4. Statement by the Minister for Economy: Development Bank of Wales — Investing with ambition

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:51 pm on 25 October 2022.

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Photo of Vaughan Gething Vaughan Gething Labour 3:51, 25 October 2022

It's not a specific objective of the development bank to increase food security in the country. It's not a specific objective that we've set. However, we have set objectives around helping to transition Wales to a more sustainable economy and plans around net zero. Lesley Griffiths, as you know, is the Minister who leads on the food sector. I mentioned this last week, and Alun Davies noted his lifetime's work in supporting the food and drink sector, sometimes personally—that actually we have seen a real growth in the sector from an export point of view. But there is something also about what we do need to do, and we recognise this within the Government, in broader food security for how food is produced, where it's produced, and how local it is as well.

I'm not trying to avoid the issue; I just think that it's not the development bank that is the primary lever in doing that. It doesn't mean that projects that will help food security will not be supported. In fact, in the food and drink sector we have supported a number of projects to grow and to expand. At the economic summit it was much more about businesses in survival mode and wanting to understand what is likely to happen, and trade unions being interested in the terms and conditions of workers moving forward and what that means, but positively wanting to support businesses to have a good future. So, I think we're potentially talking at cross purposes about what the point and purpose of the summit was, because there wasn't a particular business that talked about food security in that event, and I wouldn't have necessarily expected there to be.

I do take on board your point around pension funds, both the level of debt that they had and the level of risk they had. And of course what really changed and was very unexpected just a few weeks ago is actually that Government debt changed its profile as well. So, the value of that Government debt and that Government investment was a real factor for pension funds that were looking to provide a stable return for pension holders. I certainly hope, from the point of view of businesses, pensioners, and indeed householders, that we will see more stability from the UK market. It has a real impact not just on individual families but on individual businesses, because the terms of debt available are a real factor in holding off investment in the Welsh economy.