Thank you very much, acting Chair, for that welcome.

It gives me great pleasure to present today my priorities for the historic environment of Wales, as set out in the document that I hope that you’ve all received this morning, namely this paper, amongst our most recent publications from the culture department.

These priorities cover four key themes. First, I want us to build on the great strides that we have made in recent years in caring for our irreplaceable historic sites and landscapes. Secondly, I want to make sure that we have the skills across the sector to support their conservation appropriately. Thirdly, I want to help people enjoy and appreciate our historic sites and to encourage greater and more active participation in looking after our heritage. And then, finally and fourthly, our historic sites are also assets that also contribute to the economic vitality of Wales. They’ve made a contribution that extends beyond their value to society and to our knowledge of the past. They make a significant contribution to tourism and to efforts to promote Wales as a unique place for inward investment, and especially as a very special place for us all to live and work.

However, these themes are also interdependent. We need to realise fully the contribution that the historic environment can make to our economic well-being, but we cannot realise the economic value of our heritage if we do not care for it, and we need to pay for that. So, the historic environment sector plays a key role in realising wider Welsh Government objectives. It contributes to the themes of the national strategy, ‘Prosperity for All’, which is part of our national strategy, by helping to deliver a more prosperous, active and united nation, and one that learns. It also underpins the ambitions set out in our economic action plan, by recognising the special places that form the backbone of our local economies across Wales. But most of all, the historic environment is at the heart of our well-being goals and our sense of pride as a nation, something that it’s impossible to place a value on, I would imagine.

Returning to my first theme, caring for our historic environment has to be the starting point. As a Government—before I joined the Government—we introduced the groundbreaking Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 and the associated guidance. We maintain and care for the 130 monuments in the Government’s care. We also assist private owners and trusts to care for their important assets, whether through grants or through advice and guidance.