16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
It's part of what we're talking about today—opportunity in the supply chain. We produced a report in 2020 that was about opportunities in the supply chain as well, and how we're able to maximise them. If Tata can make the right sort of steel in Port Talbot…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I'm hopeful that it will be a matter of weeks, not months. I've had a number of conversations within the Welsh Government and with the UK Government, so I hope that we can land an announcement, as I say, in a matter of weeks not months, because I think the…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Well, the flux in ministerial appointments has been a practical problem. There's no getting away from it: having lots of different steel Ministers, having—. I think George Freeman is in his third iteration as the science Minister. So, I think George Freeman…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
So, part of the challenge is that it isn't settled. So, there's been an announcement on reducing the number of investment zones—200 to 12 is a big difference—but the challenge still is: what will it look like? What are the parameters around it? And there are…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I think the other thing that's worth thinking about in terms of some of the changes that are still taking place is investment zones. Now, the previous leadership of the UK Government wanted to have up to 200; the current UK Government have announced that they…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I'll ask Duncan to come in on enterprise zones; he's had a range of interactions with them. But I'm just about to issue, if I haven't issued already, a statement on the future of enterprise zones. So, we're asking the ones we still have in place to carry on…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
And yet there's a lot of opportunity in both spaces as well. So, every growth deal area has a chunk of rural Wales within it. Your constituency is within the Swansea bay growth deal area, and they do look at opportunities in different parts of Wales. In north…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
So, I think it might be helpful for me to write with some follow-up, because I don't think you'll get everything you might want necessarily, and it might make sense for us to get some shared correspondence with each of the growth deal areas for the committee…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
There's continuing to make the pragmatic case to the UK Government that this is the wrong approach, and we shouldn't give that up. We shouldn't just accept that this is now hard-wired in, there's no opportunity to change. Think about the shared prosperity…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
No, my concerns haven't eased. I think my concerns are being played out in reality. I think whether you're talking about the shared prosperity fund or the broader approach that includes levelling-up funds as well, on the shared prosperity fund, you still have…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I'm more than happy to write to you to clarify that, what DBW do and then our overall approach to doubling the sector and where we're seeing the growth in employee-owned businesses.
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Well, I'm not sure we have different figures, because, at the start of the Government term, there were 30 that met the definition, my understanding is that that has now increased by 19 to 49, with another 10 in talks in the pipeline. So, if all of those got…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Well, if I deal with one of those and ask Duncan to deal with the private sector leverage point. The development bank have compared themselves against the business-as-usual approach and, on that, they haven't met their headline target, but, of course, it's…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
So, we have regular and really constructive and open conversations with both steel unions, steel businesses and actually, on an official level, there's been a good level of dialogue between my officials and those in what will now be the new Department for…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
So, initially, in the first four weeks—so, it's not been open for a very long time—we have 10 completed applications and another 25 in progress. On one of those completed applications, there's support of £1.5 million—so, a significant project that's going…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Yes, I think the green business loans scheme is a really important intervention, but it's a pilot. So, we're not suggesting that this on its own will decarbonise the whole of the economy in Wales—it plainly won't. But it will kickstart a range of people into…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I think it's interesting that this is both a bottom line activity, where there are opportunities to reduce your bottom line, as well as areas to expand into for business opportunity. It's also partly driven by customer behaviour as well. Within a range of…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Well, I think the last time I checked there were over 4,500 businesses in Wales that had signed up successfully to the green growth pledge, but it's an area that Duncan—forewarning; I'm going to come to Duncan to give you some more detail on what that looks…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
The rolling forward of the energy bills discount scheme is helpful insofar as it goes, but it's one more quarter of support, and that's a problem. The potential cliff edge that businesses have has moved forward. I'm not sure that that's going to help every…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Around Holyhead, you're right; Kier construction are our preferred bidder. They've come through the tender process, and we've got the outlining and the design for a BCP that we're working through with them. We've also got a bit more data from HMRC, so there's…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Those are risks, but those things aren't nailed on and certain. A large amount of my time—more than I thought at the start of this Senedd term—has been taken up on borders and ports. There's been significant trade dislocation already, a significant increase…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
Yes, they have got a role, and it's envisaged in the innovation strategy. They have got an important role. So, first of all, they've got a convening role for the whole of the sector. And part of their mission is around innovation and research, but they're not…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
In some of those areas—. Let's think about net-zero skills Wales; actually, that also links back to our broader net-zero plan. There were deliberate conversations, not between officials in my department and the climate change department, but we had…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I think it makes it very clear. You've got the four missions: you've got the economy; you've got education; you've got health and well-being; and you've got climate and nature. We're setting out four broad missions, and then there's the challenge about how…
16 Mawrth 2023 , Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee
Gwaith Craffu Cyffredinol ar Waith y Gweinidogion - Gweinidog yr Economi
I think we've got a key role. We've published and led on the innovation strategy. It's a strategy for the whole Government. But it is also about the ongoing conversations we have with colleagues in all of those sectors. I discuss, as well as the education…
