I warmly welcome the clear focus in this report on that crucial link between language and economic development. For some of us who have been campaigning over decades for a viable future for the Welsh language as a community language in the traditional Welsh-speaking areas of west Wales, it is crucially important to realise that, unless we answer that fundamental question, there is no future for the Welsh language to the same extent as a community language. Despite the increases we see in other parts of Wales, we are losing a key resource for that regeneration at a national level if we lose the traditional linguistic cultural vibrancy of west Wales. I recall some 20 years ago in the Eisteddfod in Newport actually occupying a bungalow with Alun Davies, and that was outside Carmel, I believe—it was an executive bungalow; there were gold taps there. But what was the slogan then? It was, ‘housing and work to save the language’. The slogan’s been there for decades. It’s time for action now, isn’t it? I see in recommendation 10 a call for an economic language strategy for the counties of west Wales with this focus, of course, on hubs, on hub towns, which are crucially important if we look at the main challenge, which is to retain our young people in those towns and create an economic foundation for them.

But my question for the Minister is this: the strategy is one thing, but unless you have a structure in place then you’re not going to be able to deliver that strategy. In the context of local government, of course, we do have our city regions in the south, and I warmly welcome those, but where is our region in west Wales? What corresponds to that in terms of giving us that critical mass and the medium that can actually achieve this linguistic economic strategy that this report demands?