Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’d like to congratulate the Members who’ve put forward this debate, because I think it does give the space to try to look at economic strategy and perhaps try to do it at a bit of a distance and to try to think of new ideas. So, I congratulate them on doing that.

The argument about what makes certain city regions, countries or areas grow faster than others is very long standing. It would be daft to try to claim that people moved from rural Ceredigion to Senghenydd in Hefin David’s constituency, as my grandparents did, because of the schools and hospitals and other infrastructure. They moved because of the coal mines. New coal mines opening up would be classed as population-creating industries, with schools, hospitals and the food and drink industries being classed as population-serving economic activities. If the mine is there, the pit village grows around it; schools and health centres, railways and roads, bakeries and breweries have to grow up nearby to serve the new local population.

This motion, as I understand it, is calling for investment and a fresh approach to the economy of the every day. And I support that, but what I would like to hear in the debate is what that actually means in practice. What would this new approach to the foundation economy actually be? Because it makes absolute sense to listen to and that’s where we should invest and that’s what we should develop. I was very pleased to hear Karel Williams speak, as well, in the Pierhead some time ago. I think it’s very important that we try to look at the situations that we have with fresh eyes and try to think of a strategy that will address some of the long-standing problems that we’ve had.

I think it still remains that, within Wales, the main variable in causing Wales, or indeed different parts of Wales, to prosper or not, is what replaces the original staple industries of the industrial revolution. I think what replaces the mines in the Valleys is as live an issue today as it was in the 1930s. I think that is where I would like to hear some more of the thinking as to how we develop the foundation industry in order to deal with the situation where those staple industries have gone, in places like the Valleys, where I come from.

In my constituency of Cardiff North, it’s a very different situation, because what keeps Cardiff North going is the world of public services. It’s never been a manufacturing constituency and it never was, except for the Royal Ordnance Factory, which came in the last war and continued, I think, for 50 years after that—the only big base of manufacturing and, of course, it’s all now houses. But what has kept Cardiff North on an even keel today is the huge investment in health services by way of the University Hospital of Wales at Heath park; the children’s hospital; the medical school at Cardiff University; the dental hospital; and, of course, the forthcoming massive investment in creating the new Velindre hospital. So, of course, the provision of public services of that character links with the emergence of new high-tech industries. Of course, on the Velindre site there’ll be a cancer research and a clinical trials business park allied with the new Velindre, and if there was more room at UHW, there would be an even bigger facility for spin-offs from the medical school. I think there’s a wider lesson there about how the foundation economy side interacts both ways with the more mobile parts of the economy.

I think, if you look at some of the most successful cities and regions in the United States, you can see that places like Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio, have grown up as public sector infrastructure state capitals, providing state administration and huge, well-resourced, prestigious state universities. Now, that’s where the new high-tech industries want to locate, because both Apple and Google have decided to locate their second campuses in Austin because it’s got the right buzz. I think it’s very important that we look at the areas of growth that are most successful, that we put our resources into those, and that we plan carefully where they should be throughout Wales, and put the impetus there as well as trying to look at the foundation economy and do what we can to develop that. So, I’m very grateful to have taken part briefly in this debate today, and I congratulate the Members who are doing this economic thinking about where we’re going in Wales today. Thank you.