Diolch, acting Presiding Officer. I would like to thank our committee Chair and the committee clerks for their amazing work throughout this inquiry. COVID-19 certainly meant that this was no ordinary inquiry. Remote working made holding such an inquiry even more challenging. However, the challenges faced by committee members pale into insignificance when compared with the challenges faced by the wider community.

COVID-19 has caused the deaths of over 1 million people around the globe, and over 1,600 people in Wales. Sadly, even those who do recover from this awful disease can be left with long-term, life-limiting conditions. I have had constituents tell me that they still struggle to breathe months offer recovering from COVID-19. The long-term impacts of long COVID are only starting now to be understood, but Governments must help those impacted and ensure that they receive all the necessary support. The toll that COVID-19 is having continues to rise as infections continue to spread, and, in order to try to halt an exponential rise in the death toll, Governments closed down large parts of the economy, causing one of the biggest economic collapses in history.

As our committee discovered, the downturn has hit and disproportionately impacted the most disadvantaged in our society, and limited the life chances of younger generations. Measures designed to limit the spread have also disproportionately impacted the mental health and well-being of older people and those with disabilities. While we take measures to stop the spread of coronavirus, we have to mitigate the impact that they have on people's lives, and the best way we can limit the impact that COVID has on people's lives is to move away from lockdowns. Unfortunately, we can only do that if everyone obeys social distancing, wears a mask in public places and practices good hand hygiene, because the selfish actions of a few have led to outbreaks and the inevitable imposing of stricter restrictions on people's lives, restrictions that have an impact on people's mental health and economic well-being, restrictions that have had a disproportionate impact on younger generations. Young people have had their schooling interrupted, their exams cancelled and university life changed dramatically.

As the committee discovered, shutdown measures have hit the youngest workers the hardest, with employees under the age of 25 almost three times as likely to have been working in shutdown sectors. Those same young workers will be the ones left footing the bill for the billions of pounds that have been spent and will continue to be spent dealing with the impacts of this pandemic—the very same generation that will be left struggling with the devastating impacts of climate change and ecological disaster. The biggest inequality of this pandemic has been the fact that, although young people are the least likely to suffer the serious effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, they are the most likely to be impacted by measures aimed at curbing its spread. I urge the Welsh Government to do all it can to mitigate the impacts, to do all it can to ensure there won't be any further lockdowns and to provide additional support to improve the life chances of the under-25s. Diolch yn fawr.