Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Good afternoon and welcome to this Plenary meeting. The first item on our agenda this afternoon will be questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language, and the first question is from Buffy Williams.

Llywydd, the draft budget invests an extra £1.5 billion in public services and growth in Wales. We cannot undo 14 years of damage in just one budget, but our proposals will help Rhondda residents dealing, for example, with food poverty, child poverty and domestic violence—a cause that the Member has done so much to highlight.

We know that the cost of living is still biting, with rents, mortgages and energy costs still at an unsustainable level for too many families. Earlier this week, like very many charities and community groups across the country, Canolfan Pentre finished preparations to support families this Christmas and over the winter months. We know that this work is invaluable for the Government and life-changing for families and children who receive the support. How will this investment, announced as part of the draft budget, continue to support the third sector, and will the discretionary assistance fund and debt advice support be maintained for families? Thank you.

Llywydd, I thank Buffy Williams for that and congratulate her and thank all those friends and supporters who will have been involved in the work that she outlined, supporting families, and particularly children, over the Christmas period. The budget does indeed provide a number of additional investments to help with that work. There is an additional £1 million for the discretionary assistance fund, taking it to £40 million for next year. There is £1.5 million for investment in warm hubs to help people to keep warm, to keep fed, and to have a place to meet others and to socialise over this winter.

The single advice fund budget to which Buffy Williams referred continues at £12 million in 2025-26, and there will be an additional £1.9 million as Wales's share in the debt levy. My colleague Jane Hutt has already made it clear that we intend to tender for a further three years of grant funding for the single advice fund from April of next year—a clear demonstration of our commitment to go on providing those information and advice services that make such a difference in the lives of so many families in the Rhondda and far beyond.

Cabinet Secretary, according to their statement of accounts, Rhondda Cynon Taf Country Borough Council has just over £255 million in usable reserves. These vast reserves are sat in a bank account while there are residents in the Rhondda and elsewhere in the county borough struggling to make ends meet. What is worse is that the Labour-run council has voted again to increase its council tax next year by just under 5 per cent. Do you agree with me that it is immoral for this council to have such vast reserves when there are people living within Rhondda Cynon Taf who will be deciding whether or not to heat their homes or have a warm meal this Christmas? Thank you.

Well, Llywydd, the level of reserves for any local authority is a matter for the local authority, not for me, and the local authority is answerable to its local population, and it is the people of the Rhondda who will decide whether or not the council has done a good job when that council is up for election again in 2025. We know that the picture is often more complicated than the question implied. When the Member says 'usable reserves', they may be usable because the council has a number of projects in mind—plans, as RCT quite certainly has, to invest in twenty-first century schools, and parts of those reserves will be there because they're earmarked for use in the future.

Llywydd, thank you very much to John Griffiths for the question. Welsh belongs to us all and to every part of Wales. We have launched the second stage of the Commission for Welsh-speaking Communities and we’re working with partners across the east of Wales. There will be an opportunity to discuss and celebrate this at the Wrexham National Eisteddfod in 2025 and, of course, in the Urdd Eisteddfod in Newport in 2027.

Natasha Asghar.

One group that—

Oh, no, I do apologise. I do apologise, John Griffiths. John Griffiths to ask his supplementary question.

I'll come to you, Natasha. John Griffiths.

One group that is doing excellent work to encourage the use of the Welsh language is the Newport Welsh Club—a small group of people of all ages and backgrounds that meet regularly in the middle of the city to practise their Welsh language skills in real situations with learners and other Welsh speakers. The group helps to provide experience to people of discussing everyday things that are important to them, in as much Welsh as they can, to meet new people, and, perhaps most importantly, to make mistakes and learn from them. The experience of learning outside the classroom is where the actual progress is made in terms of learning a language. Would the Cabinet Secretary agree with me that these meetings are something that we should appreciate in terms of developing and growing the language?

Thank you very much, John Griffiths, for that supplementary question, Llywydd. And I thank him for the example that he sets in terms of using the Welsh language. Of course, I agree with him when he thanks Clwb Cymraeg Casnewydd for the work that they do. It's wonderful to see people coming together in this way to socialise through the medium of Welsh and to do it on a voluntary basis. As I understand it, the club is an opportunity for people to use the Welsh language wherever they are on their language journey. It demonstrates the importance of practising and using the Welsh language, and, of course, of making mistakes, because it's through making mistakes that people learn to use any language better. So, of course, I do agree with the Member on the importance of the work that Clwb Cymraeg Casnewydd does, and I'm sure that they, and others in Newport, will look forward to seeing the Urdd Eisteddfod in that area for the first time, in 2027.

Cabinet Secretary, when I recently raised the issue of the Welsh language-only digital variable signs on the M4, you said it had the sound of an urban myth. Following our exchange, an abundance of motorists and constituents contacted me, highlighting specific examples of when this was actually happening, and I know both the Cabinet Secretary for transport and you have been receiving similar correspondence, because I often have been copied into these e-mails. I want to be clear, Presiding Officer, that this isn't an attack on the Welsh language at all; it is in fact a plea to ensure that we have fully bilingual variable signs in operation as a matter of safety. In response to one of the e-mails from a constituent, the Welsh Government debunked any hint of this being an urban myth. The official said, and I quote:

'Sometimes, this is not always possible due to a lack of additional signs on motorway junctions or some signs may have faults in them. Many of the variable message signs on the M4 are beyond their working life and spaces are no longer available. The defective signs have been programmed for replacement subject to funding being made available'.

So, Cabinet Secretary, I think we can both agree that it's not an urban myth. So, will you please kindly look into this matter and commit to working with colleagues to ensure funding is released urgently to repair these defective signs? Thank you.

Llywydd, the Cabinet Secretary for transport heard what the Member had to say the last time she raised this matter, and she's received, I can see, a very constructive reply from that department, outlining what they intend to do. It is no different for me whether somebody who would prefer to get their information in the Welsh language has to rely entirely on an English road sign than it is if somebody who prefers to get their information in English sees a sign in Welsh. Both languages are of equal status and equal value here in Wales. And I don't agree with what I continue to believe to be the thrust behind her question—that, somehow, it's more important to have a sign in English than it is to have one in Welsh.

Following the National Eisteddfod being held in Wrexham back in 2011, there was an increase in the number of people both learning and using Cymraeg. And, as you said in your original answer, Cabinet Secretary, next year, once again, Wrexham is very proudly hosting the National Eisteddfod. What plans do the Welsh Government have to work with the local authority, and other partners, to ensure that we use this opportunity to reach the target of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, and would you agree with me, also, that Wrexham council can learn some lessons from the way Labour-controlled Rhondda Cynon Taf council delivered for this year’s National Eisteddfod in Pontypridd?

Well, I thank Lesley Griffiths very much for that question. She’s absolutely right—I think the Eisteddfod in Pontypridd was an outstanding success. It was enthusiastically embraced by the local authority, and by its outstanding leader, Councillor Andrew Morgan. I’m quite sure that the National Eisteddfod itself will have taken the learning that was to be collected from that experience in Pontypridd and will want to put it to work with colleagues in Wrexham. And I look forward, certainly, with all those local players who are already making enormous efforts to prepare for that Eisteddfod and to make it a success, I look forward to working with them and with other partners to make sure that, having the National Eisteddfod there in Wrexham, in a part of Wales where the Welsh language is not as in frequent use as in some other parts, gives a long-lasting boost to the language in that part of Wales. And I look forward very much to being with the Member for Wrexham on the maes later, in August next year.

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

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, as we know, one of the first things that the new Labour Government did was to strip 500,000 Welsh pensioners of their winter fuel payments. Many believe this was a shameful decision and will place people at risk, leaving many of them with a choice between heating and eating this winter. Only last week, the older people’s commissioner called for a distinct fund for older people to mitigate the removal of this incredibly vital support, amid what she called extreme anxiety, anger and distress. We have seen a change of approach in Scotland, with their Government undoing, in part, some of the cuts in Westminster. Cabinet Secretary, can I therefore ask why no specific Welsh fund was considered in Wales to help those pensioners who really need the support but who fall just short of the pension credit threshold? And will you commit to reconsidering this through the budget process?

Well, Llywydd, a comparison with Scotland is not a sensible one. Scotland has both powers in the welfare field that do not reside here in the Senedd, and it is funded to discharge those responsibilities. And my difficulty of principle with what the Member has suggested is that money that comes to Wales comes here to fulfil the responsibilities that lie in this Senedd. And I’ve never thought it is a sensible thing to do to divert money that is here for our responsibilities to cover responsibilities that lie elsewhere.

The decision that was made in relation to the winter fuel allowance, as I’ve heard the First Minister explain many times, is a decision made by the UK Government for which they have to be answerable. Here in Wales, we do use the powers we have to provide additional help for people who face difficulty this winter, whether that is through the warm hubs scheme, whether that is in the help that’s available for fuel bills. We do that, however, by using the responsibilities that lie here in the Senedd and the money that is available to us to discharge them, rather than thinking that we can go on making up for difficulties in funding that isn’t available for other responsibilities that don’t belong here.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I was hardly expecting every pensioner to have it reimbursed, but some sort of scheme that could have helped those who are just falling above the threshold, who are really feeling it, and I’ve had many of those come in to see me in my own constituency. However, I understand your position now.  

Moving on, as I have said many times before, Cabinet Secretary, the UK Labour Government’s decision to implement a rise in national insurance contributions for businesses was not only a breach of their manifesto commitment, but it is also going to be incredibly detrimental for any hope of growth that businesses in Wales may have. This has already been articulated to me by many businesses, especially last week. That being said, it is not only businesses who need to pay this, but public sector bodies, who employ the equivalent of 10 per cent of the population, will also have to pay this tax rise. Now, I know the Chancellor has confirmed that additional money will be coming to Wales to pay for this increase. However, yesterday’s draft budget statement was still vague on detail. Cabinet Secretary, when will we get clarity so that the fear of public services having to cover a portion or all of this cost will be removed?

Well, Llywydd, I don’t think that the draft budget was vague on the subject; the draft budget was silent on the subject, because there isn’t information that I have that allowed me to take account of any additional funding that will come from the UK Government to help those public service employees with national insurance contributions. We will not know from the UK Government how much money will come to Wales for those purposes until the Chancellor says in May or June of next year. What I have said, and I'll say it again this afternoon, and I said it to local authority leaders earlier in the week, for these purposes the Welsh Government will simply act as a post box. The money that comes to us for these purposes will simply leave us directly to go to those employers who have been covered by the Chancellor’s decision. We won’t divert the money anywhere, we’re not going to use it for anything else. Every penny that comes to us for this reason will go directly to those employers and it will go as fast as the money arrives with us. The Senedd will see it in the second supplementary budget, where it will be reported to Members in the usual way.

Thank you for that clarity and that is helpful, but there still will be anxiety on councils just in case not all the money comes down the M4 that we are hoping for or you’re hoping for, and that will affect the sorts of decisions they’re going to have to make now when they set their own budget. So, clarity is really important and it’s hoped that the UK Government can indicate more to you sooner rather than later.

Whilst we’re talking about local government, we’ve seen today that the settlements have been announced, as you shared here in this Chamber yesterday. There's a 4.3 per cent average increase, around £250 million, which is an important increase, however a long way short of the £560 million pressure that local authorities are facing. However, I doubt they were expecting all of that. However, the 4.3 per cent increase, as you also acknowledged, throws up winners and losers, and we see in Newport a 5.3 per cent increase, which will be very welcome, while in counties like Monmouthshire, we only see 2.8 per cent. Now, I know you said this settlement would save councils from the brink, but we know some will still be facing a real cliff edge, and clearly this again demonstrates that the funding formula needs to be revisited. Cabinet Secretary, will you consider implementing a funding floor this year to protect those who are most under pressure, recognising the disparity between the lowest and the highest?

Well, I thank Peter Fox for that important final question. He’s absolutely right: the funding formula, at an average of 4.3 per cent, always has some local authorities who do better than that and some who will not do as well. He knows that the funding formula, complex as it is, is really driven by only two factors that cover the vast bulk of the formula. If your population is rising, the amount of money you get through the formula goes up with it; if the number of children entering schools is going down, the formula reflects that as well. It is demographically driven, the formula, and then it has a more complex set of other factors that it takes into account.

I am aware of the gap that exists between 5.6 at the top of the distribution range and 2.8 at the bottom. I’ve undertaken to hold further discussions with my colleague Jane Bryant in the period between draft and final to see if there is anything further that we could do, to further support those councils that find themselves at the less advantageous end of that spectrum.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Heledd Fychan.

Thank you, Llywydd. I’m sure you appreciate why we, as opposition parties, so often raise the issue of national insurance contributions. I raised the issue yesterday. I appreciate the fact that in your response to Peter Fox you said you will not know exactly what is happening until May or June. But, may I ask, what discussions have you had with the Chancellor in terms of getting that additional support? We know about the whole host of letters that we receive from the third sector, GPs and so on. So, can you give us some insight in terms of whether you expect to see any change, or is this how things are going to be?

Well, of course, Llywydd, Ministers here take opportunities to raise such issues with the Chancellor and with other Ministers in the Treasury. We know that the First Minister had an opportunity to speak to Keir Starmer in Edinburgh last Friday about a number of issues that are relevant to us here in Wales in the area of finance. I had an opportunity to speak directly to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury back in October. The CST will be here in Wales early in the new year, and there will be more opportunities to raise the issues that people have raised with us. And of course, I'm sure the Chancellor will hear the same points from people in England as well. So, it'll be up to her, at the end of the day, to make decisions on how many people she can help with national insurance, but she is very aware of the points that the sectors have raised with us here in Wales.

Here's hoping, therefore, that she'll listen to you then, given that you're in the same party. Without clarity from the Treasury, then, on this, how can you be certain of the strategic integrated impact assessment that was published along with the budget yesterday? And what assessment have you made in terms of how much of yesterday's budget will be going back to the Treasury, because it will be spent to fill the gap created because of the changes to national insurance?

Llywydd, I think it's important to say that funding goes back to the Treasury every day after decisions that are made by the Westminster Government. For example, when the UK Government increases the real living wage—something that we welcome here, of course—more people will pay income tax, and that will return to the Treasury. That's just something that happens every day in terms of the decisions that are behind the funding that we have to spend here in Wales. When people in the third sector buy things to use, they pay VAT. The money goes back to the Treasury. That's just part of how things work in finance. So, we haven't done any work to try and find out in any detail how much money raised in Wales in that way will be returned to Treasury. There are figures available, and the figures show, as they say,

Welsh citizens make a greater tax effort than any other part of the United Kingdom.

But you must have heard what people like Citizens Advice are saying in terms of the cuts that they will have to make to their staffing. If people don't have jobs, they can't contribute to the economy. I do think that understanding what the impact of these changes to national insurance on the Welsh budget will be and how much is available is important. You mentioned a bright future in terms of yesterday's budget. If you look at an analysis that has been undertaken by the Wales Governance Centre, and I will quote here, they say,

'After this year's "big" budget, next year's budget round promises to be more difficult, and might feel like a return to austerity for some public services.'

So, there are very real concerns among neutral people who analyse things here in terms of Wales's financial situation. Can you provide that clarity for us, because it's important that we do know whether the assessment that went along with the budget is representative in terms of the impact of national insurance in particular?

Well, Llywydd, I was trying to respond to the specific point I thought the Member had raised, as to whether or not we had made an assessment of the extent to which money that comes to Wales ends up being returned to the Treasury. I was simply trying to explain that that is just part of the normal way in which money flows across the UK economy. The different assessments that you will find that accompany the budget do not take into account fully the impact of national insurance contributions rises, because, as I say, we do not yet have certainty as to how many employees in Wales will be covered directly by the money that the Treasury will provide. And as for anxieties about next year's budget, my job at the moment is to make sure we make the maximum use of the opportunity that comes with the budget for the following financial year. I look forward to the Chancellor's spring statement. I look forward to being able to give certainty to local government and other organisations that depend upon funding that we provide, so that they can plan over a three and four-year horizon to make the very most of the significant opportunity that has come our way as a result of the draft budget.

I thank Rhys ab Owen for the question, Llywydd. Cardiff Council’s Welsh in education strategic plan commits, by 2031, to increase the percentage of learners taught through the medium of Welsh to 27 per cent, an increase of 9 per cent. The authority received feedback on its annual progress report last week, and a follow-up meeting is planned.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. Now, you'll be aware of the campaign to establish a fourth Welsh-medium secondary school in Cardiff. You'll also be aware of Cardiff Council's response, which says that there are adequate numbers of places in the Welsh-medium secondary sector for the next five years. But we have seen that community schools—. You've mentioned at least twice in the Senedd a school like Ysgol Treganna, a community school increasing from 11 pupils to over 900. There's not one bus going to Ysgol Treganna, which is strange for us here who were bussed for hours every day to Welsh-medium education.

What's jarring is that there are children from south Cardiff, they all have to cross the city from the most disadvantaged areas in Cardiff, they have to cross the city to access Welsh-medium education, never mind the issues in getting a place in the secondary school or the problems in terms of accessing transport across the city. This, of course, is bound to put parents off sending their children to Welsh-medium education. So, how are you going to ensure, Cabinet Secretary, that the Welsh language truly is a language for us all, that everyone can read the deficient signage that was mentioned in the first question, but particularly those people from the disadvantaged and most multi-ethnic areas of our capital city? Thank you.

Thank you for that supplementary question. I do understand the points that the Member raises and the concerns that parents have in the south of the city specifically. It's just true to say that the local authority faces two different matters of fact: first, the birth rate that is reducing across Wales and is at its lowest level since comparative data was first published in 1929. That is having an impact now on the number—not the percentage, but the number—of children who go into Welsh-medium education in Cardiff. Also, it's a fact that one of the three Welsh-medium secondary schools in Cardiff has a number of empty places, and that does create a difficult context for the council despite the successful growth in Welsh-medium education in Cardiff. 

However, the local authority's WESP does envisage the possibility of such a school, and I have asked my officials to discuss this directly with Cardiff Council in a meeting to discuss the authority's annual review report, and to include transport as part of those discussions.

Minister, a lot of the policy areas around education obviously sit with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, but today the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee have brought a report out about the supply of cover teachers and temporary teaching staff in schools. That requires joined-up thinking between yourself, who is the Minister responsible for the Welsh language, and obviously the education Secretary. The three issues that they covered, importantly, were the decline in the number of teachers who cover locum work in schools, down by 16 per cent; the ability to have a national portal for the provision of schools to buy into to get cover when teachers aren't in schools; and, in particular, the acute issue of providing specialist cover in Welsh-medium schools, so that the teachers can benefit the pupils by giving them a rounded educational experience. What work will you be doing with the education Secretary to address the concerns that the public accounts committee have identified in Welsh-medium education, so that pupils can thrive with a fully qualified teacher in front of them?

Can I thank Andrew R.T. Davies for those important points? They echo points that our colleague Mike Hedges has often made on the floor of the Senedd about the nature of supply and cover teaching here in Wales. I work closely with my colleague Lynne Neagle on the Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill, which I am responsible for taking through the Senedd. Stage 1 of that Bill has been in front of three different Senedd committees. All three are due to report by the end of this week, I believe, or the start of next week, on their conclusions as a result of Stage 1 scrutiny. I know, from having followed carefully the evidence given to the Children, Young People and Education Committee particularly, that the issue of the workforce has been regularly in front of the committee. I look forward to seeing what that committee has to say, along with the public accounts committee, and to working with my colleague Lynne Neagle on finding solutions to the issues that the Member has highlighted this afternoon.

Overall investment in general medical services has increased in cash terms year on year through negotiated settlements agreed with British Medical Association Cymru Wales representatives.   

Thank you for your response, Cabinet Secretary. You will be aware, with one of your previous roles, of the inverse care law, the fact that those people who are in most need of health services are often those who are least able to access those health services. Cardiff University has recently highlighted that that inverse care law is being perpetuated by the funding that GP practices receive in Wales. Cardiff University have shown that GP practices in our poorest communities are actually getting the lowest levels of funding, despite the fact that those are serving people who have the most health needs. Indeed, one affected GP, Dr Jonny Currie, has said:

'Discovering practices in areas such as ours are structurally under-funded comes as a shock. We hope this research encourages our professional body and colleagues in Welsh Government to find ways of reversing this inequity urgently, before further potential harm is caused.'

I'm sure, Cabinet Secretary, you'll be disappointed to hear that that's taking place in terms of GP funding here in Wales, so I'd be interested to know what you will be doing to ensure that funding for GPs in Wales is fair, ensuring that people who need those health services most are able to access those.

I thank the Member for that further question. He's right to point to the fact that Julian Tudor Hart's work on the inverse care law is probably the single most well-known piece of research in primary care in the whole of the twentieth century. It was, for those of us who were here and remember it, very much part of the Townsend formula reforms that were introduced in a very early session of this Senedd.

The research to which the Member refers, I believe, is research into a project that is funded through the Welsh Government, and it's designed to make sure that we are able to marshal our resources to those places where they are most needed. I know that the Cabinet Secretary for health, in a debate here on the floor of the Senedd, made a commitment to ensuring that, should more money become available, that will be used, in part, to address the imbalance that is there between different parts of Wales as a priority for future funding decisions, learning the lessons from that very important project to which Sam Rowlands made reference.

During the discussion yesterday on the budget, we heard the Member for Blaenau Gwent, Alun Davies, saying that what was important for his constituents in Blaenau Gwent was that they could see a GP when the need arose. Since 2012, we have seen 100 surgeries closing here in Wales and more GPs retiring early or leaving the country because they don't have the necessary resource to carry out their work. That's because the percentage of the funding provided to GPs is a lot less—it's about 5 per cent of the health budget now, compared to the historic position of around 8 per cent. So, when will we see the percentage of funding provided for GPs increasing in order to ensure that Alun Davies's constituents and my constituents, and constituents across the whole of Wales, can see GPs here in Wales?

As I said, when that point was raised in a debate on the floor of the Senedd last month, in response to the debate the Cabinet Secretary for health explained that, after the COVID period, it has been necessary for us to fund hospitals to deal with the people who were waiting for treatment. But as he said in that debate,

'Redressing this imbalance'—the imbalance between primary and secondary care and between those parts of Wales where the inverse care law is to be found—

'will be a priority for future...funding decisions'.

I was present at the seminar that was organised by the Deep End project, and I think it's very useful that these groups of GPs have got together. I was very interested to read in the paper on social prescribing that was issued in January last year by the then Deputy Minister for Mental Health that 20 per cent of patients consult their GP for what is primarily a social problem. It had some very interesting statistics about an evaluation of Rotherham social prescribing. Given that we no longer have Communities First, I wondered what consideration the Government has given to looking at those issues that don't need to be dealt with by a qualified physician, but are equally important to the well-being of patients in poorer areas. We used to have Communities First, we now have a range of other issues, but joining them up together so that we can target resources on those GP practices where they get the most issues that relate to people's well-being is obviously something that would be useful to try and explore.

I thank Jenny Rathbone for that, Llywydd. I think she touches on a very interesting and unresolved debate. There is no doubt at all that as the social safety net has frayed, and as it frayed over that last decade, people make their ways to the part of the system that is still open and available to them, and very often that is the GP. If there's nowhere else to go, you at least know that your GP will see you.

The debate is, I think, between whether the right answer is to strengthen other community services and hope that they divert people from the need to go to GPs, or whether it is more successful for GP practices themselves to diversify and to be able to provide a wider range of services to people who are making their way to their door in any case. There are GP services that run welfare rights advice at the surgery; there are surgeries that have counselling services as part of the suite of things that they provide.

I think it is still an open debate, and an important one, that Jenny Rathbone points to: which is the most effective way of getting services to the person? Do you provide the services and hope the person will go to them, or do you provide the services where the person is going anyway? I don't think we know the answer to that, but at the root of it, as the Deep End project demonstrates, is a need for a strengthening of services that attend to people's social difficulties and doesn't turn every social difficulty into a medical problem for which the GP is expected to provide a pill or a prescription.

With an extra £1.5 billion to spend on our public services and priorities, the 2025-26 draft budget will help rebuild our public services and boost the economy, putting Wales on the path to growth. This budget will benefit people, communities and businesses across all parts of Wales.

Many people in Conwy and Denbighshire will be furious, frankly, that the uplift in local authority funding is less in their area than is the case in places such as Newport and Cardiff. It seems to me, looking at your local government funding announcements today, with the draft budget, that there's quite a big urban and rural split, and there's certainly a disadvantage faced by most of the local authorities, therefore, in north Wales versus some other parts of the country that are more urban.

Given that that's the situation, and that residents in both Conwy and Denbighshire have seen significant service cuts in recent years, along with massive hikes in council tax, what are you going to do to make sure that people have their say when large council tax increases are proposed? And how are you going to address this regional inequality, which has grown under your Labour administration?

I deprecate the Member's efforts always to set one part of Wales against another. The formula that is used is the formula that's been agreed by local government. It is an objective formula, it is overseen by a group of experts who are nothing to do with the political world—they come from the world of business and from academia—and they ensure that the formula distributes the—[Interruption.] It's impossible for me to provide an answer to the Member if he thinks that his answer to his own question is more important than mine. If he wishes to answer his own question, I'm very happy to give way to him.

I think the Minister can now answer the question, if he chooses to do so.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I'm simply explaining that there is no bias in the formula. It does not advantage one part of Wales over another. It does not advantage urban over rural areas. It is driven by the objective data that the formula is given. It's overseen by independent individuals, and it puts money where the formula says money is most needed. I gave an indication to Peter Fox earlier that I'm prepared to discuss, between draft and final, whether there's some additional help that can be offered to those who, this time, the formula does not provide with the levels of support that others will enjoy. Despite the leader of the opposition's remarks, I'm still intent on doing that.

When I met with north Wales council leaders last week, organised through the Welsh Local Government Association, I heard how over a decade of austerity, inflationary pressures and growing need, especially with social care, was impacting on the sustainability of delivering services. We have a growing elderly population in Conwy and Denbighshire, with many people retiring there. I welcome the significant capital investment in health that's just been announced, so hopefully the Royal Alexandra, working in collaboration with Denbighshire council, who've successfully applied to the Welsh Government's integrated care fund, will be able to deliver on the plans there.

I congratulate Darren Millar on becoming leader of the Conservative Party, and hear he has appointed David T.C. Davies. Cabinet Secretary, I was wondering how much money Mr Davies secured for Wales when he was Secretary of State for Wales, and how much Jo Stevens has secured in the last five months.

I thank Carolyn Thomas. She reminded me that it was remiss of me; this was my first opportunity to congratulate Darren Millar on becoming the leader of the Conservative Party. I do that. I recognise the persistence with which he too has pursued the Royal Alexandra Hospital issue, and I agree with Carolyn Thomas that the work there should now be coming to a position where proper funding applications for it can be made.

In contrasting the records of the previous Secretary of State and the current Secretary of State, I'll return to the point I made yesterday, Llywydd: for all the influence the previous Secretary of State had, he delivered that £1 million for all our capital needs in March of this year, and Jo Stevens delivered £235 million. I think the record will stand for itself.

The draft budget makes substantial provision for investment in the next stages of the Swansea bay city deal. This, together with additional funding across our public services, will have a positive impact across South Wales West.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Whilst the additional moneys for public services are welcome, we cannot forget that this is on the back of pensioners and a £40 billion tax bill on working people. Much of this funding will be absorbed by increasing the employers' national insurance contributions and a pay rise for the public sector, while pensioners in my region will be forced to choose between heating and eating this Christmas. Cabinet Secretary, your budget narrative talks about tackling child poverty and food poverty, but makes no mention of fuel poverty nor pensioners' poverty. What actions will the Welsh Government take to support older people across South Wales West and Wales as a whole?

I thank the Member for that, Llywydd. It was remiss of me, if I didn't, not to mention earlier the Fuel Bank Foundation and the additional investment that this budget provides for that foundation. It provides, as you know, additional help for people who rely on prepayment meters, for people in rural Wales who are off-grid, and it has been a great success, since we entered into that partnership with the Fuel Bank Foundation to bring its work to Wales.

I did refer earlier, in my first answer to Buffy Williams, Llywydd, to the £1.5 million investment in warm hubs across Wales. We know that they have been particularly places where older people have been able to go, not simply to keep warm, but for all the other advantages that come from participating, alongside other people, in social activities. I'm thinking of Sam Rowland's question and pressure on GPs. The very best of the warm hubs in the first run we had of them were those where people go for other purposes, where there's no sign on the door that says, 'You have to be cold to come in here.' So, it was rugby clubs, libraries—places where people can go for any sort of reason. They may be going there because they need to keep warm. They may be going there for company with others. They may be going because there's food available to them. They may be going to borrow a library book. Nobody knows when you come through the door. And we know that older people particularly have found that the impact that that has on loneliness and isolation has been as important as it has been in other parts of their lives, and this budget provides a further boost to our ability to go on providing those services in the future.

Thank you to Russell George, Llywydd. I engage regularly with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning to ensure that there is funding in place to support our ambitions for the tourism industry in Wales.

Thank you for your answer, Cabinet Secretary. This is the last session before Christmas, and I want to be as constructive as I can. I'm going to ask a constructive question, hoping for a constructive answer. What the industry highlights is that overnight stays are down, and visitor numbers are down also, compared to pre-COVID levels. On that alone, the hospitality sector is looking for Government intervention and Government support. The industry is of course anxious. It's anxious about national insurance contributions for those businesses that employ a small number of people. They're grateful for the 40 per cent rate relief that's continuing, but, of course, they're aware that that was previously 75 per cent. So, these are some of the big anxieties that they have.

The biggest concern, though, that's raised with me from my constituents in the tourism sector is the 182-day threshold on holiday lets. Now, I'm not asking this question to reopen a debate on the need for the threshold, but I'm asking about the review of that threshold, and whether any exemptions are needed. I would be grateful if you would agree to meet with me, with a small number of businesses—not representatives of the industry, but small businesses themselves, who are genuine businesses—and I would say, if you could meet with me, either here, in my constituency, or virtually, that by the end of that meeting, when they put their cases to you, you will see a need for either reviewing that 182 threshold or bringing forward further exemptions. I wonder whether you would be willing to meet with me on that basis.

I thank Russell George for the constructive tone of that question, as I thank those many businesses and representative organisations in the tourism field that have worked closely with the Government over many years. As far as the 182-day threshold is concerned, in April of next year, we will have two years-worth of data from the Valuation Office Agency, which will give us an indication as to the impact that the threshold has had. And as he said, I am not reopening either the debate or the threshold itself until we have that data, because then we will be able to operate on the basis of the Wales-wide picture, rather than relying on the individual accounts of the impact at that individual level. After April, we'll have that data. At that point, I will be able to discuss that further with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning. I'm happy to have a conversation with the Member as to how he and those he represents can feed into discussions we may have at that point. 

Thank you very much for that question. The Welsh Language and Education (Wales) Bill is in Stage 1. The Bill was referred to the Children, Young People and Education Committee, the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee and the Finance Committee to consider and report on the general principles by 13 December. I look forward to reading the reports.

Thank you very much for that response, Cabinet Secretary, and a merry Christmas to you. Could I start by saying that we as Welsh Conservatives welcome most of what this Bill seeks to deliver in terms of reaching the target of 1 million Welsh speakers? I think it's an important part of delivering that. But what we've heard in evidence at the education committee is the importance of the staff and workforce in terms of delivering that target and what this Bill seeks to achieve. We've also heard from the Welsh Language Commissioner and the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, for example, about the importance of having a workforce plan as part of the Bill. Now, I know that you haven't committed to making that part of the Bill up to this point, but what assessment have you made of the impact of the Bill without having that workforce plan in place? We as a committee have heard that schools and others believe that it will be extremely difficult to deliver the Bill without the workforce to match it. Thank you.

Well, I thank Tom Giffard, and I wish him a merry Christmas as well. And I thank him for the supportive and constructive spirit that he has demonstrated this afternoon. I'm very grateful to the three Senedd committees that have been scrutinising the Bill during Stage 1, and I am looking forward to reading the reports by the committees when they are published. Of course, I haven't seen them yet, but I have pursued the oral and written evidence that has been submitted to the committees, and I have seen the argument that Tom Giffard refers to, and it has been a very lively one before the committees. So, I look forward to reading the evidence in detail and the content of the reports in detail as well, and will come back with amendments, if the case is there to do so, during Stage 2, and to do that in the same spirit that Tom Giffard has demonstrated this afternoon.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that item.

We now move to the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs and Deputy First Minister. Question 1 [OQ62023] is withdrawn. Question 2 is first. Mark Isherwood.

Thank you, Mark. The Welsh Government utilises a wide range of scientific evidence when making and applying regulations. This includes academic research, evidence from recognised industry experts, outputs from research and development and data from primary sources, including statutory bodies. Where appropriate, the development of regulations is also informed by relevant impact assessments.

Thank you. Last month the NFU Cymru Clwyd county chairman wrote to me stating that, at his farm, they had a weekly growth of grass a day that was the sort of growth that they would normally expect in March when they would be able to spread slurry. As he said, 'I'm asked by my members why they cannot spread slurry now while the weather is clement, and ground conditions are dry enough to allow livestock and machinery on the land. The weather forecast is good for the next fortnight. Will it still be so in January when we're allowed to spread slurry again?' He added, 'This simply highlights the problem of using a calendar-based limitation to slurry spreading, rather than the more sensible appliance-of-science approach.'

Science—which the Welsh Government has financed—has proven that weather and soil conditions are more important than dates for the effective take-up of nutrients from slurry. So, what plans does the Welsh Government have, if any, to allow some greater flexibility to regulations such as the Water Resources (Control of Agricultural Pollution) (Wales) Regulations 2021?

Thank you, Mark. This is something we regularly debate here on the floor of the Senedd. It's why, actually, we've instituted the independently chaired four-yearly review of agricultural pollution regulations, to consider the effectiveness of the current regime in preventing and, indeed, reducing agricultural pollution, and the review is due to be completed by March 2025. Dr Susannah Bolton is leading that, in her role as chair, to oversee the review. She's engaging with many stakeholders, including the farming unions, NFU Cymru and FUW, but also the Tenant Farmers Association, the Country Land and Business Association, the non-governmental organisations, the Wales land management forum sub-group on agricultural pollution, and she was also at the winter fair as well, indeed, and I've met with her. She has also, by the way, visited, as I have, Gelli Aur college farm to discuss innovations around monitoring of soil, weather, moisture, humidity, et cetera, and that does have potential, but there's a question of scale and scope around that as well.

There's a particular issue, which you've touched upon, Mark, which is related to the start of the closed period, and what we can do with that. So, the closed period for the spreading of cattle slurry and poultry manure for the majority of grassland farms starts on 15 October, and it reopens on 15 January, subject to the post closed-period spreading requirements. The closed period is in force; spreading slurry is a breach of the regulations. Now, the reason for that is it is indeed evidence based, and the purpose is to prevent excessive losses of nitrogen and phosphorus to water, following the application of manures during those periods when the crop growth is limited, and during these periods, when the crop need for nutrients is limited, when rainfall is higher, leaching and run-off does occur, so there could be significant nutrient losses and run-off.

But we do recognise that the wet weather has created difficult circumstances for some farmers. Some farmers have entered into the closed period with more slurry than they had planned for. So, initially, Mark, the advice is: those farms should identify any mitigating measures available to them, including carrying out clean and dirty water separation, minimising rainwater entering slurry stores, and also ensuring features such as gutters and clean water drains are fully functioning. But if any farmers have concerns they will still not have the required capacity to safely store this slurry during this period, then contact NRW to identify help there in mitigating actions to minimise the risk of pollution and discuss the challenges with them.

I have requested officials to review previously, as I've said to the Senedd, to make amendments to the cross-compliance verifiable standards so that a proportional approach can be taken. So, please, any farmer out there, discuss this with NRW.

Question 3 [OQ62038] is withdrawn. Question 4, Rhys ab Owen.

Thank you, Rhys. The Welsh Government’s planning policies in relation to replacement tree planting are contained in 'Planning Policy Wales'. Outside the planning process, there is a need for a tree-felling licence where an owner wants to fell trees that are growing. Felling licences are given with conditions to replant the area to maintain the forestry.

Diolch, Dirprwy Brif Weinidog. You will be more than aware that building on any green space, but especially in urban areas, is often controversial and creates strong feelings locally. I've been contacted regularly with regard to felling trees in Cardiff, more recently in the northern meadows area in Cardiff, where local residents were concerned that mature trees were replaced by two whips. Cardiff Council denies that, but I just wanted to know what guidance, exactly, is given. Of course, we heard yesterday from Janet Finch-Saunders about the felling of trees that meant a lot to her personally during the storm. So, bearing in mind that the Welsh Government has declared a nature emergency in 2021, how will you ensure that felled trees are adequately replaced, for the benefit of local residents, but also for the environment? Diolch yn fawr.

It's a very good question, and I think every Member in this Senedd values the contribution of trees to the local environment, to green spaces, but also in terms of climate change, climate adaptation and resilience as well. And it is important that there is adequate protection for trees against felling, but also, if they are felled, then there is replacement.

And the 'Planning Policy Wales 12'—PPW 12—sets out the land-use planning policies of Welsh Government in respect of this. It provides a strong framework for the protection of trees. And Welsh Government, just to be clear, does not support the loss of mature trees. Our policy sets out that planning authorities must protect trees where they have an ecological value or they contribute to the character or amenity of an area or they perform a beneficial green infrastructure function. 

And we also set out that, where there are individual or groups of trees removed as part of a proposed scheme, then planning authorities must first follow the step-wise approach that we describe to maintain and enhance biodiversity and, first of all, avoiding the loss in the first instance, if that can be done.

So, we introduced a new policy in October 2023 that, where tree loss is unavoidable, developers will be required to provide compensatory planting—that is very important. And our policy states very clearly that replacement tree planting shall be at a ratio equivalent to the quality, the environmental and the ecological importance of the tree or trees lost. And this must be preferably on site or immediately adjacent to the site and at a minimum ratio of at least three trees of a similar type and compensatory size planted for every single one lost.

Now I can't comment on the detail of the particular issue at Northern Meadows, because you’ll understand that Welsh Ministers sometimes may have a statutory role in the planning process, but I hope that explains our approach with policy planning guidance—it's very clear, very precise and we expect it to be adhered to.

Ysgol Tŷ Ffynnon in Shotton have been learning about biodiversity loss and the importance of tree planting. Pupils have written to me to say that they want more to be done to protect wildlife and their future. Darcy in year 4 wrote, 'I have been finding out about different animals losing their homes because trees are being cut down. I am very shocked that 17 per cent of wildlife has been disappearing in Wales.' The children have been learning about the 'It's for Them' project, managing verges and amenity grass for wildlife, and have been taking action themselves. Tegan explained, 'We made sure we planted trees near the hedgerow to encourage creatures to make them their habitat.' 

Westwood Primary School have also been working on the project. However, the educational resources are not easy to find on the Welsh Government's website. So, Cabinet Secretary, please would you work with the Cabinet Secretary for Education to promote the project and educational materials to schools and local authorities? And would you congratulate the pupils on all they are doing in their local area and reassure them that the Welsh Government will continue to make nature a priority going forward? Thank you.

Carolyn, thank you so much for that question. And I'm regularly visiting schools, not just in my own constituency, but around the country, which are taking part in planting initiatives, not just for the sake of trees and woodland cover, but for that biodiversity purpose. And it's inspiring to see, because they get very deeply, very viscerally, the importance of tree planting. So, certainly, my congratulations to those at Westwood Primary School and all those schools now throughout Wales who are contributing so much to our biodiversity gain, as well as woodland cover and the right trees in the right place, and often in places around the school environment or in the community at large as well, which is fantastic to see.

I think we've pioneered in Wales the extent now of initiatives such as the one you described, but also the presence of eco councils now in schools throughout the land, the work of the forestry schools, where children go out from the playground, from the hard standing, from the tarmac, into the natural environment for a deep and profound understanding of the impact of the natural environment on us all, and I think that stands us in good stead for the future. But, yes, I will engage with the Cabinet Secretary for Education to talk about how we can push and promote and highlight this even more, alongside the wider nature initiatives that we do.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson first of all, James Evans.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, in the spirit of Christmas, I'd like to wish you and your family very much Nadolig Llawen.

Thank you very much, James. Thank you.

Cabinet Secretary, what we're seeing is an ongoing saga within Hybu Cig Cymru, as reported by Farmers Weekly and other programmes, which have detailed significant staff turnover—13 out of 30 employees leaving within 18 months—and an atmosphere of bullying, fear and dishonesty. How does the Welsh Government plan to address these seismic issues? Specifically, what steps will be taken to investigate the claims of unsafe, hostile working conditions, including those outlined in the Y Byd ar Bedwar programme, which were highlighted by staff on that programme who wish to remain anonymous, and ensure the leadership of HCC is held accountable for fostering an appropriate workplace and an environment that aligns with the Nolan principles? I have been made aware that a crisis meeting did take place between Welsh Government and HCC. If that has taken place—I'd like to know if a meeting has taken place—what are the outcomes of that meeting, what actions have you told HCC to carry out, and what actions are there for the Welsh Government?

James, thank you very much. Can I just reciprocate by wishing you, but also all Members in the Chamber, and you, Llywydd, as well, Nadolig Llawen i chi i gyd? Genuinely, sincerely meant as well.

First of all, just to correct you, I don't know where on earth you've got the idea that there's been some sort of crisis meeting with Hybu Cig Cymru. I don't know who you're talking to, who's spreading this on the rumour mill. There has been no crisis meeting with Hybu Cig Cymru. What I do regularly is I meet regularly with the chair of Hybu Cig Cymru, and my officials engage regularly with Hybu Cig Cymru, which, of course, is a sponsored body of Welsh Government. And we do two things in that, two very important things. One is that we are checking on their performance, day to day, their strategic outlook, how they will actually deliver for the levy payers and for the red meat industry in Wales and the success they've had over many years, and to make sure that they're on track and that they're doing it.

Just to say, James, as well—I don't know where you've got this nonsense about a crisis meeting from—I happen to have signed off this morning, just out of interest to Members, the accounts for Hybu Cig Cymru. They are unqualified accounts; it's not often that that happens. This is not, as some might be—I don't know whether it's you—seeking to portray Hybu Cig Cymru—

That's nonsense. They're rarely unqualified accounts.

Oh, there's some chuntering going on once again, Llywydd.

Darren Millar, I know you want to draw attention to yourself as the new leader of the Welsh Conservatives, but during ministerial questions is not the time to do it, when it's your own spokesperson that is now meant to take the limelight and ask the questions.

Diolch, Llywydd. The new leader of the Conservative Party continues to chunter like a heckler from the backbenches, but that's up to him. What I—[Interruption.] James, what—[Interruption.] James, what I would say is: (1) we seek to clarify where their performance is, and, I have to say, if you were at the winter fair, as I was—

I was.

—you will have heard the reports from Hybu Cig Cymru and the performance that it is delivering for levy payers, but the second is, genuinely, Llywydd, the issues included in the programme covered, issues around internal matters of governance, internal matters of HR process, issues and allegations of bullying and so on, to actually get those direct assurances from Hybu Cig Cymru itself that they have fair and diligent due process happening, that they are looking at anything that is raised with them and are dealing with it properly—and we have those assurances as well, James, just to tell you—and to make sure that everybody is treated fairly within this.

Can I just say one other thing? That is that Hybu Cig Cymru is performing on behalf of its levy payers, but, undoubtedly, the spotlight that is currently on them, and some of the calls—strident calls—out there to scrap them, do away with them, sack the lot of them, this, that and the other, that does put pressure on them and it does affect the wellbeing of individuals who are working there as well. So, I would simply appeal to all Members to be temperate in the way that they ask questions about Hybu Cig Cymru. There are people trying to do a very good job here on behalf of the red meat sector, and they are continuing to do so, and my role as a Minister is to make sure that they are doing that.

My role as the opposition spokesperson is to hold the Welsh Government accountable—

Then don't listen to the rumours.

—and you are the major shareholder of HCC. So, I would like to know—. You said no crisis meeting has taken place. So, after the Y Byd ar Bedwar programme was aired, if you didn’t have a crisis meeting, can you confirm whether you met with them following that programme, to have a discussion with them about what was raised and what actions they’re taking to address it? Because I’m sure other Members have seen the letter that came through anonymously from staff about the culture that's in HCC and about some of the things that the chair said on that programme, which they say were not true and she’s misled the public and misled levy payers. I’m sure you’ve seen a copy of that letter, Cabinet Secretary, so I’d be very interested to know what you think of that and how the Welsh Government is going to respond, because what they’ve got a key problem with here is that they had an internal investigation, most of the substantiated claims against an individual there were upheld, that individual is still in the organisation, which is creating a toxic environment for staff, and I want to make sure that all our farmers across Wales make sure that their levy body—HCC—is working for them, and that they’re not bogged down by HR issues.

So, I’d like to know, Cabinet Secretary, what are you doing to hold HCC to account, and the board of HCC, and, if it is found that the chair has misled the public and broken the Nolan principles, will you take steps to rectify that, in the way that we’d expect that to be dealt with?

So, you put a big ‘if’ out there, but in that ‘if’ there’s quite a strong suggestion of an allegation that the chair has misled.

It was in a letter that was sent out. I'm asking you—

Right, sorry. So, we have rumours that you’re speculating on of a crisis meeting, allegations with a big ‘if’ that the chair has actually misled people. What I can tell you, James, and appeal to you to be considered and temperate in the way that you approach this, is, rather than rely on rumour and suggestion and whoever you are chatting to and talking to there, to accept that I have not met on the back of any television programme. I meet regularly with HCC, and I’ve met them since I’ve come into office.  

So, Llywydd, what we have is a frontbench spokesman here smiling and laughing away suggesting that there is some behind-the-scenes process going on here, that I’d met in response to a tv programme. I cannot be clearer to you, James, that I meet on a regular and systematic basis with HCC, and I seek the assurances in response to any allegations that have come forward—any issues—to make sure that due process has taken place, make sure that the right governance is happening within that organisation, and also that its performance—. You have not asked one question about the performance of HCC. You’ve not responded to what they’ve put out in the corporate strategy, what they’ve achieved in the years gone by, and what they’re hoping to achieve in the years going forward on behalf of the levy payers. And I simply ask you, James: what is the purpose of this line of questioning? Is it to undermine HCC, as you’ve suggested, I understand, externally, that it needs to be thrown up in the air and start something else again? [Interruption.] Well, what is the proposal?

My proposal is actually to stand up for the whistleblowers who've come forward and the staff who work there and the levy payers who pay into that body, to make sure it's working in their best interests. That’s what I’m here to do. And I’m sure all the people listening out there will look at this Welsh Government, again putting its hands in the air and saying, ‘Sorry, it’s nothing to do with us, we’re not interested’—. And, by your answer as well, it sounds like you’re not interested in whistleblowers who come forward. So, I say to all those staff out there: the Conservatives, and I know other parties in this place, will listen to you if the Welsh Government will not.

So, I’m going to move on, Cabinet Secretary, to a different area, and maybe you’ll be able to help me in this area, because I’m sure you can’t help me in the last one. The Welsh national flock of sheep has seen a dramatic decline, with nearly 12 million sheep in Wales in the 1990s, to 8.7 million now. It’s the lowest level of sheep we’ve seen in over a decade, and processors and industry are coming to me saying they actually don’t think they’ve got the critical mass of land, now, in the industry to keep some of our processing plants open at full capacity. This is going to cost jobs and livelihoods. It is the job of the Welsh Government to support economic development and support jobs. So, I’ll be very interested to hear what the Welsh Government are doing to make sure that we can increase the amount of sheep that we have across Wales, to make sure that we can continue supplying Welsh lamb to our suppliers here in the United Kingdom, and to our suppliers in Europe and across our trading nations.

Yes, happy to answer that, because there’s a number of strands to making sure that we have good lamb and sheep and other red meat on our tables. Of course, HCC is part of that, and delivering that for the industry; so is what we do with the future of the sustainable farming scheme as well, to make sure that we have the right amount of remuneration going to sheep farmers throughout Wales, including those who are on the uplands as well, and that we, recently, at the winter fair, actually, put forward, as we did here on the floor of the Senedd, the fact that we’ve reached a consensus on an outline for that scheme, going forward.

I just want to say, Llywydd, a suggestion was just made that I’m not interested in whistleblowers or those who bring complaints. I am very, very interested always in those who are whistleblowing. Don’t try and make this a party political instance here, James—

You’re making this party political, Huw.

—where only the Conservatives—you wanted an answer—

Let the Cabinet Secretary to respond.

—where only the Conservatives are the party of whistleblowers. Let me just say very, very clearly, I am very seized by the fact that if people within HCC or any other organisation have allegations or concerns, they should be able to raise those, raise them clearly, have them addressed, and be due process as well—due process for those who also face those allegations as well as those people who are making allegations. It seems to me that there is a concerted attempt here, unfortunately, to undermine that organisation for whatever reason. Now, I’m very focused on making sure that HCC deliver in two ways: (1) for the levy payers, let me make that clear, because it is there for those levy payers, and, secondly, it does everything it possibly can to respond to any concerns that are raised, and to do them fairly and justly and with due process for all concerned. So, let’s not make this a party political interest, please. There are genuine concerns that have been raised that do need to be addressed by HCC and they are.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperon, Llyr Gruffydd. 

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Yesterday, of course, we saw your Government’s draft budget and I look forward to scrutinising the finer detail of that around your particular portfolio responsibilities in the weeks to come. The basic payment scheme budget, of course, is maintained and an additional £5.5 million resource and £14 million capital funding according to the budget narrative for wider rural investment schemes, which, of course, is very welcome. But I’m sure that you, as well as I, would like to put that in context, because that minimal uplift comes against a backdrop of many years of cuts in budgets, most recently, of course, the Welsh rural affairs budget was cut by £37.5 million in the last financial year, and a further year on year cut of £62 million in this financial year, the largest relative reduction of any of the Welsh Government departmental budgets. Now, at the same time, of course, farmers are being asked to deliver more than ever before. They’re being asked to deliver more ambitious outcomes on food security, on climate change and on environmental protection. And, if we want to see the change that everybody wants, I’m sure, then future budgets for the sustainable farming scheme particularly can’t be expected to remain at current levels. Now, farming unions have been clear that, as a minimum, they want to see maintained the equivalent of total historic common agricultural policy funding of at least £337 million per year. Indeed, environmental non-governmental organisations and agricultural organisations have called for £500 million to deliver the public goods required. Now, all eyes will turn soon to the UK Government spending review in the spring.

I do need a question now, Llyr Gruffydd.

Yes. So, given the urgent need for proper investment in rural affairs, how does the Cabinet Secretary plan to advocate for fair and necessary funding for farmers in Wales? And what case will you be making to your colleagues in the UK Treasury to make sure that our sector receives the resources it needs to deliver the growing demands being asked of it?

Well, Llyr, thank you for that question, and you make the valid point that the case for farming relies not only on making a case for good food production to the highest animal welfare standards, highest environmental standards, but the strongest case for farming now actually rests on the case that we’re asking them to do far more than that as well. We’re asking them to help us with climate resilience, we’re asking them to help us with nature recovery and restoration, we’re asking them to help us with the controversial issue of woodland coverage in the right place as well, all of those things to do with climate adaptation as well. So, on that basis, we do need the right quantum of funding in there.

Now, I’m pleased to say that, as you’ve seen within the budget, we’ve not only maintained the basic payment scheme at a £238 million ceiling, but we’ve also managed to find an additional £5.5 million revenue and £14 million capital funding to help the sector transition to the new sustainable farming scheme. Now, you raise the other quantums of funding that, actually, in that combination of environmental groups and farmers, they've said, 'We possibly need an additional £500 million, £600 million', and other figures have been mooted as well. That’s why we’re very interested, above and beyond the SFS, in something that we’ve recently consulted on, which is sustainable investment principles—so, the sort of stuff that we’ve done recently in partnership with people like Dŵr Cymru and the peatland restoration projects. We set our targets a year in advance, as you know, but that’s been done by levering in additional funding. The question is: can we find other ways, working with farmers, but also with RSPB, WWF and others, and private organisations, to say—with real integrity funding and high ethical standards that benefit the communities—we could find more? I’m very interested in that piece and in working with anybody who has suggestions on how we can lever even more funding in.

And working with UK Treasury as well, I'd have thought.

Yes, indeed.

Yes, thank you. Now, I mentioned the sustainable farming scheme, and whilst changes to the SFS achieved through co-production, of course, with farmers and environmental groups have recently been welcomed, many farmers still continue to struggle with the cumulative burden of some other policies, including the practical realities of the closed period for slurry spreading during winter. Given your collaborative approach to the SFS has allowed it to move forward in a more positive vein, doesn’t that also offer a way forward maybe for some of these other issues as well? Whilst I appreciate that an early review of the water pollution regulations is something that you’re bringing forward, wouldn’t it be timely to also bring together a round-table or working groups to work through what you’ve called in other contexts ‘knotty issues’, but particularly in relation to the NVZ policy? That might then help identify and explore more practical and pragmatic ways forward, such as alternatives to the farming-by-calendar approach.

I think there is a job of work to take forward a different approach on a range of issues around farming and land management, water catchment management and pollution that’s not only agricultural but is also industrial and is also a legacy of our Victorian pipe and sewer work as well. So, I am interested in that. But I think, on the agricultural pollution, we need to allow Dr Susannah Bolton now to do that stakeholder engagement, come back with her independent analysis of what is working and what isn’t working and proposals for the way forward. But, on top of that, there’s a bigger piece within it, as you rightly say. We’ve done an enormous amount of investment within the nutrient management boards. We’ve done a great deal of personal capital expended by the former First Minister and others in terms of the river summits and looking at that approach of everybody collaborating in order to clean up pollutions and run-off into the rivers, and so on and so forth. So, there is something in there, but I think we need to give Dr Susannah Bolton time first of all—she’ll report in the spring; it’s not long to go—and then we need to think about how we then bring this, as you say, collaborative, together approach, all owning both the challenges and the solutions into that space, and that we do this together.

Many of us, I’m sure, will be taking a well-earned rest at Christmas and taking some time out with the family, but I’m sure we’ll also be sparing a thought for those who still have to work throughout Christmas, as they do every other day of the year, be they emergency services, those who may well be called upon again to respond to extreme weather events, and farming of course doesn’t stop for Christmas. Farmers will be out in their fields and on their farmyards from the early hours of Christmas day, milking, tending to their livestock, and making sure that the rest of us have good-quality, nutritious food on our tables. As people dig into their Christmas dinners, I think we should take a moment to acknowledge that fact and say 'thank you' to those who provide for us—those who farm, those who graft producing food so that the rest of us don’t have to. And the best way we can thank them, I’d say, is by working for a future where every Christmas dinner in Wales is a true celebration of Welsh produce—locally reared turkeys, vegetables grown in Welsh fields, and all the trimmings sourced from our communities, and not just at Christmas, of course, but all year around. So, will you join me, Cabinet Secretary, in saying 'thank you' to all our farmers, wherever they are in Wales, for everything that they do for us? And can you tell us what the Welsh Government’s plan is to grow local food production, ensuring that more of our households across Wales can enjoy locally sourced festive meals while supporting our farmers and local food producers?

Diolch yn fawr, Llyr. What a great question. I do think there is more that we can do in this space. We’ve had enormous success now with some of the GI status Welsh foods, which then mean that there’s an increased recognition of local and regionally sourced Welsh products—the best of Welsh products on local shelves as well as internationally. We’re doing a lot more in the procurement space now, including with social procurement, where you can recognise the environmental and the social benefits of local and regional supply chains, rather than lowest cost denominator. We're doing an enormous amount in horticulture as well as agriculture in terms of grant funding, but also other initiatives we can do to expand that space, both on farms as diversification, but also with small growers. I think we can bring much of this together in something that I know that's been long awaited, and we've doing a heck of a lot of work behind the scenes on it, on the community food strategy, which will have very much that focus on those local food networks, the supply and resilience in those local and regional supply chains, and Welsh goodness within food. And, yes, indeed—

—a Merry Christmas to all farmers across Wales.

They'll be putting the food on our tables, we'll be enjoying it, and we should think about them as we tuck in.

Thank you, Siân. I'm working with all my Cabinet colleagues to deliver the actions contained in Net Zero Wales. Our heat strategy sets out our actions to remove barriers and to build an enabling environment for people to decarbonise their homes and adopt clean heat solutions.

Our homes are responsible for 10 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in Wales. The net zero 2035 challenge group, which was commissioned through the co-operation agreement, recognises that heating homes is a key challenge to solve. One way to decarbonise our homes is to install heat pumps. Unfortunately, however, Government guidelines put up unnecessary barriers. The guidelines prevent pumps from being installed within 3m of the boundaries of a property, and this is a space that simply doesn't exist in a large number of homes. So, will you work with the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government to change these guidelines, and to do so urgently?

Yes, indeed, Siân. Before air-source heat pumps became a thing, before they were considered alternatives to traditional fossil fuel boilers, that 3m rule was introduced as a precaution against noise impacts on neighbouring properties. Now, since its introduction back in 2012—we're more than a decade on—heat pump technology has improved vastly, including the technology, but also the noise levels have reduced as well. So, it's a very different product nowadays. We are aiming to publish revised regulations for permitted development rights towards the end of 2025, because it's a recognition that that 3m rule was maybe fit for that time, but the technology has moved on so much and the noise has been reduced so much. What we're hoping is that these will address those unnecessary barriers to installation of heat pumps and ensure also that there aren't any unacceptable impacts to neighbouring properties and local amenities as well, to get the balance right, but to recognise that the technology has improved immeasurably.

Of course, one of the ways in which people can lower their carbon emissions from their homes is to make use of the excellent ECO4 scheme. I know, Cabinet Secretary, you'll be aware that ECO4 is a £4 billion fund provided by private energy suppliers in the UK, and it's managed through the UK Government. Many private house owners have tapped into that. Some think it's too good to be true, but, actually, the ability to tap into that fund is far easier than many people would expect. But it strikes me there's an opportunity for social landlords to also tap into this funding, as it is accessible to social landlords and many of the properties that they manage would be eligible for this funding. So, I'd be interested to hear from the Cabinet Secretary whether he would work with the Cabinet Secretary for housing to ensure that social landlords are tapping into this money, because £4 billion-worth of money needs to be spent over a four-year period so that people living in social housing can have the same benefits as those living in private housing.

Yes, very much, Sam. And thanks for the question, because this is a real opportunity here. So, essentially, low-income households in those cold, draughty, energy-inefficient homes, who either own their own homes or are in the private rented sector, can actually apply for this. Social housing tenants can also apply as well, but we've got other funding routes that they could go through, such as the optimised retrofit programme. And just to say, Sam, we're putting more than £30 million this year into the Warm Homes Nest scheme as well, to reduce the number of low-income households living in cold, damp homes. Also, that optimised retrofit programme I talked about, improving the efficiency of social housing and reducing, by the way, bills, so helping with the cost-of-living challenges that people have, we're putting over £260 million into that over this term of Government, including £70 million for this current financial year. So, yes, the ECO4 approach is there, but there are also other avenues that people can use as well.

Thank you, Mabon. Natural Resources Wales has critically reviewed its entire range of activities, recognising that delivery of its core functions and statutory duties must take priority. Following its 'Case for Change' consultation, the NRW board approved the changes so ensuring that the organisation continues to focus on supporting nature’s recovery, tackling climate change and minimising pollution.

I thank the Deputy First Minister for that response. Of course, it is regrettable that Natural Resources Wales has decided to close the visitor centres in Coed y Brenin, Nant yr Arian and Ynyslas. I am worried that this will impact the popularity of these attractions and there is very real concern locally that fewer people will visit the centres as a result. So, it's essential to prevent their closure and to ensure that whoever takes over these sites for the long term does so simply and smoothly, and without these places having to close in the first instance. So, what discussions have you had with Natural Resources Wales in order to ensure that the process of transferring these to their new owners is a smooth one and that the centres will not close?

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Yes, both myself and my officials are picking up the queries and concerns raised by Members of the Senedd, but also the expressions of interest by many organisations around Wales to have a part in either taking over or contributing to the running of these centres. Just to be clear, over this recess, going forward into the spring, people can still go, can still walk and cycle and can go there, and so on. I'm told by NRW that whilst they've concluded their 'Case for Change' and they are indeed focusing, as we've repeatedly said, on their statutory and core duties, they're very committed to responding now to these expressions of interest from local businesses and local community groups in taking over the responsibility for the running of the retail and catering services at those centres. They've recently held three in-person engagement sessions in public, and one virtual session as well, to provide information to people on arrangements for the future of the centres, how they can put forward their expressions of interest, and also how that links into the sites around them.

One thing that NRW are doing that both my officials and I, in our meetings, have raised with them is having some sort of continuity at the sites. So, what they're proposing at the moment, even whilst they respond to the expressions of interest and go through the proper process to respond to those, is they're also developing interim measures at each site for the start of the new financial year, and these could include things such as concessionary arrangements for refreshments at sites, and so on, so that people who are visiting will still have something—as well as going walking or cycling, or whatever, they can also then have some refreshments there as well.

It's important to stress to people that if they turn up this recess or going forward, NRW are still continuing with the management of those sites, and the centres themselves will remain open for all those things, including, if you drive to the sites, the car parking will be there, the toilet provision and so on as well. So, I think we've all got to say to everybody, 'Don't stop going there; these sites are still going to be available to you.' 

As part of a drive to save £12 million, there are grave concerns that NRW will not have the capacity to fulfil its vital roles, particularly in the face of increasingly severe weather conditions. I just want to put on record, quite often, we've all had concerns about NRW, but I have to say that the front-line staff are absolutely amazing. With the closure of visitor centre cafes proposed, the end of the physical library service, a reduced response to low-level pollution incidents, and the agency's ability to tackle climate change, manage flood risk and protect biodiversity, they are definitely going to be compromised. Indeed, NRW's own flood risk management service is expected to provide options for additional savings of £2.1 million alongside the already 233 job losses in NRW more widely.

I feel the pain when I speak to those front-line hard workers. Is there a way that you could look at reviewing the whole workings of NRW? Because there is a lot of top management there, for me—and we have it in the health board as well—and we should be looking at making sure that those front-line workers, the ones who are out in all weathers, doing jobs that none of us could do, doing hard jobs in really difficult circumstances, have got the maximum resources for them to use, and maybe look at streamlining some of the bigger management roles. Thank you.

Thanks, Janet. Can I just agree with you on the staff within NRW who, through the recent storms, but actually in their day-to-day jobs, do absolutely sterling work? But, you are right, it's not just the recent 'Case for Change', where NRW have been, I think, rightly, with the pressures they're under, tasked with focusing on their statutory, regulatory and core duties, and engaging with trade unions on that, but there was a journey before this that they went on as well, as you'll recall from the time we spent together on the climate change committee. A few years ago, they went through a baseline analysis, doing exactly what you currently describe—[Interruption.]—which was looking at every part of the organisation in order to see that the money was going through to the front-line services. Also, then, as a result of that, we gave a significant uplift to NRW, so that they could carry on with that. Sorry, I'm smiling, Llywydd, because, yes—.

I know why you're smiling.

As part of that, they also implemented cost recovery, as you know, to make sure that they were not subsidising elements that they previously were and were recovering their costs, and then the 'Case for Change'. Now, going forward, we will certainly be protecting significant areas and investing additionally in significant areas, including flooding, flood resilience and flood capacity within NRW, but also maintaining our record spending on flooding and so on. We will be investing in things such as infrastructure and planning decisions, so that they can be brought forward in a more timely manner, because there's often a frustration, and it's to do with lack of capacity. So, both the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language and I are very interested in that; we're hoping to take that forward.

We're very keen, also, by the way, as the Cabinet Secretary to the right of me made clear yesterday, in the space around what we can do to strengthen some of the enforcement as well. Albeit that I always want NRW to be empathetic in the way that they do this, there is a need for good enforcement across a wide range, so we're keen on that. We'll also be looking at investment in nature-based solutions and also digital infrastructure to streamline its permitting and its licensing regime. So, we stand by NRW as the go-to regulatory body here in Wales, and we stand by its staff as well. I don't think we need to do another 'Case for Change' or another baseline analysis. We now need to put the support into the right place and let them get on with doing their job very effectively.

Thank you, Adam. We have already been actively engaging with many stakeholders and will continue to do so as we develop a deposit-return scheme that aligns with our high ambitions for world-class recycling and material reuse, including glass.

I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for his response. Recently, I visited Brecon Carreg, a mineral water producer in my constituency, and they explained their concerns about the decision to have a separate DRS. They would have to produce bottles with two different labels, and in selling to supermarkets that supply England and Wales from the same warehouses, there would have to be two separate stocks held. Many of the supermarkets have said that they wouldn't then take any produce at all, and then that would have a very detrimental impact not only on this company, but on the sector, which is an important sector in Wales more generally of course. Would the Cabinet Secretary be willing to visit Brecon Carreg to hear their concerns directly and to try and find solutions to those concerns?

Diolch, Adam, and the answer to the last question is 'yes'. In fact, I'm pleased—it may be serendipitous—but I've actually had a written invite a couple of weeks ago from Brecon Carreg to come and look at their production, look at their facility, look at different aspects of the operation, and to discuss DRS. In fact, it's only within the last few weeks, since we've made the announcement on the way that we will proceed with the DRS, which I believe is the right way for Wales. It matches where we are now as the second-in-the-world recycling nation, and we're a fraction away from being first in the world. That is a benefit of decisions we can make with devolution, that we went ahead to achieve that. But we now need to have a deposit-return scheme that actually delivers on the next stage of our ambition, which is reuse.

I'm really keen, however—even in the last couple of weeks since we made our very clear restatement of our position and our way forward—to work with stakeholders. One of the defining aspects of the work that's been done in this sphere over several years in Wales, in preparing for this, is the quality of the engagement with stakeholders, and we'll continue to do that. I think I must have had four or five stakeholder meetings as groups—probably more than that—in the time I've been in place, specifically on DRS, but I've also been out in the last couple of weeks individually to meet with microbreweries and so on, to say to them, 'We want to devise a scheme that will work for Wales, but also will work for you.' And that's where we need to be very clever.

So, listen, I will be accepting that invitation from Brecon Carreg to go out and meet with them, because I want to learn what their concerns are, but also what the potential is for them as well. Because one of the interesting things here is, if we can put in place a reuse scheme for, let's say, bottles, as well as aluminium and other materials as well, then that may actually have implications of driving down the cost, because you have to heat recycled glass up to 1,500 degrees before you shape it into a glass bottle. If what we're talking about is relabelling, reusing and cleaning ones, then what we've seen in the 53-plus countries that do this is that you can actually bring down the cost basis for people who can then reuse those containers. But, yes, more than happy to go out to meet them.

And just to say very clearly, whilst the deposit-return schemes have been developed in parallel, that in the other three nations and ours, they were being developed as legally separate schemes, rather than one single scheme across the UK. We'd have liked to have gone ahead with the previous position of an all-in-scheme for all of the UK, but we understand there's a different approach going to be taken elsewhere. What we need to do now is develop a DRS that will really deliver benefits to Wales, and that means a decarbonisation reuse scheme, as well as, simply, a recycling scheme.

Thank you to Adam Price for asking this question.

Cabinet Secretary, I spoke to Richard Johnson, the head brewer at Tenby Harbour Brewery on this, and he called it illogical. And I'll read you the quote that he said:

'Wales is a recycling nation'—

I agree with this—

'so a blunt "one size fits all" approach creates additional logistical and financial burdens on the smallest producers, when the very largest producers are generating the majority of the recycling demand.'

And I would agree with that. And listening to the reply that you gave to Adam Price earlier, I would argue that you agree with that as well, because the cost implications of rewashing and relabelling these bottles, if they're from a big brewery—Heineken, for example—is much easier than if you're a small independent brewery like Tenby Harbour Brewery, who sell across the UK, not just in Wales. So, why are you developing a policy that advocates in favour of what big international, multinational companies are advocating for and find easiest, and ignoring the plight that this would put on small Welsh businesses across our country?

Thanks, Sam. We're not doing what you say. What we're actually doing is developing a scheme with the supply chain, listening to them. We have the ability now as we take this forward to actually speak to them and develop it with them. I've actually been out with small breweries talking to them directly, as you have been, and talking through what they'd like to see in this scheme, how they'd like to see it designed so it works for them, so that it isn't simply for large brewers, it's also for smaller brewers as well. We also need to make sure that the scheme works for small retailers as well as large retailers.

It was disappointing, I have to say, that the previous UK Government walked away from an approach to a scheme that was agreed across the four nations and was consulted on; they unilaterally moved away from it. But the great advantage of where we are now in Wales is that we can look to those 53 plus other nations who've done this and have successfully engaged with smaller retailers, smaller brewers, smaller producers in order to get it right for them. So we can learn the lessons of what works really well.

What we will bring forward here in Wales is something that is devised with the help of the supply chain to get it right for Wales. I hope we will have support right across the Chamber for building on a scheme where we've already got to the point where we are second in the world on recycling. What we now need to do is go further into reuse, building on the scheme that we had in Brecon, building on the massive pilot that will come forward in Newport next year. Surely that has to be our ambition, Sam. And I say to all your Conservative colleagues: it's decarbonisation as well as de-littering and recycling.

Finally, question 8, Sioned Williams.

Diolch, Sioned. We are indeed committed to embedding our response to the nature and climate emergency into everything we do. Our recently published climate adaptation strategy for Wales sets out cross-cutting actions we are taking across all Cabinet portfolios to tackle the effects of our changing climate.

Thank you. The storms and floods that we've experienced over the last few weeks are proof that we need to ensure that the way that we implement policies in so many areas is alive to the effects of climate change. One example, of course, is how we build houses and how we erect buildings. We understand the importance of building energy-efficient homes in order to reduce carbon emissions, but the scenes that we witnessed in Pontypridd and other places recently also remind us of the importance of responding to the more frequent flooding that we're going to see in terms of how and where houses and buildings are built, in order to increase their resilience to this change.

I've asked you before about the willingness of the Government to consider the benefits of industrial hemp, in reference to a study by Aberystwyth University on the great potential of encouraging and facilitating our farmers to grow and process industrial hemp. Hempcrete is a building material that contributes to the capacity of homes to resist mould, it dries out more quickly, and it increases energy efficiency of buildings. In response to me, you've acknowledged that it is a really exciting technology and you promised to discuss with your officials and engage with the UK Government to see what potential is available for hemp in the field of construction. So this is the time to get ahead of the curve, Cabinet Secretary, and put Wales on the front foot with this technology. So do you have an update on this? And would you consider holding a round-table discussion or summit with experts in this field to explore what action the Welsh Government could take?

I'm more than happy to engage with my Cabinet colleagues on the potential of hemp, not only from an agricultural point of view, but also from a building point of view as well. We had hemp producers, actually, at a recent climate-driven house building event that we had in Swansea several months ago, and it was good to see them there, amongst wood builders and so on as well. So, I'm more than happy to commit to that. I notice, at the fear of saying this, that we appear to have in you, Sioned, now an absolute champion for hemp in terms of agriculture, but also hemp in terms of building. It does indeed have potential. One of our focuses at the moment is actually to work on what we know there is already a supply chain in place for, and it's growing, which is those small and medium-scale developers of house building with wood—wood being used for construction. That's a real focus for us. But hemp is a part of the future, without a doubt, as well. So, yes, I'm more than happy to bring you updates as we go along with our discussions here and with the UK Government and others as well. 

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. 

Topical questions now. There is one question that's been accepted, from Peredur Owen Griffiths.  

Thank you very much for your very important question. 

Earlier today, I issued a written statement about the unfolding situation in Syria. The situation is developing, but we all hope for a political solution that protects all civilians and minority communities. We join the UK Government in calling on all parties to support humanitarian access. 

Thank you for that response and thank you for the statement issued earlier. 

The fall of the Moscow-backed Assad regime in Syria has been welcomed since the news broke about this momentous chapter in history over the weekend. This has particularly been the case amongst the Welsh citizens with links to Syria that I have spoken to in the last few days. Some of these people with links to Syria have made their lives in Wales and made an immense contribution to our society, to our economy and to our public services. I note that there was a gathering on Sunday to mark the fall of Assad and celebrate what will hopefully be a transition to a free and democratic Syria. I'm hoping to host an event next week in the Senedd to bring those people together who make up the Syrian-Welsh society. 

The weekend's events may have brought old emotions and trauma to the surface for some. There may be a need for counselling as a result of that, so I wonder if that's something that the Government has considered. I want to know also what support and guidance this Government can give to these valued and esteemed members of our society. For example, can the Government liaise with the Foreign Office to ensure that our citizens with links to Syria can have assistance in tracing their relatives that they may have lost touch with during Assad's reign of terror? Can the Government also have dialogue with the foreign office to exert pressure to ensure that the situation does not allow opportunists from the Israeli Government to further their warmongering in the region? 

There also needs to be support for civil society in Syria to ensure, going forward, there is protection for all no matter what their ethnic background in what is a very diverse country that includes a sizeable Kurdish population, many of whom have a link to communities in Wales. Such conditions would present the greatest chance of delivering a peaceful and free Syria, which is surely what everybody wants.   

Thank you very much indeed, Peredur, for all those thoughts, reflections, questions and engagement. I think this is an opportunity, as I said in my written statement this morning, to recognise that extraordinary events are unfolding in Syria. The UK Government are monitoring them closely, and are in close contact with our international partners and our many Syrian contacts. Of course, also it is important to respond by saying that the UK continues to support those in need across Syria where it's safe to do so. Through non-governmental organisations and United Nations organisations, the UK is providing food, healthcare and other life-saving assistance. 

On 6 December, the UK Government announced an additional £300,000 in funding to the White Helmets—you know the White Helmets, of course. The funding will support search and rescue operations, facilitate humanitarian access, allow the expansion of their existing ambulance system and enable the safe removal of unexploded weapons. We, the Welsh Government, will work with the UK Government to understand any changes, how they may apply in relation to Syrians in Wales, and continue to provide inclusive support for as long as it's needed by people residing in Wales.

As I said in my statement, Wales has become home to over 2,000 Syrians since the conflict began in all our constituencies across Wales—a warm welcome from Wales as part of our nation of sanctuary, when they came to Wales since the conflict began in their homeland. Of course, Syrian-Welsh people and families will be watching developments and will be in contact with families as developments unfold in Syria. But also to make, again, the point, as I did in my written statement, that many who arrived in Wales from 2015 onwards have become valued members of our communities, contributing to our economy, our public services. In Wales, we pride ourselves on being a nation of sanctuary, and we'll continue to monitor the situation and support the Syrian community in Wales as the situation becomes clearer.

I echo some of the points that have been made by the Member for South Wales East. It is vital that support is available to Syrian families in Wales who will be affected by the developments in Syria over the past few days. I'm sure we all recognise that the political situation in Syria is very complicated. The country is now ungoverned and in a very unstable position. I'm sure the Trefnydd will agree with me that, given the limited responsibilities the Welsh Government has in this area, the Welsh Government's priority must be to reinforce its support for Syrian families here in Wales, and work with local agencies to help reconnect families with their loved ones as quickly and as safely as possible. Therefore, can the Trefnydd provide some more details on the work that is being undertaken with agencies across Wales to support Syrian families here in Wales? Can she also tell us what additional support the Welsh Government is making available to help Syrian families in Wales reconnect with their loved ones, should they wish to return to their homeland? Given that this is a reserved matter and not within the scope of the Welsh Government, can the Trefnydd tell us how the Welsh Government will be monitoring this situation in the days and weeks to come?

Thank you very much indeed, Paul Davies. I do want to assure Members that many Syrians in Wales continue to receive important support, principally from our local authorities, from the local authority resettlement teams, who have played such an important role in welcoming sanctuary seekers through many situations—Syrians, Afghans. They are really important in terms of Afghan refugees and Ukrainian refugees. Those local authority resettlement teams are clear about their responsibilities and the support they give. Many Syrians in Wales, as I've said, continue to receive that support. They can access our Wales sanctuary service, and we'll ensure that the sanctuary website is updated when we know more about UK Government actions and how people can make contact and follow up their family needs and circumstances.

I think it's important to say that the UK Government has been at the forefront of the response to these fast-moving events. They're speaking regularly to regional and other partners, and to ourselves in the Welsh Government, about the unfolding situation. As I said, they are calling on all parties to support humanitarian access, and also to ensure that they play their part in terms of how they can support those in need across Syria, where it's safe to do so.

Just to say there's no consular support available from within Syria to British nationals. Each request for consular assistance from Syria is considered on a case-by-case basis, taking into account relevant circumstances, including, of course, national security. If the Welsh Government becomes aware of consular cases in Syria, we will raise these with our partners in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. There are tried-and-tested procedures in place between the Welsh and UK Governments to provide assistance to Welsh citizens who are affected by conflict or natural disasters. We put these in place, and they do work effectively. I hope that gives the Senedd some reassurance about that support and those connections and links to the UK Government.

Can I take the opportunity to thank all those community sponsor groups as well? I think the first community sponsor group for Syrian families was in your constituency, and then it spread, through Citizens Cymru, across. I certainly had Croeso Llantwit and Cowbridge both engaging with Citizens Cymru, and I know that is the case across Wales. But we will be closely in touch and our local authorities, through our sanctuary board, will be briefing us on developments.

Thank you Cabinet Secretary.

Item 4 is the 90-second statements, and there is just one today, and I call on Sioned Williams.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. This week we mark Human Rights Day, which falls each year on 10 December. In his message for the day, UN Secretary General, António Guterres, said that

'Human rights are under assault.... This year’s theme'

of 'Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now',

'reminds us that human rights are about building the future—right now.... We must stand up for all rights—always.'

As chair of the cross-party group on human rights, I’m privileged to work with leading experts in and defenders of human rights in Wales, such as Professor Simon Hoffman of Swansea University’s Observatory on Human Rights and Social Justice. In a blog to mark Human Rights Day, Professor Hoffman has warned that we in Wales should be aware of the rise in so-called populist politics and its consequences, including an increase in hate speech and violence directed at minorities. And we should be troubled by the ongoing corrosive effect of poverty, inequality and discrimination, which is a blight on many communities in Wales and which denies individuals their basic human rights in areas such as housing, health, education and social care. These, he says, are very real and current threats to human rights at our doorstep here in Wales and they show no signs of diminishing. He says that we must remember that all levels of Government in the UK have a responsibility towards meeting the UK’s human rights obligations within their powers, including the Senedd, Welsh Government and other public bodies.

Wales has shown leadership on human rights, and inspired by the positive and demonstrable effect of the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Welsh law, civil society in Wales have long called for the incorporation of further international human rights, such as those that protect and promote the interests of women and disabled people and the right to adequate housing. Welsh Government made a programme for government commitment to incorporate women’s rights and disabled people’s rights into Welsh law, but the Equality and Social Justice Committee, of which I’m a member, has recently reported on a worrying lack of prioritisation for this work of late.

Human rights are not just—

Sioned, it is a 90-second statement.

Yes, one sentence, if you would, Dirprwy Lywydd. Human rights are not just abstract ideas. Through different declarations, covenants and Bills, they are actionable standards. They are preventive, protective and transformative, and must remain a priority for us in Wales. In the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr:

'A right delayed is a right denied.'

Diolch.

The next item is a motion under Standing Order 16.3 to alter the remit of the Reform Bill Committee. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion—Jane Hutt.

I move formally.

I have no speakers to this item. Therefore, the proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

We move to item 6, a motion to elect a Member to a committee. And I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion—Jane Hutt.

I move.

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

Item 7 this afternoon is a debate on the Finance Committee report, 'Fiscal Intergovernmental Relations'. And I call on the Chair of the committee, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. I would like thank all those who gave evidence to the committee as part of this wide-ranging inquiry, and to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language and his predecessor for their engagement.

I am also grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for providing a response to our report ahead of this debate, and I'm pleased to see that he has responded positively to our recommendations, with all of those directed at the Welsh Government accepted either in principle or in full. However, it is disappointing that we have not even received an acknowledgement of our report from the Treasury, which sadly reflects a main theme in our report.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we began our inquiry into fiscal inter-governmental relations a year ago, back in December 2023, and published our report in October this year. During that time, the political landscape at both the Welsh and UK levels has changed significantly.

While our report does not look into whether the change in Government at Westminster has led to improvements in fiscal inter-governmental relations—I believe that it is too early to do that—we were able to look at the mechanisms, cultures, attitudes and processes that underpin those relations. In particular, the committee wanted to shine a light on areas where improvements can be made and to set out some practical steps around how this can be achieved.

In particular, we looked at: the effectiveness of inter-governmental structures in addressing the principles for collaborative working relating to fiscal matters; the strengths and weaknesses of the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee, or FISC; how the UK Government communicates with devolved administrations around fiscal events, in particular how Barnett consequentials could be communicated in a transparent and timely manner; what processes could be implemented to improve the influence of the Senedd on inter-governmental structures; whether the current dispute resolution mechanisms are fit for purpose; and to examine international examples of inter-governmental relations structures and identify areas of good practice relating to collaborative working on fiscal matters. Taken together, our findings provide a set of clear principles and examples of good practice as a basis for improvements in relations. The committee’s overriding view is that fiscal arrangements in the UK should be underpinned by logical structures and clear principles, rather than the whims or personalities of Treasury Ministers, which too often has been the case.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I now turn to specific recommendations, and would like to start on a positive note. The previous UK Government conducted a much-needed review of inter-governmental structures in 2022. We found that these are a significant improvement on what went before. In particular, the establishment of the Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council is a significant development in building trust and effective channels of communication, and we note that the First Minister attended its first meeting in October. There have also been positive developments in relation to dispute resolution, which prevents the UK Government denying the existence of a dispute and applies independent chairing and secretariat arrangements.

We welcome the establishment of the Finance: Interministerial Standing Committee, or FISC for short, which includes all finance Ministers of the UK, and the regular updates provided by the Cabinet Secretary to the committee before and after such meetings take place. FISC in particular has established some modest but important improvements in its working practices, including the rotation of the chair and location, as well as allowing any Government to raise an item for discussion. These changes reduce the hierarchy that previously existed and puts the devolved Governments on a more equal footing with the UK Government.

However, there are still barriers to how FISC operates, and we have concerns that these structures have largely been untested, and we would like to see it developed further. We believe that it should be the core forum for sharing information between Governments on financial matters, including details of funding levels and future announcements. But this has been severely undermined by previous Chief Secretaries to the Treasury, who have viewed the forum with distrust. Whilst this lack of engagement from the UK Government has conversely led to a deepening of relationships between the devolved administrations, a development that we welcome, it is not a sound basis on which to conduct inter-governmental discussions. We have made recommendations aimed at strengthening FISC, to ensure that its processes are sufficiently robust, with the aim of reducing the discretion currently afforded to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in such matters.

Our evidence also indicates that the Treasury continues to undermine inter-governmental relations by treating the Welsh Government as another UK department rather than a devolved Government in its own right and accountable to a devolved legislature. This is clearly anomalous with the principle of mutual respect between the Governments of these nations, and we call on the Treasury to change its approach in order to respect the constitutional realities of the UK. We welcome the work already done in this area by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, and support its recommendation that inter-governmental structures should be placed on a statutory footing to ensure a duty of co-operation and parity of esteem between Governments.

In relation to dispute resolution, although the process for escalating disputes within FISC has improved, the committee believes that grounds for raising such disputes are too limited, given that this can only happen where there is reason to believe a principle of the statement of funding policy may have been breached, and asks the Cabinet Secretary to pursue this issue further with the Treasury. But having the right structures in place is only part of the solution. This needs to be supplemented by a robust culture between Governments in the UK, based on respect. Too often, our report highlights instances where those have been lacking, and this has resulted in processes that don’t work to their potential, leading to disappointing fiscal outcomes for Wales.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I would like to turn to other parts of our report that deal with funding arrangements for Wales. The arguments relating to the continued use of the Barnett formula are well documented, and we welcome the Welsh Government’s vision for a new principles-based approach to funding across the UK, overseen by an independent body, and support the Cabinet Secretary in these endeavours. 

From the committee’s perspective, the timing of major fiscal decisions can cause significant challenges for both the Welsh Government in preparing its own budget, and for the Senedd in having sufficient time to scrutinise it. We heard evidence that the UK is one of the only decentralised fiscal states that gives such short notice on funding changes. This approach is difficult to defend, and we support the Welsh Government in pressing the Treasury to set the dates of fiscal events well in advance.

We also found that the UK Government’s funding announcement often lacks transparency, and the Welsh Government also faces challenges in learning of these announcements late in the financial year, which causes problems in managing devolved budgets and maximising the funds available. Over the years, the committee has consistently called on Welsh Government to encourage earlier and regular engagement with the Treasury on these matters. This includes a greater voice for Wales in the UK spending review, as well as the delivery of multi-year settlements as a matter of course to provide greater funding certainty. 

We have also commented on technical matters relating to how funding decisions relating to Wales are made by the Treasury, and call for greater transparency in this area. In particular, we believe that the Welsh Government’s funding position would benefit from earlier engagement with the Treasury on the development of future statement of policy documents to mitigate project categorisation issues, such as those that arose following funding relating to HS2.

We also heard evidence that the Treasury is able to use its central reserve to circumvent the Barnett formula in certain circumstances, which is a concern. We agree that the UK Government should not be able to arbitrarily allocate additional funding to any part of the UK outside normal arrangements, and again press the Cabinet Secretary to raise this issue with Treasury counterparts as soon as possible. 

Another continued area of concern for the committee relates to the fiscal levers available to the Welsh Government. We found that these are often undermined by a straitjacket of rules set by the UK Government. In particular, the Treasury’s imposed draw-down limits from the Wales reserve, and the ability of the Welsh Government to switch capital funding to resource seems unduly rigid, and we called on the Welsh Government to pursue action in this area.

The committee also believes that late funding announcements made by the Treasury should be carried across financial years. We heard evidence in favour of implementing a funding guarantee for Wales, similar to the Barnett guarantee introduced during the COVID pandemic, as a way to provide a degree of certainty to the Welsh Government on the funding available. We believe there are merits in exploring this further, and have recommended that the Cabinet Secretary pursues this with the Treasury. These are modest requests, and we see no reason why these cannot be adopted.

I touched upon the limits of the dispute resolution process earlier in my contribution. As Members will know, budgetary disputes are currently managed through the Welsh fiscal framework agreement. However, we believe the fiscal framework is ripe for review given the issues we identified in our report. We are particularly disappointed that no date has been set for the review to take place, and it is regrettable that this did not take place concurrently with a review of arrangements in Scotland, which was completed in 2023. As a result, we have recommended that the framework is updated, and that this should provide an opportunity to address fundamental issues, such as linking index borrowing and overall reserve limits to inflation, abolishing reserve draw-down limits, and increasing capital borrowing limits.

It's also disappointing that limited progress has been made by the Welsh Government to devolve further powers to introduce a vacant land tax, and note the former Cabinet Secretary’s view that this process is not fit for purpose. As a result, we have called on the current Cabinet Secretary to pursue a review of the process for agreeing new devolved tax powers with the UK Government, as outlined in the Government of Wales Act 2006.

The Cabinet Secretary’s response to these recommendations is encouraging and suggests that this matter will now be progressed, and I ask for the committee to be updated on any progress in this area. 

To close, I’d like to talk about other ways in which the Senedd can play its own part in holding inter-governmental decisions to account. As a committee, we heard evidence that there has traditionally been a lack of input from legislatures into inter-governmental structures and in holding them to account. That’s why we, along with our counterparts in the Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly, have established an interparliamentary finance committee forum, which has proved an effective vehicle for bringing together the common concerns of the devolved Parliaments relating to fiscal matters.

However, we have continually felt frustrated with the lack of engagement from the Treasury to appear before the committee and to engage with the forum, despite repeated efforts. The lack of an acknowledgement from the Treasury to this report also reinforces the point. Once again, this points to a basic lack of respect, and we have recommended as a result that the Treasury takes steps to improve the way it engages with the Senedd and other devolved Parliaments. There is a hope that things will change following this year’s UK general election, but we will wait to see whether concrete action will match the rhetoric.

Since the committee started its inquiry, the political context has shifted considerably. We believe, therefore, that this is a timely opportunity to reset relationships, and we hope that this report will inform and strengthen relations between Governments in the UK. Thank you.

I was very pleased to be part of this inquiry, and I thank the Chair of the Finance Committee for laying out succinctly our findings. We know that the matter of inter-governmental relations is an incredibly important one, especially considering the nature of devolution, and I thank everybody who gave evidence; it was a very interesting inquiry.

It is, of course, in the best interests of the people of Wales for both Governments on either end of the M4 to co-operate and work together to try and improve the prospects for both people and businesses in Wales. I’m glad that we—the Finance Committee—have looked into the matter and have laid out some key recommendations to improve this relationship. What is important, though, is that the Welsh Government does not stop pushing the UK Government for the needs of Wales just because their Labour colleagues are now in power. We have already seen this to a degree, with Labour MPs and Members here abandoning calls for the billions of pounds worth of consequentials as a result of HS2 spending.

I am glad the committee has recommended that the Cabinet Secretary continues to engage with the UK Government to advocate for the needs-based funding mechanism, to ensure fairer funding for Wales and provide an update to the committee on its progress. This will be an incredibly important step in helping to improve the state of public services here in Wales, which are under ever-increasing strain and are letting people down.

The committee has also recommended that the Cabinet Secretary calls on the Treasury to publish detailed workings alongside its funding announcements to improve transparency around devolved funding and project categorisation. This will ensure that there is no confusion surrounding any future infrastructure projects and the impact that spending would have on Wales.

Finally, I welcome the committee’s recommendation for the Cabinet Secretary to pursue the UK Government to undertake a review into the Welsh fiscal framework, particularly increasing the capital borrowing limit. It’s unacceptable that the Welsh Government has fewer borrowing powers than a council in Wales. If we want better investment and more forward planning, we need a Government who is able to look ahead and not just react. We also need additional fiscal borrowing powers. That would provide a useful tool in addressing this.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I’m glad that the Welsh Government has a good working relationship now with the UK Government. However, we must not grow complacent and let political allies walk all over us. It is down to Welsh Ministers to stand up to their colleagues in Westminster and not just accept any policies that are not in the best interests of families across Wales. I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary will continue to stand up for Wales. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.

May I thank the Finance Committee for your work on this? It is really important, and very timely as well, given that we’re looking for that reset in the relationship. It rightly stresses the need for that urgent reset of fiscal inter-governmental relations after years of neglect and strain.

I think the fact that both the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury declined invitations to appear before the Finance Committee to give evidence on this very issue, and failed to even submit written contributions, in stark contrast to the Parliaments of Canada and Spain, speaks volumes as to the disregard of the previous UK Government towards the devolved administrations. I do welcome the positive change in tone from the current UK Government and an apparent greater willingness to engage constructively on these matters, but this must be shown in deeds as well as words, underpinned by a clear intent to treat the devolved Governments as equal partners rather than subordinate. After all, while the revamped IGR structures established in 2022 were deemed to be a significant improvement on what came before, they were soon ignored in practice, and we all know that, when it comes to our fiscal arrangements with Westminster, Wales is especially disadvantaged. This is encapsulated by the Barnett formula, which was a temporary sticking-plaster solution from the 1970s that was never designed with Wales in mind. And with cross-party support in this Senedd for replacing the formula with a needs-based funding model fit for the twenty-first century, enacting the settled will of the Senedd should be at the very top of the UK Government's to-do list when it comes to fiscal inter-governmental affairs.

I know, in response to a recent question I put to the Cabinet Secretary on this matter, he claimed that some forums weren't the right ones to be debating or discussing this. I'd be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary could explain where he believes that the appropriate inter-governmental mechanism is for generating some long overdue traction on this agenda, and confirm, hopefully, in the response, whether he or the First Minister have formally requested a review of the Barnett formula in written correspondence to the UK Government since the general election.

Of course, the withholding of HS2 consequentials is the most obvious example of how the arbitrary application of Barnett has short-changed Wales to the tune of billions of pounds, and, once again, there is cross-party support here for Wales to receive its fair share of the money, as has already happened in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Finally, the report alludes to the need to introduce greater flexibilities to the Senedd's budgetary management framework—something that Plaid Cymru has long advocated for. I think it's a damning indictment of Westminster's arbitrary hoarding of powers that this Senedd remains exceptionally constrained in its ability to manage its own fiscal resources, which means that, by international standards, our position is anomalous for all the wrong reasons.

I very much welcome the report, and hope we do see progress on the recommendations, and I'm sure, as Chair of the Finance Committee, that you will be monitoring closely that that reset happens, but also delivers for this Senedd and the people of Wales.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language, Mark Drakeford.

Dirprwy Lywydd, thank you very much. And thank you to the Finance Committee for this interesting report and for this opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I read the report with great interest. I looked through the Chair's foreword particularly closely and found I agreed very much with the points that were made there, and they've been echoed in what the Chair has said this afternoon, that we need a set of inter-governmental relations that are based not on personalities but on strong and sound structures, backed up by a robust and respectful culture. Structures alone are not enough, and even the best of personalities cannot complete the work that needs to be completed if there isn't a structure there to support that work.

Fifteen of the committee's recommendations fall to the Welsh Government—not all; some fall to the Treasury, and some are recommendations about inter-parliamentary work. But I think if you look at the 15 recommendations and the challenge they posed to the verbal dexterity of the drafters, you will see that the Welsh Government is called upon once to 'engage' with other Governments, once to 'advocate' for a particular position, three times to 'pursue' a particular argument, four times to 'call' for something to happen, and six times to 'press' for a particular outcome, and what those verbs tell you, of course, is that there is no unilateral ability on the part of any one player in inter-governmental relations to make something happen. You have to, inevitably, work with others and persuade others to adopt some of the very sensible recommendations that this report contains. There is some good news, however—since the change of Government, we have seen some positive developments. The inter-governmental relations review, which took four years to complete, did have a council of nations at its heart, and that council failed to meet once under the last Government. It has now met under the new Government, and, in October, the First Minister was able to attend it.

This FISC is a more longstanding part of our inter-governmental arrangements. A bewildering succession of Chief Secretaries to the Treasury passed in front of it, while my colleague Rebecca Evans represented the Welsh Government throughout it all. It illustrated the point that the Chair makes in his introduction to the report of the limitations of personalities, because, amongst that parade of Chief Secretaries, there were some who clearly wished to work constructively with devolved Governments, and there were some who very clearly believed that devolution was a dreadful mistake and they weren't there to do anything to add to it.

The rotation of chair and location has helped, but the arbitrary nature of some aspects of the FISC and the operation of the Treasury remain deep in its culture. Dirprwy Lywydd, I agreed with almost nothing that Liz Truss had to say, but I did have some sympathy with her view that the culture of the Treasury lay at the heart of the difficulties of the modern British state. And even a change of Government does not guarantee a swift change of culture, because people who have grown up in the Treasury have been there a very long time, and they continue to act in the way that they've been brought up to act. So, in the inter-governmental review, the elements of independent arbitration apply to every other part of Government, but not to the Treasury, because the Treasury simply refused. Despite the fact that the Prime Minister at the time was prepared to sign off the report, the Treasury simply refused to bring itself within that ambit. So, I'm not claiming at all this afternoon that, in six months, all that cultural heritage has been overcome, and that's why we will continue to work alongside colleagues, particularly colleagues from other devolved Governments, to try to improve that culture that we have inherited.

However, there are good things still to be said. In terms of the recommendations, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has confirmed a rolling approach to future spending reviews, and no more cliff edges of the sort that the report points to. We're promised multi-year settlements in the spring statement, which, again, will address some of the points the report makes. There will be a single UK fiscal event each year, and that will mean an opportunity for us to better align our processes here with the processes of the UK Government, something that's been particularly difficult over more recent times, with later and later autumn events intruding on our own timetable. I think there are some prospects that that will be better in future.

And there has been, and this is harder to provide the hardest of evidence, but, if you're involved in it directly, there is undoubtedly a greater willingness from the current UK Government to listen and to engage with the devolved Governments. It's on that basis that I will be looking, with others, to secure those additional budgetary flexibilities that Heledd Fychan pointed to in her contribution, and which we've debated many times here on the floor of the Senedd. It's recognised in the UK Labour manifesto. Now we need to have those additional flexibilities within the system we currently have, being able to manage our own money better, to have the figures in the fiscal framework updated to contemporary values, and then, beyond that, to revisit the fiscal framework itself, to make sure that we have the most effective tools for the management of a budget that, as we were discussing yesterday, is £26 billion, and we're managing it, really, without the tools that are helpful to make the very best of all of that. Now, the FISC will be in Cardiff early in the new year. Fiscal flexibilities are on the agenda for that meeting. They matter to Northern Ireland and to Scotland as well as to Wales, and because when the FISC moves, it's the country in which it is being held that has the chair of that meeting, I will certainly be pursuing those matters with ministerial colleagues.

I will also be asking for progress on the devolution of the vacant land tax. There was a real paradox over recent years, Dirprwy Lywydd, that it was a Conservative Government that put the process for devolving further fiscal responsibilities to Wales on the statute book, and a Conservative Government who absolutely refused to use the machinery that they themselves had set out. I've had a discussion already with the Exchequer Secretary, there's been a meeting between officials, and I am hopeful that we will see more progress on that and that that will answer again one of the recommendations of the report.

I thank the committee for all the work that it has done. I hope that it's a report that will be shared, not just in Wales, but with the Treasury and with devolved governmental colleagues, so that we can use the work of the committee to bring about improvement.

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

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'd like to thank everyone for contributing to today's debate.

Just on that last point, Cabinet Secretary, we will be sharing this with our colleagues in different finance committees in the devolved legislatures as well, and that will hopefully be a topic when we meet to discuss.

Thank you, firstly, to Peter Fox. He talked about the importance of inter-governmental issues when considering the devolved finances and the collaborative way that we need to be working in to make sure that the Welsh Government has the most funding available. I agree with him on those issues and thank him for that. I also thank Heledd for her kind words about the report. The lack of engagement from the Treasury that she highlighted, and that I highlighted as well, does speak volumes, as the committee would like to see further progress in these areas and assurances now that the Cabinet Secretary—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

I found the debate interesting, and obviously I saw the information in the report. One of the things that was alluded to in the Cabinet Secretary's response was some sort of suggestion that the Conservative Party has never been helpful in facilitating devolution. What we do know, of course, is that the last referendum on full law-making powers for this Senedd was facilitated by a Welsh Conservative Secretary of State for Wales. That was then implemented by a Conservative Government, and we know that the fiscal powers that the Cabinet Secretary referred to were of course then transferred in terms of those income tax powers. So, would you agree with me that it's important to reflect on the role of all parties in helping to make sure that the Senedd has the appropriate powers that it needs, in the right place, to deliver for the people of Wales, including those particular and specific tax powers that we've been discussing this afternoon?

I'd agree we need all the powers here, Darren, and I'm glad you're an advocate—[Interruption.] If we're on a roll around independence, and having everything here, then that would be lovely. But the disappointing thing was when you had Conservative Chief Secretaries to the Treasury and the Treasury just didn't engage with this place and with the Senedd, and it was very, very difficult with that element. That was always disappointing. We'll hopefully get a better response, but we're reserving judgment to see how that is.

I see that the clock is completely red, so I'm going to just move on, just quickly, to respond to the Cabinet Secretary and to say, Cabinet Secretary, that verbs are doing words, so deeds rather than words. So, hopefully we'll see what happens when you do engage in hopefully driving some of these things forward. And we did try and be quite creative in the way that we ask you to do things, rather than you getting bored of the same thing constantly. So, hopefully we'll see those actions happening as they come along. But thanks to everybody who has been involved in this, and I hope that we get a more transparent, better fiscal result from this that will empower this Senedd to be as good as it can be. Diolch yn fawr.

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 8 today is the Welsh Conservatives' debate: housing and homelessness. I call on Mark Isherwood to move the motion. 

Diolch. Wales is in the midst of a housing and homelessness emergency, and I therefore move our motion, which proposes some practical steps and solutions that the Welsh Government can and should take as a matter of urgency. It recognises that homelessness is currently at the highest level since 2015 and regrets the failure of the Welsh Government to eradicate homelessness in Wales.

In the year to March 2024, homelessness in Wales reached its highest level since 2015, up 8 per cent in a year. The latest homelessness statistics in Wales for September, released last month, show both an increase in the number of individuals in temporary accommodation—11,363, including 2,874 children—and an increase in individuals sleeping rough throughout Wales. Both are higher than at the same time the previous year, with 31 per cent in bed and breakfasts and hotels. In September, the Bevan Foundation said that one in every 215 households and six in every 1,000 children now live in temporary accommodation in Wales. The cost of temporary accommodation in Wales has more than doubled since 2021, rising from over £41 million to over £99 million in the 2023-24 financial year. Based on the average construction cost of £250,000 per unit, this could build nearly 400 additional homes.

The inability of Labour Welsh Governments to tackle homelessness in Wales over the past 25 years underlines policy failure from 1999 that is damaging people's lives, highlighting the need for the Welsh Government to work in listening partnership with our housing support providers to adopt a more effective and sustainable approach that breaks the cycle of hopelessness and delivers for affected individuals and families. This has been compounded by their failure to heed the warnings of the housing supply crisis. Because there wasn’t a housing supply crisis when the Conservative UK Government ended in 1997. But Labour’s focus groups told them that housing was a low priority then, and they cynically slashed funding for social housing from 1997, setting in train the housing supply crisis that was to follow. Labour Welsh Government went even further from 1999. Having previously worked in the sector for over two decades, I know personally that the housing supply crisis in Wales goes back to this period and is the direct responsibility of policy-led decisions taken by Labour and Labour-led Welsh Governments from 1999. Wales is still reaping what they sowed.

Noting the Plaid Cymru amendment, it’s easy to cynically scapegoat the right to buy scheme, so let’s look at the facts. Forty years ago, Conservatives delivered 7,932 new dwellings in Wales, including 2,213 new social homes. Thirty years ago, Conservatives delivered 9,871 new dwellings in Wales, including 3,217 new social homes. In the last year that the Conservatives were responsible for housing in Wales, 1996-97, 10,088 new dwellings were delivered, including 2,571 social homes. In the first year of a Labour Welsh Government, just 846 new social homes were completed. Twenty years ago, this fell to 433, and 10 years ago was just 683. According to Stats Wales, in the last year that full figures were available, they only delivered 4,771 new dwellings, including just 1,035 new social homes, only 47 per cent of the figure inherited from Conservatives, and the projected figures for the current year are no better.

In 2019, the Welsh Government estimated that over 7,000 new homes were needed annually to meet both social and market housing needs, but by last year, they were already almost 8,000 down on this figure. Further, 7,000 new homes falls well below figures identified when the Holman report and reports from the house building industry, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Bevan Foundation, and the Federation of Master Builders all found that we need between 12,000 and 15,000 houses a year, including 5,000 social homes, which the supposedly caring, supposedly social-just Welsh Government ignored.

It was the second Assembly when the housing sector came together to start warning the Welsh Government that there would be a housing crisis if they didn't listen. All the Welsh Government did, and I still have the scars from when I brought forward a motion supporting the sector's warnings, was put down amendments to remove the words 'housing crisis', insultingly dismissing the warnings from the sector.

The 2012 'UK Housing Review' stated,

'it was the Welsh Government itself that gave housing lower priority in its overall budgets, so that by 2009/10 it had by far the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four UK countries.'

Labour's housing betrayal is the greatest social injustice they have inflicted on the people of Wales. Only 5,720 homes have been delivered on average annually in Wales since 2010, barely half the rate delivered in England, and an annual average of less than 900 social homes over the same period. Average housing output fell by 45 per cent from over 9,200 in the 1990s to 5,110 dwellings in the first four years of the 2020s, despite house-building activity in England increasing by 15 per cent over the same period.

In the context of increasing housing need and spiralling house prices, the need to boost the supply of housing has never been more critical, and our motion therefore notes concern that the Welsh Government's 20,000 social homes target will be missed. This Welsh Government only set a target to deliver 20,000 new low-carbon homes for social rent during this Senedd term. According to Stats Wales, however, only 3,858 were completed in Wales by social landlords in the first three and three-quarter years of this five-year Senedd term. Even though the Welsh Government changed the goalposts, adding some homes that are not new builds and not low carbon, and also homes for intermediate rent and shared ownership, Audit Wales still expects them to fall short of their target without additional funding. The extra funding for social housing announced this week in the draft budget doesn't come close to the Audit Wales figure required to build the housing that Wales needs.

Our motion also recognises the importance of a housing first model to end homelessness and calls on the Welsh Government to implement a housing first model and the right to adequate housing to end homelessness, working with the housing support sector in Wales; to turn Wales's empty properties back into homes by expanding the Help to Buy scheme to include those in need of renovation; to speed up the planning process by creating a joint action taskforce of planners to target the slowest performing local planning authorities, fast-tracking applications for affordable housing developments; and to reduce social housing waiting lists by bringing empty homes back into use for social rent and rent to buy.

The Welsh Government has publicly committed itself to a housing first approach, which prioritises getting people quickly into stable homes with wraparound support for any needs they have, such as alcohol and drug dependency, and physical or mental health problems. In terms of delivery, however, the figures speak for themselves. As Community Housing Cymru have told me, their main focus once again is the housing support grant. This needs investment at least in line with inflation, and has to cover the wage increases for 60,000 people. They, and Cymorth Cymru, the representative body for providers of homelessness housing and support services in Wales, state that 81 per cent of homelessness support providers are running services at a deficit. Providers say they need a 9 per cent increase just to cover the increase in employer national insurance contributions, and 74 per cent of providers are likely to need to reduce service capacity if the housing support grant is not increased this year, with 52 per cent likely to make staff redundant.

The Welsh Government must, therefore, recognise the vital role played by the housing support grant in preventing homelessness and reducing costs, particularly to health and social services, by permanently ending its use as a bargaining chip in budget rounds, something they did for many years, and by ensuring that the increase for next year announced in the draft budget is passed on to providers fully and quickly. As the sector states, they seem to lobby very hard to sustain this and help keep people in their homes.

Shelter Cymru and their Back the Bill partners, Tai Pawb and the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru, have expressed their disappointment that the White Paper on adequate housing and fair rents does not speak of a right to adequate housing, stating that the Welsh Government currently is overlooking an opportunity to ensure Wales takes a rights-based approach to housing that reflects the moral sense of home as a human right.

They commissioned Alma Economics to undertake independent research, which found that implementing the right to adequate housing will save public money in Wales. As the campaign coalition states, no country has the finances to deliver the right to adequate housing overnight, but this does not mean a right to adequate housing is unobtainable; instead, it is achieved through progressive realisation. They added that they believe introducing the right in law will act as a lever to drive the investment needed.

The right to decent housing has been a long-standing Welsh Conservative policy. Simply put, not enough homes are being built, meaning that supply isn't meeting demand, driving up house prices, rents and waiting lists, whilst the key services provided by housing support providers have not received the recognition and respect that they need over many years to break the cycle of homelessness and reduce cost pressures on blue-light services. This must change. Diolch yn fawr.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on Siân Gwenllian to move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Heledd Fychan.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. The housing crisis in Wales is one of the most pressing challenges that we face. Thousands of people are living in unsuitable housing, facing uncertainty about the future, and living in housing that swallows up a large percentage of their income. Today, more than 11,000 people are living in temporary accommodation, and there are almost 140,000 individuals stuck on social housing waiting lists, waiting for a safe home and the dignity and quality of life that stems from that.

What has led to this situation? The crisis is the result of deliberate policies and systemic neglect, with the right to buy policy, introduced under Margaret Thatcher in 1981, one of the most damaging policies. This policy allowed tenants to buy their council homes at reduced prices, leading to the sale of around 150,000 social homes in Wales, almost half—47 per cent—of the total social housing stock at that time.

Although some of these homes are now privately owned or are rented in the private sector, the number of new social homes built since then has failed entirely to compensate for that dramatic loss. Only 74,000 homes were added to the stock over the period between 1981 and 2024. The availability of social housing has reduced from 31 homes per 100 households in 1981 to just 18 homes per 100 households today.

The systemic depletion of affordable housing has forced low-income households into an unregulated private rental market, where rents are often unaffordable, uncertainty is rife, and there are very severe consequences arising from that.

Another issue that has exacerbated the crisis is the level of the local housing allowance. Earlier last year, just 32 properties in Wales were available at or below the the LHA rate—only 32, which is a shocking figure. The intention of the LHA is to ensure that low-income households can access housing in the private rented sector, yet it has been frozen or capped by successive UK Governments of all stripes, thereby eroding its value.

This failure to keep LHA rates in line with real rents has created an impossible situation. Families are being forced to supplement their rent from already strained budgets. Increasing numbers of individuals are placed in temporary accommodation. And we know, on top of this, that successive austerity policies, pursued by UK Conservative and Labour Governments over a number of years, have deepened this crisis.

The Welsh Government is trying to provide 20,000 low-carbon homes for social rent by the end of this Senedd term—20,000 new homes. But it's clear that they're not on track to reach that target, and that the additional money that was announced yesterday, although it was welcome, is not going to make a big difference. Looking to the future, we have to be much more ambitious.

The Local Government and Housing Committee recommends that at least 20 per cent of the housing stock should be social housing, rising to a third in the long term. Only significant investment will enable us to provide the homes that are so greatly needed. And we must look at alternative methods of financing this growth.

Finally, and vitally, we have to incorporate the right to housing into Welsh law. Having a roof over our head is a human right, not a privilege. Enshrining this principle in law would send a clear message that Wales is committed to providing safe, adequate and affordable homes for all.

Dirprwy Lywydd, this is a crisis that stems from political choices. The right-to-buy policy has destroyed our housing stock, and austerity has eroded the safety nets that should protect the most vulnerable. But we have the power to make different choices. We can choose to invest in housing, support essential services, and put the right to a home at the heart of our vision for Wales—a Wales where everyone has a safe place to call home.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Housing to move formally amendment 2, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

I formally move.

I'd like to start by thanking the Welsh Conservatives for bringing this debate here today to the Chamber—[Interruption.] I know, I thank my group, Mike, yes. Because, especially at this time of year, homelessness in Wales is not just a growing crisis, it's a heartbreaking reality for thousands of families and individuals across our country. The latest figures reveal that more than 13,000 households were assessed as homeless in Wales last year—an 8 per cent increase. Meanwhile, the number of households in temporary accommodation has reached its highest recorded level, rising 18 per cent in a year to just over 6,400.

These statistics are shocking, but they're more than just numbers; they're lives on hold, children without stability and families without a place to call home. The Welsh Government's White Paper to end homelessness published last year is a step in the right direction, but as Andrew Connell from the Salvation Army rightly pointed out, it will not succeed unless both Westminster and the Senedd tackle the chronic shortage of affordable housing, particularly social housing. Without urgent action, the crisis will only deepen.

A few weeks ago, I saw the human cost of this crisis first-hand, during a visit to Pride in Pill in Newport in my region, led by the incredible Paul Murphy and his team. They told me how more than 500 people in Newport are living in cramped B&Bs, with many more in hostels. Officially, there are 24 rough sleepers, but countless others are invisible in the statistics, travelling from across south-east Wales to Newport in search of just basic support. With 24,000 people stuck on council housing lists in Newport alone, this crisis is overwhelming our communities. It saddens me that, recently, Pride in Pill have not had their lease renewed on their lock-up in Kingsway shopping centre, which means that they'll no longer be able to provide life-saving food packages and clothes to the homeless in the darkest, coldest nights, and will run a reduced operation from the end of this month. The Welsh Government need to work with Newport City Council to ensure that this life-saving operation continues.

Last weekend, we saw a devastating storm sweep across Wales, yet I see no mention of what support this Government is providing to those without a home. What emergency accommodation has this Government provided for the homeless during storm Bert or storm Darragh? We should be trying to house the homeless all year round. However, it's particularly concerning that during these two storms support for the homeless seems to be the last thing among the Welsh Government's concerns. Cardiff Council have introduced 200 emergency beds this winter in churches; it's important that we give all councils across Wales the support to do the same.

Rising costs, cuts to winter fuel payments and changes to council tax rules are forcing landlords to sell or evict, leaving families with nowhere to turn. Even basic dignity is being stripped away for many made homeless, an example being there being no public toilet in Newport, a large city in my region, after 18:30, forcing desperate individuals to defecate in the streets. We need to see local authorities and the private sector building many more houses, and we need to ensure that house building keeps pace with the increasing population. Over 20,000 people have arrived illegally in this country since the Labour Government took over. They will join the growing numbers of people who are expected to be housed. Governments across the UK must build that accommodation.

At first glance, the latest housing figures for Wales may seem promising—a quarterly increase of 63 per cent in housing statistics is certainly welcome, and the annual rise in housing completions, over 20 per cent, is the highest in the UK. These are encouraging short-term signs for a sector that has struggled in recent years, but let's not be fooled by these headlines. Beneath the surface lies a story of long-term failure and neglect by this Welsh Government. Despite the quarterly improvement, Wales contributes just 3.2 per cent of UK housing statistics, well below the share of the population and a stark reminder that housing output is far behind where it needs to be.

Even more concerning is the Government's failure to address the chronic shortage of affordable housing, leaving countless families priced out of the market and local councils overwhelmed. These short-term figures, driven largely by private enterprise, do little to mask the deeper systemic failures. Homelessness will not end until we take bold, immediate action. Wales urgently needs to ramp up its housing input, particularly affordable and social housing, to meet the scale of the crisis. The Welsh Government must demonstrate ambition and commitment to resolve this issue head on. Let us move from words to action, for the sake of every family waiting for a home and for every child growing up without stability. I urge you to support this—

Will you take an intervention? I know it's close to the end of your time, but with your indulgence—

It was literally my last sentence.

One of the fantastic organisations that is very visible around Christmastime dealing with this issue of homelessness is the Salvation Army, which celebrated its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary here in Wales this year. Will you join me in commending them for their work and their efforts on this important front, and wish them all the very best as they undertake a huge fundraising exercise over the Christmas period in order to make sure they've got the resources that they need to be able to help tackle this problem?

Absolutely, I will definitely join you in that, thanking them for all of their hard work. It was lovely to see them, thanks to your invitation, Darren Millar, in the Senedd the other week, celebrating 150 years of work that we're so thankful for. What would we do without it? What would we do without that? We shouldn't have to rely on their work, as it happens, and the Government should do everything they can to support them. For the sake of every family waiting for a home and for every child growing up without stability, as I said, I urge you, Chamber, to support our motion today. Diolch.

As it's December, and in a spirit of Christmas cheer, I will begin my speech on the grounds of the motion, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Firstly, I am confident that across the Chamber we are all united in our desire to see an end to homelessness. Secondly, I very much welcome the Welsh Conservatives' support for the housing first model. This model is already being used successfully across Wales, and I would personally be very pleased to see its use expanded further.

Unfortunately, though, I can find little else to agree with in the rest of the motion. Under Clement Attlee's Labour Government, the state directly provided funding to councils to be invested in social housing, and this led to hundreds of thousands of social rented homes being built every year. Maintaining that supply met demand and house prices and rents remained at affordable levels. And when Margaret Thatcher came to power, her Conservative Government withdrew funding for councils to build their own social housing. As a result, social housing and building plummeted and house prices rocketed. But stopping councils building social housing wasn't enough for Thatcher, the Conservatives went a step further. They also—

Would you take a little intervention?

Yes.

Would you agree with me that there's just been a recent poll, and, actually, the late, very dear Margaret Thatcher has been deemed more popular than the current Sir Keir Starmer?

I've not seen that poll, Janet. They also wanted local councils to—[Interruption.] They also wanted councils to flog off the houses they had built, so they introduced the disastrous right-to-buy policy, which is still supported to this day by the Conservative Party. The majority of homes that were sold under this policy were never replaced, and it represented a mass sell-off of public assets into the private sector. And more recently, it was the Conservative Government of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng that crashed the UK economy, that sent inflation soaring, not only—[Interruption.] Yes.

Do you disagree with the official StatsWales figures I gave for social housing building up to 1997, the official StatsWales figures showing the collapse in new social housing after devolution? And do you recognise that it was David Cameron who restored the ability of councils to invest in new council housing, but it was the Welsh Government, unlike in England, who delayed for several years, preventing councils in Wales from following suit? I believe it was eight years before they were allowed to do it here.

I hope I've got a few extra minutes as I'm the only person speaking, and they keep intervening. Sorry. 

[Inaudible.]

Thank you. Right, I'll speak a bit quicker. No more interventions. 

[Inaudible.]—allowed to speak.

Thank you. So, actually, the sell-off of council houses went to the UK Treasury, no funding went to local councils, and it wasn't until 2016 that local authorities could actually keep the money from properties and reinvest into council houses. But at that time, austerity had really bitten, in 2016, so it was really difficult for councils to start rebuilding council houses again. 

So, it's difficult to comprehend the brass neck that is required, as the party responsible for the country's housing crisis, for you to present a motion here today lecturing Welsh Government on the need to build more social homes. It was your party that stopped social house building across the length and breadth of this country. It was your party that introduced a policy that forced the selling off of social housing into the private sector. Let's be clear, it's your party that's the architect of the housing crisis, and, unlike the Conservatives, whose long and appalling record on social house building speaks for itself, the Welsh Labour Government have led the way on tackling the crisis inflicted by your party colleagues. It was a Welsh Labour Government that introduced council tax premiums in order to give local authorities across Wales the power to tackle the proliferation of second homes and long-term empty properties. It was a Welsh Labour Government that ended the right to buy in Wales. They have invested significant funds of £1.2 billion in the social housing grant to build more houses—you can see them in every community, new social housing—and the housing support grant, to keep people in their own homes longer as well, when they're reaching crisis point, and to find a way through.

And so despite the obstacles put in way by Conservative austerity and scorched-earth housing policies, it will be a Welsh Labour Government that continues to work hard fixing the crisis. And it will be a Welsh Labour Government that continues to build the social houses of the future. Thank you.

It's clear that pantomime season is in full swing with some of the comments from the benches across the other side of the room here today. I'm particularly grateful to be able to speak in this debate, Deputy Presiding Officer. Your Christmas spirit is clear for all to see.

The benches opposite do like to forget, sadly, that far too many people are experiencing homelessness—a record level since 2015, the highest levels of homelessness that we are seeing. And in the last financial year, councils—[Interruption.] Oh, lovely. Yes.

We've had a few years of austerity, cuts in public funding, cuts to welfare as well, and cuts in wages in real terms. And in Wales, most people are employed in the public sector, so they're feeling that pinch. A lot of people facing homelessness are working in the public sector. Don't you think that's having some sort of impact?

What you forget on the other side of these benches is that you've been responsible for housing since 1999 in this place. So, you’re either responsible for it, or you're not. It's clear that you're responsible for it, and you’re clearly not meeting the needs of people across Wales, emphasised by the fact that 13,500 people last year presented themselves as homeless, an 8 per cent increase from the previous years.

Now, it seems like rocket science to the benches opposite, but one of the biggest problems leading to homelessness is a lack of homes being built. It's not the most difficult equation in the world to get your head around. Simply in Wales, one of the biggest factors that we're seeing is not enough homes being built, of any kind of tenure. I would advocate, and I'm sure the benches opposite would like to agree with me on this, that the best kind of tenure for people and what they actually want is to own their own home. Survey after survey, response after response, says that people want to be able to own their own home. It provides stability and security. Yes, an intervention.

Will you take an intervention? One of the biggest issues with house building, would you agree with me, or planning going ahead, is Nimbyism in communities. So, do you think that's something that should be tackled as well, especially when we're looking at social housing?

Yes, communities want the right homes in the right places, don't they? And that needs to be supported where it works. And I'm sure people in your community need those homes as much as people in the community that I live in as well. And people need to have a say on that, so that's really important. But it's really interesting, I think, that when we have called in this Chamber, as we've outlined in our motion today, to speed up the planning process by creating a joint action taskforce, the benches opposite have pooh-poohed that idea. But as soon as Sir Keir Starmer came into power in July in UK Government, one of his priorities is to speed up the planning process. So, it would be really interesting to see what the Labour benches here do now. Do they follow their taskmasters in London, or do they stick to the failed rhetoric they've put out here for the last 25 years?

So, clearly, the planning process is not enabling people to have more houses built that are absolutely necessary, and in particular to encourage home ownership. And as I said in my opening response to Carolyn Thomas, this is not just a new phenomenon. This has been in place and exacerbated by the whole time that Labour Government have been in office here in Wales. For house building in Wales, as we've already heard, average output has fallen over the years, and last year was the second-lowest number of new home completions in Wales since records began in 1974-75. There's a real basic issue there. We want to tackle homelessness, we need more homes to be built, and we know that people want to own their own homes, and we should be making that as easy as possible for them to do.

But it's not just home ownership that is a problem for Labour here in Cardiff. They're also missing their targets for social housing, and they are absolutely necessary to get the right mix of tenure for people across Wales. Labour continue to fail to deliver on the housing needs of people here in Wales.

The other issue I want to raise, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I'd be grateful to hear the Cabinet Secretary's thoughts on this, is that they really haven't understood the impact of the national insurance increase on hard-working people across Wales, and in particular, for this motion here today, on the homelessness charities that do a huge amount of work—we've already heard about the Salvation Army, but there are many others up and down Wales. I've heard from one organisation that the cost of the national insurance contribution increase that Labour Governments have put in place on them is £621,000 in one year. That's £621,000 that's not going to go to the front-line services that they are trying to support, and the average additional pressure to those services is £120,000 per organisation. So, I'd be grateful to hear from the Cabinet Secretary—did she realise the impact of the Chancellor's announcements on this, on all these charities and organisations up and down Wales, trying their best to support homeless people in our country? [Interruption.] Certainly. 

No, your time is already up and I've let you have the time for previous interventions. 

I'm sorry, Mick, but I'm grateful for the timekeeping necessity. So, I appreciate time has come to a close, but this is a real problem here in Wales, and at Christmas time, as Laura Anne Jones pointed out, it is felt more than ever. We've had a bit of back and forth in the Chamber here today. It's a real serious issue that needs addressing. I'd be grateful to the Cabinet Secretary, to hear her response to ensure that we see fewer people in this situation next year, and we see this situation improved in the long run as well. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Housing is a cornerstone of dignity, security and an opportunity for every person born in Wales, yet today we find ourselves facing a crisis that has not been this severe since 2015. That's not a record that this Welsh Labour Government should be proud of. Recent statistics paint a stark picture. Over 11,500 individuals are housed in temporary accommodation and more than 139,000 people are waiting for social housing across Wales. These figures are not just numbers, they represent lives disrupted and futures placed on hold. 

Despite the Welsh Government allocating £220 million to homelessness prevention and support services in this financial year, the reality means that too many people are falling through the cracks. Alarmingly, only 6,400 social homes had been delivered since the start of this Senedd term. That's far below the ambitious promise of 20,000 homes that this Welsh Government set itself. The number of households assessed as homeless or at risk has risen by 27 per cent since 2020, with over 8,000 households assessed as homeless in the past year alone. These families need urgent and stable housing solutions, yet the supply of affordable homes is woefully insufficient. 

One of the key solutions is that we must prioritise the housing first model, which provides permanent housing in the initial step of addressing homelessness. This approach is evidence based and has proven success in areas like Finland, where homelessness has decreased significantly in recent years. Studies show that housing first initiatives have a retention rate of over 80,000, meaning that once individuals are placed in secure housing they are far less likely to return to homelessness. This not only benefits the individuals themselves but also reduces the costs to health, justice and social services. Implementing this model across Wales would be a game changer.

Another pressing issue is the sheer number of empty homes across Wales. Recent data reveals over 22,000 empty properties in Wales, with many of them in disrepair. This motion rightly proposes extending the help-to-buy schemes to include properties in need of renovation, turning these empty shells into much-needed homes.  

Will you take an intervention? 

I will, Carolyn, that's absolutely fine. 

There is funding available now for transfer of assets that housing associations have taken up. Would you agree that that's really been of benefit? And I know that Conwy County Borough Council who transferred their housing stock are able to actually start having council houses again by using this fund. So, would you welcome that?

If you bear with me, I'll come to that in a minute.

This incentive will not only provide housing but also stimulate local economies, creating jobs in construction and related industries, while addressing the blight that empty homes bring to communities. That was highlighted by the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee in September this year. 

And on your point, Carolyn, about bringing those homes back into use, I'm keen to do that, but, currently, with the Welsh quality housing standards that we have, they're set so high that a lot of those homes will never meet WHQS standards. So, what we need to have, as you're saying there, is flexibility in the system that allows local authorities and social housing providers to purchase those and be able to put somebody in that house. It may not quite meet WHQS standards, but it's a home for somebody who needs it. 

The planning system in Wales has also become a barrier to progress. It takes, on average, 262 days for local authorities to determine major housing applications, far exceeding the 112-day target that is set by Planning Inspectorate Wales. Delays like this slow down delivery of affordable housing projects and exacerbate waiting lists, and that's why we need that joint taskforce to look at planning, and we need the Welsh Government to step up to the plate with delivering that. I can see I'm running out of time, so I'll move on very quickly, Deputy Presiding Officer.

But housing is not just about a shelter; it's about a foundation for opportunity. Stable housing supports employment, enhances educational outcomes for children and it improves overall health and well-being. Deputy Presiding Officer, our motion today offers a comprehensive, pragmatic and compassionate strategy to tackle housing and homelessness in Wales. It prioritises solutions that work, expanding Housing First, utilising empty properties, reforming the planning process and bringing more social homes into the housing stock. We simply cannot afford to accept the status quo while thousands remain in temporary accommodation. Wales deserves better. We need bold action and new targets to address the crisis head-on, and I urge Members to support this motion today to bring about the real change that Wales needs.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, Jayne Bryant.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. I'd like to thank Darren Millar for tabling this motion, as well as Members who have contributed to this debate today. Ending homelessness is, rightly, an issue that everyone in this Chamber agrees must be a priority in Wales, and we've seen that from the contributions that have been made across the Chamber.

Well, this afternoon, we've had a few history lessons from some speakers today. As somebody who wrote my history dissertation on the sale of council houses, I know which part of the history I believe, and it's not from those Members opposite, in terms of the sale of council houses. Llywydd, I welcome the opportunity today to speak on the enduring commitment of this Government to ending homelessness and to outline the steps that we're already undertaking to push forward this long-term ambition.

Our approach is informed every step of the way by a fundamental understanding that homelessness has no place in our society. We should not underestimate the impact that the cost-of-living crisis and the economic uncertainty of previous UK Governments has had on the system. In August 2020, we adopted a 'no-one left out' approach to our homelessness policy, and we've remained committed, despite these uncertainties, to this approach. We've successfully worked to assist over 30,000 placements to move people experiencing homelessness on to long-term suitable accommodation. Now, we know more must be done. Just over a year ago, the Welsh Government published its White Paper on ending homelessness. In it, we made it clear that our approach is centred on long-term transformation. This is because we want to achieve the systematic change and the public service approach we need to fully overcome the substantial challenges, as well as the root causes, of homelessness. We will therefore introduce extensive and far-reaching legislation this Senedd term to support these ends.

Key to ending homelessness in Wales, as I'm sure Members will agree, is prevention. That's why the Welsh Government has invested almost £220 million in homelessness prevention and support this year alone. This includes the housing support grant, which we increased by £13 million to over £183 million this year, and which we're increasing by a further £21 million in the draft budget, taking it to over £204 million next year.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

Thank you very much, and I welcome everything you said about homelessness prevention. But would you agree with me that the best form of homelessness prevention that we can have is building enough homes in the first place, something that this Welsh Government has consistently failed to do?

Well, I'll come on to the things that we are doing to tackle that, and I think that one of those absolutely is around building homes, and that is the supply of homes. But there is more to this, and I will go on to explain what else we're doing.

I think a number of Members have mentioned their support for Housing First today. We continue to provide funding to local authorities to support people experiencing homelessness and with significant complex needs, and huge credit must be given to providers, local authorities, registered social landlords, public services and organisations like, as have been mentioned today, the Salvation Army. They've embraced this model. It's proven to be particularly successful in Wales, with the latest data indicating an impressive 91 per cent sustainment rate. But ending homelessness also hinges on ensuring sufficient supply of suitable homes that people can afford to live in, and the First Minister's summer of listening made it clear that housing is a top priority for the people of Wales, and so it should be, because opportunity starts in the home.

At the start of this Senedd term, we set a challenging and stretching target to deliver 20,000 additional homes for rent in the social sector. In support of this commitment, we have allocated record levels of funding to housing supply, with over £1.4 billion invested so far this Senedd term. Now, our investment is paying off, with 5,775 homes delivered in the first two years of Government, and an additional 3,158 additional homes delivered just in the past year. This is despite rising costs and the economic challenges we have faced since the start of the Senedd term. Projections from the sector themselves tell us that there's a strong pipeline of homes coming forward in 2026, but that doesn't mean there isn't more we can do.

Indeed, since becoming the Cabinet Secretary responsible for housing just some months ago, the delivery of homes has been a key focus of mine. In a short time, I have already taken action to ensure we're doing all we can to deliver as many homes as possible. Our draft budget for 2025-26—

Would you give way?

—allocates an additional £81 million. I will, sorry, give way, Mark.

Do you agree with Stats Wales's figures, and, if so, do you recognise the figures you quoted are not those for new social housing, and the actual Stats Wales figures for new social housing are well below those figures?

So, 3,158 affordable units were delivered for rent in the social sector across Wales. They are the statistics.

So, we've got £411 million in total for increasing the delivery this year of more homes, maintaining the record level of investment in social housing delivery. I've also written to local authorities and RSLs asking them to identify additional schemes that were ready to start with the potential to deliver by the end of the Government term, and £10 million of additional funding has now been allocated in this financial year to start these schemes.

We've also got a healthy pipeline of homes across the transitional accommodation capital programme, and will invest in as many homes as possible with the funding available. We've also committed to £30 million over five years through Leasing Scheme Wales to support improvements to accommodation, to bring them on to the scheme. We're also working to tackle schemes that are at risk of not completing this Government term, and are proactively supporting local authorities and RSLs to remove as many barriers and risks as possible to ensure that as many of these schemes deliver as planned.

I was also pleased to announce the affordable homes taskforce, which is supporting progress towards the 20,000 social homes target, including identifying sites for meanwhile use, and, beyond that, they will make recommendations for a medium-term system change to support further delivery.

As well as the immediate work under way, we're also looking to the future. Our White Paper on securing a path towards adequate housing, including fair rents and affordability, is another significant step forward on our progressive journey towards delivering housing adequacy for everyone in Wales. It lays the foundation to achieving housing adequacy by setting out proposals for the development of a long-term housing strategy to provide a clear and measurable framework to support the delivery of housing adequacy for all.

I'd like to highlight to Members, and I know that Mark and Siân mentioned this, that the White Paper acknowledges that there could be a time when making legislation to deliver a right to adequate housing is the appropriate approach, and that option will be kept under review.

Our focus today must be on delivering more affordable homes, improving the housing stock, supporting affordability, and ending homelessness. Deputy Llywydd, the Welsh housing system has faced significant pressures over recent years. Despite this, I as Cabinet Secretary and the Welsh Government more broadly are intent on exploring all opportunities to deliver more affordable homes in Wales, with a firm focus on ending homelessness. Our commitment remains unwavering, and we will continue to work closely with our partners, key stakeholders and, indeed, Members of the Chamber on our shared ambition to end homelessness in Wales. Diolch.

I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you, Mark Isherwood, for once again pointing out, factually and eloquently, just how bad the housing crisis is in Wales—a crisis that is not just a numbers game, but is a human tragedy.

Homelessness in Wales is now reaching alarming levels, with 13,500 households recorded as homeless, and that's an 8 per cent increase. My own local authority spent £4.5 million during the last financial year, and it's intending to go up another £3.5 million next year, just on paying for temporary accommodation. Other speakers are quite right to point out how the Welsh Government are failing to build enough social housing, how the Welsh Government failed its own targets, and the Renting Homes (Wales) Bill is driving more people into homelessness and temporary accommodation. We see that local authorities across Wales are facing unprecedented demand, like never before. Over 90 per cent of people in temporary accommodation in Conwy are in B&Bs, caravans, private rental, or privately owned hotels. And the facts are real—£100 per day per person, £76 per day per child. Work the figures out yourself on a monthly basis. Last year—

Will you take an intervention?

I haven't got long. Go on, quick, as long as I get the time, yes.

Do you regret the fact that over 50 per cent of the council housing that was sold off during the Thatcher era is now in the private rented sector, and represents many of those properties that you refer to?

I see that as of no relevance whatsoever, because if that money—. For every one house sold, three could be built at that time, and this Welsh Government didn't build the houses.

Last year, the number of dependent children under the age of 16 who were placed into temporary accommodation reached over 3,000 for the first time, with the total number of individuals entering temporary accommodation hitting 10,000 for the first time. This is not just a failure in housing policy, it is an affront to human dignity. These figures are not just children; they represent people who are losing hope, children facing uncertainty, and families who are forced to live in unsuitable conditions. Siân Gwenllian pointed out the thousands of people now living in temporary accommodation, at a time when new home construction is Wales is plummeting. In 2023-24 less than 5,000 homes were completed, making a steep decline and the second lowest annual figure on record since the 1990s. We've got 918 chargeable empty properties in Conwy. I remember Huw Lewis here, when I first got elected—oh, he was going to bring 5,000 empty homes back in a five-year Senedd term. The Welsh Government hasn't brought that back since, in a 13-year term.

The Welsh Government's targets, such as delivering 20,000 low-carbon homes for social rent, are fast becoming unachievable. Audit Wales warn that an additional £580 million to £740 million may be required beyond current budget assumptions to deliver the 20,000 target for new low-carbon social rented homes by 2026, leaving tens of thousands waiting for a safe and secure home.

Deputy Llywydd, all that people want is a home to call their own. All of us here will be going and enjoying our Christmas festivities in our own safe and warm homes. But isn't it funny, at this Christmas time, when we remember the real reason for those festivities, when Mary and Joseph were themselves homeless, denied help, no room at the inn, and found a stable where baby Jesus was born—? Let's hope, as we return after our festivities, and let's pray, that, by Christmas 2025, we will see a drastic reduction—

Janet, you need to conclude now, please.

—in those living in temporary and unsuitable accommodation. Merry Christmas and a happy new year—Nadolig llawen a blwyddyn newydd dda.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is objection. I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Item 9 is the Plaid Cymru debate on the devolution settlement, and I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. We are this afternoon discussing in the Senedd some of the most fundamental principles of devolution: the need to create more fairness, to empower communities and to empower the different nations of the United Kingdom to be able to mould their own future, and the fundamental unfairness, where some are held back from being empowered.

If devolution is, as someone once said, a process not an event, we must always remain true to the principle in words and in deeds, and there are some core principles that we need to remind ourselves of. The Senedd shouldn't somehow be assumed to play second fiddle to Westminster, that it's somehow subordinate, that what happens here doesn't carry the same weight as what happens down the M4. We must never allow our voice to be diluted, or our views to be cast aside. But surely there is another key factor, that our democratic rights as parliamentarians in Wales can't be considered to be inferior when compared to legislators in other devolved legislatures. But, Dirprwy Lywydd, that is the position that we currently find ourselves in.

Built into our public and political discourse is the glaring inconsistency that can only be characterised as follows: the people of Wales wanting more powers devolved, to tackle poverty, to create a more just society, and every study and every poll shows that to be the case, but the Labour Party telling them, 'We know better.' Of course, we know what the Conservatives think. As our current settlement fails to keep pace with the wishes of the people of Wales, it also denies us the flexibility to mitigate the harmful effects of decisions taken by a UK Labour Government whose focus isn't on the interests of Wales. And isn't it convenient—shameful, even—that week after week, the First Minister here wants to bat away any questions she deems beyond the competence of this place? Let me decode what she is saying: 'I'd rather not cause a problem for Keir Starmer than try to do what's right by the people of Wales.' That's weak, it's weak, it's weak.

On a range of important policy areas—rail funding, justice powers, flexible taxation rules, welfare powers, the Crown Estate—Wales remains the poor relation among the devolved nations, and there is absolutely no good reason why that should be the case. We'll sometimes be told, 'Talk about the things that matter to people, not the constitution,' but goodness me, I think it matters to people that billions of pounds-worth of investment is being withheld because of our lack of powers over rail infrastructure. It's something that people can and do rightly feel aggrieved about.

Yesterday, the Member for Blaenau Gwent—Labour's go-to defender in chief—told listeners on Radio Wales Breakfast that I, and I quote, 'won't stop going on about HS2.' You know what? He is absolutely right. I won't. What he really meant was, 'Please stop going on about it', because it highlights just how little Labour are doing to right this wrong. By lunch time, by the way, the First Minister dismissed the case for HS2 consequentials as forming part of a Plaid Cymru wish list. But wasn't the HS2 billions on her wish list to the Secretary of State for Wales until recently? Sorry, no, I got that wrong. It was on the Secretary of State Jo Stevens's own wish list to the Tory Government when they were in power—all £4.6 billion of it, she said.

Labour has been found out because of its doublespeak on HS2. And it's not just rail, when we're talking about the real impacts on people's lives from strengthening devolution. The ability to invest in infrastructure and to create good jobs based on our natural resources—that's what devolving the Crown Estate does, as is already the case in Scotland. Devolving policing and justice would allow us to bring justice closer to people's communities and the benefits that brings. Last week's Scottish budget, which reversed, essentially, the callous decision to withdraw the winter fuel allowance and effectively scrapped the two-child benefit cap, underlined the transformative real-world outcomes that could be possible here in Wales if we had the same devolved powers over welfare and if we had a fairer funding formula, and, crucially, if we had the same ambition from our Government. At least Labour in Scotland have gone on the record to criticise the winter fuel cut. The Labour Welsh Government defend it at every turn.

We in Plaid Cymru have been clear that our longer term vision for Wales as an ambitious and prosperous nation doesn’t end with simply refining the devolution settlement. I have no doubt, as I’ve said many times before, that it’s when Britain is redesigned as a partnership of independent nations that we can start to reach our potential. But if the current— 

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

How are you going to pay for state pensions? One of the organisations that support you said that state pensions would be funded by England. That has been described by others as just for the birds. 

How do small nations pay for themselves? How, across the world, do we have nations far, far smaller than Wales, but they make it work? And we, for some reason, according to your benches, cannot. I simply do not believe that, and that is a real difference in principle, in outlook and ambition for Wales between you and me.

But if the current UK, the status quo, is to prove its worth, if the union is to prove its worth—and you believe in it, Mike Hedges—then at the very least, surely, Wales deserves parity of status with Scotland. And regardless of our differences on the ultimate constitutional journey for Wales—and I'll try still to persuade you, Mike Hedges—it is inconceivable that any party purporting to represent the interests of our nation should not support this very basic principle. It is regrettable, therefore, that the Labour Government could not bring themselves to leave our motion unamended today and send the resounding message to their partners in power, their bosses in the UK Labour Government, what needs to be done to start placing Welsh devolution on a fairer and more sustainable footing.

Instead, we're once again confronted by this Government's frustrating tendency to talk the talk on pushing the boundaries of devolution but remaining resolutely passive when it comes to actually agitating for change. And this is typified by their amendment to our motion. Again, today, merely noting that the Government has accepted the findings of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales means little when they have been known for over a year and practically nothing—very little—has been done to progress those findings. And what's more, we already know that the UK Labour Government has categorically ruled out enacting the recommendations, rowing back even on the thin gruel offered to Wales by the Gordon Brown report prior to the general election.

I think that the explanation given by the deputy leader of Labour in Wales as to why she doesn't support the devolution of justice powers to Wales—'I just wouldn't' is what she said—typifies the underlying ambivalence of Labour to empowering Wales, to strengthening the constitutional foundations of a nation to which they owe so much of their existence and electoral success. No rhyme nor reason given as to the merits of the status quo, despite a wealth of actual evidence to the contrary, just a blunt message that Wales should be content with its inferior lot. The real danger is that any snail-paced incremental change—Labour's general state of constitutional being—is watered down even further to satisfy party orders.

In a recent interview, the First Minister said that decisions affecting Wales should be made in Wales. Absolutely. But by amending the Plaid Cymru motion today, she has demonstrated that this is just a soundbite with no substance. 

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, of course.

Does that mean, then, that you will actually vote against the amendment, if it comes to a vote on it?

No. We will abstain on the amendment, because as a matter of principle—. We have on the table today a very clear principle that we should have parity with Scotland. Labour is voting that down. And of course we're not against the implementation of what's in the constitutional commission's report; it was very much a part of it—a cross-party, dynamic report that could really set us on a positive path. But by placing that cynically, undoing the basic principle of wanting parity for Wales, we have to make that point and we'll be abstaining on that amendment of Labour's.

When Tony Blair addressed the Assembly, as it was then, he said that the Scottish Parliament and the advent of it meant a decline in the numbers of Scots wanting, as he put it, separation. And how wrong he was on that. It will always be my view that when we unlock what is at best a shilly-shallying arrangement, by truly empowering the Senedd, we can—as the late Steffan Lewis said—begin the journey of having something that we’ve never had before: a country of our own.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. Paul Davies, therefore, to move amendment 1. Paul Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd, and I’m pleased to move the amendment tabled in the name of Darren Millar. It will come as no great shock to Members that we on this side of the Chamber will not be supporting this motion. As our amendment states, we believe the Welsh Government should make better use of the devolved powers available to Wales as it is. Instead of tinkering with Wales’s powers and pushing for more, the focus of the Welsh Government should be on improving Wales’s public services and boosting our economy.

It’s also very much our view that Wales should not just be a carbon copy of Scotland just because Plaid Cymru says so. And to be frank, Plaid aren’t interested in having the same amount of powers as Scotland; they want independence, and we all know that that will in turn destroy the United Kingdom. That is their objective; that is their objective, the destruction of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] And I will give way.

You say you don't want the same powers as Scotland, yet I heard your benches berate the fact that all these pensioners that we have in Wales are going to be losing the winter fuel payment. Wouldn’t you want the powers to be able to not have to do that?

Well, we’ve made it quite clear when it comes to that particular issue, but we all know that Plaid is only interested in an independent Wales. [Interruption.] We all know that Plaid is only interested in an independent Wales, and yet they are still unable to tell us what currency Wales would use, what armed forces we’d have and, crucially, how we’d cover the £13 billion deficit we’d have. Plaid’s obsession with independence knows no bounds.

Since 1999, Welsh devolution has moved at a rapid pace and the Senedd has gained powers over some of the most important aspects of people’s lives. The devolution of some tax powers to Wales—and I’d remind Members that that change took place under a Conservative UK Government—marked another step in the devolution journey and cemented the fact that the Welsh Government is not just a spending authority, but is now responsible for raising money too.

Since then, there have also been wider constitutional developments that have had a huge impact on Wales. The referendum on leaving the European Union has had massive implications for Wales and the repatriation of powers back to the UK has certainly had an impact on many sectors. This wider constitutional development, along with global conflicts that affect our economy and the COVID-19 pandemic are some of the reasons why I believe the focus needs to be less about Wales’s powers, political structures and constitution, and more about how those powers can be used more effectively to improve the lives of the people of Wales. That’s what we’re all here for; that’s why we’ve been elected to this place. And I also believe that there is no public appetite for the Senedd to have further powers.

When the First Minister came to power, she was right to say that the public will want public services to be their priorities rather than, at this particular point, pressing for further devolution. And on the doorsteps of the communities that I represent—[Interruption.] I will in a moment. And on the doorsteps of the communities that I represent, not one person has raised the issue of further powers with me. But let me tell you what they are raising: they are raising increasingly high waits for NHS treatments, the fact that schools are struggling to make ends meet, which is affecting educational outcomes, and issues like inadequate housing, infrastructure issues and climate change, not constitutional issues. Therefore, Members should not be ignoring the voices of the people that they represent. We shouldn’t be focusing on party political priorities, but instead we should be addressing the issues that matter most to the people of Wales. And I will give way to the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

Yes, Members in your constituency will talk about the need to improve health services and educational services, but that needs funding, so don’t you think that Wales needs parity with Scotland to ensure that we have the same money per head, so that we can invest in education, in health services and improve services here in Wales?

But we don’t need to change the constitutional settlement in order to do that. We can actually change the Barnett formula in order to do that to make sure that Wales gets its fair share. We don’t have to change the constitutional settlement. Now, the recent Senedd expansion—[Interruption.] The recent Senedd expansion is an example of these parties being out of touch with the people of Wales who, instead of seeing millions of pounds earmarked for more politicians, wanted to see that money help support our crippling public services.

The YouGov poll in September showed that 40 per cent of respondents to that survey wanted further powers for Wales, but that same survey showed that 37 per cent of respondents didn't want further powers, and that 31 per cent of respondents wanted the Senedd abolished completely. And no wonder they did, because they believe that the Senedd is more interested in itself and its future than the future of the people of Wales. We have to urgently address the apathy for the Senedd by getting on with the job of delivering on the people's priorities. We should be having a grown-up debate about how we fix Wales's broken public services, how we tackle NHS waiting times, how we can better support schools and how we can back Welsh businesses, rather than spending our time, once again, discussing polls and political ideologies.

In closing, Llywydd, we will not be supporting this motion. We on this side of the Chamber believe that the priority for all parties right now should be public services, not political structures and constitutional settlement. I urge Members to support our amendment.

I call on the Deputy First Minister to move formally amendment 2, tabled in Jane Hutt's name.

Formally.

I know, Paul, you're a member of the Conservative Party, but I've never seen such a passionate defence of the status quo. Why defend that status quo? Look at Wales as it is. You talk about broken public services. Look at the criminal justice system. That's a public service. You're right, it's broken, not because of any decision made in this Chamber. It's an entirely broken system: overcrowded prisons, reoffending rates high and rising, crime rates that have been rising in Wales over the last decade. Contrast that with Scotland, where, over the devolution era, levels of crime have been coming down. They've now reached the lowest level in Scotland since 1974.

I heard the quote of Martin Luther King that my colleague Sioned Williams referred to in the context of Human Rights Day:

'A right delayed is a right denied.'

Well, a power delayed is a power denied. We've been talking about devolving the criminal justice system for 20 years. In the eighteenth century in Ireland, they had to wait 60 years for full legislative devolution. We haven't had to wait 60 yet, but we've waited a generation.

Why do we want those powers? So that we can transform that broken system, because of what we can do with those powers. Look at what Scotland has done to take those crime rates down. It's adopted a preventative, public health approach to violence reduction and had massive impact—a 39 per cent reduction in violence as a result of that holistic approach, breaking with the broken model that we've got in England and Wales. We've had one slogan over 50 years, 'Tough on crime.' It hasn't worked, has it? From 1970 through to now, we've had a doubling of the number of people in prison in England and Wales, and yet crime rates have gone up, because we've got high reoffending rates, et cetera. There's no emphasis on the social determinants of crime, and, therefore, no solution.

Scotland has taken a different path. It's looked around the world as well, looking at small countries like Iceland that have a preventative approach, starting in the early years, investing in those social determinants of behaviour and having huge success as a result of it. That's the kind of approach we could adopt in Wales. We could have a Scandinavian approach to crime reduction. We could raise the criminal age of responsibility to keep children out of the criminal justice system. In England and Wales, we have among the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in Europe and, indeed, in the world. Even the UN has said 14 should be the limit, and that's just one example of the kind of difference that we could make in adopting a different approach.

We could focus on rehabilitation over punishment. Essentially, the model that we have that isn't working in England and Wales is based entirely on incarceration and punishment as a deterrent, and it doesn't work. It doesn't even deter crime, by the way; it doesn't even achieve its principal purpose. And yet, we look at countries like Norway, where reoffending rates are much lower than they are here, where they have much lower prison numbers, much lower crime rates, because they've adopted a different approach, a more preventative, a more rehabilitative model. That's the kind of thinking, translated into policy and into action, that could deliver real results, better lives for our people in Wales.

This isn't some kind of constitutional exercise in navel-gazing, this isn't about the abstract, this is about people's lives, and better decisions that could be made here, a better model that we could institute here and better results, in that case. We should not delay this any further. We've had 50 years of worsening statistics as a result of decisions being made for us in another Parliament. Our people deserve better, and we would hope that the consensus in this place should be that those decisions should be made here, by the representatives of the people of Wales, to deliver a better future for our people.

I hope we can have a debate on policing and law and order at some future stage, because, just as a matter of fact, crime in Scotland went up 3 per cent from 2022 to 2023. That's a fact. But I think we need a proper debate on that.

Wales has had three devolution settlements and we're no closer to a long-term settlement than we were before the first. The polls that have been held consistently by Beaufort Research and others show that there are two extreme positions. Abolish the Senedd and independence have very little support, normally running around the 15 per cent mark. What we need to do is make devolution work.

In Britain, we have seen different devolution settlements for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as different powers and responsibilities devolved to London and the larger city regions of England. Policing is devolved to Scotland, devolved to Northern Ireland, devolved to London, but not devolved to Wales. That makes no sense whatsoever, and I've consistently argued in here, alongside other colleagues, both in Plaid Cymru and on the Labour benches, that policing should be devolved. [Interruption.] I just did then.

We have seen an expansion of regional mayors across England. We have no coherent system in England and widely varying powers. Some areas have a regional mayor but the neighbouring area does not. There's a need for a consistent system of government. We have what is meant to be a reserved-powers model in Wales, following the most recent settlement, but the host of reservations within supposedly devolved areas makes a mockery of such a definition.

I support maximum devolution. Surely the question we ask is what needs to be controlled by Westminster in order to benefit the whole of the United Kingdom, as opposed to what each ministerial department desires to keep under its control. 

Could I just ask, during your contribution, if it would be possible to have a list of the things that Scotland do currently have responsibility for that Wales shouldn't?

I haven't got the opportunity to do that, because that's a reasonably longish list, and the point is that we need consistency. Why does London have responsibility in certain areas that Wales doesn't, for example, including policing? And what Manchester has that Wales doesn't—[Interruption.] I think there needs to be consistency. I think the whole system isn't working. Surely there are obvious areas that need to be held centrally: defence, foreign affairs, national security, currency, interest rates, overseas aid, immigration, driver and car licensing, the central bank and national insurance. If most or all of those areas are devolved, it's not devolution, it's independence.

There are also those that are worthy of discussing whether they should be devolved or set centrally. Something we need to talk about is should we have one state pension age and amount for the United Kingdom, or should each jurisdiction set its own and raise its own money. How would that work with movement between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Should we have one unified social security system, or should each jurisdiction be able to set their own contribution levels and payments? It's the same question. Should alcohol and tobacco duty be the same to avoid cross-border movement? Should there be UK taxes to pay for centrally funded items, with all other taxes devolved and collected locally, following on from the American model, where they have state taxes and they have central Government—

The motion's not about that, though, is it?

Pardon?

That's not what the motion—

You don't need to listen to Rhun ap Iorwerth, or answer him, when he's not intervening.

I thought he was going to intervene. 

I will.

Don't tempt him.

Have you read the motion in front of us today? It's about parity between Wales and Scotland.

I was just trying to make a broader point. I haven't drifted anywhere near as far off the motion as Adam Price did, for example.

How will financial support from the wealthier to the poorer regions be organised and maintained? Despite the statement of YesCymru, Wales is a net beneficiary of the sharing of resources. We might think and argue that the Barnett formula doesn't give us enough, but I tell you what, if we just kept what we collected, we'd be in very serious trouble.

Everything does not have to be devolved to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or the English city regions at the same time. What we need is a list of items that are available to be devolved with each Parliament or mayoral area needing at least two thirds of the numbers voting in favour before it is devolved. That's what happened in Northern Ireland for the devolution of policing. This avoids big-bang devolution where control of everything passes on one day. It allows for matters to be devolved when the Parliaments and mayors are ready for them and funding agreed.

The advantage of this is that it sets an end point to the devolution journey outside of creating new countries. It allows every area to move at a pace it is comfortable with, with a common end point. The United States of America has no problem with large states, such as New York and California, having exactly the same powers as Wyoming and Vermont.

And finally, devolution in Wales does not have to end in Cardiff. Devolution in Wales is possible to the four regions of Wales and to local authorities. The twentieth century was almost a one-way movement of control away from local councils on things like water and further education. The question should be where decisions are best made, and it isn't always in Cardiff.

If you want to understand the difference between Plaid Cymru and the other parties with regard to their ambitions for Wales, I don't think you need to look any further, really, than Plaid Cymru's motion for this debate and the amendments proposed by Labour and the Tories. We want to build a better future for the people of Wales, and thus we state what needs to happen for that to be made possible: Wales should have at least the same devolved powers as Scotland.

The Tories, on the other hand, just want to settle for the powers we already have, although report after report by independent experts show that won't, in contrary to their amendment, ensure a better future for the people of Wales. As usual, Labour note their acceptance of the evidence, and, in a turgid multiclausal sentence that reflects their inability to get anything done, they commit to actually doing nothing at all. And there is so much to be done to ensure fairness for the people of Wales.

Nowhere is the need to ensure Wales is given the same tools to care for and support our most vulnerable people more apparent than the area of welfare. We must do more to counter the effects of experiencing poverty in childhood, which are so grave, profound and far-reaching, hindering development, both physical and cognitive, limiting the potential of our most precious asset as a nation, our children.

One of the most shameful examples of political hypocrisy I have witnessed in this Senedd has been the way pernicious policies, such as the two-child limit and benefit cap, have been defended by the very Welsh Ministers who, before their party took power in Westminster, decried that same policy freely and frequently with zealous anger, blasting the Tories for pushing and trapping Welsh children into poverty, accusing them of undermining human rights; bewailing, rightly, the absolutely unfairness of a policy that punishes children for the size of their family. It's indefensible. And it causes the addressing of the suffering of real people, people's lives, to be replaced by spin and political strategy. The far right feeds on the cynicism this inevitably breeds, and also on the discontent of those who feel their Governments don't hear or see them.

What we saw last week in Scotland was an SNP Government unafraid to stand up for its citizens, building on the bold steps they've already taken to rid their nation of the scourge of child poverty with the single child payment, by promising to take radical and definitive action on mitigating the two-child cap. The Scottish child payment is projected next year to reduce the relative child poverty rate by 6 per cent, lifting approximately 60,000 children out of relative poverty during the year. The measures announced by the Government to scrap the cap in their draft budget in Scotland would lift more than another 15,000 children out of poverty. And they were empowered to take this political decision to raise children out of poverty, and all that means for the future of their nation by the greater powers they hold over welfare and, of course, the fairer funding they receive.

But our call for Wales to have at least those same powers isn't just about fixing what is broken. It is about giving Wales the freedom to create a better future in the same way the Scottish Government can. We could design a welfare system that reflects our values, tackles poverty at its roots, makes sure no-one is left behind and helps ensure the potential of the next generation is fully realised, rather than being forced to constantly fill in the holes left in the safety net by Westminster Governments.

We heard nothing yesterday either to support the 0.5 million pensioners who have been pushed into fuel poverty as a result of Labour's decision to force some of our poorest citizens to foot the bill for fixing our public services, after a decade and a half of austerity from the Conservatives, rather than billionaires. It's unbelievable that Labour is implementing measures such as cutting the winter fuel allowance, which will deepen inequality, exacerbate the hardship felt by people on low incomes.

Again, the Scottish Government has announced new benefit payments to mitigate the impact of this insane policy. They can take just action like this because they have the responsibility and the funding to reject a political direction that harms and disadvantages their most vulnerable citizens.

Plaid Cymru believes we must see more of the politics of hope here in Wales, a politics that would close the gap between the enormity of the challenges that face us and the inadequate timidity of the actions that have thus far been taken to address them. That kind of politics needs the right kind of powers, and Wales should make that call for the right reasons, for fairness. But as the amendment suggests, the Tories want us to stall, Labour want us to wait.

The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek shines a light on the path Plaid Cymru believes we need to tread:

'There is no point in waiting for the right moment when a smooth change might be possible; this moment will never arrive, history will never provide us with such an opportunity. One has to take the risk and intervene, even if reaching the goal appears...impossible—only by doing this can one change the situation so that the impossible becomes possible, in a way that can never be predicted.'

So, for the sake of our children, it's time for Wales to take a decisive step forward.

Can I first of all thank Plaid Cymru for tabling the motion, because I think it is important that we do discuss these issues, these constitutional issues? Paul Davies, you said that we haven't got time, why are we discussing this? Well, we've had 14 years of a Tory Government that has spent almost half of its time on nothing but constitutional issues, and there is a reason why that is. I don't actually necessarily condemn that, because the constitution is the contract between government and society and the people. It sets the framework within which powers are exercised, so it has to be important, and we would neglect that at our peril.

The reason it's important to us is because we do actually want to address all these issues—what we want to achieve, how we achieve it, the time over which it can be achieved, the complexity of achieving it, but also carrying people with you in order to support you to make those changes. I've often said that the Labour Party got it exactly right in 1997 when they introduced the referendum and the powers that were there, because there were many calls at that time that said, 'No, come on, this isn't enough. You've got to have more, you've got to be able to do more.' And I have to say—and I still remain of that opinion—that if they hadn't pitched it exactly where we did, if we had fallen into, I suppose, the mirage that was being presented by some on the Plaid Cymru side, we would have lost that referendum and we wouldn't actually be sat here now.

But the importance is that the constitution is important, and there clearly are things that need to change. In most of the debate that has taken place, I've actually agreed with quite a bit of nearly everything everyone has said. I actually don't really have a particular problem with the motion as it is, because Gordon Brown himself in his report said there's no reason, if it's what the people of Wales want, that Wales shouldn't have exactly the same powers as Scotland. There is a real downside in having asymmetrical devolution within the UK, and it is a destabilising factor, but the crux of it is how you actually make that change. We spent a lot of time—

Will you take an intervention? 

Yes, of course.

It's a very similar intervention to the one you made. In which case, if you agree with ours—and presumably, you'll want to vote in favour of the Labour amendment—will you at least support our motion personally or, if not that, abstain on it to show that you, in principle, agree with it? 

No, because I'm more interested not with posture—I'm more interested in actually making change, and I think the time we spent on the independent commission that has set a framework for change is fundamentally important. That's why I asked you the question as to whether you would support that. So, if your position is lost on the main motion, and the amendment comes in terms of support for the findings of the constitutional commission that you voted for previously, I do not understand the logic as to why you would abstain on that.

But look, my main interest in this is that these are important debates that need to take place, and can I just say I'm very pleased—and I hope the Deputy First Minister will give some further information on this—that there are discussions around the issue of youth justice and probation? And the points that Adam Price made are absolutely right. When I heard the justice Minister today talking about the fact that we can't go on just building spaces in prisons, we've got to look at alternatives, isn't that exactly what we've been saying in terms of the devolution of justice and why those things needs to change?

It's certainly my view that the devolution of justice will probably be a 10-year programme. The starting point for me, actually, would be youth justice and probation, because so many of the areas to make those effective are actually devolved functions. And at the moment, you're absolutely right, Adam, we actually still have a justice system that is over-centralised and predominantly based on a Victorian model of justice. Justice has got to be about solving problems, it's got to be about solutions for people, it's got to be about keeping people out of prison. And I thank Jane Hutt for the work on the youth justice blueprint, because in Wales I think that that co-operation, even without the devolution of youth justice, has meant that we have very, very few young people now that actually go into prison at all. It's almost an exception now for that to be case, and that shows how important it is— 

Will you take an intervention? The same can't be said for the women's justice blueprint, can it? We've got a shameful record of Welsh women being sent to prison for sometimes just a week. 

Listen, I agree entirely with that as well. Myself and—[Interruption.] Please let me answer the point. Myself and Jane Hutt went round many prisons. We went round the women's prison, Eastwood Park, in Bristol, and it was very clear to us there that most of the people that were in that prison—we were told this by the governor—were victims. It's very clear that most of them shouldn't be there, and that is a failing of a centralised justice system, a justice system that actually has been more about incarceration and punishment, rather than recognising how you actually tackle problems. And that's why I wrote a piece some time ago—we've got to be looking towards a twenty-first century justice system, we've got to be looking towards a very, very different approach to justice, and I think that's why all the justice unions are actually so supportive of this particular change.

Can I just say very quickly, then, on some of the other areas that are very important as well? Sewel: clearly, Sewel is something that—. There is a better relationship now with the UK Labour Government, but there has to be a constitutional reform in respect of Sewel, so that it is something that is established beyond being just a convention. It's really important that an inter-governmental agreement now takes real precedence and has a real constitutional status. I think that also means that you have to start defining what the actual role is of the Welsh Office as well. If you have an inter-governmental arrangement, it means you've got to actually define what those institutions are as they operate within Wales. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 has to be abolished. The common frameworks have to be established properly. Policing has to be devolved. And I think the reality is, and I've given quite a lot of thought to this—. I actually think what is needed on a UK level is a new constitutional reform Act that brings these conventions, these processes within that. I think that the framework of the independent commission is the way in which—. It has consulted so widely across Wales. That is something I believe that we can—. We can take the points from that commission and we can actually say, 'These do have support across Wales. These are a result of a process of engagement.' And that is why I think that that is the mechanism to go forward, and that's why I'll be supporting the amendment. Thanks. 

I think listening to some of the contributions in this debate, I'm slightly worried that we're overcomplicating the Plaid Cymru motion. Surely, there are two sides to this debate. You either believe that Wales should be treated fairly within the union, given the same powers as other nations have been given within that union, or you, for some reason, believe that we shouldn't be treated fairly. Now, in essence, this isn't a nationalist debate, as some would seek to portray it, but a debate about fairness and equality. Now, if you want to argue the case for the union, surely you would want to demonstrate that Wales is being treated fairly within that union. Because it gives one hell of a drum for us to beat on this side of the Chamber, when it isn't being treated fairly. And I don't think it's particularly radical to say that every nation deserves a right to benefit from the wealth generated from its own natural resources. Unfortunately, there are Members within this Senedd who think that it is.

Now, one such example of that unfairness is the Crown Estate. The refusal of successive Westminster Governments to devolve Crown Estate assets has denied this fundamental right to Wales, that right to benefit from our own wealth. Now, the sainted Scots, as the Cabinet Secretary for finance referred to them yesterday, gained control over the Crown Estate in 2017, which has already delivered millions to the Scottish Government. Now, Plaid Cymru has long advocated for the same to be granted to Wales, a step that is both logical and necessary if we want to ensure that the profits from our natural resources benefit the people of Wales, not just the UK Government or the monarchy.

Currently, the Crown Estate's assets in Wales generate hundreds of millions in revenue annually, yet none of that wealth stays in Wales. Instead, it flows directly into the UK Treasury, with £124 million in 2025-26, up from £86.3 million in 2024-25, set aside for the reigning monarch. In 2026-27, it's expected to go up to £126 million, including a 10 per cent uplift to refurbish Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile, people in Wales are living in cold, damp and draughty homes. Now, in 2007, the Crown Estate's assets in Wales were valued at £21.1 million. Fast-forward to 2023-24, and that figure has soared to over £853 million, largely driven by offshore wind and marine energy. With major projects now under development, the potential for even greater revenue is immense.

An independent study revealed that the Crown Estate's planned 4.5 GW offshore wind project in the Celtic sea alone could generate £1.4 billion in gross value added and create 5,300 jobs, yet unless action is taken, the bulk of that economic benefit will bypass Wales entirely, just as it did during the coal and fossil fuel era. Just look at the Crown Estate's recent partnership with the proposed Great British Energy—it's done little to quell concerns about that extractivism. In fact, it threatens to deepen the problem, with the Crown Estate profiting from leasing Welsh land and sea for offshore wind while the economic returns are siphoned away to benefit other parts of the UK.

Now, the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales described the current situation perfectly: a transfer of wealth from Wales to England, with no guarantee that Wales receives an equivalent amount back. The revenue generated by Crown Estate activities in Wales must be invested back into Wales. This is why we propose the establishment of a Welsh sovereign wealth fund, ensuring the profits from renewable energy projects in Welsh waters are reinvested for the long-term benefit. Moreover, both the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales and the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales have called for the devolution of the Crown Estate, but despite this, the Welsh Government has been slow to act. Now, they've noted these recommendations, as set out in the Government amendment. They seem reluctant to raise the issue with Westminster, and there is little appetite within the UK Labour Party to devolve these powers, and that genuinely worries me.

Llywydd, we're on the cusp of a green revolution that could reverse degradation, austerity and turbocharge our stagnant economy, but just like the first industrial revolution, we risk once again missing out on these transformative benefits if we lack the powers to retain and reinvest the natural wealth of our nation.

There has been nothing settled about the devolution settlement in Wales. I don't like to correct Mike Hedges, but we've had four different devolution settlements in Wales. I also don't like to disagree with Mick Antoniw, but I will: 1997 was not pitched well. People didn't vote for a corporate model, they voted for a voice. They wanted a Welsh voice. And we can see that, and the first thing Rhodri Morgan did was to dismantle the unworkable and ridiculous corporate model. The truth is, the history of devolution in Wales has been a history of appeasing Welsh Labour MPs.

The current settlement, as we can all agree, is complicated. The jagged edge cuts deep into Welsh devolution, and the result, as we've heard already: child poverty, the highest prison population in western Europe, and a record number of drug deaths. Giving Wales the same powers as Scotland would actually simplify the way Governments across the United Kingdom function, and would create clearer and better accountability. Achieving this kind of clarity would be good for everyone—good for the people of Wales, good for policy makers, and, arguably, even good for you lot—unionists. A clear, effective, symmetrical devolution settlement will be more likely to create a stable and long-lasting settlement for the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] Mike, yes.

You said the same as Scotland. What about the same as Northern Ireland?

I'd prefer to go a step further and get the same as Northern Ireland, but let's go all the way and get the same as Scotland.

Now, this is also the view—. About the stable settlement, this is also the view of the Williams and McAllister commission, which I think is a brilliant report. This is how it concluded:

'In relation to justice and policing and rail services the current settlement does not serve the people of Wales'—

we can all agree with that—

'Unless this is addressed, the problems will continue to fester, and it will appear that the UK Government is not willing to listen to a reasoned case for change. Reform is essential to ensure the viability and stability of the settlement.'

Do we still have a UK Government that's not willing to listen to a reasoned case for reform? Does Keir Starmer, does he look at the same book as Michael Gove and is fed up of experts? A devolution settlement that gives Wales the same devolved powers as Scotland not only provides Wales with equality and the respect due, but will make it more likely that we have better policy making across the United Kingdom. We heard yesterday in an answer to Rhun ap Iorwerth saying, 'Well, we can't compare ourselves to Scotland, because Scotland has different powers from us', but this would make it far easier for us to compare with each other and to have better policy.

It would also make it harder for United Government organisations to forget about Wales, because Wales is the forgotten nation. I'll never forget the former Lord Chief Justice saying that he used to take a map of Wales with him to Whitehall to remind Whitehall of our existence, because we're an afterthought at best when it comes to Whitehall.

Will you take an intervention from Lee Waters, who's indicating that he wants an intervention? 

Yes, of course.

Yes, Lee Waters—an intervention.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I think it's a shame you use terms like 'you lot'. I think the history of progress in devolution is when there's been alliances, and I don't think that sort of language helps.

But to take on the example you've used there of rail devolution, because these things aren't often quite as binary as you set out, the reality if we had rail devolution is we would have a massive liability, a deteriorating asset, and, when you look at the future climate predictions and where our railways are at, we're facing massive, massive costs of looking after that. So, were we simply to say, 'Give us rail devolution, because Scotland's got it', we'd end up with an unintended consequence of huge regret. So, often these things are far more subtle than the cartoon-character nature this debate suggests.

Well, that wasn't a cartoon character. I was quoting the McAllister and Williams commission report, the one that your amendment wants us all to vote for.

Now, I'll go to the Conservative amendment today. The Conservative amendment is not an argument against greater powers for Wales; it's an argument about who forms the Government of Wales. Now, we could agree entirely with the Conservative amendment that the current Welsh Government is failing, that we could make far better use of the powers we have already, but that doesn't make the Plaid motion any less valid. If the Welsh Government is not performing well, then that is an argument to go to the electorate to persuade them to vote for a new Welsh Government. It is sometimes hard to believe, but, one day, the Labour Party will not be the party of Government here in Wales. We should not be basing the devolution settlement in Wales on who might or who might not be in power. To take the Conservative amendment to its logical conclusion, if Darren Millar becomes our First Minister, and runs Wales well, then you should be in favour of greater powers, and maybe even Welsh independence.

But let's be honest, the real thrust, the real reason for your amendment, is that you don't want Wales to have parity with Scotland. You want Wales to have parity with another Celtic cousin: Cornwall. You don't want a Welsh Parliament; many of you don’t want a Welsh Parliament at all. Personalities come and go, Governments change. Whoever says they know what the future holds is a fool, but what we can say is that a clear and effective devolution settlement would make it far more likely that the Welsh Government, regardless of the individuals, regardless of the party or parties in power, has the tools to deliver for the people of Wales. Now, we all heard our Prif Weinidog singing 'Things Can Only Get Better' recently. Now, certainly, a strong step forward, Prif Weinidog, to making things better would be to give us parity with Scotland. Diolch yn fawr.

So, what holds Wales back currently? Because I'm fed up of hearing 'if we had the powers'—not 'when we have the powers', 'if we had the powers'—that lack of ambition, and that's what struck me when I looked at the Welsh Government's amendment, noting that you accept the findings. Well, our motion is far stronger in terms of saying that we believe that, in order to be able to do all the things that we should want to do as a Senedd, we should have at least the parity of powers so that we don't keep hearing 'if we had the powers', 'if we could'; it would be about doing. And that's what we see other nations being able to do because they have those powers. I fear that lack of ambition and what it means to people in our communities who expect us, elected here, to be able to achieve those changes that they so desire, the things that have been outlined today that we could change if we had those powers.

Will you take an intervention? We gained considerable additional powers as a result of the Wales Act 2017. Plaid Cymru voted against that Act. Do you think that was a mistake?

You are against having parity of powers with Scotland. That's what you're doing with this today. Why don't you want those powers and responsibility? There is a second reason that holds Wales back, and it is the mismanagement of Labour of the powers that we currently have, and the lack of ambition of wanting more for our nation.

Will you take a quick intervention?

No, I won't, Janet, thank you. Parity of power is not to replicate Scotland, but to put in place Welsh solutions to Welsh challenges and problems. One area is where the Welsh Government's powers over income tax have never had a practical policy application, because we do not have the ability to tailor the income tax thresholds to reflect the nature of our tax base. With around 85 per cent of Welsh taxpayers falling under the basic rate threshold, this a fundamental barrier for a Government seeking to raise meaningful levels of revenue in a progressive way.

Once again, when we do look at the example of Scotland, which does have the powers to set its own tax bands, it underlines why we should not settle for a diluted version of fiscal devolution. Whilst successive UK Governments have been preoccupied with cutting taxes for the already well off, the Scottish Government has been able to adopt a far more progressive approach, creating additional tax bands to more fairly distribute the tax burden. And by asking those with the broadest shoulders to contribute more to public spending, the Scottish Government was able to raise £700 million in additional tax revenues during the financial year of 2024-25. Furthermore, anyone earning the median wage or below in Scotland pays less in income tax compared to the rest of the UK, demonstrating the redistributive potential of not having to be tied to Westminster’s rigid one-size-fits-all model.

So, this is about equity, of taking control, of being able to make a difference to citizens lives. It's normal in other nations. We can look at the example of the Basque Country too, whose devolved Government has extensive powers over personal income taxation, corporate taxation, and its own wealth and inheritance and gift tax. This has engendered economic growth in the Basque Country, which has been described as 'highly inclusive' by the Foreign Policy Centre. The region features among the top in Europe, not only in terms of gross domestic product per capita, but also in having a low percentage of population at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

So, what we're proposing here isn't particularly radical or controversial—rather it seeks to normalise what is already happening and happening well elsewhere. Why don't we believe in Wales? What other Parliament would have this kind of debate? We should want these powers. We should be demanding them, and being united. I am disappointed by the lack of ambition on the other benches of both parties. Let's stand up for Wales: not say 'if we had those powers'—demand them.

The Deputy First Minister to contribute to the debate. Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Llywydd. And picking up from the note that—. Oh, by the way, there's nothing I like better in the approach to Christmas than a good constitutional debate. But, on a serious matter, this does really matter to people's lives, and, just to pick up on the comments just made, let's focus on standing up for the people of Wales, as well as having these debates around constitutional matters: what will make a difference to the people of Wales? And I just want to focus on that, because the danger is, as I look to colleagues on my right here, that we get focused on a rewriting of the old—was it the Encyclopædia Britannica—'For Wales, see England' and we now do, 'For Wales, see Scotland.' Well, surely, what we should be saying is, 'For Wales, look at what is best in the interests of Wales.' Wales should be the model in what we take forward.

Now, the Scottish devolution settlement is, of course, always very useful for us to consider. There's always good value in looking at and learning what works, and what doesn't work, by the way, and the challenges. Some people have spoken about it already. It's not all honey and roses in what they've done. But we should always do that in every policy area, and I certainly agree, by the way, that there are areas where we should go further. We've heard that from colleagues around the Chamber, including from colleagues here who've previously held the Counsel General role here, were involved in this and so on, and I'll turn to some of those in a moment. That is this Government's policy. We've always been, on these Welsh Labour benches, in Welsh Government—successive First Ministers—ambitious and confident and, I have to say, practical in the application of devolution for the people of Wales.

From the time of Rhodri Morgan all the way through successive First Ministers, successive Governments, we've sought what is in the best interests of the people of Wales. And sometimes the constitutional matters. As you were saying earlier on, we've had successive iterations of the Government of Wales Act, and each one has been in the interests of the people of Wales, and that's the approach we continue to do. But where we disagree with colleagues here on the right of me is that I believe that where we go on our next part of the devolution journey needs to be driven by that once again. It's what works best for the people of Wales—not for Scotland and not for any other nation. That would actually be imitation, not devolution. So, the guiding principle of this Welsh Labour Government is, and will always be, what is best for the people of Wales, what will make their lives better. We don't want to copy and paste the devolution settlement from somewhere else without weighing, as the point has been made by other colleagues, what the outcomes or the consequences could be. We don't want to just scratch a constitutional itch. We want to look at in detail what are the practical implications of seeking devolution. But I'll go on to some of this.

This is why we seek to develop our own policy here in Wales, and, in the 25 years since devolution was established, we've got a proud record of doing just that, as our devolved Parliament goes from strength to strength. We were the first nation in the UK to integrate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic law. We were the first country in the world to place sustainable development at the heart of decision making and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. We were the first country in the world to declare a climate and nature emergency. We are ambitious for Wales and for the people of Wales and what we can do to achieve improvements in people's daily lives, and that's why we established the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales, to look at the options on what could best deliver for Wales and the people we represent.

Now, as Members know, this commission drew on expertise from all of the four parties present in the Senedd, both in terms of membership and the evidence it heard. It also heard from experts in governance, in politics, in policy and in devolution, and, most significantly, it went to the people of Wales to hear what mattered to them. They had online consultations, receiving over 5,000 responses. They took part in a deliberative citizens' panel. They had pop-up events in town squares and supermarkets and local libraries. They took on board the views of people from right across the country and all walks of life, and I want to give my thanks to everyone who gave their time and effort to feed into that process. And it's from this solid evidence base that the commission brought forward 10 recommendations, which make up indeed an ambitious programme of reform, and they're tailored to the specific circumstances of Wales—not Scotland, not Northern Ireland and not anywhere else, of Wales. And we accepted those recommendations in full, and, more pertinently for today’s debate, so, by the way, did the Senedd. And this report, informed by that expertise, the opinions and values of the people of Wales, that’s what this Government, this Welsh Labour Government, will use as the basis for future devolution in Wales.

Now, the independent commission did conclude that, in some areas, Wales would be best served by a devolution settlement similar to that of Scotland. But there were others where they decided that it wouldn’t. There were others where they said, when they reached conclusions based on a set of values, that all were based on the simple principle of what would improve the lives of people in Wales. They didn’t say, 'Cut and paste'; they actually said, 'Do what works for the people of Wales.' So, for example, people have commented on the justice system. It is our policy that justice should be devolved to Wales, with youth justice and probation as the logical, practical, pragmatic first step. This would bring clear improvements to people, because devolution there would link up education, health and justice services to make sure that individuals have the consistent and joined-up support they need to see—practical devolution in the interests of the people of Wales.

And this Welsh Labour Government will keep pushing for further devolution—I will in a moment, Mabon—where it will benefit Wales. Members will know that this is something that I am personally passionately committed to, passionately supportive of. I came back here as a former MP to make a decision to stand for the Senedd because of the difference it can make in practical ways to the people of Wales in this Welsh Parliament. And, as a former Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee as well, people know I gave my predecessors a rough old time on this as well, about what more we could do.

So, on devolution of things such as the non-Jobcentre Plus employment support funding, my colleagues will work in order to achieve that; on issues such as the administrative devolution of welfare, my colleagues will work on that; on issues such as common frameworks—very important—and the proper functioning of inter-governmental relationships around the UK, to make that work in the interests of the people of Wales; and on the Crown Estate, we stand by the principle that, actually, the end destination here is the devolution of the Crown Estate, but, meanwhile, we welcome the fact that we had an amendment put forward as the proposal went through in the House of Lords with a good Welsh colleague of ours, and we will now have a commissioner on that. And we will work with that commissioner on the Crown Estate to deliver results for the people of Wales.

So, in all of this, I would simply appeal to—. Sorry, Mabon, I did say I’d give way. My apologies.

Thank you, Deputy First Minister. I'm glad that you're listing these things that you claim to support, which is good, but there is no such party as the Welsh labour party; you're a member of the Labour Party. You're in a position to deliver because you've got a Government in the UK, but you're not. When can we see these things being delivered, instead of the can being kicked down the road time and time again?

So, we don't kick the can down the road. What we have is a track record, Mabon, of delivery on all of the things that I've listed through the past. All of the things that the naysayers said we would never be able to do, we have done them. We've achieved them. No, it's not easy. We have to actually engage with the UK Government. And by the way, I've been, since I was 15 or 16 years of age, a member of the UK Labour Party, but I'm also proudly a member of Welsh Labour and what defines us here as well, as I am of the Co-operative Party as well. And I believe in those ideals. But what I fundamentally believe in, as all of us do on these benches, is not to keep on, for the sake of it, scratching the constitutional itch, but it's actually what will really deliver for the people who we represent.

Now, on that basis, all of those things I've mentioned, and more besides, all of the recommendations that were brought forward in the commission, the fact that we've taken action already on some of those to put them in motion, we will keep on working on that. That's the surety I will give you. And we will engage. And I will say to you that the relationship now with the UK Government—we'll have bumps in the road; we will—and the fact that we are now speaking, engaging with other Ministers, right across the portfolio on these areas, means that we have a far better chance of pragmatic and ambitious delivery of the right parts of devolution for the people of Wales to make a difference to their lives. 

Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. This debate is about building the Welsh nation. It is about trusting the people of Wales. It's about having faith in our own potential, about not being ready to be held back. And I'm proud to stand with my party as a party that has always pursued Welsh nationhood and has always been interested in building the Welsh nation. And we're clearer than ever on that endeavour. I have to express how disappointed I am in the tone taken by the Deputy First Minister in aligning himself, essentially, with the argument put forward by Paul Davies for the Conservatives. Paul Davies told us, essentially, that what we were talking about today, that empowering the people of Wales, was 'tinkering'. And what the Deputy First Minister told us was that this was a debate about the constitution rather than about things that really matter to people. When Adam Price spoke, I didn't hear him talking about the constitution; I heard him talking about the need to get to grips with issues in the crime and justice system in Wales. When I hear Sioned Williams talking about the administration of welfare, I don't hear her talking about the constitution; I hear her talking about the need to look after the most vulnerable people in our society. And when Rhys ab Owen talks about the need to invest in rail, I don't hear the constitution; I hear about the need to make sure that Wales gets its fair share of funding as a result of HS2. Yes, it involves making constitutional change, but this is genuinely about the future of Wales and Welsh communities. It is not 'tinkering', and I'm afraid that what I heard far too often, to borrow a phrase: 'For Labour, see the Tories'. And we can't afford to have that kind of attitude on—[Interruption.]—on discussing and referring to discussions about the powers that we have, the tools that we have in Wales, as 'tinkering' or as somehow being a distraction.

In building a future for our nation, there will be different models of how we move forward, but surely there's one basic measure, as we've heard this afternoon, which we should all be able to embrace, whether sitting on the frontbench of Government, on the backbenches of Labour, or on the Conservative benches, even, that, within the United Kingdom, where powers are devolved, where tools are able to be used, where people are empowered in one nation, then that should also be afforded to others, and where Scotland is trusted with additional tools that they're able to use in order to pursue the interests of the people of Scotland, then so should Wales.

I have a book; it was shown to me today. It's the story by Gwynoro Jones of that battle between the Government's party and mine in Carmarthenshire in the 1960s and 1970s, and we're told we shouldn't judge a book by its cover—the foreword, by the way, was by the former First Minister, Mark Drakeford—we shouldn't judge books by their cover, but I was drawn to the inside of the back cover: 'parity with Scotland becomes major devolution issue', we're told. So, it's not new, but the giants of the Labour Party back then, such as Cledwyn Hughes, said in that particular article that he was very disturbed back then to hear of Labour deciding to put a weaker proposal on the table for Wales than they were proposing to put on the table for Scotland. Well, I invite Mick Antoniw today, and others who feel, like him, that you have no issue with talking about parity for Scotland, to actually vote in that way today and show that we're serious about pursuing the interests of Wales and getting those tools in our hands so that we can build a brighter future for our country. Let's show that we want to cut Wales a break when it comes to its future and support the motion today.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There are objections. We will, therefore, defer voting until voting time.

That brings us to voting time. And the first vote will be on item 8, the Welsh Conservatives' debate on housing and homelessness. So, I call for a vote on the motion without amendment, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 12, no abstentions, 37 against. Therefore, the motion is not agreed.

The next vote is on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Heledd Fychan. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. Amendment 1 in the name of Heledd Fychan. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 12, no abstentions, 37 against. Therefore, amendment 1 is not agreed.

Amendment 2 is next, in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 37, no abstentions, 12 against. Therefore, the motion as amended is agreed.

Item 9 is next—

Try again.

Yes, okay, I'll try again, Joyce. [Laughter.]

I do apologise, but the next vote is on the motion as amended under item 8. So, the motion as amended under item 8.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 37, no abstentions, 12 against. Therefore, the motion as amended is agreed.

The next votes will be on item 9, the Plaid Cymru debate on the devolution settlement. First, we'll vote on the motion without amendment, tabled in the name of Heledd Fychan. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 12, no abstentions, 37 against. Therefore, the motion is not agreed.

Amendment 1 is next. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 12, no abstentions, 37 against. Amendment 1 is, therefore, not agreed.

Amendment 2 is next, in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 26, 10 abstentions, 13 against. Therefore, the amendment is agreed.

The final vote in 2024 will be on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 26, 11 abstentions, and 12 against. 

That concludes voting time, but it doesn't bring our work to an end and, before some Members leave, may I wish you all a very merry Christmas? I will see you all next year. Thank you very much.

We will now move to the short debate, which is to be introduced by Hefin David, when Members have left the Chamber.

If I can ask Members to leave quietly, then Hefin David can commence his short debate on the topic that he has chosen.

I don't want the clock to start ticking yet. Say when.

The clock can start ticking now. Hefin David.

Diolch, Llywydd. It's a pleasure and an honour to give a minute of my debate time today to Rhun ap Iorwerth, with whom, together, I co-chaired the long COVID cross-party group and worked very effectively together on that on a cross-party basis, and also a minute to Peter Fox of the Conservatives, who will contribute.

One of the things that we need to recognise is those words that we used throughout the pandemic, 'COVID has not gone away. COVID has not gone away.' Well, still, today, COVID has not gone away; people are still falling ill from it. And though we've come a long way, the World Health Organization recognises that the extent of COVID-19 affecting people is still out there, although vaccines have afforded, of course, the majority of the population a considerable degree of protection. But those people who were affected by long COVID during the pandemic, many of them are still being affected by long COVID today.

I'm glad to see that Gareth Yanto Evans from the long COVID group is here to witness the debate today. He has been instrumental in keeping long COVID on the agenda. The World Health Organization defines long COVID as,

'the continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no other explanation...While common symptoms of long COVID can include fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction over 200 different symptoms have been reported that can have an impact on everyday functioning.'

Now, if you've met anyone who has suffered from long COVID—. I met Lee David Bowen, who is an opera singer in my constituency, and I'm glad to say he's back now, singing, and very successfully so—he's been in the West End—but when I met him, he was a shadow of that person. The affect that it had on his body, on his voice and on his brain was tragic to see, and though he has made what can only ever, we feel, be a partial recovery, we have seen that recovery happen. But Gareth Yanto Evans has made sure that we know of these people.

On 17 July, Long Covid Support held a lobbying event here in the Senedd, where Members from different parties met constituents affected—Peter Fox did, I know, and Rhun did—and we were interested to hear what more we could do to improve those services for them. On 19 November, they held an event in Y Farchnad in the Oriel, and it was encouraging to see so many Members engaging with them. And today, I'm wearing my long COVID pin badge, which shows our support for that group.

We want to look at what we want to see happen. So, I'd say to the Cabinet Secretary, what I'm going to do is ask a few questions, and I'd like you, in your response, to perhaps rip up the civil service brief and just answer some of the questions that I've got for you today, some of the questions I'm going to ask you. The first of these is on surveillance. It's difficult to appreciate the full impact and scale of long COVID because of the lack of data. A survey in March suggested that 3.3 per cent of the population of England and Scotland are living with the condition, but Wales didn't take part in the survey. Why not? If we were to use that data to extrapolate similar numbers for Wales, it would equate to at least 100,000 people, including 4,500 children. And this is likely to underestimate the true scale of the problem. So, my first question to you, Cabinet Secretary, which I'd like you to answer is: will you call for a COVID infection study to help understand the prevalence of long COVID in Wales?

The other issue is public health messaging. We can't pretend that COVID-19 is no longer a threat at all. Every COVID infection increases your chance of developing long COVID, and you are at risk regardless of your age, your health or your vaccination level. Each COVID-19 infection could potentially cause cumulative damage to your organs; it is not the case that we develop permanent immunity to each COVID infection. And as people with long COVID are not necessarily classed as clinically vulnerable, many are not eligible for booster jabs. So, my question to the Cabinet Secretary is: will the Cabinet Secretary commission a public health campaign, highlighting the dangers of repeated COVID infections and the potential for developing long COVID?

And it is an issue of prevention. The most effective way to prevent long COVID is not to get COVID-19 in the first place. But, for the week ending 1 December, 72 per cent of hospital cases of COVID-19 were caught while the patient was already in hospital. So, my question to the Cabinet Secretary on this one is: will the Cabinet Secretary consider preventative measures in healthcare settings to guard against a so-called 'quademic' of airborne viruses?

I want to talk about healthcare workers. The latest module of the UK COVID inquiry highlighted the devastating impact that the pandemic had on our front-line health and social care workforce, many of whom caught COVID while at work and have since developed long COVID, and are now unable to work, with little in the way of support. So, my next question to the Cabinet Secretary is: as well as ensuring that preventative measures are put in place to protect staff and patients, will the Cabinet Secretary make provisions to collect data on the incidence and impact of long COVID amongst healthcare workers, with support provided to those who cannot work and those who want to gradually return to work?

And on long COVID services, the Welsh Government allocates £8.3 million of the current recurrent funding to the Adferiad programme, with health boards then providing those services locally—treatment centres around physiotherapy, occupational therapy and counselling—and while there is certainly a place for these, these interventions alone are insufficient to completely rehabilitate patients. In some cases, patients are being prescribed exercise, which can cause long-term harm. They are harming themselves by undertaking exercise, which is prescribed.

An evaluation commissioned by the Welsh Government in 2022 praised the service, but failed to capture the discontent felt by many patients regarding the lack of appropriate tests and treatments available. There does not appear to be consensus among health boards regarding those tests and treatments that may best serve long COVID patients. Mostly, it appears that health boards are working independently of each other, with no sharing of knowledge and little in the way of patient involvement. I’ve met with Aneurin Bevan health board; I imagine Rhun ap Iorwerth has met with the health board in his area to discuss these things, and in each case we find that different things happen in different places.

Where those with suspected long COVID attend their local GP surgeries, patient advocacy groups report instances where GPs are unaware of how to diagnose or treat long COVID. Presenting at a GP surgery may not be the solution that you are looking for because of those difficulties. Will the Cabinet Secretary, therefore, commit to reviewing the current service model with consideration being given to a more directive approach regarding those tests and treatments that are based on the current research and are best suited to the needs of long COVID patients? Getting a more collaborative approach to health boards is important. The Cabinet Secretary should consider developing a national strategic clinical network for long COVID, and create a quality statement against which health boards are accountable. And we should also be considering, within that, the important of paediatric services.

On future pandemic preparedness, we should not forget the real possibility of a future pandemic. As recommended by the UK COVID inquiry, we must learn the lessons from the last five years to ensure that the health systems in Wales are robust and well prepared for future eventualities. Furthermore, it’s disappointing that Wales does not have a national strategy and service to consider issues such as fibromyalgia and myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. Will the Cabinet Secretary, therefore, consider setting up a statutory health organisation responsible for the prevention, testing and treatment of post-viral illnesses, such as long COVID and ME/CFS?

These asks were set out in a letter from Long Covid Support members to their Senedd Members  in July. Members will have seen them. The Cabinet Secretary recently responded to this letter in another letter to Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, in which he set out the Welsh Government’s position and what action it is currently taking. The purpose of this debate today is to interrogate the Cabinet Secretary’s response to that letter and to remind the Welsh Government that people in Wales living with long COVID do not think that enough is being done to help them.

I’ve been provided by Long Covid Support with some impact statements from people—people who’ve suffered as a result. A friend of mine contacted me on Facebook Messenger just the other day. She said I could use her story. She said, 'We feel like a forgotten group, and it will hopefully get people realising the devastation it causes. People think that COVID is a thing of the past, but I’ve suffered since being hospitalised with COVID in March 2020. Front-line workers, teachers, NHS staff and carers have been particularly hit by this, many losing their careers and income. We were not protected. Many are being refused ill health retirement as permanence of the condition cannot be proved. I have had to give up my career as a college lecturer as chronic fatigue, brain fog, dysphasia meant I can no longer teach, despite reducing my hours.'

A health worker in Chepstow wrote to me, and she said, 'I made the difficult decision to apply for ill health retirement from the NHS in December 2023. This involved collecting a huge folder of evidence to support my application. This process was exhausting. The NHS has lost an experienced senior doctor and researcher. I am one of many healthcare workers who caught COVID in the workplace and have a permanent disability and have lost their jobs.'

A student at Swansea University wrote and said, 'I’m 19-years-old and was diagnosed with long COVID in December 2021. Now, I’m a second-year student at Swansea University. The fact that I’m there at all is because, at the very beginning, I made a promise to myself I would not allow long COVID to bring me down and I would not allow myself to be defined by my illness. It is not an easy promise to keep every day. My symptoms are different. Some days I suffer crippling headaches. I can't even lift my head off the pillow.'

And a carer from Penarth, who looks after their child who has long COVID, said, 'The NHS paediatrician doesn't understand the seriousness of long COVID. They say she should be in school, that psychology will help her walk again. Over the last three years we've paid thousands of pounds on private doctors, blood tests and prescriptions, but due to her young age our daughter lives in constant pain and cannot have suitable painkillers, so has to manage with chronic debilitating pain that never goes away.'

And finally, my last witness statement. A healthcare worker in the Rhondda valley said, 'I contracted COVID in early 2020. Over the next two years I struggled with multiple symptoms until I had no choice but to retire early, as I was unable due to the condition to sustain my role. I now see long COVID services being closed within my health board and limited support nationally for individuals with long COVID. There needs to be a national strategy and standards set for all health boards and local authorities to sign up to that will support individuals like me.'

A petition has been recently submitted to the Senedd on this, calling for 'a care society', focusing on the three areas of health, economic participation and physical infrastructure to tackle the crisis of long COVID. It is now due to be considered by the Senedd's Petitions Committee, and may well be debated in the Chamber.

My thanks go to those people who are suffering from long COVID. My thanks go to those Members who have engaged with this issue, particularly, as we will see today, Rhun and Peter. And my thanks go to Gareth Yanto Evans for advocating not just for himself, as a sufferer of long COVID, but also all of those people that he has met, and that we met one sunny day in July on the balcony by the coffee shop in the Senedd, when we spoke to those people who have very real lifelong effects as a result of suffering from long COVID. They need to be helped. I've set out some ideas as to how that might happen and I look forward to the Cabinet Secretary's response on how they may be addressed.

I'd like to thank those who have suffered—suffered for so long, many of them, from long COVID—for continuing to battle. I'm very grateful to Hefin David for bringing this debate to the Senedd today and for having been able to co-chair the cross-party group here in the Senedd on long COVID.

It's so important, isn't it, that the Government responds effectively to the situation that's ongoing nearly five years after the virus struck. There's one constituent of mine, although I've spoken to so many people about this, there's one constituent that is always on my mind, who was a physiotherapist and who got COVID in the first few months—at work, probably—having to battle to keep her pay, having to leave work in the end, her heart still causing a problem, and chronic fatigue—a fit woman who now can’t do what she's always loved to do. And what people like her do is they look to the Government to act, and I support many of the ideas that Hefin David has presented today. They want to see a Government encouraging a health service that hears the reality of the suffering that continues, and supporting people as they adjust their lives and face the daily challenges and look for support and improvement. Years may have passed since the virus struck, but the pandemic continues for so many people, and they're looking to the Government to ensure that they realise that.

Can I thank you, Hefin, for securing this debate today? It's really important. Can I also welcome Gareth here as well, and thank him for all the work he has done. I've had the pleasure of meeting him and other constituents who have suffered and are suffering, and my heart goes out to them because it is so debilitating and people don't realise it.

The COVID-19 pandemic was just a seismic event that continues to impact us, impact those who are suffering. For most of us, we went through COVID and we felt well afterwards, but for many clearly that isn't the case, and the symptoms last longer and longer. It can impact their daily life so much, as Hefin has already described, and it affects their ability to work, to return to work, even though they really want to, but they just struggle to.

It was interesting that Hefin touched on health workers. In July 2023, we know the BMA published a report looking at the impact of COVID-19 on doctors. The findings, based on a survey of 600 doctors experiencing the long-term effects of COVID, highlighted the significant personal and professional impact of long COVID, with notably 18 per cent of survey respondents reporting that they were left unable to work, and others having to reduce their working and training hours. This means that there's been a reduction in expertise within the NHS and medical sectors, with doctors and other medical professionals no longer able to work or to train as a result of the condition. While it is apparent that some medical professionals are unfortunately unable to return to work, it is apparent that they can still offer their vast expertise and lived experiences. It is vital that we as a country can find ways to ensure this crucial group of people are not just supported but are still able to contribute to a field that needs their expertise.

Cabinet Secretary, can I please ask what support is available from the Welsh Government to ensure that those medical professionals who can no longer return to work are assisted? I also ask if there will be opportunities or ways for those impacted by long COVID and no longer able to work to still be able to offer their skills and expertise to our health sector. I concur with all of the questions Hefin put to you also, Cabinet Secretary.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to reply to the debate. Jeremy Miles.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I welcome the opportunity to provide an update about our continued support for people with long COVID. The World Health Organization, as we have heard, defines long COVID as unexplained symptoms lasting for at least two months and present at least three months following COVID infection. As we know, it affects multiple systems within the body, including respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, endocrine and gastrointestinal systems. It can be unpredictable and it can vary in duration and severity.

Long COVID is not a single condition; it can be different for each person and presents with clusters of symptoms often overlapping, which can fluctuate and change over time. Long COVID is complex, manifesting in many ways, and can be difficult to diagnose. More than 200 different symptoms have been reported to date, and it can have a profound impact on a person's quality of life. We also know, as has been referred to already, that the impacts of long COVID go beyond physical symptoms. It can also have a profound impact on people's emotional well-being and mental health, their ability to thrive economically and socially, and can be distressing for families and loved ones.

There is no definitive test to diagnose long COVID. Before a diagnosis is made, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends assessment using a holistic person-centred approach to rule out other serious complications of COVID-19 and other alternative diagnoses. It also recommends that tests and investigations should be offered based on the individual's symptoms. There are currently no known effective treatments to cure long COVID, although research into potential treatments is ongoing. This means that the NICE guidance focuses on self-management and rehabilitation for those affected.

On the question of data, the Office for National Statistics infections survey suggested there could be as many 94,000 people in Wales with long COVID, although definitive figures anywhere on the incidence and prevalence of long COVID are challenging to obtain, partly for some of the reasons I've already given. There was an increased prevalence of self-reported symptoms amongst women, and the highest number of people reporting long COVID were aged 50 to 69. As Hefin David pointed out very powerfully, COVID-19 hasn't gone away. We are still experiencing waves of infection and new variants of the virus. This means, of course, that people are also continuing to develop long COVID.

We recognised the need for extra rehabilitation services for people who'd been affected by COVID-19 as early as spring 2020. Today, with the end of the emergency phase of the pandemic more than two years ago, we continue to support people with long COVID. We've done this by expanding primary and community-based services, so the care people with long COVID need is close to where they live. We invested £10 million between 2021 and 2023 through our Adferiad programme to set up these services, and we've since expanded on that, increasing the annual health board funding to £8 million a year.

Our support for people with long COVID needs to be tailored to meet their specific needs. All health boards have developed multiprofessional rehabilitation models of care, underpinned by supported self care, with referral pathways to secondary care when needed. Given our population size and the likely level of demand, it was felt that local services, supported by access to the necessary specialist services when required, was in fact the right model to improve quality-of-life outcomes for people affected by long COVID. But our delivery model will continue to be informed by the evidence as it emerges and evolves, as well as by those with lived experience. The testimonies of some of them have been referred to already in the debate today.

We do expect health boards, of course, to continue to support people with long COVID and, with the additional investment, to widen access to Adferiad-funded services to people with other conditions but similar diagnostic rehabilitation and recovery needs. This includes people referred to in Hefin David’s speech—people with ME, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

The key to reducing the number of people who develop long COVID lies, of course, in preventing the number of people who develop COVID-19. Population immunity continues to increase, with many people having hybrid immunity acquired through a combination of vaccination and recovery from natural infection. The evidence to date suggests that vaccines may provide some protection against and reduce the number of new cases of long COVID. Through our winter vaccination programme, we have encouraged and continue to encourage all those eligible to take up the offer of vaccination for both COVID-19 and seasonal flu this winter. We will continue to focus on this important consequence of the pandemic and to work with the NHS to meet people's individual needs.