Absolutely. I think there are deep structural reasons why we are in the crisis that we're currently facing and the Institute for Public Policy Research's work on the Commission on Economic Justice points to that. There's both a conventional social inequality aspect and that is also reflected in a territorial inequality. In our case, of course, they're both intermingled. Unless you address that, actually, you can't really get out of this rut that we're in.

If you look at the figures as well, we've had 1 per cent growth—a very poor level of growth—over the past decade. In every decade since the 1970s, there's been an actual recession—negative growth. We haven't had that yet. That's what we're staring into at the moment. Because if you think about it, even the 1 per cent growth that we've had has been based on increased labour resources, because of falling unemployment, a record employment rate, high—I have to say it—immigration and also people working longer hours. All of those things are either going into reverse, in the case of migration, and with working hours et cetera, there's a natural limit to the ability of the economy to sustain itself simply by adding labour input. That ship has now sailed. We are now at the limit of that.

The real leading indicator, of course, is output per hour—actual productivity. That hasn't grown for a decade. That is unprecedented for an advanced economy like the UK. So, things are bad. Certainly, I think that all the indicators are that they're going to get much, much worse, and I haven't even mentioned the 'B' word. I'm trying to be judicious and objective about this. Let's take the politics out of it. Certainly, in the short term, this is going to be a very disruptive period in the economy. There will be winners and losers and you can take your pick where you put you finger on the dial on that one. But we are in probably the most trepidacious period economically that we have faced for a generation.

What are the implications for us in Wales? well, I think what we have to do—. We cannot insulate ourselves from these broader macro-economic influences—absolutely not; that's clearly the case. But we must try to arrogate to ourselves as many levers and as much autonomy as we can within this difficult economic, and even worse political context. The late Rhodri Morgan used to talk about the way in which the Welsh economy had carved out a place for itself in a division of labour, effectively—a territorial division of labour across the UK. And in some senses, there was some kind of compact—there was some kind of territorial and social compact. There was a niche that Wales, for a period, actually carved out for itself by agreement. All that, of course, has been thrown up; we haven't had a regional economic policy in the UK, properly speaking, for over 40 years. And so that territorial compact has gone, and in those circumstances, while we can't insulate ourselves completely, we have to try and chart as much of our own course as possible.

The one bit in the UK budget, the one point amidst all the gloom—there are always some points of light—and interestingly, the one bit where, actually, it goes completely contrary to everything else in terms of the direction of travel, is the publication of the industrial strategy. So, here you have a reinvention or a reintroduction of an idea from 40 or 50 years ago, which was a sister to regional policy, and actually, there you have, for example, the biggest increase in research and development spending—about £4.7 billion increase over the period in question—that we've seen for 40 years in terms of innovation policy. Now, you've got to to remember that, in a £2 trillion economy, £4.7 billion is not going to answer all our problems. But that is an important lever, and we in Wales need to make sure, because we've been quite poor in the past, actually—we've never got our fair share of Research Councils UK's money in terms of the universities, we've never got our fair share of Innovate UK money in terms of industrial innovation policy. We have to be far smarter at actually making sure that we can take advantage of those few positive opportunities that there are on the horizon, and also make sure that we have the structures and the levers in place, so that we can use that money in the smartest and most intelligent way.

And I have to say to the Welsh Government as well, at a time when the UK Government—the one thing it is doing, which I do agree with, is vastly increasing the investment in innovation and in other areas of productivity enhancement. We are cutting, slashing our innovation budget. The innovation budget expenditure limit line in the Welsh Government's draft budget is being cut, capital and revenue together, by 78 per cent. That is surely economic madness, economic idiocy, at a time when we have to reinvent ourselves for the very reasons that I've set out, because we are entering very, very uncertain times indeed.