I'd like to say a big 'thank you' to Lee Waters and Jenny Rathbone for making the journey to Preston; I couldn't make it myself, for family reasons. But the great thing is, they produced a report, as you'd expect, as a result of their journey, and I've read it with interest. What it reveals is that there are things there that can be transferred from the Preston model to our communities, without too much trouble. I take the point about having local specific needs as well, but there are certain principles that we could transfer.

Professor Kevin Morgan has singled out, often, Caerphilly County Borough Council for praise, with regard to their procurement, and has named Liz Lucas and her team there as specialists and exemplars in procurement. So, I took the opportunity this afternoon to speak to the team in Caerphilly council, and one of the things that rang true was the line from Lee and Jenny's report on Preston:

'The council deputy chief executive in Preston told us that, having been told EU procurement rules were a barrier, they had found it easier than expected.'

And this is borne out by the experience in Caerphilly council, because what they did with the Welsh housing quality standard programme was that they developed their own Caerphilly version of a dynamic purchasing system, which allowed simplified access—something they called a passport to trade—for local contractors to access the work for the WHQS. This was something that fits very much in line with what I've read in the Preston report from Lee Waters and Jenny Rathbone.

One of the other things that Caerphilly said they do well is collaborate with other local authorities. And they felt that the National Procurement Service didn't allow that, or it wasn't built into the principles of the National Procurement Service, yet they maintained that collaboration locally. However, what I would say is that looking at the anchor institutions that are identified in the report that Lee and Jenny produced, as a result of the visit to Preston, there is not the level of systemisation and structuralisation that is present there in Caerphilly, and I think there are lessons to be learnt there: how do we make the most of the understanding of our immediate environment? I think that's something that we still fall some way short on.

I've talked before about Mark Granovetter's work, 'The Strength of Weak Ties' and the fact that weak ties to social capital are those that enable growth. So, not relying as a business on your family and friends, but relying on collaborative arrangements with other businesses in your immediate social network—that strength of weak ties in social capital.

One of the things Caerphilly found was that along with those weak ties come some very strong characters. Small firms that try and collaborate can't sustain the collaboration when they're applying and bidding for contracts. Sometimes, it's because of disputes over who should be paid what for what, and it becomes a difficulty in sustaining collaboration in small firms across contracts. They may succeed in delivering one contract, but then will not re-collaborate again to deliver another contract. That requires a degree of education in our small firms, in our SME community, and I think that's important.

Finally, the other issue that Caerphilly council raised with me is the link to social care. I'm pleased to see that one of our candidates for the Welsh Labour leadership is here and has identified the need for a national care service. I think a national care service is vital in helping us to deliver social care. Too often, we've outsourced our social care without thinking who we are outsourcing it to. The Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods—WISERD—has produced a report, which said that we should be building social enterprises into our care delivery systems, into how we deliver social care. We haven't succeeded in that in Wales and I think we need to relook at how we deliver social care. I think that framework national care service will be key in allowing that. 

So, I think this is an important debate at this point in time. We've had debates on the foundational economy before. One thing I'd say: the Cabinet Secretary has listened because we've seen it delivered in the Welsh Government's economic action plan, but now we need to see it actioned. I think that some of the discussion in this debate today will give the Cabinet Secretary further motivation to take these ideas forward, and I look forward to hearing his response to the debate today as well.