May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement on the policy with regard to the historic environment? Many points have already been mentioned by Paul Davies, so I won’t repeat those, but I would like to push you further. You say here, on the second page, a matter that you have already mentioned, that you want to make it easier for local planning authorities to deal with the work in an emergency where there are buildings that are listed that are deteriorating in their condition. That’s fine for emergency work, but what about work that is less than urgent, but is still vital to improve a building to return it to a satisfactory visual state, such as the Palace Theatre in Swansea, for example? Vital work is needed. I wouldn’t call it urgent or emergency work, but it does need to be done. There need to be stronger powers for local authorities than currently exist to take action in this regard. I don’t know whether the Cabinet Secretary wants to expand on that: where the need is less than urgent, but is a need regardless. Because some of these buildings can cause local embarrassment.

Turning to what interests me, which is local historic names in this statement, remembering that maintaining historic names is vitally important. As you have already said, Part 4 of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 mentions,

‘the compilation of a list of historic place names in Wales’.

That’s happened. The website, as you’ve said, lists over 350,000 historic place names in Wales, including the different spellings of those places, and forms of those names, over time. We should welcome that kind of resource, but it doesn’t ensure any legal protection for the historic place names of our country. At the end of the day, it’s just a list. We continue to face a situation where there is no protection for historic place names in Wales. This lack of statutory protection is atrocious when you consider the importance of these names in the context of the history of our nation. Without statutory regulation there’s a danger that many of these historic place names that are listed will become no more than history, as these living names are changed and forgotten.

Perhaps the Cabinet Secretary will remember my attempt to bring forward a Bill on safeguarding historic place names back in March. He’ll remember from the explanatory memorandum to that Bill—and I quote—the importance of maintaining place names as part of the historic environment:

‘Historic place names provide invaluable evidence about social, cultural and linguistic history. The names of settlements, houses and farms, fields and natural features provide information about past and present agricultural practices, local industries, changed landscapes and current and former communities. They provide evidence for the development of a rich linguistic heritage — Welsh, English and other languages.’

Many other languages: Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, French, Norman, English and many more. The Cabinet Secretary will remember the debate that we had in March. There are further examples of the loss of names: ‘Maes-llwch’ in Powys turning in ‘Foyles’; ‘Cwm Cneifion’ in Snowdonia turning into ‘Nameless Cwm’. Under the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016, there’s nothing specific to prevent the change of those names. It could still happen. You could argue that the weakness of that Act in safeguarding those names is a threat to a vital component of our historic environment. The March Bill was rejected, as you know, because you voted against it, even though there was strong support in civil society for safeguarding place names, from the Welsh Place-Name Society, Mynyddoedd Pawb, the Welsh language Commissioner, and so on. You noted, rather, Cabinet Secretary, your intention, as you have announced today, to expand the use of the register of local place names and to introduce guidance alone, not an Act, and I quote from your statement in March, that the,

‘use of the list of historic place names will be specifically considered. In general terms, that guidance will direct these public bodies to take account of the list of historic place names when considering the naming and renaming of streets, properties and other places’.

Consideration alone, before disregarding it perhaps. Note from his comments that only the need to consider would be—