The biggest thing they said to us was that they wanted decision makers to listen to them, and so I'm really pleased to say that one of the first things we are doing here in Wales is listening, with a determination to act. So, the First Minister has been really clear that our focus now must be on recovery from the pandemic, but also recovery from the devastation of climate change, building a stronger, greener and fairer Wales—a Wales where no-one is held back and no-one is left behind. We're absolutely committed to that vision and nowhere more so than tackling the situation with both climate change and mental health in Wales.

So, mental health, in the new Government, is now being championed by my colleague and friend Lynne Neagle, who I can see is listening carefully to the debate as well. Her responsibilities are also holistic, so they unite service provision across mental health issues, alongside looking at contributory factors such as problem gambling, substance misuse, the experiences of armed forces veterans and homelessness and so on. And that holistic approach shows the importance that we place on the mental well-being of people in Wales. Already Lynne and I have had an opportunity to work together on some of those issues and you'll all know that Lynne championed those issues in the fifth Senedd, where she so ably chaired the committee looking at this. So, I'm delighted to have the opportunity to work with her on a range of these issues as well. We have invested a further £42 million in mental health services this year, expanding support for anxiety and depression through more online and telephone-based support as well.

So, there are lots of factors affecting mental health inside my new portfolio. There are also lots of factors that will allow us to alleviate some of the concerns that people have. I'm not going to be able to cover them all in my contribution today, but I look forward to exploring them with all of you in greater depth as we take this forward. Many of you who I can see participating in the debate will be familiar with the conversations we've had in the housing sphere around homelessness, the need for an adequate home, the need to build place and community in order to enhance people's well-being and their sense of engaged connectiveness across Wales. That's certainly something we want to do. We also, of course, want to enable people to contribute to the greatest problem we have faced—even in the pandemic it was the greatest problem we have faced—which is reversing the climate destruction of our planet and enhancing its biodiversity.

So, I absolutely want to reassure everyone in Wales that we understand all of those things; we do get where they are coming from. It's where we are coming from, and it's why I am doing this job, in fact, and the jobs I did before I was privileged enough to be elected. So, we're very keen to support the many activities that provide opportunities for young people in particular to contribute to tackling climate change and a space to have their voices heard. We are grant funding environment education programmes—Eco-Schools, the Size of Wales, just as some small examples—to continue to work with children and young people to encourage discussion and validation of feelings and anxieties linked to the environmental concerns, as well as the necessary courses of action that they can take to make themselves engaged and feel that they are doing something to contribute to the size of the problem that faces us. Let's be clear: we have a big task ahead of us—an achievable task if we all pull together to do it, but a big task. So, just as a small indication of the size of the task, for decarbonisation alone—that's leaving aside the biodiversity and all the other issues—we must do in the next 10 years what we did in the last 30 to get to our next target. So, it's a big ask. We can do it, but it's a big ask. And we must take the people of Wales with us as we do that. So, we're absolutely committed to listening and supporting everyone's fears and anxieties, but also their contributions to how to do that—how can they make the small changes, big changes in their lives that will actually enhance their lives and that look like, perhaps, downsides at first, but actually they will end up enhancing their lives?

So, one of the things that I really want to highlight for people is the behaviour change that we all experienced during the pandemic. Some of it was dreadful and it had terrible effects on people, but there were definitely good things, too. The way we tackled homelessness in Wales during the pandemic is a matter of great pride to everyone in the sector and all of us here in the Senedd who helped. But, for example, we saw children playing back on our streets—you know, the air got cleaner, people weren't out in their cars, and they got a sense of their community and space. We also saw some of the social injustices where people didn't have some of those amenities, and it accelerates our determination to make sure that they do have them.