Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. It gives me great pleasure also to speak in this debate. The foundational economy, as the Bevan Foundation rightly states, is a grand name for those business activities that we use every day and see all around us. Business like the Welsh retail, care, food, health and energy industries that have been mentioned may not have the glamour of other aspects of the economy, but it is high time that we all gave them the importance that they are due. I believe also that social procurement has a vital and critical role to play in stimulating our economy.

In Wales, the foundational economy provides real jobs for over half a million people. It provides essential services that form the heartbeat of local communities such as the village shop or care setting or processing or distribution or health centres. It is essential for a safe, sustainable and secure society less reliant on wider nations and insecure supply lines. The foundational economy is also relatively stable against external economic shocks—critical, post Brexit. It is relatively evenly spread across Wales. But equally, it is proven to have majoritively poorer terms and conditions, as has already been mentioned—majoritively women. So, addressing these issues could improve Welsh workers’ pay and also our economic and fiscal base.

We know that we live in an ever-changing world, and no longer are people afforded the security of a job for life. Pay a visit to any national supermarket and you are met with self-service tills where once you were met by a member of staff, as has been mentioned by Lee Waters and Jenny Rathbone. Yet in this world of hurtling change we know one constant, and that is: work affords people the opportunity to earn money and the opportunity to have enhanced self-respect in their lives, and adds to the well-being of a shared community where everyone’s success impacts on us all. We must all back a renewed emphasis on the foundational economy, because at its heart it is vital as we seek to combat poverty, and all in a world of vastly shrinking public sector funding and hugely retracting welfare safety nets.

Today in the UK, 13.5 million people are living in poverty. Of these, 7.9 million are working-age adults. Sadly, most shocking of all, 66 per cent of working households are in poverty—and they have someone doing paid work. When the political journalist of the ‘Argus’, Ian Craig, interviewed me earlier this year, he asked me what my priorities were as Islwyn Assembly Member. The answer was obvious. I said to him that, as a young adult, I was instrumental in setting up a number of tenants and residents associations, including at the Ty-Sign housing estate where I live today—the largest in my county borough—and that as a Welsh Assembly Member, I want to do everything that I can do to tackle poverty, both in Islwyn and across Wales.

The biggest issue for the people I see in my office, as many do in this Chamber on a regular basis, is poverty. It is paying your bills. It is having a decent standards of living. It is employment rights. It is security at work. It is economic viability. Many people today are suffering through a whole tranche, a tsunami of things, which are forced on them, increasing poor mental health, increasing workload on our hospitals, increasing people’s unhappiness.