Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, for your indulgence in calling me. Can I congratulate Lee Waters in proposing this motion? I think it’s very insightful, and just the sort of thing that we need to discuss more, really, anticipating and allowing ideas to flourish.

I think the period between 1945 and 1980 was probably what will be viewed by historians as the great age of the blue-collar worker, with incredible gains in terms of income and worth and equality. A lot of that started to break down in the 1970s. It was really a remarkably exceptional time, but since then we’ve seen a series of forces affect those who are in what we would perhaps normally call the more traditional parts of the economy.

These factors are well known, but let me just repeat what you’ve heard: the digital revolution, the decline of traditional industries through competition elsewhere, the shift to a less unequal global economy. But this has been achieved largely at the expense of the traditional sectors in the mature economies. The decline in global poverty is absolutely astonishing if you look at the latest figures and see the advances that have been made in Asia, in Africa and in South America in particular.

But it has pressed very hard on our economic situation. Added to that, we obviously have this revolution in automation. I think these trends explain to some extent phenomena like Brexit and even President Trump’s victory, because they’ve been matched by a general loss of faith in the governing classes, post the financial crisis, which is why we really need to earn our own privileged position and justify it by coming up with some answers and anticipating things and perhaps suggesting some key innovations in public policy ourselves.

At the moment, it is definitely the case that our workforce is divided, roughly speaking, between those highly skilled and adaptable who perhaps embrace the challenges of not only possibly having 10 jobs in a working life but three different careers within that working life, and then the other half who look back with nostalgia on the stability of traditional employment. We need to be aware of those people and equip them for the change.

I think this explains why some people have called for universal income, for instance, as a response to this more divided world and also a response to automation. If you can’t get a job, at least you can get the dignity of a working income. But I think we need to be very careful indeed about moving away from seeing work as a central organising force in most people’s lives. I’d much prefer to see a radical reassessment of what’s a reasonable working week than to say that lots of people just won’t be able to work 37.5 hours or more and will not be economically active.

So, I do think there’s going to be some profound changes there. I’m reminded—I think is was Sir Henry Mackworth of the Gnoll in Neath who first came up with the idea of a structured working week. Most industrial workers until then would have most of the time been working in some rural occupation and then increasingly shifted over to that. That was a huge innovation. It had advantages and disadvantages, very certainly—but it’s that sort of imagination.

Skills and innovation are clearly key to generating confidence, entrepreneurship and adaptability. We need to be much better at looking at those who do feel left behind, because they are capable of upskilling and, when they get confidence, they will also get an appetite for doing that. We really need to focus on that.

Finally, we need to recognise, as well as the great innovations that will come—and we could be in a position to take advantage of those gaps and fill them—but also we need to recognise the value of work in the community, volunteering and citizens’ work. I think we need a whole re-examination of what we want from citizens. Just as we expect citizens to work on juries, perhaps we should expect them to do some equivalent political service and help us with our own inquiries here or to look at particularly difficult issues of public policy and pay them for that. I mean, why not?

We need to look at what people can do, what citizens can do, and really think and earn our position in Welsh society at the moment, and come up with some of the answers. Thank you.