Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Creating sustainable places where people can lead active and healthy lives and be proud to say where they come from is a priority of the Welsh Government. The planning system plays a central role in delivering these places, and the process by which we do it is place making. There are many components to successful place making. The Government must play a part in this by providing leadership and putting in place a policy framework for the planning system that has place making at its core.

Last February, I launched, for consultation, a new version of our national planning policy, 'Planning Policy Wales'. The document expressly recognises the multifaceted nature of the well-being goals and ways of working under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The revised version of PPW seeks to put sustainable place making at the centre of our national planning policy. To complement PPW and enhance place making, yesterday I issued for consultation the preferred option for the national development framework. This is the first formal outward-facing stage in the preparation of the NDF, which will replace the Wales spatial plan. Unlike the Wales spatial plan, the NDF will have development plan status.

The NDF will play an important role in the delivery of the Government’s national strategy 'Prosperity for All', which, in turn, recognises the role of the NDF and the need to co-ordinate the planning of new homes, facilities and infrastructure by local authorities, health boards, housing associations and other key partners. The NDF will have a 20-year time horizon and will sit at the top of the hierarchy of development plans in Wales. Beneath it will sit strategic development plans and local development plans, and the legislative provisions require any plans beneath the NDF to conform to it. This represents a very powerful mechanism for shaping the planning system in Wales, and it is essential that local development plans are prepared and reviewed in a timely way if we are to give effect to our place making ambitions.

The preferred option is the product of considerable stakeholder engagement, testing and challenge, and reflects the structure of the draft PPW. Taken together, PPW and the NDF strengthen the role of place making in the planning system. We must turn away from thinking of the important issues of the day, such as housing, transport, health and energy as discreet issues, and recognise their combined impacts on places. It is time to re-energise the planning system and local planning authorities to deliver sustainable places for future generations.

The consultation on the preferred option for the NDF closes on 23 July. I encourage everyone with an interest in the long-term development of Wales and the creation of sustainable places to make their opinions known by responding to both consultations on PPW and the NDF. Thank you.