Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:07 pm on 18 October 2016.
I think the Member is absolutely right to identify the need for higher quality jobs within the economy, not just in order to give improved life chances to people right across all of our communities, but also to drive up the GVA of the Welsh economy. We will be piloting a Better Jobs, Closer to Home project, I believe, in the Valleys as part of the Valleys taskforce that my colleague the Minister for lifelong learning, is chairing. It is essential that we use every lever at our disposal to ensure that people who have not been able to access opportunities for well-paid work are given opportunities through investment in infrastructure. I do believe that, alongside the development of the infrastructure commission, the creation of the development bank will assist in levering additional resources into small and medium-sized enterprises, which will be absolutely essential in order to enable them to grow their capital and therefore take advantage of some of the major infrastructure schemes that are coming down the line. Perhaps what’s most important of all to employers in the private sector and the public sector is a clear pipeline of opportunities for infrastructure upgrades. It is something that I hear very regularly from representatives of companies of all sizes—the need for a predictable and scheduled provision of infrastructure projects that can be exploited. This is something that I believe the commission could have a very important role in delivering.