Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:04 pm on 1 December 2020.
Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Brown speaks presciently about the shift to online shopping, and that's of course echoed in today's devastating news about the collapse of Arcadia and Debenhams, undoubtedly accelerated and exacerbated by the pandemic. It can't just be the poor leadership of the private equity ownership to extract maximum surplus value; it has to also be the change in shopping habits. As you said, if we don't change, we die.
So, how do you think that the fourth industrial revolution could be applied to assist Cardiff to re-engineer its commercial centres to become community spaces as much as places where we continue to shop? I wondered if you could tell me a little bit more about Caerphilly's NearMeNow, which, I think, is helping maintain those links that are essential in the foundational economy, putting local shops in touch with local shoppers.
Secondly, how can the Government help the workforce whose jobs are disappearing today in retail to retrain to meet that 200 per cent increase in demand for AI jobs that you spoke about in your statement? Would that be a role for digital public services in Ebbw Vale or through the data nation accelerator, led by these four universities? I wondered if you could say a bit more on that, because I'm sure many retail workers would be very keen to hear that.