I’m pleased to take part in this afternoon’s debate, welcoming the announcement of the UK Government’s industrial strategy. We’ve heard in the opening remarks from Russell George about some details of that strategy, placing education and skills at the heart of the economy, and re-establishing in some measure technical education, too long undervalued, as David Melding mentioned in the previous debate. We clearly need to lift literacy and numeracy skills, and many people are falling short of the threshold needed for skilled employment in Wales.

At the heart of this debate is the need for a Welsh industrial strategy, and a strategy as soon as possible. We know that the Welsh Government capital budgets will benefit from an extra £400 million over the next five years as a result of last year’s autumn statement, but this needs to be channelled into capital projects. We believe that rather than an ad hoc approach to this, it would be better to have a strategy that underpins this spending. I listened as always to Adam Price’s comments earlier, and I take some of your points, Adam, about the need for a Welsh dimension and a Welsh solution to Welsh problems—as you say, that’s what devolution is all about—but I think to try and isolate that from a broader UK strategy doesn’t seem to me to make any sense. Yes, we may want to enhance the north-south transport and economic links within Wales—yes, of course, we all do—but at the same time those east-west links have served Wales very well. The M4, the A55—like them or not, they are the key arteries, and have been for a long time, of the Welsh economy, and they do integrate us into a wider economy, as my neighbour, Dafydd Elis-Thomas, pointed out a few moments ago. What is the nature of the border between England and Wales? Actually, it is England and Wales, and whilst we strive to seek a distinct Welshness—and all of us in this Chamber are here to do that—we do have to recognise that those links do exist from Cardiff to Bristol and from the north of Wales across to Liverpool. Those are there, and they will remain there until there is a viable alternative. And I think all of us in this Chamber do want there to be increasingly viable alternatives. We don’t want the Welsh economy to be—. I’m looking at Nathan Gill, who’s caught my eye—he doesn’t want the Welsh economy to be dependent on the European economy. We don’t want the Welsh economy to be too dependent on any other economy, other than the necessary trade. We do want a home-grown economy here in Wales, and one that looks to the future and deals with some of the underfunding deficiencies that we’ve had in the past. Adam Price.