4. Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition: COVID-19 Reconstruction — Challenges and Priorities

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:10 pm on 6 October 2020.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 4:10, 6 October 2020

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.