 Thank you for I'll be discussing funding initiatives five days ago. Our future welcome campaign paid the anticipation of seeing the on this day. The first can be felt throughout the day that so many of us. The team should. Projecting our values, ensuring the safety of our citizens at the tournament and securing a lasting legacy. The Welsh government will cut partner support fund will help us to achieve those aims. Following a competitive bidding process, I can today confirm that the fund will see a total of 1.8 million pounds shared between 19 successful projects. I'm delighted that we'll be supporting a diverse set of initiatives designed to celebrate our unique culture, arts and heritage. They will support our mission to grow the economy, to raise Wales's profile with a focus on the language and enhancing our position as a globally responsible nation. A festival of creativity and culture which will unite communities will be led by the Football Association of Wales. A concert in North America will highlight Welsh culture with music, poetry and performance broadcast on the eve of Wales's opening clash with the USA. The new Football Museum for Wales in Wrexham will run a series of activities documenting the experiences of a diverse range of fans and players. An inspiring a generation initiative will deliver a bilingual range of events for the boys and girls clubs across Wales. We're also delivering a major marketing campaign targeting core international markets as well as a strong in Wales campaign prince. The campaign's target markets include the USA, key European markets the UK, Qatar and the wider region. The marketing campaign will highlight our greatest advocates, the fans and the voices from Wales as well as key partners whilst diaspora and World Cup ambassadors. Two and a half million pounds has been set aside to deliver our enhanced marketing programme. Food and drink promotion will also be taking place in Qatar with activities designed to promote Welsh produce to an international audience. Hosting the World Cup in Qatar has shown a light on the country's human rights and workers' rights record. That's why some of our LGBTQQ plus fans will not travel to the country due to its stance on LGBTQQ plus rights. We will use our platform to express our values and we will do this through our enhanced marketing campaign and international engagement, including through the diverse stories we will tell from a modern Wales that celebrates equality. To ensure the safety and security of Welsh citizens in Qatar we're engaging closely with the UK government. Regular channels of contact have already been established for updates on matters of safety and security with the Qatar Supreme Committee which is the committee responsible for managing the World Cup. To help secure a lasting legacy from the World Cup we are already committed to investing in sporting facilities with a capital budget of £24 million over the next three years. We're also investing in facilities through the schools capital programme and directly through local authorities. I now turn to the current energy crisis and the UK government's recent actions. Last week's announcement by the UK government to cap wholesale energy prices for all firms for six months from the 1st of October will ease some of the pressures on businesses and indeed some public services. But I urge the UK government to pass the necessary legislation swiftly so that the full discounts are passed on to non-domestic customers and do so without delay. However whilst the support is welcome it may not be sufficient for many of Wales's small and medium-sized businesses who have already faced up to six-fold price increases in their energy bills. A high proportion of these businesses are already struggling to break even post-pandemic. The energy bill release scheme will provide businesses with a temporary respite and little certainty to help them plan ahead. Many will be forced to close if they are not provided with the help that they need. Now we're closely scrutinising the UK government support that has been announced to see whether there is more we can do to support Welsh businesses. This includes looking at ways of helping businesses to reduce their energy usage or to increase their energy efficiency. However the main levers to support businesses rest firmly and squarely with the UK government. The decisions made by the Chancellor have left little room for new measures from the Welsh government. The so-called mini-budget presented by the Chancellor on Friday has sent shockwave through our economy and will do lasting damage to our prospects for growth and the UK's global reputation. The UK government made a clear choice that this Welsh government fundamentally opposes a tax giveaway for the very wealthiest few within a package that will ensure a growth in poverty and not growth in the economy. International markets have made clear that they have no faith in the dramatic new strategy. A humiliating day by the UK standing in the world saw the pound slump yesterday, causing higher borrowing costs for the public sector as well as for households. This also means the new cap on energy bills for businesses, the public sector and charities will be undermined by the rising costs caused by the Chancellor's decisions. The money spent on tax cuts also closes the door on a wide range of options to support businesses over the longer term. That's likely to make our economy less competitive than it should be. The UK government needs to signal they understand the scale of their error with measures that inject certainty into our economy. Long-term support that supports industries with a strong future growth prospect are essential to this task, and that includes early action to support our steel industry. In Wales, we've stepped up to support households providing around £400 million to help people pay essential bills, and we will go on looking at every option available to extend our support. However, the mini-budget also worsens the pressures on our budget as public services were ignored by the Chancellor. There was no fresh OBR forecast last week, but we have examined analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and new independent forecasts published by the UK Treasury to measure the impact. This shows that the real value of the Welsh Government's budget over the current three-year settlement is around £4 billion lower than was the case at the time of the previous Chancellor's spending review announcement. That means we now face the most severe reductions to our budgets in the devolution era, worse even than during the decade of austerity under previous UK governments. There is no mandate for the extreme experience the Chancellor is imposing on families, businesses and our public services. As the former head of the UK civil service Gus O'Donnell has said, the UK economy is being driven with both the break and the accelerator hard down. This cannot continue, and we urge the UK government to change course by taxing windfall energy profits and reversing tax giveaways for the richest few. Thank you very much. I'll now take questions from Jonas. We have some in the room and some on screen. I'm going to start on screen with Issa from ITV Wales. Good morning. So just my first question would be, so the Welsh Government is looking to fund initiatives to promote Wales in the World Cup. What kind of initiatives and where that fund is going to go? Well, we've announced today the 19 project we're supporting was in my script and I've given some examples of that. So the FBAW are already talking about their creativity, their festival of creativity and culture. I mentioned the concert in North America, the football museum's work and the inspiring a generation work from the Boys and Girls Club. So you'll see there's both a mix of partners we're working with as well as a geographic mix and part of what we're trying to do is to make sure that the World Cup experience is felt by people both here in Wales, that people can take part in it because not everyone will be able to travel to the Games, but also it should help us in terms of our ability to take advantage of this unique opportunity on a world stage as well. Because why, for example, there's the work in North America. We're also hoping to help host a game and a showing in Washington around the USA and Wales Game 2. So there'll be quite a lot of activity and I'll be delivering more detail on that in the oral statement I'll give this afternoon in the Senate. One more question. How worried are you by the Chancellor's budget and the economic reaction and what do you make of the way he's handled the fallout? Well, it was an extraordinary statement. It was deliberately not called a budget because if there had been a budget they'd have had to have the OBR give an independent analysis of the budget and its impacts. And as Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation has said, just because you believe in markets it doesn't believe that the markets believe in you and you saw the market reaction with a pound slumping. Now that isn't just an issue for people that want to go on holiday and have spending money. It makes a massive difference on the cost of imports. It also makes a difference in borrowing costs. Borrowing costs for the government so the money that they're borrowing to help fund those tax giveaways for the richest few will actually cost more now. But it also has a real-world impact for businesses and homeowners. Because if interest rates rise as is currently forecast and that's why they're after the Gus O'Donnell with the accelerator moving forward but also the breakdown because the bank of England are like to have to look at interest rates again. Now that's a really big problem. So if interest rates rise on mortgages, they'll all expect credit for businesses or what we're able to do across the whole economy. And there's a fundamental unfairness at the heart of all of this. It cannot be right that days after waving a big stick at our least well-off citizens who are in work saying you must work harder or we will cut your benefits. That the wealthiest citizens in the country have been given a huge tax giveaway. And at the same time bankers bonuses are now unlimited. It's an extraordinary set of choices that I think is politically extraordinary and economically extraordinary and not in the right way. I am generally concerned about what that statement will do. And I know the Chancellor has declined so far to change course, but I do think that that's going to be essential for the future of the Welsh and wider UK economy. Thank you. We're now going to move in the room to Dan Davis from BBC Wales. Thanks, Minister. Has the Welsh Government made any assessment of what would happen to Welsh homeowners if interest rates rise to four, five percent even higher as some people are forecasting this morning? We don't have a strict numbers forecast, but we do already know that significantly more families are in fuel poverty. And I like to be in fuel poverty despite the energy price cap for domestic customers. If you think about it, the price cap means that following previous price rises that have been significant for householders, there'll still be about a 25 to 30 percent rise in what most people pay for their domestic energy. Now, that's a really significant challenge. It means that more people will be in fuel poverty. Pre-assessments are up to 40 percent of households would be in fuel poverty. Now, that makes a really big difference for people whether they've got bills to pay or whether it's rent or mortgages. I've got a round table with banks coming up in the next week and I'll be looking to see what their analysis is indeed for their own customers about what it would mean for people and their ability to pay bills. So there's real concern, even if the scale of that isn't entirely clear, and if you like the specificity that people often look for, we know that the scale of the challenge facing us is really significant. And that affects households and keeping their homes, but it also affects businesses. Discretionary income that is essential for many of the businesses that are under pressure is affected by this as well as those businesses having the cost of business crisis with their own energy costs likely to rise in any event. And on Qatar, you've talked about projecting Wales's values and you refer to lack of human rights in that country. Can you be more specific? Will the Welsh Government call out Qatar for the rights that have been denied to women, workers, LGBTQ people and so on? Well, there are two things I'll say to that. And the first is that when I visited Qatar previously, I've already had some of this conversation with them together with the British Embassy. So the challenges and the difference in rights and values are part of the conversation we've already had, but it's not just Britain as well. You know, Wales qualified later, so our conversation again had taken place later, but other football associations and other governments from Europe and the wider world have already been having this conversation, making clear there's a clear difference in view and values on workers' rights and LGBTQ plus rights. But more than that, about how expect our own citizens to be treated for what we want to see in terms of the future. The second thing I'd say is that the First Minister will be making a statement in the near future, setting out how Wales looks to engage with and do business with different parts of Wales, including those countries where we don't agree with all of the statements and the values that come from that government and how it looks to manage our continued engagement with the wider world. Thank you, Dan. The next person I think is on screen and that is Will Hayward from Wales Online. You mentioned that this was the largest cut of the devolution era to the Welsh budget. What are you going to have to do to make up for those cuts to the Welsh government budget? What services are you going to have to cut in real terms? Well, as you know, Will, I can't give you a chapter and verse on that now because apart from anything else, we've got to set our budget through this autumn. We've got some very difficult choices in a wide range of measures because there hasn't been a real increase in our budget, because we know that we've got a reducing ability to spend that affects a whole range of things around to think about what we can still continue with, what we'll prioritise, the pace of what we're able to do. And you heard yesterday from local government, I appreciate it was on the BBC. Other channels are available, but the Leader of Cardiff Council setting out that across local government, whereas they think there'll be a half billion pound gap in the next year. So there are really difficult choices. We won't have to make all of those choices. We will have to make a budget choice. And as you know, Dan, the finance minister will set out the draft budget before the end of this coming year. Thank you. I appreciate you're also going to be making an oral statement in the centre of today, but can we just have a little bit more detail on the museum and the event taking place in the USA on the event? Is it going to be broadcast in the US itself? Where is it expected to be? What's the attendance you're hoping for on that? And also the museum in Recreation, is that going to be a permanent fixture? Will it have rotating exhibits, for example? Okay, so on the museum, the museum will set up more detail of what it's going to do as well, and there will be more detail in my statement. But this is how we maximise the opportunity we've got now. And the football museum itself, well, I'm sure want to have a longer running exhibit talking about the achievement of the men's team in getting to the World Cup. And the stories, I think, are really fascinating because they're looking at how they tell stories about bands and players from the past. And as we know, sport often reflects society. So if you think about when we had our first black player, when that person was recognised, when the women's team got recognised. And so there are challenges about the diversity of our player base as well as our fans. And I'm really looking forward to what the museum will do in person, but also digital and online as well. When it comes to the challenge about North America, it's a big market for us. And within that, we'll both have an event in Washington that we're looking to land with broadcasters there. And as you know, we've got a healthy number of representatives in both houses of Congress in America who are part of the wider Welsh diaspora. So we're going to build on what we've already started there. We're also looking to the concert event is going to be in North America and that will draw together people with an interest in Wales as well as wider Welsh diaspora. So it won't just be up the numbers, it'll also be about the projection and what they will do in terms of Wales's image within one of our key markets as well. But I'll be more than happy to share more detail on what the plan is and indeed how successful that's been because we're not speaking up what we do. We'll also be assessing how successful we have been and the metrics we'll use to try to demonstrate that. Thank you, Will. Now go back into the room to Dan Bevan from LBC. Thank you, Minister. Could we stick with Qatar for a moment? Do you mind talking a little more about what you're going to do to help people from Wales stay safe in Qatar? You've already referenced the rights and issues regarding the LGBTQ plus community. Do you think that it's wise for people in that community to travel to Qatar? And are you not worried by engaging in these activities around the World Cup that you're enabling sports washing? No, look, I think there's always a concern about whether we're promoting what's afraid of sports or those that don't know about whether you sport to simply brush over what really happens in a country where you look to engage and change it. And the Welsh Government didn't make the decision about where the football World Cup is. We have made the decision about how we want to take advantage of the World Cup as it is, the fact that the men are qualified. And I think the really super positive news would be if the women also qualified for the World Cup on Australia and New Zealand as well. And there's the growth in the women's game is part of the journey of football. It's the women and girls game is the fastest growing part of the sport. There is always an opportunity through sport and wider engage to look at what happens in a country and how you engage with it. We also want to support our fans to stay safe. That's why we're talking and working with the embassy. That's why I did the earlier visit to Qatar in any event, why we've had those conversations. And I do think that for our fans, it should be a safe country to go to. How we'll help to keep people safe is how to behave when they're there. Now, the Qatari authorities have told me directly they're not looking to go into people's bedrooms to try to understand who and what is going on. Now, if you think about it, there'll be many groups of people will be staying with friends in single sex groups or otherwise. And you're not going to have people knocking the door to check what's going on in each of those. The challenge though is how people get to be who they really are as they're going and following the team. There's also a wider point as well about how fans behave more generally and in particular the ratio with alcohol. There'll be zones where people can drink. They'll be clearly marked. Now, people need to follow the rules and respect the law in the country as it is. But we're looking to make sure that our fans are kept safe. And the Qatari committee running the World Cup want everyone to feel welcome. The challenge is making sure that really is the case and that people are supported if there are challenges as well. We'll continue to work with embassy colleagues on the ground. I was referring back to the Chancellor's statement on Friday. You've said that there's not a lot of room now for the Welsh government to work with. Are you essentially saying that there is nothing more you can do within your budget to help people in Wales? Because that's not a particularly reassuring message. No, we've already put £400 billion, as I said, into helping people with some of the challenges that exist. I've indicated we're looking at further measures to help businesses to deal with energy costs and future efficiency as well. The challenge comes at the reason a large amount of cash that we've got. To think about the Covid pandemic, we had direct support from UK government that helped businesses in Wales. But because of some of the choices that we made, and in particular the fact that we didn't spend as much money on test and trace or on PPE equipment in particular, it may have had more room to support businesses from our budgets as well. That's why we're an extra support for small businesses. It's why freelance has got a better deal in Wales than in England as well. What we don't have now though is that financial flexibility. So because we don't have that extra money, we've got to be honest about the fact there isn't a giant well of cash to spend. What it does mean though is we have to really critically support we can provide, and to be honest that if we're prioritising support in any particular area, there are other choices that either can't be made or the pace of those choices might move differently. So it's a message of honesty about the support we've already provided, but it's about what we're going to be able to do in the future. And I really do hope that the UK government look again at what they have done. And this simply can't be it because you don't just need to take my word for talk to any business organisation about prospects for the future. And none of them really think that what last week has done has given them a better firmer foundation for the future, or indeed more certainty on which to plan. Thank you Dan, we've now got Petra from TV South Wales. Hi there, thank you Minister and good morning everyone. I was hoping to ask you mentioned that this is a massive success for Wales and for the Welsh team. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit more about how this success abroad is going to be brought back home, perhaps local clubs and local players. Well, I think any time you see a sporting team engage in a giant tournament like this, it does produce national interest and you don't have to be Michael Sheen to recognise as a giant opportunity here, or to be excited about it. But it's a great thing for the country. Think about the Euro 2016 in France. It was a really uplifting event that people engage with. I mean, the people even more interested in the football team because the men's and women's teams have been really unifying in a way that brought fans with more parts and traditions of Wales. And actually 30 years ago it wasn't as unifying and the Welsh fan base was sometimes more competitive with each other in a way that wasn't always helpful. So actually the atmosphere around the team has changed hugely and that really does make a difference for the image of Wales. And I've been to meet a number of international visitors and others and people have commented on when the Wales football team has been there and the fans, the impression that's been left, not only of Wales being a place they know more about but the impression created by our fans and by our players. So it really does matter in an event that is the biggest event in the world with five billion people watching. More and more people know who Wales is, where we are and know more about who we are and that obviously gives us more opportunities to play a role in terms of business and international trade and engagement as well as a matter of sporting success. Although I doubt we'll see the sort of public outdoor fan zones we saw in the nice summer of 2016 given that the tournament is taking place in November. That's perfect. Thank you so much for that. Perhaps just a follow-up questions. How much of an impact or legacy would you think leave on the future generations in Wales? Well, I think the fact that the men's team will have qualified in our lifetime is a big deal. I remember growing up and seeing England regular qualify, Scotland occasionally qualify. I remember Northern Ireland qualifying. I'm now married to an Irish woman. She talks about the impact of Irish football and what it meant for the nation and their view of themselves as how the rest of the world saw them. So sporting success isn't just a distraction from other more difficult times. It can change how people see themselves, how the world sees you as well. But in the legacy aspect, what we can't do is simply assume that having gone to the men's football world cup there's suddenly an explosion in extra physical activity or that magically facilities will improve as well. That's why we've referenced our commitment to improve sporting facilities with £24 million of capital funding. And the challenge being how we work on improving not just elite level facilities but access to community facilities as well. Because that's a key part in continuing to grow the game and to make physical activity generally accessible and enjoyable for people of all ages and all abilities. So that'll be the opportunity to build on but it won't simply come through thinking that will happen itself. But it's an opportunity I'm certainly excited about and I look forward to supporting the team and as I'm sure all of us feel, regardless of the outcomes I'll be very proud to see Wales on that world stage in the coming months. Many thanks for all of your time. I will no doubt see you and speak to you again soon.