The pandemic has shown the well-being-critical role everyday services and key workers play. And a broader commitment to support the foundations of the Valleys economy has been at the heart of the taskforce’s approach. Last year, I launched a foundational economy challenge fund trial project to test different approaches. Of the 52 experimental projects, 27 are in the Valleys. Through these projects, we are committed to experiment and to learn from different interventions to nurture local communities and change their relationship to their local economy. This is critical to build resilience to the disruption from external shocks we're seeing, like COVID, Brexit, automation and climate change.

Key to this is to stop wealth leaking out of the area. I’m pleased that the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, which did important work with Preston City Council to test the concept, is now working with every large public body in the Valleys to maximise the power of the public pound. They are all now working though their contracts to understand where they can redirect spending to shore up the local economy. This focused work in the Valleys will also inform work in the rest of Wales.

The same is true of some of our business initiatives. The Valleys taskforce piloted a peer-to-peer mutual support network for local business founders to tackle common problems. We're now extending it, and Business Wales are considering how it can be incorporated into business support initiatives across Wales.

We have also piloted the access employability programme to provide employability skills and personal development to people who have become unemployed. It, too, has proven a great success and is now being expanded across Wales as part of the ReAct programme.

We have spread good practice through the Valleys Regional Park project. We adapted our original plan to have park rangers to follow Bridgend County Borough Council's example of community guardians. We now have a network of Valleys Regional Park guardians who are at work in each of the discovery sites that act as a gateway to our green spaces. They not only keep an eye on the parks but link in to social prescribing and community enterprise initiatives, too. At Bryngarw Country Park, where we have funded a new education centre, the guardians are developing nature experience programmes for the home-schooling community. Connecting communities with local nature in this way is key to meeting the challenges of climate change. Funding for the management of the regional park is now in place until 2023. And to help support the long-term management of the landscape, we’ve put the governance of the parks under the city region structure.

Another exciting project that could lift the Valleys Regional Park is the Crucible project in Merthyr. To help seed it, we have contributed £80,000 to an archival study to help create the blueprint for this landmark project.

I'm also pleased to announce that Llyn Llech Owain in the Gwendraeth valley and the Afan forest in Neath Port Talbot have been awarded funding for improvements to become discovery gateway sites. In addition, Llyn Llech Owain and Parc Bryn Bach in Blaenau Gwent will become remote working hubs. Instead of a long commute, people can work from a modern office set in their local park, and take a break in nature in their lunch hour. We are funding complementary remote working projects in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly, which will test the concept in smaller town centres, too. These, too, will inform our work to encourage 30 per cent of people to work remotely.

On top of this, we’ve invited smaller towns and villages to bid into a £3 million taskforce fund to help them to recover from the impact of COVID-19. The funding will cover physical improvements as well as digital. This will include a network of LoRaWAN gateways to support the development of 'the internet of things' innovations. In this case, bringing to the Valleys innovations in the use of footfall data from Cardigan and from north-west Wales, because best practice ought to travel both ways.

In transport we’ve innovated, too, and this was one of the areas frequently raised at our numerous public engagement events, the need for regular, reliable public transport. The on-demand local bus service, Fflecsi, which is now being piloted across Wales, came from Valleys taskforce discussions. And we have further announcements to make in the coming weeks. Again, these are all initiatives from the Valleys for the Valleys, but with the potential to be applied all over Wales. Dirprwy Lywydd, nobody is denying that the south Wales Valleys continue to face many challenges, but the taskforce has shown at least that the solutions to their problems lie within.