So, we'll now move to the short debate, and I call on Alun Davies, who is more than ready to speak on the topic he has chosen. [Laughter.] Mr Davies.

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.

And I'm very grateful to successive Ministers for making those statements, and for making it clear their commitment to the Tech Valleys initiative, and for ensuring that we do have the investment not just in Ebbw Vale, but in the Heads of the Valleys that we require and that we need. And I'm also very clear, as I said in my opening remarks, about the purpose of that.

The purpose, for me, is that we as a Government and as public bodies invest where there is market failure, and invest in an agile, fleet-of-foot way to ensure that we are able to support business and to support the creation of work opportunities and enterprise where that is possible. I want us to be able to use the power of Government to address the poverty that exists in the Heads of the Valleys, to underpin economic activity, which doesn't happen in the Heads of the Valleys in the same way it happens in Cardiff Bay, and to do so in a sustainable way.

I remember—it's one of the advantages or perhaps, Deputy Minister, the disadvantage of being in this place for over 13 years now—a number of Ministers coming to make these statements; I've been one of them myself. I remember Leighton Andrews speaking very, very convincingly about the need for investment in the Heads of the Valleys to be sustainable, to be sustainable in terms of the overall climate emergency, but to be sustainable in terms of funding, sustainable in terms of the economy, and sustainable in terms of delivering jobs that aren't 'here today, gone tomorrow', dependent simply on grants, as they were in the 1980s.

But we need to go beyond that, and one of the ways that I hope Government can operate—. And this is the purpose of the debate this afternoon: to seek from Government not only confirmation that the Tech Valleys project is going to live up to the ambitions that successive Ministers and the current First Minister has outlined for it—and has been outlined in Government statements, press releases and policy documents—but that it is more than simply an investment in an individual property portfolio, that it is a part of an industrial strategy that can lead to any renaissance across the Heads of the Valleys. 

One of the reasons why, when I was first selected to fight the Blaenau Gwent seat in 2009, we campaigned hard over that two years from 2009 through to 2011 to ensure that the dualling of the A465 went ahead as we'd planned, was to deliver economic development to the Heads of the Valleys. We weren't simply asking for that dualling project to go ahead for any other reason, but for the economic benefits that it could accrue to the Heads of the Valleys. We know, and we knew that there was a terrible, terrible safety record on that road—a horrific safety record on that road—and we certainly wanted it dualled in order to save people's lives. 

We knew that it wasn't a significant piece of infrastructure that was required that would serve our needs in the future. But we also knew that if we were able to persuade Government—and I'm pleased to say that we were able to persuade Government—that this investment would take place, then it was always seen as part of an industrial strategy to deliver the connectivity that we require in the Heads of the Valleys, to link us to markets and to link us to ensure that we're able to deliver the sort of economy and economic activity that we require. And this connectivity, of course, was also linked to the investment that Welsh Government has made in superfast broadband as well.

But we need to ensure that we maximise the potential of this, and I hope that the Government, and the Minister in replying to this debate, will be able to confirm that the Tech Valleys initiative is the initiative that we agreed, though it will clearly evolve and change, and emphasis will change over time—I recognise that; I recognise what these things do over time. But, fundamentally, we need to be able to have the knowledge and the security of knowing that these ambitions and objectives that we set ourselves in 2017 will deliver the growth and the skills and the large-scale investments, and that the foundations for the activity that we want to see will be laid through this. And I hope that we will also be able to have a timescale for this, because we've had a number of different ambitions laid out to us, in terms of timescales, but I think we need to understand in more detail how that's going to happen. 

I hope, and I'll close with these remarks, that we'll be able to meet the challenge that Victoria Winckler set me, in fact, as a Minister, back in 2018, when she said that there needed to be more focus on the Heads of the Valleys. I agree with her, and I thought her criticism and her contributions at the time, were perfectly fair and reasonable contributions, and, had I not been sitting on the front bench, I might well have made them myself. I think those were fair and reasonable criticisms to make.

But the focus on the Heads of the Valleys cannot, and must not, come and go with individual Ministers. It needs to be an enduring part of the Government's legacy and an enduring part of the Government's programme. I hope that the Minister, in replying to the debate, can confirm that the ambitions of the Tech Valleys programme remains the priority of the Government. I hope that he will be able to confirm that the timescales and the ambitions and the deadlines are there to be met and I hope that, in doing so, we can together create an industrial economic and social and cultural renaissance in the Heads of the Valleys. Thank you. 

I congratulate the Member on obtaining the debate and thank him for giving me a minute of his time, and also wish him a happy birthday. The emphasis, to my mind, has evolved and we heard that it was an automotive park, and the Tech Valleys initiative and then I think, latterly, there's been a greater emphasis on cyber security. And I agree with Alun Davies that this Government needs to be fleet of foot and these things do need to develop, but I would like to hear from the Minister how he now describes the emphasis. I would also like to understand what the link should be between this and the compound semiconductor focus, perhaps with a greater priority on Newport as a centre of that, but what are the links and how will these initiatives support each other?

We've all been disappointed by the delays and the extra costs of the A465, but I wonder could the Minister, when he knows when this is going to be complete, given the delays, given the huge opportunity this road provides for the regions—and I support what the Member says in terms of linking together on a regional Heads of the Valleys initiative, rather than focusing just on a particular valley—? Could we use that A465, when it's going to be open, to market and to promote the region and as a real opportunity to encourage inward investment?

Thank you. I call on the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport to reply to the debate—Lee Waters. 

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd, and can I echo Mark Reckless's birthday wishes for Alun Davies? It's also my birthday today and it's also Jenny Rathbone's birthday today. It's quite the troika of Assembly Members. I was trying to think what was the common denominator between the three of us, having our birthdays as Aquarians on 12 February, and the only thing I could think of, because we are a diverse lot, it's fair to say, is that it's a passion and a single-minded pursuit of our interests that unites us, and I certainly think that characterises Alun Davies in his pursuit of this agenda on behalf of his constituents. He has been dogged in his pursuit of it, and rightly, and continues to be so. 

He said, and Mark Reckless said also, that the way that this vision, which has not altered, is applied will evolve and change in emphasis over time, and I think that is right. Certainly, my own experience of it over the last 12 months is that, because of the change in the global economy and in particular the change in the automotive sector, the founding vision of it, as a consequence of—and Alun Davies fairly set out the history of this—the next iteration of the Circuit for Wales has been primarily focused on automotive, has shifted and that has been reflected in updated strategies, and that continues to be the case. There is TVR still in the mix as a project that we hope to see come to fruition, and we've made a series of commitments to the company, and as long as they can provide evidence that they've got the money, we will follow through with the investment that we've already provided and the stake we've taken in the company. Those conversations are ongoing, and I think it's to their frustration and to our frustration that it hasn't yet been able to go into production, but those are live conversations. 

I think my take on Tech Valleys is that, as Alun Davies said, it's got to be more than just an industrial property portfolio, although that is an important element of it, and those things are in train. Again, we've been beset by frustrations, some of them technical, some of them around procurement and some around the capacity within the local authority, which I know is an issue that Alun Davies has repeatedly highlighted—the challenges that a denuded local government has to deliver economic development—and we've certainly felt that in this partnership. But there is still a significant commitment to spending on bringing property up to scratch and adding to the industrial portfolio in Blaenau Gwent, which is something that he has repeatedly emphasised the importance of. So that is in place, that is happening, it is happening slower than we'd like but that is going ahead. 

There are also live conversations with companies to attract inward investment into the area, and we've seen also the fruition of that through the arrival of Thales, with a massive £10 million investment by the Welsh Government, match funded by the company, to bring cyber security skills and digital skills more broadly into Ebbw Vale, and I'm in discussions with the college and with others to add to that so that we can have a public sector offer to sit alongside the cyber security centre. So we really do see Ebbw Vale and Blaenau Gwent as a production facility for training the young people to give them the skills that they need for the jobs of tomorrow, and doing that in Blaenau Gwent. I think that's an exciting vision and one that I hope Members will share. Those, again, are live conversations. So the tech element is still there. 

I guess I should also mention the investment we've had in the Dennison Advanced Material Centre, creating a state-of-the-art engineering training facility in the Blaenau Gwent learning zones, which is now one of only a handful of further education colleges in the UK that can provide advanced composite training as part of its aeronautical and motorsport engineering courses, and 60 students have already started there; 30 per cent of those are female. So, I think there are things that we can point to that are absolutely on point with that founding vision and tech.

But the bit I've been thinking about since taking over the portfolio is, as well as attracting businesses into Blaenau Gwent, what can we do to support the businesses already in Blaenau Gwent? Because this is one of the most challenged communities we have in our country, and we owe it a moral debt, in my view, to address those challenges and to support those communities, not just attracting the shiny and new, but looking at those resilient companies that have been there struggling under very challenging conditions for generations or more, and some of them are looking tired when you look at some of the buildings that they have. And also, because of their part in the supply chain, they are quite vulnerable to many of the changes that we are now seeing being unleashed, both from the change in the automotive sector but also the impact that Brexit is going to have on creating friction in our trading relationships. 

So, what can we do to help those existing businesses and what can we do to help those businesses to become more tech savvy and more resilient in the digital disruption that we know is coming towards us? That's what I've been focusing on, and there are a couple of things that I can tell Members about that we have done in that regard. The first is the commitment to a productivity enhancement programme that will bring together the Welsh Government's regional teams; the smart innovation programme, which is the highly regarded Welsh Government innovation programme; the local council of economic development and the Upskilling@Work project, led by Coleg Gwent, in partnership with Swansea University's ASTUTE 2020 programme, which is taking research and development facilities to small and medium-sized enterprises that don't have their own in-house R&D facilities and then making that, through European funding, available across Wales. And we're looking to see whether or not we can have a specific focus on that programme in Blaenau Gwent, but also across the A465 area. 

I agree with Alun Davies's point that we need to make sure that the enormous investment that we're putting into the Heads of the Valleys road, more than the investment we'd intended to put into the M4 when that was first committed—over £1 billion for this road—we need to make sure that we get bang for our buck there and sweat that investment. The Valleys taskforce now has a sub-group focused specifically on the A465, taking forward the work that Alun Davies as a Minister to try and create an economic strategy for that road. That is very much in train, and we're looking to see how we can bring this R&D focus on that Heads of the Valleys road.

The other thing that we're doing on top of that is a 5G programme that Simon Gibson, through the work that he began in the innovation board, continues with the Welsh Government through a task and finish group, and we've just had funding announced from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport for a 5G test bed in the Monmouthshire/Blaenau Gwent area, which has got significant potential. That will have a focus on that area to work alongside the Cardiff capital region.

So, again, another tech-related project, but looking at the businesses there. So, there's going to be the productivity enhancement programme, which is about enhancing the skills and wages that we have there. On top of that, I've asked Tegid Roberts, who did the work to bring Raspberry Pi manufacturing back to Bridgend to look specifically at what firms there are existing in Blaenau Gwent and how he, along with our internal teams, can work with a handful of firms to see how they can be helped to grow, and what investment we might provide on top of that. So, I think building what we've got there is as important, if not more important, than spending the £100 million on attracting new businesses. So, I think that's a really important element to our work.

As has been mentioned, Mark Reckless asked a question about the road, as did Alun Davies, and we are doing our best to overcome the current difficulties we're having with the contractor and the engineering complexities of the Clydach gorge, and we're still working very hard to complete, at the very minimum, the Gilwern to Brynmawr section as soon as possible before going on to complete the rest of it. But, as I say, as important as building the road is then making sure that we make the most of the road that is there. 

I hope I've addressed the majority of the points that Members wanted addressed. If I haven't, we do have a minute left and I will do my best to remedy that. In conclusion, Dirprwy Lywydd, if there are no further comments, I think we need to recognise how challenging this is as an economic development prospect. The whole purpose of creating it in the first place is that this was hard to do and hadn't been successfully done to date. The tech focus is the right one. The definition of what tech looks like, I think, is necessarily flexing and changing as the global economy demands. We are focusing particularly on skills. I think that is right. I want, as I said, to add the grounded firms element to it, but tying that together with the work of the Valleys taskforce, the work of the Cardiff capital region, I think, is vitally important, so, as Alun Davies rightly said, we don't have stop-start economic development, but we follow through on the ambitions that he set out as a Minister that all the colleagues who represent Valleys communities remain committed to, and I certainly, as a Minister, intend to do what I can in the time that I have to fulfil the vision of that ambition.

Thank you very much. That just leaves me to say, 'Pen-blwydd hapus, Lee, Alun a Jenny.' And that brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 18:16.