Diolch, Lywydd. This debate, in the name of Plaid Cymru, focuses on probably, I think, one of the key challenges—the central challenge—for this Assembly, which is meeting the demands of the new economic topography, if you like, of the post-Brexit landscape.

The first pre-requisite for good policy is a common understanding: we’re all on the same page. I think that that is part of the challenge that we face in developing a new strategy, and understanding the scale of the challenge. The Welsh economy has probably faced, in the post second world war period, three great periods of economic change: in the immediate aftermath of the war, then the period from the 1960s, the late 1960s, the 1970s and 1980s of industrial restructuring, primarily through the decline of coal and steel, and then in the period post 1996, particularly with the period of the high pound and, actually, the accession of eastern European countries also posed particular challenges for us. Now, we’re on the cusp of an even bigger challenge, possibly. Globally, when we look at the environment’s secular stagnation, as it’s called, which is this kind of decline in the international economic growth rates, fiscal and monetary policy—the two big bazookas, as they’re sometimes called, of economic policy—seemingly exhausted, and rising global competition, in part driven by slowdown in domestic markets, even in China, it’s not an auspicious environment for us to be facing domestic challenges as well, but it is where we are.

If we think of those three periods in the post-war period, what you notice is an attempt to create a set of policies, a new economic policy paradigm that, to some extent, was successful: regional policy within the UK shifting economic activity around the UK in the aftermath of world war two; and, inward investment in the 1980s, where Wales did relatively well and sometimes, of course, achieving proportions of inward investment as high as 25 per cent of the entire UK. It’s the third period since 1996 when we have seen a precipitous decline in our relative gross value added share, or proportion. Of course, that period has coincided with the period of devolution. Devolution was meant to be the answer to Wales’s economic problems. The devolution dividend that we often refer to, at least on economic policy, has not delivered. I think that the Member for Llanelli was right on the money when he reminded us of that devolution dividend argument. He said, over the summer, that despite continued efforts, on that test, it has so far failed to fulfil its potential. So, it’s a challenge to all of us elected to this place that we now meet that test and that we come up with a new economic strategy that can meet the test of our times.

Now, that’s even more important of course in the context of Brexit, isn’t it? The need for an answer has accelerated even further. I must admit—and I’m trying to be fair and not hypercritical here—I’m not convinced by the response that we’ve heard so far from the Welsh Government. Yes, it is confusing. There are so many options on the table that you need a compass: Norway, Switzerland, Canada; Lichtenstein is a new one—of course, Lichtenstein is in the European Economic Area but did have a nine-year moratorium on free movement; reverse Greenland; customs union; World Trade Organization rules; and the continental partnership proposal, which has some merits and was suggested by the Bruegel think tank over the summer.

In a fast-moving scene, you need to show some flexibility and agility of mind, I think we would all accept that, and there’s certainly an opportunity as well for us in Wales—rather than simply going for a prêt-à-porter solution, coming up with a bespoke solution: a new idea for new times. But, that shouldn’t be a recipe for confusion. I think that that’s what we’ve had so far from the Welsh Government on the model that is in the best interests of Wales—the type of Brexit. Because, let’s be clear, the people of Wales have voted for Brexit, as have the people of the UK, but the door through which we exit is what we’re debating now, and there are different-coloured doors available to us; there are different thresholds; and there are different end destinations. It’s important that this National Assembly expresses what is in the national interest of Wales.

Unfortunately, I have to say, we heard from the First Minister three different policies in two days, sometimes in the course of the same session. In the European and External Affairs Committee, when challenged by my colleague Steffan Lewis, he said he did not support membership of the single market, but the rather more nebulous term, ‘access’. Well, who is against access, you know? When challenged on this question again by the leader of the opposition, he said he was, and had always been, in favour of membership of the single market—in that slightly patronising tone—and asked, ‘Where has he been? Has he not been reading the newspapers?’ [Laughter.] He then went on to say—[Interruption.] He then went on to say—[Interruption.] He then went on to say that he favoured—[Interruption.] He then went on to say that he favoured a free-trade agreement, or EFTA, but outside the EEA, because that would avoid a commitment to free movement—despite saying on Monday that he actually saw the EEA or the EFTA models as by far the most workable, and saying in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote that, actually, free movement was a red line as far as he was concerned. So, I’m completely confused. I invite a Minister, any Minister, to patronise me by all means. Maybe I would be a little bit wiser if you would intervene, if not now, and maybe we could have some clarity on what is the current position in terms of Brexit as far as the Welsh Government is concerned.

Moving on to the economic strategy, I have to say that confusion reigns here as well. We do still have a current economic strategy: ‘Economic Renewal: a new direction’. It was published in 2010. It still is, officially, the economic strategy of the Welsh Government. At the time—the clue was in the title, ‘a new direction’—it was meant to represent a step change in thinking, away from the old grant culture and towards, instead, a more strategic approach to creating the conditions for economic success, rather than the old school of, basically, economic success coming through the stroke of a ministerial pen and money being doled out to individual companies. It was also meant to be more strategic in focusing on some key sectors—a limited number of key sectors where we believed Wales had a particular competitive advantage: ‘smart specialisation’, as it is sometimes called in the jargon.

What happened, of course, is that there was a change of administration and the thinking behind the strategy somehow got lost. So, the first thing that has happened is that three additional sectors were added, some of them rather large, like construction. In fact, somebody worked out that probably 90 per cent of businesses in Wales are actually part of the target sectors. Well, that’s not targeting, is it? That’s not prioritisation. We’ve seen the slow re-emergence of the grant culture, of the principal policy lever of the Government basically being that stroke of the ministerial pen, and micro-managing the economy. Picking winners, the evidence is quite clear, is fraught with difficulty. What Government should be doing is concentrating on those areas where we have a competitive advantage and investing in skills and infrastructure. Yes, in particular developments with particular companies and sectors, but doing it using a cluster approach rather than just doling out money in the old-fashioned way.

Yes, we’ve had city regions as some kind of half-hearted attempt to have a spatial strategy after the previous administration ripped up the spatial plan. But where does that leave the Valleys? Where does that leave rural west Wales? Where is the strategy there? Again, there is a vacuum of ideas, unfortunately, at the heart of the Government’s economic strategy currently. We’ve suggested actually creating, to fill that vacuum, targeted and focused development agencies in order to get the kind of strategic leadership that we have lacked so far from the Government. The obsession that underlies the Government’s policy is jobs. Job target numbers—which actually, often, are specious, as we have found out—actually aren’t, at a national level, the key problem now with the Welsh economy. I mean, the Government of course points out that the Welsh unemployment is lower now than the UK unemployment rate. So, it's not that we're doing worse on unemployment that explains our poorer economic performance; actually, it's at a much deeper level. It's about competitiveness, it's about productivity. It's not the number of jobs, it's not the headline count. It's the quality of jobs, the types of business sectors, the number of start-ups and the entrepreneurial culture that we need to create in order to create the businesses of the future. That's where we should be investing, rather than in this old-style, headcount, press-release-driven approach to handing out free money to businesses, which, as, sadly, we've seen, often don't deliver on the jobs that were promised. We've seen a number of examples of that recently: Universal Engineering, Kukd, Kancoat, et cetera.

We realise that failure is part and parcel of the economy, but when we're talking about public money, we need to make sure that we are investing it where it will have the greatest effect, particularly when we saw in the competitiveness figures out today—it's sobering reading, isn't it? Out of 379 local authority areas, Wales has five in the lowest 10, in the bottom 10: Carmarthenshire, Caerphilly, Ceredigion, Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent, right at the bottom. And, again, the cupboard is bare at the moment in terms of economic policies from this Government that are targeted at those areas. The Circuit of Wales, of course, is an inspiring idea that I would urge the Government to stop prevaricating on. That's a project that has been seven years in the making and promises to be transformational in that area. That's the kind of thinking actually coming from the private sector, where the public sector, unfortunately, by changing the goalposts constantly, is holding us back.

We’ve presented our own ideas in our programme for opposition. I think it's a positive move, and maybe it says something, actually, when we’ve yet to see the programme for government. We’ve had the programme for opposition. There are more ideas coming from the opposition benches currently than are coming from the people that have their hands on the levers of power. That has to change if we’re going to actually change the economic state of Wales. We are very much supportive of the idea of creating a national development agency. We created a template that the world copied through the Welsh Development Agency—a fantastic brand, but a model in terms of how you develop and restructure an economy. Of course, we want to do it for the twenty-first century. We're not about actually staying with the policies of the past. That's the problem, I think, with the Government going back to this grant aid obsession. We want a WDA for the twenty-first century. The Government, through the innovation advisory council, is consulting with business—and I understand there's a very positive response—on the idea of creating a national innovation agency. Is that a quango? We often get the criticism, ‘Oh, you just want to create quangos’. Well, it's an arm’s-length body that has expertise, that actually speaks the same language of business, has a particular focus, and will get on with the job.

And the same is true of our proposal to drive up infrastructure investment in Wales. We saw the news from the Scottish Government that they are bringing forward plans to drive up infrastructure investment by £4 billion next year. That's the kind of leadership that we need, and the Government needs tools to be able to do that, people who have the expertise in terms of funding infrastructure investment, in terms of managing large-scale projects. That will never be within the Welsh civil service, and that's why creating a national infrastructure commission is so important.