Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Good afternoon and welcome to this Plenary meeting. Before we begin, I'd like to inform Members that the next ballot for Member Bills will be held on 18 October. Information on the process will be circulated to you as Members shortly—something for you to ponder over during the summer.

The next item, therefore, is a motion to suspend Standing Orders to allow a debate on the motion to establish a committee. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion.

Formally.

The motion is formally moved. The proposal, therefore, is to suspend Standing Orders. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed, which allows us to move to the motion to establish a committee.

Again, I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion.

Formally.

Lesley Griffiths has formally moved the motion. Therefore, the proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. That motion is therefore agreed, which allows us to move on to the motion under item 2.

This is the motion to allocate a committee Chair to a political group. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion.

Formally.

I have no speakers on this item. So, the proposal is—

Llywydd—

Yes, I do have a speaker. Darren Millar.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak on this motion. My group, as you will know as a member of the Business Committee, object to the allocation of this particular Chair to the Labour group, on the basis of the number of Chairs already allocated by this Senedd and the Business Committee to the political groups in the Senedd. We believe that our group is under-represented, and, on that basis, we will be objecting to this particular item today.

The proposal therefore is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is objection. And therefore we will move to a vote immediately on this motion. I will move immediately to the vote—[Interruption.] Does any Member object and ask me to ring the bell? There are enough Members who do wish me to ring the bell to warn Members of the vote. So, the bell will be rung and the vote will be taken in five minutes.

We are in a position now to move to the vote. Just to remind Members, this vote will be on item 2, which is the motion to allocate a committee Chair to a political group. And, for Members' information, two thirds of the Members voting will need to be in favour of this motion in order for it to be approved. So, I open the vote. In favour 32, no abstentions, 14 against. Therefore, the motion is agreed.

The next item is nominations for a committee Chair for the committee that's just been formed. Under Standing Order 17.2F, I invite nominations for the position of Chair. Jack Sargeant. 

Diolch, Llywydd. I nominate David Rees.

David Rees has been nominated as chair of the Reform Bill Committee, which has now been allocated a Labour Chair. Is there a Labour seconder for the nomination? Sarah Murphy.

I just wanted to second the nomination of Dai Rees MS.

Thank you. David Rees is nominated and seconded. Are there any further nominations from the Labour group? There are no further nominations. Therefore, I will ask David Rees whether he accepts the nomination. He does. So, the nomination has been accepted. Is there any objection to the election of David Rees as Chair of the Reform Bill Committee? [Objection.] There is objection.

There will therefore be a vote on the position of Chair, and that vote will be by secret ballot. The secret ballot will be held in briefing room 13 in the Senedd from around 2 p.m. and closing at 4 p.m. this afternoon. There will also be an electronic vote for those working virtually this afternoon. I will announce the result of the secret ballot later today.  

The next item on our agenda is questions to the Minister for Finance and Local Government, and the first question is from Ken Skates.

Corporate joint committees are established and have statutory duties to undertake regional transport and land use planning. CJCs also have a broad economic well-being power. Councils can choose how they will use their CJC to work together to drive economic development based on their own regional aspirations and ambitions.

Thank you, Minister. It's well known that local government in Wales has been better protected than elsewhere in the UK over many years and that councils really have risen to the challenges of COVID, austerity, preparing for Brexit and the cost-of-living crisis. Of course, the creation of corporate joint committees gives us an opportunity to strengthen and empower local authorities even more through regional working. So, what responsibilities and budgets is the Welsh Government considering devolving to CJCs?

I'm very grateful for the question and also to Ken Skates for recognising that councils in Wales have been better protected over many years in Wales, as compared to their counterparts in England. And you can really see that I think in the response to, as Ken Skates said, what they were able to deliver during both the pandemic but also now in the cost-of-living crisis, and they do go above and beyond, every day, to serve their communities.

But as things stand, it is the case that CJCs are relatively new, so, it’s really important that they really focus on their initial responsibilities, particularly in terms of economic development, transport and land use planning, and to capitalise on the interdependencies between these functions.

Outside of those responsibilities, I absolutely think that there is space for local authorities to make the case to the Welsh Government for further powers to be devolved to them. I do think that, at the moment, the focus has to be on making CJCs work—they’re still very new—but we’re obviously open to those conversations. In the first instance, I would suggest that those conversations are opened between the local authorities and the portfolio Ministers, but I see my role very much to support those conversations and to facilitate and enable any further powers to be devolved. But, as I say, in the first instance, it really is about making CJCs work and getting them on a strong footing for the future.

Speaking at Stages 3 and 4 of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill, I stated that, given their role in terms of regional infrastructure and economic development, the ability to allow Welsh Ministers to mandate the creation of corporate joint committees undermines the internal devolution and local partnership working established in areas by bodies such as the North Wales Economic Ambition Board—a coalition involving both Governments, all six north Wales councils, business and academia.

However, whilst acknowledging that principal councils have a wealth of experience in delivering economic functions, including at a regional level through, for example, the city and growth deals, the Minister stated that she was hoping that regions will transition their current regional arrangements into the corporate joint committees once established. How, therefore, would you respond to the concern expressed in north Wales that the corporate joint committees are instead replicating and disempowering the work of the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, now named Ambition North Wales, when, instead, the former Minister for economy and transport here has now joined his voice with theirs and mine in calling for internal devolution to a transport body in north Wales—[Interruption.] Hello? [Laughter.]

Sorry, I must stop laughing. I'm not laughing at either you, Mark Isherwood, nor you, Rebecca, but at—. Yes. [Laughter.] Minister, to respond.

So, rather than undermining joint working and regional working, I do think the CJCs rather facilitate it and they are a tool for local authorities to be using. But in respect of the specific point about aligning with city and growth deals, at the moment, South Wales East CJC is commencing its lift and shift exercise to formally move their city and growth deal arrangements into the CJC by the end of this financial year. And the other CJCs have indicated that they will bring their city and growth deal governance arrangements alongside other strategic planning for the region. The timescales for that do remain unclear at the moment, but they are discussions there that we continue to have. But I do recognise the underlying point, really, about the importance of coherence across the structures.

I hold regular discussions with the Minister, which include discussions on transport. Bus support this year has already included over £4.2 million for Swansea Council on behalf of the south-west Wales region. In 2023-24, we have also provided local authorities with £5.5 billion to spend on delivering key services.

Thank you for that response, Minister.

Every day, local authorities work hard to deliver high-quality services to residents throughout all of our communities. Aside from financial support they receive through the revenue support grant, local authorities rely heavily on a wide number of specific grants that help fund a wide range of projects or services. The bus services support grant, for example, is one of these regular packages of support that local authorities receive, which help them ensure the delivery of commercially unattractive bus routes. A few weeks ago, I received a copy of a letter from the leader of Neath Port Talbot Council to your colleague the Deputy Minister for Climate Change stating that quarter 1 allocation had not been received and that the council is having to pay out despite not receiving the required funding. I'm sure you'd agree with me that delays in funding allocations are unwelcome at the best of times, let alone during a difficult time for the bus industry and with all the existing challenges facing local authorities. So, can I ask, Minister, what work is being done across Government departments to simplify the grant system and ensure that there are no unnecessary delays to stop money getting to where it's needed most? Diolch.

I'm very grateful for the question, and I will make sure that I get a copy also of the letter that you describe and have the opportunity to discuss it with my colleague. But I think the overall point is very important, and it's really about reducing the administrative burden to local authorities. That's one of our programme for government commitments, and we've been undertaking a quite significant piece of work in partnership with local authorities, exploring how we can go about reducing that administrative burden.

When our officials talked to treasurers and others in local government, they were really clear that the No. 1 big thing that they thought was causing administrative burdens was the administration of grants. We have thousands of grants going out from the Welsh Government, so we've undertaken a piece of work looking to see, really, how much we can move into the RSG. Now, it won't be appropriate for every particular and single grant, but every Minister now is working through the grants that they provide to local government and exploring to what extent they can be moved into the RSG, making sure that, whilst doing that piece of work, they also undertake impact assessments to ensure that we're not inadvertently creating problems for the people who are most vulnerable and who need that support the most. So, I absolutely recognise the points made, but I just want to reassure colleagues that reducing the administrative burden is a major piece of work and we are making really good progress on it.

Minister, the announcement of the bus transition fund is welcome, but as the Welsh Local Government Association points out, it won't save all bus routes. Many of the routes facing cancellation cover the more rural parts of Wales and are a vital lifeline for the most disadvantaged, particularly the elderly. Our constituents without access to a car now risk isolation and further financial hardships as they have to depend upon taxis to conduct essential travels. Minister, what steps can the Welsh Government take to ensure that where bus routes and unviable, public funding will be made available to fund and perhaps incentivise alternatives to buses?

The bus transition fund is due to commence on the twenty-fifth of this month as we move away from the bus emergency scheme, which was developed during the pandemic and which comes to an end on the twenty-fourth. The new fund, developed collaboratively with local authorities, Welsh Government, Transport for Wales and the bus industry will replace the previous scheme and will provide that immediate support to bus operators in Wales. But I think that the thing that will really make the difference for the longer term is our approach to addressing the issues in the bus industry that were caused by the deregulation of the industry back in the 1980s that made the driver, really, of the work in the bus industry to be looking for those profitable routes rather than the routes that are most needed and serving the people who most rely on bus services. So, I think that piece of work will be really important, but what we really need to be doing also is supporting the bus industry so that we get from where we are now to where we need to be in the future without damaging the services that are available to people.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservative spokesperson, Peter Fox.

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, we all know that families are being hit by the rising costs of living, but many small and medium-sized enterprises are also faced with the rising cost of doing business. As we all know, the  tourism and hospitality industry faced two years' worth of restrictions as a result of the COVID pandemic. While many of those restrictions were necessary to protect the people of Wales, it's important now that we help restore the damage done to the sector, and it is clear that Wales is not doing enough to appeal to an international market, with only roughly 2.5 per cent of international holidaymakers visiting Wales in 2019. With that in mind, can the Minister clarify what assessment the Welsh Government has made of the impact of their tourism tax on SMEs in Wales, because surely we should be making sure that Wales's tourism industry is competitive with other parts of the United Kingdom as well as the rest of the world?

Well, I want to begin, really, by recognising that point about the impact that the pandemic had on small and medium-sized enterprises, and particularly, in places, on the tourism industry, and that's why, because of the way in which we managed our budget during the pandemic, we were able to support businesses across Wales with a more generous package of support than that which was available elsewhere in the UK. I think that that is important for us to continue recognising.

We've also put in place a generous package of non-domestic rate support for this financial year, and indeed, as part of the draft budget, I confirm that we will be providing a rate support package for the next two financial years, costing over £460 million, and that is, in fact, in addition to our permanent rate relief schemes that provide around £240 million of support each year. So, the support that we do provide the business sector is very significant in relation to non-domestic rates.

In terms of the visitor levy, of course, we are still working through the detail, because some of the things are currently unknown—for example, we haven't yet decided at what point we would pitch the visitor levy, so until we do that, there are certain things that we can't calculate as a result of it. But the visitor levy really is there to be a tool for local authorities to decide whether or not it's something that they want to use, and the aim is that it will support sustainable tourism in those local areas. So, this really is about supporting the local tourism industry and providing those conditions that give tourists a great experience when they come to Wales, so that they want to keep on returning.

Thank you for that, Minister. We welcome the support that's gone into business, but there is clearly still anxiety over the tourism tax. As you know, the overwhelming majority of businesses in the tourism sector in Wales oppose the introduction of a tourism tax. Organisations such as the  Federation of Small Businesses and Wales Tourism Alliance have firmly come out against the proposed tourism tax. It is vital, then, that Ministers listen to the concerns from the tourism sector, ensuring that Welsh Government works with and not against this vital part of our Welsh economy.

So, my question is, Minister: what engagement has the Welsh Government had with the sector itself regarding the impact of tourism tax on business? It's a fundamental part of this—understanding the effects and how businesses will be affected by the implementation of the tax, and ensuring that their concerns are listened to.

I will say that we do take the concerns and the views of the industry very carefully indeed. So, this is a piece of work, obviously, as you know, that we're undertaking in partnership with Plaid Cymru as part of our co-operation agreement, and Cefin Campbell and I attended a particularly useful engagement event. It was a kind of workshop, one of a number of which took place across Wales, and the First Minister and Adam Price, I know, had a useful afternoon at one of the other engagement events as well. So, there have been huge and endless opportunities for the sector to provide its views on this, but we're absolutely committed to continuing that engagement as we move forward with our proposals.

I will say that the Deputy Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism met with UKHospitality on 29 June and again, it was an opportunity to discuss the visitor levy, and I know that she gave reassurances at that meeting that the engagement will continue, with the aim of improving the tourism offer locally, and mitigating the impact on communities of tourism when it becomes unsustainable.

So, I think that we have had lots of really good engagement and we are really grateful to the sector for the engagement that they've given, albeit not the support that they've given.

Thank you for that, Minister. I'm glad there is engagement going on. The important thing is: is there a listening mode as well as the engagement, and that those key issues are taken on board? This week, it emerged that unemployment rose again to the highest it has been in half a decade; a rise of 1.2 per cent is the sharpest rise in the last year of any nation or region in the UK. This is the third month in a row that unemployment rates in Wales have risen. Unfortunately, while unemployment is the highest rate in the United Kingdom, wages remain at the lowest levels, at £2,500 lower than other parts of the United Kingdom, and this is while families across the country continue to battle with the rising cost of living.

I know Welsh Government has pledged not to raise the rate of income tax on the people of Wales for the moment, but I think the people of Wales deserve a longer term pledge. So, Minister, can you provide the people of Wales a cast-iron pledge today that your Government will not increase the Welsh rate of income tax for the rest of the Senedd term?

Well, you'll be familiar with the fact that, every year, we look afresh at Welsh rates of income tax. We decided that raising Welsh rates of income tax in this financial year was definitely not the right thing to do, bearing in mind the impact that the cost-of-living crisis is having on families, and the fact that to raise any significant amount of money through Welsh rates of income tax you would have to raise the basic rate, which would affect some of the poorest workers here in Wales at a time when they can least afford it—just recognising, really, that a lot of the difficulties facing those poorest people are as a direct result of some of the actions of recent UK Governments, in terms of the mini-budget, which is obviously having a huge effect on both the poorest people in Wales and also now those who are finding that their mortgages are increasing. So, I think that now, definitely, wasn't the time. We do look afresh at this every year. We'll have debates in the Senedd, we'll have votes in the Senedd, and I'm sure that the debates for the next financial year will be as lively as the ones we had for this one.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. In a similar sort of vein to that last question:

'Devolved taxation can be a powerful lever for influencing behaviour change, as well as generating revenue to support public spending to meet the needs of Wales and enabling us to develop more progressive taxes.'

These aren't my words, but the words of the Welsh Government's mission statement for its own tax policy work plan for 2021 to 2026. Plaid Cymru wholeheartedly agrees with the spirit of these words. Unfortunately, the current framework for devolved taxes in Wales is far too limited and is inherently undermining the aforementioned mission statement. We believe that there is a credible, progressive case for a further devolution of income tax powers to Wales; put simply, the tax bands currently set by the UK Government are a poor fit for the nature of the tax base here in Wales. Around 85 per cent of Welsh taxpayers are in the basic rate band, which means that, under the current band structure, any attempt to raise substantial additional revenue through the Welsh rates of income tax, or WRIT, would inevitably entail increasing taxes for the lower income earners. This, of course, has been one of the main reasons why the Welsh Government has yet to vary the WRIT, compared to the rates set by the UK Government, despite having the power to do so since 2019.

In Scotland, things are different and they have been able to raise £456 million in additional rates of income tax during 2020-21. The progressive nature of the bands in Scotland has also meant that people earning less than £27,850, which represents 52 per cent of Scottish taxpayers, are currently paying less in income tax. Could the Minister therefore outline whether the Welsh Government intends to commission any external research on the implications of further devolution of income tax powers to Wales?

I'm very grateful for the question, and it's something that we have been able to explore in some discussions that we've had with the Scottish Government, and it was a question that also came up in our tax conference. It's something that we discussed during the passage of our Welsh rates of income tax for this financial year. I think it's something, absolutely, that we should look at, we should explore, but that's not to say there aren't big risks attached to it as well. When you look at the situation in Scotland, the impact has meant that they've actually had a negative adjustment to their budget as a result of Scottish rates of income tax. And also I think they've seen some quite significant behavioural changes, which we're trying to explore as well to see to what extent they would apply here in Wales. So, as a result, I think there are too many unknowns. There's an awful lot of risk attached to this as well, which is why I think it's important that we do the kind of work that has been described, in terms of understanding better what those risks are and how they might apply here in Wales, and learning from what's happened in Scotland.

And I'd just draw colleagues' attention to the written statement that I published in the last week, which shows that the HM Revenue and Customs outturn figures show the revenue from the Welsh rates of income tax in 2021-22 has shown an increase of 11.4 per cent from 2020-21. So, we expect the net impact from WRIT in 2021-22 to have been positive, which is good news for us. I just draw that written statement to colleagues' attention, given the high level of interest that there is in Welsh rates of income tax.

Thanks. I think the point is that we need to be exploring these things to address some of those questions that you were picking up there. And following on from your answer there, a matter that doesn't receive much attention in this Chamber, but you mentioned it just now, was the impact of fiscal drag. The latest release of the Welsh income tax outturn statistics, as you mentioned, for 2021-22, did push a proportion of Welsh taxpayers into higher and additional bands of income tax. With the UK Government's freeze on income tax thresholds due to remain in place until 2027-28, it is likely that this will be an observable trend for the foreseeable future. I'd be interested to learn, therefore, how much additional revenue was raised by the Welsh Government as a result of the fiscal drag for 2021-22 and 2022-23, and how has this been factored into Welsh Government spending plans over the coming financial years. And given the fact that wages are continuing to struggle to keep pace with Tory-driven inflation, does the Minister also agree that this is another instance where the ability to set Welsh-specific bands of income tax would be a far fairer way of managing the effect of fiscal drag?

I'm grateful for the question. I think I will have to write to the Member with the specific calculation that he has asked for this afternoon. But I think that this is one of the points that would be part of the consideration of the benefits or the risks of having a different band structure here in Wales, and part of the narrative, I suppose, which will play into any future decisions in that space. But I would stress again that, when you look at what's happened in Scotland, that does provide a cautionary tale, which means, I think, that we just would have to go into this very, very clear-sightedly, and that we do need to explore from all angles. And I don't think that we're in a position, at this point, to make a decision one way or the other on that, in terms of if it's right for Wales for the future. But we keep an open mind.

The £46 million bus transition fund announced in May will succeed the current bus emergency scheme, moving away from the current emergency-style funding towards bus networks that better suit the new travel patterns we have seen since the end of the pandemic and protect the majority of routes. 

Thank you. Lots of talk about buses today; it shows how important it is. At the public bus transport cross-party group, it was raised by operators that Transport for Wales do not have the expertise for delivering bus services at a regional level. Local authorities have that front-line knowledge because they work with operators on a daily basis and the years of experience that have been built up. They regularly map out routes that suit the local communities as well. So, Minister, what conversations have you had with local authority leaders about plans to move bus delivery to corporate joint committees? And would you look at making resources available to local authorities so that they can ensure transport expertise is retained and passed on through apprentices?

Well, I would completely agree that regional and local intelligence is absolutely critical to making our plans for the future work, which is why I know that the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, who's leading on this, has had some quite extensive discussions with local authorities in this space. And as I say, he is leading on this work, so perhaps he would be better placed to give you a full update. Although I do know that, after the recent cross-party group, you've also written to him with a summary of the discussions that you had at that cross-party group, and I know that he will be able to address this particular point about engagement in his response as well.

Too often, we hear the Deputy Minister saying that there's just simply not enough bus usage. Now, thanks to the UK Conservative Government, passengers in England pay just £2 for a bus ticket to anywhere. Research from Transport Focus has revealed that 11 per cent of respondents are using the bus more thanks to this cap, with 80 per cent agreeing that the £2 tickets have helped them with their cost-of-living increases. In fact, the policy has resulted in some fares now being cut by as much as 87 per cent. What a brilliant model that is. So, whilst the UK Conservative Government is funding the scheme on 5,000 routes, the Welsh Government has not backed a single one. So, will you review the 2023-24 budget with the aim of making money available to support the very same cap on fares in Wales? Diolch.

Well, I would say that the approach taken by the UK Government has led over the last year or so to, I think, around 8 per cent of routes being cut, whereas in Wales I think the figure is more in the region of 2 per cent. So, I think you can look at different approaches, but what we're trying to do in Wales is protect as many of those routes as we possibly can. Of course we would like to go further in terms of supporting people to access buses, but we have to do what we can within the available resources.

Question 4 [OQ59831] has been withdrawn. Question 5—Mark Isherwood.

Audit Wales, Estyn and Care Inspectorate Wales assess the performance of local authorities in Wales. The Welsh Government works closely with local authorities to address issues identified, where appropriate. 

Diolch. Well, after I questioned the First Minister two weeks ago here regarding the statutory duties placed on local authorities under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, the First Minister concluded

'local authorities continue to be held to account for the discharge of responsibilities that lie not with the Welsh Government but with them.'

However, I continue to hear almost daily from neurodiverse people or people with neurodiverse family members in Flintshire whose rights under this Act are being dismissed. This includes cases where constituents are unilaterally accused of breaching a direct payment agreement, despite constituents stating that there's been no care and support plan review, direct payment agreement or support plan in place, and the legislation stating that a local authority must be prepared to be open to new ideas and be as flexible as possible. Attending an autistic constituent's review meeting recently, I also witnessed an autistic meltdown triggered by officer failure to adjust to my constituent's needs. Although an autistic meltdown is not bad behaviour, the council have blamed the constituent and dictated how future meetings will be conducted. How will the Welsh Government therefore ensure effective monitoring and evaluation of local authority discharge of their responsibilities when, without this, Welsh legislation is meaningless?

Well, I think that the Deputy Minister for Social Services would be able to do better justice to the question, bearing in mind that this would lie within her portfolio, but I would just like to try and helpfully demonstrate, really, the way in which the Welsh Government, through the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021, has put a new performance regime in to drive improvement in local authorities across Wales. That seeks to ensure that there is a culture where councils in Wales continually aim to do better and improve the services that they provide. Obviously, local authorities under the Act are now required to keep their performance under review, including publishing an annual self assessment of how effectively they are exercising their functions, and those first self assessment reports are now available, and councils are also required to undertake a panel or peer assessment once in every electoral cycle.

So, I appreciate it doesn't answer the specific question around social services, but I think that a different Minister would be better placed to do that, but I would stress, of course, that engagement with people with autism and people who are neurodiverse more generally should be done in a very person-centred way and understanding the additional needs that they might have or the reasonable adjustments that they might need to have in place. So, I will explore this issue further, but I'm afraid I can't do the question justice because it is a different Minister's portfolio.

I hold regular meetings with local authority leaders and discuss a number of issues, including staffing and recruitment. It is essential that we work together in partnership to make the best use of our resources and the skills and expertise available across our public services.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. As the cost-of-living crisis deepens and public sector bodies such as local government are struggling to maintain the crucial services they deliver, the Welsh Local Government Association recently published a report, highlighting that workforce challenges was the top risk in terms of social care, and I know that council departments across the board, such as education, planning and transport, are struggling to recruit and maintain employees in the face of competition from the private sector.

The UK Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is adamant that it's the public sector that will bear the brunt of fixing the Tory Government's economic mess. To do this after over a decade of austerity is leaving much of the public sector extremely stretched. We know that, in Wales, councils have been better protected because of the Welsh Labour Government here, and the commitment that the Welsh Labour Government has, but after 13 years of disastrous Tory mismanagement, what more can we do as a Welsh Labour Government to protect the ability of the public sector, like our local authorities, to deliver those crucial services?

Thank you for the question. I think the first and most important thing that we are doing is ensuring that we're providing local government with the best possible support that we can. So, in this current budget, local authorities received a 7.9 per cent uplift, which, at the time, was recognised as being exceptionally good, but, obviously, now we recognise that the impacts of inflation have eroded the benefit of that. So, we recognise, of course, the pressures that local authorities are under, which is really why it's so important that we work together on issues such as recruitment and retention of key staff.

We did run an intensive recruitment campaign over the summer months last year, to attract people to social care, and we funded free online introductory training for over 500 people who were interested in a career in social care. And also, we've promoted our social care apprenticeships and we've also, of course, got our personal learning accounts, which are really important in terms of helping people change career or upskill within the workforce that they're in at the moment.

We obviously made the investment, of course, in the real living wage, but we are now commissioning an independent evaluation to examine the impact and the success of the implementation, and that will help us learn and make improvements for the future as well. But, of course, we need to continue working very much in partnership, and exploring what more we can do in that one-Wales public service ethos, in terms of potentially finding ways to support people moving across the public sector, for example, between local government and health in a more seamless way.

Minister, as has just been acknowledged by Jayne Bryant, the councils in Wales are facing an enormous crisis in the social care workforce. One hundred per cent of NHS leaders agree that there is a crisis in their local area; 94 per cent believe the crisis is worse than it was 12 months ago; and 88 per cent expect it to deteriorate even more.

Minister, with there not being enough staff to fill the roles, agencies are charging a premium for social care staff. A perfect example of this lies with Monmouthshire County Council. They've announced that they've had to use £3.5 million from their reserves for the financial year of 2022-23, to support additional spending on services like staffing social care. The strain this is having on local authorities is immense and is something that is not sustainable, as I'm sure you'll agree, long term. We welcome the recruitment action, as you've just outlined that you've done previously, but what other actions are you taking, with the health Minister, to ensure that the social care staffing crisis doesn't deepen for local authorities, given the shift in the economic situation and, obviously, the urgent need? Thank you.

Well, I think the Member's reference to the use of reserves is important, because I'm often criticised on the floor of the Senedd by colleagues of yours in the Conservative Party for the level of reserves that local authorities hold, and for not intervening and preventing some of those levels. But it does show one example of where local authorities are using the funding that they have in reserves to meet some of the really extreme pressures that they are facing at the moment. I do know, having spoken to local authorities just last week about their specific pressures, in the finance sub-group of the partnership council for Wales, that adult social care and children's social care are two of the biggest pressures that they're facing at the moment.

We have provided recurrent funding to the sector in the form of a workforce and sustainable social services grant, and we've made sure that the criteria for that grant are very broadly set to try and give local authorities the maximum flexibility for using that. But I know that the Minister for Health and Social Services and the Deputy Minister for Social Services are in ongoing discussion with local authorities about social services, and what more we could be doing to support the staff already in the sector, but recruit and retain further into it.

I support the proper funding of local authorities across Wales by prioritising funding to local government and public services in the Government’s budget decisions, and continuing to make the case for funding public services in my discussions with the UK Government.

Thank you, Minister, for your answer. The Labour leader of our local council in Swansea, Rob Stewart, when he's not too busy naming rooms in public buildings after his friends, is telling us all quite regularly about the perils of austerity. In fact, in October he said that Swansea Council was facing a financial firestorm. But while he said that, he said it against the backdrop of having squirrelled away £130 million more over the past four years in usable reserves. In 2018, there was £95 million in usable reserves in Swansea Council. At the end of 2022, there was £228 million in usable reserves. All the while, Swansea Labour council have been increasing council tax bills on average people that live in Swansea. Is that not immoral, Minister?  

The setting of council tax is obviously a matter for the local authority, whichever local authority that is, across Wales. But I'll say again that the level of reserves held by a local authority should not be just looked at in a way that doesn't understand what those reserves are for. Now, you've seen, as I have, across Swansea, the absolute transformation that has taken place in the city, thanks to the vision of the leader of Swansea Council. And I think that many of those funds within reserves will be there to support the city and county in the further development of the area, and also to support the people who live in the area through the cost-of-living crisis. So, I think if you just look across Wales, local authorities are having to hugely go to their reserves now to support them, given the impact of inflation, which I think many of us will understand is a result of the decisions made by successive UK Governments. 

In addition to specific grants, the council will receive £139.73 million through the local government settlement for 2023-24—an increase of 6.5 per cent. While the council will still have to make difficult decisions in the face of the current rates of inflation, this is a better settlement than authorities had expected.

Thank you very much, Minister. Does she think it's right that an area that has the highest proportion of children in low-income families in Wales, a third in relative poverty and over a fifth in absolute poverty, has the largest relative decrease in standard spending assessment over the past 15 years, the highest reduction in population, the weakest council tax banding and is bottom of the UK comparative index ranking, and that place receives an uplift of 6.5 per cent, compared to the Welsh average of 7.9 per cent? Now, the Minister said in her earlier answer that she thought it was quite generous. The people of Blaenau Gwent require and deserve support from this place that is relative to need. A Welsh Government that is committed to addressing the needs of some of the poorest people in the country needs to address the issues facing the people of Blaenau Gwent. 

Absolutely, and I did have a really good visit to Blaenau Gwent very recently where the leader of the council and the chief executive of the council took me through a very similar argument to that which you've presented this afternoon in relation, particularly, to the importance of the deprivation measures within the formula. I know that there are particular challenges within Blaenau Gwent in terms of having a relatively older population, fewer people of working age, and so on. The finance sub-group and the distribution sub-group beneath it, I know, are continuing to look at how we develop and refine the formula, but with a particular focus on those measures that relate to deprivation, which I think are the specific measures that will be of interest, of course, in Blaenau Gwent.

Minister, we know that times are tough in many local authorities across the country at the moment. Blaenau Gwent council had been drawing up a long list of cost-cutting measures earlier this year, including closing all children’s play areas. I’m sure you’ll agree, Minister, that this would be a mistake, and we should be promoting play, sports and healthier lifestyles. Thankfully, the UK Government is on hand to boost grass-roots sports facilities, with Blaenau Gwent benefiting from two of its biggest schemes. Tennis courts in the area have been upgraded thanks to a £30 million investment from the UK Government and the Lawn Tennis Association, and £23,000 is to be spent improving Tredegar recreation and sports ground. So, Minister, will you join me in welcoming this fantastic investment from the UK Government to improve grass-roots sport in Blaenau Gwent?

In the great scheme of things, you just have to say, 'Well, big deal', you know? This is just a tiny, tiny scattering of money across Wales as a result of the UK Government's investment. Let's remember that the Welsh Government's budget is worth £900 million less at the moment than it was at the time we set our plans. We've got a debate by the Finance Committee this afternoon, and I'm going to be really setting out to colleagues how difficult the decisions that we are going to be taking in future are, and how we're really going to have to focus on doing less, essentially, to meet that gap within our budget. So, I think that if the UK Government really wanted to make a difference in Blaenau Gwent and elsewhere across Wales, it would certainly look to uplift our budget at least in line with inflation, or at least give us the flexibilities to use the funding that we have in a more appropriate manner.

Andrew R.T. Davies is not in the Chamber to ask question 9 [OQ59842], and therefore we move to question 10—Jack Sargeant. 

Care-experienced young people have consistently been prioritised through our budget process. This includes our world-leading £20 million basic income for care leavers in Wales pilot, the establishment of the £1 million St David’s Day fund, and the £9.5 million looked-after children schemes, which are funded through invest-to-save.

I'm grateful for your answer, Minister. As we all know, care leavers are a seriously disadvantaged group. We'll be debating the report from the Petitions Committee and Jayne Bryant’s committee later this afternoon, and we’ll discuss the discrimination and assumptions that they face that the rest of us don’t have to deal with. But they also face financial uncertainty when starting to try and build a career, to find their first home or embark on some training to develop their lives.

Critics of the world-leading basic income trial have focused on the cost of the trial, but I’d like to shift the conversation and talk more about the benefits, including how this intervention could enable the recipients to achieve more in their lives. We know that poverty leads to all sorts of ills, costly for the individual and costly for the state as well. What assessment will the Welsh Government carry out when looking to evaluate the world-leading basic income trial?

I'm grateful for the question, and I'm really pleased that the data that we published in terms of the monitoring, covering the first six months of the pilot, shows that 92 per cent of the young people who were eligible to access the pilot signed up. So, hopefully we can increase that, but I think that’s definitely a really, really good start.

The basic income pilot is being carefully evaluated by CASCADE at Cardiff University. Of course, our policy driver is to support those care leavers to make a positive transition from local authority care, using basic income as a measure to achieve this. It’s difficult to count the number of times in this Chamber when colleagues on all benches are talking about the importance of prevention—well, this is a perfect preventative measure in the sense of investing before problems start to arise in terms of the more difficult outcomes that we know exist currently for care leavers. So, getting in early, supporting those young people to get on the best possible track, and letting them know that they have a Government that cares for them, I think, is really, really important.

Finally, question 11, Gareth Davies. 

I work closely with local authorities to understand the pressures facing them and continue to ensure local government and public services are a priority in our budget considerations. I continue to make the case for funding public services in my discussions with the UK Government.

Thank you very much for your response, Minister. The reason I want to raise this question this afternoon is that councils, and in particular my council, Denbighshire County Council, rely heavily on the RSG funding from Welsh Government as it makes up a large portion of the money that's raised and spent by the council. Near the end of the month, quite often councils, including mine, are in the situation of wondering what rate they're going to get every 12 months. What assurances can the Minister give that Denbighshire and councils across north Wales and across the country can have sustainable RSG funding, rather than coming back to the Welsh Government every 12 months, cap in hand?

The best I can do in those circumstances is to always commit to passing on certainty when we have it. For a number of years now, we've only been given one-year budgets by the UK Government, and in those circumstances, I was only able to pass on one-year certainty to local government. But fortunately now, we are in the middle of a three-year spending review period; we're in year 2 at the moment. At the start of this three-year spending review period, I provided local authorities with definitive figures for the first year, but then also indicative figures for years 2 and 3. So, we're now in year 2, local authorities know their figures, and they also have figures upon which they can plan in year 3. Whenever the UK Government gives us certainty in terms of a longer time period for a spending review, we will always look to pass that on to our partners and our stakeholders. We will continue to press the UK Government for a spending review that covers a number of years in future, because I agree that it does absolutely allow local authorities and other public services to plan with confidence.

I thank the Minister.

The next item, therefore, will be the questions to the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd. The first question is from Ken Skates.

The Welsh Government provides a comprehensive package to support innovation within food and drink companies across Wales. We fund the award-winning Project Helix, delivered by a network of three food centres across Wales, as well as supporting access to the new, recently launched SMART flexible innovation scheme.

Thank you, Minister. We do have some fantastic innovators in food here in Wales, including in this area, with the likes of Village Bakery and others driving new product and packaging developments. The need to combat climate change requires us to reduce supply and consumption chains through innovation, including through novel food production techniques that reduce our dependence on those products that are the most damaging to the environment. From lab-grown steak to leather manufactured from mushrooms, there are huge opportunities to be leaders in food innovation, and in replacing animal-based products with less carbon-intensive materials. Has the Welsh Government assessed the value of food innovation funding and identified those businesses and institutions that are at the forefront of innovating in order to challenge climate change?

The Welsh Government continues to support close working with our businesses, with the three food innovation centres across Wales I mentioned in my opening answer to you, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre Cymru, which I think you opened a couple of years ago, and, of course, academia, to identify innovative ways to challenge climate change. There is funding to support these activities, and support has been designed to underpin our commitments under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. I outlined this also in my vision for the food and drink industry back in 2021. Examples include the food centres supporting process optimisation, AMRC Cymru, and also the factory 4.0 programme to improve data acquisition and energy saving within the production process.

I'm not going to ask about the Denbigh plum this week. A key component to good-quality food innovation is the food products offered to children across Wales. With the roll-out of free schools meals to primary school children, what steps are the Welsh Government and the co-operation agreement taking to ensure that the meals offered in the scheme are healthy, nutritious and conducive to providing a rounded education for children across Wales?

Thank you. I think it gives us an opportunity, with having such a major free school meals programme being rolled out right across Wales, to make sure that we have as much Welsh produce as possible. I think it's Monmouthshire council that are having a look at their school meals, and I think they are using local food producers entirely in their free school meals. So, I think it is really important that we make the most use, and maybe, indeed, the Denbigh plum could be part of that.

The Minister will have heard me talking about the idea of developing a food production park on Anglesey several times now. I visited Food Works in Weston-super-Mare a few weeks ago, where there is a development centre, a food technology centre, alongside business units for food. We have the food technology centre in Coleg Menai already. So, what we need are the units there with the support for businesses to be able to grow in them. The First Minister, in the scrutiny session last week, referred to the famous history of Môn Mam Cymru in the food sector and said that has to continue. He also said that there is funding there to be spent in the sector. I can't think of a better use of that money than to develop a food production park on Anglesey, and there is a company that I have been speaking to that is very eager to be a partner in a development of that kind. I don't know whether the First Minister was talking about the food business accelerator scheme in that session, but would the Minister agree with the First Minister that there is funding available to spend? And will she and her officials talk to me, the council and the developer that I'm talking to about how we can ensure that the funding is spent on Anglesey?  

I'd be very happy to have that discussion with you. We have had previous discussions around a food production park. I do think north-west Wales is very well placed to have such a thing. We know, don't we, that if we've got companies coming forward, they need somewhere, then, that has to be of that food business unit quality to be able to take that forward. Obviously, the food innovation centre has those incubator units to start them off, but then they need to go somewhere else. So, yes, I'd be very happy to have a further meeting with you. 

I draw Members' attention to my long-standing honorary role as vice-president of Ramblers Cymru. 

The sustainable farming scheme currently being co-designed will support farmers to improve access above their legal requirements to help people interact with our rural culture, landscapes and heritage and generate significant health benefits. 

Minister, I know you've had lots of representations and, indeed, engagement with Wales Environment Link and many others on the specific issue of access. If the SFS is right, it can help improve access; if the detail is wrong, it could worsen access to the countryside. Yesterday, we had the backdrop of the SFS co-design report, which the Minister released. There were some key headlines on access in that: 50 per cent of farmers who took part are not interested in the optional public access actions proposed, and 45 per cent not interested in the collaborative actions. That's a little bit worrying for campaigners on this, because they feel that access could be seen as a second-string part of the SFS. So, can I ask the Minister, how can she ensure that access is right up there as a key part of this? Would she, for example, look at making access part of the universal actions that apply to the historic environment, heritage and beauty—so, have something like 'farms with public rights of way and open access on their land will need to manage them in line with existing legislation' as a baseline, and the other bits are the extras that we get on top? How will we ensure that access is improved for the public from this, rather than worsened? 

Thank you. The Ramblers Association did put forward their response to the sustainable farming scheme at the last consultation we had, and obviously they contributed to the co-design process, along with many other farmers and stakeholders, and I'm grateful to everybody. As I set out in the oral statement yesterday, I want to make the scheme as attractive as possible for everyone to be a part of it who wants to be. We're still in the process of co-design. There is still another final consultation to bring forward at the end of this year, so nothing is set in stone. We need to have a look at suggestions, such as you've just brought forward, around the universal scheme. I made it very clear yesterday that I want every farmer to be able to access the universal scheme from day one, and then we need to look, perhaps, at going into the other two tiers of the scheme—the optional and collaborative—later on. So, we will certainly be concentrating on the universal part of the scheme in the first instance. 

Minister, in your opening remarks to Huw Irranca-Davies you said that having recreational access to the countryside will have massive health benefits for our population, but what we do need to make people aware of is the countryside code, and, actually, understanding that our rural environment is also a working environment as well. If we want to get more people having access to land, people need to be educated on how to respect that land properly when they're going over somebody's business. So, could you, please, outline what programmes the Welsh Government is delivering across Wales to educate people about how to access the countryside in a responsible way? 

Thank you. You do raise a very important point. It is very, very important that, when people are on public land in the way that you've just outlined, they absolutely understand it's somebody's business. It's often somebody's home, and it's really important that they recognise that. We do all that we can to promote the countryside code and other issues around access.

Minister, you will be aware that, during the consideration of the Agriculture (Wales) Bill, there were calls for the inclusion of nature restoration as part of the objectives. In the absence of that wording in the Bill, you made a very welcome acknowledgement that sustainable agriculture is key to meeting our commitment for Wales to be net zero by 2050, thus contributing to nature recovery and to Wales's biodiversity commitments in accordance with the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework.

So, as we enter the second phase of the sustainable farming scheme co-design, could you outline for the Chamber how the scheme will aim to deliver on these duties, as set out in the explanatory memorandum of the Bill, supporting farmers to produce food in ways that will start to reverse the loss of nature by 2030, and addressing the nature and climate emergencies?

Thank you. Well, the scheme will support the sustainable land management objectives, alongside our international obligations as well, through actions including promoting nature-based solutions for healthy living soils, through the habitat baseline review that we talked about yesterday in the oral statement, supporting farmers to manage at least 10 per cent of their land as semi-natural habitat, restoring and managing ponds, and preserving native breeds.

Questions now form the party spokespeople. The Welsh Conservatives' spokesperson—Samuel Kurtz.

Diolch, Lywydd. Minister, your programme for government update published in November 2021 stated that you would:

'Develop a national model for regulation of animal welfare, introducing registration for animal welfare establishments, commercial breeders for pets...and animal exhibits.'

What progress has been made on this?

Well, it is a five-year programme. I think that I should make that very clear from the outset. So, we are now in year 3. We have made a great deal of progress, particularly around our codes of practice and our regulations, particularly in relation to dogs. We have had a big focus on responsible ownership of dogs.

We have also been doing other things alongside that. You will be aware of the greyhound petition. We have diverted resources to look at that also. We put a huge amount of effort into the kept animals Bill, which the UK Government, unfortunately, then did not take forward. So, again, I have been asking officials to look within that programme at what things we might need to do, having now seen the fall of that Bill.

Thank you, and I am happy to declare that I am an honorary member of the BVA, for the register of interests. Animal welfare is incredibly important. You mentioned the kept animals welfare Bill, and a lot of that good work is going to continue through secondary legislation, so it's not work wasted.

But one thing that really could be done within this is around the use of the RSPCA. RSPCA inspectors do an amazing job in ensuring that animals are looked after and treated well. However, the statutory powers lie with local authority inspectors. That work could easily be carried out by the RSPCA, freeing up our local authorities and utilising the skills and expertise available within the RSPCA. 

Next year marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the RSPCA. So, what better present to give the charity than having these statutory powers? So, can I ask, what advances have you made on transferring enforcement and investigative powers from local authorities to the RSPCA to enable this to take place?

This is certainly something that we were looking at, probably pre this term of Government. I went out with the RSPCA and saw for myself how difficult it was because they didn't have enough powers to be able to deal with things as they saw them, and as they came across them. So, it was something that I very much supported, and I am very happy to continue to work with the RSPCA, going forward.

I think that it was really disappointing that the RSPCA took the decision to remove the office that they had here in Wales and the staff that they had here in Wales. We did have a really close relationship with them—particularly my officials. Unfortunately, we appear to have lost a little bit of that.

Given that there is a five-year commitment for the programme for government, is that something, with regard to the statutory powers for the RSPCA, that you'd be looking to conclude within the five years? Not to prejudge my final question, but what I am getting to is that COVID lockdowns saw an increase in pet ownership, and that, sadly, led to an increase in pet abandonments as well. The latest figures, again, from the RSPCA for England and Wales show that abandoned pets have increased by 25 per cent.

Pet microchipping is a proven way of helping to reduce these abandonments, but it appears that, in Wales, not all animals are created equal. The microchipping of dogs is now compulsory, and in England, from next June, the microchipping of cats will be compulsory too. Whilst I am, I have to admit, more of a dog person, I think Wales should be leading the way and be comparative across all animals. So, what are we doing to put feline and canine pets on an equal footing and what plans does the Welsh Government have on introducing cat microchipping here?

On the end of your last question, around the RSPCA, it's certainly something that I'm very keen to continue to pursue. Whether it would be done during this term of Government, because it's not just an issue for the Welsh Government, obviously, there are other institutions and organisations we have to work with—. But, for me, I can see the practical importance of the RSPCA having those powers to be able to deal with issues that they—. They are, obviously, first responders, if you like. So, certainly, it's something I'm incredibly keen to continue to look at.

In relation to the microchipping of cats, like you, I'm more of a dog person, but that doesn't come into it when we're looking at something as important as microchipping. I think it is really important, and, unfortunately, I think we all see more cats run over than dogs. You often hear about this on the road, and it would be really important to have the cat microchipped so that at least the owner could be found, because I can think of nothing worse than your pet not coming home. It is something that we will do within the five years of the animal welfare plan. However, I should just say it can be done. It is available for people to have it done. Just because we haven't told you to do it doesn't mean you don't have to do it, so, whilst it's not mandatory, you can do it voluntarily.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Minister, you told us yesterday that you hadn't had any kind of definitive assurance of funding from the UK Government for the implementation of the sustainable farming scheme. How, therefore, are you factoring funding uncertainties into the forthcoming consultation and the scheme development, and at what point are you going to have to have that commitment from the UK Government in order to deliver the scheme in full and as intended?

You're quite right, I did say that, and it is absolutely the case that we have no certainty about our budget beyond 2025. I mentioned that it is incredibly complex and difficult to design a scheme when you don't know what the budget is. So, you have to assume that we will have the level of funding that we've had over the previous few years, and, indeed, we will have for our basic payment scheme, which we are going to continue to the end of 2024.

I know farmers want some certainty. Unfortunately, these are really uncertain times, and if you wanted that certainty, we should have stayed in the European Union, where we had that cycle of funding where we always knew what we were going to get. When you only have one-year budgets and then you have a comprehensive spending review, the most you get is three years. So, I appreciate that people want answers around the SFS in relation to payments and funding, which I just can't give at the moment. As I mentioned yesterday, we will have budgetary planning in the final consultation so that we will be able to come forward with something more definitive next year. Obviously, we will know more after the autumn statement this year in relation to the funding.

Isn't assuming that the money will come from the UK Government playing a rather dangerous game, because the UK Government does have form in this respect, where they have reneged on promises made in the past to fully replace EU funding to Wales post Brexit? Would it not be more responsible to be at least very mindful of the possibility that the funding isn't forthcoming as the scheme is being developed? And if there is a shortfall, will the Welsh Government commit to plugging that funding gap, or will Welsh farmers and the environment have to bear the consequences of scaled-back ambitions?

I can assure you I am very mindful—I'm always very mindful of anything where you are having to look at a budget. I and my successors will have to sit around the Cabinet table and argue for funding in the way that every Minister has to. We get our budget from the UK Government, as you know. We know how reduced that budget is in real terms. So, any Minister has to look to the finance Minister for that funding, going forward, and it will be no different. I made that very clear, when I first came into this portfolio just ahead of the EU referendum, that that indeed would be the case—you wouldn't have the luxury of having that funding arriving from Brussels with no scrutiny, just straight out. That will not be the case for future Ministers for rural affairs.

Diolch. My officials have been working with the Wales animal health and welfare framework group on this issue. Local authorities have previously been written to in order to gather information. Councils have the power to ban the practice of giving animals as prizes on their land, and 12 of the 22 have already implemented bans.

Thank you, Minister. I must declare an interest: my first-ever pet was a goldfish that I called Dewin Dwl, won at the fair in Sioe Môn. I won countless other goldfish there over the years and in Ffair Borth, but, unfortunately, all of them others the same fate of dying a few short weeks afterwards. Luckily, our understanding of the importance of animal welfare has increased since the 1980s, and we better understand now how cruel the practice of giving away pets as prizes truly is. Whilst, as you illustrated in your response, local authorities such as the Vale of Glamorgan have taken steps to ban such a practice on land they own, they cannot apply these prohibitions to land that they don't own and is in private ownership. So, what consideration has the Welsh Government given to introducing Wales-wide legislation to prohibit giving away pets as prizes?

I think I probably should declare an interest; I certainly remember having a goldfish. I don't think mine lasted a few weeks, actually; I think it was a few days. But, as you say, it's something that, over the years, we absolutely accept is not the way forward.

I did write to the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain back in 2019, and, on the back of your question, I asked to look at the response I received, because I remember at the time thinking, 'Oh', and it's a tradition to give these pets away. But it's really pleasing to see RSPCA Cymru campaigning on this. I think it's something that the public need to understand, and my officials have met with the RSPCA to see what more can be done, going forward, without legislation; you'll be aware of the increased legislation we have in this area. But I do think there is more that councils can do. I mentioned the 12 of the 22, and you mentioned the Vale of Glamorgan. I know my own constituency of Wrexham, along with another 10 councils, are not doing this, which I think is incredibly powerful, and, as I said, I hope the other 10 disallow the activity to take place where they, as you say, are able to hire the land and, therefore, have that impact.

But I certainly think we should do all we can to encourage people to look at alternative prizes. I know the RSPCA have been giving out leaflets to people how they can look after a goldfish if they are given one. But I just wanted to assure you that we are looking within the animal welfare plan to see if there is more we can do in relation to this.

I'm still tortured by the fact that my goldfish lasted a matter of hours only, as I transferred it from the little plastic bag to the bowl in the sink, and it disappeared down the sink hole. I was seven years old when that happened, by the way, and I can—

You still remember it.

I still remember it vividly, and it's been brought back to my mind as you were discussing this. Janet Finch-Saunders, any goldfish memories?

Yes, many, actually. So, a really good question from Heledd Fychan, and I'm really sorry about the sad demise of your goldfish, which happens too often, I'm afraid. Now, in 2019, the Petitions Committee actually considered calls for a ban on goldfish given away at funfairs. Four years on, we haven't really moved much further, and, as the Minister says, there are still 10 councils or local authorities still allowing this to happen. More action is needed to protect animals, predominantly goldfish, from this practice. To receive a sentient goldfish in a small plastic bag that is often carried around for hours, and temperatures go up and down, is not a good omen to getting them home and into a suitable container and giving them a life. It's actually quite cruel, if we look at how we've moved forward in animal welfare issues of today.

So, Minister, would you consider—and I'd like to endorse the sentiments by Heledd Fychan—would you actually consider now looking for Wales-wide legislation to bring forward an outright ban on these, whether it be private or council-owned land? And do you think maybe you could write a letter to those 10 authorities, because we're coming up to all the shows, and I saw some goldfish in bags the other week and it was a really warm day, and I just felt so sorry for them—whether you could write to the other 10, and maybe just ask them for some action on this?

Thank you. I don't disagree with anything Janet Finch-Saunders said in relation to that. I don't think I can answer any more fully than I answered Heledd Fychan, but, just to reassure you, when I asked my officials to write to all 22 local authorities back in 2019 to ascertain how many of them were still allowing it to be done, we certainly said we would follow it up. So, I do commit to writing to the other 10 to see what action is being taken, because, as you say, we are coming up to show season now as well, where we will see far more of this.

In light of a reduced risk to poultry, the avian influenza prevention zone was lifted on 4 July. While there are no current disease control zones in Wales, we continue to monitor risk levels to poultry and wild birds, and a ban on gatherings of higher risk bird species remains in place.

Well, there have been recent outbreaks, and it is of huge concern. It's something I raised with the climate change Minister last week, and I was effectively referred to you on this, so I'd like to ask what additional support and advice is being given to poultry farmers in those specific areas. I mentioned the Dee estuary, and I know, off the coast of Anglesey as well, there are huge concerns there at the moment. Also, what guidance and support is the Government giving to local authorities and public health officials to make sure that they're fully equipped in their response to handling enquiries from the public, which of course have a key part and role to play in this respect?

Thank you. They indeed have been. We've had a total of eight cases in Wales. The reporting period begins on 1 October, so since 1 October 2022, we've had eight cases of AI confirmed in kept birds in Wales. There were two in Anglesey, a case in Flintshire, and five cases in Powys. As I said, due to where we are now, we lifted the prevention zone on 4 July, but unfortunately there are bans on gatherings of certain species remaining in place. We do continue to monitor the situation not just in Wales, not just in the UK, not even just in Europe, but we are doing it on a global level, as well as the effectiveness of any disease control measures. So, the office of the chief veterinary officer is responsible for working closely with our bird keepers, with our farmers, and with the local authority and public health also, and guidance and support is given to them.

Minister, as you are aware, the risk to humans from HPAI virus is relatively low. However, due to the scavenging nature of certain animals, there has been an increased number of infections in mammals who consumed infected birds. Sadly, since October 2022, red foxes in Powys, Eurasian otters in Shropshire, common dolphins off the coast of Pembrokeshire, and grey seals in Cornwall have all been identified as being infected. Minister, although infection rates are still relatively low, what assessment has been made of the potential vulnerability of mammalian species to widespread infection, and what preparations have you made to help reduce infections? Thank you.

Thank you. Well, we are aware of the reports of mammals infected with AI that you just mentioned, and the office of the chief veterinary officer works very closely with the Animal and Plant Health Agency, and with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, going forward, as well as, obviously, with international collaborators as well. Obviously, any outbreak in the way that you have just outlined is of concern, and there are reports of dolphins and whales being infected in other parts of the world, so it is something that we have to keep a very close watch on, but there is no evidence that the new findings represent significant mammal adaptation of the current AI virus strain here in the UK.

I have regular discussions with the Deputy Minister for Climate Change regarding transport in north Wales, and that includes the Wrexham to Bidston line. I welcome the improvement plan Transport for Wales have developed, and Welsh Government will be monitoring its delivery closely.

I'm grateful to the Minister for the work she does under her responsibilities as the Minister for north Wales and for having those conversations with Cabinet colleagues. It's fair to say, Minister, that the Wrexham to Bidston line users are patient people—they've had to be, in fairness to them. But what they are seeking more than anything is that the recently announced five-step improvement plan does demonstrate and deliver real-term and long-term improvements in reliability on that line. I think we've both been tagged in a tweet this afternoon again about the service. So, can I ask you to update the Chamber on how the plan is working, but also ask you, whether it be through the Deputy Minister’s office, to instruct Transport for Wales to open regular dialogue with the Wrexham-Bidston Rail Users’ Association so that they can see the work that's being done on a regular basis?      

Thank you. I absolutely agree with you around people being patient. I use that line myself, as I'm sure you do, and the performance of the services on that line has not been good enough. I think that's very fair to say, and I know that the Deputy Minister for Climate Change did visit the area recently. He really wanted to see the issues that were faced by passengers first hand, and he met with the rail user group that you referred to, and also with local elected representatives.

I think it's fair to say that the Deputy Minister's been very challenging to Transport for Wales, to make sure that that performance is turned around and obviously, they've got that five-point plan that you referred to. I had the opportunity when I was travelling to Cardiff this week to—well, I thought it was an opportunity, but I'm sure he didn't—. But one of the senior officials from Transport for Wales, I was able to question him quite a lot about the five-point plan. One of the things is minimising bus replacement services. There's nothing worse than hitting a station waiting for a train and you see a load of buses outside, because you know that that's going to be an even longer journey. They're reviewing the timetable, they've committed to one of their senior officers working to provide improved focus on issues and connect better with stakeholders.

We are investing £800 million on brand new trains and, of course, that will benefit services right across north Wales going forward, and those trains are now coming into operation. And I do think that's in very stark contrast to the UK Government train operator, Avanti West Coast. They're removing services this summer from the timetable at very short notice and with very minimum engagement.

Growth Track 360, as you know, is the public-private partnership, uniting north Wales, the Wirral, and Cheshire West and Chester, working to improve cross-border transport connectivity, with specific emphasis on rail. After local concerns about poor service delivery and delays to the introduction of the long-promised half-hourly service on the Wrexham-Bidston line required them to make representations to the Welsh Government, they welcomed the commitment from Welsh Government and Transport for Wales to improve services on the borderlands line.

However, how will you engage with Welsh Government colleagues regarding the concern expressed to me by the Wrexham-Bidston Rail Users’ Association about the statement made to me by the chief executive of Transport for Wales that the class 230 trains have generally been operating reliably, and the major technical issues seem to have been resolved, where they instead state that the continuing unreliability of the class 230s and their inability to keep scheduled time throughout their full-day's diagrams, suggest that this units will be unable to maintain an hourly service this summer, still less operate a 30-minute frequency in the autumn?

The new class 230 train did begin on the Wrexham to Bidston line on 3 April, and I think it's again very fair to say that there were some very disappointing delays bringing them into service. And I know that Transport for Wales had to rigorously ensure the train's safety and reliability following incidents during initial testing. The reliability of those trains has to be Transport for Wales’s focus going forward, and I know they've invested in the Birkenhead depot, and trains no longer have to travel to Chester for service and repair, which I think is a very positive move.

Thank you. The Welsh Government is committed to supporting the beverage and drinks sector across Wales, and has a comprehensive programme of business support measures in place. This includes a highly successful drinks cluster, which promotes collaboration across the industry sector.

Diolch, Minister. We do love our food and drink in Wales, and I'm going to focus on drinks today. And, of course, I'm going to take this opportunity to give a bit of a shout out to the companies in my own constituency. I know that you met Ferrari's Coffee; they also roast the beans for Jenipher’s fair-trade coffee. We have Double Trouble Coffee, we have Dog's Window, Bang On Brewery and The Coach Brewing Co all in Bridgend. And we also have a Bont Gin and a Porthcawl Gin. We also know that people do love—[Interruption.] I know, I'm just showing off now. We also know that people do love to buy Welsh. So, is there somewhere at the moment where all of that information is collated, on a map, for example—beverages that include coffee, spirits, beers, and everything else? 

And my other question was, I recently had some constituents get in touch because when the Welsh Government is promoting beer and other alcoholic beverages, they asked if it was possible to always include the 'please drink responsibly' on there, which hasn't always been included, and if we could have that balance with also suggesting non-alcoholic options, which, of course, are very popular now. So, we have Drop Bear Beer Co. based in Wales, which are fantastic. Tiny Rebel do a non-alcoholic lager and Gower Brewery also do one, so, that would be wonderful as well. Thank you. Diolch.

Thank you. I quite agree, we do really enjoy our Welsh food and drink, and it's great to be coming into the agricultural show season now because what better place to show off the fantastic food and drink we have here in Wales, and really showcase our producers who do so much work to bring those forward? I did indeed visit Ferrari's—I think it was back in the autumn—in your constituency. And you do mention—there's always a lot of photographs of you on social media—a variety of cafes and restaurants, promoting and supporting your local businesses.

There is all that information in one place. I would imagine it's on the Welsh Government website, but I will have to check, but I know that information is there, particularly the food and drink producers that we do support. You'll be aware we have Cywain, which is a business delivery partner, and what they will do, particularly at the Royal Welsh Show—they'll do it in quite a few shows—is promote new businesses, because I think that's really important. It always surprises me that every year, there are new gin producers, there are new cheese producers; we have that space for them, and they do really well, and within probably a year of seeing them, they're exporting—they're really, really successful businesses. So, it will be great to visit the food hall at the Royal Welsh Show, and I'd encourage anybody attending the show to do so.

Our animal welfare plan makes a commitment to consider extending compulsory microchipping to include cats by 2026. Whilst a consultation is not planned for 2023, my officials are considering a joint report on microchipping to inform this work and monitoring progress of the English regulations, which were made in April.

I thank the Minister for that response. Cats are roaming animals; that's why it's important to ensure that cats are microchipped in case they get lost or killed. Cats can be microchipped by most vets for between £20 and £30, and for those on lower incomes and means-tested benefits, additional support is available from charities such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Cats Protection, but still not all cats are being microchipped. Will the Government take action on compulsory microchipping of cats as a matter of urgency? The Minister talked about 2026; if you bring in a legislative consent motion, you could do it sooner.

Well, you will have heard my earlier answer to Sam Kurtz, and you're quite right to point out that not everybody is microchipping their cats even though, as I say, it is available—you mentioned the cost of it. So, just because we're not telling people to do it and it's not mandatory, it doesn't mean they don't have to do it. But, I think you make a really important point. So, I have asked officials to look at what we could do on the back of the Microchipping of Cats and Dogs (England) Regulations 2023, which were made on 25 April 2023, which means all owned cats over the age of 20 weeks will need to be microchipped by 10 June 2024.

I had agreed to a grouping request for questions 7 and 8—

I wasn't told. Sorry.

Well, I thought the request had come from you, Minister. But, there we go.

It had, but I hadn't been told. Sorry.

There we go. We'll assume that it did, and that I agreed to it, and Luke Fletcher can ask his supplementary question to question 8.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cats, of course, as Mike rightly pointed out, do roam more than any other pet, so microchipping your cat does make sense, but it doesn't stop at just the act of microchipping. A persistent issue in both cats and dogs is that the information is not being kept up to date on microchips. On my last visit to Cats Protection in Heol-y-Cyw, there were a number of cats there that had out-of-date information on their microchips. So, alongside the work of microchipping cats, what work is the Government doing to ensure that people are keeping their information up to date so that owners and pets can be reunited?

I'm not aware of any specific work that we are doing in relation to making sure that people do update their microchips. I was quite surprised to learn myself that it's very easy to actually change the information on the microchip, so it is something that I will ask officials to look at.

As well as discussions at Cabinet, the impact of energy infrastructure has been discussed at the Cabinet sub-committee for north Wales, including offshore wind, nuclear and hydrogen infrastructure deployed across the region. We are very clear that communities in Wales need to benefit from new energy infrastructure investment.

Thank you for your response, Minister. I want to speak in particular about the community of Cefn Meiriadog in Denbighshire, and you'll be aware that Cefn Meiriadog is a largely rural community, but there are a number of significant energy infrastructure pieces of work taking place there, which is going to drastically change that rural community. First of all, it already has a substation there. There's a substation also associated with Gwynt y Môr offshore windfarm at the same site as well. I understand that the Awel y Môr offshore windfarm project will trigger an extension to existing substation sites, and an additional 31-acre site will also be required to host a substation for the planned Mona windfarm. I also understand that the MaresConnect project is likely to have a connection at the substation there as well, and I also understand that there are proposals for an 80-acre solar farm within that very small rural community. So, you can understand there are five or six large projects there in one very small area.

I appreciate that many of these perhaps sit with National Grid plc at a reserved level, but I wonder, from a planning point of view, with your north Wales hat on, working with colleagues on the Cabinet, how the consideration of all these projects' cumulative impact on some of these rural communities is considered, as a Cabinet, and what your thoughts are about how we minimise that impact on those rural communities.

Thank you. Well, the issues you outline obviously sit within the Minister for Climate Change's portfolio, and she's heard your question. As I say, we do have discussions at Cabinet; we had a very good discussion at the north Wales Cabinet sub-committee a couple of months ago in relation to renewable energy, because we know north Wales has many opportunities in the area for really innovative energy technologies, and there are lots of opportunities with hydrogen as well.

You refer to some projects that are being discussed—I think you mentioned Denbighshire mainly—and it is really important that when—. We need to get our energy from renewable energy as much as possible, but what's really important is that our communities benefit from it as well. So, that, I know, is a priority for the Minister, to make sure that the communities are taken with them, and it's really important that the developers have those discussions ahead of bringing projects forward.

I remember opening a hydro project in Corwen when I was the Minister with responsibility for energy, and it was so great to talk to local people, who said they knew that, when they put the kettle on in their house, that they were getting benefits from that renewable energy that they were using.

Finally, question 10, Cefin Campbell.

In March, I published our new TB delivery plan, setting out actions that we will take to eradicate bovine TB across Wales. This included a Pembrokeshire project addressing persistently infected herds, re-introducing pre-movement testing, and extending post-movement testing in intermediate TB areas. I will further update in my annual November statement.

Thank you very much for that response, and everyone in the Chamber is very aware of the very damaging impact that bovine TB has on the agricultural community.

I had an experience very recently visiting a farm in Bancyfelin in Carmarthenshire, and I saw, in a very striking way, how a bovine outbreak had had an impact on the economy of that farm business and also an impact on the mental health of those living there. The Minister is probably aware of the proposals passed by Carmarthenshire County Council and Ceredigion County Council, noting the concerns, sometimes, about the way that the Government deals with farms that are facing an outbreak TB, and perhaps there's a need to be more sensitive about how the news is conveyed.

But specifically, I would like to hear from you about the vaccine—the recent developments with regard to the vaccine—against TB. There are cynics who say, 'Well, we've heard, over a number of years, "Oh, well it's almost there, it's almost there".' So, specifically, could you give us an update on the Government's efforts, particularly with regard to the vaccine, and is there hope for progress in the near future?

Thank you. I don't underestimate the massive impact, both financial and to farmers' well-being, that a TB outbreak—. Or even when they're having TB testing. It's incredibly difficult for them. You'll remember that we went out to consultation back in 2021, and one of the recommendations that came forward from that consultation was that, as a Government, the way we corresponded needed to be far more sensitive than perhaps it was, and the language being used not just needed to be more sensitive, but needed to be more straightforward. And that's certainly something that my officials have taken on.

In relation to your specific question around the vaccine, I absolutely agree. I was told when I first came into portfolio we were nearly there and, seven years later, we're not there. So, are we nearly there? Well, certainly, academia and the experts tell me that perhaps in another couple of years we will be there, so that would be something very much to welcome in 2025. I'll certainly make sure—. I don't have any update since my statement earlier this year, but I will certainly make sure that I update Members when I do my annual TB statement in November.  

I thank the Minister for that session. 

We move now to item 6, the topical questions, and the first question is to be answered by the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language, and to be asked by Sioned Williams.  

Holiday provision for free school meals was time-limited support that we introduced during the pandemic. Due to the extremely difficult funding situation Wales faces, this provision has not now been able to be extended further beyond May.  

Diolch, Weinidog. Without any statement to the Senedd either in written or oral form, with just a few weeks left of the Senedd term and before the end of the school term, children's charities, third sector organisations who support families, along with families themselves, heard in the media that free school meals during the school holiday will no longer be available for the most vulnerable children. Children's charities in Wales and the Children's Commissioner for Wales are unanimous in their view that, as the cost-of-living crisis plunges even more Welsh families into poverty, this decision will result in children going hungry over the coming weeks, and Plaid Cymru agrees.

Minister, why have you decided not to find the funding needed to support this much-needed intervention, which in the words of the Welsh Government's director of education and Welsh language in his letter informing local authorities, has proven popular? 'Popular'—an odd choice of word to use for the provision of food; 'proven essential' perhaps is more accurate. We have heard a Labour backbencher suggest that Plaid Cymru somehow has power over the Welsh Government's budget. If only that were the case. The policies in the co-op agreement, such as universal free school meals, only make up a small part of that overall budget. 

This funding is unfortunately not part of that agreement, but, if the Welsh Government is serious about tackling child poverty and food insecurity, it could prioritise the spending needed to ensure our most disadvantaged children's access to food. Yesterday, in answer to how the Government will support those who need it when the school term finishes, the First Minister referred to the food and fun programme and how it will reach more children than ever—30,000 of them. While this scheme, of course, is to be welcomed, we know the number of children who are eligible for free school meals from low-income families is more than treble that. The First Minister also denied this was short notice, but parents have had little time to plan, for those who can plan their finances, for this cut. 

This also comes at a time when the Welsh Government has announced a cut of £100 in the school essentials grant from next term, and at a time when the Government has received recommendations from a United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to address food insecurity, improve access to free school meals for disadvantaged children, and to enhance children's access to food. And you are consulting on your draft child poverty strategy. So, Minister, what evaluation has been done therefore on the impact of these decisions on child poverty? Why weren't families and third sector organisations given more notice? Doesn't this decision run counter to the ambitions and priorities set out in the draft child poverty strategy, and what is your response to Save the Children Cymru, who say all this is a huge step back in tackling child poverty and food insecurity?  

Well, the Welsh Government's budget is worth £900 million less due to the inflationary consequences of Conservative management of the UK economy. This is not a decision that the Welsh Government wants to have to take. We are a Government, after all, that has increased education maintenance allowance, increased access to the school essentials grant, and is bearing down on the cost of the school uniform. The school holiday free school meal was brought in by this Government during the pandemic, and we have found ways to continue extending it by finding underspends from time to time. We’ve sought to work with Plaid. It’s not something, as the Member says, that Plaid pressed to have in the co-operation agreement, nor, as the First Minister said yesterday, is it in the top priorities that Plaid articulated for budget outside the co-operation agreement. But during the co-operation agreement period she will know that we have been keen to be able to work together on this, and we last issued a joint statement, in fact, in March, announcing an extension to May, and that that was in fact funded by the co-operation agreement budget. This time we again asked Plaid if we could try together to find funds in the co-operation agreement, but Plaid did not wish to do that.

The Government has, however, funded a larger provision of summer food and fun schemes for this summer, reaching thousand more children this year, and now in all 22 local authority areas for the first time, as well as the Playworks scheme that, in fact, reaches almost 40,000 children.

The latest news is indicative of Welsh Labour once again talking the talk but failing to walk the walk when it comes to free school meals in Wales. The UK Conservative Government is continuing with the holiday activities and food programme in England, providing support for vulnerable children with free meals during the school holiday.

This announcement is a surprise to us all, as just outlined by Sioned Williams, but it comes as no surprise to me, Minister, as, when there are free school meals in term time, you have failed to properly fund schools to expand their kitchens to be able to roll out the scheme, and now we’re coming out of term time, you want to cut the scheme altogether. Your food and fun scheme just simply won’t cut the mustard. Minister, why are you giving with one hand and taking away with the other by cutting free school meals in the school holidays?

Well, the public are certainly not crying out for us to stop feeding children in school during a cost-of-living crisis, which is not a view that the Member shares, certainly, and in Conservative England they are in fact not providing holiday free school meals, and they're also not providing universal primary free school meals, either. If people in Wales are looking for who is responsible for the pressures that they face at the moment, they won't be looking at a Welsh Labour Government that's doing all it can to put billions of pounds into people's pockets at a difficult time; they'll be looking at a Conservative Party who have presided over a decade and more of austerity, coupled now with a crippling cost-of-living crisis, rising interest rates and rising unemployment for families right across the UK. 

I'm very disappointed that the Government are not providing free meals for children who qualify for free school meals during the summer holidays. Inevitably, children—even more their mothers, who will prioritise their children—will go hungry. Government is about priorities. I do not understand why £4 million can be found for a zipwire run by a private company in my constituency rather than feeding children in families in need. It is very late for the Government to change course now. Can I urge the Government to ask local authorities to fund free meals this summer from their reserves and pay for it in next year's budget? Feeding children who are poor has to be a priority for a Labour Government. 

Mike Hedges will know that I share his priority, and he will also know that we made an announcement in March that indicated that the extension was until the end of May. He will also know that the Government's budget is worth almost £1 billion less and, as a consequence of that, it is impossible for any Government to proceed with no impact on people’s lives. We are not talking about impacts on a list of things that we might all be able to say are nice to have. We’re talking about the impact of that on programmes that are very important to lots of people. That is the direct consequence of the failure of the Conservative Government to manage the economy in a way that is responsible, and to fund public services adequately in England. We will do—[Interruption.] We will continue doing—[Interruption.] We will continue—[Interruption.] We will continue to do everything that we can to support those families in need. 

Can we please take a step back and stop blaming people? Because what I would like to know is: what about those circa 50,000 children that will be going hungry this summer—50,000 that we could be helping and that we have helped previously? Foodbanks are worried. They've contacted me. I've been visiting them. They're worried that they're already seeing an increase in demand, and that's with students in schools and the increase in free school meals, thanks to the co-operation agreement. They are concerned, and there is no plan in place. You've talked about some of those children, but we're talking about, potentially, 50,000 children and young people going hungry this summer. I don't want to know whose fault it is, I want to know what the Welsh Government is going to do to ensure that that's not the case and how are you working practically with partners on the ground to ensure that everybody will be able to access food this summer.

Also, regarding the school essentials grant, we already know that, even with the increase last year, which was very welcomed by a number of families, they are still struggling to make ends meet. Teachers speak of having to raise funds, of having to run school uniform exchange schemes, but, even then, not being able to meet the demand. So, we're talking about children not being able to eat, not being able to have clothes to go to school. This is such a sad, sad state, and we're pointing fingers at people, rather than finding solutions. So, please tell me how are you actually working with people to help these children and young people.

I agree with the Member that the appropriate way of looking at this is to try and find solutions rather than to point the finger of blame. It's important to put some context around why the decision was taken, which is, after all, the question that I was asked to answer. In terms of the help that we are providing, she referred to the school essentials grant. That is now available in every school year. It's the highest fund of its kind in any part of the UK. The cost of school is very significant for many, many families. So, we are doing everything we can to bear down on that, and we are working with schools, giving them support and guidance in order to be able to make that a reality on the ground. But she is right to say that many, many families are struggling notwithstanding that. We have now extended that scheme, so it's available for every school year, which is very different from even a few years ago, recognising the scale of the pressures that families meet.

I've given the context of a budget that is worth £900 million less. When that is the case, we have to look at every aspect of the budget. As she will know, as I mentioned earlier, we've been able to extend from time to time this scheme temporarily, actually most recently using funds from the co-operation agreement. It has not been possible to do that on this occasion, either from the general budget or, with the agreement of Plaid Cymru, from the co-operation agreement budget, but we will continue to do everything we can to support those families that, as she says, are struggling.

I thank the Minister.

The next question is to be answered by the Minister for Climate Change and is to be asked by James Evans.

Yes. I have been very clear with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water that we expect water companies in Wales to provide the highest standards of service to customers and to protect the environment. The reduction in Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water's rating is very concerning. My officials are working closely with them and Natural Resources Wales to ensure the necessary improvement in their environmental performance.

I'd like to thank you for your answer, Minister. It was very deeply concerning to read about the recent announcement that Dŵr Cymru have been downgraded again, for the second year running, for failing to make the improvements necessary to clean up our waterways right across Wales. The company is reporting more and more serious pollution incidents, and it seems that nothing is being done to stop them. Their self-reporting of these serious pollution incidents is being reduced as well. Minister, Dŵr Cymru customers have the second highest bills in England and Wales. They have one of the highest-paid chief executive officers in Wales, who took home a bonus this year of £232,000. It is shameful that Dŵr Cymru cannot get its act together, and I do think it's about time that the Government stepped in here. So, will the Government step up to the plate and sort Dŵr Cymru out once and for all so we can clean up our rivers and bring forward urgent legislation to clean up our inland waterways within Wales, which is the devolved competency of your Government?

I'm not entirely certain what I'm being asked to do there. Are you asking me to nationalise Welsh Water? Welsh Water is a private not-for-profit company. It's not controlled by the Welsh Government, so I'm not really certain whether you're asking me to nationalise it. I have a limited number of levers at my disposal. Many of the levers are, of course, with the UK Government. This is a privatised utility, so it is—

You can regulate it.

I cannot regulate it, actually.

Yes, you can.

No, I cannot. The regulation powers are not with the Welsh Government.

Pollution is your responsibility.

Pollution is, but the regulation of water companies is not with the Welsh Government, so, you could very helpfully suggest to the UK Government that the regulatory framework is not fit for purpose, as we do, and—[Interruption.]

Darren Millar, this is not your question. You're seeking to intervene on your own Member here. It is James Evans's question, and the Minister is trying to respond to it.

So, a number of the things that James Evans set out there—. I believe all Members have received the same information as I have as a Senedd Member, from Welsh Water; if you haven't, then I can certainly forward it to you. As I say, I do not control Welsh Water; it is not a nationalised industry, it is a not-for-profit private company. But we scrutinise Welsh Water, alongside Ofgem, and, indeed, the UK Government, all the time. I am very concerned at their drop in performance. I absolutely agree with that. And a large part of that is because of the way that the price mechanism works. The price mechanism is set at a UK level, on a five-year slide, as it's called, and, unfortunately, the way that it is currently regulated means that any improvement has to be paid for by bills. So, I'm not entirely certain what the Member is asking me, really, because I do not control Welsh Water. So, I will respond, as I said—[Interruption.] I hold Welsh Water to account; the Member is more than happy, I'm sure, to do the same thing in any committee he is part of, or in his private capacity, to ask for a meeting with them. We do that on a very regular basis. I meet with Ofgem, Ofwat on a very regular basis, and with the UK Government. I will be holding Welsh Water Dŵr Cymru's feet to the fire over this. But the truth is that they have a limited ability to invest because of the price mechanism. They have set that out for you, and every other Senedd Member, in the information that they've provided.

You also said, I think I'm right in hearing you, James—forgive me if I got it wrong—but I think you said that there were a large number of serious pollution events. [Interruption.] Well, actually, the increase in serious pollution events, just to be clear—and it's not acceptable—but just to be clear, it's from three to five. So, just to be really clear. It's absolutely disappointing to see that, and I don't think it's good enough, but those are the figures. There is a further drop in the number of self-reported incidents, and a slight increase in the number of low-category incidents—from 81 to 84. None of these things are acceptable, but it's important to get the figures right. So, it's also—. There's no point shaking your head at me, those are the figures—[Interruption.] Those are the figures. So, I agree, it's not good enough, and we will be taking it very seriously indeed. I am not happy at all about it. But I'm not entirely certain where your question was leading—forgive me if I'm not quite understanding it, but you seem to be asking me to nationalise the company, which is clearly not really acceptable.

Minister, surely part of what we're witnessing here, and, indeed, with sewage increases across the UK, is a consequence of weakened environmental governance in the wake of Brexit. Wales has waited for too long for the delivery of new arrangements to tackle this issue. European Union regulations protected and empowered Welsh citizens to report on breaches of environmental law, holding corporations to account. Since leaving the EU, with the disastrously hard Brexit that was pursued relentlessly by the Tories in Westminster, all nations apart from Wales have developed their own environmental governance mechanisms. We are, unfortunately, still the only country in the UK without those robust environmental governance arrangements. I know that you share my frustration about the situation.

Could you talk us through, please, in this interim period, what powers are at your disposal to take swift action to address this increase in pollution incidents? Because I think that this is one of the issues that, when members of the public look at this happening, people are in despair about it, and nobody seems to be able to, or at least there doesn't seem to be clarity about what can be done. So, do you agree that part of this is a consequence of that environmental governance gap because of the hard Brexit that we have? And what can be done to further empower Welsh citizens and to improve the well-being of, yes, our waterways, but also the people who want to live near, who want their children to be able to play in waterways, for us to be able to actually get the right engagement and be able to have that back in our lives? Diolch.

Thank you, Delyth. I think it is really important to get the facts straight. So, I completely agree with you about the hard Brexit and the difficulties of that, but just to be really clear, and just to set out for Senedd Members exactly how this works. So, performance is measured by NRW and the Environment Agency, who apply targets for each business planning cycle, with what's called a 'glide path', which is a tightening of standards over a five-year period. So, we're currently in the 2020-25 period. The five-year glide path thresholds set are evidence based, taking account of the previous performance of water companies over a three-year period, which for this assessment will be the 2016-18 period, and the water industry's strategic environmental requirements expectations. So, for example, for serious pollution events, the targets for Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water are one incident for green, two to three incidents at amber and four or above for red. For the 2023-24 period, there will be one, two and three, and for the 2025 period, nought, one and two. So, you can see that they're going down. So, they're being held to a higher standard at each point in the glide path. That's not an excuse, by the way; it's clearly not good enough, but just for you to understand what they're being held to account by. 

We put a guide in for the price review mechanism, so we put our priorities in. Tackling overflows is a key focus of our work to improve water quality, but, again, it's important to get the facts right, and I'm not suggesting this is good enough, but just to be really clear: 44 per cent of our rivers are in good environmental status, which is against a very much lower number in England, and we still have—despite the fact that we have more coastline—we still have a very high proportion of our beaches in good environment. So, I don't want the public to be unnecessarily concerned and not, for example, take advantage of the Welsh coast over the upcoming summer. But it's not good enough. I would very much like it to get very much better than that. So, we're working closely with delivery partners, regulators and the relevant sectors to implement sustainable solutions. The water companies are all currently developing their business plan, so 2025-30, which is the price review mechanism that I was mentioning, which will include the programme of work to address any environmental harm caused by storm overflows.

Now, I have to say, I suspect you agree with me, Delyth, that I do not understand how putting the infrastructure in place to have the very best water quality in the world is not an investment programme capitalised by the Government. I do not understand why that has to be put onto the bill payers. That is a choice by the UK Government, and is not a choice that I approve of, and it absolutely limits the amount of investment that can go in, because, obviously, we can't have water bills unaffordable across Wales. So, it is a really difficult conundrum, if you're limited to the amount of money that you can charge your bill payers in order to put the investment in. It's, in my opinion, a fundamentally wrong way to do it. But, as I say, Welsh Water is a private company; it is a not-for-profit, which I am very pleased about, but it is a private company not in the control of the Welsh Government.

Thank you for all that information, Minister, and I think it's really important, as you say, to get the record straight. But it is also really important that we get this right, because there is an increasing shortage of water across Europe, across the world, and, therefore, we should be husbanding our water and ensuring that it is of the best possible quality. So, I agree with you that it all ought to be funded out of taxation, but we haven't got that at the moment; it's just loaded on to bill payers. But, I think, one of the ways I would like to see progress made is to ensure that we can make money out of muck, if we handle it correctly. It can be made into—. Particularly if the water is squeezed out of it, it can be used suitably for enriching our soils and improving the growing environment. So, in your conversations with Welsh Water, I wondered if you could talk to them about how we improve the handling of waste in our sewage plants, so we can have more of what they produce sold for the benefit of the country, and less of it—much less of it—going into our rivers and seas.

Jenny, that's a very good point. As part of the summit process, as we call it, working on the phosphate problem—although the phosphate problem is just one of the problems that's being looked at—we are looking at a variety of solutions, one of which is exactly that: to try and turn what is now a difficult waste into a money-making product for sale, and that is definitely one of the considerations that we're looking at. We've also done some source apportionment for that. So, we've commissioned an independent company to do a source apportionment across all of the SAC rivers—the special areas of conservation rivers—for the nine in Wales. The models can be used to determine the contribution of sources to phosphorous concentrations in the river and assist to develop a programme to reduce the inputs, which we do via the better river quality management boards and the nutrient management boards. We have a number of boards set up to work on these, who are looking at your point as well. And then, actually, this is additional to what I was saying to you, Delyth, which I know we've discussed before.

And just to say, and, again, I think the facts are very important here—and this is not to take away from the fact that Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water needs to up its game in big way, but—rural land use is the leading contributor of phosphate in six of the nine SAC rivers, including four of the failing SAC rivers. That's just a fact. It represents the largest proportion of phosphorus loading in the Tywi, for example, at 86 per cent, compared to 11 per cent from waste water treatment works, and 2 per cent from combined sewer overflows. I make that point not because 2 per cent from combined sewer overflows is okay—it isn't—but we have to get some sense of proportion into what we're actually trying to do here, and until we accept that every single sector of Wales has got to up its game, including the water companies—every single sector has got to up its game—we will not get the water quality we want.

I just want to be brief here. I, like others, met with water pollution campaigners outside the Senedd yesterday, and there is real confusion here, because Dŵr Cymru do say that they don't have money to do some of the work that they're supposed to be doing, and yet—and I'm sorry to go back to this—three of their top executives had bonuses worth £931,000, with the chief executive annual salary being £309,000. I hear what you're saying, Minister, about not having them in our control, but what confidence can we give to the Welsh public—including those campaigners who were outside the Senedd yesterday—that we are holding them to account in some way, and that we can have confidence in Dŵr Cymru and our water company? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

What we have is a privatised utility, effectively, and it would not be my particular view that that was a very good model for providing any kind of essential utility, but that's what we've got. I have no formal role in determining executive pay for Wales's water companies, but we do monitor pay and performance. We expect the relevant remuneration committees to reflect carefully on performance and delivery against the breadth of current water sector and environmental challenges. Ofwat has also set out the expectation for companies to provide robust and clear explanations of performance-related executive pay. They are clear that performance-related executive pay should demonstrate a link to stretching performance delivery for customers, which includes environmental commitments and obligations.

I'm not here to be an apologist for people who are paid an enormous amount of money. It is an enormous amount of money. It isn't an enormous amount of money compared to some of the other water companies, but I don't see how that is relevant, because it's an enormous amount of money. I am informed—I have no power over it—I am informed that the chief executive and the chief finance officer have forgone their executive bonuses for 2022-23. But I would suggest, Llywydd, that there are a number of committees in this Senedd who could also invite Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water in to give an account of themselves.

I thank the Minister. The next question is to be answered by the Minister for Economy and it's to be asked by Jack Sargeant.

Thank you. It is disappointing that due to a changed economic environment, Monmouthshire Building Society is halting its community bank project. The road to establishing a community bank is not straightforward, but our vision remains unchanged. I will continue to explore all options towards creating a community bank aligned to community needs.

I'm grateful to the Minister for his answer and the vision that he has set out. I share your disappointment, Minister, in the decision from Monmouthshire Building Society. I've had conversations with Members cross-party who share in that disappointment too. It is the case that a community bank has never been more needed. I'm sure you'll be aware of the recent announcement from NatWest in Shotton, in my constituency, and their recent intention to close a high-street bank, which is another example of why a community bank is needed. I know the Minister's aware of my long-standing campaign to see the first community bank branch in Wales being in Buckley, and I have had many conversations over a number of years in this place, and even today, there is clear political support from all sides of the Senedd Chamber for the establishment of a community bank for Cymru. But it's clear that we need to find a new partner to be able to deliver that, and deliver that in this Senedd term. Can I ask the Minister if he'll commit to putting Welsh Government resource into seeking that partner, and also, again, state his commitment to delivering a community bank for Wales?

Yes, I'm happy to do that and to recognise the continuing cross-party interest and support for the delivery of a community bank here in Wales. I can't promise that the first branch of the community bank will be in Buckley, but I can promise that the Welsh Government will continue to be committed to delivering a community bank.

The change in economic conditions, in particular in the mortgage market, leads the Monmouthshire Building Society decision. I think, given that they're unlikely to be able to understand properly what that market then looks like at least for another year, and then to restart work, we can't and won't wait until that happens—to wait for a changed position from Monmouthshire Building Society. I've already had a conversation with the co-operative society running Banc Cambria. I met with them yesterday. I met with Monmouthshire Building Society together with the Minister for Social Justice before that. We have agreed that we will continue, as the written statement sets out, to talk with partners in the finance sector to seek another partner, given the work we've already done and the greater understanding we have, to see if there are other partners who are interested, with the right values to take forward a community bank. It comes on the back of the flight of the major high-street banks from retail banking in all our communities.

When I first became a Member, I had four major high-street banks in the town that I live in. None of them are there now, but there are still two building societies and a post office on the high street. I suspect that the more interested partners are likely to be building societies, the mutual sector, who our values will align with and actually have a network that you might build a community bank from. We've got to have that conversation. We'll be formally contacting partners in the finance sector. The reason I mentioned the mutuals is I think it's unlikely for some of the challenger banks—Starling, Monzo and Metro being examples of those. A really important challenge is the way they provide services, but I think, actually, for the community bank vision, they may not be the partners that we'd be looking for. But it is up to them. We will write out formally to the sector, and I'm more than happy to keep the Chamber updated about our search for a new partner to help us take forward the community bank vision, and then to set out what that might look like in the future. The commitment remains undimmed, and I strongly suspect that the desire right across the Chamber to have a community bank remains undimmed as well.

Minister, your statement on community banking this morning makes it clear that you remain committed to facilitating community banking services here in Wales. So, in light of Monmouthshire Building Society's decision to stand down from the project, perhaps you can tell us exactly how the Welsh Government intends to realise its community banking vision. It is vital that the momentum behind a community bank isn't lost. Very little public money has been used to support this project, and it's important that the Welsh Government continues to work with stakeholders to explore all options. Today's written statement confirms that the Welsh Government is co-ordinating a holistic evidence base to inform future action. I agree that that's vital going forward, so I'd be grateful if you could tell us a bit more about this work, the timescales involved, and who the Government will be engaging with, so we can get a sense of exactly what the Welsh Government is trying to achieve.

Finally, as the Member for Alyn and Deeside has said, the need for a community bank is crucial, given the endless number of bank closures in Wales and the wider challenges facing high streets. I know in my own constituency there has been one bank closure after another on the high street. In fact, one high-street bank is in the process of closing a branch in St David's, which will be a blow to the local area. Therefore, as the nature of banking continues to change at a rapid pace, there are people who are left behind, and so perhaps you could also tell us a bit more about the wider discussions you're having with banks about the impact of their branch closures on communities right across Wales.

Despite the fact that this is an area that isn't devolved, it's a direct impact in communities. We don't control the regulatory element of it. We can't direct banks. But I do talk to banks and have talked to them from both their retail perspective but also from their lending perspective as well. It's a broadly positive view that banks have about the future and about the change in customer nature and demand. We all know, in every party in this Chamber, we have the entirely opposite view from our constituents when high-street banks do close. So, there is an ongoing conversation where I'm clear that this is a problem for a number of communities, in particular about access to financial services as well. It's why the continued maintenance of a post office network is of such importance. It's why this Government continues to invest in the credit union movement as well. Just in the last year, we put more money into the credit union movement, and 2,000 people took credit union loans at an affordable and local rate for the first time last year as well. So, there is a variety of different things we need to do to make financial services accessible and affordable.

The community bank is part of a longer term vision rather than an immediate answer to the very real challenges that communities are facing. But as I said in response to Jack Sargeant, we will continue to have conversations with the wider sector about what is possible. We’ll continue to engage, not just with the mutual sector, but with any interested partners. We already understand there are some parts of the mutual sector that have taken an extra interest, given that the work has happened. This is an area where it’s the convening power of Government that's allowed us to do things, rather than spending lots of public money. But as I said to Jack Sargeant, I’d be more than happy to update the Chamber and Members, whether by written or oral statement, as that work continues, to give more shape to the questions that the Member asked.

Thank you to Jack for raising this. I have to say from the outset that it’s disappointing that an update on this project came via a written statement on the last day before the summer recess. This project is a significant project, not just because the First Minister has repeatedly highlighted it as a priority for him, but also because of the cross-party support for a community bank here in this Chamber.

The cynic in me would think that the way that this has happened feels like the Minister not wanting to draw attention to it. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, because this is something we all want to see. Access to banking services, as we’ve already heard, is something that is not going away in our communities. Banks are closing almost on a daily basis. I’d be keen to understand what are the exact implications of this delay and would the Government be considering any interim measures to bridge the gap between our communities and services. 

It is vital that we deliver on this, so I hope that the Minister follows through on his commitment and works alongside the team at Banc Cambria—whatever it takes. All of us here will support you as well. In fact, myself, Jack Sargeant, Paul Davies and Jane Dodds were discussing just last week the potential of establishing a cross-party group to help, and to that end push this agenda forward. So, let’s make it happen.     

On the timing, far from avoiding scrutiny, we actually had meetings on Monday and Tuesday, and I wasn’t in a position to finalise a written statement until later on yesterday at the earliest. I needed to check that the detail was right. So, actually, instead of pushing this to tomorrow, where I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to face any kind of questions, I made sure that the written statement was available so that there was an opportunity for questions about it, because I knew there would be interest. So, I deliberately made sure that there is the availability of scrutiny today and a written statement in term time. If I’d wanted to avoid this, I could have simply waited another day, and that’s not the choice that I made. Every now and again, the deliberate cynicism of Members should give way to the reality of timing that we’re not in control of.

When it comes to the interim steps, I’ve set out the things that we’re doing on financial inclusion and credit unions in particular. We will not be able to have an interim community bank established in different parts of Wales. That’s the understanding we all need to have about having a new financial institution that passes the financial regulation test so that it’s a viable institution that can then not just start but survive and grow. We won’t be able to do that within the next few months. That’s why the steps we are taking now that we’ve agreed to undertake with Banc Cambria in particular are really important in retesting who is interested in the wider sector, and there is some interest in that.

For the future, I would welcome the establishment of a cross-party group, to make sure that there is an easy way to generate communication between and around, instead of here in the Chamber or in a scrutiny committee, to make sure there is a genuine cross-party discussion. Because I’m keen to make sure that the cross-party support behind the idea of a community bank can actually carry through to seeing it being delivered, and that very much remains a commitment of the Government.

I thank Jack Sargeant for raising this important topical question today, as bank closures are apparent in many cities, towns and villages across the UK, and indeed Wales. In my constituency, the rapid closure of banks in Prestatyn and Denbigh has had a drastic impact on people's access to cash in coastal and rural communities, with the latest closure coming up on 8 August with HSBC in Denbigh sadly closing its doors. And the town, unfortunately doesn't qualify for a banking hub through the Link service.

But recently, I've had some positive discussions with the Post Office, both here in the Senedd and in the Vale of Clwyd, about how we can use post office services to maximise people's access to cash in areas that are rural and have poor transport links. So, with the barriers to cash in mind, does the Minister recognise the important role that post offices play in society? What discussions have you had, Minister, to ensure they are supported at a Government level to be a sustainable presence in our towns going forward?

Again, the Post Office and its regulation isn't something that is devolved to us. You'll see from my statement, which all Members have had a chance to look at, that not only do we welcome the actions that Link and the Post Office are taking together, but also we're looking to have credit union facilities available through the post office network as well. It is a network of places that people trust. It's a brand that's trusted, still. It's got access to a range of places, still. And we want to maintain the network rather than see it reduced, because, again, if your bank is closed and your post office closes, it's not just the practical and the physical access to those services—it's actually really important for a sense of place, for where a community is and its own view about its future. So, we'll continue to work constructively with not just the Post Office itself, but also with UK Ministers, because I know this is a feature right across the UK. In Wales, we're trying to take an approach that has cross-party support to try to fill in some of that gap, but there is, of course, a need for a longer term answer.

I thank the Minister for those answers. The next question, again to be answered by the Minister for Economy, and asked by Natasha Asghar.

Thank you so much, Presiding Officer. I'd like to begin by actually thanking you, Presiding Officer, for accepting this topical question, which was submitted after the usual 10 a.m. deadline—I'd like to make everyone aware—because the Welsh Government chose to release today's statement at exactly 10 a.m. this morning.

I should say it was issued at 10 a.m. because the first statement on a topical question was issued at 09:30, and we're told that there's guidance about issuing them enough time apart so people can see them. I'm certainly not interested in avoiding scrutiny.

The Welsh Life Sciences Investment Fund was created in 2012. The investment of equity in early-stage companies has supported the growth of the sector, increasing opportunities for the commercialisation of life sciences research, development and innovation. This fund has been part of a portfolio of higher and lower risk investments, which helps to mitigate the impact of the loss that has been reported.

Thank you, Minister. I'd like to know why today's announcement has been released on the final day of Plenary before summer recess despite your written statement outlining that the Welsh Life Sciences Investment Fund actually ended in February 2023. Many could argue the Welsh Government are dodging questions in order to avoid scrutiny.

As we are aware, Minister, the Welsh Government originally invested £50 million in the Welsh Life Sciences Investment Fund. According to your statement, the current value of the transferred assets is approximately £2.5 million. This follows the board of the Development Bank of Wales writing £27.1 million off in its 2022-23 accounts. But when looking at it in more depth, Minister, it's rather interesting. When the fund was originally backed by £50 million of taxpayers’ money over 10 years ago, it was chaired by the multimillionaire life sciences entrepreneur Sir Chris Evans, who is actually a prominent supporter of and donor to—surprise, surprise—the Labour Party. Concerns have been raised in the past about the fact that, under his chairmanship, the life sciences fund made a number of investments in businesses linked directly to Sir Chris.

Fast forward to 2023, Minister, and yet again we see a colossal waste of money by your Labour Government. Today's announcement boasts that the Labour economy Minister's £50 million investment helped safeguard or create 310 jobs. But this has come at a cost of over £160,000 per job, and it's taken 10 years—a testament to Labour's lack of financial prudency. People across Wales will again be thinking about this Labour Government that they can't be trusted with Welsh taxpayers' money. In light of this, Minister, what assurance can you give us that there will be a full investigation into the negligent and financial irresponsibility that has evidently taken place?  

We regularly have conversations in this place, and in committees, indeed, about the risk appetite of the Government to do things where you can make a difference, and part of the reason Governments often take lower risk approaches is exactly because of the tone and the content and the accusatory language that is wildly inaccurate in the Member's second statement. The reality is that this funding helped to grow the sector, and the life sciences sector is an area where Wales punches well above its weight. This fund was part of doing that. It wasn't just the jobs it created—it helped to lever in over £200 million of private sector investment into the life sciences sector. What we could have done, of course, instead of using financial transaction capital to help support this fund, is used a grant mechanism where all of the money would have gone out and none of the return would have been made. Actually, this has helped to significantly increase the profile of the sector, it's been recognised by an independent review in 2016, and the largest part of the loss actually came from some of the unavoidable impact of COVID. A number of life sciences firms, including the Rutherford centre, stopped operating after COVID. An announcement was made in June 2022 about the Rutherford centre just outside Newport. So, this has helped to kick start and grow this sector of the economy. We have a good story to tell in life sciences. Regardless of what the Tories want to say about Wales and life sciences, I'm proud of the work that we continue to do, and I look forward to further investments and growth of the sector and the jobs that it provides in communities across Wales.

Another written statement from the economy Minister, and another topical needed on the last day of business. Based on what Natasha said, perhaps the cynic in me was right. The life sciences investment fund received quite a damning report on its initial governance from Audit Wales as far back as 2016. I won't list the points due to time constraints, hence why this should have been an oral statement, but there were very clearly significant shortcomings from the get go, so it does beg the question what lessons were learnt from then.

Fast forward to 2022, the warning signs for the life sciences fund were apparent with the liquidation of the Rutherford group at a loss of £10 million for the Welsh Government, and I think this speaks to a broader lack of strategic planning on the part of the Welsh Government for managing the economy, exemplified by the decision, at the launch of the life sciences fund, to outsource the management of the fund to an external company. What was the rationale for outsourcing the management of a Government investment fund to an external company, and what were the lessons learnt? Wouldn't it have made sense to use the life sciences hub as the controller for such a fund? How many current Government investment funds are currently managed by external entities? And, of the remaining eight companies that received investment from the life sciences fund, how many are still based in Wales?

When Mrs Hart created the fund in 2012, we were in a different environment to the one we are now, and it's always the case to look back and have wisdom after the event, and to learn things deliberately as opposed to saying, 'Everything that has happened is obvious'—that is rarely the case. And, if you look at what's happened with the fund, as I said, there's been a return on a range of the investments. If we'd had grant funding issued, we would have £50 million that would have gone out the door. Even with grant conditions that we regularly have on a five-year term, none of that money would have been returned; the biggest return has actually been delivered by Simbec-Orion, who are based in Merthyr. They're a leading clinical trial centre. There are 140 people still employed in good jobs there that wouldn't have happened without this investment taking place, and it's a sector that employs over 12,000 people.

And, as I said, the £200 million of private sector investment is just one part of it; it is the profile and the growth of the sector that this fund has been part of, and I think that actually needs to be seen in its wider context. The external fund management, that was at the time because the expertise was not here within the Welsh Government to deliver it, and also, at that time, Finance Wales, as it then was, was in a different place in terms of its opportunity and ability to manage the funds themselves. Actually, the Development Bank of Wales, as it now is, after five years of operation, if we had the money to do something similar in any sector, we would have a different conversation about the role of the development bank or others to manage the funds.

So, actually, our tools to do this have grown because of Welsh Government innovation and investment in the future of the economy. The reality is, though, that we won't have a £50 million fund to deploy because of the honest truth about our financial position. And, as you heard earlier from the education Minister and the First Minister yesterday, our budget is now worth £900 million less in real terms than it was at the start of the spending review. Of the four investments, my understanding is that all four of them are based in Wales and the Development Bank of Wales is managing those remaining investments. There will be continued scrutiny about the value of those investments, the potential exit from those, and to see what is generated, but, actually, we're openly disclosing the return that will be provided in the DBW accounts, and rather than waiting for the accounts to be published, we're making and highlighting that to Members and the wider public now. That in itself is an exercise in transparency.

Well, in 2016, the Audit Wales report on the Wales life sciences investment fund found that, although innovative and having many merits,

'aspects of its establishment, governance, oversight and early operation were flawed and poorly documented.'

As Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, you'll not be surprised to hear that I've referred this to the clerks for advice, and they're further seeking advice on this from Audit Wales. But what engagement over this have you had with Audit Wales, given that this involves the efficient and effective use and administration of public funds, and given their previous interest in this matter?

Well, as you know, in 2016, I was busy with other matters as the health Minister. In 2016—

Now, I mean.

In 2016, when that report was provided, it was dealt with by the ministerial team at the time. I've now been dealing with the end of the fund, the closing of it, and the arrangements we have in place and the learning to take on what we might do to better support the economy in this area in the future.

And as I said, this is an area that has grown significantly since 2012, when the fund was introduced: 12,000 good jobs, over 360 companies, and an era when I think we'll see more growth. And I think the suggestion from Luke Fletcher that the life sciences fund will be the place to manage this—actually, that's not their role. They do have a role in promoting the sector, in looking at what innovation takes place, but they're not the sort of area where you'd expect them to manage funds. So, there has been learning that's been taken on board, there's definite learning about the fund closing, and as I say, the fact that DBW are now running the remaining investments that are in place I think highlights the reality of not just the learning that's taken place, but the reality of the expertise that is now in place, to help run future investments. DBW have a very good track record, and one that is envied by organisations in England, in doing just that for Wales.

I still haven't heard an explanation from your lips, Minister, as to why this hasn't been disclosed sooner. You had this information in February, you say that you want to be transparent about the losses that have been made—tens of millions of pounds, which you seem, frankly, very casual about, and this is taxpayers' money, of course, so perhaps that's why you're very casual about it. You haven't answered the question about the links to the chairman of the fund and the Labour Party. People want to know, in a transparent way, why there was a delay in disclosing it, what the links are between Sir Chris Evans and the Labour Party, why you allowed that fund to invest in businesses with a close association with Sir Chris Evans, and why you've got such a casual attitude to the loss of tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money in Wales, which could've been better spent on many other things.

Well, it's simply not true to say that I have a casual attitude to public money. The Member knows that isn't true, but yet again, not for the first time, he is prepared to say things that he knows not to be factual.

When it comes to links to political parties and donors, he should look in a mirror—himself and his party. When it comes to what's happened within this fund, we have indicated what has happened, we've been clear about that in the written statement, about the money has been spent, about the losses that have been accrued and about the fact that this was a higher risk investment fund. We've been entirely upfront about what has happened. And following the fund's closure, I then had to receive reports about the nature of the ongoing investments that are still being managed by DBW, and we've reported, again, in term time. We haven't waited another week to avoid scrutiny in the Chamber, and we've set this out—[Interruption.]—we've set this out in detail for Members to see, and it will be disclosed in the DBW accounts. And I fully expect that there'll be further scrutiny, both from DBW and, indeed, from this institution, about the mechanics of the fund, and I am entirely positive about that. As I say, the strength of this sector—12,000 jobs in a sector that we expect to grow—and we will carry on proudly supporting the growth of life sciences here in Wales.

I thank the Minister.

Item 7 this afternoon is the 90-second statements. There is only one statement today, and I call on Joel James.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all 11 young people who have been selected to represent team Wales at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Trinidad and Tobago between 4 and 11 August this year. Since its launch in 2000, the Youth Commonwealth Games has continued to grow and provide a unique opportunity for young people to experience elite sport on the international stage, as well as promoting cultural understanding and creating lifelong friendships across the world.

I would like to give a special mention to Sophie Lisk of Cardiff Archers, who lives in my region of South Wales Central, and who will be competing in the 100m hurdles and in the mixed 4x100m relay. Sophie is the indoor and outdoor world champion for sprint hurdles and is also the British and Irish schools champion, running a qualifying standard for the under-18 100m hurdles in an astonishing 13.73 seconds—a phenomenal achievement. Wales is just one of the 72 nations from around the Commonwealth that will be competing across seven sports this summer, and I'm sure that everyone here sends their best wishes to our young athletes. It is an outstanding achievement to represent one's own country on an international stage, and I wish them all the very best of luck. Thank you.

Diolch, Joel.

Item 8 is the Finance Committee debate on the Welsh Government's spending priorities for the 2024-25 budget. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. It's a pleasure to open this debate in the name of the Finance Committee on the Welsh Government’s spending priorities for 2024-25, the third such debate in this Senedd. These debates provide an early opportunity for the Senedd to tell the Welsh Government what to prioritise in its funding plans for the next financial year, before the draft budget is formulated and published later this year. I am pleased to say that we've conducted a range of activities over the past few months to gather views from across Wales on what they want to see from the Welsh Government’s next budget. We learnt a great deal from these interesting sessions, and we truly appreciate the time that those who attended took to engage with us. What makes this debate unique therefore is that these are not the priorities of individuals or political parties; they are the priorities identified by those who took part in the Finance Committee’s engagement activities.

Dirprwy Lywydd, our engagement work on next year’s budget was made up of three strands: a stakeholder event at Wrexham Glyndŵr University; a workshop with Members of the Welsh Youth Parliament; and numerous focus groups with organisations and citizens across Wales. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to this work, and I'm particularly glad to see some participants from the focus groups in the public gallery today, and I hope that this debate reflects the priorities expressed by them in those sessions.

However, before turning to the challenges and priorities identified during our engagement, I want to express disappointment that the Welsh Government has once again decided to delay its publication of the draft budget for next year, possibly until as late as 12 December. I have written to the Business Committee and the Minister expressing our views on this issue. We have also written to the Minister on numerous occasions about the practical difficulties that shortened reporting timescales pose to committees in fulfilling their scrutiny functions, as well as the pressures it puts on stakeholders wishing to engage with our work, particularly when three weeks of that period falls over the Christmas recess.

As you are aware, this is the fifth year in a row that the two-stage process set out in the protocol has not been followed. As a result, those Members elected in 2021, like me, have never experienced a full two-stage budget process, and the Welsh Government’s request to delay the budget process again this year therefore suggests that there are few circumstances that could be considered as a normal year. Nonetheless, we welcome the Trefnydd’s willingness to revisit the publication dates of the draft budget if the dates of the UK Government’s autumn fiscal event are sufficiently early to allow additional time for its preparation and scrutiny.

Dirprwy Lywydd, before discussing specific priorities, I would first like to discuss the challenges noted by those who attended our events and workshops. The cost-of-living crisis permeated the vast majority of our discussions. A stakeholder told me at the event in Wrexham that the crisis is not going away, and similar sentiments were expressed by Members of the Youth Parliament who said that the crisis is getting worse. Other challenges noted by participants included a lack of capital investment across the Welsh Government’s budget, exacerbated by high inflation, which is having a significant impact on planned infrastructure projects and improvements throughout the public sector. Concern was also expressed regarding how public sector pay awards will be funded, and the impact that this will have on strategic financial planning in the short, medium and long terms.

In terms of specific priorities, the Youth Parliament Members identified health and social care, education, local government, housing and transport as priority areas for next year’s budget to deal with these challenges. Similar views were expressed in the citizen focus groups where health and social care was a clear priority, closely followed by education and the economy. Themes around dealing with the impact of worsening economic and financial conditions, and the ways in which key services could be sustained were also a significant feature of our discussions with stakeholders in Wrexham.

In the context of these challenges, we have identified the following key priority areas for the Welsh Government to consider when formulating its budgetary proposals. First of all, innovative approaches are needed to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality, in the face of less money for public services and lower levels of household income. We heard that community-led solutions are essential in tackling poverty and social inequality, but that it is these front-line organisations that are losing funding at a time when they are needed the most, and that funding for voluntary organisations in particular is patchy and ad hoc.

Participants also told us that innovative approaches, such as a move to a four-day week and the 15-minute cities concept should be explored by the Welsh Government to improve the quality and accessibility of services so that they reach those that need it.

Although some progress was being made in the support available to households, people told us that the Welsh Government had a long way to go before reaching a 'no wrong door' approach in terms of supporting those suffering the ill effects of poverty and inequality, and this is something as a committee we want to keep an eye on for the remainder of this Senedd.

Secondly, a number of people told us that collaborative approaches are needed to meet the financial challenges facing the public sector. Participants made it clear to us that such an approach is needed between sectors to address structural weaknesses within the public sector workforce. In particular, joint working should be encouraged between the healthcare and education sectors to plug staffing gaps within health and social care professions, where staff shortages are particularly acute.

From a patient perspective, a one-stop shop approach, bringing together a range of services, was advocated as a way to bring patients and service users closer to their communities. As one healthcare professional told us:

'It’s not just responding to the crisis we face today. It’s also about restructuring health and social care so that we avoid crises in the future'.

Thirdly, participants told that us that greater and more targeted financial support is needed for those studying and working in the education sector to maximise the opportunities available. We heard that students are struggling financially, academically and socially, and that the COVID pandemic casts a long shadow on learners and the education sector as a whole. Although the extension of the free school meals policy was lauded as vital in providing a long-term commitment to levelling the playing field and reducing inequality amongst learners, there is clearly a long way to go, with a number of initiatives struggling for funding. As one person who participated in our focus group told us:

'A lot of the youth services I grew up with have now gone or been taken away.'

That is particularly heartbreaking and more needs to be done to support young people to engage with their communities and the educational opportunities available to them.

Our fourth priority area relates to local government, as it was clear across the sessions that local authorities are key in providing a whole range of key services and that they need growing levels of financial support in the face of mounting pressures. It was noted that whilst local government had seen increases in terms of demand for services, including greater policy pressures, such as the introduction of 20 mph zones, they had not received the relative uplifts for their budgets.

Finally, the climate and nature emergencies are clearly an ongoing priority for us all, and there was a real focus from participants in our engagement sessions on ensuring that the Welsh Government focuses on investment that turns Wales’s potential for green energy into a reality. More funding is required to facilitate a move to renewable energy, especially as greener and more sustainable energy sources would mitigate the impacts of high costs of living—a key theme that emerged from our discussions.

Dirprwy Lywydd, as part of our work, we also heard interesting and valuable views on Welsh taxes. Whilst all the Welsh Youth Parliament Members were aware that Welsh Government has tax-raising powers, they were not aware of the specific taxes—a theme that also came up in focus groups. This suggests that more could be done by both the Senedd and the Welsh Government to highlight these taxes amongst young people and the public at large.

However, that did not mean that the people we spoke to did not have a robust view on tax issues. The Youth Parliament Members strongly suggested that, if the Welsh Government used its powers to increase tax, then it would need to clearly show where the money will be spent so that that the public could get something back and see the benefits of such an approach. The majority of participants in the focus groups also only wanted to see increased income tax for those who could afford it, and there was also an acknowledgement that raising taxes in the current financial climate would be difficult and would exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis.

As we all know, it is very easy to come up with spending wish lists, but far more difficult to identify areas where spending should be cut. As a result, we were keen to hear from participants on this issue. What is clear from our sessions is that everybody found this challenging, with participants noting that there is very little left to cut from existing budgets. Although, when pushed, a minority of participants noted funding for culture, the arts, Welsh language and international relations as areas where funding could be cut, there was also recognition that such areas were immensely valuable and that continued funding was essential to support services within those sectors. What this perhaps demonstrates is that more information is required to explain the impact of funding decisions on particular sectors, so that informed decisions can be made on where money should be prioritised. As the Minister will know, this is an area of interest to the committee and one that we will return to during the consideration of the draft budget proposals later this year.

Dirprwy Lywydd, before I let others speak, I would like to emphasise how valuable these sessions were in informing our views. I'm now looking forward to hearing the contributions of other Members and fellow committee Chairs on these issues, and hope that this will be a fruitful and constructive debate. Thank you.

Demands on the budget always exceed the money available. That is why it is important for Governments to prioritise expenditure. Everyone has their own priorities. Mine are health, education and ameliorating poverty. Hungry children do not learn well. Hunger and poor nutrition lead to ill health and poor educational attainment. Education improves the quality of living and benefits society. In addition, it increases productivity and innovation, subsequently promoting entrepreneurship. Therefore, it is a crucial factor in the economic development of countries and improves the income equality of societies. Could I just say, bribing companies to bring branch factories to Wales is both expensive and ineffective?

As a member of the Finance Committee, I attended a round-table in Wrexham discussing the budget for next year. The following areas were covered during the discussion: challenges facing the education sector, challenges facing the health and social care sector, support for children and young people. Issues raised included challenges that all three of those face. Significant financial support has been received from Welsh Government for education. That was noted and welcomed.

A more strategic approach in administrating grants would be beneficial. Too many smaller grants administered late in the year cause planning difficulties for organisations. It's not that they don't want the money, but they'd like to have it earlier in the year, or the ability to carry it forward to the following year, which they're allowed to do under their financial controls.

The continued underfunding of adult education was a real concern. It was noted that Wales has an ambition to be a nation of lifelong learning. Lack of funding has impacted on adults enhancing their skills and developing new ones. This was seen as a way out of poverty, so we need to widen the opportunity. Let people train up, let them have better, greater skills so that they can earn more money. They pay more in tax, but they also become happier people and their families thrive.

It was identified that a greater focus was required on developing and promoting apprenticeship programmes. An increase of high-level apprenticeships was identified as important. An example was given of a talent gap in accountancy, in cyber security apprenticeships to combat cyber attacks in the NHS and in other organisations. The important link between the education sector and the future workforce in the health and social care sector and the need to have a skills mix in the future workforce. The importance of investment in students and trainees. The bursary for nursing has really made a big difference, being very much welcomed by people who have been nurses, very much welcomed by people in the education sector who train nurses, and has been very much welcomed by people in the health sector for the number of nurses coming forward.

But, while it is essential financial support, it could be extended to cover other health-related professions, such as physiotherapy or others like that. There are significant gaps in certain healthcare provision. We've seen an increase in recruitment of international healthcare professionals, an over-reliance on agency workers and a subsequent increase in costs. Agency workers are an incredible drain on health resources. We need to employ more directly, and I'm sure if the health Minister was in here she'd be saying, 'Hear, hear' now. But we really need to work out how that can be achieved.

Pay awards in health could have an impact on social care recruitment, as social care workers move to other, better paid jobs in healthcare. That has happened continually. People have moved out of social care into healthcare for an extra couple of thousand pounds. But that means that we have a shortage in social care. To enhance social care roles, carers will need higher level skills and an increase in pay so that it's not just providing basic care but has a greater focus on prevention and reintegration of patients back into the community.

Health, education and economic development overlap, and it's important that the Welsh universities are on an equal footing when applying for external competitive funding streams. Such research not only has the potential to provide treatment or cure for life-threatening diseases, but having this research happening in Wales creates economic growth. Wales makes up 5 per cent of the UK population but has 2 per cent of research and development spending. Wales is suffering a shortfall of about £18 million in quality-related funding if it is to compete pro rata with England. This is money that comes directly from the UK Government. With the loss of European Union structural funds, it is more important than ever that Welsh Government invests in Welsh universities to ensure boosting the output and productivity in our economy. There is a need for Welsh Government to prioritise R&D for economic development and sustainability.

A lack of capital investment was a concern in the health and social care sector. An ageing NHS estate needs infrastructure improvements to stop being inefficient in terms of energy use. The Welsh Government needs to initiate a wider conversation with the public about the future delivery of health and social care services and the difficult decisions that need to be taken.

Support for young people is important so that each child has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Thank you.

I want to begin by thanking everyone who took part in the engagement sessions for their invaluable input. I'd also like to recognise the hard work of my colleagues on the committee and the clerking team. We are very fortunate to have absolutely first-class officials.

As I said yesterday in the debate on the Welsh Government's annual report, many people in Wales rightly expect to see real change and real action; we need less talk and more investment to address the issues that matter most to the people of Wales. We also need to invest more time in helping people understand the issues and provide them with the honesty and clarity of what they can expect and when. Clearly, we would all like to see more money flow to Wales, but, at the end of the day, the Welsh Government has what it has, and will need to prioritise.

The report was very interesting, highlighting a wide range of issues brought forward by stakeholders, and, while there are many issues addressed in the report, I would like to highlight a few that stuck out to me. Firstly, I think it's important for us to reflect on the responses that the committee received regarding the need for services to collaborate in order to meet the challenges facing the NHS and social care sector. The issue of workforce planning in the healthcare sector was raised as an important issue, with significant talent gaps evident within certain professions. It was also noted that staff shortages had led to an increase in international recruitment and an over-reliance on agency staff, resulting in increased costs. It is clear that more funding needs to be allocated to front-line staff for both recruitment and training, and, I would argue, retention also. It is clear that we not only need more funding for a healthcare service, but also more targeted support, making sure there is a root-and-branch assessment of spending efficiency, to understand if management and spending in all health boards is obtaining optimum value for money.

Secondly, the report highlights the importance of the development and funding of a recovery plan for students who have missed out on schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. I couldn't agree more with that; our children have been let down over several years, and these issues have—like many problems in Wales—been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic, though, we knew that the number of teachers in primary and secondary schools had fallen in Wales since 2010. Again, we need to understand why this is. Clearly, there is a pressing need for something to be done. Yes, the pandemic affected our children, but the roots of the problem in our education system lie deeper than that.

The report also highlights the need to properly ensure that local government has the required funding in order to carry out Welsh Government initiatives and policies, such as implementation of free school meals and the cost of universal implementation of 20 mph speed limits. If more responsibilities are placed on local authorities, it is vital that they are given the proper resources and funding to implement these changes. As I've said before in this Chamber, there is a need to review the way local authorities are funded and a review of the funding formula is needed, together with a deeper understanding of the situation with regard to local authority reserves that are disproportionately accumulating across Wales, and how these moneys could be used for a wider public good. Going forward, we need to ensure that taxpayers across Wales are getting value for the money that is spent here. We all know that our public services are under increasing pressure and we all know that more needs to be done. I sincerely hope that the Welsh Government listens to not only our calls, but those of the important stakeholders, and engages with us in a productive way in order to ensure that the people of Wales get the public services they deserve. Diolch.

As a member of the Finance Committee, I want to place on record also my appreciation of the sterling work of the committee, its clerks, and fellow committee members, Mike Hedges and Peter Fox. I also want to thank the committee Chair, Peredur Owen Griffiths, for the diligent and also courteous way in which he chairs this committee. Today's debate focuses, though, on the Finance Committee's summary engagement report into the Welsh Government draft budget 2024-25. As the Chair states in his foreword to the report,

'During these difficult times it is more important than ever that we hear directly from stakeholders and the general public across Wales about where the Welsh Government should be prioritising its spending.'

Even though we are all elected Members of the Senedd who believe we know the people that we represent, it is vital that we all constantly seek to ensure that we are aware of the competing challenges, desires and wishes of our citizens, because this is democracy in action. So, if I may, I'm going to focus a few remarks on the work of the citizen engagement team. This has fielded a series of really interesting focus groups to gather the views of the people of Wales on where Welsh Government should prioritise spending for the next budget year. And also, the Youth Parliament findings chimed majoritively with these key headline findings. Health and social care were prioritised most frequently by participants, closely followed by education and the economy, children and young people, transport, housing and homelessness. Areas that participants felt could receive a cut in funding focused on international relations and the Welsh language. So, from this, I make the simple observation that the people of Wales want the Welsh Government to focus, laser-like, on bread-and-butter issues that impact daily lives every 24 hours of our citizenry.

The people of Wales want us to focus on delivering high-quality public services and simply improving the life opportunities for their families. But let us be honest: during a sustained period of regression and stagnation, the available choices for the Welsh Government within a UK context, with no flexible borrowing agility, are negligible. We, as the United Kingdom, are all enduring seismic economic shocks and a Tory-induced inability-to-live crisis, which shows no sign of abatement, as others have contributed. We all know—all of us, I believe, know—that austerity has failed. It is a failed pseudo-socioeconomic experiment of 13 years that has both persecuted and prosecuted the very poorest and the very most vulnerable across our society. It has also failed in its primary objective, having tripled the UK national debt. A greater failure and negligence of a key public duty of any Government to protect its people will not be seen, in my view, this century.

But what we do know from our recent engagement, from Senedd election results and from opinion polls, is that Welsh citizens value greatly their public services and want the best public infrastructure to support our communities—certainly not the opposite. I know that the Welsh Government will pay close attention to this important Finance Committee report, and I have every confidence that the Welsh Labour Government, Deputy Llywydd, will continue to hear the clear voice of continued demand for high-quality public services across Wales.

To conclude, the Welsh national health service is our biggest employer. Political opponents and those opposite us in the Chamber often cite this as a criticism of Wales. Quite frankly, that should not be. Welsh citizens are demographically older and, as a result of our historical legacy and industrial past, sicker compared to the UK population. So, Welsh citizens rightly demand that their Government prioritises health and social care. Therefore, it is right that we do so, and it is also right that it is our collective Welsh priority across this place. Thank you, Deputy Llywydd.

Now, there may well be a lot of disagreement today on how to prioritise Welsh Government funding, however one thing I think all Members can agree on is that good-quality jobs are the best route out of poverty. Investment to support businesses to create good-quality jobs, safeguarding quality employers who might need short-term support, and helping people in Wales upskill themselves so they can take on those good-quality jobs are all investments in a long-term cure for poverty.

The Finance Committee's summary engagement report makes it clear that investment in the economy was perceived by many stakeholders to be the answer to preventative health issues, business recovery, and a solution to decreasing social issues. Now, there's also a strong invest-to-save argument for this economic support. Increasing the quality of jobs across Wales will help Welsh citizens be happier, healthier and, of course, if they are earning, then the Treasury receives more in taxes.

Support for capital investment for business is an area where Welsh Government can meet several of its objectives. In the committee's work on the cost of living and cost of doing business, we heard that businesses would snap up capital investment support to reduce their energy consumption. Members will be aware that the Development Bank of Wales has been running a green business loan pilot, which the Minister has told the committee is operating well. The Minister has also said that the resources available were not limited to the original £10 million investment, as there is potential for expansion based on the level of demand. Therefore, the committee would be keen for an update on the green business loan pilot, because if the programme is still proving to be successful, it would be an area for the Welsh Government to invest in for the next budget round.

Helping businesses to decarbonise is, of course, one area that the committee believes the Welsh Government should be prioritising, but we also believe more needs to be done in relation to business rates too. In our committee inquiry on retail, tourism and hospitality, we heard calls for a more supportive business rate environment for those sectors. These industries have faced serious challenges in recent years, and we do accept that they have received support from both the Welsh and UK Governments. Business rate reform is a subject area that has long been discussed in the Senedd, and I appreciate that there is no simple way forward. Nevertheless, I'm pleased that the Welsh Government will be bringing forward a local government finance Bill to reform non-domestic rates so that they are aligned to changes in market conditions. Although, as Members know, legislation tends to be a slow process. Support needs to be available in the short and long term to create that supportive non-domestic rating environment.

Members will know that the First Minister’s legislative statement set out plans for a visitor levy and a statutory licensing scheme for visitor accommodation, and the committee has some concerns over how any money raised by the levy or licensing scheme will be spent. For example, will it be reinvested to support good-quality visitor-economy businesses and training for people working in the sector? There are so many questions over this policy, and it's crucial that we hear from the Welsh Government about how this policy will support tourism businesses across Wales.

Over the last year, the committee has undertaken a lot of work scrutinising the Agriculture (Wales) Bill. This landmark Bill creates a new way of supporting farmers through a sustainable farming scheme. I’m pleased that the Welsh Government was responsive to stakeholders and the committee during the progress of the Bill and, as a result, it was able to pass with unanimous support. Now, I know the Minister gave a statement with further information on the scheme only yesterday, but I want to reiterate that it's absolutely vital that the Welsh Government commits to a properly funded sustainable farming scheme to support farmers, the wider supply chain, the environment and our rural communities, and the committee will certainly be monitoring this going forward.

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to mention the work of the Member for Monmouth on his Food (Wales) Bill. Although the Bill fell, it highlighted many issues with our current food system. Whilst the committee could not come to a decision on the need for legislation, we did unanimously support the Bill's policy objectives. So, I'd like to see a commitment to improve our food system by implementing the recommendations from our report on the Bill in the Welsh Government's next budget.

And so, with that, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm grateful for the opportunity to have taken part in this debate as Chair of the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee, and I look forward to hearing Members' views on the Welsh Government's budget priorities. Diolch.

Thank you to the Finance Committee for holding today's debate. Like a number of our fellow committees, the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee has a number of priorities for the Welsh Government's budget for the next financial year. I'd like to outline three of these priorities.  

First of all, our national treasures. It's only a little over a decade since a major fire at the national library in Aberystwyth. Although the fire did not damage the nation's most significant documentary treasures, unfortunately, some items from the national collections were destroyed. In this context, I wish to note the committee’s concerns regarding the essential work required to safeguard the national collections held at the library and the national museum. We've heard that although the capital settlement for Amgueddfa Cymru is reasonable this year and the next, the long-term forecast is more uncertain. We as a committee are concerned that a lack of capital investment poses a significant risk to these collections. We urge the Government to look again at this issue in earnest for next year’s budget.

Perhaps it's difficult, Dirprwy Lywydd, to quantify what a loss these treasures would be to us; they tell our story as a nation, and their loss would be immeasurable, unquantifiable. I'm put in mind of a line in Stoppard's Arcadia, where a student learns about the loss of the library at Alexandria, and she remarks to her tutor, 'All those books. How can we sleep for grief?' It's immeasurable how important these are; a number can't be put on it, and we must ensure that they are protected.

Secondly, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'd like to talk about Wales and Ireland connections. We heard recently about the enthusiasm for collaboration between partners on both shores of the Irish sea as part of the Wales-Ireland programme, now and in future. This is something in which we all take a great deal of pride. However, we are concerned about the challenge of funding this work from 2025 onwards. The end of funding programmes from the European Union is going to deal a major blow to this collaboration. The committee understands that the Welsh Government cannot make up this deficit—the sums are enormous—however, the Welsh Government must ensure that sufficient resources are available to support the plans for 2025 and beyond. 

Finally, Dirprwy Lywydd, I’d like to touch briefly on funding for the leisure industry in Wales. Recent financial pressures have had a significant impact on this industry. We heard from organisations in the industry that the increased cost of running leisure resources, particularly swimming pools, has led to a crisis situation. The committee has already called on the Government to provide additional funding—targeted funding—to the sports and culture sectors to support venues and organisations that face having to close, but that have a sustainable future beyond the financial crisis. In addition, this year, the Welsh Government received around £3.5 million in Barnett funding following recent expenditure in this sector in England. We say that the Welsh Government must be clear about how it is going to spend this money on leisure services this year, particularly for the most vulnerable elements of the industry, such as community pools that are run by volunteers.

With those few words, I'll thank the committee and the Dirprwy Lywydd again.

I agree that a job is the best route out of poverty, as Paul Davies has said, as long as it's properly paid. Unfortunately, most of the people who are suffering the heat-or-eat dilemma are in work, and that's why it's really serious that we get people suitably skilled so that they can command higher wages. So, I certainly would like to see better advertising of the apprenticeship options and the young person's guarantee for 18 to 25-year-olds, because I meet far too many young people who don't know about them, and therefore colleges are not doing a sufficiently good job in advertising them.

I want to talk about the work of the Equality and Social Justice Committee in terms of how we cope with the difficulties that households are facing, particularly coming up to this winter, around the heating-or-eating dilemma, given the really significant hike in the price of food and the shortage of food that's available locally that's actually good for them, as opposed to making them feel even worse. I think we're very keen to see sustainable measures, rather than Elastoplast, and I think the top priority for us is to understand a bit better how we're going to get the new Warm Homes programme working more effectively.

The message is that the announcement made by Julie James on 23 June was very useful in understanding that all households will be able to get advice on decarbonising their homes, but clearly those who have money need to be paying for that themselves. I want to explore what we can realistically do to help our poorest citizens from freezing this winter, given that we no longer have access to the money we used to get from European funding and that it's all disappeared to the other end of the M4.

The majority of households supported by Arbed were in three local authority areas: Rhondda Cynon Taf, Flintshire and Blaenau Gwent. The total number of households actually supported by Arbed was well below 2,000 in those areas, and so well below 4,000 in total. It was interesting that, in some local authorities, they simply didn’t engage with the Arbed process. So, obviously, their proposals didn’t come forward.

It was also concerning to realise that the target of reduction in household energy costs of £425 per house wasn’t actually reached and it was only £330 per household. So, the process clearly didn’t achieve what it was supposed to. I suppose most concerning for us is that we simply don’t know the number of beneficiaries of the Arbed scheme who lived in the most deprived lower super-output areas in Wales—not publicly available at the moment. Officials have told us they simply hadn’t got the time to deliver it before today. I understand that, but we really do need these figures so that we can understand whether the Warm Homes programme is reaching those who most need this help.

We know a good deal more about how the Nest scheme is going to work, and in 2021-22, the Government invested £24.5 million in the Nest scheme, but I’m concerned that three-quarters of the people who were benefiting were owner-occupiers and that less than a quarter were private-rented households.

The top local authorities to get benefit under Nest were, once again, Rhondda Cynon Taf, but also Swansea and Carmarthenshire, which obviously have, I assume, advertised appropriately it to their populations. But the top three local authorities in terms of the numbers of households in fuel poverty are Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Powys, and therefore it is disappointing to see that they don’t seem to be doing nearly as well on promoting these schemes to ensure that those who are eligible for benefiting from them are actually getting them. Once again, we simply don’t have the data. So, I’m hoping that we can get the data early in the autumn term so that we can properly scour them and work out how the small amount of money—the much smaller budget that we now have—can be spent to the most effect.

In particular, we need to know a lot more about the Arbed programme, because that is where the area-based programmes can be aimed at targeting the real centres of deprivation. So, I hope that this can be made available before we have to make decisions in a very short timescale of a mere four weeks.

I'll be speaking in my capacity as Chair of the Local Government and Housing Committee. I would like to take the opportunity to reiterate some of our committee's key conclusions, following our scrutiny of the draft budget earlier this year. These are still relevant and important issues that we would like to see prioritised by the Welsh Government in the draft budget for next year. When I spoke this time last year, I emphasised our concern at the high number of people living in temporary accommodation and the importance of prioritising funding to enable people to be moved into long-term, permanent accommodation. 

In our report on this year's budget, we welcomed the additional revenue funding of £10 million for homelessness prevention, but remain concerned that this is not sufficient to deal with the challenges currently being faced. Since then, our report on homelessness also highlighted the high number of people still living in temporary accommodation and the need to prioritise funding to help people move into permanent homes. I would like to emphasise, as I did last year, that securing long-term accommodation in safe surroundings should be a key priority in next year's budget. I note that the engagement work undertaken by the Finance Committee also identified housing and homelessness as a priority area for funding in next year's budget. We recognise the Welsh Government's commitment to reform homelessness services and to work with public services to provide appropriate housing. We therefore urge the Welsh Government to reflect that commitment in the draft budget by prioritising funding for these purposes.

On the local government side, the financial pressures faced by local authorities is a recurring theme in our budget sessions. In the last financial year, local authorities overspent by £200 million and had to rely on reserves to cover that spend. This is clearly unsustainable. We welcomed the increase in the funding for local authorities this year, although the increases were lower than the rate of inflation. With inflation remaining high, local authorities still face difficult decisions that could impact on service delivery. We urge the Welsh Government to again commit to protecting public services by providing a settlement that enables councils to deliver services sustainably.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we raised concern in our report on this year's budget that the funding allocated to the Gypsy and Traveller sites capital grant is lower than in previous years, particularly as, during our inquiry into the provision of sites for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, we heard and saw that some local authority sites are in urgent need of maintenance or refurbishment. We were particularly concerned at the lack of spend from that fund in the previous financial year. We have raised our concerns with the Minister for Social Justice and urged the Welsh Government to ensure that the lack of spend in previous years does not result in lower funding being available next year. Diolch yn fawr.

I'm aware that time is tight, so I'll limit my contribution. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. In the little time available to me, I want to focus on three specific elements, namely community needs, housing and the health service.

Everyone here is by now aware that our local authorities are having a harder time of it than they were even during Cameron and Osborne's period of austerity. Our local authorities provide a large number of those essential front-line services on which we depend so much—from education to social care, not to mention vital services such as adoption and fostering and leisure provision. Far too often, local government is asked to do more with less. This cannot continue, so we must seriously consider the level of funding allocated to local government to ensure that they receive vital funding to provide these services.

This ties in with the issue of housing. The number of people in temporary accommodation is on the rise, with more facing homelessness. Unfortunately, the housing support grant hasn't seen a real-terms increase in a decade. We must therefore look at increasing this support as a matter of urgency, as we must with discretionary payments, to enable people to come through this difficult period. But, in the long term, we need significantly higher investment in constructing social housing if we are genuinely to tackle the housing crisis.

And finally, the NHS. If we are to ensure a future for the health service, we must look after the precious staff who work for it. This means fair working conditions, but also fair pay. Without this, we will continue to see staff leaving the workforce. There is also a need for capital investment, particularly in the community diagnostic element, and consideration should be given to prioritising this when allocating capital funds. Thank you.

I've just four quick points I'd like to make in my role as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.

The first is around capital funding. I think the limited availability of capital funding is undoubtedly going to be a significant barrier to the pace of transformational change that can be achieved. So, I think we do need to ensure that the capital funding that is available is used to the best effect, and I think this will need leadership and mechanisms to be in place to ensure that there is alignment between the Minister's portfolio, individual health boards and other health bodies as well. 

The second point I'd make is around social care. Certainly, I and the committee welcome the Deputy Minister for Social Care's first six month update on the social care fair work forum, but I think we will be keen to see further progress made in building the sustainability of the social care sector and its workforce. 

The third point I'd make is around health inequalities, a significant issue for the health committee. It's really important that we ensure that any differential impacts of funding allocations on different groups and communities are assessed and considered during the development of the budget proposals, not just at the end of the process. 

And the last and final point I'd make is around health boards' financial performance. I think it is unacceptable that health boards continue to fail to meet their statutory financial duties in 2022-23. In our report last year in committee regarding the budget, we raised concern about whether the steps taken to address this would be sufficient, and about the Welsh Government's capacity to work closely with so many health boards to turn their positions around. Diolch, Llywydd. 

I call on the Minister for Finance and Local Government, Rebecca Evans. 

Thank you. I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to outline the Welsh Government's preparations for the 2024-25 budget. I'll just begin by thanking the Chair of the Finance Committee for the very constructive engagement that we continue to have, and to thank all colleagues for their contributions in the debate today. I think having this early opportunity to think collectively about how we can deliver for the priorities of the people of Wales is really important, and an important point within the year, really, I think, to allow colleagues to set out their own priorities. So, I think it's been a very constructive debate indeed. 

I just want to start off, though, by being really, really clear that, because of the position that the UK Government have placed us in, this will not be a budget where we are able to do more. The impact of inflation and the refusal of the UK Government to increase spending does mean that the funding that we do have won't stretch as far as when we set our plans originally. So, this will be a budget where we have to focus on our most important priorities. It will be a budget that will mean that, in some areas, we will not be able to deliver on our ambitions. I think those are really strong statements. In some areas, we will not be able to deliver on our ambitions, and this will be a budget where we're not able to do more. I just think it's really important that all of us are starting this budget process in the same place with that information.  

We are preparing for our final year now of the three-year multi-year settlement that we set out in 2021 and that started with budget 2022-23. When we set those spending plans, we couldn't have anticipated the significant challenges that we have faced and that we continue to face. The continued dual crises of sustained high energy costs and the cost of living continue to significantly impact our budgets, and, of course, this has been worsened by the decisions taken by the UK Conservative Government under a series of hapless Prime Ministers. 

Inflation continues to rise, with food prices being at their highest for 45 years, and this, coupled with the Bank of England's response to further raise interest rates, will increase the financial woes of those who are already in crisis. And, of course, we couldn't have predicted the illegal war in Ukraine. I'm incredibly proud of our Welsh response to the humanitarian crisis, but again, this is something that we just couldn't have envisaged when we originally set our spending plans in 2021. And alongside those pressures, our budget continues to erode. It's worth £900 million less now than when we initially set our spending plans in 2021. Indeed, if our budget had just grown in line with gross domestic product growth from 2010, we would have £2 billion more to spend.

Let's just take a minute to think about what we could have achieved with that level of funding—the people, the communities and the public services that we could have supported further, and the opportunities that we could have created. We could have funded 41,000 band 5 nurses or 30,000 classroom teachers. We could have built 11,000 three-bedroomed social homes or 320 new primary schools or 80 new secondary schools. And that is really just a small snapshot of the massive impact that this constrained settlement means for the people of Wales.

I was pleased to see the recognition of the challenging financial landscape confronting the Welsh Government in the Finance Committee's engagement report and, to be fair, in colleagues' contributions this afternoon. Many of the concerns raised in the report are ones that I and my fellow Ministers share: the lack of capital investment and the need to ensure fair pay for our public sector workers; the sustainability of public services; the physical and mental health of our nation; and the impact of climate change on future generations.

The limitations on our settlement that I have set out do mean that there is little if any opportunity to fund new activity. We have less funding available to do all the things that we would have to do, let alone to do the things that we would want to do. Our budgets are so stretched we are now having to consider what we can continue to fund. Our current settlement means that there will be things that we can no longer afford to support, and all of this at a time when the people and communities of Wales need our help the most. The UK Government has failed to respond to these challenges time and time again. They've made a difficult situation worse, with poor decisions that are having huge ramifications for the people of Wales.

Will you give way?

Yes.

Are you aware that the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that Labour's borrowing plans would increase inflation and drive up interest rates, because the two are linked? The Bank of England has independence to tackle inflation, and therefore more inflation means more interest rates. So, shouldn't we be listening to the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies?

Well, are you also aware that the OECD and the growth commission through the London School of Economics have said that the way to grow the economy is to invest in infrastructure, invest in public services and, mostly, invest in human capital through skills? And we've had contributions from your own benches this afternoon saying how important it is to invest in skills. And this Welsh Government is committed to doing that within the resources that we have available to us.

The UK Government's response to our calls for action is silence. We've reached out on more funding for the NHS—no clear response. We've reached out on the timings of announcements, so that we can plan effectively—no clear response. We've reached out to highlight the issues that we face and show how the people that we all represent are being affected, but there's no clear response. So. I'm here today to set out how we can plan for the next budget round while we wait for the UK Government to catch up. As I've already outlined, we are in year 3 of a multi-year settlement, and therefore we do have a basis on which to plan for the upcoming budget period. Unfortunately, the front-loaded nature of our settlement does mean that next year sees a much lower uplift in available spend than the previous years, and when you add in the continuing negative impact of inflation to this, it does only mean difficult choices. And, of course, this is also the case for capital spend. As it stands, our total available revenue funding for 2024-25 will just be 1.4 per cent higher in cash terms than in 2023-24, and capital allocations are down year on year in cash terms. This is at a time when inflation, of course, is still more than 8 per cent.

The limited amount of funding means that we will have to be laser focused on what is a priority for the upcoming year and what activity we have to stretch, delay or stop entirely. I refuse to put our partners in the same position that we're in, working with limited information and continued uncertainty. Therefore, I'm committed to engaging with our partners regularly, being transparent about the challenges that we face, and open about the decisions that we're taking. 

Again, as I've outlined, we face ongoing uncertainty over the timing of the UK Government's autumn fiscal announcement, so we have been very clear about ours. We are committed to producing our draft budget before the end of this year with the aim of publishing our final budget in the spring, to ensure maximum scrutiny and certainty for our delivery partners. Of course, I do know that this timing is less than ideal for Senedd Members, but once again we have no firm commitment from the UK Government on when the autumn statement will happen, so, at this stage, I have no choice but to prepare for the last possible opportunity to publish in term time.

I want to acknowledge the feedback from committee Chairs regarding the nature of the information that we publish alongside the budget, and I'm very grateful again to the Chair of the Finance Committee for our regular and constructive dialogue on this. I do note the request for more time and better information to inform scrutiny, and I will obviously consider that very carefully. But I also have to balance this with the need for time for the Welsh Government to do the work that we have to do to set the budget, and the level of information that can be provided, given the time and the resources that are required to present the budget, and it does have to be proportionate.

The First Minister has this week talked about the difficulties we face in making significant progress with our programme for government against the strong economic headwinds. Our budget next year will be tough, the toughest that we've ever faced, and we all need to work together to meet this challenge. But I want to continue to listen to and to work with colleagues from across the Chamber in that spirit, and I'm very grateful for all the contributions today.

I call on Peredur Owen Griffiths to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. It's been a very productive debate, as usual. Thank you.

I am thankful for the contributions that my fellow committee members have made. Mike, Rhianon and Peter mentioned the work we conducted during the engagement sessions, and it was good to hear that we all identified similar themes, and it was good to hear those and the importance of collaboration and funding to target areas such as adult learning. I also note Rhianon's emphasis on the importance of focus groups to our work and the need to focus on key services such as health, education and social care.

I also very much welcome the contributions of my fellow committee Chairs. Paul Davies mentioned the importance of a strong economy to deliver community benefits and the positive impact this could have on public services if funds are targeted in the right places. Delyth talked about the priorities for her committee, including how crucial it is to support the essential work to safeguard our national treasures and the need for targeted funds to support leisure services, given the pressures that they face. I applaud Jenny's comments about getting young people suitably skilled to command better wages and echo her committee's views on the importance of long-term and sustainable funding to tackle poverty and all its ill effects. John talked about the priorities of his committee, including concerns about the high number of people living in temporary accommodation and the need for sufficient levels of funding to prioritise homelessness prevention. Our committee also very much echoes the concerns expressed about the pressures being placed on local authorities. I also appreciate the contribution made by Mabon, who talked about increasing support to tackle the housing crisis and the priority funding to ensure that positive future for the NHS and its workers. Russell, you also mentioned the importance of sustained levels of capital funding to deliver high-quality health services and the importance of making sure that the social services and social care workforce is resilient.

I acknowledge the Minister's comments and that the Welsh Government is facing the toughest funding landscape that they've had for a number of years, and some areas will need to be cut back. However, I'd like to ask the Minister to be as clear as possible in explaining to us and the public at large where those cuts will be, and what services will need to be rolled back so we can ensure that sufficient transparency is there to hold your decisions to account. I hope we will continue in the same vein of constructive criticism when it comes from the committee to the Minister when working in these challenging situations. Obviously, these priorities, if they're taken on board by the Welsh Government, mean we believe the budget for the next financial year will be greatly enhanced.

Having spoken to people across Wales, what they need now more than anything is for the Welsh Government to listen to their concerns and to focus their resources appropriately so that we make the best of what we have, so that we have sustainable services that address the concerns and priorities of the Welsh public. We hope to see progress on these issues when we undertake pre-budget scrutiny with the Minister early in the autumn term. I also hope that the other committees will do likewise in their own subject areas.

Finally, I'd like to thank those have driven our debate today, namely the stakeholders and the people who took time to engage with us across Wales. Without them, we wouldn't be able to have identified these meaningful priorities for the Welsh Government to take forward. To echo the comments that a few committee members made, we also have to very much thank our clerks and officials, who do keep things moving. I thank them for the work that they do throughout the year. So, may I move the motion? Thank you, Llywydd.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No, there are no objections, and the motion is therefore agreed.

Before I move on to item 9, the result of the election of a committee Chair for the Reform Bill Committee is now available, and I can give you that result. In favour of the election of David Rees as Chair of the committee 37, against 14, and there was 1 abstention. Therefore, David Rees is elected Chair of the Reform Bill Committee.

We will now move on to item 9, which is the debate on the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee report on common frameworks, and I call on the Chair to move the motion—Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. As Members will know, the Governments of the UK have agreed to establish common frameworks to manage divergence and devolved policy areas previously governed by the EU. They are deemed by the UK and the devolved Governments as necessary to manage policy divergence between the nations now the UK has left the EU, and to address other issues such as the effective functioning of the UK internal market, to ensure compliance with international obligations, and to enable the UK to negotiate new international trade agreements.

Provisional common frameworks have been in operation since the UK left the EU in 2020, but the final frameworks have yet to be agreed. Because of the important role common frameworks have in the governance of the UK post Brexit, the Governments of the UK agreed that all four legislatures in the UK should be allowed to scrutinise them and to make recommendations on their content to their respective Governments. So, final versions of agreements will therefore not be agreed until a Northern Ireland Executive is established and scrutiny has been completed by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Senedd’s policy committees have been undertaking scrutiny of individual provisional frameworks, and my committee has been maintaining oversight of the overall common frameworks programme as it applies in Wales. So, it’s on that basis that we published our report on common frameworks in May this year, making recommendations to the Welsh Government in respect of cross-cutting issues that have arisen to date. Collectively, Senedd committees have made close to 100 recommendations on their content.

We made 21 recommendations, and I welcome the Counsel General’s letter responding to our report, and I thank Members of the committee and our team for their diligence in bringing forward those recommendations. I recognise that the Counsel General is not yet able to respond formally to our recommendations until scrutiny has been completed by all four UK legislatures. But, nevertheless, I look forward to hearing any observations the Counsel General is able to make today as part of this debate.

Our report has looked at a range of matters: the implications for devolved policy making, stakeholder engagement, the relationship with the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, and international obligations, to name but a few. Clearly, I do not have time today to consider all themes in detail, but there are some I would like to highlight. Let me first of all turn to this issue. The Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee, the Climate Change, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee, the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, and the Health and Social Care Committee have all raised concerns about the potential for common frameworks to limit the practical role of the Welsh Government and Senedd in policy and law making for Wales. In reflecting these concerns, we have recommended that the Welsh Government should explain how it will ensure that common frameworks do not limit the role of the Welsh Government, the Senedd or stakeholders, indeed, in Wales when making law and policy for Wales, and we reiterate the recommendations made by several Senedd committees.

This is a particularly important point from a constitutional perspective, not least given the Counsel General’s own comments that common frameworks have the potential to be enduring, flexible and increasingly significant governance mechanisms for the policy areas previously co-ordinated and governed at an EU level. So, we sincerely hope that the flexibility the Counsel General mentions in his letter will enable divergence to take place to reflect the specific needs of different parts of the UK. It is for that reason we also recommended that the Welsh Government should seek inter-governmental agreement so that each common framework clearly sets out in which areas divergence will not be acceptable.

Linked to this theme of the practical role of the Welsh Government and the Senedd in policy and law making for Wales is the role played by the UK internal market Act, and I'll turn to that now. And many Members will recall that it was introduced after the common frameworks process was established. Through their scrutiny, Senedd committees have raised issues about the interaction of the UK internal market Act—UKIMA—with the common frameworks. The Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, the Health and Social Care Committee, and the Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee have recommended that the frameworks should be updated to acknowledge any interaction with the UK internal market Act. The Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee has recommended that an assessment of the impact of the internal market Act on Welsh legislation in framework areas should be included within annual reports on frameworks.

The UK internal market Act allows areas governed by common frameworks to be excluded from its scope. We have seen how this has been applied to single-use plastics and the Scottish Government’s deposit-return scheme. The HSC committee and the ETRA committee have both noted that the frameworks should be updated to reference the process for Governments requesting and considering exclusions under the internal market Act. They recommended that the Welsh Government seeks inter-governmental agreement to acknowledge this process. In the same vein, the House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee has stated that,

'The UK Internal Market Act 2020 has damaged intergovernmental relations. This means it is all the more important that the exclusions process, which is essential for mitigating the effects of the Act, is made explicit in all relevant frameworks.'

So, we therefore reiterated the views of the HSC and ETRA committees that the Welsh Government should seek inter-governmental agreement to amend each common framework to include a reference to the UK internal market Act and the process for considering and agreeing exclusions from the Act in areas covered by a common framework.

And the final theme, Dirprwy Lywydd, that I wanted to address is that of transparency and reviewing frameworks. In terms of transparency, the ETRA, PAPA, CCEI and HSC committees have all recommended that the Welsh Government should seek inter-governmental agreement to ensure that stakeholder consultation is undertaken during the review of each common framework and its subsequent amendment—a position we also endorsed in another of our recommendations. And a further recommendation of ours endorsed the view of other committees that the Welsh Government should seek inter-governmental agreement to ensure that each common framework provides that legislatures are notified of a dispute that has been escalated to ministerial level and are notified of the outcomes of any such dispute.

Our report also highlights how the HSC committee has noted that some frameworks contain limited information about ongoing reporting to legislatures and stakeholders. And the CCEI committee drew attention to the absence of mechanisms to support the scrutiny of frameworks once they are operational. It is not just devolved legislatures raising these concerns, Dirprwy Lywydd, the House of Lords Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee has stated that a process for ongoing reporting to legislatures should be developed as, in their words, 'a matter of urgency'.

So, we have therefore recommended, in line with the views of other Senedd committees, that Welsh Government should seek inter-governmental agreement to ensure the regular reporting to legislatures on the operation of each common framework. And if such agreement is not secured, the Welsh Government should regularly report to the Senedd on the ongoing operation of each framework.

The Counsel General told us, Dirprwy Lywydd, at the February meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Standing Committee, that the Governments agreed to a model for future reporting to committees of legislatures following finalisation of the frameworks. However, as we have already noted, those finalised frameworks may not be available for some time and the provisional frameworks are currently in operation. Important decisions are being taken by the Governments through these provisional frameworks—decisions on laws related to agriculture and the environment, for example. The Senedd was notified recently that the Environmental (England and Wales) Permitting (Amendment) Regulations 2003 fall within the scope of the resources and waste common framework.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I can see that I've gone over time already.

I was about to remind you that you've actually used all your time to close as well.

I apologise.

To close, we believe that in the interests of transparency, accountability and good governance, the Counsel General should also commit to reporting to the Senedd on the operational provisional frameworks on a regular basis as an interim measure. So, I welcome the comments and contributions that others will make this afternoon. And with your consent, I might be able to say a few words in closing.

You'll say a few words—it will take a minute to close. James Evans.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. The joys of having such a diligent Chair of our committee actually means that a lot of what I wanted to say has already been covered in the eight minutes in which the Chair has spoken. But I'd just like to thank the Chair and all members of the committee for the work that we've done on this. It's very, very important, because common frameworks are an important part of how inter-governmental relations are managed in the United Kingdom, following our departure from the European Union. All four Governments in the UK have recognised this framework as a good example of how governments can co-operate positively to manage divergence and make common policy decisions.

Common frameworks matter because they cover areas of importance to people's lives living here in Wales, such as agricultural support, public health, food safety and the environment—very key, important topics that need to be sorted out. This is why the committee took the task of scrutinising these frameworks seriously, and I do hope that all four Governments of the United Kingdom are able to collectively support all the recommendations in our report. 

Effective governance in the UK is dependent on all four Governments making the most of the new inter-governmental structures agreed as part of the inter-governmental relations review. I therefore hope that careful consideration is given to the committee's recommendation, which calls for each common framework to be updated to reflect the dispute avoidance and resolution process, as agreed as part of the review. 

One area of concern to the committee was the clarity and quality of some of the framework documents. Our report highlighted that the policy committees, such as ETRA, have found understanding some of the framework documents challenging, and it called for frameworks to be as plain and jargon-free as possible. As it considers final frameworks, I hope that the Welsh Government will follow the committee's recommendation that all frameworks and documents are subject to a full quality assurance exercise.

Common frameworks, if produced and used fully, have the potential to contribute to effective and efficient co-operation on policy and law making within the United Kingdom, to benefit the people of Wales, and I think that's what we're all here to do. I do hope that the Welsh Government and the UK Government give serious consideration to all our recommendations, as outlined by our Chair, as they finish their work on the frameworks, because if we get these things right, I actually do think we can create better law making and better inter-governmental working right across our United Kingdom. Diolch.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this debate as Chair of the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee. The United Kingdom's exit from the European Union resulted in a number of powers that were held by the EU being returned to the UK. Many of these intersected with the competencies of at least one of the devolved Governments, so the UK Government, Welsh Government, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive have been working jointly to develop UK common frameworks, a mechanism for the UK and devolved Governments to mutually agree some amount of regulatory consistency for sector-specific policy areas where returning EU powers are within devolved competence. 

The Business Committee agreed that the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee would consider the late payments and procurement provisional common frameworks. Following our scrutiny, the committee considered the frameworks and raised concerns with the Minister for Economy and the Minister for Finance and Local Government. The committee wrote to the Ministers again on 23 June last year to outline its conclusions about the specific frameworks as well as about the approach to the frameworks more generally. I'll now summarise the committee's conclusions. 

Our primary concern related to the dispute-resolution mechanisms governing the common frameworks arrangements. As stated, they're dependent on inter-governmental agreement, with negotiation between the four Governments crucial in managing divergences between the four nations. Whilst both frameworks include sections on decision making and for setting processes for Governments to make decisions jointly in areas of devolved competence, they are less clear about how policy divergences and disputes should be resolved. The committee is concerned about complaint handling and the adjudication of disputes, particularly as the risks of dispute are heightened because of inter-governmental tensions around post-Brexit constitutional arrangements. Accordingly, we believe that the framework should be amended to include more information about how disputes will be dealt with and to allow Governments to seek independent advice or arbitration via a strengthened dispute-resolution process. We also recommended to the Welsh Government that they set out their view on whether time limits should be specified in the dispute avoidance process or processes. We're concerned about the interaction between the frameworks and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, and believe that the frameworks should be updated to acknowledge any interaction with that Act. Similarly, we're concerned about the lack of clarity about how the Subsidy Control Act 2022 will impact public procurement in Wales and recommended that the Welsh Government kept this situation under review. On the question of divergence, we recommended that the Welsh Government sets out how it will ensure that the public procurement framework offers no less scope for divergence than would have been possible in the EU.

The approach to stakeholder engagement is a key consideration, and we concluded that the Welsh Government should commit to ongoing stakeholder engagement if legislation that falls within the scope of the frameworks is introduced into the Senedd. We concurred with the Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee, and the climate change and infrastructure committee, that the Welsh Government should seek inter-governmental agreement to ensure that stakeholder consultation is undertaken during the review of each common framework and its subsequent amendment.

On reporting and review requirements, the committee recommended that the Welsh Government also seek inter-governmental agreement to publish any joint reports on the operation of each framework, and if such agreement is not secured, that the Welsh Government should unilaterally publish annual reports. We also noted that the Welsh Government's reports should include relevant commentary on UK-EU relations and international activity. We also asked the Welsh Government to confirm whether a process for changes to retained EU law that apply under the frameworks had been agreed upon, and what that process involves.

We note that the four Governments of the UK have agreed to report annually on how the frameworks are operating. However, we're concerned that many of the frameworks are provisional in operation, despite ongoing disagreement between the Governments about a series of issues, including the interaction between the frameworks and the internal market Act. We remain concerned about the process and approach to these frameworks, and are concerned about the potential for policy divergence, the inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms, and the limited consultation and engagement with the public. As such, the committee will continue to monitor these issues, and we'll pursue these with the Welsh Government should we feel that there are further issues to examine. Diolch yn fawr.

Can I begin by recording my thanks to my former colleagues on the LJC committee, of which I'm proud to have been a part? What emerged most strikingly for me during the process of compiling this report, and indeed the work of scrutinising Wales's constitutional infrastructure more broadly, is the extent of the agreement across the committee that the people of Wales are poorly served by current arrangements. We disagree on our preferred vision for Wales's constitutional future, but as a committee, we feel that we have been consistently clear that the status quo is not working to protect Wales's interests.

A critical point for me is that the Senedd is where decisions about and for Wales should be taken and scrutinised. As this report that we have been debating today once again highlights, Brexit has consistently acted to constrain the role of both Welsh Government and the Senedd in making law and policy for Wales. Brexit has facilitated the power grab in Westminster and Whitehall and the consistent undermining of devolution, and I am unclear that this is liable to be reversed with a change of Government in Westminster either.

As we've seen in the case of Scotland's deposit-return scheme, the UK Government is the ultimate arbitrator of what kinds of divergence are to be permitted within the UK internal market, and this severely constrains devolved Governments' ability to implement policy. It is worth noting, as I have done previously in this Chamber, that, in this case, the Scottish Government followed the agreed common frameworks process for securing the exclusion under the internal market Act, but that the UK Government unilaterally changed the rules of the game halfway through.

We're assured that the common framework process is one based on consensus across the four Governments. In reality, it acts to reinforce Westminster's writ as both judge and jury on key regulatory decisions and the processes by which these decisions are made. As it stands, common frameworks provide us with less flexibility than the EU framework that they seek to replace, making it harder for us to make decisions that are right for Wales in areas like procurement, sustainability and public health. The Welsh Government should outline what it is doing to ensure that common frameworks provide the flexibility Wales needs and, I might add, how these policy constraints would be reversed by a UK Labour Government.

This also makes clear that, across all sectors, key stakeholders risk being shut out of decision-making processes under the common frameworks, and that processes, including dispute resolution, remain unclear. Here we have a further illustration of the kinds of democratic backsliding that have accompanied Brexit. Far from taking back control, Brexit has meant policy making that is more centralised and less accountable, and here too urgent action is required of the Welsh Government.

In closing, I'd like to make one final observation. We're assured by those who campaigned for Brexit that it was about reducing red tape. I can't help but be struck by the sheer investment of time, energy and public resources that this report represents; the volume of additional scrutiny that is now required of post-Brexit constitutional and governmental process, which are themselves sometimes impermeably complicated. Far from reducing bureaucracy, it seems to me that Brexit has increased it and, therefore, the cost of doing business exponentially. I would argue that this all leads weight to my party's argument that we should seek to rejoin the European single market with urgency. More immediately, we need urgent action to simplify and reduce the burden of processes, like the common frameworks, that Brexit has inflicted. Diolch yn fawr.

While the common frameworks are supposed to encourage co-operation between the different Governments of the UK and the different legislatures of the UK, it remains unclear to me how they will impact the powers of the Senedd and the Welsh Government. The report talks of the impact of diverging legislation, but, surely, that is devolution, and isn't divergence from the current UK Government often a good thing, as we saw during the COVID pandemic?

On another matter though, I do agree with James Evans. The frameworks themselves are written in very-hard-to-understand language, and a proof-reader is desperately required. Examples of basic mistakes include a colour-coded diagram printed in black and white, and references to sections that simply aren't found in the frameworks. Will the Welsh Government please publish guidance on the common frameworks and any potential impact that they have on the devolution settlement? Because, currently, I do think there still is a lack of transparency and accountability and far too much complexity with regard to common frameworks. Diolch yn fawr.

I call on the General Counsel and Minister for the Constitution, Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee for its valuable presentation of the comments of various Senedd committees on the framework agreement documents. Under the protocol between the four Governments for comments from legislatures on the framework agreement, I cannot, at this stage, comment in detail on individual recommendations. Committee members will understand that. This will have to wait for the restart of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the comments of Northern Ireland Ministers, which I hope will not be far off. However, I can outline my understanding of the broad principles relating to some of the topics raised in the committee's report.

The common frameworks provide examples that demonstrate that good inter-governmental working is possible, and that coherence and divergence can be managed through constructive dialogue and collaboration. I think those points have been made by all the speakers today, and it's my view that, despite these successes, the mechanisms that the frameworks programme provides for early engagement do need to be more consistently used.

I've repeatedly stressed at meetings of the inter-ministerial committee that this point should be positively reinforced for colleagues at ministerial and permanent secretary level. For example, we've experienced problems in the past on border decisions where the relevant frameworks were not used, as well as a lack of consultation on the announcement of, for example, the then Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill. The concept of the common frameworks was an essential part of the Senedd giving consent to the UK Government's European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, based on the associated inter-governmental agreement, and this reinforces the importance of the common frameworks again.

So, in addition, my officials will be monitoring the use of the exclusions process under the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, and it is vital that any exclusion requests are properly considered and managed in a timely and transparent manner. There needs to be clarity as to what is being considered, what decisions are being made, at every stage of the process. Senedd Members will be aware of the recent disagreements between devolved Governments and the UK Government on agreed policies concerning a deposit-return scheme, including glass bottles and the banning of wet wipes, and I can only perhaps read out the comments in the letter from the Minister for Climate Change that she sent to the Rt Hon Thérèse Coffey on this. She said,

'I'm concerned that over the last six months the IMG, as a core element of the frameworks process, has deteriorated, and significantly so. In relation to the deposit-return scheme, I've written to you separately. Strong statements were made by UK Government about the difficulty of any form of divergence.'

Perhaps just referring to the points that Mark Isherwood has made on the issue of divergence. So, there you have the UK Government making clear statements about avoiding divergence between the four nations, but then noting that the difficulties arose as a direct result of the UK Government deciding unilaterally to diverge from a common four-nation position on the material scope of the scheme—one that had been consulted on and agreed jointly between Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I have to say, very frankly, that the behaviour of the UK Government in these cases is impossible to reconcile with the principle of the common frameworks. Proper use of the frameworks is vital for the functioning of the UK internal market, and the most effective way of ensuring regulated co-operation and coherence, and this is only possible if the mechanisms they provide for are adhered to. Divergence is not just when Wales or Scotland choose to do something different, but not divergence when the UK, for England, decides to do something unilaterally. That is also divergence, and that is very clear in our understanding of the common frameworks and the way they should operate.

The frameworks programme is a considerable success at operational level and it has enhanced inter-governmental working, but the UK Government must recognise that this can only continue in an atmosphere of mutual respect, where the foundational framework agreement signed in 2017 is adhered to by all parties on all occasions. And perhaps in response to the final comments of Peredur and, indeed, Rhys ab Owen, on the EU: perhaps the only thing I can do is to quote Nigel Farage, who said, 'Brexit has failed.' Diolch.

 I call on Huw Irranca-Davies to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Counsel General, thanks for that response. I think the contributions today have shown how common frameworks, even in this provisional form, are playing an increasingly important part in governance of the UK post Brexit, and they need to work and be effective—points that have been picked up by many Members. This is why the LJC committee and policy committees have diligently taken the scrutiny of these frameworks to task and developed detailed recommendations for their improvement. So, we hope that in reaching decisions on final frameworks, these recommendations are given careful consideration by the Governments of the UK, and we look forward to that full and detailed response from Welsh Government in due course. In the interim, all of our committees will continue to scrutinise the operation of these frameworks.

Can I thank James Evans, Peredur and former LJC member, Rhys ab Owen, for their contributions, and, of course, my fellow Chair Mark Isherwood as well? It shows the diligence that we are applying to this, and my thanks to all committees and their teams for their consideration of these common frameworks. I wish, Dirprwy Lywydd, you and them—if I can take this opportunity—and even the Counsel General, some quiet down time as we go into recess as well.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 10 this afternoon is the Petitions Committee and the Children, Young People, and Education Committee joint debate on services for care-experienced children and young people.

Today, we want to warmly welcome a number of care-experienced young people, who have come to watch this debate from the public gallery. So, welcome to you all. And among them are many who have contributed to the inquiries by the Children, Young People, and Education Committee and the Petitions Committee, by sharing their direct experiences of the care system here in Wales, and the experiences of their families and friends. Can I thank you all for that contribution? I hope that you hear your voices reflected in the contributions today in the debate.

I call on the Chair of the Children, Young People, and Education Committee to move the motion. Jayne Bryant.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. Today is a day when two crucial pieces of work about care-experienced children and young people converge. In March 2023, the Petitions Committee published their report, 'Supporting care experienced parents'. Their inquiry and ours are inter-connected. We have spoken to some of the same care-experienced parents and stakeholders; we have explored some of the same themes of trauma, hope and ambition, and we have come to some similar conclusions about certain issues. So, I'm delighted to be speaking alongside Petitions Committee Chair Jack Sargeant in today's joint debate, and I extend my thanks to the Llywydd and the Deputy Minister for their support in making this joint debate happen. Diolch. I'm absolutely thrilled that we're joined in the public galleries by so many care-experienced children and young people, professionals and academics. We're so delighted that you could join us. Diolch.

Care-experienced young people have absolutely fully and completely driven this piece of work. They are our most important stakeholders. What they told us was at the heart of everything we wrote in our report. So, let me put this quite plainly: when we're debating our report today, we're debating how much ambition we have for them, we're debating whether radical reform actually means something, whether, this time, things will change for care-experienced children and young people. Because when we spoke to care-experienced people, we heard cynicism about whether what we and others were doing would actually change anything. Would we actually do something to help this time? Would we just be another set of adults to forget about children and young people we met? Would we turn our back on care-experienced people, many of whom face more adversity in their childhood than anybody should ever face over their lifetime? And I'll say to you today that our committee will never forget you and the things that you told us.

On 24 May, we published our report, setting out what we believed a radical reform of services for care-experienced children and young people should look like. At the core of the report is a troubling conclusion: corporate parenting as it's currently conceived in Wales fails too many children. It's important to highlight that many care-experienced young people have positive experiences of the care system, but, sadly, for too many, they do not. Far too many are passed between social workers, a profession that is evidently overworked and under-resourced. Far too many are moved frequently between placements and schools, unable to find somewhere to settle and call home, struggling to build a support network around them. Far too many receive poor mental health support, or no support whatsoever, to come to terms with the trauma they have experienced. Far too many don't do as well as they could do at school, or go to university or college. Far too many are homeless. Far too many have their own children taken off them, in a harrowing and painful testament of corporate parents' failure. Anybody claiming that the state is doing its corporate parenting job well should consider whether they would be happy for their own child to be cared for by that system.

Our report calls for 12 radical reforms. These are big, ambitious changes to fundamentally reshape the system in care-experienced people's favour. To give effect to those radical reforms, and to other important improvements, our report makes a total of 27 recommendations. And as a cross-party committee of the Senedd, we have absolutely no vested interest in presenting any particular picture of the care system. It therefore gives me no pleasure to say that my fellow committee members and I are disappointed with the Welsh Government's response to our report, and I'll outline why in a moment.

But before I do, it's also important to recognise and acknowledge progress. We commend the Welsh Government for its commitment to early intervention. We heard glowing praise for projects like National Youth Advocacy Service Cymru's Project Unity and Barnardo's Baby and Me, which are clearly making a tangible impact on the lives of families on the edge of care. I know that Jack Sargeant will be discussing these issues in more detail in a moment. We're also pleased to see the Welsh Government's commitment to the real problem-solving court, which we believe has the potential to make a real difference to families on the edge of care.

And we are encouraged by the Welsh Government's willingness to work with key stakeholders to explore the creation of a national register of recognised and approved foster carers. The register will help to build a better picture of fostering capacity across Wales, improve safeguarding of children and elevate the status of foster carers. And we welcome the Welsh Government's willingness to consider reforms to housing and homelessness legislation. 

However, our focus today is on our recommendations that have the biggest potential to effect change for as many care-experienced children and young people as possible. Our report calls for legislation to be brought forward to drive down social workers' caseloads. We understand that setting out one single caseload cap for social workers isn't the right approach, so we propose a legislative model whereby local authorities would take steps to calculate and maintain safe caseloads for children's social workers. And we propose a comprehensive workforce sufficiency planning exercise to feed into that legislation, to ensure that we have the social workers we need. 

Young people's experiences of social workers indicated that many social workers are struggling to deliver child-centred relationship-based social care. This view was borne out by the evidence we received from other stakeholders too, including representatives of social workers themselves and from the limited data available. Some social workers have caseloads of up to 50 families. Some young people have had more than 20 social workers. Around half of all social care teams are agency workers, and hundreds of children's social worker posts across the country are permanently vacant. Think about the impact of all that instability on children, young people and their families, and think about the instability of all that in the social care workforce. Representatives of local government were very clear that the staffing crisis facing children's social care is the one single most important thing that we can do to make sure that we can deliver the radical reform.

The Welsh Government rejected these recommendations. The Welsh Government believes that recent ongoing pieces of work led by Social Care Wales and others will address these critical issues. And we considered these pieces of work during our evidence gathering. We came to the conclusion that, though valuable, they weren't going to effect the scale of change that care-experienced children and young people and social workers deserve. So, can the Deputy Minister confirm whether and how she believes that the existing pieces of work set out in her response to our report will achieve that fundamental change in children's social work that young people and social workers are calling out for?

The Welsh Government has rejected our calls, and the calls of many others, for the Welsh Government to lobby the UK Government to make 'care experienced' a protected characteristic. And it has rejected our calls for corporate parenting responsibilities to be set out in legislation, placing very specific duties on local authorities, health boards and others to work collaboratively and promote the well-being of care-experienced children and young people. Amongst other things, these corporate parenting duties would give every care-experienced child and young person the legal right to specialist therapeutical mental health support. They would impose a duty on the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research to promote post-16 education to care-experienced young people.

The Welsh Government's response said that its recently published corporate parenting charter will eradicate the stigma experienced by many care-experienced people, and radically improve the services that care-experienced children and young people receive from public bodies. The Welsh Government will be encouraging bodies to sign up to the charter voluntarily, and the charter will be underwritten by additional guidance in the Part 6 code of practice. However, this is the very same code of practice that we have heard time and time again, throughout our inquiry, from almost everybody we spoke to, that it wasn't being followed properly. And what assurances has the Deputy Minister had that the voluntary corporate parenting charter, underpinned by guidance that public bodies already do not follow consistently, is going to radically reform children, young people and families' experience of the care system?

Llywydd, there's so much more I could ask. There is so much more that we’re eager to clarify, so, today, we have invited the Deputy Minister and the First Minister to come to the committee in the early autumn to discuss the Welsh Government's response to our report further, and we do hope that they will attend. But for now, I look forward to hearing the contributions of colleagues across this Chamber. Diolch.

I now call on the Chair of the Petitions Committee, Jack Sargeant.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Presiding Officer, and it’s a great privilege on behalf of the Senedd Petitions Committee to thank you for the opportunity to introduce our report this afternoon, 'Supporting care experienced parents'. As you've heard already from the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee, Jayne Bryant, this is part of a broader debate about how we care for and support some of our most vulnerable children and young people in Cymru. I extend Jayne Bryant’s good wishes to the Presiding Officer and to the Minister for agreeing to hold this joint debate, but could I also commend the leadership of Jayne Bryant and her committee, and the clerking teams for both the Petitions Committee and the children and young people committee, for making this a reality?

I had the great privilege about an hour ago, Deputy Presiding Officer, to meet some of the young people and to watch them engage in the reporting session, where the clerking teams of both our committees went through the report in detail, and just to see how engaged those young people were was quite an inspiration, actually. If we look to the public gallery now, on a Wednesday afternoon at nearly six o’clock, Deputy Presiding Officer, there are more young people in that small section of this public gallery than there are Members in the Chamber. This is what these pieces of work mean to the young people, and I thank them wholeheartedly for their support in our inquiry.

Our inquiry started with a petition from Nicola Jones, a foster carer who was concerned about the outcomes for young people who become parents whilst being looked after by the local authority, or having recently left care. The petition calls for improved data collection to inform better understanding of what happens to care-experienced parents and their children. As a committee, we wanted to learn more about young people’s experiences. As I say, we were extremely grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer, to everyone who gave evidence to our inquiry, but particularly those young people, those 25 care-experienced parents, who shared deeply personal and often rather painful experiences with the committee, and they did it in order to prevent others going through similar experiences. It’s commendable, Deputy Presiding Officer.

One young person—. Let me give you this example, Deputy Presiding Officer. One young person in evidence to our committee spoke about her experience of giving birth. Let me quote what she said.

'I had terrible hospital treatment. I felt more like a criminal than a new mother, to be honest with you, I was clearly being judged.'

Well, that is not acceptable. Our children and young people deserve quality, kind and compassionate care.

Worryingly, research shows that care-experienced young people are often over-represented in care and child protection proceedings. We took evidence from Dr Louise Roberts of Cardiff University. Her research found concerning evidence in respect of outcomes and levels of parent and child separation. A snapshot of care-experienced parents undertaken identified 258 parents, and showed that 26 per cent of children were separated from both biological parents. The research pointed to evidence of stigma, evidence of discrimination and disadvantage in professionals' approach and attitude towards care-experienced parents, that their experience before care and in care would impact their ability to be parents. It highlighted routine referral of parents to children's service for parenting assessments. This is not usual practice for all young parents.

The Petitions Committee made six recommendations to the Welsh Government to improve outcomes for care-experienced parents. Two were accepted and we welcome the commitment to ensure that every care-experienced parent has suitable housing provision. But I share frustration that the Welsh Government cannot accept fully and commit to all of our recommendations: to require public bodies to adopt the corporate parenting good practice charter; to ensure that data is routinely collected, where the petition and this inquiry started from, from our side of things; to continue those important multi-agency services like Project Unity; and to update legislation to provide wraparound preventative support for care-experienced parents.

But let me take you back, in closing, so Members understand the real unfairness of the situation in front of us. This example has stuck with me ever since we've had this inquiry. One care-experienced parent told me of a visit from a social worker. The social worker turned up at her home. She saw an unopened bottle of wine on the counter—not an unusual thing to have. She opened that bottle of wine, which had sat there for months unopened, and she poured it down the sink. She said to that care-experienced parent, 'If you carry on like this, you'll end up like your alcoholic mother.' Deputy Presiding Officer, that wouldn't happen to you or me; it shouldn't happen to care-experienced parents either. The individual was being judged for having a bottle of wine in her house, and the individual was concerned they were being judged in an unacceptable way. Well, her concerns are right: she was being judged in an unacceptable way.

Minister, I know you will find that particular example difficult, just as I did, and the committee did as well. I urge you in your work, because I know you do have a long-standing commitment towards those in care and supporting those in care, but when you do your piece of work and you respond to this debate, to look again at the Petitions Committee's report, to look at the evidence behind the recommendations we made, and the same with the children and young people's committee report, because those recommendations were built on the experiences of care-experienced parents, like many of those that we see in front of us today. We owe it to them to get this right. We owe it to them to do everything possible to support them, and I urge you to do that. Diolch yn fawr. [Applause.]

Just for the information of members in the gallery, we don't normally clap, we let Members speak, okay? [Laughter.]

But he deserved it.

He always deserves it.

I'd like to start by thanking, of course, our fantastic Chair, Jayne Bryant, and our clerking team from the children and young people's committee, and my fellow committee members, as well as Jack Sargeant and his committee, for the commitment and hard work that have gone into our reports, which highlight the radical change that is needed. The real need for this committee to undertake this inquiry stemmed from conversations I had with a former Monmouthshire County Council member, who happens to be my mother, who's up here in the gallery today, highlighting how critical it was that we undertook this work today, citing the lack of consistency in care facing our care-experienced young people and the fact that they had to relive their experiences, time and time again, something that our evidence also clearly showed. I'd like to welcome her here today, of course, but also a group of care leavers and experienced personal advisers from my region, as well as the many, many people that you can see above us today who have contributed valuably to our reports.

This inquiry generated a whole host of emotions amongst all of us: sadness, anger, admiration, to name a few. I, like all my committee's members, are fiercely proud of our report, and I think it's safe to say that all of us, cross-party, feel hugely deflated and disappointed by the Government's response to this report, to the point that we almost thought that the Government should pull this debate today. As a committee, we have listened. There is strong evidence behind our recommendations. It almost feels like the Government didn't even read the report.

The current system is broken. Radical change is absolutely critical, and we need to end this postcode lottery when it comes to care. Otherwise, it's a clear acceptance from this Government that—. Although I know the Deputy Minister has been passionate about this in the past, the response today suggests an acceptance that it's okay for some children and young people to fall through that net. The Government have played it safe, which doesn't reflect what the Deputy Minister's previously said regarding care-experienced children. Her passion on reform has been clear in the past. So, it's confusing, Deputy Minister. I would ask the Deputy Minister today to reconsider her entire response.

Coupled with this, and adding to the confusion, is the First Minister's own leadership manifesto that outlines that radical reform was needed for care-experienced children, so surely he can't be happy with the response after showing so much personal commitment to it. And as our Chair has just said, our committee has now requested an urgent scrutiny session with the Deputy Minister, perhaps even the First Minister, alongside our children's commissioner and future generations commissioner, which I think is absolutely necessary, considering this unique position we find ourselves in today where the Government has essentially rejected 22 out of the 24 recommendations. I have never seen this in my entire time of being here in the Assembly, now Senedd. This throws into question the whole point of committee structures and scrutiny within the Senedd.

Moving to the report itself, recommendations 1 and 2 sought to introduce safe working levels for social workers. The Welsh Government themselves set a precedent for this through the introduction of the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016, so you can be assured that I was both shocked and confused at the Minister's rejection of these recommendations, namely that on one hand, you say that you want to change the narrative to professionalise social work, but on the other, you're rejecting a policy that would put those in these settings on equal footing with other health workers. Whilst case numbers aren't simple to quantify, with cases being varied in complexity, I implore the Government to review case levels to create a system of protection for workers.

Moving on, I'm disappointed to see the Welsh Government reject recommendation 6, which calls for increased data collection in this sector. I know the Minister must be acutely aware of the overwhelming evidence laid out in the report, which shows that the current system quite simply is not fit for purpose. From your Government offices, away from reality, you may think the data already available is sufficient, but for experts and stakeholders above us now working in the field, the picture is vastly different. For example, feedback from one of our care-experienced children indicated the demand outweighed the supply when it came to the excellent When I am Ready scheme. Simply, we need more data to find out what is working and what is needed.

I'm pleased to see the Government recognises the incredible work that's been done by Barnardo's Baby and Me in Newport and in my region. It's inconceivable to me that such a scheme, about which the Deputy Minister herself has admitted the strong evidence of positive outcome, is not going to be given long-term funding. Schemes like this are a win-win scenario for all stakeholders, and I firmly believe that the Government must seriously consider futureproofing funding for these schemes. Minister, you explained that there will be a review, and I welcome this, but Minister, I believe that for transparency and stability for the sector, this review needs to be reported back to the committee, and we need to see timelines. Spanning a large proportion of the inquiry—

Your time is up, and I do have a lot of speakers.

Am I allowed to finish?

A closing sentence, please.

Okay. That's a bit poor. Minister, your Government—

Hang on a second. You made a comment that I will not accept. You are allocated a time. You've gone over that time. We have a lot of people who wanted to speak in this debate, and I ask you to keep to your time.

Sorry, Deputy Presiding Officer. Minister, your Government's actions in this sector are merely a life support for a flatlining sector. In the poignant words of the care-experienced young children that the committee met with to take evidence, 'What is the point? Nothing will change', which is something to consider, considering what your response has been to these recommendations. Nothing has been proposed. You haven't proposed any radical change. Minister, if not now, when?

'Disappointing'. We use that word very often in this Siambr when discussing developments or responses, and we use it too much, perhaps, but disappointing is the only way to describe the Government's response to this report on radical reforms for care-experienced children and young people. I was very pleased to be a member of the committee whilst we held this inquiry, and I'd like to thank the excellent research team and the excellent clerking team and my fellow Members for their work. The evidence that we heard from some of our most vulnerable young citizens, a number of whom join us today, who've had the most difficult beginnings to their lives, will remain with me forever, and the voices of these young people were at the heart of our work, and at the heart of our recommendations.

Our report expresses the level of ambition that these people who have experience of being in care deserve, and I have no doubt that they, too, are very disappointed in the Government's response. In response to the Government's commitment in their own programme for government to consider reforming care services for children and young people in a radical manner, and taking them at their word, we as a committee decided that the inquiry would be a deep dive into the heart of the matter, leading to recommendations that weren’t easy to accept—not minor changes that would make a small improvement in certain elements, but 12 radical reforms that were firmly based on evidence and data that we spent months gathering and considering. Of the 12 recommendations that make the most radical changes, one was accepted—one. By failing to accept our recommendations in this way, the Welsh Government cannot claim for a second that it wants to deliver radical reform.

In the Government’s annual report, which we debated yesterday, the Government mentions that they have held their first summit on reforming the care system, which puts care-experienced young people at the heart of this important process. As a result, the report states, the First Minister and the young ambassadors signed a joint statement outlining a vision for transformed services for care-experienced children and young people. Is that signature worth anything? I would argue that it isn’t.

A corporate parenting charter was announced to deliver the statement last month—a voluntary charter, as we heard from Jayne Bryant. A summit, a statement, a charter—all well and good—but are they signifiers of radical action? What we need to do is embrace ambitious ideas—action, not words. Words will not lead to any meaningful change for care-experienced children and young people: those who have to threaten to harm themselves before receiving the attention of their social workers, because those social workers’ workloads are so burdensome; the children who feel that they have no voice as decisions are made about their lives; the children who go missing from the system because robust processes are not in place. 

I have specific questions on that. We heard during our inquiry from the Children’s Society and NYAS Cymru that there is a need for consistency in the way that agencies and services respond to cases of children and young people missing from care. At present, there is no statutory requirement to undertake a return-to-home interview to understand why the child went missing and what support could prevent it from happening again. In their response, the Government states that research commissioned in December 2022 demonstrates that creating a statutory requirement for this to happen is limited. So, I'd like to know, Minister, what exactly the Welsh Government’s expectations are of stakeholders involved in the response to missing persons cases involving children and young people. How will the Welsh Government ensure that there is a consistent response to such cases across Wales? And when will a report on the research be published?

We heard powerful and heartbreaking evidence that social workers are under so much pressure sometimes that they find it difficult to foster a good relationship with children and families and that many people then don't receive the support that they need. We had ambitious recommendations that sought to respond to this, which we have heard about. In its response, the Government notes a wide range of work being done to improve working conditions, training and options for social workers. So, why does the reality tell us such a different tale?

Our report’s title is, ‘If not now, then when?’ It’s a question to which I hope you are giving serious consideration. It should be a question that keeps you awake at night. The voices of young people here who have been let down at the moment will keep me awake. The report reflects the reality of today’s care system, the reality of those children and young people who in live that system, and those working within that system— 

Sioned, you have to conclude, please.

One sentence: the reality is, Deputy Minister, that your Government isn’t sufficiently bold, brave or ambitious, and isn’t, perhaps, able to deliver radical reform. I urge you to rethink your response. 

Thank you to the committee, to Jayne Bryant, to Jack Sargeant, but more importantly to those who are in the gallery today—to the young people and their carers and those who are supporting them. This committee for me really lived what I've heard: that there should be no change about us without us. You modelled that through your engagement. Thank you very much. 

I do want to thank the Minister, because I know that you are committed to ensuring that young people and children have the best care possible, which is why I was so, so downhearted when I read your response to this report. You accepted 10 per cent of the recommendations. I've looked back at other committees—68 per cent accepted in the dentistry report, 67 per cent accepted in the culture report, 48 per cent accepted in the mental health report, et cetera, et cetera. To accept so few is shameful. It really does, I'm sorry, give a clear message—well, a message—that this is not about ambition and radical reform. 

There are some things on which I agree with you, which is that I don't support the recommendation around workload weighting. I was a social worker for 27 years, and for a year of that I worked a workload weighting system. It meant that we were so admin focused; we need to be child focused here. So, what we need is more ambition around making sure social workers have the right support, that they have practice-based theory, evidence based, that they have good supervision, that it's systemic therapy, and that we have reflective practice. For me, workload weighting, maximum workloads, does not work and won't. 

I'm pleased to see acceptance of services to support care-experienced parents, advocacy and parenting assessments. I'm really delighted to see the Family Drug and Alcohol Court acceptance. I've worked with FDAC and it does work. And I'm really pleased to see the review of unregistered and unregulated placements. So, thank you for that. But, there's so much there that I'm so disappointed with. And really, the big thing that, for me, I'm disappointed with is about giving children and young people, many of whom are here, a voice that is registered in a statutory provision. 

Let me just talk about a few of those really quickly. Advocacy to be absolutely within our statutory framework. You say that we should have opt-in; let me tell you what an opt-in strategy looks like for a child when you take them to a new placement. I've done it, sadly, so many times. A child, young person, is absolutely stressed out, they are sad, they're upset, they are mixed up, and then you say to them, 'And you can opt in to this advocacy process.' It just does not work as a strategy at all. You need to make sure that's a statutory requirement. It could be the following day that that person goes back and says, 'Would you like advocacy?', the following week, the following month. It just has to be there. It is so, so important. 

I want to talk about return-home-after-missing interviews. I've worked that system, I've worked the requirement that it's a statutory requirement that children are interviewed. It does work. It can be, again, the following day, the following week, when the child is ready. But if it's in law, then it has to happen. That safeguards the child. 

And finally, I do want to talk about the really upsetting one for me, which is you rejected the opportunity to make care experience a protected characteristic. We have protected characteristics as women, Minister, and yet you are denying that to our care-experienced young people, many of whom are discriminated against in education, in opportunities, in employment. To give them that protected characteristic would be so beneficial to them. We have it, many of us here have that protected characteristic. I really do want you to think about that. That would, for Wales, put us so much on the map. Minister, there is so much that happens in Wales for our young people that I've celebrated, that I've been so proud of—the basic income pilot, taking the profit out of care—yet I'm so ashamed of these recommendations that I think are so important that have been rejected. I'm echoing what everybody else says: if not now, when? Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I'd like to start by thanking all those who have taken and who will take part in today's very important joint debate, and I commend those who have given evidence and spoken about their experiences of the care system in Wales. Both reports today are comprehensive and show the extent of the work that still needs to be done to help protect some of the most vulnerable in our society.

Addressing the report on supporting care-experienced parents, it is fundamentally important that we acknowledge the issue of intergenerational state intervention. For 46 per cent of parents who place their children up for adoption to have been care leavers themselves is a clear sign that there are substantial flaws in the experience that care leavers have, which perpetuates this ongoing state intervention. I cannot comment on the psychology of why this happens, but there seems to be a need for a better link-up between those with the knowledge of the likely behaviours of those who are vulnerable and often traumatised, and those who are responsible for providing the care that is experienced by them. By this, I mean that there are likely to be psychological triggers and a similar combination of experiences that are causing this intergenerational state intervention, and it's going unnoticed.

Those in the Chamber will know that I've spoken of my concerns about this before, but I am deeply concerned that the Welsh Government’s universal basic income trial may well end up being one of those triggers. I know that many who support the trial will not see it this way, but I do believe that giving care leavers £1,600 a month for two years may cause some care leavers to experience a false sense of security. We know that 25 per cent of care-experienced young people are parents on leaving care, and this rises to 50 per cent after two years. I am worried that when this money is withdrawn at the end of the trial, many may well find themselves in even more difficult financial situations. These two reports before us have shown that care leavers face trauma that many of us will never, ever know, and, if I am honest, I think that the Welsh Government's universal basic income trial should never have been tested on such a vulnerable group. If the trial is found to have negative effects on their lives, which I think it could well do, then there would be no recompense or support offered by this Welsh Government.

I was pleased to see that the Government has accepted recommendation 22 and, in part, recommendation 23, of the 'If not now, then when?' report, because it is obvious to me that care leavers need significant support for much longer than is currently provided for. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I would have been ready to leave home at 18 had I not had the continued parental support right up to university and beyond. Between the age of 18 and our early 20s, we still need considerable parental guidance to help us make the right choices and guide us through life, and it is right that we make provision for this for care leavers.

Ofsted's 'Ready or not' report last year showed that more than a third of care leavers thought that they left care too early, with very little preparation for what awaited them outside the care system. The report also showed that many leavers were not aware of their rights, had very little training in money management, and had very little involvement in any plans made about them, and as a result felt isolated and lonely. So, I was surprised, when reading the reports, that there was no mention of loneliness in either of them. I think this is a shame, because I believe it is likely one of the triggers that may well be causing the high number of care leavers to have children before they leave care.

We know that people can feel lonely, even if they have large and interactive social circles, and this is because loneliness is caused when people process the world idiosyncratically, i.e. as a unique set of experiences that are exclusive to them, and they cannot find others who can relate to their experiences and circumstances. I would argue that we need to do much more to improve the experiences of care leavers at different stages of their care to prevent these feelings of loneliness and isolation taking hold, so that we can improve their outcomes, and that we should have recognised a long time ago that these vulnerable people need more care, more guidance and more support for much longer if they are to break the cycle of intergenerational state intervention. Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd.

First, I'd like to start by thanking the Chair of our committee, Jayne Bryant, and other members of our committee, and on the other committee that's brought this forward today, for all the work that they've done on this, and the clerking team as well, for all their help. I think, most importantly, the people to thank are those experts and those young people who actually fed into this inquiry, because they've shaped this report. It hasn't been shaped by us as Members; it's been shaped by you. You are amazing people—absolutely amazing people—and that's why we've brought forward this report, so we can actually change the way the system works here in Wales to actually help those care-experienced children, going forward. Before we looked into this report, I was probably quite blind to the fact of the things that were going on. I went on visits with the committee to Ebbw Vale, took evidence, and I did not understand the level of discrimination people face, the judgment that care-experienced children face and the stigma that comes with it. I recognise that, and that is why we've come up with these radical reforms to change the care system in Wales. I know it's a priority for the Government, but the response doesn't seem like it's a priority for this Government.

Our report highlighted many areas where we thought we could change the system. A key part that I thought was really, really important was to legislate on social workers' case loads, to ensure that we protect our social care staff, because if we don't protect our social workers and our staff, we cannot deliver the system that we need to support those young people right across Wales. Yet again, that recommendation was rejected.

One element of the radical reforms that was really key for me was the statutory entitlement to trauma-informed therapeutic care, that wraparound care for care-experienced children, ensuring that they could get the mental health support that they needed in a timely manner, because we know that these children face extreme elements in their mental health, and they need to have that care as soon as they can to make sure these problems don't get worse. That was a key part of this report and, yet again, the Government rejected that recommendation.

Will you take an intervention?

I'll take an intervention, Lynne, that's fine.

James, can I just clarify that we didn't reject that recommendation? It was accepted in part because we absolutely recognise that we need to be doing more to support care-experienced young people in a therapeutic way, and we are fully committed to that. It was the legislation that was called for that we didn't think was necessary. So, we did not reject it, and I say to all those young people that we will deliver that therapeutic support for them.

That's good to actually hear that response from the Government, because that wasn't actually in the response that we got. So, it's actually quite good, Lynne, that you could clarify that as a Minister of the Government.

But one thing that we also wanted to see was advocacy support put in legislation, and the Minister can make an intervention again if she wants, because this wasn't accepted; this was rejected. We heard from the Government's response that there is something in place for advocacy support, but we took evidence from industry professionals, from young people who told us they are not getting that advocacy support. It's not even offered. So, I'm afraid to say, something needs to change, and that is why we wanted to see it in legislation. But that, again, was rejected by the Government. So, I'd love to know from the Deputy Minister how you're going to ensure that young people can get the support they need, because it's not happening currently.

I do want to comment on the overall response from the Welsh Government in the short time I have remaining. In the time that I've been in this Senedd, I don't think I've ever seen such a dismissive and out-of-touch report come back from the Government to a committee, and it made me feel, reading that report, 'What is the point of being a Member of this Senedd when the Government do not listen to cross-party recommendations, coming forward from young people and professionals in that sector?' It actually really upset me—why we're here, when you're not willing to listen.

I will finish now in the 30 seconds I have left. A young person who we took evidence from told me and Buffy Williams that this engagement exercise that they were doing was a complete waste of time. They'd been here before, they'd talked to the Deputy Minister, they'd talked to your officials. Nothing happened. That young person said to me, 'You'll forget me, you'll forget my name, you'll forget this ever happened, and nothing will ever change.' And I want to say that young person, 'I'm never going to forget you, the committee will never forget you, and you'll stay in our hearts for as long as I'm here and for the rest of my life, probably, and our committee will do as much as we can to make sure that you get the radical reforms you need to make your lives better, living in Wales.' Diolch.

While care experience is traumatic and disruptive to the well-being of many, these reports clearly show that that doesn't have to be the case. As James Evans said quite powerfully, we need to address the stigma. We need to fix the unworkable and dehumanising level of case loads social workers are facing, and to introduce effective ways to deal with the trauma of many young people in care. Anyone who has worked with vulnerable children can attest to the action that many take in order just to gain the attention of overstretched social workers. These include committing crimes, self-harming and attempting suicide. As one young person said, 'You've got to make a statement to make something happen.' When almost 80 per cent of social workers are worried that they won't be able to complete their work within their contracted hours, are we really surprised that they don't have the time to build the proper relationships that they need to do and that are so essential between them and the young people in their care? I accept Jane Dodds's expertise in this matter and agree with her that the last thing we need is to detract from the children and create more administrative work. Yet, something needs to be done when it's so obvious that many problems arise because staff are so overstretched.

When I used to practise in youth justice, I felt terribly guilty every time I saw a young person in care in front of the court. I often said it was around 1:4; in 2021, the figure was 21 per cent in Wales. They are also far more likely to be repeat offenders in the youth justice system, and then, later on, in the adult criminal justice system. Wales has a high number of children in care. If children are placed into care, we have a duty to support them. Currently, we are failing our children. We are creating untold damage that will be felt for generations to come.

There are alternatives. The evidence from the Family Drug and Alcohol Court pilot in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan is very promising, with other pilots across the world showing that these courts do improve the likelihood that a family will retain the care of their children and stop substance misuse. The anecdotal evidence of the pilot seemed to show a greater sense of trust being built between families and their local authorities, and this is just common sense. If you treat people with respect, with kindness and with understanding, they'll have far better outcomes than if you stigmatise them, disrespect them and ignore them. However, yet again we face the glaring issue of the lack of specific Welsh data. This is raised time and time again in this place. Without proper data, we can't do proper planning and policy making. As Laura Anne Jones highlighted, this is scandalous. There is such a huge gap in the data on offending rates, substance misuse, emotional and behavioural health, and health and development outcomes for young people in care—another strong reason for the devolution of justice, but I won't go down that route today.

Finally, there's been a concerning increase in the number of deprivation of liberty orders being handed out to young people in care, especially those in unsuitable accommodation. One reason I saw that this is happening is to try and keep the children local. Well, surely, the local authorities should be able to produce registered and regulated accommodation to protect vulnerable people without having to resort to depriving them of their liberties—that's not the way to keep people local. These reports make for depressing but unsurprising reading. We have known about these issues for decades. The Welsh Government, the First Minister has known about these issues and has spoken about it for many, many years.

'Disappointing' is the word, as Sioned Williams said.

If the Government wants to have a truly radical programme of reform, these reports are the perfect place to start. Diolch yn fawr.

It's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon, and I'm thankful for the work of Jayne Bryant and Jack Sargeant, members and staff of the Children, Young People and Education Committee and Petitions Committee, in compiling this interesting report. As I'm aware, these issues run deep and require a lot of time and attention to do them proper justice. And I'm not a member of either committee, but I do follow these subject areas with some great interest, so I do monitor proceedings. As I say, I'm so thankful for the work that's been done, and the members of the public who've come to monitor our proceedings here this afternoon.

I intend to keep my remarks fairly brief this afternoon, and I'm not here to repeat what's already been said, and we have covered a lot. But I want to focus specifically on looked-after children's services in Wales, if I may, and, as shadow Minister for social services for the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd, I have regularly raised, at many levels, my concerns around the abolition of profit-making looked-after children's services, which, indeed, currently makes up 80 per cent of looked-after childcare provision across Wales. Not only do I believe that it's an ideological notion against the sector, which is both uninformed and narrow-minded, based on ideology from the Welsh Labour Government and co-operation Plaid Cymru Members, but I've also been contacted by many business owners across Wales who are deeply concerned by this ideology, and by the lack of strategy and consultation from the Welsh Government.

As it has been described, business owners are worried sick about their futures, and aren't informed of a timeline or pathways to achieving this policy. One can only imagine the stress and strain this is putting on business owners, on top of having to deal with the difficult and challenging nature of the job of looking after some of the most vulnerable children in society. And what is important to bear in mind is distinguishing the difference between profit-making and profiteering. And I've seen little evidence in the time that I've spent covering this portfolio of any profiteering happening at any level, which has led me to the conclusion of it being an ideologically based vendetta against the sector. The business owners I spoke to operate on very small profit margins, and one should know that, in order for businesses to function, profit has to be made in order to fund services, staff overheads, and, with rising energy bills, it further narrows their profit—

Will the Member take an intervention, a very brief intervention?

Yes, certainly, Jane.

Thank you for what you've said; obviously, I don't agree with you. But I wonder if you just hear the voice of some young people, who said, 'We actually don't want a price put on our head'? And therefore, this debate is actually not about the issue of taking profit out of care, it is about focusing on children who are looked after. So, please, I just ask you to limit your comments to the recommendations in the report. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr.

Well, what underpins all this, Jane—. We've talked for an hour about children's services and the most vulnerable children in society, but where are they looked after? Some 80 per cent of the sector, Jane. So, there's an elephant in the room here, and it's good to give a rounded—and highlight some of the underpinning nature of this. The reality of the fact is that the First Minister stood up only last week, and gave an update on his programme for government, and mentioned again his desire to abolish profit-making looked-after children's services in this Senedd term. So, what that requires is to be very radical about what they're doing in order to turn that around in, what, the next two and a half years we've got left of this Senedd. It's not long, and it's 80 per cent of the sector. So, the time's ticking, and people need answers in order to provide the services for children, to carry on into the future.

So, I'll head back to my comments. It further narrows the profit margins with rising energy bills, in a heavily regulated sector, which naturally incurs many consequential costs. That's not an argument against regulation of the sector, more just to highlight the scale of the problem and the rejection of the implementation of the policy within the sector. So, what I would appreciate in the response from the Minister later on—well, next in the proceedings—is to specifically respond to this problem, and to highlight the future consultation that the Welsh Government plan to have with the looked-after children sector on the abolition of profit-making children's services, to map out the timeline of implementation, and provide better communication with the sector. Where this isn't supported by myself or the Welsh Conservatives—

Will you take an intervention?

I'm just finishing, Heledd, thank you.

—at least the Government can be upfront and honest about how they intend to follow up on this ideologically driven agenda. Diolch.

I'd also like to thank everybody who's been involved in the two committees' work, including, first and foremost, those individuals and those organisations that gave invaluable evidence to our committees. I was a member of the children's committee, carrying out this inquiry, and I have to say that the committee worked incredibly well on a cross-party basis—it really did. And rarely have we gone through such a challenging process in terms of what we heard, what we learnt, what we discussed. And I do think that the report that we've produced as a consequence of our inquiry was something that every Member of that committee could sign up to in full.

Now, I won't repeat the arguments that have been put forward by other Members today, but I'm very pleased indeed that the Deputy Minister has responded so quickly to our committee's request to come and join us for a scrutiny session on 14 September, where I'm hoping we'll be able to discuss the concerns of Members in greater depth, and to hear again in greater detail the Government's response to our recommendations. At least three of the parties that are represented in our Senedd are in favour of removing profit from the care system, but I would argue that this should not be the centrepiece of radical reforms. Radical reforms must lead to improved outcomes for those young people who experience care, and, ultimately, the radicalism of the package of proposals that is put forward will only be judged on the basis of whether it leads to fewer young people having to be taken into care. 

I'll just make one final point. I think it's fair to say that, as a committee, we consider this only as the beginning of a process of trying to positively challenge and positively influence Government policy, and Ministers can be assured that if the proposals that are brought forward are truly radical and designed to vastly improve the life chances of those young people who are represented so well here today, then they can be assured of cross-party support for those proposals. 

And I call on the Deputy Minister for Social Services, Julie Morgan. 

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. I welcome the Plenary debate this afternoon and thank Members very much for their comments because I think, on the whole, it's shown their passion and concern for some of the most vulnerable young people that we have in Wales. And I would like to confirm that I am very happy to come to the committee, and that I'll be very happy to discuss our responses in more detail, and it can be an ongoing engagement.

So, can I say again how grateful I am to both the Petitions Committee and the Children, Young People and Education Committee for conducting their inquiries, and especially to all those people who gave evidence based on their direct experience? And I know that many of you were here listening in the Chamber today, and I'd like to thank you very much for sharing with us your experiences. So, diolch.

I welcome the committees' reports, and these reports share our ambition to transform services for children, young people and their families. Both reports highlight a number of the key issues we need to address as part of our transformation journey. There is a great deal of common ground between what the reports say and our own transformation programme. While we may not be able to meet all of your expectations, particularly around the need for legislation, I can assure you that we have listened carefully to what both committees have said, and this will certainly inform our thinking as we move forward. In the response, of course, we did accept 20 of the recommendations either in whole or in part. In Wales, our preference has always been to collaborate and to co-operate, and to rely on a common set of values and a shared purpose, rather than on legislation, and I want to continue in that way, as I think we need to really engage people, and to ensure the best outcomes. 

Now, our shared vision for children's services in Wales is that we want to support children to remain with their families, and we want to see fewer children and young people entering care by providing the right support at the right time for families going through difficult times. And for those children who are in care, we all want them to remain close to home so that they continue to be part of their community, remain in their schools and close to their friendship groups. We want services for children and young people to be locally based, locally designed and locally accountable. And we must put in place the right type of care for each child or young person that best meets their needs, and this means that we require better joining up of services with clear lines of accountability. We have to provide highly skilled, specialist support for children and young people who have more complex needs, and we need to make sure that we look after those who care for children.

In particular, the Welsh Government greatly values kinship care, and this is one of the areas that we are developing. We have set up a special guardianship expert group that will be looking at developing an improved and consistent needs-based approach to supporting special guardianship families across Wales. In addition, Foster Wales is committed to ensuring that kinship foster carers receive the same support as mainstream foster carers, and has launched its national commitment, which is an agreed package of training, support and rewards consistently available to all foster carers, mainstream and kinship, in Wales, through all 22 local authority fostering agencies in Wales. We want those young people leaving care to be ready to live independently when the time comes, and to plan for their future, including starting employment, having a place to call their own, and possibly becoming parents themselves and not suffering the stigma that Jack Sargeant referred to.

Our transformation programme that the Government has started to deliver this change is clear, and based around our work to deliver eight specific programme for government commitments, and our 'Children and Young People's Plan', which was published last year. There is a clear road map and plan for this wide range of work, a great deal of which is already well under way, and includes the development of a national practice framework that will set out how we work in Wales in a child-first and consistent way to ensure the best experience for our most vulnerable children and young people. And I want to tell you that this transformation programme—a lot of this work is under way throughout the Government, and a lot of the things that you’ve referred to are already being done.

As part of this, we are driving forward our work to eliminate profit from the care of looked-after children, as has been discussed here this afternoon, and I am proud that we are doing that. I think it is something that children asked us to do. This came from children themselves, and as Jane Dodds said, that’s what we want to listen to—the voice of the child. So, that is a radical thing to do, and we are doing it—

Deputy Minister, will you take a very brief intervention?

Yes, very quickly, because I've got—

Removing profit from care was not part of this committee, and I'd really love to hear from you responses to some of the issues that were raised by us in the Siambr around the recommendations in the report. So, I wonder if you could give us your response to that.

Yes, I will get to that. But I think, Jane, what I’ve said is that I will come to the committee and go through these things in more detail, so I think that’s the most important thing to do.

So, other work being taken forward includes the expansion of the existing parental advocacy service across Wales, which has been referred to in the report, through additional investment, and the publication of the corporate parenting charter last month. Now, the corporate parenting charter has been mentioned here a lot today, and our corporate parenting charter stresses that everyone has an active part to play in looking after our care-experienced young people. And yes, I do believe it will make a difference. We will be launching it publicly in the autumn and we will be getting people, bodies, organisations to sign up to it, and I think it’s absolutely crucial that that corporate parenting charter is developed. Central to all this—[Interruption.] I’m not going to take any interventions now. Central to all this work, and most important of all, are the voices of children and young people.

Members will be aware—and it has been mentioned—of the inaugural care experience summit, which took place in December last year. I know that this event left a mark on all my ministerial colleagues present. The resultant summit declaration is the first of its kind in the UK. It was signed by the First Minister and four of the young ambassadors at an event on 10 May. By signing this declaration, we are fully committed to its delivery and the ambition underpinning it, and I believe that everyone who attended the event on 10 May will have been aware of the emotion and resounding support it received. We will be having a repeat summit where we will be held to account by the children and young people when we go to them and tell them what we have done. We have given this commitment. We have the eight steps forward, we will be delivering to the young people, and we will be held to account by those young people.

We have the ambition and we have the drive to deliver this declaration, and its existence has rightly brought to national attention the ambitions that we have set. But we know it’s not going to be easy. Obviously, we have queries about how far we're actually able to do what we're saying, and people talk about having reviews and doing more research and all those sorts of issues, but I feel very strongly that we know what we need to do and we're going to do it. We're going to do it as part of our absolute commitment.

Of course, we understand that there are going to be both workforce and resource challenges, and the issue about workforce has been brought up in points today. Social Care Wales is looking at those workforce challenges and is planning a route ahead. As a social worker myself, I know of the huge pressures in social work, and I know that we must do all we possibly can to help the social workers, and we are planning for that. We've got bits of work going in over the whole of the Government. But I welcome this debate, because this emphasises and brings up all those issues, and it is supporting what we want to do. We want to achieve, we're doing it, and we want to reach the situation where we are able to get feedback from the young people.

In recognition of the importance of our work, we've strengthened governance arrangements to provide direction and commitment to enact change. Both the transformation of the children's delivery group and the ministerial oversight board are now in place. The delivery group, whose membership includes local authority and third sector representatives, as well as care-experienced young people, is leading and driving forward the delivery in a co-productive way. Care-experienced young people are working with us in order to deliver our plans. The ministerial oversight board is providing political leadership and direction for the programme. The board is jointly chaired by the First Minister and myself.

We know that there is a lot of hard work ahead, but we are determined to achieve this, and both committees' reports will support our journey to get there. I know that we're all agreed that we all want the best for our children and young people in Wales—all our children, no matter what their backgrounds are, where they come from or where they live. We want them all to have the best experience of childhood we can give them and to go on to lead the lives that they want to live.

I just want to finish by saying that the Welsh Government is totally committed to that. We're totally committed to our young people, and we are working towards giving them the best opportunities in life that we can. I know that many of the young people who are here and many of the young people who gave evidence to the two committees will have been through harrowing experiences. I have listened to many young people, and it's because of listening to young people that we are absolutely committed in the Government to change how things are. I can give you my commitment today.

I call on Jayne Bryant to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. Thank you to everybody who's contributed to today's debate. I'm very grateful to the Deputy Minister for her commitment to come so quickly to our committee after only receiving that invitation earlier today. We're very grateful, and I know this will take place after the recess. I heard her words about it being the start of discussions and a continuation of that, and I'm sure the committee will be very glad to be part of that.

I know I haven't got very much time, Deputy Llywydd, but I just wanted to say that we started this with the Welsh Government's commitment to exploring radical reform, and those were the Welsh Government's words, not our words. We started the inquiry because we didn't know what that commitment meant in practice. We had no specific agenda, no reason to present any particular view or to make any particular recommendations, and we also know that the Deputy Minister and the First Minister have a personal commitment to this agenda.

But we were certain that we would do one thing in particular—that we would speak to as many care-experience children and young people as we could and make sure that our report responded to what they told us. I really hope that they feel that we have done so. I stand here today in awe of all those care-experienced people who contributed to our work. When we spoke to them during our inquiry, and when I spoke to them earlier today, and when I see them in the public gallery, I feel an overwhelming sense of duty to them, because despite everything that they have been through individually and collectively, despite the inherent trauma that is shared by every child who is placed in the care system, despite all the times that they have been let down, underestimated, written off, they still have chosen to share their stories with us. They have chosen to do what they can do to drive change and make things better. They have done that knowing that any reform cannot change what they have been through. For most, it may come too late to change their experiences of the care system. But they still fight for change, for themselves, for their families, their friends, and for any children and young people who come into contact with the care system. I hear their voices, and I think of them often, and I know that other Members here do too. 

I want to close today's debate by thanking everybody who has spoken to us today, and our magnificent clerking and research team, led by Tom Lewis-White and Sian Thomas, who have been incredible throughout our work. And to everybody who's contributed to our inquiry, and to the children and young people here today, to those who weren't able to come, and to everybody else with experience of the care system, whether or not they contributed to our work, this is not the end; we may have not achieved everything that we had hoped for, but we as a committee will do everything we can to push for the radical reform you deserve. This is just the beginning. Diolch yn fawr.

The proposal is to note the committees' reports. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The next item is the Plaid Cymru debate on the Crown Estate. I call on Delyth Jewell to move the motion.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Wales is a nation rich in potential and no more so than in our natural resources—the tides and wind, the energy that's inherent in our land and waters. But so much of those riches are at a remove from us. They do not benefit the people who live in our country, but are instead used indirectly to line the coffers of the King, to add yet more wealth to Treasury funds miles away in London. As figures last week show us, that wealth has increased to record net revenue profits of nearly £433 million UK-wide. The value of the Crown Estate's assets in Wales are known to have reached more than £600 million by the end of 2021—these vast amounts of wealth that are locked away.

The Dick Whittington story talks about how London streets are meant to be paved with gold. In the story, the character finds the pavements are grey and grimy, but that idea seems now to be more than a metaphor, because all that is gold does not have to glitter or sparkle in the sunlight; sometimes, its shine can be obscured, hidden in vaults beneath the pavements. The riches that come from the land beneath our feet, from our land, are taken out of the sun, extracted from under our noses without our even seeing it happen.

In the days of coal, that black gold ripped from the earth underfoot, we'd at least see the wagons of coal going down the Valleys and disappearing to the docks, but now, we don't even see that wealth as it leaves us. Because this story of our land being used to enrich others whilst we remain in poverty is a familiar refrain for Wales. It is the story of every town and village of our Valleys that are now called 'post-industrial', defined despairingly by what we were, by what was taken from us, not by what we can become. And that is what this debate is about, too—about offering another chance for our communities to benefit at last from the land that is ours, and a land that belongs to our future.

The old saying goes that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children—an inheritance that links our past with what is to come, if it is allowed to become.

As Gerallt Lloyd Owen mentioned in his poem 'Etifeddiaeth',

'We were given a country to care for, / a piece of land as proof / that we insisted on existence.'

A piece of land that is testament to our efforts, our determination, our hopes and our ambitions.

This land can never be looked on coldly. We cannot only see it through the prism of hectares or habitats, as vital as those metrics are. But the land to Wales is also our heritage. As R.S. Thomas, that poet of the land and Iago Prytherch, said: 

'This is his world, the hedge defines / The mind’s limits; only the sky / Is boundless'—

though—

'His gaze is deep in the dark soil'.

Our inheritance, from the industrial south to parts of rural Wales and all the land that's in between, this is our asset, our witness to our history, to our survival, and you cannot look on it coldly.

With that context, let's look at some of those metrics: 65 per cent of our foreshore and tidal river bed, the majority of our territorial waters, over 50,000 acres of common land, including mineral deposits—all of that is legally classified as being hereditary possessions of the British monarch in perpetuity. The wealth represented by those resources is profound. As I’ve said already, they were valued at over £600 million in 2020-21. But the cruellest element of this constitutional nonsense, whereby not a penny of those profits stays in Wales, is how it limits our potential, closing off the possibility of accruing another kind of wealth—a green wealth, which should be within our grasp, but is instead kept tantalisingly out of our reach.

The Crown Estate’s own research has shown that the Celtic sea could accommodate an additional 20 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2045, which could bring £20 billion of direct capital investment to our domestic market. But following that, a global export market could open up, worth £500 billion by 2050. I’ve remarked on it before in this Chamber, Llywydd, because we need to keep grounded in the debate—it is a debate about the ground, after all. The first £1 million cheque in the history of the world was signed in Cardiff docks and not a penny of those profits was spent in the Valleys where the miners toiled and died from the dust that it left them with. All that black gold turned to dust.

And now here we are, talking about the potential for hundreds of billions of pounds, but it may as well be as dust to us, because as it stands, it’s up to the UK Government and the Crown Estate to ensure that Wales benefits from that expansion in technology by encouraging developers to use companies based in Wales—local supply chains that have already been excluded from the benefit of conventional offshore wind, as major fabrication and installation works have been undertaken overseas. Out of sight, out of mind—just like the proceeds from that cheque that left these shores the moment that it cleared.

With a Crown Estate devolved to Wales, yes, it would provide the potential for thousands of jobs; yes, it would allow us to help our communities. But it would also provide us with an opportunity to enrich future generations by using the revenue from these assets to establish a wealth fund for Wales inspired by similar funds in Norway, but built with the profits of renewables and not oil—gold that is not encased in the soot and dust of our yesterday, nor smeared in the oil that clogs our today; a gold that will not pave the streets of another land in riches, but a gold that’ll be invested in our shared tomorrow. A type of gold that does glitter and sparkle with the promise of hope. Because I come back again to this idea, Llywydd, that the space we inhabit, the land over which we are custodians for our future’s sake, is essentially kept locked away from us.

It’s sobering to think that, were we to attempt to harness the potential of that land without the say-so of Westminster or the Crown, we would be trespassing—an outlaw in our own land, transgressing a law that represents neither nature nor common sense, an invisible line that plots and traces these miles, these acres, and puts them under the jurisdiction of another land, defying geography and genealogy. We would be trespassing. But against whom is the greater trespass, the greater sin, when the bill will be paid by generations yet to be born, and when the debt we accrue on their behalf is growing every day?

I talked earlier about Dick Whittington and the pavements lined with gold. I've talked about the black gold of the miners that turned to dust in their throats. There is another allusion I'd make in closing, another reference to golden riches underfoot, with perhaps a moral lesson. In 'He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven', Yeats talks about gold and silver, about how he would wish to spread beneath the feet of the person he loves the vastness of worldly riches. He says,

'But I, being poor, have only my dreams',

and so he spreads those dreams under her feet, imploring her to tread softly upon them. We perhaps find ourselves as Yeats; being poor, we have only the dream of benefiting from such a wealth beneath our feet, only the dream of such a future. We tread the cloths not of heaven, but of earth; the earth that is ours, the earth that belongs to our future. We should not have to dream of those riches being passed to them.

Tonight is a chance for us to lay claim to what is ours, to say, as Scotland, that the proceeds from our own resources should be used for the benefit of the people of Wales, now and in perpetuity. It is a richness greater than any gold, and it should be invested in our tomorrow.

I have selected the amendment to the motion, and I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move amendment 1. Janet Finch-Saunders.

Diolch, Llywydd. Thank you, Delyth, for opening that. That was such beautiful poetry, but I cannot agree with a lot of what you have said. We've actually used a lot of Plenary time talking about the devolution of the Crown Estate. Llywydd, can I just make it clear here that our Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, has made it clear that there will be no further devolution of power for Wales? As Rishi has said, people do not want more constitutional reform and 'constitutional tinkering'.

Plaid Cymru, as a party, it's fair to say, you've become rather obsessed now with devolving more powers, and in this instance the Crown Estate. This latest debate forms part of a series of their calls for control. Now, what this Parliament has to ask, again, is: are these calls for reform reasonable? Absolutely not. The first half of the motion only tells us part of the story. The net revenue profit has been generated for the nation's finances. The increase primarily reflects option fee income from the signing of agreements for leases for six offshore windfarms through the round 4 leasing programme and revenue resilience in its other lines of business. Over the last 10 years, the Crown Estate has contributed £3.2 billion for the benefit of the nation's finances through the active management of a portfolio that has doubled in value to nearly £16 billion.

My colleague Siân Gwenllian knows that the Welsh Government couldn’t manage the Parc Bryn Cegin business park effectively, so why would you call for the Welsh Government to have even more control on this? Rhun ap Iorwerth knows that the Welsh Government couldn't manage the Menai bridge effectively, so why would you be calling for them to have more control? And Llyr Gruffydd, my North Wales regional Member, knows that the Welsh Government couldn't manage Betsi Cadwaladr—

Would you take an intervention? Would you agree that the UK—

I haven't taken the intervention. I was just going to carry on.

Oh, okay, I thought you were looking at me.

All right. Okay. Are you taking the intervention?