I have very limited time, so I’ll say just this. I think the Valleys—the economic history, the political history, of the Valleys, has been characterised by two forms of persistence, I think, over the last 80 years: the persistence of the problems that have been there right back to the crisis in the 1920s and 1930s and the creation of UK regional policy in the Special Areas Act 1934, which was born in the south Wales Valleys. We’re still talking about, in a different form, essentially the same underlying problems. The other form of persistence is the persistence of the promises made by politicians—promises made only to be dashed. Whether it’s the two Valleys initiatives that we had in the 1980s and 1990s—and here we are, 40 years later, talking about the same problems.

I wish the Cabinet Secretary well with his new economic strategy. The whole of Wales needs new economic ideas, because the ones that we have haven’t served us. But I have to say this: I worry, because strategy follows structure, and the structure that we have adopted, the city region approach, we’ve slavishly imported from over the border in England. These are the ideas of the former Chancellor, remember—the failed economic ideas. The distinctive economic problems—and, yes, opportunities, because there are opportunities there as well—cannot be fully addressed, will not be marshalled, if we simply import the failed ideas based on a city region model. You know, this idea that a rising tide lifts all boats—trickle-down economics, or trickle-up—doesn’t work, won’t work for the Valleys. It hasn’t worked over 70 years, and that’s why we need real new ideas. We don’t have them, unfortunately, in Government policy.