Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:50 pm on 22 January 2020.
Yes, and there we come again to the problem.
So, what do we do about this? I'll just touch on this as a final main point: the public services boards and the role that they have, and how the foundational economy concept fit in. I should properly acknowledge that the foundational economy was a movement of supporters that Hefin David, Vikki Howells, Jeremy Miles and Jenny Rathbone on our benches were part of, and Adam Price and David Melding on the other benches were part of it, too. It was a cross-party movement, and it's important that it remains such.
We have, as you know, tripled the size of the foundational economy challenge fund, but the real prize is spreading and scaling good practice, and that's where the public services boards have the potential to achieve their purpose. I would agree with his comments that, so far, they're little understood and, beyond producing strategies, have really not themselves made an impact. So, my challenge to the public services boards is starting now, as we are just about to appoint a partner to work with four clusters of them to spread and scale the Preston model of procurement and then, as the experimental funds show promise—and I was in the United Welsh offices in Hefin David's constituency on Monday to meet with the Valleys projects of the experimental fund—we want to spread and scale those quickly across the public services boards.
And if we get that right, especially on procurement, then the benefit of public spend, which is £6 billion a year in Wales, will flow to those communities in his constituency that currently feel neglected. And then, I think, whether we call them 'anchor towns' and the number we have are almost side issues. The point is: how can we nurture and encourage the fabric of our communities that have felt neglected, and for good reason? And that's the entire purpose of our everyday economy approach and the role of public services boards in doing that. Whether we can do it and whether we can do it quickly enough to show an impact, well that remains to be seen, but I'm certainly focusing my energy on trying to do that. But there are significant frustrations, stumbling blocks and delays along the way.
I'll just finish on the congestion charge point that Hefin David has made. I think the point he made about transport connectivity is a key one for how people feel connected to their towns, and the dilemma he mentioned that his own local authority faces of having difficulty in sustaining the subsidies to socially necessary but not commercially viable services. Our privatised bus model is broken, and we're trying to hold it together and it gets harder every year. I think, to give credit to the leadership of Cardiff council, they have looked at mounting congestion in their city, the side-effect of the agglomeration model that we've praised in this place for a long time, which is basically people work in Cardiff but live elsewhere and we build up the city. The problem with that, of course, is that people travel distances into the city to get to work, and that has led to a congested capital city with dangerous and deathly levels of air pollution. And something must be done about that. Simply looking at the supply side of producing ever more capacity doesn't work. [Interruption.] I'll just finish the point and then let you in. To be fair to them, they are beginning the conversation of addressing the demand side.