I’m grateful to the Plaid Cymru spokesperson for her response, and I agree with much of it. I certainly agree with the points that you made on outcomes, rather than simply counting what we’re doing. I think all too often in Government, there’s been a temptation to count all the actions that we take and then to declare that a great success because we’ve done a lot. What actually matters is the impact of those actions on the people and communities that we represent. Certainly, I very much agree as well that it would be useful were many of these outcomes to be defined, if you like, not simply by Government, but by others as well, who take a more independent view of this.

When I look at these issues, I don’t simply look at a series of statistics, I understand and appreciate the lives that people live and the impact that our policies sometimes don’t have on those people, and the need to actually make a difference. So, I was very, very clear, I hope, in making this statement that we want to see the eradication of poverty as a key driver for what we do, not simply something that we do when we’re sitting here in Cardiff Bay, or sitting in various taskforces or committees elsewhere—in Cathays Park, or wherever we happen to be—but that we look at all the actions we take as a Government, with the Government acting as a catalyst, bringing people together, and that we establish the eradication of poverty in the south Wales Valleys as a driver of policy, and that that is the benchmark that we take and that we make for all other policy interventions.

The reason why the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure and the Minister for Skills and Science are joining me on this taskforce is to focus in on those wider economic issues and on how we can ensure that we have the human capital and we invest in our human capital to ensure that we do meet those objectives. I certainly will be bringing in my colleagues from across the rest of Government, as necessary and as needed, and bringing in the expertise that we need from elsewhere outside of Government. But, I want to ensure that this taskforce is not, as you put it, something that sits on shelves, wherever they happen to be, but is a taskforce that brings people together to achieve very real results, and we have the opportunity here to do that.

I’m not sure I do completely agree with you in the criticisms that you made about the investments made by the different European programmes. I think they have had a very real impact, and I’ve seen in my own constituency the changes that have been made, both from the building of the A465 Heads of the Valleys road to the renewal of Ebbw Vale, if you like, at the Works site—the investment in the railway, the investment in the college, and the investment in apprenticeships and Jobs Growth Wales, which are having a very real impact on people’s lives. What I’m concerned to do is that we focus in on substance and not simply PR, that we focus in on making real changes, and not simply cosmetic changes, and that we focus in on changing life opportunities for people. That is a very different ambition, and a very different vision from, perhaps, what we’ve seen at different points in the past.

You mentioned the anti-poverty schemes that are already in existence, and we will be bringing together those schemes and we will be reviewing how those schemes are working today and how they will work in the future. The Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children will be looking at some of those issues, and I expect to join him in reviewing how some of those anti-poverty programmes do work.

Let me finish on this point: you talked about how we engage as politicians and Ministers, and I think you’re absolutely right to focus on that and on our failure, sometimes, to communicate our messages. I was anxious to make this statement before recess so that we can get started on this work as soon as possible. I don’t see this as being simply an exercise in consultation, as perhaps we’ve done at other times in the past; I see this as wishing to stimulate a rich and in-depth and honest discussion with people—the people that we both represent in different parts of the south Wales Valleys. I want to listen actively to what people tell us, because when people talk to us—and we’ve all had conversations on doorsteps over the last few weeks and months—many people have spoken to me about the environment in which they live, whether it’s litter on the streets of Ebbw Vale or whether it’s weeds growing in the streets of Tredegar, or whether it’s fly-tipping above Nantyglo. And these are things which matter to people; it affects their own place, it affects their perception of who they are and they are things that we want to address. So, yes, we will address the large-scale challenges facing us, but we also need to address the places in which we live, and I would never underestimate the importance of that to people, wherever we happen to live in the Valleys.