Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I call Members to order.

The first item on our agenda this afternoon is questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, and the first question is from Rhun ap Iorwerth.

I met with the Minister for Housing and Local Government last month to discuss the draft energy policies in the NDF, including those that impact on Ynys Môn. The NDF consultation closed on 15 November. Officials are currently reviewing the 1,100 responses received, and the Welsh Government will respond to the consultation in the spring.

Well, I hope you sounded some very, very loud alarm bells in that meeting with the Minister. As the question says, I know the development framework isn't in your brief, but I would advise you to be very careful in pressing for answers about what on earth the framework means for your area—or one of your areas—of responsibility: energy. If we look at the wider NDF, where do I start? No reference to Holyhead in there; it doesn't seem to be fitting in with the principles of spreading wealth; there's no vision there on the Welsh language; no real talk about regional hubs. Senior officers—the most senior officers—in north Wales knew nothing about what was going to be in this national development framework, I understand, until it was published. There's no reference to the third bridge on the Menai straits—it goes on and on.

Now, I understand that a committee in this Assembly is likely to propose moving away from the spatial model when it comes to energy generation in future. Certainly the spatial approach, as it applies to Anglesey, with 250m turbines—higher than the highest bit of land anywhere on Anglesey—is just ridiculous. So, I would call on you to reject what is being proposed in terms of energy generation. And would you share with me my fear that, when it comes to energy, the national development framework, as in so many other areas, is, in the words of officials that I have heard, like a very bad GCSE project?

No; no, I wouldn't agree with that. It was a consultation and, as I say, Welsh Government officials from the Minister's department are currently reviewing the 1,100 responses we received. I know an initial review of the responses has revealed that some of the public have raised concerns about the impact of the policies on their communities—I think that's obviously something that needs to be looked at—as well as the renewable energy industry. They've also put forward their views, and they've requested removal of the spatial approach to allow them to develop anywhere. Well, clearly, the Welsh Government is showing leadership by bringing forward this NDF, which will make sure that we are able to meet our targets for renewable energy. But, as I say, it was a consultation, and the responses are currently being reviewed.

The draft national development framework says, in the context of Anglesey:

'The potential Wylfa Newydd nuclear power station development could provide significant employment, training and other associated economic benefits across the whole region if a decision is made to proceed with the scheme.'

Well, when I met Horizon Nuclear Power—in my latest meeting with them—this summer, they told me the project was not dead, and that if planning and funding, including the strike price, stacked up, it actually would come back to the table, and things were quite buoyant and positive. But there would be about 18 to 24 months lead time for best-case scenario, and, crucially, they were continuing to work with both the Welsh and UK Governments to try to develop the right conditions to restore the project. Notwithstanding things being delayed at the Westminster end, what is your current understanding of developments, in the context of their engagement with you?

Well, we were obviously very disappointed the UK Government announced the delay to the granting of a development consent order for Wylfa Newydd. Welsh Government is currently in the process of reviewing the Secretary of State's letter of 23 October, and we'll provide all detail that they requested from our end by the end of December.

Thank you. The Welsh Government’s policy document 'Woodlands for Wales' strategy outlines our commitments and objectives towards forestry in Wales. An additional £1 million has been given to the current round of Glastir woodland creation, and we are developing a national forest programme to increase woodland planting and management in Wales.

I thank the Minister for that answer. But, following on from your statement yesterday on your clean air plan, it would seem that the Government is keen on rhetoric but somewhat lacking on commitment. You spoke of such things as healthy resilience, reduction in air pollution both from industry and transport, and the desperate need to increase air quality. And, yet, you fail to mention one intervention that would help to deliver on all your objectives—tree planting. Given that the Welsh Government has also declared a climate emergency, why is the Government failing so drastically in its own tree planting targets? It is a universally accepted fact that trees are a huge potential to reduce carbon dioxide levels, and yet the targets you have set yourselves, if, indeed, you are truly committed to targets, of just 2,000 hectares per year, are in themselves derisory, but you are falling woefully short of even that target. You set aside £1 million for the 2018-19 window for planting, which amounts to 240 hectares, or just 43,000 trees—12 per cent of your annual target. Contrast this with the figures for Scotland, and even Ireland. Scotland will be planting over 11,000 acres of woodland in this year alone—that's 20 million trees. Ireland has delivered 5,000 hectares of new woodland—that's nearly 10 million trees per annum for the last four years.

Is it not true, Minister, that the Welsh Government is woefully neglectful of its duty to establish sensible targets for tree planting, and even more woefully neglectful of providing the budget to deliver anything like the number of trees needed to combat climate change? And, I repeat, Minister, is this not an example of a Welsh Government being strong on the rhetoric of combating climate change but short on delivering some of the most important interventions necessary to achieve the climate change objective? And just one last point—

No. It's Christmas, but even a question of two and a half minutes long is just stretching even me and my Christmas spirit. So, I'll ask the Minister to respond. 

Well, when it comes to rhetoric, I don't think I can compete with the Brexit Party. I did talk about tree planting yesterday when I launched the consultation for the clean air plan. I will be the first to admit that we haven't been planting the numbers of trees that I would want to see and that we will need to have if we are going to reach our decarbonisation targets. There is a great deal of work going on at the present time, and has been, I would say, for the last year, around the number of trees we are able to plant. We have planted, I think, over 16 million trees in the last three years. A lot of that will have been restocking; we need to be looking at new areas. You'll be aware of the First Minister's manifesto commitment to have a national forest, and that has really been a focus for my officials over the last few months and I will be coming forward with more information around the national forest when we come back in the new year. 

I think what the national forest will do is that it will accelerate reforestation, but it also will look to others. We can't do it on our own. Welsh Government cannot do this on our own. We need others to help us, and that will be part of the national forest. 

Half of the answer to my question is done anyway. The Confederation of Forest Industries claimed recently that funding for tree planting is just a third of what it needs to be if Welsh Government is to meet its minimum targets. They went on to say that millions more pounds need to be put into tree planting if Wales is to have any chance of meeting the climate emergency aspiration. Minister, you just said that a great deal of work is ongoing at the moment. Is the funding available, and what is your timescale and targets to achieve what you have already promised—at least 2,000 hectares each year? So, how long will it take, and when are you going to be near the target, which, at the moment, is 80 per cent less? Thank you. 

So, I go back to what I said in my answer to David Rowlands. Welsh Government can't do it on our own. We need others to help us to do this. We need others to bring funding forward. We need others to bring land forward. We put significant funding into our tree and woodland expressions of interest window in relation to Glastir. There is also funding available within the sustainable management scheme projects. Within our 'Sustainable Farming and our Land' consultation, one are where I think everyone is in agreement is that farmers could look to perhaps planting more trees on their land, and certainly they seem very keen to do that when we take forward that scheme. 

I'm doing a great deal of work with NRW. The board of NRW has already approved an umbrella woodland creation programme, with funding available. That will incorporate new and existing schemes and projects. 

If we're going to get large numbers of trees planted, then we need a plan, not a national target. Will the Welsh Government set annual targets at local authority level, designate land for tree planting, or ask local authorities to designate land for tree planting like they do in the local development plan for housing, and set a minimum number of trees to be planted per house for each new housing development, so we actually have a method of going forward, rather than just aspirations? 

We don't currently have any plans for setting targets at the local authority level. However, I think local authorities have a very important role to play. You will have just heard me say that we can't do it on our own; we need others to work with us. I know that many local authorities are working to increase the canopy cover in their areas and they're looking to expand planting on local authority-owned land and encouraging more infrastructure. And yesterday, in the clean air plan oral statement, you may have heard me say that one thing we're looking at is tiny forests, and these are small pieces of land, and quite often public sector land in hospitals or schools, for instance, where we can look to plant just a small amount of trees. Clearly, local authorities would have a role to play in that. 

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Andrew R.T. Davies. 

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, is it still your intention to bring forward the regulations and enforce those regulations on water quality from 1 January next year?  

I will be making a statement before the end of term.  

I thank you for that. It is regrettable obviously that it will be in written form, rather than oral, but I appreciate pressures on time. I do detect that maybe there is a little bit of movement, and that would be welcomed by the sector, I'm sure. You did a regulatory impact assessment on this particular issue. Can you confirm today how many farms and how many jobs might be lost and what that regulatory impact assessment highlighted, because surely that's what it looked at if these regulations were to be implemented as understood by the industry? 

I'm not able to give you that information at this moment. There is a great deal of work going on—you're quite right. The reason I haven't been able to bring forward the statement up to now is because I've asked my officials to go back several times and get further advice. I met with the farming unions, again, I think it was a fortnight ago, to discuss the issue with them. You'll be aware of the Wales land and water management forum. They are meeting again on Monday. So, I am looking to get as much advice as I can before I bring the regulations in. 

Thank you for that response, Minister. I would be grateful to try and understand from the impact assessment how many farms and jobs would be lost, and if you could do that in written format for me, I'd be grateful for that, because I would expect an impact assessment to make that calculation. But you highlighted there the Welsh land forum and the sector coming together in bringing forward 45 recommendations in this particular area that the regulator and the industry agreed would make a significant improvement to water quality here in Wales. Are you minded to take those recommendations on board in your new deliberations in this particular area? Or is it still the case that you will be just implementing the regulations as outlined but it will be the date that will be moving rather than maybe more of the substance? 

I'm very happy to take all the recommendations into consideration, of course. It wouldn't be worth having them if I wasn't going to do that. So, you're right—the forum did make a number of recommendations. The NFU came forward with a number of recommendations. I think what was disappointing with some of the recommendations I received was that they were nearly all for Government. I think it's really important that the industry recognises that the level of agricultural pollution we're seeing in Wales is unacceptable. It rose significantly last year and we don't want that to continue. And I think everybody agrees that it's embarrassing for the agricultural sector to have these levels of agricultural pollution and that we need to do something about it. So, I wanted my officials to look very carefully at all the recommendations, all the evidence. One area I promised personally to look at myself was around the proposed closed periods for fertiliser applications, and I will make a final decision once the RIA has been finalised.  

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd. 

Yes, it's quite embarrassing on other sectors as well, isn't it? Their performance isn't wonderful. There were 30,000 sewage spillages in this country back in 2017, and I don't hear the Government making as much fuss about that. But, there we are—that's by the way.

But do you accept that spreading during closed periods and having set dates for spreading slurry and farming by calendar can actually be counter productive? We hear people like Tony Juniper, the boss of Natural England, saying as much. So, is that something that you now accept and that you, of course, are moving away from that kind of approach? 

I think farming by calendar is always something that I've never been able to quite understand. I always said to the agricultural sector that it was one area that I absolutely really understood why they thought we should be looking at that. However, it has to be earned—that kind of flexibility has to be earned. And I think that's certainly one of the discussions that I've been having particularly with the National Farmers Union.

Well, if you don't understand it, maybe you'll ask the people who know best, and those are the people who actually farm that land day in, day out. I'm sure they'll tell you exactly what you need to know.

Now, of course, you're proposing, or we think that you're still proposing, blanket coverage across Wales for these regulations. And you'll remember, I'm sure, the 'Working Smarter' review, which, amongst its recommendations, recommended that the Welsh Government should operate a principle of a risk-based and targeted approach for the application of environmental regulations in Wales.

Now, I'd understand if you were looking to apply enhanced regulations in certain parts of Wales. I'm not sure—. I don't think we have an issue with that, if the rationale was there to do that. But your proposed whole-Wales approach isn't risk based or targeted at all. So, do you accept that introducing a closed period is likely to increase the risk of agricultural pollution? And, of course, as we've heard, the cost of meeting those new regulations will mean a cost of tens of thousands of pounds to Welsh farmers. And are you, as a Government, willing to play your part in supporting them in meeting that challenge if asked to do so?

So, if I can start with your first comment, I certainly have spoken with the agricultural sector to see what the difficulties are of farming by calendar, because I'm on their side. That's what I'm saying; I understand that.

However, I'm also the Minister for environment, and there has been an unacceptable number of agricultural pollutions. I've just had one this weekend. When I put my computer on at the weekend, invariably, I'm getting e-mails about agricultural pollution incidents. It's too many and it's embarrassing and I think everybody wants to see less pollution. I'm not saying it's just the agricultural sector, of course not, but my regulations are obviously to do with the agricultural sector.

We have been undertaking visits to dairy farms with Natural Resources Wales dairy inspectors. I think we've now—. I think it's about 250 that have now been visited and over 50 per cent of those farms are non-compliant at the moment in relation to agricultural regulations. That is unacceptable. I have always said that we will help support, with funding, the additional requirements. However, I will not give funding to bring people up to the legal position as it stands now. If they're not compliant, I'm not going to pay for them to become compliant, but we'll certainly look to provide funding, if that is what is required later on.

On another matter, I was wondering whether you could give us an update with regards to Tomlinson's Dairies, which closed, of course. And could you confirm to us which Government Minister is now leading on this piece of work, because I understand, given the fact that he represents the local constituency, that the Minister for economy isn't in a position to do that? So, some clarity around who's leading this piece of work for Welsh Government would be appreciated. And also what is the Welsh Government doing not only to support those farmers, clearly, who've been impacted by the closure, but there is a huge and modern facility there, sitting idle, so what kind of incentives and efforts are the Government making to attract alterative processors to the site?

As you know, we've done a great deal of work—my department have done a great deal of work—with Tomlinson's before the closure to try and support them, over the past 18 months, really, to try and help them resolve their ongoing business issues.

You are quite right, it is within the Clwyd South constituency of Ken Skates. At the moment, I am leading on it. Obviously, if there are decisions to be taken in relation to the ReAct programme, for instance—if that needs to be used—there is the Deputy Minister who can obviously look at those issues for the Minister for Economy and Transport. I asked for an update this morning as to whether there have been any movements around another company buying Tomlinson's and I'm not aware that that is the case. Obviously, it's the administrator that is now dealing with that. 

In relation to support for farmers, I met with both the farming unions and asked them, if they had farmers who they knew had specific difficulties, to let me know, and I know that my officials have worked—. I think it was about 15 different farm businesses that we supported around the closure of Tomlinson's.

Thank you. Our aim is to bring under sustainable management all areas of peatland and a minimum of 25 per cent of modified peatland supporting semi-natural habitat in Wales. I will be launching a national peatland restoration programme in the spring of next year, which will set out our commitment to peatland restoration in 2020.

Thank you for that encouraging answer. Can I say, Minister, that last month the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service held an international conference of the title 'Manage the Fuel: Reduce the Risk', looking at the risk of wildfires? This conference did focus on land management practice internationally, and some really valuable lessons. There's also the Lost Peatlands of South Wales project, looking to re-wet former bogs in areas rather enticingly known as 'the Alps of Glamorgan', so I do hope you will be paying attention to these developments.

I wasn't aware of that conference. I might actually write to the chief fire officer and see if I can find out some more information about that, because we are funding quite a lot of activity around peatlands, because we know, again, as part of our decarbonisation plans, that we really need to make sure we restore as much as possible. As I say, there are quite a few schemes. You may be aware of New LIFE for Welsh Raised Bogs—that's an EU LIFE-funded project, which I've actually visited, in mid Wales.

Minister, will you join me in congratulating Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council and Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council on their successful project bid to the National Lottery to restore peatlands in the upper Afan Valley and over into the RCT area around Glyncorrwg? As you know, it may be part of the Glamorgan alps, as David Melding has highlighted. Will you also look, therefore, at what the Welsh Government can do to support that project, because you've just highlighted that you're looking at the whole peatland programme for 2020, and this is a perfect example of how we can work with local authorities in an area that is already going to be working on developing peatlands?

Thank you. I absolutely welcome the partnership approach from both Neath Port Talbot and the Rhondda Cynon Taf councils. It's great they had that successful bid with National Lottery funding—a really important project, as you say, over 500 hectares of historic peatland landscape, and I think they've had about £0.25 million, maybe just a bit more than £0.25 million, to develop their plans further.

Thank you. We continue to support the rural economy through a range of Welsh Government policies and regional working. This, along with the 'Sustainable Farming and our Land' proposals, will create the conditions for the development of a diverse and healthy rural economy.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Last Saturday, I'm sure you were aware, was Small Business Saturday. I, like many other Assembly Members, was out campaigning for local businesses. I visited Neil James, a small local butcher in rural Monmouthshire, whose family has been supporting Welsh farmers and supplying local produce since the 1950s. The business is frequently nominated for the Countryside Alliance awards, this year being no exception. We talk a lot in this Chamber about supporting local businesses, but what particular support are you—and I should add, the economy Minister, as well, because this is obviously a cross-cutting area—making available to small, particularly rural, firms like Neil James so that people in rural areas can go on buying local, supporting local and supporting local supply chains, local shops and, of course, the farming community that is behind all of those local supply chains?

Thank you. The agri-food sector is obviously a very important sector for Welsh Government and for Wales, and it's really important that we do have these small businesses, like the butchers you referred to, to support our farmers. Obviously, I know that farmers feel very under threat at the moment around red meat production, for instance, and I always say, 'If you want to support our farmers, the way to do it is to buy local, because you know that meat has been produced sustainably and it hasn't travelled many miles.'

I'm very glad, in that response to Nick, you mentioned the aspect of buying local, and that's what I wanted to focus on. Hopefully, the Minister—if she hasn't seen it yet, I'll send it to her—has seen the report commissioned recently by the Wales Co-operative Party and members of the Co-operative group here in the Assembly, by the Sustainable Places Institute of Cardiff University, entitled 'Working co-operatively for sustainable and just food systems'. You'll notice that, in the Labour manifesto at a UK level, they have now said that they will take forward a Bill on the right to food—sustainable, affordable, healthy, accessible food.

But I wonder—this very point about local, localism—what more can we do, regardless of Brexit, to actually deliver those local food networks where you take the small, co-operative growers, but you also take the family farms and everybody else. It seems preposterous that we are now in a situation where Wales is the most rural-embedded country of all of the nations, you could argue, in our proximity to rural food producers, and yet we still have now over 500,000 people throughout the UK relying on foodbanks, 10 per cent of the NHS budget going on treating type 2 diabetes, and 8 million people in the UK having trouble putting food on the table. Surely, in Wales, we can develop the sort of local food networks that actually put food on the table locally for people. And we don't need a Bill to do this, actually. But what we do need is to embed this within our milestones that we are currently developing—the national milestones for Wales.

Thank you. I haven't actually read the report, but I do have a copy of it, so perhaps it will be my Christmas reading, because I think, as you say, that there is huge potential for us to build up those networks. I have one in my own constituency—a food co-op—that works in a really deprived area, and it's absolutely excellent. 

You'll be aware that last week—I think it was last week—I did an oral statement on food clusters, and I think that's been one of the major successes of our food and drink sector here in Wales, where we have this coming together of companies to work together, share best practice, and I think—you know, it fits in very much with the co-op ethos.

Question 5 [OAQ54820] was transferred for written answer. Question 6, therefore. Vikki Howells.

Thank you. I expect the new plan for tackling fuel poverty will be published for consultation in February 2020. Our proposals are being informed by the landscape review, published by the Wales Audit Office on 3 October, as well as engagement with key stakeholders, including the round-table I hosted in June.

Thank you, Minister, for that answer. Obviously, there's a myriad of things that you can look at when looking at fuel poverty, and I appreciate that many of the levers are not devolved. I recently met with Smart Energy, which told me all about the work that it is doing to encourage the take-up of smart meters. Forty per cent of households in the Cynon Valley have already switched to smart meters, I was pleased to find out, and that's well above average, which is good for consumers but also positive for the environment. What reflections do you have, Minister, on the role of smart meters in tackling fuel poverty? And how could encouraging people to switch be built into future Welsh Government initiatives?

Thank you. Certainly those figures in the Cynon Valley are very welcome. I think that the national average is about 28 per cent. So, you can see that you are well above the average in the Cynon Valley, so that's very good. Smart metering can make a valuable contribution to our efforts to reduce energy waste. It helps bill payers save money. It can help reduce the energy needed to maintain a safe and comfortable home, and obviously reduce the cost if you can find a better deal through switching, because I know that some people are reluctant to switch or don't know how to switch. So, I think that the advice that's given alongside the installation of the smart meter is very helpful.

It also makes the management of supply and demand of energy easier and more cost effective. I'm hoping to meet with the company that—. Obviously, this is a UK Government initiative, smart meters, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have appointed a company—data commissions company, I think it is called. So, I'm hoping to meet them in January to discuss what more we can do, because I'm very keen for Welsh Government to support the UK Government in relation to this. 

Minister, I note that the Scottish Government has changed the definition of fuel poverty, and this following a legal challenge, so that it's now defined as a household where residents are on low incomes and they need to spend a high proportion of that income on fuel. The current definition is households that spend 10 per cent of their income on fuel, and that could capture a very wealthy couple who decide to live in a historic building and spend 10 per cent as a life choice on heating it, and that's not really what we want to capture. We need better data so that we are really getting to those who need the most assistance.

I wasn't aware that Scotland were doing that, but I'll certainly be keen to look at that. And, again, as part of the new strategy, and, obviously, the consultation, I'm sure that will be something that will come up. As you say, that's the thing with targets; you sometimes get perverse outcomes. Clearly, I hadn't thought about that, but, yes, that would be completely not what we would be hoping to improve. 

We are supporting agri-food businesses in north Wales, as in all parts of Wales, to become more profitable, sustainable, resilient, and professionally managed. The new Welsh Government-funded Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at Broughton, which opened in November, will be very important for future research development and innovation in the agri-food industry throughout Wales. 

Thank you for that. Minister, we're all concerned about animal welfare, and I've raised in this Chamber before my concerns about live animal exports. I'm pleased to see now that the UK Government will be stopping the live export of animals when we finally leave the EU. Will your Welsh Government be doing the same?

If we leave the EU, it's something we'll have to look at then.

Thank you. The 'purpose and role' document sets out NRW’s forest management activities in relation to the Welsh Government woodland estate. It is designed to enable the long-term sustainable management of Wales's woodlands to provide opportunities for people now and in the future to live, work and play in our excellent forests.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Forestry management obviously covers a wide range, but it also includes the consideration of harvesting and replanting of areas of the forestry. When we talk about harvesting, we also need to look to ensure that we don't leave rubbish on the ground, and that we use the wood effectively and efficiently, as many businesses actually depend upon some of that wood. In my own constituency, I see the trains being stacked with logs going to north Wales from south Wales. So, the question I would hope you would look at is: how can we support local businesses to access trees and wood from local forestry areas when they're being harvested, rather than actually having to send the wood halfway across Wales, and sometimes, all the way across Wales, and actually increasing our carbon footprint as a consequence of that, when we can reduce the carbon footprint by accessing businesses that are local, accessing the forestry, chopping it down and replanting, and then ensuring that the businesses that use that wood are also local?

The Member raises a very important point and clearly, that's something that NRW can look at within their contracts for timber. I know we're meeting later on today to discuss these issues, but obviously, if we want to reduce our carbon footprint, that's clearly an area where we should be able to do that pretty easily, I would have thought.

As you say, the management plan includes a significant amount of replanting, and back in October, you sounded very positive about the idea of NRW and schools working together so that children could learn to plant trees as part of their wider education. As it happens, on that very day, Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, met with NRW to discuss eco-literacy, and she agreed that the suggestion was, quote, 'a brilliant idea', to contribute to that eco-literacy work. So what discussions have you had since then with NRW, in particular about how forestry management and reforestation can play a part in that eco-literacy? Is it clear yet as to who NRW should speak in order that they can influence local curricula? You may not be able to answer the last bit, I'm afraid, to be fair.

I can't remember if I discussed it with NRW after our last exchange in the Chamber or if it was before, but clearly it's something that they're looking at, and, as you say, the future generations commissioner is also keen to engage. I'm very happy to speak to the education Minister if NRW want me to, or, obviously, they can have a meeting with my colleague Kirsty Williams, if they would prefer to do that.

The Welsh Government protected the agricultural minimum wage following the abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales in 2013. The agricultural advisory panel negotiates and advises Ministers to ensure fair rates of pay and conditions for farm workers, and promotes agricultural careers and skills development.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I'd just like to drill down into working conditions, because farms can be dangerous places to work, and although great strides have been made in safety in other sectors such as construction, the same improvement—. There are still many, many deaths occurring on British farms. The Health and Safety Executive have reported that six people were killed on Welsh farms this year, with a five-year average of five people per year. Now, I'm sure you'll agree with me that the death of one person is one too many, but would you also agree that, as 2019 comes to an end, one of this Government's 2020 visions should be to help improve safety for farm workers, and next year could perhaps be the year that you focus on reducing farm worker deaths to zero?

I quite agree that obviously one death is one death too many, and we have seen too many deaths on our farms, certainly over the three and a half years I've been in post. It's something that saddens me greatly, and they are dangerous places. People have to respect their places of work in relation to that. There are a couple of schemes that are in position in Wales that I'm always very happy to support. At the Royal Welsh Show, we always do a piece of work around this and it's something I want to clearly continue to focus on. I have to say, within my portfolio, the fishing industry also, I think, again, we've given some funding, I know, for equipment to be used to try and ensure that people are aware of the dangers and to help protect them.

Of course, Scottish farm workers were given a positive boost this week as they are now in line for a 3 per cent wage rise. Here in Wales, the agricultural advisory panel proposed that the minimum rates of pay for agricultural workers increase by 1.8 per cent across all pay bands. [Interruption.] The consultation into this closed on 16 October 2019 and no summary of responses is going to be issued. Now, I do welcome the fact that our farm workers are set to receive more—[Interruption.] Are they not—?

Just carry on with your question, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you. I recognise that it is pantomime season.

No, it's not pantomime season in here. Carry on with your question.

I welcome the fact that our farm workers are set to receive more pay, but, obviously, this will impact on increased farm costs. What actions are you taking to co-operate with buyers to help ensure that they take the increased farm payroll burden into account when setting prices for farm produce? 

Well, going back to the question around salaries for our farmers and farm workers, as I say, the agricultural advisory panel was set up by the Welsh Government following the abolition of the UK Government's Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales. I did receive some advice last week from the panel, and I'm really grateful for their detailed work, but, unfortunately, the late announcement of the national minimum wage and the national living wage rates for 2020 due to the general election may result in the panel having to revisit the agricultural minimum wage. I want to ensure that we have fair and appropriate pay and conditions for our agricultural workers here in Wales.

Question 10 was to be asked by Dawn Bowden, who is not present. [Interruption.]—I'm speaking now. Question 11 has been withdrawn. Question 12 was meant to be asked by Jayne Bryant, who is not present. That concludes your question session, Minister. And let this be a lesson to all Members who table questions, that this Minister in particular is particularly efficient in answering questions, and all questions could have been asked and answered today. Now, that's the challenge for the next Minister. 

Questions, therefore, to the Minister for Housing and Local Government, and the first question is by Mohammad Asghar.

This Government will continue to deliver against our commitment to tackle and prevent all forms of homelessness. Our recently published strategy sets out our prevention and public service focus. This involves supporting those currently homeless into accommodation, whilst ensuring that we invest in earlier interventions to prevent people falling into homelessness.

Thank you for the answer, Minister, but the Vagrancy Act 1824 goes back to 1824 and makes it a crime to sleep rough or beg in England and Wales. This Act does nothing to resolve the root causes of homelessness, and in fact, is more likely to push someone further from the vital services that help them off the streets. Minister, do you agree with me that no-one should be criminalised for being homeless or destitute? And what action will you take to repeal the vagrancy Act in Wales?

Yes, I completely agree with you. The vagrancy Act isn't devolved to Wales—it's the Tory Government in Westminster who should have repealed it. [Interruption.] It's the Tory Government in Westminster's duty, Janet Finch-Saunders. They need to repeal it. If I could, I would. We can't.

Minister, Welsh Women's Aid have found that 77 per cent of children who experience domestic abuse did not receive support from a specialist service. Now, we know that domestic abuse is one of the factors that can cause homelessness, and Welsh Women's Aid have found that 512 survivors, many of whom will obviously be accompanied by children, couldn’t be accommodated in refuges due to a lack of space. That's 512 survivors and their dependents being forced to fend for themselves after fleeing a dangerous environment. Do you accept that this is not good enough and will you give us a cast iron pledge that this Welsh Government will ensure that everyone who seeks help in a shelter in the future gets it? And in order to achieve this, will you consider expanding the eligibility to children under 16 residing in refuges and look at what housing support grant funding can be aligned with community and children grant funding to ensure that all children impacted by domestic abuse are adequately supported? 

Yes, I agree with her entirely that domestic abuse is one of the drivers of these kinds of—well, of the need for refuges in the first place, and also of housing instability. There are a whole range of issues that we need to look at to ensure that people are able, for example, to keep hold of their tenancy, so if they are obliged to leave a house in which they would ordinarily have the right to live, then it's not the abuser who ends up staying in the house and the victim isn't driven out. So, there are an enormous number of things—I do agree with you.

One of the things I said in my statement on child poverty yesterday was that we were reviewing a number of systems that we currently have in place to make sure that we don't have people falling in between the cracks, and the area that she's just outlined is one of them. It's not directly in my portfolio, it's actually in the portfolio of the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip, but she and I are working together as part of the gender review and a number of other initiatives to do that, and I'm more than happy to include the Member in those arrangements.

The Welsh Government is providing a lot of support for people who are homeless, but, as we all know, there are far too many people who are sleeping on the streets and far too many people who don't know where they're going to sleep tonight, and they're hoping a friend or relative will put them up. That is a bad state for us to be in in twenty-first century Wales. Does the Minister agree that the only long-term solution to homelessness is to build council houses on the scale of the 1950s and 1960s, which includes Conservative Governments? I understand from reading some local papers recently that Harold Macmillan seems to have been described as a Marxist. 

Well, it's not my understanding of the definition of Marxist, I must say. I do entirely agree with the Member that we need to build the right combination of housing of the right type in the right place that is affordable for people. And that's obviously got to be coupled with support to ensure people can sustain a tenancy. So, it's not only about building the affordable homes; we're also being crystal clear that our ambition is to build social housing at scale and pace, and that includes council housing, and actually a large number of our registered social landlords in Wales build social housing in big numbers. It's why this Government has protected grant funding to ensure flexible tenancy support through our housing support grant as well, and it's why our Supporting People programmes are very important to ensure that not only do people get a place to live but they're able to support themselves in that tenancy.

Mohammad Asghar, in opening this, asked the Minister to look at the issues of the root causes of homelessness, and I would extend that to rough-sleeping as well. Shelter, in a study earlier this month said, despite, I have to say, despite the measures that were being taken in places like Wales and in Scotland, that there will be as many as 4,000 or more children who will be made homeless by 25 December. Would the Minister care to expand on what she understands are the root causes that, despite our best interventions, homelessness and rough-sleeping, including amongst children and young people, is now on an inexorable rise?

Yes, it's absolutely plain that one of the root causes of homelessness is the inability of people to access the right kind of social housing, because we haven't been building enough as a result of the Tory caps on the housing revenue accounts, and the way that that system worked, which was absolutely anti the building of social housing. There are also a number of issues around universal credit; the way that the local housing allowance has been capped for four years making people destitute; the rise in high levels of personal debt leading to family breakdown; and domestic violence issues, like Leanne Wood just highlighted, coming out of some of those issues. There are a range of complex issues, all based around poverty and the inability of people to earn enough money to sustain their housing. And the reason for that is because housing costs are very high in the private rented sector and the universal credit just simply doesn't cover them off, and that's absolutely the root cause of that. 

Yes. We provide a range of support for house builders, including support specifically for small to medium-sized businesses. I do recognise housing construction is challenging; I regularly meet with builders in order to discuss some of the challenges they face. The Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport and I last met with sector representatives in October, focusing on addressing construction challenges.

Thank you for your answer, Minister. Hughes Architects is a business that operates across mid Wales, and they have said that the draft national development framework has little thought for mid Wales. They're talking about it being backward-looking with no real vision, and also that it resembles previous strategies, which they say have failed to deliver. Mr Hughes specifically goes on to talk about the continued focus on affordable housing at the expense of general housing that has hit rural regions hard, and that has very much been misunderstood by strategic planners. There's also the wider point of mid Wales being included in a much wider region, being included within the south Wales region, but they are very different economies. And I know that other stakeholders have raised this concern with you also. I wonder how you respond to these concerns, and will you commit, Minister, and your officials, to considering carefully the stakeholder responses from mid Wales that have warned that the current draft development framework policy document fails to address what it actually set out to achieve?

Well, the current document is a consultation draft, as I know Russell George knows. The consultation has now closed. We've had over 1,000 responses to it and those responses are currently being analysed. We'll then publish the report on the consultation responses and we'll be bringing forward any recommended changes as a result of that consultation. So, I assume the firm that he's mentioning has returned a consultation response.

In terms of why we're emphasising social housing, all the evidence shows that we build enough market housing in Wales. Clearly we need to carry on building that much going forward, but we're several thousand short of social homes in particular. We need to build around 4,000 social homes a year for the next 10 years. We're not getting anywhere near that, whereas we have been building sufficient market housing. So that's the emphasis, though I accept the point that he makes, which is, as I said in response to Mohammad Asghar, we need to make sure that we build the right type of house in the right place for the right people. So there are a number of complex things.

The NDF framework is also intended to be read alongside 'Planning Policy Wales', and he will know that we've just started the passage of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill through the Senedd, and that has regional arrangements specifically around strategic planning, which will address some of the issues around the spatial issues and particular areas.

So, I take the point. We are looking at the consultation responses at the moment and as soon as I am in a position to share those responses and our response to them with the Assembly, I will do so—probably, Llywydd, very early in the new year.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Dai Lloyd.

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, you may have noticed that there's possibly a general election happening very shortly, but in view of that, it's emerged that students in Cardiff have been told that they won't be able to vote tomorrow because of an administrative error that is not their fault. I'm told that Cardiff council have admitted that around 200 of the 1,000 people who gave invalid addresses when they registered haven't been followed up yet. So, at this late stage, what can you do as Minister to try and rectify this unfortunate situation?

I wasn't aware of it, I have to say, so if he wants to give me details as soon as possible, I can follow it up with Cardiff council. I'm not sure of the answer, therefore, because I wasn't aware of the problem, but if you want to share the details with me, I'll see what we can do. We certainly, obviously, want to ensure that as many people are able to exercise their vote as is humanly possible. 

Thank you for that. Turning back to housing and rough-sleeping matters, as you'll be aware, the housing support grant is pivotal to enabling various agencies, like Cymorth Cymru, Community Housing Cymru and Welsh Women's Aid to deliver those oh-so-valuable services to counter homelessness and rough-sleeping on our streets, yet funding for housing-related support has reduced by £37 million in Wales since 2012 in real terms, so a recent report says. So, has the Welsh Government any plans to increase the housing support grant in the next budget round?

Well, as Dai Lloyd pointed out, we're having a general election at the moment and he'll know, therefore, that we've had to delay the publication of the budget. The draft budget alongside the local government settlement—at the same time, unusually, because of the compression of the timescales—will both be issued by written statement on the Monday following the general election. So, next Monday. 

Thank you for that, because statistics by the Wallich show an increase in the number of rough-sleepers on Swansea's streets, and when I've been out with the homeless soup run—and Leanne has been out as well on the homeless soup run in Swansea—the evidence is stark, actually. It's particularly poignant coming up to Christmas, as we are now. So, with the wild public spending bonanza promised by whoever wins this general election tomorrow, will the Minister commit to ensuring that preventing homelessness is a priority in any future spending decisions?

Yes. Clearly, we want to prevent homelessness. Dai Lloyd will be aware that we've got the housing action group, chaired by the chief executive of Crisis, working for us. We've accepted all of the recommendations of the first report, deliberately asked for by us in order to address rough-sleeping and the sharp end of homelessness in the run-up to Christmas. As a result of that, we've got the assertive outreach training right across Wales already. We've specifically trained all of the relevant workers in Swansea, Cardiff, Wrexham and Newport, but that's not to leave out other parts of Wales being rolled out right across those acute places where people gather.

I too have been out with various soup runs, breakfast runs, and so on, in Swansea and Cardiff. I'm not going to promise to get everybody in off the street because it's impossible to do; anybody who made that promise would be bound to break it. What we have said is that we will know who everybody is who's sleeping rough, and we will have a plan for them. If we can get them in off the street, of course, we will. Otherwise, we will have the assertive outreach workers reaching out to them. I met with two of them from Cardiff last week. Some of the stories they told me were absolutely heartwarming, but they also emphasised that it can take six to nine months to get somebody's trust enough to accept that you're giving them the right help and support.

So, we're not trying to force people to do things against their wishes, but we do want to make sure that they're safe and they have a care plan in place, and that we have the outreach workers working with them. So, what I am saying is we will know who everyone is, we will have a plan for them and, where possible, we will get them in off the street as soon as possible to one of our housing first arrangements, or the specific arrangements we've put in place in the four cities.   

Conservative spokesperson, Mark Isherwood. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Under the Welsh Government's local government funding formula, nine out of 22 Welsh authorities received an increase in the current financial year: Cardiff up 0.9 per cent, Swansea up 0.5 per cent, Wrexham 0.1 per cent cut, Flintshire 0.3 per cent cut, despite all having equivalent population increases. Alongside Flintshire, the councils with the largest cuts of 0.3 per cent included Conwy and Anglesey, although Conwy and Anglesey are amongst the five local authorities in Wales where 30 per cent or more of workers are paid less than the voluntary living wage. Prosperity levels per head in Anglesey are the lowest in Wales at just under half those in Cardiff, and Conwy council has the highest proportion of over 65s in Wales, at 25 per cent compared to Cardiff on 13 per cent, which has the smallest. When I questioned you about this here on 9 October, you replied,

'we offer all the time that a local authority who thinks that the measures are not right should come forward and put its suggested adjustments into the distribution sub-group formula'.

Have any local authorities come forward since you made that comment on 9 October and, if so, can you identify them?

As far as I know, they haven't, but I will check for Mark Isherwood just to be absolutely certain, but, as far as I know, no local authority has made a formal proposal to change the DSG formula.FootnoteLink But I make the offer again: if an authority wants to come forward with a change to the DSG formula, we are more than happy to look at it and to run the figures, and to put it through the democratic processes that we have in place to do that. The partnership council and the Welsh Government agrees the distribution sub-group formula every year. [Interruption.] What on earth does that mean, Darren Millar? What we believe in is local democracy and a local democratic structure. The Welsh Local Government Association and us work very carefully in the partnership council to do this.     

You don't need to be answering Darren Millar. Answer Mark Isherwood. 

Thank you. 

Well, in fact, the—. 

Mark Isherwood, if you can continue, and if he can be allowed to continue, especially by people in his own group.

In fact, the very week that you made that comment to me, a letter was sent to the First Minister and to yourself and to the Finance Minister and Trefnydd from Flintshire County Council, signed by its leader and the leader of all groups. It said, 'Flintshire has engaged with Welsh Government to make our case over a series of budget setting years. We still contend that as a low-funded council per capita under the local government funding formula, we're more exposed than most to the impacts of a decade of a reductive'—a term they used—'national budget. The evidence is there.' And they concluded, 'We would welcome a private discussion with you over our case to support and are resting on your judgment to make the best use of the uplift in the Welsh revenue budget to support the collective case for local government.'  

You replied on behalf of the Welsh Government on 4 November, 'The Welsh Government is committed to providing the best possible outcome to local government from our budget process', but then only discussed the size of the cake when their letter was about how the cake is sliced. Therefore, in response to the letter they did send to you the same week you responded to me, and you've repeated your offer to them, have you agreed to meet them, as they requested, to discuss the agenda that they raised with you in that letter?

I've no recollection of that, so apologies. We get a large number of correspondence. I'm more than happy to look at it again.

I met with all of the WLGA executives up in north Wales, in Flintshire County Council offices. Hannah and I had a number of meetings that day, at which the leader of Wrexham was present. I'm more than happy to meet with them again. Obviously, you don't know what the settlement looks like this year because we haven't released it. But I would say, Mark Isherwood, as usual, it's all very well for you to stand there and tell me I should give local authorities more money, but you're the architect of nine years of austerity, aren't you? You're the ones who've cut our budget, you're the ones who haven't sent us enough money, you're the ones who've made sure our funding formula is lower now than it was nine years ago, so you've only yourselves to blame.

Well, I'm not going to re-rehearse the economics lesson I tried to give you yesterday on that point—

Do you want the same answer?

Yes, because you don't seem to understand basic economics, but there we are—

Excuse me.

That's not what my question is about—

Ask your question now and the Minister can respond as well.

My question is about how the budget, whatever size it is, is sliced. It's about the formula, not about the size. We're all waiting in anticipation to hear what the next size of the budget will be—

I've been patronised by a lot better people than you, Mark Isherwood.

Wait for the question to be asked, and let's have a little bit of calm in the Chamber now, please.

So, their request to you, a letter replying from you, signed 4 November, they have requested a private discussion.

Do you want to read it out loud again?

So, I'd be grateful if you could look at that.

Similarly, I received correspondence from—I won't name them—an executive member of Flintshire this summer about the unfunded legislative impacts on local government. They said that local government has contested that the regulatory impact assessments that Welsh Government produces alongside draft legislation do not always fully estimate or project the likely implications of making a reality of legislation. They provided two examples—additional learning needs and sustainable drainage bodies—and they said that, in their case alone, the unfunded budget pressures next year would be over £0.5 million across Wales, over £10 million. Again, how do you respond to these concerns? This case was raised, actually, paradoxically, by a member of your own party, but speaking on behalf of the local government family across Wales, and is clearly, given the detail and evidence in the letter, based on evidence rather than simply opinion.

Well, Mark Isherwood, as usual, you are the one who doesn't understand fundamentally the way the economics of the local government settlement work. Wales has been underfunded by the Conservative Government for the last nine years. We only have so much money—much less than we should have in order to split it up. The splitting up of that pot is done via the democratic processes of the WLGA. We have liaison meetings with all of them, all the time. The leaders of the councils you are mentioning are present in many of those meetings. I have met with all of the council leaders and chief executives across Wales. I'm more than happy to entertain any suggestion that they want to put forward again. I just don't know how many times—. It doesn't matter if you wave pieces of paper at me. I don't know how many times I've got to tell you the same thing. Perhaps you should listen.

Our support for our armed forces veterans across Wales, including those living in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, is set out in our annual report, which was published in May. In collaboration with our armed forces expert group and other key partners, we continue to build on this important work.

Thank you for the answer, Minister. I trust this will be uncontroversial because, of course, this is an area that we all care about. We must look after these individuals who've served our country and are now turning to the state for support.

I've got one constituent in his 30s who very much answers to that description of being a veteran: he's encountered a relationship breakdown, he's struggling with addictions and isolation issues since leaving the armed forces, and is suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress, it would appear. Now, when my office have tried to engage with local services, we've found it really hard to get them to really buy into the fact that he's a veteran. There are local organisations, such as the VC Gallery in Haverfordwest and some of the churches in Pembroke, that have been absolutely outstanding and have tried to offer support every which way they can.

Now, I know you have a veterans pathway, but what could you do, Minister, do you think, to ensure that it's adequately signposted to make sure that veterans are automatically referred to the right services when seeking help from the statutory bodies?

I thank the Member for the question. I know this is something you've had a long-standing interest in and have been an advocate for. And I think you're absolutely right that it's absolutely an issue that should be uncontroversial—it's something that we should all care about, and actually recognise the importance of supporting the people who've served our country in the armed forces. Unfortunately, the example you raise, and the experience of your constituent, is not one that is unfamiliar, and it's a story that I've heard time and time again when I myself have gone out to visit the various organisations and groups out there supporting our veterans. You note the example of the VC Gallery in Pembrokeshire Dock, which is doing an excellent job. And we recently undertook a scoping exercise, which looked at things, to try and look at what we were doing now and where that was working, but also to identify some of those gaps, and signposting is one of them. So, as we move forward now in the new year, I hope that we can take those issues that were raised on board, to actually try and fill in some of those gaps. The transition and signposting was one of the things that people—. Just knowing where to go for those support services, and how people better identify people who are veterans, and making sure the right support was there, in place, in the right place—. But if the Member wants me to look into the particular experience in more detail, then please do get in touch, and I'm happy to take that up for her.

I'm aware of the issues faced at these properties and understand plans are in place to address issues raised by relevant fire and rescue services and by the local authority.

Thank you, Minister, for that answer. My request is relatively simple. I understand that, at a committee meeting, you indicated you'd like to visit the apartment block, and residents would be very keen to host you at such a visit. Are you able to indicate whether such a visit will actually take place and any diary timings that you might have made available for them to meet you, because, obviously, the issues are pressing? Some miniscule progress has been made on some of the issues, but there are 450-odd very concerned residents in that particular block. I appreciate there's a limit on what the Government can do, but, as you've indicated a willingness to visit, could you give us an indication of whether that visit might take place before Christmas?

It's unlikely to take place before Christmas because the enforcement notices served by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service have been appealed. And, unfortunately, while the appeal is ongoing, it's not appropriate for me to visit, in case the Welsh Government becomes involved in those proceedings. As soon as we are clear what's happened to the legal proceedings, I'm very happy to visit, but I'm not able to do so while that existing litigation is ongoing. So, apologies. I want to visit as soon as it's possible for me to do so, so as soon as that's complete. I've been asked by a number of Members to accompany them to visit constituents, so we'll sort out a time for me to do that.

Llywydd, I've got to declare an interest, in that I live in this complex myself, and I know several Assembly Members do, and their staff. What strikes me is the complete lack of information on this. There's been no correspondence through the letterbox in the flats or anything, there's been no notice of meetings, there's been no news apart from what I actually pick up in this Chamber. This raises the question of how residents, many of whom are renters, are kept informed. I'd be interested in your views on this, please.

It's a duty for the responsible agent to keep you informed. If that hasn't been happening, I will ask officials to just make sure that they're aware of their responsibilities. It's not the responsibility of the Welsh Government, but I'm more than happy to contact the managing agents and make sure that that is happening.FootnoteLink

Yes. This Government is tackling homelessness in all its forms. We want to move away from temporary solutions like emergency shelters, to quickly supporting people into sustainable, long-term accommodation. However, in the short term, shelters remain a key element in supporting people off the streets.

I do agree with the policy thrust here and the last part of your statement—that we still need these temporary emergency shelters. Can I bring to your attention the threat to The Wallich night shelter in Riverside? As we know, rough-sleeping has increased in the last three years—by the survey measures, anyway, it seems to be the case. And we do need to ensure that best practice, like that developed by The Wallich, which has been serving this community for over 20 years, is kept going as long as it needs to be there.

Yes, I agree with that. I'm not aware of the specific circumstances, but if David Melding wants to let me know any specific circumstances, he's aware I'm more than happy to look at them. From our point of view, we are making sure that councils are adequately funded, to ensure people are given the shelter they need, that the assertive outreach is in place. And just to reiterate in the Chamber, we've told councils to just do what is necessary to do and we will sort the plumbing out afterwards. So, no council should be telling you that they've got administrative or other difficulties in doing that; the services should be delivered, and the Welsh Government has undertaken to sort out any of the charging or other arrangements afterwards, and we've also said that no authority will lose out as a result of stepping up to that plate.
 
 

Minister, you'll be aware, following a recent question I asked the First Minister, that we are now seeing rough-sleepers in all our communities, like Connah's Quay and Shotton in my constituency. Now, I must say, Minister, nine years of Tory austerity, deliberately targeted at the poorest and most vulnerable, has brought us to this point. Without a roof over their heads, it is impossible for these people to have their voices heard. So, it's our job in this Chamber, and chambers across the UK, to stand up for them loudly and proudly, and that's exactly what we should be doing.

The Welsh Government's housing support grant provides us with the sort of flexible support that enables councils to tackle the most difficult places, and getting people through shelters into real, long-term housing solutions. Minister, will a Labour victory tomorrow enable you to further fund this grant and start to tackle the reality of nine years of Tory austerity?

Indeed. We very much hope that we will have a Government that understands that targeting spending on the poorest in our communities is a measure of civilisation. You measure a society not by what it does for those at the top who are richest, but for what it does for those at the bottom who a vulnerable and poor. I have to say the record of this Government speaks for itself, with the number of people on the streets, with rising crime, the slashed police numbers, difficulties in hospitals, and the starving of local authority services. In the 'Housing Matters' report, recently submitted to us by Cymorth Cymru, Community Housing Cymru and Welsh Women's Aid, the report tells a story, as Leanne Wood also pointed out, of the pressure on services facing increased demand and reduced spending power. They raised the issues of rough-sleeping, ending evictions into homelessness and addressing the impact of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence. They say that any Government worth its salt should have those as their priorities. A Labour Government would have those as its priorities at UK level, as this Government, this Labour Government in Wales has always had them as our priorities. 

This year, the programme was heavily oversubscribed, demonstrating a real appetite amongst the Welsh housing sector to build homes in new and creative ways. I have therefore made £20 million available to support Welsh SMEs to innovatively produce more homes, and we're considering further programme funding.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Ebwy Court in Ely, as part of a committee inquiry into fuel poverty. And the one and two-bedroomed homes that were about to be occupied by the new residents were an amazing example of what can be done with timber frame-build homes, mainly fabricated in a factory. This project was completed two months in advance of the projected date, and the zero-carbon housing, which is fuelled by both photovoltaics and boreholes of ground source heat pumps, will provide really affordable homes for people. There were lots of other exciting features as well, including the bicycle shed, and the option for growing their own vegetables. 

But, I just wanted to know, given the success of these projects and just how popular they're going to be, what success, if any, you've had with persuading the six big house builders to stop building the out-of-date, twentieth century stuff that they continue to build and, instead, build these zero-carbon homes, which are just going to be so much more suitable for all residents?

Yes, I couldn't agree more. It's quite possible for private house builders to build near zero-carbon homes. Year 2 of our innovative housing programme was opened up to private companies in order to demonstrate that they can do it, and they have indeed demonstrated that they can do it, and we have a large number of houses across Wales, supported by the IHP programme, demonstrating different ways of arriving at zero carbon. We also have demonstrators for modular house building, sustainable house building, using Welsh timber, Welsh supply chains, zero carbon in the supply chain and in the eventual demolition—so, a whole-life zero-carbon house. 

You'll have heard me speaking very often about my concerns regarding the quality of homes being built by some of the big private home builders, and, indeed, many of them have customers that are very concerned and speaking loudly to them about it. By the end of next year, we will, I hope, have revised the Part L requirements for house builders in Wales. Social housing is leading the way in that and sets the standard, but I'm pushing hard to ensure that we have harmonisation of standards because I think that's the game changer. So, if we can pass through this Senedd the regulations that mean that we set the standard the same for all tenures of house for new builds in Wales, then we will have gone a long way to achieving zero carbon in our house building programme for the future. 

I concur with the points made by Jenny Rathbone. I think that, in the area of zero-carbon homes, Wales really can make a lead in this area if we want to. Minister, the innovative housing fund has enabled Monmouthshire Housing Association to carry on their excellent work, developing two innovative housing sites in Chepstow, working in partnership with the Welsh School of Architecture, and this comes after a previous project in my constituency in Abergavenny.

Monmouthshire Housing Association's latest development will provide flexible, sustainable living for downsizers and first-time occupiers. This housing association that I've mentioned has a track record of providing sustainable innovative housing. How are you ensuring, where good practice carried out by this housing association is happening in one part of Wales, that that good practice is being harnessed? And, as it is a product of the fund that you are providing for housing associations and councils across Wales, how are you spreading that across Wales to make sure that people from all parts of Wales can benefit from it? 

Yes, there are several good projects. I visited the step-down project only very recently and spoke to a gentleman living there who was extremely enthusiastic about all of the benefits of having gone into a much more sustainable house, including the community around him. So, it's important to remember that these are people's homes. It's not just about the fabric of the building; it's about the community around them as well. So, I concur it was a really good interesting project. It's putting a smile on my face just remembering the conversations that we had there. 

What we're doing, as a result of the affordable housing review, is we're looking at the way that we use social housing grants in Wales to drive various outcomes, one of which is long-term sustainable near zero-carbon housing, and what we can do to use our levers in order to assist housing associations to build the kinds of houses that we want for the future. The whole point of the innovative housing programme is to de-risk some of the more innovative models to see if they work, and then, if they do work, to scale them up.

So, in this next tranche of innovative housing, we're looking to see if we can scale some of the successes. So, the programmes you have spoken of there are relatively small builds. What we want to see now is if we can do that on a 175-site or whatever. So, the next stage is to scale it up one more leg and then to see if we can scale it up altogether, and there'll be more than one model for that. Several of them have worked out really well. So, that's the next tranche of our programme.  

Last month, I introduced the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill. This Bill includes provisions to remove the prohibition of most local authority employees standing for election in the authority in which they are employed.

Thank you. In March, Minister Hannah Blythyn AM raised the anomaly that people who work in local government are not able to put themselves forward for election for that same authority and that this would be addressed in the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill. Now, according to section 24, a person who holds a relevant paid office or employment is disqualified from being a member of a local authority in Wales, but would then be able to be elected as a member. But currently, for instance, local authority employees are expected to then resign from their jobs immediately so as to take up that office, undoubtedly putting teachers, school cooks and many others off.

Now, there's a current situation where if you provide a service to a local authority, such as a keep-fit instructor or a swimming instructor, and you receive remuneration from that local authority, you cannot stand as an elected member. So, what consideration will you give to amending the Bill so that we can actually really attract more diverse elected members to our local authorities?

So, the Bill does two things. It removes from the restriction a whole group of local authority employees who don't have any part in the political process—so, school employees and so on. It keeps a salary cap for those employed in the centre of the local authority and obviously for those who are involved in the political process in advising committees and statutory office holders, and so on. But, for those who are barred, it allows them to stand for election other than in politically restricted posts, just to be clear—so, several groups of people—and you have to resign on taking office. So, you can be elected, you can consider your position and then you can resign. The Bill actually says that you're resignation takes effect immediately, so you don't have any issues with notice periods and so on. So, it means that you can be elected and then, on taking office, you have to have resigned. So, it frees the way for people to stand whilst employed, because I completely agree with you that many of the people who are most interested in local authority services are those who are providing them, and this restriction has been unduly restrictive in terms of the diversity of local government.

We are speaking with all 11 councils that have a housing revenue account, including Carmarthenshire, about the support they require to boost local council house building at scale and pace. These are one-to-one meetings to help provide bespoke support to each individual authority, and discussions with Carmarthenshire have been very positive.

I'm very grateful to the Minister for her answer, and I'm sure she will join me in congratulating Carmarthenshire, with its ambitious plans to build 900 council houses over the next 10 years, which will almost bring them up to target, and I know that the Minister's discussions with them will help them to perhaps get that extra 100 houses in. But they are also currently bringing over 180 long-term vacant properties back into use, which is another way in which we can work to provide affordable housing. Can the Minister tell us whether the Welsh Government will be able to commit more funding to speed up the programme of bringing more long-term empty homes into use for local people?

I fully appreciate that the Minister will no doubt tell me that she can't commit to anything while she doesn't know what her budget is, but I wonder if she can commit in principle to investing in what can be a very effective way of bringing affordable housing particularly to small communities, where perhaps you don't want more big building, but you've got empty properties.

Yes, in principle, absolutely. We've been working with Carmarthenshire and a number of other authorities to do just that. So, there is a range of schemes in place: acquisitions of new properties—so, as long as they're built to the right standards, the authority can acquire them. I want to pay tribute to Llinos in Ynys Môn, actually, who was the one who put the idea into my head quite a long time ago now, because she talked about buying a property in, I think, Beaumaris, where there's a great lack of social housing. One came up on the market, and they knew that they had people who wanted a social house there and they bought it. So, it does show that it can be done with an innovative council leader, and I very much want to pay tribute to her for having put that idea into my head in the first place.

So, we're very keen that local authorities look at all avenues of doing that—so, purchasing existing properties, purchasing new builds, bringing vacant properties up to standard and back into use. We've got two schemes for that, one with my colleague Lee Waters—he's not in the Chamber at the moment—where we're giving a loan/grant mixture to people who have sub-standard housing that can't be occupied at the moment—perhaps they've inherited it or whatever—to bring it up to standard. There are rules around how long you then have to live in it. We're also encouraging them to give those houses over for social rent to the local authority for five years. I outlined that scheme just recently in the Chamber. And what I want to say is that any other ideas—so, any other ideas to up the social housing stock, we're more than happy to look at and I very much hope we'll be able to support with budget and actually expertise, compulsory purchase orders and all the rest of it.

Like Helen Mary, I welcome the drive to build more affordable homes in Carmarthenshire, but I just wanted to discuss with you the issue of distribution. Because I looked at the map of where they've built homes in the last few years and where they're intending to build many of these homes, and I wonder if you could give us an outline on what guidance you give to county councils to ensure that we end up with properly mixed communities, because we have a lot of smaller towns and villages where there are quite a lot of new homes, but there are disproportionately very, very few local authority homes or affordable homes being built. And so you end up with a community that's very skewed and has got a lot of people coming into it without having that real mix of people that you need in order to make sustainable communities going forward.

So, 'Planning Policy Wales' has changed—this time last year, in fact—to emphasise placemaking and very much part of placemaking is the building of mixed communities—so, a mixed community with a load of mixed tenures in it. We want to encourage local people to stay in their local communities—very keen to explore different ways of getting mixed tenure arrangements in there: shared equity, rent-to-own, co-op models and so on. So, we're very happy to work with local authorities to bring a whole range of those things in.

And also—I'm trying to not make this political, but I will say that we have had a bit of a blow, because, in October, the UK Treasury increased the Public Works Loan Board base rate from 1.8 per cent to 2.8 per cent and that's making it much more difficult for the authorities to borrow and then service the borrowing that we had planned for them. So, if you've got any influence at all, if you could get them to revise that, because that came out of the blue and it's really impacted some of our councils' ability to plan their build programme into the future. So, I very much don't welcome that. But, as I said to Helen Mary just now, we're supporting all 11 councils in Wales with retained housing stock to develop new social homes at scale and pace in the right place—the right home in the right place for the right people at the right time.

Finally, question 9—Darren Millar.

I detect a theme today. The Welsh Government is committed to taking forward a comprehensive package of legislative reforms to improve the safety of homes in Wales. We have already made improvements to the current building safety system by bringing forward amendments to building regulations that will ban combustible cladding from high-rise residential buildings.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. One area where we could take some more action, I think, is in respect of the quality of rented accommodation. We've obviously got the Welsh housing quality standard, which is a very, very welcome thing here in Wales, but one of the silent killers, an invisible killer, that's clearly taking lives in Wales and in other parts of the UK, is carbon monoxide. Unfortunately, too many homes do not have the relatively inexpensive carbon monoxide detectors in places where there are gas appliances that are present. What specific action is the Welsh Government taking to deal with this silent and invisible killer so that we can be assured that people, particularly those in rented accommodation, are protected from it?

The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which this Senedd passed back then, once implemented, will require landlords to ensure their dwelling is fit for human habitation. It requires Welsh Ministers to make regulations on determining whether a building is fit for human habitation, and that includes a requirement for working carbon monoxide alarms, smoke alarms and electrical safety testing in any house in the private rented sector. So, the Bill already has that. We're in the process of implementing that Bill. Once it's in place, that regime will be in place with it.

Thank you, Minister, for those responses.

No topical questions were received today.

We move, therefore, to the 90-second statements, and the first statement is from Helen Mary Jones.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Members will be familiar with the two organisations I wish to draw attention to in this statement today: Urdd Gobaith Cymru, of course, the largest voluntary membership youth organisation in Europe, and the youth homelessness charity Llamau. On 19 and 18 December, the Urdd centre in Cardiff will open up and provide accommodation and serve Christmas lunch to 240 young people aged between 17 and 24 who are involved in Llamau initiatives. These young people may be sofa surfing, in unstable accommodation, maybe trying to leave abusive relationships. Many of them face discrimination and some are at risk of becoming completely homeless this Christmas. Their Christmas with the Urdd may very well be the only Christmas that they have.

Of course, Members will know that Llamau's central belief is that no young person or vulnerable woman should ever have to experience homelessness in Wales—an aspiration that I'm sure we all share, and I'm delighted to see the Urdd coming into partnership with Llamau to support these vulnerable young people. The Urdd themselves are providing resources for the dinner and the accommodation, but they're busy collecting gifts for young people, and there have been some very generous donations. For example, the Football Association of Wales has donated a jersey for each young person attending. But they're still looking for more gifts to make these two events really special, and Members will have received an e-mail from my office asking for any contributions that you can give for appropriate gifts. There's still time to provide those, and, indeed, we'd welcome donations too from members of staff. I'll be collecting donations in the office until early next week, so, if anybody has anything that they can share, we'd be really, really grateful.

Members will also have been invited to attend the formal launch of the partnership, which is to be held—. One of the attendees will be our First Minister. It is happening on Wednesday 18 December, so many of us will be back in constituencies, but, if anybody is around at 11 o'clock in Cardiff on that day, please go to the Urdd and congratulate these two very special organisations on their new and very special partnership.

Suzy Davies.

Can I say it's a pleasure to remind the Chamber that 18 December marks the fortieth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW? The convention is a bill of rights for women, and it covers everything, from the rights of women to take part in political life, to having the right to the same job opportunities as men in terms of equal pay, promotion and working conditions, as well as the rights of rural women and girls to have equal access to public services.

In 2018, the Women's Equality Network, that's WEN, in coalition published and submitted a report to the United Nations on CEDAW, highlighting key issues raised by WEN members across Wales. Those issues raised concerns about the lack of black and minority ethnic women in this Chamber, for example; the suggestion of targets for 50:50 representation in politics; the setting up of a door to democracy or access to elected office fund to ensure that we get more disabled, LGBT and BME women into politics at all levels; and, of course, addressing the price of childcare for women, among other things.

I'd like just to take this opportunity to thank all Assembly Members who continue to show their support for the incorporation of the CEDAW convention into Welsh law, and who strive to raise awareness of the issues so that we can protect and enhance women's rights, with the aim of becoming a Wales free from gender discrimination. Thank you.

Caroline Jones.

A few weeks ago, Cwm Brombil Ladies WI hosted an event for Age Connect at Neath Port Talbot in Margam Abbey as part of the Women's Institute link together to alleviate loneliness campaign. I'm proud to be a member of Cwm Brombil Ladies WI.

In addition to working hard to tackle loneliness and isolation, the women in Cwm Brombil also work to reduce the impact of dementia, to raise funds for charity, and to highlight the work of our servicemen and women. Their recent coffee morning raised over £700 for the Maggie’s cancer care centre in Swansea. They also created a poppy cascade on display at Margam Abbey, honouring the sacrifices made by local men and women.

The Women's Institute is not a bunch of ladies doing nothing more than sharing fruitcake recipes. We play an active role in tackling the problems of modern society, from climate change to the exploitation of farmers. There are no greater champions for change than the WI. Cwm Brombil Ladies WI are leading the fight in south-west Wales, and I'm very proud to be a member and to be able to call them my friends. Thank you.

The motion under the next item, item 5, has been withdrawn.

Therefore, the next item is a Member debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv) on nurse staffing levels. I call on Helen Mary Jones to move the motion. 

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to move this motion on behalf of myself, Dai Lloyd and David Rees. It's being supported by Delyth Jewell, but I'm sure it would have been supported by more Members across the Chamber had we had more time to table it.

I'd like to commend the Royal College of Nursing report to this Chamber. It contains robust research. It highlights progress in the implementation of the Act, where that has been delivered, but it also calls out, questions, where things are not going as well as they should. It sets out a series of questions for each health board with regard to their implementation of the Act, and nine detailed recommendations for the Welsh Government covering a number of issues, including the need for more robust implementation monitoring, more support for front-line nurses raising concerns about the effective implementation of the legislation, and the development of a national IT pathway to support the implementation.

The report's recommendations also focus on retention, and this, of course, is reflected in our motion. Now we have, of course, and must acknowledge that the Minister has made, some progress with regard to nursing recruitment and with the nursing workforce—more training placements, for example. But retention continues to be a really serious issue, and this report calls for the Welsh Government to require all health boards to have a retention strategy as part of a national retention strategy. That national retention strategy needs, they say, to include a national approach to flexible working.

We must have a long-term approach to the retention of our nursing staff. We've been talking for 20 years, to my knowledge, about the need for flexible working. Of course, there are challenges, and it's very important to keep nursing settings effectively staffed. But flexible working is the norm in most professions now, and local health boards have not acted and we need national leadership. There are, of course, bodies of good practice. But, once again, we face this issue that good practice is not being effectively shared.

I don't want to take up too much time in this debate, Dirprwy Lywydd, because the case is set out clearly in the report, which I know is available to all Members. But I do hope that the Minister, in his response, will accept that, while we have, as the motion says, more nurses leaving our NHS than joining it, often going to work in agencies and in fact returning to the same settings that they've left, while we have that happening—and the nurses do that because they get better terms and conditions and very important flexibility—and while we have an estimated 1,600 unfilled nursing vacancies, we do have a crisis as things stand in our nursing workforce. I specifically hope that the Minister will accept the need for a national nursing retention strategy so that the good approaches, where they do work, can be rolled out, and we can ensure that we don't train these valuable members of staff only to lose them.

Members will have received communication from nurses in their constituencies. We've all had, I think, a number of postcards urging us to support this motion and support the calls for action in the report. They're asking us to support, among other things, a national retention strategy, and this is needed because, as one nurse from Llanelli said in her postcard to me, we need to retain staff, reduce staff burnout, and above all, keep patients safe.

I commend this motion to the Senedd. I look forward to the debate, to the Minister's response to the motion and to David Rees's response to the debate. I commend the motion to the Senedd.

I'd like to thank the Members who have brought forward this debate today, because I think it is extremely timely. I think it is worth rehearsing just a couple of the facts: that every week, nurses in Wales give the NHS extra hours to the value of 976 full-time nurses. If you say it quickly, it doesn't mean that much, but actually, if you slow it down and really think about it, you're talking about 976 extra bodies that our nurses just give freely of their own volition, because they have a commitment to the duty that they believe that they must discharge. So I'd like to thank all of those nurses for all that they do.

We know the Welsh NHS demonstrates a heavy reliance on the nurses' willingness to work overtime, but of course, endless work and endless overtime creates endless stress, and instead of incentivising our nurses to stay, instead of looking at how we might alleviate this, one of the things I have found particularly odd is that NHS Wales tries to discourage nurses from leaving by measures such as refusing to hire agency nurses who also work for health boards or trusts, or allowing nurses to move around. So you get this really perverse incentive where you might have a nurse, for example in Hywel Dda, who needs to earn a few extra hours but can't do them in Hywel Dda. He or she has to go across a border into another health board where they are registered to do those extra hours. To me, that seems absolutely illogical, especially when the health board that they are leaving is usually then going out to pay even more money to agency nurses. So much better to actually just pay people overtime to recognise the contribution that they give, to allow them to continue to work in the place where they feel the most comfortable.

There is a concern over training, but I am going to leave others to talk about that. I just did want to touch on how few registered nurses we have in the care home workforce in Wales, and I think that this is an area that's absolutely vital. Not only do we not have very many nurses in care homes—and as more and more care homes are dealing with people with more and more complex conditions, there's more need for nurses and more need for those medical professionals—not only do we not have enough of them, they're not even paid the same amount of money that a nurse in a hospital would be paid, or a nurse in the community would be paid, who is not in a care home. Again, I think we have to say that if you have reached this level in your nursing career, if you've got his much training under your belt, if you're in this band, then whether you're in this situation or that situation, there should be far more equity in the pay that you receive.

So, Minister, I wondered if you might be able to give us any information on what might be being considered in terms of those two main questions—question 1: how do we keep nurses and pay them overtime to do the overtime in the health board to which they belong rather than forcing them to travel and add to their stress, with travel hours to get to another heath board so that they could earn that extra money? And question 2: how do we make sure that nurses in care homes are not disadvantaged unfairly?

Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, I just wanted to talk about flexible working, because there's been a really interesting report produced for London NHS Trust by Timewise, and it talks about putting in flexibility into a shift-based environment, and how it's affected by the variability or predictability of the schedule, the degree of input or control that an individual can exercise over that schedule, and the amount of advanced notice. And flexible working is really key. NHS Wales needs to find a way of tackling all of these three elements if we're going to attract and retain the staff we need to work in our shifts.

The top five causes of job dissatisfaction for UK hospital doctors and nurses very clearly said that for nurses, work-life balance came first for those aged under 35—much more important than pay—and second, for those who are 36 and over. It was second after pay. Flexible working could be a practical way to ease into retirement, and it could help to keep experienced staff on board for longer.

The project that was carried out in two English hospitals in 2017 looked at creating a team-based rostering process, and it looked at not just childcare, but all of the work-life balance needs, and their lead team collaborated, not just on rota production, but also on communicating and negotiation with groups. So, Minister, I believe that improving work-life balance and access to flexible working could have a direct impact on retention, particularly for younger clinical professionals whose expectations are very different to those of an older generation. So, I'd like to understand what concrete steps the Welsh Government are taking to improve work-life balance, and I would like to encourage you to look at this trial, this pilot, that was conducted in London, because it has been successful, and there may be positive lessons that we can learn to help retain these very, very valuable and hardworking people in our NHS.

May I congratulate Helen Mary Jones for bringing this debate forward and for her wonderful opening remarks, which set out all the decisions that need to be taken? I also congratulate the Royal College of Nursing on this wonderful report on implementing the nurse staffing levels 2016. In terms of the progress made, there has been some progress made, as Helen said, but certain challenges remain. We had a debate last week on the health committee report on nursing and community nursing and many of those factors are also relevant here. May I also pay tribute to the cross-party group on nursing and midwifery, chaired by David Rees, which has led the way and led to the report published by the health committee that we discussed last week?

We all know of the challenges in our health service, particularly from the perspective of nurses. There aren't enough of them, first of all. There are vacant posts. We need to double the number of nurses undergoing training. We have a system that’s under pressure and our staff are under pressure. Our nurses are under pressure and are overworked and are often away from work because of the stresses and strains that they face. Of course, there are new demands, new medical developments, and we're asking more of our nurses, particularly in the community, who now deal with people in the community who used to be on hospital wards but now are treated at home.

We also need to safeguard whistleblowers who express concerns about the system. We're still not particularly effective at doing that, and as others have said, we need to be far more flexible with rotas and shift hours in order to ensure that nurses remain within our NHS. And, yes, we need to implement this legislation, the nurse staffing levels legislation. May I remind you why this was necessary in the first place? Well, because this legislation protects patients. The research has shown, as this report says, that poor staffing levels have led to an increase of up to 26 per cent in terms of wards where there are better staffing levels. So, not having enough nurses leads to people actually dying and an increase in the number of degree-level nurses relates to a reduction of 7 per cent in patient deaths. And, of course, naturally, we don't only need safe staffing levels in some wards, we need them in all health placements, in the community, in children wards, not just on the specialist wards that we have now.

But, specifically the nursing staff in Wales is facing a national crisis. There are high levels of vacancies, as I’ve already mentioned—at least 1,600 according to the RCN estimate in terms of vacant nursing posts—and there is also a dire shortage in the care home sector, as Angela Burns has already mentioned.

So, there is a significant challenge facing us and as this motion says, we need flexibility in the short term in order to retain staff. Yes, we can talk about training staff now and for the future, but we also need to retain the staff that we have on our wards and in the communities at the moment, and the Welsh Government, therefore, needs to set out how the NHS in Wales will increase opportunities to work flexibly as part of a national strategy to retain nurses, as Helen and Angela have already said, because there are many nurses in Wales who are responsible for other things in their lives and they need that flexibility as well as needing the job and the salary. They are responsible for young children, older parents, and they choose to work for an employer where they can manage their working hours. That’s why they go to work for private agencies, and so on and so forth, and, therefore, the health service also has to make the same kind of provision so that we can retain nurses in our national health service. Thank you.

I thank Helen, Dai and David for tabling this debate. As I've said many, many times before, nurses are the backbone of our NHS. Unfortunately, successive Governments have failed to recruit and retain enough nurses, and Wales has an abysmal record on workforce planning, and we are seeing the results, because there are more nurses leaving the profession than joining.

The fact that we needed to introduce legislation to ensure that wards have sufficient nurses on hospital wards to allow time to care is damning enough, but the fact that the law doesn't apply to all wards and all health settings is a travesty. The nurse staffing levels Act was introduced to improve patient safety. It is a fact that low nursing numbers can contribute up to a quarter more patient deaths.

Here in Wales, we spend nearly 12 per cent of our GVA on health, our health spending—second only to Scotland at £2,310 per person—is nearly £200 more per person than in England. Yet, we wait longer, and we have had to pass legislation to ensure that we have safe staffing levels, not because we don't invest enough in our NHS—half the Welsh budget is spent on health. And this legislation of safe staffing levels was introduced by an opposition AM, precisely because mismanagement had led to unsafe practices in hospitals across Wales. A lack of nationwide workforce planning and botched reorganisation has left the Welsh NHS in a state of disarray. Health organisations and clinicians have complained about the different approaches taken by local health boards. National policies get implemented in seven different ways, with patients facing an ever-increasing postcode lottery of healthcare.

We can see this clearly in how the nurse staffing levels Act is being implemented, because local health boards are all at differing levels of compliance with the Act. Betsi Cadwaladr states that compliance with the Act is high risk and not cost effective within its existing model. In my own region, Cwm Taf has no retention plan and, despite being ruled as compliant, wards at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend have staff shortages, which will impact upon patient safety. Swansea Bay has had 11 falls, resulting in serious harm or death, in which a failure to maintain staffing levels was considered to be a factor. This is simply not good enough.

Our constituents deserve and demand safe levels of staff in our hospitals. Welsh Government has to accept that the buck does stop with them. The nurse staffing levels Act has to be fully implemented in every health setting. We need a well-planned recruitment and retention strategy that makes nursing appealing to every person who wants to train as a nurse, in order to address the fact that nurses are leaving the profession in droves.

We have a safe staffing levels Act in place for a reason. We need safe staffing levels across all healthcare settings and not just on certain wards. How many more patients have to be seriously injured or lose their lives because of bad management and poor planning? So I urge colleagues to back this motion.

Thank you. Can I now call the Minister for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank Members who have brought forward today's debate and the opportunity to discuss the implementation of Wales's landmark nurse staffing legislation. It's good to see the fellow of the Royal College of Nursing who was the Member in charge of that piece of legislation in the Chamber today as well.

Together with colleagues from across the Chamber, I recognise the critical role that nurses play within our multidisciplinary teams, delivering healthcare right across Wales. The delivery of safe and sustainable services relies on our ability to train, recruit and retain nurses, together with other NHS staff, within our publicly run healthcare system here in Wales. Ensuring that we have the nurses that we need is a challenge here in Wales and much more broadly across the UK and beyond. In England, for example, the vacancy rate is nearly double that in Wales in the nursing workforce. But, in Wales, we have chosen not to dilute the nursing workforce by introducing nurse associates, as they are doing in England.

The actions needed to meet the challenges we face extend well beyond the nurse staffing Act. However, the RCN's report that has been highlighted does recognise a number of the positive effects of the Act so far. For example, we know that, following the implementation of the Act, more than £17 million of additional funding was invested in increasing our nursing workforce in adult acute medical and surgical wards. That is an immediate and tangible benefit for our front-line nurses, the staff that they work with and, above all, for the patients that they care for.

We hear regularly from nurses, right up to the most senior levels, that the Act has made a clear difference to the weight attached to their professional judgment when they have what can be difficult conversations about nurse staffing levels with their colleagues. This was one of the key reasons for passing the legislation in the form that it took, and it has been really reassuring to hear that that is already making a difference.

Overall, I'm positive about how quickly our health boards have adapted to their new duties, and this Assembly should be genuinely proud of the legislation that we passed unanimously three years ago. And I was certainly proud to announce last week that this Government will extend the Act's second duty to paediatric in-patient wards before the end of this Assembly term. 

My officials work closely with staff from each health board through the all-Wales nurse staffing programme. In this way, we have identified and started to address several of the issues that are included as recommendations in the RCN report. I recently allocated funding for two informatics posts within National Wales Informatics Service to work with the all-Wales nurse staffing programme to take forward a national IT solution. And that will support health boards to meet their reporting duties under the Act.

We also recognise the need to be able to accurately gauge the impact of this trailblazing legislation. And, with imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, it's good to see that Scotland have followed our lead, and there are serious conversations in England too. And I look forward to a future Government following our lead in England.

On evaluation, I will commission a robust independent evaluation that is scheduled to coincide with the conclusion of the first three-year reporting period in April 2021.

We are, however, far from complacent, and I do want to address some of the points made about numbers, but also about retention. It is tempting to point out, say, that we've retained an extra 1,900 nurses over the last five years or so because of our efforts and, therefore, when you think about it, rather than having a small fall in this last year, we've actually increased nurse numbers over five years. But I think we should leave the doublespeak to other people, because the truth is that, within this whole Assembly term, we've increased the number of registered nurses and members of the nursing family working with our national health service. But, last year, for the first time, we saw 65 more nurses leaving NHS Wales than joining.

Members, though, will be aware of the significant investment that we have made in health professional education and training, which has seen nurse training places increase from 1,053 in 2014 to 1,987, following my recent announcement on investing even more in nurse training. That investment also includes 140 places on return-to-practice programmes for nurses. And this year, 970 nurses graduated in Wales, compared to 778 in 2018. So we are making deliberate and definitive progress in training more of our own nurses. I'll happily take the intervention.

Thank you. 

I just feel that you might be being a tad sensitive on this, because I don't recall anybody's contribution particularly saying that the Welsh Government weren't doing plans to improve retention. I think what we're trying to say is that there is such a shortfall in nurses that what more can we do, how else can we actually improve this and keep the nurses we've got, as well as recruit more, which is why I brought forward to you the pilot that's currently being run in the London hospitals and the work that they've done about flexible working. 

And I'll be coming to retention later in my contribution. 

But the NHS remains the only part of the public sector that has continued to increase staff numbers despite a decade of austerity, and that's a point that is difficult for other members of public services to recognise. Our colleagues in education, our colleagues right across local government recognise that health has been the big sector that has been invested in. But today's debate shows the appetite to further increase numbers is undiminished. To reach the levels we all wish to see across the UK will require significant and sustained investment from every UK nation, a different approach from whoever is the new UK Government to health and social care investment and, in particular, a different approach to recruitment from Europe and the scrapping of the nonsensical and damaging salary cap proposal, to have a real impact on our ability to recruit more staff.

Last week in my statement to the Chamber, I highlighted the positive interest generated by our 'Train. Work. Live.' campaign; there'll be more to come in 2020, which is the Year of the Nurse and Midwife. But, of course, we do need to do more to retain our skilled nursing workforce. That means providing service models that meet the expectations of our current and future workforce, an effective health and well-being offer, and flexible working options to provide a positive work-life balance, as a number of speakers have referred to. And I'm interested in what's being done both here in Wales and across the UK on doing just that. I want to see career and education opportunities, and ensure that NHS Wales is a great place to work.

So, our national workforce strategy being developed by Healthcare Inspectorate Wales and Social Care Wales will support the future sustainability of both the health and the social care workforce, in particular how we plan our workforce models for the future, identify the staff that are required with different professional groups and, importantly, how we support and develop our staff. So, I will be asking the NHS Wales partnership forum to consider together what further actions we could and should be taking both locally and nationally to support the retention of staff, including our nurses. That will consider current practice, including the best practice to spread that exists already in health boards and, of course, identifying best practice to introduce further flexible working.

I'll take the intervention before I finish.  

Thank you. I'm very grateful to you, Minister, and I think we have acknowledged, as Angela Burns said, that there has been some real progress, but do you agree with the Royal College of Nursing that we do need a national retention strategy, because while there are some pockets of good practice, I think what they're asking for is for that practice to become the norm? As I said, we have been talking about the issues of retention for a very long time now, and do you feel that it's time that all that good practice that is out there is pulled together and becomes the norm? 

Well, I had this conversation today with the Royal College of Nursing and, as I've just said, I'm asking the NHS Wales partnership forum, bringing together the staff trade union side, the Government and NHS employers to do just that, as I've just said, to look locally and nationally at what exists and what should exist for the future as well. 

This Government will abstain today, as we normally do on Member debates. However, regardless of the voting outcome, there is much to be proud of here in Wales, and much more to do. I look forward to working alongside our nursing family to provide the care and the work environment that we would all want to see, with, of course, the right numbers of staff to provide the right care at the right time and in the right place. 

Thank you. Can I now call David Rees to reply to the debate? 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and can I thank all Members for their contributions this afternoon? Before I go on to look at the discussion and Members' contributions, can I also join in thanking the Cabinet member, the Minister for Education, because it was her who took this Bill through the last Assembly, driving it forward, and you will remember the discussions we had in committee on many occasions? I think she should be proud of the Act as it is now, and the progress it is making. I think we should put on record our thanks to her, because it is critical that that Act is now delivering for patients.

Can I start with the contribution from Helen Mary Jones, who opened it up and outlined the important issues that this report brings to light and to our attention, particularly to assess the implications of this Act and what we as Assembly Members can do in our own health board areas to ask questions of those health boards in relation to how they are implementing the Act, where they're going? If you look at the various questions, you will see some common themes coming through those questions as well.

Helen also highlighted the retention and recruitment strategy, which is one of the big common themes, and raised the concerns about it. Particularly, I think, she mentioned one thing. We talk very often about retention and stress, but we also forget sometimes it is staff burn-out that exists amongst many of our staff, because they put in, as Angela said, the extra hours above and beyond what they normally do and what they're contracted to do. And that helps—well, it does help them burn out, because it adds more to their commitment. They come home tired, they're spending longer hours there, because of their desire to protect and help patients. It is something we need to address.

Angela highlighted again the question of flexible working. Can we look at ways in which we can look at nurses? Can we encourage health boards to look at a flexible approach to employment? They're good, agencies, because agencies offer flexible working. Can we, as an NHS, actually offer the flexible working that agencies offer and look to ensure we can keep them within the national health service, because retention is one of the critical elements in this report? We often talk about—. We've got a general election going on and we've heard the numbers from Boris Johnson saying 50,000—20,000 of which will be retention. So, even they recognise that retention is critical to ensuring that we have a proper workforce available to deliver care in our hospital settings, in this case, and in other settings as well. You're right: is it bank nursing, is it agency nursing? Why can't we give them overtime? Why can't they just work in the place where they normally work—their regular place of work? I think we need to address this matter.

Dai Lloyd reminded us of the challenges that remain. Progress has been made but challenges remain. And I think, again, this report highlights that. It says that we are looking at the fact that health boards are discussing this Act, and they are discussing the implementation and where they're meeting their duties within this Act. But there are still many challenges to go because the workforce strategy is critical in all of these discussions. He also highlighted that the purpose of this Act is to improve care and outcomes for patients, not to improve, necessarily, nurses' lives, which is what it will do, but it's actually about the patient. Because if you get the nursing levels right, you get the outcomes for patients right, and that's of critical importance.

Caroline reminded us again of the workforce planning and I will ask her sometime, in terms of some of the comments she made, to please look at the discussions we had in committee during the progress of Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the Bill. They may answer some of the points she raised, because many of those issues were raised and I think the Member who led the Bill did it for other reasons than were properly highlighted. And there are different levels of compliance across the health boards. That is an issue. We have to address that. Because compliance was one of the issues we raised as a possibility to look at, to make sure there is consistency across Wales.

She mentions she wants an Act in every health setting, but one of the arguments we put forward on that was the evidence coming forward to support which areas of health settings were actually being focused upon. It is important, if we're going to do this, that this is evidence led. The adult acute medical wards was evidence-led, and the paediatrics is being evidence-led, so I want to look at where you're going next—where is the evidence leading us to next? Is it maternity, is it mental health, is it community nursing? We need to understand the areas you're looking at, what their priorities are and where the evidence will come from, to ensure that we are using this as an evidence-led base to ensure that the settings are right. So, that's what we have to do. It's not just the whole lot, because it sounds good to say the whole lot, but we need to make sure it's right and it goes in the right places.

The Minister has clearly indicated that he is very proud to include paediatrics. We are also very pleased to see paediatrics come along since the Bill, because one of the things we said was that we wanted more areas to be included, and that's why the regulations were put in, to allow you to do that without having to do any more additional legislation. So, that's important. Clearly, we want to go further and further. I'm very pleased to hear you're going to a robust independent evaluation for April 2021, to coincide with that, so we can actually look very carefully at that evaluation, as well as the three-year evaluation that will be taking place.

And you're right, Minister, it is good to see that you've increased the numbers from 1,053 to 1,987 since 2014—very welcome, but we need more, because one of the concerns we had when the Bill went through was do we have enough nurses to deliver in all settings, or the settings that we required. We need to train more. And I'll give an example why we need more nurses. A family friend's grandchild was having a cleft palate operation, which required two surgeons, plus theatre staff. Five minutes before that surgery was to take place, it was cancelled, because the specialist nurse that was required to be with that child after the operation had to be transferred to another part because of the skills she had. Now, you can understand that's a need, required because an emergency came in, but we therefore need more specialist nurses to ensure those things. But that's a cost to the NHS, because you had a whole team already allocated, waiting there, that then had to cancel and switch off. So, we do need to look at the number of nurses. We need more specialist nurses.

So, I'm very pleased to see 1,987, but I want more; simple as that. We need more, and we need to retain more. That's an important point. And I do agree with you, by the way, about the possible implications of an immigration policy that may impact upon recruitment from overseas. It's diabolical that anything like that could affect our NHS, and we should be fighting it every inch of the way, and I expect all Members from all parties to challenge such immigration policies, which impact upon the care our patients have in the NHS. 

I can reassure you, Minister, that every one of us in this Chamber is proud of our NHS. And we are proud of the staff in our NHS; you're not alone in that. 

Now, I'm very pleased also that the nursing bursary is still here in Wales. That's critical, because that encourages more to come along. Thank you, and keep on going with that—never ever lose it, because I think that's a benefit to encouraging more nurses to come into the profession. But we must ensure that, once they're in the profession, they're given a healthy environment to work in, a safe environment for their patients, and a stress-free, as much as possible, environment, so that they do not burn out. And that is critical. And that is what the RCN are trying to achieve and will continue to lobby on. And can I put on record my thanks to the RCN for the work they do in this area, because they have produced not just this report on the implementation of the safe staffing Bill, but also the report on workforce numbers and community nursing? They are driving an agenda to look at the nursing profession and to ensure that it grows and it actually is there to support patients. Therefore, it's critical that we continue to listen to them and work with them. 

Deputy Presiding Officer, I've never had so much time at the end of closing a session—

You don't have to use it all. 

So, I won't make up words, but I think it is important that, as we move forward in this agenda, we actually remind ourselves of the real people we are there for, and that's the patients. And if we can do everything we can to make the patient care better, we should be able to do that. And if the nursing staff level Bill, Act—I've got to remember to get it right—is to actually deliver that, then we need to make sure that we are able to produce a sufficient workforce strategy that retains and recruits an appropriate number of nurses, health support workers and other allied professions that will help deliver on that, because we did talk, at one time, not just about nurses, but other staff on the ward who work with nurses as part of the team that delivers that. And, if that can also be built, it's really important that we deliver that. 

So, can I thank all Members this afternoon? Can I urge the Government, therefore, to continue its progress, to ensure that it's driven by evidence, and to ensure that nurses are able to come into the profession and do what they want to do, and that's to deliver care for patients?

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting under this item until voting time. 

Item 7 on our agenda is a debate on the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee report, 'Access to Banking', and I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—Russell George. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the motion in my name. 

This inquiry was partly prompted by the alarming figures from the consumer group Which? about the rate of bank closures, and the difficulties people have in accessing cash. There have been many questions and debates in this Chamber about bank closures, but we wanted to understand the impact on individual businesses and communities in our piece of work.

Approximately one third of people who responded to our online survey said that they had to travel an extra hour to access a bank, and, for 13 per cent, it was over an hour. Older people and vulnerable customers, such as those with autism or dementia, find it hard to safely manage their finances. Welsh speakers increasingly cannot access services in their language of choice. And we found that Wales is doubly disadvantaged because online banking is not a viable alternative for many people, either because of a lack of connectivity, or for other reasons. And the impact on businesses is severe. It is harder to deposit takings for smaller businesses, they have to close earlier to do their banking, it’s harder to get loans, bank closures affect footfall, and tourism and other businesses suffer because visitors can't access cash. So, we heard some real horror stories about towns running out of cash. And we know that Wales certainly isn't ready to go cashless—too many people will be left behind and financially excluded. LINK, the UK's largest cash machine network, told us that free access to cash for consumers is a vital national service.

Chapter 5 of our report highlighted the particular challenges Wales faces with digital connectivity. And the Welsh Government's response to our report was largely positive. Clearly, some areas are not devolved, but some policy levers are reserved—or rather aren't reserved—but there are levers that the Welsh Government has at its disposal. The response to recommendation 8 was that the Welsh Government should map the gaps in banking services in Wales, and it suggests some early work is being done in this area. So, I think that is extremely encouraging.

We heard a lot during the inquiry about the JACS group, the Joint Authorities Cash Strategy Group, led by HM Treasury. For Members who are unfamiliar with that, or what that means, this brings together the regulators of access to cash to implement the recommendations made by the independent access to cash review. And the review warned that the UK must not sleepwalk into a cashless society. The committee wants the Welsh Government to work with JACS to ensure that Welsh needs are met, but the extent of engagement is not clear from the response from the Government. It says that it

'will require JACS to establish clear channels of communication, including regular and suitably frequent opportunities for effective engagement.'

JACS was set up in May, so it would be, I think, very helpful to know how soon the Minister expects those channels to be opened up, and how confident the Minister is that JACS will be effective.

We have seen some positive moves, such as LINK's recent announcement of a delivery fund, where communities can directly request an ATM in their area. But this, of course, puts the responsibility onto communities themselves. The so-called high-street banks, which have largely disappeared from our high streets, don't deny that branch closures are impacting on customers, but they seem to be entirely focused on digital innovation, not recognising the huge number of people who are digitally excluded. And a Which? report two weeks ago said that one in five adults don't feel confident in their ability to check their balance online.

So, some banks have tried to replace branches with mobile vans—this is where I often get confused, because mobile banking can be mobile vans or mobile technology, but this is mobile vans—but we found these generally to be inadequate. And the Post Office network is held up as the alternative provider, but it doesn't really offer the same level of service, and has other disadvantages. We were troubled by the lack of awareness about Post Office banking services, so we do want to see more action to publicise them. The Welsh Government response points out that Post Office matters are not devolved, and it has no plans to reintroduce support for the network in Wales that it once did deliver. It also says that—

Will you take a brief intervention?

Yes, absolutely.

Just to recall, from the evidence we received, would he also remember that, when we were talking of post office branches, one of the pieces of evidence we received was that post office branches are particularly unsuitable for small and particularly micro business activity? It was one of the things that we were told. 

Yes, I do recall that and it's a valid point to make. I think that there are issues with the Post Office not being able to provide the full service for businesses that banks can, even if it's to access cash or change, for example, where notice has to be given in advance, amongst other issues as well. But, no, the point is well made by Hefin David. 

Our inquiry did also focus on the First Minister's ambitious manifesto commitment—and it was ambitious—to support the creation of a community bank in Wales before the 2021 Assembly elections. So, we did hear lots of scepticism about the feasibility of Banc Cambria's community banking proposal, and it really was quite a bit of scepticism indeed. So, our report reflects that evidence. The current banking service model is clearly failing, and there are compelling arguments, I think and the committee thinks, in favour of a new approach. But the community banking model is untested. I think that's the key here: that model is untested. 

A key concern for the committee is how the Welsh Government intends to manage the long-term risks associated with its financial support to Banc Cambria, and I'm not—and neither is the committee, I don't think—convinced that the Government's response fully answers that question. Obviously, there are commercial sensitivities and Banc Cambria needs time to get through the licensing process, but we'll need to keep a close eye on developments. The Welsh Government says that it's considering the potential impact that Banc Cambria may have on credit unions and the Post Office network. The recognition that there must be no duplication or negative impact on existing service provision I think is very important, and the planned stakeholder engagement plan is welcomed.

We also called for other partnership ideas to be actively pursued and, although it’s disappointing that recommendation 14 was only accepted in principle, it does sound as if the Welsh Government is open to other opportunities to improve banking provision. It's important to continue to explore all avenues, especially as it’s still not clear how Banc Cambria can meet the needs of older people, disabled and vulnerable customers who need appropriate, face-to-face services.

The response to our recommendation 10, on action to support digital inclusion, is also positive, and in particular Welsh Government plans to support teachers delivering financial education to the younger generation so they can become financially literate citizens as well I think is very welcome. This is a hugely complex policy area, where Welsh Government has to work hard with the levers at its disposal. Our inquiry was only able to scratch the surface, but hopefully we have shone a light on the difficulties that people in Wales face in terms of accessing banking and banking services.

So, I do look forward to hearing the views of colleagues on committee and others and the Minister and I, of course, commend this report to the Assembly, Deputy Presiding Officer.

One of the motivations for us involving ourselves in this inquiry is that we've all seen bank branches close. I want to stand up for communities like Nelson, which saw a Barclays close; Ystrad Mynach, which saw a Nat West; and Bargoed, the northern-most community in my constituency, the one that is most in need of town-centre growth, saw both HSBC and recently, this year, at the end of this year, Lloyds Bank leave the community. So, we feel strongly motivated to address this issue cross-party and see Welsh Government take action. 

I'd like to come to a few recommendations and welcome particularly recommendation 2 and the fact that the Government has accepted it. Russell George has already made reference to the fact that the Welsh Government works with LINK and the regulators to strengthen support to existing free-to-use ATM services. With a cash crisis likely in the future, these free-to-use services are vital in those communities in the northern valleys, particularly, that I represent, and I've already made reference to Bargoed. So, the financial inclusion strategy, and its accompanying delivery plan must, therefore, be reviewed regularly to ensure that that issue is addressed.

I'd like to make a brief reference to recommendation 6, which makes reference to the JACS group, which we actually found out about through the course of our inquiry. Am I right, Chair, in saying that that happened through the course of the inquiry—that we found out about the work of the UK JACS group? And we were asking whether the access to banking standard is sufficiently robust. I was a bit disappointed with the Welsh Government's answer, when they said,

'While supporting the principle set out in the recommendation, the Welsh Government cannot accept, as this is a matter for the UK Government.'

Well, we could have a different UK Government that might take a different view in a few weeks, or we could have the same Government that is taking the same approach. Either way, I'd like to see—and I know that it isn't typically a campaigning role that the Welsh Government takes—the Welsh Government pushing this issue very hard with the UK Government, regardless of who that may be.

Recommendation 7 talks about the Welsh Government reviewing its support for the post office network to expand the banking sector. The Minister has decided to accept this only in part, and says, 

'There are no plans to reintroduce support for the Post Office Network in Wales.'

I was disappointed, because in 2003-2004, Bargoed post office benefited from nearly £37,000 thanks to the Welsh Government's old post office development fund, and this secured the post office in Bargoed for the future. And one of the things that I found was an evaluation that the old Welsh Assembly Government took of the post office development fund, which said that eight post offices were kept open precisely because of that fund. So, Minister, I'm putting a direct question to you: do you not believe that the post office development fund would be important in sustaining the future of post offices where banks are leaving?

And, finally, I want to come to the community bank. We've spent a great deal of time—and you can see in recommendations 13 and 14—looking around this idea of a community bank. It was in the early days of the Drakeford administration, and Banc Cambria were vying then for £600,000 of Welsh Government money to carry out feasibility work, which they subsequently received and are now in the process of establishing themselves as a bank. We had those questions that Russell George has mentioned: what about the impact on things like credit unions? How will credit unions work with a community bank? How will the post office network work with a community bank? But also, questions that I've got about place and provision: what will they look like in communities—what will a community bank look like?

Well, the Welsh Government's made an outlay and now we need to see what strategy the Welsh Government has to support that in the future. A community bank in every town sounds like a fine idea, but do we have the places and the demand to make that work? It is down to the community bank to make it happen, but it was also in the First Minister's leadership manifesto—[Interruption.] Yes.

You make a welcome reference to post offices. Of course, I remember the introduction of the fund you referred to, but we didn't then have the post office banking framework agreement between the post office and 28 banks, providing access to services on the high street where they have a branch. Do you agree that we should also be encouraging, where practical, the Welsh Government to be working with that framework so that they can support our local post office branches?

Yes. I need to take a couple of steps back in what I was saying then, to go back to that point. Funnily enough, in the report that the Welsh Government did evaluating that framework, they actually made that very point—that they're waiting to see how that would pan out before making further recommendations about the fund. So, yes, I think it is timely that we examine how that provision can be enhanced. So, yes, I agree that it is, within that context, trying to do that. However, there are also funding constraints that wouldn't have been present when that fund was evaluated. So, I'd be interested to hear from the Minister what he has to say.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I went backwards in my speech, and now I'm kind of—. I had a wonderful peroration, but unfortunately, Mark Isherwood has taken me off track a little bit. I shall finish by saying—rather than the wonderful ending I had—I shall finish by saying—

Go on with your wonderful ending—it's Christmas, go on. [Laughter.]

—that this is one of the most enjoyable reports I've been involved with and it's timely that it's being delivered at this point in the term to finish off constructively this term. Happy Christmas, Dirprwy Lywydd, to you and to everyone else in this Chamber.

There is a growing concern about the number and the rate of bank closures in Wales, as earlier mentioned. It is a worrying fact that Wales lost more than 40 per cent of its banking branches in five years. Wales is on the top table of bank closures in the United Kingdom; not less than 239 branches closed between January 2015 and August 2019. There are only two branches in Newport East, where I come from, where my office is, and people actually have a really hard time there when they draw money or they put money in, especially senior citizens. Some parts of Wales have fared much worse, losing 85 per cent of their banks since 2015. This alarming rate of closures risks shutting many people out of vital financial services and affects their ability to access their own cash. The decline in the number of free-to-use cash machines has meant more people being forced to use free banking cash points to withdraw their own money.

Between January 2018 and May 2019, the number of free-to-use cash machines in Wales fell by nearly 11 per cent. The consumer group Which? said its analysis showed that the poorer communities were hit hardest by closures than the more affluent ones—people living in poorer communities, those most reliant on cash, they can least afford to pay for withdrawals, but face being forced to travel to access money without charge. Pensioners are particularly badly affected by bank closures. Wales has the highest proportion of older people in the United Kingdom, with a fifth of the population aged 65 or over.

Whilst many people are used to managing their money online and paying for goods with plastic cards, older people are used to more traditional methods of paying for goods and services by cheques or cards. Less than half of the people aged 75 or over in Wales were internet users in 2018 and 2019, thus accelerating closures of bank branches and free-to-use cash point transactions to deprive our senior citizens of banking services and access to the cash, that, in fact, is their own.

It is clear, therefore, that bank closures have a profound economic and social impact on communities in Wales. The communities recognise that the bank is a reserved matter, but the Welsh Government does have some policy levers it can utilise in conjunction with using its influence with regulators and the UK Government to bring about the change. This report makes 14 recommendations to try to bring about the change we wish to see. I am pleased that the Welsh Government has accepted 12 of those recommendations, some in full, others in principle or in part. One aspect of this matter where the Welsh Government does have the power to make a difference is community banking that was just earlier mentioned.

Last January, the finance Minister stated that very early-stage discussions were taking place with a number of stakeholders who were keen to explore the feasibility of establishing a community bank in Wales. In August, the Minister for Economy and Transport approved the proposal to provide initial-phase funding to support this proposal. The Welsh Government must ensure due diligence is applied to this process to ensure that this untested community savings bank model meets the need for face-to-face banking services in Wales. It is essential, Deputy Presiding Officer, also, that this proposal should not have an adverse impact on the credit unions. Access to banking is a complex subject area, combining social and economic issues that this report has only begun to address. The bank not only gives a service to the public like a school, college and hospital, a bank is actually a community service that is needed for lending, deposit, transfer and other different areas—mortgages. And, if they are not close by, people have to go too far to get those services, which is definitely a burden on certain people. Time, money and energy is wasted on those sorts of services, which is totally unacceptable.

Access to banking is a complex subject area, combining social and economic issues, which this report has only begun to address. However, I believe this is an important contribution to the process of reversing the decline in banking services in Wales, and I commend it to the Assembly. Thank you very much.

I won't go over some of the recommendations that people have talked about already, but I would say that this was a really important inquiry that we did on banking here in Wales. I echo some of the comments made about why we all have an interest, because branches are closing the length and breadth of Wales, which is not only stopping vulnerable people from accessing services, but stopping people in general getting access face to face.

I think that it's somewhat ironic for the banks to say that they want to move to online services when, when you want a mortgage or if you want something pretty serious to be transactioned, they always, if they need to discuss things further with you, call you into a branch. If that means travelling, it can mean some distance for many people, and so I wish they would try and communicate their strategy better. Is it online or is it going to branches? If they are intent on doing more online, can they not move more of their services to make it easier for those people who want to use them online?

I also wanted to say that, in some of the scrutiny sessions, I raised with the actual banking sector the fact that they make huge profits and then they tell us that they can't afford to keep branches open. So, HSBC have made a profit, and this is from June 2019, of £11.8 billion; Lloyds—£4.3 billion; Barclays—£2.4 billion. A combined profit of £22 billion, and they're telling us that they can't afford to keep branches in Llanystumdwy, Bethesda, Rhondda or Neath open. I do not believe it. They say it's a different part of the company, but it comes down to the bottom line, it comes down to the profits for their shareholders, and that's where they've got it all wrong, so I have little, if any, sympathy for them in that regard.

Recommendation 10 is one I'm passionate about, talking about digital inclusion, talking about financial inclusion, for not only young people in schools, but for people across the board. I know, for example, if we all had the power to understand our finances much, much better, we might not need to go and enter that bank, or we might not need to go into such extreme debt, because we'd already have the power to understand the resources in front of us. So, I am grateful that there are going to be changes to the education process, but I don't understand how that's going to be of no resource whatsoever. It's surely going to take a bit more resource to put new measures in place for financial education under Donaldson, so I'm a bit confused by that.

We also know that financial inclusion plans have been happening since 2016, but I would like to see scrutiny of those financial inclusion plans, because some local authorities are doing amazing work, but some local authorities are doing nigh on nothing to make sure that their people are accessing financial inclusion courses or programmes that will benefit them.

The other recommendation I just wanted to focus on, as has been mentioned quite a bit today, is the Banc Cambria concept, the community banking. I've worked quite strongly with Celtic Credit Union in Neath Port Talbot. They are pretty concerned about some of the duplication that may happen if Banc Cambria comes about. Now, I support the concept of a community bank, we do as a party, but all I will say is that we need to ensure that any new community bank works in tandem, works in harmony with the credit union sector. They are giving out loans, they are helping people in their communities. We really don't want to see that network threatened by any new community bank.

The other issue I think I wanted to reflect on, emanating from what Russell George said, was the finances of any new community bank. We know that the Welsh Government has given £600,000 to support the start-up or the seed funding for Banc Cambria, but they tell us that it would cost £20 million to get Banc Cambria up and running with all the regulations and such. The Welsh Government's response refers in detail to the seed funding, and says,

'total investment is likely to be no more than £600,000'.

However, the committee's report recommended that the Welsh Government should clarify the level of future support it anticipates offering the community bank. But I'd suggest the response could have been clearer from the Welsh Government. For instance, and I quote from the Welsh Government's response,

'The initial investment being offered to Banc Cambria is to test the feasibility and proof of the concept at the first stage enabling the bank to engage with the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) with a view to obtaining authorisation to establish a bank; it is not at this stage to provide the more significant investment that will be required to capitalise the bank should it be successful in obtaining a banking licence.'

Now, the wording in that last sentence is a bit unclear, and I would like some clarity from the Welsh Government. Are you opening the door to more investment in the future? Six hundred thousand pounds is a flash in the pan to the £20 million that's needed, and I would think that the Welsh Government—[Interruption.] I don't know if I've got time.

I was just going to quickly say: I don't recall Banc Cambria actually suggesting that they needed any more from the Welsh Government, as I remember.

That's fine, but that would then put a lot of pressure on them to reach the £20 million. If they are comfortable in knowing that they can do that, past the £600,000, that's perfect. But, I'm merely asking, because of the way that they've responded to our recommendation, where they say that

'it is not at this stage to provide the more significant investment', 

it suggests to me that there could be an open door. It doesn't say, 'We would not consider giving any more to Banc Cambria.' That's what I'm trying to understand: would the Government be minded, should Banc Cambria re-approach them for more funding, to be able to discuss that further? If Banc Cambria don't need that money, then obviously we would all be happy knowing that it wouldn't be totally reliant on the Welsh Government.

I'd like to finish by saying that, broadly, I think that we would support that concept. But, of course, we would need to understand how that would impact on the Post Office and the credit union sector, so that we could make sure that the community bank for Wales could be as successful as it could possibly be. 

Much of my contribution may have already been said or alluded to, but this is such an important matter that it bears saying several times, or even more. Across Wales, we have seen a demise in the ability to carry out financial transactions in the traditional manner—that is, through the high-street bank. The closure of banks, along with post offices, has caused great difficulty for people in general, but especially—as Russell George has alluded to—for businesses in rural areas, which now find that they have to travel many miles for their banking needs; and, of course, the elderly, many of whom have restricted mobility and so are greatly affected by the lack of bank branches.

The fact that we have free ATMs is a factor that is very important. I know, anecdotally, that New Tredegar—a small town in the northern Valleys—now has an ATM where the customers have to pay. They have to pay a certain amount for every transaction. We are talking about people who may be on very low incomes, so the percentage that they have to pay for their withdrawals is very prohibitive.

Recommendation 8 in the report makes the point that we are not able to see where there are gaps in the financial services available. We would all agree that it makes sense that there should be a map that pinpoints where there are areas that lack such facilities, and one that is updated on a regular basis. Only then can we begin to explore possible solutions. The Government's response points out that the Post Office is obliged by law to publish an annual report on its network. It is also true that the largest ATM network, LINK, publishes a directory of where its cash facilities are available. It is probably the case that the big four banks also publish data of this kind, as may a number of the smaller high-street banks, all of which would help facilitate the creation of a comprehensive map for banking and cash facilities.

Recommendations 9 and 10 refer to connectivity and the need to enhance understanding and use of online banking. However, there is an inherent problem in online banking, again especially with regard to the elderly. Fraudulent online banking activity continues to show a marked increase, according to figures released by Financial Fraud Action UK. Losses on 'cardholder not present' transactions online and on the telephone reached £63 billion up to, and including, last year.

Recommendation 11 is on the impact of closures of banks and free-for-all ATMs on town centres and communities. We have to accept, however, that banks are closing due to the drop in numbers of customers actually using bank branches, with customers increasingly choosing to use online banking. Of course, this trend is something that banks have been keen to support, as it calls for fewer and fewer premises and fewer staff, without a corresponding fall in their revenue streams. It is an undeniable fact that the loss of banks from towns has exacerbated the demise of town centres as it has a dramatic effect on the footfall in town centres. But it is also true to say that commercial rates, normally set at 48 per cent of rateable value, are also having a negative effect on the ability of high-street traders to keep a presence in town centres.

I note here the Welsh Government's potential involvement with Banc Cambria in order to explore the possibility of establishing a not-for-profit banking infrastructure, and its desire to promote a credit union presence in our town centres to replace, where possible, the former high-street banks. I believe that a not-for-profit, strong commercial banking infrastructure is possibly the only way to combat the decline in financial service accessibility, and thus that of our town centres, but in order to truly replace high-street banks, they must offer the business community the same facilities once provided by commercial banks—in particular, business loans and cash handling facilities.

I think we all ought to remind the former high-street banks that there is a social liability, as has been alluded to before, in that they have made vast profits out of the communities, and they owe that social liability to them, to retain banks wherever possible. Thank you.

As a member of the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee I'd like to thank all those who contributed to our inquiry as well as the Chair and the clerking team for their excellent work on this vitally important topic. The list of stakeholders who contributed is lengthy and extremely diverse and I think that's not surprising, really, because we all know how important access to banking is, and how strongly people feel about the withdrawal of major banks from our high streets up and down Wales.

As a backbencher, a lot of your time is taken up with committee work and quite often you can find yourself immersed in what are very important and worthy inquiries, scrutinising existing policy or looking to the future, and think to yourself, 'As important as I think this is, I'm not quite sure my constituents would really be that interested in what I'm doing here.' But that was never the case with this inquiry into access to banking. I knew this was one inquiry where, if I was to explain to people in the Cynon Valley what we were looking at and why, they would be engaged, full of opinions, keen to know the outcome and where this Assembly and Welsh Government might be able to make a difference.

By way of an example, I, like many other Members of this Senedd, have a Facebook page through which I communicate with my constituents, and of all the posts that I've put up since I was elected in 2016, the one post, sadly, which gathered more attention than any other by a mile was a post that I wrote to inform constituents about the closure of the Co-operative Bank in Aberdare. This wasn't the first bank in the town to close and, indeed, I have to say, the town, quite rarely, does have a good representation of banks and building societies, but what that post did was to tap into the public psyche and the general feeling that people have that our banks have a social duty to retain a presence on the high street, and shouldn't just be driven by excessive profit margins and the move to online banking. One of the major gripes people have about bank closures is the lack of community consultation prior to branches closing, and the repeated and blinkered defence by the banking sector, who always say that it was purely a commercial decision.

So the process around bank closures was one area that we were keen to investigate as a committee. We examined the access to banking standard, which banks and building societies can, but don't have to sign up to, and which sets out how customers should receive timely and improved notification and support once a decision has been made to close a bank branch. The latest reports suggest that there's been good compliance with the standard from the banking industry, which leads me, in the light of the problems that we are all too aware of, to question whether or not the standard itself is strong enough. This was reflected in recommendation 6 of our report, where we called for the UK Government and JACS group to review whether the access to banking standard is sufficiently robust to address the impact of bank closures, or whether regulatory or other action is required. Understandably, the Welsh Government wasn't able to accept our recommendation because it has no devolved powers in this area, and this shows the complexities faced by Welsh Government in trying to hold banks to account for their behaviour in Wales. Is there a way around this? Is there a made-in-Wales solution? Well, quite possibly, a community bank of Wales, and that's something I'll return to later.

When defending their bank closures, banks are always keen to point to the role that post offices can play in providing banking services and to signpost their existing customers to their local Post Office branch. But is the Post Office really a viable alternative? Well, we explored this and what we found is that banks aren’t able to really offer the full range of services as other Members have pointed out, and this is compounded by the lack of public awareness about Post Office banking services as well, with 55 per cent of adults supposedly unaware they can use the Post Office for banking whatsoever. So, that led us to recommendation 7 where we asked the Welsh Government to review its support for the Post Office network and to raise awareness of these services across Wales. And again, the complexities of devolution came to the fore in the Welsh Government's response here, with them accepting our recommendation only in part, as funding for post offices is a matter for the UK Government. So, again this made me think whether a made-in-Wales solution is needed to circumvent these constraints.

And that leads me on to the community bank of Wales, with its intention to offer current accounts, face-to-face banking and provide loans by experienced staff. Could this be the solution that we are looking for? Well, the stakes are high indeed as public expectation is set to build around this very popular Government policy. When we questioned Mark Hooper of Banc Cambria, which has been awarded the seed funding to develop the community bank of Wales, he told us that the bank could feasibly create more than 50 branches in Wales within five to seven years, and he estimated that about 12 of those would be fully manned and the rest automated. Now, while this could be a welcome step to support our communities at the sharp end of bank closure, I do think there needs to be some expectation management here, and Welsh Government needs to be clear with people if only roughly a fifth of branches would be fully staffed. I know that communities in my constituency with no bank would be delighted to think that Banc Cambria might set up a branch there, but would they be quite so keen if they knew that it was just to be automated? So, although the Welsh Government has accepted our recommendation on this, I still feel it's an area that could require more scrutiny as plans develop.

And to conclude, this has been a vitally important inquiry, and I look forward to seeing Welsh Government's progress in this area.

As has been said, some committee inquiries attract more attention than others, but this inquiry resonated with the public more than most, and it's easy to see why, because there have been more than 200 banks closed in Wales since 2008. We did receive 874 responses to the online survey, and 87 per cent of personal banking customers told us they'd been impacted by closures, and at the same time, 78 per cent of business banking customers said the same.

My own region has been the hardest hit, with rural communities being the worst affected, and if I tried to name every town affected, I would run out of time. That is how bad this situation is. We have now a situation where even notable towns like Hay-on-Wye have no high-street bank left. Carmarthen East and Dinefwr has lost four fifths of its banking network in the last five years.

So, that really is the background and the context for this inquiry, and we did some good work, and we looked at some interesting ideas, like the Preston model, and that's a co-operative approach that focuses on lending to local businesses to boost those local economies.

But the reality is that something around 86 per cent of people bank with the large banks, and it's what's not in the report that says the most to me, namely that the big high-street banks declined to give oral evidence. And why should they? We only bailed out most of them to the tune of £500 billion a decade ago—£500 billion in the last 10 years. Four years ago, the industry agreed a protocol to apparently minimise the impact of closures. But crucially, the UK Government let them wriggle out of their last-bank-in-town agreement that would have prevented them abandoning the places that we all serve. So, when the last branch closed in Hay this year, I see that some people were calling on Powys council to offer reduced business rates as an incentive for the bank to stay. I think we need to get real here. We're talking about multi-billion-pound businesses. They're leaving because they can; they're not leaving because they can't afford the rent or they can't afford to stay. And anyway, why on earth should we, the public purse, subsidise these people yet again? No.

In refusing to give oral evidence to our inquiry, the big banks, as far as I'm concerned, have shown us the same disregard that they've shown the communities that they've abandoned. And they've been allowed to do so by successive Tory Governments. Just as the Tories used the global financial crash as a cynical excuse for an ideological assault on the state, to tear holes in the welfare system and cut public services and generally retreat from their social responsibilities, the banks used it to lay off tens of thousands of workers and shut up shop for even more profit.

Of course, I want to be clear here that I'm talking about the big banks; I'm not talking about the mutuals that we went to see and who were really very rooted in their communities because they felt part of those communities and they wanted to carry on serving those communities. So, I wanted to make certain that I made that clear.

Will you give way?

I'm carrying on. 

The Welsh Government has done what it can to plug the gaps. It has given significant support to credit unions—and I'll declare that I'm a member of a credit union—and it has given what money it can to the Post Office network, and it is looking towards, and we've heard it here today, creating a community bank for Wales. I think that's an exciting prospect, and I'm assured that it will help those people who need it, who will be relying on community-based banking to give them some hope of access to cash in their communities. And that's why a UK Labour Government will stop post office closures, and it will bring the Royal Mail back into public ownership. 

This is about public responsibility and accountability in banking, and I'm really pleased that we did this inquiry, and I'm really pleased that we are hoping to move forward together to ensure that we will be able to serve the people who desperately need that. 

Jack Sargeant. 

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I appreciate you allowing me to speak this afternoon, and I won't take too long of your time, because I think Members have rightly said the comments raised, but in particular I will focus on recommendations 13 and 14 about community banks. The Minister will know, as does the First Minister, that I've been working hard to try and bring a community bank to Buckley and also campaigned to save the closure of the town's last bank. 

Minister, I welcome the acceptance of the committee's recommendations and also the work done by Banc Cambria to date, so I hope you will join me in setting the bar high for Banc Cambria in the future: to be the best it can be, working collaboratively with others, including credit unions, to meet the requirements set of all banks but not actually met by many, and that is to provide all that wish access to current accounts with one, including the people who find themselves with no fixed abode, and to generally be a bank for everyone. 

Now, I think we've heard from contributions across the Chamber that there is a clear consensus. Yes, there is more scrutiny needed in the steps going forward, and I'm sure we will hold them to account, including the Government, but I also think we almost all of us agree that this needs to happen—a community bank needs to happen. So, my question is—to you, Minister, to the Government—how can we speed this up? How can the Welsh Government move this process forward as a matter of urgency and establish a community bank for Wales sooner rather than later? 

I will finish. I did say I'd be brief, Llywydd, and all I will finish on is: all I want for Christmas is a bank in Buckley, and also all those other places that have been hit hard as well through bank closures across the years.

I call on the Minister for Economy and Transport, Ken Skates. 

Llywydd, it's been a pleasure to listen to the contributions this afternoon, and I'd like to thank in particular Russell George for chairing the committee's investigation into access to banking as well as, of course, the members of his committee. Clearly, a great deal of effort has gone into producing this excellent report, engaging with relevant partners and stakeholders, and I'd like to thank every member of the committee for their hard work. 

As the committee report notes, the loss of banks and the services they offer to citizens and to businesses from our high streets is not a new concern. However, the scale of closures continues to escalate at an alarming rate, and we've heard of numerous communities today that have lost their high-street banks in recent times, because traditional banks are retreating from all communities across Wales, and this is why the commitment, working with stakeholders, to explore the principle and establish a community bank of Wales was included in the First Minister's leadership manifesto. 

As the First Minister confirmed earlier this month, the partnership created by Banc Cambria and the Community Savings Bank Association is completing a detailed project plan, and an initial market assessment and feasibility study is under way, with input from both the Development Bank of Wales and Cardiff University. And I very much look forward to receipt of that report. 

Now, I do note the committee has some concerns about the feasibility of the community banking proposal and its potential impact on credit unions in particular, but work is already well under way to ensure that credit unions and the community bank and building societies work in collaboration to find the very best solutions to improve access to banking services. And this work is focused entirely on ensuring financial inclusion for all people across our country. 

Now, Welsh Government officials have also met with the Welsh credit union network to explore opportunities to collaborate whenever and wherever possible. Bank closures and the loss of free-to-use ATMs within communities can have a negative impact for many, but particularly for those who are vulnerable and financially excluded. The Welsh Government is concerned that those on low incomes, the elderly and people living in rural communities are not left behind. Whilst online banking and cashless transactions may be an option for many, we must not forget that some people will struggle, and more vulnerable groups will still need access to cash or to bank branches locally. 

Now, our vision for financial inclusion is for everybody living in Wales to have access to appropriate and affordable financial services. And the committee's report rightly recognises that many elements of this issue are reserved to the UK Government. Now, I note that the committee calls on the UK Government and the JACS group to review whether the access to banking standard is sufficiently robust to address the impact of bank closures on vulnerable people, on small and medium-sized enterprises and local communities. However, we are actively seeking and we will continue to seek opportunities to engage and to influence at a UK level. We must establish clear channels of communication where we can ensure the particular needs of Welsh citizens are heard and are also then met.

Will you take an intervention? 

In March—. Yes, of course. 

Can I just say that I raised that particular concern with recommendation 6 in my speech? I think the Minister has reassured me there, so thank you. And it's nice—. I think that's worth putting on the record. 

Thank you. Can I thank the Member for his kind comment? 

Back in March 2016, we set out how the Welsh Government aspires to join with partner organisations, both within Wales and at the UK level, in working towards a more financially inclusive society in Wales. Digital inclusion remains a key social justice and equality issue. Those who personally do not use or are limited users of digital technology are missing out on access to information, to services, to better deals and to cheaper goods and financial security. Our digital inclusion framework and delivery plan recognises that becoming fully digitally included is a continuous process, requiring ongoing support. This is an issue that Welsh Government cannot tackle alone and one that requires the buy-in of all partners and of wider society. 

Now, there are many barriers to accessing online services: a lack of skills, access and motivation, particularly for those on low incomes, older people and people who face disabling barriers in society. Digitally excluded customers are often the most financially excluded, so they should not be penalised further by the inevitable shift to more digital services.

I know many banks are involved in digital inclusion activities and, indeed, Digital Communities Wales has worked with Lloyds, Barclays and Nat West to better co-ordinate digital inclusion activities across communities. However, banks should help ensure their customers have the opportunities to gain the confidence and digital skills to access the full range of banking services that they need, and provide alternative measures for those who cannot or will not use online services.

Access to fast and reliable broadband is, of course, increasingly a necessity, including to provide access to banking services, and Superfast Cymru has provided more than 733,000 premises with access to fast broadband. It has transformed the digital landscape across Wales, and none of these premises would have received access to fast, reliable broadband without our intervention. In addition, local development plans can address a wide range of issues concerning the development and use of land, including infrastructure needs. LDPs can include policies to support cash infrastructure where it relates to the development and use of land.

Now, the type of detailed design policies affecting ATMs are, for example, ensuring that they are sensitively placed in relation to listed buildings, or positioned so that queues do not affect highway safety. These are matters that local planning authorities routinely deal with already in LDPs, and are not something Welsh Government should need to support them in drafting.

Whilst it's recommended that banks will continue to close their branches that are not commercially viable, we feel that banks have a commitment to mitigate the effects of bank closures in communities right across Wales. They need to ensure the transition is managed so that vulnerable people are not excluded and customers are still able to access banking products in their local community.

In closing, I'd like to reaffirm my commitment to a more financially inclusive society in Wales. The committee report has highlighted a number of areas that we will need to consider over the next few months, and I'm pleased that we are already progressing areas that will help to mitigate the damaging effects of bank closures and difficulties with access to banking.  

Russell George to reply to the debate. 

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I think our report last week on regional skills partnerships had a very different response, and we were quite, perhaps, critical of the Government's response to our work, but, on this piece of work, I very much welcome that the Minister obviously takes the issue very seriously, and I'm delighted that most of our recommendations have been accepted, and the response to our work was generally positive, I'd say, although lacking perhaps some detail in some areas, but largely positive.

I would perhaps respond to some of the points that other Members have made during the course of this debate. Hefin pointed out how we learnt so much during the course of our work. We learned about the JACS group, but there are other issues. I'd say all the work we do is enjoyable, of course, and interesting, but this seemed to be a more enjoyable element of this particular work, because we learned so much as we went through the report. And, as witnesses gave us evidence, things came to light that we hadn't perhaps originally expected. Hefin did also point out, quite rightly, that some of the recommendations weren't accepted, because the Government responded that these were issues for the UK Government, but what we would say, and the point Hefin was making, is that the Welsh Government could accept those recommendations and use its role to lobby Government.

Bethan tackled some of the issues about the huge profits that the banks make, and Joyce Watson also highlighted these points as well. We certainly feel as a committee that banks should have a social responsibility. Often, we get told that banks are private and they're commercial entities, but we have to, of course, remember, as Joyce pointed out, that, as taxpayers, we bailed the banks out, so they do have responsibility. Some other points that Joyce made that I perhaps won't comment on as Chair—

Will you take an intervention, please? 

Yes, David. 

Surely, it's not a responsibility—it's a liability of the banks to the communities. 

Well, as a committee we certainly felt that the banks do have a social responsibility, and they should be playing that role. I'll come on perhaps to address that a little bit more as well.

But there are some specific challenges in terms of the kind of resources that will be needed by Banc Cambria, and that was raised by a number of contributors—Bethan and Hefin I think made that point. So, we're very keen to not let this go as a committee. We want to examine very carefully as the Cambria bank develops. I think Jack Sargeant pointed out as well how quickly we want this to come about. But there is also a need to perhaps understand some of the real challenges there are with developing Banc Cambria, and we certainly want to look at this in more detail, I think, as Vikki pointed out as well.

David Rowlands—I thank David for his contribution. David highlighted the point that, why we are where we are is because of falling numbers. People are less likely to use the bank. Footfall has fallen. That's the obvious point that perhaps I didn't say and others didn't say. That's why we are where we are. But the bank, of course, tell us that that's the reason and everyone can go online, but the point here is that everyone can't go online, which is the point that he went on to make—there are some people who cannot, for whatever reason, either they have not got connectivity, they have not got the skills, or there are security issues that they're concerned about. And for a range of reasons, people aren't ready to do that, and we aren't yet ready to move to that position that the banks so readily want us to move to.

I think also, in terms of the Minister's response to our piece of work, much of this is, I think, reserved, but it's also critical to people in Wales. So, I think the committee would really welcome more detail on the outcome of the Welsh engagement with JACS and how that translates into action. We also want to see that it's important to continue to explore all avenues, especially as it's not quite clear how Banc Cambria can meet the needs of people that are older, disabled—vulnerable customers who need appropriate action and face-to-face services. And I think it was Joyce Watson who pointed out that we don't know exactly what Banc Cambria is going to look like yet. Is it going to be a bank that operates face-to-face services, or is it just going to be a bank where you can go in and see more technology?

Will you give way?

Yes, Mark.

I'm wondering what consideration you gave to mutuals as well. We heard reference to private, which, of course, is insurance funds and pension funds, but many mutuals collapsed and many building societies collapsed, and the branch closures include many building societies, who've also withdrawn cash machines. So, it's how we look at the whole sector, rather than simply looking at privately owned banks.

I take Mark Isherwood's point. This is a very complex area. What we were concerned about as a committee is that, although we saw the ambition of Banc Cambria, we were concerned about the consequences on credit unions and other organisations, in terms of having a negative impact, and perhaps the unintended consequences on other services. But it is a very hugely complex area, and the Welsh Government has to, I think, work hard at the levers that it has at its disposal. Our inquiry I think barely scratched the surface, but hopefully we've shone some light, perhaps, on this in terms of what banks have to face.

I will end my contribution. Jack Sargeant did say he wanted to wish a happy Christmas in terms of—. I think he said he wanted to wish everyone—. His wish for Christmas was a bank in Buckley—is that right? That's right. All he wants for Christmas is a bank in Buckley. But I would say that we should thank everyone who took part in this inquiry. The evidence that was provided was of a high standard and I would particularly like to wish a happy Christmas to those that support us as Assembly Members when it comes to bringing forward our inquiries, in terms of drafting them and the research that goes into them as well. So, happy Christmas to the staff that help us to so widely do this.

I think I would end—. It is disappointing—Joyce Watson pointed this out—that the banks themselves did not engage with our inquiry as we would have liked. This is really disappointing, I'm afraid. They had the opportunity to participate and they didn't. So, we're not wishing them a happy Christmas. [Laughter.]

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

The next item is the Welsh Conservatives' debate on school education, and I call on Suzy Davies to move the motion.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and may I wish everyone a merry Christmas in case you don't believe me after this debate?

Can I thank you, Presiding Officer? And I'll move the motion, as on the papers today.

Now, it's interesting, isn't it, once again, to see from the Welsh Government amendment, how a party that's been in power for 20 years treats criticism made by the official opposition in this Assembly? The cybermen of Welsh politics continue to delete the truth if it gets in the way of what they want the people of Wales to know about their Government's record. So, I hope, in the course of this debate, that this Assembly will reject groupthink Wales and acknowledge what one-party politics did to our education system since 2006—the date we began to participate in the PISA results. Because whatever changes there have been under this education Minister, from a different party, the buck stops with successive Labour First Ministers.

Why has the Government deleted our entire motion? Why do you dismiss what our constituents have the right to know and ignore the questions we've been elected to ask? I would be prepared to recognise improvements on the 2015 figures, but the Government is entirely silent on the fact that these 2015 figures are amongst the direst we ever had. This debate has a much longer line of sight than that. 

An improvement in science, you say, not a significant improvement, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—three points—but well done, teachers and pupils in getting that. But it is still a 17-point drop since 2006. Do you really expect us to welcome that? A two-point increase in reading and a four-point increase in maths since 2006 are, again, not significant, according to the OECD. Again, I have to say, their observation, not mine, although I think that recovery in maths since that all-time low in 2012 is worth a shout out to teachers. I think they did brilliantly on that. 

My personal observation is that you hope that these modest improvements this year disguise declines in the knowledge and skills identified in the PISA tests in the last 12 years—years when we've been governed by the Labour Party. And if our science scores weren't enough to leave that champagne bottle, or take it off the shelf, that fact that Wales's reading and maths scores are just back to where they started 12 years ago, again, is no reason to be popping corks. We should be soaring ahead in this last decade, not still behind the other UK nations. That's 12 years of our children and young people not just falling behind their peers in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, but behind those Welsh children and young people who went before them. That's what we're asking the Government to apologise for. Your celebration of a recovery to a status quo, when that status quo was itself a cause for concern, is the perfect expression of mediocrity knowing nothing higher than itself, and so, we reject your amendment.

And I'm sorry to have to do it. I would like to welcome the reduction in the gap between our most disadvantaged learners and their peers and the improved results for higher achievers, because that suggests that some of those higher achievers come from disadvantaged backgrounds—children who, generally, are still over-represented in the lower performing cohorts. I think our plans for a looked-after children pupil premium would contribute to narrowing that gap as well as raising overall attainment. 

Even so, the pupil development grant is a significant and established lever in improving outcomes for our most disadvantaged pupils. Yet, our most disadvantaged children are still attaining lower scores in reading, which was this year's deep dive examination, than similar children in the other UK nations. And that gap widens until, for our least-deprived pupils, their reading score is 40 points behind their peers in England and 20 points behind the OECD average. There is another attainment gap here—a whopping one, Minister—and it cannot be ignored.

And before anyone wants to talk about them, OECD averages, let's remember that, overall, they themselves have not particularly improved this year. And they're not even an average of participating countries. They've never included the highest scorers in these tests such as the Chinese provinces and Singapore. As with funding per pupil, you can't claim improvement just because those around you are getting worse.

Now, I realise that some of you will want to paint this as criticisms of children, teachers and school leaders, but it is absolutely not. That there is improvement at all is, indeed, testament to pupils and teachers. These are the people who have the daily experience of school life and who have to deal with policy change, changing pedagogic, academic and well-being priorities, changes in parenting styles, lower per-pupil funding over many years, increasingly difficult funding settlements from councils, a drop in teacher numbers, and low resources. Even though 79 per cent of them had been on recent professional development courses, that teachers are managing to have any grasp, really, in this change of focus from knowledge acquisition to knowledge application, against this background is the one thing I think we can congratulate. It's a change of focus that all of us agree with in principle. We agree with part (a) of Plaid’s amendment, but we both share concerns about how this will work in practice, and until we see the detailed proposals for the new curriculum in January, our support has to remain one in principle. 

I agree with you, Minister. Something really does have to change. As Welsh Conservatives, we believe that teachers should be free to teach, unencumbered other than by a robust, credible and relevant framework of excellent governance and accountability. We want this to work, but, bearing in mind Scotland’s declining scores in science and maths in the Donaldson era, we also need to be wary. And we need to be wary as the GCSE results, further outcomes of reform designed to align better with PISA after all, were lower in that A* to C range, notwithstanding the growth in the A* scores. That seems reflected in the PISA findings too. What those PISA results also show is that better performance from our top achievers, which brings us closer to that OECD average, still doesn't get us quite over the line. Performance is no better than in 2006, and, of course, worse in science by those 17 points.

You may also remember me raising concerns that those who will find themselves in the next cohort of pupils taking PISA tests are already showing lower key stage 2 and key stage 3 attainment than at any time since 2007, so only a year after 2006. Schools will no longer be obliged to set targets for English or Welsh and maths. If these pupils are doing less well at this stage in their school journey than those who went on to do disappointingly in PISA tests in the last 12 years, this should be raising alarm bells now if these nascent signs of improvement are to come to anything.

And so to come to point 3 of our motion. Plaid likes to amend out any positive references to the UK Government, so we won't support an unnecessary amendment, but we are coming from pretty much the same place here. Minister, you will have seen the Children, Young People and Education Committee report on school funding. Securing more money in the budget for education is not the same as securing more money for schools. Both our motion and the Plaid amendment talk about money for schools. The PISA report talks about teachers' complaints of lack of resources. I think this has now come to a head, and you will need to tell us how, when you are not the Minister for local government, you will ensure that any additional money for schools in next month's budget actually gets to those schools.

I will understand you investing in early years—it's a Welsh Government priority and it's where essential groundwork, including investment in Welsh language acquisition, will need to take place. It's why, in part, Estonia is doing well, we understand. But there is £195 million coming into the Welsh block from a UK education commitment and £35 million for additional learning needs. Our schools need that swiftly and directly, and we will be looking at the January budget to see how you intend to get it to them. Otherwise, attracting new teachers into the profession will falter further. You'll remember we discussed those Education Workforce Council targets and their disconnect with the number of teachers qualifying in Wales this year. No-one wants to work in an institution with insufficient investment and question marks about where money they could have had is actually going. I have to say the one PISA finding I find quite difficult to understand was that schools in Wales have enough teachers, when we hear, in committee and in this Chamber, about teacher absence and dependence on ill-regulated supply agencies.

But there's a lot to be gleaned from this PISA report, and I hope that others here will pick up today, perhaps, on the detail behind those reading scores; a potentially persistent problem with teachers' evaluation of disciplinary issues; and the role of the digital screen in learning and well-being—the disappointing findings, actually, on well-being compared, perhaps, to what we heard from Estyn only a few months ago.

The next PISA results will be for scrutiny by the next Welsh Parliament. That target of 500 across the board seems as distant today as it would have looked in 2006. Yet, we need to reach it; we need to deliver on all those years we've gone on in this Chamber here about children fulfilling their potential, for themselves, for community cohesion, for improved economic prosperity. Because of that, average is never going to be good enough for our education.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Education to move formally amendment 1.

I move.

I now call on Helen Mary Jones to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Diolch, Llywydd. I rise to contribute to this debate in place of my colleague Siân Gwenllian, who is of course our spokesperson and isn't present today.

I find myself—and we, as a group, find ourselves—somewhat between a rock and a hard place. I have sympathy with much of what Suzy Davies has said today. We share some of the concerns that the Conservatives are raising. In fact, perhaps had we heard Suzy Davies's contribution rather than just needing to read the motion, we might have been keener to support it. Because if you just read the motion as it stands, it doesn't acknowledge the good work that teachers have done. It asks for an apology that, you know, I've got some sympathy for again, but it's a bit of a cheap shot. Reading it, it looked to us that this was going to be another one of those slightly pointless debates that we've had here, which are really to do with things that are not happening in this place, but are happening somewhere else.

The other thing that I need to say about the Conservatives in this context is that they do need to take some responsibility for the issues relating to resourcing. I am not saying, Llywydd, that it is the fault of any Conservative Member sitting in this Chamber that this place—our national Government and our national Parliament—has had its resources drained away. It needs to be said to colleagues on the Labour benches that that began to happen under Gordon Brown's watch, so nobody's hands are completely clean here. But, I do think that it is a little bit rich for the Conservatives to attack the Welsh Government for not investing when there is no money to invest.

So, we can't accept the Conservative motion as it stands, but we did—[Interruption.] Yes, why not?

I'm very grateful to you for taking an intervention. I heard your references to wanting to congratulate the teaching profession for what it has achieved, but I don't see any Plaid amendment to that effect at all. So, I'm not sure why your criticism is so significant. And in terms of your comments on finances, you will know, as well as I do, that currently the Welsh Government is funded to the tune of £1.20 for every £1, which is plenty of cash, therefore, there is no excuse.

Darren, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt you because I'm running out of time. Perhaps you'd like to finish your point in intervening on one of your colleagues. I was referring to points made in the speech, not necessarily to the motion. But, Suzy did, in fact, separately make it clear that there are things to congratulate pupils and staff on what they've achieved. 

So, we can't support the Conservative motion unamended. But, I think it is correct to leave the factual bits in the first part of the motion where they are, because they are just facts. But, we certainly can't support the Government amendment either. I get tired of how often in this place, with my own portfolio hat on, I have to use the words 'self-congratulatory' and 'complacent', and I find myself having to do so in Siân Gwenllian's place today. I have heard the Minister say that there is more work to do, and we are not where we want to be. But, some acknowledgement in the amendment that there are problems would have made it easier for us to consider supporting it. So, as I said, Llywydd, between a rock and a hard place, and I'll turn briefly now to our amendment.

It is appropriate that we should be debating this today. It's very important. I'm grateful to the Conservatives for putting this on the agenda. Their description of the situation, though partial, is not inaccurate. But we do believe that, in principle, the direction that the Government is taking now with the new curriculum has the potential to be transformatory. If we can do this, if we can make it work, this could lead to a transformation in the opportunities that we offer children and young people in our education system. But, that will not happen unless it is sufficiently resourced.

We are asking the teaching profession—and I declare an interest as a former teacher myself, and half my brothers and sisters, and there are rather a lot of them, are teachers—. We are asking them to do an awful lot. We are asking them to change the way that they work radically. They need to be trained and supported to do that. I think that if it works, we will attract some of the brightest and best young people to work in our education system, because it will be a much better place to work in than something that is so driven by targets and scores and results.

I think that it's also worth saying that the PISA results, while important, are only a partial picture. They don't tell us everything that we need to know, and I don't have time today to talk about my concerns about young people's well-being. It is quite clear that if young people are miserable, they are not going to go on to be effective learners, and they are not going to go on to live the lives that I'm sure we all would want them to live. 

So I hope that the Minister will take our amendment—. I know she won't support our amendment, but I hope she'll take the message from our amendment home really, really clearly. We need to look forward now as well as looking back, and we need to acknowledge that, if we want this transformation to happen, it has to be resourced and it has to be supported. That's where Plaid Cymru stands. I'm sure that the Minister will—. I'll have sympathy with the Minister if she says she can't say much about what might be in the next budget because that budget isn't here yet, and we don't know what money's going to be there, but in principle we must have assurances that this radical transformation of our system is going to be properly resourced, because otherwise, if it isn't, it won't work. I urge this Chamber to support our amendment.

'It's not just that Wales has underperformed, it's seen its performance decline.'

These are not my words. These are the words of the head of education and skills at the OECD, speaking ahead of the publication of the latest set of PISA results. However much the Welsh Government seeks comfort from the slight improvement in the PISA scores, it is a fact that Wales still remains at the bottom of the UK PISA league.

Since 2006, when Wales first took part in the PISA test, there has been no statistically significant improvement in reading and maths, and Wales's scores in science are significantly worse. This lamentable performance is a direct result of Labour's continued underfunding of schools in Wales. School leaders and stakeholders have constantly claimed that chronic and insufficient funding has put schools under serious financial pressures. The NASUWT's latest figures estimate the funding gap between pupils in England and Wales is £645—a staggering figure. But this spending gap is replicated between local authorities in Wales thanks to Labour's flawed funding formula. The warning signs have been there for some time. Last year, the OECD produced a report in which they argued that the differences in the local funding models were causing concern about the unequal treatment of schools in similar circumstances. They went on to call on the Welsh Government to consider reviewing its school funding models if it wishes to realise its ambition for equity in education and students' well-being.

The Welsh Government has a long-standing commitment to protect schools funding in both the fourth and fifth Assembly terms, but school funding has not even kept pace with inflation. Since 2010, spending on schools has fallen by nearly 8 per cent in real terms. In the last budget, the education Minister said she was investing £100 million in raising school standards over the fifth Assembly term, but this funding was not allocated to schools' core funding, a decision criticised by the Children, Young People and Education Committee. It is time for an honest and open, mature debate about school budgets in Wales. We must recognise the frustration and dismay created by the severe funding crisis in Welsh schools, and the detrimental effect it is having on our young people. The consequences of this can be seen in rising class sizes, the decreasing number of sports staff and the cutting of many activities outside the compulsory curriculum. We need a system that funds school directly, one that gives greater spending control to teachers, parents and governors, directing more money to the classroom.

Deputy Presiding Officer, these PISA results have exposed the poverty of ambition at the heart of Labour's education strategy. Standards will not improve unless the Minister recognises the need to tackle the chronic underfunding of schools in Wales. We also need a fairer and more equitable division of resources. We need a new funding formula. It is accepted across the education sector that the current system is inadequate and change is desperately needed. A good education is vital to provide Welsh pupils with the best chances in life. I ask the Minister to take the action necessary to ensure that every child gets the highest quality education, as they deserve, in Wales. Thank you.

I say this as a proud comprehensive schoolboy: we can never be complacent about striving for ever-higher outcomes from our school and our college education, and we do need to see continued and accelerated improvement on the trajectory we're now seeing. But as we approach the season of cheer and good will, I will not be talking down the achievements of our students and our teachers and our governors and our educational consortia, our schools and colleges. In fact, I'm going to thank them and talk up their achievements over the past year, because the educational reforms that our Welsh Government are undertaking are focused squarely on teaching excellence, on equity and well-being for all our learners, on leadership and collective responsibilities.

And these reforms are indeed showing early signs of paying off, with overall GCSE performance improving again this year, and A-level results remaining at an historic high. So, let's have a look at some of these outcomes in detail, starting with the 2019 GCSE results. This summer's GCSE results marked the end of a significant period of GCSE reform undertaken in Wales. The last seven reformed GCSE subjects were introduced earlier this year, including history, computer science and Welsh second language. Overall, 28 reformed qualifications have been introduced since 2015, and we have to say, pupils and teachers have handled the introduction of these reformed qualifications well. These reformed qualifications are providing pupils with the right skills for the modern world, and they will play a vital role in raising standards. And the main figures for the summer 2019 GCSE results include an overall performance increase, with nearly 63 per cent of learners achieving A* to C over all—up 1.2 percentage points—despite the relative upheaval resulting from the qualification reform. The A* to A pass rate has remained stable at 18.4 per cent. There's been an increase in entries and numbers achieving top grades in science and maths, which are at the core of the PISA assessments. The performance in science continues to improve. The percentage of pupils gaining A* to A and A* to C grades in all individual sciences—including biology, chemistry and physics—has risen. The number of pupils who sat GCSE English literature has increased by nearly 23 per cent, with over 2,800 more pupils achieving and A* to C grades compared with 2018, 58.1 per cent of students achieved grade A* to C in GCSE maths numeracy, and 59 per cent achieved grade A* to C for GCSE maths. Now, I think that's something that the Member opposite will want to stand an applaud.

What you've said is very credible, but I have a question for you: how many schools have you visited in your constituency in the last six weeks?

In the last six weeks?

In the last six weeks.

Do you mean during the election campaign?

In the last six weeks.

I've visited every school in my constituency in the past year.

Well, in the last six weeks—.

Sorry, I can't have two people standing. You've asked your question. Will you answer or move on?

This is the first year pupils have taken the new Welsh second language GCSE following the removal of the short-course option. It's more challenging, but the rise in entry numbers has resulted in a 12.5 per cent increase of learners attaining A* to C in the full-course qualification. This year, an additional 1,500 learners sat GCSE science exams, building on last year's significant uptake as well. And this continuing culture change is a consequence of the move away from blanket entries into vocational science qualifications at 16. Entry practices have stabilised this year, it's proved a positive response from schools to the revised early-entry policy announced in 2018. It means that fewer of our learners are being made to sit exams before they're ready, and it means less stress.

And if I turn briefly to the 2019 A-level results, this year's A-level results in Wales are at a historic high. A record number of students achieved A* and A grades, with Wales outperforming all English regions and Northern Ireland in the numbers achieving the very highest grade. Record-breaking results achieved through the hard work of students and teachers. And in contrast, by the way, the proportion of A-level entries awarded A grade and higher has fallen to the lowest for more than a decade in England and Northern Ireland—just by way of contrast.

But let's turn to the issue of raising school standards in my closing comments. This national mission of Welsh Government for education is seeking to raise standards, reduce the attainment gap and deliver an education system that is a source of national pride. Reforms already introduced, such as the literacy and numeracy framework, the new professional standards for teachers, the strengthened initial teacher training provision, the formative assessment arrangements and the establishment, critically, of a national academy for educational leadership, all of these are pointing in the right direction. We cannot ever be complacent, but I say, Deputy Presiding Officer, in closing, I wish the very best of the Christmas season to all of our students and our teachers and governors. Have a well deserved break and the very best for a happy and successful 2020, building on the steady progress we're making, close in partnership with a Welsh Government who are ambitious for educational outcomes and ambitious for our young people in Wales.

Can I begin by commending the work of the Children's Society? I think many of us received their briefing on the well-being scores. They are falling on a UK basis; this is not done on a home-nation basis. The OECD found that the UK was fortieth out of 44 of the countries taking part, and that was a poorer performance than when that was last measured, I think three years ago. So, I think that is something that we all need to reflect on. We want our children and young people to be as happy as possible in the school environment. It's such an important part of life after all. [Interruption.]

I've only just started, but I will give way.

I just wanted to ask you whether you've also read the Samaritans' report, which is about the role that schools can play in preventing suicide, because I think that's an excellent report as well on the well-being agenda.

I'd certainly agree that good, healthy well-being is a great defence against very poor mental health outcomes, which ultimately, in too many cases unfortunately, can lead to significant self-harm and even suicide. So, I take that point. 

But, the Children's Society does balance their briefing note, reminding us that, in Wales, the new curriculum will allow for one of the seven areas of learning and experience to focus on health and well-being. I do welcome this, because I think schooling is all about, as well as enabling our young people to get the best possible education for productive outcomes, making them healthy citizens, and we should never forget that.

One good thing about PISA, despite some of the difficulties we've had since 2006, is it makes us take the whole school community seriously—you can't sort of pick and choose and then just focus on the elite groups who inevitably in any education system will achieve some level of distinction. It's about those pupils that sometimes are left behind and not focused on. So, these measures are appropriate, and I'm pleased that we take them very, very seriously. 

I also think the Children's Society is right to call for some of these subjective well-being factors perhaps to be written into the Estyn inspection framework. I think it's important that young people are making friends and they have friendships at school—and if they're not, then that's sending a very poor signal—that they have a positive feeling about the area they live in and they can influence it, and to examine how they feel about the future. That's a key sign of well-being. 

I have to say, in these scores, we find in Wales 48 per cent sometimes felt sad, 44 per cent sometimes felt worried—that's above the OECD average, not a huge amount above, but above—but then 46 per cent sometimes felt miserable, and that was very considerably above the OECD average, I'm afraid.

Can I turn to care-experienced children? I think it's very important that, when we look at PISA, we remember that some of our pupils continue to achieve well below their potential and that their life experiences are having a significant impact on their chances of succeeding in later life and having a happy, productive adulthood. I think we have a real problem between key stage 2 and then what they're achieving at key stage 4, and I do welcome the fact that the Government has looked at the whole issue of educational attainment for this group. The way that they're slipping behind their peer group by the time they get to key stage 4, I think, is a real worry. Now, of course, a lot of children come into care as adolescents, and it's at that key stage 4 that there's a very dramatic impact sometimes, whereas at key stage 2, things are sometimes less obdurate and difficult to change or control. But I still think that is a real worry for us. 

Finally, can I just say, on literacy, I'm concerned to note that Welsh pupils are less likely to read books than pupils across the OECD and that many of them have negative attitudes towards reading. I think this is a cultural thing, as well as what's happening in our schools. We all have our part to play here in promoting literacy and the joy of reading. And that's something that we used to have so extensively in Welsh society. When you think of the miners' institutes, I think, on average—someone has done the calculation—that they had 3,000 volumes in their libraries, and then the whole library movement, obviously, is another thing we've discussed here.

But I do conclude by saying it's appropriate that we choose very robust and challenging measures, and that we should remember in terms of PISA. I do hope the Government will continue in terms of its membership of PISA and take these results seriously, and that we mark where there are some improvements and concede that. But, obviously, we want to get above the OECD average. That should be our aim. 

If I can just remind Members that this motion actually does state, and regrets—. We, as Conservatives regret that there has been no statistically significant improvement in Wales's PISA scores in reading and maths since 2006, that Wales's science scores are significantly worse than in 2006, and that Wales is ranked at the bottom of the UK nations in reading, maths and science, and Wales is the only UK nation to score below the OECD average in all PISA measures. But also, it's a constructive motion. We call upon the Welsh Government to acknowledge its failure to improve education in Wales and we want to see a guarantee that additional resources arising from increased spending on schools by the UK Government will be invested in our schools in Wales. 

Will the Member give way?

Yes.

She mentioned there hasn't been a statistically significant improvement since 2006. She then said that the scores were below the OECD average for 2019. Would she accept that they're not statistically significantly below the average in each of the three measures for the last year?

We've had promises, in the years that I've been in this institution, that we would see an improvement, and we've not seen any improvement. That's my point. 

So, as is noted in the 'PISA 2018 Insights and Interpretations' report, over the past two decades, PISA has become the world's premier yardstick for comparing quality, equity and efficiency in learning outcomes across countries, and an influential force for education reform. This premier yardstick has seen Wales record the worst results of any nation in our United Kingdom. Science is at 488 points here; maths, 487; and reading, 483. These are all lower than England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Now, even Welsh Government officials have admitted in their own technical briefing that none of the statistics represent any significant improvement since 2015. In fact, there has been no statistically significant improvement in Wales in PISA scores in maths and reading since 2006.

Now, I am particularly concerned about reading. We were 20 points behind the lowest scoring—Northern Ireland. Welsh pupils are less likely to read books than pupils across the OECD, and 44 per cent of pupils in Wales rarely or never read books. Now, a major contributor to this, of course, is the fundamental lack of funding and resources. Nearly half of Welsh headteachers considered that a lack of educational material, such as textbooks, a library and IT equipment were hindering their capacity to teach. Last month, I challenged the First Minister on the content of the report published by Great School Libraries: only 67 per cent of schools in Wales have access to a designated school library space. That, again, is less than England. And it is thought that only 9 per cent of schools in Wales have a library budget. Clearly, more funding is needed.

This is actually supported by NASUWT’s latest figures, which estimated the funding gap between England and Wales to be £645. This is outrageous considering that, for every £1 spent on education in England, £1.20 comes to the Welsh Government. I see people shaking their heads. Tomorrow is a general election, and I can tell you that people are sick and tired of this institution blaming the UK Government, blaming austerity. The money comes here. How you spend it is the critical factor.

The seriousness of the situation is clear when considering that Sibieta Economics of Education have estimated that in order to maintain expenditure on schools at the same real-terms level as 2016-17, the Welsh Government must spent an extra £120 million per year by 2021. Now, in comparison, our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is enabling an education budget bounce, as £1.24 billion in extra funding will be coming to Wales as a consequence of extra funding for education in England. The question we all ask as AMs in the Welsh Conservatives is: how will that money be spent here in Wales? That is the question.

Indeed, the Welsh Local Government Association have captured the situation beautifully—'It's a bit like trying to run a marathon with a lead weight tied around your neck. The funding is always the elephant in the room'. Their words, not mine. There are options you can consider, such as the reform to school funding. According to the Department for Education, the new arrangements will provide up to 6 per cent gains per pupil for underfunded schools by 2019-20.

To be clear, if we do not see major change, the 500 target for 2021 is likely to be missed. So, in response to the PISA results, I do believe that we need to see positive action, including a guarantee now today that all the extra money from the UK Government will be spent on our schools, and, two, that you will consider the funding methodology reform in England as a model going forward for change here in Wales. Thank you. 

Can I apologise to the mover of the motion for missing the first few minutes of her speech? 

I sympathise with Helen Mary Jones describing her group as being between a rock and a hard place in dealing with this motion and amendments today. We looked at the Conservative motion and, in particular, point 3 b) requiring the Government to 

'apologise to pupils, parents and schools for letting them down'.

It certainly wasn't reaching out to find a consensus across the Chamber on this subject, but I understand that the day before the election. But, nonetheless, I thought the speech was very measured and thoughtful from Suzy, but there was a dichotomy with the motion, similarly in terms of the amendment. I'm not sure if Helen Mary was involved in moving the amendment, but her speech again diverged quite significantly from the amendment. She referred to the Government amendment as self-congratulatory and complacent, and I understand where she's coming from on that. Notwithstanding that, we thought the specifics of what it says are difficult to argue with. I think it is cherry-picking and putting their best foot forward, but what would you expect in general, let alone a day before election? It would certainly have been improved if it had included some of the suggestions that Helen Mary made.  

Nonetheless, we propose to support both the motion and the Government amendment. I'm not convinced to support the Plaid amendment, on which we'll abstain, because I don't know about the curriculum in terms of giving it such a following wind and agreement in advance; I think we'd like to keep our counsel on that. We're also not clear whether Plaid is suggesting that there should be direct funding of schools if there's going to be a Welsh Government guarantee. 

Similarly, I thought it was quite exciting to hear Oscar's contribution. I'm not sure whether he was intending to break new policy ground for the Conservatives the day before the general election, but it at least seemed to imply that there should be direct funding of schools. I wasn't clear whether he wanted Welsh Government to be doing that direct funding, or whether there might be a proposal for UK Government to step in and fund Welsh schools directly to ensure they get the amount of money he, and perhaps his group, state that they should. 

In the contribution we heard from Janet Finch-Saunders, while I always enjoy hearing from her, there was certainly a picking and choosing as to when to insist on statistical significance, and if we do want to use that concept, I suggest it should be used consistently, as opposed to cherry-picking for one's own convenience. 

As to the Minister, we spoke last week in some detail about the PISA results and I shan't reprise those comments, but what I will say is while I was relatively supportive of her and what the Government and schools had achieved, at least relevant to the previous set of results, when we spoke last week, I feel a little less charitable today, and that's partly because of the nature of the media coverage of the results. We spoke in the Chamber—there was one particular phrase she used, which was 'positive but not perfect', in promoting the results. And I felt to describe this as 'not perfect' understated how much of a problem we still have and how much more we need to improve. And it was that phrase that was clearly briefed out to all the media and was the main emphasis in terms of the coverage, and I felt that—

I'm not responsible for the coverage.

No, no. Well, perhaps the Labour side of her Government have taken advantage and wanted to put their best foot forward in front of the election. But I felt that gave a distorted image to the results across the country. And I think some of what the Conservatives say today is a fair corrective to that.

I do know that the 'positive but not perfect' phrase has been picked up, to some degree, by The Guardian today, which says

'Not perfect but progressive'

in arguing for a vote for Labour, notwithstanding the stink of antisemitism. So, I'm not sure if that drew on Welsh Government's own spin doctors from the previous week.

But, overall, I think we need to accept that these PISA results betoken a significant improvement compared to the last set of results, which were very poor. And rather than recognising that, we see the references in the Conservative motion to 2006, in order to give a comparison that favours their attack on Welsh Government, and then we see Welsh Government cherry-picking the best elements in their motion without recognising the areas that really should be spelled out as needing improvement. The speeches have been a bit better than the motions, but we're doing our best to try and bring a little consensus and dispassionate analysis to these results. And, in particular, PISA do a fantastic job in presenting this premier yardstick, and I think it's very good that we do have these comparisons of the different nations in the UK with nations around the world. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I now call the Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams?

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful for the opportunity to respond to the points that have been made in the debate today. I think it was Oscar that used the phrase 'frustration and dismay'. Well, I can tell him that I am frustrated and I'm dismayed that he and some of his colleagues continue to quote incorrect data and seem scarily unaware of what is going on in terms of the national mission of education reform. And, of course, I say that with the honourable exception of Mr Melding, who, as always, gave a very thoughtful and intellectually coherent response to the debate.

It's disappointing—[Interruption.] It is disappointing that, after the publication of the PISA results last week, this debate has been tabled that does not recognise the efforts and progress that have been made by our pupils and teachers. Now, for too long, we have all wished for progress in PISA, as it shines a spotlight on the education system of Wales for all to see. And last week, I did indeed say, Mark Reckless, that the results were positive but not perfect. If only the media outlets would carry my line every week I'd be happy. But you also know that I said very clearly last week that there is more for us to do. Having had over a week to reflect on the results, surely—surely—we can recognise that, for the first time, we are performing at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average in all three domains: in reading, in science, in mathematics. And I'm not asking the Senedd to take my word for it. It is the main conclusion of the independent National Foundation for Educational Research. They were, and are, the national centre for PISA in each UK nation.

For the first time, all our raw scores are up in all the areas that were tested, and we're among a very small set of countries across the world that have done this. And we have reached our best ever reading and maths scores.

Can I take this point that Suzy Davies raised about OECD averages? Let me be absolutely clear—let me give you the example of reading. The OECD average for reading is a score of 487. This is the average for the OECD countries, i.e. 36 nation states. The average for reading for all participants is actually 455, and that would include the very high-performing non-OECD countries. So, one has to be clear about this issue around averages. As I said last week, we have achieved this at the same time as closing the attainment gap. Now, I think I heard Suzy Davies refer to the Welsh Conservatives' desire to introduce a looked-after children pupil premium. Well, I have to tell the Member that the LAC pupil premium already exists. Let me give you an example of how the EAS region spends their LAC pupil premium. They have a specific member of staff in each of the secondary schools in the EAS region to address the issues of learning and teaching for those specific children. So, it's not new to suggest that this is what you would do, because we are already doing it.

We've also extended our pupil development grant to education other than at school provision and those children who are not in a regular school setting. Of course, as David Melding rightly pointed out, we have much, much more to do for this particularly vulnerable group of learners, whose educational achievements, whether within PISA or outside of PISA, continue to be not where they should be. I am hoping that, in the new year, I will be in a position to announce new approaches, learning from best practice from elsewhere, about how we can enhance not just the LAC PDG but also new provision to try and make a difference to those particular children.

Now, the important thing for me is that disadvantage gap in Wales was significantly smaller than the OECD countries. Pupils in Wales are also reported to be relatively more able to overcome the disadvantage of their background than the average for the OECD countries. But let's be absolutely clear: pupils eligible for free school meals scored 34 points below pupils who are not eligible for free school meals on average. Now, that is a closing of the gap by some seven points within the overall improvement in performance, so it is progress. But we will need to do even better, and that is why I remain committed to expanding the PDG grant, providing even more support, as I said, for looked-after children, for our most vulnerable children, in our attempt to raise standards for all. We are also delivering Wales's first-ever action plan for more able and talented pupils, and we are expanding our hugely successful Seren programme. And, finally, we are prioritising leadership within our schools and education system.

As I've always said, and as is made clear in our national mission action plan, PISA is an important signal to parents, to employers and investors. But it is also much more than a benchmarking exercise for the Welsh Government. It provides a valuable source of data and analysis that, together with other sources of data and research, provide us with the evidence base to make key improvements that will bear fruit, and we have seen that with the improvements in mathematics over two cycles of PISA.

We have also acknowledged that we have seen an improved performance at a higher level in this round: increases in reading, where we now have 7 per cent of high performers as opposed to 3 per cent in the last round. We've also increased the proportion in our other two domains—a similar gain for maths, and it's a bit less for science. Now, I set the challenge to increase these percentages three years ago, and I am pleased that we have seen progress. But I am also absolutely clear we are not yet at the OECD average for high performers. So, again, this is another group of students where there is still more progress to be made. And we will delve into this rich data source that this current round has provided, and we will look again at what improvements can be made from what the data tells us and from ongoing collaboration with other countries. So, for instance, on the issue of reading, which has rightly occupied people's minds today, we will be looking specifically at what steps we can take with regard to reading. We have a strong working relationship with the education department in the Republic of Ireland, who have done very well in their reading scores, and we will want to be able to continue to look at what more we can do. But I cannot say strongly enough: we will stick to the course that we have set out for education in Wales, and we are holding fast to the principles of our national mission to raise standards, to tackle that attainment gap, and to ensure that we have a system that is a source of national pride and enjoys public confidence.

Now, last week's results showed success against those objectives, and we have proved that improvement is possible, that we can have it within our system to make progress. There is more to do, but I'm confident, because our teachers have embraced our national mission, that, together, we are heading in the right direction. This morning, I was speaking to our next generation of teachers at Trinity St David in Swansea. They were telling me that they are proud, very proud, to be entering the profession at this exciting time, and a pivotal time for education in Wales. And I have to say, Deputy Presiding Officer, I will pay more heed to their enthusiasm, their ambition and their 'can-do' spirit than some of the cynicism that has been on display in the Parliament this afternoon.

In conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, I want to take this opportunity, once again, to thank our teachers and students. These results are a testament to their hard work, their effort and their commitment. I know that they share my ambition that the next set of PISA results will show further progress, and they're dedicated and committed to making that happen. And I want them to be assured that I, as the Minister, and this Welsh Government value their efforts, their experience and their expertise, and we value the opportunity to work with them, because, when we get it right for our children's education, we'll be getting it right for the future of our nation.

Thank you. Can I call on Darren Millar to reply to this debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank everybody who's contributed to what I believe is an important debate, where we all share the ambition for our education system here in Wales to improve? If I can start on those issues where we share common ground with the Government, we too want to congratulate those teachers who have helped pupils in our schools achieve success in their education. We want that success to be even more apparent in the PISA score improvements in the future, but there is no denying that there are significant improvements that we still need to make.

It's very clear from the opening speech from Suzy Davies, which I think captured this very well, that we've been celebrating, effectively, last week, being average, being the middle of the pack, as far as the OECD PISA scores are concerned—slightly below, although perhaps not significantly statistically below, the average. But, nevertheless, that average, of course, has moved down since the previous PISA results, so it's not really something we should be aiming to be. We ought to be aiming to be well above that average, and, of course, the one nation that is significantly above that average in the UK is England, where there have been significant educational reforms that have borne a great deal of success. And that's why I agree with Helen Mary Jones's statement earlier on where she said that—and we've got, yet again, another self-congratulatory and complacent amendment that has been tabled by the Government, and it is disappointing that they haven't really recognised the seriousness in terms of where we are.

Reference was made—in fact, he waxed lyrical about, Huw Irranca-Davies did—to the reforms that have been taking place in Wales. Now, we've supported some of those reforms, but we're a little bit concerned, actually, about the pace of improvement that we've seen here in Wales, and we're also concerned that many of those reforms appear to be mirroring, to a large extent, although not exclusively, the reforms that have taken place in Scotland. Of course, we know that, in Scotland, they have suffered significant deterioration in terms of the education system there, when measured against the PISA outputs and scores.

Now, I recognise, as was pointed out during the debate, that PISA is just one of those things that you look at when you're considering the quality of your education system. You've got to triangulate it with other pieces of data and information, and this point was made by a number of people in the debate. That's why I think it's important to consider the GCSE results, and, yes, there were some aspects of improvement in those results last year, but there were also some aspects that didn't improve, and there was some falling back in some areas. So, I think it is a bit of a mixed bag, really, in terms of the GCSE position. And, of course, David Melding made reference to the fact that, at some of the other key stages, we've also seen a rather significant deterioration, which I think doesn't necessarily bode well for the future.

Reference was also made, of course, to the fact that the OECD report does not just look at the scores in reading, maths and science, but it also looks at other things that might be having a bearing on the education system. Some of those findings, which were read to us, about reading and other things, are a significant concern. But some of the other things that weren't referred to that were included in that report were things like the substance misuse engagement in Wales versus other parts of the UK. You're more than twice as likely to have taken alcohol or drugs amongst that PISA cohort when compared to the situation in England, and it's also a higher rate than in Scotland. I think that's a cause for serious concern, actually, and I think that we need to take some action to address it.

I was very pleased to hear David Melding quite rightly refer to the fact that we need to be considering well-being and looked-after children in our future plans, and I will commend the Government for actually recognising that this is something that the new curriculum needs to focus some more on, particularly given those other statistics, which also seem to indicate that we've got a bigger problem here than in other parts of the UK.

Finally, if I may, I want to turn to resources, which are clearly hindering the capacity of our teachers to do their job. It's not just me saying that. It's not just the Welsh Conservatives saying that. It's the OECD report itself, and those teachers who were sampled. So, 41 per cent of the teachers in Wales who took part in the survey said that they did not have the resources to be able to do their job—that it was hindering their capacity. That compares to 22 per cent of those polled in England, a massive difference. So, I think to say that resources are not a big issue is very much a concern.

Of course, Mohammad Asghar pointed out the significant funding gap that's been estimated by the NASUWT as £640 per year per pupil—a massive gap. We know that it's not funds that you don't have; you have £1.20 for every £1 that's given per pupil for their education in England. And yet, we know from your own figures, which were released by the Finance Minister just a few weeks ago, in an amendment to our debate, that you are only spending £1.06 of that £1.20 at the moment. I would like to ask you—and if you want to intervene, I would be very happy to take an intervention—where's the rest of the cash gone?

No, you're out of time.

Where is the rest of the cash going? We believe—we firmly believe—that that should be invested in our schools, and that's why I want to encourage people to support this motion today, as unamended. We've got an extra £1.24 billion coming to Wales to support our education system. We believe that every penny of that should go to support our schools.  

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, we defer voting on this item until voting time. 

We are now moving to voting time unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung. No. Right. We move to the vote. The first vote this afternoon is on the Member debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv) on nurse staffing levels. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Helen Mary Jones. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion 32, 14 abstentions, none against. Therefore, the motion is agreed. 

We now move to vote on the Welsh Conservatives debate on school education. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Darren Millar. If the proposal is not agreed to, we will vote on the amendments tabled to the motion. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion 14, no abstentions, 32 against. Therefore the motion is not agreed.

We move to vote on the amendments. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the amendment 29, no abstentions, 17 against. Therefore, the amendment is agreed and amendment 2 is deselected.  

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

Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion 29, no abstentions, 17 against. Therefore, the motion as amended is agreed.

We now move to the short debate. If Members are leaving, can you do so quickly? We now move to the short debate, and I call on Vikki Howells to speak on the topic she has chosen—Vikki.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. For my short debate, I'll be examining some of the challenges related to the delivery of social care in the twenty-first century. With this being such a wide topic, I cannot cover every aspect of the debate. For example, I will focus my remarks largely around the provision of adult social care. However, I hope to provide sufficient illumination for some key challenges whilst also, where appropriate, touching on some possible solutions.

The first challenge that we face relates to demography. The numbers aged over 65 will increase both absolutely and proportionately over the next decade, and the numbers needing care could increase by a quarter. Wales has an ageing population, and it's only getting older. This, combined with rising costs and increasingly complex and chronic conditions will pose economic costs. That is the challenge we must face.

The Health Foundation noted that Wales spent nearly £400 per person on adult social care. They estimated that costs would rise by over 4 per cent a year over the next 15 years. By 2030-31, we'd be spending an additional £1 billion on social care in Wales. Around a third of local government spending in Wales is allocated to social care for over 65s, and population trends mean that this is only set to grow. The Welsh Government has invested additional money to help with the delivery of social care. For example, the 2019-20 budget contains an extra £50 million to alleviate the front-line pressures on local government. But Age Cymru, amongst others, suggests that the service is already underfunded, and that is just in terms of meeting present need.

Extension of free-at-the-point-of-use social care is something we should aim for, and I welcome that my party is standing tomorrow on a manifesto that clearly commits us to extend this if we receive the fair funding boost that we could expect from a UK Labour Government. Age Cymru powerfully suggests that that's paramount to collective societal responsibility for social care funding. They say that responsibility for funding should shift from the individual to society. They call for a new and sustainable model of funding that is fair, equitable and transparent and supports planning for future care costs.

One potential model is provided in Professor Holtham's report on paying for social care. Holtham explored the arguments and the various models of determining a sustainable and fairly funded outcome, but his conclusion was clear: raising a specific levy to pay for a specific outcome would meet public concerns. That's especially true if the levy were age and income-dependent and contributory. There would be a role for the social security system to step in to help those who need it. Holtham also explains why a funded system would be more efficient than a pay-as-you-go system; rates could be smooth and equitable between generations. Hypothecated outcomes would provide cast-iron guarantees for hypothecated input. Any fund could potentially offer wider economic benefits as a catalyst for national growth. As Holtham notes in conclusion, a funded contributory scheme could provide a viable solution to the problem of funding social care in an era of demographic change. Such a scheme would meet shifts in the age profile of Welsh citizens and be self-sustaining.

Indeed, lest we get too caught up in costs, we should remember that this is fundamentally about providing a pragmatic solution to what is the most critical of future needs—namely, ensuring that we meet the care needs of current and future generations, and that we do so in a way that enshrines dignity and the very best standards. This would offer one innovative use of the new powers relating to taxation that this Senedd enjoys. I look forward to the findings of the inter-ministerial group on paying for social care in due course.

I also want to take some time to talk about how my local authority, Rhondda Cynon Taf, is responding to these pressures. The council is adopting an ambitious course of action to transform its social care delivery, underpinned by the vision set out in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. I'm grateful to councillors, officers and coalface staff for taking the time to talk to me. I was particularly impressed by Stay Well at Home, the flexible, community-based initiative developed by RCT along with Merthyr council and Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, using money from the Welsh Government's intermediate care fund. The service consists of a multidisciplinary team made up of social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and others. It operates seven days a week, eight till eight, and is supported by a range of community-based responses, bringing in groups like Care and Repair, toogoodtowaste and others. It aims to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions and ensures timely discharge for those people that require admission to hospital. And that shows one consequence of us not meeting the social care challenge, and that is bed blocking. This crucial service is due to expand next year.

Other responses from RCT council include the use of technology. The RCT assistive technology lifeline will be enhanced to provide a 24-hour, mobile, rapid-response service for 365 days a year to people using an RCT lifeline pendant. And of course, the council is also committed to invest in extra care facilities across Rhondda Cynon Taf, and I've been very impressed by those when I've gone to visit them. They're part of the council's commitment to modernise older people's residential and day services, and I'm proud that both Aberaman and Mountain Ash in my constituency will soon host extra care facilities.

The foundational economy model also enables us to approach the issue of social care from a fresh perspective. I hope the arguments around the foundational economy are now well rehearsed. This is recognition of the economic importance of those everyday essential items and services that have, until recently, been sidelined within economic policy making. Alongside utilities, food production and manufactured necessities are those universal welfare services that citizens expect and access on a daily basis, and a key strand here is the provision of social care.

As the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change found, failure to properly nurture this part of the foundational economy may have particularly far-reaching consequences. For example, well-resourced private enterprise has displaced smaller, family-run care homes with larger, purpose-based accommodation. These prioritise shareholder return and lead to an underpaid workforce, high public spend, and poor care outcomes. So, I welcome the new commitment to the foundational economy at the heart of Welsh Government. Moreover, resources are being allied to rhetoric here, and it's good to see funding being allocated to a range of social care projects under the foundational economy challenge fund. Twelve social care projects were successful under that strand of the FE challenge fund, such as the £100,000 given to PeoplePlus Cymru to develop upskilling projects with social care employers to deliver quality training for staff. I look forward to the spreading and scaling of best practice, and the renewed focus to grow the missing middle.

Co-operative models of social care provision could also provide an additional solution. Social care co-ops build up people-centred approaches to service delivery. Instead of remote head offices and the prioritisation of shareholders, they lead to truly community-anchored businesses, local economic investment and social benefits. Organisations can be built in this way around workers who are motivated by having a direct say in the running of the care provider, its ethics, operation and strategic generation. Revenue that would otherwise be frittered away in dividends and other distributions is actually invested in the service, and relationships with service users are key. Moreover, people who use well-being and personal care services have more say in how those services are run, and what is on offer. They firmly place people using services at the heart of the service design and delivery. In doing so, they provide responsive services that are citizen-directed, giving a stronger voice and greater control to people in need of services and those who care for them. This often results in better quality, well-targeted services.

I'm grateful to the Wales Co-operative Centre for highlighting several excellent examples of this delivery model. Time prevents me from listing all of these, but I just want to mention the Cartrefi Cymru Co-operative. This supports people with learning disabilities in Wales to lead fulfilled lives, both at home and in the community. They became a co-operative a little over three years ago. Membership is voluntary and open for people they support, employees, and community supporters to work together on two co-operative goals.

I want to explore the vitally important matter next of the social care workforce as another key challenge. I'm grateful to conversations with a number of organisations and individuals about this, not least a lovely lady, Mrs Bishop, with whom I spent a very valuable afternoon, where she described the positive impact that carers from RCT council and the council's services made to her life. I also want to put on record my thanks to my trade union, the GMB, for a discussion on how they support members who work within the care sector.

I welcome the direction in policy that has taken place in recent years in terms of professionalisation of the social care workforce and recognition of the vital work they can do, but this absolutely must be backed up by appropriate resources, giving care workers salaries that reflect the importance of their vocation. Otherwise, staff could end up moving fairly seamlessly into nursing, because the wages are so much higher there, and then the shortage of social care staff will simply be exacerbated.

It is a positive intervention that the domiciliary care workforce must now register with Social Care Wales, that they must meet criteria in terms of qualifications: qualifications that mean that we recognise caring for what it is, a highly skilled vocation of singular importance to our communities. I think it's fair to say that these care workers are highly skilled, but all too often their skills are not recognised or formally valued. Taking this forward, there are challenges in the different pay and terms and conditions between the private and public sectors. For example, a private sector care worker earns on average £2 an hour less than their local authority counterparts.

There can be challenges around negotiation with the private sector. I was a little shocked to learn that there are over 25,000 registered providers of private social care in the UK. As the Finance Committee reminded us last year, there are also challenges in that a high proportion of staff are ageing, and there is a reliance on staff from abroad. I would like to see further measures to professionalise the workforce, with any increase in funding allocated to this end. This must be linked to greater recognition of the important role that carers carry out to stop the 33 per cent turnover rate. Welsh Government interventions, such as ending compulsory zero-hours contracts and ensuring pay for travel time, are not just key to achieving this, they are also morally right and fair.

I'd like to see work undertaken to ensure parity of esteem between private and public sector, but also between the social care workforce and those involved in related sectors like healthcare, reminding care workers of the rights to which they are entitled. It's only fair that we give these workers their due. In doing so I hope we will enable social care to be seen as an attractive career option. This will encourage new recruits to join, give them the support they need to become experienced members of staff, and make sure they stay in the sector for the long term.

The last challenge I want to consider is how we appropriately support unpaid carers. Some 96 per cent of care is provided by unpaid carers. Carers Wales's 'State of Caring' profile provides an important insight in this area. Drawing on their 2018 work, some key findings stand out. This is a gender issue: more carers identified as women than men. Nearly one in three carers are themselves disabled. Nearly one in four have childcare responsibilities. Nearly a third are working, of whom nearly half work full time. Some 56 per cent care for more than 90 hours a week. One in four carers care for two or more people.

Research published by Carers UK on Carers Rights Day provides a further key to the scale of the issue. The average person in Wales will have a 50:50 chance of caring by the age of 45, long before retirement age. And in Wales, women will care by the age of 42. Caring during our working lives is becoming more and more likely as people live longer and need more help with their day-to-day lives. Women taking on more of a caring role and at a younger age can limit their economic participation, their lifetime earnings, and their income in later life. 

The challenge is emphasised when we remember that someone living in Wales has a 70 per cent likelihood of providing unpaid care to another person. That is the highest rate in the UK. We know that the contribution of unpaid carers is literally priceless. If it were not, there would be an additional cost to public finances of some £8 billion. But the dichotomy between providing full-time care and needing to work can cause painful dilemmas. I've dealt with constituents who've needed to give up work to care for loved ones. The recompense provided by the carer's allowance does not go nearly far enough to meeting need. There is some support out there, and I welcome the practical assistance enshrined in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. But there are still other barriers that we need to overcome.

The purpose of my debate was to look at some of the challenges we face to try to sketch out some of the solutions. A short debate can never provide all the answers, but as I close, I want to at least finish by saying 'Thank you' to all who provide such vital care day in, day out. 

Thank you. Can I now call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services to reply to the debate? Julie Morgan.

I'd like to begin by thanking Vikki Howells for convening this debate today on this very important subject. I think the short debates are very useful in order to highlight particular subject areas, and I think she's done that very well today. 

Social care is an area of public services that is getting much more attention, and I think the reason for that is that we can all see the demands on social care that are getting much greater, and certainly it has been an issue in the general election campaign. Need is increasing and the resources that can be raised by local government and national Government to meet the need are struggling to keep up. I don't want to dwell on this point in my own contribution to this debate, which I hope will be positive and optimistic, but I think it is important to recognise, as we look forward, that our starting point is much more difficult than it could have been if different decisions had been made at a UK level. 

The first point I want to make about meeting the care challenges of the twenty-first century is that our policy and legislative framework serves us well in that regard. The legal base for social care, taking it forward, is forward looking. Vikki Howells mentioned the social services and well-being Act, and this fundamentally puts the individual at the centre of planning their care and support needs. This is a leap forward and strongly reflects our own values of supporting the most vulnerable people in society. Everyone in Wales deserves to have their care and support needs met, and in a way that their voice has been heard and acted on. So, we have the social services and well-being Act as a fundamental legality here in the Assembly, which is very important for social care. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 is also very important, because it has locked in the idea that we need to consider the long-term future in all the decisions we make, and I think that this is a huge step forward for Government and public bodies in Wales. 

Then, in terms of the policy direction, 'A Healthier Wales', our long-term plan for health and social care, is the basis for our action. And I think Wales is, in fact, the only UK nation that has a forward-focused strategic plan for health and social care. As a plan, it certainly grapples with the major long-term trends that will impact on Wales. And in the spirit of this debate, I'd like to make some reference, briefly, to some of those future trends. 

Demographic change, as Vikki Howells mentioned, is already with us and its effects will accelerate, with the projected doubling of the number of people over the age of 85 over the next 20 years. And this demographic shift is really, perhaps, our greatest achievement as a society. It's a triumph of the NHS and certainly something to be celebrated, but we have to be realistic about its impact on our public services, and Vikki Howells has referred to that. Social Care Wales estimate we will need an extra 20,000 social care workers to respond to the increasing care needs that will come with this growing elderly population. And our ageing society is a challenge not just for social care, but for the whole of Government and that's why, next year, I will consult on a strategy for an ageing society. It will set out the actions we need to take in response to demographic change, and also set a vision that challenges Welsh Government and all our partners to step up still further in the time ahead. 

In saying this, we need to be mindful that the area that has seen the increase in spending in local authority social services departments over the last few years, in fact, isn't older people, it is children. There's been far more expense generated in order to look after children, particularly children with complex needs, than for older people. And I think this is because children are living from birth with more complex conditions and their care is becoming much more resource intensive. And we're also seeing more children in Wales being looked after, and Members will know that this Government is working with our partners in local government to try to turn the curve of the number of looked-after children in Wales. I think this debate offers an interesting perspective on this. 

However, I know that Vikki is concentrating on adults in her contribution, but I think people don't often realise that it is children that are causing the most expense. We are trying to bring down the number of children that have to be looked after in care, but safety is the basis of bringing down those numbers. We have to better support families and communities, and build responses that will enable us to turn this curve, and then when children need to go into care we need to ensure that provision is available close to their home. 

On the subject of resourcing, Vikki mentioned the inter-ministerial group on paying for social care, which is looking at the challenges for the future. We've always favoured Wales being part of a UK approach to ensuring that people don't face large care costs in later life, and we'll see what this week's election brings in that regard. But if there continues to be a policy failure at a UK level, the inter-ministerial group is working to develop a made-in-Wales solution that is right for the care needs of the twenty-first century. Additional resources, as important as they are, are only part of the answer, and Vikki Howells mentioned the proposals that came from Gerry Holtham's work; we are looking at that in the inter-ministerial group.

But another global trend is the impact of technology and how this will impact on social care is a very important area. I believe that social care must always be an intrinsically person-to-person endeavour, but at the same time the appropriate use of technology will become more important in meeting care needs. And it would obviously be foolish to try and predict the far-off future technology changes; rather, the role of Government in this area is to encourage and support social care providers to make the best use of technology that already exists, and also help them think creatively about the future.

I know that Vikki Howells mentioned the foundational economy, and that is certainly something that we are very strongly supportive of in the Welsh Government. As she said, the fund that has been set up has supported a number of innovative ways of addressing social care, and I was very pleased to go and visit some of those when the last ones were announced. I'm very pleased to hear of the ambitious aims of Rhondda Cynon Taf council, particularly of the Stay Well at Home scheme, which I also know about, which is very good.

I'd just like to say about one of the things that's facing us for the future, which is the issue of climate change, which, obviously, is one of the greatest challenges facing us. There is a climate emergency and be it more extreme weather or immigration to the UK driven through the hardships that climate change will cause in other parts of the world, we need to get into a position where public services here can adapt, and that includes social care. We also need to work so that the hundreds of providers of social care in Wales can support the overall ambition of moving at pace to carbon neutral, which I think is very important when we think of the huge number of staff that we have got working in the social care system, many of them on an individual basis.

I also intend in 2020 to bring forward a national plan for carers. Vikki spoke powerfully about the contribution of carers. Across Wales, there are around 370,000 unpaid carers of all ages who support a loved one who is older, disabled or seriously ill without being paid to do so. They contribute hugely to Welsh society and I think it's important to say that the vast majority of those carers are pleased to do it and want to do it, and are looking after a loved one, and we should be doing our utmost to support them to do that. But we do know from reports that have come about carers that they are struggling and they often have a lot of difficulties. But I think it's so important that we recognise the enormously important role carers play, provide support to them and also enable people to have a life alongside caring. I'll be working with the ministerial advisory group on carers and other stakeholders in 2020 to develop a national plan for carers in 2020.

To finish, I'd like to make two further points. The future social care system in Wales should be a balanced system. Independent providers will remain a key part of the system, and we have fantastic independent providers in Wales, and we are dependent on them. And some of them are at the leading edge of practice. As a Government, we want high-quality, independent providers to play a key role. But we will also support local authorities who wish to bring more provision directly under their control. We also want to see co-operatives, as Vikki Howells referred to, playing a bigger role in a balanced care market. In the new year I intend to provide a statement that sets a framework for pursuing the rebalancing of social care.

Finally, then, I think, in the end, this debate does boil down to the very important point that Vikki made: how we can grow the capacity and capability of the workforce, to take the opportunities and respond to the challenges ahead. I'm acutely aware of the challenges that social care professionals face in delivering high-quality person-centred care on a consistent basis. Social services departments and social care providers are packed full of committed, skilled and hard-working people. Social care for very many people is a vocation, not just a job. What we must do is increase the status of the workforce—Vikki Howells mentioned the registration that we are introducing. We need to tackle the disparity in wages that she has also mentioned. She's mentioned the progress we've made on zero-hours contracts, and I think this is probably one of the absolute key issues that we have to deal with. Our greatest concern must be the growth in the capacity and capability of the workforce. In particular I want social workers to have the time to relate to and care for people. Equally, the workforce of the future won't be enabled to step up to the challenge ahead if it is, as I've said, low paid and unstable. As a Government we are focusing on fair work, and social care is in the vanguard of these developments.

To conclude, we sometimes say in our debates that the status quo is not an option; never has that been truer of social care, looking out into the rest of the twenty-first century. In many ways, we are in a good place, but there is much work to do. I think we know what the direction is that we want to go to, but I thank Vikki Howells very much for raising this question in the Chamber tonight, and I look forward to working across the Senedd to meet these challenges in the time ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. And that brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.