6. Will the Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's National Space Strategy for Wales? OQ58163

Yes. Since I launched 'Wales: a sustainable space nation' in February this year, Space Wales has been developing as an organisation, overseen by our partner body, Aerospace Wales. Working groups have been established to capitalise on specific opportunities, including the sustainable space accelerator and the application of advanced manufacturing to the space sector.

Thank you, Minister. It's great to hear about the opportunities that are going to arise from that strategy. I recently spoke with the Institute of Physics, who have been running the Our Space Our Future scheme across nine schools in Wales, including year 8 at Brynteg Comprehensive School in my constituency. The scheme aims to shift perceptions of space from being a career path for a small minority to an industry with a multitude of opportunities, like using space technology to fight cancer and interplanetary—I'll get this right—engineering that helps to tackle the climate emergency here on earth.

But, it's also about ensuring that we have a diverse workforce in this field, and I have to say that many have raised with me how disappointed they were when the UK Government's social mobility adviser said recently, when giving evidence, that physics isn't something that girls tend to fancy, because it has a lot of hard maths. We cannot let this mindset determine the opportunities for girls, working class, disabled people, or those from ethnic minority backgrounds here in Wales. So, Minister, do you agree with me that schemes such as Our Space Our Future are vital to mobilise the future workforce for Wales, and we must ensure that diversity and opportunity for all are given within strategies such as the national space strategy for Wales?

Yes, absolutely. I recall the comments made by the social mobility tsar, and I have to say that a number of the comments she has made don't appear to be particularly helpful, from my perspective, in generating genuine social mobility and inclusion.

The Our Space Our Future consortium is a really good example of top-flight collaboration that has been funded, for example, through the EU Horizon 2020 programme, which fosters STEM careers in the space sector, and it's part of our engagement. And I look at the recent Science in the Senedd event, hosted by the Deputy Presiding Officer. I was really positive about the education in it, encouraging STEM activity, and how they had deliberately sought to make sure that they were available to boys and girls and to people from different backgrounds as well. That's a really good example, and it shows that talent isn't concentrated in one social sector.

I can absolutely say that talent isn't the exclusive preserve of men and not women. In my own working life, I can honestly say that the best teams I've been involved in have been teams of relatively even numbers of men and women, and the best managers I've had in the workplace—with apologies to Mick Antoniw, who was my manager at some point—the best managers and leaders I had in my workplace were women as well. So, it's part of my personal experience, and I want to see more talented men and women come into this sector. There are good jobs to be had, more jobs to be had within the sector, better jobs, and I'm absolutely confident we'll see many successful Welsh women in the sector in the future.