Initially, we will focus on spreading the success achieved by Preston council in using local purchasing power to build local wealth. We're appointing a partner organisation to work alongside public services boards to maximise the social value of procurement. Together, they will identify local providers for goods and services. But we don’t just want to copy Preston’s progressive approach to procurement, we want to go beyond it. As we scale up, we're aiming to develop an approach that avoids displacement and a crude postcode approach of local invoice counting, and we want an approach that emphasises supporting grounded firms across the supply chain.

It’s time that we in Wales reclaim the leadership on this approach. We can point to a number of examples where we have pioneered, from the Can Do toolkit in housing that was developed in Wales 10 years ago to the more recent work on Better Jobs Closer to Home that my colleague Julie James initiated, building on work from the Wales TUC.

Wales was ahead of Preston in many ways, but sustaining the early promise has so far proved elusive. I should be clear with Members that I am concerned with the capacity and capability of the Welsh public and private sectors to respond to this challenge, and the pace at which we can mobilise our efforts, but if we can spread and scale success and sustain that change, this time around, we can claim genuine leadership for Wales on a global stage. To that end, within the Welsh Government, I have now created, with the finance Minister Rebecca Evans, a cross-departmental delivery board to make sure that our internal wiring is connected.

We are trying a new approach and we cannot afford to be timid. If we leave the EU at the end of January with a deal, or without one next December, then the Welsh economy will be hit by a storm worse than the 2008 crash, and the Thatcher de-industrialisation. We therefore need an approach that can build resilience into our local economies to try and cope with that. Each economic crisis disproportionately makes women worse off, reinforcing the case for an approach that supports the everyday economy that so many women rely on for work.

The third pillar of our approach is crucial in this: supporting grounded firms, building the so-called ‘missing middle’, and aggregating local demand to help us do so. My aim is to increase the number of firms rooted in their local economies, including micro firms, SMEs, social enterprises, co-ops and community interest groups, which, in the tradable sectors, are capable of selling outside Wales, but have decision-making grounded in our communities and provide access to fair work opportunities for people across all parts of Wales.

Too often, growing Welsh firms are lost to us when founders cash out. Through our development bank and through Business Wales, we're already doing a lot to build and retain firms in Wales and I’m working with a sub-group of the ministerial advisory board to see what more we can do. We've had great success in supporting firms to grow fast. Our accelerated growth programme is bringing real added value to firms, as I discovered when I met—[Inaudible.]—in Burry Port in my constituency just last Friday, who are getting support under the scheme. And it is generating £17 of benefit to the Welsh economy for every £1 we are investing in it.

We’re now looking at what more we can do to provide patient support to slower-growing, sustainable firms too. In just over a year’s time, the funding we’ve used to fund our Business Wales support services disappears as we leave the EU. We are still waiting to hear from the UK Government what, if any, funding will come in its place, as they promised to do. But as we design the shape of the next iteration of business support, we will ensure that we build in the lessons from our work on supporting grounded firms in the foundational economy.

Dirprwy Lywydd, good progress has been made so far, but as we implement this approach, it is demanding new relationships and new ways of working within and across Government, as well as between Government, businesses and communities. The Welsh Government is kick-starting change, but the dividend will only come at scale if we have alliances for change. We must see co-ordinated working across departments in Government and between public bodies that cuts through the different agendas and budgetary rules that can get in the way.

Gains can be made from procurement, but much larger gains can be made by thinking laterally about how we co-ordinate public sector budgets. And this is a challenge for us all, but an opportunity too, not least for local leadership. Preston Borough Council took action themselves, and I want to see public services boards themselves prove their potential, not by waiting to be asked, but using their powerful local partnerships to bring this agenda alive. The Welsh Government will do our bit, but we can't do it alone. The communities that we all exist to serve demand that we get this right. Diolch.