I'd like to focus my contribution today on the challenges that face seaside and market towns, of which I have many in my constituency, and explore what options there are to help with the regeneration of such communities throughout the whole of Wales. I will be addressing your issue in a moment, Mark Reckless, if you are prepared to bear with me.

Minister, as we know, across Wales, we are blessed with beautiful countryside, historic towns and vibrant communities, and towns such as Narberth, Cowbridge and Conwy regularly bring in visitors and are very well lauded. But whilst we have these jewels in the crown, there are plenty of towns and villages throughout the nation that have fallen on hard times, and that the Welsh Government appears to have no clear strategy to deal with.

The House of Lords select committee on regenerating seaside towns and communities stated that

'the seaside and our coastal heritage is a vital part of our country's greatest assets', and, of course, I represent a constituency with a long coastline, and I have a duty to ensure that this asset is maximised and realised appropriately. I don't want to go back to the past, where we all imagine skipping down market towns with our rose-tinted glasses, with baskets over our arms, and being able to go into every candlestick maker, baker and the rest of them. But I am going to claim that, with the right support, market and seaside towns can adapt with the times, make use of the unique selling points they have, and thrive and grow in the twenty-first century.

I'm going to focus on my constituency, so please indulge me, where we have communities such as Laugharne, with its links to one of Wales's greatest authors, and westwards to Tenby, which has modelled itself as a true year-round destination, obviously with the Iron Man event I referenced earlier, and of course the towns of Pembroke, which is the birthplace of Henry Tudor, and Pembroke Dock, with a very rich military history. Whilst each of these towns has their unique selling points, they still face the challenges of a changing retail sector.

Before Christmas, I attended an excellent Christmas fair at Pembroke castle. It attracts visitors from near and far, but as I walked back to my car at the other end of Pembroke high street, it really brought home to me the decimation of that high street over the past 15 years since I have lived there. It used to be a vibrant, busy high street, had a supermarket right in the centre of town, but now, it's bookies, it's charity shops, and everything else is pretty much boarded up. And I do wonder what we can actually do to bring that kind of life back into that type of high street, because if it's not Pembroke, it's Pembroke Dock, and it's slowly becoming Narberth, which has been a jewel in the Pembrokeshire crown for a long time, and Whitland, which is dying on its feet, St Clears going the same way.

Now, I mentioned this in a question to the economy Minister before Christmas, and was told that Welsh Government was promoting a town-centre-first initiative, encouraging more business improvement districts, and encouraging people to focus on promotions such as Small Business Saturday. But, Minister, I do not feel that this response adequately addresses the problems that are being faced. It's not just about retail offerings and conditions that need to be looked at, but other fundamental aspects of life in rural, seaside or market communities. And I would recommend that one might choose to go and study the Carnegie Trust reports into seaside and market towns, particularly seaside, because the points that they make are that, by the very nature of them being by the ocean, they tend to be further away from the centres of government; they tend to be more isolated; they tend to be more rural. And there are, very clearly laid out by the Carnegie Trust, very clear and particular issues that seaside towns and small market towns on the fringes of the coast face. And that's where we've looked for an awful lot of our research, and I'd be very happy to share that with anybody going forward. 

That is why a Welsh Conservative Government would look to establish a seaside town fund and a market town fund to help regenerate local communities, with £200 million earmarked to be invested over a five-year period. Minister, our aim would be—and we would like this to be your aim—to create a more level playing field around investment between our towns and our cities. We would like to give more power to local communities to take control of their local regeneration efforts. We want to adopt the community rights agenda, established by the Localism Act 2011. We believe that strong towns will help to develop strong communities, and cohesive and engaged communities will help to improve the whole area for the benefit of all. And that has an enormous spin-off effect into education and health and the economic drive. And, therefore, we really urge that this is something that Welsh Government should have a look at.