Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is certainly not the time to be untying the links with the UK Government, because there's no way the Welsh Government could have afforded the coronavirus job retention fund, or indeed the self-employed fund, to which Janet Finch-Saunders has referred. So, I won't be supporting the Plaid proposals. But I think it's important that we concentrate on what we can do, and we need to do that in a way that supports the science, the safe scientific advice for unlocking our economy without seeing a second wave, which would, in itself, be completely disastrous for our economy. 

So, looking at the Centre for Towns report, which is in the Conservative motion, I agree with them that we do need to engage with local cultural, leisure and sporting clubs to understand what they're going to need to start operating again safely. In many cases, I agree that these institutions are the bedrock of many of our towns, and we know that local cultural projects are effective ways of bringing people back into town centres rather than going off to out-of-town shopping. That's certainly been the experience of places like Neath, with its music festivals over the last three years. And certainly, as a representative of Cardiff, I'm fully aware that the huge events like Cardiff Pride, our big sporting events, the big-named concerts at the Motorpoint Arena normally attract people to our capital city from the rest of Wales and well beyond that. And I have no absolutely no illusion that now is going to be the time to resume those sorts of activities until we have a vaccine. So, we have to do things differently.

Cardiff city is famous for its independent music sector, not just Clwb Ifor Bach and other businesses around Womanby Street, but the Globe, the Gate, the Tramshed, and, until 18 months ago, Gwdihŵ, which was evicted from Guildford Crescent after a decade of wonderful music making to make way for developers. And I fear that it's inevitable that the vultures will be hovering now ready to swoop down on vulnerable businesses in order to sweep them away and put in faceless developments. So, we have to be alive to that and protect our town centres. 

Last night, I bicycled down to the city centre to see the excellent work going on by Cardiff Council around Cardiff Castle to prepare it as this summer's cultural centre for music, eating out, sharing a drink and a catch-up with our friends. And using a castle close to the city centre is something that I think Caerphilly and Conwy might be looking at as a model, both being endowed with handsome castles in the middle of their towns, which could be used in a similar way. So, we can see how this will work very well for performances involving music, which are relatively easy to broadcast outdoors, but we cannot forget the wider arts. 

What about the comedy clubs and the theatres that need suitable outdoor spaces in order to perform? The Romans and the Elizabethans managed to perform their plays outdoors; could our football club stadiums double up as performing arts spaces? Could we use their substantial car parks as drive-in cinemas? All our cultural institutions are under threat, and I fear that the town centre report is somewhat complacent in saying that the biggest institutions are best equipped to call for support, and therefore, we should all only focus on the smaller clubs and arts facilities being left behind. We know that our national cultural icons, like the Wales Millennium Centre, are also at risk, because in this country, across the UK, we rely on cultural institutions to get most of their funding from ticket sales. Eighty-five per cent of the Wales Millennium Centre's revenue comes from ticket sales, and it's predicted to lose £15 million from ticket sales, and another £5 million from commercial sponsorship and sales. So, I can't envisage how we are going to get that sort of money from the Welsh Government; we are going to be reliant on ensuring that the UK Government knows the value of our culture, and not just the cost.

So I do hope that we can unite on ensuring that our cultural institutions are safeguarded, and we don't see attempts to use this as an opportunity to ensure that cultural institutions are forced to be reduced in size, as we've seen with the BBC, where cuts are already being discussed for over 60 staff in BBC Wales. We really do need our town centres to be vibrant cultures and getting together, as well as shopping.