I wholeheartedly concur with that last sentiment expressed by the Chair of our committee. Can I thank everyone who was involved in this inquiry and, in particular, our witnesses, who might actually be surprised by some of the comments in this report? Wales, as we’ve heard, has received far more per capita in terms of economic development money than other parts of the UK, but even so, it was accepted by some witnesses that even this augmented sum of money has not been transformational. That’s not to say that it hasn’t been useful, but it confirmed a long-held view of some of us that the investment has not always been value for money. I don’t just mean economic levering, but levering of social capital and well-being too. I’m pleased that the Welsh Government has agreed that, whatever the future policy looks like, it will need to be measured on indicators other than quantitative economic key performance indicators.

Even though this wasn’t the focus of our inquiry, we heard a number of explanations for why EU structural funding had not been transformational, as popularly expected. One was that, in the scheme of things, it’s not actually that much money. The value of these funds is less than 1 per cent of economic activity in Wales, although I think that, perhaps, listening to some debates we have had in this Chamber in recent years, we could be forgiven for thinking that they played a more important role. Another was that structural funds come with conditions that affect how they are targeted and on what they can be spent. While this wasn’t always an issue, it was raised with us to help us understand why, whatever a future policy looks like, we all need to be careful that the need for strong accountability doesn’t replicate the disconnected and voluminous reporting requirements they currently have to manage.

A number of thoughts occurred to me on the back of this. As David indicated, we don’t have to stick with plan A. It’s not working. The Welsh Government response to the report recognises this and makes some welcome points about reducing bureaucracy and losing those geographical limitations that accompany funding at the moment. But if it isn’t to be business as usual, it will be interesting to see exactly what scoping or scenario planning or even just blue-sky thinking, which is what I think you said, Cabinet Secretary, in your response—experimental ways of thinking—that you will be able to reveal in the forthcoming policy document, as there was some nervousness in the committee about how much work had been done on this. We accept, of course, that there can be no concrete plans until we know the terms on which we leave the EU, but it isn’t acceptable either to fail to plan, so we do look forward to that paper.

Secondly, while insisting upon commitments made by the UK Government on continued funding for regional development, which I support, Wales still needs to get more bang from every buck it spends on regional policy. We serve no-one by insisting that we get every penny we would have had from structural funds had we remained in the EU, if that money is not better spent in getting Wales, down the line, to a position where, in the old world, we would no longer have qualified for less-developed region status.

Thirdly, some witnesses didn’t seem, as David Rees indicated, to have moved on from plan A and aren’t mentally ready for this brave new world. It’s not wholly surprising, as a devolved Wales has developed with its eye on EU structures. It’s what everyone is used to; the only thing is, we can’t stay used to it. We are the most unequal nation in Europe. That is absolutely nothing to be proud of. If we are, on other fronts, becoming a co-productive nation, we can’t constantly ask the public sector to come up with all the ideas and predicate funding to the third sector on delivering those ideas without seeing what others outside those sectors can do for themselves as well.

There are recommendations that relate to the private sector in this report—which includes social enterprise, of course—and they’ve been accepted by Welsh Government, who agree with us, then, that sustained private sector engagement, wherever possible, has to be part of future regional development policy. With notable exceptions in infrastructure construction and maybe some training, I think we even found, didn’t we—you mentioned it David—that R&D is proving stubbornly weak? I think those were the words you used. It’s difficult to argue, I think, that EU structural funds have been felt in developing the Welsh economy—partly, I suspect, because of the strict rules about public authorities holding the purse strings. In future policy, I think Welsh Government should be expecting more from the private sector, but even now, with the Swansea bay city deal, it’s still looking a bit top-heavy on council control of structure and financing, which is not particularly encouraging.

Sustained private sector engagement is very difficult in a nation of SMEs. I get that. They’re small, they are very busy, and they’re not always aware of the role that they could have. But in future regional policy, I think the Welsh Government really has to crack this to get anywhere near achieving the co-productive aims of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and to help Wales rise above its less-developed nation status, and look forward with ambition, as the Chair said. Thank you.