Diolch, Lywydd. I wanted to pick up on one of the points in the motion that drew attention to the gross value added performance of Wales against the UK average. It seems to me that what we’re looking at here is actually a fundamental question of the inequality of the UK as a country—it’s uniquely unequal in comparison with other countries, for example, within the European Union.

We heard at the Brexit committee earlier this week that the performance of some of the European Union countries, on the basis of their membership of the EU, might have been faster because of the fact that we are, in Wales, a comparatively small part of a larger whole and our economy is so different, in some ways, from the UK in general. But I think it is worth bearing in mind that those comparisons of GVA only take us so far, and they’re a very crude tool for comparing the kind of economy that we want in Wales.

Actually, London and the south-east are the only two parts of the UK that exceed the average, which is a startling fact if you think about it. They’re the only two parts of the UK’s economy that are stronger than the average. So, I think that tells us some of the picture, but it doesn’t tell us the whole story.

I wanted to pick up on the idea in Rhun ap Iorwerth’s speech that is really about the idea of Wales exporting ideas, if you like, to other parts of the UK and other parts of the world. And the NHS, for example, is one of those, I suppose, exports that we are all proudest of here and across Wales.

There are still things that we can and do export to the world, and some of those are important ideas. I want to touch on a few of those today, and I think all of them play into the idea of the sort of economy that we want to have in Wales. I think that rather than just looking at GVA, we should look at the kind of assets that we’ve got in Wales and build an economy that reflects our assets. One of those assets, and it’s mentioned in the motion, is the idea of the blue economy and the green economy, and I think we must focus on that as one of our key principles in our future economy.

We have unique assets that other countries can’t compete with, in terms of the tidal reach that we have and the long coast that we have. We have the prospect in the tidal lagoon not just of green energy but of a massive economic opportunity for not just south Wales but the whole of Wales—a classic example of how the blue economy can become a reality. It’s already worth about £2.1 billion to the Welsh economy, and that’s really before we’ve done very much in terms of marine renewables in particular. We’ve made good innovative strides, but there’s much more potential there for us. And I hope and expect that we’ll see a marine plan from the Welsh Government that commits to focusing on that sector.

The second asset I want to talk about is the notion of well-being and the innovation that we have in Wales in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. We are genuinely groundbreaking in that piece of legislation, and that is an idea that we can export to the world. But the challenge for us, I think, now is finding ways for that to be a catalyst for economic development in itself. What is our analysis of how there is an economic opportunity that comes from having long-termism and sustainability absolutely at the heart of our economy and of our society? We’ve already started to do work to foster the circular economy where we recycle and so forth. There is much more that we can do in that area over time to create a new kind of productivity where we look at assets as things that we have for the long term, not just as disposable items.

And the last idea that I think has potential for us to export is the idea of a distributed economy—one where, actually, more of the wealth and more of the economic activity is spread throughout our country. I held a forum in Neath recently for discussing the economy, as I mentioned earlier, and one of the key issues that came up in that was the idea of how we can improve our local supply chains, and how we can work between the public sector and the private sector to boost our local economies. That isn’t really an agenda that has developed much in other parts of the UK, and I think there’s a real opportunity for us in Wales to do that.

So, I think we can’t run away from the idea of GVA as an important indicator of the health of the economy—obviously, we want an economy where growth is at the heart of it—but I’d encourage us to debate much broader tests for the success of our economy that reflect well-being and other measures. We need to look at our assets and build an economy that reflects the fantastic assets that we have in Wales.