I agree with the Cabinet Secretary that this debate and the foundational economy debate are flip sides of the same coin. It looks likely that the fourth industrial revolution is going to generate huge wealth, but it's wealth that's not going to be shared evenly. It will be distributed unequally, which is why the stress of the foundational economy looking after left-behind communities is so important—because people will be displaced. There are predictions consistently around a third of jobs being affected, but it's not going to be as black and white as that. Some 60 per cent of routine tasks will be automated—it will affect all of us.

This is one of those areas where the fourth industrial revolution is happening despite Government, not because of it, and we're struggling to keep up. It's been more than two years that we've been debating this in this Chamber, and it's difficult, I think, for Government to keep pace with the level of change taking place in the economy. To be fair to the Welsh Government, they've instituted the Phil Brown review to look at the implications on skills, which is due to report initially in the new year, and I think that is an excellent initiative. Also, the Cabinet Secretary has made sure in his new economic action plan that future Government support is centred—one of the key pillars is on how it supports automation and the fourth industrial revolution. That's to their credit.

But I don't feel that we are really seizing the agenda. As the Government's response to this committee report makes clear, there's a lot of stuff happening, but I don't feel that we're really grabbing it and applying it in a way that can give us early-mover advantage. One of the committee recommendations is that we look to see how we can demonstrate our domain expertise—those areas where we have a genuine advantage. And there aren't many, but there are some where Wales has a genuine advantage. So, compound semiconductors is a classic example—we are world-leading in that field. We should be looking at how we can apply automation in those areas where we are doing well, so that we can become leaders in those areas where we already have some headway. We're not doing that, and the response to the report is disappointing.

I'd like us to concentrate, mostly, on the precision agriculture element, because, again, it is a practical application of where we could have first-mover advantage in a particular subset. And in terms of Brexit, this is something that we can get ahead of—the implications of that—to give us some advantage. And Vikki Howells has already talked about food production, which, again, is a feature of the foundational economy debate. 

The Government's response I think is poor. Two years ago, we agreed in an individual Member's debate that the Government would publish a strategy on precision agriculture. That has yet to appear. The Government's response accepts recommendation 5 and recommendation 6, but, again, when you look at what they say, they don't seem to be willing to do anything different than they're already doing. Now, I accept that Government officials are up to their eyes in trying to deal with Brexit in the agriculture portfolio, but we really are missing a trick here. I would urge the Government to look again at this, as I have urged for two years, to no avail, because I genuinely feel we are really missing a key opportunity.

The evidence we took was persuasive. The benefits of precision agriculture are multiple. We heard from Professor Simon Blackmore from Harper Adams University about how, from an environmental point of view, the use of these technologies can significantly reduce the amount of pesticides and harm to the environment. So, for example, in his evidence, he told us of how they are now able to eliminate the use of herbicides and put chemicals directly onto the leaf of a weed, saving 99.9 per cent of the chemicals straight away—removing the need for chemicals and improving the quality of the plant, improving productivity on farms, and, post Brexit, that's exactly what we will need to do. But the Welsh Government—as we heard in the evidence—support offered to farms is not flexible enough, so Jason Llewellin, a farmer from Pembrokeshire, told us that he had to have 600 soil tests to be able to apply precision agriculture to his farm, but only 10 of them were available under the Government's Farming Connect scheme, and there's no real route to go on to the next level. Now, the Government just does not accept that in its response.

So, I just want to repeat what I've said before to the Ministers present that if you read the report, there's a compelling case about how we can apply this technology to Welsh circumstances—the types of farms we have, the smaller farms, the development of small machinery. We can lead the way here. There's great work being done in Swansea University, there's a cluster of expertise already around Aberystwyth University, and there's good work being done across the FE colleges in Wales in the farms that they own. We really can break through here, but we need to do more, and the Government simply isn't doing it, and I don't understand why.