Plaid Cymru
1. How would your party ensure that small businesses are genuinely placed at the centre of Welsh Government decision-making and policy development?
Engagement with the sector will begin within the first one hundred days of a Plaid Cymru government.
We will prepare to convene a Future Skills Summit immediately, bringing together representatives from further and higher education, training providers, businesses and those in work-based learning more broadly to create one shared vision and strategy for the future of our skills system and its funding.
We view the sector and its representative organisations as key partners in both developing and maintaining a clear understanding of the evolving needs of SMEs and the Welsh economy more broadly.APlaid Cymru government would establish a new Fiscal and Economic Commission to help set economic targets, collect and analyse relevant data, and measure progress.
SMEs would have clear routes to feed into this process. Their representative bodies would be engaged by the Commission to provide evidence and insight, while structured consultations, sector roundtables and regional engagement with business organisations would ensure that the experiences of small firms across Wales inform the data being gathered and the priorities being set. We want economic policymaking to be grounded in the realities facing Welsh businesses.
The Commission would also strengthen accountability. By tracking progress against clear economic goals – such as increasing the number of Welsh-owned businesses, growing the share of profits retained in Wales, delivering decent work and good jobs, improving well-being and living standards and spreading prosperity to every part of the country – it would help ensure that economic policy genuinely delivers for small businesses and the communities they’re rooted in.
Through these mechanisms, SMEs would play an active role in informing the evidence base and shaping the priorities that guide a Plaid Cymru Welsh Government’s decision-making and policy development.
2. What measures would your party introduce to revitalise Wales’s struggling high streets?
In our first one hundred days in government, we will establish a Town Centres Taskforce to explore options for reforming business rates so that they better support high street regeneration, alongside other policy changes aimed at strengthening the future of our town centres. This will include reforms to the planning system to streamline the process of converting commercial premises into residential
properties where appropriate, helping to create in-built footfall and bring economic activity back into town and city centres.
The greater flexibility now available to the Welsh Government in the design of non-domestic rates will also be used more actively to promote business growth on our high streets. A Plaid Cymru government will introduce arrangements whereby domestic businesses with verified plans for growth can qualify for more generous exemptions. The ability to adjust the business rates multiplier also creates opportunities to rebalance the system in favour of domestic SMEs. We will therefore develop preferential multipliers specifically for small businesses and the independent high street, while applying a comparatively higher multiplier rate to larger out-of-town retail premises.
These measures form part of a wider effort to support the hospitality sector and restore the commercial, social and cultural vitality of our town and city centres after a decade and a half of austerity. Central to this vision is a renewed commitment to community wealth building.
Across Wales, there are already inspiring examples of communities taking their economic futures into their own hands by establishing social enterprises, community-owned businesses and cooperatives, combining profit-making with social responsibility while ensuring that wealth continues to circulate within local communities.
To support more communities to take ownership of their local economies, we will legislate for a Community Right to Buy, making it easier for valued local assets – such as pubs, shops, cafés, buildings and land – to be brought into community ownership when they come up for sale.Alongside this, we will provide specialist support to help create, grow and sustain new co-operative, employeeowned and social enterprises, while improving their access to finance through the Development Bank of Wales.
3. What actions would your party take to boost SME productivity across Wales?
There is broad consensus that Welsh economic development has suffered since the dissolution of the Welsh Development Agency. The case for a successor to that organisation has been outlined by the OECD, among others, with both experts and business leaders agreeing on the need for a new arms-length development body to promote Wales, help grow a meaningfully Welsh-owned base of domestic businesses, support businesses to innovate and trade internationally, secure inward investment where appropriate and increase the numbers of good-quality, high-paying and sustainable jobs.
We know that SMEs tend to be more resilient and more likely to reinvest in their communities, build more robust local supply chains and offer better jobs over the longer term, and part of the remit of our new national development agency will be to actively and sustainably grow the number of these businesses in Wales. This is one of the key aims outlined in our economic strategy, Making Wales Work.
Central to this is changing the way that succession processes and business buy-outs are incentivised. At present, a majority of Welsh SME ownership transfers result in Welsh businesses being bought from outside Wales. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but the aim of a Plaid Cymru government would be to reverse this trend whenever feasibly possible, so that a majority of buy-outs and takeovers in Wales take place within Wales, or otherwise ensure that both capital and profits are retained here.
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Achieving this would require, among other measures, improvements in how data on Welsh headquartering, market exit, succession planning and the proportion of businesses moving from one size bracket to another are captured and analysed.
Overall, including through the creation of better integrated business support via a national development agency for Wales, the aim would be to create a strata of productive, innovative and sustainable Welsh SMEs. To this end, we will also set about reforming the Development Bank of Wales so that it becomes the appropriate and consolidated financial vehicle it needs to be to support this growth, including changes to the financial products it offers so that it is better placed to support SMEs.
Alongside this, the new national development agency will provide a genuine one-stop-shop for business support, giving expert advice and guidance, serving as the main interface between Welsh businesses and international markets, as well as signposting firms to the finance they need to grow and plan for the future, including from the Development Bank of Wales. It will prioritise supporting and growing the SMEs that are the backbone of our economy, while working to keep those that succeed under Welsh ownership.
It will coordinate regional business growth by mapping and building on the strengths of different regional economies, also seeking to secure inward investment that augments local supply chains, increases productivity and supports the growth of domestic businesses, while building on the work ofArfor in promoting the kind of business growth and regional development that underpins the vitality of the Welsh language within areas of higher density linguistic significance in the north and west of Wales.
We will also renew the Welsh approach to procurement and seek to award public contracts in a way that deliberately targets local businesses and recirculates the public pound through them.
This approach has the potential to transform regional economies, increase both the competitiveness and profitability of SMEs, and support the creation of well-paying jobs. Welsh public bodies spend more than £8 billion every year procuring goods and services, almost a third of total Welsh public expenditure. Currently, around 55% of this goes to Wales-based suppliers. With a renewed and determined approach to progressive public procurement, we will aim to increase the proportion spent on procuring goods and services from Wales-based suppliers from current levels.
Contract bids will be assessed not just on the bottom line, but also on their community impact, social value and the extent to which they build capacity in Welsh businesses and supply chains.
Further to this, we will review the way that ‘local’ is measured in public procurement policy so that it more accurately reflects when and where public money is meaningfully being spent in Wales. Current practiced is overly focussed on the notional location rather than the local ownership of suppliers and contractors. For example, under current measures, a company that is owned outside Wales but maintains a physical presence here is still counted as ‘local,’ even though only a fraction of the value captured from public contracts stays in the Welsh economy. Our reforms will ensure that procurement policy rewards those businesses rooted in Wales and maximises the economic impact of public spending within local communities.
We will also make it easier for Welsh SMEs to bid for public contracts and to work collectively in delivering larger ones. In addition, we will work with partners in local government to train a new generation of procurement officers in best practice in innovative procurement.
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Moreover, as part of a new Digital Strategy for Wales, a Plaid Cymru government will support digitisation and innovation in the Welsh economy and promote digital technology as a key growth sector.
This will include ensuring that our new national development agency has the relevant expertise needed to provide tailored support to businesses, including helping start-ups scale sustainably and fostering innovative connections between universities, technology developers and Welsh businesses. We will also procure more digital services in Wales, including those needed to support digital education and equip Welsh workers with the skills required to take advantage of digital growth and innovation as part of a wider national skills strategy.
Alongside this, we will support the continued development of the South Wales semiconductor cluster and secure the full benefits of data campuses for local supply chains, skills development and highquality job opportunities, while encouraging the ethical, innovative and worker-led adoption ofAI and emerging technologies in both the public and private sectors to improve productivity, competitiveness and service delivery while protecting workers’ rights.
4. What specific policies would your party implement to reduce the rising costs of doing business for SMEs in Wales?
APlaid Cymru government would take a number of practical steps to reduce the rising costs of doing business for SMEs in Wales, beginning with reforms to the business rates system. As previously outlined, we will reduce the overall business rates burden on SMEs by varying the multiplier so that smaller, locally owned businesses pay less.
At the same time, we recognise that business rates are only one part of the cost pressures facing SMEs. Energy bills and standing charges have become a significant and growing burden for many businesses, with some facing a looming cliff-edge in operating costs.
It is important to emphasise at this point that the Welsh Government does not have direct control over the policies and regulations that have the greatest impact on household and business energy costs, as these remain reserved to the UK Government. Nevertheless, there are steps that a Welsh Government can take to help reduce some of the excessive costs that people and businesses currently face. A Plaid Cymru government will therefore work to maximise meaningful Welsh ownership of renewable energy, ensuring that the profits generated by Wales’s natural resources are reinvested in our communities and public services.
As part of this approach, we will expand Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru by integrating Ynni Cymru and the Welsh Government Energy Service into a single, strengthened national energy company. This will create a more powerful national body with the financial capacity to help grow community ownership of renewable energy and a clear remit to contribute to reducing energy costs over the medium to long term.
To ensure that communities and businesses benefit directly from the growth of renewable energy in Wales, we will prioritise meaningful community ownership and actively support the development of energy communities, enabling local areas to come together to generate, use and conserve electricity and heat collectively. This will help build greater energy self-sufficiency and reduce costs for households and businesses alike.
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We will also extend permitted development rights to give households, farms and businesses far greater flexibility to install their own renewable technologies, including small wind turbines, rooftop and small ground-mounted solar panels, batteries and heat pumps. Together, these measures will help reduce operating costs for SMEs while strengthening the resilience of the Welsh economy.
5. What commitments would your party make to prioritise skills-led economic growth for SMEs in Wales?
A Plaid Cymru government would place skills not only at the heart of economic growth in Wales, recognising that a stronger and more productive SME sector depends on a workforce equipped with the right capabilities for the future economy.
In developing our approach, we have been in frequent and constructive dialogue with stakeholders across the tertiary sector, and our aim is to establish a coherent, long-term funding settlement and strategic framework for skills and workforce development across Wales.
As outlined in our First 100 Days document, we will convene a Future Skills Summit bringing together representatives from further and higher education, training providers, businesses and workbased learning providers to develop a shared national vision and strategy for the future of Wales’s skills system and its funding.
A long-term plan for the skills agenda in Wales is sorely needed. There has been a lack of stability across the tertiary sector, and our goal is to examine the system in detail – really focusing on the nuts and bolts – to make it as clear, navigable and appealing as possible for both employers and learners. Behind the scenes, we want the economy and education departments pulling in the same direction, drawing on the insights of those who understand how to make the system stronger, more efficient and better suited to the needs of the modern economy.
It is also clear that colleges, training providers, and employers do not yet have a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of Wales’s future skills needs, including which skills will be required, in which sectors, and how training – including apprenticeships – should be prioritised and delivered to meet those needs. We will launch a Wales-wide skills audit to identify the future skills needs of the Welsh economy and ensure that our policy decisions are grounded in a clear and comprehensive understanding of labour market demand. By aligning apprenticeships and training more deliberately with emerging growth sectors, a national skills audit would ensure that investment is directed where it will deliver the greatest benefit for learners, employers and the wider Welsh economy.
The knowledge generated through the audit will strengthen labour market intelligence and support the Welsh Government’s broader objective of improving economic performance. It will help learners make informed decisions about their future education and career pathways, while enabling careers services to provide more effective advice grounded in a clear understanding of current and future labour market demand. Education and training providers will be better equipped to shape their provision so that it aligns with the evolving needs of the economy, while employers will have a clearer mechanism through which to articulate the skills they require and incorporate those needs into their own workforce planning. At the same time, it will enable the Welsh Government to set priorities and allocate resources within the context of a comprehensive strategic picture of employment trends and skills requirements across Wales.
To ensure this ambition translates into real opportunity, we must also improve access to high-quality, impartial careers information, advice and guidance. This is a crucial part of the wider ecosystem that needs to be fixed. Too often, learners in schools with their own sixth forms receive detailed information about the courses available in that setting but far less about alternative pathways, including apprenticeships or courses delivered by local colleges and other training providers. Our aim is to ensure that young people are able to make the right choice for them at the right time, and that every young person in Wales has meaningful access to high-quality opportunities in education, training and employment that match both their aspirations and the needs of Welsh employers.
Addressing fragmentation within the current skills system will also be essential. We will work to make the system more accessible and streamlined by requiring local authorities, schools and colleges to collaborate more closely so that learners can pursue the pathway that best suits their skills and ambitions, and we will strengthen collaboration between schools, colleges and employers to expand the availability and uptake of vocational qualifications and work-based training opportunities. Alongside these reforms, we will make better use of existing funding streams, including City and Regional Growth Deals, which have thus far underperformed against their targets for skills, training and job creation. By refocusing these investments, as well as ensuring that the Local Growth Fund for Wales more effectively supports skills development, we will expand opportunities for apprenticeships and high-quality vocational training, ensuring that SMEs across Wales have access to the skilled workforce they need to grow and succeed.
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Please note the above information, via Plaid Cymru, was submitted by Heledd Fychan.