1. Following his recent trip to the USA, what plans does the First Minister have to further engage the Welsh diaspora? OAQ51929

Diaspora communities play an important role in promoting Wales overseas. When travelling abroad, I do regularly meet people with Welsh heritage who contribute greatly, of course, to their adopted countries. I can say to the Member, when I was in the US, I met with technology leaders in a meeting arranged by somebody who I was actually in school with—it was that close a relationship—and also with many others who work in the US cities and in Canada who are very keen to work with the Welsh Government to promote Wales as a tourist destination and, of course, as a place to invest.

Thank you. I was pleased to hear that you met tech leaders in New York, including amongst them Welsh expats who are now leading international tech firms. Tapping into the expertise and the passion of diaspora communities has been shown to be an important economic development tool. I was pleased by yesterday's announcement that you have commissioned an academic-led review into digital innovation, but it's not due to report until a year's time, and that's a long time given the pace at which artificial intelligence is developing. So, what will you do in the meantime to make sure we take practical action to put Wales on the front foot, and how will the Welsh Government engage with diaspora groups to help us deal with the challenges and opportunities presented by developments in artificial intelligence?

It's right to say that the digital world moves very, very quickly—we can see that— but, of course, the review has to look at all the issues that we will face in the future. It will be led by Professor Phil Brown, who is the distinguished research professor at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. We want to develop, of course, the availability of good-quality jobs for everyone and to make sure that we have the skills we need not just for now but for the future.

It is important that we work with our diaspora communities, many of whom—I met them when I was in the US—have links into hotbeds of digitalisation such as Silicon Valley to make sure that we are aware of what is coming in the future and what type of skills our people will need. The review will need to do that as part of the plan we're developing to make sure that people have those skills.

First Minister, yesterday students took part in a University of Wales Trinity Saint David's tourism and hospitality conference here in the Senedd, sponsored by my colleague Mike Hedges, and one of the excellent speakers at that was Samantha Birdsell, who had left Wales after university, worked for 20 years in tourism and hospitality, including 11 years in the US, and she's now back in the UK working for Marriott hotels. She is one of the examples of a high-flier, a high-achiever who's been away and come back, and she's working in one of our key sectors for economic development. How can we actively seek other high achievers from Wales to come back, and what can you as a Welsh Government offer them to do that?

Well, we have, in conjunction with the private sector, part-funded a diaspora feasibility study that includes three key focus areas: firstly, researching how other countries engage with their diasporas; secondly, identifying and engaging with Wales's 50 most influential diaspora to determine their capacity and propensity to contribute to the shaping of a Welsh diaspora initiative; and then, of course, to determine the potential benefits to Wales of establishing its own diaspora organisation. GlobalWelsh, which is a private sector partnership, has been established as a community-interest company to develop a diaspora for Wales to support jobs and growth. It's at an early stage of its development and, of course, it's looking to draw in further private sector investment. Now, by moving forward in that way, we can seek to find out where people are, first of all, and then make sure that their skills can be utilised on Wales's behalf in the future, whether they remain in the countries where they are currently living in or whether they bring the skills back to Wales.

I think, of all the Celtic countries, we've got a lot of catching up to do when it comes to maximising the opportunities of engaging with our diaspora. There are a couple of points I'd like to raise with the First Minister—one I've raised before, and that is the decision of the Welsh Government not to continue to measure Wales's global reputation. I wonder if the First Minister could put in writing the reasons behind that decision not to measure Wales's global reputation, because I think that that is a useful indicator, particularly when we look at engaging with the diaspora and, more broadly, Wales's reputation as a trading nation. And, secondly, will he ask his officials to look into the possibility of a Welsh Government scheme to bestow on people an official Welsh Government certification of Welsh heritage so that in exchange for a considerable fee, and also, of course, a demonstration that they are of Welsh ancestry, people from across the world can have an official Welsh heritage certification from the Government that they will cherish, it will raise funds for the Welsh Government that could be put towards great efforts and projects like Wales for Africa, or give greater opportunities for young people from Wales to go and study and travel overseas.

The Member has always been a fount of original ideas, and that's one of them. It's an idea, I think, that's worthy of further examination. What I wouldn't want to do, of course, is to suggest to people that if they want to claim Welsh heritage, they've got to pay for it. But what is important is that we work with the diaspora that we have.

Just to give you an example of how far we've come, back in 2011 we had very few offices abroad. We've opened many more since then. We had no real link with the diaspora in the US, we had no link with Washington; now we host an event on Capitol Hill every single year. That is an event that's attended by many politicians on Capitol Hill. We always host events in New York; there's a new Welsh society in New York made up of young entrepreneurs of Welsh heritage—many of them from Wales originally, anyway—who want to help us, and, of course, we've just opened a new office in Montreal. Montreal is the home of some major companies that employ people in Wales, and we know that we have a diaspora in Montreal as well.

What we have done since 2011 is to look at opening new offices in parts of the world where we know that the Welsh heritage is strong in order to utilise the diaspora that exists there, and work with them to promote Wales in their home countries and, of course, make sure that we're able to open up opportunities for Welsh businesses as they look to trade with the US and Canada.