5. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on Welsh Government support for the ICT industry in Wales? OAQ(5)0145(EI)

The strong performance of the ICT sector has created over 9,300 high-value jobs in Wales and we have the fastest growing digital economy outside of London. Our ongoing support to this enabling sector will assist the development of all Welsh businesses through the increased adoption of digital technologies.

Thank you, Minister. I see it as a very important industry and sector, which is continuing to grow, especially in areas such as e-commerce and robotics. Whilst, as you’ve said, there’s been very fast recent growth, Wales’s relative performance in information and communications technology is, according to the Office for National Statistics, one of the worst in any ONS-defined sector. We must also avoid getting into the 1970s mindset that ICT is mainly finance. Will the Cabinet Secretary congratulate Swansea city region on its commitment to the growth of the ICT industry as part of the city region programme?

I certainly will. The successful signing of the £1.3 billion Swansea bay city region city deal will provide an enormous economic boost, with investment spread right across the region, driving growth right across the south-west Wales region. I am sure that the Member knows that it’s been developed as a vision of how the region can position itself to take advantage of next-generation technology, drawing on its existing strengths, and consists of four themes: the internet of economic acceleration; an internet of life science, health and well-being; an internet of energy; and an internet of smart manufacturing. I think it underlines perfectly the enabling digital technologies in all areas of life that are essential to grow our economy.

With that in mind, of course, we have developed digital competency in schools and we’re developing digital frameworks for industry right across Wales. I can assure the Member and everybody else in the Chamber that we totally get that it’s not just about finance—it is, in fact, the underpinning technology for most advanced manufacturing in the world.

I agree that the city deal may well provide this big digital leap forward, but it’s worth remembering as well that Swansea is where Trudy Norris-Grey made her leap forward from—you obviously know, Minister, that she’s the managing director of central and eastern Europe public sector at Microsoft and chair of Women in Science, Engineering and Technology. She claims that there are ‘fabulous opportunities’, to use her words, for women to take up careers in IT, but they don’t know about them. So, I’m wondering how Welsh Government can help Welsh businesses themselves—it’s not a question of skills so much as the businesses themselves—to better promote IT careers to women.

Trudy is an excellent role model—indeed, she co-presented with me at the WISE event that we had to get women into STEM here in the Senedd, which was an excellent event. We’ve worked very hard to get recognition of all of the aspects of the report on women in a talented Wales—I never get the title quite right—which, basically, is a cross-Government and cross-sector—business as well—vision of how we can get more women into STEM and, indeed, of how we can highlight careers to young girls in particular by highlighting the careers of really excellent women in STEM technologies right across the sector.

I had the privilege to sit next to a woman who was working in the genetics field at the St David Awards, and she was the winner. Indeed, we’re going to look to sponsor her to do a series of role model events right across Wales, for example, to highlight the role of BME females, and their essential role, actually, across the STEM area. One of the things I’m absolutely passionate about is giving young women the right role models to succeed. So, the Member will be aware that we’ve been promoting the purple plaque campaign, for example, to highlight the role of women across these areas of Wales in order to give those role models. We’ll be including business, through Business in the Community and our Business Class roll-out plans, in that, and I will be chairing the cross-Government board to make sure that we get that on track as well.

In the context of the Swansea bay city deal, and as that deal is now progressing, can I ask you what steps you as a Government are taking to assist those local councils in south-west Wales to deliver the private investment from IT companies that is crucially important to the success of the deal in trying to create quality jobs?

The Government’s been working very closely with the city deal partners in order to get the deal signed and approved, and to make sure that we have, although it’s not an appropriate word, shovel-ready projects—I don’t know—or finger-ready projects to go in this area—I’m not quite sure what the analogy is there. We’ve been working very hard as well with ESTnet, for example, to make sure that we have the underpinning digital technologies in our businesses to make sure that happens. I’m also running the Government data and digital group, which will be assisting local authority partners to make the most of their digital technologies, and we’ll be making some announcements in the near future about how we are rolling out some public sector development in that field in order to assist economic development in local authority areas.