 Y Bodrodad, thank you for joining me at this week's Welsh Government press conference. This morning I want to set up the action that we're taking to support the Welsh economy, creating better jobs in stronger businesses, narrowing the skills divide, backing innovation and selling Wales to the wider world. Our economy is facing enormous headwinds from high inflation and dramatic supply problems I watering energy costs and labour shortages. This is tied up with the hit to family finances in this cost of living crisis and the consequences of multiple austerity budgets. It's precisely because we face such threats that we'll prioritise offering as much certainty and stability as we can to businesses here in Wales. We're working to strengthen what works in Wales to secure and create jobs and to open up new options for businesses from local opportunities and public contracts to major export and investment. In recent months, the Welsh Government has had a busy programme of international engagement to ensure that we're in the fight for investment in what is a crowded and competitive field. Later today, the First Minister will update Senedd members on this Government's work to promote Wales to the wider world. The First Minister, my Cabinet colleagues and I have been pleased to welcome several ambassadors and other representatives to CARDIS to discuss issues of mutual interest between our nations. In our engagements, our focus is squarely on what we can do together to enhance partnerships between our nations for the benefit of people here in Wales. Next week, I'll be attending the Paris Air Show, the biggest aerospace event in the world, to bang the drum for our leading Welsh aerospace businesses. From the wings at Airbus and Broughton in North Wales, through the impressive new and innovative technologies our space sector companies are developing across the country. The sector plays a significant role in our economy by employing tens of thousands of people across Wales. My message in all my engagements with business, potential investors and representatives of government remains clear. Wales is a great place to do business, and this Welsh Government is a stable, accessible Government and a partner that businesses can trust. To secure our vision for the Welsh economy, the decisions we take are focused on creating an environment where more young people feel confident about planning ambitious futures closer to home. With an ageing population, meeting this test is more important than ever. I'll be working with each economic region here in Wales to consider how their distinctive offer can help to create that compelling offer for young people here in Wales. To turn that vision into a reality, we're also focused on creating new jobs in the new green industries and services of the future. The Welsh Government needs the UK Government to be a partner with us in taking this work forward. On freeports we've proven a willingness to stand by mature negotiations within a partnership of equals to progress a Welsh freeport programme that we believe works for our economy. I would welcome a similar level of dialogue with the UK Government on the steel industry and the interests of providing the certainty and the clarity needed to secure a strong future for the sector. I've recently met with the chair of Tata Steel UK, Henryc Adam, his comments to the media this morning and last night underscore how urgent this issue is. Stronger businesses need access to finance, and I'm pleased to report that the Development Bank of Wales is going from strength to strength in providing innovative, responsive support to businesses here in Wales. Across a year, when economic conditions and uncertainties led to many high-street lenders to be more risk-averse, the Development Bank has helped to keep a vital flow of accessible finance available to businesses right across Wales. The Welsh Government took bold action in creating the UK's first regional bank with a service that is able to act at scale whilst understanding the needs of the Welsh economy and our businesses. The broad suite of funds offered by the Development Bank of Wales have helped hundreds of businesses to leverage investments and to secure the funding that they need to invest and grow. I would encourage businesses to consider whether the bank will support their next steps, especially as they explore how to decarbonise and how to preserve their bottom line. Our universities are at the heart of our research, development and innovation mission. Last Wednesday I was pleased to attend a ceremony to mark the start of work to build the Innovation Matrix, a new centre for digital innovation and enterprise at the University of Wales, Trinity and David's new campus at SA1 in Swansea. Funded through a strategic partnership between the university and the Swansea Bay City Deal, which includes significant funding from the Welsh Government, the Innovation Matrix will encourage and support the development of a sustainable innovation-led economy, which is based upon knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurship. Much of the funding for innovation since the beginning of devolution came from EU structural funds. Following our departure from the EU and the loss of EU funds to Wales, we've taken difficult decisions to prioritise the support where it's needed most. The Welsh Government doesn't hold all the levers and can't simply replace the EU R&D funding pound-for-pound. In my discussions with the UK Government Science Minister George Freeman, I've set out clearly our position on the problem that we face. As yet, there has not been a definitive solution forthcoming. So today I'm calling again on the UK Government to bring forward a solution without further delay. In the meantime, the Welsh Government is doing what we can to support Welsh organisations. Last week, together with my colleague, the Minister for Climate Change, I announced a £30 million package of investment to boost innovation in Wales. This funding would help us to deliver on our new innovation strategy. And support Welsh organisations to develop and embed new and innovative products and services to help improve people's lives. To grow the economy and to address the climate and nature emergency. These are just some of the actions that this Welsh Government is taking to create the stronger, fairer and greener Wales that we all want to see. Thank you, Diolch yn fawr. I'll now take some questions from journalists. And I think we're going to start on Zoom, and then we'll eventually come back to people in the room. So I'm going to start with Elia Gwadr from BBC Wales. Wales has seen the largest increase in employment over the last year. How concerned are you about these figures? I've seen the Labour Force figures, the Labour Force survey figures the ONS have published today. And we are obviously concerned about what the figures show, whilst we're also looking at some confounding data as well. So on the one hand, and these figures are volatile, they're subject to revision as you know, we're concerned about whether this is a blip or the start of a genuine change in trend. And so the concerning points around the fact that there does appear to have been lots of employment, that there is a genuine and continuing challenge with economic inactivity rates, is a real concern for us. So whilst the UK economy won't go into recession, we know there's difficult ground ahead. We also, though, the confounding point that I refer to is over the period of devolution, the growth in the economy has outpaced Scotland, Northern Ireland and most English regions apart from London and the South East. And actually on current PAYE dates that only covers employees rather than self-employed, we're actually seeing growth. So the challenge of that is we're seeing a higher rate that we would expect to see when we compare the labour force survey things. So we do need to work that through to then understand the choices that we need to make. I actually think the overall picture isn't any different, though. We know we've got a challenge in a range of areas. We know it's affecting there to be more challenge when the last part of the energy support scheme was drawn for businesses and it still means there have to be UK-wide choices made as well as choices that we could and should quite rightly make it. And secondly, on a different subject, when a council are looking to change their planning rules to make it harder for people to have second homes in the area, are you as a government doing enough to deal with the housing shortage in Wales? Well, as you know, we've got commitments to look at nationally as second homes, local authorities have powers that is a matter for them to address whether they've got their own mandate and their own responsibility. What we want to see is an increase in housing supply for where we know there's real need. That's why we've got commitments in our programme for government to not just improve housing supply but also the quality of housing too as well. And the quality of housing really does matter. So the retrofit programme we have is really important from a climate perspective for the quality of accommodation. That makes a big difference in a number of areas. We have a challenge and a balance of the market when it comes to housing. To make sure housing is accessible for local people and to make sure that if, for example, you have the benefit of a thriving tourism sector, you still have a balance in thriving communities and housing supply and availability is a key part of that. We're working through that with both local authorities and the partners to the cooperation agreement, but we do know that there is a real challenge. It could be helped again on a UK level when it comes to the sort of housing additions we want to see and then making sure that we build enough homes that are generally available for local people in whatever part of the country they have to live in. Thank you. We'll now go to Dean Thomas from ITV Wales. Good morning, Minister. With the headline figure of unemployment rising in Wales, we also hear the news of Tafnall's delivery service going into administration over 2,000 jobs across the UK at risk there. A number of those employees are in South Wales in Newport. What is the Welsh Government doing to help those jobs that are at risk and has the Welsh Government been in touch with the company? My officials will be in touch with the company. What we have done, you've seen this in the food sector where we've had redundancy events, Teleravallee Foods, Two Sisters in Anglesey, but also the consultation that's taking place with Avara Foods as well based in Monmouthshire. We're looking to work with companies in advance in making choices when they've made choices or when they've gone into administration. We've always provided support that both works with what the UK Government could and should do through the Department for Work and Pensions, and I should say that local relationships in Wales are good with their staff on the ground. So it's about the support they can get from the UK Government. It's also about the support they can get from us, and in particular our two programmes, Communities of Work Plus, so our React Plus programme helps people to acquire new training and opportunities and we've been able to provide job at fairs as well. When it comes to logistics businesses, actually there's still a need for people in that sector. So we'll want to work with the company and with the staff and with staff representatives to make sure we can do all we can between both governments to try to secure alternative employment. I think this goes to some of the challenges we face in the economy. We know there'll be businesses that will struggle. We know there'll be some businesses that will not operate through the rest of this year, and there'll be a real cause of concern for people running and leading those businesses as well as people in those jobs. In other sectors of the economy, we'll still see growth. So that's why the economic picture is really challenging for the year ahead. That's why I spoke about the headwinds we face. So I don't think this will be the last significant unemployment event in Wales or across the UK and then just secondly, on the comments made by the leadership at Tata, what do you fear are the concerns if the company doesn't get the support that it's asking for to decarbonise? Well look, there's a number of things that need to be in place and these are state secrets. There's been a long run call from the whole steel sector to do something about industrial energy prices. Prices in the UK are significantly above France and Germany so our main European competitor economies and industrial economies, it's easier to produce steel and it's cheaper to be steel in those countries. That's one of the concerns. There's an ongoing concern around carbon. You'll have heard what President Biden said and we refer to trying to lock out dirty steel and the deal that the US did with the European Union. We want to see competition take place on a base that is fair to steel producers here and so actually understanding the carbon cost of steel is really important as well we think. And there is then the sort of deal to be done on what co-investment looks like between the UK government and any steel company on investing in a greener form of steel production. But also then has policy consequences I think for what happens to scrap metal in the UK. We actually export lots of scrap metal out of the UK and if we're going to have more recycled steel production then there's got to be a policy choice made about retaining more of that scrap metal within the UK. So there's a number of choices there and a policy. I mean all of those have consequences for jobs and investment. So this has been a conversation I've been taking place for several years. You remember way back when Kwazi Kwating wasn't just in government but he was actually the base secretary the conversations were taking place then when Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson were still in number 10 and number 11 down his street. So there's a real need to make some choices and to provide that certainty because steel really is a strategic asset for the whole UK and you can't have a significant steel production within the UK without having a future steel production here in south Wales or a matter to people of trust when shopping too. So there are choices that I believe need to be made and you can't I believe wait for a general election for those choices to be made. So this UK government needs to make choices that are in the interests of all of us and the sort of greener future we want to have where that steel will come from and how it's actually provided and produced. Thank you, Dean. Now I've got Jordan Howell from LBC who is in the room. Jordan. Thank you minister. Another topic in the headlines today is obviously the Covid inquiry getting underway today. Now we know the Welsh Government will contribute to that as well as other stakeholders here. There won't be a Wales specific inquiry we know that already. Now the first module of the Covid inquiry focuses on resilience and preparedness for the pandemic. How resilient and how prepared was the Welsh Government for the pandemic? So I think the starting point is to recognise that the inquiry is a huge important event for all of us but particularly for those bereaved families and people who are still living with harm from the pandemic and I know they're starting the inquiry today by hearing the voices of those bereaved families and I think it's really important that that does take place because that sets the context for why the inquiry is taking place and my thoughts really are with all those people who suffered loss in the pandemic and I hope that the inquiry will provide them with answers that they're seeking. When it comes to your second question of preparedness that's a question for the inquiry to examine and determine. What I don't want to do is to try to half answer inquiry questions here when I'll be going to give evidence on what will the First Minister both in this first stage inquiry and I expect that I'll be invited to attend on future occasions too. We will obviously not just go through the plan but the resources and what that looks like both here in Wales and across the UK. It's the right place to do it and to think about the context of the time on which we are making all those choices in advance the pandemic as well as the really difficult choice that all of us had to make during the time of the pandemic itself. But I'll say my primary thoughts today are with those families who won't just be having a day to day of reflection and difficulty but throughout the inquiry period and no doubt for some of them. And just my second point on that you mentioned the families affected there they will be the ones that continue to call for a Wales-specific COVID inquiry. Do you, the First Minister of the Welsh Government stand by wholeheartedly the commitment we'll hear from everybody in Wales that's been affected and that everything that's happened in Wales will be fully scrutinised by this committee? Well, we want there to be full scrutiny of the story here in Wales with the choices we made. We want that to be properly examined within the context of the UK decisions are definitely affected choices we made here in Wales. But also we have agreed as you know on a cross-party basis for a Senedd committee to be established so that after each element of the inquiry they call in the modules they'll run a report on a section of what happened produce a report and then the Senedd cross-party committee will be able to look at that and decide if there are areas that they want to look at in more detail that haven't been covered by the inquiry. And I think that's a sensible way forward and I'm pleased we've reached agreement on that. It will also mean that all of the evidence that the UK inquiry has gathered and published will be directly available to the Senedd itself as well. And I think that's a process that I think should work in giving people assurance that there really will be a public mechanism for any additional scrutiny that is required to take place here in Wales. But I think it's a sensible approach that we're taking and we are absolutely committed to both being open and transparent for the UK inquiry and should the Senedd determine there are things it wants to look at as well to do the same here. Thank you. Will Hayward, who is online. Thank you Minister. The First Minister has said Wales is a better place for England to do business. So can you just explain why unemployment is rising in Wales but falling in other parts of the UK? We're talking about the environment for businesses to make choices and for them to understand the sort of partnerships they have with us here in Wales. And this is a regular message we hear from business organisations. In a variety of sectors from the event sector to manufacturing investments to the tech sector that is making more investments here in Wales as well. And that's because we've managed to create something here in Wales not that we have tools like the Development Bank and others but actually the nature of our relationships are mature and they're stable. And that's the point that we're definitely making. In other parts of the UK we don't have the ability to have the same conversation with local authority leaders who are now even better at collaborating with each other within the four regions. And I think there's a growing successor referred to the Swansea bay city deal area and at the same time that doesn't get into an unhelpful and competitive relationship with the Welsh Government as well and the fact that we have mature relationships with business partners and trade unions and that is an environment where certainty can be provided on the Welsh Government doing what it says it will do as a trusted partner and not underrun through lots of different hoops. Actually the confounder and the real outlet continues to be London and the South East which I think is more than just UK Government relationships and London itself is well ahead of every other area of the UK when it comes to economic output. Sorry, you didn't necessarily explain why an employment was rising in Wales but falling across the rest of the UK but I want to ask you a different question if I may. Mr Mark Drakeford has said he'll be stepping down within the next 12 months. Do you have ambitions to be the first minister and will you be running for the later leadership when the time comes? When the time comes any candidate who wishes to put themselves forward will have lots of opportunities to answer your questions. There isn't a vacancy and I have a job to do here in the Government and I'm not going to get blown off course but I appreciate the attempt to do so. The next question in the room is from Claire Baud or I hope I've answered correctly from Bauer Media. So going off the unemployment figures again today the Welsh Government's servitives have said high business rates are one of the reasons to blame for the rising unemployment in Wales. Why do you think unemployment rates are rising? I don't think there's any objective evidence to support the Conservative tackle on this and that's just a bit of a nonsense story actually when you look at where we are you look at some of the challenges that are taking place look at the food sector you look at what's happened there and lots of that has been about energy costs and broader inflation. I've also said to sisters for example said that the change in trading conditions post Brexit is also a factor as well but the reason why I'm more concerned about what might happen at the end of this quarter when the last part of the UK energy support come to an end is that energy costs are a real challenge in the here and now for businesses and because inflation remains stubbornly high higher than the bank of in than expected actually that's a real risk for a range of businesses and a range of different sectors if you go back to Liz Truss and Quarting's period in office that then introduced an immediate increase in interest rates put off lots of business investment and business investment is still a real challenge across the UK it made it harder and more expensive to get business investment and we're still living with some of that reality in the here and now so the challenges we face if you exclude London and the South East there's more similarity than difference in the rest of the UK and I said at the top of the questions we want to understand more about the labour force survey statistics they are subject to revision and I'd say the confounding picture is that on PYE data it covers employees our figures are relatively strong so those two things don't necessarily add up so we do understand more about what's happened there and at the same time there are real challenges for us that we need to have intervention and support here in Wales and we do also need UK Government action too So the Welsh NHS continues to struggle dentistry in Wales is on its knees and families up and down the country are struggling to feed themselves how much of a priority is it for the Welsh Government to give all this money to projects like the innovation matrix and appearances at the Paris air show and how do you plan to justify that to people across Wales who are struggling to put more resources into the NHS here in Wales than ever before it's a larger portion of the Welsh Government's budget than ever before and we also continue to invest in preventative services across local Government social care and others and our challenge is given the last 13 years of budget settlements that have reduced the real terms value of the Welsh Government budget and then the challenges of inflation the cost of living costs on top we have an even bigger problem in how we continue to have decent properly funded public services and how we support the economy here in Wales as well and you can't just flee the pitch when it comes to these opportunities to support the economy here in Wales I think people do want a vision of the fact that a Government believes there's economic activity here in Wales we can build on and we couldn't just should invest in more of that including the really high value jobs in this sector if you went to North East Wales and you said the Government shouldn't be supporting the aerospace sector in Paris I think you get a pretty robust response from people not just those directly employed by Airbus but in that broader sector they understand the importance of it and you'll see the same message in other parts of Wales as well the Government needs more than one thing whilst at the same time making a clear argument we couldn't should have more investment on a UK basis or a policy in skills and in business investment across the UK and not having competition on those areas that it evolved skills, policy being an obvious one would help all of us to get to the point of a positive part that I talked about earlier we don't actually want to have a fight but we can have a deal we'd much rather be partnered and get on doing what we can all do to improve the economic picture and that of course has a direct benefit that will be online as well Yes, thank you Minister Yes, I wanted to ask going back to Tata Steel obviously you mentioned they are currently in discussions with the UK Government over financial aid to help with decarbonise which is currently quite a question mark over the future of the Port Albert Steelworks they obviously the UK Government offered 300 million What support does the Welsh Government stand ready to give Tata to help to decarbonise Tata Steelworks and hopefully keep the Steelworks in Port Albert Well, we're committed to the future of a thriving steel sector in Wales including at Port Albert it's a significant employer direct and all of those jobs that are aligned on it and actually when you look at the offer from the Celtic Freeport bid and the jobs it can create actually you want to see more steel production of the right type of steel being produced locally to go into those opportunities both in the offshore energy production but also in the potential to improve and increase high value manufacturing near to where you want power to land and to come in so it's a key importance to the future of the economy what we are doing in our regular conversations with both this company but other steel companies as well and trade unicide and with UK ministers is we know that the key us and the key choices are made at a UK level we can't resolve industrial and energy prices here but we know that's a key us we can't resolve a carbon border adjustment mechanism that works with other economies whether in the US or the European Union that's for the UK government to agree with partners as well we aren't in the position to deliver the sort of the scale of co-investment that might be needed to deliver a change in the way steel is produced what we can do, what we have always done both with Tata and other significant employers is to look at where we can be positive in particular around skills to help people to shift and to improve the jobs they do and if the nature of their work has changed how we can co-invest with the company in the skills of the workforce and to be fair Tata have always value that as indeed have other businesses too so we stand ready to do the things that we can do and the areas that we are responsible for as well as continuing to make the case for a healthy and positive future for the steel sector here in South Wales and it's key important as a sovereign asset for the wider UK Thank you and the second question is that you mentioned the loss of EU structural funds then to Wales following Brexit the report by Audit Wales earlier this month showed that Wales still has about 500 billion of EU funding that needs to be spent by the end of this year or it could be lost how confident are you that some of this money will go to projects in Wales designed to boost the economy I'm as confident as I can be because that's the point and the purpose for which structural funds were used and the positive is that that 500 million pounds is allocated it's earmarked for products to do just that to help boost the economy and our broader prospects here in Wales of course that's money we won't be getting in the future and if we were still within either the EU structural funds programme or indeed if you can keep this promise we would be spending money from a new programme and that money would also be supporting more investment here in Wales investment in people in skills, in innovation as well as some of the broader challenges we still have on infrastructure too so we will do everything we could and should do and well we are to be transparent about how that money is spent there the process for us to make sure we do so and I look forward to further centre scrutin on what we actually are doing on making best use of the end of the structural funds programme thank you Laura the final set of question is from David Nicholson good morning on Tata Steel are you frustrated with the Westminster Government's slowness in responding to Tata's approach for financial help and on financial help is there a figure you can quantify for the support given by the Welsh Government to Tata Steel no I don't think it will be helpful for me to start producing figures or to try to think of the top of my head about the amount of support over an indefined period for Tata but we do have provided support on skills in the past as we have done to a range of other companies when it comes to the UK Government it is frustrating that there hasn't been a conclusion to a long running conversation as I said when quality quality was still in government and the base sector this conversation was going on for a period of time anyway not being able to reach agreement is a negotiation that is two-way and I accept and understand that but the churn in UK Ministers has a real consequence having lots of different people needing to come into the brief to try to understand it to have different chancellors and the approach they take different prime ministers in the approach they take as well I think there is something simple here that I said more than I said I'm more than I have to say it again that steel production should be seen as a sovereign asset for the UK if you believe that if you believe the UK should not be the only G7 country in the world that does not have a significant steel making capability that has direct consequences and it must mean there is a future of steel production here in South Wales there is such a significant chunk of steel production across the UK and these are jobs that pay well above the average wage, they are jobs that could have a future, the greener economy that we talk about actually steel is an essential part of that as well as ongoing infrastructure projects as well so I'm frustrated we haven't seen a conclusion I do think we need to get to the points that I've mentioned about what does co-investment look like in moving to a greener production phase what about the carbon challenges for steel producing in a different way in other parts of the world having a common approach with other economies and of course industrial energy prices too on each of those there should be some agreement that could be reached and progress on any one of them I think may unlock some investment choices for the future so I look forward to negotiations reaching a conclusion and seeing a bright and positive issue of steel making jobs here in Wales and on job vacancies figures from the Royal College of Radiologists show that Wales has an oncology vacancy rate of 11% with 80% of those vacancies remaining unfilled for over six months what actions are being taken to get those vacancies filled as a matter of urgency well we do of course have a training programme to try to recruit and train new staff of the future we've got an imaging academy that's been launched some time ago as well I remember this in my time a couple of years ago now as the health minister but the challenge is not for the investments that we're prepared to make here in the future training and the ongoing efforts to recruit people it does matter what happens in the rest of the UK especially in England if England can't maintain its staff then it has a knock on consequence for the rest of the UK and some of that is about is about the future of your employment and wage rates but it's also about whether you think there's a positive future across the service more generally and actually that's why getting to a approach of more partnership and less confrontation at a UK level would help all of us to meet some of our challenges but I'm sure that the health team will be more than happy to be ready with more detail on specific action being taken in the field of radiology many thanks everybody for your time enjoy the rest of the day and I'll see you soon