Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:45 pm on 6 May 2020.
Yes, I think that is a very important point, and I have read the report to which he refers, and I think it makes stark reading, doesn't it? And I refer back as well to the point that Darren Millar made about the vulnerability of some of our coastal communities as well in consequence. I think that just demonstrates again the scale of the challenge, but I think it's a really important point to bear in mind. What we are not always able to predict, and no Government can, is the impact on particular sectors of particular development. The economy works in a more complex way than that. But what we will all know, at first hand, is what the spatial impact of that looks like in our own communities. And, so, I think looking at it through that lens is completely fundamental to this it seems to me.
One of the discussion points that we had at the public services round-table yesterday was—. It started as a discussion about the place-based delivery of public services, you know, looking at a more joined-up focus on place and how they can be delivered, but that quickly turned into the role of public services as agents in a community. So, if you have a hospital or an FE college or a university, that's a significant—. There's a sort of role for public services as a kind of agent in that economy, isn't there, and in that society? So, I want to reassure him that that lens is absolutely one that we want to bring to the work, because I think it is the one, in many ways, that people experience most at first hand, isn't it? We will all know the impact on high streets that we envisage happening from COVID as a consequence of some of the closures, in my own constituency and that of a number of Members. That's already clearly an issue of great concern.