Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:29 pm on 4 April 2017.
Can I thank the Member for his generous statement and for the support that he and his colleagues are giving to this initiative? I am very grateful for that. Our aim is to make sure that there are net economic benefits from this initiative, not just for the sector, but, again, for the whole economy of Wales. I do believe that, whilst we can retain the independence of the institutions, we should also recognise the interdependence of those institutions and the benefits from working more closely together. To pick up on a point that was raised earlier by Suzy Davies in terms of promotion of our institutions and heritage assets, if we just put ourselves in the position of the citizen of Wales seeking information about heritage assets, surely it’s easier to access information about all of the sectors through one portal, first of all—through one gateway that can capture all of the richness of our heritage and history, and then to find and to discover the various components of Historic Wales: our museums, our castles, our abbeys, our library, our royal commission. Surely, that is the best way for the citizen of Wales, and indeed the citizen of any country, to discover and to learn about Wales’s fantastic heritage.