I've been extremely quiet this afternoon, Deputy Presiding Officer. I hope I won't be pushing your patience during the next few minutes. I have provided a minute to Mark Reckless who has asked to speak in this debate. 

Deputy Presiding Officer, you will remember, a few short weeks ago, I felt we had a very good conversation in a short debate discussing the Welsh Government's ambitions for the future of the Heads of the Valleys, alongside some of the Bevan Foundation's ideas and vision for the same region. I hope that we'll be able to continue that conversation today, and to do so in the context of the Government's plans for the Tech Valleys initiative and how that can act as a catalyst for the whole of the Heads of the Valleys region, and how we can use the completion of the A465 as an opportunity to create an industrial strategy for the Heads of the Valleys region.

I well remember the debate and the discussion around the Tech Valleys announcement. It was something that I discussed and debated with the then First Minister Carwyn Jones and the Secretary for economy and transport Ken Skates. It came from decisions around the Circuit of Wales. Members in the Chamber will remember the long and painful process of discussion and debate around that project. In June 2017, the Government came to the conclusion, following the due diligence, that that project could not go ahead with the public support that it was seeking. And I agreed with that decision. I think it was broadly the right decision. Having read the due diligence and been through that process with both the developers and with officials, I thought it was broadly the right decision.

But saying that you're not going to invest in something is different to saying that you are going to invest in something. The conversations that I had with the Government—at the time, I was clearly a member of that Government—with Ministers at the time, was about the region of the Heads of the Valleys and how we would use the powers, strength, capacity and resources of Government to invest in economic development and economic activity within that region. Clearly, the focus was in Ebbw Vale and the focus was in Blaenau Gwent, but I've never seen the political divisions of the county borders that cross the Heads of the Valleys as being divisions in what we should be doing.

I do believe that we need to look at the Heads of the Valleys as a region, from the top of Hirwaun across in the west, through to my own constituency to Brynmawr, to Farewell Rock in the east. I think, if we do that, then we could look at potentially doing far more than if we simply looked at individual investments in, say, Merthyr or Rhymney or Tredegar or Ebbw Vale or Aberdare. So, I hope that, in taking forward the discussions that we had at the time, we have that wide view and vision of what we want to do. 

The Tech Valleys initiative was first announced on 27 June 2017. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure published a written statement on the Cabinet decision on the Circuit of Wales, and this was the first announcement of what was then called the Ebbw Vale automotive park. The Cabinet Secretary said, and I quote:

'The Welsh Government is committing to building a new automotive technology business park in Ebbw Vale, with funding of £100 million over 10 years, with the potential to support 1,500 new full-time jobs.... We will begin this...with the delivery of 40,000 sq ft of manufacturing space on land currently in public ownership.'

And he was clear, and I quote again, that this was a 'stand-alone project' to be delivered by the Welsh Government along with local partners. On 20 July, about a month later, the then Cabinet Secretary chaired a meeting to develop more detailed proposals for the Ebbw Vale automotive park, and I was myself a member of that meeting. A couple of months later, in the autumn, the then Cabinet Secretary announced funding for the design and construction of a 50,000 sq ft industrial space in Rhyd-y-Blew, to kick start, as he said, the plans for the automotive technology park. In December of that same year, 2017, the Cabinet Secretary then announced issues around TVR's proposed move to Ebbw Vale.

The following year, in May 2018, the Cabinet Secretary published a press release that announced that the Welsh Government would invest a further £25 million in its Tech Valleys programme, which was the renamed automotive park, between 2018 and 2021, taking total investment over this period to over £30 million by 2021. In September of that year, 2018, the Cabinet Secretary announced that the Tech Valleys strategic advisory group would be established to advise on how the £100 million should be invested. It met for the first time and its terms of reference and membership were published. In January of last year, the current First Minister provided a response on a question to Tech Valleys, I think it was to Adam Price, at First Minister's questions. He said that:

'the original investment around the Tech Valleys programme always said that it would be a 10-year programme and that we would have £100 million invested over that 10 years. And, in fact, the amount of investment in this early part of the programme is greater than a pro rata part of that sum would result in. It is inevitable that, in the opening period, the focus has been squarely on investing in infrastructure, addressing the land and property issues to make sure that we are in a position to create those jobs that we know are there to be created for Ebbw Vale in the future...and should give confidence to people locally that the plan isn't waiting to happen—it's happening already.'

In the same month, in January 2019, the Minister for Economy and Transport announced that he would commit £10 million to the national digital exploitation centre, a cyber research and development centre to be developed by Thales and the University of South Wales. The centre will allow small and medium-sized enterprises and microbusinesses to test and develop their digital concepts, along with providing a research lab in which major multinationals can develop technology advances and test some of their ideas. The Minister stated that the project is right at the heart of the Tech Valleys project. In March of last year, the Minister for economy stated:

'we've already approved the Rhyd-y-Blew site development...additional business and light industrial units at The Works in Ebbw Vale. The Techboard refit will begin this year. And I'm pleased to be able to say today that we are ahead of the spending profile for the £100 million Tech Valleys initiative, largely because of the investment in the national digital exploitation centre, which could have gone anywhere in the world—to Singapore, to Germany—but instead, Thales chose Wales.'

—and chose Ebbw Vale.