 Pramder, wrth gwrs. Thank you for joining me today for the Welsh Government Weekly media briefing. Throughout the COVID pandemic, this Welsh Government's top priority has been, and continues to be, keeping Wales safe. Last Friday, the First Minister confirmed our plan to return Wales to alert level zero measures over the next two weeks. Mae'n eu cyf weeklyswi bod i mi llwg fel contactingr cyber phenomenaol, aion diodd ac drosionol mewn cyfillodat R buns call o'r cyfe extrêmement mewn y Coffee Chym conce bron bydd gennym seraclesawu a phangbwyll i fod trafodaeth am bobl ffyrda a'r syniad yr un bod yn safio'n gwahanol a gennym di shoeser wynaeth sinaeth cwmcio i ddesgfadau i'r sgwaterf yma bron mwy fydd diwrnodol sy nifer o ddechwidegan needr mewn am dewismogol o hynod i mor hynod ar hyn students so rwy'n deud i'r cyfnod i'r pobl o Wale. Rwy'n deud i gweithio'r effordd, y cyfnodol, ac yna'r ddengyrchu yn ddiddordeb yn ôl i gynnwys i'r rhagleniol ac mae'r cyfrannol yn cyfnodol ac mae'r cyfrannol yn gweithio'n ddiddordeb o'r cyfrannol yn gweithio'r omicron. Dyna'r rheswm, mae'n gweld i'r ddaun o bwysig y ddwy'n cael cyfnodol and the next few weeks that we've put in place to help to keep Wales safe. As Wales economy minister, I know that the last few weeks have been very difficult for many businesses. I know that the arrival of Omicron came at a particularly terrible time. That's why the Welsh Government has made unprecedented levels of funding available to support Welsh businesses through the pandemic, including through the Wales only I work closely with my cabinet colleagues, with business organisations and trade unions and others to put in place the latest package of support worth £120 million to directly support businesses impacted by the introduction of alert level 2 protections. This, in addition to the £116 million package of rates relief that my colleague Rebecca Evans, the Finance Minister, has confirmed have to confirm will be put into place. I'm pleased to say this latest packet of support has opened for applications today and funding will start reaching businesses in the next few days. In addition last week my colleague the Deputy Minister Dawn Bowden announced a £15.4 million pound Cultural Recovery Fund and that will support organisations in the arts, cultural and events sectors. In Wales I'm proud that we've worked closely with our social partners. We listen to them and we act to ensure that our support goes as far as possible to meet the needs of our economy. So I'm pleased to confirm that following discussions with representative groups, unions, more businesses and local government that more businesses will be entitled to economic resilience fund support. This ERF grant is a Wales only top-up payment that currently supports businesses who have seen a 60% drop in their income between December and February compared to two years ago. Having listened to businesses there will now be more generous support in retail hospitality and leisure and attraction sectors. The new criteria means that businesses in these sectors who have seen a 50% reduction in their turnover over that affected period will also now be able to access the ERF support. I'm pleased that we've also been able to double to £1,000 the Emergency Business Fund grant award for qualifying sole traders, freelancers and taxi drivers who do not pay rates. This is a further demonstration I think that the Welsh Government has pulled every lever possible to saw businesses across Wales and will continue to do so. My priority over the coming weeks, months and years will be to move the Welsh economy forward as we steer a path to a strong Welsh recovery. We're determined to do all in our power to create a stronger, greener and fairer Welsh economy. We continue to make progress in creating the conditions where more people, particularly disadvantaged and young people feel confident about planning their futures in Wales. As part of that in the Senate later this afternoon I'll be updating members on the progress this Government has made with our partners to help build stronger regional economies across Wales. The Welsh Government's approach to economic wellbeing has grounded on the principle that people and places matter. We want to realise our ambition of delivering better jobs closer to home and ensuring that the benefits of economic growth are felt fairly across all parts of Wales. We continue though to face many economic challenges, particularly in the light of leaving the European Union, the absence of a European plan for replacing EU funding and reducing inequalities across the UK. The people of Wales have not provided a mandate for the UK Government to hijack money and decisions out of Wales. Funding certainty and autonomy would allow us to support the reconstruction of our Welsh economy in a way that is tailored to Wales' needs. Following several years of engagement we've published our plans with partners on how we can make that work. The approach the UK Government is taking is a direct threat to that work. It currently leaves Wales with less say over less money. I do hope that the Secretary of State for levelling up Michael Gove will discuss those concerns with us in a meaningful way. If the UK Government doesn't change course then real economic opportunities for our reasons, thousands of jobs and skills for people will be lost. As we know families across Wales are facing a cost of living crisis. Energy bills are at an all-time high, food costs are mounting and inflation is climbing to its highest rate in a decade. However, instead of helping the situation it has been made worse by the UK Government. The cruel decision to cut the £20 uplift to universal credit and the national insurance hike in April will make the cost of living crisis even worse. The last UK budget was a missed opportunity to address these very real challenges for families in Wales and across the UK. Instead of providing a much needed safety net to help people heat their homes, put food on their tables and to pay for essentials for their children, the UK Government has continued to strip support away. The resolution foundation says that by April 2022 we will see a broad-based cost of living catastrophe which will affect the majority of households. Families across Wales need help and support now. The UK Treasury must step up. Additional support through targeted UK-wide schemes like the warm home discount and other winter fuel payments would lessen the burden on hard pressed households. The failure to step up is a recipe for levelling down where those with the least will pay the greatest price. Whether the UK Government has failed the Welsh Government will use the resources that we do have to help support people through this crisis. In November last year, my colleagues Rebecca Evans and Jane Hutt launched a £51 million household support fund to help families facing the cost of living crisis to pay their bills this winter. This includes a one-off £100 cash payment to help pay winter fuel bills and that should help roughly 350,000 households across Wales. We have brought in an extra £1.1 million to support food banks, community food partnerships and community hubs. The Welsh Government of course continues to provide a social wage worth around £2,000 a year through schemes like the childcare offer, our council tax reduction scheme and free prescriptions. We have also put an additional £14.7 million into the discretionary assistance fund this winter and during the first six months of the last financial year, financial year benefit advice service has helped people to claim an additional income of over £17 million. We are doing all that we can with the resources that we have to backwash families, communities and businesses through these difficult times. We could though do so much more if the UK Government was also fighting for working families and local businesses. I'll now take questions to the media and as usual all matters will be broadcast on kept on our social media channels. We've got seven journalists today starting off with Felicity Evans from BBC Wales. Minister thank you very much indeed just picking up there on the cost of living pressures facing people this spring. You say the Welsh Government is doing all it can to help. Is that the case though? I mean UK Government talks a lot about the generosity of the funding settlement. Could the Welsh Government be doing more? If you look at the draft budget that we've published you'll see that we're investing in health and local government priorities that people understand are important with the huge pressures on those services. If you look about the fact that even in these most difficult times we found 51 million pounds of extra support to try to fill a gap that is left by deliberate choices in the UK Government to take support away from families. So we're stepping in where the UK Government has stepped out and left families and businesses in the lurch. The challenge though is that the UK Government has a responsibility that it really should meet. It chose to take away money from families on universal credit many of whom of course are in work. It has chosen to have a national insurance hike in April. It knows it could have done something already about energy costs as well. All of these things are coming and the UK Government knows that and it really is for the UK Government to act and not simply demand that the Welsh Government continues to help people that they have chosen not to support themselves. Thank you. I'm just turning to COVID picking up on comments made by the chief medical officer of Wales Frank Arthurton yesterday about the possibility of the testing regime possibly being dismantled in the summer if all continues to go well and so on. Can you just give us some insight into the latest thinking in Welsh Government about how long the pandemic phase of this crisis is likely to last and what the tentative plans might be for easing out of it? Well we've set plans to ease out to level zero over the next two weeks. We do then need to see how we progress beyond that and the chief medical officer setting up the fact that we might be in a position not to need some of the architecture we have over the summer but it really is that broad. We still have to get through the next few weeks. We need to get through the rest of winter and into spring and we know that as spring goes into early summer and through the summer we have found in the last two years the challenges are significantly less so we're learning from what's happened already. We'll also have more evidence about the sort of protections and the length of time that vaccinations will help us but the challenges it's always possible to have a further curveball. We've had alpha then delta and omicron and of course alpha was more contagious in the previous version and more harmful. Delta again more contagious and more harmful. Omicron less harmful but more contagious and they've all had significant impacts. Now I don't want to see a further variant that causes us to pause and have to reconsider where we are. I'd like to spend my time talking to you and businesses, trade unions, local government and partners across Wales about growing the economy but we're still in a phase where we do need to watch carefully what's happening and to be prepared to react and I do think the fact that today's case rates in Wales are down to 570 and 100,000. The English rates are more than double that. It really does show that different choices do make a difference. We avoided more harm and more trouble for the economy and public services because of the choices we've made and I certainly hope we'll get to talk about, if you like, the more normal business of the significant recovery task in the years and months ahead. Thank you Felicity. The next set of questions is from Adrian Masters at ITV Wales. Thank you Minister. I'm picking up on Felicity's question. Can you give any indication to the hospitality and night time industry as to how long Covid passes will be in place given what you've just said and your colleagues, Lynette Morgan and the First Minister have both said that the Welsh Government is considering reducing the isolation period which would help businesses. Can you tell us whether a decision has been made on that? So on Covid passes we've been clear that in reopening Covid passes will return to those sectors where they were before the alert level 2 protections were introduced. We have to review these matters every three weeks so the Welsh Government has to consider these matters every three weeks so we'll consider that again in the middle of February and if they're still kept in place we'll have to consider them again in another three weeks and within that period of time I couldn't honestly forecast you where we'll get to with case rates with the protections that we need to have in place to make sure that both people are protected from the direct harm that Covid can cause but also that businesses and public services are protected from the harm that Covid can cause as well so we'll continue to review every three weeks and as soon as we're able to no longer have those protections in place then we'll remove them in exactly the same way we've got a two week plan to go back to alert level zero. Sorry and I forgot you had a second question. It was about the isolation period. Yes, sorry and I won't count on that as a second question. Look so on the isolation period we're expecting further advice from Public Health Wales that the Health Minister and the Chief Medical Officer will consider and if that advice shows that it's safe to further reduce the isolation period then we'd expect to act in that advice. We've always acted in accordance with the advice we've had but as the Health Minister think has rightly said we do need to make sure the evidence is there to be able to change the isolation period otherwise there's a real risk people go back into the workplace back into circulation when they're still in effectious and people will needlessly catch Covid and pass it on to others so it'll continue to be evidence led led by the public health advice that's a choice we'll make but we expect that updated advice from Public Health Wales to land with the government and with the Chief Medical Officer over the coming days maybe later this week or early into next week. As soon as there is a choice to be made you'll of course hear about it. And your second question Adrian. Thank you. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says that Wales has the highest poverty levels of all the nations of the UK at 23%. Do you accept that that is the responsibility of successive labour Welsh governments and connected to that used to have a target to abolish child poverty at least by two years ago? Do you regret dropping that target? So it's a matter of fact that we do have unacceptable levels of poverty within Wales. I haven't seen the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report but the figures are broadly familiar to me. Our challenge though is for all the things that Welsh Labour governments have done to keep people out of poverty to help lift people out of poverty too. It isn't just about the levers that we have the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others will also tell you that direct choices made by UK governments really do matter. The number of children living in poverty has has risen in accordance with direct choices made by UK governments about how families are supported and it's no surprise that different choices made since 2010 have seen more people fall into poverty in every part of the United Kingdom. That's why I say having a UK government that is on the side of families and businesses won't just help with the cost of living crisis. It would actually help in lifting people properly out of poverty where work should be a route out of poverty but it's decent work and well paid work that really does matter. So yes we of course have a shared responsibility for all the things that happen in Wales but you can't have an honest conversation about this without recognising deliberate choices made by UK governments including the recent choice to cut universal credit. We'll make it harder for more families or push more people including those people in work into poverty but I want to be in a position over the coming years and months to talk about how we're supporting the Welsh economy so more people get into good jobs closer to home. I just wish we had a UK on the same side as us and the people of Wales. Thank you Adrian and I've got Ruth Masowski from Wales Online. Hello Minister, how are we? Good thank you, I don't think that was your first question. It was my first question now. Can I ask, given that we're on cost restrictions to be eased in the next few weeks, when is Welsh Government going to look at doing the same for schools such as contact bubbles and no assemblies, no school visits so fairly soon someone's going to be able to go to a night club but a child can't mix with someone from outside of their class, take school trips or go to a full school assembly so when do you see that changing and what will have to change to make that happen? What the education minister is again looking at the advice and the reality of what's happening on the ground so both the picture and the attendants we get from schools and local authorities but also working with public health advisors here about when would be the right time to do that. I understand there's a review next week to look at what could happen and that will be important. Again look at the evidence of what's happening on the ground as well as what the model evidence says, the evidence on the ground and then to try to make the right choice because of course I understand why people would rather not have those protective measures in place if they're not necessary. That applies in business, it applies in school as well and I'm sure that Jeremy Miles will be very happy to update you following that review and I hope we'll be in a business to do so publicly next week. Thank you and in this pandemic you've personally felt the wrath of the public and the press over alleged breaches of Covid rules. Does that mean you have any sympathy for the Prime Minister at the moment? I don't have much sympathy for Boris Johnson at all actually. I know what you're referring to and of course having gone out for a daily exercise with my family and then having someone sell a story with a picture of me and in a way that simply wasn't honest that was hard but I should say that I was comforted by the fact that I got lots of messages of support as well including from families who were there at the time and recognised including people who are direct political opponents as well I should say but who were there nevertheless and that's just an entirely different situation from where the Prime Minister finds himself. The culture within Downing Street where he is directly responsible, the revelations, the fact that he's admitted he really did attend a work event that he couldn't tell was actually a drinks party and if you think about that if that had been here in Wales if the First Minister here had gone out onto the grass outside Cataise Park with his elderflower cordial to meet 30 Welsh Government workers who are having drinks Andrew Arty Day was in the Welsh Tories who would have gone purple with rage and it would not have stopped being talked about no one would have bought this ridiculous excuse that it was actually a work event not a drinks party and no one would have been fobbed off with the idea that you didn't need to account for what you were really doing until a civil servant who's ultimately responsible to you has done a report. It's not just one incident though is it? The Prime Minister appears to have genuine contempt for the rules as far as they apply to him whilst issuing strictures as his other ministers have done that everyone must obey the rules. Well we all did our part and the reason we're in this position today in Wales with case rates significantly lower than England is people have played their part and I just wish there was a sense of decency and accountability in Downing Street. Thank you Minister. Thank you Ruth. The next question from Jordan Howell at LBC. Thank you Minister. If the pandemic wasn't enough to have a serious impact on people's mental health the rising cost of living is causing more worry do you think the Welsh government without further support from the UK government will be able to offer people enough to really ease their worries? Well I think that's a really hard question to honestly say yes we'll be able to do enough because the reality is Jordan that even in good times there are people who do struggle with their mental health it's quite a normal part of life actually you know if you think about stress and shame you feel in the workplace if you think about the reality of different events in your life including bereavement then it's quite normal to have some mental health struggles what's different now though is the scale of what we can already see people worrying and fearful for the future of their job for their business people struggle with their mental health following COVID bereavement people struggling with their mental health because of long COVID as well we've got really big challenges coming to us that's why we've chosen in the budget to invest so much again in the health service because we know there's a real challenge for physical and mental health and having support services to help people is going to be hugely important for us now we could always do more if there was a UK government on the same side as we are who recognize the need to invest in the future it isn't just about the health service though of course it's about what people get to do in the rest of their lives investing in supporting businesses and decent quality jobs decent letter services and facilities taking away some of the uncertainties around life and as you say people not having to worry about a cost of living crisis that is coming down the road without a discernible plan or meaningful offer of help from the UK government dealing with those things would all help all of us and would certainly make a difference when it comes to dealing with good mental health for people right across the UK as well as here in Wales thank you and as the so-called party gate rumbles on across the border how damaging do you think it is for politics and democracy as a whole I think it's really difficult because there are so many people who say you're all like this aren't you and if you listen to conservative ministers who went out to bat for the prime minister over the weekend there was a really discreditable and appalling attempt to say that other people were at it too so to get away from the prime minister and the repeated breaches that appear to have taken place to get away from the fact that you appear to have misled parliament and the country by saying he's been repeatedly assured that all the rules were followed when actually we know he went to at least one drinks reception there's further reports with eyewitnesses of him attending many more now that I think does erode people's trust in politics as a whole but we're really not all the same you know and I think it's important that people judge us on what we do and people judge us on how we try to live up to the standards that we expect of others so damaging for politics yes I think most will quite rightly are furious with the prime minister and here's as I say contempt for the rules as they apply to him and I think that conservatives would do well to reflect on that and not to damage themselves and politics overall by trying to sustain the wholly impossible to defend thank you Jordan I've now got Sean Barry from business live thank you messer can we just talk about some of the criteria criteria for the latest economic resilience fund backing for businesses impacted over the Christmas period the hundred and twenty million they just explained that the the impact on turnover has been reduced from 60 to 50 percent in that trading period but trying to get an understanding of why you set the turnover criteria rate for impacted businesses at £85,000 because there are plenty of businesses in Wales we still pay business rates which fall below that threshold so any suggestion that that might be changed and also on discussions with the Welsh road union on their hopes that you will refinance some more favorable terms the 20 million pounds the elbows alone it took out with an hour's bank so on the 85,000 pound limit that's been a consistent threshold we've had throughout the pandemic so we've tried to do something on a way that is predictable for everybody and we have two strands of support of course as well we have the non-domestic rate the business rate relief we have the payments that have gone directly out through local government and those are started to go out last week and we also have the erf economic resilience fund where people can apply in more targeted areas and we then have the individual support for freelancers and taxi drivers and others there's then also the sector specific additional support the cultural recovery fund that Dawn Bowden announced last week so we've been consistent in what we've done so people can understand what we're doing and why we continue though to listen to businesses about whether we're providing enough help to sustain businesses and actually with the the horizon of the protective measures going over the next week and a half now to get to alert level zero whether we can what we further need to do to support businesses to recover in the future what we want to do is to have a predictable trading period to allow them to do so and on the Welsh rugby union we have had constructive conversations with them about how we might be able to support them and I understand the point you make I'm not sure lots of the public know about their desire to refinance where they are and we'll try to do the right thing on a basis that is a proper use of public money and of course helps the WRU with significant reach it has not just as part of the national psyche of Wales but and the the community game but actually there's an awful lot of businesses that are tied up in wanting to see a significant rugby footprint across Wales okay can you tell us an additional question around the development bank of Wales which is wholly owned by the Welsh Government I mean that's been very active in terms of their COVID loans response £200 million which was provided to companies but are you comfortable minister in the fact that executives in the development bank can make investments into Welsh companies in the personal capacity without any prior approval from the board yeah look we've been through this before I think and we've provided a statement and correspondence to set out what's happened I am comfortable actually that the governance and oversight that the board provides for its executive officers is appropriate and the appropriate declarations are made I actually had a conversation with the DBW this morning and I'm optimistic about what they'll be able to do to continue to support Welsh businesses in the months and years ahead as well as what they've done to support businesses through the COVID pandemic I hope that the UKM will be sensible about allowing our business bank to carry on functioning in a way that it can do in common with other business bank entities across the UK and I hope there'll also be a constructive approach to the additional loan support the funding support that is now coming to Wales a previous conversation we've had and to do that in concert with the business bank so we with DBW so we don't end up having competing organisations trying to supplant each other so I think there's real optimism for the way that DBW continues to support Welsh businesses and the economy in the future and yes I am comfortable that the appropriate governance and oversight arrangements are in place. Thank you Sean the next question is from Harry Hansen. Okay good afternoon minister I wanted to talk a little bit about the economic resilience fund I've read reports that some businesses are a bit unsure about what they're actually entitled to so how is the government actively ensuring that businesses know what they're entitled to? Um so we have available online an online checker so you can look to see what you'd be entitled to so you look at the sector you're in the size of your business you can get an indication of what it would be and you can now apply from today online itself we've also worked with partner organisations business organisations to try to make sure that businesses that are interested have access to that information so it's online it should be really clear for everybody if anyone has any problems they can either contact their local members or if they can't get it through the website directly contact the Welsh government or business worlds and we'll be happy to assist. Thank you and then turning the attention to the return to alert level zero as well how confident can businesses really be particularly a night-time economy that they won't just find themselves going back into you know closures and stuff shortages when we when we get this point next winter? Well next winter is a long way off and you know that the challenge is that if you try to have cast iron predictions about where the state of COVID will be in months and months into the future you'll find that COVID will regularly make a mug of you. We want to get to the position where either COVID reduces its impact so it really is something like the common cold and Omicron isn't and I think that's a really important point to make people talk about Omicron being milder as if it is a generally mild illness and it just isn't over the last seven days in the UK over 1800 people lost their lives as a result of COVID now that isn't a mild illness in one week if it was a new condition where 1800 people have lost their lives in a week in the UK it would be headline news and sometimes people have become they've forgotten looking at the real direct harm that COVID causes so next winter I hope will be in a position to not just understand more about the version of Omicron that is the version of COVID that is circulating the protections we have for things like vaccination and others and I would desperately like to live through a much more normal winter for the economy but for me and my family too and to think about the different choices we can make what we'll have to do we'll have to be straight with people as we have been throughout the pandemic about where we are with COVID whether it really is something you can treat like the cold or flu and actually then how we'll help to support businesses and the public to try to make the right choices but the good news for people in the nighttime economy is they can look forward to opening in the near future and case rates in Wales today have continued to decline and that's good news for all of us and the final question is from Tom Magner. Thank you minister against the background of NHS staff shortage figures I asked your cabinet colleague the current health minister how many unpaid carers across Wales are currently off sick and unable to care for their friend or relative because of COVID she couldn't tell me as a former health minister can you provide that figure of unpaid carers currently off sick if not why are neither of you able to tell me that figure which it seems clearly isn't part of the Welsh Government economic calculations? Well actually Tom it'd be really difficult to provide that figure because we don't we don't collect data on that you know when people indicate that they're off sick and unable to go into work then that data will be collected by the business not by the government when it comes to something like the NHS the NHS will know how many of its staff are off and we directly line manager the NHS we directly fund it we'll know about that local government could tell you how many people are off sick and they'd probably have an idea how many are off sick because of COVID either directly because they have COVID or because they themselves have caring responsibilities and you know I can tell you that as as a dad with a primary school age child you know if he was off sick and my wife was off sick and unable to care for him then I may need to be at home doing other things because that's my responsibility as a parent so we don't collect data on that for every sector and I don't think we would be able to collect data on that for unpaid carers and as you have regularly pointed out in these press conferences we have an understanding of how many unpaid carers there are but we don't really know how many unpaid carers there are we have estimates of how many people there are we do understand that we couldn't run a range of our services without them and it's part of our challenge within the government about how we not just recognise who unpaid carers are but how we practically support them bearing in mind their needs will vary between individuals families and circumstances and thank you for that. Following up if you haven't got an exact figure that you have an estimated figure the fact that you're not appear to be taking any account of that your economic calculations as a whole presumably must be unrealistic because you're not putting a financial value on how much money unpaid carers save the Welsh economy given that paid care workers only provide four percent of care across Wales. No we regularly provide calculations and you'll be aware of this Tom for the value that we think unpaid carers provide what that means in terms of time and value saved for other caring services and for the NHS and carers organisations regularly provide us with updated estimates about both the number of carers and the value that provides to everybody else. So it's an important part of working together to understand what that looks like and how our interventional support carers are designed to work and then how they work in practice and you know if we're going to have a genuinely a genuine relationship where we listen and we learn we'll need to accept that we don't always have exacting data in every single area of activity but I don't think that should undermine or underscore the commitment of this government to have a much better deal for carers and a genwynnus about appreciating and recognising the contribution that unpaid carers make not just to the economy but more generally as well and as we said on a number of occasions before Tom I understand a bit about that with my own circumstances as do many many other people. Always a pleasure to see you Tom I look forward to seeing you and colleagues in a future press conference. Many thanks for your time.