Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Natasha Asghar. 

Thank you so much, Presiding Officer. Minister, it's estimated that around 7 per cent of adults in Wales are not on the internet. A large chunk of that 7 per cent are people aged 75 or over who have no connection to the internet. Just under 80 per cent of people with a limiting, long-standing illness, disability or infirmity use the internet, compared with 93 per cent of those without such conditions. So, I'm curious to know, Minister, how the Welsh Government's digital strategy will help reduce digital exclusion.

Tackling digital exclusion is one of the key aims of our strategy, and there's a number of different strands. There's our work with the UK Government on the reserved responsibility for infrastructure. I've had a number of meetings with my officials and, indeed, with the current UK Minister—I think it's Minister Lopez, in the newly rebadged DCMS—and we're looking at how they are going to meet their own obligations, and actually the fact there'll be a gap, because they expect to meet 85 per cent of the population. Now, we have to talk about how we get services and improved services to that extra 15 per cent.

As well as the connectivity and the width, we then have a range of schemes in place actually to deal with practical access, and some of that is attitude. My mother has a connection in her house and I have regularly tried to get her to use it, but that's just one of those things. She doesn't do it, whereas other people are more keen to do it. And actually, this isn't just a point about entertainment. As we all know, there's a point about work, and it's also about access to services as well. Many of our services are moving to a digital-first model, which I think is a good thing, but that does mean we need to constantly be thinking about how we equip users, the people using the service, to be able to do so effectively. That's not just the public, of course; a number of the people who need support to make sure that they're properly enabled and are able to use the system actually are staff as well. So, those are parts of the challenges we're looking to try to resolve, and I'm very keen to see further progress made in the rest of this term. 

Great, thank you, Minister. I really do appreciate the detailed answer.

Now, moving on to my second question, the UK Government's gigabit broadband voucher scheme is a fantastic initiative, helping people to combat slow broadband speeds in rural areas. Vouchers worth thousands of pounds are being given to homes and businesses to help cover the cost of installing gigabit broadband. Last year, the Welsh Government announced it was going to stop its top-up funding for the scheme because you, and I quote, said that you 'don't have the money'. How can it be, Minister, that you don't have the money to put towards this fantastic scheme, but yet the Welsh Government is happy to fork out in excess of £100 million for more politicians in this place? So, can you please elaborate on more information as to why this isn't actually happening? Thank you.

Look, I don't think it's particularly helpful or sensible to attempt to compare an entirely different issue with how we use Welsh Government budgets. If you want to have a conversation about the size and capability of this place, we could do that. When it comes to the reality of our budget, it's just undeniable—the reality is our budget is worth less in real terms, in cash terms. It's also a demand to use Welsh Government funds on an area that is plainly reserved as well. I actually had a conversation earlier today with one of your colleagues about what we are doing and what we will try to do to fill in part of that reserved responsibility where the UK Government don't intend to meet the needs of people. There are practical choices, as ever. I'd like to be constructive in responding to questions, but you really do need to recognise that this is a situation of the creation of your party in Government at the UK level. 

Okay, thank you very much for that, Minister. But it was also this Government that sent back £155 million to the UK Government because they didn't actually do their homework when it came to funding. So, let's not go down that road. I will carry on with my third question. 

Ofcom believes that approximately 15,000 premises cannot get a broadband service of at least 10 Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload speed. Openreach believes that it will be challenging to get those 15,000 properly equipped, and says it will require the industry and Governments to come together to find a solution. So, Minister, what is the Welsh Government doing to support the UK Government in ensuring that these 15,000 premises actually get an acceptable and adequate broadband speed? Thank you.

Well, I come back to this: this is a reserved responsibility. It is the responsibility of the UK Government. We are acting because we don't think it's acceptable to simply abandon those people. The UK Government's stated ambition is to provide access to 85 per cent of the population. There are a range of people who would be excluded if we did nothing in this reserved area of responsibility. If you want to look at the people responsible for not acting in this area, they're Conservative Ministers in the UK Government. That's just unarguable. It's the settlement, it's the reality. I will act with the resources that are available. I will be constructive with UK Ministers about what we can do, but Members need to recognise, in all parties, that every step we take in this area, every pound we spend will provide a benefit to people in Wales, but it'll be money that we cannot spend on areas where we are actually responsible. But we're doing this because we recognise the societal and the economic value of doing so. We could do so much more, of course, if the Conservative Government actually met their own responsibilities. 

The Plaid Cymru Spokesperson, Luke Fletcher.

Diolch, Llywydd. The Digital Inclusion Alliance Wales has published the second edition of its digital inclusion agenda, 'From Inclusion to Resilience', building on the first edition of the agenda that was introduced in early 2021, which outlined five key priorities to make Wales a digitally inclusive nation. Now, although the report outlines the very good progress that's been made by Welsh Government, despite the lack of support from UK Government, since its first publication—which has seen an expansion, of course, to include over 90 members holding six quarterly meetings with Welsh Government Ministers—it is clear that there is still some work that remains to be done.

If I can start with the first priority: embedding digital inclusion across all sectors. The report highlights the need for greater engagement with the private sector, especially small and medium-sized businesses and microbusinesses, to ensure that digital inclusion is evenly distributed across Wales. So, could I therefore ask the Minister what steps are being undertaken by the Welsh Government to encourage private sector, specifically SMEs and microbusinesses, to engage in the digital inclusion agenda? And, of course, the Minister rightly pointed out, this is all being done by Welsh Government despite the complete and utter lack of support from UK Government on this agenda.

Well, actually, the pandemic has forced a number of people to think about the way in which they work, and actually, we all know that a number of businesses had to go into the online world when they weren't necessarily there. They then had to think about the customers that will want to use that, because more customers had to use things online. And so, there's a point here about a business need and fulfillment and the fact that, actually, there's a broad trend—and there has been—of greater activity online. And that's a challenge for some of our physical infrastructure, and having vibrant high streets and places, but that trend has really accelerated as a result of the pandemic.

And I know that we talked about this before; there's both an opportunity and a risk, and the opportunity is, you're getting used to the way that there are successful, commercial operations available. You need to make sure that your staff are able to deal with that; you need to make sure that your own facility is able to deal with the demand you'll have coming in, and then think about how you're servicing the needs of your customers in doing so, and making sure that your customer information and your business information is actually secure. And it is one of the things that we do talk about with a range of business groups, who represent small and medium-sized businesses—one of their key risks is to make sure that they are capable in those areas and that they can understand where the help and support are.

Now, when you come to Business Wales, that is something that we can and do talk with businesses about. We also know that there is a growing cyber security industry in Wales. Some of those are, if you like, the big names and the big players, whether it's PricewaterhouseCoopers or whether it's Airbus or others. Whereas, actually, we also have a range of cyber security firms that specifically look to help those small and medium-sized firms to make sure that they can take advantage of the opportunities and, at the same time, keep themselves and their customers secure.

Thank you for that answer, Minister.

Of course, this work is going to be vital, especially when you consider the challenges facing SMEs up and down the country, and, of course, how do we balance that, then, with our need for a vibrant high street at the same time? Let's take a look at the retail sector as an example, the Welsh Retail Consortium announced that, despite some signs of recovery over the past 12 months, the footfall of the retail sector in Wales remains 10 per cent lower compared to this time last year. Now, couple that with the sector, like other sectors of course, being hit by high inflation and high energy costs, and all this results in a major drag for retail.

Now, we've discussed previously in the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee, the Government's intention to bring forward a strategy for the sector. When could we expect this to be published and, more importantly, how would the strategy be implemented? How will it take digital into account and will it have the necessary resources and funding to ensure that it is successful?

Yes, I'm more than happy to update—and actually, when we had a consultation event, which I attended together with the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership, with the British Retail Consortium and the Welsh Retail Consortium, and, indeed, with the trade union side, led by USDAW, it was a deliberate further engagement in our social partnership way of working. So, we looked at what this would mean for workers as well as for businesses and, actually, the survey they had at the time highlighted some of the points you've made. There's still a challenge in footfall. That isn't evenly spread out though. So, Cardiff city centre had actually done better, relative to other Welsh centres. There was also a much more significant recovery at some of the out-of-town centres as well.

So, again, it highlights some of our policy dilemmas and challenges about wanting to have vibrant city centres and high streets, and actually, that goes into some of the comments we have about where we site public services. It's one of the reasons—only one of the reasons—why, as health Minister, I was keen to invest in community pharmacy and optometry: it provides greater access to patients, but actually footfall for those centres as well. When it comes to the delivery plan for the retail strategy, I expect to publish that shortly after Easter, so early after the Easter recess, you can expect to have that published, and that will set out how we expect to deliver and how we expect to measure the success of that strategy that we have co-produced between the Government, businesses themselves and trade unions too.