Minister, thank you for your statement this afternoon. It does remind me of a predecessor of yours, Leighton Andrews, who was up and down on his feet on the same afternoon serving us several statements at once. I hope you don’t have the same political future as, obviously, that particular Minister had.

But I do welcome your statement. Obviously, you have put a huge amount of personal energy into this, and Government energy into it—and rightly so, in fairness. Also, your cross-Government approach—rather than looking at it from a silo point of view, thinking, ‘This is mine, and I’m just going to lead it’. Taking Cabinet Secretaries with you to many of the public meetings does give confidence that Government is looking at this in the collective.

Because I think it is fair to say that many of the Valleys communities can say that, in some instances, they might well have heard all this before, but actually, if you look at economic activity, if you look at education standards, and many of the key indicators, sadly, we haven’t seen the improvements we would all wish to see. Above all, it’s about—in the next five, 10, 15 years—building that economic activity within the Valleys, so that they do become sustainable, they do become generators of their own futures and, above all, they do become places that people generally want to live and work in as well.

I do note from your statement, Minister, that you say that next week you will be launching the high-level plan ‘Our Valleys, Our Future’, but then we have to wait until the autumn until we get the performance indicators, or how you will measure yourself, which you have touched on in the latter part of your statement. I'm just wondering: why the disconnect? Because, surely, to make it a coherent plan, you already understand what indicators you're aiming for. So, why aren't the two linked in? Because for us to have confidence that this plan is more than words on paper, we do need to be able to see the progress and measure the progress, not just as politicians, but as communities from the Valleys, as I said, so they can have confidence that you're moving in the right direction.

You've touched on, in your opening remarks, how you've been led by the communities themselves, and rightly so. I'd be keen to understand where you believe a job is local enough to be determined as being a job within a local community. You touched on that in your statement here:

‘within reach of their local communities’ are the are words that you talk of. Yet, much of the economic levers that the Welsh Government has used over the last couple of years certainly have generated levels of employment along the coastal belt here—in particular in south Wales—that have seen, obviously, many people moving out of the Valleys for those employment opportunities. So, I'd like to understand: do you see the employment window as the entire south Wales area, or are you focused very much on generating local employment within the communities themselves? And how do you succeed in doing that? Because you do touch on creating an additional 7,000 jobs in this period up to 2021, I believe you're talking of. Are those genuinely new jobs that you're looking to create—so they’re over and above what’s already in the Valleys—or are they just merely jobs that would be filling jobs that already exist, either in the public sector, the private sector or the voluntary sector? Can we genuinely be looking forward to 7,000 new job opportunities over and above what already exists within the Valleys?

You touch also on the six strategic hubs that you’re looking to develop in the Valleys. I’d be interested to understand how you’re developing that concept, what exactly they stand for—are they merely mini enterprise zones? Because you identify the one that you’ve got in Blaenau Gwent, for example, that came out of the Circuit of Wales announcement as being a model. Well, that is a themed model in that it is around the automotive sector. So, with the roll-out of the five remaining hubs that you would have left in this concept, what do you actually mean? Geographically, how will they be spread around the Valleys area? In particular, what budget lines will be allocated to create the opportunities? Obviously, in Blaenau Gwent, you’ve identified £100 million over 10 years for that particular hub. Can the other five hubs look forward to the same level of funding? Because, again, I think it’s important to understand what resource Welsh Government are putting forward into this concept. I do caution the ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy, because, actually, we’ve seen that philosophy does not work. And so, if that’s going to be the mainstay of your economic activity, please give us some meat on the bones so we can understand what we can deem a success and what the concept will deliver.

In closing, I do welcome the reference to the natural environment—[Interruption.] I hope the leader of the house is all right. I was a little concerned then that I’d have to come over and give you the kiss of life. [Interruption.] I can see the colour has come to the leader of the house’s face. Is that a hot flush?

In closing, I would congratulate the Minister for identifying the natural environment within the Valleys. As someone with a farming background, I do think this has been a massively underused resource that exists within the Valleys. I have dealt, recently, on a cross-party basis, with Hefin from Caerphilly, and the Member for Cynon Valley as well, and other Members across the Chamber, around the commons that sit on top of the Valleys—there are huge open spaces that do form an important economic facility for agriculture. But also they do play an important role in the natural environment within the Valleys, and I’d be grateful for an explanation as to how the Minister sees that natural environment playing a genuine role in the renaissance of the Valleys that we all want to see, in particular across all the Valleys.