Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy and Transport – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 8 May 2019.
And any statistic that points to a good story is to be welcomed. I must say there's an element of playing bingo this week. The stat of the week is economic inactivity rates. It was the one clearly used by the First Minister in his speech marking 20 years of devolution yesterday and it was used by the Brexit Minister on television last night, so it's clearly doing the rounds of the Labour briefings for this twentieth anniversary week. I congratulate you on digging out that stat that looks favourable. Basic unemployment levels is another one that's a favourite to be wheeled out and, do you know what? We can always celebrate, of course, every time somebody gets into employment, but those unemployment rates, again, they don't tell the full story. They don't tell half the story. We know that underemployment is still endemic and low wages are still endemic. We know that on the key areas of driving up wages and productivity, Labour continues to fail. Let's look at productivity quickly. Wales is down there at the bottom of the 12 UK countries and regions in gross value added per hour worked. We are always down there near the bottom under your leadership. Yes, there's been an improvement in GVA in Wales recently, but nowhere near enough to change Wales's place in the rankings. Why isn't Labour able to sort this out?