You begin your statement with the announcement, which, of course, we have been made publicly aware of in advance through the media, of a further package of support for town centres worth nearly £90 million as part of your transforming towns agenda. What is the timescale that that £90 million applies to? Is it one year, or is it projected into the next Senedd term? Having led a debate three weeks ago here, calling on the Welsh Government to establish a seaside town and market town fund to support regeneration in communities across Wales, and announcing that's exactly what the Welsh Conservatives would do, I could say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, although I suspect you'll of course flatly deny that this had anything to do with it. However, our proposals included the statement that this will enable communities to decide how the fund is to be invested within their local area—in other words, not just public bodies and businesses. 

As the Bevan Foundation has said, if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don't work, and we need to therefore produce programmes with communities themselves. This morning, you issued your town-centre-first principle Wales, and this concluded with the statement that proportionate and best value decision making should include consideration of the importance of supporting town centres in line with the requirements of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. And, of course, the five ways of working for public bodies within that Act include collaboration, working with others, including third sector bodies and communities, to help achieve goals that have been decided together, and involving the people that services or activities are going to benefit or affect from as early a stage as possible. How will your proposals, therefore, address that, because the statements I've seen so far haven't specifically referred to this, which should be clearly at the core, not only because of legislation, but also because, if you are going to invest money, this is the best way to get the outcomes that we all want to see?

You refer to 22 business improvement districts and state that:

'Community and stakeholder engagement is key to the vitality of a town.' 

When I looked up business improvement districts, the Welsh Government website says currently there are only 24 of these in existence or being developed, that support ends in March this year and that only funding up to £30,000 is available for each district. So, I wonder if you can expand—is that still the case or are the business improvement districts you're referring to here something that will continue beyond March and potentially enable BIDs to go beyond the £30,000 referred to.

You refer to the Carnegie Trust working with you to create the understanding Welsh places data tool, and, of course, as the Carnegie Trust themselves state, having robust data is a fundamental requirement for supporting regeneration, and therefore, of course, we embrace this. But what consideration have you also given to the extensive work carried out by Carnegie Trust on transforming towns and on the enabling state? They state in their many reports, including 'Turnaround Towns', that:

'The future of our towns is about more than just the high street, it is also about residents' access to levers of change and their ability to influence local decisions.'

And they state that the enabling state approach is about

'moving us from the state as a provider of welfare towards a more enabling style of governance. Set within a shift in the relationships between citizens, community and the state', suggesting that

'government, alongside driving the performance of public services, should enable communities to do what they do best', where communities

'are best-placed to bring a wealth of local knowledge and collective energy to the decisions that affect them.'

Two more questions. You will be aware that the UK Government has announced £3.6 billion for its town fund to support towns across England to build prosperous futures, give communities a greater say in their future post Brexit, targeted at places that have not shared in the proceeds of growth in the same way as more prosperous parts of the country. So, how much, if at all—and I don't know if this is Barnettised money—of that £3.6 billion will find its way or has found its way to Wales? If it is coming to Wales now or in the future—and I appreciate this goes beyond 2021—will the Welsh Government be fully allocating that to transforming towns in Wales or not?

And, finally, in response to your transforming towns media coverage, the Federation of Small Businesses Wales, which supports businesses, said it was time to start rethinking what a high street looks like. So, how do you respond to their research identifying the key megatrends affecting towns in Wales and the suggestions they made, including publishing town strategies in every town, ensuring the ownership is local and businesses and the voluntary and public sectors are engaged; considering establishing a property register where interventions often fail with absent or unidentifiable landlords, to build a basis for engagement; and rethinking the role of business rates in towns, replicating the recently announced English relief for high street businesses, which they say will be a great start, but, in the longer term, the impact of rates in our towns will need better consideration? Diolch.