Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I call Members to order.

The first item on our agenda this afternoon is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, and the first question is from Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you, Rhun. The Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport issued a statement in July about medical education and training in north Wales, which recognised the need for increased medical education in the area. Our ambition is to achieve this through a collaborative approach based upon Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor universities working more closely together.

Thank you. I do understand that I have been asking questions of the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport on medical education to date, but it’s good to ask a question to you as the Cabinet Secretary for Education today. Now that the pre-budget agreement has secured development funding for undergraduate medical education in Bangor, will you, as the education Secretary, tell us what sort of work programme you would want to see put in place in order to start to build towards the introduction of a full undergraduate course in Bangor for medical students based in Bangor University working in partnership with another medical school or medical schools, in addition to the steps that can happen immediately in terms of securing further placements for students in north Wales?

Like you, Rhun, I am pleased that we’ve been able to agree funding of £7 million in next year’s budget to support our plans for the development of undergraduate medical education in north Wales. The health Secretary gave a commitment to update Assembly Members in the autumn, and that remains the position, but I can tell you that officials are working with the three institutions to progress the proposal and to identify the practical steps required to make it happen. Officials most recently met with Cardiff, Swansea and Bangor, together with the deanery, on 21 September.

There’s been no increase in the full-time equivalent number of GPs in north Wales in a decade, despite increased population and trebling in GP contracts, and the number of GP training places in north Wales has been at a historic low now for a decade. The north Wales local medical committee, in the Assembly three years ago, called for contact to be re-established with Liverpool medical school, where many of them had come from to work in north Wales and had been trained here as young doctors. And when I raised this with the First Minister, he said that it’s hugely important that any medical school works closely with others in order to ensure that sustainability is there in the future. How, therefore, do you respond to continuing calls by GPs in the north Wales local medical committee for the solutions that you propose to incorporate strengthened connections with Liverpool and Manchester in terms of the supply of new and young doctors into the north Wales region?

I thank Mark for his question, but postgraduate medical education is not a matter for my portfolio, but for my Cabinet colleague the Cabinet Secretary for health. But I’m always very keen that Welsh universities and institutions look to collaborate wherever they can, whether that be within Wales or outside of Wales.

Cabinet Secretary, as we discovered in the health committee, young people in Wales who study medicine in Wales are more likely to stay in Wales, which is why it is vitally important that we improve medical education opportunities in north Wales. Not only do we have a shortage of doctors and nurses in Wales, but we also have a massive shortage of radiologists. Cabinet Secretary, what is your Government doing to encourage more young people to consider a career in medical diagnostics, and what are you going to do to increase the number of training places and opportunities in radiology?

The Member makes a very valid point, and, from the time that I was on the health committee, which I enjoyed greatly, issues around medical diagnostics are, of course, crucial if we’re to tackle issues around waiting times for those tests. I and the Cabinet Secretary for health continue to work closely across Government to ensure that we are supporting both medical education and professions allied to medicine, and we invest more than £350 million each year, supporting more than 15,000 students and trainees through their education and training in a range of healthcare professions across Wales, including, as I said, both doctors and other professions.

Thank you, David. Evidence suggests that family engagement can have over six times more influence on a child’s educational attainment than differences in the quality of the school. Our FaCE toolkit and Education Begins at Home campaign continue to ensure that family engagement in children’s learning remains a priority for practitioners.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that. Schools are required to include in their development plans details of how the governing body would seek to meet school improvement targets for the year by working with families of pupils at the school. In a survey by PTA Cymru, it was found that only 66 per cent of parents said that their child’s school was good at communicating with them, compared to 76 per cent in Northern Ireland and 73 per cent in England. So, both those jurisdictions are ahead of us. I’m particularly concerned about how schools contact foster carers, who obviously stand in for the parental role. I think that this is very important and ought to be given a high priority in schools to ensure that they’re doing this essential liaison effectively.

Thank you, David. I continue to look at new and innovative ways in which we can build relationships between schools and parents, given the crucial role that they can play in raising attainment. The FaCE toolkit, as I said, is being widely welcomed by practitioners in schools. Consortia are working with schools to ensure that it is taken up.

You raise a very important point about the issue of foster carers. I know from some of my own constituency casework how, sometimes, foster carers can find it difficult to obtain places for children who are placed with them if they have come from out of county. So, thank you for raising this important matter and I will investigate with officials further what more we can do in this important area for that important group of children and their carers.

I thank David for raising this because I think the success of the school is integrally linked to the involvement of parents. Would she acknowledge, however, that there are some schools with more significant challenges in that engagement with parents and of parents with their children as well generally? Perhaps she could comment on what measures she can take within the Welsh Government to overcome those hurdles? She’s visited some schools in my constituency—and I welcome that—which are seeing these challenges.

Would she also like to comment on the importance of Flying Start programmes in starting this early engagement with parents, being involved in the lives of their children as well? It was a delight last week to be at the opening of two new Flying Start centres in my own constituency in Lewistown and also in Garth. It’s the twelfth within Bridgend. They’re having a major impact in having that role of involving the parent in the lives of their children and ultimately in the life of the school as well and of their future education.

Thank you, Huw. Flying Start doesn’t sit within my portfolio, but you’re absolutely right to draw attention to its crucial role. I agree with you that the earlier we can intervene in children’s lives with positive benefit, the better chances that learners from more deprived backgrounds have later on in life. That’s why we introduced the early years pupil deprivation grant—sorry, it’s the pupil development grant now—in April 2015 to provide additional support for our youngest learners, including support around speech and language development and the early development of literacy skills, which sometimes can be challenging. We augment that work, for instance, with supporting BookTrust Cymru to provide reading materials for families as well as the ‘Parenting. Give it time’ campaign and our Education Begins at Home campaign, where families have access to free resources to help them help their children.

I now call on the party spokespeople to question the Cabinet Secretary. The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, you’ve acknowledged to me in this Chamber—and the First Minister, in fairness, has said very much the same—that the Government isn’t where it would like to be in terms of supply teaching here in Wales. The Children, Young People and Education committee, of course, published its report, suggesting actions in the last Assembly. The ministerial supply model taskforce was set up last year and it reported back at the beginning of this year. With the sector becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress, your most recent letter to the education committee last week suggests that it could now be another two years before a new model is developed and ultimately implemented. That’s well over four years after the Government accepted all of the recommendations in that committee report back in 2015. So, do you sympathise with the sector’s frustrations around this and are they justified in being aggrieved at the Government’s slow pace of reform?

Llyr, the issue around supply teaching is a complex and sensitive one. You will be aware that the task and finish group that was set up by the previous Minister have acknowledged in their own report, which was delivered to me, that there is no single answer to addressing the issue around supply teaching. It’s not fair to say that no action has been taken. A group has been set up by myself to work through and implement the findings of the task and finish report. So, for instance, supply teachers now have access to Hwb, whereas they didn’t have that before. We are working on new training arrangements for supply teachers. We have new collaborative arrangements in a number of local authorities around newly qualified teachers, who find themselves working in a supply route, to better support them in their role. And we continue to look at new models of delivering supply.

As I said in my statement last week, in a question, I think, you raised then, officials have recently been in Northern Ireland to look at the experience of Northern Ireland. However, until we have the completion of the devolution of teachers’ pay and conditions, we are somewhat constrained by our ability to introduce an innovative new model that I would like to see.

Well, I’ve been approached by a constituent—and you mentioned pay and conditions—who was earning £115 a day as a supply teacher. She’s now had a letter from her local authority to say that all schools must work through the private supply teaching agency, New Directions, with very few exceptions. And she tells me that will mean her pay will be cut to £85 a day, because New Directions retains about 30 per cent of the money paid by schools for the supply teachers. Is it any wonder that there’s an increasing shortage of supply teachers, particularly in certain subject areas? And do you accept that our supply teachers deserve a better deal and a fairer day’s pay?

The issue of the employment of supply teachers is for individual schools. Schools do not necessarily have to go through those individual procedures. Local authorities are encouraged to use the consortia arrangements, because that gives us some level of confidence around, for instance, checks for the individual practitioners who may be working in our schools. One of the issues that we did find with the task and finish group is that some of these smaller organisations that organise and supply supply teachers are not following some of the basic checks that we would want to ensure ourselves were happening in our schools.

So, as I said, ultimately, there’s a model for individual schools, but I would expect that all proper protections are in place for our supply teaching workforce. What’s important to me is that we use supply teachers when necessary, but supply teaching doesn’t become the default in many of our schools, and that disrupts learning, potentially, and has an impact on standards.

Well, you haven’t addressed the question about whether they get a fair deal out of this. Because another supply teacher tells me he’s considering giving up the job that he’s done for 18 years because of this drastic reduction that he’s facing in pay. And, in the meantime, of course, he tells me that he sees New Directions paying its directors a dividend of £100,000 a piece, and a share in a further £430,000 dividend from the firm’s parent company. At the very time our schools are increasingly dependent on supply teachers for their services and support, you’re kicking the prospect of reform two, maybe three, years further down the line. Now, in the meantime, supply teachers are seeing their pay being cut. So, do you think that it’s right that a private agency is taking a third of supply teachers’ pay?

As I said, the employment arrangements for individual supply teachers are a matter for schools. One of the more interesting examples of an alternative model that the task and finish group looked at was a co-operative model that was set up by teachers themselves in the south-west of England, and I’m very keen to see whether there are any lessons that can be learned from that.

With regard to the use of private agencies, that’s one of the reasons why we have set up these new consortia arrangements with local authorities for NQTs, so that, actually, it is the local authorities that are responsible for placing supply teachers in those areas. And those types of models, and the social contract that we have between us as a Welsh Government and our teaching workforce, is one I want to build on.

Conservative spokesperson, Darren Millar.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, this summer saw the worst Welsh GCSE results in a decade, with the pass rate falling to its lowest level since 2006. It provides us with further evidence that successive Welsh Labour-led administrations—and now this coalition Government—is failing children and young people here in Wales. What are you going to do to turn this situation around?

What I’m going to do is implement the contents of ‘Education in Wales: Our National Mission’, which was published last week, and which I answered questions on last week in this Chamber.

You haven’t specifically said what you’re going to do to turn the GCSE results around. One thing that would be helpful, of course, is having GCSE textbooks that are available in the Welsh language for those pupils who wish to sit their exams through the medium of Welsh. But, as you will probably be aware, the new specification for religious studies GCSEs, which has already been published—there aren’t any textbooks at all available for those religious studies GCSEs, either in English or Welsh. So, we’re not going to see any improvements until we actually get some work done by your Government on making sure that teachers are equipped with the resources that they need, and learners have the ability to access the resources they need, to drive these standards up. You gave us assurances in the past that these were issues that had been dealt with. We’re now at the beginning of October and these textbooks still aren’t available in either of those two languages, particularly for the religious studies GCSEs. When are you going to pull your finger out and sort this situation out?

Can I be absolutely clear with the Member with regard to GCSE pass rates this summer? For 16-year-olds, the pass rate was 66.7 per cent, and that is consistent with historic high levels that we’ve seen over the last three years. Importantly for me, results at A* level—the very highest-performing students—have remained stable, and there were improvements in the summer results at A* to C in large subject entry areas, such as better results in English literature, better results in history, better results in geography and, importantly, better results in Welsh second language.

The issue around textbooks is a real one. Qualifications Wales—of course, qualifications are now at arm’s length from this Government—will not sanction a new course from the WJEC unless they are satisfied that resources are available. When it comes to bilingual resources, I’m sure the Member will very much welcome the announcement yesterday that additional resources will be made available for the production of Welsh-medium resources, seeing that both this Government and Plaid Cymru have a shared ambition to increase resources in that area.

One excuse for the poor GCSE results that you didn’t rattle off, of course—you’ve tried to make this point on a number of occasions—is that these are new GCSEs. But, of course, we’ve got new A-levels, and the results improved on the A-levels, whereas they actually, as I said earlier on, went backwards in terms of GCSEs here in Wales.

We’ve heard promises about this issue of the Welsh textbooks being available from you in the past. We raised these issues earlier this year, and you still haven’t addressed them. I appreciate you’ve made a similar commitment now, but if you didn’t fulfil that commitment previously, earlier in the year, how can we trust you to deliver on that commitment now? We already know that there are Welsh learners who are unable to access psychology and economics exams this year as a result of the unavailability of examinations in Welsh because of cock-ups by Qualifications Wales and, indeed, your Government in not holding them to account for that. So, I’ll ask you again: when are you actually going to get a grip of this situation so that Welsh-medium learners can take examinations in the language of their choice and have textbooks available to them? This is adding to the burden—the workload burden—of teachers in our schools. You said that you wanted to cut it—this is adding to it, because they’re having to translate resources to dish out to the kids in their classes. It’s unacceptable and we need some action, not just warm words.

At the heart of my approach to education is the issue of equity. No child should be disadvantaged whether they choose to study through the medium of English, whether they choose to study through the medium of Welsh or whether they choose to attend a bilingual school. I held a summit back in the spring to address this issue around Welsh-medium resources. You were invited and you didn’t come, Darren, which perhaps shows your true interest in this subject. Since that time, we have worked with the WJEC to provide online and electronic copies of Welsh-medium resources to shorten the time that they have to wait for them. We are working with the Welsh Books Council and the WJEC to look at how we can develop the Welsh publishing industry to publish our own textbooks, rather than being beholden to large publishing houses across the border in England. Crucially, we have been able to agree between ourselves and Plaid Cymru additional resources to tackle this very issue.

UKIP spokesperson, Michelle Brown.

Cabinet Secretary, Philip Hammond recently said that he was considering slashing tuition fees at higher education institutions in England to the tune of £5,000 a year. So, we’ve got the situation where the tuition fees may be going down in England and you’ve introduced new student loans in Wales. So, basically, Welsh students are going to be looking at England if they actually do this and think, ‘Well, I’m going to be getting into less debt if I go and study in England’. What’s your assessment of the potential move suggested by Philip Hammond, and are you likely to reduce tuition fees here to get in ahead of the game to attract students back to Wales?

The Welsh Government has been clear in its belief that the English and Welsh higher education systems do not operate in isolation, and we must provide the financial and the regulatory framework to allow our institutions to compete both domestically and internationally. On that basis, I am watching the policy position in England very closely, and I will consider the implications of any changes before bringing forward legislation here in this Chamber. For 2017 and 2018, the fee level in Wales is currently lower than the maximum allowed in England.

Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. According to figures given by the BBC earlier this year, student debt in Wales is estimated to be about £3.7 billion, with the average graduate debt in Wales already approximately just over £19,000. That was before you effectively forced Welsh students to get into further debt. You can say that the debts are incurred in return for the so-called graduate premium, but let’s remember that those graduates are going to be paying tax through the nose in later life like the rest of us, so it’s rather a red herring. As I’ve said, you decided to jack up the debts of Welsh students even further. They’re going to end up with debts the size of a mortgage, and it will take years to pay off just as they’re starting out in life. Do you think this helps the Welsh economy and, if so, how?

One announcement that has been made by the Conservative Government in Westminster that I welcome very much indeed is that they have agreed to change the repayment threshold for student loans. In fact, I wrote to Jo Johnson, the Minister for universities and science, back in July and in September of this year outlining my concerns about the amount of interest that was being paid on loans, and the issue of the threshold. So, I welcome very much the decision to increase the threshold to around £25,000, and I will work with the UK Government to ensure that that change can be implemented here in Wales first. But what the Member does not recognise and does not acknowledge is that the true barrier for people, especially from a poorer background, accessing higher education is not the issue around fee loans; it is the issue of upfront costs. How do you pay for your accommodation? How do you pay for your resources? And that’s why this Government is introducing the most progressive system of student support for undergraduates, part-time students and postgraduates anywhere in Europe.

Well, Cabinet Secretary, you can call it progressive if you like; I call it saddling young people with debt. So, we are where we are anyway; you’ve taken the position that you have. Like I said, these students are going to be incurring large amounts of debt at a time in their life when they’re perhaps not used to handling large amounts of money, running a monthly budget or running a quarterly budget effectively. So, how are you going to ensure that these students get responsible and thorough financial advice before they take out loans, so they’re not doing things like taking out pay-day loans and credit cards to pay for accommodation that ultimately should be provided by the universities? So, what support systems are you going to put in place to make sure that those students have the right financial advice before they enter into these decisions, and what kind of debt counselling are graduates going to have when they come out?

Let me be absolutely clear, because I’m not quite sure if the Member understands. All students in Wales next year will qualify for a £1,000 non-repayable grant. For students from our poorest backgrounds, they will have the equivalent of a living wage whilst they study to pay for the very accommodation that you just talked about. This is the most progressive system anywhere in Europe. You are right: there are issues around how we can support students to use their resources appropriately. That’s why we are working with the Student Loans Company to see whether we could introduce those grants on a monthly basis rather than having simply a big cheque at the beginning of the year.

Question 3 (OAQ51130) is withdrawn. Question 4—Eluned Morgan.

Thank you, Eluned. We have put the well-being of our learners at the heart of our education system and that is reflected in ‘Education in Wales: Our National Mission’. ‘Successful Futures’ contains a specific health and well-being area of learning and experience in recognition of its important link to increased educational attainment.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. You’ll be aware that choosing the right subjects to study will make a huge difference to the enjoyment of children in school, but also we need to be encouraging people to study subjects that will lead to good and rewarding jobs. Girls in particular are massively under-represented in studying STEM subjects that lead to engineering qualifications. This morning, I’ve been training with the Scarlets team—[Interruption.] I look like a rugby player, don’t I?—with the Scarlets team and girls from Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire. We were trying to draw attention to the fact—along with Valero, one of the largest engineering companies in Wales—to the fact that post 16, only 220 girls out of a cohort of 38,000, or 0.6 per cent, took up engineering qualifications in Wales. For construction engineering, figures are even worse, with 0.2 per cent of girls studying relevant qualifications. So, can the Cabinet Secretary explain how we can further capture the imagination of, in particular, 12 and 13-year-old girls to ensure that they study STEM subjects, not just at GCSE level, but at A-level and at apprenticeship level? And will the Cabinet Secretary ensure that more women engineers are invited into schools to provide role models for girls to study those important subjects?

Thank you very much, Eluned. You raise some really important points. What we do see if we look at the patterns is a drop-off, at each stage, of young women deciding to choose to study science. So, it drops between GCSE and A-level, it then drops again when people go on to university, and drops again at postgraduate study at university. We recognise that and we are working with my colleague Julie James to look at what more we can do to promote STEM opportunities to young women and making that crucial link for them between studying STEM at school and the prospects of a really well paid and successful future for them. That’s crucial, to make those links. I’m always very pleased to utilise, where we can, role models going into schools.

One of the other issues as well is to ensure that our teaching of science and STEM subjects is as engaging as it possibly can be. You’ll be aware that we have recently set up with new resources our new network of excellence for the teaching of science and engineering, so that people have a really positive experience, crucially, early on in their academic career. That means a positive experience of science at primary school.

Cabinet Secretary, figures from Stonewall Cymru reveal that more than half of LGBT young people in Wales have experienced physical or verbal abuse in school. Only a quarter of bullied LGBT pupils said that the teachers intervened, which I find very concerning and disturbing at the same time. Stonewall Cymru is calling for all school staff to be trained in tackling anti-LGBT bullying and for Estyn to play an active role in ensuring that schools create a safe environment for LGBT pupils. Cabinet Secretary, what action are you going to take to protect LGBT pupils in our schools in Wales, please?

Thank you very much, Oscar, for that question. I want to make it absolutely clear: I do not accept—and I take a zero-tolerance approach to—any bullying within our education system. We cannot expect our children to make the most of their opportunities and to fulfil their potential if they do not feel safe and supported in our schools. You will be aware that the Welsh Government is currently refreshing its policies with regard to tackling bullying in our schools, as well as looking at how we can support teachers to implement that policy within their individual schools. One of the other things we also need to do is ensure that our children have access to top-quality sex and relationship education, because educating children is the best way to try and prevent bullying, and that’s how we can make a real impact. You’ll be aware that Professor Emma Renold from Cardiff University is currently chairing a specialist group looking at this issue, and her report is due to be delivered to me this month, I believe.

Thank you, Llyr. The new professional standards for teaching and leadership have been published on Learning Wales and in the professional learning passport, which is, as you will know, hosted by the Education Workforce Council. Newly qualified teachers starting induction from this September are using the new standards, and serving teachers and school leaders will adopt the new standards by September 2018.

Thank you for that response. What I want to ask is who do you now believe should take ownership of those standards? Who do you think should be driving them forward to ensure that they are used better than the previous standards? Will the Education Workforce Council, for example, have a role in that regard, because in every other country the corresponding body does deliver that role?

Presiding Officer, the Member asks who should own these standards: the profession. The profession should own the standards, and I’m pleased to say there is broad support from the profession for these new standards. Our new proposals replace 55 previous standards with five new key standards, and, of course, the EWC have had a very important role in helping in the development of them. At present, those standards have been incorporated into the EWC’s professional learning passport, and I will keep under review whether the EWC should have an increased role in this particular area.

Well, we can’t hang around waiting for you to make a decision here. A decision was actually made by the previous Cabinet in the previous Government and was simply not followed through in terms of extending the remit of the Education Workforce Council, which is the profession, effectively, in Wales. You say that the profession should own these things. Why can’t you give responsibility to the profession’s body, the EWC, to have responsibility for shaping these professional standards going forward? You say, Cabinet Secretary, that these are just five standards replacing 55 standards. Actually, it’s a 100-odd-slide PowerPoint, effectively, that people get through to online when they go to have a look at drilling down into what the standards mean and how it should affect their practice.

When you are finally making a decision on the remit of the EWC, will you also consider the lack of ability of the EWC as it stands at present to suspend people from registration when serious allegations are made? As you will know, there have been a number of cases in Wales in recent years of people who have been alleged to have committed sometimes some very serious offences. And whilst they may have been suspended by their employers for employment purposes, they are still registered on the EWC’s registration list, and there’s no power, unlike some other professional bodies, to actually suspend their registration to prevent them from working in our schools. There is a safeguarding issue here, I believe, which needs to be addressed. Can you confirm that that is also something that you will consider when you’re looking at the remit of the EWC in the future?

I want to be absolutely clear: the EWC has played a part in the development of the professional standards, together with Estyn and the workforce unions, and they have been kept informed throughout the process. It is not my intention at present to extend their remit to professional teaching standards.

With regard to the other issue you have raised, my officials have asked the EWC for hard evidence as to why the changes that they are lobbying you for should be introduced. And when I have that evidence I shall reflect.

Education is one of the key areas that underpins our ambition to achieve 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. Ensuring the increase in the number of children and young people educated through the medium of Welsh or bilingually will be a priority for us all.

Diolch. I’d like to raise the experience of a school in my region and that’s Ysgol Gymraeg Nant Caerau in the west of Cardiff. In 2012 the school had 86 pupils on a site designed for four to seven-year-olds. Now, the school has 240 pupils aged between four and 11, and they’re having to turn children away. There’ve been expansions of schools in other areas, but Nant Caerau is having to make do with a tiny site and the footprint is less than half the Government guidelines. There is a patch of land next to the school thatcould be used, and that makes perfect sense to me and almost everybody, but the council is dragging its feet.

So, would you agree that if we are to increase the use of the Welsh language in areas like Caerau and Ely, we need to invest in sites like this? And will you meet with parents to encourage Cardiff council to take action on the site as soon as possible?

Presiding Officer, Members will be aware, from yesterday’s business statement, that I’ll be making an oral statement on Welsh language education plans next Tuesday. Members will also be aware that I commissioned Aled Roberts to look at all the strategic plans for education published by local authorities, in the spring, and he published that report in the summer. In terms of the example that the Member has quoted, I would suggest to him that he takes that up with his local council.

Minister, in a statement back in April, which referred, at least in part, to promoting the use of the Welsh language, you explained how you’d like to focus on co-ordinating and commissioning practical support to facilitate the use of the Welsh language amongst small businesses. Now, about £4 million from the main education budget came to the Welsh language budget this year towards education support, and I wonder if it’s clear yet whether preparing young people for using Welsh in the workplace, which is obviously the best support of all that you can give, is being supported through the education system, via the Welsh baccalaureate, information technology training, or, most importantly of all, embedding the use of Welsh in vocational courses for front-facing careers.

I hope that that is happening. I had a meeting last week with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol to discuss how we can expand and continue to implement the work that was recommended by Delyth Evans in her task and finish group, which the Cabinet Secretary published in the summer. I would expect and anticipate that all those different elements need to be in place. I will be publishing by the end of this year a plan for the teaching of Welsh in education and some of those elements will be addressed in that. Otherwise, you’ll see from the strategy that we published before the summer recess that we have targets in place for increasing the number of teachers and teaching staff available to be able to teach both through the medium of Welsh and to teach Welsh—significant increases by the end of this Assembly—and we have already put in place our programmes for achieving those targets. I would be very happy to update Members at appropriate times through this Assembly.

According to the Aled Roberts review of the Welsh in education strategic plans, which was completed on behalf of Government—Aled Roberts states that the plans show that

a great deal more needs to be done if we are to reflect the aspirations within the Welsh Government’s 2010 strategy, let alone the more ambitious requirements of the Government’s new strategy to reach a million Welsh speakers by 2050’

and the majority of local authorities are eager to contribute to the Government aspiration of securing 1 million Welsh speakers. In looking at your language strategy, Cymraeg 2050, there are no targets and criteria for all local authorities in order to note how each local authority will contribute to reaching this ambitious aim. You’ve mentioned that you’re going to make a statement next week on the WESPs. In your response to Aled Roberts’s report, will you introduce these targets and criteria for the Government and local authorities?

I would very kindly suggest that the Member once again reads the strategy that I published in July. And if you read the programme of work, which was published simultaneously, you will see that there are criteria included there that show that we’re planning for an increase in the number of children receiving their education through the medium of Welsh, and how many teachers will be required to attain those targets. So, the targets are already there for the end of this Assembly term and the ensuing years. So, there are some targets included in both the programme of work and in the strategy itself.

When it comes to publishing the WESPs, of course, it’s a matter for the local authorities. It’s not a matter for this Government to do that, and it’s up to each individual authority to do that. And I have written to each one of the local authorities over the summer, and I would expect them to publish their plans, I would hope, before the end of this year.

Wales’s progressive legislation on homelessness prioritises households with children and requires all local authorities to find them a home. Homelessness constitutes a significant adverse childhood experience. The establishment of the ACE support hub will help ensure that schools are equipped to provide the most appropriate support to these very vulnerable learners.

Thank you for that response, Cabinet Secretary. You’ll probably be aware that in 2016-17, 16 and 17-year-olds made up around 3.33 per cent of households that were regarded as homeless in terms of the priority groups that we have, and, of course, we know that that age bracket is a very tough time because they’ve got exams, very often, falling in that period. Can I just ask you whether you’ve considered actually issuing guidance to local education authorities and indeed to schools on how to support people in those sorts of situations, because, clearly, they need some additional support, over and above that which is provided more generally to pupils in their classes, at that particular junction? So, I wonder whether you’ve considered issuing statutory guidance on this particular issue.

As I said, Darren, the establishment of the ACE hub is to help support schools to support children who are suffering from ACEs, and homelessness is a significant ACE. I’ll tell you what, Darren, maybe we could have a deal. I’ll, perhaps, consider issuing statutory guidance when your Government in Westminster stops taking such a draconian view of housing policy towards 16 and 17-year-olds, often which drives them into vulnerable situations because they are not regarded as having the same homelessness rights and benefit rights as older people, and you do something to pause universal credit.

I was wondering how you could tell us more about how young people are engaged with the issue surrounding homelessness in school. I’m obviously aware of the Shelter Cymru toolkit, which is widely used across schools in Wales, but I wonder how that can be enhanced upon, because we had a debate only last week from young people in Wrexham—not Wrexham, sorry—Ynys Môn, who came down to the National Assembly, and they were saying quite clearly that there are issues, if they are made homeless, that they find studying very difficult because they don’t have an environment where it’s comfortable, and they often don’t have Wi-Fi. So, how are you looking at those potential issues from young people who are at the coalface of this?

The Member makes a very worthwhile point, and we need to consider, always, how we can break down barriers that affect people’s ability to learn. We have, as a Government, developed our youth homelessness pathway, which was launched by the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children late last year, which sets out a comprehensive approach for helping young people to avoid homelessness, and the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children has announced earlier last month an additional £2.6 million for new projects, which will particularly focus on tackling rough sleeping and youth homelessness.

Thank you, Joyce. Reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and enabling teachers to spend more time supporting pupils’ learning is a priority for me and the Government. We are continuing to work closely with the profession to build capacity and reduce workload, through reducing bureaucracy, improved policy delivery and better and smarter ways of working.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, and I really do welcome that much needed investment from Welsh Government. As I’m sure most of us agree, whilst non-teaching activities are critical to the running of a school, teachers’ time would be far better directed at teaching activities, and reducing unnecessary burdens is essential to achieving that. So, Cabinet Secretary, as I understand it, there will be a pilot run in 11 local authority areas in groups of primary schools. Do you have any details on whether any of those are in Mid and West Wales and do you have any idea when we can expect to see the first school where business managers are in post?

Joyce, you’re absolutely right. It should not be the job of headteachers to be spending their time trying to source paper or toilet rolls, managing cleaning contracts, or trying to deal with issues around the building or the IT. We need those professional people to focus on teaching and learning, developing the curriculum, and supporting their staff to deliver outstanding experiences and lessons for their children. That’s why, you’re quite right, recently we have launched a pilot, and I’m very pleased to say both Powys and Carmarthenshire councils have been awarded funding from the Welsh Government towards recruiting school business managers for mainly primary school clusters in their local areas. This will involve a total of over 30 schools in both Powys and Carmarthenshire, and business managers are currently in the process of being appointed and should be in place later on this year.

Cabinet Secretary, one way to help reduce unnecessary burdens on teachers is to encourage a greater dialogue between school leaders and teachers through informal workload impact assessments whenever new policies are introduced, so that a constructive and frank discussion about the impact of Government policies is always taking place. Therefore, I’d be grateful if you could tell us if this is something that you are advocating, and, if so, could you also tell us a bit more about how your discussions with headteachers and school leaders about the introduction of some kind of workload impact assessments are currently progressing?

Thank you, Paul. It is really important that there’s a shared understanding around the expectations between school leaders and their staff. Sometimes, those expectations are driven by external accountability measures, so the school leaders are putting work onto staff because they think that’s what is expected from them, either by their regional consortium, by the local education authority or, crucially, by Estyn. That’s why, you’ll be aware, earlier on this year, we launched a resource for all schools and all practitioners that set out very clearly the expectations of regional consortia and Estyn, for instance, when it came to the issue around marking and assessment. That’s been supported by each of the teaching unions and I hope that that is proving to be a very valuable resource in all of our schools, and that school leaders are taking it seriously.

We constantly need to look to the profession to how we can work smarter and better together, and challenge ourselves as a Government: are we requiring things of schools that are adding to bureaucracy, but not adding to learning? We’ll constantly keep that under review when I meet with school leaders, via a series of conferences that we hold.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

The next item, therefore, is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport. And the first question is from Mohammad Asghar.

Thank you for the question. Bladder and bowel problems can affect people of all ages for a variety of reasons. They can cause significant distress, inconvenience and impact considerably on the lives of those affected. These types of problems may cross a number of specialities, and I’m pleased to note that NHS Wales is taking action to co-ordinate services, for example, through the work of the Welsh urology board.

Thank you very much for the reply, Minister. Sacral nerve stimulation is a therapy to help those who experience the embarrassment, discomfort and pain of bladder and bowel problems. It is, quite simply, a life-changing treatment. However, funding for sacral nerve stimulation is limited, and there is no centre in Wales to carry out the required procedures, with patients having to travel to England for treatment. Cabinet Secretary, I met a consultant only last week who said this very reasonable and cheap treatment is available in England—and in this country also, the professionals are here—to plant a very simple chip at the back of the body that controls the bladder, and which is a very simple way to give comfort to our senior citizens, especially as 90 per cent are ladies who suffer with this. What action will the Cabinet Secretary take to improve access to sacral nerve stimulation treatments for our dear old mothers and fathers, for a quality of life with bladder and bowel problems, to improve their quality of life in Wales? Thank you.

Thank you for the follow-up question. I’ve actually had a number of meetings with my colleague the Member for Cardiff Central, Jenny Rathbone, on this issue, because of the particular challenges about women who suffer faecal incontinence injuries during childbirth, where the significant problem is. I don’t quite recognise the issue that the Member raises about this being an issue that affects senior citizens primarily, but my concern is that in Wales we have a treatment that is NICE recommended. It is not consistently available within Wales at present—people are travelling outside of Wales on a commission basis to have the treatment made available—and so, I have, following a meeting with Jenny Rathbone some months ago, indicated to the service that I wish to see a more consistent approach being taken. Previously, unfortunately, a number of people were being told to use the IPFR process. This is one of the issues where the IPFR process was being misused, because this is a NICE-approved treatment. It is not an IPFR treatment. It is for the service to develop a properly consistent approach to an issue that is relatively common. So, I look forward to seeing the plans that will now come from the task and finish group being set up, led by Julie Cornish, a specialist colorectal surgeon based in Cwm Taf university health board, who is leading that work. We should then have a plan to deliver a more consistent service for women in Wales who do deserve to have that treatment available on that basis.

Cabinet Secretary, obviously bladder problems can result in people being catheterised for a variety of reasons. In a recent coroner’s report on a death in a nursing home within my constituency, in Cymmer, the coroner’s narrative actually indicated that there was inadequate training of staff, and a person who was catheterised long term suffered as a consequence and died. Will you ensure that health boards are fully aware of the training that needs to be put into place to deal with residents and patients who are catheterised for long periods, so that they’re not put in a position where they may end up with infections and consequently septicaemia, which causes, ultimately, death?

I thank you for the question and raising the issue about careless undertakings in residential facilities, not just within hospitals or homecare based. Actually, there is a challenge here about what is a not unusual process that’s undertaken, and actually it’s relatively simple; the challenge here is about how blocked catheters are dealt with and the proper care. So, I’ll certainly take it up and look again at the issue about how we try and ensure that when we’re commissioning care in the social care sector, we understand what we’re commissioning, the quality of care provided, but also that healthcare professionals understand their responsibilities around what is, essentially, a basic element of care and treatment for citizens in whichever part of the healthcare system they happen to be in.

In July, I issued a written statement detailing the plans for Health Education and Improvement Wales. The legislation to establish HEIW as a special health authority was laid on 13 September and, subject to the will of the Assembly, is due to come into force on 5 October.

I note, also, that the Cabinet Secretary has been advertising for non-executive members of the board for this health authority and did quite a lot of work in terms of these reports from Mel Evans and Professor Williams that we had before. I just wonder if he can say what he is doing to ensure that the board will operate truly independently at arm’s length from Welsh Government, and also to ensure that the various professional interests are properly represented within that board. I think at least three of the non-execs must be Welsh speakers. What is he doing to ensure that particular professions are considered properly by that board, for instance nursing, where this Assembly has put such emphasis on the necessity of safer staffing ratios?

Thank you for the question. I think it’s a helpful opportunity to clarify the point and the purpose of the board, because the board isn’t going to be a representational board, made up of different interest groups. If we do that, we’ll have different groups fighting and competing with each other, rather than actually having a board with sufficient expertise to actually undertake the workforce planning and function of Health Education and Improvement Wales. If I have a nursing representative, I’ll have a lobby for a doctor’s representative, we’ll have a lobby for consultants and primary care clinicians to have different representatives, and allied healthcare professionals and others. That’s the wrong way to look at it. We’ll quickly get into a position where to fulfil all those separate needs we’d need a board that would be significantly bigger, and board meetings would be mini conferences.

My expectation is that Health Education and Improvement Wales will be able to acquire, in its chief executive, its senior officers and the independent members of the board, sufficient expertise to help the health service to properly understand workforce planning, by bringing together the different disparate bodies, which both the Evans and Williams reports recognise exist, into a more coherent whole. And that’s the point of the creation of Health Education and Improvement Wales. It is being set up on a proper basis in which the chair, after my initial appointment, will go through a proper public appointments process, and that should guarantee for Members on all sides the quality and also the independence of those members in undertaking this challenge and their functions for all of us.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservatives’ spokesperson, Suzy Davies.

Diolch yn fawr. Minister, phase 2 of the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 is due to bite in April, and we heard in the cross-party group on nursing and midwifery last night that both commissioners and providers need to plan for this, and it will actually need some planning. We also heard that, while there had been stakeholder engagement, plans to dilute the presence of qualified nurses in nursing homes had not been shared with the public, who may now find themselves paying for a care arrangement that is not what they had expected. Can you commit today to publishing, by the end of this month, a road map—a sort of timetable of steps that you will be taking between now and April—so that commissioners and providers have some clarity? And will that include information on when you will be launching a public information campaign?

I thank you for that question, and I would be happy to provide the Assembly with a written statement in the coming weeks on the road map and the particular timescales that we have for the implementation of this part of the Act.

Well, thank you for that answer. ‘Coming weeks’ can mean anything, so I’m hoping that it will be very few weeks before you are able to do that.

As you know, the stakeholder consultation raised grave concerns about the effective removal of 24-hour nursing presence in nursing homes and moving to a remote supervision of nursing care by a responsible person, who would be a nurse, who could be covering any number of homes. In particular, we were told that it would result in increased demand on district nurses and out-of-hours provision locally if the responsible person was some distance away when the nursing need arose. I’m sure you’d agree that early nursing intervention avoids escalation of a need into something even more distressing for the individual and more expensive for the NHS. Can you tell me about any assessment that you or the Cabinet Secretary may have done of this displaced demand, and what modelling has been done to establish whether there’s any capacity for our diminishing number of district nurses and out-of-hours cover to meet that displaced demand?

I thank you for that question. We certainly were proposing to remove that 24-hour nurse requirement within the regulations because it was very stringent and very strict, and actually didn’t give residential homes the flexibility that they actually need—that we believe they need—to meet the needs of the people they care for in the most appropriate way. So, in future, the statement of purpose that care homes will provide will be absolutely critical in terms of setting out the care that they provide for the types of conditions that people will have and will require. So, I think that that is a more appropriate way of taking forward the staffing structure within the care homes. I understand that there is some nervousness about it; of course, I do. I recently went on a visit organised by David Rees to a care home within his own constituency, which was organised alongside the Royal College of Nursing. So, we were able to tease out some of these specific issues and specific concerns that the nursing profession have raised. We certainly will be taking all of those on board when deciding on the next steps forward.

That’s useful to know. That’s taking some evidence, but we haven’t gone quite the full way to an assessment of the likely impact on district nurses, which I think is perhaps something you may want to consider. But you did allude then to the staffing needs of any given nursing home, and the make-up of any team in a nursing home is critical to the success of the care it offers. The removal of a nurse on site is one pressure on that team, but another is the replacement of skills, which may be lost as people leave.

Developing the skills of existing staff, whether they are nursing assistants or healthcare support workers, is good for retention levels and personal development, but there are practical difficulties in finding time to train staff, both in nursing homes and for at-home care. This applies particularly when an individual needs to apply judgment and understand the implications of an intervention rather than being able to mechanically perform a task, if you like. How can you assure us that quality and standards are not compromised when continuing professional development is patchy due to these pressures? And how will this inconsistency in the acquisition of skills create inconsistency in individuals concluding exactly when they are now qualified enough to register?

I thank you for that question. Developing the workforce and providing public assurance are two of my personal key priorities, but they’re also priorities of Social Care Wales, which, as you’ll be aware, came into existence in April of this year. And those two issues, I think, are very much front and centre as well of their strategic plan for the next five years. And they’re very much focused on what qualifications we’ll be asking people working in the sector to have in future. There’s a consultation ongoing at the moment, or I think it’s just been launched this week or next, in terms of what qualifications we’ll be asking people in the domiciliary care sector to be having in future, because we want to have qualifications when people are registered that are relevant, and that will give the public confidence, but also we need to make sure that we maintain those soft skills, which we have so much of in the domiciliary care sector as well. People have been working in that sector for many, many years, and they have experience and they’re compassionate. They deliver good quality care; they understand the individuals. Those things are quite hard to measure, so we need to have that balance in terms of the softer skills and the attitudes and the aptitudes for the work, as well as the more formal qualifications, as we seek to professionalise the workforce in order to make the work more attractive to people in future and to give the kind of kudos and respect and career structure that we would like to see in the workforce as well.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Diolch, Llywydd. Now, too many patients are still experiencing excessive waiting times for treatment, and I’d like to focus firstly on orthopaedic waiting times in Betsi Cadwaladr health board. I have a constituent who’s been clinically prioritised as needing urgent orthopaedic surgery. He has currently waited 66 weeks for this urgent treatment and isn’t expecting treatment until March next year. In a letter I received recently from the health board, I was told that some patients were having to wait over 100 weeks. And this is not acceptable by any measure. Your predecessor was faced with a similar problem in the south of Wales regarding cardiac surgery, and took the decision at that time to outsource surgery to bring those waiting lists down. Will you do the same for people in the north of Wales to address this crisis now?

I recognise that some people do wait unacceptably long times, and there’s a real challenge in long waiters in particular in north Wales, and the ability of the health board to have the appropriate capacity, including the intensive therapy unit capacity for those people who are more complex in terms of their needs. So, it is not an acceptable position. It is a matter that I have taken up directly, obviously, with the chair; I’m in regular contact now with the chair and the chief executive. I expect the orthopaedic plan that the health board are bringing to address matters this year, and not simply to look ahead to future years when they say that the issue should be resolved. If that plan is not judged to be adequate, and I will take advice from officials here as well, then, yes, I will have to consider other measures. But that must be on the basis of what the plan is, whether it’s really credible, because I expect people in north Wales to have access to good quality and timely care, and I recognise that there are some people where that is absolutely not the case.

You described there what you’d like to see happening in time, and you’re waiting for reports; you’ll consider reports. This is happening now, people waiting over 100 weeks, and my question specifically related to what could be done now in order to speed up the waits for people who have been waiting in pain, leading to further problems with their health. You often claim that waiting times are getting better. Some of them are. If you compare with 2014 rather than 2011, the long-term trend of ever-lengthening waiting times is quite clear. You sometimes announce money for initiatives to tackle problem areas, but workforce planning failures undermine their sustainability. A year last August, you’ll remember you launched a thrombectomy service in Cardiff to treat stroke victims—the highest quality of care. In May this year, the service was stopped because of staffing problems, meaning 500 patients a year won’t now get the best treatment available. Why are other parts of the UK getting this right, but Labour-led Welsh NHS can’t?

There’s more than one part to the comments and questions that have been made, and, actually, in terms of improvement this year, I expect improvement to be made this year. I’m expecting the orthopaedic plan from the north Wales health board to be provided within the next month. That’s what I expect, and I expect that to be properly judged then as to when it will deliver action. The additional moneys that have been available are to make improvements within this year for people waiting in the here and now. That does include commissioning capacity outside of north Wales as well. It would be wrong for me to get ahead of actually seeing their plan and understanding how effective it is likely to be and giving a commitment when the issue may be resolved, but what I will say again is: if I don’t have confidence that that issue will be resolved, then I’ll need to have a different discussion about how to actually deliver improvements for people in north Wales.

On your point about thrombectomy, this is a relatively new treatment that is available and it has a potentially significant impact for people suffering from stroke. The service was commissioned in Cardiff and became active with three consultants working together as a team—that was assessed to be the right number of people for the needs of people in the whole south Wales area. Unfortunately, two out of those three consultants have now left, due to circumstances that are generally beyond the health board. The challenge has been recruiting people to fill those posts. One person has been recruited and is starting this month. However, they’ll be undertaking a period of supervision for the first four months, which is entirely normal. I do then expect further steps to be taken to make sure the service is back up to capacity. That does mean that, at this point in time, we’re commissioning additional capacity from within the English system.

It is also worth pointing out that, actually, every other part of the United Kingdom system has a challenge in meeting the need for this new service. You’ll note that, in the piece this weekend, it noted there are significant parts of England that similarly have challenges in having a fully staffed and functioning service, and, in addition, the same can be said of Scotland as well. So, this is about how we get back to a relatively new form of treatment, to commission it properly and on a sustainable basis moving forward. This, of course, is a serious priority for myself and the service.

Again, this is a message we hear time and time again, that this isn’t a specifically Welsh issue, this is a problem throughout the UK, whether it be recruitment or retention or whatever else, but we know that this is a service that is being provided in other parts of the UK. In fact, the North Bristol NHS Trust stroke lead has said that the failure to get a grip on things in Cardiff and in Wales, in particular, means that Wales is becoming the laughing stock of the international neurovascular community. I don’t, and patients and staff don’t, want people talking about our NHS in that way. Can’t you see that there is a big, big mismatch between what you and Welsh Government say, the expectations you like to create, and the reality for NHS staff and patients, who, frankly, deserve better?

You may not like to hear it, Rhun, but it’s the honest truth about where we are compared to other parts of the United Kingdom as well. You’ll note, from The Guardian piece that you quoted from, that, actually, it does set out that there are significant challenges in other parts of England as well. It is not the case to say that Wales is uniquely bad in this case. I have to say that, the comment made by the consultant in Bristol, I felt that that was particularly offensive and short-sighted. To comment on services provided by other commissions within the four nations of the United Kingdom in that way I felt was, as I say, offensive. This is a challenge that is beyond—. This is not something where the health board have caused a problem in two people leaving in a very short order; the challenge is how we actually get back, and, actually, we rely on good relationships within the Welsh system, but also with colleagues in England, and vice versa too.

There’s a challenge here about how we create a proper network to service the needs of people within Wales and we do need to work with colleagues in England to understand how we could and should do that in a way that’s sustainable for all parts of the United Kingdom. So, I look forward to a more grown-up conversation between colleagues in Wales and in England about how this developing treatment, which could have a significant impact on improving mortality and avoidable disability for people who suffer a stroke, is delivered on a generally sustainable basis. It doesn’t really matter to me whether you’re frustrated about having an honest answer about where we are, but I think the honesty matters, because, otherwise, we’re not going to have the sort of healthcare system that we want to have and the people of Wales deserve to have.

UKIP spokesperson, Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, October is breast cancer awareness month and to mark the occasion Breast Cancer Now have published a new report looking at the breast cancer patient pathway, and makes recommendations to improve patient outcomes. We’re now making progress in improving breast cancer survival rates. Both one-year and five-year survival rates have increased by 1.7 per cent over the last decade. We are getting better at detecting breast cancer, but we are not always treating the cancer early enough. Referral-to-treatment cancer targets for both urgent and non-urgent routes have not been met in the last 12 months. Breast Cancer Now are calling for you to closely monitor performance against waiting times and to take remedial action. Cabinet Secretary, will you accept this recommendation and outline the steps that you are taking to meet referral-to-treatment targets?

I thank the Member for the question. This is an issue where there is genuine concern across the Chamber and within and outside political parties. Actually, the achievement in cancer services is a marker of the success we’ve had within the NHS but also of the unmet challenge that still exists. I’m pleased that you noted there’s been a significant move forward in one-year and five-year survivorship within Wales. We’re statistically in the same place as the other four nations in the UK. We also see more people being referred and more people treated, and treated within time. And that’s on the back of a 40 per cent increase in referrals in the last four years.

But the unavoidable truth is that, within the United Kingdom, all four nations are still at the bottom end of the outcomes league table with other European nations. There’s much more for us to do. Now, I don’t accept everything the Breast Cancer Now survey says, but, when it comes to the need to try and do something about screening—because, unfortunately, the screening results on breast cancer have gone down; we’re not having the same numbers of women come through—there’s a challenge for us about making sure that the message is clearly understood that early screening will help to save lives. Also about the challenges in our diagnostic capacity as well—and that is absolutely part of what we are looking to do, not just with the immediate performance moneys in this year but on a longer term and sustainable basis. And I certainly do closely monitor performance.

Referral-to-treatment and cancer are issues that every chair expects to have to discuss with me and, indeed, when services go backwards then there is extra attention provided. A good example of this has been Cardiff and Vale health board. Not that long ago, against the 62-day target, there were figures in the 70 per cents—wholly unacceptable. They’ve resolved and looked at those issues and they’re now in a much better place in over 90 per cent. The challenge for the rest of Wales is how to have the same level of understanding of their challenges and then achievement and to do that on a sustainable basis in the face of ever-increasing demand.

Thank you for your answer, Cabinet Secretary. One of the biggest improvements we can make to breast cancer care—and the whole purpose of the awareness month—is to make the public aware of the signs and symptoms of breast cancer. Detecting breast cancer early improves your chances of survival, as I know from personal experience. I’m now in my tenth year following breast cancer and I owe my life to the fact that I noticed not a lump but a dent, and the excellent staff at Neath Port Talbot hospital gave me first-class care.

Cabinet Secretary, breast cancer can present itself in many ways, so it is vital that the public are aware of the signs and symptoms. Many men don’t realise that breast cancer can affect them—54 per cent of men in the UK have never checked themselves for symptoms. What plans does your Government have to run public information campaigns on breast cancer, targeting both men and women?

I’ll check, but I’m not aware there is a particular Welsh Government plan to run a targeted campaign at men, but we do recognise that the third sector are particularly active in promoting awareness. I actually think the biggest thing that we know, because there’s evidence about this being effective on a population-screening basis, is actually to make sure that the breast cancer screening service is taken up in higher numbers in the future. We do have a challenge with men and their awareness of breast cancer—actually, men generally and their own health awareness on a whole range of issues. There is a broader challenge about not just understanding if there is a problem, but I think the bigger gain to be made is actually in primary prevention and understanding those behaviours—through diet, exercise, alcohol and smoking—where we are more likely to become unwell, including to suffer a range of cancers, and to take more ownership and control of the things we can do for ourselves.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. We all know that prevention is better than cure. While we can and are taking action to tackle some of the risk factors associated with breast cancer, Breast Cancer Now highlight the fact that we can’t tackle the biggest risk factors: being a woman and getting older. We can, however, take action to reduce the risk of breast cancer spreading to other parts of the body. Breast Cancer Now are calling upon the Welsh Government to improve access to preventative medicines, such as bisphosphonates. Cabinet Secretary, what is your Government doing to improve access to off-patent medicines for Welsh breast cancer patients?

Interestingly, the Member was in the room when I had a meeting on exactly this subject about six weeks ago with the Member for Torfaen and her parliamentary colleague. These are areas that we’re actively considering. We’re beginning to see that there’s more that we can do to have an evidence-led approach to making sure that the most effective and proportionate treatments are available within our service.

Question 3 (OAQ51130) has been withdrawn. Question 4, Lee Waters.

I’m expecting a Wales Audit Office report on the wider information management and technology system in NHS Wales. I expect that to be completed within the next three to four months, and governance arrangements will form part of that Wales Audit Office review and I will, of course, expect that to include the NHS Wales Informatics Service. I will then consider the recommendations of that review once they’ve been completed.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. That audit office report follows a number of criticisms by the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee into the performance of NWIS. This is an organisation with a budget of over £53 million and 500 staff, but there’s no transparent way to be able to monitor their performance or hold them to account. They have no independent board and publish no annual reports, so I would urge the Cabinet Secretary, when considering that report, to think with a reformist mindset of how we can bring some greater rigour to the system.

Thank you for urging me to take a reformist mindset. I recognise the points that are raised, because they’re hosted by Velindre and the hosting arrangements are such because I think there would be a challenge trying to set them up as a wholly separate NHS body, but I am interested in not just a debate, but an answer to how we provide greater awareness of what they do and greater governance oversight of what they do, whether that’s within Velindre or not. So, I’m taking a completely open mind about what the Wales Audit Office would have to say, because I do think it’s something that we would need to resolve moving forward to make sure there’s greater awareness and scrutiny, which I think is quite right and proper.

Cabinet Secretary, the recent parliamentary review of health and social care in Wales noted that the majority of the NHS Informatics Service’s 534 staff are currently involved in maintaining digital services and infrastructure rather than developing new systems. Now, given the widespread concerns—and we’ve discussed it here—about open data, collecting data and information sharing, for example with patient notes between the health and social care sectors and, in fact, between hospitals within even the same health board, what commitment can you give that you will look to review to ensure a more proactive and innovative output from this service?

Well, that’s more about the capacity of NWIS to actually undertake a joint mission, a different mission, of both developing new products and at the same time maintaining the significant architecture that we have. And we saw in the recent cyber attacks the ability of NWIS as a national body to co-ordinate action to maintain our whole system. That was a significant undertaking. I’ve said before in this Chamber, actually, that I do recognise the challenge in the real capacity for NWIS to continue to develop new products, to actually meet the public expectation about how they live their lives in the here and now, the expectation to be able to move data and information to share that in a way that actually matters to them. That’s why NWIS have actually helped us, for example, in creating the community pharmacy system, so that we’re now able to have a shared version of the GP record. There’s lots of health gain to be made in having the safe and effective transfer and sharing of records. I, again, have an open mind about whether we need to actually try and bring more people into NWIS to improve and increase their capacity or whether, actually, we need a different relationship with other people who develop products themselves. There’s a challenge there about intellectual property. There’s also a challenge about the ability for the public purse at a time of increasing austerity to be able to do that. This is the only part of the public service where there’s a continual expectation that we can spend more money and employ more staff. We have to be able to measure our expectations against the priorities we have in the whole service, but NWIS and information technology are absolutely a part of our architecture moving forward and are a significant part of the health gains still to be made. So, this is a priority issue for me, moving forward.

Maternity services in Wales work in collaboration with physiotherapy and specialist continence services. These services provide assessment and identify problems incorporating faecal and urinary incontinence, with referral to specialist services for treatment and individualised care planning.

Cabinet Secretary, I took note of the comments you made earlier. As you will have attended part of the meeting that took place in Tŷ Hywel last week, you’ll be aware that this is a major problem and is being highlighted by a new charity called MASIC, Mothers with Anal Sphincter Injuries in Childbirth. It was really arresting to hear the testimonials of three women who had suffered really life-changing injuries as a result of third and fourth-degree tears during birth. Their faecal incontinence has required them all to give up their careers—one of them was an accident and emergency nurse and another was a microbiologist—and obviously it’s had a huge impact on everything in their lives.

It is concerning to know that these injuries have increased threefold in the last decade. Overall, it’s estimated that one in 10 women is affected by faecal incontinence, particularly by the time of the menopause. So, the problem’s widespread and it’s only now being talked about. It’s good that we had an earlier question on the subject of incontinence; we don’t often talk about this sort of thing. I have two questions, really. One is: why is physiotherapy not available to all mothers following childbirth? It is routine in places like France. Secondly, why is it that Wales is the only part of England and Wales where mothers cannot have non-invasive sacral nerve stimulation, even though it’s been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence for over 10 years and is a successful treatment for faecal incontinence in three quarters of cases where conservative treatment like physiotherapy has failed?

Thank you for the follow-up questions. Again, I acknowledge that this issue was first brought front and centre for me by the Member for Cardiff Central. I think we need to start off with the point that I am genuinely very proud to have this job, to stand up and to work with the national health service, but I do have to balance that with the recognition that the service doesn’t always get it right. This is an area where I don’t think there has been the focus that there perhaps should have been in the past.

The challenge now is how we get to where we should be. That’s why the task and finish group being led by Julie Cornish is important, and I expect that to come up with a way forward for our service. You’re right: there has been a significant increase in the tears that are being detected but also the number of women coming forward with faecal incontinence in particular. The challenge there is how we then properly meet the understandable need that exists. It’s also about understanding that, I suspect, in the past we’ve had unmet needs.

So, that’s why I’ve outlined that there’ll be a task an finish group, and that’s why I’ve recognised that it’s not acceptable that, in the past, we have not been able to commission and provide enough sacral nerve stimulation services here in Wales. That does need to improve, because I recognise that, where the more conservative treatment of medication and physiotherapy in particular has failed, sacral nerve stimulation is effective in about 75 per cent to 80 per cent of cases, so it is a highly effective alternative treatment.

On your point about physiotherapy, there’s just a point here about what is and isn’t prudent. I think wholesale provision, without the prudent need being available, is not one that I’d necessarily accept first off, but if the evidence changed and it was the right thing to do, I’d be interested in how we then plan a workforce to meet that identified and evidence-led care need.

It’s also worth pointing out that there will be a national survey starting next week, where we’re asking women to talk about their experience of maternity and childbirth. We want to have a genuine understanding of the good, the bad and the indifferent, because this is actually being led by consultant midwives across Wales to try to ensure that we have the richest source of information with which to assess the effectiveness of our services and to improve them, moving forward.

Health Technology Wales has a remit to assess emerging technologies across health and social care and make recommendations for their adoption. Our efficiency through technology and integrated care funds support the rapid evaluation and upscale of new and emerging technologies within real-world care settings.

Thank you for that. There are new developments, as the Minister will know, in wearable technology to support older people at home; tools to help manage medicine, to help use kitchen equipment and to alert carers; and voice-recognition technology and other developments. There is even robotic technology in Japan that helps with routine physical tasks at home. This can help people living supported at home and managing increasing frailty without going into residential care. This is also an example of innovation in the foundational economy, which is an opportunity to create employment as well. In light of this, would she support the creation of a care technology fund to encourage investment in Welsh care technology ideas to the benefit of our residents, whether they require care or work?

I thank you very much for that question and the recognition of the huge range of assistive technologies that there are, and the sheer potential of them in terms of improving the care that we offer people. There are already established funding mechanisms in place and established approaches with regard to the adoption and expansion of the use of assistive technologies. For example, our digital health and care strategy for Wales provides a road map for encouraging the greater use of technology to transform our health and social care services and achieve better outcomes for people. And our technology-enabled care programme is also developing a national approach to scaling up the use of telehealth and telecare in Wales, and that programme works really closely with health and social care colleagues within Welsh Government to identify the priorities and the most effective and consistent uses that we could put these new technologies to.

In terms of funding, we already have an efficiency through technology programme, and that’s a £10 million fund to support the assessment and rapid development and adoption of new technologies across health and social care. And also, of course, our integrated care fund offers huge opportunities to use these new technologies to keep people at home, rather than having unnecessary admissions to hospital, and obviously to bring people home more quickly from hospital as well. We’ve made £60 million of funding available across Wales for the ICF in this year, and there are some examples in our area of Western Bay where this funding has been used. For example, the region has just received funding for the purchase of Just Checking assistive technology kits, and they’ll be used in homes for supported living tenancies for people with learning disabilities. And so the service will use these kits to measure the support that individuals will require in their initial setting-up period, and then they can use these kits to target hours of support, both during the day and the night, at the correct level for the individual concerned.

You just mentioned Western Bay there, and I’m sure you’re aware that the Swansea bay city deal is very well placed to nurture companies who want to actually develop these tech interventions for reablement and other social care, particularly at home. The opportunity has already been spotted. I’m just wondering, then, what conversations you might have had with the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy and Infrastructure to ensure that any new companies showing an interest in this area of activity are looking favourably on the Swansea bay city deal area, rather than elsewhere. I think it would be of great comfort to us all to know that isn’t just an opportunity to benefit patients, but actually staff and the economy as well. Thank you.

I thank you very much for that question, and I have certainly had discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for the economy on the fact that we have identified social care as a sector of national strategic importance. And, of course, you will have seen in ‘Prosperity for All’ that it is one of our key cross-cutting themes alongside housing, which also plays into this kind of area as well. So, I’ll certainly have that specific discussion on the potential for the city deal. I think that is an exciting proposition with exciting potential there as well, so I think it’s something perhaps we could work to have a meeting on together.

Thank you. The UK Chief Medical Officer has commissioned the UK physical activity committee to consider the evidence calling for a ban on contact rugby for school-age children. The committee rejected the call to ban tackling and did not feel that rugby participation poses an unacceptable risk of harm.

Thanks for the answer, and that’s quite an encouraging response. The question was posed in relation to a recent piece that appeared in the ‘British Medical Journal’, which was quite well publicised, so I’m sure you’re aware of it. Of course, we do have to be mindful of the risks posed, but we’re also trying to encourage young people to get involved in physical activity. So, I’m just looking for some reassurance that we weren’t going to overreact to this piece. So, I think your response is encouraging in that light, and I gather nothing has changed as a result of this piece in the BMJ.

Thank you for that question. We’re very alive to the importance that we put on keeping children safe in school in all aspects, but we’re particularly taking the issue of safety of school sport seriously. It is important to put in place proportionate steps to create those safe environments for children to participate in sport. Injury, of course, can occur in any recreational activity although clearly some sports carry a greater risk than others. Welsh Government has provided guidance on concussion and brain injury to support people who are involved in school and community sport up to the age of 19, to minimise the possibility of injury. That guidance was produced in partnership and in co-operation with a range of partners including the NHS, Welsh Rugby Union and the Football Association of Wales. So, it’s important to take a proportionate approach to this issue, making sport as safe as we possibly can but also recognising the huge benefits that sport and physical activity bring to individuals.

Minister, thank you for your answers to date on this. I take the point that there’s a body of evidence out there that is worth exploring, but I agree with the sentiments that you’ve put that proportionate action is what is required. As someone who likes to think he’s benefitted from contact sport over the years and whose children have been involved in all sorts of sports as well, I see the wider benefits. But it does form an obligation on us as politicians and, indeed, you as a Government, to work with the governing bodies in sports that are identified as contact sports to make sure that the most up-to-date facilities are available where those sports are played. I’d be grateful to understand what interaction you have with the governing bodies—because we see it at the Millennium Stadium, you know, doctors on the touchline if someone is concussed et cetera—what facilities are available, at the more community level, to make sure that no-one is exposed to unnecessary risk and those proportionate steps that you talked about are adhered to at a community level, where most people play this contact sport?

Sport Wales, my officials and I are in regular contact with the national governing bodies of sport and, of course, responsibility rests with them as well in terms of making sure that individuals who participate in those sports do so safely. I know that the governing bodies have taken good leadership in this area. For example, the rugby union have published their own concussion guidance and this is reviewed yearly by the WRU medical advisory committee. They’ve also said that concussion is a priority area for them and they’re working particularly with referees over the course of this year. There are also mandatory concussion protocols that are enforced in the international, professional and the semi-professional game, and that again is delivered through the WRU minimum standards criteria document. That is audited on an annual basis as well. The Welsh Football Trust is soon to provide their own concussion guidance, because there have been some concerns raised previously about heading balls, for example. So, concussion guidance is coming very shortly from the Welsh Football Trust. That will be disseminated to all clubs in Wales, with leaflets and posters available to assist with awareness raising of these issues.

I’m pleased that the Minister has just mentioned other sports, because although rugby has been given a great deal of coverage, it’s true to say that all sorts of team sports have some element of risk and contact. Of course, we must safeguard children and young people who participate in those sports. So, in that context, what tools and mechanisms does the Welsh Government have in order to weigh up the risk inherent in certain contact sports but also the wider benefits that come from encouraging the next generation of children and young people to think in terms of keeping fit and active and being involved in sport as a wider benefit for the whole of society?

Welsh Government, as I said, works closely with the national governing bodies of sports and actually they are best placed to understand the specific risk areas within those sports and they do provide their own concussion guidance. Welsh Government, when we’ve provided guidance, has worked closely with those bodies. I would absolutely be evangelical about the importance of encouraging children to find sports that they love and have as many opportunities as possible to try different sports, because we know that people who do physical activity have a 30 per cent lower risk of an early death. I think that in itself is quite a stark figure, as well as the fact, for example, that there’s a 50 per cent lower risk of type 2 diabetes and a 30 per cent lower risk of falls, if you’re an older person. I think that we can see, clearly, the benefits of physical activity right across the lifespan, so it is important to take an informed and proportionate approach to safety in sport as well.

Thank you, Minister.

The next item on our agenda is the topical questions. The question is from Bethan Jenkins.

What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the announcement that Ford Bridgend will lose contracts with Jaguar Land Rover post 2020? (TAQ0049)

We are calling on Jaguar Land Rover to confirm that the move will not sacrifice jobs in Wales. The First Minister and I recently met with Ford and with union representatives to discuss the long-term future of the plant, and I’m pleased to say a working group will explore all possibilities for the facility.

Thank you very much for that response. The first clear signs that I got of trouble emerged in March, and on 21 August the workforce, as you will know I’m sure, voted for industrial action, which has now been put on hold. It has been known and said by members of your own Welsh Government that working practices have been allowed to grow as an issue for a number of years. We did have a cross-party meeting in May with trade unions where such concerns were raised. Unions and the workforce wanted intervention then and they wanted help to diversify then and mediation with the management then. So, I’m just curious as to why it’s taken to this particular point for the task and finish group to be set up. What other mitigating circumstances meant that this wasn’t set up sooner? I’d like to understand who will be on it and how it will report to you. Will it come to us as an Assembly and will it focus on diversification? Representatives from Ford have said that the new Dragon engine could be used as a base for a hybrid power unit in Bridgend looking at next-generation cars. So, can you assure us here today that this particular task and finish group will focus on Bridgend becoming that automobile hub and improve the status in developing new technologies in the area? I think that what Ford workforce are telling me, and others I’m sure, is that they want to be able to look at new ways to sustain that plant in Bridgend, and we need to do that now.

Absolutely. I’m very grateful to the Member for recognising the importance of the working group that’s been established in true social partnership between Welsh Government, Unite the union, Ford and the Welsh Automotive Forum. It will explore all options for the facility including new technologies in electric and hybrid engines. It will report back to me on a regular basis, and I give my undertaking in turn to report back to this Chamber on a regular basis as well.

Unite have helpfully confirmed that their preference is for dialogue rather than for formal industrial action. That’s a very welcome move by the union, and I’m pleased to say as well that the First Minister has offered to act as a broker between the plant and the union. Again, this has been very well received. There is no doubt that the face of the automotive sector is changing, that new technologies present both opportunities and challenges, but, with the £100 million ready to be invested in the automotive and technology park in Ebbw Vale, there is a huge opportunity for companies like Ford to take advantage of those emerging technologies that will dictate the future of the sector.

In terms of other activities in this area, I went to Cologne to meet with Ford’s most senior officials in Europe in the summer. I was pleased by the response. Ford Europe and Ford Britain have expressed their wish to explore all options for the long-term future of the Bridgend site, and there is a real desire to reduce reliance on the traditional engines and to focus instead on the hybrid engine production and other emerging technologies. Deputy Presiding Officer, I’d like to say as well that we are calling on JLR to confirm that this move will not sacrifice jobs in Wales and displace them instead to the west midlands of England.

I thank Bethan for bringing this to our attention today. It is very urgent, and it was very disappointing news that we had the confirmation that this production line would be ending, but not only that—ending three months earlier than had ever been discussed before. It clearly shows that this JLR production line have an intent to get away as early as possible, and that’s hugely disappointing. I am grateful for the positive way in which the Minister and the Welsh Government have approached this. We’ve met not only with the unions as Assembly Members, but Chris Elmore and I met with Ford’s representatives in Westminster a week and a half ago to lobby the case for future investment in the plant. They wanted to stress that they wanted to positively engage in dialogue, not only with the unions, but also they were very complimentary of the Welsh Government’s role in investigating all possible avenues of bringing not only what we would call traditional drivetrain production to their new models, but also things such as electric vehicle production or battery production, and so on. It’s good, and I urge the Minister strongly to go ahead with that.

But he finished on saying that point about where the JLR production is shifting to. We have picked up worrying signals that this JLR production is shifting to—and shifting earlier than expected—a plant in Wolverhampton based on direct UK Government support for a new automotive production line. If that is the case, that is directly stealing away jobs that should be in Bridgend, where they’re desperately needed. In which case, if he could raise this with the Secretary of State in his discussions and if he could ask the Secretary of State: what are they going to put back into south Wales and Bridgend to make good for this? Because if it’s true that UK Government investment is stealing these jobs from Wales, then we want that investment back to create more jobs and to sustain the jobs that are currently here.

Can I thank the Member for his questions and for the passion with which he asked them? He is wholly committed to the workforce of Ford in Bridgend, as is the local Member and others in this Chamber, and I’d like to congratulate him on seeking and securing that meeting in London, which I think, in terms of the briefing that he’s offered to me, was incredibly productive. We knew that the Bridgend plant would see the AJ engine reduce in capacity as the Wolverhampton manufacturing plant came on stream. However, I am seeking assurance that the UK Government has had no role in transferring work early to the Wolverhampton site. It’s absolutely essential that the UK Government operates in a way that benefits the whole of the UK and rebalances the UK’s economy, as outlined in the UK industrial strategy.

I can also say that my officials are currently engaged in discussions with UK Government officials and with the Automotive Investment Organisation to investigate complementary uses of the Bridgend site to secure future opportunities, including investment. This is an important development. It could also align neatly with the challenge fund, and in particular with the Faraday challenge. To that end, I was pleased, during the summer, to also meet with Richard Parry-Jones, who has a crucial role in that particular challenge, during which we discussed many opportunities that could be relevant to Ford Bridgend.

Obviously, this is bad news, particularly as there’s an escalation of the likelihood of production ending there. I’ve heard in your answers today and, to be fair, in the last six months, or even longer, that Ford and the auto industry is undergoing rapid change and that they continue to look for other high-tech opportunities for Bridgend. We’ve heard today that you’re very pleased with the conversations with Ford and attempts to gather information from around Europe and the rest of the world—I think that was a quote from earlier submissions here. This is all very encouraging, but I’m not actually getting a solid sense of when some specific commitment would be made by Ford. I do understand it’s Ford that needs to make it, rather than Welsh Government. At some point, are you putting pressure on Ford to say, ‘Actually, can you give us some sort of solid answer by a given date?’? I’m not suggesting what that date may be, but to bring some certainty into the process.

Secondly, I wonder if you’d be kind enough to answer a question that you didn’t answer that Bethan Jenkins put about the working group. Certainly, when the unions communicated with all relevant Assembly Members that this group was being set up, there was an indication that AMs would be involved in that, and I’m not sure whether that’s the case. I don’t know whether anyone in the Chamber has picked up on it.

And thirdly, I just want to raise again the issue of the city deal and the steel innovation centre. I know that this is down the road a little bit, so the timing is not perfect here, and obviously, the plant isn’t within the city deal area, but it is on the doorstep, and it’s a huge facility where the production of new automotive products using new materials, perhaps developed through the science centre—it’s an opportunity that can’t be overlooked. As I say, the timing isn’t fantastic on that, but to lose the expertise of this workforce with that on the horizon would be a serious blow, obviously, for those workers whose families are directly affected—and they’ve been treated very poorly during this process—but also to other families involved in the economy of this part of south Wales, as well. So, even though we’re talking about hybrid cars and so forth, there are other automotive opportunities that new materials can bring. Thank you.

And the Member is absolutely right. The working group is keenly looking at opportunities that the city deal presents and that other investment structures that are part of the UK industrial strategy, for example, are also able to offer. The industry is changing rapidly and investments in future products are determined by investment cycles. New products are likely to be based on emerging technology, primarily based on hybrid engine models and electric engine models, and I’ve impressed upon Ford of Europe, at a level in Cologne, to ensure that Ford Bridgend is given every opportunity to bid for and to secure those new products. The dates will be determined by the investment cycle decisions, i.e. when current engines are being phased out and new engines are being introduced, but I’ve been asked to be kept in full contact with Ford over their investment cycles. But there are other opportunities that could be secured for the Ford site in the form of production of and finishing of engines that are currently finished elsewhere, and this is something that, again, the working group is actively pursuing.

In terms of the composition of the working group, I’ve already outlined that the membership includes the automotive forum, Welsh Government, Ford itself and Unite the Union. It will report back to me on a regular basis and I, in turn, will report back to Assembly Members. If Assembly Members would wish to meet with other members of the working group, I’m sure that a cross-party group may be the most applicable and appropriate forum in which to do so.

Cabinet Secretary, whilst it’s disappointing that Jaguar Land Rover have decided to bring their engine production in-house, there were no guarantees that Ford would have won the contract when it was to be renewed in December 2020. So, we have two and a half years to be positive and to find additional contracts for the Bridgend plant. What we don’t need now is the threat of strike action. We need the unions, Ford and the Welsh and UK Governments working together to find alternative contracts. So, Cabinet Secretary, Ford announced today that they will be investing heavily in the electric vehicles. I know most of this had been answered already, but I place on record what I’m discussing. What discussions have you had regarding the possibility of the Bridgend plant providing the drivetrain for Ford’s future electric and plug-in hybrid fleet? Also, I’d like to be invited to any forthcoming meetings, or at least to know about them, as Suzy Davies as stated. Thank you.

I think it is important that all Members are kept fully abreast of developments in regard to Ford Bridgend, and I do pledge to make sure that regular updates are offered to Members and, as I said to Suzy Davies, a cross-party group may well be the most appropriate time to meet with other Members of the working group and to explore some of the opportunities as they are developed further. You are right that Ford at Bridgend has two and a half years to secure new products to manufacture at the site, and we are doing all that we can to ensure that that happens. Unite the Union, I am pleased to say, have opted for dialogue rather than for formal industrial action, and the leadership of that union are absolutely committed to ensuring that there is a long-term, sustainable future for the site and for its skilled workforce.

Many discussions have already taken place concerning the potential to attract electric drivetrains to the Bridgend plant. Those discussions will continue and, as I’ve said to Suzy Davies and to others, we are determined to take advantage of every opportunity that the new technologies that are emerging fast are able to present.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.

We move on to the next item, which is: 90-second statements. And the first of the 90-second statements today is Elin Jones.

Aneurin Jones was the artist of his people, and his people were the characters of his youth in Brecknock and, later on, in the countryside of west Wales. His canvas was the second half of the twentieth century in these rural communities, and his characters can be seen standing and chatting in the mart, running Welsh ponies and cobs, singing or playing draughts, feeding the chickens or standing by the chapel gate. Personally, as for many others, I’m sure, I see my grandmother’s colourful apron and my grandfather’s square frame in these images.

Aneurin Jones was a popular artist with a stream of visitors coming to his home studio or his home in Cardigan to buy his work. Not many artists can sustain a high-street gallery, but he was such an artist, along with his son, Meirion, with their gallery in Awen Teifi in Cardigan. Aneurin was just as much of a character as all those depicted in his artworks. He was a teacher, leg-puller, kind-hearted and he was a proud Welshman. He was loyal to his people and his work neither aggrandised nor belittled his people, but recorded their lives in art. And that artwork was commended and praised by his fellow artists in Wales and beyond.

Aneurin died last week, one of our country’s great artists, an artist who knew his people and who belonged to his land. It is a privilege to acknowledge the art and feat of Aneurin Jones here today in our Senedd.

Diolch. Suzy Davies.

I agree with those comments too—I sympathise.

Yr wythnos diwethaf, cafodd cais Abertawe i ddod yn Ddinas Diwylliant y DU ar gyfer 2021 ei gyflwyno o’r diwedd. Mae mwy i Abertawe na’i diwylliant o’r gorffennol, er na ddylem anwybyddu etifeddiaeth Dylan Thomas, na Kingsley Amis, Peter Ham, Ceri Richards, ac wrth gwrs, seren yr wythnos hon, Vernon Watkins, na’r ffaith ei bod yn 160 mlynedd ers i rai o’r lluniau cynharaf o’r lleuad gael eu tynnu yn Abertawe gan John Dillwyn Llewelyn. Mae Abertawe yn cyfrannu at ddiwylliant y byd drwy gyfrwng rhai fel Karl Jenkins, Spencer Davies, Glenys Cour, Hannah Stone, yn ogystal â pherfformwyr adnabyddus fel Ria Jones, Rob Brydon a Catherine Zeta-Jones. Mae’r ddinas yn lleoliad ar gyfer digwyddiadau diwylliannol megis gŵyl a gŵyl ymylol Abertawe, yr ŵyl jazz, proms yn y parc y BBC a hyd yn oed sioe awyr Cymru. Er bod digwyddiadau tebyg mewn mannau eraill yn y DU, yn debyg iawn i ddull yr Elyrch o chwarae pêl-droed, mae Abertawe’n ei wneud yn ei ffordd arbennig ei hun.

Caiff y diwylliant unigryw ei adlewyrchu yn ei phobl, sy’n gynnes a doniol, a chyda’i gilydd, maent yn dangos dychymyg mawr yn ailddyfeisio’r ‘dref hyll a hyfryd’ a chreu dinas go iawn. O glwb busnes Abertawe a’r Gweilch i Ganolfan Clyne Farm, morlyn llanw Abertawe a’r prifysgolion, cyrff cyhoeddus a phreifat, mae hwn yn gais sy’n cynrychioli’r ddinas gyfan a Chymru gyfan. Ar ôl cael siom y tro diwethaf, mae Abertawe yn ôl ar ei thraed ac yn ymladd unwaith eto. Cafodd Gogledd Iwerddon ei chynrychioli yn 2013, a Lloegr yn 2017, felly gadewch i ni wneud yn siŵr mai tro Cymru fydd hi nesaf.

Thank you. Julie Morgan.

Thank you. Mahatma Gandhi—on Monday, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was unveiled in Cardiff Bay, opposite the Wales Millennium Centre. This was the result of three years of hard work and fundraising by the Hindu Council of Wales, and I would like to pay tribute to that organisation and its chair, Vimla Patel, who’s worked tirelessly to make the statue a reality. Hundreds of people attended the ceremony to view the statue, which was made in India by sculptors Ram Sutar and his son Anil Sutar. The 6ft-tall statue, which many of you may have already seen, depicts Gandhi holding a stick and a Hindu scripture, and I think that this was a great day for India, a great day for Cardiff and a great day for Wales. And, for me, it was an honour to be a patron of this project.

I hope that the children and young people of Cardiff and of Wales will learn about Gandhi and his values, which are increasingly important in such an uncertain and violent world. I was privileged to sit next to the great-grandson of Gandhi at the ceremony, at what would have been his great-grandfather’s birthday. It was very fitting to be unveiling a statue of him at this time, 70 years on from the partition of India. Gandhi was committed to Indian independence and he was committed to non-violence. The statue also recognises the strong links between Wales and India. I’ll end with Gandhi’s words:

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.’

Thank you very much.

We now move on to item 5 on the agenda, which is a statement by the Chair of the Finance Committee on the introduction of a committee-proposed Bill—the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill. I call on Simon Thomas, as Chair of the Finance Committee.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to say that, on Monday, 2 October, I formally laid the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill before the Assembly. This is the first time that a committee has introduced a Bill since the Assembly gained full primary law-making powers. The Bill represents a significant amount of work undertaken over a number of years and I would like to place on record my thanks to the fourth Assembly’s Finance Committee, chaired by Jocelyn Davies, for its commitment to developing the Bill.

The ombudsman’s role is currently governed by the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Act 2005. This Bill restates that Act, while also setting out a number of new powers, creating one piece of bilingual legislation that will form part of the Welsh statute book. The 2005 Act has facilitated public access to the ombudsman’s service. It has enabled the resolution of disputes and provided redress for individuals. In its focus on complaints handling in the public sector, the 2005 Act has also stimulated improvement in the delivery of public services. However, since the introduction of the 2005 Act, best practice and international standards for ombudsmen have moved on. Developments include the strengthening of powers of ombudsmen in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In the fourth Assembly, the Finance Committee undertook a public consultation to inform its inquiry into the proposals to extend the ombudsman’s powers. Following this inquiry, the committee drafted a Bill. In early October 2015, that committee consulted on the draft Bill. The responses were generally supportive of the provisions in the draft Bill. Since there was not sufficient time in the fourth Assembly to introduce a Bill, that Finance Committee recommended that the legislation be taken forward as soon as possible in the fifth Assembly.

The Finance Committee in this fifth Assembly has considered the draft Bill, seeking evidence from the ombudsman, as well as giving further consideration to the estimates of the costs and benefits of the Bill’s provisions. The Finance Committee, therefore, agreed to introduce the Bill to strengthen the role of the ombudsman and, in doing so, futureproof the legislation while making it citizen-centred.

I will now talk about these new provisions in this Bill. They will allow the ombudsman to accept oral complaints, which will therefore improve social justice and equal opportunities, and contribute to the Welsh Government’s commitment to create a fair and equitable Wales. We believe it will facilitate and improve the making of complaints by the most vulnerable and deprived members of society, such as people with learning difficulties, the homeless and the elderly. By removing the requirement to make a complaint in writing, the Bill will also futureproof access to the ombudsman’s services, allowing his office to develop guidance to respond to future developments, such as advances in technology—apps, smartphones et cetera.

The Bill will also include provision for the ombudsman to conduct own-initiative investigations. While requiring criteria specified on the face of the Bill to be satisfied prior to beginning an investigation, the power to conduct own-initiative investigations will provide a mechanism to protect the most vulnerable and give attention to the dignity of individuals. It also has wider benefits. It will enable the ombudsman to be more responsive to citizens since it allows him to investigate matters reported anonymously, strengthening the citizen’s voice.

The Bill allows the ombudsman to investigate matters relating to the private health services, which include medical treatment and nursing care—an element of a complaint in a public/private pathway. This will enable the ombudsman to explore the whole of a complaint, meaning that investigations can follow the citizen and not the sector. Currently, under the 2005 Act, the ombudsman has jurisdiction to investigate where the NHS commissions private medical treatment for patients, but not where such treatment is commissioned by patients themselves. Where patients commission private treatment, they currently have to make separate complaints for the public and private elements to the ombudsman and the private sector provider respectively. This is not satisfactory for the citizens in Wales.

For example, in giving evidence to the Finance Committee explaining these problems, the ombudsman noted a recent complaint. A member of the public had contacted his office in respect of the treatment provided to her late husband who had received treatment in the NHS, and who had then had private treatment before returning to the health service. The ombudsman noted that the individual had to wait five and a half years to get a response, which is clearly unacceptable.

The provisions of the Bill will also drive improvements in public services and in complaints handling. Currently, a model complaints policy is in place in Wales to help achieve consistency across public services. Evidence shows that, while the position is improving, adoption across the public sector is not consistent. We hope that the Bill will address this. The provisions in the Bill for complaints handling and procedures propose a similar approach for Wales as that in Scotland. This means that, for the first time, there will be regular, reliable and comparable data on complaints across the public sector. This, hopefully, will drive accountability and improvement in public services, transparency in reporting, and will empower the scrutiny process for which data and information are critical.

As a committee, we believe it is more important than ever that public services should deliver for the people of Wales and that the public services ombudsman is empowered to ensure that our services are citizen centred. The public needs to have confidence in the ombudsman to investigate where they believe they have suffered injustice or hardship or some transgression through maladministration, or in the way that services are delivered, and we believe that this Bill will go some way to achieving this. It is for these reasons that, in the opinion of the Finance Committee, the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill is necessary, and therefore, on behalf of the committee, I commend the Bill to the Assembly.

Thank you very much. I now call the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Mark Drakeford.

Thank you very much. May I just say a word of thanks to Simon Thomas and the other members of the Finance Committee for the work that they have already done in preparing this Bill, and to present the Bill today? The Welsh Government appreciates the role of the public services ombudsman. It provides an important service in being a means to assist citizens who haven’t received the level of service from the public sector that they have a right to expect. The Welsh Government will look positively at measures that will assist the ombudsman to deliver his role.

Therefore, for example, we would welcome the proposal that he should be able to take oral complaints. This could assist the most vulnerable people in our society, including those who have protected characteristics. I am sure that the committees with responsibility for scrutinising the Bill will also want to consider how those people who do have protected characteristics will be supported in interpreting the proposed legislation.

On the other hand, Deputy Presiding Officer, in relation to certain other aspects of the Bill, the Welsh Government does have some concerns that expanding the role of the ombudsman could lead to people believing that public services are being overregulated in Wales, and it could lead to overlap or confusion in the roles of various regulators. We look forward to holding further discussions on these issues and some other issues contained within the Bill during the scrutiny process.

I’m sure you would expect me to say this as the Cabinet Secretary for finance, but I should also add that we do have some concerns about the increasing cost that would have to be borne as a result of this legislation, at a time when the rest of our public services have to tighten their belts. Every additional pound spent here, or any savings that aren’t made, is a pound that cannot be transferred to front-line services.

We will also need to look further at this aspect during the scrutiny process, but I do believe that we need to be entirely assured that Wales would get substantial benefit for the additional costs incurred. In the meantime, as the Bill is formally laid, the Welsh Government looks forward to playing a constructive part, and to take a full part in the scrutiny process. Thank you very much.

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his response to the statement, and for stating, in the first place, that he will take a positive approach to this Bill? He has put his finger on a very obvious element, where the Bill addresses a current weakness, in that complaints cannot be accepted orally. It’s obvious in the way that technology is developing and the way that some people, as he mentioned, with protected characteristics are safeguarded that we need to make sure that that situation is resolved.

Also, very appropriately, as the Government representative, he talked about the range of other regulators and other people acting in this field, and trying to avoid any overlap with the work of other regulators. The Bill, as it’s drafted at the moment, includes a number of provisions for ensuring that there is co-ordination on that. But, of course, as we scrutinise the Bill, it’s possible that we will need to look at that to make sure that that is robust enough, and that it will be possible to avoid those concerns that the Minister alluded to.

Finally, of course, the cost is a completely appropriate question to raise on this matter. I would just wish to remind the whole of the Assembly that it is you, the Assembly, who will be paying this cost, so that everybody is aware that any additional costs arising from this Bill will come to you, ultimately, in the public services ombudsman’s estimates that are discussed by the Finance Committee and, in turn, are approved here. But, of course, it comes from the block grant. It’s part of the block grant. So, the Cabinet Secretary, as the person who is primarily responsible for handling the money in the block, will want to keep a very close eye on this expenditure, as I’m sure will other Assembly Members, in order to ensure that the costs associated—and outlined very thoroughly in the explanatory memorandum, I might add—are appropriate to the benefits that we will gain from passing the Bill or the other new provisions suggested in the Bill. So, I look forward to that discussion.

I certainly welcome the increased powers of the public services ombudsman under this Bill and the inclusion of the Assembly in the appointments process. I was very supportive of this when it came before committee last term and I look forward to scrutiny in our committee when it comes forward.

We firmly believe that the ombudsman should be accountable to the National Assembly for Wales, not just the Welsh Government, so the Welsh Conservatives are pleased to note that the nomination for this role will be here through the Assembly. However, I’d like some further clarification as regards how Members of the National Assembly for Wales will feed into all levels of the nomination process for the ombudsman and not just the final stages of appointment.

In terms of accessibility, we do welcome proposals to remove the requirement to make a complaint in writing and for the ombudsman still to be able to initiate investigations. Only five other members of the Council of Europe have ombudsmen without this power, so this is, in fact, long overdue in terms of bringing Wales in line with the rest of the UK and Europe. In ensuring objectivity with regard to this power, how will the provisions in this Bill draw a clear dividing line between the ombudsman’s commitment to representation and the Welsh Government’s priorities? And how will this Bill ensure greater Welsh Government and public service acceptance of investigatory outcomes?

The current model complaint policy in Wales is voluntary and the Finance Committee previously noted that adoption across the public sector is not consistent. So, firstly, what consideration might be made for the statutory basis of guidance issued by the ombudsman to apply to private health services as well? Following on from the open day debate last week, this particular new power will mean that we will be able to collate regular, reliable and comparable data on complaints across the public sector. Secondly, then, how will this data be collected to ensure a concerted drive in accountability and transparency in public services, empowering the scrutiny process?

And, finally, how will best practice going forward be determined? Will we be able to scrutinise best practice examples from around the UK and further afield to ensure that public service complaints are efficient and effective as a result of this Bill? Will this be reviewed as part of the five-year review by this Assembly?

I thank the committee and the Chairman of the Finance Committee, and I thank the Cabinet Secretary for receiving this in good spirit. I look forward to working with everybody, in my part, on the committee, and when it comes to scrutiny here, to ensure that we get this right. Thank you.

I thank Janet Finch-Saunders for her comments and her broad welcome for what the Bill proposes to do. Can I say at the outset that the Bill is based on the current—it does not change the current legislation in terms of the accountability of the public services ombudsman to the National Assembly, not to the Government? It’s a he. He currently is an independent ombudsman, and appointed for—. I think there are still some several years to go until the end of his appointment. I can’t quite remember when he came into post—something like 2013, I think, or 2014. The Bill makes specific assurances that his appointment is not broken by passing this Bill—so we haven’t interfered with those powers that are in place—and, when we come to appoint a new public services ombudsman, the Bill does not change the current arrangements that ensure that it’s this Assembly that is responsible for that, up to and including appointment through committee. So, I hope that some of the other innovations that we’ve also had in Finance Committee, for example, with pre-appointment hearings and so forth, can be looked at, not only for the ombudsman but for the new auditor general, which is actually the next appointment that will be made by this Assembly.

I welcome the fact that you broadly want to see these powers and believe that the verbal complaints powers and the own initiative, which I think is one of the more innovative powers there, that is used by, as you said, by other ombudsmen throughout the Council of Europe. It’s not unique in that sense, so we need to understand that international comparison. I’m sure that if the ombudsman were here himself, he would talk about the network of ombudsmen that does exist. There are international conferences, and they do come together. In fact, I attended one in Aberystwyth last year to hear from other ombudsman about how their work was done.

On the particular issue around data collection, I think it’s important to recall that the ombudsman makes an annual report to this Assembly, which is scrutinised, I think, by the committee that you sit on, but is available to all Assembly Members. You would expect that annual report, if this Bill were to become law, to include that data, to include the data comparison. There is certainly allowance made in the regulatory impact assessment for some of the costs that might come about that and, of course, you have some initial set-up costs to make sure that you have the infrastructure in place to allow that to happen. But the clear lesson of that—Janet Finch-Saunders’s final point, I think—was how that then informs best practice, and we want to see that reflected in ombudsmen’s annual reports going forward. You’re quite right; in the Bill itself, there’s a specific requirement for the Assembly to do a five-year review of the Bill and its operation, but that does not, in any way, hinder any other review being done by any committee of the Assembly or any external body that might be commissioned to do that.

I think, in terms of the model policy, that is—as you quite rightly said—a voluntary system at the moment. I think that by putting it on a more statutory footing, we’d have a gold standard. I’d hope that, for example, private healthcare providers would then want to be part of the gold standard because that, in turn, would show how they were playing their role in meeting citizens’ needs and meeting the needs of the people of Wales.

I also very much warmly welcome the introduction of this first committee-generated Bill. Eighteen years after we voted for devolution we’ve now got a Bill being introduced by an Assembly committee. I think that’s a huge piece of progress. I was part of the Finance Committee in the fourth Assembly, and can I join with Simon Thomas in paying credit to Jocelyn Davies for the work she did as Chair of that committee in taking this Bill to the stage that it is at now?

The ombudsman provides a hugely important service to many of the people living in Wales. The ombudsman is often the last resort for people trying to get justice. They have been let down by the system right the way across. The ombudsman is the last person that they can go to. The proposed Bill provides many potential improvements. Can I just talk about oral complaints? The ombudsman cannot take oral complaints. Every single one of us in this room, I would suggest, takes oral complaints. If we didn’t, we would reduce the number of complaints we get from constituents by about a third. If we didn’t accept them orally, and quite often in inappropriate places, when they want to tell you about things—. A lot of people do like to tell you things rather than having to write it down. There’s a literacy problem amongst many people who don’t like to write things down, especially officially, which can be dealt with by officialdom. They have a nervousness about it. They have a nervousness about their literacy skills. I think, perhaps most importantly, they’re frightened they’ll get something wrong. I think that allowing the ombudsman to accept things orally will mean that people will lose that fear. Now, that might increase the number of complaints going to the ombudsman, but it might also stop future ones, because, if the ombudsman gets a lot of complaints in one area, rather than having to wait continually for the next one, he’ll be able—and I use the word ‘he’ because it’s currently a he—to deal with it.

So, if nothing else, having oral complaints would totally change the ombudsman from somebody who works within that sort of technical area, which all of us feel at home in but a large number of my constituents don’t, to someone prepared to accept complaints in the same manner that every single one of us does.

I’ve only one question for Simon Thomas: can he further outline how the legislation builds on the current legislation to benefit what we should only be interested in: the people of Wales?

I thank Mike Hedges not only for his comments today but for the work he’s done on the Finance Committee previously, and of course very much support what he said about Jocelyn Davies. I hope I can continue—. I think Jocelyn had an approach where she wanted to work with all parties here, and I hope that—. Certainly, taking through a Bill, I need to do that, and I’m very much aware that I need to build support for this Bill on behalf of the committee.

I just want to say, before answering specifically the question, to really just support what Mike Hedges was saying about the need for oral complaints, we’ve all sat down in surgeries and in our offices with people who are very prepared to tell us their story but will not sign the piece of paper or will say they didn’t have their glasses, and, you know, we have to navigate our way through this. But, looking into this Bill, I was struck by the figures for, in effect, functional illiteracy in Wales. It is as high as 25 per cent of the adult population, and is higher in Wales than in other parts of the United Kingdom. So, I think there’s a real need for us to open the doors for the ombudsman to accept those oral complaints.

Of course, there has to be some kind of verification process and we’d have to ensure that the ombudsman was able to ensure the complaints were fully taken forward. But the potential increase in complaints could then be offset, as Mike Hedges said, by a better understanding of the pattern of complaints in a particular sector, which might lead to an own-initiative investigation, and, in turn, as well, by the standardisation part of this Bill, which, certainly in the Scottish ombudsman’s case, has actually led to fewer complaints progressing beyond the first stage. In other words, things get resolved earlier and there are some savings within the system due to that.

Specifically to reply to Mike Hedges, I assure him and the whole Assembly that the Bill only builds on the current Bills; it doesn’t take away any powers. As well as the oral complaints powers, it will enable, as I said, having those own-initiative powers. I think it’s important that we put on record that we’re not writing a blank cheque for the ombudsman to just go off and do own-initiative investigations. It’s on the face of the Bill how those investigations have to relate to his work and to the wider needs of the citizen. I hope, as the Bill gets scrutinised, that the needs of the citizen are recognised as being central to this Bill, and, of course, there may be ideas that come in through the security process that will only assist and help us achieve that aim.

I’d also like to thank Simon Thomas, as Chair of the committee, for the work that he’s done in bringing this Bill forward. Indeed, a number of the points that I was going to raise have already been raised by other Members. But I think it is a very important point to make—Mike Hedges has mentioned this in particular—the point about costs relating to accepting complaints orally. Because, of course, if there’s going to be an increase in the number of complaints because you can make them orally, that might mean that there are costs at the outset of the process, but, in the long term, we can ensure, through this process, that public services work better and more efficiently, and so there will be savings. Invest to save, possibly—that model.

I see the Cabinet Secretary is smiling, and I know that he’s very keen to keep costs under control, for obvious reasons, but I think this is an issue of social justice. Many of the people who are involved regularly with public services, and who then need a system in order to make complaints and get justice, are people who need all possible support in order to ensure that they receive equitable treatment that perhaps many of us would feel more comfortable and confident doing in written form.

I’d like to ask the Chair of the committee how he foresees it will be possible to inform our citizens that this new process is available to them. What kind of process will need to be put in place so that citizens know that they can make oral complaints? Also, the Chair mentioned in his statement many times, for good reasons, futureproofing—I’m not sure what that is in Welsh, but ensuring that things are futureproofed for the future in terms of technology and so forth. Of course, technology can be a good thing; it can make it easier for people to contact people in public office, in particular, but, of course, that’s going to cause a lot of work if you can receive complaints through Twitter, for example. I can imagine that that could have unexpected or unwanted consequences. So, I’d like to ask, as I said, in the first place: how are we going to ensure that citizens, on the one hand, know that they have the right to make these complaints orally and have the support to do that, but, on the other hand, how are we going to keep that balance, remembering that Mr Drakeford is going to look at the costs—how are we going to ensure that costs are under control, and that we don’t use technological opportunities, because that might create a situation that we don’t want to see?

Thank you very much to Steffan Lewis for those questions. May I start by saying that there’s some good news here in the wider context? Namely, if you look at the reports of the public services ombudsman over recent years, then the number of complaints, without the proposed legislation, has been increasing regularly. Now, does that reflect on the quality of public services, or does that reflect on improved information about the services of the ombudsman? That’s not a question that I can answer here and now, but what I can say is that, as the number of complaints increases, the cost per complaint for the ombudsman of dealing with those complaints has been decreasing. So, it’s interesting to see that the complaints are going up, but the cost per complaint is going down, which means that the ombudsman, to date, has been managing to subsume those and absorb those costs within the way his office works and to provide enhanced services without necessarily engendering additional costs as a result of that.

It’s also true to say that the ombudsman has set a voluntary ceiling in coming to the Finance Committee. He committed that he wouldn’t ask for more than 0.03 per cent of the total block. So, although that is a voluntary agreement, it is something that the Finance Committee, and, in turn, the Assembly, can also insist upon. So, the management of costs, in a way, is in the hands of the committee and the Assembly. So, as I said, this isn’t a blank cheque to enable costs to increase. But it is true to say that more information about services and greater accessibility to those services could lead to an increase in the number of complaints. If you look at the fact that we are discussing legislation based on the 2005 Act, well, back in 2005, there was no iPhone, there were no apps, there was no way of making contact directly using those methods. There’s nothing in the current legislation that allows the ombudsman to actually advertise services in that way; everything has to be done in written form and the most electronic means is to receive an e-mail. Now, perhaps we wouldn’t want to go down the Twitter route, because we all receive complaints via Twitter and Facebook from time to time, but you would expect, over a period of time, those interactive services, through apps, smartphones or whatever else, to be developed by the ombudsman, but it’s difficult to do that whilst the powers are so restricted in terms of only accepting written complaints.

Thank you very much.

We now move on to item 6, which is a debate by the individual Members under Standing Order 11.21 on climate change, and I call on Simon Thomas to move the motion. Simon.

Thank you. A quick change, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I would just suggest to Members, if you’ve had enough of me already then consider having more Members in the Assembly so that we can share around the work a little bit. [Laughter.] But I’m delighted to introduce a backbench Members debate on the concept of our own personal carbon accounts. The context of this, of course, is that the environment Act here in Wales sets a target to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and here in the Assembly we talk a lot about what the Cabinet Secretary’s doing, what the Welsh Government’s doing, we talk a lot, perhaps, about what some private businesses are doing, we talk about new ideas, like the tidal lagoon or whatever it might be, but we don’t talk so much about what our own personal contribution to that can be. So, I was very struck, when I met Martin Burgess, who’s one of my constituents in Aberystwyth but, in this context, is a researcher at Aberystwyth University and has been working on the concept of personal carbon accounts for about a decade now, and has helped develop within the university, but also more widely, how this concept may be taken forward.

I think at the outset I want to say that although there’s a real concept here that could be worked on the ground, there’s also a more interesting—or as interesting—discussion around whether we take any personal responsibility for our carbon use, which I hope this debate will also enable us to discuss and trigger.

The concept almost came to fruition: David Miliband, as environment Secretary, commissioned independent reports on personal carbon accounts. That was reported in the end to Hilary Benn—he became environment Secretary in 2008. It was, it has to be said, shelved, but I think it’s an idea whose time has certainly come for discussion in the Assembly.

So, how would this work as a concept? Well, quite simply, each of us does have our own personal carbon use in the way we live our daily lives, the way we shop, the way we drive, the way we travel to work, the way we purchase our goods, and the way we have an impact on the environment. A personal carbon account is a form of personal carbon trading, which means that it’s transferred to you as a kind of bank account or a credit card or debit card—but it’s more of a credit card, really, because you get the accounts up front.

Each month, or each year, the Government allows—makes allowance—for everyone’s personal carbon use: a free carbon allowance, if you like, each month. Each time you use carbon, whether that’s in terms of particularly carbon-intensive goods you might buy, or your use of fuel, your use of heating, or whatever use it might be, you are debited that from your account. So, the idea is, of course, to make people think about their carbon use. In this regard, I think it goes hand in hand with some other wider changes that we’re already seeing: smart metering is designed to make you think about your individual carbon use. We have apps now that we can use that tell us and allow us to turn down the heating at home when we’re away from home, to turn off the lights, and that tell us how much energy we’re using. This integrates and brings it home much more at a personal level.

Very importantly, you can always buy more carbon—but you do buy it—but you can also sell any carbon that you haven’t used. In other words, it’s a personal trading account. There’s one important thing that must be stated right now, which is that this is not a tax. The Government doesn’t get any money out of this; this is a personal relationship between you and your carbon use. You could do it as carbon trading, as I said, so you could buy more or sell, but the Government doesn’t take a take from this. This is about ensuring that everyone’s carbon use is accounted for and bringing home to individuals how they might reduce their use of carbon.

So, there is a concept here that personal carbon accounts could play an important role in ensuring that we meet our national and international targets to cut carbon emissions, and that’s why I hope the debate will also be seen in the context of the wider agreement of the Welsh Government and, indeed, the vote of this Assembly to support the Paris climate change agreements.

There’s a real personal effect of this as well. We’ve seen recent reports in the media of very poor air quality in London, but don’t think that air quality in London is poor and ours in Wales is wonderful. There are five areas in Wales where we have excess nitrogen dioxide, and the excess there is a real health risk; it’s been called by Public Health Wales one of the biggest health risks—I think the third biggest health risk—facing us. So, there’s a real need to address our use of carbon, the impact on the environment, and the polluting impact of that.

You may think that people would be very reluctant to undertake or believe in this, but we didn’t think that 5p on a plastic bag would change people’s behaviour—it certainly did. Studies by Cardiff and Nottingham universities have found that 88 per cent of people do believe that the climate is changing and do want to see more action by Governments with regard to climate change. Cynnal Cymru had this national conversation, ‘The Wales We Want’—many Members will remember that—and found that 26 per cent of people involved in that conversation felt that climate change was the single most important issue facing future generations. So, there’s another aspect of this concept that fits not only with the environment Act, but with, of course, the well-being of future generations Act, which I think sometimes is an Act casting around for an actual practical application. I think this might be a practical application for that Act.

Personal carbon accounts should only be a complement to what the Government does, but I think it’s important that we share the burden—that we don’t just blame Government when they get it wrong, but we share with Government how we might achieve that. I think it’s conceptually very exciting that each of us might have that carbon account. I think it’s also quite interesting to look at work by the department of human geography at Aberystwyth University that showed that 58 per cent of households currently emit less carbon than the mean. In other words, a carbon account would benefit 58 per cent of the households, and would have a disbenefit, if you like, for the 40 per cent left. It would be progressive because, on the whole, those who use more carbon are the richer and better off in society. There are, of course, particularly in rural areas, some examples of that not working where you’re reliant on solid fuel, where you can’t afford to get your house properly insulated, where you cannot choose your fuel supplier; those are issues that might be detrimental to personal carbon accounts. So, they have to go hand in hand with wider investment issues around fuel poverty, around insulation and around ensuring equity of access to new ideas such as solar panels or electric charging, or whatever it may be.

But in the wider context, it undoubtedly as a concept fits in to our approach on cutting carbon. It undoubtedly fits in to the targets the Welsh Government had set itself for carbon reduction in Wales, and it’s something that can be delivered, at least on a pilot, here in Wales, and that’s something that I think is particularly exciting. So, I hope that this debate will allow people to at least debate the concept of personal carbon accounts, debate the idea of how we can make changes ourselves, and I hope to hear from the Welsh Government—I’m sure I will hear some of the problems that such a project would have— whether, at least in the concept, it is something that we can discuss and take forward, and perhaps hold in mind as a particularly Welsh solution to an international challenge.

I think that this is a very important debate, because there’s only so far you can go with legislation. What goes on behind closed doors is impossible to police. And equally, if you start charging people to do the right thing, it has a differential impact on those on low incomes and people with lots of money can simply ignore it. People without a car can’t take unwanted furniture to the recycling centre; they rely on the council or a charity to collect if for them. Personal carbon budgets would encourage people with cars to make short journeys on foot, rather than always getting into the car.

It would also prompt us to think about the carbon footprint of what we eat, and this is an area that we don’t often talk about. Some organisations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—they calculated that a fifth of all man-made emissions are from meat, dairy and egg farming, and other organisations calculate that that figure is nearer to half of all emissions, so this is clearly a subject that we need to shine a much brighter light on. But I think we can agree that the food we eat has a major impact on our carbon footprint, and any personal carbon account would need to take that into account. It’s slightly more complicated than clocking up how much energy we’re using in heating your home.

But it’s interesting to note that—. Greenhouse gas emissions produced by the combined growing, rearing, farming, processing, transporting, storing, cooking and disposing of the food on our plate is something we need to look at holistically. If we buy green beans from Kenya, clearly it has a much higher carbon footprint than if we grow it locally. The carbon footprint of just 1 kg of lamb is 39.2 kg of carbon dioxide in emissions, which is apparently equivalent to driving 91 miles in a car. In comparison with that, fruit is only 1.1 kg of carbon dioxide, equivalent to driving 2.5 miles. Milk is slightly more, but 1.9 kg of carbon dioxide, equivalent to a 4 mile drive in a car. So, meat and cheese have the highest carbon footprint. Fruit, vegetables, beans and nuts have much lower carbon footprints.

The Co-op has done some research on their farms and they’ve identified that 54 per cent of carbon emissions on their farms is from methane and nitrous oxide emissions from their livestock. The methane is much more potent than carbon dioxide. So, they’ve done a six-year monitoring of their farmers to show that methane is 28 times as potent as carbon, and nitrous oxide is 260 times more potent. All these are big figures, but one of the things it highlights is that it’s really important that people don’t put food waste in with their residual waste, because then it goes into landfill and then, of course, it causes methane.

I know that it is heretical to even consider this, but if we moved away from a meat-based diet, you’d have a really significant impact on our personal carbon footprint. Five different diets compared showed that eating chicken instead of beef cut a quarter of food carbon emissions in one simple step. I’m not advocating that we never eat the wonderful Welsh lamb, but I am saying that we need to think carefully about how often we eat it and whether we eat it as our regular food. I think these are really important issues that we need to bear in mind.

Switching the foods you eat doesn’t just improve your health. It also is going to improve your personal carbon footprint. I think these are some of the things we need to consider carefully in understanding how we would do it in reality. Even knowing how much carbon it takes to produce any particular grocery item is a really important thing and perhaps it should be on the labels. Thank you very much.

I am grateful to my now neighbour, Simon Thomas, for initiating this debate today. We’ve crossed swords on related issues many times in the year or so I’ve been a Member of this Assembly and I thought that where argument has failed possibly osmosis might have a better chance of arriving at a consensus.

I’ve no particular objection to personal carbon accounts and I certainly agree with some of the points that have been made today about air quality—they’re very important. Nitrous oxide and other gasses are, of course, pollutants. But I think it’s important for us to recognise also that carbon dioxide is not poison gas and is not a pollutant as such. I know that theories of global warming are what lie behind this proposal, but it’s important to recognise that the current carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 390 parts per million—in a submarine, on average, it’s 1,500 parts per million, and we know that up to 8,000 parts per million human health is not impaired. So, this is not a danger to health in itself. I strongly agree with much of what Jenny Rathbone has said on food miles. We grow a lot of our own vegetables and so on at home. I’m an enthusiastic gardener and I wish more people would join me in that enthusiasm. I think we would all be better off.

I would like to address the motivation behind this proposal and the extent to which the costs imposed by the anti-global-warming policies can sometimes be perverse. As a result of high energy costs, which have resulted from the deliberate policy decisions of governments, not just in this country but elsewhere in the world, what we’ve done is to speed on the de-industrialisation processes of the west, and the perverse consequence of that has been to export heavily intensive energy consumers like steel, aluminium, glass and cement manufacture to parts of the world that have not accepted the obligations that we have in the west to reduce our carbon footprint. So, actually, we’ve, as a result of this, made matters even worse. I’m sure the environment Secretary will not wish to hear the word ‘China’ yet again in my speech, but China does actually produce 30 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, India another 7 per cent, and, as I never tire of pointing out, the Paris agreements do not actually require them to reduce their carbon footprint. All they’re going to do is to reduce the output of carbon per head as their economies grow. So, China, in effect, has a green card in the sense that they’ll be allowed to increase their carbon emissions for at least another 20 years. So, any changes that come about as a result of our domestic policies will have no impact of any measurable kind upon what’s happening in the world and certainly have no impact on world temperatures. I have a problem with even the concept of a global temperature, because there is no easy means to calculate that. Satellite data have only been collected for a relatively short time, so we don’t have the kind of time series that we need in order to draw sensible conclusions of a policy kind, particularly conclusions that are going to lead to dramatic changes in lifestyle and in employment patterns.

I’d like to draw the attention of the Assembly to a paper that appeared only last week or the week before in an academic publication called ‘Nature Geoscience’, which addresses the problem of the pause in global temperature rises. Because, for the last 20 years, we’ve had no noticeable rise in world temperatures, and this pause cannot be explained by the computer models upon which the dire predictions of doom and gloom have been based. Myles Allen, who is a professor of geosystem science at Oxford university said to ‘The Times’ just a few days ago,

We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models. We haven’t seen that in the observations.’

His defence of these models is interesting. He said that they’d been assembled a decade ago so it wasn’t surprising that they deviated from reality. Yet those very same models are the ones that are being used to make predictions for 50 or 100 years ahead that have saddled taxpayers with huge costs to pay for alternative energy sources. So, we really ought, I think, to pause, in the same way that global temperatures seem to have paused, and really ask ourselves whether we need to plough ahead so rapidly with these schemes to reduce our carbon footprint when, first of all, we don’t know whether that’s actually going to be followed by other countries in the world who are the biggest polluters, if we regard carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and, secondly, we have to consider the impact upon the standard of living of our people, particularly those at the bottom of the income scale, who are the ones who are most clearly disadvantaged.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs, Lesley Griffiths.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Members for their contributions in this very timely debate, which I welcome. Colleagues will be aware that I made an announcement just before summer recess on public sector decarbonisation and, last week, I made a statement on our renewable energy targets. Next month, I will be at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP23, in Bonn to share Welsh successes and, of course, learn from others. I think Welsh Government presence at these events really demonstrates our commitment to mitigate global warming and our support for the Paris agreement. I should just perhaps remind Neil Hamilton that 195 UNFCCC members signed that, so I don’t think it’s just something that afflicts the west. Of course, Wales is not a party to the agreement, but we know that action taken at state and regional level is critical in keeping global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees. I think it’s also an excellent opportunity to talk about the groundbreaking legislative framework and foundations we have laid here in Wales, and I’m very much looking forward to again talking about and sharing our experiences in Bonn.

Simon Thomas pointed out that we really need to share the burden in relation to climate change, and that’s why you brought forward this debate on personal carbon accounts, but I did just want to outline some of the work that we are doing as a Welsh Government. So, I mentioned that, just before summer recess, I declared my ambition to achieve a carbon-neutral public sector by 2030 and launched a call for evidence asking stakeholders to share their views on the opportunities and challenges, potential interim targets and monitoring progress, and we’ll shortly be announcing the next steps in this area.

Just last week, I announced challenging new targets for renewable energy production to focus action across the country and capture more benefits for Wales. We’ve also been working with the UK Committee on Climate Change to define the detail beneath the headline target. And I’ve accepted the committee’s advice on how we will account for Welsh emissions and look forward to receiving the next part of their advice shortly. This will inform our decisions on interim targets and carbon budgets. The committee has also involved stakeholders to make sure their advice represents a wide range of views.

Of course, decarbonisation aligns very closely to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and we need to consider the long term and take an integrated approach across Government and across society. We need to collaborate with others, as we can’t do this alone and we need to enable and support people to act.

So, cutting emissions now to avoid even more significant climate breakdown is perhaps the ultimate preventative measure, and there is nothing more important to the generations to come than having an environment to sustain them. So, I’m working with my colleagues in the ministerial task and finish group to ensure that our policies and proposals from across Government will reduce our emissions and benefit our economy and health. Our work has focused on emissions by sector, because this is how emissions are reported across the world. I think this is a very helpful way of considering the problem and identifying policies.

Turning now to personal carbon accounts, I’m obviously very well aware of the link between sector emissions and the choices that we make as individuals. Transport sector emissions are largely a product of millions of people choosing to fly, drive, cycle or walk, and, as Simon said, our choices in the way that we live obviously affect our personal carbon use. So, I think we really need to increase our carbon consciousness, our awareness of the impact of our choices, and think about our carbon use, if we are to see the change that we need. Personal carbon accounts are, of course, one way of doing this.

So, as we will be setting national carbon budgets, I think it seems quite logical to go one step further and apply those numbers at a personal level. Simon mentioned—and I was very aware of the UK Labour Government’s work that was done in this area when they looked at personal carbon accounts, and did, indeed, conclude that it was an idea ahead of its time, and I know that—

It was 10 years ago, mind.

Ten years ago. Well, exactly, and things have moved on so swiftly in that 10 years. I know that Martin Burgess—you referred to the PhD student who is one of your constituents—my officials have met with him to discuss this and we’ve looked at what legislation would be needed for a PCA, and I would say that it’s unlikely at the moment that we have those powers. Also, the pilot that you referred to, I think, again, the same basis around legislative competence could hinder that also. But as you said, it was 10 years ago and I think our understanding of climate science certainly has increased dramatically, and also—and this is probably more important—the need for action has obviously become more—

Will you give way?

Yes, of course.

I understand what the Minister’s saying, certainly regarding some of the competence issues and so forth around a formal personal carbon account scheme, but the concept that each of us in Wales knows what our personal carbon is—how we use it, how we spend it, linking into Jenny Rathbone’s points around food production as well—is something I imagine the Welsh Government could do something with and could actually help the Welsh Government achieve its aims.

Yes, absolutely—I was coming to that. Because, as I say, my officials are talking, or have been speaking to Martin Burgess, because you’re quite right: while those challenges that were identified a decade ago could remain, and probably do, remain relevant today, and certainly around the legislation, I think we need to enable and inspire individuals to take that action. So, I am really very keen to explore what could work in Wales within the boundaries that I’ve set out, with personal carbon accounting absolutely being part of that discussion. So, I’m very supportive of the research looking at approaches for increasing our carbon consciousness to help people make choices informed by the impact that that will have not just on future generations, but also current generations. So, I’m very pleased to support the motion, on the basis that we look at a wider range of approaches.

Thank you very much. I call on Mike Hedges to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. First of all, can I thank Simon Thomas, not only for introducing the debate, but for going around and getting people to sign up for it? Because it really is important that we do start debating issues like this. ‘Reduce carbon use by 80 per cent’—that’s a tremendous aim. How are we going to do it? Well, it’s got to be personal contributions, I think Simon Thomas is absolutely right on that, and we need to take personal responsibility for it. I have no idea what my personal carbon use is. I would guess that’s probably true of everybody or nearly everybody in this room. Would I like to reduce it? Yes, but I don’t know whether I’m reducing it from a lot or from very little. So, should I be debited for its use? Yes, I should feel it was costing me something. Even if it wasn’t money, it was costing me a bad feeling, because I was actually using more carbon than I should. The more we think about it, the more we reduce it. I think that people take that with expenditure. If you count every penny you spend, you spend an awful lot less. It’ll be exactly the same with carbon, won’t it? If you count what you used, it would be an awful lot less. As Simon Thomas said, it’s not a tax, but it’s about responsibility.

Jenny Rathbone is absolutely right: legislation only goes so far. We all need to make an effort to work at doing things to reduce our carbon use. And food—one of my rules in our house: we never buy any food that is better travelled than I am, and I think that—. I won’t ask Jenny Rathbone to do that because I know how well-travelled she is, but we don’t buy food that comes from countries that are further than I’ve ever travelled, and I think that’s something we could perhaps all give some thought to. It comes from an awful lot of exotic countries, carrying lots of air miles, and we need to consider carefully what we eat. I think this really is important, and I speak as somebody who’s a fan of buying local Welsh produce, so that certainly helps.

I agree with Neil Hamilton: air quality is important. I think everybody agrees air quality is important, and we’re seeing the improvements taking place in the Hafod recently. Carbon dioxide is not a poison—absolutely right. It is, however, a greenhouse gas. It will lead to temperature rises. We know that because the temperature of the earth should be running around about -24, -26 degrees centigrade if there was no carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We want some of it to get it up to a liveable temperature. What we don’t want is to get too much of it, which moves it to a temperature at which we cannot live. I think that, Neil, the Conservatives in the 1980s forced up energy costs, which led to the destruction of the aluminium industry across the whole of south Wales. You might have been a member of them in those days.

Computer models need updating. They always need updating. A part of my job many years ago was writing computer models, and you update them when you get further data, but we all know that the temperatures are increasing. They have increased, and the Americans are getting the benefits of it, if you call it that, from the hurricanes they’re getting. I’ll give way.

Academics accept that the temperatures have risen by 0.9 degrees centigrade since the mid-nineteenth century. We’re not talking about game-changing figures here.

Yes, but it’s an average, isn’t it? And so you’ve only got to see how much ice is breaking off in both Antarctica and in the Arctic, and that’s going to lead to flooding in a large number of low-lying areas, and possibly countries disappearing.

The other thing I was going to say is, if you want to help the poor: better insulation. Many of us have visited people in their houses, which are certainly not warm. They probably spend more on keeping their house warm than I do, but because they’ve got poor central heating, they’ve got windows that are single-glazed, they’ve got gaps between the frame and the wall, they’ve got cold air coming in—. That would make a bigger effect than any extra charges.

Can I thank the Minister for her comments? And increasing carbon consciousness—we do need to know what we’re doing. The Welsh Government’s support for stopping global temperature rises is well known, and something I and, I’m sure, most people, if not everybody, in this room, really appreciates, because it’s a bit like the straw and the camel’s back, isn’t it? Yes, we’re only a small country, but if every small country did exactly the same thing and kept on pushing temperatures up, then it would all go up.

I really support the ambitions of the Cabinet Secretary that we’ve got to be ambitious because, as somebody once said, it’s only one world we’ve got. The fact that some of us in the west use up the world’s resources as if there are three worlds doesn’t mean that we have three worlds to exploit. So, we need to start reducing what we do, and preventative measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions—we cannot ask for more than that. But, really, I come back to what Simon Thomas started with: personal responsibility. If people know how much carbon they’re using, most people will try and reduce it, and that’s really what this is asking for. Thank you.

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

We now move on to item 7 on our agenda, which is the debate on the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee’s report ‘Achieving the Ambition—Inquiry into the Welsh Government’s new Welsh Language Strategy’. I call on the Chair of the committee, Bethan Jenkins, to introduce the report.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very pleased to open this debate on the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee’s report, ‘Achieving the Ambition: Inquiry into the Welsh Government’s new Welsh Language Strategy’. The Welsh Government has committed itself to creating 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. If this ambition is successful it will mean doubling the number of Welsh speakers in just over a generation. This is an ambitious and radical policy that the committee fully supports. We agreed to carry out an inquiry to look at the practicalities of how this radical policy can be successfully implemented.

We took a wide range of evidence, including informal external engagement sessions with stakeholders and school pupils across Wales. It is clear from considering the evidence that success will require hard work, considerable additional resources and clear targets. It will also need to be founded on the continuing support of all the people of Wales, Welsh speakers and non-Welsh speakers alike.

Our recommendations were, on the whole, concerned with the practicalities of how the ambition can be turned into reality, and the need for clarity on the staging points along the way. Our main concern was that the implications of the aim of 1 million speakers have not yet been fully thought through, and there was a need for more detail and clarity regarding how the aim will be achieved.

We were also concerned that the likely scale of the additional resources and investment required to achieve the aim may not yet have been fully realised. A wide range of other questions remains about how the strategy can be achieved in practice, especially in terms of the resources needed to turn the ambition into a reality. However, I am pleased that the Government’s response and the final strategy itself reflects and has addressed many of the issues raised in the report.

Education is clearly central to the whole strategy. Overall, we wanted the Welsh Government to provide greater clarity around the comparative contribution that Welsh-medium education, Welsh in other schools, preschool and normalisation measures will make in delivering the overall aim, and whether a different focus is intended for different interventions as the strategy progresses. There were also some concerns that realigning the education system to help achieve the language strategy may distort the delivery of other educational priorities. Therefore, any resources and capacity to implement the policy should be in addition to current spending on education.

The committee shared the concern of the Welsh Language Commissioner and the Welsh language Minister that too many local authorities have been inactive in stimulating and assessing demand for increased Welsh-medium provision. The Welsh in education strategic plans have not been implemented as intended, and many local authorities only assess current demand, without looking to see how Welsh-medium education can be positively promoted so that demand increases.

The strategy mentions moving schools along the language continuum. In our view, the key issue is ensuring that more pupils move toward fluency throughout the education system. Seventy-five per cent of Welsh pupils attend English-medium schools. With improved outcomes, these schools may be a rich source of the Welsh speakers of the future. Therefore, the Welsh Government needs to demonstrate how it intends to improve Welsh-language education within English-medium schools. Preschool education also has a fundamental contribution to make if the overall goal is to be met, particularly in terms of normalising the language from an early age. Of course, if the aim of 1 million Welsh speakers is to be meaningful, this must mean more than just the ability to say a few phrases in Welsh. It must mean understanding and holding conversations naturally on most everyday subjects. However, work is still needed on identifying an objective way of measuring progress that is widely accepted.

Of course, our report was published in May and the Government responded to it formally before the summer recess. Around the same time, they also published its final strategy document, ‘Cymraeg 2050’, which, as I’ve mentioned, covered many of the issues raised in our report.

We have, of course, also had the Government’s proposals for a new Welsh language Bill, which we debated only yesterday. Although the legal framework is an important part of the jigsaw, it is a somewhat separate matter from the issues raised in our report, but certainly we will be looking at the content of the Bill in detail.

There are issues raised in some of the specific recommendations in the report, and in the Government’s response to them, that I would like to mention, and I hope the Minister will respond to these in his contribution to the debate. Therefore, if we look at some specific recommendations, recommendation 5 called for additional help and support for private sector employers and businesses to develop and expand their Welsh-language provision. The Welsh Government accepted this recommendation and said that further details would be published in the strategy. Could the Minister tell us what additional support and help is to be provided?

Recommendation 6 was one of the key recommendations. It called for an urgent assessment of the additional resources that will be needed to achieve 1 million Welsh speakers, including the profile of spending over the early part of the strategy and the comparative cost of the various interventions that will possibly be required. Although the Welsh Government accepted the recommendation in part, pointing to the additional £10 million that has already been committed to start to deliver the new strategy, there is still no strategic assessment of the level of resources that will be needed. Indeed, the response said that there were no financial implications to the implementation of the strategy beyond the £10 million that has already been committed. So, I wanted to understand whether that is likely to be the case. Will more than £10 million be required to implement the policy in this area? Has the Minister carried out an assessment of the resources that will be required, how it is profiled and when he will make further announcements on additional resources?

If I turn to recommendation 11, which called on the Welsh Government to set out in detail how it intends to move schools along the language continuum, and how this will address any concerns from parents and the wider community. The Government response, quite rightly, focused on the role of local authorities in planning for school places and for developing Welsh-medium education through the Welsh in education strategic plans. However, the response also said that the Welsh Government intended to review the regulations and guidance for WESPs to encourage, and I quote,

movement along the language continuum’.

Could the Minister update us on progress in terms of that work and how local authorities will be encouraged to move schools along the language continuum?

Recommendation 14 called for the Welsh Government to set out clearly the number of additional teachers that will be required in order to teach through the medium of Welsh and teach Welsh. I am pleased that the strategy notes specific targets in that regard. For instance, the number of primary teachers who can teach in Welsh will need to increase from 2,900 currently to 3,900 by 2031, and to 5,200 by 2050. Likewise, this was reflected in the Welsh-medium sector in secondary schools. I would be grateful, however, if the Minister could provide a little more information on how these targets will be achieved, and particularly how this very significant increase in provision will be funded.

Similar questions arise in recommendation 15, in terms of how the supply of Welsh-speaking students entering the teaching profession can be increased. Again, could the Minister provide greater detail on how this will be achieved and what resources will be required?

Recommendations 17 and 18 were concerned with securing improvements in Welsh second-language teaching, where there is a wide consensus that outcomes are not as good as they should be, in terms of that education. Could the Minister provide us with an update, therefore, on progress made in the introduction of one continuum of learning Welsh for all pupils in Wales as part of the new curriculum?

Before I conclude, I want to say that I broadly welcome the Government’s ambition for 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. May I also say that I’m pleased that the strategy has begun to answer many of the practical questions about how that ambition can be realised? It almost goes without saying that there remains a great deal of work to be done in this area, but I look forward to working with the Minister in that regard.

The last census showed a small but significant decline in the number of people able to speak Welsh. In this context, 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050 is a very ambitious target. However, if we are to halt the decline in the number of Welsh speakers, and reverse the trend of the last century, then we need to be bold and ambitious. So, I commend what the committee has done, and thank all members of the committee in the context of the fact that the staff have worked very hard on this too. We support this ambition, but we need to understand clearly how that’s going to be delivered. Thank you.

May I also thank everyone who was involved with this inquiry, including our witnesses and staff?

The Minister had already given some indications about his vision for a bilingual Wales, and that had created a level of consensus, as we know; so, we believed that it was useful to test that consensus by asking some preliminary questions in order to steer the Minister in the direction of some of the early details. Although one of the early details, the White Paper, failed to get consensus in the debate yesterday, things are looking a little more promising in terms of our report.

As per usual, the Government is eager to accept committee report recommendations, and we welcome that, but we also note that it is easy to accept recommendations when they come without cost to Government. But let’s be clear on this: the cost implications of agreeing to these recommendations will be met by ‘re-prioritising budgets for current programmes’. I’m eager to understand what will change, and over what period of time. The departmental budget for the current year is £36.2 million, and we know that £5 million of that goes towards workplace training and promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language. I assume, although it isn’t clear, that the £2 million referred to in response to recommendations 3 and 21 is part of that £5 million. Either way, it leaves a great deal of room for re-prioritising the budgets of current programmes, I believe. I do hope that the Government can give us some idea of what the likely cost of implementing our recommendations will be, and what will change in terms of that provision. What programmes will be dropped, or cut, and what evidence is he relying on to justify decisions taken in that regard? I’d like these details because, next year, it’s likely that an additional £10 million will come to the department for key priorities. Now, will that £10 million be used entirely for improving Welsh in the workplace, promoting the Welsh language and supporting the education sector, or will a penny of that be provided in terms of funding our recommendations to avoid relying on re-prioritising those mysterious programmes?

Some of the recommendations in the ‘Cymraeg 2050’ strategy are included there, and we will have to monitor provisions against our recommendations once the strategy is in place. The risk is not in the ideas, but in the actions, and workforce planning in terms of teachers will be a huge challenge. Minister, you recognise that in your response to recommendation 4, where you say that different strategies will be required to ensure a sufficient supply of teachers. That sounds expensive, and expensive over a period of many years until we reach a critical mass of bilingual skills in the general population. I would be most surprised if re-prioritisation of programme budgets would provide that ongoing income stream to fund this. Only some of the £10 million for next year will go to supporting the education sector, and it isn’t clear whether supporting the education sector even includes workforce planning. I accept that you can’t commit funding in the long term because of the annual budgetary cycle, but could you provide us with some indicative figures for this particular area of work—this key priority—because we haven’t seen that in response to recommendations 4, 6 or 14?

Now, most of our recommendations related to education, as you might expect. That’s the Minister’s starting point too. So, to conclude, I would like to highlight some of the recommendations at the bottom of our list, perhaps—those that refer to promoting the Welsh language as a community language and a language of the workplace, and providing support for adult learners. In future, these will be less of a problem because of a growth in bilingual skills in the general population, but we must reach that point, and the change of culture in that transition period will require patience, determination and funding.

I do hope that it will be an improvement process, rather than a lowering of aspirations, but progress in the face of disadvantage and resistance may be slow. That will make this work open to cuts or reprioritisation in ensuing years. And budgetary pressures will be there, whoever is in charge. So, recommendation 22 asked a very difficult question about the effort that should go into Welsh for adults. Is it possible that the Government may have to actually close its eyes on today’s adults to ensure that tomorrow’s adults are truly bilingual?

I think Bethan Jenkins has very fairly summed up the recommendations of the report, so I don’t wish to repeat what has already been said. So, I’ll make just a brief contribution, first of all to highlight the consensus there was in the committee and the way that we all worked together on a cross-party basis to reflect on the Government’s proposals and to point out what we thought of some of the practical points that now need to be addressed. I think it’s worth stressing what a bold and radical cultural policy this is, set against the backdrop of 100 years or more of decline in the Welsh language. For any Government to come and say it’s going to attempt to double the number of Welsh speakers is a brave one and I think that boldness should be applauded.

But I think in doing so we need to recognise that this is a stretch target, and also it’s a target that is evolving. The Government clearly hasn’t come to this policy with a detailed blueprint in advance; it is something that it’s thinking through as we go. Frankly, had it been done in the other way, we’d probably not be setting out on this course, because it is so difficult. So, I think it’s right that we’ve taken the leap with the ambitious target and we’re backfilling as we develop. The committee’s report is a sincere attempt to try and suggest some things the Government may consider as it comes up with this plan.

It’s worth recognising that we have in the First Minister and the Minister for the Welsh language two deeply committed politicians to seeing this through, and a Welsh Labour Government that is making a bold commitment for many generations to come. I think we do need to see this as a multigenerational project.

So, I just have two observations in chief: one, as has already been touched upon, the big challenge here is not simply to focus on the Welsh-medium sector, but to look at the non-Welsh-medium sector. Some three quarters of pupils are educated in schools that are not Welsh medium, around 16 per cent of pupils are in Welsh-medium schools and 10 per cent are in bilingual schools. We know there are issues of getting pupils in those settings to use the Welsh language more fully outside of the school setting. But I think the big challenge for hitting this target is the three quarters of schools that are currently English medium, which we know through law are required to teach Welsh, but those of us who have experience of those schools in our constituency or as pupils of them know that, in practice, the level of Welsh of the young people coming out of those schools is often negligible.

I speak as somebody who, before I was elected, was chair of governors of an English-medium primary school who worked very hard to try and recruit teachers who spoke Welsh in order to upskill the staff and the pupils and to make Welsh a vibrant part of the school environment. We succeeded for a short time, but retaining skilled staff proved impossible. There simply aren’t the teachers available currently in order to make this aspiration meaningful, and I think we had reference in Bethan Jenkins’s speech to the fact that the number of students enrolling in Welsh PGCE courses is declining.

So, we have a staggering turnaround job to do to achieve this, but I think our focus really must be on how we can get the continuum working in a meaningful way in schools that are currently English medium, and that is very difficult. I visited a number of schools in my own constituency over the last year where the headteachers have varying levels of enthusiasm, I think, to be fair. But even those who are fully behind achieving this really struggle in practical terms to know how to do it without the resource or the staff to draw upon. So, that, I think, needs to be a key focus.

There’s a temptation to go for quick wins to try and show some progress in the short term, and I think that’s understandable. When you look at the figures on the number of teachers in our classrooms who are able to speak Welsh, 33 per cent currently speak Welsh but only 27 per cent of them teach through the medium of Welsh. So, our report talks about the temptation to look at that 5 per cent to 6 per cent who currently speak Welsh to some degree but don’t teach in Welsh in order to reach that target. And, of course, that’s an understandable starting point, but that still leaves us with the problem. Having been to a bilingual junior school, in the Welsh stream for the juniors and the English stream for the comprehensive school, I know that, in a bilingual environment, even children who are taught in an English-medium setting are still exposed to a huge amount of Welsh; it’s part of their ‘awyrgylch’, it’s part of the setting of the school, and it imbues their feeling for the language. And I think we should be looking, as part of developing the continuum, to spread that spirit into as many English-medium schools as possible so that every school in the short to medium term aims to become a bilingual school and, that way, I think we can achieve this target and bring the hearts and the minds of the people with us. Diolch.

It’s a pleasure to take part in this very important debate on the committee report on ‘Achieving the Ambition—Inquiry into the Welsh Government’s new Welsh Language Strategy’. Of course, the aim, as we’ve heard many times, is to have a million Welsh speakers. It is a very ambitious aim, as we note in this excellent preamble by the excellent Chair to this committee. The survival of the Welsh language is amazing, because the context is one where we sometimes become a bit depressed about the future of the language. However, bearing in mind that there are more than 7,000 languages on the face of the earth, one language disappears off the face of the earth every other month. That’s the reality of the situation, and, in accepting that context, the survival of the Welsh language is amazing. The fact that more than 0.5 million people speak the language today is also amazing.

Of course, old Welsh is the original language of the isle of Britain. The word ‘Britain’ comes from ‘Prydain’. Back in the sixth century, everyone from Edinburgh downwards could speak old Welsh. That’s why we all have those old Welsh names: Ystrad Clud—Strathclyde—Lanark from Llannerch, Ecclefechan—Eglwys fechan—in Dumfries, and Caerliwelydd is Carlisle, and so on. So, this is part of the history not just of the people of Wales, but of the people of Britain. Having said that, the aim of a million Welsh speakers is to be supported, and I congratulate the Minister on that aim. The Minister also knows that we’ve been here before. Just over a century ago, we had a million Welsh speakers, and now we’re talking about regaining that territory, and the committee’s aim in putting together this report was to look at how we all—it’s not just a task for the Government—can regain that territory of having a million Welsh speakers.

Of course, a key factor at the outset is promotion. There’s a lot of talk in this report about the need to promote, meaning, as Suzy Davies has noted, a cultural shift in some areas of Wales, and a change of attitude among some people who are against the Welsh language and who treat it with disdain. There’s a job of work to be done there; there’s a great deal of work for everyone. Our language is a treasure. We’ve had great growth previously and we can have great growth again, but we need a landscape that understands the importance of this for our children and our children’s children. Through promotion, we need to advocate the advantages of Welsh-medium education. Some people out there believe that, if you send your child to a Welsh primary school, they don’t learn English at all. Well, no, that’s nonsense—naturally, you have a Welsh-medium education, but you learn English as well. So, the excellence of the situation is, when you send your child to a Welsh-medium school from the age of three or four, by the time they reach 11, they’re fluent in two languages. We need to have that fundamental information out there: you send your child to a Welsh-medium school, and, by the age of 11, they are fluent in two languages.

Children learn like sponges. They don’t stop at learning two languages; you can teach them a third or fourth language—that happens in many countries. Some people have to get over the hang-up they have about ‘you should just speak English or you’ll confuse the children’. That’s a very old-fashioned attitude. We have to move on from that and be aware that it is to be treasured, the ability to speak two languages, when, later on, and even in some of our primary schools, children do learn a third language like French or German, as my children did. My children had the opportunity to go to a Welsh-medium school—I didn’t. I went to an English-medium school, because I’m so old, of course—before this growth in Welsh-medium schools in recent times.

It also starts before school, with nurseries, and we heard quite a lot of evidence about the importance of Mudiad Meithrin and Welsh-medium nurseries, because, to get that fluency in the language, you have to get our children as early as possible. That’s also an element, and there was a recommendation—recommendation 7—to that end, but, of course, I don’t think Mudiad Meithrin is going to get what they asked for—in the short term, anyway.

I do commend and appreciate the efforts of the Government to tackle this and to go for a million Welsh speakers, but it’s not just a job for the Government—it’s a job for us all. Thank you very much.

I call on the Minister to contribute to the debate—Alun Davies.

Thank you, Llywydd. I think I can start where Dai Lloyd finished, because you are entirely right in your analysis: the Government can put in place all sorts of structures, but, at the end of the day, it’s the community, the nation, and the country that speak the language, not just the Government. Therefore, it is something for us as a national community, and that’s why I’ve always emphasised the importance of creating unity around this debate and not putting the emphasis that we sometimes see on separating people in these debates.

Will you take an intervention on that specific point?

Okay.

You talk about building consensus around the language, but, unfortunately, following the debate we had yesterday on the Welsh language Bill, it appears that that consensus is starting to be undermined. Welsh speakers in every part of the country, language bodies, and language planning experts, all agree that the Welsh language Bill will be a backward step rather than strengthening the efforts that you have in terms of your strategy to reach a million Welsh speakers by 2050.

I disagree with you, and I think what splits people is using words such as ‘brad’ or ‘betrayal’—that’s what causes splits in our nation, and that is a way of discussing these issues that I don’t think that we want to hear in our national parliament. I don’t think that should be part of any consensus. I tell you now that it’s not going to be any part of any consensus that I lead. So, I’m—[Interruption.] The Member—

Ignore him. He is not standing, so ignore him, Minister, and carry on.

He hasn’t been here for the debate; he arrives late and starts to shout across the Chamber.

You’re not ignoring him. Carry on, Minister.

I have been ignoring him for quite a while.

I am grateful for the way in which Bethan Jenkins has not only led the debate this afternoon, but has also led the committee. You asked a number of questions during your opening remarks, as did Suzy Davies during her contribution. I do feel, on occasion, that perhaps it would be better to appear before the committee to answer some of these questions and to go into greater detail on some of the issues that you’ve raised with me, rather than trying to respond this afternoon, and I would be pleased to have the opportunity to return to the committee for that kind of discussion.

But, in the analysis that we have shared across the Chamber this afternoon, one thing that stands out and one thing that’s very important, and it comes back to Lee Waters’s contribution too: everything must change. It would have been very easy for any Government to be elected and to set a language agenda in the way that we’ve done in the past—that we want to see growth in the language, or we want to see the language prosper; whatever words we choose to use. This Government did something different. We did something different, something radical and something bold, in the words of Lee Waters, in setting a target of a million Welsh speakers, doubling the number of people who use and speak the language at the moment. That is important not only because of the number, the target itself, but in terms of what that means for this Government, to this Parliament, and to the nation. It means that things have to change. Everything must change. And that’s why I don’t agree with the conservative voices I hear in this Chamber on occasion and outwith the Chamber, and Sian Gwenllian has already alluded to that. I want to see us thinking anew about this policy and how we contribute towards expanding the number of Welsh speakers and, indeed, doubling the number of Welsh speakers. I do think that the committee report has been an important contribution to that end. The questions that Bethan Jenkins and Suzy Davies have asked this afternoon are important and valid, and it gets to the very core of the debate that we need to have over the next few months.

When I published the strategy and the vision over the summer, I wanted to move the agenda forward, obviously, but it’s important for me not just to publish the strategy itself but also to publish a programme of work too and the targets that are part of that. The targets that we have set are targets for this Assembly, this Government, and this Minister. They are not just targets for 2030, 2040, and 2050; they are targets for this Assembly, and for this Government, and I do think that that is extremely important. We’ve had an opportunity to discuss the White Paper already this week, and I have no intention of rehearsing that debate this afternoon, but I would just say that I will continue to lead this debate in this nation and all parts of Wales and all communities across the country, and I will lead a new consensus in order to change the structures that we currently have. Everything must change.

At the heart of all of this is the crucial role of education, and many people—I think everyone who’s contributed this afternoon—have mentioned the role that our education system will play. Members will be very much aware that the Cabinet Secretary for Education made an announcement last week on our action plan for education in Wales, and she has placed an important emphasis on developing Welsh-medium education and improving the teaching of Welsh to all learners as part of our education system. I recognise the points that Lee Waters raised in his contribution on the importance of the English-medium sector. Far too often, we concentrate on the Welsh-medium sector but we don’t think of the majority of learners in Wales that are in the English-medium sector. Every part of the system has to be taken into account for the future; I agree with each and every one of the points that Lee has made.

I will be making a statement, Llywydd, next week on Welsh in education plans, and I think that there has been a welcome across this Assembly for the work undertaken by Aled Roberts. I would like to express my thanks to Aled not just for the work that he has done, but for the way that he has undertaken that work. He has been having discussions with authorities across Wales, and he has been challenging authorities across the country in terms of how we can reach our targets—exactly the types of challenges that Bethan mentioned in her opening remarks. We, as a result of that process, have reached the point, I think, where we can say with some confidence that we will have the kinds of WESPs in place that will enable us to reach our targets.

I do see that time is moving on, so may I just finish by saying this? Bethan Jenkins asked a question in her speech on small businesses and how we are promoting the use of the Welsh language within small businesses. Members will be aware that the First Minister made a statement on a new grant to that end during the National Eisteddfod this year on Anglesey. We will continue to make further statements on how we will progress that.

Llywydd, I am very grateful to the committee for its work. This has been an important inquiry. It has contributed to policy developments within Government. It has contributed to the national debate that needs to take place in order to ensure that Government policy isn’t just the policy of Government but, in the words of Dai Lloyd, is the policy that can unite Wales, and a policy that will be supported across the country. Thank you.

I call on Bethan Jenkins to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much. I’d like to thank everyone for contributing to this debate today. Even though we’ve had a debate on the Bill yesterday, I think it’s helped, in a way, to have a debate in the same week, for us to be able to look at this issue in a comprehensive way.

I thank Suzy Davies for her contribution. What you said about education for adults struck me—about closing our eyes to the adults of today in order to help adults in the future. I hope we don’t close our eyes entirely for the adults of today, because they are part of society, and a positive part of the learning spectrum. But I do agree with the point that you were trying to make. I don’t know what the Welsh word is, but we need to front-load, or start when people are young. We need to start with young people so that they won’t need adult education in future. I hope that we reach that reality in future.

Welsh in the workplace and in the community are very important, not only Welsh in education—that’s not the only important thing here. But as Assembly Members, we all know the challenge on the ground to encourage Welsh people to speak Welsh in their everyday lives, and I think that’s an additional piece of work for us to do as a committee. There are lots of stereotypes out there, and lots of concerns about people having the confidence to speak the language. That’s something for us to look at in the future.

On funding, in terms of our questions to the Minister, Suzy, maybe that hasn’t been answered. We might have the Minister back at committee to respond to some of those specific questions on funding for the plan.

Diolch i Lee Waters am eich cyfraniad ac am eich canmoliaeth i Lywodraeth Cymru. Rwy’n siŵr y byddant yn falch iawn o’ch cyfraniad yma heddiw. Rwy’n cytuno â chi pan ddywedwch fod y màs critigol eisoes yno sy’n gymwys i siarad Cymraeg ond nad ydynt yn addysgu drwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg mewn gwirionedd. Mae hynny’n rhywbeth y gallem fynd amdano ar unwaith o ran eu hannog i newid ac i addysgu drwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg. Roeddech yn wirioneddol angerddol yn y pwyllgor ynglŷn ag addysg iaith Saesneg. Pan wnaethom waith allgymorth, euthum i’r un yn Abertawe, wyddoch chi, ac roeddem yn clywed hynny. Roeddem yn clywed bod pobl ifanc yn hoffi dysgu, ond eu bod yn teimlo weithiau nad oedd y pethau roeddent yn eu dysgu’n berthnasol i’w bywydau bob dydd. Rwy’n obeithiol, gyda newidiadau i’r system addysg, y bydd hynny’n cael ei adlewyrchu yn y sylwadau a gawn yn ôl gan bobl hefyd.

I thank Dai for his contribution, and I think it’s important for us to look at the fact that we still have the Welsh language here, and lots of other countries don’t have their indigenous language to use in their everyday lives. We have to ensure that the language does grow. You made a very important point also, Dai, in terms of learning the Welsh language, and other languages—it’s something that we should be promoting within our schools. We’ve seen that languages other than Welsh and English—like French and German and so forth—have had a lower profile in schools and that is something we need to look at again. If we have those linguistic skills, why don’t modern languages prosper as they should? I think that’s something we should look at.

I think in terms of other issues outside of education that we haven’t discussed today, even though we discuss S4C very often, we need to normalise language through the media and through channels such as S4C. And this isn’t just a cheap shot—I do represent Port Talbot—but if you watch the programme ‘Bang’ you can see that there is significant dialogue in the English language, but then it moves to Welsh in the same scene, and I think that that is good for S4C in order for them to try and get people who come from non-Welsh-speaking areas to watch in the first place and then to retain and keep their attention. I would recommend as part of any strategy on the Welsh language that we encourage S4C and the arts council and the arts sectors and sports, for example, to be involved in this strategy, as Dai said, so that it’s owned by everyone, so that there is an onus on all of us here to ensure that we do act in order to reach that target. This is not only a target for the Welsh Government, but for us as individuals to achieve as well. Thank you very much to everyone.

The proposal is to note the committee report. Does any Member object? Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

That brings us to the Plaid Cymru debate on the NHS workforce. I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. One of our most valuable treasures, which is appreciated over and above every other public service in Wales, I’m sure I’m right in saying, is the health service, the NHS, and the most valuable resource of the NHS is its workforce—those people who, through a combination of their skills and their commitment, ensure that each and every one of us can get the best possible care when we need it most. One of the greatest duties that the Welsh Government has is to ensure that that workforce gets the support necessary, is planned properly so that we have the right people in the right places with the right skills in order to care for patients, and so there are sufficient numbers of people encouraged to come into the health service, and that they are getting the best possible training to make it a sustainable service for the future.

Unfortunately, we do know that there are major weaknesses in the workforce planning at present, which creates real problems and threatens the ability of the NHS to make provision for the people of Wales. Some of you will have seen news reports this week, following Plaid Cymru research into risk registers of the Welsh health boards, where each and every one of them identifies workforce shortages—shortages of doctors, shortages of nurses—as real risks at the highest level. The risk reports of the health boards are sobering, talking about the inability to provide services or patients facing a risk of avoidable harm. Now, this afternoon, we will pursue some of the different elements of workforce planning that we believe need to be prioritised far more than we are currently seeing from the Labour Government. Welsh patients, NHS staff, now and in the future, deserve better.

I will first of all try and paint a picture of where we are at present, and some of my fellow Members will expand on many aspects of workforce planning and the impact of having the unsustainable workforce that we currently have. Wales has one of the lowest levels in Europe of doctors per capita. A shortage in a number of areas of expertise, including in paediatrics and obstetrics, has led to a loss of some of these services in certain areas, with services being centralised in others and turning to nurse-led provision in other circumstances. The outcomes include longer waiting times, cancelled treatments and a lack of Welsh-speaking staff, having a very real impact on patients and outcomes for patients who want to have a Welsh-language service. In questions to the Cabinet Secretary earlier, I highlighted specifically the fact that thrombectomy had been withdrawn in Cardiff just nine months after it had been introduced, because staff had been lost and there were no replacements for them.

Primary care is facing grave challenges—recruitment problems, retention of staff leading to longer waiting times for appointments, and unacceptable pressure being put on those GPs that we have, and that is a reducing number of GPs. The number of GPs has declined in absolute terms from 2,026 to 2,009 over the last three years. Now, that’s only a decline of 25, but when you consider that more and more people are choosing to work part-time, then the full-time equivalent number of GPs is likely to have declined at a far greater rate, and that full-time equivalent figure isn’t published any longer, since 2013, because of concern about the quality of data. But we need that data to know exactly where we stand.

Consider then that a quarter of all our GPs are within a decade of retirement age, and the scale of the problem facing us comes into clearer focus. Dr Eamonn Jessup, the chair of the local medical committee for north Wales, said recently that he was concerned about the sustainability of one in three GP practices in north Wales. Full-time staff shortages are leading to huge costs, too—the costs of locums and agency workers is now around £150 million per annum and is increasing; it’s £44 million per annum in the Betsi Cadwaladr health board alone, up from £31 million in just a matter of three years. So, we need more doctors.

But at the same time, we have seen a reduction of 13 per cent last year in the number of students from Wales who applied to study medicine. There was a 1 per cent decline across Britain. Only some 30 per cent of medical students in Wales come from Wales compared with 85 per cent of medical students in Northern Ireland coming from Northern Ireland, a figure of 80 per cent in England and 55 per cent in Scotland. Now, I’ve reiterated these figures time and time again, but it does show a dreadful situation. We desperately need more doctors, but can’t encourage our young people to consider medicine as a career, or not enough of them, and then we can’t find placements for them to study here in Wales. Sian will expand upon that, including our call for the development of undergraduate medical education in Bangor.

Are we training more GPs given that we are desperate for more of them? Although the pressure on primary care has increased significantly over the past decade, the target for the number that we want to train has remained static—136. In England, the target has increased 30 per cent because they realise the scale of the problem. We too need to set higher targets.

I will turn to nursing. On ITV news yesterday, in response to the Plaid Cymru research that I mentioned earlier on risk registers, Tina Donnelly from the Royal College of Nursing said,

Os ydych yn dweud mai un risg eithafol yw bod gennych brinder o staff nyrsio, yna y cyfrifoldeb fyddai cau gwelyau am na ddylech fod yn gweithredu ar y lefel honno lle rydych yn staffio eich wardiau gan wybod nad yw’r lefelau staffio’n ddigonol oherwydd bydd hynny’n peryglu diogelwch cleifion. Ac mae hynny’n annerbyniol.

Dyma beth y mae cofrestr risg Hywel Dda yn ei ddweud:

Mae yna berygl o: Niwed y gellir ei osgoi i gleifion, niwed y gellir ei osgoi i ansawdd y gofal i gleifion ac oedi yn y llwybr damweiniau ac achosion brys. Caiff hyn ei achosi gan: Ddiffyg Nyrsys Cofrestredig sy’n arwain at lefelau staffio anniogel mewn Adrannau Achosion Brys.

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Lefelau staffio sylfaenol nad ydynt yn bodloni canllawiau NICE. Swyddi gwag mewn sefydliadau nyrsys cofrestredig.

Gwelodd astudiaeth o wardiau yn y DU gan yr Athro Anne Marie Rafferty fod marwolaethau wedi cynyddu 26 y cant ar wardiau â lefelau is o staff nyrsio. Yng Nghaliffornia, lle y cyflwynwyd deddf staffio diogel, cafwyd gostyngiad o 10 i 13 y cant yn y cyfraddau marwolaethau 30 diwrnod. Mae adolygiad 2011 o aelodau’r Coleg Nyrsio Brenhinol yn dangos nad oedd 25 y cant o aelodau’r Coleg Nyrsio Brenhinol yn cael datblygiad proffesiynol parhaus, ac yn 2013, cododd y ffigur hwnnw i 43 y cant. Mae llawer o fyrddau iechyd lleol wedi rhoi gwaharddiad dros dro ar ganiatâd i staff nyrsio ymgymryd ag unrhyw hyfforddiant. Mae nyrsys yng Nghymru yn llai tebygol o fod wedi cael yr hyfforddiant gorfodol hwn fel y’i gelwir—rydym yn sôn am hyfforddiant ar ddefnyddio cyfarpar, symud a chodi a chario, rheoli heintiau—na nyrsys unrhyw wlad arall yn y DU. Ac yn 2013 ni chafodd 9.7 y cant unrhyw hyfforddiant o’r fath o gwbl—bron ddwbl y ffigur ar gyfer y DU yn gyffredinol. Mae hyn yn rhoi darlun gwirioneddol lwm o GIG lle nad yw staff nyrsio yn cael y gefnogaeth sydd ei hangen arnynt, ac mae hynny’n ddrwg i gleifion.

Mae cyfarwyddyd y prif swyddog nyrsio yn argymell cymhareb o un nyrs gofrestredig i ofalu am saith o gleifion ar wardiau meddygol a llawfeddygol—1:11 yn ystod y nos. Mae’r ymatebion i arolwg diweddar o’i aelodau gan Goleg Brenhinol y Bydwragedd yn dangos bod 9.7 o gleifion ar gyfartaledd i bob nyrs gofrestredig ar shifftiau dydd yng Nghymru. Roedd 85 y cant o’r ymatebwyr yn sôn am fwy na saith o gleifion i bob nyrs gofrestredig. Nid yw hynny’n ddigon da. Canfyddiadau eraill o’r arolwg: 55 y cant yn unig o nyrsys a deimlai’n fodlon ar y gofal y gallent ei roi; 32 y cant a deimlai fod ganddynt ddigon o amser i ofalu am gleifion. Gallwn fynd ymlaen. Rydym eisoes wedi derbyn yr egwyddor, drwy ddeddfwriaeth yma, fod angen sicrhau lefelau staffio diogel. Ni allwn golli golwg ar yr angen i gael y nifer gywir o nyrsys gyda’r hyfforddiant cywir, y cymorth cywir, er mwyn rhoi’r gofal angenrheidiol i gleifion.

Fe’i gadawaf yn y fan honno am y tro. Cawn glywed mwy gan fy nghyd-Aelodau ym Mhlaid Cymru yma. Yn 2014, lansiwyd papur polisi manwl gennym ar sut y byddem yn hyfforddi a recriwtio 1,000 o feddygon ychwanegol. Cynllun 10 mlynedd, gydag enillion ymylol, yn cynnwys ystod o bolisïau: cymhellion ariannol; gan wneud y GIG yn fwy deniadol i feddygon weithio ynddo; buddsoddiadau mewn addysg a hyfforddiant meddygol, gan gynnwys datblygu hyfforddiant meddygol yn y gogledd. Yn 2016, ychwanegwyd hyfforddi a recriwtio 5,000 o nyrsys a bydwragedd dros gyfnod o 10 mlynedd. Rydym yn gwybod na ellir gwneud hyn dros nos, ond mae angen i ni osod llwybr. Nawr, mae hon yn her, ac mae’r rhain yn heriau i’r Llywodraeth. Rwy’n edrych ymlaen at y ddadl y prynhawn yma, yn edrych ymlaen at yr ymateb gan Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet, oherwydd gallaf ddweud wrthych, mae llawer o bobl sy’n gweithio’n galed yn y GIG yng Nghymru yn chwilio am lawer gwell gan y Llywodraeth a chynllunio’r gweithlu na’r hyn a welant ar hyn o bryd.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for health to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally.

I call on Mark Reckless to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Mark Reckless.

I move the amendment in the name of Paul Davies.

When I raised NHS work planning two weeks ago at First Minister’s questions, I questioned why, after 20 years of Labour running Wales, there are still Welsh Government reports that say substantial work is needed for medical recruitment and retention to be fit for purpose. The First Minister didn’t answer me then, and the Cabinet Secretary can say he’s only been in post a year, but Labour can’t say that they haven’t had time to implement a plan. They’ve been in charge of Wales for 20 years. Powers were devolved by Labour to Labour. It is Labour in Wales that decided to prioritise their friends in local government instead of the NHS, and there’s therefore no-one to blame for gaps in the Welsh NHS except for Labour.

Despite that, they’ll no doubt try and blame the Conservatives at Westminster, yet the youngest Welsh-trained doctor or nurse, for whose training the Conservative Party would be responsible, is now 38 years old. It’s Welsh Government who must answer for why 187 more doctors and 287 more nurses have left the Welsh NHS in the last 10 months than have joined it. It’s not enough for the Government just to note, in its amendment, shortage of health professionals. They need to accept they are responsible.

For the first four years of the Assembly, the Welsh Government was directly responsible for NHS workforce planning. Since then, they’ve tried a variety of approaches and structures with an alphabet soup of different bodies that have been involved. I really hope that the approach now proposed by the health Cabinet Secretary of a special health authority for workforce planning is more successful than what went before.

I’ve three questions I specifically want to put to him if he is able to address at the end of the debate about those plans. The first: when push comes to shove, will the special health authority really be independent or will it do what it’s told by the Cabinet Secretary? The second: how will the Cabinet Secretary ensure that the special health authority has the confidence of those who work in the NHS? Why is it, given the Mel Evans and Professor Williams reports, that there is such concern? I accept what he said earlier—that it will not be a representative body—but does he understand the extent of the concern, not least from Royal College of Nursing, about this, which is referred to in our amendment? And what will he do to meet those concerns? Finally, how will we know, at the end of the Assembly term, whether NHS workforce planning is working? And will he accept responsibility if it’s not?

Again, it’s a pleasure to take part in this debate about NHS workforce issues, and, obviously, I’ll concentrate on doctors and nurses, the parts that I know most about. Obviously, we’re all very well aware of GP shortages. The Royal College of General Practitioners’s figures show about 400 vacant GP post in Wales today. Whenever practices advertise for a new GP, sometimes they get no applications whatsoever. It’s very difficult to have fill posts nowadays.

Now, it wasn’t always like this. I’m significantly older than the medical student age quoted by Mark Reckless, and, back in the day, being a general practitioner was a chosen occupation. In other words, there was a queue of people, and you had to really fight hard to get a GP post, back in the early 1980s. So, it wasn’t always like this, but lots of things have changed. One of the things that changed, obviously, was that the Conservatives in 1990 brought in the internal market and completely wrecked the workforce planning we had in the NHS for the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. We still haven’t fully recovered the ground.

Now, general practice itself has changed, obviously. It is now relentless and unremitting. Again, back in the 1980s and 1990s—

Will the Member give way?

Mark.

Is he really saying that the entire problem we have with workforce planning and shortages in the NHS, including GPs in Wales, is due to a period of seven years from 1990 to 1997?

It’s my second language, but I did not say that, all right. [Laughter.] But the rot set in in 1990, because we had national workforce planning up to that point, and it was destroyed by the competition of the internal market. We’re regaining things now, slowly, but we still haven’t regained the lost ground. So, now, general practice is relentless, unremitting, with complicated cases that need sorting out every 10 minutes throughout the working day—50 or 60 patients, each with complicated problems—because the simpler issues have been triaged out to be seen by fellow health professionals.

So, how does this affect patients who have great difficulty getting to see a GP, then? Increasingly long waits for routine appointments, no guarantee of seeing your GP, who you’ve been seeing for years, and there’s not always a practice nurse available, because there’s a nursing shortage as well. That means, at the end of the day, increasing A&E attendances as well. A lack of district nurses means, usually, as a patient, you get to see several different nurses now, and not just the one or two familiar faces that used to be when each GP practice had a guaranteed district nurse attached. That is no longer the case, because we haven’t got enough district nurses. Now, our patients are very well aware of this overstretched situation. It transmits to our patients, and some of them don’t call us when they should, and that is to their detriment as well.

So, what needs to happen? Well, it is about, as alluded to by Rhun, recruitment and retention. If I go on, the retention of nurses and doctors is about those terms and conditions. It is about removing the pay cap for NHS workers, especially nurses. It’s about recognising the commitment, altruism and hard work, going the extra mile, of nurses, doctors, porters, physiotherapists, OTs and all the rest—being appreciated and valued by human resources management in our hospitals, which is now not always the case, so that staff don’t feel exploited, overworked, pressurised into working extra shifts to plug rota gaps, always having to fight for time off to study, to sit exams or to do research. Doctors have lost their doctors’ mess, where they used to talk with colleagues about issues, on call. They’re no longer in fixed teams, the old firm has gone—they’re always on call with different doctors. There are never enough beds.

All of that sort of stuff builds intolerable pressure when you’re making life-and-death decisions that you’ve got no time to revisit. With a duty of candour—excellent—to always tell the truth—fantastic—how does that square with the treatment of whistleblowers, as whistleblowing, despite all the warm words, can still turn out to be career ending? That’s one of the issues that also our juniors are telling us and our nurses are telling us. But even if we stemmed all that haemorrhage of highly qualified nurses and doctors leaving the NHS now, and had full retention—even if we did all that, we just don’t train enough doctors and nurses in the first place. Even if every doctor graduating from Cardiff and Swansea stayed in Wales, stayed in the NHS, we haven’t got enough junior doctors and GPs now. We need to train more in the first place. As well as sorting out the retention issues, we need to train more in the first place. That’s why we need a new medical school in Bangor. That’s why we could double the medical students graduating from Swansea—you know, spread the load around. We need to train more doctors, especially for rural areas, for Welsh-speaking areas, to augment the already excellent training at Swansea and Cardiff now. Diolch yn fawr.

I rise to support the amendments to the motion that have been tabled by the leader of the house, the Member for the Vale of Glamorgan.

The national health service is one of the greatest creations of any democratically elected Government in the history of humanity. It is globally recognised as the optimum model of care. We, on these Welsh Labour benches, laud the achievements of the 1945 Labour Government in creating the national health service for succeeding generations to enjoy. I remember the story of my grandfather, a miner in the Valleys, who told me that when he went to the financial assistance board to beg for funding for his pregnant wife, he was refused and he went home, and she died. And this was the days before the national health service.

In the two decades since the Welsh people voted for devolution, the Welsh Labour Government has taken it as a solemn obligation to the people of Wales to ensure that the Welsh national health service stays true to the principles of Nye Bevan and those Labour visionaries who created it. We have put our money where our mouth is. Moreover we also, though, fully recognise, as has the Cabinet Secretary today, that there are shortages in particular fields in a number of areas, reflecting the pattern across the United Kingdom’s national health service. It was once said that true perfection is imperfect, and those sages from Manchester, the Gallagher brothers of Oasis fame, were right—the NHS epitomises this—it is perfect because it is imperfect.

The NHS serves human beings who all share one common feature, and that is their mortality. Sickness, illness and eventual death will be the fate of everybody in this Chamber. Even the very strong and stable Theresa May today, at the end of the Tory conference, betrayed her humanity with an inept defence of capitalism that could just be deciphered through her repeated hacking and coughing, and I wish her a speedy recovery—although you’ll forgive me if I hope that she really does get a P45 as soon as possible, for the health and well-being of the people of Wales.

Thanks to investment by the Welsh Labour Government, there are now more doctors and nurses in Wales than ever before. Between the establishment of the National Assembly in 1999 and 2016, we have seen a 44 per cent increase in the number of nurses, an 88 per cent increase in the number of consultants, and a 12 per cent increase in the number of GPs in Wales.

Thanks to Welsh Labour, more is now being invested in healthcare than ever before. Wales spends £160 more per person on health and social services combined than in England. And this investment has led to the NHS in Wales treating more than ever before, faster than ever before, as more GPs and other healthcare professionals fill roles across Wales.

Claims about staffing issues in Wales are also very rich coming from the Tory UK Government, which has slashed the Welsh Labour Government’s overall budget by £1.2 billion compared to 2010-11, and has cut social care spending in England by £4.6 billion. Let us think about that cut to the Welsh Government’s budget over the last seven years of Tory failed austerity Government: £1.2 billion to date, with more to come. It’s a bit rich, isn’t it? When needed, the Tory Chancellor, ‘Spreadsheet Phil’, can suddenly discover a magic money tree and shake it for £1 billion to give to the DUP, to keep a tired and failed Government in office on borrowed time. And I know it’s an inconvenient truth for some Members here, but every time the Welsh people are asked who they want to govern them, the Welsh people speak clearly and they vote Welsh Labour, and it’s a trust that we do not take for granted. That is why I know the Cabinet Secretary for health, who is a very talented Welsh Labour colleague, the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, devotes his energy daily to ensure that the Welsh national health service is agile to meet the ever-increasing demands of an aging population.

I am proud that Welsh Labour have invested in the nurse training bursary when England has cut this route to a very, very ancient and valued profession.

I want to conclude by thanking the dedicated men and women of the national health service—the doctors, the nurses, the paramedics—who commit themselves to one of the greatest endeavours any Government has undertaken: safeguarding the health and well-being of our people, and we in Welsh Labour will support them. Diolch.

We do face a crisis in Wales in terms of the number of doctors. That’s very clear, and the crisis does exist in the wake of the failure of the Government to plan the workforce and to train new doctors, as well as recruiting from other countries.

Plaid Cymru is a party that is striving to offer solutions to the problems that we face here in Wales, and this crisis is at its worst in north Wales. In May 2017, 141 jobs in Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board were vacant, which represents 37 per cent of all the vacant posts in NHS Wales. Therefore, the solution is obvious: establishing a new medical school in north Wales in order to train a new generation of doctors for the benefit of the sustainability of the health service in the long term. But, unfortunately, the Labour Party is still stubbornly rejecting this idea, despite all the evidence and the opinions of experts, as we’ve outlined in our report, ‘Tackling the Crisis’.

There’s been talk about the cost, and I’ve dealt with the cost previously in this Chamber, so I’m not going to expand on that but just remind you of this: over the last three years, Betsi Cadwaladr spent more than £80 million on locum doctors. Then, last week, the First Minister said this, in this place,

We know it would be difficult’—

That is, difficult to set up a medical centre in Bangor—

because big medical schools are in big cities with big hospitals, which have a far greater spread of specialities.’

More excuses. The problem is that the Government is missing the point entirely here, because the three hospitals across north Wales would train students on work placements, and they would receive training in the community as well. The University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff has only 800 beds, but the university has 1,500 medical students. The university uses other hospitals across the region, just as a medical school in Bangor would use all the facilities available across north Wales. Ireland has seven medical schools, and there are five in Scotland, which suggests that one medical school per 1 million of the population is practical. A third medical school in Wales would correspond to the structures in Ireland and Scotland. Betsi Cadwaladr health board has the largest population of all of Wales’s health boards, with almost 700,000 people. Add the population of other rural counties of Wales, and you will reach a figure of 1 million people.

The First Minister has also claimed that a lack of diversity and expertise in north Wales exists. Apart from extremely specialist work, like cardiothoracic and neurosurgery, then we have everything else required in north Wales, and it would be easy to actually teach those two areas of expertise with some vision. Labour’s support—or the lack of Labour’s support—is starting to become a joke, and the excuses are very poor indeed. Many universities in England and across the world have small hospitals nearby, for example, Lancaster and Keele. In a small town called Salina, some three hours from Kansas City in the United States, there is a medical school that has been established with the intention of ensuring that the graduates serve in rural areas once they’ve graduated. The reality of the situation is that none of the Government’s claims stack up. With ambition and strong leadership, this Government could tackle the crisis in north Wales—the crisis that exists because of a shortage of doctors and medical staff. The Government has to be willing to be innovative, to listen to evidence and to put parochialism aside.

I’d like to thank Plaid Cymru for bringing about this debate and the opportunity to speak in it. I agree with the sentiment behind this motion. Staff shortages within the NHS are detrimental to patient care. Not a day goes by when we aren’t confronted by news articles outlining the impact that staff shortages are having on NHS Wales. We have seen a 400 per cent increase in the number of patients waiting more than a year for surgery, and 39 per cent of Welsh people find it difficult to make a GP appointment. It’s not just the impact that staff shortages have on the patient, we have to consider the impact this has on NHS employees. Staff shortages put additional pressure on existing staff.

In my experience, throughout the recess period, as I highlighted, there was a hospital within my region where staff were extremely short on the cardiac unit—so much so that they were asking a member of staff to double back and do a double shift. So, in order to meet this demand, our hardworking and dedicated NHS staff are forced to work longer and spend less time with patients. This is affecting staff morale and more and more staff are leaving the NHS, exacerbating the situation.

Over 5 per cent of hospital staff are on sick leave and health boards are forced to rely on expensive agency staff to make up the shortfall. As a result, spending on agency nurses and locum doctors has skyrocketed and has forced many health boards to overspend. Lack of proper workforce planning over the last few decades has left us in a perilous situation. We have recruitment shortages in all specialties, and yet demand for services is rising. We are not yet in a situation where patient safety is routinely put at risk, but unless we can plug the gap then that will become the case.

According to the Royal College of GPs, almost a quarter of the GP workforce could retire in the next 10 years. They are calling for an increase in the number of GP training places, to rise to 200 per year. When you consider we had only 127 training places this year, this shows you the scale of the problem facing us.

Yesterday, we heard the news that stroke patients in south Wales, as has been highlighted by Rhun, are being denied the best available treatment because of the three radiologists able to perform a thrombectomy: one has retired, one is on sick leave, and the third has accepted a job elsewhere. A shortage of radiologists means that we have more and more people waiting longer and longer for diagnostic tests.

We also have to ensure that any changes we introduce to health and social care do not place extra burdens upon existing staff. The Welsh Government’s proposals for phase 2 implementation of the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 will see the removal of the requirement to have a minimum number of nurses in care homes that provide nursing care. This will have a detrimental impact on other services such as district nursing, which are already struggling to meet demand that massively outstrips capacity.

We are approaching a crisis point and I look forward to hearing how the Welsh Government plan to approach workforce planning in the future. We need a medical recruitment campaign that prioritises domestic students and encourages young people in Wales to become radiologists, psychologists, physiotherapists, and the whole raft of healthcare professionals, not just nurses and doctors. We need to plan for an ageing population and an ageing workforce. And, above all, we need to plan for a workforce that can meet future demand and deliver patient care that is safe, effective and affordable. The growing reliance on expensive agency staff and locum doctors—

Will you take an intervention?

I will in a minute—is unsustainable and I urge the Welsh Government to plan for greater use of staff banks. With these points in mind, UKIP will be supporting the motion as well as the Welsh Conservative amendment. We will be abstaining on the Welsh Government’s amendment as it does recognise the impact shortages have on our dedicated NHS staff, but fails to address the issue.

I’d also like to ask you a question, if I may, Rhianon. Am I allowed to?

No, you’re not.

She wanted an intervention.

She’s not in Government yet, so you can’t ask her a question at this point.

No, no, she wanted an intervention.

Have you finished your contribution?

I have. We will be supporting Plaid’s amendment—

Then no intervention is possible.

I did give you an intervention.

Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you, Llywydd. I just want to spend a few moments talking about one important aspect of this debate, one that Rhun made reference to earlier: the availability of services through the medium of Welsh, because if we think there is a problem—and there is a problem in terms of the numbers of doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals—then you can just imagine how much greater the problem is in terms of the availability of those health professionals who can provide services through the medium of Welsh. I’m sure that many of us will have dealt with casework—regularly in my case, and I’m sure this is the case for others too—where parents are trying to access healthcare services for their children, and can’t get hold of the practitioners who can provide those services through the medium of Welsh.

As it happens, this very morning, the Children, Young People and Education Committee were dealing with Stage 2 amendments on the additional learning needs Bill, and during the course of developing recommendations at Stage 1 proceedings, we had broad-ranging evidence on the lack of availability of Welsh language services in that particular area. That is a very clear signal to us that the workforce planning, as it has been taking place over the past few years, has been a failure. We, as a committee, are now finding ourselves in a position where we are proposing amendments to put on the face of the legislation some expectations in terms of workforce planning and the availability of Welsh-medium practitioners. Now, that isn’t the way to plan the workforce, but we find ourselves, to all intents and purposes, having to do that through the back door in order to meet the demand that’s out there, and demand that this Welsh Government and previous Governments have failed to address.

There are, of course, cases that have been raised recently and have been given some coverage in the press where there is a shortage of GPs. There is the Dolwenith surgery in Penygroes, and we all heard the story of its closure: the only doctor who was a Welsh speaker in the area was leaving and there was no Welsh-medium provision available as a result. I want to mention rural areas too, because in rural Wales, GPs, on average, are older, are closer to retirement age, and recruitment levels are also lower, so the problem is exacerbated.

Roeddwn yn edrych ar rai o’r ystadegau, ac maent yn adrodd eu stori eu hunain: roedd cyfanswm o 54 y cant o leoedd hyfforddiant meddygol craidd heb eu llenwi mewn ysbytai ym myrddau iechyd Betsi Cadwaladr a Hywel Dda, o gymharu â thua hanner y lefel honno’n unig, 23.6 y cant, mewn byrddau iechyd eraill yng Nghymru. Cyfeiriodd Sian Gwenllian, yn gynharach yn y ddadl hon, at lefelau swyddi gwag: roedd 37 y cant o’r holl swyddi gwag a restrwyd ym mwrdd iechyd Betsi Cadwaladr, er nad yw Betsi, wrth gwrs, ond yn gwasanaethu oddeutu 22 y cant o boblogaeth Cymru. Fel Aelod Cynulliad sy’n cynrychioli rhanbarth Gogledd Cymru felly, rwy’n arbennig o bryderus am y sefyllfa yno. A’r ysbyty mwyaf yng ngogledd Cymru, wrth gwrs, yw Ysbyty Maelor Wrecsam—mae hyn yn rhywbeth a godais gyda’r Prif Weinidog yn gynharach yr wythnos hon—ar hyn o bryd, mae yna 92 o swyddi gwag ar gyfer nyrsys yn yr ysbyty hwnnw ac o ganlyniad, rydym bellach yn gweld rhai nyrsys arbenigol yn gorfod gweithio ar wardiau cyffredinol. Mae’r Coleg Nyrsio Brenhinol yn pryderu y gallai fod yn rhaid cau wardiau. Mae nifer cynyddol o’r nyrsys sy’n gweithio yno yn agosáu at oedran ymddeol, ac yn union fel y gwelsom gyda meddygon teulu yn Wrecsam a mannau eraill mewn gwirionedd, mae llawer yn dewis ymddeol yn gynnar ar ôl blynyddoedd lawer o wasanaeth. Mae bwrdd Betsi Cadwaladr wedi defnyddio asiantaeth breifat i recriwtio dramor yn Barcelona ac yn India yn y blynyddoedd diwethaf, ac roedd llawer o nyrsys a recriwtiwyd yn Barcelona yn methu gweithio am beth amser oherwydd cyfyngiadau ieithyddol, ac mae’r rhan fwyaf wedi dychwelyd adref erbyn hyn. Pedwar yn unig o’r nyrsys o India sydd wedi llwyddo yn y prawf iaith. Mae hyn i gyd yn teimlo’n fwy fel mesur panig yn y tymor byr, ac nid y strategaeth ystyrlon hirdymor a ddylai fod gennym ar gyfer gogledd Cymru a rhannau eraill o’r wlad.

Wyddoch chi, mae Betsi Cadwaladr wedi bod yn destun mesurau arbennig dros y ddwy flynedd a hanner ddiwethaf, felly rhaid i’r Llywodraeth dderbyn cyfrifoldeb am fethu cynllunio’n ddigonol er mwyn sicrhau bod digon o nyrsys yn cael eu hyfforddi a’u recriwtio yma yng ngogledd Cymru. Ac mae angen i ni ganolbwyntio mwy hefyd, wrth gwrs, ar gadw staff a staff sy’n dychwelyd, yn ogystal â sicrhau bod recriwtiaid newydd yn dod drwodd. I wneud pethau’n waeth, rhaid i mi ddweud, mae Prifysgol Glyndŵr, lai na hanner milltir o Ysbyty Maelor—ar draws y ffordd fwy neu lai—bellach wedi dechrau hyfforddi nyrsys ar gwrs newydd, ac mae rhestr lawn, 35 o nyrsys dan hyfforddiant, wedi cofrestru eleni, sy’n newyddion gwych, ond ni fydd yr un o’r hyfforddeion hyn yn mynd ar leoliad yn ysbytai Betsi Cadwaladr. Yn hytrach, byddant yn mynd i leoliadau yn Telford, yng Nghaer, ac at ddarparwyr gofal iechyd preifat yn lleol. Y rheswm am hyn yw bod Llywodraeth Cymru yn gwrthod cydnabod y cwrs am nad yw’r nyrsys yn gymwys ar gyfer y fwrsariaeth. Felly, nid yw nyrsys dan hyfforddiant yn cael yr hyfforddiant ymarferol yn eu hysbyty lleol, ac felly maent yn fwy tebygol o setlo mewn gwaith ar draws y ffin o ganlyniad i hynny. Mae’n golled drist o dalent i ogledd Cymru, ond mae’n adlewyrchu’r sefyllfa o ran cynllunio’r gweithlu yn ein gwasanaeth iechyd yng Nghymru heddiw.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for health, Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’m grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and the opportunity to highlight the significant amount of work already being undertaken by this Government and the national health service. I am sorry, though, that there won’t be more time to answer and debate all of the points made in this debate, and I’m genuinely happy to continue a conversation with Members who are interested in doing so about what we are doing outside of the formal business in the Chamber today.

Again, I set out, as I have done in this room, in committee rooms, and in other settings, that this Government recognises the very real recruitment challenges in a range of our professions and specialities, and recognises that they are more acute in some parts of Wales than others. I understand very well that these challenges can have an impact on the delivery of services. It is, of course, true that this is not a unique challenge that Wales faces, but these are challenges that we need to tackle. We have taken a significant step forward both in ‘Taking Wales Forward’ and our ‘Prosperity for All’ commitments to attract and train more GPs. That’s why we developed the ‘Train. Work. Live’ campaign, working with people across the service and within the profession. That has been a successful campaign, resulting in an increase in our GP fill rate to 91 per cent, a significant step forward. But we will relaunch that campaign later this month in time for the British Medical Journal careers fair, learning from what worked last year and also learning from what didn’t work as well as we wanted to last year as well, and they’re just part of the range of measures that we wish to take. We’ll also be widening that campaign to take in other medical specialities where there are specific and acute recruitment challenges.

We continue to invest in our future medical workforce with our commitment to increase undergraduate medical education in north Wales. We will stick to the collaborative approach between Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea universities, consistent with both my written statement in July, but also the budget agreement agreed with Plaid Cymru on taking this matter forward in practical terms. That will also be part of—

Will you take an intervention?

[Continues.]—our commitment not just to medical education and training in north Wales, but to seeing a curriculum developed that encourages people and empowers people to go and spend more of their time in rural medicine, which won’t just be an issue for the north.

Thank you for taking an intervention. Perhaps now is a good time to say that you will look at developing, using the new funding that we agreed pre-budget, and exploring year 1 to year 5 undergraduate, in partnership with Cardiff, Swansea, anybody else, in Bangor, not just the additional placements for students from elsewhere in the north.

We’ll be looking at the whole remit to understand where we get the greatest value to train the greatest number of people. And, of course, we want to make sure that that investment will lead to more people staying in Wales to serve here, because that’s the point and the purpose. We’re investing more money to try and get more doctors to stay in Wales as well. And, as part of the deal, the quid pro quo, we need with the university sector—there are challenges in what we can and we can’t mandate them to do—there will have to be some understanding about the mission that I and the Cabinet Secretary for Education are on in taking precious resources at a time of a falling budget to put into this area.

Now, in addition to ‘Train. Work. Live.’ for doctors, we also launched a ‘Train. Work. Live.’ campaign for nurses. I was delighted to launch this campaign in spring this year, and it was very well received both at the launch and at the Royal College of Nursing congress in Liverpool. English nurses were delighted to see a Government genuinely on their side and trying to recruit nurses to be proud of who they are as well. That campaign, again, is being successful, but we know that recruitment alone isn’t the answer. We are, of course, implementing the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 in Wales—a first in the United Kingdom, a first in Europe. We are also training more nurses here in Wales. Two years ago, we invested in nurse training to increase the numbers by 22 per cent. Last year, we increased nurse training numbers by 10 per cent; this year, an increase of 13 per cent. We are actively looking to train more nurses here in Wales. It is the biggest investment in education and training for nurses since devolution. In addition, we’ve also increased midwife training by 40 per cent this last year as well. And, as Rhianon Passmore reminded us, we have maintained the student bursary here in Wales, directly different to the path taken by the Tories in England. That isn’t just important for nurses, but it’s also important for other allied health professionals in training. But, of course, our investment in education and training includes those allied health professionals, and the £95 million package I announced earlier this year has resulted in 3,000 new students joining those already studying healthcare education programmes across Wales. We are committed to extending the ‘Train. Work. Live.’ campaign to pharmacists and other healthcare professionals.

Specifically on radiologists, who’ve been mentioned more than once, not just in the debate today but in the Chamber, we expect the £3.4 million investment that I announced in an imaging academy in Pencoed to make a real difference to recruiting and retaining radiologists here in Wales. Again, it’s a signal that we’re investing in and valuing all the varied and different parts of our workforce. Because we do know that we need to increase the skill mix of the staff we already have and the different range of staff we have within the service, as they will increasingly work in multidisciplinary teams. So, that £95 million package I referred to included an extra £0.5 million to support local healthcare, to develop advanced practice, education, and extended skills within our primary care clusters. So, we’ll also support new and emerging roles, including the pilots for physician associates programmes in Swansea and Bangor, and social care roles with a specific focus on those which alleviate existing pressures and contribute to better integration and outcomes for individuals.

In terms of the planning of the workforce, regulation plays a key role as well, so I’m pleased that the UK Government have listened to voices in Wales and other parts of the UK to regulate physician associates. That is a good, positive move forward to allow us to plan for their role in the future workforce. I am, however, deeply sceptical about the UK Government plans to regulate nurse associates. That appears to me to be a cost-driven role substitution rather than the quality-driven, prudent-healthcare approach that we wish to take here in Wales.

In addition, we will continue to develop the healthcare support workforce, who make a valued and increasingly varied contribution to service delivery in both clinical and non-clinical services. Again, that is something where we agreed in partnership with the trade union representatives and the staff in the health services about how to develop that role to use it to its fullest potential.

We also continue to invest in the NHS workforce year on year. It’s worth making this point, bearing in mind the comments made in the debate. From 2015-16, the last year we have complete figures, the NHS full-time equivalent workforce rose by 3.2 per cent, and that is in the face of year upon year upon year of Tory austerity. That’s a simple fact. We come to this place and we debate the difficult choices we have to make and what it means to continue putting more money into the national health service—what that means for other public services who are shedding staff and deciding what they can no longer do. In that context, to continue putting more money into the NHS, to continue to see the staff headcount go up, is a real and significant achievement that we should all take note of, and it does not come easily. That is the context in which we have this debate about the demands for more staff in more specialities. It does not mean we are not planning to increase staff where we need to have them, but let us not pretend it is an easy thing to do.

So, we remain committed to the development of a 10-year workforce plan, with the principle of that already having been developed. But we cannot and shouldn’t avoid the fact that all parties in the Chamber agreed to a parliamentary review for health and social care. It would not make sense to publish a detailed workforce plan in advance of the publication of the final report of the review. That review will, undoubtedly, as it properly should, affect our thinking and our planning of the services for the future and the workforce to deliver those services with the public. That does not mean the NHS here in Wales is standing still. Workforce planning is undertaken at all levels in our organisation, working collaboratively with partners to ensure the right workforce, with the right skills, both now and in the future. It is an essential part of the integrated medium-term planning process.

So, we continue to press ahead with a number of strategic actions for the NHS workforce. That includes the establishment of Health Education and Improvement Wales from April next year, and that will, of course, maintain its independent approach. Now, crucially, Health Education and Improvement Wales will be expected to work with other bodies, such as Social Care Wales, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the present and future needs of the workforce.

I can see time is against me, Llywydd, so I’ll finish now. I’ll make it clear that we will support amendment 2, but, in setting out our future direction, restate that we value the resourcefulness and the commitment of our NHS workforce to deliver high-quality care. There are recruitment challenges that we recognise. We’re committed to work with our partners, with the service, to address those and make sure we have the service that everyone here would want and that the public and the people of Wales deserve.

I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Llywydd, and I thank everybody who’s taken part in the debate today. We all bring experience, don’t we, to a discussion like this. Some of us, like Dr Dai Lloyd, bring professional experience, medical experience. The majority of us bring experience of speaking to health professionals within the NHS, and the pressure that they tell us often is on them, and all of us, no doubt, speak to patients about the impact of weaknesses in workforce planning on their treatment within the NHS.

I am grateful to everybody for their contributions. I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary—I’m certainly grateful for the confirmation that full training for undergraduates, from the first year to the fifth year, will be looked at as part of the study for developing medical education in north Wales, and I’m looking forward to seeing that process continuing in accordance with the agreement before the budget.

What we’ve had, in all seriousness, is a repeat of what we hear from the Government time after time generally about what is already being done.

Clywn Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet yn ailadrodd yr hyn y mae’r Llywodraeth eisoes yn ei wneud. Ni allwch barhau i ddal ati i wneud yr un peth dro ar ôl tro a disgwyl cael canlyniadau gwahanol. Deallaf fod Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet yn ceisio rheoli’r GIG o fewn cyfyngiadau anodd iawn, nid yn lleiaf oherwydd polisïau cyni’r Torïaid. Rwy’n cydnabod hynny’n llwyr, ond nid rheolwyr sydd eu hangen arnom oherwydd y problemau dwfn sydd gennym yn y GIG yng Nghymru, ond gweledigaeth go iawn ynglŷn â ffordd ymlaen. Rwy’n ofni bod yr Aelod dros Islwyn yn crynhoi’r broblem sydd gennym yn hynny o beth i raddau helaeth, ydy, mae hi’n rhoi darlun hyfryd o’r hyn y mae Llafur wedi ei wneud dros y GIG sydd mor annwyl iddi, sydd mor annwyl i bawb ohonom, ond pan fydd gennych blaid sydd wedi bod yn rhedeg y GIG yng Nghymru ers 18 mlynedd, mae’r methiant i allu cyfaddef dyfnder y problemau yn dangos—. [Torri ar draws.] Mae hynny oherwydd y byddai cyfaddef y rheini’n golygu mai eich problemau chi ydynt a phroblemau rydych chi wedi eu creu. Oni bai ein bod yn cydnabod dyfnder y problemau, ni allwn symud ymlaen gyda newidiadau gweledigaethol a all arwain at GIG mwy cynaliadwy ar gyfer y dyfodol.

Ac ydych, rydych yn canmol Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet, ac nid wyf yn amau am eiliad ei fod yn Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet gweithgar tu hwnt. Ond a wyddoch chi beth? Nid oes gennyf ddiddordeb mewn gwybod sawl awr y mae’n ei roi i’w waith. Efallai ei fod yma yn y bore bach cyn neb arall. Efallai ei fod yr olaf i adael swyddfeydd y Llywodraeth ar ddiwedd y dydd. Mae gennyf ddiddordeb mewn gwybod pa mor uchel y mae’n gosod y bar, pa mor uchelgeisiol y mae’n barod i fod, pa mor arloesol y mae’n barod i fod dros y GIG a thros gleifion yng Nghymru. Rwyf am weld hynny; mae angen i’r GIG weld hynny.

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

And that brings us to voting time, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung. Therefore, a vote on the Plaid Cymru debate on the NHS workforce: I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 11, no abstentions, 30 against, and therefore the motion is not agreed.

I now call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 23, four abstentions, 14 against. And therefore the amendment is agreed.

I now call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 41, no abstentions, none against, and therefore amendment 2 is agreed.

I now call for a vote on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. In favour 33, nine abstentions, none against, and therefore the motion as amended is agreed.

The next item on our agenda is the short debate. I will call the short debate once some Members have left the Chamber. Lee Waters.

Diolch, Llywydd. I’ve agreed to give a minute of my time to my colleagues Mike Hedges, Jenny Randerson and David Melding—Jenny Rathbone, I do apologise.

Let me start by saying that the M4 can be horrendous. At rush hour, I have regularly been sat in endless queuing traffic, and this isn’t just a problem at the Brynglas tunnels, but at several points along the motorway, and if there’s ever an accident, the whole thing can grind to a halt. And people are rightly fed up with the situation, in particular the fact that we’ve been talking about taking action for 15 years, and yet nothing ever seems to get done. I share the frustration.

But, we need to fashion a solution that will last—an M4 fit for future generations. And I just don’t believe that the proposed relief road will be anything more than an expensive stop-gap. In fact, as a policy approach, it manages to do something quite remarkable: it succeeds in both being outdated and premature at the same time. Outdated because the evidence of the last 50 years of transport policy is that building new roads, increasing capacity, only leads to more people using their cars, quickly filling up the new space. And premature, because it pays no attention to the game-changers coming our way. Now, I think it was Einstein who was meant to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. In transport planning, we continue to do just that; we’ve become wedded to this so-called predict-and-provide approach, which, simply put, is that engineers predict that the traffic will grow in the future, so they build more roads to deal with it. And that’s a never-ending model of traffic growth, first set out 30 years ago, and, frankly, is nonsense.

Just think about it. If we were to take that to its logical conclusion and follow the trends, this approach has each of us earning an income of £1 million by the year 2205, and a lorry on the road for every man, woman and child. Now, aside from the pay rise, I don’t think this is a future that any of us want to live in and it’s certainly not the type of future we created the future generations Act to try and shape. Yes, there’s a problem at peak time around the Brynglas tunnels. Yes, something must be done about it. But we cannot build our way out of this problem. We’ve been trying that for generations and it doesn’t work. Traffic builds up, roads, once again, seize up and we rapidly find ourselves back at square one. If we’re not careful, we could end up with a £1 billion car park.

Already, the Freight Transport Association—the haulage industry lobby body—is saying that a new three-lane motorway at Newport will be inadequate to meet demand and we ought to be creating four lanes. Trying to relieve congestion by engineering ever bigger roads is no more than a short-term fix and an expensive one at that. The new stretch of M4 is currently estimated to cost £1,100 million for just 15 miles of tarmac. Bearing in mind that two years ago, people were insisting that the cost would be way below £1 billion, it may go up even further.

Yesterday, the Finance Secretary outlined the grim economic picture we face and how money will get even tighter in the coming years. Is it wise to tie up all of our borrowing capacity in one scheme in one corner of Wales? I ask my fellow Assembly Members: if the Government was to offer any one of us £1.1 billion to spend on something that would make Wales better, how many of us can honestly say that we would build a six-lane motorway over a protected wetland? Our entire line of new credit will be blown on a project that, in economic terms, will barely repay the investment over 30 years. Even using a formula that has been manipulated to exaggerate the benefits of road schemes, we’ll only see a return on investment of just £1.60 for every £1 spent, which the Treasury classes as low value for money. In that 30-year time frame, rapid technological development and a fully functioning metro project may well transform the way we travel.

Which brings me to my second point. We are trying to fit a fixed solution to a rapidly evolving problem. We’re so blinkered in our approach to transport management that we’re failing to look at the bigger picture, and there are substantial changes coming at us fast. If you speak to business people, they acknowledge that the world of work is changing quickly. Soon, we won’t need to be shuttling people back and forth between desks every day. Rapidly evolving technology means we need to be developing digital not transport infrastructure, but roomfuls of highway engineers in Cathays Park are never going to voluntarily face up to that. The formula used to justify a road as the best way to deal with congestion at the Brynglas tunnels takes the most optimistic view of the possible benefits. Meanwhile, the projections of the Cardiff metro take the most pessimistic view. Transport officials have suggested to the public inquiry that of the 11,000 journeys made every hour in peak times on the M4, the metro will, at best, only take 200 off the roads. I just don’t buy it. But even if this really is the case, if it will only have a minimal impact on rush-hour traffic, why are we not setting out to develop a public transport system that will tackle peak-hour M4 demand?

I fear this project, the metro, is being set up to fail. It’s being starved of investment by the UK Government cancelling electrification, and with the disappearance of EU grants because of Brexit, and by the road-building lobby who are trying to minimise its impact. It’s for policy makers to tell engineers what society needs, not the other way around. The other innovation that is upon us is the development of autonomous vehicles. We simply don’t know yet what the impact of driverless cars will be, but it is highly likely that this new technology, which will see cars driving side by side and bumper to bumper, will allow us to use existing road space much more efficiently, making the extra capacity unnecessary.

But perhaps the biggest development this approach fails to factor in is the law that this Government and this Assembly passed just two years ago: the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. On 13 September, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales—the person this Assembly empowered in law to be the independent watchdog of the Act—made a significant intervention. She said the Welsh Government, in its approach to the M4, was setting a dangerous precedent in its interpretation of one of our newest pieces of legislation. In its evidence to the public inquiry, the Government admitted the new motorway will cause harm. But, it argued, that harm is justified because of the immediate economic benefits it will bring—a good old-fashioned trade-off, or, as the Government QC beautifully put it, in a way that only a QC would,

a balance between different desiderata.’

This, Llywydd, is the standard line: there are four elements to sustainable development, the argument goes. One of them is economic, and so a project that brings economic benefits is, by definition, helping to bring about sustainable development.

Sophie Howe’s challenge to the Government is that this is wrong as a matter of law. One pillar of sustainable development cannot override the others. Trade-offs are no longer lawful in Wales. Under the future generations Act, we can no longer bargain the long-term interests of future generations for the short-term benefits of today. I don’t see how an initiative that not only builds in traffic growth, but rises emissions for generations to come, whilst also saddling them with the costs, can be labelled as anything other than harmful for Wales’s future. This is a substantial challenge from the future generations commissioner, one I believe should not be confined to a debate amongst lawyers at the public inquiry, and today’s intervention was a catalyst by me to try and bring this debate onto the floor of our National Assembly, where it belongs.

Once the future generations Act became law, the Welsh Government should have looked afresh at the problem of congestion around the Brynglas tunnels and developed a solution consistent with all the principles of the Act, not just the one that suited its predetermined plan. And there are solutions to the problems of congestion. There’s lots of evidence of how improvement in public transport and, for short, everyday journeys, can cut car use, can reduce congestion, can alleviate pressure on the road network. On top of an ambitious metro project, congestion can be cut by a battery of interventions, and I just offer a few as an example—this is not an exhaustive list: bus priority lanes; traffic signals that give precedence to sustainable transport; park and ride; workplace car parking charges; targeted and tailored information about bus routes and times. Combining policies to encourage behaviour change with hard infrastructure to improve public transport has been proven to work. This is not revolutionary. This happens in successful cities all over the world. It’s just for the last 50 years we’ve turned our back on it, and now we’re paying the price, through poor air quality, congestion and the highest levels of childhood obesity in Europe.

There’s a way of tackling the problems on the M4 that does not harm the needs of future generations. In fact, it can help a whole range of policy interventions that we are trying to make work, and I would ask the Cabinet Secretary to quickly set up an expert group to find a solution to congestion issues on the M4 that doesn’t involve trading off the needs of future generations with the short-term aims of today. The public inquiry isn’t doing that. It’s looking at a series of road options to deal with the problem of congestion. And who have we asked to adjudicate the best answer? A civil engineer.

I would urge the Government not to reject the independent commissioner’s judgment on this. If they fight her in the courts, they risk undermining their very own landmark legislation we have told the world we are so proud of. We created this Act. It requires a new approach, not a retrospective defence of what we were planning to do all along. Diolch.

I can be convinced that we need a relief road for the M4, but I’m currently unconvinced. We always talk here about decisions being evidence based. Do we know where people join and where they come off the M4, using number plate recognition technology? Do they need to be using the M4, or are there alternative roads? Has any thought been given to signposting Neath, Swansea and west Wales, as well as Abergavenny? People like myself keep on coming down to the M4 and turning on to the M4 when we would probably be better off going across the Heads of the Valleys road, but it says ‘Abergavenny’, and I know I don’t want to go to Abergavenny—no offence to Abergavenny. Can we model the effect of the south Wales metro on the M4 traffic movement? There’s an awful lot of thought and study that could go into this. Yes, I’m convinced if we need it, but I really do need convincing.

There is a role for the M4. If I’m travelling to west Wales to go camping with my kids, my cat and my canary, I’m going to, obviously, go by car—I’m not going to go by public transport.

There’s a picture. [Laughter.]

But if you’re travelling through parts of Wales that are not connected by the rail service, you are obliged to go by car. So, obviously, we need the M4 to connect that east-west part of south Wales. But the M4 was not intended as a bypass around Newport or a commuter route into Cardiff.

The new natural resources policy promises a modal shift away from roads for people and freight, aimed at reducing emissions and the impacts that transport has on the environment and people’s health. The M4 relief road would do the opposite. The Welsh Government even admits it would increase the traffic, but tries to argue that it would reduce congestion and, therefore, air pollution. However, it might temporarily reduce congestion around Newport, but it would simply move the problem west to Cardiff. Cardiff already has highly congested areas in my constituency, affecting at least five schools having illegal levels of air pollution. The M4 relief road would make that a whole lot worse. This is not an effective use of over £1 billion. Instead, we could and should be investing that money in the metro, which would deliver the modal shift that our growing capital city urgently requires.

I do hope the canary is not the cat’s lunch. It sounds an interesting journey you are making.

As a terribly wicked Tory, I am sceptical about free goods, and, of course, one of the freest goods we have are the roads. I think when we are making a really huge public investment like this, we need to look at all the evidence and anticipate what’s likely to happen in 10 or 20 years. Within 10 years, I confidently predict there will be comprehensive road pricing. We will no longer be able to tax motorists as we always have done through fuel prices, and technology will allow us to do that. We will get much more rational use of the roads once we have road pricing, and I do see an age where, possibly, what is now congested won’t be so congested in the future. So, we do need to think very seriously about these matters.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to reply to the debate. Ken Skates.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start by thanking all Members for their contributions, and especially the Member for Llanelli for bringing forward this debate today? I wanted to begin my contribution by also thanking Lee for the discussions that we and other Members have had over the last few months around this issue. We may not have always agreed, but I have appreciated the practical challenge that Lee and others have provided to this project. In that same spirit, there are a few key issues that I want to address in my response today.

It’s vital that we start by recognising the continued and worsening problems on the M4 around Newport and that they must be resolved. These are problems not simply faced by commuters on the motorway, but problems faced by the residents of Newport and the wider economy of Wales: problems of congestion around the Brynglas tunnels; problems when buses are regularly delayed or the police and council are impaired in doing their jobs by people simply seeking to avoid the congested motorway; problems of air quality, worsened by stop-start traffic; the reputational and economic impact of a gateway to Wales that is unreliable; and a disincentive to inward investment. The inadequacies of the existing M4 around Newport are clear for all to see.

The road was first designed in the 1950s not as a motorway but as the Newport bypass. It falls far below modern motorway standards, with lane drops, intermittent hard shoulders, poor alignment and frequent junctions. Central reserve enhancements and a variable speed limit have improved the situation, but ‘make do and mend’ is no longer a sustainable policy choice to meet the long-term needs of Wales. Tackling that congestion and modernising what is a vitally important piece of infrastructure in Wales is a key priority for this Welsh Government. That’s why the last Welsh Government made it very clear in the last Assembly to deliver a relief road for the M4, and my party reaffirmed that pledge in its 2016 Assembly election manifesto. That commitment was then voted on by the people of Wales, and entered into our programme for government. These commitments and endorsements do not give this Welsh Government a blank cheque, but what they do give are promises, and we have a democratic mandate that should be respected and delivered on.

The proposed M4 corridor around Newport would represent a significant infrastructure investment in Newport, and comes with a strong business case and a suite of embedded environmental mitigation and compensation. The economic appraisal shows that the scheme provides good value for money. The adjusted benefit-cost ratio, which captures benefits from increased economic density, greater competition and enhanced labour market access, is greater than 2. That means that over the 60-year appraisal period, there is more than £2 of benefit for each pound spent on the scheme, without touching on the wider economic benefits likely to flow from the scheme, such as a stronger perception of Wales as a place to invest, which cannot be captured. It would complement and integrate with our plans for the Cardiff capital region metro, providing a holistic transport network fit for the future.

The public inquiry into this project by independent inspectors is allowing open and robust scrutiny as to whether it is the sustainable long-term solution to the serious problems associated with this gateway into Wales. The rigour of the inquiry process is appropriate to the importance of the subject, and the outcome of this inquiry really does matter for Wales.

The future generation commissioner’s input to that inquiry is to be welcomed; I want to make that point very clearly. The role of the commissioner in ensuring that the interpretation of the well-being of future generations Act is robust is hugely important. I think it only fair, however, that I correct what I feel to be a misinterpretation of the commissioner’s recent letter in the press. The fact of the matter is that the commissioner has expressly not commented on allegations made by others that the M4 project is not compliant with the Act. I can assure all Members that the principles, the ways of working and the goals of the Act have been considered in the development of this project, and will continue to be fully and equally considered in the final decision making on this project.

As part of the evidence submitted, an evaluation of the overall sustainability of the scheme has been presented to the inquiry. Undertaken by John Davies, that review was a thorough evidence-based assessment of the scheme in the context of relevant legislation and policy, including the well-being of future generations Act. His conclusion is that the scheme is essential to the well-being of the people of Wales, and should proceed.

The sustainable development principle, first enshrined in the Government of Wales Act, and then reinforced in the future generations Act, precludes decision makers from taking a short-termist approach at the expense of future generations. The five ways of working set out clearly the obligations on the Welsh Government to avoid compromising the interests of future generations. The ways of working acknowledge the fact that there may be trade-offs between desirable objectives and goals. The sustainable development principle involves striking a balance. The principle clearly states that public bodies must take account of the importance of balancing short-term needs with the need to safeguard the ability to also meet long-term needs.

Recently, Deputy Presiding Officer, the Welsh Government stepped in to provide financial support to help the steel industry in Wales, when Tata put its UK sites up for sale in 2016. The support we have provided has been vital in keeping steel jobs and steel production in Wales, at its sites in Port Talbot, Shotton, Llanwern and Trostre. The decision we were faced with was a trade-off. Steel as an industry today is not the low-carbon industry we want it to be, but our decision to provide financial support to save jobs at the plants in south Wales, and in north Wales, in the short-term was a trade-off to give us the time to plan for more energy-efficient future techniques and a future for the industry that I’m sure we all want to see—an outcome more sustainable for future generations than putting thousands of Welsh workers out of work in the short term. The sustainable development principle requires that these difficult decisions are made in light of their social, economic, environmental and cultural implications in both the short term and the long term. That case is very different to the one we are discussing here, but it is another example of the balancing act that must be struck.

I’ve heard those who say that the funding allocated to this scheme would be better employed expanding public transport options in the region. In developing detailed traffic modelling for the project, we have anticipated the impact of scrapping Severn bridge tolls, and examined the impact of implementing our metro vision. We have taken a long-term view of what is required to prepare the south-east Wales transport network for the future; however, there is a limit to what an expanded metro would do. As our detailed analysis makes clear, the metro’s greatest positive impact will be on north-south patterns of travel, and not the east-west journeys catered for by the M4. The public transport overview report has assessed the impact of all the rail elements of the metro, up to 2037, and of the proposed Llanwern park-and-ride station, and it found that less than 4 per cent of traffic on the M4 would be extracted from the road even on the set of assumptions most favourable for modal shift.

The outcome of the M4 inquiry will inform a decision on whether to proceed with construction next year. I’m unable to comment any further on the ongoing statutory process other than to say that the final decision will be made with a fully informed view based on all legislation, including the future generations Act. Looking more widely than just the M4, I am keen that we see that particular road in the context of the wider ambitions we have as a Welsh Government to decarbonise the transport system. One of the key developments in this work will be the national infrastructure commission, which we’re setting up to play a key role in planning Wales’s infrastructure needs—needs planned over the long term, independent of Government, and helping to prioritise strategic investment decisions. We are continually developing our transport planning so that it can plan for growth in a sustainable way. The future generations commissioner has herself welcomed the new WelTAG model we have developed for planning and transport projects.

Deputy Presiding Officer, we must continue to strive to achieve modal shift in our transport system, and to ensure more balance in the way we plan transport solutions. However, I do come back to the central issue at hand: the existing infrastructure on the M4 around Newport is not fit for purpose. That has been our conclusion for some time. Piecemeal and useful improvements have been undertaken over time, which will improve the position, including a variable speed limit and modernisation of the Brynglas tunnels, but they’ve only postponed the issue. This piece of infrastructure needs a major, long-term upgrade. The inquiry will conclude soon and I will commit to keeping Members informed of progress. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That brings today’s proceedings to a close.