I always start from the point of trying to—. Especially as somebody, if we want to out ourselves as being someone from the Valleys, I want to start from the point of where we can make improvements, but I do fear—and I want to be constructive—I do fear, having read this, that it is a commentary from the sidelines. I see quite a lot of pretty words, I see a lot of talk of collaboration and communication, but I don’t see where we can deliver outcomes.

I want to know, from the £50,000 that you have devoted to this particular taskforce, how you will turn around those communities for the future. Have you, for example, looked at other European countries and whether they have similar set-ups, and how they then lead to transformational change? Because we have recently heard from the communities Minister—as you didn’t directly talk about in your statement, but indirectly talked about—with regard to Communities First that we are having a consultation potentially to end that particular programme. So, I need to understand from you, as Minister, how that fits into the wider debate about what you say about how we can talk about what’s already there and how the schemes that are already working—projects that are in our communities currently—how they will then be able to take some of these ideas from the taskforce forward if Communities First no longer exists in the way that it once did and that it’s going to change for the future.

I, personally, do still have concerns about the make-up of the taskforce. Many of them are associated with the Labour Party and I would have liked to have seen a wider approach to the membership. So, I look forward to your written statement on that. I would have liked to have seen, from the first meeting happening in the Rhondda, some new ideas around how you would have engaged people in the Rhondda by the fact that the taskforce was actually happening there. There are new ideas from the Electoral Reform Society, from others working in the sector, in terms of engagement as to how then they could have actually participated in that first taskforce meeting, which I personally didn’t see. If there was something, then I apologise to you for that.

I do see that there are mixed messages also in this statement. You say on the one hand that we need innovative thinking, but then you say at the end of the statement that it is as much about bringing together work that is already under way. What is it and what is your vision for this? I think Steffan Lewis, my colleague, previously mentioned the metro and how we can help people in the Valleys to not only get to Cardiff, but to actually bring jobs to the Valleys. I want to understand from you what mechanism you have to influence the metro scheme so that it can be not only taking people out of their communities to work, but putting jobs back in there for them.

We’re not opposing what you’re doing outright, but I think what we need to see are tangible outcomes and measurable outcomes from you for this. You will have had two meetings by the end of the year, so I predict you may have about 10 meetings a year. What are those 10 meetings going to be able to deliver for the long-term future for our Valleys communities? Because nobody—well, I speak for myself, but there are people in this room who want to see the areas that we’ve mentioned prosper, but we do not want another talking shop to be created, which some people have come to me to say—not my words; they’ve come to me to say that—and so I would urge you to hear that from them and to make sure that it does not end up being what they predicted.