Diolch yn fawr, Ddirprwy Lywydd.

Well, Russell George opened the debate, and I echo what he had to say in emphasising the important contribution of the retail industry to the Welsh economy, both through direct employment in the industry and in supply chain links. Jeremy Miles made a series of important points about how local economies and town centres can be supported, and both Mohammad Asghar and Adam Price set the changing context in which the high street has to operate today, from public toilets to internet shopping. And David Rowlands pointed out that these factors go far wider than Wales. In his contribution, he focused particularly on the impact of car parking charges on the high street. I look forward to his support in the final budget debate when, no doubt, he will want to welcome the £3 million that is part of our agreement with Plaid Cymru on the draft budget and which is specifically there to reduce car parking charges in our high streets, but to do so in a way that allows us to gather the hard evidence and to make a proper assessment of the impact that those charges have on footfall on our high streets.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I hope you'll forgive me if, in what I have to say, I will focus more specifically on the theme that has most often been reflected in this afternoon's debate, and that is to say the impact of non-domestic rates and the recent revaluation exercise. It's important that I set out the history of that exercise. The requirement to hold a revaluation every five years is set out in statute, but the UK Government decided to postpone the 2015 revaluation for reasons that Members here will not need a great deal of speculation to imagine why that date was inconvenient to them. Reluctantly, and taking into account the impact on ratepayers along the border, and those with properties in both England and Wales, we decided to postpone the revaluation in Wales as well, and part of this afternoon is about dealing with the impact of that delay.

Nawr, roedd Jeremy Miles yn cyfeirio at adroddiad pwyllgor yr economi, ac rwy’n croesawu’r adroddiad hefyd. Roedd lot o bethau diddorol, fel y gwelsom ni ar ddechrau’r ddadl, yn y ffordd yr oedd y pwyllgor wedi mynd ati i gasglu gwybodaeth.

I agree with a number of the recommendations in that interesting report and look forward to responding formally to it. I do think that we should look at the feasibility of more frequent revaluation, which would help smooth out some of the grinding of gears that we see and what happens when you delay a revaluation. As the report itself says, if we’re to do that—if we’re to move, for example, to three-year cycles—it cannot be simply by speeding up the current system and making it work faster; we’d have to go about the revaluation exercise in a different way. In order to do that, we’d have to rely on the Valuation Office Agency, because, again, it’s just important—[Interruption.] Yes, Andrew.