Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 19 January 2022.
When it comes to a future strategy, we are looking at what could take place in a range of different sectors. So, we're looking at a retail strategy, and we're looking at the strategy—to revisit it—for the visitor economy. That in itself will make a difference for a range of people in the hospitality sector. The two sectors are obviously linked to a significant regard. I'm also entirely open to see whether we need to do more around the events section of that, or, indeed, the night-time economy specifically. So, I'm open-minded about where we can have a useful and productive conversation. But we start from a good basis, because we do have regular engagement with people who lead and run those businesses, and there are honest conversations about challenges as well as about the levers available to us to support them.
When it comes to the second part of your question about COVID passes, I think a number of the assertions made by the Member are simply not correct. When it comes to the introduction of COVID passes, it was on the basis that this was a useful way to manage risk and that it would help to keep businesses open for longer, because the alternative was that, to manage the public health position, there would have been further interruption and potential closures in sectors. It was about avoiding those closures and keeping those businesses open. The fact that we nevertheless had to take further steps, including the recent measures, doesn't mean that COVID passes have failed; it actually shows the strength and the impact of the omicron wave in particular in overtopping all of those defences. When you see the eye-wateringly high numbers of cases that came about, I just think it is a wholly erroneous and not terribly intellectually honest argument to say that COVID passes failed because we nevertheless had to take further measures to protect public health. I look forward to engaging with the public health advice on when COVID passes are no longer a proportionate measure to help protect public health, but there's no evidence to date it's had a significant impact on the profitability of businesses where they have been introduced.