Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:21 pm on 17 January 2023.
On the first substantive point that he asked about, I'd be grateful if he'd write to me about the detail of the scheme he's suggesting, rather than looking to give a three-word answer in the Chamber today.
On the challenges of reduced support around energy pricing, it's worth people being reminded that, when the UK Government talk about non-domestic customers, they're not talking about public services. So, public services are not domestic customers, but they're excluded from the support, and that will be a real challenge in budgetary terms for those services and a budgetary challenge that the Welsh Government has to meet as well.
When it comes to the responses from business groups, it's been interesting that they have been mixed. Understandably, small businesses are most concerned about the withdrawal of support. There's a range of energy-intensive businesses of small, medium and larger sizes, and I think we will see real challenges with the reduced level of support available. It's still the case that, in my conversations with businesses and trade union partners, energy costs and inflation are still at the very top of people's concerns in running businesses, then labour and skills, and that goes into some of the points about investing in the future, about actually having people to go into jobs where there are opportunities to grow those businesses, and then we still have the challenge of our trading terms with our European partners. On that, there was some modestly positive progress in conversations around the Northern Ireland protocol on data sharing. I hope there's continued common sense in our arrangements, and not a return to previous methods of communication that appeared to be more designed to worsen conditions than the likelihood of successful trade with partners.
I respect the Member for continuing to talk about free ports and making clear his position. I would, though, gently remind him that the position we have reached is not one that is entirely alien to Plaid Cymru. In the previous leadership contest, the person who currently occupies the position of Plaid Cymru leader, at that point, was talking about having more than one free port and about having a free port as a policy position in that.
Now, what a free port is and isn't can be different, because we previously had free ports in the UK when we were part of the European Union, then the Conservatives got rid of them after a different period of time. What's now being proposed isn't the same as what was originally proposed when Rishi Sunak co-authored or sponsored a policy paper. The prospectus that we've got is clear about including fair work, and that's got to be made clear as part of the—[Inaudible.]—and sustainability, things you might not have expected to have appeared if it had been done by the Conservatives on their own in the UK Government, looking to write that bid prospectus. So, it has been a sharing and a compromise between the two Governments. So, we've come to a position where there's something that we can not just live with, but then want to see the opportunities, because, as I said in response to questions from Paul Davies, there are opportunities to invest in ports in different parts of Wales. I look forward to having the professional advice from not just my officials, but input from UK Government officials as well about the nature of each of the bids that have been submitted, and I will then make a decision jointly with the UK Minister. So, it isn't that someone has a veto over the other, it's that we'll need to find a place to agree, otherwise we can't make a decision.
The scrutiny for that, I expect that we will—. As you've seen last week, there'll be a statement, there'll be an announcement, and I expect that Members will want to question me both in this Chamber, and potentially in the committee that you're a member of, on what's gone into each of those choices and how we've reached a particular position. So, I fully expect that there will be open and public scrutiny on any choice that is made. I hope that's helpful about setting out the choices that we are making and the fact that we're doing something to try to carry forward opportunities to grow the Welsh economy and not to displace activity, which I know was one of the Member's concerns.