I'm hopeful the scheme will bring palpable benefits right across our Valleys communities. Llywydd, an empty property is not only a home going to waste, it's a blight on an area: overgrown gardens attract vermin and broken windows scar a street. By tackling the problem of empty homes, we will nurture the fabric of our communities and we'll also help the second of our strategic priorities: growing the foundational economy.

The experience in RCT is that the homes being renovated are using local builders and trades—grounded small and medium-sized enterprises—who recirculate the spending in their area. We're also using some of the taskforce allocation to increase the size of the foundational economy experimental fund, allowing us to double the £1.5 million we originally agreed with Plaid Cymru as part of our budget negotiations. I hope to make announcements on which schemes we are supporting in the coming weeks.

A third strategic priority area is entrepreneurship and business support. I'm very grateful for the work of angel investor Andrew Diplock—the work he's done as a member of the taskforce in this area. He's helped us run a #PitchItValleys event, where 43 Valleys-based entrepreneurs applied to take part. Six are now through to the final round and are working with mentors before the final pitch at the end of November, where each will bid for up to £75,000 of equity investment.

We're also trialling a peer-to-peer network to help existing businesses grow. This is a very promising idea, I think, of bringing 10 founders so far of local firms together to counsel each other using real-world business growth challenges, which they can then apply to their own businesses. We hope this can provide a template for how we can support grounded firms in the rest of Wales.

We're also running with an idea put forward in an entrepreneurship workshop I held in Bedwas of local business advice surgeries. Caerphilly Assembly Member Hefin David piloted the idea in Bargoed in June, and I've since written to all Valleys constituency AMs and offered to work together to roll out a similar model in their area, and the next one will take place in Rhymney at the end of November.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I don't have the time to go through all the activities in each of the seven priority areas. There is a lot going on, and we'll be publishing our annual delivery plan in November, which will provide more details. But I will highlight two more areas in my opening contribution, if I may.

Access to regular, reliable and affordable transport was the No. 1 issue highlighted during the initial round of taskforce engagement. We co-hosted our first event with Transport for Wales in Merthyr last week, chaired by Dawn Bowden, the local AM, of course, and now a full member of the taskforce. We'll be running further events across the Valleys until the end of October to update local people on the developments in their area. It's important that having asked them for feedback we now report back to them on what we're doing as a result of that.

Transport for Wales are developing a pilot project to test a demand-responsive bus service in the Ebbw Vale area. It's been described as a type of Uber for buses—not to emulate every aspect of the app-based service but to paint a picture of how we think we can innovate the way local bus services work. We're also developing proposals for community transport pilots in Neath.

We have listened to the feedback on the taskforce from the Department for Work and Pensions that some people are finding it difficult to take up offers of work on industrial estates because buses simply do not run in tandem with shift patterns. We're therefore funding a pilot in the upper Rhondda Fach to get workers to the Treforest and Llantrisant industrial estates in time for work. This has been running since May, and, so far, it's showing signs of success, so we'll be looking at how this can be rolled out once it's evaluated.

Of course, on top of all this is the exciting metro plans that are being worked through—new trains, more-frequent services and improved stations are coming. The efforts of the taskforce in identifying strategic hubs across the Valleys have been invaluable in adding value to the planned work. We've provided Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taf councils with over £600,000 of additional funding from the taskforce to commission feasibility and design studies to develop some ambitious integrated transport hubs across the Valleys. These are due to be presented at the next taskforce meeting in October.

We're setting up a sub-group of the taskforce to look at how we can make the most of the millions of pounds-worth of investment in the Heads of the Valleys road. We don't want the A465 to be a bypass around some of our most challenged communities, but a way of bringing jobs and investments to them. My colleagues who represent these constituencies have been pressing me on this, and I am pleased that Dawn Bowden has agreed to lead a sub-group of the taskforce to focus on it.

Finally, Llywydd, last week the First Minister and I announced nearly £7 million of funding for the Valleys regional park. Eleven good projects will benefit. At Parc Penallta near Ystrad Mynach and Cefn Coed mining museum in the Dulais valley, we are fully funding completely new facilities. All the projects have a strong community focus and will act as gateways to the Valleys regional park, a concept strongly championed by my predecessor, the Assembly Member for Blaenau Gwent.