Thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement. I'm afraid much of what I have written here reiterates a lot of what you've said, but I'll make no excuses for that, because it just shows that perhaps we're all thinking along the same lines.

So, the importance of the foundational economy cannot be overstated, with a UK figure of 40 per cent of the workforce, and accounting for £1 for every £3 we spend. And it is recognised that, in many places, the foundational economy is the economy—it's the food we eat, the homes we live in, the energy we use, and the care we receive. Despite the scale of employment, these jobs are often characterised by low wages, highly precarious patterns of employment and poor working conditions. So, these are failings which have to be addressed if this foundational economy is going to work. There's no doubt that a revitalised foundational economy would have the potential to deliver a social benefit to all disadvantaged communities, by providing more targeted economic activity that also has the added potential to deliver on environmental benefits that arise from a more localised economy, where goods and services travel less distances.

Whilst there has been a broad acceptance of the foundational economy, the Welsh Government's decision in their economic action plan to have just four sectors—food, retail, tourism and care—I believe is too narrow. Should we not have included construction and energy generation in that? It was mentioned in your earlier statements, but you didn't actually include it in the last one. We, of course, welcome the moneys allocated under the challenge fund, reaching £3 million, and the last allocation in October of £1.077 million, taking the total to over £4 million.

In your announcement today, you talked about the third pillar and building the missing middle in order to increase the number of firms rooted to local communities. You need to first ensure that the infrastructure is in place to enable goods to move quickly and efficiently. This would not only encourage new companies to locate in communities, but it would also facilitate those who are already there to grow. Local councils, as has been mentioned, can also play a major part in keeping things local by ensuring tenders are within the reach of local microbusinesses, perhaps by breaking them down into modules, rather than large tenders that are called only by large companies, who are, very often, not only out of the locality, but often out of Wales itself.

We acknowledge that progress has been made in strengthening the foundational economy in Wales, but this must not be based on expanding the public sector, but also on nurturing the private sector. As an aside, you mentioned the fact that this may not work, and I think, in doing that, you are running the risk of being a politician who tells the truth.