Thank you to the Deputy Minister for the statement. I was a member of the health committee two years and a bit back when we published that report, and you, Deputy Minister, were a member of the committee at the time. It was a committee consultation that made quite an impression on me when one realises the impact on health, which is similar to smoking, as we've already heard, but it also made it clear to me that there are steps that the Government can take. Of course, the steps being taken are ones that I welcome. What I always want to know is whether there is more that can be done.

I think I have some four questions here. The figures are very striking, aren’t they? There are more young people between 16 and 24 who are likely to report feeling lonely than there are people over 75. That contradicts the perception that we may have. But, given those figures, we know that that age group or a percentage of them face huge pressures to succeed in education, they are more likely to face problems such as online bullying than older generations, and they also face a future in terms of Brexit and climate change that they didn't choose for themselves. There are all sorts of pressures on them. So it’s not surprising perhaps that they are reporting feeling lonely and isolated. I wonder whether your strategy intends to tackle this specifically, for example, by working with FE colleges, universities, and so on, in order to ensure that they can do what they can as sectors to help.

Secondly, in terms of housing, would the Government accept that when we talk about house building, we should be talking about building communities? Would the Minister agree with me that housing developments should include community resources too, and would she be willing to speak to her fellow Ministers to ensure that planning legislation is strengthened in order to ensure that this does happen?

If I could move on to my next question, whatever age group you're talking about and whatever generation you're talking about, there is an elephant in the room here too in terms of there being one major problem, and that is the major cuts in local government funding over the past decade. We have seen cuts to day centres, we have seen cuts in public transport that so many people rely on, and we've seen higher prices charged for the use of leisure and sports facilities, and so and so forth. So, I would ask whether £1.4 million over three years is truly going to make a dent in this problem. Shouldn't we be really ensuring that local government is funded properly, so that they can make better decisions in order to tackle loneliness and isolation?

Finally, there is a new advisory group to be established, and that will be asked to report back on progress every two years. Now, it’s a three-year programme; that’s the funding that’s being announced today, so by the time the first report will be published, there will be less than a year left to focus on identifying the schemes that work well and possibly scaling those up. So, is this kind of advisory group the best way of ensuring best practice in delivering real results in this area?