Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Indeed, I am delighted to move the motion and open this debate this afternoon. For the first time in history, most of the world's population live in urban communities. In 2010 it was calculated that around 66 per cent of the Welsh population lived in its urban areas and this percentage has continued to grow year on year. This really should be no surprise to any of us as cities and towns are centres of enterprise, innovation and learning. They generate wealth and improve living standards, while providing the network and interaction that make us more creative and more productive.

The concentration of talent and creativity makes cities engines of innovation and engines of economic growth—places that we should celebrate, and it is in this spirit that we've brought forward point 1 of our motion this afternoon, which seeks to recognise the importance of Wales's urban areas. For that reason, I'm rejecting the Welsh Government's amendment, which we consider, for this afternoon's purposes, to be too broad. Rural areas certainly need full treatment, and complementary treatment, but that primarily comes through rural policy, and today I really want to focus on the urban challenges and opportunities that are before us.

I would say that, in towns and cities in Wales, we're not yet receiving the level of vision and ambition that we need from the Government to drive our country forward to reach its maximum potential. We in the Welsh Conservatives have recognised this, and we've put forward our vision to create towns and cities that are fit for the twenty-first century. We believe that it is essential to create liveable cities and urban areas that are good for the economy, socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and are built on the principle of the health and well-being of our citizens. They need to offer the quality of life and opportunity that not only makes citizens want to live in them, but also make businesses want to invest, and for those businesses to come from near and far.

We have the opportunity to attract highly skilled young people who are currently squeezed out of London and the overheated south-east of England. I really do believe that both the cities along the south Wales coastline but also the urban areas in north Wales have a great potential here when there’s so much talent that is just not going to have the level of economic and social opportunity that they would want in London and the south-east. It is a great opportunity. It’s one of the world’s most overheated economic areas, and we should be seeing it as a resource, as many cities in the north of England are currently doing. We’ve got a wonderful environment in cities like Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, so the great cities of Wales must be centres of excellence for our young people, and tomorrow’s social, creative and business entrepreneurs. We can build new, modern, state-of-the-art, twenty-first century cities that then set the bar for other cities in Europe, Asia and America, if we have a really ambitious vision. Given the optimum size, in many ways, of our cities, we can really stretch the standards that we want to see for modern living.

In Wales, however, we are still yet to see the significant economic growth that has materialised in many other cities across the UK. I’ve already mentioned London, but, more particularly for us, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh, but also I could mention Leeds and Sheffield. These cities are not really our competitors—I think there are so many opportunities there—but they have shown more enterprise and ambition in the way they are moving forward, and we do not want to be left behind.

Now, it is the case that with the advent of the Cardiff and Swansea region city deals, and that co-operation between the UK and Welsh Government, we are seeing greater opportunity and greater ambition, and I do very much welcome that. But whilst these deals are highly significant, and obviously welcome, they also present big challenges, because we need to revamp our urban policy and our vision so that we see the sort of growth that we really want to energise and fully benefit our citizens, and also be sustainable.