Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:19 pm on 5 July 2017.
No, I haven’t got—. I may take time in a second. And I think that stringing people along—. I appreciate you’ve inherited a real mess, frankly, as a Cabinet Secretary, from your predecessor because you’re relatively new to this particular post, but the reality is that, unfortunately, that mess has landed in your inbox and you’ve had to pick up the pieces. I think it’s only right that we should have a public inquiry into the Circuit of Wales debacle, in order that we can get to the bottom of what happened and we can establish precisely what the truth is and whether the Welsh public, whether the businesses that are involved, and whether this Assembly have been misled over what took place.
Other Members have talked passionately about individual issues in their constituency and the regeneration projects that have taken place. David Melding is quite right to point out the fact that there has been some success over the years, particularly in places like Cardiff Bay. I’m seeing a renaissance in the seaside town of Colwyn Bay as well, on the north Wales coast, in recent years, and there has been Welsh Government involvement in that, and I’ll pay tribute to you for helping to contribute to that success. Unfortunately, there are many communities that are still being left behind.
I heard, very carefully, what Rhianon Passmore was saying about the unfairness—the alleged unfairness—of the UK Government in investing in the peace and security of Northern Ireland by making additional resources available to that particular part of the United Kingdom. But what about the need for some fairness within Wales in terms of spending in north Wales and in mid Wales and in west Wales, instead of focusing just on the south, which is what we’ve seen over 20 years from this Government here, Labour-led administrations, and including, of course, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems propping those administrations up from time to time? We haven’t seen the same sustained focus on north Wales and mid Wales. Russell George was quite right: we need a growth deal for mid Wales. We need rural Wales to also be on the map in terms of some attention, so that we can ensure that the businesses in those areas—those rural parts of Wales—get the support that they also need.
I think you’re quite right, Cabinet Secretary, to focus on the opportunities that lie in cross-border working: cross-border working between Wales and England, and particularly in north Wales where very strong economic links already exist. We have seen some success in dragging some economic bleed into north-east Wales in recent years, which has benefited that part of Wales’s economy, but we need to get that drift—that economic success—further west. I can hear very loudly the concerns that are being raised about north-west Wales and they are genuine concerns, and we need to ensure that there’s prosperity from east to west as well as from north to south and south to north. We’ve got to get all parts of Wales able to reach their potential, and unfortunately the policies that we’ve seen to date have not enabled them to reach their potential, and that’s what I want to see.
I think you’ve got to work harder with communities. You’ve got to make sure that we take—. I know you’ll laugh at this, but we’ve got to take the politics out of some of this as well, if we’re going to achieve the sort of success that we want, particularly—[Interruption.] Particularly when we’ve got a range of local authorities with different coloured leadership in terms of the politics, and we’ve got different coloured leadership at one end of the M4 to this end of the M4. So let’s try to work together in order to achieve what I hope we all want to achieve, which is a more prosperous Wales. Let’s recognise, though, that continuing to go down the same formula that you think is going to lead to success and hasn’t in the past is not going to work, and I do think, therefore, that we certainly are very concerned. While we welcome the fact that there’s some extra investment for Ebbw Vale, which has been announced, we’re very concerned that that’s not actually going to deliver any sea change in terms of a difference for the economy in Blaenau Gwent and Ebbw Vale. So, I think that there needs to be a fresh approach. There needs to be more collaboration, more working with local government. We’ve had these wonderful city deals, which I think point us in the right direction, in Cardiff and in Swansea bay. We’ve got a north Wales growth deal, which is inching forward, being driven forward by Alun Cairns and the Wales Office, and I believe that if we work together, we will be able to see the difference that that collaboration can make. So, I urge people to support the motion in the name of the Welsh Conservatives this afternoon.