Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd, and thank you, David, for mentioning the Spirit of Llynfi woodland. It was a great visit and I’m pleased that you were delighted with what you saw there. I think it is one potential way forward on regeneration.

I will be supporting amendment 1, despite protestations from Russell, as I think it does better reflect Labour sentiments on regeneration, and it’s probably neater as well. But I welcome the announcement in amendment 1 on the automotive technology business park in Ebbw Vale, even though I’m a little bit further west, and I also welcome the north Wales growth deal, though I’m a lot further south. But I’m going to get a bit more parochial now. So, on regeneration schemes and the ministerial taskforce, let me put some gentle suggestions forward in my patch of Ogmore that I hope may catch the ear of Ministers.

On transport infrastructure, I’m delighted that the Sunday service on the Maesteg line is now, I understand, being written into the new franchise—it’s a major breakthrough—and also increased frequency options on this line are being actively worked up. These are major breakthroughs in embedding the Llynfi line into the south Wales metro project and getting people to jobs as well as to other opportunities. But as part of this, by the way, we also need to resolve the 5 mph problem—yes, a 5 mph issue—with the nineteenth-century railway infrastructure at Tondu. A guard descends, every morning as I travel, with his key, from the signal box, to hand it over to the train driver as the train is on stop. We wave, and it’s very quaint, and it’s a bit like ‘The Railway Children’. It’s very quaint indeed, but hardly the vision of a modern metro and railway that we want to see. I don’t think it’s the Cabinet Secretary’s vision, either. It’s 5 mph and then a full stop.

Actually, as the options for the metro and the new Wales and borders franchise are worked up, then we also need to anticipate—and Transport for Wales and new bidders need to anticipate—the future shape of transport in this region. So, yes, we want the Maesteg line firmly as part of the south Wales metro, and the Sunday service and the enhanced frequency will help do that, but it’s only a start. To get people up and down and across these valleys to the jobs along the M4, we need to be more ambitious. So, firstly—and this is an unashamed request—what about initially rolling out the non-train, non-tram superfast, super-connected buses, the universal ticketing, and so on in the slightly more western valleys? Because if you’re in the relatively isolated Evanstown or Price Town communities, despite being by car only 25 minutes from the M4 on a clear run at midnight with no congestion, if the bus journey to work at peak time takes over an hour, is infrequent, doesn’t run late enough or early enough to get you to your job, requires a couple of connections, has no synchronicity with train timetables or any other modes of travel, well, you’re as far from a job as anyone else in any valley in south Wales.

More fundamentally, the three northern Bridgend valleys decant primarily to Bridgend, unlike the other valleys east, which decant primarily to Cardiff. Now, as such, I really would welcome the continuing engagement of Welsh Government with the Bridgend County Borough Council’s concept of a Bridgend hub, where multimodal transport modes can converge here and then spin off east and west, towards Cardiff and Newport in one direction and towards Neath and Swansea in the other, or south, in fact, into the Vale as well as the southern Bridgend area. This secondary transport hub along the M4 corridor would significantly enhance the south Wales metro, and make the Bridgend valleys and the coast and Vale of Glamorgan an integral part of the metro.

On the new franchise, let’s hope the successful bidders bring forward options that can extend the service, whether tram and train or other innovative options, along and across these valleys, but also into the wider region of Bridgend and beyond. Outdated, inflexible thinking, along traditional, hard rail infrastructure will not meet the needs of our constituents, or of our need to make it easy for more people to park up their cars and travel with ease on more environmentally friendly transport options. In the ministerial Valleys taskforce, options to strengthen the regeneration of the communities of the Llynfi, the Ogmore, the Garw and the Gilfach valleys are essential. The levels of multiple deprivation and isolation from jobs and other opportunities are as pronounced in these parts of these upper valleys as anywhere else in south Wales. Whatever arises from the taskforce must recognise this and provide the same tools of economic regeneration available to all other areas.

Economic regeneration is about moving jobs closer to people or people closer to jobs. The northern Bridgend valleys have the benefit of being relatively close, as the crow flies, to the M4 corridor. But, unfortunately, Presiding Officer, few of my constituents fly like crows. They travel on congested, single-lane roads in peak times. They’re on a single-line, one-train-an-hour railway track. To reduce the distance between people and jobs and opportunities for training and skills development, I simply ask the Welsh Government, Transport for Wales, Network Rail and other transport providers to continue to work with me and my two local authorities and local communities to enhance the transport infrastructure and regenerate these Valleys towns and communities throughout Ogmore. Diolch yn fawr.