elsewhere in the UK the idea is to stop the new variant getting hold in the first place.'

Well, whenever life doesn't fit the Welsh Government's comfortable theories, it isn't the theories they doubt, it's real life. This reinforces the need for an independent public inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales. And if you don't like what I say, those are quotes from constituents' e-mails over the last 16 months. I can give you the originals if you want evidence.