We move to item 4, which is a statement by the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition: COVID-19 reconstruction—challenges and priorities. I call Jeremy Miles. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the lives of each and every one of us in many ways. It's had a severe impact on our economy, our society and our communities, and that will continue. The virus is still circulating and we understand the demands made of the people of Wales, and we are grateful to everyone for their ongoing efforts to limit the spread of the virus.

As we continue to control the virus, it's also important that we respond to the likely long-term impact and plan for the future. Our response to the pandemic has always been proportionate and evidence based. That will also be our approach to rebuilding. 

We have begun a national conversation about what our future Wales should look like. We asked members of the public to get in touch to tell us what matters to them for the future, and we received over 2,000 submissions from individuals, from community organisations, charities, businesses and representative bodies. I've held a series of round-tables with people from community groups, the third sector, local authorities, trade unions, businesses, academics, young people, along with representative organisations from Wales, other parts of the UK and internationally.

Members of the Senedd will also be aware that I set up an advisory group of experts, which has four standing members: Torsten Bell, from the Resolution Foundation; Rebecca Heaton, who represents Wales on the UK Committee on Climate Change and leads on climate change within the Drax Group; Paul Johnson, who heads the Institute for Fiscal Studies; and Miatta Fahnbulleh, who leads the New Economics Foundation; and a different fifth member has attended for each session, bringing a particular sectoral or other experience and knowledge relevant to the issue being discussed.

The round-tables have considered a broad range of issues to help us consider where best to prioritise our efforts, given the scale of the challenge that we face. They have been extremely helpful and the views put forward in these discussions have informed the development of our priorities. They've also reaffirmed to us that our existing concerns—the climate emergency, the corrosive impact of poverty, the need to adapt to rapid economic change and the importance of reconfiguring public services to make them more responsive and accessible—and our values and objectives of a more prosperous, equal and greener Wales are the right ones for our nation albeit in a changed context. Throughout the pandemic, we've been guided by that vision and, in spite of the challenges of the pandemic, we've continued to prioritise delivery of the actions within our programme for government that will have the biggest real world effect.

Today, I've published the report: 'COVID-19 Reconstruction: Challenges and Priorities'. The report sets out key areas where we will focus our efforts and resources for reconstruction to make the most positive impact for Wales.

Recognising that we are entering an extremely challenging time for the jobs market, which is likely to be particularly difficult for young people, we will focus on keeping people in jobs and creating new jobs. We will do everything we can to reduce unemployment and give everyone the best chance to find and keep decent work with long-term prospects, adding value to the UK Government’s Kickstart programme. We will work with trade unions, employers, schools and colleges to provide opportunities for people to develop their skills and to acquire new ones. We will do all that we can to prevent our young people losing out educationally or economically through the effects of coronavirus and an economic downturn that is not of their making. We will support all of our young people to stay in education and to catch up at school and in college. In addition, we'll make sure that particularly disadvantaged groups, including members of black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, receive the additional help that they need.

We'll step up construction of council and social housing to increase access to high-quality housing across Wales, in particular investing in low-carbon housing at scale and upgrading housing stock, particularly social housing, to make it more energy efficient and to reduce fuel poverty. This will provide a threefold benefit: providing an economic stimulus; enabling more people to live in a home that meets their needs and supports a healthy, successful and prosperous life; and contributing to decarbonisation.

We'll step up our investment in our local town centres to help build resilient communities and to capitalise on how coronavirus has refocused people's lives on the communities in which they live, including providing better access to open spaces, the creation of remote working hubs, and making sure our public services are more accessible. Recognising that we continue to tackle other major challenges, we will continue to respond energetically to the climate emergency by pursuing a strong decarbonisation agenda, managing our land for the benefit of rural communities and future generations, and protecting and enhancing our natural resources.

We will take the opportunities offered by changing working and travel patterns to build on trials of demand-responsive public transport and put a clear emphasis in our new transport strategy on minimising the need to travel, spreading demand for public transport more evenly across the day, and enabling active travel as an investment in public health. We'll focus on the everyday or foundational economy and support the growth and independence of Welsh-headquartered businesses in order to build the resilience of the Welsh economy in the face of coronavirus and the end of the EU transition period. We'll support the NHS to make up lost ground in terms of treatment of non-coronavirus-related conditions.

Across all of these eight priorities and in everything we do, we will focus our efforts on supporting those who have been most adversely affected by the crisis, including children and young people, women, those in low-paid and insecure employment, BAME people and disabled people. This package is an evidence-based approach to reconstruction, informed by the experiences of the people of Wales and one that will help us achieve our vision of a more prosperous, equal and greener Wales.

Thank you, Minister, for a copy of your statement in advance of this afternoon's session. I welcome the publication of the 'COVID-19 Reconstruction: Challenges and Priorities' report. I think there's a great deal to be said about the level of engagement that the Welsh Government has undertaken in order to produce that document, and I welcome a great deal of the focus that the Welsh Government has identified in terms of things that it would like to achieve going forward. But that said, I do think that there are things that I would like to ask you some questions about.

I notice that you refer to the need to ensure that we focus our efforts in Wales on supporting those who have been most affected by the COVID-19 crisis. You listed all sorts of individuals—children, young people, women, those in low-paid and insecure employment, BAME people and disabled people—but the one group that you didn't mention was older people, and, of course, we all know that the impact of the pandemic on older people has, unfortunately, been much more severe than on other groups in society. Can you tell me is there a reason why older people feature very little—not at all in your statement and very, very little in the document that has been published today?

You've also said that you want to ensure that people's jobs are protected where possible, and that young people in particular can get into employment, and I would echo very much those comments. But there is a growing concern across Wales that some of the restrictions that the Welsh Government is putting in place are disproportionate to the levels of risk in people's communities. Do you accept that there is a risk that more young people in Wales will be out of employment as a result of some of the measures that the Welsh Government has taken and that it's very difficult, actually, for members of the public to determine whether the action taken to date is proportionate, because of the lack of granular data at a community-by-community level that is available and published in the public domain by Public Health Wales and othe

Can I also ask about access to improvements in terms of our housing stock? I obviously understand why the Welsh Government has a focus on trying to improve the social housing stock. It's easy to motivate registered social landlords with grants in order to take action to retrofit those properties, but we obviously also need to encourage people who own their own homes to take action to improve their properties too. The UK Government, of course, has its green homes grant scheme, which is very generous, and many people are taking the opportunity to take advantage of that at present, but we don't have an equivalent scheme here in Wales. Will the Welsh Government reconsider its position on that and whether there is a way that you can promote people investing in their own homes and properties by enticing them with a contribution from the Government's coffers in the way that the green homes grant does in England?

Can I also raise concerns with you about the level of investment that the Welsh Government is putting into town centre improvement? You'll be aware that the Welsh Conservatives have called for a £250 million COVID recovery fund, which is, obviously, a significantly greater investment than the cash that has been made available by the Welsh Government for town centres to date. Can you give us an indication of the scale of investment in town centres going forward as a result of your plan?

And finally—oh, I've got a little bit more time than I thought. If I can also, then, just touch on public transport. I note that you are encouraging people to change their working patterns. That will obviously reduce demand for public transport significantly in some parts of Wales. Quite why you've chosen a 30 per cent target of the workforce working from home is beyond me; I'm not quite sure why you've decided to pluck that figure from the air or where the evidence base for that is. But that's the target that you have set. Clearly, if more people are working from home, there will be less demand for public transport, which will make many routes less viable. Now, you've talked about trying to spread the demand for public transport across the day. I can understand that on those busy routes where we've got some overcrowding, particularly on our train services, but what will this mean in terms of bus routes? I'm very concerned, because older people, obviously, are disproportionately greater users of bus services, particularly in rural parts of Wales where they have no alternative transport and may not have a car. So, what work are you doing to identify those critical routes that older people in particular rely on in those sorts of communities?

You mentioned also the national health service needing to make up lost ground in terms of treatment of non-coronavirus-related conditions, yet I haven't seen a single solution in the document as to how you're going to deal with the backlog of appointments. Again, it's older people who are disproportionately—

Can you make this your final point, Darren?

—affected by that backlog and whose quality of life is suffering as a result of it. So, can I ask what specific and targeted intervention will be taken in order to address that particular backlog? I thank you for your indulgence.

I thank Darren Millar for that important range of questions, and I welcome his support for the engagement and the focus that the document describes, and the engagement with people in Wales that has very much helped to shape the priorities and the focus that the document describes. He is right to say that older people have been disproportionately affected in many ways in relation to this coronavirus pandemic. We've discussed that very issue with the older people's commissioner, for example, and as the document makes clear, those who've been most adversely affected will benefit from the interventions that the Government is bringing forward. Older people will benefit from the range of interventions, whether it's support for public services, for the third sector and a range of other interventions that are described in the document.

He raises a very, very important point about young people and their employment prospects. I hope he will acknowledge that the document goes to some lengths to emphasise how significant that is as a priority for the Welsh Government, and that is reflected in the range of commitments in the document in terms of supporting young people to enhance their skills training, support them in work, and indeed to support them in apprenticeships. So, there's a range of specific interventions in relation to young people in employment, to add value, I suppose, to some of the interventions that are happening at a UK-wide level, in particular the Kickstart scheme, and to supplement some of that in a way that adds further value to young people, to make sure that they don't carry this burden with them throughout their working lives, which otherwise they might.

Darren Millar raises an important point about the significance of retrofit for the housing stock. I don't want to trespass on the housing Minister's future announcements in this area, but what we have heard in the discussions that we've held is that it's important to be able to act at scale in a way that enables us to stimulate parts of the economy to generate supply of services in this important sector. And that is important, because the set of interventions around energy upgrades and green housing in the document meet a number of policy objectives, obviously around energy efficiency, obviously around fuel poverty, but also a broader range of impacts around economic stimulus and developing a supply chain and a skills supply chain. The assessment that we have made as a Government is that the intervention that is described in the document stands the best chance of meeting that range of objectives.

In relation to town-centre improvement, as he'll see, that is a significant priority. The finance Minister will be making a statement shortly around the level of financial commitment in relation to the policy interventions in this document more broadly. On the point of public transport, he will have noted in the document the significant sums of money that the economy and transport Minister has made available to public transport already, in particular in relation to bus services, precisely for the reason that Darren Millar gives in his statement. He will, I think, also have noted that the document talks about the importance of demand-responsive transport as an option for the future, which I know certainly many older people in my own constituency, and I imagine in his, will welcome as a means of providing flexible transport that otherwise might not be available.

Lastly, in relation to the points he made about the NHS, I'd refer him to the exchanges earlier in the Chamber with the First Minister in relation to that, and also to the winter protection plan that the document refers to. I'm sure my colleague the health Minister will be happy to elaborate on that when he is next in the Chamber.

Thank you. I'd like to thank the Minister for his statement and for providing a copy to us beforehand. I'm also grateful that he's been willing to release everything publicly.

This is a lengthy report that contains a number of spending commitments that our party will have to carefully analyse, but in terms of the priorities set by Government, they do conform with what Plaid Cymru has been suggesting. I welcome many of the recommendations. Indeed, many of the steps are ones that we've already been calling for, for example to do everything possible in order to ensure that young people don't suffer any long-term impacts in terms of their education, their health and their economic situation because of a situation that they are not to blame for in any way whatsoever. The pandemic has impacted people of all ages in very cruel ways, but it's important to note that young people are missing out on a very important part of their social development because of the restrictions preventing them from socialising with peers and developing educationally.

The report also notes the need to ensure that young people who are already disadvantaged because of structural unfairness do receive additional support. Could the Minister provide details as to how this support will be provided, and how you will ensure that it reaches the right people? Also, could he tell us how the Welsh Government will provide hope for the future for young people and students, in light of the fact that they have missed out on those experiences that I referred to earlier? The report notes the need to try and reduce redundancies as much as possible, as well as creating new jobs. Of course, it's impossible to know now what the scale of the problem will be, but it's crucial that programmes and plans are put in place as soon as possible, and I'm sure the Minister would agree with that.

I understand the rationale of trying to add to the UK Government's Kickstart initiative, but can the Minister confirm that he intends to do this in a way that tackles the weaknesses of that initiative? For example, will he put an emphasis on providing training opportunities, supporting small businesses and providing long-term career opportunities for workers, rather than providing short-term solutions that will not lead to career development? Can the Minister also explain the figures contained within the report? It notes that £2.4 billion will be in the economic resilience fund, but only £40 million for the provision of jobs. So, can he confirm what will be used in order to keep people in work and also how the rest will be invested?

One thing that was missing from the Minister's statement, but I do acknowledge that it is covered in the report, is the dire need to address the mental health crisis, which is sure to develop and get worse as time passes. The report mentioned a major programme of mental health support for children, and I welcome that, but could the Minister provide some detail on how the Government will deliver this, given the appalling failings within the mental health system that existed prior to the pandemic? How will you enhance provision available to the necessary levels as soon as possible?

Another issue that needs to be prioritised is support for the arts. The comments by the Chancellor today told artists to find new jobs, and that was disgraceful and was politically motivated, in my view. I therefore welcome the £53 million fund to support this sector. It would be useful to hear the Minister's assessment in terms of how he'll ensure that these funds reach the individuals and organisations that need the money in good time. The same is true of support for universities, and I do hope that the Welsh Government is having ongoing discussions with them in order to ensure that they receive the necessary support, because our universities are crucially important in terms of the intellectual well-being of our nation.

There are a number of other parts of the report that I would like to discuss in detail, for example the plans to build new homes, to establish social hubs where people can work, managing land for public benefit, public transport—some of the things that the Minister has already responded on—as well as climate change, of course, but I can't address everything in detail today. I would like to recommend that the Minister considers persuading his fellow Cabinet members to provide statements on the post-COVID plans in their individual portfolio areas, so that Members can scrutinise these in an appropriate manner.

To conclude, I will ask one further question: how does the process of doing this work change the Minister's mind as to what the Welsh Government should be doing, and have important lessons been learnt on the need to create a society and an economy that is more robust for the future? Thank you.

May I thank the Member for that very wide range of questions on the whole of the document? Just the point that you concluded on, this document describes the journey over the ensuing period, but the finance Minister's statement will follow on the finance, and then other Ministers will make more bespoke statements on the various specifics that you asked about in due course. There will be an opportunity for ministerial statements generally in that regard.

As regards what we've learnt generally, there are a number of challenges here and they are familiar challenges, but I think that there’s been a greater depth of understanding amongst the public about the level of the challenge, and, of course, that has changed the context from the point of view of us all, I would say. I would say that the response that we received to the public consultation and the consultation with the organisations has reflected generally the principles and the priorities that we had as a Government prior to that, and we have continued to prioritise those elements of the programme for government in these fields. So, this, perhaps, builds on that, with a number of new ideas, but perhaps emphasises some of the things that we haven't been able to achieve.

As regards your specific questions, certainly we need to offer young people hope and acknowledge that children and young people have carried a significant part of the burden over the past period. So, I'm sure she will appreciate the investment in the schools and in higher and further education. You talked about mental health and that includes the fund to support people in the universities who are going through mental health issues and so on to deal with the current situation.

The Member also asked a number of questions regarding the level of support and so on and our intentions for supporting people in their jobs. The figure of £2.4 billion is the level of investment that we've made to date, as regards support for companies and so on. We think that that has probably saved about 100,000 jobs, more or less, over the past period, but the Member is right to emphasise the need for training, the need for sustainable jobs in the long term, and also to ensure that there is continuity and progress, and that they can have career development in their jobs. That's part of the priority included in the document.

As regards mental health in the wider sense, we are offering support to the third sector to deliver and provide mental health services because they’ve been under great pressure in that context, and also in schools, in higher education and through the NHS to support people who don't always have huge problems in this context, but certainly they do require some element of support.

As regards the other questions she asked, I completely agree with her about how unacceptable the Chancellor in Westminster's comments were. I draw attention to yesterday's statement that the scheme has opened to help the freelancers, and that there will be a second phase too. I know that the Deputy Minister responsible for the sector will be listening intently to this discussion and I know how important this issue is for him as a priority.

I'm grateful to the Minister for his statement this afternoon. Minister, I was reading through the document you published earlier today, and I must say I welcome both the nature of the document, the tone of the document and the proposals that you're making in the document. But I want to ensure as well that the ambition and the vision that you've clearly explained in that document is one that the people I represent in Blaenau Gwent will also share.

I was particularly interested in three of the points you made in terms of your priorities—employment, town centres and public transport—because when I look at the community I represent I'm not entirely convinced that the normal we experienced a year ago was what we wanted to experience. I'm not entirely sure that our normal was the normal that we would want to see for many of our communities, and you know that I will have brought issues to this place on numerous occasions about the economy of Blaenau Gwent, the need to invest in the future of our communities and the connectivity of Blaenau Gwent.

Now, if we are to realise the ambition, the test for the Welsh Government is not succeeding in Cardiff or Chepstow, all due respect, but succeeding in Tredegar, Nantyglo or even on the Sofrydd. That is where the test will be. Now, I would like to understand from you, Minister, how you intend to pass that test. How will you ensure that communities in Blaenau Gwent will feel the benefit of this programme? How will you ensure that Blaenau Gwent has the investment in our economic future, has the investment in the future of our town centres and the investment in the future of our people? I'm particularly interested in the three points about jobs, about town centres and about public transport. Thank you very much.

Thank you to Alun Davies for that range of important questions, because I think what his question does is narrow down on the real-life impact of his interventions on people in constituencies that need the support the most. I can assure him, as someone who himself represents a constituency that is outside the south-east of Wales, if you like, that I share his priority to make sure that the interventions bear fruit in all of our communities across all parts of Wales, because we know that there are parts of Wales that have suffered as a consequence of COVID and, in due course, will bear the brunt of both the conjoined effects of COVID and the leaving the EU transition period. There are communities right across Wales that have borne that brunt. I want to echo the point that he made that returning to normal is not the objective that we are setting ourselves. Normal is a kind of life those of us who have relatively comfortable lives regard as a good thing, but for many of our people across Wales, returning to normal is actually not—. Normal was not a good starting point.

On the points that he makes, he will have seen, throughout the document, as well as the skill support and the employability support for those people seeking work across Wales, a number of interventions that are designed to stimulate the economy and create new employment and, actually, the interventions around housing in particular have a geographic spread right across Wales, don't they? I think that's a very fundamental part of the response. Similarly, town centres. I hope that he will have appreciated the references to reintroducing public services into our town centres, whether they're endoscopy services or integrated health and care services—those things which bring footfall and bring vibrancy back into our town centres, alongside the investment in green spaces as well, which the document talks about. And I know that my colleague the Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government will have more to say about that in due course.

The question of public transport absolutely is at the heart of this, isn't it? And we know what the impact has been on public transport of COVID, but we also know that the system that we had going into COVID didn't reflect the needs of his constituents in parts of his constituency, and certainly parts of my constituency as well. I think that is why I personally think that the plans that the Minister for the economy and transport has brought forward in relation to recasting that relationship with bus operators is actually such an exciting opportunity for us to be able, ultimately, to deliver bus services to people in Wales, wherever they are, and to provide that level of public transport that people ought to be entitled to. I think that level of ambition we have set very clearly as a Government, and, alongside that, a demand-responsive offer, which I'm sure will be transformative to many people, I think is also a very exciting development, and I'm sure he'll welcome that on behalf of his constituents as well.

We have here yet another very impressive Welsh Government document. It has much to commend it, but, once again, I must say, it does read like every other Government document. That might be the result of integrated thinking and working. It may not. I'm deeply concerned about where we are. I thought total lockdown was reasonable, considering all of the circumstances, but I, and many of the people who write to me, never consented to our liberty being curtailed for six months or more. And while there is some relaxation of rules and regulations, we are all aware that the most strict rules can be reimposed at very short notice. There is now talk of the circuit-breaker total lockdowns. The headlines, instead of screaming about numbers of deaths, are screaming about cases now. We're covering our faces. Once again we can't see our loved ones. People have been terrified, and some are still terrified, and Government messaging really doesn't help or instil the confidence needed for us all to play our part to get the country back onto its feet again. It's moved from flattening the curve to waiting for a vaccine, and no-one bothered to tell us when the goalposts again were moved. I know I've said all of this before, but I think it's worth saying again, because it is in this context that I read this document. So, now, there has been another national conversation. Your Government is responding energetically by building resilient communities, encouraging active travel and responding to the climate emergency. I've heard the First Minister say today that his Government is open to a discussion and ideas. However, that same Government doesn't appear to want to discuss the same things in the Senedd, preferring instead to talk to the press. It doesn't bode well, does it?

You talk about housing, and, in the light of the comments I've made over the last few weeks with regard to housing provision, as around 65,000 families are waiting for homes in Wales, I welcome the commitment to get as much out of social housing and council housing as possible, with an increase in the social housing grant. Housing is a need, and indeed your own Government has described it as a right. Your Government didn't need to wait until a pandemic decimated our economy to make this any sort of priority.

You mention resilient communities and our town centres. Our town centres are being destroyed by lockdown and all the more so with the kick in the teeth caused by a 10 p.m. curfew, so let's remember that a night out may also involve a new outfit, hair, nails, aftershave and so on, to bring the town centre back into play. So, further and continued measures will make businesses that may have survived a return to business unviable.

I've been very vocal in expressing my concerns about the other health crisis we're storing up in terms of waiting lists and mental health, so I'm pleased to see some well-thought-out interventions like town-centre endoscopy clinics. I remain deeply concerned about the impact on our collective mental health, and I know that the suicide rates have increased massively during this time.

We hear much about Welsh solutions, not wanting to follow England or indeed Scotland or Northern Ireland, but the fact of the matter is the Welsh approach has been broadly in line with other UK nations. We appear to be all in the same boat and none of us are going out of this anytime soon. I've seen many respected academics, scientists and physicians—sadly no-one advising the Government—say now that we need to learn to live with this virus like we live with colds, flu and cancer. It seems to me that much of the content in this document has been at your disposal and in your gift for a very long time. There was, in my view, no need to wait for it. Thank you.

I thank the Member for those questions and for the welcome that she has given to the document and the interventions that are described in there, for which I'm grateful. I think her comments could be summarised in two broad points, and I hope I don't do them a disservice in doing that. Firstly is to remind us that the contents of the document need to be seen alongside the public health challenge that COVID obviously represents on a daily basis in our lives, and the context of that is a shifting context. I think she raised the point of context herself, and I think it is important to bear that in mind, and I do acknowledge the point that she makes about the anxieties that people across Wales feel about living through this period and living through lockdown and so on.

So, I think the task that the document sets out to meet is to respond to what we already know is the effect of COVID, alongside the task of responding on that more daily basis for some of those challenges. But it is important as well to plan ahead. What we don't want to see—and we have not followed that path in Wales—is a sort of reactive approach, which perhaps has been a feature elsewhere. We've tried to be evidence-based, programmatic and planned in how we respond to COVID in all its many guises, and that's the future of this document as well: it's an attempt to look forward as well as to start the work of reconstruction now.

She makes another point, which I think is intended as a criticism. It's to say that there are some interventions here that, I think, in her words, could have happened anyway, and I think—the point I was making to a Member earlier is that many of these interventions have been under way already. If she looks at the section of the document that talks about the interventions in the immediate post-COVID period, she'll recognise a number of familiar policies in there, and, throughout the pandemic, many of these challenges that we've known have existed for some time we've been continuing to address through prioritising parts of our programme for government that most closely deal with those.

But I think—and I hope she would accept this—that what has happened in the last few weeks and months is a growing understanding amongst the public at large of the scale of some of these issues and an enthusiasm—perhaps a deeper enthusiasm, if I may say—for getting to grips with them. And certainly COVID has demonstrated to us where those inequalities have existed in Wales, but I do want to impress upon her that we've approached this task asking people in Wales what matters most to them but applying the lens that we've applied as a Government throughout, which is the question of economic justice, environmental justice and social justice, and then that is what gives you the range of priorities and interventions that is set out in the document.

Thank you for your statement, and very good to hear you've consulted so widely as we face such unprecedented upheavals, caused by not just one pandemic, but three tsunamis: the possibility of leaving the European Union without a trade deal, and the climate emergency. These things haven't gone away and the idea that we should go back to our bad old ways seems to me absolutely ridiculous, as I think Darren Millar was suggesting.

I very much welcome your proposal for more low-carbon social housing and upgrading our existing housing stock to be more energy efficient, but I just want to probe as to why you're not being a little bit more radical on this. Lord Deben, who chairs the UK climate change committee, was giving evidence to the climate change committee inquiry into carbon emissions last week, and he expressed disappointment that Wales has not used to the powers it has to change the building regulations to prevent what he called 'crap housing' continuing to be built. So, why is it not possible for the Senedd to amend Part L of the building regulations to raise the standards of private housing, and to give them the same standards that we are building social housing to? And also why are we not giving landlords notice that they will no longer be able to let homes that are below E-rated energy efficiency? It seems to me that that would be a huge stimulus to the economy in creating loads more jobs if landlords knew that they had to upgrade their properties by a certain date, and it would help to tackle fuel poverty.

I thank the Member for that question. I think she makes the very important point that none of these sets of interventions can be looked at in isolation and that, clearly, the combined effects of climate change, COVID and the end of the transition period need to be seen as far as possible in the round, and so interventions are designed, in a sense, to be able to take account of that whole context and that'll be clear, I think, to the Member, as the question acknowledges, from the interventions that the paper puts forward.

I think, in relation to housing—I hope she'll acknowledge, as I think she would, how significant the role is of green housing and energy upgraded housing as part of this response. I'm not, I'm afraid, sufficiently familiar with the detail of the building regulations to be able to give her an answer worthy of the question, but I know that the Minister will have heard the exchange and will obviously be able to bear that in mind, but I would say that the boost to the innovative housing programme is designed, in a sense, to find creative solutions into the future, isn't it, really, for those types of property that provide environmentally friendly housing, whilst also stimulating the economy, and I think—I know that she will agree with me—that's an important set of priorities.

Thank you, Minister, for your statement—[Inaudible.]—the Welsh Government's—[Inaudible.]—to commend you on the breadth and depth of—[Inaudible.] There are many questions I'd like to ask about it, but, because of the constraints of time, will stick to just three.

Firstly, the third phase of the economic resilience fund—I note that the document states there will be moneys set aside for businesses who've had to close due to local lockdowns. I'd welcome some further information on this, because it may well be of direct help to businesses within my constituency.

Secondly, I note with interest the reference to the national forest, and the fact that we'll be pressing ahead with the creation of a national forest here in Wales. I welcome this and would like to ask that special consideration be given to increasing forestry cover in those areas of Wales that have suffered so much from flooding, especially over the past year. We know that forestation can have significant positive impact on reducing surface run-off, protecting valley communities in particular.

Thirdly, with regard to the innovative housing programme, could I encourage you, Minister, to look in particular at the need for adaptable housing within that remit? I know from my casework that there's a huge shortage of such properties, and, with more people needing to rely upon social housing as the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis reverberates throughout Wales, I'm sure that the need for adaptable housing will only increase. 

I thank the Member for those questions. In relation to the first point around the next phase of the economic resilience fund, the eligibility criteria for that were published on Monday of this week, and ought to be available—. I think I'm right in saying that, of the £140 million, I think the figure is £60 million that is earmarked for local lockdown support, and the eligibility for that, I think, will be available online. But, if not, then I can make sure that whatever information is available is provided to the Member and Members generally.

On the question of the national forest, I declare an interest in that the last, I think, engagement I did before the initial lockdown in March was to start the planting of the national forest in the Gnoll Park in my own constituency, and it was a great privilege to be able to invite the Minister to the constituency to do that. I certainly take the point that she makes, and I'll make sure that her comment is relayed to the environment Minister in the considerations that she has for bringing that forward in the future.

And lastly, in relation to innovative housing, I know that my colleague the Minister for Housing and Local Government sets a great store on creativity in our response to using housing to meet a range of social needs and a range of family configurations, if I can put it like that, and the flexibility that comes with that is important. I've spoken with her on many occasions of the value of housing that is able to follow the tenant or the owners' life journey, if you like, from different stages and different levels of need from accommodation. So, I'm very sure that'll be upmost in her mind in terms of future announcements that she brings forward.

The final question from Huw Irranca-Davies.

Thank you very much indeed. Minister, could I commend the engagement you've done on this, but also the radicalism that is shot through this report and the statement as well? That's because, as I prompted you right at the outset of this, you didn't go to the usual suspects, and, of course, we work within the welcome ambition of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 as well.

Let me just ask you a couple of questions here. One is: in terms of public transport, do we use this opportunity now to seize back control, particularly in terms of buses within our Valleys, and make the money that we put into this go further? In terms of town-centre development, can we be clear that it's not only the core town centres, it's actually the Pontycymers as well as the Porthcawls, the Glynneaths as well as the Neaths—it's all those town centres, including in the uppermost reaches of our Valleys.

Just finally, on low carbon housing, I welcome the focus, obviously, on social housing, but that's not the be-all and end-all, as the report makes clear. We should come up with our own version of how we do at-scale development of retrofitting with private homeowners as well. Will that be part of the way forward? Thank you very much. 

Huw Irranca-Davies's questions go to the heart of many of these issues really, so thank you about the point about engagement. The good thing about engagement is a range of voices, and you have with that sometimes things that you want to hear, sometimes things that you don't want to hear, but that's an important part of the process. And I would like to acknowledge how important the well-being of future generations legislation has been to our thinking in this, and to thank the commissioner for her engagement in relation to the Government's work in this area.

On the question of control for future bus provision, that is at the heart of the proposals that I know the Minister for economy and transport is working up. Huw Irranca-Davies will have heard Ken Skates say—you know, with the vast amount of public money that goes into the provision of bus services, we ought to be able to deliver more control over the outputs than the current set of arrangements provides, so I know that his plans are designed to meet that objective.

I couldn't agree more in relation to town centres. I have a constituency, as does he, with a number of towns—not big towns—all of which need, I think, some support. On the last point, in relation to low-carbon retrofit for housing, I'll make sure that the Minister has heard that point; it's been made by more than one speaker today. The intervention in the document, in our assessment, is the best means of making rapid progress, if you like, in a relatively short time frame, but there is no doubt that the point of that is to generate scalability over a longer time horizon.

Thank you, Minister.