Consecutive London Conservative and Labour Governments have contributed to this crisis by 'light touch' regulation and rewarding recklessness in the City. This lack of regulation has caused vast increases in credit and a house price boom which has lead to the current crunch.

The effects of this on the real economy will become clearer over the next few weeks, but certainly we are facing the prospect of recession for the first quarter of 2009.

For many years my Plaid colleagues in Westminster have been calling for stronger regulation of the markets, foreseeing that a lack of action would create severe problems – but unfortunately it has taken this crisis to get the Government to act. Of course our Plaid MPs will continue to highlight these issues with the current London Labour Government in order to ensure that the same mistakes aren't repeated.

Most economic levers remain in London but we have recently seen the way the Welsh Government has reacted to the rapidly changing economic conditions. Following an economic summit at the National Assembly recently, the Minister for the Economy, Ieuan Wyn Jones announced a £35m package to help workers who lose their jobs return to work. This scheme will help more than 12,000 people pay for training and will also help 1,000 employers to recruit new staff.

The One Wales Government is also committed to helping 10,600 more small businesses receive the business rate relief on top of the 37,000 businesses across Wales which already benefit from a significant reduction in their rates.

We have also seen the Plaid driven Government commit to a multi-million pound Mortgage Rescue Scheme, a new £150 million investment fund for small businesses, the release of land in order to build 6,500 affordable homes and examining changes to free up housing associations to look at more innovative ways of creating more affordable homes.

These are important steps that Plaid within the Assembly Government is taking to lessen the effect of the global economic downturn on families and businesses in Powys and I know from recent meetings with the Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, that the Welsh Government is currently looking at other ways to use the limited economic powers at our disposal to lessen the effects of the predicted slowdown in the economy.