Alun Davies is right, of course, that in the near enough century of economic crisis we've witnessed in the former coalfield communities, since the collapse of the coal price in 1924, we've had a series of interventions and initiatives and strategies, and I think they can all be summed up, really, as micro progress and macro decline. The question that I think we must pose to him, and I'm sure he poses it to himself, is: how can this initiative escape that fate? We've had, time after time, raised expectations and dashed hopes, and that would be the ultimate disservice to these communities.

So, I welcome the progress report. There are many things in it that it's difficult not to like at the micro level, but, if it is to be genuinely transformational, then I think we need to engage with the kind of critical challenge—and I'm glad that he was positive about the critique offered by the Bevan Foundation, because I share some it—. Are we targeting the right things, is the focus correct? You referred to geography, and that's a critical question as well. Are the interventions collectively on a sufficient scale compared to the challenge, and are the structures right? I'm just digging very briefly into some of this.

Jobs: the only figure—the major figure that we have in targets—is the 7,000 jobs. There is a little bit of confusion there because, actually, if we look at the job creation record, or the number of jobs in the Valleys taskforce area, actually, over the five-year period to 2016, it went up to 22,000. So, at least on the face of it, unless you can correct me, it seems that the target is less ambitious than the trend rate over the previous five-year period. Even digging a little bit further than that, isn't really the issue the quality of those jobs? The problem now in many of these Valleys communities is not the number of jobs per se; it is the quality, it is the low-skill and low-paid nature of many of those jobs. It's a productivity problem and then it's about investing in skills.

On the issue of whether it is of sufficient scale, if you look at some of the earlier initiatives—the strategic regeneration areas, for example, under a previous administration, the One Wales Government—there were designated pots of money in what were effectively versions of the strategic hubs that he's created. We still don't have any clarity about the amount of global investment that is going into this programme or, indeed, attached to those strategic hubs. When will we get the assurances that, actually, we're going to get significant investment over the course of a generation, which, actually, is necessary in order to effect change?

And, finally, when we compare the Valleys taskforce—. And I also pay tribute to the incredibly impressive engagement that's gone on and the volunteers that sit on the taskforce, but, when you compare that to the structures of the city regions—the city regions, which, through their governance structures, involve many of the key agencies, including local government, and have huge budgets attached to them—then it's an unequal equation at the moment and it's no surprise that there is this concern that what is happening is the magnet of the M4 corridor within those city regions is continuing to wield its enormous power. And how can the Valleys taskforce drive the necessary investment in a different direction to the core Valleys areas that he referred to earlier?