7. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the effects of COVID on town-centre businesses in South Wales West? OQ57835

COVID has accelerated the trend we're seeing, with the change in the use of town and city centres and in particular, during the height of the pandemic, it obviously reduced demand for high-street retail. That's why, in January 2020, we launched the Transforming Towns programme to help support town-centre businesses, and that is now being led by my colleague the Deputy Minister for Climate Change.

Diolch, Weinidog. When prompted to rank what they would like to see in their local town centre or high street, thriving small, independent shops came out on top in a survey conducted by the Federation of Small Businesses for its recent report, 'A Vision for Welsh Towns'. Even before COVID, town centres in my region were struggling, and the pandemic has had an especially negative effect on small and family-run high-street retail businesses. The support given to these local businesses during the pandemic has, of course, helped them weather that particular storm, but now although restrictions are easing, footfall is still low and the bills are now really piling up.

One of my constituents has run a shop in Neath town centre for much of the last 10 years. He said that with support ending and high business rates on top of that, they're really having a tough time; as sky-rocketing energy bills are presenting another headache, he said lower business rates would really help. As high business rates are compounding the challenges that town centres face, will the Minister consider increasing rates relief for town-centre retail businesses and heed the FSB's call to urgently publish its review of the business rates system and outline proposals for substantive reform that works for small local businesses? Diolch.

So, business rates reform is a matter for the Minister for Finance and Local Government. When it comes to the rates relief system, of course, we've announced rates relief for a range of businesses and we'd encourage businesses to make sure that they take up their entitlement to the 50 per cent rates relief. Now, having had, essentially, no business rates in a range of those areas to then having any business rates return will be a challenge for some businesses, compounded, of course, by the cost-of-living crisis, which is something for both the customers of those businesses as well as the businesses themselves, which will have their own energy bills as well.

So, the retail vision that we're working on is actually even more important, I think, about what we can do together to make sure that we do have a thriving and positive future for retail, both large and small. And, of course, when it comes to the business of how we have effective town centres, it's partly about a sense of place and what people think makes the place they live in special, as well as where you might visit as well. That's why we're trialling something called NearMeNow to provide small businesses and high streets with greater digital marketing capability. Because actually, as well as physical footfall, we know that lots of those businesses didn't have a digital presence pre the pandemic, and it's something that can generate footfall if people can collect items from those businesses and then look at other purchases while they're there. We continue to work with not just the FSB, but others on what the future vision for retail will be, and it's definitely entwined with the work that the Deputy Minister is leading on climate change, but also my portfolio on how we do generate a greater return for thriving high streets and places.