I’m grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m also grateful to all the Members who’ve taken part in the debate this afternoon. I think the number of Members wishing to play a part in the debate and the contributions we’ve heard demonstrate the importance of the Government bringing forward these debates to enable us to have a conversation here in the National Assembly about the way in which the Government is responding to all the challenges facing us.

I’m also glad that this hasn’t been a debate that we’ve seen in the past, where Members have simply picked up off-the-peg speeches and rehearsed all the challenges facing us, because the people of the Valleys want more than sterile debates about what has been. The people of the Valleys want more than politicians who will simply quote statistic after statistic after statistic without fully understanding those stats or being able to articulate what the future holds as a consequence of facing up to those challenges. All too often—and I think Adam Price explained this very well—what we’ve seen has been public relations launches, with little or no substance and certainly no results and consequences. I think that’s a fair criticism of many of the initiatives that we’ve seen in the past, and I accept that. I would also hope that he'd accept his party’s role in one of those as well.

But let me say this: we need to ensure that we articulate very serious ambitions and objectives and visions for the future of our communities across the whole of the Valleys of south Wales. And that means taking seriously the challenges facing us. Not simply making a speech on a Tuesday afternoon and walking away on Tuesday evening, but recognising what those challenges are and recognising how we then address the fundamental parts of the economy and the communities to enable us to overcome those challenges. What we’ve seen this afternoon in this debate has been a whole range of different initiatives, of different ideas, of different contributions, all of which want to be able to contribute to that positive vision of the future.

I wholly agree with the points that Jenny Rathbone made about housing and the construction industry, and the way in which housing can be used in order to deliver improved standards in quality of living, but also investments in our economy. And the points that Hefin David made about a typical Valleys community are absolutely right. When I speak at meetings—I spoke at a meeting with Huw Irranca in Maesteg town hall, and I think that for three hours we stood and spoke and debated and discussed with people there. I was speaking as somebody from Tredegar, looking at the Valleys from my perspective in Blaenau Gwent and Tredegar, and the perspective, of course, of somebody living in the Llynfi valley or Maesteg is wholly and completely different. And the same debates and discussions that we had have been right across the whole of the Valleys, where people have invested time in talking, debating and discussing what they want to see for their communities. It’s been one of the most enriching experiences of my political lifetime, and it’s something that I will always value. And what I have learned from all of those meetings is probably more important to me than all the different texts that I’ve learned at other times, because what we’ve had is real conversations with people about their homes, their communities, their families, their hopes, their determination to create and recreate the communities for the future.

But we also have to be very, very serious about how we do this, addressing the foundational economy, delivering business support that is agile and flexible, able to look at the businesses that Hefin David quoted in Caerphilly, and also able then to scale up the support that those businesses require to grow and succeed into the future.

In terms of the challenges that Mick Antoniw outlined to us, the conversation we had before Christmas in Pontypridd I think was an example of how I would like to see this Valleys taskforce moving forward, bringing people together, acting as a catalyst, a vision for change, a vision for the future. Certainly, all the points that you made are points that I would want to reiterate as well.

Rhianon, I've taken my children on the Cwmcarn forest drive and I wholly agree with the points that you made. Yes, we can meet and discuss issues around Islwyn in particular, but also let's meet and discuss how your vision about tourism can actually contribute to the whole of the Valleys as well. Because one of the things that I hope we can do is to bring people together from all parts of this Chamber in order to deliver for the future.