Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Welcome to this Plenary session. Before we begin, I want to set out a few points. This meeting will be held in hybrid format, with some Members in the Senedd Chamber, and others joining by video-conference. All Members participating in proceedings of the Senedd, wherever they may be, will be treated equally. A Plenary meeting held using 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 meeting, and these are noted on your agenda. I would remind Members that Standing Orders relating to order in Plenary apply to this meeting, and apply equally to Members in the Chamber as to those joining virtually. 

The first item this afternoon is the business statement and announcement, and I call on the Trefnydd, Lesley Griffiths. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. There are several changes to this week's business. Firstly, the Minister for Social Justice will make a statement shortly to update Members on the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Secondly, I have withdrawn the statements on the update on COVID-19 and on building safety. 

The Deputy Minister for Climate Change will deliver the statement on coal tip safety. And, finally, I have added debates on the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2022 and (No. 8) regulations 2022, for which a suspension of Standing Orders will be required. 

Trefnydd, recently Brecon Beacons National Park Authority held a vote of no confidence in a number of Welsh Government-appointed members. Locally there is much discontent with how the national park is being run and the role of Welsh Government-appointed members. So, could I please have a statement from the Minister for Climate Change about what the Welsh Government is doing to support the Brecon Beacons national park, and how it appoints Welsh Government members to these bodies? Diolch, Dirprwy Llywydd. 

I'm aware the Minister for Climate Change is keeping a very close eye on what is going on in the Brecon Beacons national park, but I don't think it's appropriate to have a statement at the current time. 

Trefnydd, some weeks ago I asked for a statement about how residents in the south-east have to travel long distances for hospital appointments. I highlighted the issue of diagnostic breast procedures being only carried out in Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr. I've been contacted by another constituent, who had to attend a gynaecology appointment at Nevill Hall Hospital. Now, she lives in Caerphilly, and the car journey took her more than an hour, with a round trip of 56 miles. She's able to drive, but she was anxious that she might not find the hospital in time because it was outside her area, but she was told it was the only gynaecology clinic for the entire Aneurin Bevan trust. As I'm sure you appreciate, Trefnydd, 50 per cent of the people living in the area are women; they'll require a gynaecology appointment at some point. So, I'd like to ask for a statement again please that will explain why my constituent had to travel that distance when Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr was only around 4 miles down the road from where she lives. Could we please look again at how our hospital services are configured, so that patients who are already under stress don't have to either spend long periods in the car to get to their appointments, or hours more on buses if they can't drive?

Thank you. Well, obviously, I'm not aware of the specific case that you refer to, but I think the point you make around the configuration of services across a health board is very important and is something for which each health board is obviously responsible, to make sure that the services are available for the population that they serve. Clearly, with some more specialised services, we don't expect to have each service in each hospital. You refer to gynaecology services in this particular case, and I don't know if it is more general or more special, but configuration of services is something that a health board is responsible for for its local population. 

Good afternoon, Minister. I wonder if I could ask for two statements please, with the first statement from the Minister for Education and Welsh Language about financial support for small and rural schools. Unions this week have raised the concerns that I raised during the budget process about the removal of the SRSG—the small and rural schools grant—and that the additional funding provided to local authorities through the SRSG isn't reaching schools. 

And, secondly, I wonder if you could make a statement on the situation with regard to the National Farmers Union losing their court case with regard to the water resources regulations, and what financial support is now being made available to support the agricultural sector to adapt to these regulations? Thank you. Diolch.

Thank you. In relation to the small and rural schools grant, the Member will be aware that £2.5 million has been put forward over the previous Senedd term to encourage innovation and increase school-to-school working. It was a very specific grant, and I know that local authorities were made aware from the outset that the grant was time limited, and they submitted their plans for expenditure and sustainability on that basis. The grant was due to end at the end of March last year—2021—but, to support transition, the Welsh Government extended the grant by a further year. And I know the Minister has been in discussions with local authorities, and I don't think there's been any pushback from local authorities regarding the ending of the grant, because schools and the local authorities were made aware of it.

In relation to your second question, obviously, that falls within my portfolio, and I certainly welcomed the judgment that was given by the court last Thursday. I will continue to work with the farming unions to reduce the impact of agriculture and other pollutants. We had another very significant agricultural pollution, which was substantiated straight away, last week. So, I think it's really important if we're all going to work together to tackle the pollution that we're seeing in our waters. But it's equally important, of course, that we do support the farming industry, going forward, and I will continue with those discussions. Under the co-operation agreement the Welsh Government has with Plaid Cymru, this is an area where we have committed to work not just with ourselves but, again, with the industry to target those activities that are known to cause pollution. We need to protect our environment for future generations, and what this ruling does is enable us to really carry on with that important work.

Just two items to raise. First of all, Trefnydd, Saturday's National League football match at the Racecourse was a phenomenal event—you and I were both present at it, along with almost 9,000 spectators. And it once again demonstrated how the world's oldest international football stadium can host dramatic and sensational events. Would the Government commit to pressing for the return of international matches to the Racecourse as soon as possible?

And also, Trefnydd, just across from the Racecourse—indeed, part of the Racecourse is included—is the Wrexham gateway project, to which the Welsh Government has already committed a huge amount of money. Although we've been promised levelling-up funding from the UK Government, this isn't yet to materialise. Would you be able to make a statement on whether you believe the UK Government is in a position to fund this vitally important regeneration project, or is it just warm words that we're hearing?

Thank you. The match on Saturday was certainly absolutely extraordinary. I was chatting to Llyr Huws Gruffydd about it over lunch. I'm still smiling. In my 50 years of attending the Racecourse, I've never seen anything quite like it. I think you make a really important point. As a child, that's where I went to watch international matches, and, of course, with the success that the Wales football team have had over the past few years in particular, I think the players have made Cardiff City Stadium their fortress, if you like. I think, last week—. Again, we were talking at lunchtime, saying we can't imagine football crowds singing like that 20 years ago, and singing in Welsh. And I think that says a lot about the way people have really taken this Welsh national football team to their hearts. But I know the new chief executive at the Football Association of Wales is very keen to see games played at the Racecourse. I think it's very important for us in north Wales that those games are played, even if they're only friendly games, in the coming years. So, I'm sure the Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport, and Chief Whip will certainly continue to press that with the Football Association of Wales.

You refer to the levelling-up funding bid that has been submitted in relation to the Wrexham gateway. Unfortunately, we know, despite the UK Government's promise we wouldn't have a penny less if we left the European Union, that's not the case. The funding that is available to the UK Government is much less than had we remained in the European Union. I think it's really vital that the UK Government work with the Welsh Government, and other devolved Governments, around the levelling-up fund. It's got to be a genuine partnership if it's going to work; we don't want a fragmented funding landscape. So, I think it's really important that we do see that funding. I know the second bid is in, and I think it's by June that that funding bid has to be in by.

Good afternoon, business Minister. I'd like to call for a statement from the Minister for Health and Social Services regarding the recently released interim report by the Cass review. The interim report highlighted several concerning issues that need to be dealt with and discussed by elected officials and professionals. Some of the findings raised in the report highlighted the lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and, therefore, the appropriate clinical response. It is now clear to me that, in light of the interim Cass report, there should be a review of services in Wales for gender questioning children and adolescents. This has been overlooked by the Welsh Government, and it needs to be rectified urgently. Therefore, I'd ask for a statement, please, Minister. 

Thank you. I know the Minister for Health and Social Services and both the Deputy Ministers are obviously aware of the report or working through the report, and I'm sure, at the most opportune time, will come forward with further information. 

Trefnydd, I would like to ask for a statement, please. It relates to postal services delivered by the Royal Mail and how the Welsh Government can exert pressure for services to be improved. It is an issue that I have previously corresponded with the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership on, as I know that she regularly meets with the Royal Mail, and she has, and I'm grateful for this, made representations previously on behalf of constituents. However, services in many parts of the Rhondda in particular are sporadic, with deliveries in recent months being once a fortnight in areas such as Glynfach, according to a local resident, which also means that important documents are being missed or not received at all. This also related to vaccination appointments. I would be grateful for a statement to see how we can influence the Royal Mail on this, please. Thank you. 

Thank you. I think you said that you'd already made representations direct to the Deputy Minister. As you are aware, Royal Mail is obviously a reserved issue, but we do all obviously rely on postal services in a way that you've just described, and, I think, during the pandemic, we've relied on them even more. I'm sure, if you have made representations to the Deputy Minister, she will respond to you. 

I'm very pleased to welcome back Altaf Hussain.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer and Minister. I am grateful, and it is nice to be back here, one among you. Minister, you will be aware of a recent internal audit report at Bridgend council that exposed the payment of £316,192 to a company for home insulation work, where the director was a Labour council cabinet member, and where the moneys were paid to a company that the auditors could not establish had actually existed. I believe that South Wales Police should be investigating it. I have called for them to do so. Will the Government make a statement in the Chamber, setting out how Welsh procurement policies will be tightened to reduce the chance of this occurring again? Thank you very much. 

Thank you, and it is very nice to see you back in the Chamber. I think you've done the right thing by writing directly to the local authority. Procurement is an important matter, which the Minister for Finance and Local Government is doing a big piece of work on within our programme for government, and I'm sure this is something that could be looked at. 

Trefnydd, may I ask for a statement on digital connectivity in rural areas, which has a major impact on citizens in the region that I represent, namely Mid and West Wales? As we all know, the additional top-up that the Welsh Government has been providing to the voucher system from the Westminster Government is coming to an end on Thursday of this week, and that, of course, leads to a great deal of uncertainty, because I have had several people contacting me over the past weeks and months complaining that the provision in some rural areas is still unsatisfactory. Community councils, for example, have contacted me to say that they can't hold virtual meetings or hybrid meetings because of the lack of adequate broadband connectivity, and individuals and businesses also have contacted to complain about the same issue. Now, I know that this top-up is coming to an end and that you are reviewing the voucher system. So, can we have a statement with regard to what the intentions of the Welsh Government are to support the communities that are still suffering, to provide certainty for the future? Thank you. 

Thank you. I think you do raise a very important point, and, again, during the pandemic it's been highlighted, the difficulties in some of our rural areas in particular—and not just rural, but urban areas too. But, I think, with rural areas, I've certainly been lobbied by small businesses, for instance, who haven't been able to improve their website takings in the way that they would have wanted to. So, I think it is an important issue. You'll be aware, again, as a Government, that we've had to plug the gaps that the UK Government left behind in relation to providing more broadband, and as you say there is a review currently being undertaken by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change.

I would like to ask for two statements. I've received a lot of complaints regarding hospital food, not just in Morriston Hospital, which is very near to me, but in hospitals across south Wales. I would like a Government statement on hospital food, to cover quality, quantity, how ward managers are implementing the policy that allows relatives and friends to help those who need help to eat—I've been told, although it's a policy of the health boards, it's a policy of the Welsh Government, by the time it gets down to ward managers, that policy disappears—and also on the quantity of waste food, which I understand from people who've been visiting patients in hospital is substantial.

I would also like to ask for a Government statement on public transport in the Swansea bay city region. We've had recent statements on the north Wales and Cardiff metro, can we have one on the creation of the Swansea bay city region metro? I realise it's much more complicated, as does the Deputy Presiding Officer, because travel in our area is not linear. There's quite a lot of Valleys down and from Swansea up into the Valleys communities, and also from Carmarthenshire into Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, and also the other way around. It's not unidirectional, which is what the Cardiff bay metro is predominantly. It's multidirectional and that does make it much more complicated, but it doesn't make it less of a problem for me and my colleagues, such as you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and the Member representing Neath.

That won't get you any more time, Mike. [Laughter.]

Thank you, Mike. I think you raise a very important point about hospital food. When I was health Minister, I always used to say that food is just as important as medicine. It's really important that patients have proper quality of food, and it is an issue that I know the Minister for health is looking at. We're also looking at procurement. I go back to an earlier answer around procurement. That's part of the process that the Minister for Finance and Local Government is looking at too. You may be aware that NHS Improvement England is currently undertaking a comprehensive NHS catering review, and I know NHS Wales representatives attend those review meetings. Once that review has been completed, it's going to be assessed, and then here in Wales we will consider what best practice and guidance can be rolled out and adopted right across NHS Wales. 

In relation to the Swansea bay city region, or the Swansea bay and west Wales metro, I think, is the correct title, we are in the very early stages of development of the three metro projects—north Wales, south Wales, and the Swansea bay one. It is an important part of achieving our modal-shift targets. If we are going to meet our net-zero targets, it's very important that we do this, and we are working very closely with Transport for Wales to accelerate it.

Trefnydd, I notice many of my colleagues asking for statements during business statement, but I never see those statements, actually, frankly, coming from this. But I'm going to formally request a statement from the Deputy Minister for transport Lee Waters, and I would also like to put on record my utmost disappointment that our Deputy Llywydd didn't see fit to allow this to be an urgent question.

Now, my question is in relation—[Interruption.] You weren't there, I was.

It's in relation to the severe and chaotic delays that were encountered by hundreds of passengers yesterday due to a rail operational incident at Abergavenny. Three trains, several carriages, and hundreds of passengers left stranded on these trains in warm weather conditions with no ventilation. The first train, we were allowed on the platform for a couple of hours. I left my office with a member of staff at 1 o'clock. I arrived in my flat here, in Cardiff, at 10 o'clock last night. It was the most horrendous situation I've ever witnessed: people crying, people anxious to get to their final destination.

In desperation, my colleague Llyr Gruffydd and I took to Twitter, copying in the Deputy Minister, and hour by hour went past with nothing. Frankly, I would have been really ashamed to have been the Deputy Minister, or not to have gone on to Twitter and said, 'Look, I will launch an investigation as to what's gone wrong.' But we were kept with no food, no nourishment, no sustenance or anything.

You do need to close now.

I am. As you can see, I'm pretty upset about it, because I know someone who missed a funeral, somebody who's lost their job, and frankly, everybody, everybody had a really sad story. Being an hour or two delayed, these things happen. We're talking five or six hours, stuck on a train, unable to do anything. Now I think that it was such a serious issue yesterday that the Deputy Minister should have come forward this morning to actually make a statement. So, it's not your fault, Trefnydd, and I'm not getting annoyed with you, but I do want a statement from Lee Waters and I will pursue, and I shall ask and ask again. The people of Wales, passengers even from England—

The Member has made her point. She has gone well beyond her time.

Okay. They deserve a reason for what happened yesterday and I jolly well hope he launches a thorough investigation, because absolutely: do I have any confidence now in Transport for Wales and this Welsh Government's ability to get me here from my constituency? No, I do not.

I absolutely agree with you that it was a very difficult journey yesterday for you and for many other people, and I have spoken to other Members who were on that train. I have also spoken with the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, who is very aware of the situation and is meeting with the chair and chief executive of Transport for Wales this afternoon around this issue. He is answering questions tomorrow, the Deputy Minister, in this Chamber, and I'm sure he will be able to give you an update then, because I think that will be much quicker and you will be able to get some answers. I think, from a Transport for Wales point of view, initial investigations have shown it was due to an unexpected operational matter, and they are working around it.

I'm not saying it's acceptable at all; I absolutely appreciate—. I've done that journey many, many, many times myself. I was on a train yesterday morning, so it could have been me. So, I'm absolutely not taking anything away, but we have to work through the process and we have to find out what went wrong. It's very regrettable; it was clearly very, very poor passenger experience.

I have to say that last night was the most appalling experience I've ever had in using a train in Wales. The journey, which was supposed to be three hours, was a seven-hour journey. My train was stationary for four hours. That was one train; I know of four other trains in the same situation. No information, because the loudspeaker in my carriage didn't work. And that's the state of our rolling stock at the moment. No alternative transport. Although we'd waited four hours, no arrangements in place to move passengers. There were people who were ill on one of the trains; there were people in tears on my train. Someone did miss a funeral; someone was concerned about the future of their employment because they were late for their shift. I listened to Transport for Wales officers in the committee a fortnight ago, saying, 'Yes, it's challenging, but things are improving.' Do you know what? I don't think I can believe a word they tell us any more. I certainly don't feel that I have any confidence in them at the moment.

I heard that there were other problems again this morning: trains from north to south running late, being cancelled. I had a number of people contacting me on Friday morning, thousands of people trying to travel back to north Wales after the game on Thursday night and there were two carriages. Just two carriages. Didn't Transport for Wales realise that the game was happening?

So, can we have a statement? And a statement—not an opportunity to ask a few supplementaries tomorrow—a statement from the Deputy Minister, because I want him to do three things: first of all, he has to apologise to the people of north Wales for the state of the appalling service that we have to suffer from one day to the next; secondly, I want him to explain to us as a Senedd what he's going to do to resolve this problem in the short term; and third, he needs to explain why we're going to have to wait until the end of the year before we see new stock on the north-south service. Because if the service continues as it is for the next eight months until then, well, there'll be nobody left using the trains from north to south.

I think the point that—. You made a different point to Janet Finch-Saunders about no information being made available, and I think if people understand what's happening, that always helps the situation, so I think that is something very specifically that the Deputy Minister should take up at his meeting this afternoon, and I will ensure he's heard what you say. You did refer to the new rolling stock that is due to come in at the end of this year—it's for £800 million-worth—but, as you say, it's really important that we get that brought forward as quickly as possible.

And finally, Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can we have a statement from you as Minister for agriculture, or, indeed, the economy Minister, about how you're going to promote wool? Wool has seen very difficult times recently. Ten years ago, it sold for £1.25 per kilogram, but two years ago, that price fell to 15p. It's good to see the price increasing again. 

There are a number of steps to take before the weavers can get hold of the wool, from the shearing to the separation—there are more than 10 different grades of wool on every farm, for example—and then it has to be cleaned. Wool is a very flexible material, not only is it an excellent material to make clothes, but also carpets and insulation. But there is much more to it than that. Bangor University has done excellent work looking at the other potential of wool, to be used as packaging and using its chemical properties. It absorbs formaldehyde in the environment and improves air quality, not to mention the linoleum and the keratin in the wool and the fibres. So, there is significant potential and I'd like to hear what steps the Government is going to take to benefit from this flexible use of wool that we have in Wales.

Thank you. As you said, farmers have seen a big reduction in the price they have been getting for their wool over the past two years. I've been working most closely with the Minister for Climate Change, actually, on this, rather than the Minister for Economy. Because one of the suggestions that came through was that we could look at how we could use wool more in housing stock here in Wales. I actually met with British Wool—representatives from there. They actually told me that insulation was not really the best thing for the wool; carpets certainly were. And perhaps I shouldn't say this today, but another thing that they really thought we could do here in Wales was use it in our trains, in the seating for our trains. So, that is an area I'm also looking at with the Minister. [Interruption.] I did hesitate to say that. But I think it's a really important point, because we have seen a significant drop in the price of our wool. So, we are continuing to look at options, continuing to work with British Wool.

There was a piece of work done across the UK, with all countries in the UK, about further use, but those were the two areas: carpets and transport—seats mainly, in our trains. We're always very open to suggestions, and I know the Deputy Minister and the Minister for Climate Change are very keen to see if it can be used in housing in different ways. But, interestingly, as I say, insulation was not the way they thought it should be used.

Thank you, Trefnydd. Before we move on,

I call upon Altaf Hussain to make a clarification.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I just want to make my declaration of interest, since I'm a councillor in BCBC as well. That's Bridgend County Borough Council. Thank you.

Thank you.

We move now to item 2, questions to the First Minister, and the first question is from Sam Rowlands.

Good afternoon, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the Member for the question.

For over a decade, the Welsh Government has funded the Holocaust Educational Trust to provide its Lessons from Auschwitz programme in Wales. That, and other actions to address antisemitism, will be reflected in our anti-racist Wales action plan, to be published later this year.

Thank you, First Minister, for your response. I'm sure all Members from across the Chamber here today agree that antisemitism is abhorrent to us all, and all efforts must be made to ensure that this and all forms of racism are stamped out in Wales. And as the First Minister will know, back in May 2017, Welsh Government adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism. Nevertheless, I do find it deeply concerning that the majority of universities in Wales still haven't adopted this definition for themselves. Whilst you may not have direct control over universities in Wales, the Government does provide significant funding, and, as First Minister, you have a significant role in setting the tone and expectation of how people, public bodies and publicly funded organisations present themselves here in Wales. So, in light of this, First Minister, will you join me in urging and setting the expectation that all of our universities in Wales should adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism?

Well, Llywydd, it is my expectation that no public body in Wales tolerates antisemitism, Islamophobia or any other form of discrimination against groups in our society. As the Member said, the Welsh Government has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The Minister for education has been discussing this matter over recent months. He met with Lord Mann, who is carrying out the review of antisemitism policies for the UK Government currently, and the Welsh Government has provided evidence to that review. The Minister for Education met Lord Mann back in November and this issue was discussed there. He met with the Union of Jewish Students here in Wales at the end of February and once again this matter was raised. He has a meeting with senior university staff on Monday, I think, of next week, and this item is on the agenda. So, the Member can be assured that the Welsh Government is drawing this matter to the attention of universities across Wales when we have the opportunity to do so, and setting that discussion in the context of the general expectation we set about public bodies doing everything they can to combat discrimination. However, as the Member said, universities are autonomous bodies. They are not controlled, nor should they be controlled, by the Welsh Government. We will discuss this matter and bring it to their attention, but as George Freeman, the Conservative Minister for higher education in the UK Government said just this weekend, free and open academic discourse underpinned by the values of freedom is fundamental, and that freedom applies to universities to make their own decisions within the matters that fall within their own ambit. 

I thank the Member for the question. A decade of austerity has left the poorest households in Wales ill-equipped to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. In the spring statement the Chancellor had an opportunity to provide essential help to those who need it the most. He let them down and that was unforgivable.

An opportunity was missed, indeed, because the UK Government did nothing, for example, in the spring statement to tackle fuel poverty. We know, of course, that Wales is hit harder in that regard as we do have less efficient housing stock in terms of energy. We have more homes that are off the grid and, also, we in Wales are paying higher rates of standing charges for our electricity. Although north Wales is energy rich, although we produce more energy than we use, although we are one of the biggest exporters of energy in the world, the standing charges in north Wales for electricity will increase by 102 per cent, while in London they will increase by only 38 per cent. Do you, therefore, agree with me, First Minister, that the spring statement demonstrates clearly that there is no dividend for Wales to being part of the UK, particularly when it comes to those who have to choose between heating their homes or eating?

I agree with the Member that the Chancellor had an opportunity back on Tuesday of last week to show what the United Kingdom can do to help people who are in poverty, and to do that in a way that is fair across the whole of the United Kingdom. It is disappointing that the Chancellor wasn't willing to take that opportunity to demonstrate the powers in his hands to help people—people in north Wales, as the Member says, and people who are suffering from the issues with regard to energy and food. There was an opportunity for the Chancellor to do what he could do, but, as I said in my original response, he hasn't done things in a fair way for people in Wales, or across the United Kingdom.

The Chancellor, First Minister, had hardly sat back down on the green benches before the criticism tore apart his spring budget statement, and it didn't only come from some backbench Tory MPs; it came from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, from the Resolution Foundation, it came from Martin Lewis, the money saving expert, who looked at the impact of the rising tax burden and the additional burden on the poorest people in our country. The forecasts now say that a fifth of the population of the UK will be in absolute poverty—absolute poverty, 12.5 million people. Their household incomes are on track for the biggest fall of any Parliament on record and the tax burden will be at the highest level for 70 years, while the poorest will get poorer still. A typical family will be around £1,100 worse off this year. And after previous cuts to universal credit, we're glad to see a 3 per cent rise—

You need to ask the question.

Recognising that there is an 8 per cent rise in terms of inflation at this moment, it totally wipes it out. Deputy Llywydd, I've said before in this Chamber that sometimes it feels like swimming against the tide of the UK Government. First Minister, how can we help people swim against the tide, keep their heads afloat? Because some people are now drowning, and they're our constituents.

I could not agree more with Huw Irranca-Davies in his analysis of the impact of the spring statement. The Chancellor says that he has protected the worse off; it's nonsensical when you look at the figures of the money that he has provided—£1 in every £3 will go to the bottom half of the income distribution, and £2 in every £3 will go to the best off. That is no way to help the people who Huw Irranca-Davies mentioned, who are struggling with the basics of food and fuel.

The Welsh Government has consistently taken action to exceed the consequentials with which we have been provided. The Wales Governance Centre only last week said that the actions that the Welsh Government have taken are significantly more generous in the help we've been able to assemble than any other Government across the United Kingdom. We will make sure, for example, that the £150 available to help people with their council tax goes to everybody liable for the council tax, whether or not they actually pay a bill or not, and that money will therefore reach those who need it the most.

Only last week the Minister for education provided an extra £100 for families to meet the cost of the school day. That money will stay in the pockets of those families and will be available to help them with the other costs that they are now facing. And that is not to mention the help that we have provided with fuel bills—£200 to families during this winter, more to come later this year. Of course we wish we could do more, but the fundamental obligation lies with the UK Government. It's the Chancellor who has those great levers, the tax and benefits system, which drives help for people who live on basic benefits or in low-paid work. That was the failure of the spring statement, and it's a failure that I think demonstrated a Chancellor prepared ruthlessly to squander an opportunity to help.

I wasn't expecting Members in this Chamber to be welcoming the spring statement, but there were a lot of very, very positive things, though I haven't got the opportunity to raise them here. [Interruption.] The combination of unprecedented crises—the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—has resulted in significant inflationary pressures that have been felt across society—[Interruption.]

I would like to hear the question from the Member.

Whilst there is more to do to support people over the coming months, I welcome the steps made by the Chancellor that will help to ease the burden on families across the UK. Indeed, Martin Lewis recognised the benefits of raising the threshold in national insurance. Deputy Llywydd, the doubling of the household support fund in England, outlined last week, will result in consequentials of around £25 million for Wales, and this should be used to provide the additional help that the First Minister wants to give to people in Wales who are facing difficulties. Local authorities across Wales are at the forefront of tackling the cost-of-living crisis—

You do need to ask your question now, please.

—and are best placed to use their local knowledge to help those in need. Indeed, they already deliver a range of discretionary services. First Minister, what discussions has the Welsh Government had about how to allocate this funding, this additional £25 million, to councils in the light of current pressures? Will you consider loosening the eligibility criteria of some of the support schemes in Wales so that more people can access help? Diolch yn fawr.

The Welsh Government has already provided that £25 million, because we spent double the amount that we were given in the last household help fund that the Chancellor announced. We've announced £340 million-worth of help for households to meet the crisis in the cost of living, and we put £10 million more into the revenue support grant in the final settlement that was debated in front of the Senedd only a few weeks ago. But £25 million, Dirprwy Lywydd, is a paltry sum in the face of the difficulties that families in Wales now see in front of them. That is not going to solve the problems of pensioners left with a 3 per cent increase in their benefits while inflation is at 8 per cent. It's not going to help those hundreds of thousands of households in Wales who lost £20 every week from their universal credit. The Welsh Government will, of course, look to use the resources we have to help those families, and that does include, as the Member said, working with our local authorities and looking at the criteria that surround the systems that we have put in place to help those families. But any suggestion that £25 million is the answer to the problems that face families across Wales just demonstrates how far the Conservative Party in Wales is out of touch with the reality of the lives that so many people have to live.  

I now call on party leaders. First, the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. What I recall as being a paltry rise was the 75p a week that Labour voted through and Members of Parliament voted for back in the early 2000s when Gordon Brown was the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

But I'd like to ask the First Minister about something that he is responsible for and his Government is responsible for, and that is ambulance response times here in Wales, which we had last week. On the red alert calls, you had a literally one in two chance of having that call responded to. On amber calls, you've got a less than one in five chance of that being responded to in the 30-minute target time. Sixty-five per cent of red calls should hit that eight-minute response time. As I said, you've got a 50:50 chance now in Wales, regrettably, of having that happening. First Minister, some time ago, the health Minister, Eluned Morgan, said you were investing in the ambulance service and that this investment was paying real dividends. On those figures, clearly, these dividends aren't coming through. When are we going to see the improvements that the people of Wales deserve?

For 48 weeks in a row, until the pandemic hit us in March 2020, the ambulance service in Wales met its targets. I don't recall ever once being asked by the leader of the opposition about it then. The truth of the matter is, as he will know, that the pandemic has caused major challenges for the ambulance service, because every time an ambulance goes out and may transport somebody who has COVID—and with current rates of COVID in Wales, that means a very significant number of people who the ambulance service has to deal with—then the ambulance has to be deep cleaned again before it can go back on the road.

The figures for the last month show the ambulance service holding its own in Wales, despite the fact that the number of calls to the service has been running at all-time record highs over this winter. The Minister was right when she pointed to the investment that is going into the ambulance service, particularly in the recruitment of new staff. New staff are joining the ambulance service all the time, and there are more staff being recruited to help provide the service that people in Wales deserve to have. There's still a way to go in achieving that, there's no doubt at all about that, but the investment on the one hand, the staff on the other, and, hopefully, an ability to move beyond the pandemic, add up to a prospectus where the ambulance service will be able to return to the years of success that it enjoyed before the pandemic hit.

First Minister, it's been 18 months since the targets have been hit by the ambulance service. Time and time again, I've raised it with you, Members across the political divide have raised issues—heart-wrenching issues—of their experiences across the whole of Wales, where regrettably ambulances haven't been able to respond to life-threatening situations. We know the ambulance service has been supported by the military on several occasions—across the United Kingdom that support has been offered, I might add, not just here in Wales. That support is coming to an end come 31 March. What measures has the Welsh Government, along with the ambulance service, put in place to make sure that we don't end up with a cliff edge on 31 March and, ultimately, these figures deteriorating even worse than they are now?

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, can I first just put on record our thanks to the military for the help that we have had here in Wales during the pandemic, and particularly, as the leader of the opposition has said, for the help that we have received from them in supporting our ambulance services, both in driving ambulances and in helping with the cleaning of ambulances so that they can be turned around as quickly as we can do that and put them back on the road again? It is inevitable that that help must come to an end, and there are many other calls, as we know, at the moment on the services of the military.

What the Welsh Government has been doing, as I've said, Dirprwy Lywydd, is to invest in new, permanent, full-time members of staff, trained to the level where they are able to carry out all the duties that you would expect the ambulance service to be able to undertake. And at the same time, more broadly, the Welsh Government has been supporting the ambulance service in a two-week reset of the service in the first half of this month. Now, the results of that reset are still being analysed. I am pleased to say that over the last two weeks we've seen a 10 per cent reduction in the daily average ambulance hours lost compared to the two weeks before the reset was established. And I think that gives us some optimism that we are creating the platform that will allow the ambulance service to deal with the diminution in the number of people available to it as military help is withdrawn.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. As we heard last week in media reports, ambulance workers are telling us that, really, it is a soul-destroying job that they're facing at the moment, and many, sadly, are having to revert to anti-depressants to get them through the day. From covert recordings, we heard that, actually, from a management level, where genuine concerns are being raised, people are being put on pathways to disciplinary measures against them. That cannot be right, First Minister, and I hope you'll agree with me that that cannot be tolerated in a public organisation anywhere in Wales. These staff are under huge amounts of pressure. I'm grateful for you indicating the additional staff that are coming forward from recent recruitment drives, but what assurances can you give the Senedd, what assurances can you give ambulance workers and what assurances can you give the people of Wales that in the coming weeks and months we will see genuine improvement in the response times of the ambulance service across Wales and that these figures will start to improve, and that through the course of the summer the target times that your own Government has set the service will be met?

Well, the assurance that I can give to Members of the Senedd and people more broadly is this: the ambulance trust is doing everything it can, with its partners in the health service more generally, to provide the service that its staff want to provide, and the investment of the Welsh Government is there to support them in that endeavour.

The thing that I cannot say, and neither can the leader of the opposition, is the extent to which the current rise in the number of people falling ill with coronavirus will impact on that service over the weeks and months to come. The leader of the opposition will know that we have some of the highest numbers of people falling ill with the virus of any time in the whole of the pandemic. Only a matter of weeks ago, we managed to reduce the number of people in our hospital beds suffering from coronavirus down to around 700. It went above 1,400 yesterday, and that number has continued to rise. That has an impact upon the whole system's ability to deal with the demands on it, including the ambulance service. Because when you have that number of people in the hospital system suffering from COVID-19, then it has an impact on our ability to discharge people, and therefore to flow patients through the system from the front door when the ambulance arrives to the point where people are able to be discharged. Also, as I said, it has a direct impact on the speed with which the ambulance service itself is able to respond to the calls that it receives, and it drives up the number of calls that are made. So, while I think the service is doing everything it can, and the investment from the Welsh Government is there to support it in all of that, it continues to operate within a very challenging context, and a context that has been deteriorating, from a pandemic perspective, over recent weeks. All of that has to be taken into account in any assurances that anybody can make about the extent to which the performance of the ambulance will reflect that context in the weeks and months to come.

The leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In 2016, Scotland gained control over 11 welfare benefits and the ability to create new ones. The Wales Governance Centre published a report in 2019 that stated that giving Wales the same powers over benefits as Scotland could boost the budget of Wales by £200 million a year. Now, last week's spring statement, as you said, was unforgivable—it'll lead to a million plus increase in absolute poverty for the first time ever outside a recession. Now, coming from a Chancellor whose own family fortune is tainted by Russian blood money, and who's had to file his own partygate questionnaire, his moral tone-deafness should come as no surprise, perhaps. But doesn't this also mean that simply replacing Johnson, say with Sunak, will do nothing for struggling families in Wales? If powers over Welsh welfare—those 'great levers' that you referred to, First Minister—remain in Westminster's hands, is not this the time now, finally, to make the united case for a Welsh devolution of welfare more radical and far-reaching even than the Scottish model?

Dirprwy Lywydd, I have no ambition to replace Johnson with Sunak. My ambition is to replace Johnson with Starmer, and that would make a very big difference to the way in which the United Kingdom operates and the way in which people who rely on—[Inaudible.]—not just—[Inaudible.]—fundamentally on—[Inaudible.]

First Minister, can I ask you to halt for a second, because you're breaking up a little bit? We want to just check the IT system. Can we have a two-minute break, simply to make sure the IT is working properly? So, I call for a two-minute break.

First Minister. 

Dirprwy Lywydd, diolch yn fawr. So, I had just started to reply to the leader of Plaid Cymru's first question by saying that I am not interested in replacing Boris Johnson with Sunak, I'm interested in replacing Boris Johnson with Keir Starmer, and that's what would make a difference to people here in Wales, but not just people here in Wales. This is where I differ from the leader of Plaid Cymru, because I am interested in a child who lives in poverty, whether that child is in England or in Wales, and my recipe for the United Kingdom is a place where everybody, in all parts of the United Kingdom, is able to benefit from the great insurance policy that being a member of the United Kingdom provides. There is a way of doing that, and that is to replace this Government, and that's what I will be aiming to do. 

I'm reliably informed by the Deputy Presiding Officer that the problem just now was at the London end, and isn't that the point? It's simply not good enough to say, 'Oh, it'll be all right when there's a Labour Government', when, since the Reform Act, Wales has never, ever elected a majority of Tory MPs, and yet we've had Tory Governments for more than two thirds of the time. The Bevan Foundation has recently strongly made the case for the devolution of power over housing benefit and the housing element of housing credit as a matter of urgency. Why? Because this would allow the Welsh Government to move from a model that essentially subsidises rent to a model that subsidises social housing supply, which is ultimately the only answer to the question. When even an organisation that is named after Aneurin Bevan, who was certainly no friend of Welsh nationalism, is making the case for the devolution of welfare, doesn't it show, First Minister, that we're on the right side of the question, and, unfortunately, you're still on the wrong side?

Well, of course, I don't agree with that for a moment. I am interested and want serious work to be done on the devolution of the administration of the welfare system. I think there is a growing case for that, and we would administer housing benefit, for example, differently if it were devolved to Wales. That is different to the break-up of the tax and benefit system on which people in Wales have relied over a great deal of the time that the Member points to.

It was a Welshman—not Aneurin Bevan, but James Griffiths—who put on the statute book the underpinnings of the welfare state, which has stood people in Wales well over much of the period since James Griffiths passed the national insurance and allied Acts back in 1947. Griffiths was a great Welshman, and a great socialist. I think the recipe that he put forward continues to be the one that benefits people in Wales. 

And Jim Griffiths, from my mother's home village of Betws, was also an ardent supporter of Welsh home rule right throughout his political life. 

The Welsh Government can also directly address the cost-of-living crisis itself, of course, for lower paid workers within the public sector. Teaching assistants are currently only paid for 39 to 43 weeks of the year. They're not paid for the summer six weeks, but are bound to the school and can't sign on to get another job during this period, while teachers, of course, are paid for a full working year of 52 weeks. The summer months are amongst the most expensive, not to mention the detrimental effect that this absence of pay can have on pensions later in life. Given that much of the COVID recovery efforts have been placed on the shoulders of TAs, and the essential work that they provide for pupils who are vulnerable or those with additional learning needs, isn't it time that this valuable workforce is finally valued in full? 

Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree with the leader of Plaid Cymru about the work of teaching assistants. And many of them, of course, do get paid during the school holidays here in Wales because they are the bedrock of the school holiday enrichment programme that we have had in Wales from the start of the last Senedd term—the only national system anywhere in the United Kingdom in which children are able to attend school and to receive a proper meal and get other enrichment activities. And teaching assistants are at the heart of all of that, and they're paid here in Wales for the work that they do.

There is nothing to prevent local authorities, if they choose to do so, to have different terms and conditions for teaching assistants, and that would, of course, include those local authorities where Plaid Cymru is in charge, and could, no doubt, make the choices that the Member has advocated this afternoon. 

Thank you very much to the Member for that question. 

Maternity services across Wales were classed as essential services throughout the pandemic, including those in South Wales West. Despite significant challenges due to COVID, nearly all our services have continued to operate fully, providing pregnant mothers, babies and their families with access to safe and suitable maternity care.

Diolch, Brif Weinidog. A constituent of mine from the Swansea valley, named Laura, recently got in contact with me about her awful experience of having to undergo pregnancy scans on her own without her husband due to COVID rules. Since COVID restrictions and measures came into place two years ago, she's unfortunately had three consecutive miscarriages. Two of these were classed as 'missed miscarriages' and required a number of scans at Neath Port Talbot Hospital to ascertain the viability of the pregnancies—the first in September 2020, the second in August 2021. She said:

'During both of these extremely painful and difficult times, I, like many other prospective mothers in Wales, was not allowed to have my husband at the scans, and had to be told on both occasions that the foetus was not viable and that I would lose the pregnancy on my own with nobody there to provide comfort or support. Instead I was led to a small waiting room, told I could leave when I was ready. I then had to go out and tell my husband the news myself, when he was waiting anxiously outside in the car park.'

Last week, she had to face the same ordeal. Thankfully, it was good news. While I understand, of course, that hospitals have had to introduce and maintain strict rules to safeguard against COVID infection, there is a fundamental issue of inconsistency of approach here. Laura tells me that, by last year, pregnant women were allowed to have a partner present during some scans. However, this was not the case for the type of scans she needed—scans that are only allowed in the NHS when there are potential problems or risks. Prif Weinidog, as Wales enters a new phase in the pandemic, will the Government ensure better treatment for all the other women across Wales who have suffered and will be affected by this potentially traumatic situation, by looking at the guidance issued to health boards and ensuring a consistent and appropriate approach to maternity services?

Llywydd, I thank the Member for that question. I feel enormous sympathy for the individual whose circumstances she related. During the whole of the pandemic, some of the most difficult circumstances that have had to have been faced by the NHS have been over maternity care and the involvement of both partners in what should, in normal circumstances, be one of the most exciting times in their lives. But, as I've explained many times on the floor of the Senedd, the decision about whether people can be involved has had to be a clinical decision, made by the person who has the best opportunity to make sure that the health of the mother and the health of the unborn baby can be protected to the maximum possible extent. And that depends upon the health of the mother, for example, her vulnerabilities, underlying health conditions and so on, as well as the prevailing circumstances in whatever premises that care is being carried out. And it hasn't been right during the pandemic so far to have tried to issue a set of rules from Cathays Park that would override the necessary clinical judgment that can only be applied by the person who has responsibility for the overall care of the mother and the unborn child.

As we emerge, as we hope, from the worst effects of the pandemic, the Welsh Government will be providing advice to the NHS as a whole. It will, for example, seek to standardise the length of visits that families are able to make while somebody is in hospital, to make sure that the approach to lateral flow testing is consistent across Wales, and that the circumstances in which both parents can be involved, and of course want to be involved, in that whole experience is also consistent from one part of the NHS to another. We're able to do that because the impact of vaccination, new treatments we have, the way in which the NHS has learnt to deal with the impact of COVID-19, enables us now to move into that phase of providing maternity care. But, at the depths of the pandemic, the view taken by those who advise us in the Welsh Government was that that sort of national approach had to give way to the need to allow clinicians to exercise the judgment that only they can exercise, in order to safeguard the health of mothers and unborn children.

Thank you, Sioned Williams, for raising this important issue. Good afternoon, First Minister. During the height of the pandemic, we saw huge restrictions placed on new mums and their families, who were not allowed to visit them in hospital. The charity and campaign group Birthrights has monitored the impact across the UK to articulate the challenges that many have faced. Apparently, they wrote to the health Minister asking for change, saying Wales has

'some of the most restrictive visiting arrangements in maternity services in the UK.'

Does the First Minister believe that the impact on families at such an important time should be considered in the context of human rights, and whether those rights were respected? Thank you.

Well, there's no greater right, Llywydd, it seems to me, than to make sure that the system is not putting you at risk and causing you harm, and what some people describe as restrictions I think are more fairly described as protections, because that's what we were offering here in Wales. That is not, for a minute, to deny the heartache that that has caused people. But the motivation for the way in which services are provided has only ever been to make sure that those families to which Altaf Hussain referred, that they were not unnecessarily put at risk. We have been in the throes of a global pandemic that has killed people here in Wales every single week, and the actions that our clinicians have taken and our health boards have taken have only ever been designed to make sure that people going through something that will be part of their lives forever, as they will hope, don't find that adversely affected because the protections that could have been provided to them were not provided to them. And difficult as that has been, I don't think for a minute that we ought to do anything other than recognise that the reasons that those actions were taken were to protect those families, to protect those women, to protect the babies that they were hoping to give birth to, and, as we move beyond the pandemic, we will be able to return to different ways and better ways, of course, of doing things. But that's the reason those actions were taken and nothing else. 

Well, I thank Jack Sargeant for that important question, Dirprwy Lywydd. The decision by P&O Ferries to fire its loyal workforce without consultation and with immediate effect is unacceptable and illegal. We have made it clear to the UK Government that they must not stand by and allow an accelerated race to the bottom on workers’ rights in this industry or any other. 

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Prif Weinidog. Members will know that the UK minimum wage is £8.91. The new average wage at P&O is £5.50, and this was brought in after they unlawfully sacked their loyal workforce without consultation. As the First Minister rightly says, this is a disgraceful, illegal act by P&O bosses, and it is one that is unacceptable to me. First Minister, the silence from the Conservative benches in the Senedd Chamber today is deafening, isn't it? But it is not surprising—[Interruption.] But it is not surprising. After all, it was their colleagues—[Interruption.] It was their colleagues in Westminster, in Westminster, that blocked the fire and rehire Bill that sought to ban these practices. 

Can I ask Members, please, to allow the question to be asked, so I can hear it? 

Deputy Presiding Officer, it is not surprising, because it was a Bill brought forward by a Labour Member of Parliament. But the heckles that this turned into from the benches over there simply reinforce the message, don't they? They reinforce the message that the UK Conservative Party do not care about ordinary working people in Wales and across the UK. First Minister, will you join me in sending a very simple, but powerful message to the UK Conservative Government that we need legislation now to end fire and rehire practices, and we also need to repeal all anti-trade union laws that strip power from ordinary working people? 

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, Jack Sargeant has made those points very powerfully indeed. The UK Government, this UK Government, promised in a Queen's Speech in 2019 that it would bring an employment Bill in front of the House of Commons. Where has that Bill been? Nowhere to be seen, of course. And had it been brought forward, maybe there would have been a chance to have addressed what UK Government Ministers are describing as an exploitation of a loophole in the law. Two thousand and nineteen, Llywydd. Here we are in 2022, and no sign of that promised Bill, and that tells you, as Jack Sargeant says, everything you need to know about the attitude of this current Conservative Government to workers' rights. I was privileged to meet Barry Gardiner, the Member of Parliament who brought forward the private Member's Bill to outlaw fire and rehire. The Prime Minister described the practice of fire and rehire as unacceptable, yet he allowed Conservative backbenchers in the House of Commons to talk out that private Member's Bill when it could have done so much good and certainly would have made a difference in the case of P&O. Now, the Prime Minister has claimed that P&O will be prosecuted under section 194 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, but there's no sign of that happening either. The lack of action is deafening, as Jack Sargeant says. What we hear from Conservative Ministers are the lamest of excuses in the face of a deliberate flouting of the law by P&O. It was breathtaking that Peter Hebblethwaite was willing to turn up at a House of Commons select committee and acknowledge the fact that there was 'absolutely no doubt'—that's what he said—

'that we were required to consult with the unions.'

Well, there was no doubt because that's what the law of the land required them to do. He then went on to say, ‘We chose not to do that—we chose deliberately to break the law of the land.’ Where is the action that this Government needs to take in Westminster to address that sort of deliberate flouting of the law and to protect the workers who were on the receiving end of it?

It's a shame that some Members in this Chamber are playing politics with this issue. And so that the Member for Alyn and Deeside hears, and other Members too, the behaviour of P&O Ferries is a scandal and is entirely unacceptable, and we as a group here have made that entirely clear. Now, bearing in mind the serious situation, and considering that it appears that the chief executive of this company has admitted that he broke the law, is it your view that the United Kingdom Government should take this matter to the courts to prosecute him and the company?

Well, of course. There is huge interest in this issue in Wales, and there is a responsibility on Ministers in Westminster to take this to the courts and to pursue the company that has broken the law. But, in addition to that, Dirprwy Lywydd, we know that the UK Government is still dealing with the P&O parent company in the free ports programme that they have. It's not acceptable for us that they pursue P&O when they are still working with P&O's parent company. There is a lot more that the UK Government should do—a lot more—and that isn't playing politics in any sense; it's just being clear as to where responsibility lies. 

I thank Cefin Campbell for that question. West Wales is already well placed to be one of the key cycling destinations in Wales for visitors from Wales and further afield. The Welsh Government continues to support the actions of local authorities and others in the development of cycle tourism.

Thank you very much. As you know, Carmarthenshire County Council has been promoting cycle tourism over the past few years and has seen the development of the national closed road circuit in Pembrey, redeveloping the velodrome in Carmarthen, and there's also a cycle path along the Tywi valley about to be completed, and Carmarthenshire has held several stages of the Tour of Britain over the past few years. And we know that Pembrokeshire, an area of natural beauty, has held a number of major events, such as the Iron Man in Tenby on an annual basis, certainly before the pandemic. We know that the Welsh Government has invited the Tour de France to Wales previously, and we know about the economic benefits of that. The Grand Depárt from Yorkshire in 2014 brought in around £130 million into that area. So, my question is this: would you agree that west Wales offers the perfect location for holding a stage of the Tour de France? And now that COVID has passed, what work is the Welsh Government intending to do to invite the Tour de France, one of the stages of the tour, to west Wales at some point in future? Thank you. 

Well, I thank Cefin Campbell for that question. I agree with him, of course, on the possibilities that exist in west Wales. I remember being in Pembrey with the leader of the county council when we worked together to open the Tour of Britain, back in 2018, when Geraint Thomas was leading the tour. And I remember, growing up in Carmarthen, using the velodrome in the park there almost every day. But, Dirprwy Lywydd, we continue to collaborate with England and Scotland to develop a bid to bring the Tour de France to the UK in 2026. Discussions are ongoing, and, of course, as a Government here in Wales, we are doing everything within our power to highlight the possibilities that exist here in Wales. Of course, there are many details still to be discussed with those responsible for the Tour de France, and we are just starting to do that. But, if there are possibilities to bring the tour to Wales, then I know that those interested in cycling would be very excited about that. 

Well, Llywydd, good afternoon to Jane Dodds. The Welsh Government continues to press the UK Government to support households who, through no fault of their own, are facing an energy and cost-of-living crisis. The cost of heating oil was last discussed with UK Government officials last week, on 23 March.

Thank you, First Minister, for your response. 

This is an issue that I know many have had raised with them across the Siambr. Many have seen a doubling in the price of heating oil in less than six months. Earlier this month, the UK Conservative Minister of State for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, Greg Hands, said that the UK Government believes that the open market for the supply of heating oil in the UK provides the best long-term guarantee of competitive prices. He went on to say that a price cap is not necessary. First Minister, would you agree with me that, aside from being negligent, this response shows just how out of touch the Conservatives are with the crisis people are facing? Diolch yn fawr iawn. 

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, they are certainly out of touch with those people, particularly in rural areas. We know that 28 per cent of households in rural areas in parts of Wales are reliant on heating oil to heat their homes and to have access to hot water. The idea that the market is serving them well flies in the face of everything we are hearing about the way the market is currently operating. We are hearing far too many instances of people telling us that they cannot get a single response out of any company prepared to provide fuel to them, and that there are companies refusing to declare a price for that heating oil until the heating oil is actually delivered to the house itself. That is certainly not a market operating as a market ought to. Of course, I would take a different view in general as to the efficacy of markets as a way of providing lifeline services of any sort, but the Competition and Markets Authority is responsible for ensuring that commercial markets operate effectively and that customers are treated fairly.

Our fuel poverty advisory panel met on Friday of last week, and we have asked members of the panel and their stakeholder contacts to provide us with any evidence of unfair trading practices, so that we can continue to take that up then with the UK Government but also, if necessary, to press the Competition and Markets Authority to exercise the responsibilities it has to make sure that markets operate as they should. And a naive belief that, left to itself, an open market will serve people well in the current circumstances does indeed, as Jane Dodds has said, Dirprwy Lywydd, just illustrate once again how out of touch Conservative Ministers, who never have to face these dilemmas in their own lives, are with the way that people in rural Wales and elsewhere have to make the choices that they are now faced with. 

I thank Delyth Jewell for that, Dirprwy Lywydd. In Wales, we have already provided a support package worth more than double the consequential funding we have received, as we seek to play our part in helping people who need that help the most. We will continue to press the UK Government to join us in doing so.

Diolch, Prif Weinidog. The Wales Governance Centre has found that the average Welsh household will still be £315 a year worse off, households with the lowest income will be affected disproportionately since they'll benefit less from the fuel duty cut and the increase to the national insurance threshold, and people on benefits will see a real-terms reduction of 4.3 per cent due to the UK Government's refusal to uprate benefits. Since incomes in Wales are lower than the UK average, benefit take-up is higher and we pay more for electricity, people in Wales will be disproportionately affected by the cost-of-living crisis. First Minister, while the actions you've referred to are welcome, I fear they won't be enough. What justification has the Treasury provided to Welsh Ministers for failing to do more to help people on low incomes in Wales, and don't they realise that their failure to take action reinforces the belief amongst the Welsh public that Westminster will never work for Wales?  

What I think the response tells you, Llywydd, is that it's the Conservative party that will never work for Wales, because here is a Conservative Chancellor who went about the spring statement on the basis of trying to burnish his own credentials as a tax-cutting Chancellor in order to improve his chances in the leadership election that he expects to fight any time soon. So, the Chancellor's eyes were not focused on helping the 5.5 million people who are economically inactive in this country, or the 11 million pensioners who find themselves significantly worse off as a result of breaking his own promise to up pensions in line with the triple lock. Twenty seven million people out of 31 million people will still be paying more tax after the Chancellor's election gimmick of a 1p cut in income tax in 2024, and that just tells you where the Chancellor and the Conservative party's interests lie. 

Here's what the Institute for Fiscal Studies said. I'm sure the Member will have seen it for herself. The IFS commenting on the Chancellor's promise of a 1p cut in income tax in 2024 said that the combination of increase in national insurance rates and a reduction in income tax will make the system both less equitable and less efficient—more unfair and more wasteful at the same time. It's an astonishing thing to have brought about as a Chancellor, but that's what we are left with, and people across the United Kingdom are left with, as a result of the deliberate decisions that the Chancellor made. It's not a mistake; he knew what he was doing. He decided who he would sacrifice and who he would protect, and those were Conservative party priorities.  

And finally, question 8—Russell George.

Llywydd, on 15 March, the Deputy Minister for Climate Change announced our largest ever flood programme, totalling £71 million in the next financial year alone. That investment includes specific provision for schemes in mid Wales.

Thank you, First Minister, for your answer. Back in February—20 February, specifically—there were significant flooding events in my own constituency, particularly in Llandinam, Llandrinio and Pool Quay. When land is affected and flooded, this causes great distress; even greater distress when people's homes are flooded, as is what happened on that day.

My concern, First Minister, is that commitments were made to local county councillors, myself and residents two years ago, by Natural Resources Wales, and that work hasn't been undertaken. Of course, residents fear that they will now carry out refurbishment works to their properties—properties that I visited myself recently—only then to be flooded in another two years or at a future event. So, can I ask, First Minister, that in the funding that you've talked about today, which I very much welcome, priority is given to projects that have already been put in place and previously discussed, and that's where the priority lies for that particular funding?

Also, First Minister, when flooding occurrences took place in other parts of Wales two years ago, there was compensation for households at the rate of £1,000 per household. That same compensation is not available this time, when these flooding events took place significantly in mid Wales. So, can I ask you why that is the case, and can that policy position change? Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank Russell George for those questions. I needed to travel through the Member's constituency in just a few days after the flooding of 20 February and was able to see for myself the scale of it and the impact that it had had on communities in his constituency, so I absolutely understand why he raises these points on the floor of the Senedd this afternoon.

As I said, Dirprwy Lywydd, the Welsh Government has provided funding directly to both Powys County Council, to help with the development of schemes, and NRW to help with the practical implementation of those schemes, and there are, as the Member says, plans for construction works at Llandinam, for example, but in other parts of the Member's constituency as well. I'm very happy to take up with the Minister responsible the need to make sure that those works are carried out in as timely a fashion as possible.

The Member is right, of course, that when we had residential flooding on a significant scale, a couple of years ago, we responded to that scale by providing £1,000 to households who were affected. The scale of flooding—. I know if it's you, it's 100 per cent, but the numbers involved in the flooding event of 20 February were not of the same order. Those who are affected are able to apply for help from the discretionary assistance fund, and the Member will know that we have significantly increased the resources available to that fund in the current financial year, and again in the year that starts in April. Where people are able to qualify for that fund, then the impact of flooding is one of the things that they are able to go to the fund and seek help for.

I thank the First Minister.

Items 3 and 4 on today's agenda have been withdrawn.

So, we will move on to item 5, a statement by the Minister for Social Justice with a Homes for Ukraine scheme update. I call on the Minister for Social Justice, Jane Hutt.

Dirprwy Lywydd, thank you for the opportunity to update the Senedd today about the progress of the Homes for Ukraine scheme in Wales and the help we're putting in place to support people fleeing the war in Ukraine.

The UN's refugee agency now estimates that 3.8 million people have fled Ukraine. The vast majority have sought safety in Poland and in neighbouring countries. This crisis is unfolding on our doorstep. There has been a huge willingness among people here in Wales—and across the UK—to help those in Ukraine. We have seen this in the numbers of people who have attended vigils, who have donated clothes, goods and—even in this difficult time—money. We've also seen an overwhelming response from people in Wales as they have signed up in their thousands to the UK Government's Homes for Ukraine scheme to act as a potential sponsor for someone fleeing the war and to open their homes to them. Wales is showing our nation of sanctuary in action.

Dirprwy Lywydd, the Welsh Government has supported the UK Government's Homes for Ukraine scheme since its inception and we've signed up as supersponsors. This will make it easier for people from Ukraine who do not have any family ties in the UK, or an individual sponsor, to seek sanctuary in Wales. People fleeing Ukraine who want to come to Wales can choose to be sponsored for a visa by the Welsh Government. This option went live on Friday afternoon and we're making arrangements for the first people to arrive. We've said we will sponsor 1,000 people in the first phase. This is based on the experience of the successful Syrian and Afghan resettlement schemes. However, we're ready to take more if the need is there. Once a visa is granted, people will be contacted directly by Welsh Government's contact centre to confirm arrangements for their arrival.

They will make their way to the UK, and this is the same for people who are sponsored by individuals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Arrival hubs have been set up at ports of entry across Wales, including at Holyhead, Pembroke Dock and Fishguard, and at Cardiff Airport to help people arriving from Ukraine. There are also arrival hubs at Cardiff central train and coach station and Wrexham railway station. From these arrival hubs, people will be eligible for free onward travel to Wales and to one of the welcome centres, which are being set up around the country to provide immediate accommodation and support for new arrivals from Ukraine. In the welcome centres, everyone will receive help and support to help them settle into life in Wales.

Translation services will be available for people who don't speak English and there will be opportunities to start learning English and Welsh. Health services will be available; children will start school and there will be advice to help people find their way in a new country; help with money and welfare benefits and advice about finding work. Accommodation will be available on site at the welcome centres, but the Welsh Government will work to find all individuals and families longer term homes across Wales.

We've been working incredibly hard with partners over the last fortnight, since the UK Government announced the first details of this scheme, to put in place the support people arriving from Ukraine will need. We published guidance for local authorities last week. This is available on our website. I am very grateful for the close working relationships we have with local government and for their commitment and support. I also want to thank the third sector and other public services, including the NHS.

Yesterday, we launched a dedicated helpline for people arriving in Wales from Ukraine and for people who are acting as sponsors, to provide advice and guidance. For callers in the UK, the number is freephone 0808 175 1508. For callers outside the UK, the number is +44 20 4542 5671. I will make sure that all Members are aware of these numbers.

Acting Presiding Officer, there are many ways we can all help people in Ukraine. The Disasters Emergency Committee has set up a Ukraine humanitarian appeal, which is helping to provide food, water, shelter, healthcare and protection to people fleeing the conflict. The Welsh Government has donated £4 million to the DEC appeal and has also sent a shipment of medical supplies to Poland, from where they will be sent to Ukraine. Further medical supplies are ready to be shipped.

I have today confirmed that we will be donating £1 million to the new Nation of Sanctuary Croeso fund, which has been established and is being run by the Community Foundation Wales. This fund is open to the public and to organisations, and works with people seeking sanctuary in Wales. We are proud to donate to the fund and to the Community Foundation Wales initiative to support people from Ukraine arriving in Wales and to support other refugees and asylum seekers in Wales. We are asking businesses or organisations for help providing large-scale accommodation, transport to take people to their new homes, supplies—such as food, clothes and sanitary products—translators and interpreters. Businesses can register their support on our website, and I'll make sure Members have these details.

Acting Presiding Officer, the invasion of Ukraine by Putin was a dark day for world peace, but the overwhelming desire shown by people across Wales to help shows that there is hope even in the most desperate of times. Diolch.

I thank the Minister for keeping me updated privately—another call yesterday. When I asked you last week why the Welsh Government still didn't appear as a supersponsor option on the UK Homes for Ukraine website, unlike the Scottish Government, you stated that the Welsh Government would become a supersponsor last Friday and, therefore, I'm pleased to see that it is now an option on the website, as you indicate.

The update on Welsh Government's support for Ukraine, issued last Saturday, included many factors you've referred to in your statement today. But, that stated, people fleeing Ukraine who want to come to the UK can choose to be sponsored for a visa by the Welsh Government. Once the visa's granted, people will be contacted directly by the Welsh Government's contact centre to confirm arrangements for their arrival. They will need to make their own way to the UK, but, once here, they'll be eligible for free onward travel to Wales and to one of the welcome centres that have been set up around the country to provide immediate accommodation and support for new arrivals from Ukraine.

However, when I questioned you last week, I also referred to a refugee who had arrived in Flintshire under the Ukraine family scheme, who had been told that she couldn't access benefits or register with a GP until she had a full visa. So, under the separate supersponsor scheme, will the Welsh Government therefore contact people once the visa is granted, even if they haven't yet received a full visa? What support, if any, will they receive if they struggle to make their own way to the UK, and if not from Governments themselves, then what engagement is the Welsh Government having with NGOs or other bodies to this end?

You've confidentially identified the location of the initial Welsh Government welcome centre somewhere in north Wales, with further centres somewhere in other regions. Will this remain permanently confidential or when will this be made known publicly?

In the Welsh Government update last Saturday, which I referred to, you also identified a range of services that will be available in the welcome centres, as you again did today, including provision to learn English and Welsh, and access to health services and lessons for children. What assurance can you therefore provide that these have all been agreed with local agencies, particularly local authorities and health boards, and will be in place when people arrive? You state that the Welsh Government will work to find longer term homes for individuals and families accommodated in the welcome centres. Will you therefore provide us with an update on how you're engaging with the many support hubs, church and faith communities and individual households who are approaching us all with offers of longer term accommodation?

In your statement, you call for businesses or organisations to help by providing large-scale accommodation. At the St David's parliamentary breakfast 2022 on 1 March, which I think you spoke at, if I recall correctly, I was sat next to someone whose company was working with the Ministry of Defence to provide larger scale accommodation—quality, but temporary accommodation. So, what engagement, if any, are you having with the MOD regarding the provision of such large-scale accommodation, potentially in Wales?

And finally, what hours will the dedicated helpline be operating? And how are you ensuring that its staff have full and appropriate training, and that Ukrainian language speakers will be available? Diolch.

Thank you very much, Mark Isherwood, for a number of questions, some of which will be answered by accessing the guidance that is provided now on the website. But just to confirm that, as we went into our supersponsor status last Friday, it is under the UK Government's Homes for Ukraine scheme and, as I said in my statement initially, it involves a commitment to up to 1,000 people. The important point is it actually skips the need to identify an individual sponsor and, instead, you're sponsored by the Welsh Government. So, we really want to get that message out that this is a route into Wales for those refugees. And also, making sure that once they do select Welsh Government from the UK Government visa application scheme, then they will be issued, and we expect, of course, that to fall into place. We'll be working very closely, I will also say, in terms of—. We work very closely with the UK Government in terms of how that's happening and, indeed, we're looking forward to being able to ensure that we do have the information and figures in terms of those successful visa applications. But it is all moving into place.

Our welcome centres: I was very grateful to those Members who have got a welcome centre that's going to be opening in their constituency or region. It is very important that we look to the privacy and support of those welcome centres at this stage. We need to give the refugees who are coming from the trauma and the crisis and the humanitarian disaster that they've come from that kind of peace and calm in those communities where the welcome centres will be. I think it makes absolute sense. The communities will get to know them and they will be, I'm sure, supporting those at those welcome centres. But also, they have to be of excellent quality and specification; some works have been done to some of the centres that have been identified. But we are very much following the success of the evacuation from Afghanistan in the way that the Urdd is playing its part, and that is a standard that all welcome centres have to meet.

I've mentioned the access to services that will be provided. If you look at the local government guidance that went out on Friday, it fully covers all the points about access to services—education, health—and it also covers a whole range of issues like safeguarding, issues relating to mental health and well-being and the trauma that refugees have gone through. It covers absolutely everything, but actually, we're now also this week producing sponsor guidance. That will be guidance for all those who are sponsoring across Wales and hopefully will be able to receive those refugees, as they get their visas, to come and stay with them.

Just in terms of support hubs and linking to the third sector, churches and voluntary groups, it is important that we're working very closely with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, the Welsh Refugee Council, Cytûn and Voice of Ukraine. The Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, and myself met with many of those contacts throughout the whole of Wales last week. We're meeting again this week and we'll be meeting regularly, including the contact you gave us, Mark, from north Wales. They're also beginning to offer their support in terms of access to translation, interpretation, educational resources, and also mental health resources. It was very good to have the children's commissioner there, Sally Holland, who has links directly with the Ukrainian children's commissioner and children's commissioners across Europe, and we're bringing local government into that as well. The Minister for Finance and Local Government is meeting leaders, chief executives, the local and regional resilience groups, and they're working so hard to ensure that they are ready to help provide the kind of support that those fleeing to Wales will be able to access. I think this is the team Wales approach—everyone working together, local government, third sector, and obviously, very close working not just with the UK Government, but also with the Scottish Government, because they are also supersponsors. We're learning from each other, working on a four-nation basis.

There's a dedicated helpline that's been opened now, which I gave the numbers for—and I gave them so that they'd be on the record, but you can never give these numbers enough—for callers inside the UK and outside the UK. This is a strong team from local government in Wales. These are teams that have been running throughout the pandemic, particularly in relation to test, trace and protect and all the other roles and skills that they've developed. They are clearly fully engaged and trained and they also have access to Ukrainian and Russian speakers as well. They're ready, open and running. I will give more details about the hours that they're operating, but I think they opened up on Monday and are well in place. I think it's also very important just to recognise the ways in which they are working and supporting those many sponsors who are contacting us to say, 'When am I going to be able to welcome the family, the person, the people we've already agreed to sponsor?' They're answering all of the questions, which we then are feeding back to the UK Government, because we also need answers on all of those points.

Given the utterly inadequate and unsuitable approach of the UK Government to the Ukrainian refugee crisis, and the warning issued in a statement by the heads of the Refugee Council, the British Red Cross, Save the Children and Oxfam that the visa system was causing great distress to already traumatised Ukrainians, the Welsh Government's aim to make it as easy as possible for us to welcome people here is extremely welcome. It is apparent, however, that the Welsh Government must call for all visas to be waived for these desperate people, as for all refugees fleeing war, as is our obligation under the UN refugee convention of 1951.

As you stated, we know that the response of the Welsh people to the call to help those fleeing Ukraine has been really incredible, and their generosity is reflected in an opinion poll released on Sunday, which showed a majority of people in the UK support a no-visa policy and would like to allow an unlimited number of Ukrainians, who are fleeing the illegal and horrific Russian invasion of their nation, to come to the UK. So, although we are willing and waiting to help them, to welcome them and do all we can to help them find a home, those who want to come to the UK are having to face unnecessary and cruel delays in their quest for safety, anxiety caused by complex bureaucracy, protracted paperwork preventing protection. Minister, on behalf of the people of Wales, we must implore the Home Office to do more to help people find the support and sanctuary they need.

Minister, have you received any update from the UK Government about the number of visas granted for those who want to come to the UK without family connections here? Is it, as refugees are suggesting, that the numbers of people coming through the scheme are, so far, tiny, and does this have any impact on what we can do with the supersponsor scheme? What discussion has the Welsh Government had with the UK Government regarding the people who may be forced to seek support from their current host countries, and will this jeopardise their applications for refugee status when they arrive in Wales?

You've reiterated today that which you said in your written statement last week, that Transport for Wales have confirmed that Ukrainian refugees will be able to access free travel while they are settling in Wales by showing a Ukrainian passport to conductors and station staff for a period of six months, and that the scheme is an extension of an ongoing Welsh Government programme that provides free public transport for asylum seekers in Wales. The transport project that provides this free transport that was piloted by the Welsh Refugee Council, through Welsh Government, ends at the end of this month. Meanwhile, refugees from Ukraine have been granted free travel across Wales by showing their passport to the service providers. There are reports of asylum seekers turning up to Cardiff Central station only to be told that they're the wrong type of asylum seeker—that is to say not Ukrainian. Will the Minister confirm that free transport will be extended to all refugees and asylum seekers for the next six months?

Although the reason to keep the Welsh welcome centre locations is of course entirely understandable, it is important for the relative third sector organisations to know where the centres will be based, so they can provide relevant service provision and specialist support, as you outlined. Can the Minister therefore please outline how third sector organisations will be supported to play the full and vital role they need to play in the integration and resettlement process for those coming to Wales under the sponsorship scheme, beyond, of course, the welcome £1 million donation you have announced to the Nation of Sanctuary Croeso fund?

And finally, for those coming to Wales under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, sponsors are expected to accommodate refugees for at least six months. For those who will be coming directly to Welsh homes, what will happen if conflicts arise between the host and the guest? Will the local authority be providing emergency accommodation in hotels? What will happen if the host refuses to accommodate after six months? Will the family be accommodated in the same area? Will they be relocated to a different area? If so, how will this affect their integration into the community? What plan does the Welsh Government have in place for this? Diolch.

Diolch yn fawr, Sioned Williams. As I said in response to Mark Isherwood, I'm sure that across this Chamber we all have people who are contacting us who are very concerned that they're awaiting the outcome of visa applications. They want to welcome Ukrainian people into their homes. Of course, they are often in contact with those who are waiting in different parts of Europe, waiting to come, waiting to have that visa application. There have been concerns raised about the complexity of the application forms as well, and these have been raised, I know, in the Houses of Parliament. I'm aware that Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, has asked particularly that the UK Government urgently publish more information to show the progress of the visa schemes. We need to know what's happening. I think, as she said, the British people have shown huge generosity in wanting to support Ukrainians fleeing Putin's invasion, as we say to all those who have come forward here in Wales.

I did speak to the Minister for Refugees this morning, Lord Richard Harrington, and I again expressed my concern about the lack of progress on visas, because we want that all of the preparations, and, indeed, our supersponsor route as well—. The welcome centres are ready. Also, in the House of Lords yesterday—. I'll just quote Baroness Ilora Finlay. She said:

'Do the Government recognise that the visa process is causing great distress to already-traumatised Ukrainians who have experienced cumulative losses, pervasive existential terror and mass bereavements and are now increasingly at risk?'

So, these questions are being asked. It's important today that you are raising these questions, and I'm sure it's from across the Chamber. The refugee Minister, Lord Harrington, today promised that he is trying to simplify the system and says he was also working to secure this. This is a four-nations call, as well, with our colleagues from Scotland. It is important that we do move forward on this and get the clarity of what's happening with the visas and get the information about how many have been accepted at this stage.

It is also important that we have everything in place as people arrive. You have mentioned an important point about the free rail and bus travel for Ukrainian refugees. We already had—in fact, it was a pilot scheme operating, as you know—free travel for refugees when they're settling in Wales running for the first six months of their arrival. I certainly want to take back the point you raised from experience. Indeed, we're working very closely with the Welsh Refugee Council, who've been managing that scheme, on the experience of refugees in Wales in terms of access to that all-important support.

All the support that we are giving to Ukrainian refugees we are giving and have given to our Afghan refugees who came in August, but not just August, and have continued to come over the past few weeks and months, and to our Syrian refugees as well. I was just checking today about the numbers. We've got 3,000 asylum seekers in Wales at any given time, and roughly 600 are granted their refugee status through the system each year. Many of them, of course, at the moment are from Afghanistan. We're supporting them in temporary accommodation, but also, local authorities then have their responsibilities in terms of rehousing. So, that is an important point in terms of the support that we're giving.

But also, in terms of the third sector, I have issued a statement today about this new Nation of Sanctuary Croeso fund. Yes, we've just given a donation to it, it will build the fund. It will get support, I know; there will be many people in Wales who have given so generously to the Disasters Emergency Committee, but I know that they will also give, and we hope that the big charities and businesses will give to that fund as well so that they can work with those who are supporting people who arrive from Ukraine. It goes back to the point about how we're working with those groups and links with Voice of Ukraine, churches and groups as well.

It is important that we now move forward to ensure that every aspect of support is provided to those who come. If you look at the local authority guidance, there is information there about checks in terms of sponsors and those who are seeking to be supported, who are coming to Wales, but safeguarding issues as well, close working relationships. There are not just welcome packs available, but guidance to sponsors as well, because we recognise there may be issues that will mean that perhaps it's only temporary accommodation that can be provided, even by a host. But then we will move into local authority responsibilities to actually support more medium and longer-term accommodation for the Ukrainian refugees. 

I now call on the other speakers. If you could take one minute because many people want to speak and we're in danger of running out of time, and it's such an important issue. Huw Irranca-Davies.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer, and I do only have one short question. But I just want to reflect—. Jane Dodds will know the Ystradgynlais miners' welfare hall very well. We have a proud tradition in this country of supporting asylum seekers, refugees, over many generations—visiting Syrian families there, celebrating their culture, but celebrating the gift that they brought to us, the privilege that we had in receiving them and their families into local schools and communities. And once again, here we are doing it. I very much welcome the measures, the practical measures, within this, and it's that that I want to ask, about one particular one. So many of my constituents have offered their homes, rooms in their homes, sharing with their families, to people fleeing Putin's war in Ukraine. On that basis, where will they have the contact from if they do not know somebody, if they do not have somebody who is currently going through the visa process? Will this come from the welcome centres? Will it come from the local authorities? Who do they wait for, to actually say, 'Yes, we can now actually now make use of you and receive somebody into your home'? 

Well, thank you for that important question, and it's a question that's been asked by our colleagues across the Chamber today. It is the UK Government's Homes for Ukraine scheme. We await—. We don't have the information until they tell us who's actually coming through that route. Obviously, they can sign up to the supersponsor route, and then we get the information of who's coming through that route as well. But I've given the national helpline that opened on Monday, yesterday. The national helpline will be there to enable, to give some advice and guidance to those who want to sponsor. Many of your constituents have already signed on, I'm sure, and have even made links with families and refugees fleeing Ukraine or who are already waiting in Europe to get that go-ahead. We must have that go-ahead from the UK Government. We must speed up the visa process. This is absolutely vital, because the warm welcome in Wales—you've mentioned the Ystradgynlais miners' welfare hall—all over Wales, we've got that readiness, we're waiting, and we need that support. So, a strong message today to the UK Government: we must speed up the process in terms of approving these visas. 

Good afternoon, Minister. May I also thank you, as has Mark, for the work that you and your team have done, and for staying in touch with me? My specific issue is around Ukrainians who are poor—those who perhaps don't have access to a car, don't have access to fuel, don't have access to resources, don't have a way of actually even getting across the border, or even getting to a place where they can apply for a visa and can come to Wales. In previous evacuation schemes, the UK Government has actually ensured that there's a plane or transport, or has made sure that financial arrangements are in place for everyone—doesn't matter what their background is—to come to a country of their choice. 

I agree and support my colleague Sioned Williams's view: 'no' to visas, 'yes' to immediate protection and sanctuary. That's what we want. That's what we want the UK Government to do. Right now, this is an emergency, this is urgent. Let's get those planes there, let's get the people over here, let's get them safe, and let's give them what I know the people of Wales want to give them. Diolch yn fawr iawn. 

Diolch yn fawr, Jane Dodds. These are very important contributions, and we will be relaying—. In fact, I said to the Minister for Refugees that I would be sending him my statement and I will be following up on our points and concerns and questions raised. Just to say, we're reaching out particularly to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, because we really do want to use this route as a supersponsor to break down as many barriers as possible. I think, Sioned, you made that point. We can best support people fleeing Ukraine, particularly the most vulnerable, who may not have access to the funds, or people sponsoring them from here, which is happening to quite a lot of refugees we know—. We want to reach those who may not have the means to reach our shores. And, of course, I will be raising that again in terms of costs of transport, not just here, but to get here as well. This is a question for the UK Government, clearly. So, we are a nation of sanctuary, we are a supersponsor, and we are eager to support individuals and, in particular, the most vulnerable to reach safety in Wales.

I'm conscious of time, Minister, so I will shorten what I was going to say. Minister, thank you for all that you're doing, and I really welcome the statement today. I was contacted by a constituent who's been contacted in turn, through the Ukrainian refugees scheme, by a Ukrainian medical student who's desperate to continue her studies in the UK. Obviously, Ukraine would like their students to stay and be educated there, but this isn't the case for some. The trouble is, in this country, for medical students in particular, there is no accreditation of prior learning in UK undergraduate medical education, meaning any students coming to the UK would need to start their studies again in year 1 of the course. Obviously, that's a big problem, and we obviously all want to see these young people continue with their studies. Minister, I just wondered if you could share any discussions that you've had with your ministerial colleagues, from across the UK, about how refugees can access education, and, in particular, higher and further education. And what consideration have you given to providing specific support for those studying for particular degrees, such as medicine and health qualifications?

Thank you very much, Peter Fox. All Ministers are engaging with their particular sectors. So, I know the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language, and, indeed, working with myself and his officials, is working with all the universities in Wales, one way or another, and making links. Some of them already had links with universities in Ukraine. But there is a particular link to medical students that I'm aware of. So, I'm sure that, if you also would want to pass information over to me, then we can look particularly at ways in which they are already beginning to overcome perhaps some of those barriers. Because Ukrainian medical students coming to Wales—that's another welcome that we want to reach out for.

Another appeal to speed up the visa process. There is a community on Anglesey that is ready to welcome a mother and daughter; the school uniform is ready to go. It is now nine days since the family on Anglesey began going through the visa application process—doing it themselves, rather than leaving it to the mother and daughter, because it's in English only and they don't have good English, because they're trying to do it on a phone, where they have a computer here, where they have good internet in Wales, where they're unable to do that in Ukraine. The family on Anglesey is appalled at the process that they have experienced and, nine days on, they don't even know if their application has been received—there is no acknowledgement. Can the Welsh Government please press on the UK Government to make sure that there is an acknowledgement system, and that there is perhaps a means to log in to check on the process? We need to be able to welcome these families as quickly as possible.

Thank you very much. And I welcome your question, your comments, your contribution, Rhun ap Iorwerth. From that family in Anglesey, from that community, which I know has welcomed so many in Anglesey, it's important that I pass this back, this strong support for the UK Government to speed up the visa process. Let's look at it: over 10,000 people in Wales expressed an interest to become a sponsor under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. And so many of them now are doing this on behalf of people, and raising funds, and actually going out and meeting people and driving them back—there are so many examples of incredible support. And Welsh people want it to work, and they want those visas sorted, and we want to make sure that we can support those who are waiting—many of whom are very vulnerable. And I thank your constituents for taking that particularly important role. Thank you.

And finally, Gareth Davies.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Deputy Llywydd, and thank you for your statement this afternoon, Minister. I was contacted by a constituent this morning who was enquiring about sponsorship, as he wants to sponsor a mother and her son from Ukraine. And the issue he's had is that he hasn't had any access to any information regarding that, from either Welsh Government or Denbighshire County Council. So, my question really is about improving the communications between local authorities, and with the Welsh Government as well, so that we're all singing from the same hymn sheet. I'm sure my constituent's not the only one out there who would like to pursue something along those lines, so we've got to be in a situation where we're actually maximising the potential of this so we can help as many Ukrainians as possible.

Thank you very much, Gareth Davies. It is a UK Government Homes for Ukraine scheme. We are going to be a supersponsor within that scheme. You can access that at homesforukraine.campaign.gov.uk. You will see we have a Sanctuary Welsh Government website. I've given you the numbers. It's really important that we push this information out as much as possible. Share the oral statement with everyone, because it actually has the key information that they need. But the most important thing is to recognise that it is a UK Government scheme, and I'm sure your Members of Parliament as well will assist in this. They have got to now ensure, through what we can do, the Welsh Government, with our website, with our contact number—they can call that contact number I've given you today as well—to get the information through. Because, yes, we all want this to work, to support those fleeing the horrors of Putin's absolute disaster invasion. It's just so dreadful. We want to help those Ukrainian refugees. Diolch.

I thank the Minister.

Item 6 today is the statement by the Minister for Finance and Local Government on non-domestic rates reform. I call on the Minister for Finance and Local Government, Rebecca Evans.

Diolch. In February 2021 I published 'Reforming Local Government Finance in Wales: Summary of Findings'. Alongside reforms to council tax, this comprehensive report explored how the non‑domestic rates system could be improved, considered changes to the current tax and looked at the potential for a more fundamental shift towards a land value tax.

Non-domestic rates have been an important part of the local government finance system for more than 30 years. Ensuring vital revenue is collected to fund local services that we all use and securing a fair and sustainable contribution from businesses has always been a challenging balance to achieve. This is a constantly evolving situation and the Welsh Government recognises the need to review and adapt local taxation policy to meet existing and emerging challenges.

On 7 December I announced our plans for significant council tax reform. Today I'm announcing a programme of non-domestic rates reform that will be delivered over the next four years. Our programme for government sets out the Welsh Government's ambition for a fairer, greener and stronger Wales. These principles form the basis of any potential changes to the non‑domestic rates system.

A crucial aspect of local taxation in Wales is the role played by local government. Their experience and dedication is integral to the effective collection and administration of local taxes. The incredible commitment of local authorities before and throughout the COVID pandemic has been central to delivering rates relief, business grants and council tax support. We will continue to work in close partnership with local government to reform the rates system, drawing on their extensive expertise and local knowledge.

We will also continue to explore opportunities for reform with the Valuation Office Agency and the Valuation Tribunal for Wales. Devolution requires these valuation bodies to operate in new and innovative ways, delivering functions designed for Wales's needs. The Valuation Office Agency operates across Wales and England, and it is vitally important that valuation functions evolve in line with the local tax policy aims of the Welsh Government. Work is under way with both the VOA and the VTW to explore and deliver new ways of working for Wales.

One significant area for change is the revaluation cycle. We have listened to calls from stakeholders for more frequent revaluations, ensuring the tax base reflects the economic conditions and environment in which businesses are operating. We continue to explore how frequently revaluations should and could practically be delivered for Wales, taking advantage of opportunities presented by Wales's unique tax base.

Non-domestic properties across Wales are currently being reassessed for the revaluation that takes effect from 1 April 2023, and will reflect the impact of the pandemic on our tax base. We aim to bring forward legislation to move towards a three-yearly revaluation cycle, in line with other parts of the UK, and are exploring options for shorter revaluation cycles. This includes exploring the potential for reducing the gap between the valuation date and a new rating list coming into effect.

A key requirement for more frequent revaluations will be the need to review and potentially further reform the appeals process in Wales. We'll be taking initial steps to improve the current appeals process for April 2023, with further reform to support more frequent revaluation cycles in the future.

We have made great strides in data sharing and analytical capability in recent years. This has provided detailed insights into how the rates system operates, and has been critical in making informed policy decisions in a rapidly changing economic landscape. We are further developing our data infrastructure as part of our reform agenda. This will help us and our partners to deliver wide-ranging improvements in targeting support and providing digital services for ratepayers. 

We will undertake a review of our rates relief schemes. Rates relief has played a crucial role in supporting businesses throughout the pandemic and the overall level of relief provided to ratepayers has grown significantly in recent years. But now is the time to step back and review all of our current schemes to ensure they're fit for purpose and delivering support in the most effective way. Our review will consider the range of reliefs, the level of support, how reliefs are targeted and how long they last.

During the fifth Senedd term, we made advances in addressing fraud and avoidance within the local taxation system. We revised empty property relief to reduce the scope for repeated cycles of rate relief. We also changed the rules on zero-rating for empty properties to allow local authorities to grant zero-rating only in cases where a charity genuinely needs to own or lease an empty building.

The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 provides councils with strengthened powers of investigation, including the ability to undertake property inspections and to request information from ratepayers and others. The Act also paves the way for a new duty on ratepayers to notify councils of changes in circumstances, something required of taxpayers under other tax regimes. I intend to bring forward regulations for April 2023. Our ambition to tackle fraud and avoidance remains strong and we will pursue further changes this Senedd term.

While our current programme focuses on changes in the short and medium terms, some options for reform remain priorities for the longer term. We continue to explore the potential for a land value tax as a replacement for non-domestic rates, building on Bangor University's detailed technical assessment last term. Over the next four years, we will move forward with the findings from this report, drawing on a wide range of expertise to develop a clear understanding of what such a significant change would look like for Wales and how it could work in practice. This analysis will include a potential road map for implementation.

We are clear that reform should deliver local taxes that are demonstrably better for Wales, not just different from the current system. We have made significant progress in recent years and further developments will require close working with all our partners and extensive engagement with ratepayers.

This significant package of rates reform will also require a combination of primary and secondary legislative change. I will work closely with the Senedd and stakeholders throughout the exploration and delivery of this ambitious package of rates reform and will, of course, keep Members informed of developments.

Thank you, Minister, for bringing forward today's statement on the non-domestic rates reform. As we know, business rates continue to be a huge concern for many businesses up and down Wales, with the Federation of Small Businesses conducting a survey ahead of the 2021 Senedd elections finding that business rates were the main issue facing businesses, with 99 per cent of those responding believing that action to alleviate these would have a positive impact on their business and the economy.

For too long, our local businesses and high streets have been left to slowly decline under the pressure of the highest business rates in Britain. On this side of the benches, we would much prefer to see business rates abolished for small businesses and reform this outdated tax on growth.

Now more than ever is the time for Welsh Government to make a difference and support our businesses. So, when seeing this item on the agenda today, I was looking forward to seeing the Minister bring forward some true reform, and it's clearly needed in this area, but I am disappointed, Minister, I must say, at the lack of detail within today's statement. I appreciate that it may be more of an overview today, but I would like just to speak briefly on how we can see more detail behind the comments that are in here today. And I have challenged in the past the use of the word 'reform' when referring to council tax. And again the word here is used, reform, but we're not seeing a huge amount of reform taking place—it's more perhaps tweaking around the edges.

And through your statement, Minister, phrases that are used in here, such as 'we will continue to work', 'we will continue to explore', 'we've listened to calls', 'we aim to bring forward', 'we will be taking initial steps', 'we are further developing', 'we will undertake a review'—none of those seem to be committing to a direction or an area of this reform that is needed. And I'm sure many of those affected by non-domestic rates reform, and the 99 per cent of those businesses who see business rates as the biggest issue facing them, they would like to know what it is you are actually doing and what you will do, and how people and businesses will benefit from this reform. I just don't get an idea today, from what you've shared, as to what you see the key issues are and what you see the solutions are to resolving them as a Government.

In your statement, Minister, you also suggest that this piece of work could take four years. I'd really be interested to understand why you think it's going to take so long for this reform to take place.

On the positive side, though, I was really glad to see your comments on the role that's played by local government, stating their experience and dedication being integral to the effective collection and administration of local taxes, including the role that they carried out during the pandemic, and, as true champions of local government, we do welcome further powers being given to councils and look forward to further regulations being brought forward in April 2023. I'd be interested to know if you foresee any further powers being given to local government when it comes to non-domestic rates reform as well.

Finally, Minister, I was intrigued to see that you'll continue to explore the potential for land value tax as a replacement for non-domestic rates. However, it's a shame we haven't been given any further information on this today. And Minister, as you'll be aware, business rates in Wales are still higher than elsewhere in the UK. Of course, I'm sure you'll relate the Welsh Government's small business rate relief scheme, which has helped many small businesses, but it doesn't change the fact that non-domestic rates in Wales are still higher, with the multiplier in Wales being 53.5p, and in England the standard multiplier being 51.2p. So, in light of this, Minister, I would like to know if you could outline how your proposed reforms will ensure that those businesses in Wales aren't put at a disadvantage to businesses elsewhere. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you.

I thank Sam Rowlands for those comments, and just to reiterate what I said in my statement, that this statement today is very much the sister statement of the statement I made on the reform of council tax back in December. And of course, this is a significant undertaking and there are many elements to it, which is why it is a longer term piece of work than just simply introducing regulations to make very short-term changes.

In regard to the comments made about the level of tax paid here in Wales, I'm open to having all kinds of discussions, but I do think that if there is a call to just do away with business rates completely then I think that it does come with an encumbrance to provide detail as to how you would raise £1.1 billion to fund local government and police services. I don't think that it is a reasonable thing to ask for them to be scrapped without being able to come forward with ideas as to how other funding could be raised. And it's important to recognise as well that every single penny of non-domestic rates is reinvested in local authorities. It just goes back to local authorities to help fund those local services.

And we do recognise the pressure that it does put on businesses, which is why we've provided over £620 million of rate relief to ratepayers in Wales this year, of course fully funded by Welsh Government, which is different to the situation across the border in England. And also we need to remember that three quarters of ratepayers across Wales are receiving rate relief this year. That's more than 70,000 businesses paying no rates at all. And I think also we need to recognise that the tax base here in Wales is different to that in England. The average rateable value in Wales is around £19,000—in England, it's around £32,000—and so it is right that our rates system and the reliefs attached to them do reflect the unique circumstances that we do have here in Wales.

There were some questions in relation to the land value tax work, and a request for further information. Well, I did publish a very, very detailed report provided by Bangor University in March of 2020. I appreciate the Member wasn't in the Senedd at that point, but I'm happy to recirculate it to colleagues. The objective really of us exploring a land value tax as a replacement for either one or both of the local taxes is primarily to raise stable revenue for local services in the fairest way possible whilst obviously looking for other advantageous outcomes where possible. Bangor University did conclude that a local LVT could raise sufficient revenues to replace the current local taxes, and the distribution of liability could be more progressive, and significantly so, than the existing local tax regime. But it also highlights areas of future work that we would need to do to assess more fully whether it would be evidently better than our existing arrangements, and that's the kind of work that we need to be taking forward as we move forward with this important agenda.

The question was raised in regard to the multiplier, but of course in 2021-22 we opted to freeze the multiplier, and that's to prevent increases in bills for ratepayers and to provide continued support to businesses during what we still recognise to be very challenging times. I can confirm that for 2022-23 we're maintaining this approach, recognising the prolonged impact of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses and on other organisations.

I'm grateful to the FSB for the work that they've been doing in this area. We find our discussions with them extremely productive. They are excellent stakeholders in terms of representing the views of small businesses and they do recognise, I think, themselves that there's a challenging balance to be struck in terms of raising revenue fairly and funding local services. They do recognise as well that it will take some significant work to move away from any system that's evolved and become embedded over 30 years. This is a major undertaking, and that's why I've outlined in the statement today some of the important elements of that work—revaluation and our approach to that will be vital. The appeals system will be vital. But I've also reflected on some of the significant progress that we've already made, particularly, I think, in the areas of tax avoidance and fraud, where we can say that we've absolutely made important steps in recent times.

So, this is an ongoing piece of work. It is a huge piece of work, but I'm really keen to attack it in a very collaborative way, and I look forward to future discussions with all colleagues.

Thank you, Minister, for the statement. I don't want to be drawn into some debate as to which side of the border pays more or pays less; the question I want answered in this Chamber is: what side of the border has the fairest system and the system that is operated most effectively? Then the cost is unimportant, as long as people feel they're being fairly treated within the regime that exists.

We've heard that business rates are a key issue for businesses. It's one of the biggest costs that they face, and it's a key factor in the viability of these businesses. So, having a system that's as fair as possible is crucial. As the Minister said, we want to create a situation where it's fairer, greener and Wales is stronger as a result of the system that we put in place. So, there is an important role in regenerating the high street in terms of this debate, as well as, of course, tackling climate change and reducing carbon emissions. The one frustration I have, of course, is, as has already been expressed, that we've been discussing this issue for many years. I remember Mark Drakeford, when he was finance Minister, discussing the need to reform, and I very much hope, and I do take this statement at face value, that this is a statement of intent to move properly towards reform and to introduce the changes that many of us want to see.

The one note of disappointment in all of this is that, whilst there is clarity now that there will be reforms to non-domestic rates completed within four years—that's what I understand from the statement—there is talk of continuing to look at land value tax. Now, ideally I would have liked to see a more radical change happening over the next four years, and the introduction, or certainly going further towards the introduction, of a land value tax. So, I want to hear from the Minister what the timetable is in that regard. You talk of looking into that tax, doing more research and so on and so forth, but will there be a proposal on the table by the end of the four years, although it may not have been introduced, in terms of the broader reforms that many of us want to see?

The role of local government, as you recognised in your statement, is crucial; the capacity is the issue, of course. Are you confident that they have the capacity to play a full role in the co-production of these new proposals, but also when it comes to implementing or administrating any new requirements? We complain that many bodies funded by the Welsh Government are given lots of new duties and responsibilities but aren't always funded to deliver those in full. So, I would like an assurance that, if there are any additional requirements on local authorities, that the resource will be available.

The tribunal and the Valuation Office Agency, you mention them operating in a way that is more appropriate to Wales—that's great—and I would say that the Welsh Revenue Authority is a perfect example of the kind of culture we want to encourage. Unlike HMRC, which deals with problems once the problem arises, the whole culture and focus of the Welsh Revenue Authority ensures that the problems don't arise in the first instance. 

Now, I agree that we need more frequent revaluation, a more dynamic system that's better able to respond to and reflect changes in circumstances. You mentioned reforming the appeal process by 2023, and that's crucial of course, because one would anticipate that there would be a great deal of work that needed to be done by the time that revaluation has happened. But can you also give us an assurance that there will be sufficient capacity to deal with these appeals in a timely and transparent manner?

I'm grateful for the questions and the comments there, and I'll start off with land value tax, because that, I know, is an area of joint interest between our parties. I just want to confirm that the work will be going on in parallel with the changes that we will be introducing over the period ahead. I'm really pleased that, within the scope of the research, Bangor University was able to construct a preliminary statistical model to estimate a set of land values, and such detail hadn't even been attempted before in the literature for Wales, and it has enabled Bangor now to determine potential tax rates at which LVT would need to be levied to raise revenues broadly equal to the current systems of local taxation. However, a key lesson that was learned from the modelling work was that it is just significantly more challenging to estimate land values for non-domestic uses than it is for domestic.

An important finding for future consideration is the investment necessary to meet the detailed information requirements on which such a tax could be based. So, we'd have to have a comprehensive cadastre of land—that is a huge undertaking in and of itself—and obviously robust mechanisms for valuation. But, overall, the report obviously makes a really important contribution to our understanding of possible future reforms, but it does recognise that much more work will be needed regarding the practical and policy implications of the idea, for example, whether various options could be designed in a way to support wider policy objectives, such as decarbonisation and tackling poverty, and crucially how the link between local tax payers and local services can be maintained. So, I think that the previous work that we have done on this does set the direction in which we need to travel for further research, further discussion and analysis in the period ahead. But, as I say, it will be done in parallel with the work that I've described today, and I also said in the statement that the aim would be to provide a potential road map to get us to that point as part of that important work.

The revaluation was raised. The next revaluation in Wales, and England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, will take place in 2023, but it will be based on rateable values at 1 April 2021. So, this work is currently going on at the moment, and one of the things we could explore in future would be to reduce that legislative gap between the point at which the rateable values are set and the point at which they come into practice. So, that could be something that we will look at. Rateable value changes as a result of the April 2023 revaluation, which is ongoing at the moment, are obviously not known, but we do expect to publish a new draft rating list by the end of this year to give people some kind of certainty for the way ahead in that regard.

And, yes, I obviously want to share those comments about the vital role that local government will play in this piece of work, and just to provide assurances that I absolutely see them as partners in co-producing this important work, and, obviously, those discussions will be very much including the question as to what resourcing local authorities believe that they need, and whether they need to change the kind of model that they have at the moment. So, lots of engagement with local authorities on this, and they have incredible expertise that we're very keen to utilise in this area.

Then, the importance of a really robust appeals system is something that has also been raised. This is something that I hope to make some good progress on and to launch a consultation on during the course of this year. So, this will be something that colleagues can get their teeth into as an early item of this reform. We would look at, for example, the tiers of the appeal system; whether or not there should be appeals fees and whether those should be changed; where they should be set, and so on; whether there should be penalties for providing false information, and if so, where we would set those penalties; looking at timescales and understanding what the implications are when timescales are different across the border in England; and clarifying information that would need to be provided to the Valuation Tribunal for Wales, for example. So, there are lots of things that are quite detailed, and sometimes technical things that we'll need to be consulting on in the course of this year, but I think that we can make some early progress on the appeals side, as we will do on the revaluation side as well.

And, yes, I share the recognition that the Welsh Revenue Authority has a really excellent way of working, in the sense that it seeks to enable taxpayers to pay the right amount of tax the first time, rather than concentrating on trying to pursue taxpayers after the event. And I think that that kind of ethos is excellent. Just to go full circle, really, to where Llyr Gruffydd started in terms of the importance of the fairness in tax, that's our No. 1 tax principle that tax should be collected fairly in Wales, and that will be very much front and centre of the reforms as we take this forward. 

I very much welcome the statement, and I'm really pleased to see acceptance of national non-domestic rates as an important part of local government income. Of course, pre NNDR, rates were paid by businesses to the local council. Why does the Minister not want to return business rates to local authorities?

I am pleased that the Welsh Government supports more regular revaluations. This should stop the big rises and falls in rateable values that we have seen previously. Business rates have one great advantage over other business taxes in that they are difficult to avoid. You can't hide the building, you can't take the building abroad, and you can't do all the clever things that they do to avoid corporation tax.

While I welcome consideration of a land value tax, does the Minister accept that such a tax could lead to some areas of high land value with no shops? I'm thinking of areas within your own constituency that have very high values down on the Gower peninsula, and the land value is so high that it may well have been that shops could not afford it. 

And finally, does the Minister accept that the top priority has got to be that whatever is done brings exactly the same amount of money as we have now, because local government needs it?

Thank you very much for raising these issues, and that is the big challenge, isn't it, in terms of balancing the needs of business alongside the needs of local government, who provide the services upon which we all rely. So, that is the challenge that I set to those who would like us to just do away with rate relief completely, just to demonstrate how it would be paid for. And I think that it is a good challenge.

I welcome what Mike Hedges had to say about revaluations and moving to them more frequently. So, that's one of the things that we'll be exploring, both how frequently we have those revaluations, but then also the time between the revaluation and it coming into force and into practice. 

And the questions relating to land value tax, again, will be part of our piece of work as we move forward in terms of understanding the implications for different communities of the potential changes that might take place, were we to move to a land value tax. But I think that the research done by Bangor University does tease out some of these challenges that we'll be taking more work forward on in the near future.

And I think the point about local authorities retaining non-domestic rates is really important. It is important to recognise that all of the revenue from non-domestic rates in Wales is distributed to local authorities to fund those local services, and, obviously, COVID-19 has had a substantial impact on the rates tax base and on collection rates. We do need to understand those effects before we could consider how we move even further in relation to changes to how we deal with non-domestic rates, because obviously we don't want local authorities to become less financially resilient as a result of any of the changes that we might look to introduce. We have, though, set out plans for looking at the way the local government finance system operates as a whole, and it is all about the sustainable funding for local services.

It's worth learning some lessons from what's happening across the border in respect of the localisation of non-domestic rates. In England, that forms part of the wider changes that they're undertaking to local government funding there, and they have included substantial reductions, though, in the RSG as a result. So, over the border, local authorities retain 50 per cent of rates, with plans to increase that to 75 per cent from 1 April 2022, but the arrangements there are complex, and the benefits in terms of mobilising local economic growth, we believe, are questionable.

We have invited local authorities in Wales, working together as regions, to come forward with proposals for how a share-gain approach to non-domestic rates might work, where they can demonstrate that their actions have delivered growth. So, we've already agreed to a specific proposal for partial rates retention with the Swansea bay city region, in support of its city deal.

I do understand the calls from some in local government for rates retention, and it might benefit authorities who can build their local economies at a faster pace than all of their neighbours. Those same authorities, of course, often call for stability in funding, and there is some evidence that rates retention is having an adverse impact on funding in less vibrant areas, increasing inequality between the regions in England. So, I think that this is an area where local authorities are better together in recognition of the risks that exist, and continuing our strong public service traditions of co-operation and equalisation of the benefit for all of Wales.

And just to finish on this point—I can feel the Deputy Presiding Officer's eyes on me—currently only four of the 22 authorities in Wales would consistently benefit from retention if we operated a system similar to that in England, and even for these four, rates retention would depend on them being able to increase growth consistently, year on year. So, we are looking to learn from what's happening elsewhere, but we don't think that that model is the right one for us in Wales. Diolch.

I thank the Minister.

Item 7 today is a statement by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, and I call on the Deputy Minister Lee Waters to make his statement.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity to update Members on the measures we are taking to improve the safety of coal tips.

We have made significant progress in the last two years since the First Minister established a coal tip safety taskforce, and last week marked a significant step forward in putting measures on a long-term footing, with the publication of the Law Commission's report, 'Regulating Coal Tip Safety in Wales'. This is a landmark report. In 2020, Lesley Griffiths, the then Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs, invited the Law Commission to undertake an independent assessment of coal tip legislation and to provide recommendations for a future legislative framework. The Law Commission consulted on its findings and proposals last summer, and last week it published its final report, which has been laid in the Senedd. It's a significant milestone and I'm grateful to the Law Commission for prioritising this project and for completing it quickly. It is an excellent report, which Members would find well worth reading.

It clearly sets out that the law as it stands is not fit for purpose. The Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969 was designed for a different era. It was aimed at managing the waste of operational mines, not dealing with the legacy of those mines, and it certainly was not designed to deal with the challenges of climate change. Crucially, the Act does not contain any mandatory duties on owners to ensure the safety of disused tips on their land. It provides only limited powers for intervention and includes no powers at all for oversight, monitoring and enforcement.

Among the 36 recommendations made by the Law Commission is the establishment of a new supervisory authority to oversee a new management regime for coal tip safety, and the vast majority of respondents to the consultation supported a new management regime overseen by a supervisory authority.

The Law Commission's analysis and its recommendations provide valuable evidence, which, combined with our analysis, are informing our proposals for a new statutory framework for disused tip management. We are committed to introducing legislation in this Senedd term, and in early May we will publish a White Paper setting out our plans. We'll then consult on our proposals to provide a consistent approach to tip management, monitoring and oversight.

Our priority, Dirprwy Lywydd, is to ensure that people living and working near coal tips feel safe and secure now and in the future by reducing the risks of further landslides. I am able to inform the Senedd that we have made significant progress in the last two years. Our first task was to establish the scale of the problem. The job of identifying and assessing the status of all disused coal tips has proven to be an enormously complex one. We now know there are over 2,500 disused coal tips across Wales, with 327 in the higher rated category.

The motion before the Senedd tomorrow refers to high-risk tips, but I want to be clear to Members that being placed in a higher rated category is not the same as being high risk, and the language we use is important. We have been focusing on the tips that need the greatest level of monitoring and have been working with our partners to carry out regular inspections. We’re working with partners such as the UK space industry to trial technology to improve the way tips are monitored in the future. There is much we can do to measure ground movement and water regimes and some of the technologies being tested are world firsts. We're also working closely with the research sector to have the best evidence possible on climate impacts. This is vital to understand the long-term stability of tips and to inform innovative approaches to tip reclamation. The Tylorstown tip, which caused the greatest concern, is currently estimated to cost approximately £20 million to complete all phases of remediation. Almost all of this investment will come from the Welsh Government.

I want to be clear with Members that it is the Welsh Government, not the UK Government, that is continuing to fund the Coal Authority to carry out inspections. We have so far spent £1.6 million on this task. The Coal Authority estimates it will take £30 million to bring them all up to standard, and a further £5 million a year to maintain them. Full reclamation is currently put at between £500 million and £600 million. The Welsh Government has committed £44.4 million over the next three years so that this vital work continues. But this is a legacy of Britain’s industrial past. It was Britain that reaped the benefits of our natural resources, and these tips were all in place before power was devolved to Wales in 1999. And yet the UK Government is willing only to contribute £9 million to the cost of cleaning them up. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, David T.C. Davies, told the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee that

'if the Welsh Labour Government think that those coal tips are unsafe, they must act now to put them right. They have the money to do it.'

It's not us who say it's unsafe, it's the Coal Authority, which is non-devolved, and we do not have the funding to do it. We describe the United Kingdom as a sharing union. I hope the UK Government will think again about sharing its role in clearing up their legacy of our collective industrial past.

The Welsh Government and local authorities are working diligently together to provide a consistent approach to the current inspection regime. A third round of winter inspections on the higher rated tips concluded in February, and the inspections programme is a significant one. The outcomes to date have meant that maintenance works needed to help ensure the stability of sites have been identified. As a high percentage of these tips are within private ownership, there are a number of issues to resolve in relation to the handling of information, including ensuring that robust quality assurance has been completed and data protection issues have been fully addressed. This has proven to be time consuming.

While our understanding of the overall picture has vastly improved in the last two years, more tips are still being identified. This work is very much a live project, and we can expect further adjustments to the overall number of tips as the work progresses. We remain committed to publishing the locations of the higher rated tips as soon as possible and as soon as it is responsible to do so, but we must be confident in our assessments before we do so. For higher rated tips, information has already been shared with local authorities and local resilience forums to assist in the development of emergency preparedness plans where required. But public access to the data on the locations of higher rated tips is a sensitive matter, and it's vital that the information, when published, is accurate and as complete as possible. Once this work is complete, we will inform Members of a date for publication.

Dirprwy Lywydd, our priority is to ensure that people living and working near coal tips feel safe and secure now and in the future. Our proposals for a new regime aim to achieve just that by reducing the risk of further landslides. Diolch.

Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to thank the Deputy Minister for bringing forward this statement today. It's fair to say that we recognise that, in terms of the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969, times were so different then, with operational mines. With climate change now, it's clear that we've all got to work together as regards any tips that are deemed unsafe. I for one am very pleased to see that you are bringing forward legislation; we look forward to that. How we can work with you in a positive manner is important. I also welcome the clarity that was offered in the report by the Law Commission, 'Regulating Coal Tip Safety in Wales', on 23 March this year, that coal tip safety does fall under devolved competence, and that funding coal tip safety is a devolved responsibility. 

Notwithstanding the points you've raised today, as a shared Government with the UK Government, it is hoped that greater working, perhaps, can go forward where we can actually identify—and I know there are the ones in the high-risk category—or how you categorise which of the tips, really, need the immediate action. I suppose one of my questions, really, was whether you—I have asked this before—actually have a breakdown of which are the most dangerous tips. I know we don't want to cause alarm or panic with the public, but I think, before we can determine where money is spent, there has to be this work carried out. I know, as you say, some of the figures you've spent up to now doing this.

I welcome the fact you've made an additional allocation of £4.5 million over three years, and total capital funding of £44 million to support essential coal tip maintenance. However, with over 2,500 disused coal tips, the additional money does only equate to an average of £19,500 per tip, which is way off. In addition to an explanation as to how the extra funding is going to be allocated, I would be grateful if you could clarify what options you are considering for finding the £0.5 billion that's been mentioned is required over the next 10 years in order to meet the cost of the reclamation and remediation programme, and how you are perhaps working with the UK Government in a positive manner.

Like my colleagues on the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee, I welcome the Welsh Government's commitment to introduce a Bill to improve the regulatory framework for coal tip safety. The Law Commission report has highlighted that the existing regulatory regime for tips associated with operational mines should be not be altered, and that any new legislation should not apply to a tip to which the Quarries Regulations 1999 or the Mines Regulations 2014 apply. So, some comments on that, Deputy Minister, would be good, as to whether you will act on that recommendation.

In terms of what needs to be covered by new legislation, there are problems that do need addressing, such as the loss of specialist skills over recent decades, severe strain on our local authority resources—because they believe they're having to pick up some of the tab on this—uneven distribution of tips across Wales that now places a disproportionate burden on some local authorities, and one that sets statutory powers that only come into play once a tip has become unstable. To help authorities act proactively rather than reactively in ensuring tip safety, there's a recommendation that a single supervisory body, with responsibility for the safety of tips and greater powers, be formed. This does seem to me a common-sense proposal. So, do you support that? Over 90 per cent of respondents agreed with the proposal, but they were fairly evenly split over whether the supervisory authority should be a new or indeed an existing body. I agree that perhaps a new body would put new impetus into this, as opposed to a newly created division of NRW, because we all know, as Members, the pressures that NRW are under—they face staff shortages and they face severe underfunding. So, that's a particular question I have in mind. 

I'm aware that you've been working to identify 2,456 tips, of which 327 are classed as higher risk. The Law Commission wants to see us build on that work by creating a central tip register—that echoes my point earlier—so that we know exactly what we're dealing with. Over 90 per cent of respondents agreed with having this tip register, so will you please just advise us, as Members here today, whether you're going to actually provide that important data, that important information, so that we can all work across political parties, and work across Governments, hopefully, so that the fears of people living or working near these tips can be diminished sooner rather than later? Diolch.

Thank you for those comments and the constructive tone. I think that there is much that we can agree on and work together on. We will, of course, be responding in full to all the recommendations in the commission's report, as well as publishing our own White Paper after the local government elections. I'm not going to respond in detail to the proposals today, because we want to do that in a more considered way.

One of the interesting points that Janet Finch-Saunders made was around the skills shortage and the capacity of local authorities, and that is a well-made point. On skills, of course, there's an opportunity here. If we're going to be spending this much public money on putting this right, we need to make sure that we leverage the benefits for Wales from it. There are economic opportunities from this if we do this right, certainly for upskilling people and providing economic opportunities from the work that is generated to put this right, as well as the landscape opportunities for our communities. I think we need to be as creative as we can be to see how we can use this necessary process to unleash the potential of these areas some more.

I do think, though, that we need to confront this issue of cost and responsibility. Janet Finch-Saunders said again that this is a fully devolved responsibility and the UK Government has no responsibility. I just don't think that that's right. If we are looking at a £600 million cost of reclamation, I don't see how anybody can defend a £9 million contribution from the UK Government as fair and reasonable on the grounds that this is devolved, given that, as I said, this predates devolution. I hope they will think again about their response to this. I would say this with some humility on our part. If you look at the historical record and the way that the Labour Government responded to the Aberfan disaster, it was a stain on our record, and I think it's something that we put right, certainly, when Labour came to power in 1997 and we restored that money. But the callous way that the Government at that time responded to the demands of that community was shameful, and I do hope that the UK Government reflect on that and don't make the same mistake again and make sure that they play their role in working alongside us in putting this right.

On the issue of publishing the information, I can assure the Member that the highest risk tips are already undergoing enhanced monitoring and inspections and the local authorities involved in working closely with us. The Tylorstown tip we've mentioned has had £20 million identified to spend on it and significant progress has been made. It has lessened its risk as a result. So, that is a positive example. When we take proactive action, we can reduce the risk, working with the local authority—in this case, Rhondda Cynon Taf—who've been superb.

On the detail of publishing all the information, we do have to be very careful, because we wouldn't want to alarm people by publishing information in a cack-handed way. To give an example, a lot of these tips are non-coal tips, they're spoil tips, and it could well be that a small amount is on someone's garden, and if we just publish crudely a list that includes that, it's going to cause a great deal of alarm and distress. So, we need to get this right. And also, because many of these are privately owned, under the data protection legislation and GDPR, we have to issue privacy notices and we have to make sure that that information is handled properly, and that is a large undertaking. So, it is taking longer than all of us would've liked, but I hope I can assure the Senedd this afternoon we are doing this for good reasons, in a considered way, and we will be publishing it as soon as we can get that information accurate.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and thank you for your statement, Minister. You'll appreciate that coal tips' safety is an issue that is of great interest to me because of the area that I represent, as it is to my party too. I welcome the Law Commission's report, of course. It is timely, bearing in mind that Plaid Cymru will be holding a debate on this issue in the Senedd tomorrow. The Law Commission's report focuses on the importance of maintaining expertise in making coal tips safe and also removing them, as you've been discussing already. And a number of witnesses to the inquiry have recommended that an oversight authority should be established. You've said already a little bit about this, so I'd like to put on the record that we are very supportive of this idea, that there should be an authority with the powers to supervise the safety of every remaining tip.

I also understand that local authorities have spoken, when speaking to the commission, about the challenges that they face in implementing the current legislation, particularly considering financial constraints. A lack of funding streams has led to a loss of vital technical expertise in local authorities. So, I would ask, Minister, what steps the Government will be taking to harness the current expertise in managing tips, as well as to increase the level of expertise in local authorities? And on the topic of funding, how will this be funded, bearing in mind the financial constraints that we are currently seeing. And we agree, of course, that it is Westminster that should be paying this bill. Coal tips and other tips are a legacy of the United Kingdom's industrial past—they predate devolution. And Wales's fiscal situation, at least at a macro level, is again the result of decisions made by the UK Government. So, could you give us an update, please, Minister, on any discussions that the Welsh Government has had with the UK Government to decide who will be paying for removing these coal tips, restoring the land and for reviving these areas? What are the next steps in those discussions, please?

And finally, the commission's report considers the tips' value in terms of biodiversity. Buglife, I believe, and Clare Dinham drew attention to the need to include biodiversity as a consideration in managing these tips. They say that it is vital that local authority ecologists and conservation charities are part of the process of drawing up plans to manage these tips and the surrounding areas. So, an ecological stakeholder taskforce could be a useful way of ensuring that the importance of biodiversity is given due attention. What is your stance on this, please, and are there any plans to establish such a taskforce?

Well, thank you very much for that.

So, I think there are a number of very helpful and constructive points there. On the first on the availability of technical expertise, then Delyth Jewell is quite right, that is a challenge, and that's one of the reasons why we are supportive in principle of the idea of an independent body, because we do need to have the heft and capacity to do the task ahead of us, and working out a way to design that alongside local authorities, just as we are in so many other things, to get that balance right between local-control knowledge, accountability, as well as the capacity and capability, is something we'll be reflecting on as we consult on our White Paper and as we come up with a set of proposals in the legislation. So, that is very much, I think, on point. I'm not able to give a definitive answer to that now, because that is something, she's right, we need to work through. But she's correctly identified, I think, the challenge there, as she has on the funding. She asks how we are going to fund it. We don't know how we're going to fund the full bill because it is enormous. We've identified, over the next three years, how we're going to spend £44.4 million of capital funding, and we've already spent, as I set out in the statement, several million in dealing with stabilising the situation in the worst cases. But this is going to be a long-term programme of reclamation, and we do need to work with the UK Government. She asked what the state of the conversations were. Well, I think it's fair to say they've been pretty dismissive to date of their role, and we heard it again this afternoon that the party line is that this is a devolved responsibility and nothing to do with them. But I hope we can get beyond that, because I don't think that is a sustainable or defensible line of argument. So, we'll continue to have those conversations.

Her point on biodiversity, I thought, was very well made, because, obviously, we know that climate change is going to make the stability of these tips more difficult. We are going to have wilder, wetter winters, we are going to have more rainfall—all of this will adversely affect the integrity of the tips. So, the climate emergency impact is very clear, but the nature emergency reference as well is very well made. And I think her suggestion of an ecological stakeholder taskforce is a very interesting one, and if she is content, I will reflect on that and discuss it further with my colleague Julie James as we think about our next steps on this. Diolch. 

Thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement today. The first point I want to make is a simple one: the 2,500 disused coal tips across Wales are a legacy of our industrial past and the systematic extraction of the mineral wealth from communities such as mine in Cynon Valley and your own over a sustained period of coal mined, wealth leached, lives sacrificed. It is staggering, but not surprising, that the UK Government refuses to meet with its obligations for this. So, do you agree with me that addressing this historic hangover could be the perfect starting point for their levelling-up agenda, with its supposed, and I quote, 'moral, social and economic' commitment unless the policy is, of course, simply empty words and spin?

I have two further specific questions for you. Firstly, I look forward to the Welsh Government's White Paper setting out how it will take its proposals forward. I'd be really keen that any consultation or engagement really captures the views and experiences of people living near coal tips. So, Deputy Minister, what consideration have you given as to how this might be achieved?

And my final question: in your statement, you referred to the motion tomorrow, and I note the amendment in the name of the Trefnydd, which talks about involving local people in the process and using reclamation as the starting point for jobs and economic growth. So, Deputy Minister, could you provide any further details on the Welsh Government's thinking around achieving these goals, which I know would be so welcome to people living in my constituency and many other former coalfield communities? 

Well, I'd like to echo Vikki's comments about the responsibilities of the UK Government, and this is not a party point. This has been a long-running legacy over generations where the UK as a whole benefited from the wealth of the communities across Wales, and we're now dealing with the legacy of that, literally the spoil waste of it.

Vikki talked about the levelling-up agenda, and, of course, we want to level down, don't we? We not only want to get rid of these tips, we want to raze them and restore them. She is right that the rhetoric we're hearing from the UK Government about giving to communities who feel left behind—this would be a perfect case in point, and I think we do need to be creative.

She asks about ideas for jobs and growth and using the reclamation as a starting point, and I know the excellent work she's been doing as the chair of the cross-party group on industrial communities. I think there's a role for their ideas in feeding into this, because I think there is an opportunity when we have to spend so much money on this task. We need to make sure we maximise public benefit from it, and I think this is a conversation we need to have. I'm not going to stand here today and pluck ideas out of the air. I think this needs to be a considered conversation, but I am clear that we do need to do that in a way that benefits the communities who have suffered and have lived under the shadows of these coal tips for generations.

I think her point before that about consultation with the communities is absolutely well made as well. There does need to be a sense of doing this with communities, not to communities, and I'd welcome working along with her in her area in particular to start having those conversations.

Finally, Buffy Williams.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd, and I'd like to thank the Minister for today's statement. The dramatic scenes we saw at Tylorstown and Wattstown back in 2020 have had a dramatic effect on some members of our communities in Rhondda. The Minister is right, our priority has to be that people living and working near coal tips feel safe, not just now but in the future. We need to know that everything that can be done to put right our coal tips is being done. The work carried out in Tylorstown to date has been exceptional. The same can be said about the landslide in Wattstown, and I'm glad to hear that further funding is being made available for the coal board to continue their inspections. I know that this will go a long way in providing peace of mind for members in those communities. In Rhondda, this has only been possible through partnership working between the Welsh Government, the Coal Authority and Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council. As the Minister has pointed out, the only party not pulling their weight is the Tory Westminster Government, who are clearly happy to sit on the profits made through the hard work of our forefathers to now decide that these coal tips aren't their responsibility. Mind you, shirking responsibility won't come as a surprise given the abysmal support made available by the same Government to support families through the cost-of-living crisis. I'd like to thank the Minister again for today's statement, and I'm sure he agrees with me, hoping that the Tories in Westminster eventually start to pull their weight on this issue. 

Thank you to Buffy Williams, and I recognise that the leadership role she's played in her own community in responding both to the floods and to the worry about the moving tip has been extraordinarily helpful. I hope her constituents are now reassured that the Tylorstown tip is having weekly inspections. So, this is being kept under very close eye, and the signs are very encouraging that the risk has lessened. As she said, significant work has gone in—some £20 million of investment—and tremendous partnership working, particularly with RCT council, where Councillor Andrew Morgan, again, really has once again stepped up to the plate and showed leadership and exceptional galvanising skills in bringing together the different agencies to focus on the task at hand. Also, the Coal Authority, as she mentioned, and the very helpful work the Law Commission has done in doing this report, and it's done it speedily and come up with a very practical set of recommendations—.

So, I think the story we have to tell two years on is a good one, and this is something the First Minister in particular feels very strongly and personally associated with. He has shown a great deal of personal leadership in this as well, and he is very clear that it is the obligation of this Senedd and this Government to make sure that the legacy of our industrial past is dealt with properly and that the opportunities are seized. But I think all of us in this party, and the message from all sides today has been that the UK Government must play its role, and I do hope that Members of the Senedd here from the Conservative Party will reflect that message back to their own colleagues. This needn't be a party political issue; this is something we should all unite behind and then see if we can collaborate on not seeing this as a negative legacy but as an opportunity to make these communities flourish again.

I thank the Deputy Minister.

Item 8 is next, and it's a statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Partnership: fair work—annual progress update. I call on the Deputy Minister, Hannah Blythyn.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. A better deal for workers is central to a fairer, more equal and more prosperous Wales. Not only is this the right thing to do by workers, but it also benefits our workplaces, our economy and our country as a whole. We're working in partnership across Government and with our social partners to use every lever we have to promote and enable fair work, address labour exploitation and tackle modern slavery.

The Welsh Government established a Fair Work Commission to make recommendations on how we can promote fair work, and its report continues to frame our approach. I'm pleased that we've actioned all six of the commission's priority recommendations, including making annual updates such as this, and we're making good progress on many other recommendations. However, it's important we interpret the work of the Fair Work Commission in ways that enable us to respond in real time. This is because the world of work continues to change and the pace and scale of change, such as the movement towards hybrid working, has accelerated over the past two years. Whilst the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated that different ways of working are possible, it's also brought sector and Wales-wide challenges into sharper focus and starkly revealed how inequalities risk being entrenched. As we transition out of the pandemic, it's never been timelier to take stock and take action to enable a future of fairer work.

Of course, fair work spans devolved and reserved matters, affecting what we can do on fair work and how we can do it. We have five broad levers at our disposal, and we're making use of all of them. Firstly, we directly influence working conditions in the devolved public sector. Secondly, we use our procurement levers and the power of the public purse to encourage fair work. Thirdly, we use our convening power, bringing together social partners and others to foster fair work and champion good practice. Fourthly, we support individuals and organisations to upskill and access fair work. And finally, we seek to influence reserved employment rights, duties and protections that will have an impact on workers and workplaces in Wales.

On a sector level, we have worked in social partnership through the social care fair work forum. The forum has played the key role in taking forward our programme for government commitment to pay the real living wage in social care. This uplift will begin to hit pay packets in the coming month, and the forum continues to work together to address and seek solutions to the wider challenges we know the sector and those working in it face. We've built on this experience, establishing a retail forum, which is working to embed fair work in our vision for retail. Working in social partnership, we aim to mainstream fair work in other sectors where there are acute and urgent challenges, such as the sectors involved in the visitor economy.

On particular aspects of fair work, we have made progress with the real living wage. We are clear that the real living wage is a component, not a conclusive part, of fair work. Last year saw a record increase in the number of living-wage accredited employers, an impressive 44 per cent increase on the previous year. The proportion of all employee jobs in Wales paid at least the real living wage has continued to rise, at just over 82 per cent in 2021, compared to just under 78 per cent in 2020, closing the gap with the position across the UK as whole, but we need to sustain that progress. We have partnered with Cynnal Cymru as the Living Wage Foundation's accreditation partner in Wales, funding them to support their capacity to engage employers and accelerate real living wage adoption and accreditation.

We're embedding fair work into our approaches across Government. Fair work is a core theme in our recently published plan for employability and skills, and we're working to improve the reach and impact of mechanisms such as the economic contract and the code of practice on ethical employment in supply chains. We are on track to introduce a social partnership and public procurement Bill, and I'm pleased to say Members will have the opportunity to scrutinise this Bill later this year. In addition, we are working with the Wales TUC on a pilot project to engage young people on the role of trade unions, and I expect to be in a position to announce further detail on this in the coming weeks.

We recognise that there are many campaigns and challenges ahead, from a shorter working week to tackling pay gaps and ensuring workers experience a just transition on net zero, automation and digitalisation. We are committed to working in social partnership to explore what action we can take in these areas. But the UK Government needs to take its responsibilities for employment rights and duties seriously. How many more examples like P&O Ferries do we need to see before the UK Government understands inadequate protections, coupled with weak enforcement and an unwillingness to act is a recipe for a race to the bottom on workers' rights? This Government is doing what we can do, and will always do what we can with the levers we have, but we also need the UK Government to act, and act now.

The rolling back of workers' rights and some of the most restrictive trade union legislation in Europe has gone on for far too long, and we are witnessing the destabilising and devastating consequences of this for our people, communities and economy. We need strong unions to balance the interests of employers and workers. Deputy Llywydd, I make no apologies for continuing to make it clear that joining and being part of a trade union is the best way for any worker to protect their rights at work, improve their pay, terms and conditions and ensure that they are heard and represented.

The Welsh Government will continue to build on the progress we have made, and we'll work with our social partners to advance the fair work agenda in Wales. Diolch.

Thank you, Deputy Minister, for your statement. I think everyone here and across all Governments in the UK would agree that those who receive fair working conditions and fair pay are happier, healthier and probably more productive in their roles, and that we should all be striving to hold Governments to account in order to ensure that everyone has fair working conditions. Whilst those here I'm sure would love to see a perfect system already fully operational, we do have to be mindful that these things take time, and along the way problems will arise that will need to be resolved before any further progress can be made.

I'm glad to hear in your statement today that you're committing to pay the real living wage in the social care sector. I have met with social care groups in my region who are particularly concerned that rates of pay are a major inhibitor to providing consistent care in the adult social care sector, as it is linked to higher staff turnover, where many move to what are ultimately higher paid and less demanding jobs, such as the retail sector. With over 72,000 jobs in the adult social care sector alone, and the fact that most care workers are paid minimum, or close to minimum, wage, this sector represents about a third of the workforce in Wales who earn below the living wage, and I'm sure that implementing the real living wage will go some way along to helping the sector.

I would also like to point out that the social care fair work forum vision statement professes that not only should there be improvements to social care workers' pay, but also there should be improvement in their terms and conditions, and this has not been addressed in your statement. With this in mind, and given the enormous pressure that the sector is under in terms of burn-out and job retention, I would like to ask the Deputy Minister what consideration and assessment has this Government made of other in-work benefits that can contribute to a healthy working environment for social care workers. I think more can be done to provide long-term in-work benefits to those employed in the sector and that improvements would incentivise a greater number of staff to develop careers and help long-term job retention. In particular, I think social care workers could be rewarded with higher pension contributions, larger holiday entitlements or fuel allowances, or even council tax rebates, which could be used as a lever to help better support the lowest paid social care workers, or even encourage workers to stay or move to rural areas.

As the Deputy Minister will be well aware, Wales has the highest median age of all UK nations, and on top of this we have a net influx of retired people from England who wish to live in the Welsh countryside or our coastal villages and towns. With such an ageing population, we need to be diligent in making sure that we have a viable and well-supported social care sector, and I think a better selection of in-work benefits would go a long way in helping people stay in this sector long term.

In terms of fair pay, I want to raise the issue of Cardiff capital region advertising that average wages here are far lower than in other cities in the UK, and Wales's cheap labour is the reason why businesses should look to invest here. The Cardiff capital region have defended this position by saying they are highlighting, in their words, that 'salaries are currently competitive', and it wants to

'leverage further investment to raise wages across the city-region.'

I think that we can all agree that this is an absurd rationality, because if you want to attract business investment, one advertises the high-quality skill set of the workforce, or—and I know that this is a real push for the Welsh Government, given their track record—tries to highlight the quality of infrastructure we have here in Wales. The Deputy Minister may be surprised here, but I agree with the TUC general secretary, Shavanah Taj, in her condemnation of Welsh Government advertising Wales's lowest average wage as

'a depressing and divisive approach which risks locking in a low wage economy for the many communities the CCR leadership represents.'

And I would like to add that what this type of marketing is actually doing is sending a subliminal message to investors that workers in Wales are paid less because they are worth less. It also sends a clear message to those skilled workers who may be looking to come to Cardiff capital region that the Welsh Government values cheap labour. I fully acknowledge, Deputy Minister, that you were probably unaware of this marketing brochure, and that it's not representative of the wider Welsh marketing strategy. However, it does go some way in showing the thinking that underpins the Welsh Government's overall approach, and we need to recognise that information like this will stay in the public domain. Whilst you might argue that, in the grand scheme of things, this is somewhat minor, I would argue that we will never fully realise the damage this type of action causes long term. I therefore ask the Deputy Minister how you intend to enforce better marketing strategies that will actually reflect the quality and diverse skill set of workers in Wales, given the fact that you have accepted a recommendation to ensure fair work is the responsibility of all Welsh Ministers and officials. How will this Government now ensure that the principles of fair work that are being proclaimed by this Government are actually included in future investor marketing material?

Finally, I want to bring up the point of reporting your annual progress. You have mentioned the real living wage, and of course your shameless sales pitch for your trade union supervisors, and the Deputy Minister's disappointing politicisation of P&O workers in this statement, where there has been widespread condemnation from the UK Government over this action and they are doing everything they can to help those workers. You have decided to talk about these issues at the expense of some of the most vulnerable in society, who I'm sure would have welcomed even a glancing mention. I wonder why you—

You need to conclude now, please.

Okay, only a couple of final sentences. I wonder why you haven't mentioned any progress for fair work for disabled people, why you haven't mentioned any progress to remove and reduce barriers that disabled people are presented with, and I wonder why you haven't mentioned any initiatives to help close the disability employment gap. With this in mind, can the Deputy Minister tell this Chamber what proposals this Government has to help disabled people access a fair working environment? Because as a disproportionately affected group, they should be a priority for this Government. Thank you.

This Welsh Government's position is clear: we're very much committed to Wales being a nation of fair work and do not believe you should promote low wages as a reason for investing. And I do welcome the start of the Member's contribution, with his constructive suggestions around the work we're doing in the social care sector and the real living wage, but I note that, towards the end, he managed to, from a previous contribution, downgrade my trade union colleagues from being my trade union bosses to now being my trade union supervisors. But I'm sure Shavanah Taj would be delighted that Joel James agrees with her on one thing.

But, in all seriousness, I think the point you raised at the start, Joel, around things taking time and there are problems along the way—. And I think that's one of the values of our social partnership working, not just with trade unions, but with employers from the public, private and voluntary sectors, bringing in people with that lived experience and expertise in different areas we're seeking to address and to move forward and develop a whole package around fair pay, which, you're absolutely right, is not just about your take-home pay; it's about the broader well-being and conditions around your work as well. Social partnership does enable us to do that, and it enabled us to do it during the pandemic, when we were able to come together as the health and safety forum, addressing the things around workplace risk assessments, and then they were implemented, and then we had a forum to come back to and say, 'Well, actually these things need tweaking for them to be much more effective in practice and to serve the purpose that they were intended to do.'

On the points around the real living wage in social care, in my statement I did indicate that the real living wage was a starting point to immediately address some of those concerns that you highlighted around recruitment and retention as well, and the work programme of the social care fair work forum is now to look at those broader issues that you highlighted around what else could—. Because fair work, like I said, isn't just about your pay as a component part of that; it's about your broader work conditions. And you're absolutely right that we need to get to a position where this sector that we will probably all turn to at some point in our lifetime, and cares very much for our nearest and dearest—to make sure that it has the recognition, status and support that it deserves.  

Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister. 

It was good to hear your condemnation of the treatment of P&O Ferries staff, who have been treated appallingly. In the absence of much-needed stronger rights for workers, I'm hoping that the resulting public relations disaster will force a rethink for the company bosses. I was also pleased to hear repeated mention of fair work in your statement. As we come out of the pandemic, we must ensure that no-one is left behind. This is a core belief of Plaid Cymru. 

What we have seen in previous recessions and economic downturns is that people at either end of the working-age spectrum have borne the brunt of the crisis. With my responsibility for older people, I'm keen for Wales to learn from the mistakes of the past. For example, during the financial crash of 2008, unemployment amongst older workers almost doubled in the UK. We know that, when older people are made redundant, they find it harder to find work. Without adequate support, we run the risk of an entire generation of older people, in their 50s and 60s, not finding another job before reaching state pension age. What compounds matters is that many older people face ageism and age discrimination in the workplace. I would therefore like to hear from the Deputy Minister today about how they intend to remedy these concerns.

I also wish to raise a matter mentioned by my party colleague, Luke Fletcher, during Plenary last week. Many of my constituents commute to Cardiff from their towns and villages, so I was dismayed to see the Cardiff capital region marketing the area as a haven for employers that pay lower wages. This contradicts the work of the Fair Work Commission to promote the policy that fair work equals fair reward. We should be seeking to remedy wage disparity and not boast about it in prospectuses to companies, thus perpetuating the inequalities that exist within Wales. This is particularly galling during a cost-of-living crisis that has plunged many families into stark poverty. Will you therefore condemn the advertising from the Cardiff capital region? I note your answer to a previous question, but how do you intend to address the perception that it's okay for businesses to come to Wales and pay workers a lower wage? Diolch yn fawr. 

Diolch yn fawr, Peredur, for your question. If I touch on the last point first, and reiterate what I said to Joel James, our position as a Welsh Government is clear: we do not believe we should promote low wages as a reason for investing in Wales. I was disappointed by the approach that Cardiff capital region took in emphasising lower rates of graduate pay relative to some parts of the UK. I understand that the region has now clarified its position and its aspiration to raise wages and the quality of work across the region, but I very much reaffirm that the Welsh Government is committed to working with our partners to make sure that fair work is embedded and promoted across everything we do, as recommended by the Fair Work Commission's report.

If I turn to some of the points you made very eloquently, and your very valuable points around the challenges for people at each end of the working age spectrum, shall we say, in terms of actually where we are in, perhaps, the more pressurised economic circumstances. As part of our recent employability and skills strategy, myself and other Ministers across Government—particularly my colleague the Minister for Social Justice—have worked very closely with colleagues such as the Minister for Economy and colleagues across economy, social partnership and fair work to make sure that not only is fair work embedded as part of this, and is considered as part of it, but, actually, that those considerations you raised are mainstreamed across everything we do, and that it takes into consideration, too, those kinds of challenges around intersectionalities, not just for older people, but women, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, too. So, it's very much something that's at the heart of what we do, and I'm more than happy to pick that up with the Member outside of the statement today, just to take up some of the questions you raised. 

One of the things we've been looking at, too, is in terms of how we can use those levers, particularly within the public sector, where we do have more leverage because of where our devolved responsibility lies. It's something that I worked on in a previous role in a previous life as well, as we say, and that's, actually, the value that older people can bring to the workplace in terms of passing on their skills. So, looking at opportunities for things like phased retirement and reducing their hours at a phased rate, and actually being able to then work with younger people to help upskill and then transfer their skills as part of those training and apprenticeship opportunities. So, there are plans there and there's work done, and as I always say, there's much more to do, but like I said, I'm more than happy to engage with the Member about how we can work collaboratively on this.

I welcome the statement by the Minister on devolved public services, and can I join with others in welcoming the living wage in social care? But, will the Minister commit to no exploitative contracts and everyone to be paid at least the real living wage in all devolved Welsh public services? Will the Welsh Government use its procurement powers to exclude from Welsh Government-funded contracts companies paying less than the real living wage, or using exploitative contracts? Finally, will the Minister join me in condemning fire and rehire, and will companies that use that be banned from Welsh Government-funded contracts? And listening to what people have said about low pay, if low pay was important for investment and growth, explain to me Palo Alto, explain to me New York, explain to me Mannheim, explain to me Cambridge. It's the high-paid areas that are the ones who are getting the investment, not the low-paid ones.

I thank Mike Hedges for his very passionate contribution, and I know this is an area that Mike has campaigned on and articulated in this Chamber for a number of years. The short answer to your question around whether I would condemn fire and rehire is 'yes'. We're absolutely committed to using all the levers we can to go as far as we can to make sure that, actually, that practice is not being used in Wales. But, of course, we need that legislation at a UK level and that employment Bill that was promised in 2019 still hasn't been introduced. As I said in my statement, how long can we go on having some of the most restrictive and limited protections for workers in the whole of Europe, and examples like P&O and other—? It's been brought into much sharper focus, I think, in the past six months during the pandemic, and more people are aware of the consequences of tactics like fire and rehire because, actually, our current structure allows that to happen. So, absolutely, I condemn it and it needs to be outlawed, and people in work need greater protections wherever they work across the UK.

On outsourcing, the key point is that outsourcing is not used to erode terms and conditions, as a means, shall I say, to paraphrase, to level down. Organisations that will be captured by our social partnership and public procurement Bill will need to approach these issues in ways that are consistent with the socially responsible procurement duties. We're also seeking to strengthen the code of practice and ethical procurement alongside that, and actually the procurement duties within the Bill, we'll also look at applying to supply chains as well. So, we're looking at all those levers we have in Wales to make a difference in the areas that Mike Hedges raised, as well as and alongside our programme for government commitment to make sure that we explore where services can be sustainably and affordably be brought back into a strengthened public sector, we will do.

Sticking with P&O, step forward the company that actually employs people with different working conditions in the shipping industry; as far as I'm aware, they're all using offshore places to register their companies, and they're all paying really appalling wages, and the conditions that they house these people in are really quite dreadful. But there's very little that Welsh Government can do, not even collaborating with the UK Government. This is an international problem that has to be dealt with by the United Nations.

Sticking with what we can do something about, you mentioned that one of the levers the Welsh Government has to support individuals and organisations is to upskill them, so they can access fair work. So, I wanted to look at the areas of the economy where we know there are recruitment and retention challenges. The Welsh Government is investing a large sum of money in extending the real living wage to social care and childcare, as well as obviously investing many millions in the optimised retrofit programme. How and who are you upskilling people who are under-represented in those sectors, whether they're ethnic minorities or more men in childcare, more women as insulation fitters in the construction industry?

I thank Jenny Rathbone for her contribution and for raising and flagging the challenges that we do face in both a national and an international setting, because, obviously, the legal protections are not there and are definitely not strong enough to protect workers in workplaces right across the UK and beyond.

In terms of what we can do, you're right to identify those areas where we can support and upskill and use those levers at our disposal to try and make as much of a difference and an impact on people's lives that we can, in communities right across the country. So, again, we're working in social partnership, making sure we're working with people who can bring not just experience of the employment sector and the challenges that they face, but also in terms of the lived experience of people that work within those sectors too, and also the lived experience of people that we want to actually upskill, at the same time as supporting the sectors to strengthen them and strengthen the status and ensure that there are broader opportunities.

So, we are working with our social partners to ensure that employers and trade unions act as the champions for that change, to really drive forward, to help us to spread awareness and practice and to transform those organisational cultures to bring people on, working proactively to promote the advantages of a diverse workforce, and making sure that the work environments are there that are inclusive and support ethnic minority workers to participate, and not just to participate, but to progress and thrive as well, which I think is all important.

And alongside that, we are improving our front-line employability and skills services, ensuring that they are properly inclusive and are reflective of the communities they serve, which is as it should be, and taking action to widen participation of ethnic minority groups in the skills system. I know we're working right across Government with my colleague Jane Hutt in terms of the anti-racist action plan we're looking at now and other action plans around disabled workers and the LGBTQ+ community as well, to make sure that we're thinking about things in the workplace as well as in the community too, to make sure that's embedded across Government and through our employability and skills strategies moving forward as well.

Finally, Jack Sargeant.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Presiding Officer. Could I commend the Minister for the work she has done in this area, not just as a Minister or Member of the Senedd, but of course in her previous role as a trade unionist? And I put on record my proud membership of Unite the Union, a community union, here today.

I did listen with interest when you mentioned a shorter working week in your statement. Perhaps it's time for a wider conversation on that, and of course the Petitions Committee will be undertaking an inquiry into that, and we would certainly like to hear your views around that. But I want to raise the example that I raised last week in the Chamber, where a young woman, working in the hospitality sector told me, and again, I quote, that she would get more tips if she didn't wear a mask. I simply can't comprehend this. Who on earth thinks that's an acceptable thing to say? It's an absolute disgrace.

So, Minister, 'How do we empower young workers?' is my question. I, of course, know many of these powers do sit with the UK Government and colleagues will be well aware today, I'm sure, of my feelings towards the competence of the UK Conservative Government in this field, but having said that, what can we do, working with the powers we do have in Welsh Government, working with our trade union colleagues, to ensure that young workers are empowered and protected?

I thank my colleague Jack Sargeant for his contribution and for the work he is doing around supporting and amplifying the voice of young workers, which is really important. Can I absolutely join with you in condemning the experience of that young woman worker and what she's faced in the workplace? But I think, unfortunately, all of us here will say that's probably not atypical; that's probably an all-too-common experience. And what I've found, not just in this role, but as you've said previously, that, anecdotally, young workers are probably the most likely to be exploited because they don't know their rights.

So, I think for us as a Welsh Government, one of the things we can do is actually how we link in to the work we're doing with Careers Wales, which we're doing for the employability and skills plan, and other Welsh Government-supported organisations and bodies, that we're making sure that people, particularly young workers, are able to access information about rights and responsibilities in the workplace, and also the support that being a part of a trade union can give you. And I allude to it in the statement that we want to do some work, working with the pilot project with the Wales TUC, to actually reach out to younger workers, young people in schools, actually, to talk to them about their rights and responsibilities, and the role that trade unions play in workplaces and communities in Wales. I do remember writing something many years ago about why you should join a trade union. Don't we, Joel? Joel, I'll bring you a membership form to join a trade union next time. But in all seriousness, you spend such a significant part of your adult life in work, unless you win the lottery or gain money through spurious means, it's so, so important that you know your rights and protections and the best way to do that is being part of a trade union.

I thank the Deputy Minister.

The next item, therefore, is the Local Authorities (Amendments Relating to Publication of Information) (Wales) Regulations 2022. I call on the Minister for Finance and Local Government to move the motion. Rebecca Evans.

Diolch, Llywydd. I welcome the opportunity to bring forward these amending regulations today. The Local Authorities (Amendments Relating to Publication of Information) (Wales) Regulations 2022 will remove the requirement to make members of principal councils' addresses available to the public. As part of our approach to ensure the safety of elected members in local government, we are committed to replace the requirement for home addresses to be publicised in favour of an official address.

Section 100G(1)(a) of the Local Government Act 1972 requires a principal council to maintain a register, stating the name and address of every member of a council. Similar provision exists in section 100G(1)(b) in respect of members of a committee or sub-committee. Section 100G(4) requires this register to be open for inspection by the public at the offices of the council. Regulation 12 of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Decisions, Documents and Meetings) (Wales) Regulations 2001 contains a similar requirement with respect to members of the executive of county and county borough councils, including members of committees and sub-committees of the executive.

To deliver on our commitment, section 43 of the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021 places a duty on principal councils to publish an electronic and postal address for correspondence for each council member. This does not have to be a home address. This provision will come into force from 5 May 2022. For consistency in our approach, these regulations will amend section 100G of the 1972 Act and regulation 12 of the 2001 regulations to provide that the information open to inspection must not include a member's address included in the registers.

We know these changes will not in themselves resolve issues of safety. They are, however, part of a wider set of arrangements that aim to reinforce the importance of protecting members' rights to have a private life free of harm and harassment. I ask Members to approve these regulations today and, Llywydd, I'm grateful to colleagues from across the Chamber for indicating to me that they are keen to support them. Diolch.

Indeed, there's nobody else who wants to contribute in this debate on this particular issue, so I take it that the Minister doesn't want to respond, so I'll ask the question. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No, there is no objection. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

A motion to suspend Standing Orders is next, to enable items 11 and 12 to be debated. I call on the Minister for health to move the motion to suspend Standing Orders.

Formally.

The proposal is to suspend Standing Orders temporarily. Does any Member object?

Any objections to—[Interruption.] Are you objecting to—[Interruption.] I didn't quite hear anything there, so I'll move hastily on. [Laughter.] The motion to suspend Standing Orders is agreed.

Next, in accordance with Standing Order 12.24, unless a Member objects, the three motions under items 10, 11 and 12 will be grouped for debate, but with separate votes. Those three motions are the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Alteration of Expiry Date) (Wales) Regulations 2022 and the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2022. So, are there any objections to grouping those motions for debate, but with separate votes? Excellent. There are no objections.

We will go on to hear the motion. I call on the Minister for health to do just that—Eluned Morgan.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I move the motion before us. As the First Minister set out last week, cases are once again increasing rapidly across Wales, which is being driven by the subtype of omicron variant BA.2. The latest results from the ONS coronavirus infection survey suggest that one in 16 people in Wales had COVID-19 in the week ending 19 March. That was 10 days ago; it's more likely now to look like around one in 13 or 14. There were more than 1,300 COVID-19-related patients in hospital as at 23 March; today, that stands at 1,492. 

Before us today are three sets of amendment regulations. Firstly, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Alteration of Expiry Date) (Wales) Regulations 2022. The Coronavirus Act 2020, the Act, granted the Welsh Ministers emergency powers to respond to the pandemic. The Act received Royal Assent on 25 March 2020. The majority of the temporary provisions within the Act expired at the end of the day on 24 March. All Governments across the UK have brought forward regulations extending different provisions within the Act. The Coronavirus Act 2020 (Alteration of Expiry Date) (Wales) Regulations 2022 extend two temporary provisions for a maximum period of six months to 24 September 2022.

Coronavirus is still with us, and we can expect further waves of infection and new variants to emerge. These could be more severe than previous variants, and could have higher levels of vaccine escape. The extension of these two provisions is part of our contingency planning. The relevant provisions are in section 82, business tenancies in England and Wales, protection from forfeiture. These provisions give the Welsh Ministers the power to extend the relevant period during which a right of re-entry or forfeiture under a business tenancy for non-payment of rent may not be enforced, in order to help businesses affected by coronavirus. Following the end of this period, the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill, to which the Senedd gave legislative consent on 8 March, will support landlords and tenants in resolving disputes relating to rent-owed businesses that were required to close during the pandemic. We needed to be able to extend the relevant period using section 82 of the Coronavirus Act if it had expired before the commercial rent Bill received Royal Assent. However, the commercial rent Bill came into force on 24 March and, as such, I can confirm that we will not use these provisions. 

Section 38, Schedule 17, temporary continuity, education and training and childcare. These provisions give the Welsh Ministers a power to issue temporary continuity directions to educational institutions, registered childcare providers and local authorities to help manage disruption to learning during the pandemic. The extension of these education provisions is very much a contingency measure, and we're not planning or expecting to these provisions in the six-month extension window. Any proposal to use the powers within these provisions would require the Welsh Government to bring forward further regulations, which, of course, would be subject to Senedd scrutiny. Members would have the opportunity at that time to consider the proportionality and appropriateness of any measures that we would be proposing in the six-month extension window.  

Secondly, the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 7) Regulations 2022. In our transition plan, 'Together for a safer future', we introduced our intention, in a COVID-stable scenario, to abolish the legal restrictions on 28 March. Unfortunately, given the situation at present, we came to the conclusion at the time of the 21-day review on 24 March that it wouldn't be possible for us to move as swiftly as we had anticipated and had planned for. So, under the No. 7 regulations, the date on which the main regulations come to an end will be extended from 28 March to 18 April. 

Thirdly, the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 8) Regulations 2022. We cannot keep these emergency regulations in place forever; it's a fact that we will have to learn to live with coronavirus. Therefore, we have also decided, following the 21-day review undertaken recently, to continue with our cautious journey away from legal restrictions. The No. 8 regulations scrap, from 28 March onwards, the legal requirement to self-isolate, and the requirement to wear face coverings in shops and on public transport is also removed. These continue to be important safeguards that people can take in order to reduce virus transmission, but now is the right time, in our view, to allow people to make their own decisions. As we've seen throughout the pandemic, the people of Wales will do the right thing to keep us all safe.

We have retained the requirement to a wear face covering in health settings and social care settings. This will assist in safeguarding the most vulnerable in those places where the risk is greatest. We have also kept the requirement for businesses and organisations to hold specific risk assessments for coronavirus, and to take reasonable steps to manage transmission. This will enable us to update the risk assessments and to consider appropriate measures in light of the BA.2 sub-variant. The regulations will be reviewed once again by 14 April. As we have always done, we will continue to make decisions to safeguard the public's health in Wales on the basis of the scientific evidence available to us, and I encourage Members to support these proposals. 

Russell George.

Diolch, Llywydd. Sorry for my earlier confusion, I was trying to remove my face mask at the same time as not having my translation equipment on. I do apologise. 

Multitasking can be difficult for some. [Laughter.]

Especially for men, yes. [Laughter.]

I didn't say that.

I know you didn't say that. Thank you, Presiding Officer.

Minister, can I thank you for introducing these regulations this afternoon? We're not going to be supporting the alteration of the date of the Coronavirus Act. I listened carefully to what you said, and I have a lot of understanding for the point that you argue this afternoon for extending the period by a further six months, and I understand a large part of the logic that you have outlined this afternoon. But, of course, my own position and the position of the Welsh Conservatives, is that all emergency legislation has to have an end date, and I think you would agree with that, and I think the difference between us is where that end date is. For me and the Welsh Conservatives, we believe that that end date has now come. If further legislation is required in the future, and we hope it's not, and you expect it not to be, and I would expect it not to be also, then that legislation should be brought forward and discussed on its own merit. I understand that you've talked about further scrutiny coming forward in the form of the extension, but I do believe firmly that there has to be an end date to emergency legislation and that that time has now come.

In regard to the other health protection regulations that you've introduced this afternoon, Minister, we'll be supporting both those regulations. I think after two years of living in restrictions, I think it's welcome news that we're now at this point where all restrictions, virtually, have been lifted. I of course agree that we have to continue to be cautious and that the coronavirus is still here, and it's still here in this country, in Wales, and in other parts of the world. So, of course I take the context in that regard. But we're now moving into a new phase of the coronavirus pandemic, we're moving to a fresh stage where coronavirus now sits alongside, to a large extent, other kinds of viruses, and we have to learn to live along with coronavirus.

Minister, I was pleased that the requirement of face masks is largely moving from law into guidance. I think that's the appropriate step to take. Of course, I appreciate that people are still being encouraged to wear face masks in many of these settings, but I now believe it is right to ask people to use their personal responsibility rather than requiring people by law to wear face masks. And the same, of course, for self-isolation rules as well. I believe the vast, vast majority of people will use their common sense and their proper judgment, and we should give the public of Wales the ability to make those judgments themselves.

I would just question, of course, why it remains in law for face masks to be worn in health and social care settings. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that those in health and social care settings should wear masks, I think that is sensible, so that is not the point I'm making here. But, of course, why treat this group very differently to the other groups of people, for example, who go into shops and use public transport? I would've thought that those working in a health and social care setting would have a greater ability to make their own judgments about what is best for health and social care settings themselves. So, I just want to understand your logic behind that particular point.

Can I also ask you for an update on when you expect the three-week cycles to come to an end as well? I think the next three-week cycle is, from memory, on 18 April. But, if on that date, as you would expect, the remaining regulations are then lifted, what, can I then ask, is your expectation of future three-week cycles? Should we then expect them to no longer take place at that point? I would expect that to be the case, but perhaps you could outline that to us.

Also, if I can finally ask a question I've asked many times before. I've never really got a good, clear answer on this, so I'm hoping I can ask it again today. With regard to the three-week cycles, of course, what happens is the press get advised before this Senedd, the press then make that public at 10 p.m. on a Thursday evening, and then the First Minister brings his address on the Friday at the 12:15 briefing, and members of the press have the opportunity to scrutinise the First Minister in that regard. And then, on the following Tuesday, it normally comes here for a statement. In fact, we haven't had a statement even in this case today, but we have had the opportunity through these regulations. But, of course, that doesn't happen in any other part of the UK. I really want to understand, Minister, that, in future, now there's an opportunity to re-examine the way that the three-week cycles operate—. Can I now ask why on earth the First Minister or yourself would not come here to make the announcement here first, so Senedd Members can scrutinise those decisions, and then, if you so wish, to make a statement to the press and give them an opportunity to do that after the people of Wales have learnt what that decision is through this elected Senedd and Parliament here, Minister?

There are three sets of regulations in front of us today. The first two extend the current situation, and as we are in a challenging situation at the moment, with very high numbers of cases of COVID, we think that that is a sensible thing to do. We will be supporting those regulations, and I don't think that further comments are needed from me on that. But, for the exact reason that we are going to support the continuation of those regulations, we cannot support the No. 8 amendment, because I and the benches here can't understand why the Government has decided to move to raise these safety measures at this point in time.

Let me quote the First Minister's words from earlier this afternoon, answering a question, actually, about the ambulance service. He said,

'we have some of the highest numbers of people falling ill with the virus of any time in the whole of the pandemic. Only a matter of weeks ago, we managed to reduce the number of people in our hospital beds suffering from coronavirus down to around 700. It went above 1,400 yesterday'—

confirmed by the Minister here now—

'and that number has continued to rise.'

He called it 

'a very challenging context, and a context that has been deteriorating'.

So, in that challenging context, Welsh Government has decided to remove most of the very modest, actually, but important protective measures still in place. And when you consider face coverings in particular, they're just not disruptive at all, are they? Why remove mandation in retail and transport now?

And if there are some signs—hopefully there are—that, in Wales as a whole, cases are beginning to stabilise, we can be pretty sure that in some parts of Wales, the west in particular, including Ynys Môn, we haven't reached the peak yet, because that's been the pattern of the spread of this virus throughout. It is an east-west movement. That's how pandemics work. Why expose people more to the virus before we know that we are over this current peak?

The Minister said this afternoon that we can't keep these regulations in place forever. I agree entirely, and if we were to have this vote in three weeks' time, I'm sure that we would support it. But with people still feeling vulnerable and nervous having to go to a shop or travel by bus or train, why create greater risk for them now?

The other safeguard that is being scrapped entirely now is the requirement for people to self-isolate. Again, why do that now? The only reason that I can think that you would want to do that is to help make public services and so on sustainable by getting people who are testing positive to go to work regardless, because, remember, there won't be LFT tests available from Friday free of charge. There won't be a test; if there isn't a test, there won't be a positive test, and if there isn't a positive test, no COVID, so off to work you go. Could the Minister confirm that that is indeed the intention? And if somebody does test positive, if they don't feel ill, they will be under a great deal of pressure, I'm afraid, to go to work. That's why the TUC have said today that they are disappointed with this decision. It will change that relationship between the employer and the employee. If safety is the priority, as the Welsh Government has stated throughout this pandemic, why not wait a little bit longer for this wave to be over? It doesn't make sense to me, and it doesn't make sense to the high number of people who have contacted me and, I suspect, a number of other Members since the announcement on Friday of last week. 

To conclude, Llywydd, I understand that Welsh Government has had to make all sorts of political judgments after looking at evidence. In this case, I just think Welsh Government has got its judgment wrong, and that's why we'll be opposing this amended regulation. 

The Minister for health to reply. Eluned Morgan.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Of course, we are very keen, Russell, to ensure that we have an end date, which is why what we're doing is only extending a few very small parts of the COVID Act, and the reason we've got that in place is because, actually, we don't know what comes next and we need to have some contingency just in case. So, ideally, we don't want to use these powers, because, actually, we'll be in a situation where everything is under control, but we don't know. Are we going to have a new variant that's going to knock everything out and be far more serious? We need to be ready to respond, which is why it is important to keep that opportunity to restart things on the books. Of course, we have to learn to live with COVID.

Face coverings: what's happening is we're moving them from law into guidance, which is really important to remember, because, actually, our guidance is still clear that you should be very careful and you should be thinking very carefully about the need to wear a face covering, in particular in an indoor public space, where there are lots of people around. It is a finely balanced judgment call. That's exactly what Rhun was saying: it's a judgment call. Do you want to come in?

If I could. In general terms, do you think moving mask wearing from mandation to guidance will make more or fewer people wear a mask? 

I think we're in a place now where we need to trust the public, and actually the public in Wales have been quite remarkable. They've been quite remarkable. They have followed guidance, and it is difficult, but, at some point, you have to make that change. Also, I think, it is difficult. We're the only place—and certainly when we're making these calls—the only place in the UK to have the tightest regulations still and we have the lowest levels of COVID. Now, we'll always do what's right for us in Wales, and we have done all the way through. We've never been pushed around, we never followed what they're doing in England, but we had set out a route-map, and what we've done here is to compromise, because of the situation, but we do think it's time now for the public to take on that responsibility. They know what to do, they've been doing it. People have been great, and I think it's really important that we understand that that responsibility moves now to them. 

But when it comes to health and social care settings, why have we kept them there? Well, we've kept them there because these are very vulnerable settings. These are where they most vulnerable people are. We are very concerned about nosocomial transmission, transmission within hospitals, and so that's one of the reasons why we've made sure that we've kept those protections in place to protect the most vulnerable people. Because, as I say, we're going to have to learn to live with this, but the people we need to just constantly look out for are the most vulnerable people. 

We will have this three-week cycle. The fact that we haven't ended the legal protections means that there will be another round. [Interruption.] Sorry, yes.

Sorry, can I just ask—? I absolutely appreciate what you said in terms of letting the people of Wales make their own judgment calls. I fully agree with what you said in that regard. My question on the health and social care settings, though, was: I agree that it's sensible, of course, for those staff to wear face masks going forward, but my question was on the logic behind not allowing them to make that discretion, as you've outlined yourself in other settings. I don't understand that logic. 

I think it's because we don't want to see any ambiguity in those settings. We do think, in those settings in particular, we have a responsibility to protect the people who are most vulnerable. So, that is—. It's the different setting that makes a difference. 

So, we will continue to give three-weekly regular updates. You've always known about the 21-day review; the rhythm has always happened in the way that it has happened right from the beginning. We always bring it to the Chamber as soon as we can, and, of course, we will continue to do that. I think we will continue to give regular updates until at least June, when, actually, the final protections, we hope, if everything goes in the right direction, will be in that place.

Rhun, the situation is challenging, and that is why we have extended the regulations, to a certain extent. As I explained to Russell, it's been a tough call, and it is a matter of balance. We had a plan. We set out that plan, and what we've done is compromise, to an extent, in this scenario, because the numbers are still high. We are shifting responsibility from Government to the individual, and the balance—. I think it's important that we understand that there is legislation, but just because it's moving to guidance, it doesn't mean that you don't have to do it.

Now, it is different, and the question that you raised on self-isolation—. As you know, in Scotland it's never been entrenched in law that you should self-isolate, but people have been following the guidance, and we do hope that that will happen here in Wales. We are entirely clear in the guidance: if you do get COVID, then you should self-isolate. And that's one of the reasons why, for example, we have continued to ensure that there is a responsibility on people in the workplace to carry out those risk assessments. If those risk assessments do allow people to come in with COVID, well, there's something wrong with the risk assessment then. It's important that the guidance—that you're aware that those have to be published. People can see those, and that's why we think that that safeguard is in place for people. But it is a judgment call, and that's the judgment that we have come to as a Government.

The proposal therefore is to agree the motion under item 10, first of all. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There is objection. Therefore, we will defer voting under this item until voting time. 

The proposal is to agree the motion under item 11. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion under item 11 is agreed. 

The final question is the proposal to agree the motion under item 12. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There is objection. Therefore, I will defer voting under item 12 until voting time. 

A motion to suspend Standing Orders once again is next for us to allow item 13 to be debated. I call on the Deputy Minister for Climate Change to move the motion formally. 

Formally.

Thank you. The proposal to suspend Standing Orders has been made. Does any Member object to suspending Standing Orders? No, therefore the motion is agreed.

This allows us now to discuss item 13, which is the legislative consent motion on the Building Safety Bill, and I call on the Deputy Minister for Climate Change to move the motion. Lee Waters. 

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Seventy-two people died in the Grenfell Tower fire. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom for 30 years, and it exposed serious failings in the regulatory systems around building safety. Dame Judith Hackitt's review has sought to address these failings, and the recommendations of her report fell into two categories: the design and construction of buildings and then their occupation. This motion deals with the first of these and also addresses the rights of redress for house buyers, including those suffering the consequences of building defects.

The reforms in the Bill to the building control system represent the most comprehensive set of changes since the Building Act 1984. They're intended to prevent a Grenfell fire occurring in the future. In parallel, we are working to ensure fair treatment for those facing the remediation of the flats they live in. That's why we've announced the funding of surveys and building passports, which will inform the support needed. It's a fact that the criticism levelled at the system in England by Dame Judith may equally be levelled at Wales. For this reason, we've actively sought the inclusion of amendments to the UK Government Building Safety Bill to reflect the needs of Wales. I'd like to thank the committees for their consideration of the legislative consent memorandum, and I recognise the comments made that this should have been a Welsh Government Bill. However, this Bill provides a pragmatic opportunity to take earlier action in our efforts to respond to these issues.

The new regime will provide for more stringent regulation of higher risk buildings in Wales. I previously indicated that a higher risk building in Wales is a building with a floor of 18 m or more, or seven storeys. There will be powers to change this definition in the event of further evidence informing our view of risk and building characteristics. The Bill puts requirements in place that will ensure you can no longer choose your building control body for higher risk buildings. In Wales local authority building control will carry out this role as an extension to their current duties. Buildings will have a clear system of gateway stages, through design, construction, to initial occupation. Stop points at different stages will prevent work continuing without evidence that building safety is being appropriately addressed.

As well as the system itself, people are also critical to building safety. The Bill will put in place new duty holder requirements, for example on the clients, designers and contractors who plan, manage and undertake building work. They will take responsibility for identifying and mitigating building safety risks throughout. The Bill will also introduce new provisions to provide for the regulation of the building control profession and bodies who oversee building work. As well as a more robust enforcement system, the Bill helps improve rights of redress, including where it becomes evident that substandard work has been undertaken following occupation of a home.

Buying a home is one of the biggest financial commitments many people make in their lives, and for purchasers to still be waiting for issues to be addressed months after moving in, or for defects to render a home uninhabitable, is simply unacceptable. Whilst home owners should expect a home to be of good quality on the day they move in, having a clear process that requires developers to act quickly to rectify issues is important in protecting home owners. We've addressed this through the changes to the Defective Premises Act 1972, and the creation of a New Homes Ombudsman. The Defective Premises Act provisions will be extended from new dwellings only to cover refurbishment and extension works to existing dwellings carried out by a business. It'll also extend the limitation period for claims from six to 15 years prospectively, and from six to 30 years retrospectively.

The New Homes Ombudsman is being introduced as a result of criticism of the house-building industry, in its build quality and customer service record. The ombudsman will provide for dispute resolution and determine complaints made by those with a relevant interest in new-build homes against developers. A code of practice, detailing the standards of conduct and quality of work, is a feature of the ombudsman, to ensure that developers know what's expected of them, and homebuyers know what to expect. It's envisaged the house-building industry will meet the costs of the new ombudsman and, once established, the service will be free to complainants.

Llywydd, in summary, these reforms address some of the key issues raised by Dame Judith Hackitt, and create a new system of control for Wales that provides a clear, robust framework to ensure that the construction industry builds homes that are safe, and will provide an effective route to redress if things go wrong. Diolch.

I call first of all on the Chair of the Local Government and Housing Committee, John Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. I'm speaking, yes, in my capacity as Chair of the Local Government and Housing Committee, and we laid our report on the supplementary legislative consent memorandum for the Building Safety Bill today. We previously reported on the initial LCM and supplementary LCM No. 2 at the end of last year in December. As mentioned in the report, regrettably, we did not have sufficient time to consider and report on the most recent supplementary LCM, No. 5, which was laid on 25 March.

Building safety has, in fact, been an area of priority for the committee, and indeed its predecessor committee in the fifth Senedd, since the tragedy, the terrible tragedy, of the Grenfell fire in 2017. In principle, we welcome the measures that the provisions in the supplementary memoranda will bring, including the establishment of a New Homes Ombudsman scheme, and we reiterate the view expressed in the first report, published in December of last year, that it would have been preferable if the provisions in the memoranda were brought forward in a Senedd Bill. This would have been better because it would have enabled more detailed committee scrutiny of the legislation, and Welsh stakeholders would have been able to share their views on the provisions.

The Minister told us in November last year that the rationale for using a UK Bill to legislate, rather than bringing forward a Senedd Bill, was one of expediency. We agreed that these important measures should be implemented as soon as possible. However, four months later, the Bill has not yet been agreed. Some members of the committee felt that, in a similar time frame to the one taken between laying the first LCM in July last year and the most recent one, a Senedd Bill could have been introduced and received full legislative scrutiny. Even were this not possible, procedures are available to expedite primary legislation through the Senedd. Some committee members also question whether the cross-border nature of the New Homes Ombudsman scheme provisions would be more valuable than a Wales-only scheme, as is asserted by the Welsh Government in supplementary LCM No. 3.

The committee would welcome assurances from the Minister today that, in future, committees will be given sufficient time to consider and report on LCMs and, indeed, supplementary LCMs. But Llywydd, despite the concerns I've just outlined, most members of the committee see the benefit of applying these reforms to Wales as soon as possible. But it must still be said that the absence of scrutiny means that we are unable to put these assertions to the test. Our committee is very frustrated that we were unable to scrutinise the provisions in the supplementary LCM No. 5 and report our views to the Senedd ahead of this debate. I would therefore ask the Welsh Government to ensure that committees have the necessary time and information to be able to play a meaningful role in the legislative consent process. Diolch yn fawr.

The Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee next, Huw Irranca-Davies.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you, Deputy Minister. We have produced two reports covering four consent memoranda that have been laid by the Minister for Climate Change on this Bill. The first was completed last December, and the second was laid earlier this month. We were grateful to the Minister for responding to both reports. Unfortunately,

however, memorandum No. 5 was only laid last Friday afternoon, meaning it has not been subject to scrutiny by any Senedd committee. This is clearly frustrating, as my colleague John Griffiths, Chair of my fellow committee, has mentioned, and it's regrettable.

While our two reports comment on specific provisions in the Bill, this afternoon I will focus on the extensive commentary in our reports on the overall Welsh Government’s approach to seeking to using a UK Government-proposed Bill passing through a different Parliament in a different place to legislate for Wales on wholly devolved matters—again, a matter referred to also in his remarks by my fellow Chair, John Griffiths, today. This is a familiar refrain, I know, to Welsh Government Ministers and to this Senedd, and in fact the Minister today said he recognised this in his opening remarks. I sometimes feel that secretly Ministers do agree with us in their quiet moments as they rest their heads on their pillow, and at some point they're going to move to explicitly saying that and acting in that way as well.

We're concerned with the cumulative constitutional implications of the Welsh Government’s approach, and it's not just because of the potential impact on devolution, regardless of issues over expediency and so on. But it's also in terms of the accessibility of law for our citizens. Now, I know that the Minister herself is unable to be with us this afternoon but, with regards to the Minister’s comments to us previously that many building control professionals work in both England and Wales and that there is therefore merit in similar provisions being applicable in both nations, we get that, but we do not see why commonality of law across England and Wales could not be achieved by a Senedd Bill, with the full scrutiny referred to by my fellow Chair. We're also unclear as to how requesting provisions for Wales in a UK Bill, as well as planning for a future Welsh Bill to deal with other matters relating to building safety, is in step with the Welsh Government’s own commitment to improve the quality and the accessibility of bilingual Welsh law. It's a principle the Government stands on. We want to see them standing by that.

Now, the Minister did cite to us—our committee—capacity issues in Welsh Government as one reason for using UK Bills to legislate for Wales. But we just are not convinced by this argument to allocate resources to support the development and passage of the UK Bill through the UK Parliament rather than allocating those resources to bring forward a Welsh Bill, even simultaneously, though our Senedd. We find the reasoning and approach confusing, given that Welsh Government officials would have developed the policy instructions for the relevant bespoke clauses in the Bill, and subsequently commented on draft clauses prepared by the UK Government’s legal counsel anyway. Furthermore, it is clear that inter-governmental working has continued whilst the Bill is progressing through the UK Parliament, which will also, in itself, have had time and resource implications.

Now, the Welsh Government is aware that we remain deeply concerned about its capacity, if this is an issue, to bring forward primary legislation, and we are pursuing this issue across the Welsh Government as a whole. But we also have concerns that the Welsh Government may, in pursuing this approach, have missed another opportunity to utilise the justice system we already have in Wales to deal with, for example, such matters that may be dealt with by the New Homes Ombudsman scheme provisions, which are detailed in memorandum No. 3.

Let me turn now to the issue of what we see as an emerging democratic deficit caused by explicit Welsh Government legislative choices. In our second report we noted that a number of amendments have been made to the Bill that mean that the Welsh Ministers will now have a consultative role before certain regulation-making powers are exercised by the Secretary of State. As we've said in many other reports on Welsh Government legislative consent memoranda for UK Bills, a role for the Welsh Ministers, whether that be a consultative or a consenting role, before a UK Minister exercises a regulation-making power contained in a UK Bill, does not address the inherent democratic deficit that means that the Senedd is excluded from shaping and agreeing to law that will apply in Wales. We stand strongly by this.

Recommendation—. Llywydd, my apologies, I've gone slightly over; I'll draw my conclusions quickly here. Recommendation 1 in our first report asked the Minister to seek amendments to the Bill to ensure that the Welsh Ministers are given equivalent commencement powers relating to the provisions for Wales to those already given to the Secretary of State, so that Welsh Ministers are fully in control of when the provisions for Wales come into force. So, we are disappointed with the Minister's response to that recommendation that she doesn't consider this necessary and would not pursue such amendments. We just don't see that relinquishing this control is appropriate, and there is a contrast here with the approach taken by other Ministers in other Bills within this Senedd term. But, as we stated, we respectfully disagree with the overall decision to use a UK Bill to address building safety in Wales, regardless of expediency or resources, for the reasons we've given. Whatever assessments may have been undertaken as regards the practical benefits of seizing the opportunity shouldn't outweigh the democratic mandate of the Senedd and the consequential accountability of Welsh Government to this Senedd. So, we remain deeply concerned at that approach in many Bills.

Llywydd, our report on memorandums No. 3 and No. 4 for this Bill was the twenty-sixth report on legislative consent memoranda that our committee has laid in seven months. We're shortly due to lay our twenty-seventh. Now, these statistics, just to note, aren't particularly welcome, but they need to be highlighted, because the vast majority of legislation currently being made for Wales is not being made in Wales.

Aelodau o'r Senedd, Members of the Senedd, almost five years on from the Grenfell tragedy, it is absolutely unacceptable that there are residents living in fear in Wales within their own homes. In fact, the 'Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety' report was published on 17 May 2018. Well, I actually welcome the fact that the Bill under consideration implements the recommendations of Dame Judith Hackitt's review. The Bill is vitally important as it does make provision for the regulation of all construction products placed on the UK market, the design and construction phase for the building phase of higher-risk buildings, and the creation of a unified, professional and regulatory structure for building control.

By supporting this LCM today, we would be backing commonsense changes, such as clause 31, providing a power for the Welsh Ministers in building regs to designate an alternative local authority to act as a building control authority where the local authority for the area proposes to carry out higher risk building work; clause 32, which enables the introduction of new procedures and requirements for any work, including new higher risk buildings as they are designed and built; and clause 37, which enables the building control authority to issue compliance or stop notices where there is, or is likely to be, a contravention of building regulations.

The proposed changes to the core primary legislation, the 1984 Act, that the Bill now proposes actually provide the necessary tools with which Welsh Ministers would be able to modernise and improve the system here in Wales. The proposals are not the application of UK proposals in Wales. The provisions in the Bill that fall within the legislative competence of the Senedd are largely bespoke amendments to the 1984 Act suited to the building safety issues in Wales. So, I believe that we should be voting in favour of this today.

Now, whilst I know that the Legislative, Justice and Constitution Committee disagree with an overall decision to use a UK Bill to address building safety in Wales, will you, Deputy Minister, for the benefit of the Senedd, reiterate the practical benefits of such an opportunity? I acknowledge that the committee is also deeply concerned about the Welsh Government's capacity to bring forward primary legislation. Whilst we will be backing this today, I would like to make an important general point: I think the time has come to see more private Member and Welsh Government Bills come forward.

In terms of action you are taking now, it is welcome news that digital surveys have been completed for the first 248 applications. I would be pleased, though, if you could clarify by when the intrusive surveys will be completed.

Finally, I note that you have withdrawn the statement due today on building safety. The Celestia action group have tweeted, expressing their concerns that you have not only cancelled the statement, but also cancelled meetings with victims. This has led them to feeling more worried, and they feel that they are literally being kept in the dark. The Senedd, and we as politicians, must all do better for residents trapped in flammable homes, so will you review the steps now being taken to engage with and keep residents updated on building safety in Wales? And I honestly would ask everybody to support this LCM today. Diolch. 

I welcome the comments made by the Deputy Minister, of course—I welcome any attempt to strengthen the rights of people who live in flats that are unsafe—but I don't accept the argument, Deputy Minister, that using the LCM process is swifter than having our own Act here in Wales. We've seen over the past two years that this place can pass legislation quickly when there is a need to do so. 

Members will have heard me several times before stressing my concerns about the way the LCM process is being used in this place. 

This process is doing nothing to simplify our devolved settlement or our legal system, a system and settlement that even the previous Lord Chief Justice Thomas of Cwmgïedd, one of the most talented legal minds of our age, said that even he found impossible to understand, not to mention members of the public. There is a specific example here of complicating our justice system further, with the Bill establishing the new housing ombudsman system in England, with the Minister in Wales asking us to be part of this new system for England. Another opportunity was lost here—and I'm looking at my colleague the Counsel General—to extend the boundaries of the devolution settlement and to use our Welsh tribunals. 

Instead of using an English ombudsman scheme, we should have used the already Welsh tribunals. The Welsh residential property tribunal could easily have been renamed the Welsh housing tribunal. Instead, though, of using an existing tribunal system, we set up another ombudsman scheme, complicating an already complex tapestry. The reasons given by the Minister to ask the UK Government to be included in the English property ombudsman sounds like a list of reasons I will hear from the benches opposite opposing the devolution of justice. In fact, you could hear a member of Abolish the Welsh Assembly putting these reasons forward, and these are the reasons: it will have more value if it's cross-border; it will ensure a standard approach; it will save money; and developers are likely to prefer one system. To decide to use a UK Bill based on the fact that developers are likely to prefer it is certainly not the proper and right way to legislate. We should not be using a UK Bill rather than our own Welsh Bill simply because large developers are likely to have a preference for that than using our own devolved system.

And the Minister goes on to say if the ombudsman scheme is not working for Wales, we could set up our own system then. But, she says that that would need the consent of a UK Minister and seeking such consent would negatively impact the Senedd competency. Well, Dirprwy Weinidog, we wouldn't be in that situation if we hadn't have asked to be part of the ombudsman scheme in the first place.

In responding to the committee's first report, and it's incredible that we've had five memoranda just on this one Bill—again, so complicated—it was very worrying to hear the Minister say that she saw no cumulative constitutional implications as a consequence of the Bill's provisions. Yet, this is another piece of UK legislation passed within the powers of our devolved settlement, in an area that is clearly within the Senedd's competence, and we don't have proper scrutiny on it. The Members opposite will agree to any LCM because they think anything coming down the road from London is great. We're not getting proper scrutiny within committees because we're not getting enough time, because of the back and forth, the ping-pong between both Governments. This term, my friend the Chair of the legislative committee, said we've had 27 reports from that committee—27 reports for 42 LCMs and supplementary LCMs. The constitutional implications of those 42 LCMs and supplementary LCMs should not be underestimated by us. Diolch yn fawr.

Members are being put in an appalling position this afternoon by the Government, and the Deputy Minister recognised that, I think, in the tone that he used and the words that he used in order to introduce this debate, because whenever we are asked to debate legislative consent motions, we do two things, don't we? Ministers focus on the content, on the legislation, and Members will then focus on the process, and that tension is inevitable, and it's a good thing that that sort of tension exists. In this case, we have had from Government a number of different reasons why a UK Bill is being used to address a serious issue that affects people in Wales, and each one of the reports from the legislation committee contains different rationale from the Government for doing so. We were told last summer, when this matter first came in front of us, that it was a matter of expediency and that this could reach the statute book in a way that would provide far earlier protection and far more protection for people living in Wales, and on that basis, although many of us were unhappy with the process, we were content to consent to it. Well, now, with Glamorgan starting the cricket season next week, we are still being told the same thing. Now, all of us who have been in this place for more than a few months will understand and know that there are numerous processes that the Government could have used in order to deliver legislation onto the statute book within the timescale that we've had available to us. We also know that policy development has been taking place throughout the whole process of this Bill going through Westminster, so what the Government was seeking to do back in July is not what the Government is asking us to agree to now at the end of March. So, there have been changes through that, and I'm content with that, as it happens, as long as we have the opportunity to scrutinise those changes, the reasons for them and what the Government wishes to put on the statute book. None of those things are happening today, and none of those things have happened over the last seven months. This is a bad way to legislate, Deputy Minister. This is a bad thing to do, and it is not good that you ask Members to vote for it in this way.

We've heard a speech from the official opposition that asks us to support this because of the importance of what the legislation contains. They haven't had an opportunity to read the Bill. They don't know what's in it. None of us do. We haven't had the opportunity to scrutinise it. We established a form of legislating in this place that's different from Westminster because of the importance of scrutiny and because of the importance of involving stakeholders and those affected by legislation, through the Stage 1 scrutiny, which is an important and integral part of how we understand the impact of legislation. None of that has happened. None of us have had the opportunity to study it. So, to listen to an opposition saying, 'We're happy with this legislation, let's put it straight on the statute book. Let's not bother with scrutiny, let's not bother with examination, let's not seek to amend it, send it straight to Windsor castle for Royal Assent' beggars belief. It's an extraordinary abrogation of the role of opposition in scrutinising legislation.

And that brings us back to where we are today. I'm going to vote for the LCM this afternoon because we are forced to do so. But, Minister, don't believe for one moment that I am convinced by your arguments, don't believe for moment that I accept the position that you've put forward, and don't believe for one moment that my vote in favour of this supports the way in which you—

Sorry, I am really interested in hearing what Alun Davies is building up to here, and I'm failing to because you're creating quite a stir in the Chamber, Alun. So, if I can have some silence in the Chamber, and Alun to finish his contribution. Diolch.

That's what I was building up to, fortunately, Presiding Officer. One of the difficulties, of course, of contributing from a remote location is that you can't see or hear what's going on in the Chamber, and I think that is something we need to consider.

Minister, you've put us in an impossible situation this afternoon. You've held a gun to our heads, and although you will have our support, don't believe for a moment that this support is for the way in which you've treated this Parliament; it's for the legislation. We're voting because of the situation that people find themselves in across the country. We're voting for them, Minister, this afternoon; we're not voting for you.

Good afternoon, Deputy Minister. I echo many of the statements that have been made around the process. We find ourselves on a hamster wheel around LCMs, and the timescale that we've been given—yet again—is absolutely abhorrent, and absolutely not what this Senedd should be about. Many of us, I know, and that would include the Ministers, find themselves in a really difficult position, and I do echo and thank the committee Chairs for the work that they do in drawing our attention to that.

On the specific issue, it is nearly five years since Grenfell, and I do welcome the announcements and the developments within this, although very late. I want to emphasise as well the importance of engaging and communicating and consulting with those victims, many of whom have suffered extreme mental health issues and financial instability as well.

Turning to what we have in front of us, I just really want to make one point in relation to clause 160, which provides that the measures come into force two months after the Bill receives Royal Assent. I've had many people contact me, who, whilst welcoming that timescale, are concerned that they could begin to face escalating remediation bills should developers or management companies decide to levy funds from leaseholders before the provisions come into force. Related to those provisions, we see that, in England, those provisions have actually been introduced to protect those people affected from the significant financial burden of paying for the failures of developers—the so-called waterfall protections. Given that those protections, as I understand them, don't apply to Wales, I am concerned that those transitional arrangements could put an additional burden on leaseholders in the very short term.

So, just to turn to my question, if I may, Deputy Minister: what assurances can you give to leaseholders that they are not going to lose out financially, and can you assure us that the Welsh Government will communicate, talk with and engage with those victims who are affected? Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Thank you to the Deputy Minister for introducing this item today. May I at the outset just note how entirely deplorable this process is in drawing up legislation in devolved areas? The committee, for example, hasn't had time to properly scrutinise, never mind the ability for the people of Wales to participate in this process.

The reason given why we should support these LCMs was because of the critical nature of the situation, as we have heard—it was an urgent issue. There are a number of LCMs that have been brought forward on this issue now, and we are 10 months into the sixth Senedd but we haven't seen any primary legislation brought forward yet. The Government here could have drafted its own Bill to tackle these grave problems faced by leaseholders and tenants, but we are still waiting.

Many of the clauses include devolved powers. The Secretary of State is responsible for most of these, and only one power is provided to Welsh Ministers. Are you content to transfer these powers to the Secretary of State? The Secretary of State will have the right to establish the new ombudsman's office, whose powers will extend across Wales. The Welsh Government will have a consultative role only in this. Are you, therefore, content with transferring these powers to Westminster, and are you content in trusting the Government there to make the best decisions on behalf of the people of Wales? And I will note here that I see the Conservatives opposing having more politicians for Wales—and the role of politicians, of course, is to scrutinise Bills in order to ensure that good law is made in Wales—but they don't oppose the role of new offices, such as ombudsmen, who find blame once things have gone wrong.

Likewise, the Secretary of State alone will have the power to publish and approve a code of conduct. The Welsh Ministers' role is consultative only before such regulations are made, and Welsh Ministers won't have any other rights—for example, the power of veto. Are you content, therefore, that the Westminster Government will act in accordance with the wishes of the people of Wales? Finally on this issue, the provisions of the New Homes Ombudsman scheme will come into force on a date set in regulations made by the Secretary of State. Do you think that this is appropriate, because, once again, we will see the Welsh voice being weakened?

In terms of the Bill going through Westminster at the moment, it is frustrating to see this Government happy to allow that dusty institution on the banks of the Thames to legislate on our behalf once again. But does this set a precedent? Does the Welsh Government intend to use UK Bills in order to make further changes to building safety here in Wales, or will any further changes be included in a safety Bill discussed on the floor of this Senedd?

Finally, many stakeholders, leaseholders, have been in contact with me recently, and they're extremely concerned about the significant costs that they are facing now. What assurances can you give to these people that they won't have to pay any more than they already have paid for remedial work, be that external or internal? Thank you.

I call on the Deputy Minister to reply to the debate. Lee Waters.

Diolch. And thank you for all the contributions. I must say, Llywydd, this is the second time today I've been told off by Janet Finch-Saunders for not paying enough attention to Twitter, but I should inform Members that I'm having a little break from Twitter, which, clearly, some of my colleagues welcome, and I can assure you that the Government press office are delighted by. [Laughter.] So, I'm afraid I didn't see those conversations. But, look, there does seem to be support in the Senedd for the principle of what we're trying to do and the policy intent. There is clear unease about the mechanism by which we are doing it, and I recognise the concerns and I understand the frustrations.

Huw Irranca-Davies conjured up an image of me at night with my head on the pillow, being worried about various things, and secretly agreeing with the points he made. And, of course, I'm a former member of his committee and I completely understand the concerns that Members have. And there is a tension, as Alun Davies rightly identified, between the legislature and the Executive at all times, and that's how it should be. We face pragmatic judgments. Of course we could have brought forward our separate legislation on this, but then we wouldn't have been able to do it in the same timescale. And given the gravity of the issues being faced here, our judgment was it was better to get something that was fit for purpose on the statutory book as soon as we possibly could, to protect the people who are most vulnerable, rather than to wait to get a Welsh Bill. Had we had a Welsh Bill—. It's been noted already by the committee that we have a full legislative programme, so if we were to have a separate Bill on this, that would be at the expense of something else. And as we've just been discussing in the Senedd this afternoon, our legal capacity is still tied up with coronavirus regulations and with the Brexit legacy, and there is a limited amount both our policy officials and legal officials are able to do. So, we have a full and bold legislative programme, and when there are opportunities to use UK legislation to advance our policy aims, we do take a pragmatic view that it is right to do that. 

I have an indication of an intervention from Alun Davies. Are you willing to take the intervention?

I think I understand the full force of his argument, Llywydd, so I'd rather—. Well, let him be brief and let me hear the blast of his argument one more time. [Laughter.]

Alun Davies.

It's quite something to be told to be brief by Lee Waters, isn't it? You say that you needed to get this onto the statute book as quickly as possible, but that, I'm afraid, Minister, simply is not true. There are procedures in place in the Senedd to enable the Government to get its business through more quickly when that is required, and the Senedd has always taken a very pragmatic approach to that. We also know that the Government has continued its policy development work during the period of this Bill going through Westminster. So, what we were told last summer isn't what we're being asked to support today. So, we know that the Government were continuing to work on this and could have delivered a Bill to this place in the time that it's taken to reach this point today. So, that argument doesn't stand up to examination, I'm afraid.

Well, with respect to Alun Davies, it's not just a case of having Senedd time, is it? It's about having the capacity within the Government to take a whole Bill through, and those are different things. So, I respectfully disagree with him about the pragmatic judgments that we have faced.

And I just would stress to Members that this is primary legislation. The substance of the enactment will be in secondary legislation, which will all be bilingual, which will be scrutinised and consulted upon, with a role for this Senedd, and the Bill will have the majority of its provisions commenced by Welsh Ministers. So, I think there is a balance to strike. We think we've got the balance right, but I completely understand the unease with this approach. But I'm afraid that Government Ministers, collectively, have to take difficult decisions sometimes on the balance of these things, and notwithstanding the concerns of Members, we think, on this occasion, given the gravity of the issue at hand, we have made the right one, but that's not to say that we disregard or take lightly the concerns raised. But I would urge Members to support the LCM. Diolch.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No, there is no objection, therefore, the—[Interruption.] No, it's not too late. I did hear it just before I finished my sentence. [Objection.] I did hear an objection, therefore, we will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Item 14 is next, the legislative consent motion on the Elections Bill. I call on the Counsel General to move the motion. Mick Antoniw.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. I move the motion. I welcome this opportunity to explain why I am recommending that the Senedd consents to the provisions in the Elections Bill.

First of all, I would like to apologise for the delay before laying the supplementary memorandum caused by the complex and protracted discussions between the United Kingdom Government and the Welsh Government on a number of the provisions of the Bill. I regret the delay that affected the time that committees had to look at the most recent provisions.

I thank the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee and the Local Government and Housing Committee for the helpful points raised in their reports. They'll be pleased to hear of our constructive engagement with the UK Government and the significant progress that has been achieved.

Before I provide Members with further detail on what has been achieved, may I remind Members of the Welsh Government's approach to electoral reform, contained in the principles for electoral reform, published last July? They are principles that are founded in the values of social justice and democracy and the promotion of equality, accessibility and simplicity. We regret that the UK Government does not share our priorities.

We've made important progress towards delivering on these principles. Last year, we enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds and also qualifying foreign citizens—those people who contribute so much to our communities and our nation and who deserve to have their voices heard in Wales, if not in England. We're also building on this by working with local authorities, education and third sector partners on a comprehensive engagement and awareness-raising campaign ahead of the May elections. Last week's voter registration day encouraged newly enfranchised young people to register to vote and to influence the things that matter to them. And Orders came into force last week to enable advanced voting pilots to take place in Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly and Torfaen, giving people flexibility on when and where they can vote in the May elections. We are grateful to local government partners for helping elections in Wales to be as accessible as possible, reducing the democratic deficit.

Now, Members will know that in the original legislative consent memorandum laid on 9 September 2021, I could not recommend consent to the Bill. I had concerns that the Bill, as drafted, would adversely impact on devolved competence. Like many of us in this Siambr, I do not agree with the Bill, however, I am pleased to report that the Bill now better recognises devolved powers. With the exception of two areas relating to the offence of intimidation and digital imprints, Wales has effectively been carved out of the Bill in respect of devolved elections. I can therefore recommend consent, as set out in the supplementary memorandum, laid on 22 March.

As a consequence of our discussions, the UK Government has now recognised our key areas of concerns, set out in the original legislative consent memorandum—concerns also shared by the committees and noted in their reports. Voter ID proposals will not apply to the Senedd and council elections. Provisions enabling the Secretary of State to direct the Electoral Commission in the discharge of its Welsh functions have been removed by amendments that were tabled on 28 February and agreed at the House of Lords Committee Stage, as have proposals regarding undue influence, notional expenditure and other political finance. An outline of the relevant amendments can be found in paragraphs 17 to 29 of the supplementary memorandum.

There remains a difference of opinion between the Welsh Government and the UK Government on certain issues relating to digital imprints and the offence of intimidation. However, these relate to competence rather than the policy intent. The policy on digital imprints concerns electoral transparency. For devolved elections, this falls within devolved competence and requires Senedd consent. We agree that it's important to protect participants in the democratic process, and therefore we are not opposed in principle to the provisions on intimidation. However, I'm sure Members will agree that every legislature should be free to determine the disqualification regime for elections it is responsible for.

To repeat, I maintain my opposition to the Bill, which I believe is unnecessary and which is more about voter suppression and enabling foreign funding than enhancing electoral democracy and integrity. But I am satisfied that the changes we have secured for Wales, in accordance with the Sewel convention, with the exception of the two areas of disagreement on competence—. We are satisfied that the substantive elements of the Bill will not now impact on matters within the Senedd's competence. I remain firmly of the view that we are free to consider these issues further in consultation with stakeholders in Wales, and we plan to look at them again when we move forward with our own electoral reform legislation. I am now satisfied that the Senedd can give its consent to the Bill. Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd.

The Chair of the Local Government and Housing Committee now, John Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. We laid our report on the legislative consent memorandum for the Elections Bill in December last year, and in that report we noted the Welsh Government's position that it would be inappropriate to grant consent to the UK Government to legislate on the devolved matters included in this Bill. Most of our committee agreed that consent should not be granted on the basis that any proposals to legislate on these devolved matters should be brought forward by the Welsh Government and subject to full scrutiny by the Senedd. Two Members, Joel James and Sam Rowlands, disagreed with that view and believed that consent should be granted.

Since then, the supplementary LCM in relation to this Bill was laid on 22 March, and we were invited by the Business Committee to consider and report on that supplementary LCM, No. 2, by today. We only had one meeting scheduled within that time frame on 23 March. We received an oral briefing from Legal Services at that meeting. However, due to the very limited time available, we have been unable to consider a legal advice note or to report on the SLCM.

The Counsel General will be aware that I wrote to him on Friday, expressing our frustration at being unable to undertake any detailed work on this supplementary LCM. The provisions within the supplementary LCM relate to amendments tabled to the Elections Bill on 11 January and 28 February. The delay in laying the SLCM then is therefore very disappointing. We are very concerned by the approach taken by the Welsh Government in not laying separate supplementary LCMs, following the tabling of each tranche of amendments. The delay has left no time for scrutiny of the supplementary LCM by our committee before it is debated today, and we are concerned that this debate is taking place without Members having the benefit of being able to consider a report by a relevant Senedd committee to inform their view. This situation highlights the importance of laying LCMs, or indeed supplementary LCMs, in a timely manner.

Given the previous debate, Llywydd, it's obviously a particular concern to the committee that I've had to reiterate this sort of message in relation to several supplementary LCMs brought forward by the Welsh Government with insufficient time for scrutiny. We've just discussed that building safety supplementary LCM today, and in December of last year, I expressed the committee's disappointment that the delay in laying supplementary memoranda in relation to the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill also restricted our ability to scrutinise that legislation. So, I would repeat my ask, the committee's ask, to Welsh Government, Llywydd, to ensure that committees have the necessary time and information to be able to play a meaningful role, a proper role, in the legislative consent process. Diolch yn fawr.

Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee next. Huw Irranca-Davies.

Thank you, Llywydd. We issued a report on the legislative consent memorandum on the Elections Bill in December of last year. Although we considered the supplementary memorandum at our meeting yesterday, as it was only laid last Tuesday, we were unable to issue a report in the time allowed to us.

In our report on the memorandum, we expressed serious concern with provisions included within the Bill on its introduction that impacted on devolved areas and on the accountability arrangements for the Electoral Commission's activities in Wales as set out in the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020. We were equally concerned, at that time, at the apparent lack of engagement between the UK Government and the Welsh Government in such a significant area of public policy—as the Counsel General has set out, this really matters. It's one of fundamental importance to the rights of citizens and their engagement in the democratic process to decide who governs them. We therefore welcomed the fact that, as the Counsel General has laid out this afternoon, the UK Government did indeed table amendments that carved out devolved elections in Wales from the scope of the provisions that caused us great concern, and that is welcome.

I'll now turn to the four recommendations we made in our report, the first three of which were, indeed, accepted by the Counsel General, and the fourth was accepted in principle. Our first recommendation called on the Counsel General, following the completion of the Bill's passage through the UK Parliament, to issue a statement on the implications of the legislation for devolved elections in Wales. He's outlined some of this this afternoon, but he has accepted this recommendation. We welcome that, and we look forward to seeing the statement from you.

Our second recommendation related to the view expressed in the memorandum that the Welsh Government would prefer to consult stakeholders in Wales and to bring forward its own electoral legislation for scrutiny in the Senedd in due course. Counsel General, in your response to the committee, you also stated that the Welsh Government intends to bring forward this legislation in time for the next Senedd elections in 2026, subject to other demands. We welcome this intention—we support it. We see it as an opportunity to consolidate the law for devolved Welsh elections, which would help people's understanding of that law and, again, make it more accessible in both Welsh and English. So, we would welcome any further information about how those plans are progressing in response to this debate today.

Our third recommendation related to the original provisions that impacted upon devolved areas, which I previously mentioned, and asked when the Counsel General intended to bring forward a supplementary legislative consent memorandum relating to amendments tabled to the Bill. As the supplementary memorandum tabled last Tuesday confirms, amendments to the Bill were tabled on 11 January, 17 January and 28 February. I would simply, at this point, like to echo what the Chair of the Local Government and Housing Committee has said in saying that there is some disappointment at the delay in tabling the supplementary memorandum after these amendments were laid. I'd also echo what I said in the debate on the legislative consent motion for the leasehold reform Bill back in December. This delay in conveying crucial information to the Senedd until late in the consent process reduces greatly the amount of time that we have to effectively scrutinise the Welsh Government’s approach. Laying supplementary memoranda earlier, as a matter of really good practice, would have enabled us to consider the issues in more detail and report to the Senedd in time for today's debate. We therefore fully support what the Local Government and Housing Committee had told us in correspondence last week about the delay in tabling this particular supplementary memorandum when they said that whilst it does not breach Standing Orders, it certainly goes against the spirit of Standing Order 29.2.

The final recommendation in our report called on the Welsh Government to include a commentary on the extent of co-operation and engagement with the UK Government in all legislative consent memoranda. We made this recommendation as it was not clear to us how the position set out in this memorandum in relation to the most contentious provisions in the Bill had been arrived at, and when and to what extent the UK Government engaged with the Welsh Government. We really welcome the positive response to that recommendation, and in particular that future memoranda will inform Members of the extent of co-operation and engagement with the UK Government. We think this is critical for all the reasons we've laid out this afternoon.

Finally, we note and therefore welcome the references made in the supplementary consent memorandum to the constructive engagement that was subsequently had with the UK Government since the first memorandum was tabled and, of course, the Welsh Government's successful influence on the Bill in the areas in which the Welsh Government sought amendments. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd.

Cwnsler Cyffredinol, may I begin by congratulating you and the Welsh Government on the concessions you have achieved from the Westminster Government with regard to this Bill? It must be next to impossible to try and work with that Government—a Government that simply does not listen.

It's a Government that doesn't even listen to experts such as the Electoral Commission. But—and there is a 'but'—I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that we here in the Senedd are being asked to consent to such a Bill—a Bill that, through the expensive system of voter ID, will have the potential to exclude millions of the most disadvantaged people across the UK from casting their vote. I'm very uncomfortable that this Senedd, which has taken such pride in extending voting rights in Wales, is being asked to consent to a Bill that will undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission.

In recent years we've heard time and time again about Putin's interference within western democracies and western elections. Is now really the time to undermine the independent regulator of elections here in the United Kingdom? By now you've heard me on several occasions complaining not only about this Bill—.

Do you think, given the images we are seeing time and time again on the television, executed in the name of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, that it's beneath the Member to compare the actions of the UK Government to that dictator? I would ask you to consider those comments that you've just made. 

If you would have listened carefully to what I said, leader of the opposition, what I said was we've heard time and time again about Putin's interference in western democracies and in western elections. Having a strong, independent regulator for elections is crucial to stop that interference. I did not compare what Putin is doing with the Conservatives, so I'll ask you to take that back, the leader of the opposition.

Llywydd, you'll be pleased to know, and everyone else here will be pleased to know, especially those going to the football, that I'm not going to repeat my argument about LCMs or about this Bill.

I very much hope that we will see a Welsh elections Bill soon in the Senedd, which will show once again how Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament, puts people, rights and justice at the heart of all of our actions. I remember Adam Price telling me one once that fair play and justice are part of our DNA as Welsh people. Well, there's no fair play in this Bill. Nor was there fair play in the nationality Bill—a Bill that punishes refugees, that punishes Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. This Senedd consented to a part of that Bill. Rather than consenting, I think we should have sent a clear message to Westminster that we want nothing to do with Bills that ride roughshod over people's rights. The argument that we are consenting only to those sections that are within our devolution settlement is, in my view, a weak one. The fact that there are good parts of the Bill doesn’t make it worth us here supporting it. We in this Senedd can't separate ourselves from that bigger picture. One of my heroes, the poet and communist Niclas y Glais, said this:

'The world is bigger than Wales / I know that now / But I give thanks that Wales, though small, / Is part of a world so big.'

Because we are part of something so much bigger than just the devolved settlement, so much bigger than us here in Wales, we can’t hide behind our devolution settlement and say, ‘Well, we agree with the parts that relate to devolution’. Because at its heart, as you've said, Counsel General, this is a poor Bill. We don't need this Bill. This Bill has been designed to undermine people’s rights, and as a result, we in Plaid Cymru—and I'm proud of saying this—cannot consent to such a Bill. Thank you very much.

Alun Davies. [Interruption.] No, no, no, no, no, no. 'Oh God', did you say? Who said that? Alun Davies.

It could have been my children, to be fair, Presiding Officer. [Laughter.] I speak in support of the Government and the proposition that's being made this afternoon. To start where Rhys ab Owen concluded, of course it is not in our gift to provide consent for the whole of this legislation. This is Westminster legislation designed mostly and generally for UK elections and English elections. It's not in our gift to stop the Bill going ahead, and I don't think we should pretend that it is. What I want to do this afternoon is to congratulate the Counsel General on how he has negotiated with the United Kingdom Government and ensured that we do have the carve-outs that are in place, and that we do have the opportunity to protect Welsh elections from this attack on the integrity of our democracy. I would very gently remind Rhys that, had Plaid Cymru voted for the 2017, I think, legislation, then they would have been able to vote for this as well, with the knowledge that they'd provided the opportunity for us to carve Wales out of this legislation.

The overall Bill that's being put through the Westminster Parliament is a bad Bill. It's a very bad Bill that does bad things. It seeks to undermine the integrity of our democracy by undermining the independence and powers of the regulator. At a time when we're all deeply concerned about the influence of dark money—I hesitate to say 'dirty money', but I suspect there's dirty money in British politics as well—we need to be strengthening independent regulation of our democracy, and we need to be strengthening the ability of the Electoral Commission to mount investigations into where money comes from, to follow the trail and to prosecute those people who are guilty of wrongdoing. I want to see a more powerful regulator protecting our democracy, not a less powerful regulator. It's essential that we do what we can in this place to root not just the processes of democracy, but also a culture of democracy, which we sometimes forget about.

In supporting the Government's approach on this legislation, I wonder if I could say two things to the Counsel General. I'd be grateful if he could respond in his summing up. First of all, do we have the opportunity over this Senedd in order to strengthen the Electoral Commission in Wales and to strengthen how it is able to regulate elections that take place in Wales—Senedd and local authority elections—to ensure that we are demonstrating that we want to see this integrity in the way that we ourselves are elected?

Secondly, Counsel General, we will be looking at Senedd reform over the term of this Parliament, and I hope that in doing so you'll be able to bring forward some legislation that consolidates existing legislation regulating how we run our elections, to ensure that we have a single Act that provides for all of the rules and regulations for elections in Wales, so that we improve not just the way we manage our democracy, but access to the understanding of what that democracy is as well. I think, whatever way in which the UK Government undermines the culture of democracy in the United Kingdom, in Wales what I hope we can do is to keep that light shining and to ensure that in Wales we demonstrate the integrity not just of a democratic Government but of a democracy and a parliamentary democracy where the integrity of that democracy is more important than trying to fix various parts of it. 

The Counsel General to reply to the debate. 

Can I thank all Members and Chairs of the committees for their comments, and can I just echo that I do not disagree with the concerns that have been raised in terms of the issue of scrutiny? I think it is one of the unfortunate parts of the way legislation has been coming from Westminster and the speed at which we have to deal with issues, amendments and changes, and to have to almost tortuously negotiate through Sewel to get to a final conclusion. You'll notice, on this legislation, effectively, were it not for two items there, there wouldn't be a need for a legislative consent motion at all on this. We brought the consent motion specifically to reiterate the competence issues that we have—not the disagreements on the policy aspect, but the fact that we believe there are competence matters, and we will incorporate those within future legislation. 

Can I also say that, of course, one of the problems, as you'll have noticed from the various dates that have been mentioned, is that the negotiations have been ongoing. The timescale was impacted by a reshuffle and then certain personal circumstances et cetera that delayed the inter-ministerial meetings. And, in fact, it went right up to the wire in terms of those last two items in terms of negotiations and changes. But I do recognise that, and there's a fundamental issue there that I think is more an inter-governmental one in terms of the proper legislative process that is there. 

In terms of the points that were made by Rhys, we're not consenting to the Bill. Our requirement under our Standing Orders is to deal with those points that relate to our devolved competence, and the only bits we are agreeing to are, in fact, those particular items that have been identified there. And as I've already said, the majority of the proposed Bill has been actually carved out—Wales has been carved out of that. Can I agree with his analysis on that? Can I also just confirm to Alun that, yes, we do need to—? By carving out the arrangements in respect of the Electoral Commission with regard to the Welsh aspect, I think that has been really significant. And it, of course, does concern me about what remains within the UK Bill, but that is not within our competence. And of course the issue of electoral reform is one that I've already commented on in my statement. 

And can I just reiterate the point that was particularly made by Alun—and it would be churlish of me, wouldn't it, to mention that, if you'd had your way on the 2017 Act, we would not now be in a position to actually have carved out this legislation because it would have applied automatically? And I think that there was prescience in the Government's position back at that time, that we recognised the importance of having that constitutional control over our electoral system. And I think some credit should be given to the Welsh Government for that particular decision at that particular time. Diolch, Llywydd. 

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Interruption.] Was there an objection? [Objection.] Do shout if you are objecting so that I can hear you properly. So, the motion is not agreed, but I will defer voting until voting time, as there is an objection. 

That brings us to voting time, so we will take a short break. 

That brings us to voting time, and the first vote this afternoon is on the regulations under item 10, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Alteration of Expiry Date) (Wales) Regulations 2022, and I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 37, no abstentions and 13 against. Therefore, the regulations are agreed.

We move now to a vote on item 12, the Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (No. 5) (Wales) (Amendment) (No. 8) Regulations 2022, and I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 39, no abstentions, 11 against. And therefore the motion under item 12 is agreed.

We move to item 13 now, the LCM on the Building Safety Bill. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Julie James. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 39, no abstentions and 11 against. Therefore, the motion is agreed. 

We move now to item 14, the LCM on the Elections Bill. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Mick Antoniw. Open the vote. In favour 38, no abstentions, 12 against. Therefore, the motion is agreed.

That concludes voting time for this evening, and brings proceedings to a close for today.