Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Good afternoon, and welcome to this Plenary session. Before we begin, I want to set out a few points. A Plenary meeting held by video-conference, in accordance with the Standing Orders of the Welsh Parliament, constitutes Senedd proceedings for the purposes of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Some of the provisions of Standing Order 34 will apply for today's Plenary, and those are noted on your agenda. And I would remind Members that Standing Orders relating to order in Plenary meetings apply to this meeting, of course.

The first item is questions to the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd, and the first question is from Mick Antoniw.

We are providing an additional £70 million to support delivery of the band B programme next year. This money will bring the total invested over the life of the twenty-first century schools programme to £3.7 billion, of which nearly £400 million will be invested in Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Minister, by the end of this year, and over the past 10 years, Rhondda Cynon Taf Labour council, with support from a Welsh Labour Government, has invested or committed nearly £0.75 billion in our local education infrastructure, building new schools, renovating buildings, providing our children with the most modern facilities anywhere in Wales and the UK. And what we can see developing is quite remarkable: a new £23 million school at Y Pant in Pontyclun; a new £43 million three to 19 community school in Tonyrefail; new schools at Penrhiwfer—£7.4 million; Llwyncrwn at Beddau—£3.5 million; investment in Coleg y Cymoedd; and new schools planned at Pontypridd High, Hawthorn; Bryn Celynnog 3G and running track—£1.3 million; and much, much more. Minister, already I can see the impact of these investments on our students, their morale, their confidence, and pride in their schools. Can you confirm that, in the next Senedd, a Welsh Labour Government will continue to invest in education and provide our students with the world-class educational facilities they deserve?

Yes, I will absolutely provide that reassurance and confidence to Mick Antoniw this afternoon. And just listing the investment that's gone into Rhondda Cynon Taf, I think, really shows the scale of the ambition that we've shown so far, but also gives an indication of the kind of investment that we would want to make in future. So, Welsh Government will continue to invest in the school estate through the twenty-first century schools and colleges programme. Of the £3.7 billion lifetime investment, £2.3 billion of this will be invested in band B over the coming years. And band B of the programme was, of course, launched in April 2019, with an indicative five-year delivery reporting period. And the investment of £2.3 billion is a combination of traditional capital and revenue under the mutual investment model. Its aim, of course, is to deliver 200 new build and major refurbishments across Wales, which I think sets out the level of ambition for the future and a really exciting period continuing in the years ahead.

Minister, I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear I'm not a candidate for the election, so I'll not read out my election address; I'll just move to an appropriate question. When large sums of money are given for public use, I think we need the maximum value for the Welsh pound. And here, I do commend RCT council for the way they've used some of these moneys to promote, through the schools programme, ecological habitat, the imaginative use of technologies, connectedness to other priorities like Welsh-language childcare settings in Welsh-medium primary schools, and also dual use of sports facilities so that they're also available to the community. And we do need to use our public expenditure in this way, to get the maximum value from them.

I absolutely couldn't agree more with David Melding on that point, because, of course, when we're investing in our school estate and our college estate, we're investing in the futures of those young people, which is absolutely the priority. But there are so many more benefits that we enjoy as well—for example, the investment that we're making in decarbonisation, in terms of supporting biodiversity, and all of that is very central to our approach. And the mutual investment model will be very important in the next steps of our school building programme here in Wales. And that model is very much focused on delivering those additional benefits—those community benefits—be they ambitious decarbonisation or biodiversity targets, or those other benefits, including ensuring that local communities are able to benefit from apprenticeship opportunities and learning opportunities. So, absolutely, this isn't just about the bricks and mortar; it's about everything that goes around that.

Newport City Council will see an increase of £12.8 million in its settlement, the largest increase in funding of any local authority, at 5.6 per cent. I've also announced today £1.5 million to drive forward an £11.9 million joint investment for the major renovation of the Newport transporter bridge. [Laughter.] I'm very excited about that, as you can see, Llywydd. Sorry, I was struggling to say it. 

Thank you for that answer, Minister. It's an incredibly challenging year, and it's good to see that Welsh Government have recognised the significant pressures on local government and, specifically, Newport City Council receiving the largest settlement in Wales. As a vice-president of the Friends of Newport Transporter Bridge, I'm genuinely delighted at today's announcement that Welsh Government will provide the shortfall in capital spending so that restoration work on Newport's treasured transporter bridge can begin. The plan to safeguard the bridge will create a new tourist centre to welcome visitors, and a visit to travel across the gondola, or walk across the top, is one of the must-visits here in Wales. It's been such a hard year for heritage and culture, but to see this commitment to one of Newport's and Wales's most iconic landmarks is a great step forward, and I'd like to pay tribute to all who have helped make this happen. 

Investment in our cultural and heritage sectors is so important and will be part of our economic recovery. Can the Minister assure me that the Welsh Government are committed to investing in finding creative ways to support projects like this for the benefit of local communities and to boost our tourism sector?

I very much share Jayne Bryant's enthusiasm for the announcement today, and also pay tribute to the work that she and John Griffiths have done jointly to ensure that this particular project stays very much at the top of the agenda. And it's great that we've been able to bring things across the line, because I think that the transporter bridge really does provide an opportunity to act as a gateway to south-east Wales, connecting south-east Wales with elsewhere, and symbolising both the region's heritage and culture, and the people, actually, who pioneered the development and the innovation as well. And it is, I know, part of a wider vision for Newport and a significant part of the city's plan to create more confidence and excitement around its heritage, and also to develop its leisure and tourism offer. So, the multimillion-pound makeover is forecast to attract more than 46,000 visitors each year, and I think that that will be fantastic both in terms of setting Newport on the map as a tourist destination, but also creating jobs and opportunities for the community. So, a great announcement today, and, of course, we do see culture and tourism very much at the heart of our recovery efforts as we move forward from COVID. 

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth. 

Thank you, Llywydd. Over the past few weeks, Welsh councils have been making very difficult decisions on the level of council tax for next year, at such a difficult time for so many of the people that they serve. Can the Minister tell me whether she believes council tax is fairer now than it was when she became Minister for finance in 2018?

Council tax is fairer than it's been across the period of devolution because of the sheer work that we've put into making the agenda more fair. I'll give some examples as to how we've achieved that. For example, we've ensured that young people leaving care are now exempt from paying council tax to the age of 25. We've ensured that the sanction of imprisonment has been removed for people who have been unable to pay their council tax. Clearly, being unable to pay your council tax does not make you a criminal; it means that you're in very difficult circumstances. We've worked with local government across Wales to develop a protocol that means that they will work with people who are unable to pay their council tax rather than go to court summons as a first step. So, we've made those steps. We've also ensured that we have the council tax reduction scheme in place, which is a much better scheme than that which is across the border, and it supports more than 220,000 households across Wales with their council tax bills. 

I appreciate the Minister's efforts to put a spin on things, but what I see there is an admission that we need so many mitigation steps in place because council tax is fundamentally unfair. And the right answer—if there is such a thing—is that council tax wasn't fair when she came to post, and it's still not fair today. Because of the impossible situation that councils find themselves in and the way in which council tax fits into the general squeeze on public expenditure, council tax bills will again go up by twice the rate of inflation and more again across Wales, varying from 2.65 per cent in Rhondda Cynon Taf to almost 7 per cent in Wrexham. I and Plaid Cymru have argued that this could and should have been avoided this year. Spending around £100 million of unallocated funds to freeze council tax at this difficult time would have been a valuable step in terms of helping people with the response to COVID. And I can't claim that it's a particularly innovative thing from me; the Scottish Government are doing this. Why did the Welsh Labour Government decide not to?

Well, the question that Rhun ap Iorwerth posed in his first question was, 'Is council tax fairer than it was when I came into post?' and the answer to that is, undeniably, yes, it is. The question he didn't ask me was, 'Is council tax fair?', because I would have answered that council tax is actually a regressive tax, and that's why we've been working very hard over the past couple of years to undertake a series of research projects in terms of reforming local government finance. I published the findings of that on 24 February, and that drew together all of the work that we've been doing across the past couple of years to explore reforms to council tax and, actually, non-domestic rates and the wider local government system. It considers alternative approaches to local revenue raising, such as land value tax and local income tax, as well as options for keeping and significantly improving the existing systems. It also sets out aspirations for how future funding systems should work, and those are systems that should be fairer and more progressive, strengthening local accountability and providing a sustainable footing for local services, and, of course, to be simple and to be understood. So, clearly, this isn't the end of the road in terms of making council tax fairer. We have set out research that will inform the next Government in terms of steps it might want to take, some of which are quite radical steps but nonetheless do provide, I think, a significant opportunity to improve the system. 

Thank you. There was no mention of the freezing of council tax there. We've made our views clear on that. That's a temporary step, of course, and we need to think carefully about how to reform local taxation for the longer term. It's not a politically easy thing to do, but we are talking here about tackling major inequalities, and, even with mitigation steps in place, we know that, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the poorest 10 per cent in society pay some 8 per cent of their income in council tax, the next 50 per cent of the population pay around 5 per cent of their income, and the wealthiest 40 per cent only pay around 2 per cent. Now, the Minister's said that they've been having discussions on this. Well, you've been in power since 1999. How has Labour Government after Labour Government been so willing to allow these inequalities to continue? 

Well, I set out in my first answer some of the steps that we have undertaken in order to make council tax fairer, and they are significant steps. The protocol, which we agreed with local authorities, has been very significant in ensuring that people get the support that they need should they be unable to pay their council tax or struggling with it. We worked with MoneySavingExpert.com to ensure that people who have conditions, which might include dementia, for example, are able to access support for council tax. So, we've done significant work to make council tax fairer over the course of this Senedd term.

And I know that Rhun ap Iorwerth recognises how significant and huge a task reforming local government finance is. It would take probably, potentially, a whole term in order to completely change the system were we to go down some of those more difficult avenues, which I've described and which we've explored, such as the land value tax, for example. That's a major undertaking. So, clearly, there are options for the future. I'm sure that parties will set out their views on how the future system should look. But none of these things are easy to do and all of them will require significant work over a long period of time.   

The Conservative spokesperson, Mark Isherwood. 

Diolch, Llywydd. This month's Wales fiscal analysis report on the implications for Wales and the Welsh budget of the UK budget 2021 states that the Welsh Government, 

'left £610 million of unallocated day-to-day spending in Final Budget plans. With additional consequentials from the UK Budget and changes to projected devolved revenues...this means the Welsh Government currently has approximately £1.3 billion to allocate at future supplementary budgets.'

However, your written statement on 10 March, announcing an additional £380 million of non-domestic rates relief for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses in 2021-22 directly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic states that this,

'makes full use of the consequential funding for Wales resulting from the Chancellor's Budget on 3 March.'

How do you therefore explain this apparent difference and what consideration have you given to wider provision for businesses within a road map out of lockdown from the remaining carried-forward budget available to you?

I can explain that very easily, because the funding available to us next year includes both the funding that was announced in the UK Government's budget on 3 March and also the more than £600 million that we're able to carry forward into the next financial year from this year, because of the good budget management decisions that we have taken. So, across the border, you'll have seen the absolutely scandalous approach that UK Government has taken to contact tracing. Here in Wales, it's been a localised service delivered by health boards, by local authorities, getting value for money for the Welsh taxpayer and also ensuring that those workers are employed on good terms and conditions. And that has meant that our system has been much cheaper and is much more effective, I have to say, and also that money is able to be freed up for us to spend next year, giving local authorities the certainty that they need, and health the certainty that it needs, and, importantly, allowing me to earmark £200 million in reserves for business support.

I'm very happy to debate the comparative performance during the pandemic of Governments on health issues, but my question was about support for businesses and the apparent gap between your statement, that full use of the consequential funding for Wales had been made, when the figures from Wales Fiscal Analysis suggested that the figures were far greater.

After the Welsh Government issued revised grant eligibility criteria for self-catering businesses last April, Isle of Anglesey County Council's chief executive told me that the change in the guidance was designed to ensure that councils did not pay grants to people who had simply switched their property from the council tax register to business rates in order to avoid paying the council tax premium on second homes, and that the council is using the discretion allowed by the guidance to make sure that they pay genuine self-catering businesses and are not automatically disqualifying applications simply because the businesses could not show that the property generates at least 50 per cent of the owner's annual income.

When I previously wrote to you regarding eligibility, you also confirmed in writing that local authorities are not obligated to withhold payment, if they're otherwise satisfied that the application is from a legitimate self-catering business. However, a view has recently been expressed to me that local authorities should only use discretion on whether or not to award a grant where a self-catering business applicant falls just short of one of the three criteria, and they would expect local authorities to use their discretion only in such circumstances. For clarity, will you therefore confirm that both your original response to me and that of Anglesey's chief executive still stand?

The whole point of the discretionary fund is that it puts discretion in the hands of local authorities to be able to allocate grants to those businesses that haven't been able to access funding through the NDR business grant scheme. And it does give local authorities wide discretion to make those allocations to businesses that they think are important to the local community and that they feel have a genuine case to be made for financial support. It's not for the Welsh Government to direct local authorities as to how they exercise the discretion that we've given them within the fund.

No, precisely, and the question wasn't about directing local authorities; it's simply acknowledging that they have the discretion for them to exercise. So, thank you for confirming that.

In a question to you last month, I stated that although the Welsh Government initially allocated £6.3 million for the hospice emergency fund, this was less generous than equivalent funds in all other UK nations and fell significantly short of the total allocated to the Welsh Government in consequential funding from the UK Government support for hospices in England. However, our hospices and palliative community care sector has continued to provide vital care and essential services throughout the pandemic.

Hospices in Wales were facing a combined shortfall of £4.2 million by this month, but after I led the debate on palliative and end-of-life care here last month, the Welsh Government only announced £3 million extra to support them. Further, there was no indication in your draft budget for 2021-22 of continued support for hospices to maintain their essential services, despite their estimated combined shortfall of £6.1 million during 2021-22.

In response to a Labour MP last month, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury stated that the £249 million new UK Government funding for hospices generated £47 million in consequentials for the devolved administrations, including £15 million for the Welsh Government. Why, therefore, have you not allocated and even topped up the missing £5.7 million for hospices in Wales, both to respond to their urgent funding needs and to enable them to deliver more, thereby generating greater cost reductions for NHS Wales?

Well, Welsh Government receives consequentials from the UK Government on all areas of spend that fall within the devolved context, and I'll give you, as an example, the fact that the Welsh Government has distributed more funding to business than we've received as a result of consequential funding from the UK Government.

Hospice.

I'm demonstrating to Mark Isherwood that we are not a post box for consequential funding from the UK Government. The consequential funding comes in a block of funding that we are then able to allocate as per the needs here in Wales.

Now, the funding that we allocated to hospices here in Wales was on the basis that we had discussions with the hospice sector to understand the financial need that they identified, and the pot of funding was allocated accordingly. And those are the discussions that my colleague the health Minister's department were having with the hospice sector here in Wales. And, of course, our hospice sector here in Wales is smaller than the sector across the border. So, it's not the case that every penny of consequential funding we receive goes to exactly the same spending area.

Now, if it is the case that hospices are telling you that the funding that they receive isn't meeting the needs, then obviously we would want to have those discussions with the hospice sector, and I'm sure that my colleague the health Minister will pick that up with the sector, to understand their needs for the next financial year. But, as I say, the funding package that we did put in place for the sector was done so in discussion and consultation with the sector.

Yes. The land transaction tax temporary reduction period has been extended to 30 June to help those taxpayers who may have encountered delays in completing their home purchases before 1 April. From 1 July, the standard rates of land transaction tax will apply.

I refer to phasing out, but, unlike what the UK Government is doing in England and Northern Ireland, we don't have any taper in Wales. Why has the Minister made that decision, and why does she consider it right that people buying houses between £180,000 and £250,000 in Wales should pay 3.5 per cent on that part of the transaction, when those same purchases would be nil rated in England or Northern Ireland?

Well, we have a different housing market here in Wales, and we've shown that, actually, in terms of transactions and revenues from land transaction tax, the market is much more buoyant here than it is across the border. The increase in the zero-rate band for those paying the main residential rates to £250,000 from £180,000 will, as I say, come to an end in July. But, even then, we will still have the most generous and progressive form of support for house buyers, which isn't, of course, limited to first-time house buyers here in Wales either. We took those decisions because the housing market is different here in Wales, and we've reflected that within the decisions that we've taken. House prices in England are very different, so that means, on average, the benefit can be up to, or increasing up to or above £12,000, whereas here the maximum is £2,500. So, I think that the kind of scale of the challenge in terms of house prices is very different.

Thanks for that answer, Minister. I think Mark Reckless has raised a very good point in terms of how we get the housing market going in Wales. I hear what you're saying about the housing market being different here from across the border, but nonetheless it still needs that stimulus that the UK Government are seeking to do by applying the nil rate band until the end of 2021. Can I ask you, Minister, that you look at this again and keep it under review and act on the evidence? Because I am concerned that, certainly in some parts of Wales, this policy may have more of a negative impact than in others, and I do think that there is a case for extending relief as long as possible until the economy gets back on its feet.

Well, all of these rates and bands across the Welsh taxes are kept constantly under review. The extension of the LTT reduction is expected to benefit around 4,000 additional homebuyers here in Wales, and up to and including January, around 10,000 homebuyers have already benefited from the temporary reduction that I announced last year. So, a significant number of households have already benefited from it, and actually only around a quarter of house buyers at the moment are actually paying any land transaction tax as a result of the decisions taken last year in this respect. But, as I say, when the normal—if you like—rates do return, we will still have a relatively generous situation here in Wales.

Over £14 million has been allocated to 870 businesses within the financial and professional service sectors from the economic resilience fund during 2020-21. We are also investing £270 million in the Development Bank of Wales to support businesses, and will continue to work with all sectors to consider what support is needed into 2021-22.

Well, Purple Shoots is a charity that helps people in Wales who can't otherwise access the affordable finance they need to start a business. They also work with self-reliant groups, creating opportunities for people furthest from employment or work. They're supporting or have supported many hundreds of small businesses right across Wales. However, they advise that although just £2 million of the hundreds of millions provided to the Development Bank of Wales would keep them lending for six years and create more than 1,500 jobs and 1,300 businesses, that funding excludes completely the client group they work with. What, if any, plans do you therefore have to make funds available for these brave, budding entrepreneurs, otherwise trapped at the starting line, where, as Purple Shoots say, 'It is so frustrating because we've seen such incredible courage, resilience and entrepreneurial thinking amongst our clients; they've kept going in the face of incredible hardship, many with no help at all, apart from the repayment holiday'?

Well, without knowing any more than you've described about the Purple Shoots, I would suggest that a potential avenue to look at would be the Wales flexible investment fund, which is designed to invest and generate new money, including in financial and professional services investment. And that fund has been extended in value to £0.5 billion, with a further injection of £270 million, giving the fund the firepower to maintain investment over the next 10 years. So, in the first instance, I would suggest that Purple Shoots explores that. However, if you were to share with me the contact details of the organisation, then I would be very happy to ask a representative from Business Wales to explore their needs in more depth.

Question 5 [OQ56452] was withdrawn. Question 6, Paul Davies.

Yes. Our priorities are to provide certainty for our public services, help rebuild a greener economy and to make changes for a fairer, more equal Wales. This includes an increased settlement of £179.4 million for Pembrokeshire County Council and £48.7 million towards a new 11-to-19 secondary school building for Haverfordwest high.

Thank you for that response. Minister, it is vital that the Welsh Government prioritises its resources to support lives and livelihoods during the COVID pandemic. I've received representations from local businesses and individuals in Pembrokeshire who have slipped through the net in terms of accessing Government support, despite, of course, the funds that you've just said that you've allocated to Pembrokeshire. It is vital that funds designated to support our businesses actually reach those businesses that require support. So, Minister, what processes have you undertaken in your role as finance Minister to monitor the effectiveness of Government spend during the pandemic, and what assurances can you offer the people of Pembrokeshire that the Welsh Government is ensuring that its support reaches those that actually need it?

The Welsh Government put in place some formal evaluation processes, particularly of the non-domestic rates grant support, to ensure that the funding was reaching those businesses that we intended for it to reach, and we've been keen to ensure that we have those monitoring and evaluation points built into our projects. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses in Pembrokeshire have received over £91 million from the economic resilience fund, and our other restriction-based funds. For example, our latest restrictions-based fund has seen 4,380 grants paid to businesses in Pembrokeshire, worth £14.1 million. We've also provided 628 businesses with £10.1 million of support under phases 1 and 2 of the ERF, and that's safeguarded in Pembrokeshire alone 4,585 jobs, which I think is a tremendous achievement in very difficult times. And, of course, through the loan scheme, then, through the DBW, we've provided over £5.4 million to 80 businesses in Pembrokeshire, helping to safeguard a further 915 jobs. So, there certainly is significant funding going into Pembrokeshire, but, again, there will be businesses that we have not yet been able to reach, and I'm always interested and keen to understand where those gaps in provision are. If there is further information that you can share with me about specific businesses, I'd be very interested to receive that.

Last week, ministerial colleagues and I met with the Secretary of State for Wales and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, where they reiterated their intent to run a competitive fund from Westminster, contrary to what was announced in the November spending review.

It's astonishing, isn't it? The levelling-up fund is a direct affront to Wales's devolution settlement, Minister, I'm sure you'll agree, and it circumvents our democratic institutions. Not only is the Senedd excluded from decisions that will be taken in Whitehall, but the fund ties the success of community projects to representation made by MPs in Westminster, even as the UK Government cuts the number of Welsh MPs by a fifth. Surely, decisions made for Wales should be made in Wales. Given that England's Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will be overseeing the scheme, what assurances have you received that they will be able to assess accurately Welsh bids, given their complete lack of expertise in devolved areas?

I have absolutely no confidence that the MHCLG department in the UK Government will do a good job of this. I take that view because of the record upon which they stand. The UK Parliament's Public Accounts Committee has released its report on the towns fund in England and found a lack of transparency and accusations of political bias in the selection process, lack of consistent or transparent stakeholder engagement, a lack of capacity at local level to effectively implement those proposals and a potential risk to the civil service's reputation for integrity and impartiality. Under any other Government, that would be absolutely shocking, but this just seems to be run-of-the-mill and accepted behaviour. So, I don't have trust that the UK Government will be able to deliver for Wales.

We've only just seen the criteria upon which the levelling-up fund will work, and we have some real concerns about that in terms of the selection methodologies for the fund. The choice of indicators really does omit things that are important to us here in Wales. They don't look at indices of deprivation, for example, and they're not interested in looking at transport data. All of those things will only serve to disadvantage Wales when we are compared to other regions in terms of the bids that are being made to that fund. So, all we have, I think, at the moment, unfortunately, are reasons to be concerned, rather than optimistic. 

While the additional £735 million revenue is welcome, the majority is time-limited COVID funding and doesn't make up for a decade of austerity. In stark contrast to the £224.5 million capital boost we recently announced, benefiting all parts of Wales including Caerphilly, the UK Government failed to provide any extra capital.

One query I've been getting is about the restart grants that the UK Government announced in its recent budget, as businesses are keen to know if they'll apply in Wales or if something similar will be introduced. Also, those non-essential retail and hospitality businesses that still can't trade but can't claim the additional NDR-linked grant support announced last week as they don't have their own premises are also keen to know if any further discretionary grants are going to be announced. I've had several contacts about that in the last hour or two. Will the Minister therefore discuss this with her colleague the Minister for transport and the economy, but also ensure that every last bit of available business support is accessible to those businesses, and particularly those that don't pay NDR?

Yes, I'll definitely be having some further discussions with my colleague the Minister for economy and transport. I can say that, in the next financial year, we've already earmarked £200 million of funding for businesses here in Wales. We're still having some discussions with the UK Government because, in terms of the restart grant, all they've announced thus far is the fact it will be in the next financial year, and they've announced the name of the scheme. We don't actually know any of the details that sit under that, so it's very hard at the moment for businesses in Wales to make that comparison, as I know that they would want to do. But for our part, we absolutely commit to continuing to support businesses through this difficult time, having earmarked, as I said, £200 million already for the next financial year. And we look forward to receiving further information about what the UK Government's plans are to consider the packages of support on offer there. But, as I said, I will be having some further discussions with my colleague Ken Skates in order to ensure that we leave this end of term in good shape in terms of giving businesses the confidence that they need. 

Between April 2016 and March 2020, £4.2 billion has been collected in non-domestic rates revenue. Over the same period, the Welsh Government has provided £900 million for rates relief schemes. All the revenue from non-domestic rates in Wales is distributed to local authorities to fund local services in Wales. 

Diolch. Thanks for those answers, Minister. According to the Welsh Retail Consortium, the industry has been losing £100 million in revenue every week during the lockdown. I'm sure you'd agree with me that we cannot underestimate the enormity of the economic hardship that this has caused small businesses—people who've spent a lifetime building up their enterprises, employing local staff and being a big part of local supply chains. In terms of building back better and delivering a strong economic recovery, will you look at the whole non-domestic rates situation and specifically look at whether you could scrap the business rates for small businesses, taking that burden off some of the smallest businesses in our economy, giving them more money to invest in the future, invest in staff and help the process of building back better?

Thank you for raising that issue. I think there are several important things there, including our immediate response in terms of non-domestic rates. You'll be aware that I've frozen the multiplier for next year, and that of course gives small businesses a boost. And also, of course, I've provided the 100 per cent rates relief for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses for next year, and that support in itself provides over £360 million of relief to ratepayers across Wales. Of course, we have taken out of that the large supermarkets, because clearly they don't need that kind of support at this time. We do have a permanent package of rate relief of over £239 million a year and over half of that goes towards the small business rate relief scheme, reducing bills to zero for ratepayers occupying properties with a rateable value of up to £6,000, and on a tapered basis then to £12,000. That is a generous package and a large percentage of businesses benefit from that by paying no rates at all. But as I was describing in my answer to Rhun ap Iorwerth earlier on this afternoon, the Welsh Government has undertaken a major series of research endeavours and commissioned research to ensure that we do have the information that we need to really think properly about the future of local finance. We're looking at non-domestic rates and council tax and what the future should be for both of those in order to ensure that as we move forward, the system is as progressive as possible and to ensure that it does continue, of course, to bring in funding for the Welsh Government to provide local services, but to do so in a way that is progressive and fair.

We have taken a series of tax measures to support businesses in Wales during this pandemic. These have included providing NDR relief, freezing the NDR multiplier and raising the threshold at which non-residential property transactions are subject to land transaction tax.  

Diolch, Minister. The Welsh Government in its final budget stated it will set aside a further £200 million for businesses from its own reserves. This is additional again to the previous Wales-only additional spend made from its own budget, and further cements Wales as providing the best package of business support in the whole of the UK. What representations therefore has the Welsh Government made to the Tory Chancellor in Westminster to enable the Welsh Government to have the flexibility in the future to continue to help support Welsh business?

We've been making arguments to the UK Government in respect of further flexibilities for the Welsh Government for some time, and I've been really grateful for Rhianon Passmore's support for the work that we've been doing in that area. I know it's something that her colleagues on the Finance Committee are particularly interested in supporting as well. I think that this year has taught us that financial flexibility is so important, both in terms of being able to target our resources effectively, but also to manage our in-year position in a year that has seen so much change. It's important I think that in future, the Welsh Government does have access to its full reserve. It's a small reserve in many ways, but actually having greater flexibility to access more of that would, I think, be useful for a future Government, as would the ability to borrow more in one year and borrow more in the aggregate. Especially now, that will be important, given the very, very poor capital settlement that we've had from the UK Government and also the UK Government's intent to bypass the Welsh Government now in terms of capital spend via the levelling-up fund.

It's the responsibility of all Ministers to take into account a range of factors, including impact assessments and value for money considerations, in setting detailed spending plans. These plans are monitored through the year as part of our in-year reporting process.

I'd be interested to know, Minister, what steps you take to monitor the expenditure by individual Ministers when you are looking at specific sectors that you wish to develop within Wales. For example, if Wales was to decide to try to become a science superpower, which is where I think we should be heading, and you wanted to put far more investment into research and development, into supporting our thriving research and innovation centres within our universities and within our medical establishments, how would you then tie that back to that principle by ensuring that Ministers that may be involved in that—e.g. health, education—do afford the right sums of money to help support that governmental goal? 

We do this in a number of ways, which are often underpinned by the ministerial sub-committees that we've set up. So, some of them are formal sub-committees of Cabinet and others are committees that are not formally created via Cabinet, but nonetheless operate in an important way. An example would be the work that we're doing on the inter-ministerial group that looks at digital and data—that clearly is a cross-Government agenda, and it's important that all Ministers are bringing to the table what they need to to develop that, to make sure that Wales puts itself on the map in terms of being a destination for digital skills, and also to use all of the investment that we are putting into digital in a way that delivers transformation for public services. So, I think that those structures that we have in place are really important, and from a financial perspective then it allows me to ensure that we create the right funding opportunities.

Within digital, we've worked across Government to pool budgets from different parts of Government to ensure that all Ministers are working to deliver that important agenda. We have similar work now going on in the recently—I say 'recently'; it's a year now—the recently developed land division. So, that's something that I chair, but it looks at all of the land held by Ministers in different portfolios across Government to ensure that we're maximising those for the shared purposes that we have. We have a particularly strong focus at the moment on releasing land for social housing, so we're looking particularly at land that sits in the economy department, what land there is suitable for social housing, and how can we best go about releasing that and building on that land.

So, there are ways in which we're working across Government in a number of areas. Those are two, decarbonisation would be another, and the work that we're doing across Government on support for renewable energy as well is something that really benefits from that structure that we've put in place to enable those cross-ministerial discussions, but also joint work in terms of budget, as well.

During the pandemic, we've invested an extra £9.9 million to support mental health services. Building on this, we're investing an additional £42 million in mental health next year. This makes our total spending on mental health more than £780 million in 2021-22.

Thank you for that reply. Obviously, during the pandemic and before that, we know that mental health services have been squeezed and have often in the past been seen as cinderella services, but I know elements of that have changed, as you've exemplified in your answer to me today. But I've done a lot with eating disorders over the years, and obviously the service review recommendations will require significant investment, and I've also in the last year or so been doing work on maternal mental health. Some of the changes there will need significant investment. What would you say to a future Government in relation to the allocation of funds for these most important areas of development?

In our discussions when we were developing the budget for 2021-22, we were very clear very early on that health had to remain a priority for the Welsh Government in terms of our investment, and that's why we've provided significant additional funding for the core health budget for the next financial year. Now, clearly there will be opportunities for a future Minister to look at prioritising in areas such as those that you've described. I've been very clear and very careful to ensure that our core funding for the NHS is able to do its day-to-day work, and is separate from our additional funding for COVID response. That really is to ensure that those things such as eating disorders, which are important parts of our response, aren't lost in our COVID response, which is clearly at the forefront of many minds at the moment. So, it's important that a future Government does have that clarity between COVID response, and the work that we just have to keep doing. That applies to the eating disorders work, but of course goes on across cancer, diabetes and all of the other important areas of spend as well.

Thank you, Minister.

Excellent work—all your questions answered in your final questions session in this Senedd. Over to you now, Minister for Education—see if you can keep to that record. 

Questions, then, to the Minister for Education.

The first question, Jayne Bryant.

Welsh Government continues to work with stakeholders to ensure support is available for teachers around Wales during this pandemic. This includes funding a tailored package of mental health and well-being support services for teachers and support staff, and providing additional funding to increase capacity in schools across Wales.

Thank you very much for that answer, Minister. The education sector has faced the most disruptive year in a lifetime, and time and time again teachers and senior leadership teams have been required to totally transform how they operate: online learning, virtual lessons, year group bubbles, key worker provision, exam grading, mass testing, monitoring well-being and adapting buildings. They've done all that they've done, and they've done that and more on top of their own personal situations. Some who have been doing online classes have also juggled that with home schooling their own children. The education workforce have been outstanding, but we cannot forget the impact on their own health and well-being. What further measures can the Welsh Government take to ensure that teachers and staff feel supported in their jobs over the coming months ahead, and what support is available for them to ensure that their own mental well-being is paramount? 

Thank you, Jayne, for recognising the tremendous effort of the education workforce throughout the pandemic. They have shown real innovation and resilience in the most difficult of times, and it is important that we recognise that we need to support them in their mental health and well-being. That's why we have engaged with Education Support, a charity organisation with expertise in supporting the well-being of teachers to deliver a programme of support during this academic year. That has included online facilitation of peer-to-peer support for headteachers, one-to-one support for headteachers delivered by counsellors, a dedicated schools and well-being service being set up, free online learning modules for staff themselves. And, indeed, this very evening there is an online webinar which over 400 education staff have signed up to in preparation for ensuring that they can enjoy their Easter break. I'd also like to commend the work of the National Academy for Education Leadership Wales that run weekly sessions that allow groups of two to three headteachers to provide peer-to-peer support, and to discuss the challenges that they're facing in a safe and secure environment.  

Jayne Bryant has raised a really important issue. Minister, in November, academics at Cardiff and Swansea universities published the results of a joint survey. They spoke to around 13,000 people; half of those were identifying with some degree of mental health issues, and 20 per cent said they were severely affected. This was particularly relevant to younger people and women and, of course, both of those groups are to be found within our primary school sector where there is a higher number of women involved there as teachers. What discussions have you had with the education system, with the trade unions about ways that these mental health issues can be addressed in future? In terms of recruitment, has any assessment been made about the potential effect on recruitment, because it strikes me that as we come out of the pandemic, the last thing we want is there to be a negative impact on recruitment into our primary schools? 

Thank you, Nick, for that question. My officials have weekly conversations with the trade unions, discussing a wide range of issues and, clearly, the well-being of school and support staff features strongly. The Welsh Government has had very positive feedback from the services that the Education Support charity has been able to put in place this year, and we will continue to reflect on what more we can do to support the profession throughout the pandemic, and the period following.

With regard to recruitment, what I can say, Nick, is that we have seen this year very strong recruitment to our initial teacher education programmes. I think the spotlight that has been put on the importance of education, and the crucial role that educators play in the life of children and young people and, indeed, supporting communities, has inspired very many people to think about a career in teaching, and I'm very pleased to see that. 

Governing bodies have an essential role in improving school performance. Local authorities provide direct support to governors through their governor support services. Under Welsh language standards, all information, advice and guidance provided by the Welsh Government to local authorities is provided bilingually. Local authorities are under the same standard duties.

I'm a governor here in Denbighshire and as is required and reasonable for me to do, as with everyone else, I need a DBS check every now and again to ensure that I am a fit and proper person to be a governor. Now, I was invited for a DBS check recently and it was undertaken online, but if I want to do that through the medium of Welsh I have to ask for a paper form. Although I am a Welsh speaker, a governor in a Welsh-medium school where the governing body holds all of its meetings and administration through the medium of Welsh, I have to settle for a second-rate process. Now, there is discrimination on a linguistic basis here and I understand, too, that online applications usually take less than a week to process, but if done on paper it can take a month to six weeks. So, do you think that this kind of discrimination on the basis of language is acceptable, and if you don't, then my question is what will you and the Government do to try and put that right?

Well, firstly, Llyr, can I thank you for serving as a governor? They are important roles and I would encourage everybody that is interested in education to think about how they can help our children and young people by doing what you do and serving in the role of governor. Clearly, the situation that you have just described is not acceptable. I'm grateful to you for bringing it to my attention, and I shall raise it with the necessary authorities to ensure that there is equality in the service that is offered to people who have taken the time and trouble to put themselves forward to undertake this important role. Diolch yn fawr.

Minister, I'm pleased to hear that you have thanked everyone who has given of their time and skills to become governors in our schools, and their jobs are about to become more burdensome under the new curriculum, and more similar to the role of trustees or non-executive directors of businesses or charities. Certainly, their relationships with local communities will have to be more open, too, because of the curriculum. How will you ensure that governors receive all the training they need, and what measures are you putting in place to help learners and their families to hold governors to account?

Well, thank you for that, Suzy. Can I assure you that that training is already being delivered? For instance, even in the midst of the pandemic, GwE, our regional support service in north Wales, is already delivering a comprehensive programme of governor training in anticipation not only of curriculum reform but also ALN reform, and that is a programme of work that is being replicated across Wales. It is absolutely important that governors have the skills necessary to provide that supportive challenge to headteachers and to be able to play a full part in developing new curricula within their schools. You're right; this gives us a new opportunity to be able to explain to parents in the roll-out of the new curriculum the important role that governors will have and how parents themselves can influence that process, and indeed to encourage other parents to take up roles as governors, not just in the slot that is reserved for parents, but actually looking at ways in which they too can contribute, either to their own children's school or to other schools in their area.

We now turn to spokesperson's questions, and the first up this afternoon is the Conservative spokesperson, Suzy Davies.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. Well, here we are, Minister—our last spokesperson session together. Dirprwy Lywydd, I hope we will get a chance—. I mean, I'm going to get a chance to thank other Members in this portfolio next week, but I hope you will allow me just a few words at the end for the Minister when we get to my third question.

But I'll start with asking about this, which is that the Education Workforce Council has confirmed that registrations with them are down by 1,000 on last year. Many Members have been contacted by supply teachers, saying how difficult it's been for them to get work this year, yet your Recruit, Recover and Raise Standards programme has apparently found 1,800 new members of staff to help deliver on its intention. That's twice as many as you'd budgeted for, and especially impressive considering you've only spent £17 million this year of the £20 million you'd earmarked for this. If the number of registered staff has dropped, who are these 1,800 new members of staff, and how can you afford them for £17 million? Why is it only in the last 10 days that you've been able to reverse the position of providing only half the catch-up money for Welsh pupils that their peers in other parts of the UK have benefited from throughout the year?

Well, Deputy Presiding Officer, the Member tried to lull me into a false sense of security, I think, before asking that question. If I had any hopes that she would spare me in this last session, they've been cruelly dashed by that question. Can I just say that the success of the RRRS programme is something to be celebrated? I think it is fair to say that we had initially anticipated that we would have more qualified teachers recruited under the system, but, actually, schools have been given the freedom to recruit professionals as they see fit, and many schools have decided to recruit teaching support staff rather than qualified teacher status staff. Some schools have used the resource to offset redundancies that had been planned and were being taken through the system, and they've been able to retain additional staff that would have been lost to them. In some schools, they've been able to up individuals' hours. So, somebody perhaps that was employed on a part-time contract, the school has felt it was appropriate, because of their familiarity with the school—rather than bringing in additional members of staff, they were happy to increase hours of part-time members of staff. So, the programme has been utilised in a number of ways. Some schools have looked outside traditional staffing roles, and, for instance, have recruited youth worker mentors and those skilled in child well-being and mental health. With regard to additional funding, I am delighted that we have been able to secure additional funds to support the RRRS programme. And I would say to the Member that those funds that we've been able to secure go above and beyond the Barnett consequential that her colleagues in Westminster saw fit to give us.

Thank you for that answer. So, what we're talking about here, then, is 1,800 equivalents of teachers, rather than new members of staff. I'm grateful for the clarification. But there's still no doubt at all that we need more teachers, and so I was pleased to have it confirmed that teachers from anywhere in the world will be permitted to apply to teach in Wales now. Newly qualified teachers will need particular support—I know we're going to have new ones, but they will need new support, of course, because of limited classroom experience, and all teachers will need to find time to acquire the knowledge and skills to design and teach the new curriculum. None of the NQT targets, apart from physical education, I think, have been met, and they still won't be, despite the new interest shown in teaching careers during COVID that you alluded to earlier. Do you think that might be because the degree, or the degree plus a PGCE, and of course now the Master's option route to teaching, is squeezing out talent, because the process is too long and too expensive, and maybe still values theory over life experience a bit much? And is part of potential applicants' worry that, despite the shortages that we've just been speaking about, schools won't have enough money to employ them and pay them properly?

Well, Suzy, I'm grateful for your acknowledgement that the Welsh Government has introduced new secondary legislation that allows teachers from across the world to enter into a process, with our Education Workforce Council, to be accredited to teach in this country. I believe those first applicants are already in process, including a new would-be maths teacher who qualified in the United States, who is very keen to take up a role here in one of our secondary schools in the capital.

With regard to ITE, we have reformed initial teacher education to ensure that it gives our teachers the best possible start in a professional career. And we have recognised that the more traditional routes perhaps were putting off those people that had something very valuable to offer our children and young people, but the traditional routes were not appropriate to them. And that's why we've worked with our partners in the Open University, for instance, to develop a distance learning part-time route to qualified teacher status. That makes it much easier, especially in areas of Wales where you and I live, where, actually, accessing a university on a full-time basis is really challenging. And I'm delighted to say that we have seen good and strong recruitment to that part-time distance learning route that is now offered by the Open University.

Thank you. Yes, I'm rather keen on that OU route as well, as indeed I am on teaching apprenticeships; I think there are many ways, different routes to excellence, here that should be explored by the next Government, which, obviously, I hope is a Conservative one.

Kirsty, when we met in 2007, I'd be surprised if either of us thought we'd be doing this today, although I suspect that perhaps you've always hoped you'd get the chance to be the education Minister, because it's evident to everyone, even those who might disagree with you—and that's been my party less often than perhaps the public might imagine—that the life chances of our young people really matter to you, and that accessible education, that education of all Welsh citizens, but particularly children and young people, needs to be an education that they can reach into and grab hold of and create themselves with, on the basis that, of course, if you can transform one child, you transform the world entire. 

But I wasn't sure, after my early raid on your territory back in 2007, what my reception would be when I got this shadow role, but what I've found is someone who has goals, is values driven, knows her stuff, and, most shocking of all for us, is open to listening to the views of others. And so I was sorry I couldn't join you for Stage 4 of the curriculum Bill last week to say thank you for specific changes to that Bill, but I also wanted to thank you for the respect and understanding you show to the scrutiny process overall, your willingness to act on committee recommendations, not ducking too many questions, and seeing scrutiny for what it is. I think that's been deeply impressive, because facing scrutiny is not about protecting the party brand in the face of inconvenient questions; it's about recognising that Parliament represents the people, and it's Parliament that legislates for them. And so I do honour you for that. It does leave me with my final, slightly horrible spokesperson's question though, Kirsty: does a period in opposition make people better Ministers?

Well, Suzy, can I just say thank you very much for your kind words, and thank you for forgiving me? I do remember a certain public meeting in the Strand Hall in Builth Wells—although the subject that day was health—when I suspect that I was particularly mean, not that anybody in the Chamber would ever remember me being mean or sharp or difficult with people, but—. So, I thank you for that. 

You're right; it is an absolute dream job for me to become the education Minister, and I suspect an unexpected surprise to everybody, including myself. It's been a joy over the last five years. And I am sorry that you weren't here last week, because, if you had been, you would have heard me say that the Bill that we got to vote on last week was a better Bill for the scrutiny and the legislative process. And I was honoured to present it, not just as the Minister, but as a parliamentarian. And I agree with you, Suzy: there is something particularly interesting to have crossed the aisle, having served a very long apprenticeship on the opposition benches. And all I would say to anybody that finds themselves on the opposition benches and then maybe, or maybe not, might be lucky enough to find themselves in a position of Government is that it's a lot harder than it looks, and it's not as easy as you suggest that it might be when you're sitting on those opposition benches. 

Thank you. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. One of the issues that is of concern to the majority of teachers is the workload that they are having to deal with in addition to the work that they are trained to do, namely to educate and to lead. According to some, the additional burden, the daily bureaucracy, has got worse over the past five years. What's your response to that claim?

I recognise that we ask an awful lot of our teaching professionals. And now, more than ever, we need to attach even greater weight and greater pace to the managing workload and reducing bureaucracy group. That group is still working, despite the challenges of the pandemic, to identify the pressures facing teachers and implement new solutions. The workload charter has now been published, with the workload and well-being page on Hwb currently in development. The education support charity that I also spoke of earlier is producing a well-being toolkit on Hwb, which will contain a greater range of resources and practical advice, to be published in April, and the Welsh Government continues to work with our partners in regional consortia, in individual local education authorities, and, indeed, with Estyn, to ensure that the demands placed on schools from outside organisations are manageable, proportionate and add value to outcomes for children. 

One issue that certainly adds significantly to that workload is budgeting, particularly at this time of the year. What creates complexity is when funding is provided via grant very late in the day, as has happened this week. I want to quote one headteacher who contacted me yesterday, and this is what she said: 'We are spending more time writing about how we're going to spend these grants than we spend in actually using the grants in the first place.' And another headteacher told me that, 'Whilst, of course, I always welcome any additional funding on any occasion, I do feel that a lack of planning and arrangements does account for the money being released so late in the day, and perhaps this, of course, gives an unfair picture of school budgets and the amounts carried over from one year to the next.'

Now, I understand entirely and accept entirely that the situation is even more unstable than usual this year because of the pandemic, but do you accept that this is a major problem—the grants arriving very late in the day? And what should the next Government do, in your view, to reduce that workload in terms of budgeting placed on our teachers, so that they can be released to focus on teaching?

The Member is correct: sometimes, we are able to release additional resources to the education system later on in the year. The challenges of operating a budget of the size that we do are not without difficulties, but I will never turn down an opportunity from the finance Minister to spend more money on schools.

With regard to the bureaucracy and the reporting, I would say to Siân Gwenllian that, throughout my period as education Minister, she has often asked me to explain where the money has gone, and, indeed, we've just heard from Suzy Davies wanting to know a detailed breakdown of how the additional money from RRRS has been spent. I can only provide answers to people like yourself, Siân, or Suzy Davies, if we ask teachers to report back on what they're spending money on, otherwise I'm not able to answer the questions you often ask me. 

I of course accept that point, but there is far too much data being collected, and it's data that the teachers, very often, don't understand why you, as a Government, would need that data. 

If I could turn to my final question to you—not just for today, of course—may I also thank you very much for your willing collaboration through this Senedd, and particularly for our regular meetings during the pandemic? We certainly share the same passion for the importance of education in the lives of our children and young people, and I'd like to thank you for all your hard work over the years, and particularly for focusing on the deprived children of Wales. I think that has been a prominent feature of your period in post. 

Suzy has already asked you about useful experiences for prospective Ministers, but I want you to look forward, and look beyond COVID, if you could. What, in your view, is the greatest challenge facing the new education Minister over the next years?

The greatest challenge facing any education Minister is the realisation that education reform and transformation cannot be driven by the will of a single Minister. It has to be done in collaboration and co-operation with the sector. The co-construction of our national mission and our new curriculum has focused on building those strong relationships. I think it will be really important for any incoming education Minister to continue to work in that spirit and not dictate from the centre. 

Our operational guidance states that face coverings should be worn by secondary school learners in all parts of the school building if social distancing cannot be maintained, and on dedicated school transport. This is one of a range of measures to keep schools as safe as possible for both staff and learners.  

Thanks, Minister. There's much research that exists on the unhealthiness of prolonged unsupervised mask wearing as there is on the benefit. We need to get all pupils back into the classroom in a positive learning environment. UsforThem Cymru is an example of concerned parents who want clear direction on freedom to choose, because many pupils are being told that the wearing of masks in the classroom over a prolonged period is mandatory, and policing in all senses works best on consensus. There are real physical and mental impairments to mask wearing and the issue of some headteachers mandating the wearing of masks is causing real anxiety, possible future health problems—depending on the mask and what is done with the mask before wearing—and, for many pupils, it is a barrier to learning. So, what I'm looking for here is some kind of responsibility because you omitted to really address the issue of pupils having to wear masks in classrooms over a prolonged period. So, what will you do to support parents, pupils and staff who choose not to wear masks or who want to not wear masks in the classroom over a prolonged period? What are you going to do to support those people?

I'm not aware that we're asking children to wear masks in an unsupervised situation at all. Children are supervised on school transport and when they're in classrooms they are supervised. The advise that we're giving is that when social distancing cannot be maintained, then masks should be worn because that offers a level of protection, as I said, to both staff and learners. There are times when masks are not appropriate, such as at meal times, when outside, when social distancing is possible, when learners are running around, playing active games, and where learners do have indeed a genuine, specific barrier to wearing a mask. What I would say to parents and to pupils is I'm very grateful for their continuing willingness to engage actively with us, as Welsh Government, and with headteachers and recognise the steps that we can all take to minimise disruption to education and to keep them learning. And I'm very grateful for their willingness to continue to do so.

Can I wish you well for the future, Minister? You have survived five years and prospered, I think, despite having to start under the incubus of a commendation from me—there we are, it obviously, didn't affect your authority and performance.

I do have some sympathy with Neil McEvoy's point here, because I think we need a flexible approach in some respects. And I'm particularly concerned bout the need for effective social communication, especially for those pupils who are hard-of-hearing and also those pupils who have a language learning difficulty and therefore need lip-reading as part of their communication method. So, I do hope that the guidance is flexible enough to address these very real issues that do affect a minority of our pupils.

Thank you, David, and thank you for your kind words. Coming from you, who I have appreciated working alongside, as a member of the class of 1999, they are worth that much more.

Can I assure the Member that there is flexibility? Where learners have a specific barrier to wearing a face mask, then that should be recognised by schools. That might be in the case of neurodiverse learners or where learners have a communication difficulty. We have provided advice to schools on the appropriate specification of clear face coverings and where those should be worn, especially if there are children for whom lip-reading is absolutely essential to be able to participate within activities in the classroom. And we have provided advice on specification to schools about how those can be obtained and when they should be used.

Welsh Government is working with our stakeholders and employers to ensure that support is available for teachers in Pembrokeshire and, indeed, across Wales during the pandemic. This support includes a tailored package of well-being and mental health support, and additional funding to create capacity within the school workforce.

Now, Minister, you'll be aware of the ongoing concerns faced by local supply teachers in Pembrokeshire, many of whom feel they have been overlooked during the pandemic. The National Procurement Service's supply teachers framework has the potential to improve pay and conditions for supply teachers, but I understand that schools are not required to use agencies that have met the requirements of the framework, which means that there is still a patchwork of support for supply teachers, as not all supply teachers receive the same level of pay from agencies. I appreciate that we've corresponded on this matter over recent months, but I'm still receiving representations from supply teachers. So, can you tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to ensure that all supply teachers are being treated fairly and are adequately supported during this pandemic?

Thank you, Paul. The framework does indeed provide a level of assurance that individuals will be treated fairly. And we have come to an agreement with the Welsh Local Government Association to once again communicate with their schools and make it very clear to the schools in their local authorities that schools should only be using those agencies that appear on the framework. I will give a commitment, Paul, that I will ask the WLGA to update me on that work when I next meet with them, but we have an agreement with the WLGA that they will stress the importance of doing that with their own schools.

Caerphilly received over £56 million during first wave of twenty-first century schools and colleges programme funding, and, of this, £28 million was spent in the Islwyn constituency. A further £110 million is planned for the second funding wave, and we are working with Caerphilly to make their plans a reality.

Diolch, Minister. As I said yesterday in this Chamber, education, apart from love, is the greatest gift that we can give our children. As a society, it speaks to who and what we are, what we prioritise and all that we value as a progressive, vibrant and dynamic nation. As such, I wish to thank you, Minister, for our often robust interactions and I wish to put on record my support for your undoubted positive legacy, going forward. Although, I'm sure you will recall an area of music education discourse.

In Islwyn, the delivery of the groundbreaking and unprecedented £3.7 billion twenty-first century schools programme has seen transformational change. Large-scale projects have been delivered, such as Islwyn High School, large-scale investments to secondary schools in Newbridge and Blackwood have occurred, and major twenty-first century school refurbishments have occurred, and such refurbishments must continue to be rolled out in the future, post 6 May. But, importantly, it is right to put on the record the local leadership of our fantastic education leaders in Islwyn, such as Keri Cole, Christina Harrhy and now Councillor Ross Whiting. Equally, without our most amazing headteachers and governors in Islwyn, the excellent Caerphilly County Borough Council local education authority partnership with Welsh Government would be inoperable, so I want to thank also our education family.

Minister, in my prior roles and as an education cabinet member and now, I've been thrilled, inspired and honoured to open and tour our new schools and see those fantastic facilities first hand. But this is also in direct contrast to prior years when, pre devolution, as a teacher and school governor, schools across Wales were forced to get rid of teachers and our schools were rotting. This is contrasted now with the delivery of this brand-new, state-of-the-art—

Will the Member come to her question, please?

I'm coming to it. Minister, thank you. How will, then, Islwyn communities and schools benefit from this innovative £3.7 billion programme, going forward, and what do you feel is your legacy?

Rhianon, you're right—the twenty-first century schools and colleges programme is a partnership approach and we would not have been able to realise the ambition of the programme without the close collaboration and working that we have with local education authorities. As we discussed at length yesterday, there is a multibillion-pound pot of money within Welsh Government to look to work with our partners to develop even more fantastic facilities, whether they be in the county borough of Caerphilly or, indeed, anywhere else in Wales. That's the beauty of the twenty-first century schools programme; its impact has touched every corner of our nation.

On 15 March, we published our framework on embedding a whole-school approach to emotional and mental well-being. It places well-being at the heart of learning and, together with funding of £2.8 million to deliver well-being support to learners in the current year, to ensure that their return to education is all that it should be.

Thank you, Minister. I was delighted to see the framework published yesterday. And I hope to speak next week in the statement and to say some words about you then.

As you know, the Children, Young People and Education Committee recently held a brilliant session on the impact of COVID on the physical and mental health of children and young people, and I would like to thank Professor Ann John, Professor Alka Ahuja, Professor Adrian Edwards and Dr David Tuthill from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health for their very powerful evidence. We were given a very clear message about how vital the focus on well-being is in the return to school, but also how crucial it is that we give children and young people hope. Some of the narrative emerging in public discourse about ensuring children and young people can return to school has been very negative. Terms like 'COVID generation', and even terms like 'catch-up' are indicative of loss, when I think we should be celebrating the phenomenal resilience of children and young people, given what they've been through through this period. So, would you agree with me, Minister, that it is absolutely correct that we not just prioritise well-being as more and more children now return to school, but also that we reject any counsel of despair and make sure that we say to our children and young people, 'We know what you've been through, and our priority now is to help you recover from that in a positive and hopeful way'?

Thank you very much, Lynne. I, too, am absolutely delighted that the framework has now been published and will be there to support schools in this really, really important aspect of their work, because if we think about the interruption to education that we have all witnessed and our children and young people have experienced, we're not going to be able to move forward from that unless we address well-being, because we know that learning cannot stick without that. And I couldn't agree with you more that a constant reference to a deficit model will help no-one. In fact, it will just add additional stress to the teaching profession. It will add additional stress to our children and young people. So, learning interrupted, yes, but learning lost, never. I understand why parents are concerned, and I understand why older children and students would be concerned. But, as we've demonstrated, with the investment that we're already making, we have an education system and professionals who stand ready to ensure that they can move forward with real confidence in the next steps of their education. And if we engage continually in that mantra of despair, as you have described, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because children become what they are told, and therefore we need to change the dialogue and work with our educational professionals to help our children move forward with confidence.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Lynne Neagle has been saying about the importance of focusing on empowering young people and giving them hope. Young people have—. I'm trying to recalibrate the way I'm going to word this, actually, because I was going to say, 'They've missed out on so many experiences.' But, actually, young people have so many experiences that they need to regain, then, after the pandemic. Friendships and routines have been disrupted. Many young people have been suffering with isolation and loneliness. Could I ask you, Minister, when the guidance on the whole-school approach to well-being and mental health will be implemented in schools and when will young people be able to feel the benefits of that? I am particularly concerned about very young children—those who should have started school during the pandemic, but because they've got parents who are shielding, maybe they haven't been able to go into school. Those yearly years—the reception classes, the meithrin classes—are so fundamentally important to forming bonds between children. So, what support do you think could be made available to re-establish bonds between young children? And will there be particular help, particularly for children who haven't seen their friends in such a long time?

Thank you, Delyth. I think you have hit upon one of the aspects of the interruption to education that has really impacted upon children and young people, and that is a sense of isolation and the inability to spend time with their friends. And that's why schools the length and breadth of Wales have been focusing on that when they have seen the foundation phase return. And, indeed, that interaction and that pedagogy is at the heart of our foundation phase approach, and in that playing together once again, being together, chatting together, children are learning and acquiring the skills that they need for a confident future. That's why we have ensured that there is time and space within the curriculum for that to happen, and that's why we have made additional funding available together to ensure that there are adults there to support children as they re-engage with face-to-face learning and re-establish those relationships with their peers and with their teachers and teaching assistants.

Thank you, Angela. Welsh Government has so far provided Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire local authorities with £1,649,000 to recruit, recover and raise standards, supporting learners at crucial stages in their education. I recently announced an additional £72 million to support learners, taking our total support for learning—I was going to use the word 'recovery', but after what I've just said, that would be remiss of me—for our learning plan for 2021 to £112 million.

Well, thank you for that, but the reality in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire is, over the last decade and a bit, only one out of the five secondary schools in that constituency have not been in some form of special measures or targeted intervention or needing to improve significantly. Now, with education being hit by COVID over the last 12 months, it's inevitable that the schools that were already struggling will struggle to move forward. I'm thinking of schools such as Greenhill, where Estyn report after Estyn report after Estyn report has said there has to be improvement, and improvement we do not really see. So, what action is the Welsh Government going to be able to provide specifically to schools in special measures or that require some kind of significant improvement, to help raise the standards of their educational offering to their pupils? Because this is a problem that seems to be incredibly intractable.

Thank you, Angela. Whilst inspection activities have been suspended during the pandemic, I want to reassure you, and indeed other Members, that Estyn continue to engage with schools that were previously identified as needing an additional level of support. Clearly, that has been done remotely and has been done in a sympathetic way, recognising the conditions under which those schools are working, but that work has not stopped as a result of the pandemic, nor has the work of the regional consortia in ensuring that those schools that have been previously identified as needing additional support continue to receive it.

With regard to schools that are causing concern, the Member may be aware that, prior to COVID, we had piloted a new multi-agency approach, with Estyn having an ongoing role in leading school improvement rather than the previous role, where Estyn came in, decided what they felt was wrong, disappeared and then came back to pass a judgment once again. The new pilot model, prior to COVID, trialled in a number of schools, was proving to be very successful, and in my recent letter to Estyn, I have also agreed to extend funding for that programme. So, that programme will become available to all of Wales, which, I believe, is a different approach to trying to make more rapid progress in those schools where we know extra support is needed.

Supply teachers in Wales can be employed either directly via local authorities or schools, or via commercial supply agencies. Headteachers and governing bodies are responsible for all staffing decisions and for ensuring that they have an effective workforce in place under the Staffing of Maintained Schools (Wales) Regulations 2006.

Can I thank the Minister for that response? I mean, I, and I'm sure many others, have serious concerns regarding the way supply teachers are treated and paid via agencies. I know it's not the best solution, but councils could recreate the supply register and supply teachers to be directly employed by councils, or a consortia of councils, and then go out into schools rather than having them employed by the agency who top-slice their pay.

Indeed. Mike, as I said in my opening question, there is nothing to stop local authorities creating a supply list of their own, and may I suggest perhaps the best way forward is to discuss that with Councillor Jen Rayner in your own local authority? I'm sure she'll be very happy to oblige.

And finally, question 9, Bethan Sayed.

Thank you, Bethan, and this is probably the last question that Bethan will ever ask me, so I just want to wish Bethan all the best. Bethan, since the introduction of our student finance reforms, which are unique in Europe, there has been a 40 per cent increase in first degree part-time students in Wales, and we've also seen a 21 per cent increase in Welsh part-time students from the most deprived backgrounds.

Thank you, and all the best for the future; we'll have lives outside of politics yet.

The Minister has made increases in part-time numbers of students a major theme during her time in office. But can you confirm to us that when Open University student number increases are taken out, overall there has been a decline in part-time student numbers in the Welsh HE sector since the start of the implementation of Welsh Government financial reforms, specifically since the start of full Diamond implementations, not the announcement of the policy? So, can you confirm the numbers of part-time students starting at Welsh universities? Thank you.

Bethan, as I said, actually, in terms of first degrees that are being studied on a part-time basis in Wales, there's been a 40 per cent increase.

Thank you very much, Minister, for that.

We move on to item 3, which is questions to the Senedd Commission. Question 1 this afternoon will be answered by Joyce Watson—[Interruption.]

She'll give you her address, and she wants—

Janet Finch-Saunders, are you ready to ask your question?

Can you do that now?

Right, it's obvious Janet Finch-Saunders isn't ready to ask her question, so we'll move on to question 2, which is to be answered by the Llywydd, and it's Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. And I am, indeed, ready to ask my question.

Thank you for that question. The Vote 16 strand of the election campaign is being rolled out across Wales and includes paid advertising, social media promotion and events. We are running adverts on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube, and holding a range of events for schools, colleges and youth groups, and this will continue throughout April. And we, of course, worked with a broad range of bodies during the last week of February for Vote 16 Week, which showcased events, including a school assembly, training for education professionals, and the mock election debate hosted by the BBC's Teleri Glyn Jones.

Diolch, Llywydd, and I really appreciate the work that you and the Senedd Commission are doing in terms of promoting the election for first-time and for younger voters, and, of course, this is going to be such a dramatic leap forward for 16 and 17-year-olds in Wales. It's a real leap forward for democracy. But it is, of course, crucial that first-time voters, younger voters, understand the power they have in the ballot box, as well as the practicalities of how to vote, that they have easily accessible information regarding candidates and party policies, and are at ease with the Senedd's hybrid electoral system, but also, I have to say, that they understand, like all of us should understand, that voting itself is a precious right and a privilege that is only made stronger by being exercised regularly. So, would you join me in commending the work of organisations like the Boys and Girls Clubs of Wales, the Urdd, Democracy Box, the Electoral Reform Society in Wales and others who are doing their very best, alongside the work you're doing, to encourage young and first-time voters to register to vote and to use their vote too? This is an exciting time, let's make sure all our younger voters have their voices heard.

It is most definitely an exciting time for our young people. Young people, of course, have been affected more than anyone, possibly, during this last year, and will rightly, hopefully, exercise their voice in the ballot box as 16 and 17-year-olds, and do that as the first 16 and 17-year-olds ever in Wales to do so. And you're exactly right as well: the work that the Commission does and Welsh Government does in promoting 16 and 17-year-old voting is indirect towards those young people; there are others who can work with us and on our behalf to work directly with the young people that they work with, and the young people, of course, trust those sources, whether that's in schools or in external organisations. So, we're very keen, have been keen, to support efforts made by third parties to support us in our endeavours to ensure that young people are educated about the new rights that they have, and motivated to do so. And all of us who are standing as candidates in the election in May, as well, have a responsibility, as political parties and as individual candidates, to ensure that our manifestos and our messaging and our means of communication are interesting enough to attract the interest of young people.

This is so very important, in encouraging young people to vote, but it's also important for the future generations. The children's commissioner is running an alternative election for young people between 11 and 15 years of age, and this gives everyone who'll be able to vote in the 2026 election a real experience of the voting experience. Eighty-five schools across the whole of Wales have signed up to be part of Project Vote already. So, would you join with me in encouraging every secondary school to participate in this innovative and crucial project?

I would be delighted in seeing more schools in Wales taking and using the leadership, resources and advice provided by the children's commissioner to hold those electoral events, the mock elections for that age group who don't yet have the right to vote in Senedd elections, but will in our next set of Senedd elections, and even possibly in local council elections next year.

Participating in a mock election in Lampeter school in 1983 was my first experience of elections and electioneering, and I remember that well to this day. I very much hope that this experience provided by the children's commissioner and her office to young people in secondary schools will engender the interest of those young people to vote and to participate in our democratic life for years to come. So, thank you very much to the children's commissioner and her office and everyone working on this programme in schools in promoting our democracy and the engagement of young people in that democratic debate.

Thank you. Question 3, which is also to be answered by the Llywydd, Vikki Howells.

The Commission has supported the Senedd, its committees and Members to discharge their functions during the pandemic, and the Commission regularly reviews responses to issues as they arise and to learn lessons for the future. This includes feedback from Members, regular staff surveys and governance and risk reviews.

Thank you, Llywydd. I just would like to take a moment to place on record my thanks to the Commission staff for how they've supported Members of the Senedd during the pandemic, and, of course, to MS support staff, who I know have gone above and beyond to help constituents deal with a range of urgent and pressing queries. What assessment has the Commission made of the impact of the pandemic on our superb staff over the last year?

Thank you for making sure that our staff know—Commission staff and those staff who work for us as political representatives—that you and, hopefully, all of us are very appreciative of the innovative work that's gone on to respond to the pandemic, to enable this Parliament to continue its work and to enable us as elected Members from all across Wales to provide services and information to our electors. As I said in my previous answer, the Commission does look to engage with staff to learn from their experiences and to think about how the lessons that we've learned over the past year can carry on into the future and enable a more flexible means of working, and that we don't lose sight, as we move out of this pandemic, hopefully, of the many good ways of working that we've probably experienced over the past few months. So, I'm really grateful for your thanks, but also for giving me the opportunity in my last questions as a Llywydd to thank the staff of the Commission, all the staff who work for our contractors and our political party staff. Everybody has been excellent and enabled this Parliament, this Senedd, to carry on its work in the most challenging of circumstances, and to do that on behalf of the people of Wales.

Thank you. Question 4 is to be answered by Joyce Watson, and it's question 4, Bethan Sayed.

Thank you for that question, Bethan. Our flexible working culture is supported by a range of policies that include flexible working, job sharing and homeworking, which enable staff to manage their own working hours, balance work and also home commitments. Forty per cent of Commission staff have caring responsibilities for young children, and 15 per cent of staff have regular caring responsibilities. The Commission is committed to ensuring a truly flexible culture that allows all staff to thrive. The Commission is award winning in these efforts, and it has been recognised both as a top 10 employer of working families and a The Times top 50 employer of women. Building on our experience during the pandemic, the Commission is exploring new ways of working and delivering services to extend that flexible culture even further. 

I thank Joyce Watson for that very comprehensive response. As I've outlined recently in the context of the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill, job sharing is something that we need to consider in order to provide further opportunities for more diverse representation and a political environment that is more family friendly. As this isn't now on the agenda in terms of elections, the Commission could take a lead in this area in terms of promoting working in this way. You mentioned that the Commission is doing work in terms of job sharing, but I haven't heard anything from you on data in terms of what you're doing in terms of advertising jobs and offering the opportunity for job sharing. Is this something that you would consider doing and looking at during the next Senedd, so that the Senedd is more flexible?

I thank you for that. I recognise that this is dear to your heart and you've made your feelings known through your statement on having your young son and the challenges of that. They're real challenges, as has been brought home to you, and have, in your own words, made you reconsider your future. And I'm really sad to lose you, as I'm sure other people are, from this institution.

We know that Members cannot currently job share, and we also know that it would be up to the next Senedd to determine legislation to allow that to happen. And I think it's wider than that. I think there's a whole public conversation that needs to happen so that people feel that they can vote for job-sharing politicians, and I'm not sure that we're there at this moment. But I would like to join you in that conversation, because I think it is a conversation that has to be had. It's also, of course, much wider than that and the Electoral Commission would have to allow two names to be on the paper for one position. And again, I think that's a conversation that has to start. I really think that this will be top of the agenda for the Commission—the next Commission, of course, post election. But I think it should be on the top of the agenda of all political parties, women's organisations and wider organisations as well. There are many reasons that people need to job share. 

We do have facts and figures, and they are numerous, in terms of how we support our staff and who those staff are, and there is a whole plethora of data that underpins that. I think the best thing in terms of time and understanding of that would be for me not to read it out—I do have it in front of me—but for me to e-mail that to you. But please be assured that there are plenty of sisters around this table today who will support you in your endeavour. 

Thank you very much. 

Item 4 on the agenda is a topical question, to be answered by the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip. Delyth Jewell. 

I thank Delyth Jewell for this question. The Welsh Government received the final version of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill upon its introduction, last Tuesday, 9 March. We are considering the provisions in detail and how they will impact on Wales, including the safety of women and girls.

Thank you, Minister. This is a deeply personal issue for me, not least because I am the same age as Sarah Everard, who was so devastatingly killed near London recently, and whose vigil was so horrendously mishandled by the police. At least seven women in Wales this year alone have died at the hands of male violence. We are still counting dead women, including Wenjing Lin, who died in Treorchy. My concern over the policing Bill is rooted not just in the context of assaults on the right to peacefully protest, though these are worrying, but I have grave concerns at the treatment of male violence against women. It is a Bill that doesn't centre on survivors; it places greater sanctions on people who attack statues than on those who attack women. Heavier sentences would be given to fly-tipping than for stalking. I was involved in the inquiry and campaign in 2012 that brought in the new laws on stalking, and Minister, this development is offensive to all of the survivors who played such a crucial role in that campaign.

If the last week has taught us anything, it should be that for women in Wales, as in all of the UK, navigating fear and adapting our behaviours to reduce the risk of violence is a normal occurrence. Women and young girls are taught not to do certain things instead of tackling the underlying reasons why male violence happens. In failing to tackle the prevention of male violence against women, this Bill is not just a missed opportunity; it is a catastrophe that will play out in slow motion. Surely we need a public health approach that focuses on prevention, early intervention, changes to how we educate young girls and boys, changes to how women are portrayed in the media, in magazines. I'd ask you, Minister, how much discretion Welsh police forces will have in how they implement this Bill. I'd also ask you if you agree with the suggestions of Chwarae Teg about using the curriculum to tackle gender stereotypes, ensuring planning guidance specifies women's safety as a central consideration in designing urban spaces, and the need for more funding and awareness-raising campaigns like Ask for Angela, which offers women in bars a way of getting out of dangerous situations.

And finally, Minister, aside from this radically different approach we need to take in Wales, doesn't this Westminster legislation show why we need the devolution of policing and justice? I'll close with this, Dirprwy Lywydd: if we don't do something radical, if this daily horror in our society isn't fixed, we will go on mourning yet more women we never knew.

Thank you very much, Delyth Jewell, for that very strong, impassioned and committed speech. As a woman of the age of Sarah Everard, you have enabled us to again remember, as I did yesterday, the recent killing—that senseless, awful killing of Sarah Everard. It has sent a shock wave through us all, it has reignited this national conversation about women's safety, and you'll have seen that reflected in my written statement yesterday. That was a statement on women's safety in Wales, and it's reminded us, of course, as I said in my statement, that violence against women and girls is far too common. It's highlighted again the impact that violence and abuse has on the daily lives of women. And so my recommitment again in terms of our pioneering legislation—and I thank Nick Ramsay; he raised this yesterday, as other Members did across the Senedd—is that it's our commitment in Wales to end violence against women and girls.

I think it's also a wake-up call, isn't it, to us all that we must honour Sarah's life by making changes to society and culture, and that is what I said in my statement. But I think it is very important, as I said yesterday, that I have called on the UK Government, and indeed also call on the UK Parliament, to make sure that this Bill is a Bill that should strengthen the safety of women and girls, and of course, we have the opportunity now to comment on that. I think it's crucial that we recognise that the Bill that's coming forward, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, should be about strengthening the criminal justice system to protect women and girls, and also—equally strongly, I would say, and I did say this yesterday—enabling people to continue to express their concerns freely.

I also agree with you that this is a public health issue, as did our great national adviser, Yasmin Khan, on Sunday. On many occasions, she talked about the need for a culture change, and she recognised that this was a public health issue, that we had to hold perpetrators to account, that we had to have a trauma-informed system, and also that we cannot be bystanders. That's why we have a strong Don't Be a Bystander campaign as part of our violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence legislation and strategy. I'm also very proud of the fact that we actually do now have in our new curriculum, in the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill, that statutory duty to make raising awareness about healthy relationships and sexuality education part of the curriculum for children up to the age of 16. It will help young people to challenge toxic attitudes and behaviours.

I'll speak, if I may, as the son, brother, husband, father and grandfather of women and girls who I care about and love passionately. The recent tragic cases of Sarah Everard and Wenjing Lin have highlighted the issue of violence against women in a truly shocking way. We in this Welsh Parliament are united, I believe, and determined to make our streets and communities as safe as possible for women and girls. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill seeks to equip the police with the powers and tools they need to protect the public while overhauling sentencing laws to keep serious sexual and violent offenders behind bars for longer. New powers proposed will halt the automatic release of offenders who pose a danger to the public, end the halfway release of offenders sentenced to between four and seven years in prison for serious violent and sexual offences, and reform criminal records disclosure to reduce the time period in which people have to declare previous non-violent sexual or terrorist convictions to employers. The Bill also imposes a legal duty on local authorities, the police, criminal justice agencies, health, and fire and rescue services to tackle serious violence through data sharing and intelligence. Would you therefore agree that these measures, which complement those included in the Domestic Abuse Bill discussed here yesterday, should make women safer in Wales? And given that the UK Government is seeking views to help inform the development of its next tackling violence against women and girls strategy, how will you engage with this process?

Thank you very much, Mark Isherwood. Can I thank you also for speaking up as a father and in terms of all the women in your life? We know that men are standing up, as they do year in, year out. The November International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is an important event. Every year we have our vigil, don't we? Our virtual vigil this year was very much led by Joyce Watson—always led by Joyce Watson—with a cross-party response, as you say, Mark Isherwood. I'd like to pay tribute to all the men across our services who are White Ribbon ambassadors. I think Jack is here today; I know that he is a key White Ribbon ambassador, as are so many, of course, not just here, but represented across Wales.

I just want to say, just on the Bill, that we received, as I said, the final version of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill last week. It is a UK Government Bill, and we are considering its provisions in detail and its impact on Wales, but we are calling on the UK Government to strengthen the Bill to ensure the criminal justice system protects women and girls, because we are concerned about many aspects, just receiving the Bill as it is, and seeking advice in terms of those measures and provisions. It will be important for, obviously, our colleagues in the Westminster Parliament to look, scrutinise this, and there have been many concerns already raised about the Bill. But we need to make sure it is scrutinised effectively. But I would say today that we have got to do, within our powers in Wales, and of course there are powers in terms of the Thomas commission—and Delyth made that point—that we seek to consider, being powers that we would recognise that could enable us to strengthen our responsibilities in this area. But we seek in Wales to work closely with our four police forces, our local authorities, as well as the UK Government, and all our third sector organisations, to ensure that the safety of women and girls can be at the forefront of our powers and our provisions, our priorities, and our budgets.

And that is why, of course, our Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015, our pioneering legislation, is so crucially important, and that we do have our Live Fear Free helpline. And I will use the chance again to say this is a free 24/7 service for all victims and survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence. And not only has it remained open, of course, through the coronavirus restrictions being in place, that means that home shouldn't be a place of fear, but it has been extremely concerning to us all in the Senedd about the impact of COVID-19 on people who are restricted because of COVID-19. But we have given additional funding to Live Fear Free, and of course we're working with our Don't Be a Bystander and 'ask and act' training provisions, as well as funding Hafan Cymru's Spectrum Project, which of course is promoting healthier relationships effectively in our schools and with our young people.

Thank you very much, Minister.

Item 5 on the agenda was the 90-second statements, of which none have been submitted.

Therefore, we move to the motion to appoint the Senedd Commissioner for Standards. And I call on the Chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee to move that motion, Jayne Bryant.

Diolch, Deputy Llywydd. The standards committee recommends that Douglas Bain be appointed Senedd Commissioner for Standards from 1 April 2021 for a six-year term. The commissioner is an independent officeholder whose role is to promote, encourage and safeguard high standards of conduct by Members of the Senedd. This will be the third appointment to the office of commissioner.

Douglas Bain was nominated following an open, transparent and rigorous selection process. The selection panel was chaired by the Chief Executive and Clerk of the Senedd, and comprised of two members of the Standards of Conduct Committee—myself and Rhun ap Iorwerth—and an independent panel member. A number of high-calibre applicants were interviewed; the panel unanimously identified a preferred candidate—Douglas Bain. Douglas Bain has been acting commissioner since November 2019. He was previously the Commissioner for Standards for the Northern Ireland Assembly. Douglas Bain attended a pre-appointment hearing with the standards committee; the standards committee questioned him on his approach to the role, and welcomed his ambition to raise the profile of standards of conduct. We noted his broad experience of dealing with complaints, particularly those falling under the dignity and respect policy. The committee unanimously endorsed the nomination of Douglas Bain as Senedd Commissioner for Standards. Deputy Llywydd, I move the motion.

Thank you. There are no speakers to the debate, and therefore the proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No, I don't see objections. Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 12.36, the motion is agreed.

Item 7 on our agenda this afternoon is a debate on the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee report, 'Remote Working: Implications for Wales'. And I call on the Chair of the committee to move that motion, Russell George.

I move the motion in my name, Deputy Llywydd. This report was published last week. The implications of radical changes in how we live and work are something that the next Welsh Government is going to have to get to grips with, and hopefully, our report will help in that regard. 

First of all, we wanted to know whether the Government's 30 per cent target for remote working is achievable, and the evidence strongly suggested that it is. But, clearly, there are both opportunities and risks to consider. For example, we heard how working from home has been a real game changer for some disabled people, but we also heard about the possibility of remote working creating a two-tiered workforce, as those who can work remotely tend to be, or usually are higher-skilled and higher-paid. The Government needs to use robust definitions of remote working to collect plenty of Wales-specific data, and all the equality impacts need to be considered in the assessment of this policy. 

Now, our first recommendation calls for a clear strategy that maps out how remote working policy actions will co-ordinate with other policy areas. It's not just about achieving carbon reduction goals. There are implications for childcare provision, spatial planning and infrastructure plans, regeneration and community cohesion policy, partnership working with local government and the private sector and the third sector, so lots there to co-ordinate with. 

I don't think Members would expect me to say anything different on this next point, but closing the digital divide in Wales is also essential for everyone, regardless of their location and background, and the opportunity to benefit from more flexible working practices. 

We're all aware, sadly, of the impacts of remote working on health and well-being in the current circumstances, and there's plenty in that regard in our report as well. Different managerial skills, of course, will be needed to manage a remote workforce, and to help mitigate some of these negative impacts.

Recommendations 12 and 13 say that the Welsh Government should use all the levers at its disposal to protect workers' rights. There's a lot of concern in committee from witnesses in regards to those working from home working longer hours, and working in worse environments. And I'm sure we've all got examples, haven't we, of receiving e-mails late at night, or late into the evening, from staff and other bodies, to a different extent than would have been the case pre-pandemic. 

We're grateful to Dr Reuschke for helping us better understand the existing network of co-working habits in Wales, and certainly think the Welsh Government need to think about that. We recommend more mapping of the existing provision, and for the incoming Government as well to think about looking at repurposing buildings as well. We've seen dramatic changes in our town and city centres, and there's still a lot of uncertainty unfortunately, of course, about the future for retail. So, we recommend that the Welsh Government has a plan that can adapt and respond to remote working trends, setting a clear path for the sector. 

It wasn't all doom and gloom in that area as well. Our witnesses also saw real opportunities to reimagine our cities and town centres. Decarbonisation targets have clearly driven the 30 per cent ambition, but it needs to run alongside other measures to achieve this modal shift. 

Wales isn't alone in managing the risks associated with the new normal of increased remote working. We considered international best practice, and we think policy makers here in Wales should consider the evidence from places like Milan, Finland and the Netherlands.

There is an awful lot to think about in this report, Llywydd, and I've tried to skim over it in the short time I've got. I'm hoping that other Members will be able to contribute and dig into specific aspects of this report, but, of course, I welcome views from across the Chamber and the Deputy Minister's response and comments at the end of the debate as well. 

Rather than treating remote working as an anomaly, we should be seeing it as the new norm. Looking at the following areas of office work, pay and human resources, accounts and audit, in the pre-ICT days, they needed to be done in the office. Pay and personal records had to be manually updated and physically filed, with pay calculated, counted, manually checked and put into envelopes. Income and expenditure had to be recorded in the ledgers, and bills posted and cheques or money collected and banked. Auditing involved the physical checking of ledgers and reconciling with bank statements. With ICT developments, records became electronic. This has been followed by fast broadband, which is the last impediment to working from home. The movement towards homeworking and online meetings was taking place well before COVID. What COVID has done is turbocharged this change. We have seen, in the last year, how well Zoom and Teams work, especially where high-speed broadband is available.

The Welsh Government needs to set a working from home target itself and other publicly funded bodies, but why change what has worked for the last 12 months? The private sector will do what works for each individual company. People, in general, do not want to spend hours a day commuting. Competitive recruitment will mean that to offer a job where you can work mainly at home will be more tempting than one that involves a commute of several hours a week. 

The growth of homeworking will be decided by lots of individual decisions, which, when aggregated, will produce the direction of travel. Do not forget the costs of office space and servicing that space. This will have a strong influence on decisions by companies, and saving travel costs will have a strong influence on individuals. The homeworking experiment over the last year has taken place under sub-optimum conditions, with home learning for children alongside homeworking, and no study has shown a substantial drop in productivity, with some showing improved productivity. 

This change to mainly homeworking will create huge changes and challenges. We have a transport system based on commuting. People asking for bypasses and relief roads are in the same position as those in the 1900s who asked for more horse troughs. We have evidence of a service sector which depends on commuters and office workers for a substantial part of their trade. The change will not be painless, but it is inevitable. The challenge to governments, as always, is to react to things as they are and as they are becoming, not as they would like it to be. This is the beginning of the post-industrial revolution, a complete full circle from the first, and we must ensure that we win. 

Can I just thank everybody on the committee and the witnesses that gave us evidence? I really enjoyed this session, as a relatively new member of the committee. I think Mike is right. There's no putting this genie back in the bottle now, although, as the report makes clear, we need to be sure what we mean when we're talking about remote working or hybrid working, as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development call it. And I don't think it would be—. I don't agree with Mike when he suggested that this might be the new normal and a lot more of us will be working more from home. Clearly, if you're serving food in a cafe you can't do that from home, but there are jobs that lend itself to this. If you look at what Admiral has been doing lately, and basically turned the whole of its workforce over to working from home—. I do recommend that Members have a read of this report, and I just want to draw their attention to the later recommendations, which draw attention to how this possibility of working remotely needs to be factored into a bigger jigsaw policy, really. It can't be dealt with in a stand-alone way.

But I'd start by saying that it's too easy to say that we—and who are we in these circumstances—can just set up working hubs in towns and villages throughout Wales without thinking this through. The CIPD isn't actually sure that the call for working from hubs is particularly there, anyway. While the prospect of this would be about reducing the horrors and the environmental damage of commuting, we do need to be clear that the commute isn't just going to be displaced to somewhere else. It's true to say that active travel could play a role here, but it would be quite a step, wouldn't it, to claim that people won't still reach for their car keys when they're still having to deal with dropping children off in school or filling a boot up with shopping. 

The other thing perhaps I just want to draw attention to is to watch out for the unintended consequences of this move, some of which we've seen during lockdown, of course. Because, yes, flexible working sounds great in principle, but what it's done is moved a lot of people who are working at home into working late at night in order to accommodate more domestic responsibilities. And as that's still—unsurprisingly—predominantly women, we have to bear in mind the equality impacts of any changes that remote working might bring to the fore. 

In short, the report recommends that any great shift in working practice has to be planned for, based on the fullest evidence, and that really none of that is possible, as Russell was saying in his opening remarks, without proper digital infrastructure and physical infrastructure, so there has to be a strategic approach to any major overhaul on how we have working lives. Diolch.

This is, as usual, a robust and comprehensive report by the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee and I congratulate Russell George, the committee members, and, of course, the Commission staff who have helped to put this report together. Given the limited time I have, I shall concentrate on the overarching principles and the effects on homeworking, but would say that I am in agreement on the recommendations put forward in this report and I would hope the Welsh Government in the sixth Senedd will take on board these recommendations.

The report does not mention—I may have missed it—5G roll-out, but there is no doubt that this new technology will have an exponential impact on the ability to undertake tasks remotely, not least in the health sector. Home or remote working can, as the report suggests, take many forms, but it's primarily understood to mean working from your place of residence. Whilst, in most cases, this is feasible or even desirable, home circumstances can vary to such an extent that, for some, it is difficult or even impossible. Children, housework, food demands can impact to a greater or lesser extent, not just on the female homeworker, though probably to a greater extent, but also on male employees too. It is therefore imperative that we do not reach a position where people are forced to work from home on a permanent basis. Studies seem to indicate that a hybrid system of a few days homeworking and a day or two in the office offers the best solution in avoiding mental issues arising from continued isolation.

The strategy of opening working hubs, particularly in the smaller town centres, should create a number of positive impacts: shorter travel distances, greater town footfall, and the possibility of meeting with other people—a fundamental aspect of human activity. There is a possibility of setting up multiple business offices where different companies rent office space, but where there are shared facilities. These, of course, already exist, but almost all are mostly run by commercial companies. There's much scope for these to be set up by local or national government, with initial low rents and rates, but rising slowly over time. There's much talk in the report of creating inequalities with this form of working. I don't share this view. I believe it creates greater opportunities for the disabled by taking away the obstacle of travel, which, even with better travel accommodation, still creates difficulties for the disabled. A hybrid form would mean that these travel difficulties could be reduced to perhaps once a week. The suggestion that homeworking only benefits the higher skilled and higher paid employees ignores the fact that everyone will benefit from reduced traffic: builders, delivery workers and many more whose work means they have to use the road network; all will be positively affected.

The impact on the environment that less commuting brings is obvious, but setting goals that may mean people being forced to work from home should not be an option. Remote working should be for those who desire it, not an enforced way of working. Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd.

Thank you. Can I call on the Deputy Minister for the Economy and Transport, Lee Waters?

Yes, thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I must thank the committee for their considered report and the way that they conducted the inquiry and everybody who has made a contribution to the debate this afternoon. 

As Mike Hedges has put it, what COVID has done has supercharged what was already happening. And we don't want to return by default, simply because we haven't put in place an alternative, to many of the bad old ways that we had before COVID. As Mike also pointed out, why do we want to go back to a situation where we were commuting several hours a week? And I think there has been an acceptance that, before COVID, many employers thought that working from home would not be productive, that employees couldn't be trusted, they couldn't be supervised properly, it simply wouldn't be practical, or the technology wouldn't hold up. And by and large, those concerns have proven not to be the case. As Suzy Davies pointed out, there are significant disbenefits for many from homeworking, and, particularly, there is definitely an equalities point of view. I think all of us in our domestic circumstances have seen the situations that Suzy describes of simply having just ended up doing more and absorbing the domestic chores and moving them around, and this does disproportionately fall on women, I'm sorry to say, even in enlightened households. So, we need to be alert to and aware of the dangers of this, for sure, so let's try and bottle the good but also be alert to the bad and try and deal with it. 

I'm pleased to say that the report's recommendations were broadly in line with the plans that we are already developing within Government, and we are working on a set of recommendations and a report that will be available—a strategy—for the next Government in September or October. And it is a complex piece of work to think through all of the different elements to it. Today, we have published and announced a series of pilot projects to try and test some of these interventions. This includes Costigan's in Rhyl and HaverHub in Haverfordwest, both of which aim to encourage employers and employees to try working in their local town centres. Another project will focus on how we can use spaces in rural communities across the Swansea valley.

This is in addition to a number of initiatives across the Valleys taskforce area, such as spaces where we can work surrounded by nature as part of the Valleys regional park project in Llyn Llech Owain in Carmarthenshire, and in Parc Bryn Bach in Tredegar, as well as a community-focused co-working space in the Rhondda Housing Association offices in the centre of Tonypandy. And, on top of that, Transport for Wales will be trialling using the space in their new offices in Pontypridd for other people who don't work for them to trial co-working. 

So, we'll be using these projects to monitor the appetite for and the feasibility of working locally, giving people the choice and the means to work in a town centre, and this I think represents a major opportunity to support a new economic model outside of large city centres. Of course, cities will remain important, but, for areas like the South Wales Valleys that have battled 40 years of de-industrialisation—and that's true in many parts of Wales—this represents a once-in-a-generation chance to build a new model for small towns and high streets outside of the major cities. With greater and more diverse footfall, it brings with it a chance for jobs, local spend and new vibrancy to come back to these areas, which is particularly important in the context that COVID has accelerated the end of the exclusively retail-based model of our town centres. And our Transforming Towns initiative, some £900 million-worth of investment in the last six or seven years or so, shows that we are very much committed to this, and it works with the grain of much of the policy that we already wanted to achieve. 

Of course, working across Government is ever relevant here, and, as was mentioned again in the debate both by David Rowlands and by Suzy Davies, the need for infrastructure to support this is crucial, and digital infrastructure in particular, as we've much rehearsed in this digital Chamber. This is not a devolved responsibility, but we are looking to see what value we can add to make sure that the co-working spaces we set up are fully digitally enabled. And I think there's a great opportunity, through our public sector broadband scheme, to try and link up to existing networks that we have created to make sure that this agenda is meaningful for as many people as possible. 

So, as I say, 'choice', I think, is the important word here. We know, for the majority of the employed in Wales, this is not a choice that they are able to exercise; they're not able to work from home. So, this is for a significant minority, but a minority nonetheless, and properly managed it can bring real benefits to people—avoiding a stressful commute, having greater flexibility—to communities, by using it as an opportunity to regenerate the high street, and, of course, for the environmental benefits of cutting down on congestion and unnecessary journeys. And when we debate next week, Dirprwy Lywydd, our new Wales transport strategy, you will see that our target of 30 per cent of people working from home on an ongoing basis will be a key part of our plan to try and reduce our carbon emissions and meet our net-zero targets by 2050. 

So, I would say, in conclusion, that this is a response to a crisis that has thrown up opportunities but also presented a series of challenges. We are keen to take our time to think these through, to test and pilot approaches, be acutely conscious of the equalities impacts, and try and navigate this new terrain as carefully as we can to make sure we harness the benefits and mitigate the disbenefits. Diolch.

Thank you. No Member has indicated they want to make an intervention. Therefore, I call on Russell George to reply to the debate. Russell.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I was in Newtown during the lunch break today buying a light bulb, and I was in a shop with my jeans on and my trainers and a constituent recognised me, even though I had my mask on, and thought I was having a leisurely stroll and not doing my job. I said, 'No, no, I'm out buying a light bulb; I need the light bulb to go back to my office to plug in, otherwise I will be delivering my debate in the Senedd this afternoon in the dark.' It just made me think how bizarre that conversation would have been just 12 months ago.

But, look, I thank the Members for their contribution this afternoon. I was struck by something Mike Hedges said in terms of the working experiment, in the context of children being in the home as well at the moment. That won't, hopefully, be the norm, so it's difficult to know and properly capture this experience whilst we're currently in this pandemic, of course. Other things that Mike talked about: growth determined by individual decisions—absolutely. And Mike also pointing out that the change will not be painless—I think we recognise that as a committee as well.

Thank you, Suzy, for your contribution. Quite right, homeworking isn't for everyone, and I think it's quite right as well to question what kind of demand there will be for the hubs. We just don't know yet how that is going to pan out and how that's going to fit into remote working more widely. And Suzy also was pointing out that working longer hours, especially, can affect some groups of people as well, such as women, so is something as well to take into account.

I thank David Rowlands for his contribution today. I think the scope for Welsh Government to set up co-working hubs was also discussed as well, and I think there are obviously the traffic issues as well that David Rowlands rightly mentioned.

The Minister—. I thank the Deputy Minister as well. I think that you're right, Deputy Minister, there's a point that we don't go back to the bad old days. I think you're also right that the barriers that were there in the past to homeworking have perhaps been proven wrong. I agree with that. I was interested in your announcement earlier today in regard to co-working pilots—so, interesting to see the progress in that—and of course I'm pleased that you're considering the implications for town centres, which you talked about as well.

So, apart from that, Deputy Llywydd, I would like to say that this is the last committee debate that I shall lead, so, like Kirsty Williams said earlier it was her dream job, I've felt like it's my dream job. I've really enjoyed chairing this committee and we've hit on reports on issues that I've really been passionate about and taken an interest in previously, so I've really enjoyed my time as the Chair of this committee.

But, finally, to thank the clerking team and the wider integrated team for their support—huge support from them—and we're indebted to them as Members, so thank you to them; I'd like to put that on the record. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. No, I don't see objections. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 8 on the agenda this afternoon is the debate on petition P-05-1056, 'Give Local Authorities powers to control the housing market in rural and tourist areas of Wales', and I call on the Chair of the Petitions Committee to move the motion—Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am pleased to open this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. This petition was submitted by Osian Jones on behalf of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, having collected 5,386 signatures. It raises an issue of significant concern in many communities across Wales: the availability of housing at prices affordable to local people, particularly for young people who are seeking to find a property in the same community in which they have grown up. The petitioners state that the context behind this petition as being the numbers of second and holiday homes in many rural and tourist areas of Wales, which has the effect of both reducing the available housing stock and increasing house prices.

This is an issue of very real concern in many communities, and one that I know has been frequently discussed within the Senedd. The petitioners point out that this is a particularly chronic problem in some places due to the level of inequality between local incomes, especially amongst those looking to buy a first home, and the financial means of people seeking to purchase second homes, holiday homes or to make property investments. Whilst this is a long-term trend, the petitioners contend that several factors have recently exacerbated the issue. These include the growth of Airbnb and similar services, as well as more recent changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The shift to more widespread homeworking seems likely to have lasting effects, including, as we heard in the previous debate, a long-term shift in the numbers of people working remotely. 

The petitioners point to examples of villages such as Abersoch in Gwynedd, where so many properties are now holiday homes or second homes that it is having knock-on impacts on the sustainability of schools and other public services. They also express concern about the impact that these changes will have on the Welsh language, the character and sustainability of communities, particularly outside of the holiday season.

I want to stress that the petitioners accept that this is not a simple issue to address; they have told the Petitions Committee that they understand that there are no quick or straightforward fixes to these concerns. In their detailed correspondence to the committee, they have acknowledged that the end of this Senedd term is fast approaching and that many of their demands would require consultation and scrutiny before they could be enacted. The Minister for Housing and Local Government has made similar points in her own responses to the petition.

However, the petitioners stress that there is a sense of urgency required in starting to address these issues. They have outlined action they believe to be necessary in the short and long term. In the longer term, they are calling for legislative reform—a property Act for Wales—that would provide for community control over the housing market via local authorities. In the meantime, they call for meaningful discussions with local authorities with the aim of preparing for this and to share good practice. The petitioners cite the Simple Lettings scheme in Carmarthenshire as one of those.

The Minister has also referred to examples, such as some councils making full use of the power to levy council tax premiums on second homes, for example, Pembrokeshire County Council, which has used proceeds to support community land trusts. However, due to their view of the urgency of the situation, the petitioners argue that further immediate action is required. They welcome the increase in the rate of land transaction tax for second homes, but question why it is only 1 per cent. They call for reform to the rules for registering second homes as commercial properties, such as by increasing the number of days in which they must be let, to enable more councils to levy a council tax premium without losing revenue. And finally, they call for the Government to issue urgent advice to local authorities around the local development plan process to emphasise their rights to designate protections in certain communities or to use local ownership clauses.

I'd like to note several recent statements and other work by the Welsh Government on this issue that seek to acknowledge that there is a problem that exists. The Petitions Committee has considered a written statement issued by the Minister that sets a direction of travel, as well as a recent report by Dr Simon Brooks of Swansea University, which scrutinises existing policy on second homes. I have also referred previously to changes to land transaction tax and council tax premiums. The main contention made by the petitioners is that, as welcome as these steps are, they do not go far enough. They are calling for the Government to do more to indicate its desire to tackle this problem, and to help to ensure that people can afford a home within their own community.

To conclude, I think we would all acknowledge that the issues raised by this petition will not be solved through one simple solution. However, I believe that the petitioners have proposed some practical steps to consider, and I hope that this debate can be a step forward towards further consideration of what else can be done. Diolch yn fawr.

The second-home situation in some parts of Wales is critical and this is a debate that we’ve brought to the Senedd on so many occasions over the past few months and years, and the situation is getting worse. Too often, the Welsh Government’s response is to say that more research is required. Well, there has been plenty of research undertaken, so much so that it’s almost become tiresome. The clearest proof of the need for action is the evidence on the ground and the critical impact of a problem that’s been left too long untackled. The 5,000 and more people who have signed this petition know the reality of the situation and that is that people can’t afford homes in their own communities. Deputy Presiding Officer, I represent South Wales East in this Senedd, and this is a problem for residents in my area too. I don’t accept that this isn’t an all-Wales problem. The over-use and unregulated use of second homes is having an impact on communities across Wales. It's a symptom of a state that is fundamentally unequal, and Wales is tied to this problem.

We don't expect the Conservatives to agree, but any socialist Government should understand that a situation where 67,000 people are on housing waiting lists while others can afford a number of homes is not right. And this should encourage us all to do something as a matter of urgency. We shouldn't wait for more research. What’s shocking is that the Welsh Government, despite the warm words that we’ve heard, haven’t given any clear signal of the solutions that they would put in place. We have a number of recommendations and we agree with the petitioners that more powers must be provided to our local authorities in planning—that is a key issue—as Gwynedd Council and a number of other local authorities led by Plaid Cymru are currently doing.

But it's the work of Government to implement recommendations and to generate change, and a Plaid Cymru Government has a comprehensive plan that we published in September of last year, and it’s ready to go after the election in May. This includes changing the classification of planning use, making it a requirement to have planning consent before turning a home into a second home, doubling the council tax premium again, and closing the loopholes in the law that allow some not to pay any tax at all on some second homes, and bringing houses back within reach of local people. We will be just waiting for the Labour Party to do something, anything positive to resolve this issue, so you have to vote for a change in Government in May. We can't wait for Westminster to share wealth equally and create an equal nation. That's not going to happen.

We need a change in the way we consider housing, Deputy Presiding Officer. They are not places. They are not empty buildings. They are not an investment. A house is a shelter that should strengthen communities. It appears that there's only one party that would want to actually deliver people's aspirations of staying in their communities, and that party is Plaid Cymru.

I'd like to thank Osian Jones and Cymdeithas yr Iaith for arranging this petition and everyone who signed the petition. Ensuring appropriate housing in the right places for local people is crucially important. In Gwynedd at the moment there are around 160 individuals, couples and families too, who have been placed in temporary accommodation, which is inappropriate, because they don’t have a proper home. Over 2,000 Gwynedd residents have registered an application for social housing. The average waiting time before social housing is provided is consistently over 400 days. Much of my casework relates to young people living in inappropriate and damp homes and flats, in homes where there are too many people, young families having to share their parents' home, and some, of course, living on the street.

The other side of the coin is luxurious homes that are empty for large parts of the year. The local housing stock is shrinking as property is purchased as second homes or for holiday accommodation. In Gwynedd now, there are 7,000 second homes or holiday accommodation in the county—that's 11 per cent of all stock. The average house price in Gwynedd is £155,000. With the average income being £26,000, then the income affordability comparison is 5.9:1. Now, this means, on average, that 60 per cent of local people are priced out of the housing market.

Plaid Cymru has a set of meaningful steps that would start to tackle the housing crisis. A number of organisations, including Cymdeithas yr Iaith, make reference to appropriate steps that could be put in place. Simon Brooks has also talked about the kinds of policies that we need to see implemented. There is consensus that reform to policy and finance legislation is required, and reform to planning legislation too. But what's becoming increasingly obvious is that only one party intends to take action on these policies. We hear only empty rhetoric from Labour Ministers. The problem is complex, they say. Well, the fact that something is complex isn't an adequate excuse for not taking action for our communities.

The ambitious housing plan of Gwynedd Council shows what's possible under Plaid Cymru leadership, as the council generates new housing stock for people living in the county, with the new second-home premium contributing to paying for this plan. Cymdeithas yr Iaith say this: 'The open market doesn't work for the benefit of Welsh communities, and this is what's at the heart of this crisis. The only way we can resolve the problem meaningfully will be through legislating to transform housing policy so that it prioritises homes, not capital.' Those are the words of Cymdeithas yr Iaith, and I agree. 

The Member does need to wind up now or she's going to preclude other Members from speaking.

Yes, I am drawing my comments to a close, Deputy Llywydd. There are measures that could be put in place tomorrow, with the will—

No, no, you're way over debate, so if you can just finish with one very, very quick sentence, please.

It's the will that's missing and, in the meantime, the housing crisis is intensifying and our communities are creaking.

Thank you. Mark Reckless.

Thank you, and I thank the Chair for the introduction of the debate. I certainly think, with the Chair's backdrop, she's doing quite a lot to promote living in tourist areas of Wales. I'm not sure whether that's for second homes or main homes, but she also gave, I thought, a very good description of the petition, which is more nuanced than I'd appreciated from reading the shorter written description that we had. Siân spoke just now about the particular circumstances in Gwynedd and referred to a house-to-price earnings ratio of 5.9, but the average for the UK as a whole is 8. We heard from Delyth about particular difficulties with second homes and holiday homes in south-east Wales that we both represent, but looking at the official data, there's actually a very small number of wards where there is high incidence of that ownership in our region.

And I would say, if you're looking at rural areas, there's been an issue, really, across large swathes of Europe for at least a century in terms of rural depopulation, and some of those areas have seen increasing levels of second-home ownership, partly because some people leave those areas but retain a property there, while also living elsewhere. And I think there's a lot of scapegoating of second-home owners, and we've seen some of that during the COVID crisis. But here also, the wording of the written petition says that people are being priced out because of all these second-home owners coming in. I'm sure that there are some particular localised areas where that does happen, and I think social housing, for rent and shared ownership, where people have to have it as a main residence, is one way of mitigating that. But there is a broader range of issues. The idea that somehow local authorities are going to be able to control the housing market following urgent discussions with the Welsh Government, I think, is probably unrealistic. A whole range of economic influences happen over the housing market, and local government and others influence that market through a range of ways. In Gwynedd, the example given, where I think most of the petitioners are from, a lot of people say that, yes, they'd like to keep their main residence, that they've grown up there, but, actually, it's the dearth of employment opportunities that, in many cases, lead people to leave the area, and then some of those houses are then taken up by second-home owners.

Similarly, in Gwynedd, there's an education policy in terms of the Welsh language where there's 100 mainstream schools, and it says they're all bilingual, but, actually, when they say bilingual, that's how they style it; elsewhere in Wales I think we would call those Welsh-medium schools. In addition, they have this policy of people not having English lessons until they're aged seven or eight. And if you're in that area and there are a lot of Welsh language essential jobs elsewhere in Wales, then disproportionately people who are learning Welsh in those areas through that schooling—perhaps a higher number of those may move to take those Welsh-essential jobs elsewhere. Similarly, if you've got people who want English-medium education for their children, and are unable to get it in Gwynedd—they've got their main residence there and they learnt through English themselves—some of those people, then, move away, and no longer have a main residence there, and some of those homes again are taken up by second-home owners. Other people, who are moving in perhaps from an urban area elsewhere, over time, may be looking to move there permanently, but in some cases won't move there permanently as a main residence until their children have finished school, because it is quite a hurdle for people to get over for their children to have to learn through the medium of Welsh. And I know there are five Welsh language centres where people go for two to three months of immersion, but that doesn't function over year 9, and many people may choose not to do that.

So, I think Gwynedd council and others also need to look at their policies and the impact that has—although I'd like to be clear in Abolish that we do believe that local authorities should be able to determine their policies for Welsh language in school, and we do think there should be funding for free schools to give people and parents a choice if they wish to make a different decision. But I think this is a complex area. I wish the petitioners well, but I don't believe it's right to scapegoat second home owners, and I'm sceptical that the situations they're worried about will be resolved by the policies proposed.

Thanks for just giving me a minute or two to make a short contribution—and can I thank Osian Jones for organising the petition? What I want to do is just highlight one of the problems we face, and that's the loophole that I've spoken about on numerous occasions here and elsewhere that allows second home owners to register their homes as businesses, and in so doing, avoid paying council tax, and, through the business rate relief system, avoid paying anything at all.

What I have is a copy of the owners newsletter for March 2021 from Menai Holiday Cottages Limited, now owned by Sykes, one of the biggest players in holidays lets in the UK, and one the headings is, 'Second home tax rise in Gwynedd'. Read on, and you read, 'As of April 2021, the tax premium on second homes in Gwynedd will rise to 100 per cent'. And then it explains that 'now is a better time than any to consider registering your second home as a furnished holiday let to claim tax relief'. Now, that e-mail isn't encouraging law breaking; there is, after all, as I've said many times, a loophole that makes it far too easy, in my view, for a property to be registered as a holiday let business, leading to the payment of no local taxes. And remember, many of those who've gone through that process have received payments of many thousands of pounds as COVID compensation this year.

I think it's pretty disgraceful; here we see one of the UK's biggest holiday let businesses actively encouraging second home owners to avoid paying local taxation—the kind of thing that creates growing inequalities within the housing sector. I'll make it quite clear: holiday lets are an important part of our tourism offer in places like my constituency. Local, well-run tourism businesses make a big contribution to the economy and they should be supported. In fact, this was shared with me by a tourism business owner who was fuming about this. There is a loophole, it's undermining our housing stock and it needs to be closed.

Thank you very much. I now call on the Minister for Mental Health, Well-being and Welsh Language, Eluned Morgan. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank the Petitions Committee for their work on this issue. I am highly aware of the strong feelings, particularly in some parts of Wales, on the issue of second homes, and it's clear that some of these feelings have grown stronger as a result of Brexit, the pandemic, and, as was noted in the petition, as a result of the numbers renting through Airbnb.

I'm sure that Senedd Members will be aware that we recently published Dr Simon Brooks's report on this issue, and the report comes to the same view as us: that this is a complex area, it's not a simple matter and there is no one solution that can tackle this problem. We have already taken action in this area, and I think it's unfair of Siân Gwenllian to say that we haven't done so. An example of this is the increase in land transaction tax, but we've done other things too. There are many aspects to these challenges: the economy, tourism, planning and the sustainability of our communities, particularly our Welsh-speaking communities. Since the pandemic, we've seen and heard increasing concerns about the impacts that a high number of second homes could have on some of our communities, particularly those Welsh-speaking strongholds.

Dr Brooks's report made a number of recommendations for the Welsh Government, but the report also encourages local authorities to consider the powers that they already hold, and to use the current provisions. I do very much hope, as a result of reading this report, that we will all have a better understanding of the powers that we have, and I hope that Delyth Jewell, for example, would note that in Dr Brooks's report he would disagree that this isn't a national problem, and there are number of statistics that he cites that demonstrate that.

Reference has been made to planning powers in the petition and in the report. The key contribution of our planning system to the way that local housing markets work is to ensure that there is sufficient supply of sites and plots available for homes for local people. This is a responsibility for the local authorities to assess local housing needs and to respond to the specific circumstances in their localities and to ensure that they deliver against these responsibilities. This is done already in some local authorities. For example, Gwynedd and Anglesey councils have policies in their local development plans with the intention of limiting access to new-build homes in certain areas to local people. This is part of broader social policies within councils of supporting and sustaining Welsh-speaking communities.

Dr Brooks recommends that Gwynedd and Anglesey should extend these schemes, and we'd be interested to understand why more local authorities don't develop local policies to address local issues, given the clear steer that is in 'Planning Policy Wales'.

We're acutely aware of calls for changes to planning legislation to manage issues associated with second homes and short-term holiday lets. Whilst the planning system can provide a wide-ranging delivery mechanism, I'm afraid when it comes to second homes, it reaches the limits of its usefulness, because the town and country planning system manages the use of land rather than the ownership, and I know the Minister for local government has looked into this in depth. I know she's considered whether the land-use planning system has a role in managing the number of second homes as part of a comprehensive review of the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, but I'm afraid that the review identified fundamental practical and legal challenges in defining second homes in planning terms.

Without a clear definition of what a second home is, enforcement would be really difficult and create uncertainty, making planning legislation on this issue ineffective, and that's why we're continuing to explore how we can better define second homes. And I'm afraid that simply changing the use classes Order, which many have suggested, would not be a practical option for managing second homes—partly because we need to differentiate between second homes used principally by their owners and holiday properties let on a commercial basis, because these two distinct uses impact differently on local communities and therefore should be considered separately. 

Potentially, short-term holiday lettings could be managed through the planning system, but that would require changes to primary legislation. The Scottish Government has changed its main planning Act to help address the issue of short-term holiday lets, and we're monitoring this to see what we can learn from them. Clearly, it will be up to political parties to determine what they want to put in their manifestos and what will come next. In a planning sense, we're clear that modifying primary legislation to clarify when a change of use requires planning permission is something that could be considered in the next Senedd term. 

I've also asked the tourism team in the Welsh Government to consider asking if the incoming Government might want to consider setting up a task and finish group to consider the idea of local community groups or councils buying holiday homes in sensitive areas, which they could then rent out and plough the money back into those communities through housing or community schemes, so that it's the communities themselves who would benefit. That's an idea that was initiated by Cynog Dafis recently. These changes, in conjunction with a change to the use classes Order and mandatory registration of short-term lets, which we're actively working on, are something we think could help manage short-term letting. And whilst we've already provided significant flexibility to respond to the myriad issues, we recognise that more needs to be done in this space. But I repeat: there's no single or quick answer to the challenges that we're facing.

We'll continue to work with partners to build on our strong record of fostering affordable housing solutions and identifying the most balanced and, critically, effective actions to current challenges. We're hugely keen to ensure that young people can continue to live in their local communities and strengthen these communities, and that's why one of the things that we've done recently, picking up on the point that was made by Mark Reckless, is to make sure we understand the link between people being able to stay in their local communities and the economy. That's why we had in our economy round-table last week an action plan that's now been developed to address the issue of developing the economy in those rural communities. I think it's very important that we address this issue. We have already started this, but clearly there is more to be done, and I'm sure we'll all want to look at this in the next Senedd term. Diolch yn fawr. 

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

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I wish to thank all Members who have contributed to this debate today and thank the Minister for responding. I also wish to thank the petitioners for using the petitions process to draw attention to something that is a major issue and concern in many parts of Wales. 

Given the very short time left available in this Senedd, it will be a future petitions committee that will consider the petition following today's discussion. And for Members and members of the public's information, this is the thirtieth and final petition that has been debated during this Senedd term. Many of those have taken place since the introduction of a debate threshold in 2017. I, as Chairman of the Petitions Committee, do hope that the ability to directly debate petitions that matter to the people of Wales has been of some value to petitioners, people who have signed petitions and Members of the Senedd over recent years. I want to close by placing on record my thanks on behalf of the Petitions Committee to everyone who has spoken in these debates, and to the Business Committee for supporting us to be able to table them in a timely fashion. I know, given how busy our Senedd agendas are, that this is not always easy. 

Finally, I'd like to thank the clerking team, all the teams that have supported us during the COVID period in terms of the Commission staff and the IT, members of the committee now and previous members of the Petitions Committee—you know who you are—and finally, I thank everyone who has submitted, signed or otherwise provided evidence to the Petitions Committee. I would urge you to continue doing this. I'm a great advocate of the Petitions Committee; I think it's a fantastic mechanism for engagement with the Senedd, or the Welsh Parliament. Keep on doing that. Thank you, diolch. 

Thank you. The proposal is to note the petition. Does any Member object? No, I don't see objections. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 9 on our agenda this afternoon is the Plaid Cymru debate, NHS pay review. I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion. Rhun.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's my pleasure to open this debate and to formally move the motion in the name of Siân Gwenllian. How many of us have said 'thank you' over the past 12 months? How many of us have stood on our doorsteps clapping?

How many of us have remembered over the past year the importance of saying 'thank you' to those who work so selflessly across the health and care sectors to look after us? How many of us have stopped to think and realise that care doesn't just happen? We're cared for because people—our friends and neighbours, people we grew up with, went to school with—decided to commit their professional lives to caring as nurses and as physios and domiciliary carers and doctors and speech and language therapists, and it's such a long list, I couldn't possibly name them all; a whole host of health professions.

But saying 'thank you' has to be so much more than a passing act. And so, we're here today talking about something that should be a given. It should be a constant: fair financial reward for the commitment, the hard work, the dedication, the graft, and as I said, the sheer selflessness shown by health and care workers at any time, let alone during this extraordinary past COVID year.

Can I say here how pleased I am with the remarkably coincidental announcements earlier today from Welsh Government about (a), making money available to support the continuation of the payment of the real living wage across the NHS—again, something that should be a given; and (b), the funding of a bonus for all NHS and care staff, a net payment of around £500 for most, and of course, I welcome any reward shown for their work. They deserve every penny. But let me be clear that fair financial rewards should be firmly embedded in the culture of our health and care services at all times, and not settled through one-off bonuses. And though grateful for the announcement, there'll be a rather bitter taste left by the fact that this has been done, frankly, because Welsh Government was put in a corner—by a Plaid Cymru Senedd motion, as it happens—and so, felt compelled to do something.

I don't need to explain too much about the content of the motion itself. We condemn the UK Government's proposal to give a tiny pay increase of 1 per cent for nurses—and I see the Minister laughing; perhaps he can explain why he's laughing in just a moment. We condemn the UK Government's proposal to give a totally inadequate 1 per cent pay rise to nurses and other NHS staff, which would amount to a real-terms cut in their wages, in order to make it entirely clear that we wouldn't accept a settlement such as that here. We are calling on the Welsh Government to make further representations to the NHS pay review body, supporting a fair wage for staff. We're also expanding the motion to include care staff. Plaid Cymru wants to integrate health and care by having a national health and care service. You will have heard me talking about that in the past, and I'll be doing so again over the next few weeks as the election approaches. One of the upshots of that would be to bring care staff into the same pay grades as health staff over time, and this motion calls for the delivery of the first stage of that, with a minimum of £10 an hour immediately for care workers to start to deal with that disparity.

So, the aim here is very simple. You will have all, I think, received an e-mail from the Royal College of Nursing today saying that they welcome this afternoon's debate, so I'd like to thank them for working with me throughout my time as a Plaid Cymru health spokesperson. I'd like to thank all of their members for their work throughout the recent pandemic. That e-mail asks us all as Members what we're going to do in order to show our real appreciation and to show our support for a proper and fair pay settlement for our health and care staff. One thing that you could do is to support this motion this afternoon. Thank you.

I have selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call on Angela Burns to move amendments 1 and 3, tabled in the name of Mark Isherwood. Angela Burns.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move amendments 1 and 3, tabled in the name of my colleague Mark Isherwood. The staff of our national health service, and those who provide social care to the people of Wales, have been at the forefront of the fight against the spread of COVID-19. They have kept vital services running, held hands that families could not reach, seen death and suffering on a scale usually associated with conflict, and supported patients and colleagues whilst being under the most intense pressure. I recognise their hard work.

I also recognise that Welsh Government do have the levers to reward health and social care staff appropriately, which is why I find the opening premise of this debate extraordinary from Plaid Cymru, a party whose mantra begins and ends with demanding independence from the UK whilst refusing to take fiscal responsibility. They should accept our first amendment, and recognise that NHS pay in Wales is a devolved matter, and that the Welsh Government have received an additional £2.1 billion increase in their budget for 2021-22, and that same Government have the ability to spend it how they wish. Indeed, earlier today, I heard the Minister for finance loudly proclaiming that the Welsh Government were not a postbox for the UK Government's spending decisions. £2.1 billion is a lot of pounds, and I urge the Welsh Labour Government to use it to support an increase in nurses' pay. Remember, £5.85 billion has been given to the Welsh Government since March last year, with another £602 million yet to be allocated. That's a lot of money, and there is money to rebalance the pay of health professionals.

The Welsh Conservatives have already stated that we would implement in full the recommendations of the pay review body as an absolute minimum, but for those who refuse to hear, let me say it again: if we form the next Welsh Government, the Welsh Conservatives will implement the recommendation of the pay review as a minimum. That would be in tandem with our commitment to introduce a reformed pay and retention settlement for health and social care staff, including on a recruit, retain and retrain policy, and a minimum salary of £10 an hour for care staff.

I note the proposed bonus for staff today and rejoice that Welsh Government have finally learned how to calculate tax. Any chance domiciliary care workers, short-changed by Labour, will receive a top-up? And has the Welsh Government published their response to the pay review board yet? This is vital, because a bonus is welcome, but does not embed a pay uplift on a year-to-year basis.

At the beginning of my contribution, I spoke of the extraordinary service performed by so many, but that extraordinary service has caused untold stress, and mental health has been impacted. We recognise that, and we will work with the staff, employers, unions and royal colleges to create a substantial mental health support package for health and social care staff suffering from the impact of the pandemic.

I commend our amendments to the Chamber, and, Presiding Officer, if I may, as this will be my last debate, probably, on this health subject, I just want to say to those staff out there in health and social care, thank you. I do recognise your commitment and your hard work, and I want to say a truly heartfelt 'thank you' from me, from the people I love who you have helped this year, from my colleagues in the Welsh Conservatives and from my constituents in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire. Thank you.

Dai Lloyd. I apologise. The Minister to formally move the amendment in the name of Rebecca Evans. 

Formally, Llywydd. 

Thank you. Dai Lloyd next. 

Diolch, Llywydd. I rise in support of the Plaid Cymru motion—no surprise there—in particular point 1:

'Condemns the UK Government’s recommendation to the NHS Pay Review Body for a wholly inadequate 1 per cent pay rise to nurses and other NHS staff which would amount to a real terms cut in their wages.'

That is point 1 of the Plaid Cymru motion, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. And furthermore, I wholeheartedly condemn the Conservative and unionist amendment here today that seeks to delete this point 1 altogether. Clearly, Llywydd, you will be aware of my medical background—I may have mentioned it once or twice over the years—and I have family members working in the NHS today. Colleagues in the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing have all voiced huge concerns about this derisory pay rise, also huge concerns about a UK Government budget announcement that disinvests in public services and ignores social care. 

After the pandemic year we have all had, care staff and NHS staff are exhausted, burnt out, angry and hurt. They bear huge responsibilities daily over matters of life and death, and it's difficult to grasp that level of responsibility unless you have felt personally yourself that total terror that engulfs you when your medical decision—your decision—has resulted in something going wrong, damaging another person even to loss of life. And it's so overwhelmingly busy now, you cannot plan carefully or ask your seniors if they're not available; you've got no control over what's happening. Health services were overstretched before the pandemic. Nurses and doctors are driven by a deep sense of service and duty to their patients, but motivation can really be tested by an occupational disease like COVID. Hundreds of NHS and care staff have died UK wide, hundreds more floored by long COVID. 

And personal protective equipment was totally inadequate in the early days, and staff wore bin bags for protection, risking their lives and the lives of patients. When staff die because of catching COVID in the workplace as an occupational disease, their families cannot claim their funeral costs. And a derisory pay offer on top of all that. While UK Government stockpiled tens of millions of unusable PPE items made by companies who had no experience in the field, with contracts worth millions handed to Government chums without scrutiny and without experience in PPE, the High Court found the UK Conservative and unionist Government broke the law here, all while ignoring companies with experience and capacity to provide PPE. 

And the £37 billion spent on a UK test and trace system, set up in parallel to what we've got already and private in the middle of a pandemic, from scratch using people with no health or care experience. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? The £37 billion system has made no difference according to Members of Parliament recently. A new £2.6 million press briefing room has just been unveiled in Downing Street, and don't get me going on care staff pay and conditions, because I'm coming to the end, Llywydd—I see you anxiously there—because that's point 3 of our motion.

Finally, health staff see all this that I've outlined. They know all this. They are not taken in by Ministers' insincere claps, and the 1 per cent proposed pay rise shows staff just how much their unbelievable sacrifices are valued by the UK Conservative Government. Do not dismiss the justifiable anger—agree a proper pay rise. 

My previous life as a Unison official in Wales is well known, and I remain very proud of the fact that I was part of the negotiating team working in partnership with the Welsh Labour Government that delivered the living wage into the NHS in Wales, ahead of the rest of the UK, and at a time when NHS colleagues in England were taking strike action against an intransigent UK Tory Government who would not honour the recommendations of the pay review body. I'm also old enough to remember why the NHS Pay Review Body was set up. It followed the bitter pay dispute of the early 1980s and was an attempt to look at pay independently and to take politics out of it. And that worked well, until, again, the UK Tory Government decided on policies of austerity and brought politics back into the game by interfering with the PRB's independence, insisting that they offered no more than 1 per cent, regardless of the evidence that could lead them to a different conclusion. Well, it's history repeating itself, isn't it, because, once again, the Tory UK Government has said it's only prepared to fund a 1 per cent increase, regardless of what evidence is presented to the PRB and what it recommends. This is a disgrace, given what NHS and other front-line workers have been through over the last year, so I'm pleased that this Welsh Labour Government have set out very clearly in evidence to the pay review body that there should be no arbitrary cap on the offer made to NHS workers; it should be an offer that reflects their worth to the country, and the UK Government must fully fund it. They have, after all, as Dai Lloyd has already been telling us, found money during this pandemic for many other things: billions for a privatised but largely failed track and trace system; a significant pay rise for Dominic Cummings; and is it still three official photographers for the Prime Minister? And, of course, £2 million for that press room in Downing Street. And at that time, NHS workers were working far beyond the normal call of duty to save lives and to keep us safe. They even saved the Prime Minister Boris Johnson's life, and he clapped and then he slammed the door on them. A 1 per cent pay offer brings shame on those who made that decision, but I hope that they will be shamed into doing better, because we can do better, as our Welsh Government has today shown with the announcement of a £500 bonus to all NHS and social care staff, in recognition of their efforts during the pandemic. 

Llywydd, can I also say that I'm pleased that, unlike the UK Government, the Welsh Government has not forgotten the social care workforce and is working with trade unions and the sector to deliver improvements to people who look after our nearest and dearest when they're at their most vulnerable? From my own experience, I know that this Welsh Labour Government, the health Minister and the trade unions will work together to show that Wales is a fairer nation, a nation that will reward those who helped us through the darkest of recent times. But let us not for one minute let the UK Government off the hook. They hold the purse strings for this, and they must be held to account and pay up. Actions will speak far louder than any words.

I'm pleased to take part in this really important debate. I will begin by doing something I don't usually do, and that is to quote the words of another person, and I'm going to quote the words of Helen, who is a nurse from Llanelli. I've known her and her work for a very long time. She has e-mailed me about a number of healthcare issues, but I want to just quote briefly some of the things she says about nurses' pay: 'As for nurses pay, the misinformation and manipulation of the facts about previous pay increases and that the vast majority of nurses are on salaries of over £30,000 peddled by the Westminster Government needs to be challenged. Many nurses are the main breadwinners in their family, and their income is not secondary to a husband's.' 'It's not just during the COVID crisis that those who provide health and social care in primary, secondary and independent services have been serving our community' she says. 'To stand outside and clap and then offer a below-inflation pay increase is an insult. The retention of health and care staff will be vital to meet the needs of those who have had delays in diagnostics and treatment, and a paltry 1 per cent does not offer much incentive to remain in nursing.' She then says, 'My apologies for the rant, but in 40 years I have never seen morale so low and I personally have never felt more patronised and insulted.'

Now, as I've said, I know Helen, and her commitment and dedication have been inspirational, and it makes me furious to hear how patronised and insulted she feels. And there are hundreds of Helens in all our constituencies—thousands of them in all our constituencies and regions across Wales. Nurse recruitment, of course, has never been a very major issue. There are so many people who are willing to serve and are willing to train, though there are challenges. But nurse retention has been an issue for a very long time, and there are a number of reasons for this. Lack of flexibility is one of them; limited opportunities for career progression another. But low wages are part of this picture. Adding to the almost unbearable strain of working under COVID conditions, I am really genuinely concerned that we will see a haemorrhage of these nurses and other skilled professionals out of our NHS to agency work, or out of health and care altogether, precipitated by unbearable working conditions and just ended up by this gross insult of a pay offer. That leaves me with real concern about the long-term sustainability of services. We know that we need to provide more services close to people's homes, but, if we don't have the professionals, how can we keep hospitals like Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli or Withybush Hospital in Pembrokeshire going and providing the excellent services that they do?

So, what is the Welsh Government response to this? Well, the bonus—very welcome, but none of the health and care staff that I've spoken to in the region I represent want just an occasional pat on the back. What they want and need is a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, week in, week out. And the Government's response to our motion? Well, it's the usual, 'delete almost everything, and everything we're doing is fine'. Well, it's not fine. To me, Llywydd, this is yet another example of why devolution may be better than nothing, but why it isn't enough. I firmly believe that the majority of Welsh people want to see our health and care staff properly and consistently rewarded.

But our health and care workers, despite health and care being devolved, are still subject to and distressed by the insulting rhetoric of a Conservative Government that we didn't vote for. And even if the Welsh Government wants to provide a more generous pay settlement, they may struggle to afford to do so. Angela Burns is right to say, of course, that this is a devolved matter, but there are questions of resource. Our health and care staff and those who use their services—all of us, Llywydd—deserve better. Sooner rather than later, we need to be an independent nation with a Government that can really and completely reflect our values and our priorities—decisions that affect us made by us. 

In the meantime, we must do all we can, including paying a minimum of £10 an hour to all care workers. After May, a Plaid Cymru Government will do just that. I commend the motion, unamended, to the Senedd.

I call on the Minister for Health and Social Services to contribute to the debate—Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Llywydd, and I move the Welsh Government amendment in the name of Rebecca Evans. I'd like to thank Plaid Cymru for choosing this topic for a brief debate today, as it allows me to reiterate the clear view of the Welsh Government on NHS pay, and the direct contrast between ourselves and the UK Conservative Government.

As many of you have said, we regularly say how much we value our NHS staff for their dedication and their compassion, especially in the face of this terrible, unforgiving virus. The last year has been relentless. The pandemic continues to have a significant impact on patients and staff. I recognise the incredible physical and emotional demands faced by our workforce as a result. They have put themselves in harm's way to keep all of us safe. We painted rainbows, we gave thanks and we clapped in the streets. And the response from the UK Conservative Government to recognise that extraordinary service is an attempt to limit the NHS pay rise to 1 per cent. It beggars belief. The UK Conservative Government can find taxpayers' money to spray over private consultants on test and trace in England; the unanswered questions on PPE and the VIP lane; a team of photographers for the Prime Minister; and the new media briefing room we've already heard about today. Yet, when it comes to the NHS, the coffers are bare. Nobody should underestimate the sense of anger and betrayal from our NHS staff. It is a kick in the teeth from the Tories. I understand the strength of feeling from staff and their trade union representatives. I met trade unions, as I regularly do, on the Friday after the UK Government's announcement, and I heard first hand their unified dismay, hurt and disappointment.

I have been very clear since that Tory announcement that this Welsh Labour-led Government has not set an arbitrary cap on NHS pay. I wrote to the NHS pay review bodies on 11 March to confirm that we have not set a cap on NHS pay. We want independent advice from pay review bodies on a fair and affordable uplift for NHS workers here in Wales, in line with the remit that I set in January. The pay review bodies are due to report in May, and NHS staff and the public will have to decide if they want to endorse Tory contempt for our NHS at the ballot box. The contrast with Welsh Labour priorities and action could not be clearer. And the bonus payments announced today are in addition to, not instead of, a fair pay award. I was proud to confirm this payment today after weeks of work with our stakeholders, and it is plainly laughable to suggest that the bonus was somehow a last-minute response to this motion.

I'm equally proud that NHS Wales is a living-wage employer, and Dawn Bowden outlined her role as a trade union officer in negotiating that with a Welsh Labour-led Government, and I have recently decided to implement the new real living wage rate of £9.50 an hour for our NHS staff from 1 April. Welsh Government funding to achieve this is an interim measure whilst we wait on the new pay review body recommendations. We have a long-established commitment to the real living wage as the minimum rate of pay for our social care workforce. Yesterday, I set out our work on paying for care and our priority for raising the pay of social care staff. We're committed to bringing about long-term improvements to the sector that includes pay progression and that goes beyond this minimum.

Social care is complex, with over 1,000 employers and services across the private, third and public sector. Introducing long-term improvements means that we do need to work in partnership, and that's why we established the social care fair work forum. Pay is a key consideration for social care, but so too are good contractual arrangements, terms and conditions, in creating a stable sector where people feel valued. We don't want improved pay to be introduced that is then offset by poorer terms and conditions. The majority of care and support is commissioned, and the current arrangements tend to result in low, minimum wages for our front-line workforce. That's why we propose a new approach in our 'Rebalancing care and support' White Paper. And in that we set out how a new national framework will ensure that quality and value, rather than price, should become the key determinants of success in a market of care provision.

I ask Members to support the Government amendment today and to send a clear message of how much we value our staff, and a clear message to the Conservative Party as well.

Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate. Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I thank the Minister for his response to this debate and everyone who's participated—to Dai and Helen for reinforcing what's contained within this motion before us today. I'd like to thank Members of all parties and of the Government who have declared, as a matter of principle, how important it is that we reward our staff properly and pay them properly within health and care. But it's what we do that's ultimately important, rather than what we say. I welcome the words of the Conservative spokesperson, again, supporting fair wages. But I also agree with Dawn Bowden on the disgraceful track record of the Conservatives in Westminster in terms of health and care staff pay and conditions, and offering that derisory 1 per cent for staff in England is the background for the motion that we're discussing this afternoon.

Whilst referring to comments by Angela Burns, you also managed to turn this into an issue of constitution and independence, stating that we were seeking independence for Wales but weren't willing to take fiscal responsibility. If I could correct you and say that we are literally asking for fiscal responsibility by insisting on independence for Wales, so that we can put health and care and all the other crucial public services in Wales on more robust foundations.

As we say, it's what we do that's important here, and of course an act such as providing a bonus for health and care staff is something that the Government can do as a one-off, and it certainly will be appreciated by staff that are tired across health and social care. But as the RCN said this afternoon:

'Let’s be clear: a one-off COVID-19 bonus is not the significant and substantive pay rise that we have been calling for for our nursing staff. What we want from the Welsh Government is a commitment to ensuring fair pay for nursing, fair pay that addresses the 1,600+ vacancies in Wales, fair pay that encourages nurses to stay in the profession and fair pay that ensures the delivery of excellent patient care.'

That's what we want to deliver within health and care in Wales, and we want to ensure that our care staff are rewarded for their work. The Government's amendment withdraws that from this motion this afternoon. The Government says that it wants to pay a real living wage, but removes from our motion what we want to do in Government, in providing a minimum of £10 per hour for care staff. So, Labour Members, don't vote for your own amendment this afternoon. After all, in welcoming statements of principle from Members of all parties in the Senedd this afternoon on pushing for better pay and conditions for health and care staff, I invite you to support a motion that insists on that. So, I invite you once again to support this motion today.

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

And that brings us to voting time, but we'll take a short break before we move to the votes to prepare the technology. A short break.

So, that brings us to voting time, and the first vote is on the Plaid Cymru debate, NHS pay review. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour nine, four abstentions and 38 against, and therefore the motion is not agreed.

We now move to a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Mark Isherwood. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 12, two abstentions and 37 against, therefore amendment 1 is not agreed.

Our next vote is on amendment 2. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 27, five abstentions and 19 against, and therefore amendment 2 is agreed and amendment 3 falls.

So, our final vote is on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 29, two abstentions and 20 against, therefore the motion as amended is agreed.

That concludes voting time for today, but we have one remaining item of business, and that is the short debate.

And the short debate is to be moved by Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Llywydd. The coronavirus pandemic may have begun as a physical health emergency, but it has become a mental health crisis. The fallout from dealing with the SARS-CoV-2 virus has had a profound impact on the mental health of people of all ages and from all walks of life in every corner of Wales. And we are not unique: studies have shown the impact the pandemic has had on mental health across many nations. However, we have been one of the worst affected nations. Earlier this week, the Mental Health Million Project launched their report into the impact the pandemic is having on mental health and well-being around the globe. Their report is based on studies of people from eight English-speaking countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and the substantial English-speaking populations of South Africa, India and Singapore. And they found that mental well-being fell dramatically during the past 12 months, and that the UK saw the most dramatic decline.

Here in Wales, we have had some of the longest periods of restrictions on our social activity in the world, so it is little wonder that we have experienced some of the greatest impacts. We are, for the most part, social animals, and spending time with friends and family is a vital part of our emotional and mental well-being. Having to cut all face-to-face contact for a staggering 212 days has seen far greater numbers of people suffering from loneliness and isolation, and those suffering from loneliness have been further isolated.

The halt to care home visits has left many people struggling, and this has been particularly hard for dementia patients. They don't always understand the reason behind the restrictions and feel they've been abandoned by their loved ones. This is also traumatic for the families of those in care. It must be heartbreaking to be unable to visit their loved ones, especially for those on palliative care.

Loneliness and isolation haven't just hit the elderly hard, they've impacted on people across the age spectrum, people from all walks of life, and with many people working from home or furloughed, often the only time they see another human being is over a video link. But a Zoom meeting cannot replicate in-person interactions. This is particularly true for young people—young people who have had not just their ability to go outside and play with their friends curtailed, but their education and development stunted.

What has been more damaging, however, has been the on-again, off-again in-person learning, as well as the inconsistent approach across the age ranges. People do not understand why their siblings can go to school, but they have to stay home. Some school pupils returned to the classroom a few weeks ago and more cohorts returned this week, but others will not return for another month. Children have experienced anxiety about returning, and parents are reporting that their child has developed behavioural issues. And it's a terrible burden for young people to bear. Young people are concerned about their education, their future, and many parents have reported finding their child in tears because they're worried about passing the virus on to their parents or grandparents. I find it heartbreaking that children must deal with such issues and that they must be concerned about their future, rather than being able to enjoy the present.

Yet, they're not alone in being anxious about the future. So, to combat the disease, we shut down large parts of the economy, closed entire sectors, resulting in many people becoming out of work, and, thankfully, we had the job retention scheme that saw millions of people furloughed, rather than laid off. But those people are worried about whether the business they work for will survive post pandemic. Anxiety about future economic stability has pushed many people into mental ill health. Far too many sleepless nights have resulted over people's concerns about providing food and shelter for themselves and their family.

However, mental trauma hasn't been confined just to those out of work. Working during the pandemic has been stressful for many, especially those who could not maintain social distancing. Police officers, prison guards, firefighters and all those on the front line in health and social care have put themselves at risk of contracting a deadly disease in order to keep us all safe. And those working in the NHS and care homes have also had to deal with seeing their patients and sometimes colleagues lose their lives to COVID-19. So, we have seen harrowing tales of doctors and nurses likening work during the pandemic to being in a war zone, so great was the death toll. Nurses had to work for hours in painful PPE, doing physically demanding tasks, such as turning COVID patients so they didn't drown from fluid on their lungs. They then had to sit with patients as they died, so that they wouldn't face their end alone. Witnessing such dreadful things has taken its toll, with staff unable to take time off to recuperate because there's no-one to take their place.

Thankfully, most people do not have to experience that level of mental trauma, but very few have come through the past 12 months unscathed. COVID-19 may have started as the biggest public health challenge in more than a century, but it is now becoming the biggest mental health challenge we have ever faced, also. So, what can we do about it? I welcome the investment by the Welsh Government to offer online cognitive behavioural therapy to everyone in Wales over the age of 16, but we must do so much more. We need to employ an army of therapists and counsellors. We have to put counsellors in every school, encourage every employer to offer emotional and mental health support to their staff. We have to ensure everyone in Wales gets whatever support they need.

We need to encourage landlords to allow tenants to keep their pets. This might seem like a strange request, but it's no coincidence that pet ownership skyrocketed during lockdown. Pets can help us deal with loneliness and isolation, and having a dog can spur people to leave the sofa and go out for a walk, helping to boost our mental health resilience. Unfortunately, a lot of landlords, and particularly social landlords, prevent pet ownership. I've been dealing with Tai Tarian, who refused to allow one of my constituents to get a dog. Thankfully, I learned last night that she has been granted an emotional support dog, following pressure from her GP. But people should not have to fight for emotional support. We must be flexible and provide whatever support is needed. Tai Tarian is no exception, but pleasingly not all social landlords are negative towards pet ownership, as in the case of Hafod Housing, who look at the size of your accommodation and that determines the size of the dog that you can have.

Yesterday, the Royal College of Physicians called upon the Welsh Government to deliver on their commitment to make staff health and well-being a national priority, and I agree with this. Health and care staff looked after us, so we must look after their mental well-being. Unless we tackle the emotional and mental fall-out of the coronavirus pandemic head on and now, we will see a lot more than one in four of us suffering from mental ill health. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much. 

I now call the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language to reply to the debate. Eluned Morgan. 

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank Caroline Jones for bringing this short debate forward on such an important issue.  

Thank you very much, Caroline Jones, for introducing this debate in such a compassionate way; you have been full of humanity in the way that you've presented that. So, thank you very much, because it is an issue that is touching so many lives at the moment. 

We often talk about the need to ensure that people have access to mental health services and that support continues to be available, particularly during such a challenging time. But our focus today is on supporting people who are suffering anxiety and how we can move on from the pandemic and how we move to the future. And although levels of anxiety have remained higher than they were prior to the pandemic, we have seen them rise and fall, too. As the restrictions are relaxed, levels of anxiety have reduced and, of course, that is totally understandable. I hope that we will see levels of anxiety falling further if things continue to improve and those restrictions are relaxed. 

By seeing friends and family, and participating in activities that we enjoy, we can all look after our own mental health and, for many people, mental health and well-being will improve as we return to normality. But, for others, the impact of the pandemic will be felt more deeply, and this could be because of the trauma that the individual has experienced, through illness or if that individual may have lost a family member or a friend to COVID. Caroline mentioned those people who were working on the front-line in our health service; of course, they've suffered trauma during this period too. We also know that the pandemic has had, and will have, an impact on our economy and our society, not just in the short term, but it's likely to continue to the medium term too. So, it is important that we understand the impact of employment, income and housing on people's mental health, and that we understand the circumstances that have changed during this period.

In order to restore our mental health post pandemic, it's crucial that we don't look at this as a matter to be treated by medical means only. Of course, we are committed to maintaining specialist services to help with mental health needs throughout the pandemic that require the help of our national health service, but I also think that we will need access to a variety of non-clinical support for many people. I'm pleased today that I had a first meeting with the task and finish group on social prescribing, and I do hope that this will be something that we can look into for the future. I've also presented a paper to Cabinet recently outlining these issues, and I have been entirely clear that we need more cross-governmental multi-agency work if we are to prevent this spike that we're anticipating in terms of mental health needs—needs that are based on social issues and issues of well-being that go far more broadly.

In terms of understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on mental health, we're continuing to strengthen the arrangements that we put in place at the start of the pandemic. These include analytical support to draw out the latest evidence of outcomes from population surveys, both in Wales and in the wider UK. Caroline was absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that people in Britain seem to have coped with this not as well as in some other countries. I've also recently convened a ministerial oversight and delivery board group, which is providing me with a greater assurance of the progress that's being made in delivering our mental health programme of work, including our continued response to COVID-19.

Public Health Wales are represented on the board and will help to strengthen that analytical support. They're taking forward important work to examine the existing and ongoing impact of COVID-19, in particular on children and young people. Caroline was absolutely right to draw attention to this, because we know that the children's commissioner in her survey 'Coronavirus and Me' found that 67 per cent of children between the age of 12 and 18 said that they were sad some or most of the time. Just think about that figure; it's a huge figure, and we really have got to put measures in place. I'm really pleased that the education Minister has being doing that with her whole-school approach; we've now expanded that to the whole-system approach, and all of that was partly a result of responding to the really terrific report written by the children's committee, 'Mind over matter'. We're currently working on a framework for the renewal of mental health services with the NHS, which will sit within the context of the NHS-wide recovery strategy, which will be published very shortly.

We're continuing to support the Talking is a Lifeline campaign to encourage men to talk about mental health. Some of you may have seen that programme last night; very traumatic watching how men have such difficulty talking about mental health issues. And we are also supporting groups that have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, including black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, and people who are on low income, as we look to extend that support. Caroline, you mentioned the responsibility of employers, and of course, they will play a key role in supporting economic recovery and improving the health of the working-age population. Our Healthy Working Wales programme will focus on mental health and well-being, and we will work with employers to understand the current needs, including potential shifts in working patterns, which will inform the future of work. I know that Public Health Wales are currently undertaking a range of interviews with private and public sector employees to just inform our approach on this. 

We continue to recognise the potential impact of the pandemic on future employment and health. The chief medical officer chairs a group to consider these issues, and we know that there is a significant impact upon mental health and well-being, particularly due to reduced employment opportunities, and a need to support action across a range of partners and stakeholders. I've spoken previously about the work we've done to strengthen our universal offer for low-level mental health issues, and you referred to that SilverCloud offering, that cognitive behavioural therapy support, which has been used now by about 6,000 in six months. I've committed a further £4 million next year to expand this type of support, and other support—it's not just online, of course. This is part of additional funding of £42 million next year to support mental health services. We know this will strengthen service improvements within health boards, and in particular the out-of-hours response, which is really important when it comes to mental health support. 

We've got to remember that this additional funding is against the backdrop of a much larger pot of money that we allocate to local health boards each year. I've been clear that, whilst I understand the need to protect specialist support, I'd really like to see a shift in resources towards prevention and earlier mental health support, and in particular towards the needs of children and young people, because we know 80 per cent of problems relating to mental health generally start when people are children and young people.

In conclusion, I'm clear that, whilst mental health support has been available throughout the pandemic, as we emerge, we need to renew and rebuild that provision in a way that's far more preventative in nature, and which reflects the needs in our population. By working closely with the NHS and other partners, I think that the significant additional funding we've secured will help to do this in a way that will make it sustainable for the future. So, thank you, Caroline, again, for bringing this really important issue to the attention of the Chamber, and certainly I hope that people will try and reach out for the support that is there for them. Diolch yn fawr. 

Thank you very much, Minister. That brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.