Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 18 January 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:50, 18 January 2022

Llywydd, the impact on Welsh businesses was caused by coronavirus. That is the point that I was making, as I'm quite sure the leader of the opposition knows. Businesses in Wales were seeing the impact of the omicron variant well before there was any change in the alert level measures in Wales. That's why the £120 million that we have made available to Welsh businesses doesn't start on 27 December when the rules changed, but dates from 13 December, because we recognised that Welsh citizens were already making choices themselves because they recognised the new risks that the omicron variant posed. That's at the root of the difficulties that Welsh businesses have faced: the fact that they were dealing with a new variant of coronavirus and the impact that that was having on people's behaviour.