Thank you, Minister, for your statement. Like Plaid Cymru, we’re also pleased to see that there’s been some progress with helping to develop some solutions to some of the pressing problems that we have, particularly in our public services. But, of course, this initiative did originally stem from the ‘Innovation Wales’ document, and that identified four key areas—smart specialisation areas I think they were termed. They were: life sciences and health; low-carbon energy and environment; advanced engineering and materials; and ICT and the digital economy. I wonder what the balance of bids were in the first round. Did they actually meet the targets to find particular problems that could be resolved within each of those key specialist areas? If there weren’t sufficient numbers of bids coming forward in some of those particular areas that were previously identified, is there going to be any energy put into trying to find potential people to bid for addressing some of the solutions to those particular problems?

I’m also very pleased, obviously, that this is supposed to be a public and private partnership, but clearly, many of the projects that you identify—and you hinted at this in your statement—have really over-egged the benefit, I suppose, to the public sector of some of the things that have been worked on. And I heard what you said about trying to emphasise the wider benefits, if you like, particularly to the private sector as well in order to encourage some more investment in. I wonder what sort of areas you were thinking of when you made that particular statement. To me, it seems very much that things like ICT and the digital economy—we were talking about some of your other responsibilities earlier on in First Minister’s questions, such as the access to broadband, for example—there may be other solutions that could be developed with these sorts of research funds, and I wonder whether you could make a comment in respect of the desirability of that. Obviously, you do, I hope, advertise widely the opportunities to bid. Could you tell us what sort of platforms you do advertise on so that we can encourage people who may be watching today—small businesses et cetera, and other research hubs and facilities—to make themselves aware of these funds and to find out whether they might be able to draw any down?

Can you also tell me—? I know that our universities are obviously centres of excellence for research, but our further education colleges are getting more and more involved in this particular sphere. You mentioned some of the construction related issues, for example, with Cardiff council, and I wonder what level of engagement there is with this particular research and innovation fund from the further education college sector, if any, at the moment, and if there isn’t any, what action you might take as a Government in order to better engage them.

Just finally—this is on the wider procurement issue, and I appreciate that this is not completely your responsibility; it’s more with the Cabinet Secretary for finance—but obviously, on procurement, it’s really important that smaller businesses and local businesses are able to engage in some of the local solutions that they might have to offer, but as we’ve increasingly gone towards a more national procurement strategy, for understandable reasons, particularly with the economies of scale, many of those smaller businesses and smaller firms feel a bit squeezed out. So, I wonder what action has been taken with this fund and perhaps more widely, to ensure that those smaller businesses that might be regional, or even smaller, are actually being encouraged actively to participate in these sorts of exciting and innovative schemes.