Questions now from party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Russell George.

Diolch, Llywydd. Does the Minister share my concerns that the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales is behind schedule in the delivery of its remit?

I'll be meeting with the national infrastructure commission shortly. I will be discussing their remit and I'll be discussing their forward work programme. Given that they take a view on longer term infrastructure needs, I am content with the pace of work to date. However, I do wish to see that any work undertaken from now on is undertaken in the most exhaustive way possible. 

Thank you for the answer, Minister. I'm not aware that there is any recommendation that has come forward yet in terms of infrastructure projects over the next five to 30 years, which is exactly why the commission, of course, has been set up. But a key structural problem, I suggest, Minister, is that, in Wales, planning, funding and delivery cycles of infrastructure and construction projects are often poorly co-ordinated. 

For example, right across Wales at present, in a period that the construction sector loosely refers to as 'mad March', local authorities are all at the same time spending money at the end of the financial year. Further still, local government spending cycles are often not in line with the infrastructure delivery strategies of other organisations, including the Welsh Government. So, this uncoordinated approach means that the construction industry in Wales has a stop-start work flow, and uncertainty as to what projects are coming forward in the future months and years. And the whole point of the national infrastructure commission is, of course, to bring some oversight to the problem, ultimately with a view to helping the construction industry to retain skilled workers and to allowing investment and support and growth of our construction industry in Wales.

So, given the importance of the national infrastructure commission, would you agree with me that the resource allocated to support the work of the commission is too little? As I understand it, there is one Government official who's been seconded from Welsh Government to the commission. What are your plans to improve the situation, going forward?

Can I thank the Member for his question? I broadly agree with the important points that he made about funding cycles, and that's why we included, within the economic action plan, the pledge to move to a more sustainable and guaranteed round of funding cycles for not just infrastructure plans that are taken forward by Welsh Government, but also potentially for local authorities as well.

I think it's absolutely right to say that a constant pipeline of infrastructure projects needs to be developed in order to ensure that people are able to remain in work as they move from one project to the other. The National Infrastructure Commission for Wales takes a long-term view of the infrastructure needs for Wales and those that go beyond the five years of the national transport finance plan.

We're also in the process at the moment of refreshing the Wales transport strategy, which I'm sure will consider funding cycles and the nature of the sector at the moment. But, during the conversations that I will have with the national infrastructure commission, I will be raising the subject of resource allocation and then I'll make a decision on whether additional resource is required.

I'd like to thank you for your constructive answer in that regard, Minister. I am concerned that the Government has got here currently a very poor approach to long-term infrastructure planning and delivery. Of course, one example I've referred to is the M4 relief road. We've had money spent—public money; vast amounts of public money spent—and we're still waiting, of course, on a final decision.

If the construction and infrastructure sector is to have confidence in the Government's ability to plan and deliver new projects, going forward, and if businesses and communities throughout Wales are to have confidence in your Government's abilities, it's absolutely vital that you get the the national infrastructure commission up and running and properly resourced. We are now one year into that commission being in place, and if, for example, that commission were fully resourced, as I'm suggesting it isn't at the moment, then there may be a plan B in place if the M4 relief road is not to be built, because this is, of course, a real concern to the construction and infrastructure sector.

I would agree with the Member that the work of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales is absolutely vital. The national transport finance plan gives some certainty over the immediate short-term funding allocations for infrastructure projects, but in terms of the longer term pipeline, it's the very reason why we established NICW to assess and to determine what's in the national interest, and then for the Welsh Government to plan and, in turn, to publish a longer term pipeline of investments. That's work that I intend to see through to completion, but it's fair to say that the initial work of the national infrastructure commission has largely focused on engagement and assessment.

I think it was right that the commission took time to meet with various stakeholders—an extensive list of stakeholders, it has to be said—and to assess which of the major infrastructure interventions the Government can make can offer the best outcomes, in particular in a rapidly changing world where we are addressing a climate emergency, where we are seeing new forms of power trains introduced into vehicles, where we are seeing new methods and modes of transport, and where we are seeing the very nature of transport shift from getting from A to B to actually being mobile and, whilst being mobile, being in a working position or in a leisure position.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth. 

Thank you, Llywydd. Minister, as I said in questions to the First Minister yesterday, celebrating 20 years of devolution is an opportunity to assess 20 years of our Assembly, our national Parliament, providing a voice for all, of course, and it’s an opportunity to look back at 20 years of the work of the Welsh Government. In terms of Plaid Cymru, we were in Government for four years, holding the economy brief, and I'm very proud of what my predecessor, Ieuan Wyn Jones, did, including pushing the ProAct and ReAct programmes that did so much at the time to mitigate some of the worst impacts of the financial crisis. But that’s four years out of 20—20 years that have been led by a Labour Government. So, how can you explain that the comparative wealth of Wales has fallen over the past 20 years under your leadership?

Let's just look at some of the broad and important facts that have affected the economy in the past 20 years, and how we have been able to steer the economy of Wales in a very different direction to that which was taken back in the 1980s and early 1990s. In the last 20 years, we've seen the number of people in Wales without qualifications reduce from more than one in three to fewer than one in five. As a consequence, we now have a lower employment inactivity rate than the UK average. Could we have imagined that in the 1990s when our rates were almost double the UK average? 

Today, we have 300,000 more people in work than we did in 1999, largely because of the interventions of the Welsh Labour Governments over those years. And perhaps one of the most successful programmes that we have been operating during devolution is a programme that was based on one that was introduced by the Gordon Brown Government at Westminster, but then subsequently canned by the Cameron Conservative Government, and that was Jobs Growth Wales. Jobs Growth Wales helped thousands upon thousands of young people avoid long-term unemployment.

During the period of 2010-15, you can compare parts of Wales with parts of England. There are parts of England during that period that saw long-term youth unemployment rise by 2,000 per cent. The figure here in Wales was less than 100 per cent, still way too high, but across swathes of England and Scotland, we saw long-term youth unemployment rise by hundreds if not thousands of per cent. We saved the hopes, the aspirations and the careers of thousands of young people after 2008, and right up to today we are still operating a very successful scheme that is giving hope and opportunity to many young people.    

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?

He talked about bingo this week; I'll give him the full house. Let's talk about GVA, shall we? There's this great figure that I can quote here. Since devolution, Wales has had the fifth highest increase in GVA per head compared to the 12 UK countries and English regions. Let's talk about gross value added per hour worked. Since 2011, which is the year, of course, that we returned to having just a Welsh Labour Government, Welsh productivity growth has been the highest of all UK countries and regions. I'll move on. Unemployment: the number of people in unemployment decreased by 31,000 during the course of the last 20 years. The figure between that, 270,000 in terms of activity of people who were not active back in 1999, but who we have been able to train up to get the skills to get into employment and to stay in employment as well. And it's worth just saying that the unemployment rate has decreased more quickly in Wales than in the UK since devolution. I think the statistic is something like 3.3 per cent down in Wales, compared to, across the UK, just 2 per cent.

Of course, underemployment is a key concern of the Welsh Government. It has to be. That must be the next great objective—to ensure that people are employed to the level that their skills enable them to be employed at and to ensure that they are receiving a fair wage for that work. That is why we established the Fair Work Commission. The Fair Work Commission has now reported. The Fair Work Commission has done excellent work in terms of assessing the future nature of work, and we'll be looking at each and every recommendation and the implementation of those recommendations, to ensure that we drive up the quality, the sustainability and the security and the remuneration of work in Wales.

To continue with the bingo analogy, if you like, I think it's eyes down for Welsh Government when we should be looking upwards. And the point that we are starting from on this journey means that we have to aim higher. You point to improved figures in Wales, but, as I pointed out, it's still not enough to move us up those rankings. We're still down there languishing at the bottom.

One of the big themes of the next 20 years of devolution, I have no doubt, will be the environment, and there'll be a major interaction between the environment and your brief of the economy and transport. I'll look at commuting, quickly. Commuting now takes longer than 20 years ago. Despite increasing environmental awareness, car traffic has increased by 12 per cent since 1999, outstripping population growth. Things aren't great moving forwards. The removal of the tolls on the Severn bridge has made traffic worse. I think the M4 black route would inevitably lead to more traffic. But I'm sensing an ambition in the Assembly as a body to take action. Time and time again we hear calls from my benches and from other benches for a real push forward in active travel. This Assembly has given Welsh Government a great piece of legislation to work from. Does the Minister, in that context, accept that, on the interaction between the environment and the economy and transport, there is a clear gap that still exists between the Assembly's desire to act and the Government's ability to?

Not at all, not at all. I completely reject that. And just going back to the very first point, the point that we need to look up: that's exactly what we in Welsh Government have been doing. That's why we've been able to achieve those staggering results in terms of lowering economic inactivity, improving job prospects, improving skills levels. And perhaps it's the party that the Member represents that should look up with a bit more ambition and, rather than completely and utterly on regular occasions criticising the Welsh Government for securing companies like Aston Martin, which are about the best that you can find in the automotive sector, those sorts of investments should be celebrated.

Now, in terms of the climate emergency, my department were already doing sterling work in terms of driving down the contribution that transport makes to our overall carbon footprint. We have some incredibly ambitious targets, including a zero-emitting bus and taxi fleet in the next 10 years. A hundred per cent of the electric that will be used on the core Valleys lines in the new franchise will be from renewable sources, and 50 per cent of that will be from Wales. We developed an economic action plan very much with decarbonisation at its heart; that is why decarbonisation is one of the four criteria of the economic contract. You will not secure funding from Welsh Government unless you're able to demonstrate how you're decarbonising your business. That is a huge commitment to make, and that shows why our department was, in many respects, ahead of the game.

But in terms of road projects and in terms of active travel, we've already allocated an additional £16 million for active travel. And in terms of road infrastructure, of course there will be many difficult decisions over many different roads that we are going to have to make as we respond to the climate emergency. I would invite all Members to reflect on this: the M4 relief road that is being promoted by the Welsh Government is a carbon-neutral road scheme over the course of its lifetime. Are all other proposed road schemes across Wales, in all parts of Wales, carbon neutral or are they worse? If they are worse, would those Members who support them stop promoting them?

UKIP spokesperson, David Rowlands.

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, I think it is true to say that university students are often portrayed in a negative way, but shouldn't we acknowledge that there are many areas where students from across the academic spectrum show initiative and drive, often outside their particular curriculum? It is therefore gratifying that Welsh students outperformed those in other parts of the UK with regard to setting up their own businesses. So, do you agree we should celebrate the fact that up to 13 per cent of Welsh students leave and set up their own businesses, and that this figure outstrips any other part of the UK?

I very much agree and celebrate the fact that Wales has a higher rate of graduate entrepreneurship in business start-ups than anywhere else. It's the highest rate in the UK—no other part of the UK has a higher rate—and that's largely down to the interventions that universities make, of course, and also working in partnership with Government—what we do, through, for example, Big Ideas Wales, which is designed to inspire young people when they're at school to be entrepreneurs and to own their own and operate their own business.

I thank the Minister for that. Some critics point out the fact that as much as 44 per cent of these start-ups end in failure and that would-be entrepreneurs attempt this route because they are unable to find suitable employment. But is it true to say that many businesses fail, which are not started by students, and we should also acknowledge that many things can be learned from failure? There are many reasons for the failure of a business, but probably the most frequent is poor market research and lack of capital. Whilst I acknowledge the Government has set up sources of advice and capital, especially through the Development Bank of Wales and Business Wales, are we doing enough to bring universities and these two institutions together, so that there is a greater knowledge of the help available to these budding entrepreneurs?

The Member raises a number of important points, first of all regarding economic intelligence and the role that the Development Bank of Wales has in this regard. It has an economic intelligence unit that's able to assess market trends and customer trends in a range of different environments and across different sectors. That sort of economic intelligence needs to be utilised, of course, by universities and by students within universities when they are considering starting their businesses, but equally, there is a role for Careers Wales. I was delighted at the start of this month to launch Working Wales, which is a consolidated advice service; it's essentially a single front door for anybody who's seeking career advice to be able to access expert and professional advice in a timely fashion. That can often, then, lead to a referral to Business Wales. So, we now have Careers Wales and Business Wales operating very much in tandem, dovetailing over entrepreneurship.

Business Wales has been incredibly successful in supporting business births in recent years, to the point now where we have a record number of businesses existing in Wales. We are preciously close now to having 260,000 businesses operating in Wales and we have a record number of businesses that are headquartered here in Wales. But the Member also makes the point about business death rates and the fear of failure. I do not believe that anybody starting a business should fear failure or, indeed, be embarrassed by failure. Failure is part of the learning process in life and that includes in business, and at the moment, the business death rate in Wales is something in the region of 10.4 per cent. Across the UK, the business death rate is 13.1 per cent. In order to have a dynamic economy, you also have to have churn within the economy, and for that reason, I would say to anybody who is considering starting a business, 'Do not fear failure, particularly on your first attempt', because many of the most successful businesspeople in our country have failed not just once, but on many occasions.