Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm very pleased to be able to take part in this debate. The inquiry, of course, took place before I joined the committee, although I was there just about in time to participate in signing off the report, and I really enjoyed reading what I think is an excellent report. I'm very happy to commend it to the Senedd. It's a strong and detailed set of recommendations and, as Russell George has already said, what it does is to ask all the right questions. I don't think that, in the meantime, we've had all the answers yet, as Russell George has said, and it will be interesting to hear Welsh Government's further response today.

I'm glad the Government has accepted all the recommendations, but it comes back to the question of how, because there is a huge shift needed if this is to be delivered. It's a cultural shift in the way the public sector engages with the private sector. And this pandemic has made it even more pressing that we crack this, that we get it right. I'll just give one example. At the beginning of the crisis, as we will all remember, a large company from over the border was given the contract to provide food boxes for people who were isolating. Now, this was not a universal success. You can understand it was something that needed to be done quickly, but I certainly had constituents in the region that I represent receiving food that was unsuitable for them, and sometimes food that was off, that was actually out of date because it had come from too far away. Now, in the second phase of providing support for those who were isolating, those food boxes were then provided through the county councils, and that made a huge difference. Carmarthenshire was able to work with the Cross Hands-based company Castell Howell, along with other local suppliers. That not only improved the quality of the provision, but it also meant that Welsh public money was being recycled into our economy to preserve local jobs and support local businesses at a crucial time.

Now, this progressive approach has got to be a local approach, and it has to inform how we spend public money with the private sector from now on. The default position—and Russell George has already touched on this—must be to recycle the Welsh public pound within our own economy. We hear all the time from Welsh Government that they haven't got enough money, and I'm sure that that's true, and I would be the first one to say that they should have more economic levers at their disposal, but every penny that we have got, whether it's in our health sector, whether it's in our local authorities, whether it's Welsh Government directly procuring, needs to be spent in our economy. Welsh Government need to do more to demonstrate how they will bring that about. This is a huge transformation and they need to set out for us how they will monitor and evaluate the actions that they take—how will they know that this has worked? Because now more than ever, at this very difficult time for our communities and for our economy, we don't need to be wasting a single penny of Welsh public money outside our communities. Diolch yn fawr iawn.