Deputy Presiding Officer, can I add my congratulations to your office? I’m not sure you’d want to recycle anything the last chap did, but I know you will have your own personality in the role, and I do hope you’ll soon forget the odd occasion when we clashed when I sat in that Chair, especially should I heckle rather inadvertently occasionally, having heard some of the contributions of the frontbench.

It is also slightly unnerving, when I have to make my first contribution as a spokesperson, in an area I’ve never shadowed before, to do it in an area of rather high achievement for the Government. Can I place on record my congratulations to the Government, and also to the new what we now must call Cabinet Secretary? I do recall that’s what the term was in the first Assembly; so, even that’s been recycled. But I do hope that you will enjoy your role and that you will achieve many of the things that you have set out to achieve in these early days for your portfolio.

I think the Welsh Government has shown leadership in this area, and it would be churlish not to acknowledge that. We’re now in a position where we could see further ambition. This pretty much relates to the circular economy, which I think takes us a bit more into the commercial side of things, having noted the pretty good record in terms of municipal waste, even at a European level, let alone on a UK scale. So, I do think we need to concentrate now on how we’re going to use the resources of small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, who I think need to be at the heart of a strategy that effectively recycles and retains more of the recycled material within Wales. Because, in your admirably candid statement, you do acknowledge that over half of the material currently recycled actually then leaves Wales. So, if we look at that as a resource, which is what I think we need to do, rather than the problem to be exported, then I think it is crucial that we get SMEs more fully involved. To do that, we need not to engulf them in regulation, but we need to give them the tools to see the opportunities and to develop their skills and to see where there can be commercial advantage.

So, in that case, I just have one particular thing, really, to follow up, and that is: whilst you’re saying that you’re looking at the way that can be done and that you are drawing up plans for that, I would like to know how ERDF, our European moneys, might be used together with EU Horizon funding, because it seems to me, in improving the skills and key infrastructure in the economy, then those European programmes could be very, very promising and an area where we could really have competitive advantage. In so much of what happens in the Welsh economy, we’re trying to emulate best practice elsewhere, but I suppose the real ambition that you are expressing this afternoon is that we can lead not only at a UK level but at a European one as well. If we achieve that ambition and I’m still in post, then I look forward to be able to acknowledge that and congratulate further success as it occurs.