Thank you to the committee for another report and for the opportunity to discuss it today. This series of reports has been very useful in shining a light on the impact of COVID on different parts of the cultural and creative sector, and, more importantly, puts forward recommendations about what we can do in this regard.

This report looks specifically at the impact of COVID on heritage, museums and archives. Now, we in Plaid Cymru are true believers that Government needs to support our key national cultural organisations to ensure their resilience and their development for the future. We have a good number of national organisations and institutions that contribute to our cultural life, our social life and our economic life. They are a core part of the life of the nation, encompassing theatre, opera, dance, literature, books, publishing, archives and museums, not forgetting the National Eisteddfod, of course. But these institutions are facing major challenges as a result of this health crisis, but we have to emphasise that the situation facing the sector at the moment has been made worse because of underexpenditure, underinvestment and austerity over the past decade. The next Government has to get to grips with this in a robust and unambiguous way and to provide the appropriate support that our important institutions deserve.

An annual report was published by the National Library of Wales last week that summarised a busy year for the institution, with almost 2 million visits to its websites, and more than 300,000 items have been digitised. Recently, the national library held the tailored review, and it has to be said that the financial situation currently facing the library is a serious one. The library has faced a decline of 40 per cent in its maintenance grant—that isn't true for other national institutions. The situation of the national museum is very fragile too, and there has been underinvestment in terms of infrastructure and maintenance of the site. There is a backlog of £60 million for the eight sites. They have been successful in terms of increasing income and sponsorship over recent years, but COVID has clearly added to the uncertainty, and having an update from the Deputy Minister about the discussions with regard to funding with the national museum and the national library would be very beneficial, I believe.

As Helen Mary has mentioned, COVID has drawn attention to the importance of the digital sphere, and the report from the committee does give due attention to this. Institutions need to collaborate not duplicate work, particularly in terms of preparing digital learning materials for the national curriculum and health boards. And the increase in online activity needs to be appropriately resourced to succeed. So, I would like to ask the Deputy Minister how he believes funding settlements for the sector in future should provide for digitising local and national collections and provide for educational activities and engagement activities on the internet.

I turn to two other issues to conclude. Eluned Morgan has noted that the Welsh Government wants to release a feasibility study on establishing a national archive for Wales. I believe that this is part of the understanding between this Government and Plaid Cymru at the beginning of this Senedd. COVID-19 has impacted the work of the inquiry, I understand, but I do look forward to seeing the conclusions and what the next steps will be as a result of this study. So, it would be useful if the Deputy Minister could give some kind of timetable to us for putting forward this work.

COVID-19 has drawn attention to the crisis in terms of second homes facing our communities and, with that, there is a danger that our heritage will also be endangered as the original names of some of these homes are lost forever. The way that this Government has dragged its feet when it comes to safeguarding Welsh place names is very disappointing. We continue to face a situation where there is no way of safeguarding historic place names in Wales—names that are such an important part of the heritage and history of our nation. We need statutory regulations. This Government isn’t going to introduce those, but we do need to legislate in the sixth Senedd come what may. Thank you very much.