As previous speakers have noted, not only are we seeing existential changes to the Welsh economy, just as the economy undergoes changes—some good, some bad—so too does the world of work. The jobs of the future will belong not just to another time from the jobs of the past, in their opportunities, challenges and requirements they will also belong to another world.

I've enjoyed contributing to this inquiry, which, as the Chair has reminded us, is meant to be the start of a conversation about how we can navigate that future, and although the phrase has become something of a cliché, how we can ensure it is properly human centred. This is key to our ninth recommendation, which challenges the Welsh Government to put the retraining and upskilling of workers at the heart of its lifelong learning policy. The witnesses who spoke to us were clear in their evidence that low-skilled workers are most likely to be affected by automation and AI.

But women face an especial risk in the short term, for example, in the retail sector, where we have seen the rise of the self-service checkout. Incidentally, new research shows shipments of self-checkouts have continued to increase, with numbers up by 14 per cent for a second consecutive year. Moreover, we still have a task to do in identifying the skills of the future to look at demand and the types of jobs that might be required in any given locality. Here, there will be a key role to play for regional skills boards.

Furthermore, we need to develop a triangular system of exchange between employers, HE and FE, as Professor Richard Davies suggested in his evidence to us. We also need to understand how we can engage with those hardest-to-reach groups, who are perhaps most in need of upskilling, and I think there's a key role to play here for adult community education, particularly in that sector's ability to engage and develop community links. As this recommendation is key, I'm encouraged that not only have Ministers accepted it, but they have started to take action to meet this challenge. Lifelong learning must be just that. We should encourage a culture that recognises this and offers the resources and opportunities for progression, so I look forward to the launch of the personal learning account pilot next year.

Developing the skills we need should also make it easier for Wales to meet recommendation 1. This recognises that we need to ensure our economy produces as much as it consumes emerging technologies. At its most ambitious, perhaps we could reclaim the mantle of 'workshop of the world'. Evidence from the Confederation of British Industry and Professor Calvin Jones sketched out ways in which we could do this. Our universities have a key role to play here, and I was struck, on our visit to Swansea University, to see how that particular institution is responding to automation. Its engineering department has trebled in size. Its computer science department is undergoing similar growth. This must also be a key objective of the city deal programme, enabling that regional approach to the economy to be taken. 

In the deliberations that led to recommendation 6, a made-in-Wales approach to precision agriculture, we took evidence on the ways in which this could benefit small farms. We have a clear need for this. We know the average size of a Welsh farm is just 48 hectares, and 54 per cent of Welsh farms are smaller than 20 hectares in size. However, its benefits are even more widely applicable than this.

I recently met with a company called CEA Research and Development. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, 'CEA' stands for 'controlled environment agriculture', and this is a form of hydroponics that grows crops in a controlled, engineered environment. CEA Research and Development have ambitions, in collaboration with the Association for Vertical Farming, to open a new research and development facility to carry out R&D of engineering systems for the CEA industry in my constituency. There are numerous benefits to a CEA: no requirements for pesticide, better use of land, reduced water consumption, minimising of food miles, and, of course, insulation from what can be the very unpredictable Welsh weather. Indeed, crop failure and waste could be eliminated, and the duration from seed to product could be a little as a quarter of that under traditional agriculture. CEA Research and Development said Wales is a perfect location for this in terms of access to physical resources and, equally important, first rate academic facilities. I hope the Welsh Government will give this due consideration as part of the suite of actions it outlines in its response to the recommendation, and I look forward to revisiting aspects of this vitally important topic later in the term.