I’m pleased to speak in support of this motion today, and as a member of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, I’d like to thank the Chair, the clerking team, other Members and witnesses for what’s been a really interesting inquiry. For my contribution today, I’d like to focus on the first recommendation in the report. The evidence we took reinforced how important it is for housing and related supporting infrastructure to be included in the commission’s report, alongside economic and environmental infrastructure. The testimony of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, the Home Builders Federation, and the Association for Consultancy and Engineering made a powerful case that our approach to housing needs to be holistic, Wales-wide and at the core of how we conceptualise infrastructure.

I welcome the response from the Cabinet Secretary that the Welsh Government will consider the way we use strategic land during the review of the commission within this Assembly. But I’d like to make the point that when housing is developed, we also need to make sure we get the peripheral infrastructure right. For example, I’m dealing with an issue on a housing estate in the urban heart of my constituency that was developed a few years ago. For all this time, residents have been without decent broadband. For example, one resident told me their broadband speed is just 0.3 kilobytes per second. The reason for this: infrastructure provision at the site has never been linked up. This impacts on their ability to work, to study, to communicate and to relax. Residents are forced to go to unnecessary cost and are left disappointed that an infrastructural expectation on a brand-new housing estate just isn’t up to scratch.

Alongside this, the committee considered social infrastructure. We didn’t reach agreement that all aspects of this should be within the commission’s remit, but I am pleased that the Cabinet Secretary placed on record in his reply that the national infrastructure commission for Wales will be expected to consider the potential interactions between its future recommendations and social infrastructure. I’d like to briefly explore why this is so important, and why it is the glue that can bring together and strengthen local communities, to quote from a document on considering Infrastructure in the Thames gateway. Ed Evans, from the Civil Engineering Contractors Association Wales gave some important evidence, which is quoted in our report. He said:

‘we need to see infrastructure in its entirety, and it does encompass economic, social and environmental considerations.’

If we don’t do this, I would argue that we won’t align with the sustainability principles underpinning the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Chwarae Teg also made this point, noting that the definition of sustainable development in the Act intertwines the social with the economic and environmental. Including childcare, social care and educational facilities will ensure the commission can play its strategic role effectively. In a twenty-first century Wales, we need to consider these elements of social infrastructure, alongside more traditional aspects of infrastructure such as transport or broadband, as both determine whether people can access work, as well as how and where they’re able to do so. Public services and infrastructure are key components of the foundational economy and I was glad to table a motion last week with two other members of the committee on this crucial issue.

Flexible childcare provision is one aspect of this. My constituency and others across the northern Valleys are well-served by a plethora of childcare providers and we see some innovative practices currently in development, such as Wales’s first outdoor kindergarten, which is scheduled to open in Dare Valley Country Park this summer. The network of existing provision will be further utilised under the roll-out of the Welsh Government’s childcare policy, and, indeed, demand for childcare may well outstrip supply. Additional childcare providers are likely to be needed to provide this vital infrastructure—infrastructure that has the potential to assist residents in enhancing their employability prospects, increasing their disposable income and boosting their social mobility.

My final point in support of including social infrastructure within the remit of the commission is that this is what the most ambitious global examples already do. Australian federal and state governments both look at economic and social infrastructure. New Zealand and Canada’s national infrastructure bodies include social aspects in their remits, too. And these seem like good examples for us to be following.