Reopening Wales

FSB Policy Report 14 May 2020

How Wales' smaller firms can be supported to come out of lockdown

The Coronavirus pandemic has challenged every part of society; from the health and social care services on the frontline of the health crisis, businesses closing their doors to help prevent the spread of the disease, to us all as individuals staying at home to help protect the NHS. Our whole way of life has been dramatically changed.

Wales entered in to lockdown on 16th March. Thankfully, the evidence suggests this has had an impact on the spread of the virus and has helped the NHS to protect lives. Thoughts will begin to turn to how we exit lockdown and slowly start to move towards resuming aspects of our previous way of life or at least move to a ‘new normal’. The first priority in this regard must be to protect the health and wellbeing of the people of Wales.

Whilst the move towards lockdown was incredibly fast, we expect the measures to be eased slowly over a much longer period of time. This will require considerable thought, particularly on the part of businesses and government on how to safely resume activities in a way which not only protects public health but also instils trust, confidence and reassurance on the part of individuals and businesses. In this document we make some suggestions on how to help businesses make this transition safely, and how we can support businesses to reopen Wales.

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