It's a pleasure to take part in this important debate and I'm pleased that in this fifth Assembly we have focused on this, the whole issue of the foundational economy, because I think really since the financial crisis there's been a great need to revisit how we look at the economy, because the economy has got to be much more than what can be captured by descriptions such as 'globalisation', 'rational markets' and 'maximum utility'. Economies are local, national, as well as global, and the local economy has been overlooked for far too long and, in my view, this has created a lot of space for populists and protectionists to grow in influence, and actually criticise aspects of the global economy that are quite productive for us, as well as focusing on issues that do need greater scrutiny.

But this phrase 'take back control' has to be taken very, very seriously. Of course, the tragedy in Brexit is that it's not very clear how we're taking back control. It'll certainly be a work in progress and it needs to be a work that informs the whole political economy, if I can use such an eighteenth-century concept, but I think it's time it came back, because politics and economics are so inextricably linked. We need, in looking at something like 'take back control', to consider concepts like fairness, worth, citizenship, because these are all key components of a cohesive society and a healthy political economy. They are inevitably promoted by the concept of the foundational economy, and Lee Waters has already given an excellent description of why this is so. And I believe also, as Lee mentioned, it's at the heart of something like the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) 2015 Act. I do think that's a very good prism for us to use in terms of getting greater attention and focus on local economies and their growth. 

Can I also take this opportunity to commend the Federation of Small Businesses and their partners in the report they've produced, and also the report by the Bevan Foundation, which I think is another key document? I notice that the Bevan Foundation urged the Government to come up with a strategy for the foundational economy, and to do that quickly. And they say it should be as urgent a task as the industrial strategy was for the UK Government, and it took them, they say, six months to put together. So, I do hope you will have that similar urgency.

Can I move to some practical issues, in terms of what we should be focusing on? A cleverer procurement, as is now occurring in Preston, which generates more local spend, is very, very important. Now, we could get mini protectionism if we're not careful. There's nothing wrong with people from outside the immediate locality being active in that economy. But we need to spend more within local areas—in delivering social care, for instance. It's an excellent way for those who are often economically inactive to be skilled up, given the confidence, and then being able to enter the local labour market. An awful lot of public service delivery can be concentrated in terms of the people they employ—in the more prosperous areas of a regional economy, for instance. And people travel in to places like Merthyr and the upper Valleys from Cardiff and the M4 corridor, when we could be generating more of that employment locally.

SMEs are clearly key in the foundational economy. And just look what's happened in the housing sector—we've lost a lot of our ability to build at scale, because SMEs have largely gone out of house building and into other related areas, like repair and maintenance and adaptation.

Skills are at the heart of this. If we could tackle basic skills deficits with the alacrity that we are now tackling higher skills and technological skills—and we need to do that, of course—we would see a reduction in economic inactivity. That is the main indicator of poverty levels—the number of people who are of working age but are not working. And this is a very, very important area.

Can I just finish with this, and it's a task beyond just the Welsh Government—this is something we're going to need to do at the UK level? Business rates are no longer fit for purpose. They drive local entrepreneurs out of our high streets, and in many areas around the business parks and the like. We are now in the absurd situation where local economies are paying more in business rates than some multinationals are paying in tax in all the business they generate in the United Kingdom. That cannot be right.