Item 6 on our agenda is a debate on the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee report on long-term recovery from COVID, and I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion, Russell George. 

Motion NDM7623 Russell George

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the report of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee on its inquiry, 'Long-term recovery from COVID-19', which was laid in the Table Office on 3 March 2021.

Motion moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's very timely, I think, that we are debating this report today, as it's a year ago that we had the last 'normal' week—I say 'normal' in inverted commas—for most people in Wales. Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, the World Health Organization officially described COVID-19 as a pandemic, and in the following fortnight, certain businesses like pubs and restaurants were forced to close, schools were closed, people were asked to work from home if they could, and then, of course, we were told to stay at home unless absolutely essential. And since then, we have seen a heroic effort by NHS staff and key workers to keep the country safe, and essential shops serving us and running. 

So, as we watch that heroic work continue through the vaccine roll-out, we can see the tide turning, and the health emergency, although it's still very much a threat, waning away, and our attention must now turn, in earnest, I think, to the rebuilding of our economy.

So, this report comprehensively examines how recovery should look across the committee's portfolio and, in the short term, we now would like to see and draw Members' attention to three key areas, and they are: one, continuing support for hard-hit sectors; two, using reconstruction funding to reinvigorate and retool our economy; and three, avoiding a scarred generation of young people. 

So, I'll talk to each of those points in turn. So, the effects of the pandemic have not been felt equally across the economy. We heard evidence from businesses that rely on people coming together, like tourism and hospitality or those who provide contact services, like hair and beauty, and they've been particularly affected. Many venues, like theatres, nightclubs and exhibition spaces, closed their doors a year ago and haven't been able to trade since. So, we hope for a summer of reunions with friends and family, many of which will take place in tourism and hospitality businesses. However, one good summer will not make up for the lost trade from last year. Tourism providers have described what has just passed as three consecutive winters. 

Similarly, I've had a do-it-yourself haircut. I haven't had a haircut since the middle of December. I can see Members looking up from their screens now checking my hair height. But the point is this: I won't be having an extra haircut when hairdressers reopen again. So, it's likely that the economy will be affected differently in different sectors.

It's likely that Wales's manufacturing industries will also take some time to recover. For example, we heard evidence that the aerospace industry would take three or four years to recover to the 2019 levels. Now, the committee believes it is clear that businesses that felt effects the worst in the pandemic need a stronger and a longer recovery strategy than the rest of the economy. So, it's vital that the next Welsh Government sets out this strategy very early on and, as part of it, it must also make clear any additional funding it thinks it needs from the UK Government. 

Now, a dramatic drop in public transport usage has meant that companies involved in transport services have also been heavily affected. So, the next Welsh Government as well must set out a long-term plan for public transport recovery as well. 

Tuning to my next point with regard to using reconstruction funding to reinvigorate and retool our economy, the picture on the front of the report—I'm just holding it up here—is a daffodil. Now, that's not just because we launched our report on St David's Day, not at all, it's because we're looking for optimism and opportunity from the recovery. Just like flowers appearing after a winter or with the right nutrition, our economy can grow anew. So, the committee heard that at the end of the first lockdown, there was a real surge in entrepreneurial spirit and release, and a surge in start-ups. Now, if the Welsh Government can capture that energy, it can be used to tackle the relatively low start-up rates that we have in Wales now.

We also heard about how a skills-led recovery could promote better productivity and tackle low skills traps, a key problem that I know the committee has reported on in the past. Alongside this, we heard evidence that investment in research and innovation would also improve Wales's productivity and its resilience. So, business representatives, unions, think tanks, academics and environmental organisations all told us, as Members, about the environmental and economic gains that could be made by investing in a greener economy. So, the next Welsh Government—certainly we, as a committee, believe—should prioritise accelerating shovel-ready green infrastructure projects to boost job creation, and the next programme for government must have skills at its heart, in the view of the committee. The Welsh Government must seize the opportunities set out in this report and use reconstruction to create a more innovative, resilient and future-proofed economy for Wales with a highly skilled workforce engaged in high productivity, resilient and environmentally friendly jobs.

The last section, which I talked about at the beginning of my contribution, was youth unemployment. The committee was pleased that the Welsh Government has committed to ensuring that no-one is left behind by the recovery. Now, we know that people who were already disadvantaged in the job market feel the worst effects when the market shrinks. The report contains a section on recovery for all, which outlines the steps the Government must take to support an equal recovery to meet its pledge. Young people are a group who have been left behind in past economic emergencies and we heard from several experts who were extremely anxious about the spike in youth unemployment creating a scarred generation.

Wales already has two cohorts of young people deeply affected by COVID-19 and there's no doubt that the pandemic and the economic emergency that this created will affect students leaving education and training for some time to come. Professor Keep likened youth unemployment to filling a bath—every year more young people and graduates come out of university and that bath keeps filling up if those people can't then find their way into the labour market and secure high-quality and fulfilling employment. If our young people can't find their way into the labour market, if they spend a long time unemployed or if they can't find the right path in the churn between employment, training and unemployment, their lives could potentially be scarred and their wings clipped for the rest of their careers. We know that this scarring will follow them, potentially, throughout their whole lives, reducing their earning potential and prosperity.

So, tackling the beckoning prospect of a scarred generation of young people must be absolutely a priority for the next Welsh Government. Its success or failure with this objective will ripple beyond the first half of the twenty-first century. I very much look forward to Members' contributions to this debate this afternoon.

I want to begin by thanking all those who participated in this very important and far-reaching inquiry and take this opportunity to thank all who supported my work as a member of this committee just over the past year. I'm very grateful to the Chair and to my fellow Members, but most of all, to the committee staff. This was a very new field to me. They absolutely enabled me to hit the ground running and I'm extremely grateful for that.

As has been said, we face an unprecedented economic shock that is coming as Government support comes to an end as we come out of the health crisis. And that's the reason, of course, for our hugely wide-ranging report. We don't often see a Senedd committee report with 53 recommendations. All of these recommendations are extremely important and I personally believe that the Welsh Government should treat them as a package—they work together. But I want to comment on three particular groups of recommendations in my brief contribution to this debate. 

I'd first like to refer to recommendation 5, which sets out the urgent need for the Welsh Government to set measurable targets, monitor progress and evaluate the effectiveness of all recovery work and investment. It seems obvious, but evidence over the last year on a range of issues in this portfolio is that this does not always happen by any means. With the size of the task so huge and the resources inevitably limited, we will not be able to afford to waste a single penny. And if we really take an innovative approach, we will try some things that won't work, and we will need to stop doing them. Monitoring and evaluation is key and the next Welsh Government must ensure that robust systems are in place. These systems must monitor impacts by region, by sector and by equality characteristics. Our build back from COVID must work for everyone, everywhere in Wales.

Which brings me to recommendations 30 to 41. These highlight a whole range of actions needed to ensure that, in rebuilding our economy, we address the structural inequalities and injustices that were baked into our economy before the COVID crisis. We heard such clear evidence that black people and people of colour were hit harder by COVID, both in terms of health and economic harm. We heard how women were impacted more seriously than men, and while there were some positive impacts for disabled people, with opportunities opened up by homeworking, there were concerns for this group, too. It is imperative that, as the next Welsh Government leads efforts to rebuild our economy, the opportunity to act to remove these historical structural inequalities that have done so much damage is taken. Change will not be achieved overnight, and that brings me back, of course, to the point about measurable targets. But what must be avoided at all costs is building back to where we were before. That would be an unforgivable waste of an opportunity. 

Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, I want to refer to recommendations 42 to 48, focusing on actions needed to ensure that young people are not left behind. As the Chair has already said, we know that in this economic crisis, as in others, young people have been very hard hit. They tend to work in the sectors like hospitality that have been badly hit, their education has been disrupted, and with more experienced workers losing their jobs and re-entering the job market, their opportunities will be restricted. Previous economic crises have seen whole generations left behind. I was a young person in the 1980s, and I have friends who are my age, coming up to retirement now, whose lifetime economic prosperity was affected by being out of work for two or three years right at the beginning of their careers. As they go into their pensions, they are poorer than they would have been. Our recommendations make practical suggestions to avoid this happening this time, and the next Welsh Government must act on all these recommendations.

On this agenda, a Plaid Cymru Government will go further, even, than recommended by the committee. Committee recommendation 43 asks the next Welsh Government to assess the introduction of a youth opportunity guarantee for 16 to 24-year-olds. We will commit in Government to that guarantee—a good-quality, decently paid job for every 16 to 24-year-old not in education, training or employment. Plaid Cymru will not leave our young people behind; our next Government must not leave our young people behind. As our recommendations make clear, while the economic aftermath of COVID presents grave challenges, it also presents some real opportunities. This is our chance not just to build back better, but to build back well. I commend this report to the Senedd and to Welsh Governments current and future. 

I've got a very positive sign on this. I believe we're starting the fourth industrial revolution—not as expected, as people were talking about, with artificial intelligence, but with homeworking and shopping. It's a completion of the circle from people moving into cities to work in factories to people leaving offices to work at home. We've seen over recent years changes in the way that people work and shop. The movement towards homeworking, online meetings and online shopping was taking place pre COVID, but what COVID has done is turbocharge it. Some people have said it moved five years forward, other people have said it moved 10 years forward. I don't know, but I can tell you what, it's moved forward a huge amount over the last 12 months. When we come out of this, it is not a return to March 2020. I've heard some frightening discussions about the roads we need to get people travelling exactly as they were before. That is not the world we're moving into. 

Thirty years ago, I was telling my students about how video-conferencing was the way forward, and then 15 years ago, I was still telling my students how video-conferencing was the way forward and there was no need for travel. I've now seen, as I've spent most of the last 12 months on Zoom and Teams, that especially where high-speed broadband is available, it certainly saves a lot of travel. I wish luck to anybody who wants to get finance directors to fund them to travel long distances to meetings, especially short meetings. I know it's the Welsh Government's policy to have 30 per cent homeworking, but the Welsh Government have got very little control over it. I always think back to if the Government in 1900 decided how much they were going to cut horses by. Well, they didn't have any control over it; it was controlled by events taking place outside their control.

The Welsh Government can control the people they employ, and I hope they will use this to control the people they employ and get more people working from home. The private sector will do what works for individual companies, and collectively, that will affect the direction of the travel. Can I just say I do not relish spending two hours a day travelling up the M4 from Swansea to my office and back? I'm not sure if many other people do. But my journey is not abnormal in south Wales, to have that level of travel. It's certainly given me an extra six hours a week. I think what you're going to see is, because office costs are so expensive in Cardiff, you may well find companies saying how much they can save by having people working at home. But also, you'll have competitive recruitment; people will want to work at home because it gives them huge advantages, and they won't have a two-hour commute a day. But more importantly, they don't have to live near the M4 or an A road or near a motorway or near a railway station; they can actually live where they like. I think we'll see a lot of movement of people because of this. 

Homeworking is really going to be made by lots of individual decisions. We've had it over the last 12 months in what can only be described as suboptimal conditions, where we've seen people having to work at home as well as look after children, whereas, if they didn't have that, their productivity would increase. But what we've actually seen is no substantial drop in productivity; no-one has found any of that. What we have seen is improved productivity with some. I think this is the direction we've been going in, and we've got there. Also, we've seen it in shopping. How many people are now happy to buy clothes, toys, home styling and other items sitting on their sofa at any time of day and night from an iPad, a phone or a computer? I worry about the future of physical shops. And just remember, online is not just Amazon, although that's obviously become shorthand for it. Every major retailer has an online presence and all are working towards improving their online presence.

We've also seen 3D printers. They didn't play a major part in the last 12 months, because they're expensive, and they're still in the development stage. This is going to change; they're going to get cheaper, they're going to get better. People remember when the first computers came out just how slow they were, and you've got in your pocket now greater computing capacity than took people to the moon in the 1960s. I'm just putting that in context. These printers are going to get better. People are going to make more. I've got a firm in my constituency that makes prosthetics on 3D printers, so you can make them as people need them. I think we're going to see a huge development of 3D production, and this will have an effect on other countries as well. If we are creating the designs in this country, if we are going to make the things, we don't have to send them off to other parts of the world to produce. We can be producing them—I won't say in our own living room, but certainly at or near our own home. These are changes that are taking place.

Universities have a huge role, with underused universities in Wales. Just look at what's happening not just with Cambridge, but universities throughout Britain that have developed science parks, that have developed industries alongside them. We need to be doing the same. And just one final point—

I was just going to say, the Member needs to wind up. Make your final point.

One final point on this. Can we give up on trying to bribe companies to bring branch factories to Wales, where they promise hundreds of jobs that never materialise and then the cutbacks follow? This is not the right direction. It doesn't work, it hasn't worked since the Welsh Development Agency, and it ain't working now.

Thank you. Nick Ramsay. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I wasn't expecting to be called quite so quickly, but I've got my papers together.

Can I thank the economy committee for bringing forward this excellent report, with the daffodil on the front, as Russ George said? It's a really good read. I'm obviously not a member of the committee, but as a former Chair of what was then the Enterprise and Business Committee back in 2014, when I last did that job, I don't think I would ever have envisaged that we would be having this sort of debate today or that this report would have been produced. The sorts of issues that I had to deal with as Chair of that committee, and the Members had to deal with, seemed pretty significant and large at the time, but compared with what we're dealing with today, in the face of the economic shocks facing Wales and the world, those seem quite small by comparison. So, this is, as the Chair said, a timely report. These are immensely challenging times, and as the Chair says in his foreword, we need to learn the lessons of previous recessions as we build back better, fairer and greener. Previous recessions have seemed bad enough and hard enough as we've been going through them, but of course the scale of what we face here potentially dwarfs anything we've seen in living memory, so it is important we learn the lessons as they were in those recessions.

Could I make just a couple of points? I've just been reading through the recommendations, and fully agree with recommendation 1, that we need to harness entrepreneurial activity and business start-ups as a way to drive economic recovery. We've seen an enormous amount of Government support, both UK Government and Welsh Government support and funding for the private sector over the last year, I think it was, as Russ said, that we first labelled the pandemic and the lockdowns began, and that's been totally the right thing to do, and acceptable, but of course, that can't go on forever, so we do need to start looking to put the private sector back on its feet, reopening as soon and as safely as possible—certain sectors, anyway—and then making sure that those businesses and SMEs are able to drive the economy forward.

Recommendation 3 urges adaptability to key future shocks like climate change. I think that's probably been one of the most worrying aspects of this whole pandemic—this pandemic has been challenging enough as it is, and the economy has been reeling from it, but, of course, when you put on top, then, other potential impacts such as climate change, and other unforeseen shocks that we've got to guard against, for the next five, 10 years the world economy is going to be in a pretty sensitive and delicate state, so I think you're quite right, Chair, to say in your report that we need to make sure that we boost the resilience as much as possible.

We talk a lot about building back better, but we've got to make sure that that happens in practice. I've raised this with the economy Minister, and indeed with the First Minister, I think on a number of occasions, and yes, we all agree we need to build back better, build back fairer, grow back greener, and I'm the first person at the front of the queue to say that those things are necessary, but let's make sure that does happen in practice, and we don't just lapse back into the old ways of doing things. We've seen some enormous changes, in terms of road traffic, for instance, over the last several months. I know that the road traffic on the trunk road network is 60 per cent higher at the moment compared with what it was in the previous lockdown, but it's still way down on where it was, and those normal pinch points, such as the M4, which was mentioned in questions earlier—well, you can drive on there at rush hour now, and it doesn't seem to be causing half the problems it did.

So, there are ways to build back in a way that we don't really need to put the investment into the actual physical infrastructure as much as we used to. So, broadband is going to be key to this—let's make sure that as many people can work from home as possible. Let's get that broadband infrastructure in place. In terms of the road network, developing electric vehicles, great for the environment, great for solving the problems of climate change—let's get that charging infrastructure in place and let's all move forward with the plan. Yes, we all have different views here, from our different parties and our different ideological beliefs, but I think all of us share a common aim that we want to come out of this with Wales being in a stronger and better position than it was before. There are not just challenges here, there are opportunities as well, and thank you very much Chair, Russ George, for bringing forward this excellent report. I'd urge everyone to read it because I think it does contain within it the seeds of how we are going to grow back and make Wales a better place in the future. Diolch.

First of all, can I thank the committee for this report? It is an exhaustive piece of work, both in the scope and its recommendations. Indeed, it's so comprehensive I shall have to confine my comments to what I see as the key elements. But I have to presage my contribution by saying that I feel the Welsh Government over the last five years has gone a long way to addressing many of the issues raised in the recommendations. I would agree with recommendations 1 to 3, adding that the general forecast is that, when the COVID restrictions have eased completely, there will be a huge boost to the economy, both of pent-up work initiatives and cash saved during the crisis. Independent businesses and SMEs must be supported to make the best of this upsurge.

Recommendation 4 concerns funding the commercial bank of Wales and Business Wales. I believe that these two institutions have been one of the great successes of the Senedd term, particularly in the COVID crisis period, and I would like to thank both on behalf of all the businesses in Wales for the extraordinary way in which they have managed the financial interventions afforded by both the Welsh and UK Governments. I'm sure the Welsh Government recognises this and will make any necessary funds available. Both organisations will be crucial to our economic recovery.

Recommendations 7, 8 and 9 deal with upskilling the workforce. I agree that it is vital that further education, higher education and universities must engage fully with any Government initiatives in the sixth Senedd, and also with the business community in general. The initiatives with regard to vocational studies must be carried forward at pace. A good start is undoubtedly being made but must not be allowed to stagnate.

Recommendation 11 deals with the sectors hardest hit by COVID—hospitality, including tourism, hair and beauty and the arts and culture sectors. I urge the Government to concentrate early interventions on these sectors as they are the most likely to deliver a positive effect on the economy in the short term. With regard to the tourist sector, any future campaigns must re-emphasise Wales's total commitment to welcoming visitors, which may have been damaged by the lockdowns. 

Recommendations 36 to 38 deal with disability. I believe this is an area where there must be considerable improvement. Disabled people have so much more to contribute to society and business in general than they're able to do at present. Please let this be a targeted area for the Welsh Government in the sixth Senedd. 

I concur with the recommendations dealing with youth employment. We cannot allow the COVID crisis to create a lost generation of our youth. I urge the Welsh Government to give real consideration to these recommendations.

Although transport is dealt with later in this report, it is without doubt another crucial element to Wales's economic recovery. It must be accepted that much has already been implemented by the Welsh Government in this area, including the hugely important acquisition of the core Valleys lines and the introduction of much-enhanced rolling stock. There are many other initiatives and upgrades in the pipeline, so can I urge the Government to continue with their significant investments? I am absolutely convinced it will deliver huge benefits in the future. 

To sum up, Dirprwy Lywydd, though we welcome external investment in Wales, we must grow an indigenous business base, headquartered in Wales and wholly committed to Wales. Only in this way shall we build a long-term resilience into the Welsh economy. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. 

Thank you. Can I now call the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales, Ken Skates? 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and can I start as I did at committee just this morning by thanking the current and past members of the committee for the incredibly constructive way in which it's worked with me and my officials over the past five years to get the best possible ideas and outcomes for the people of Wales? And to that end, I broadly warmly welcome the report and I thank the committee for their acknowledgement of the efforts of the teams who've responded at pace through challenging operational conditions to support businesses and transport operators.

And as you'll appreciate, I won't be able to comment on all 53 recommendations today, but what the number of recommendations most definitely does show is the diligence of the committee in undertaking and examining what might be needed for the economy in the years to come. As the Chair says in his foreword, reconstruction is going to be a long process, and it will be for the future Governments, not just potentially the next administration but several afterwards, to deal with the recommendations and to implement necessary change. But we have made huge strides in rolling out vaccines and the public health situation is improving, so optimism for economic rebound is most certainly growing.

And we, of course, made a start on that when we published our economic resilience and reconstruction mission last month, and the mission sets out what many people told me directly—that in Wales we have the talent, we have the energy and the ideas to rebuild our economy in a better and much fairer way. It offers, I think, grounded optimism against a backdrop of the most challenging circumstances that I think we've faced in our time, which have included Brexit and the climate emergency. 

Now, the outlook for the economy, whilst still hugely challenging, does look better than it did at the time of the last Office for Budget Responsibility forecast in November. Even so, by 2026 the level of gross domestic product is expected to be some 3 per cent smaller than the level expected pre pandemic, reflecting the long-term scarring effects of coronavirus on the economy. This will be particularly bad for disadvantaged groups and young people as they try to get a foothold in the labour market.

My ambition since the start of this pandemic has been twofold: firstly, to support businesses so that they survive and retain employees, despite the grave situation that they are facing; and then secondly, to support those who unfortunately become unemployed or who are entering the labour market for the very first time. You'll have heard me say on numerous occasions that if you had a good business in 2019, you'll have a good business in 2021, and my ambition remains just that, and that's why we must strengthen the foundational economy, as many Members have identified this afternoon, and recognise the vital importance of key workers and the crucial role that they play in our well-being and in every sector of our economy.

Now, in January we announced a further £3 million for the foundational economy challenge fund and the projects that it supports. That is improving the delivery of everyday goods and services that we all use and need—improving employment prospects within the foundational economy and delivering best practice that we can all learn from. Overall, our support package for businesses during this pandemic has been more than £2 billion. It remains the most generous package of support in the United Kingdom. As of last month, the economic resilience fund had safeguarded almost 150,000 jobs. That's more than 10 per cent of total employment in Wales. The committee's report, I think, rightly recognises the need to take advantage of the upswing in entrepreneurial activity and encourage business start-ups. The aim is for Wales's post-pandemic economy to drive prosperity equally and to help everybody realise their potential; harnessing an invigorated entrepreneurial culture is therefore vitally important.

We've helped start-ups during this pandemic. We have provided more than £4 million to start-ups facing collapse, and that has secured around about 1,600 businesses. We intend to help to rebuild, grow and strengthen the social enterprise sector so that it is a natural business model of choice for entrepreneurs delivering solutions to the social, economic and environmental challenges that we face, and furthermore, our barriers fund, for individuals who are considering self-employment, specifically targets young people who left college and university in 2019 and 2020. There were more than 330 applications, as of the end of January, each accessing up to £2,000 to have the very best chance of making their new venture succeed, and this forms part of our £40 million COVID commitment on skills and jobs. We've committed to offer advice and support to people over 16 to find work, to pursue self-employment, to find a place in education, training or employment, and this includes hiring incentives for employers: 16 to 24-year-olds, disabled people; those from black, ethnic minority and Asian communities; women. Those most affected by COVID-19 will be prioritised within that scheme. Having hit our target of creating 100,000 high-quality apprenticeships during this Senedd term, we'll use £16.4 million to stimulate hiring of new starters and continued employment of 5,000 apprentices. There will also be £3 million to support degree-level apprentices in digital ICT and advanced manufacturing, to deliver an alternative pathway for individuals to obtain higher level skills.

Now, in response to the committee's recommendation on research and development funding, increasing Wales's R&D funding and innovation base remains dependent, of course, on UK Government delivering on the levelling-up agenda, and we'll continue our financial support through SMART Cymru to develop, implement and commercialise products, processes and services.

Furthermore, in line with our ambition to create a greener economy, we'll invest in low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure and renewable energy projects, and this includes the modernisation of our transport network and the continuation of our existing plans for metros in north Wales, south Wales and west Wales. Our rail service is a critical asset, as has been identified today, and one we must protect. Since the pandemic began, we have provided significant financial support to keep trains running. The need for greater public control is a reflection, I think, of the ongoing pressures of coronavirus and the challenges being faced right across the rail industry as passenger demand remains exceptionally low. And also, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Welsh Government has continued to fund hugely important bus services across Wales, maintaining a skeleton network to support essential journeys, and then ramping up services to support the reopening of schools and the wider economy. As well as addressing emergency short-term needs, our new agreement with bus service operators is intended to signal the beginning of a lasting partnership with operators and public bodies to enable a reshaping of Wales's bus network, supporting the management and interaction of transport modes across Wales, and including, of course, the development of smart ticketing, unified routing and integrated timetabling. 

Last week, of course, I announced a funding package for Cardiff Airport to ensure its medium to long-term viability and to secure thousands of jobs in the regional economy. I'm determined that we emerge from this pandemic by building upon the foundations that we'd started before it struck and by reducing inequality and spreading wealth more fairly, and, indeed, well-being, across the whole of Wales.

Thank you. Can I now call on Russell George to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I first of all echo Helen Mary Jones's comments in thanking the many people who contributed to our report in terms of oral evidence and written evidence? It's a huge report, and I always, I think, in any debate, thank our clerking and research team, but particularly on this occasion, because the report had to be done with speed because otherwise our report quickly goes out of date. So, a huge effort from our clerking and research team in drafting the report for us, as Members, to look at. So, I appreciated that, very much so.

In terms of Helen Mary Jones's comments, I started by talking about the scar on youth employment and having to deal with this now to avoid what we know will happen if we see a repeat of the past. And Helen Mary Jones was very much talking about from her own experience of friends who she knew in the 1980s who are still affected today. Mike Hedges, you were fantastic; you did a fantastic job in being the trailer for our debate next week on remote working. So, thank you—thank you for that, Mike. I would say, in committee this morning, it reminds me of how Hefin David said that he would've liked to have contributed this afternoon, but he couldn't because of connectivity issues, and somebody very close to him coming up with an opposite view. So, there's a big discussion here about remote working and the challenges that it brings and also the opportunities that it presents as well. But no doubt we'll go into them in greater depth next week. But I do agree with you, Mike. As Helen Mary Jones said as well, we can't return to pre March 2020.

I think also Nick Ramsay—thank you for your contribution, very much talking about learning from past mistakes, or mistakes made in previous recessions, and that very much is the essence of our report; we're trying to draw out mistakes that were made in the past that we can try and avoid this time. You also talked about the congestion and building back better—I think a constant theme for us all, about making sure that we build back our economy in a better way.

David Rowlands, I agree with you—the committee agrees with you—that we think that the Development Bank of Wales and Business Wales have been a success story in this pandemic. They've done fantastic work and I suppose it's right, as well, as a committee, that we put our thanks on the record for those staff working within those two organisations—so, absolutely agree from that perspective. And I agree with you, David Rowlands, as well in terms of HE and FE and engaging in terms of upskilling as well.

Coming on to some of the Minister's comments, I'm very grateful to the Minister for broadly welcoming our report and recommendations. I certainly agree with the Minister that reconstruction is going to be a long process, unfortunately, and I thank the Minister for his kind words about the committee's work and being diligent.

Some optimism from the Minister in terms of building back better. Also, the warning, of course, as well, as he points to 2026 GDP being 3 per cent lower, and the impact that that will have on some disadvantaged groups. So, again, there's a message there, isn't there, of optimism for the future, but concern as well. But, again, that is what our report is trying to do—trying to reduce the effects and build back better, and making recommendations to that effect as well.

So, can I thank all the contributors to the debate this afternoon? Thank you very much and, of course, we will be discussing the remote working report next week, which has links to this report as well. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Thank you. The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? I don't see any objections. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.