At the end of last year, I convened a conference in Neath looking at the local economy, and I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for the economy and the Minister with responsibility for the Valleys taskforce and for skills for making time available with their officials to discuss the findings of that event and the report that arose from it. As they will know, people in the Valleys communities in my constituency are looking now for a changed approach. What people of all ages want in our Valleys is work, and whilst I genuinely applaud the Welsh Government on our low unemployment figures in Wales, we all know that there are parts of our Valleys where jobs are hard to come by, especially if you haven’t worked for years or may never have worked. So, when the Cabinet Secretary publishes his new economic strategy, as he knows, my constituents will be looking for solutions particular to our communities, and not a one-size-fits-all solution, but measures that tackle the specific challenges of our Valleys.

We would love to see the return of large-scale employers at the tops of our Valleys, but we also know that we’ve tried to do that and we have struggled to deliver that. The challenges are immense, but we do know that much more can be done to use the power of public sector procurement to try to deliver better jobs closer to home. So, I welcome the Government’s pilot programme to see how it can use its purchasing power intelligently to create and nurture suppliers and employers in places where jobs are scarce, and I urge the Welsh Government to be as ambitious and as bold as it can be. But we also need our large private businesses to see themselves as stewards of our local economies and proactively help support other local employers to grow and take on local people.

Let’s also make it easier for people to start a small business in the Valleys. Let’s develop those live/work spaces, or shared business hubs, connected with good broadband and powered with low-cost green energy. Energy is an industry that is a part of the heritage of our Valleys and can be a part of their future too, not just as recipients of community benefits, but as a job creator and as a community asset. I know the Cabinet Secretary and the Minister understand the potential of this, and I hope the taskforce can bring forward concrete plans to deliver that sort of opportunity.