Oral - The Economy

I undertook to update Members at the earliest opportunity on the economic summit that was held on Thursday.

The summit was attended by Welsh Assembly Government Ministers, the Secretary of State for Wales and leaders from business, trade unions and local government. Following an open and frank discussion about the challenges ahead, we were united in our desire to find the solutions that are needed within the powers of the National Assembly.

The precise duration and effects of the global financial and economic crisis are still impossible to predict. Nevertheless, it is clear that Wales and the Welsh economy face testing times. The summit reinforced the determination of all sections of the Welsh economy to pull together to come through in the best possible shape for the upturn.

We recognise the positive approach of the Confederation of British Industryand Wales Trades Union Congress to what should be done. The Government was able to set out the initiatives and policies we have already in place and we set out in our communiqué following the meeting what further steps we believe that can be taken. We agreed to set up workstreams to look at how those steps might be taken forward.

During the summit we explained that we have in place some policies that would make Wales more resilient in the short term and competitive in the longer term. Some £527 million of European funding has been committed to a range of beneficial projects, including: an investment of £35 million in the ReACT programme to assist redundant workers to secure a new job or training; £68 million in the Genesis II programme to help people to overcome some of the barriers preventing them from finding work; £60 million in the skill build project to provide basic skills training, work placements and advice.

The significantly expanded workforce development programme announced in 'Skills That Work For Wales’ will provide individual businesses with rapid advice from our national team of human resource division advisors and other providers.
Flexible support for business is a new approach to business support with. The application process is more streamlined and there is less bureaucracy. The £32 million Want2Work project will help some 14,000 unemployed people obtain employment or training. Finance Wales is providing increased funding for Welsh enterprises to access credit which is currently in short supply as a result of the turmoil in global financial markets. However, despite these achievements, we are not, and will never be, complacent.

The summit was our chance to listen very closely to the issues facing the business community and the financial sector in Wales during a time of considerable difficulty for economies world wide. We need to shape our response around the concerns and direct experience of the people at the sharp-edge of the economy if we are truly to help businesses and individuals cope with the downturn.

After the summit, I joined the First Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales to announce the immediate actions agreed at the summit. These are the action points set out in the communiqué. First, we in the Assembly Government will continue to work closely with the Secretary of State for Wales and the UK Government to implement UK-wide measures. We will continue our discussions with the other devolved administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We cannot ignore the fact that we are in a global crisis, which means that nations must work together.

We will develop our channels to improve intelligence between business and Government. We also need to move into the implementation phase of our discussions. To drive this forward, we will be scheduling further meetings of the all-Wales summit over the coming weeks.

Our third action is to create a forum for the Welsh banking and finance sector. That will investigate what additional advice and support can be given to Welsh businesses. Fourthly, as the Minister for Finance and Public Service Delivery has already announced, we will be helping small and medium-sized enterprises with their cashflow, by improving procurement processes and making payments faster across the public sector. We will also review our new flexible support for business service to ensure that it delivers what it was designed for—tailored solutions for individual businesses, even as their circumstances and the economic environment change.

We will support businesses unable to afford salary costs and workers who are threatened with redundancy. We agreed at the summit to look at current and future projects to ensure that convergence and competitiveness funding is having maximum impact.

Our final immediate action is to scrutinise our capital programme to look at bringing forward construction opportunities. We are starting with the land bank within my department and the Department for Health and Social Services, to see whether we can release land for development. The focus will be on affordable housing to meet our social objectives for this agenda and tackle the particular problems being faced by the residential construction sector.

Our partners in the private sector share our belief that these actions represent major steps forward in supporting the Welsh economy during this difficult period of global financial and economic uncertainty. As I explained earlier, we have already set up work streams to consider, and respond to, the action points agreed at the summit.

The devolution settlement means that, for the first time during an economic crisis, we can take action together in Wales, for Wales. I give my assurance to Members that Ministers across the Assembly Government will do everything within their power, using every lever that they can, to put Wales in the best possible position during the downturn, into the recovery and beyond.