4. Will the Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government's policies for supporting the rural economy? OAQ54840

Thank you. We continue to support the rural economy through a range of Welsh Government policies and regional working. This, along with the 'Sustainable Farming and our Land' proposals, will create the conditions for the development of a diverse and healthy rural economy.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Last Saturday, I'm sure you were aware, was Small Business Saturday. I, like many other Assembly Members, was out campaigning for local businesses. I visited Neil James, a small local butcher in rural Monmouthshire, whose family has been supporting Welsh farmers and supplying local produce since the 1950s. The business is frequently nominated for the Countryside Alliance awards, this year being no exception. We talk a lot in this Chamber about supporting local businesses, but what particular support are you—and I should add, the economy Minister, as well, because this is obviously a cross-cutting area—making available to small, particularly rural, firms like Neil James so that people in rural areas can go on buying local, supporting local and supporting local supply chains, local shops and, of course, the farming community that is behind all of those local supply chains?

Thank you. The agri-food sector is obviously a very important sector for Welsh Government and for Wales, and it's really important that we do have these small businesses, like the butchers you referred to, to support our farmers. Obviously, I know that farmers feel very under threat at the moment around red meat production, for instance, and I always say, 'If you want to support our farmers, the way to do it is to buy local, because you know that meat has been produced sustainably and it hasn't travelled many miles.'

I'm very glad, in that response to Nick, you mentioned the aspect of buying local, and that's what I wanted to focus on. Hopefully, the Minister—if she hasn't seen it yet, I'll send it to her—has seen the report commissioned recently by the Wales Co-operative Party and members of the Co-operative group here in the Assembly, by the Sustainable Places Institute of Cardiff University, entitled 'Working co-operatively for sustainable and just food systems'. You'll notice that, in the Labour manifesto at a UK level, they have now said that they will take forward a Bill on the right to food—sustainable, affordable, healthy, accessible food.

But I wonder—this very point about local, localism—what more can we do, regardless of Brexit, to actually deliver those local food networks where you take the small, co-operative growers, but you also take the family farms and everybody else. It seems preposterous that we are now in a situation where Wales is the most rural-embedded country of all of the nations, you could argue, in our proximity to rural food producers, and yet we still have now over 500,000 people throughout the UK relying on foodbanks, 10 per cent of the NHS budget going on treating type 2 diabetes, and 8 million people in the UK having trouble putting food on the table. Surely, in Wales, we can develop the sort of local food networks that actually put food on the table locally for people. And we don't need a Bill to do this, actually. But what we do need is to embed this within our milestones that we are currently developing—the national milestones for Wales.

Thank you. I haven't actually read the report, but I do have a copy of it, so perhaps it will be my Christmas reading, because I think, as you say, that there is huge potential for us to build up those networks. I have one in my own constituency—a food co-op—that works in a really deprived area, and it's absolutely excellent. 

You'll be aware that last week—I think it was last week—I did an oral statement on food clusters, and I think that's been one of the major successes of our food and drink sector here in Wales, where we have this coming together of companies to work together, share best practice, and I think—you know, it fits in very much with the co-op ethos.

Question 5 [OAQ54820] was transferred for written answer. Question 6, therefore. Vikki Howells.