Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I’ve listened to the huge range of challenges that Members have presented in the debate today, but I’m pleased to say they’ve been presented with a feeling of optimism, and none so encapsulated by the response of Dai Lloyd, who recognised that these challenges can not only be overcome, but can actually benefit our Welsh polity. Indeed, if we can’t deliver an optimistic vision of the future, then we shouldn’t be sitting in this Chamber in the first place.

In preparation for this debate, I spoke to another optimist I know, Professor Tom Crick, professor of computer science and public policy at Cardiff Metropolitan University—and I should declare an interest as an associate lecturer at Cardiff Met. He told me, and indeed said on Radio Wales this morning, that we need high-value jobs for people to go into rather than move elsewhere. Now more than ever, we need a coherent and long-term commitment from the Welsh Government for digital Wales, from skills to infrastructure and the wider digital ecosystem. He went on to say that there’s a significant opportunity for Wales here: what will be our unique selling point in Wales so we can compete in, and ultimately lead, these high-value digital industries? Tom, Professor Crick, is a welcome voice, and has been welcomed by the Welsh Government, and it’s pleasing to hear that the Cabinet Secretary makes note that he listens to panels of experts from academia and industry to develop his industrial strategy, and we look forward to hearing what that will be.

The unique selling point mentioned by Professor Crick should be key to a refreshed innovation strategy, and, in fact, we should even think about what we do mean by ‘strategic’ and ‘strategy’. Is it going to be something that we print and put on a shelf and put on the website, or is it something that’s going to be constantly changing and innovating? This is something that Lee Waters did when he presented his challenge, as he always does, to the Welsh Government and said we need to change the ‘Innovation Wales’ strategy in the context of the transformation we are living through. That challenge, I’m pleased to see, is being welcomed by the Cabinet Secretary.

We move into the future with beguiling speed. We don’t recognise transformational change in our daily lives, but then we look back, we see the world has changed while we’ve been doing other things. I’m thinking of when I was teaching. I’d ask my students how many of them owned a Nokia mobile phone: ‘Hands up. Who owned a Nokia mobile phone?’ None of them. In fact, one person put their hand up, and we laughed at that person. [Laughter.] But then you say, ‘Okay. Well, how many of you have owned a Nokia mobile phone in the past?’ And everybody put their hands up; they owned a Nokia mobile phone. Could it be that soon we’ll be looking back and laughing at ourselves because we owned smartphones and we couldn’t put down our smartphones? What will be the future instead?

Well, the trick is to work out what that’s going to be. I’m not particularly good at futurology, particularly when it comes to technology, so, it’s good, therefore, that Dai Lloyd, Rhianon Passmore, and Vikki Howells identified the potential that we have in Wales. Vikki Howells said about our natural resources to provide opportunities for energy generation. She recognised the need for short, agile supply chains in our northern Valleys—I like that concept; I’ll use it—and the need to grow and develop appropriate skills that match the needs and the changes that are ahead, and, again, that was echoed by other Members in the Chamber.

Let’s not forget that it’s not just the fourth industrial revolution, it’s not just about reinvention as invention. A lot of it is about working with and building on what we already have. Technological advances in manufacturing processes, as David Rowlands said, will mean machines being able to manufacture and remanufacture, removing the need for expensive renovation and reassembly.

But those benefits can lead, as others have said, to changes such as fewer checkout staff at our local supermarkets, and bank branches closing because people do their banking online. We’re very proud of Admiral Insurance in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, but could that be hit hard by artificial intelligence? I raised my concerns about the bank closures in First Minister’s questions yesterday, and I was really pleased that the Cabinet Secretary acknowledged those difficulties. However, you sometimes feel—not because of the Government, but you feel that you’re howling at the moon when these changes are coming along, and what we must do is instead manage them, and manage our way through them, and embrace them optimistically. Jeremy Miles’s contribution covered that. He talked about the whole nature of the world of work, how we work and what we even consider work to be. David Melding, though he’s been a bit naughty and gone, agreed with—[Assembly Members: ‘Oh.’]