As the leader of the opposition said yesterday, there is little evidence that the £100 million business park, which has been announced to soften the blow of the Circuit of Wales disappointment, will create the promised 1,500 jobs or the regeneration of Blaenau Gwent, given the Welsh Government’s track record of creating new jobs in this part of Wales. This is the question: what confidence should we have that the Welsh Government will prioritise effective risk management and accountancy best practice in the future, after its failure to do so with the Circuit of Wales? And this is what I’m concerned about as well: that this episode will have a major negative effect on the confidence that we could see in other projects across Wales as well. We know that TVR are refusing to confirm that their new car deal will build in Wales at all.

So, I do say to the Government: you’ve got to send a positive message now that you’re open for business to the rest of the world. What I would like to see is the Welsh Government immediately offsetting these concerns by setting out clearly how it proposes to increase investor confidence for regeneration projects in the wake of last week’s decision. I would be keen also to ask the Cabinet Secretary to explain his logic in not providing or making public the Welsh Government’s response to the UK’s consultation on the industrial strategy. I know that the Cabinet Secretary has said in the Chamber that he would make that available to Members. Yet all we have as Members is a covering letter to the Secretary of State, and not the detail of that industrial strategy. Can you tell us and explain why on earth you can’t provide us with a copy of the Welsh Government’s response to the UK Government’s consultation on the industrial strategy?

The Cardiff city and Swansea deals, I think, are crucial for regeneration, as is the North Wales Economic Ambition Board as well. I know that my colleagues want to address some points in that regard, which leads me to explore a little bit about the missing middle. I pinched that from Adam Price, who mentioned it this morning in committee. The missing middle a little bit more. It’s a shame that Eluned Morgan is not here, because her work was launched last week with regard to rural Wales. So, it would have been useful for Eluned Morgan to take part in this debate today. I read her report with great interest. I appreciate that she asked me for my feedback as well. I think there is plenty in there that is worthy of consideration. Also, perhaps, timely is the fact that the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee is undertaking some work on city deals and the regional economies of Wales. We have evidence from the Mid Wales Manufacturing Group and also Growing Mid Wales. In fact, they gave evidence to our committee this morning.

There is some recurring evidence throughout our committee sessions, and recurring evidence to me as a rural mid Wales Assembly Member, that has been brought to my attention and that exists about dealing with the challenges of mid Wales. One of those issues, of course, is the lack of land available for business expansion. This is a common theme that comes to me a great deal of the time. In fact, as evidence of that, there is a waiting list of businesses that want to expand. Some of them have threatened to go across the border into Shropshire and some of them have. We want to keep those businesses in mid Wales. So, it’s making the land available for business expansion. Of course, there are the urgent improvements that we need for broadband and mobile that affect mid Wales, particularly Powys and Ceredigion, more than any other part of Wales. There are businesses that are not expanding and not coming to mid Wales as a result of not having sufficient broadband.

I also think that we’ve got to look at the unique challenges of mid Wales as well. I think that we have got to have particular support for small businesses. We know that, pro rata, there is a high percentage of small businesses in mid Wales. There are not so many large businesses, but there are those small businesses, and they’ve got their unique challenges as well. So, we do need something that is packaged specifically for them. One of the other unique challenges, I think, of mid Wales, is the fact that we’ve got relatively low unemployment, which of course is to be welcomed. But what we do need is higher paid jobs. We need higher paid jobs for all the obvious reasons, but what I would also say is that we need higher paid jobs to deal with other issues that affect rural Wales—for example, recruiting GPs. We’ve got GPs who’ve got partners, husbands or wives who are professionals as well, who also want to come, but who would have to have higher paid jobs as well in order to attract them to our area. So, we need higher paid jobs for many reasons outside of the obvious ones as well.

The other issue that often occurs as well, of course, is upskilling people. We’ve got a real high percentage of businesses that don’t feel that they’ve got the right skills in the local community in order to grow their businesses. There is also skill retention as well. We’ve got lots of young people moving out. We don’t want them to move out; we want them to stay in mid Wales. So, it’s having a strategy, I think, as well, to regenerate mid Wales and some of those points as well.

So, to finish, I would just like to say that I do hope that the Cabinet Secretary will also today tell us a little bit more about the long-awaited economic strategy—when we’re going to have that brought to us to scrutinise as Assembly Members. I very much look forward to the debate that will take part this afternoon in the Chamber.