5. Will the Minister provide an update on the implementation of the Welsh Government's plan for employability and skills? OQ58185

Yes. We are making good progress and have already implemented several key actions contained within the Welsh Government's plan for employability and skills, including the successful launch of Jobs Growth Wales+ and the more recent launch of ReAct+.

Thank you for that answer. Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Engage for Change project and also Project SEARCH internship at Cardiff University, where I met the hugely dedicated team that are at work there, and Engage to Change intends to leave a legacy for people with learning disabilities, specific learning difficulty and/or autism. And I saw that they placed in work people with autism and with learning disabilities. It's an impressive project. The Minister recognised the importance of job coaching for people with learning disabilities and autism within the employability and skills plan that was published. What was raised with me at that meeting, though, was plans that the Welsh Government has for job coaching support for people aged over 25 who wish to work, and who may currently be social services users and outside the remit of supported apprenticeships. So, what further plans does the Minister have for those aged over 25 in those circumstances?

Thank you for the question. I'm pleased to say that the new ReAct+ programme does provide personalised support for those persons with barriers to employment. So, taking the service the extra mile and providing support to coach individuals into work is part of what we expect it to deliver. I recently met more specifically on this with Learning Disability Wales, who represent the learning disability sector, as the Member will know, to hear first-hand about the issues that disabled people face, and actually the point that you raise now about the support and coaching and the mentorship that is often needed to help people into work is part of what they raised with us. So, it is definitely part of what's informed the approach to the employability and skills plan, and I expect it to be part of the service. We'll obviously then need to understand whether it's actually meeting the needs of people as we want it to. So, I think the set-up and the policy is there, and our understanding of the need is definitely there as well. We now need to make sure it's delivering what we want it to in practice. I'd be more than happy to engage with the Member as that programme continues to make sure that it is actually doing what we want it to do.

A clear commitment is made in 'Stronger, fairer, greener Wales: a plan for employability and skills' to support and encourage employers to create high-quality employment whilst improving the offer to workers. One method through which you plan to do this is by delivering funding through the Development Bank of Wales to support businesses to create and sustain new jobs. Now, sustaining jobs is exactly what the UK Government has striven to do in Llandudno, by investing £400,000-worth of community renewal funding in a winter wage subsidy, so that hotels and other tourism businesses in our town can retain staff out of season. Now, it's not only in Llandudno, but across Wales the tourism sector is facing an employment crisis and that has led to UKHospitality Cymru stating that

'Ongoing hospitality recruitment and skills issues in Wales are limiting the visitor experience, damaging business viability and threatening to derail the industry recovery.'

Given the commitment in your plan to deliver funding to sustain jobs, will you possibly consider replicating the work that the UK Government has done in their scheme? Let's have this across Wales from this Welsh Government. Thank you.

As ever, we have a challenge in broad wage subsidy schemes across the whole sector. Actually, in my discussions with people in the visitor economy—and I'm meeting the visitor economy group next week—they regularly point out that they do have a challenge with both skills within the sector, but they also point out that they have a challenge in recruiting people to the sector. That's part of the reason why, together with them, we've been engaged in a campaign to get people to reconsider careers in the sector, not just seasonal employment. So, the Experience Makers campaign is one that we have jointly promoted with them.

They're also a sector that's been affected by some of the changes in the economy, both pre and post pandemic. So, in the hospitality sector in particular—and I am a regular visitor to Llandudno because of the range of political events that take place there on a stunningly regular basis—actually, you'll find lots of people in hospitality are from European countries, and we've seen a reduction in those people who are working not just in this sector, but in others too. That's one of the changes that is taking place. Those people are unlikely to return from Europe to the UK. We also need to see some of the changes that are taking place in terms of people leaving the labour market after the pandemic too.

So, there's a range of difficult issues for us to understand, and then to see how far we can make a difference. That's why the employability and skills plan looks at those people who are furthest away from the labour market, because the DWP—[Inaudible.]—those people are more likely to be job ready. So, we expect to work together with the UK Government and its agencies in this area to think about how we make the biggest difference with the money and the responsibilities that we have, and I'd be more than happy to update the Chamber as we look to make progress on the employability and skills plan.