Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon, everybody.

We will move immediately to item 1, questions to the Cabinet Minister for Health and Care, and the first question is from Laura Anne Jones.

Thank you for that question.

I set out priorities for healthcare in Wales, including Sir Fynwy Torfaen, in my oral statement on 2 June. These focus on improving access, strengthening local services, providing more care closer to home, reducing waiting times, supporting staff and ensuring long-term sustainability.

Diolch. In order to improve services for all in my constituency and across Wales, we need to ensure that we protect women's rights in line with the Supreme Court ruling that sex means biological sex, therefore protecting single-sex wards, toilets and changing rooms. We all know the case of the Darlington nurses, so this is crucial to prevent these situations not only for patients, but for staff. Language in the NHS is also important. Women and girls menstruate, women breastfeed, men don't. In health, this is important. Sex means biological sex. Facts are important. Let's cut the nonsense. Minister, will you now look into urgently making changes in our Welsh NHS in line with the ruling to protect women and girls in Wales, as they've already begun to do in other parts of the UK?

Thank you for that supplementary.

Llywydd, this question has been exercised many times in this Chamber, so I will re-emphasise the fact that this Government will respect the court ruling, of course, but we are clear that we will treat everybody within the NHS—who enters our NHS, who enters our GP surgeries, who enters our hospitals, wherever they are in the health and care system—with the dignity and respect that they deserve, respecting who they are and being there for them in their hour of need.

Diolch, Cabinet Minister, for that answer. Aneurin Bevan University Health Board is at level 4 escalation for finance, strategy, planning and performance, as well as for urgent and emergency care outcomes. I'm deeply concerned about how this is affecting the most vulnerable patients and those waiting for planned care. Due to longer waits, people are presenting with more complex needs. One person I know of, who has been waiting for a knee replacement, recently fell and broke her hip. I'm very concerned about the long waits that patients in my constituency are facing, and I know that the planned budget, which was voted against last night by Reform and Labour, proposed £145 million to alleviate waiting lists across Wales. What is the Government going to do now to improve the situation for vulnerable patients in Sir Fynwy Torfaen and the wider Aneurin Bevan University Health Board?

Thank you for the question from the Member. As the Member said, in the supplementary budget yesterday, as far as health is concerned, we had a focus on outcomes, on improving people's health and well-being by introducing more funding into tackling the waiting lists, and it was extremely disappointing, to say the least, to see people who have said that they wanted to support such a policy vote against it. We want to improve people's outcomes and make sure that the impact on patients is better. So, we have made sure that NHS Wales Performance and Improvement are now involved. They have agreed an intervention approach in the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board to support them. Their improvement plan focuses on supporting frail and older people in the community—exactly answering the points that the Member raised—increasing the front-door capacity for people with complex needs and ensuring timely discharge. We have also allocated an additional £3 million this year to enable the delivery of the improvement plan.

Cabinet Secretary, I have had constituents tell me that, when calling 999, they are no longer being given an estimated arrival time for ambulances. Now, I understand this may reflect operational practice rather than a formal policy, particularly following recent changes to ambulance performance measures. However, not knowing when help is likely to arrive can add significant anxiety for patients and their families—should they wait or should they find another means of getting to hospital? Can you therefore clarify the position on providing ETAs and assure the Senedd that communication and reassurance remain part of the ambulance service approach? And what advice would you give to the public?

Thank you. The Member will be aware—I'm sure he was a member of the committee when we discussed ambulances in the last Senedd—that why those changes were brought in is because of recommendations put forward by our committee. The Member will have, I'm sure, read the story in the news recently about how other countries are now looking at the introduction of that purple target and how they are improving outcomes in the ambulance trust, which is to be welcomed. However, the broader point I think the Member raises about communication is important. Communication across the board in the NHS has not been where it should be in ensuring that patients know what to expect and when to expect it. So, this is something, certainly, I will be picking up in my regular meetings with the ambulance trust, and I'm more than happy to keep the Member informed on developments on that.

When patients need access to specialist care outside of their health board area, I expect the commissioning health board to have put in place robust pathway arrangements so that people receive seamless, high-quality care. The nature of these arrangements will depend on the specific condition in question.

Thank you, Minister. I have personal experience of this issue. My father was rushed into hospital in Hereford, across the border, 42 miles away from home, after suffering a heart attack whilst, ironically, teaching cardiopulmonary resuscitation. He had then to be transferred to Wolverhampton—and this was actually the hospital that he was born in—where he was eventually given a quadruple heart bypass. The journey there and the length of his stay, and the difficulty in visiting him, all added to the stress of the experience. The whole experience was stressful for him and his loved ones. The scale of the challenge posed by cardiovascular ill health can be judged by the fact that British Heart Foundation Cymru say that there are around 26,000 people living with cardiovascular disease in Gwynedd Maldwyn alone today, and that number is growing. This disease causes 57 deaths each month and 680 deaths each year in my constituency alone. The British Heart Foundation calculate that the total annual healthcare cost of this disease across Wales is £770 million. Whilst the National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit includes data for waiting times and surgery performed in England and Wales, not all data is available for Wales, which makes it much harder to scrutinise the Wales NHS performance.

A question, please, Claire.

Sorry. Can the Minister please tell the Senedd what plans he has to ensure that all relevant data for Wales is made available to us?

Firstly, can I say how sorry I am to hear of the experiences that you had to go through, and for your father? It must have been distressing and I sincerely hope that your father had a full recovery in that period.

The Member also raises an important point about the long distances involved in accessing such services, an issue that, of course, is especially pronounced in rural areas like Gwynedd Maldwyn. This is why our agenda has a particular emphasis on addressing disproportionate geographic barriers to accessing treatment with actions in the first 100 days plan, as well as longer term measures designed to support this objective.

In terms of the specific issues raised on data, the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee is responsible for commissioning cardiac surgery on behalf of health boards in Wales. As part of the commissioning requirements, centres in Wales and those commissioned in England must submit data to the National Cardiac Audit Programme, which is funded by the Welsh Government. Now, while the most recent reports from the National Adult Cardiac Surgery Audit appear to contain data from commissioned centres in Wales, and along the border with Wales, that isn't to say that this data provides the entire spectrum of patients' experiences, and continuous reviewing and refining is of course a very important element of data handling. So, I'd be grateful, therefore, if the Member could write to me with further details on the specific gaps that she has found, and I'll instruct my officials to make enquiries on her behalf.

One of the biggest challenges facing Powys health board is the significant increase in the cost of cross-border treatment levied by NHS England, which has contributed to a financial gap of around £7.8 million. In addition, the Wye valley health board is trying to levy an additional rural premium, which now stands at around £13 million. These issues have placed significant pressure on the finances of the health board, and no support was provided by the previous Government to address these additional costs. I welcome the additional investment of £145 million to reduce waiting lists across Wales. So, can the Cabinet Minister explain what assessment has been made to ensure that this investment benefits the residents of Powys? Thank you.

Thank you for that question. The Member made an important point at the outset in talking about the importance of the supplementary budget yesterday, in providing £145 million in this financial year in order to address waiting lists, to improve infrastructure and to improve the provision that we have for waiting lists. It was incredibly disappointing to see Labour and Liberal Members siding with Reform to vote against policies and against funding that would tackle one of the most pressing issues that has faced us in health in Wales over a decade and more.

But, we will continue with our plans to address those waiting lists, and this will directly benefit the people of Powys. We are aware of people who have been on waiting lists for far too long in Powys. They will benefit from this. But, we will also ensure that there is a rapid diagnostic centre for cancer introduced in Powys too so that people are seen earlier, rather than people going to hospitals that are long distances away when they get to stage 4 in their cancer journey, which will be far too late for many of them. We will see them more quickly and ensure that they get an earlier diagnosis too.

I now call the party spokespeople to question the Cabinet Minister. First of all, the Reform UK spokesperson, James Evans.

Diolch, Lywydd. Can the Cabinet Minister tell us when two-year waits will be eliminated?

We've been very clear that two-year waits will be tackled in a matter of months.

It's now 'a matter of months'. We've heard 'a matter of weeks'. We've heard the finance secretary say it's going to be 12 months. We've heard you say it could be years. Now, it is going to be months, not weeks. So, can you tell us what month these are going to be eliminated, because the Government in Wales are very good at doing slick social media clips, but they're not very good on the detail, are they? That's the problem at the minute. You say it's going to be months. People waiting in pain across Wales aren't going to be very happy about that. They want to know an absolute timeline of when they're going to be eliminated, when they can expect their letters to come through for operations, and you should be able to provide that detail today.

The Member will be aware that the previous Government set a number of targets and failed to reach them because they weren't realistic. We are absolutely realistic in how we are investing this money into improving outcomes so that people are seen quicker. We know that we've got issues around gynaecology. We know we've got issues around cataracts. We know about orthopaedics. So, these are the things that we need to look at and improve. That's why we're going to set up the elective care hub, so that we can see people quicker, so that people can get their treatment within the time frame that is required, so that they improve and can get on with their lives. So, we're absolutely clear. We've been clear all along. I'm not quite sure where these questions come from. Everything we've said in the past, we are sticking by. We will be achieving this in a matter of months. However, let me remind you that you and your colleagues and others here voted against the budget yesterday, which had £145 million in order to tackle this. So, let's not have any crocodile tears that you are concerned about waiting lists. Clearly, you're not. If you were, you'd have supported the supplementary budget so that we could get this money onto the front line to see people as soon as possible.

I want to see more money in our NHS. You could put more money into the NHS if you listened to us and stopped funding some of your vanity projects like planting trees abroad, like some of the projects that you're doing close to home, wasting Welsh Government money looking at Welsh independence, something the public overwhelmingly did not vote for. That's the money that could go into the NHS. We've also heard about 'small change' for overseas offices. That's money that could go into our NHS. That is the reason why we voted against your supplementary budget, because it's a bad deal for Wales.

You just waffled then in your answer to me, Minister, because you didn't actually say when we were going to have those two-year waits gone. You've said 'months'. You've mentioned elective care hubs. By the time they go through planning, by the time the Welsh Government shuffles paper around their offices, that's going to end up being years. You know how the system works. You sat on committee with me when we discussed these things. They don't come overnight. So, can you now outline a date when two-year waits will be eliminated in Wales, because far too many people have been waiting in pain? You promised people you would sort this out, and it's about time you started to deliver, because your honeymoon period cannot go on forever.

You voted against the £145 million yesterday, right? Let me remind you of what your spokesperson, Cai Parry-Jones, said. He set out a number of red lines and, within one of those red lines, why you were opposing it, was the fact that we are employing Indian doctors here. So, clearly, you're not concerned—[Interruption.] Indian nurses, sorry, just to correct the record—Indian nurses. So, let's be clear. You're not concerned about improving the health outcomes of people in Wales. You don't want to see an improved workforce here, which is what we're looking to get to grips with.

Now, you mentioned also planning. It's not all about planning. We've got—and I've mentioned this so many times—a number of under-utilised spaces here, theatre spaces that are not used properly. So, we're going to improve those theatre spaces so that we do see those treatments being carried out and people seen quicker. You should know this as an opposition spokesperson who's been on the committees. It's not difficult; this is what it's about. And we know what we're doing because everything we've put forward is clinically led. Now, if you don't want to see improved outcomes for people, fine, carry on as you are. But we know that we're being led by doctors, by surgeons, by operational managers who've done this successfully in parts of Wales and in England, who will advise us on the best way forward so that we can improve outcomes in Wales. That's our focus.

Welsh Labour spokesperson, Jayne Bryant. 

Diolch, Lywydd. Our dedicated staff in our NHS work tirelessly, and in recent weeks many have experienced incredibly challenging working conditions due to the hot weather. Last month, the Welsh Ambulance Services University NHS Trust declared a critical incident following one of the busiest periods of sustained pressure on services in recent years. Demand was well in excess of normal levels as a result of the extreme heat, and I understand there was a noticeable increase in the number of young people presenting with symptoms of dehydration. We're accustomed to the NHS needing to prepare for the winter pressures, but what action is the Government taking to ensure that services, buildings and the workforce are equipped to deal with the impact of hot weather?

Thank you to the Member for that question and raising the issue. First of all, I think we need to recognise and be realistic that this is happening. Global warming is happening in front of our eyes. We're experiencing it. Some people want to deny that. Again, I'm pointing my finger at Reform, who are more than happy to say it's not happening. This is man-made, and it's impacting on the well-being of people in Wales, the people that you represent, and it's incumbent on us to respond to this as soon as we can.

The Wales ambulance trust was under significant pressure last week and the week before, and we've seen them step up as well and making sure that they are responding the best they can. I take my hat off to the paramedics, ambulance drivers and the people in that service who've done such terrific work in responding to the various calls that they've received over the last few weeks.

The recent heatwave saw unprecedented demand on the services, resulting in a critical incident being declared and substantial increases in both emergency calls and high acuity incidents. So, we put out a guidance note to all the hospitals and the health boards following the previous heatwave, making sure that they were aware that they needed to prepare for this summer and for the ones coming up.

You will have heard also in my winter pressure statements that I referred to the heatwaves, and the fact that we are now taking the approach of an all-year-round assessment of the situation. We are already preparing bilaterals with various Cabinet Ministers, in this instance the Cabinet Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, looking at how we need to include those considerations of global warming and the environment around the health system when it comes to planning into those briefings and portfolios, so that we prepare, moving forward, for this in the future.

Diolch and, absolutely, the workforce is absolutely crucial. Earlier today, alongside my colleague Shav Taj, I met student midwives from the September 2023 cohort. They feel as though they've been left in limbo, with no jobs available. One newly-qualified midwife told me she was now working as a water technician, and others are working as baristas and in the hospitality sector. The students have been told that there might be opportunities to work in health and social care, but this is not what they want or that they're qualified to do. Now, I know the Minister is aware of the situation, but the student midwives cannot have been clearer today; they feel left behind and they feel without hope.

Welsh Labour protected the NHS Wales bursary scheme, supporting the next generation of healthcare workers to train and work in the Welsh NHS, but, without clinical experience, student midwives can't get jobs and they can't use their degree for anything else. One option would be to extend the bursary for another year to cover the preceptorship training that enables midwives to transition to professional practice. So, will the Welsh Government consider this as one option?

So, the issue with the graduates lies squarely on the shoulders of the previous Government. This is an issue that was under your watch, back in 2023. As you said, these students were the cohort going through from 2022-23, and it will take a few years to work through the system. That's why one of the first things that I did when I came into this post was set up a graduate summit, in order to try and find options for as many of these young people as possible. Because here in Wales, different from England, they are streamlined, so a promise is made to them. So we need to try and honour that promise, and it's disappointing that we were left in a position where those promises were broken by the previous Government. So now we're trying to find a long-term solution for this. That's why we've asked Healthcare Inspectorate Wales to work with the health boards, to work with the representative bodies, to bring that plan together, and I expect to see a plan by the end of December—or early autumn, in fact.

Now, when it comes to the bursary scheme, once again, may I just remind you that this wasn't part of any negotiations that you brought forward or discussions that you brought forward for the supplementary budget, which you voted against as a party, in order to improve health outcomes in Wales. I am absolutely more than happy to discuss any options that you might have and consider their impact and assess how they might be included, but I just remind you that, as we have been informed by the Cabinet Minister for Finance, there are massive in-year pressures currently in the health service, and those pressures are only going to get worse as time goes on because of settlements coming down from London and the fact that we don't have a fair funding formula for Wales.

Welsh Conservatives spokesperson, Natasha Asghar.

Thank you so much, Presiding Officer. Cabinet Minister, pancreatic is one of the deadliest cancers in the UK, affecting more than 500 people in Wales every single year. Eight in 10 people are diagnosed at a late stage, when it is often too late for treatment, and 50 per cent of people die within three months of diagnosis. In my own constituency, the one-year survival rate is 23 per cent alone. These shocking figures have been underpinned by a series of late diagnoses and ineffective treatment options, which has meant that only 25 per cent of those with pancreatic cancer will be treated within the Welsh Government's 62-day target.

Vague symptoms make pancreatic cancer incredibly difficult to detect, and 90 per cent of patients visit their GP multiple times before diagnosis. This is because there is currently no early detection test available. However, there is hope on the horizon, with the world's first breath test for pancreatic cancer being developed. This test is currently being trialled across the UK, including in Betsi Cadwaladr, Swansea and Cardiff, and the data so far is really promising. While this development could be game changing, there is still more that could and should be done by the Welsh Government.

Health boards across Wales must be provided with the funding and support that they need to deliver the national optimal pathway for pancreatic cancer, ensuring that everyone diagnosed receives the timely, high-quality care that they truly deserve. So, Cabinet Minister, I know you love to use those words ‘clinically led’. The evidence is right there. What plans does the Welsh Government have to improve care for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer here in Wales?

The Member is quite right that the targets reached when it comes to pancreatic cancer—in fact, most of the cancers, especially the rarest cancers in Wales—are not where they should be. As a country, we are seeing far too many people suffer from cancer and losing their lives too early, so we need to get to grips with this.

When you talk about the development with the breath test that you mentioned, which has been trialled, these developments—. There are a lot of things going on in the cancer space at the moment, and it's really exciting to see those developments happening here in Wales. They're not recognised enough. That's why I had conversations and meetings recently with our research and innovation departments within the Welsh NHS to see what more we can do, because we need to attract more clinical trials in Wales, and we need to attract more research here in Wales. So, we're working on that now so that Wales can become a world leader in that and then improve that optimal pathway, which we need to look at. And that will be a specific look in our cancer strategy. You'll have read the cancer strategy written statement that I issued today. Now, that has been welcomed by the Wales Cancer Alliance and we will be working with them and others in order to make sure that that cancer strategy is all-encompassing, is comprehensive and will answer those needs.

Thanks for your response, Cabinet Minister. You clearly read my mind, because I am sticking with the theme of cancer and I did read the plan in depth and detail. So, Cabinet Minister, as we all know, pancreatic is one of the six less survivable cancers with lung, liver, brain, stomach and oes—. Oesophageal; I do apologise. These six less survivable cancers account for over 40 per cent of all cancer deaths, and people diagnosed with these cancers have a shockingly low life expectancy rate. The average one-year survival rate for a patient diagnosed with a less survivable cancer in Wales is just 39 per cent. This contrasts sharpy with the overall one-year survival rate for all cancers, which is just 70 per cent. Despite this, these cancers receive disproportionately low levels of research funding, contributing to a cycle of poor survival rates and limited treatment advances. The previous Government's pan-cancer approach did not adequately address the deep disparities faced by those diagnosed with less survivable cancers. Only 28 per cent of people with less survivable cancers are diagnosed at stage 1 or 2, compared with 52 per cent for all other cancers. This overwhelmingly late-stage diagnosis limits the potential for treatments that could significantly improve survival rates. Equity in cancer care means ensuring that all patients, regardless of their diagnosis, have an equal opportunity to survive.

Given the challenges for detection and treatment that are specific to these cancers, will the Cabinet Minister commit to including a chapter, or action plan at least, dedicated to less survivable cancers in the new cancer plan here in Wales?

Short and sweet: yes.

I set out my priorities for NHS Wales on 2 June. This included reducing waiting times and improving access to services. To support this, I've set up an expert panel on the development of surgical hubs and am commissioning an independent review of performance. We have allocated an additional £145 million to support improvements.

Diolch, Minister. I've been really supportive of the exciting plans for the Llantrisant Health Park, a cross-health-board initiative developed and funded under the last Welsh Labour Government, with over £200 million invested to date. This surgical hub will expand capacity, reduce waiting times and improve patient experience across south-east Wales, including for my constituents in Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr. The first phase of the scheme, which is expected to be delivered next year, will see the creation of that state-of-the-art community diagnostic hub, followed later by orthopaedic surgeries. Improving access to diagnostic and orthopaedic services through investment and collaboration was a priority for the last Welsh Labour Government, so I'd like to ask if these are priorities for you too.

It might well have been a priority for the last Government. I doubt whether it's a priority for your party right now because you voted against the supplementary budget, which offered £145 million to develop diagnostic hubs and elective care hubs across Wales. But, yes, it is a priority. 

Cabinet Minister, patients in Pontypridd Cynon Merthyr continue to face unacceptable long waits for diagnostic tests and orthopaedic treatment. Can the Cabinet Minister outline the specific actions and investment the Welsh Government is providing to support Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board in reducing waiting times? And when can patients expect to see measurable improvements in access to care?

Thank you for that. As was mentioned in the previous question, we are looking forward to the development of the Llantrisant Health Park, which will improve outcomes for the people in your area.

Identifying and planning for future workforce gaps is a core part of effective workforce planning. We're working with health boards, trusts and Health Education and Improvement Wales to strengthen forecasting, enhance workforce intelligence and better align education, training, recruitment and funded posts. This will support safe services now and a sustainable NHS workforce for the future.

I only wish that was true. There are no NHS jobs for three in 10 nurses graduating in Wales this summer. No-one has told me the wards have too many nurses; many have told me that the wards they have been treated on or visited patients needed more nurses. Student nurses have said they've felt let down, worried and angry after years of unpaid work in the NHS during training and taking out large loans to qualify. Will the health Minister provide, as requested by the Royal College of Nursing, a jobs guarantee for nursing graduates? And you'll want to know where the money is coming from: there's £247 million unallocated, and we only wanted £100 million of that for additional learning needs.

The Member will be aware that—[Interruption.] The Member will be aware that we have a streamlining process in Wales, which is meant to ensure that they have jobs, that nurses and midwives and others have jobs when they finish their graduation. Unfortunately, because of the previous Government's failure to honour this, many nurses, midwives and paramedics in Wales today can't find those jobs, that's why we set up the graduate summit. So, I won't exercise that answer again; I've answered it once already, so forgive me if I don't go any further down that line.

I'm sorry to be a type of Job's comforter, as my dear mother would say, but I'm going to add to your woes—your already considerable pile of woes—sorry. The situation isn't just nurses and midwives, but it actually involves medical trainees as well, speaking, again, from an ophthalmic perspective, which takes seven to 10 years of training in blood, sweat, tears and vitreous, as well as the actual cost of it as well. And we lose a third of our trainees to England because there's a lack of centralised planning for consultant vacancies for when people leave the system. So, then what we end up with in Wales is—and we already have the lowest number of specialist consultant ophthalmologists in Britain per head—we recruit from abroad to fill up the gaps. Whereas if only we could have a centralised authority to match trainees with their jobs, we would solve the problem. So, do you agree that you need central planning on a specialty basis to stop the brain drain from our country?

The Member is absolutely right that, in the ophthalmic field, as in many other fields in health and care, in fact, we have many vacancies. The truth is that the system as it is, the one that we found when we got into position, doesn't record fully the whole workforce that we've got in Wales. So, some of the gaps that we've got, we are dependent on other bodies to inform us of their best-case situation.

So, we have to rectify this and make sure that we know the current situation and, moving forward, know what we will need. That's why we've set up two plans. First of all, a clinical plan for Wales so that we understand what the clinical needs of Wales are moving forward, and sitting beneath that clinical plan, we will have, and are developing now, the full comprehensive workforce plan—and I've mentioned this in this Chamber before—where I will be producing the first high-level part of that workforce plan and bringing it forward to the Senedd in the autumn.

Minister, Swansea Bay University Health Board has recruited over 450 nurses from overseas in recent years. At the very same time, nurses graduating from Swansea University, who have completed thousands of hours of unpaid clinical training here in Wales, are unable to find employment within the Welsh NHS. We are training our own and then turning them away while recruiting from abroad to fill the gap. That cannot be sound workforce planning. So, Minister, why is the Welsh Government content to see Welsh graduates locked out of jobs while relying on overseas recruitment? Would it not be better to employ the nurses and midwives we have already trained here in Wales?

This is slightly frustrating, because you're talking about two different things there that are going on. So, the situation with graduates, that goes back to 2022-23 and it will take a few years to work through the system. So, that's why we're finding an issue with the graduates now, because they started on their courses in 2022 when there were vacancies in the system, and the mapping and the modelling suggested that there would be vacancies in the system, but retention has improved because of the economic situation that the country finds itself in, which means that those positions are no longer available. So, that's dating back to 2022, when we did have those vacancies.

And the issue with having Indian nurses—. And once again, you're going on about Indian nurses, let's make sure that we show gratitude for the work of the nurses that come into this country, who treat your loved ones, my loved ones; they are there working, treating people who are sick, making sure that our loved ones improve. They've been recruited over the last few years before this year's graduate issue was recognised as a problem, which is a problem that lies with the previous Government.

So, yes, that's why we had a graduate summit, in order to make sure that this doesn't happen again. And, as and when we need to recruit more nurses, and if those nurses aren't available in Wales, absolutely, if those nurses want to come and work with us here in Wales from India, then we will welcome them, because they are helping us out here in Wales. The same as we have a number of Nigerian and Filipino nurses and carers working in the system, helping our loved ones, and we should show gratitude for the work that they do.

Low staffing numbers increase the length of waiting lists across many NHS services, but expectant mothers cannot join waiting lists, because babies don't wait. The Royal College of Midwives tell me that we now have unsafe staffing levels in maternity services across Wales. The impact of this situation is very serious. Not having a good birth experience is bad enough, but in some cases, it leads to medical complications. These complications can, of course, have a devastating effect on babies, their parents and, indeed, NHS staff. As well as the human impact, the costs to the NHS in treating conditions arising from birth complications and maternity cases are vast. I understand that a single maternity case typically costs £5 million. I understand also that to employ the 70 midwifery graduates who have not yet been offered jobs would cost less than £3.5 million. Not employing those midwives—

A question, Paul.

—feels like a false economy with an unjustifiable human impact. Will the Minister commit to placing all this year's midwifery graduates in jobs and making a plan to return midwifery services to a safe staffing level?

The Member is absolutely right that we've seen a number of reports into maternity units and midwifery here in Wales that do highlight unsafe staffing levels and we have to get to grips with this. I'm glad that, for instance, recently, we've seen a new report by Audit Wales into Swansea bay show a significant improvement there, and that's to be welcomed. That's what we want to see, more improvement in those fields.

Once again, for fear of repeating myself, I'll say that the issues that we have with graduates this year lies with the fact that they started on their courses back in 2022 and it's a legacy of the previous Government we are now having to deal with. That is why I got that graduate summit together in order to bring together the RCM, HEIW and the health boards to try and find as many positions available as possible for those students, to make sure that those students who aren't midwives now do become full midwives when the time allows and when positions allow, and that we ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future.

Health boards are responsible for the planning and delivery of health services at a local level to meet the needs of their local population, working with their key stakeholders and partners.

Residents in my constituency are deeply concerned about the future of Maesteg Community Hospital. Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board has proposals for a new health and well-being centre that mean that services will be relocated from Maesteg, but the health board has confirmed that the new site will not house any community beds at the premises. Meanwhile, the health board says it has made no decisions regarding the future of the Maesteg Community Hospital site, effectively leaving both it and residents in the area in limbo, causing a great deal of distress. Will the Minister agree to meet with Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board to discuss how the continued availability of community beds in Maesteg can be protected? Diolch.

I understand the strength of feeling around the Maesteg Community Hospital. I expect any service change to be developed transparently with local people in line with national guidance and underpinned by robust evidence, options appraisals and impact assessments. I'm clear that services must be safe, sustainable and fit for purpose for the local population. In its preferred option for the development of a new health and well-being centre, the health board has highlighted that there will be an increased level and increased range of services available from the new proposed site. This is in addition to closer transport links with a bus stop and railway station in close proximity.

The health board has also committed to undertake further collaborative work on the Maesteg hospital building to ensure it is not lost. I understand that the board has requested an engagement plan on this to be presented at the July board meeting this month, in addition to an update on the plan for community beds within the Bridgend council area, and I have already met with the chair of Cwm Taf health board in order to discuss these.

Gweinidog, in the case of Maesteg hospital that my colleague has referenced, Llais highlighted the strength of feeling locally about retaining community bed capacity, and, indeed, you've just referenced that strength of feeling. They also emphasised the importance of continued engagement with residents as proposals develop. There remains considerable worry locally about how alternative community provision, including step-down and respite care, will be delivered in practice.

I was grateful for your response earlier this month to a letter from myself and my fellow Plaid Cymru colleagues representing Afan Ogwr Rhondda, following the health board's decision to proceed with these proposals. In your reply, you noted that the Welsh Government officials would continue to engage with the health board as this work progresses. With that in mind, could you outline, please, what assurances the Welsh Government is seeking from Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board to ensure that any changes to community bed provision are supported by robust evidence, with solid working assumptions and meaningful engagement with local communities before any existing capacity is lost? Diolch.

Thank you for that question, and it reflects the strength of feeling in the Llynfi valley and other parts that are being served by the Maesteg hospital. And I understand that there are concerns around it; that's why I had that conversation with the chair of the health board in order to raise those concerns, concerns which have been raised in this Chamber, which I raised with the chair, making sure that they understood that that continued engagement is absolutely crucial, that they take on board the views of the residents, that we do get assurances that any decisions made are made by clinicians and are clinically led, and consider the distances of travel and the difficulty for some people to access some services in the area. So, we have to make sure, and health boards, especially when they present plans, have to make sure that these things are considered in the round and to the fullest possible extent in order to come to a decision.

Prynhawn da, Weinidog. The issue of community beds in our communities and our local areas is really important, as you'll know, and I just wanted to focus in on Powys. I know we've had a discussion about this, but you'll know that there was a leak recently that Powys Teaching Health Board is considering stripping in-patient beds from eight out of our 10 community hospitals. That means that we will lose them from Ystradgynlais, Llandrindod, Builth, Knighton, Bronllys, Welshpool, Llanidloes and Machynlleth. That's up to 146 beds gone in a county with no district general hospital, where the population is older, more rural and further from alternative care than anywhere else in the country. We already know, don't we, that hospital stays in Powys average 40 days against the nationally agreed ambition of getting that down to 21.

So, Cabinet Minister, I realise these plans are not confirmed as yet, but could I just ask for your views on these potential plans? And also, would you consider intervening, as did your equivalent in 2013 in Hywel Dda health board, when there was concern about a similar issue? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

The health board has not yet made any decisions on its clinical services plan or any options for potential public consultation later this year, as this work remains under development. As part of the clinical services plan development process, the health board has been undertaking wider initial engagement across Powys over the last year, to help understand the strengths and weaknesses of current service provision and help inform and develop a future vision, potential models of care and options for change.

The clinical services plan will be a vital plan in delivering new ways of working that address critical service fragilities, ensuring services remain safe, sustainable, accessible and of high quality, which will have to be supported by evidence. The Welsh Government expects any service change to be developed transparently with local people in line with national guidance and underpinned by robust evidence, options appraisals and impact assessments to ensure services remain safe, sustainable and fit for purpose.

Thank you for the question. We know that parents in this situation often face multiple and interconnected barriers to returning to work. Our Communities for Work Plus programme provides a one-to-one mentor to help parents to access a package of support and links into local networks, to address both employment needs and wider family circumstances.

Diolch, Weinidog. Last week, I met with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, and I want to declare an interest: I have worked with this health board before when I worked at NHS Wales Performance and Improvement. So, last week, I met with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board's paediatric team to discuss the socioeconomic impact of a type 1 diabetes diagnosis in children and young people. I met with Ansruta Vijay Anand and Dr Ambika Shetty, and I'm very grateful for the work that they have both done in this area. Ansruta is a medical student, and she spoke to me about her research. Her findings were striking. In 68 per cent of cases where a child was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, there was a change to a parent's employment. This included reduced working hours, taking temporary leave from work and in some cases leaving employment altogether. And while this is recent research, I know that that anecdotally goes back decades as being other people's experiences as well. They also found that many children experience a significant delay in returning to school, nursery or other childcare settings following their diagnosis. Over the past decade, the number of children diagnosed with diabetes has increased by 29 per cent—

A question, please.

Given this evidence, what work is the Welsh Government undertaking to support families following a child's diagnosis of type 1 diabetes? And can I thank every person who works in the NHS, regardless of where they were born, for the work that they do for us? Diolch yn fawr.

I'd like to echo those sentiments put forward by the Member and thank the Member for bringing this to my attention. I welcome the research of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board on this issue. Clearly, the findings are sobering and shed new light on the insidious interrelationship between poor health and socioeconomics. We often talk about the social determinants of health and how they contribute to inequalities in health outcomes, but this study underlines that this dynamic can work both ways, whereby health conditions can, in and of themselves, lead to a deterioration in socioeconomic circumstances. 

We are committed to getting to grips with health-based inequalities. The Member will be aware that there is a first 100 days action on reviewing health-based inequalities in Wales, and I look forward to updating the Chamber on the findings. In the meantime, while the NHS does provide support packages to help families deal with a diagnosis and learn to manage their condition, including regular out-patient care by specialists, education programmes and technological solutions to reduce the burden of delivering insulin and monitoring glucose control, the evidence from the CVUHB research clearly shows that we must go further to strengthen these support mechanisms. I would welcome further engagement with both the Member and the researchers to understand how we can use these findings to learn, adapt and improve.

And finally, question 7, Louise Emery.

The Welsh Government is working with NHS Wales to make the most of existing technology to improve access to care. This includes strengthening the NHS Wales app, supporting virtual appointments and making use of ambient voice technology. Health boards and trusts are held to account on their performance to deliver patient outcomes and are expected to use existing technology as an enabler.

That's great to hear, because obviously face-to-face initial consultations are still vital for most people, but for those who have got long-term conditions or those who are working full time or have transport issues, online consultations are really going to work. We've referred to Betsi Cadwaladr. They did a trial of Attend Anywhere. There were five patients in 2020—five patients in five years, and they haven't told the public a single thing about how this technology is performing in north Wales. So, I agree with your sentiment that we know it's a vital part of services for the NHS, but in Betsi Cadwaladr, could you please tell me what is going on in terms of how they're using Attend Anywhere and other technology to help my constituents?

I thank the Member for bringing this to my attention. It seems to be another case of one of the pieces of best practice that we have in parts of health boards across Wales that just isn't realised or isn't shared, or sits on a shelf somewhere. We need to learn from any piece of good practice out there and ensure that it's rolled out. So, I will raise this with the health board. I'm happy to keep you in the loop on any response I get back, because if it's good and it works, then we need to ensure that others benefit from it. 

Thank you very much, Minister. 

We'll move on now to questions to the Cabinet Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning. The first question is from Stephen Senior. 

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, all. The UK Government is responsible for legislation and guidance on the local government pension scheme, including in relation to investments. The administering authorities and the Wales Pension Partnership are responsible for decisions on how this money is invested in Wales.

Minister, whilst public sector pensions are not devolved, you know that the Welsh Government is responsible for oversight of local government and the £25 billion pot that is in the Welsh local government pension scheme. In recent years, there's been huge pressure from both elected members and pressure groups to divest from arms companies, from energy companies and from the banking system. Cabinet Minister, it was reported, just before the election in May, that you recently supported the Senedd Palestine pledge, which was produced by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. That's a group connected with the Palestinian news agency, which I remind Members used to be part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and also Stop the War, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Extinction Rebellion. So, it's got a long history of various different groups. Three of your Cabinet Ministers supported that. Minister, now you've transitioned from being a campaigner to being in Government, can you give an assurance that the Welsh Government will exert no pressure on those local government pension schemes to divest from those key defence and energy companies, which we need in this great country of ours?

The fact that I'm now a Minister in Government doesn't change my values at all. I continue to be a campaigner as well as a Minister in the Welsh Government, and I'm sure that other members of the Cabinet agree with that.

There is a place for pension funds in Wales to invest responsibly and locally. Of course, although, as you note, we don't have direct responsibility over pension funds, there are discussions that happen, and we do encourage pension authorities to invest responsibly and ethically, so that public sector pensions contribute positively to the future of Wales—economically, socially and environmentally.

One excellent use of pension funds is investing in the social housing stock, and you know that I'm campaigning for more social housing. I understand that the city and county of Swansea pension fund has just created a fund worth £51 million that will invest in social housing on a local level. I'm very supportive of that step.

The Wales Pension Partnership is responsible for explaining how they will invest. That doesn't mean not investing in the defence industry, for example, but it does mean not investing in companies that produce controversial arms. So, already there is an ethical framework for the Wales Pension Partnership.

As you've explained, Welsh pension funds hold huge potential to be a force for good and drive moral and ethical investment. Another example would be the Norwegian wealth fund. But too often we hear that our pension funds are used to support the arms industry, fossil fuels or other get-rich-quick schemes that operate at the cost of the planet or contribute to the kind of human suffering that we've seen in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere. So, I'd like to ask what steps the Government will take to make sure that Welsh pension funds are invested ethically and deliver strong returns for pension holders whilst also supporting the well-being of our communities here in Wales and without profiting from harm done to others across the world. Diolch.

Thank you very much. Of course, the pension funds do need to invest in a way that is robust and safeguards those people who will benefit directly from those funds, but I do believe that we want to see responsible and ethical investment by pension authorities, so that public sector pensions do contribute in a positive way to the future of Wales, economically, socially and environmentally. Having passed the UK Pension Schemes Act 2026 earlier this year, the pension authority and the Welsh fund will agree on investment strategies over the next few months. So, those strategies haven't yet been defined in detail as of yet, but I do look forward to having discussions with them in line with this Government's values.

This question reminds me, in a slightly odd way, of the days when many of us were fighting to convince our pension schemes—in my case the Universities Superannuation Scheme—to divest from fossil fuels, landmines, cluster bombs and tobacco. It's quite the converse of that fight. From time to time, a public sector pension executive would sidle up to me and quietly remind me that the best return on investment could be achieved from the lucrative international tobacco market, selling cigarettes to children in countries with less regulation than we have here in Wales. We pushed our pension schemes to invest positively in things like renewable energy and social housing, and the returns were good. Does the Minister agree with me that making positive, sustainable choices for our pensions is not only the moral thing to do, but it yields great, long-term returns for our pensions, returns that do not depend on global instability or risk stranded fossil fuel assets?

Thank you very much. Yes, I do agree with you. That is why I'm eager to work with the Wales Pension Partnership to consider what further steps we can take together to strengthen the contribution of local government pension funds to Wales and to the kinds of investment that we want to see within our own country.

I'm talking specifically here of homes again, because I do think that social housing is one of those issues that you're referring to, which is not only the right thing to do, because we want to accelerate the process of providing more social homes, but there is also a consistent income flow coming in through rent from social housing. Therefore, it makes sense in general terms too for this investment here in Wales. I'm very pleased to hear that contribution from you supporting what we're doing within Government.

Thank you very much for the question. The town centre taskforce that we're going to be announcing more about quite soon will address the structural challenges facing town centres, including looking at business rates and planning reform, and by working collaboratively with partners and maintaining a strong focus on delivery to help town centres adapt, attract investment and activity and thrive in the years ahead.

Thank you for your answer, Minister. Given the range of issues and concerns that have been identified and brought to me, such as vacant and underused properties, no meaningful increase in footfall, and the need to support long-term private sector growth, alongside many other issues, it's essential that Members are provided with a comprehensive breakdown of how the Transforming Towns initiative money has been spent across Wales and how that is broken down by constituency or even by local authority area. As of last Thursday, this information was not currently available. Can you please tell us when you intend to publish this information so that Members can ensure that this money has been well spent?

Thank you very much. I can tell you this afternoon that Powys has benefited from more than £12.9 million in regeneration funding from the Welsh Government since 2021. This is under a previous administration, of course. This fund has been developing over the years. So, I am pleased to be able to announce that there is £12.9 million in Powys, including in Llandrindod, which is close to where you live, I believe, where support has been given to enable the restoration of a historic building, Auto Palace, creating a new business centre in the centre of town. In Newtown, I recently visited Hafan yr Afon, an important development that is transforming that part of the town. That has been supported with £1.1 million of funding. That building has been created, by the way, using the passive house approach, which is the most energy-efficient standard for building in the world, and that's happened in Newtown using some money from this fund. So, the information is there, and I'm sure that we can provide you with the full picture in each local authority too. 

I was delighted to hear yesterday of the Government's commitment to introduce the community right to buy. There are good examples of market towns that succeed in creating energy and activity, through a number of indigenous businesses rooted there. In my own constituency, there are a number of examples in Machynlleth of community groups buying community assets, such as churches and pubs and so on, and keeping them going for the benefit of the community and the local economy. Can the Cabinet Minister make a statement on community right to buy? Thank you.

Thank you very much for the question and I was very pleased to see that this announcement was part of the announcement on the Government's legislative programme. We are clearly committed to introducing a Bill on community right to buy and that will be a priority for us in the next few months now.

I am very aware of a great number of community groups that are keen to buy and to procure buildings that become empty in their communities, in order to turn them into assets that are of use to the community, to bring life to the community and to the high street quite often as well. I am very aware as well that there are barriers quite often to doing this, and sometimes they lose the opportunity to buy an asset and to transform it for community use. So, I do hope that we all will be able to agree on new legislation that will empower community groups, so that they can identify, in the first place, assets that are in their community that they might want to buy for the future, that we create a register identifying all of those, and that then, when they do come on the market, they get first offer on those properties, and then have an opportunity to make a business case and to continue with the process. That is not happening at the moment and opportunities are being missed.

I do intend to arrange a series of workshops over the summer now with partners, with communities, in order for us to have more detail in terms of this new legislation. I encourage you all to take part in that and encourage community groups in your constituencies to be part of this new important legislation.

Thank you. I now call on the party spokespeople to question the Cabinet Minister. Reform UK spokesperson, Francesca O'Brien.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Minister, England's Building Safety Act 2022 provided leaseholders with remediation orders and cost protection since 2022. Wales has only now delivered those same powers through the 2026 Act, and secondary legislation remains out to consultation until September—four years behind England, with only four out of 161 buildings being fully remediated. Given that England ran this exact same consultation process first, is the Welsh Government using the evidence and models already established to assess what's needed here and finally speed up the process?

The new legislation that I was involved in drawing up in the last Senedd is more far-reaching than the legislation in England, which came into force some years ago. We are consulting on new regulations. I pushed the previous administration to include the ability to do that. So, we are consulting on new regulations that will mean that those people living in buildings that haven't been remediated, or who are facing additional costs because their service charges have increased because of work that has to be done—those people will have a route to tribunal, once those new regulations are in place. Now, that is a significant step forward, and it's going to take a little time, a few months, before we bring those regulations into force. I hope that everyone will support—I'm sure that you will support—those regulations.

There are three aspects of this in reality, aren't there? There is the new legislation in Wales, but there is also the remediation work, which is extremely slow in happening; it is extremely slow—we accept that. I have invited the companies that are continuing with this work to meet with me next month, where they will get a very clear message that this Government insists that that remediation work should be accelerated, and that the pace should go up.

Thank you, Minister. I believe you met with the Welsh Cladiators recently, so thank you for that. I'm sure that legislation does take time, but people are living in unsafe buildings, so I urge you to put pressure on those in the coming weeks. So, thank you for your answer to that.

I'd like to turn to housing. I note your statement on Monday confirmed your commitment, or reconfirmed your commitment, to create 20,000 social homes. Another statement, though, without an annual target means there is no way to measure your Government's performance. But, of course, housing is a question of supply and demand. There is a severe lack of accountability and transparency on who is actually living in our council and social housing. Data in England shows that significant amounts of housing are being allocated to people who are foreign nationals. So, Minister, will you commit your department to collect accurate nationality data from councils and housing associations so the people of Wales can know who will be living in these houses that taxpayers are subsidising?

Thank you very much. To return to your point on the Cladiators, yes, I had a very constructive meeting with them on Monday. I was delighted to meet with them and to hear their concerns directly from them.

I made a written statement on Monday that confirmed the 20,000 social homes that are desperately needed in Wales, for everyone living in Wales. The way that social housing is allocated is a matter for local authorities. Local authorities have a housing register and homes are allocated according to need, and that's how it should be too. Therefore, I look forward to the work now of supplying more social homes. That's what's at the heart of the problem; the core of the housing crisis in Wales is that we don't have enough social homes. The supply isn't adequate to meet demand, and that is where we should be focusing our efforts always.

Thank you, Minister, for your answer. So, I take that as a 'no', but, don't panic, I thought that would be the reason, or the answer. But my team and I have been hard at work collecting this data from councils. We take Cardiff Council as an example; I'm sure our friend in the corner there will be listening with interest to this. The figures I've obtained under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 are shocking. I have them right here, and they will be made public as we speak.

So, let's look at the council's social housing stock of over 14,000 homes, where nationality is actually recorded. More than 31 per cent of lead tenants are foreign nationals. On the waiting list of over 9,000 properties, non-British applicants are 22 per cent of those recorded. And of the new tenancies handed out last year, almost 30 per cent of recorded allocations went to non-British applicants. Meanwhile, 35 per cent of those in temporary accommodation are foreign nationals, where the data is actually recorded. This equates to thousands of foreign national households in one city, which is being subsidised.

A question, please.

But here is the real scandal, that, of the 14,000 homes, the nationality—

Can I have a question, please?

Yes, I'm coming to it, thank you.

The nationality of 11,000 tenants, a whopping 70 per cent, is simply not recorded.

Francesca, please can I have a question?

So, will the Minister—? Instead of providing homes for nationalities, let's do for the people of Wales—

A question, please.

Yes, absolutely. Will you commit to amending the allocation of housing and homelessness regulations, to restrict the eligibility and give preference to British applicants? And will you use your legal powers to set a standard compelling every registered social landlord in Wales to record and publish the nationality of applicants and tenants?

Before you respond, Minister—if I ask for a question, I do expect to hear a question. I don't expect someone to go 45 seconds over time. Thank you. Minister.

I'm extremely disappointed with that question. Certainly, I don't know whether those statistics are accurate or not. But I am disappointed that you are insisting on pursuing this time and time again in this Chamber. As I said, the housing crisis has been created because of a shortage of social housing to meet demand. Everyone in Wales deserves a roof over their head and a safe place to live. So, I don't want to pursue this issue any further.

Mike Hedges.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I will be under a minute.

When we discussed the current budget during the last Senedd, there was widespread support from Plaid Cymru, including you, Minister, that local government has substantial pressures. We overcame the ludicrous idea of a former finance Minister that the consumer price index indicated local government inflation, as if the change in price of items such as hummus, alcohol-free beer, pet grooming, motor homes, dashboard cameras, sheets of wrapping paper and bottled premium lager affected the cost of running local government services.

It is my understanding that the areas of local government expenditure on additional learning needs, social services, including elderly care and childcare, homelessness and prevention services are causing pressure on council budgets. Minister, is that your understanding, or do you wish to change that list?

Thank you very much. The final part of your question in terms of the great pressures facing local government is accurate, yes. You talk about ALN, you talk about social services, care services. Local government is under great pressure and has been cutting budgets for many years, and has had to cut budgets in some areas that are now under genuine pressure—planning, for example, and building regulations. Those services have reached a very difficult point, but, of course, they've done that in order to safeguard some of the services that support the most vulnerable people in our society. They haven't had a choice other than to do that, because of the austerity policies of the Conservatives across so many years, policies that have been emulated by the UK Labour Government as well.

Thank you for that answer; it was longer than I expected. We have agreed there is an increasing demand for certain council services. There are also environmental health and trading standards—vital services that need to be supported. Things like food safety and trading standards protect consumers. Minister, how much extra money have you and fellow Ministers asked for from the finance Minister to meet this increased demand out of the £247 million unallocated?

Well, you may remember that, in your budget as the Labour Government, Plaid Cymru did come to a position where we could abstain on that budget by negotiating, responsibly and maturely, £112.8 million, I believe, in additional funding for local government. That enabled your Government to pass a budget. It was very disappointing for me yesterday that that spirit of compromise and negotiation wasn't realised by your party. Plaid Cymru did bring a proposal worth £120 million over three years to the table, and that was rejected by Labour. That was for ALN, as you mentioned. You've decided that you don't want to go down that route.

For me, yesterday was a very sad day for Wales, where that spirit of trying to create some kind of collaboration for the benefit of the people of Wales—that got thrown out of the window yesterday, unfortunately. But I do hope that we can return to a situation where we put the people of Wales first in everything that we do.

Welsh Conservatives' spokesperson, Peter Fox.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. Cabinet Minister, thank you for your statement on Monday. I was hopeful that a statement like that would have come to this Chamber for a deeper debate, so I'll use one of my questions on it. While the ambition to increase the supply of social housing is absolutely welcomed, your written statement confirms that acquired properties will count towards the 20,000 homes target, alongside new-build developments. Now, many people will hear this announcement and assume it means 20,000 newly built social homes. However, by including the acquisitions, the target appears to rely in part on existing properties already within Wales's housing stock, rather than wholly on the creation of new homes. Cabinet Minister, can you tell us how many of the 20,000 additional social homes you expect to be delivered through acquisitions and how many will be genuinely new-build properties?

Thank you very much for that question and for an opportunity to explain some of what was contained within the written statement issued on Monday. You're exactly right, we want that target of 20,000 to include vacant properties above shops on our high streets, and this will be part of the work of the town centre taskforce, of course, and how we accelerate the process to allow more vacant properties to come into our housing stock.

I do emphasise that I think it's important to be entirely transparent and, therefore, I have said that only homes that will remain as social homes for communities and families will be counted as part of that 20,000 target. Now, what exactly the percentage will be between new builds and acquisitions in terms of vacant properties and so on, I can't give you an exact figure on that. But, also in that statement made on Monday, I have spoken of community-led housing and I would like to include housing that's created through community groups—through the community right to buy, for example—and that we also include those within the target because they do provide a solution that is in keeping with those communities in rural areas and where the Welsh language prospers.

Thank you, Cabinet Minister. Very clearly, then, there needs to be quite a lot of data gathered so that we can ascertain just how many new houses we do need to build, and I hope that that work is ongoing. Turning back to town-centre regeneration, we know that town centres—and you'll agree—are the beating heart of our communities but continue to face those significant challenges. If we are to increase footfall, we need an environment in which businesses can thrive. Now, Cwmbran is a good example. It continues to demonstrate the importance of convenience for shoppers, with businesses there citing free parking as one of the factors behind strong visitor numbers. However, businesses across Wales continue to raise concerns about the high business costs, declining footfall, restrictive regulations and the difficulty of attracting customers back into the town centre. Now, regeneration isn't just about bringing new initiatives to the towns, but it's about preserving existing businesses and enabling them to survive. Cabinet Minister, working with the Cabinet Minister for Finance and through your town-centre task group, what specific measures are you prepared to consider or introduce to incentivise businesses to locate back in our town centres and help regenerate those struggling high streets?

Thank you for that question and for your interest in this particular area. During this Government's first 100 days, we will be making a full announcement on the purpose of the new taskforce that we're currently establishing and its membership. Of course, it's the taskforce that will consider its specific remit, and I'm very eager for that to happen, rather than us, as a Government, setting out certain criteria. It's the people in that taskforce, in consultation with others, that will set the remit for that work. But I assume, having been involved in this sort of work for years, that looking at business rates and how we can make sustaining a shop in a town centre more attractive than being located in an out-of-town centre would be one area that they would look at, along with planning and how we can accelerate the process in order to convert vacant buildings in our town centres. But there's also this desire to look holistically at what public services can be brought into our town centres and how we can accelerate the planning process around that too. There's a great job of work to be done, but it's very exciting, and I look forward to working with the taskforce.

Thank you very much. 'Planning Policy Wales' is kept under continual review to ensure that it remains effective, relevant and responsive to emerging evidence. Officials are currently reviewing planning guidance, and they are doing so to identify which aspects may need to be updated in future to ensure that the planning framework reflects the priorities of this Welsh Government.

Thank you. One area that I could say that definitely needs updating is the way that the Welsh Government's energy policy is in planning policy, especially regarding 'Future Wales: the national plan 2040'. We all know that is outdated in regard to industrial-scale wind turbines and pylons across a vast part of rural mid and west Wales. We all know about the 220m turbines that are going to be erected if Bute Energy have their way. That would absolutely decimate my communities. But, in 'Future Wales', it doesn't actually take into consideration the current size of those turbines that are currently being proposed. It also doesn't take into consideration the low-frequency noise that they generate as well. So, I'm asking you, Minister: are you willing to put a moratorium on these large-scale industrial plans for rural mid and west Wales, because unless planning policy is updated, we are going to see something potentially approved that will have devastating long-term impacts on communities without having updated planning guidance to make an informed decision?

Thank you for the question, and I'm pleased that we do agree that we need to look seriously at 'Future Wales', namely the national plan, the top-tier plan on developments in Wales. It's under that, of course, that 'Planning Policy Wales' lies. So, we need to do the work on that highest level around the national spatial strategy and to include in that the current priorities for growth, infrastructure and regional development and transport. So, it does have statutory status, and I'm very eager, as the work has started to look at that highest level, to then see what needs to be changed in terms of the planning policies, including energy policy, electrification and new electrical lines, and so forth. So, I can assure you that that work is happening.

Diolch, Weinidog, for your commitment to championing a community-centred planning system and strengthening the voice of local people. Cymru is emerging as a significant location for data-centre development, with two designated UK Government AI growth zones. However, they have no dedicated use class and no mention in 'Planning Policy Wales', even though their scale and energy and water demands raise important questions for our environment and our planning system beyond their immediate locality. As you know, in my own constituency of Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, a data centre is proposed in Llanrumney, replacing the Cardiff east park and ride, which serves the University Hospital of Wales, and this has given rise to a controversy beyond the immediate locality. The proposed 150 MW facility, only a short distance from primary schools and local homes, will rely on fossil-fuelled gas turbines as well as polluting standby diesel generators. Will the Minister, therefore, set out what plans the Government has to review the planning requirements for data centres, and in particular look into the Cardiff east park-and-ride application, so that communities like Llanrumney don't end up paying the social and environmental price while the profit goes elsewhere? Diolch.

Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I can't comment on specific developments in specific constituencies. Welsh Ministers are responsible for making decisions in those areas, and who knows with this particular issue, so I can't talk about that specifically. But you do bring forward an important point about how our planning policies and our strategies look at issues relating to data centres, which bring us back to the point made by James Evans, namely the need to look again at the main national development framework, 'Future Wales'. We do need to reform that. This is one example of why, and so that work is happening. During our first 100 days, there will be a specific announcement about the process that needs to happen with that. There is a specific process; we can't just sit down and change it. We have to go through a process, and we will be making an announcement about that during the first 100 days.

Wales needs more houses. You've said that today, Minister, but we heard in the press over the weekend developers and housing associations saying that it can take between three and five years to secure planning consent.

As you update 'Planning Policy Wales', can you confirm your intention, therefore, to make the planning system more permissive so that we can build the homes Wales needs and, indeed, build the industrial developments that Wales needs? Will you make it more permissive, or will you continue to risk letting the not-in-my-backyard brigade stop developments and delay developments that have overwhelming public benefit?

Thank you very much. I do agree with you that we do need to accelerate the planning process, particularly in the area of housing. It's not acceptable that it takes years sometimes for developments to bear fruit. So, it is my intention to announce during the first 100 days that we will be making a call for evidence for reform of the planning system in the area of housing specifically, so that we can try to get professional people—people like you who have been council leaders and who understand the planning barriers at the grass roots—to bring evidence forward so that we can proceed to reform 'Planning Policy Wales', and to make it more fit for purpose and more swift in response to the needs of our communities.

There were two Acts that were passed at the end of the last Senedd that bring planning policies together, and I do think that that in itself is going to help issues, but it doesn't go halfway far enough.

Question 4 is online, Minister. Becca Martin.

Thank you very much, and, again, this is an important question. This Government does want to go further than we currently go in this area, and to provide greater flexibility to local government to use procurement to support Welsh businesses and strengthen local supply chains. This isn't directly in my portfolio, but I have sought information about it. So, I hope I can respond to your supplementary question.

Diolch, Minister. I've been approached by A.N. Richards, a well-established Welsh supplier based in Froncysyllte in my constituency, which has raised concerns about the increasing use of England-based procurement frameworks by Welsh local authorities, and the barriers steering procurement officers towards them. The company says the English procurement portal, used, in this case, for fleet purchasing, is more user friendly and efficient than its Welsh equivalent. As a result, procurement officers may be drawn towards England-based frameworks, creating a structural disadvantage for Welsh suppliers and undermining the Welsh Government's aim of maximising the economic benefit of public spending within Wales. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact that the design and usability of Welsh procurement systems have on local authority procurement decisions? And what steps is it taking to improve Wales-based procurement routes and ensure more local authority spending is retained in the Welsh economy?

Thank you very much for that supplementary question, and the relevant Minister has just walked into the Chamber. [Interruption.] Oh, it's you. Good. The finance Minister, rather, has heard your request, and, having sought information, I am given to understand that there will be a new procurement policy statement published to actually increase public expenditure in Wales. Things have improved, and there was the procurement Act 2023, passed in this Senedd, which has made it easier for SMEs to actually bid for opportunities, and for Business Wales, which provides tailored support for Welsh businesses to help them to expand, grow and strengthen, and to understand the complex procurement processes. But I do know that the Minister for finance is very eager, as am I, to go much further within our powers in this Senedd. So, thank you.

Thank you for that and obviously this will probably go to the financial Minister as well, so I'm going to carry on, as the Member just carried on. Small businesses are the backbone of our community in Wales, but many are effectively shut out of public sector contracts before the process has even begun. Large companies have dedicated teams to deal with procurement, legal requirements and lengthy tender documents. Small local businesses may have one person trying to do all of that while also running a day-to-day business. If the Welsh Government genuinely wants more public money to stay in Wales, it must make sure that local businesses have a fair chance to compete. So, my question is: what practical support will the Welsh Government provide to simplify the procurement process and help Welsh businesses bid successfully for local authority contracts? And will the Minister support publishing council-by-council figures showing how much public spending is awarded directly to Welsh businesses in respect of transparency? Diolch.

Thank you very much for that question, and for your support too in increasing public procurement for local businesses. Now, we know that there is work to be done in this area—there are so many examples of where it isn't currently working. As I say, things have improved a little, but the pace of that improvement has been slow since the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Act was passed in 2023. That legislation does place a duty on contracting authorities to improve economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being through procurement, including considering access for SMEs, and fair work is addressed in the legislation too.

But, of course, there is some way to go, as you say. I also hope that the new food strategy will address some of these issues, because local food production and creating local supply chains for the public sector again is a way of strengthening local businesses and the agricultural sector and so on. So, there are a number of different issues that can coalesce here, including, of course, the work that the national development body will do to support businesses so that they feel that they can access these contracts that are offered.

Thank you very much. We are already taking action through the social housing grant and the transitional accommodation capital programme. This will tackle homelessness, reduce reliance on temporary accommodation and ensure that people across Wales have access to quality homes that are energy efficient. We're also establishing Unnos to accelerate the delivery of social housing across Wales.

Diolch, Minister. Following on from what our Reform spokesperson has already said, I would like to urge you further to have annual targets so that any progress on delivering those 20,000 social homes can be easily tracked. We all know that Rome wasn't built in a day, but we would like to know how many homes will be built in Wales in a year.

Minister, following alongside those aims to get people into social housing as soon as possible, I was wondering whether the pots of money currently given to registered social landlords to adapt old stock—current old stock—to meet the demand and needs of those on current waiting lists will continue.

Thank you very much. I do understand the point about having annual targets, but often work can happen towards the end of the period. So, setting rigid annual targets, therefore, the same target every year, wouldn't reflect the reality of the situation, because it doesn't happen in a linear way. Often, the process starts and it accelerates towards the end of the period. But I will look to see how transparent—. I want to be transparent, and I want to provide you with as much information as possible. I'm going to be asking to have an operational role in some of the meetings that are happening with civil servants for me to understand exactly what's going on.

And in terms of the housing associations bringing old stock up to standard, there is another grant available for that, the optimised retrofit scheme, which is very successful in terms of improving the condition of our social housing. We need to accelerate that, and we also need to see the private sector stock progressing as well, so that the quality of our housing everywhere and across all tenancies improves. 

Thank you very much. That takes us on very neatly from that previous response, because progress is being made, and, certainly, in our manifesto, you will recall that establishing a tenure-neutral retrofit programme was a crucial part of that. So, I hope that that will lead to a supplementary question—I forget that there's a supplementary question.

I warmly welcome the Welsh Government's commitment to a national home retrofitting programme. Good housing is good health. Better-insulated homes will not only reduce energy bills and carbon emissions, they also improve people's health and reduce pressure on the NHS. Public Health Wales estimates that tackling excess cold in Welsh homes alone can save the NHS more than £40 million a year. Living in cold, damp and mouldy homes also increases the risk of respiratory illnesses, particularly in children and older people. So, Cabinet Minister, can you outline how the Welsh Government's retrofitting programme will prioritise tackling damp, mould and excess cold in homes so that it improves public health, reduces pressure on the NHS and lowers energy bills for families across Wales?

Thank you very much. There are a number of reasons why it's important that we improve the standard of our housing. One is to decarbonise so that we in Wales contribute less to climate change through our housing sector. Housing contributes around 11 per cent of carbon emissions in Wales, and I am very eager to see that reduced, and having a plan to decarbonise homes is very important. But there are benefits in terms of reducing bills as a result of making our homes more energy efficient—it's important that we consider that—and fuel poverty is also an issue in Wales, and it'll help us tackle poverty more generally. But also there is the impact on health, which is crucially important, and I am having discussions with the Deputy Minister in relation to preventative work, because, for me, housing is central to improving people's health, and we can improve health outcomes for our nation by having a clear focus on improving our housing standards. I will be going on Thursday to see—it's social housing—how retrofit programmes have helped a particular family there, and I'll be making further announcements on this specific area in our first 100 days.

Thank you. And the last question, Minister, Anna Nicholl. 

Thank you very much. I discussed this particular review of the funding formula with the finance sub-group on 8 July. The finance sub-group is the sub-group of the WLGA dealing with these issues.

Thank you. Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire are among the most rural authorities in Wales. People in rural Wales face higher living costs while often earning lower wages, and an ageing population is increasing the pressure on public services that are already under immense strain. For too long, rural councils have had to do more with less. The current funding formula does not reflect the true cost of delivering services across dispersed rural communities. Rural councils need a fair deal. Will the Cabinet Minister, therefore, commit to working in partnership with rural councils throughout this funding formula review?

I will. I will commit to work not only with the rural councils, but with councils across Wales—urban councils too, because I am entirely clear that this is work that should be undertaken collaboratively. As you mentioned, the rural aspect is important, but deprivation is also important, and there is, of course, deprivation in rural areas too.

Now, the purpose of the review is to decide whether change is needed, and, if we are to make changes, that that fairly reflects needs across Wales in different areas. The work has commenced, and, to date, the council leaders have been providing very constructive input to that work, and we will continue with that work. We will be commissioning an external review in order to ensure that the evidence is accurate and that the work is happening in a way that is transparent, and that everyone can understand what is happening. So, I look forward to seeing that bear fruit too. They will be looking at experiences in other countries—as well as focusing on Wales, they will look to see how distribution formulas work in different countries. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister.

We move on now to topical questions—Mair Rowlands.

Thank you very much. The fire is under control now, thanks to the efforts of the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service and all of the partners. This reminds us of the climate change threat and the need for all public services to adapt to that.

Thank you, Minister. The frightening sights that we saw on Conwy mountain over the weekend have not only had a direct impact on residents, communities, farmers, local businesses and nature, but they have also raised serious questions about the very real impact that climate change is having on the planet.

I'd like to start by placing on record once again my sincere thanks to the emergency services, the local authority and to nearby communities for their swift and determined response in the face of the crisis over recent days. Dirprwy Lywydd, as I mentioned in the Chamber yesterday, I'm pleased that the worst of the crisis is now behind us. However, many of my constituents are still asking questions about what the response will be to the damage and challenges posed by this wildfire. I would appreciate, therefore, if the Cabinet Minister could provide further details on how the Welsh Government will co-ordinate efforts with local stakeholders to start the work of restoring the 200 acres of agricultural and forestry land that was destroyed. I'd also like to know if measures will be put in place to safeguard residents who have respiratory problems as a result of the damage done to air quality in the local area.

And finally, the events of the weekend will have certainly been a blow to farmers and local businesses. I would appreciate it, therefore, if the Minister could tell us of any support that may be available to support them. And as I said earlier, we should all in this Chamber be concerned about what the events on the Conwy mountain, as well as similar incidents at Braichmelyn forest in Bethesda, tell us about the existential threat of climate change. I was pleased to hear the Trefnydd agree yesterday that we need a more comprehensive plan in place for such incidents in the future. I would appreciate, therefore, if the Cabinet Minister could expand on what measures the Welsh Government will put in place to prevent such incidents from becoming common across Wales, and to ensure that we are as well prepared as possible if these incidents do arise in future. Thank you.

Thank you very much for bringing this issue forward before the Senedd. One thinks about the people who were affected by this fire. I can only imagine how frightened they must have been during that period when the flames were roaring on the mountain in Penmaenmawr, an area I've very familiar with. Thirty-six households had to flee their homes during the work of putting out the fire, but luckily they could return home on Monday evening. Conwy council provided temporary accommodation for those who needed it, so we are very grateful to Conwy council for their work and very grateful to Natural Resources Wales, and, of course, to the fire service. Fighting wildfires is very difficult and dangerous work, and we need to pay tribute to all the firefighters in north Wales and the partner agencies who responded so quickly to this event and kept communities and people safe.

You asked what support the Welsh Government can provide. Well, of course, we are working with local partners. The county council is in all likelihood the first port of call in terms of understanding the problems that may continue now because of what's happened, and also NRW in terms of restoring the land and any work that needs to happen on the nature side of things. But you're right, this is shocking and makes us realise the severity of the situation in terms of the climate, the nature emergency and climate emergency that we're facing here. I don't think anybody could start to deny that that's very real. Between these fires and this incredible heat that we've had, which is also affecting people in very negative ways, we genuinely have to tackle this crisis facing us in Wales.

Will the Welsh Government follow in the footsteps of the Scottish Government and develop a strategic action plan to address escalating wildfire threats in Wales?

Thank you for your question, and I'm glad that—.

I am pleased that you, like me, are concerned about the growth in the number of wildfires, not only in your constituency but across the whole of Wales. The Cabinet, the Government, this week have been discussing our carbon plan as a Government, how we in Wales will contribute to the huge task of not only of tackling climate change, but also mitigating and adapting to it, as you've mentioned. I'm not sure exactly what Scotland has done, but we will certainly look at that.

Thank you, Mair, for putting your question in. We actually did table an emergency question ourselves, the Welsh Conservatives, first thing on Monday morning; somehow that seems to have been rejected. But I'm glad that you put one in as well. So, I would like to endorse all the thanks that have gone before me: North Wales Fire and Rescue Service, Conwy County Borough Council and other partner agencies. Their incredibly fast response saved considerably more acres.

I'd also like to pay tribute to local residents who evacuated quickly, but also did what they could to try and help. It could have been far more serious, though it was incredibly serious in itself. Our farmer, Gareth Wyn Jones, who had to go himself in searing heat to try and rescue pigs from up on the uplands. The impact that this fire has had on local residents who have been forced out of their homes, there have to be questions now, asking how we can support them, because it's a frightening experience. There were 36 homes evacuated, one family noting it was actually in their driveway, and 200 acres of land have been affected.

We all have to be cautious. I wonder whether some messaging could go out in terms of graphics or something. Do you know, you only need, these days, glass? If you're carrying clear glass on hot, dry grass, it can easily turn into a fire. Not a fully extinguished cigarette butt: we should not be having people, you know—. They can unintentionally spark a fire, leading to significant damage whilst also putting lives at risk.

It was a very, very resource-intensive, financial-resource-intensive operation for all those partner agencies. I suppose what I'm asking for is: will you put some resources forward now for the aftermath of this? Will you contact those partner agencies and see how your Government can financially support them? But we also need a strategic plan. I'm not a lover of strategic plans, but we need something in place, because this could happen again. We're only halfway through the summer; this could happen again and again, and I want to be sure that all those partner agencies and rescue services are not stuck for finance in any way, shape or form. Diolch.

Thank you very much, Janet, and I do agree with you. That family there, where the fire was very close to their home, that was very frightening, wasn't it? It's too early to know at present what caused this specific fire on the mountain in Penmaenmawr. Usually these fires happen earlier in the year, don't they? They happen between March and May, but they're increasingly happening in the summer now, which is also an indication of the climate change that is happening. And you're right, I think that we do need to get that messaging out that people need to be very careful when using barbecues, when discarding cigarette butts and when leaving glass behind—glass can cause a fire when there is sunlight on it, and that can spread across the vegetation, which is very dry at this time of year, and we've had very little rain. So, as I said, we really do need to think about prioritising tackling climate change, and think about the mitigation measures and the adaptations that we need to undertake in all our lives. In terms of the support and financial support, Welsh Government officials will be talking to all the agencies now to see exactly where we can help and what exactly the implications of the fire are.

Thank you, Minister. And the second question is from Lynne Neagle.

I made a written statement on Monday, announcing my intention to consult after the summer holidays on a 3.5 per cent pay award for teachers and leaders, and a 5 per cent pay award for unqualified teachers. I will provide additional funding to support local authorities and schools with implementing the pay award.

Thank you. As you've indicated, you made that written statement on Monday, announcing that you would consult from September. This is later than stakeholders would like. As you're aware, there's previously been a commitment to consult ahead of the school holidays, so that teachers can receive their pay rise as soon as possible, although I do welcome your commitment to start the process earlier in future years.

As we discussed yesterday, the Welsh Government is now in a pay dispute with both school leadership unions in Wales, with pay as well as additional learning needs funding cited as the reasons for the dispute. It was really worrying to see the written statement issued immediately after the debate yesterday, saying there would be no money for ALN, even though the Welsh Government could allocate that money, as they are doing with their priorities. But it's crucial now that the Government gets around the table with trade unions in order to prevent industrial action in the autumn.

Can I ask the Cabinet Minister what steps you'll take to ensure that this dispute focused on pay and ALN is urgently resolved?

If I can take the point on the pay award timings first: yes, it would have been easier to consult at an earlier point. She may have noticed that there was an election. There was a period when these consultations could not have gone ahead, which is precisely why I made the announcement on the 3.5 per cent pay award for teachers and 5 per cent for unqualified teachers, because in representations to me, they said very clearly that an early indication—admitting the consultation would need now to happen in the autumn—early certainty, and an early certainty for local government that funding would be available to pay for these pay rises, was the desire of the workforce. That's why I made that statement at that point.

On ALN, I think that we are revisiting a conversation from yesterday. As my colleague said earlier on, we are very aware of the pressures in funding on both local government and on schools, and I have no doubt that those will be continuing conversations. On ALN specifically, what we set out to do, in conversation with you—and I thought that we were talking about the same thing, which was how to arrive at a sustainable model for ALN. For a number of years, it has been clear that that is not where we are. We are constantly told, by parents, families, schools and local authorities, that the current system is facing significant difficulty, and it was on that basis that we presented an argument for £40 million this year, £40 million next year and at least £40 million in the third year, in order to bring us to a point where we had a sustainable ALN system that we could be proud of. You voted against that yesterday.

On the trade dispute itself, I was obviously disappointed to receive a letter from the NAHT and the Association of School and College Leaders, entering into a trade dispute, given that we have been working together and I have been committed to the social partnership now and throughout my career. And I hope that we can move forward quickly to resolve these issues. I remain committed to the social partnership, and I'm currently considering the issues and the response. 

I welcome the Gweinidog's acknowledgement that improving educational outcomes requires meaningful engagement with teachers, ensuring they feel supported, valued and listened to. It is somewhat ironic that when similar pay uplifts were offered to teachers in previous years, under previous Governments, they did not attract the same level of scrutiny. For too long, Wales has faced persistent challenges in retaining teachers. If we are serious about raising standards, we must work in genuine partnership with our education workforce. Teachers are central to our education system and should be able to focus on teaching and supporting learners, rather than being overwhelmed by unnecessary pressures. Therefore, Gweinidog, at a time when teachers face growing demands and expectations, how will the Welsh Government work with teachers, unions and local authorities to ensure that the profession is properly supported, teacher well-being is prioritised and schools can attract and retain the staff they need?

Diolch yn fawr, and I think she's quite right to point to the value we put on the teaching profession, and we are determined to work in partnership. I have existing relationships with teachers and school leaders across Wales, and I am in constant dialogue, formally and informally, with them, and we have a great deal that we want to do together around workload, around retaining and recruiting teachers, around the ideas we have on literacy and numeracy and clarity of expectation, looking at the curriculum. These are things that the teaching profession has welcomed, and it is a continuing dialogue that will touch on all the areas the Member mentioned. It will include the unions and as wide as possible an input from the people who deliver on the ground and who matter to us. 

As a former teacher, I know first-hand the challenges facing our schools and the immense commitment shown by teachers and school leaders across Wales, and I'd like to thank Lynne Neagle for bringing forward this question. Of course, supporting teachers is vital, and fair pay is an important part of that, but we must also recognise that the pressures facing the profession go far beyond pay alone. There is workload, recruitment and retention, additional learning needs provision and the increasing demands placed on schools all requiring attention. I note that the NAHT, the school leaders' union, and the Association of School and College Leaders have now written to the education Minister, herself a former leader of the NAHT, to formally register a dispute with the Welsh Government over the pay settlement, alongside concerns with ALN funding. What makes this particularly significant is that neither union has previously been in a formal dispute with the Welsh Government; these are unprecedented circumstances. Therefore, can the Minister outline how the Welsh Government intends to rebuild consensus with these unions, resolve the issues that have led to this dispute, and what further action can be taken to support teachers and school leaders across Wales?

Thank you, and I'm sure the former Minister will be grateful for your support. On the trade dispute, I am anxious to resolve this as quickly as possible, as I said earlier on, and I remain committed to working in social partnership with them. I think there is ground that we can build on here and I am determined to resolve that matter as quickly as I can.

I'm grateful to Lynne Neagle for tabling this item here today. As you know, Cabinet Minister, schools across Wales are increasingly feeling overlooked and undervalued when it comes to funding. And, of course, you've already noted the serious challenges surrounding funding for additional learning needs, with many schools struggling to provide the support that learners deserve.

You've again mentioned the offer from the Welsh Government of that £40 million per year. But let's not forget that, last night, this Senedd rejected that as an option, because this Senedd believed that that was not enough to support ALN across Wales. And now we're seeing again a Welsh Government unwilling to meet the recommended pay award for teachers. It goes back to that point of them feeling overlooked and undervalued. Cabinet Minister, we cannot risk a strike in the autumn because of this situation.

I think that what's happening at the moment really sends the wrong message to a profession that's already feeling that immense pressure. Teachers, as already described by your Plaid Cymru colleague, are at the heart of our education system and there's a real risk of this general issue around funding affecting recruitment, retention and ultimately outcomes for our children and young people.

I'm particularly concerned about how school leaders are having to manage this situation at the moment, and I declare an interest as a school governor myself. School governing bodies are having to manage stretched budgets, and if schools are left to bridge the funding gap themselves, it's children who ultimately feel the impact of this. So, Cabinet Minister, can you explain what reassurance you can give headteachers and governing bodies that they won't have to choose between rewarding their staff fairly and appropriately and protecting the support and opportunities available to pupils?

Thank you. I think we have rehearsed the reasons why the ALN funding for this year will be difficult in this particular context, but I am committed to working with my colleague the finance Minister on building the sustainable ALN system that we committed to in our manifesto and that I know has support across Wales.

On schools funding more broadly, part of the announcement I made on Monday about the pay award was that we would provide local authorities with additional funding in order that that would not be an additional pressure on school budgets. But we remain committed too to making sure that school leaders and the wider school workforce do feel valued and consulted under this Government, and it is in that spirit that I propose to proceed.

Thank you, Minister. 

We'll move now to item 4, the 90-second statements. The first is from Llŷr Powell.

Diolch, Lywydd. I was sad and shocked on the weekend to find out about the passing of the Rt Hon Ann Widdecombe. I'm not going to comment today on the circumstances, but will celebrate the person that she was.

Ann was the MP for Maidstone for 23 years. She served in Government, serving the country that she loved as Minister of State for employment and Minister of State for prisons. Ann became a Member of the European Parliament for South West England in 2019. Her words were that she was there to ensure that the largest democratic vote the United Kingdom has had is fulfilled, and she pushed it through. She became an unlikely national treasure through her appearances on Strictly Come Dancing. She was on Big Brother. She appeared in several pantomimes across the country during the seasons, and even appeared in a production at the Royal Opera House.

She was a dedicated campaigner for animal causes. Ann went against her own party and friends when she was outspoken in supporting the ban on fox hunting, claiming it was immoral not to do so. She stood up for animals like donkeys and their welfare. She fought for the end of the use of animals in circuses. Ann showed us that you could be a true Conservative, a 'small c' conservative, but you can also stand up for your principles, you can go against your party. In tributes, we've heard that Ann was a maverick; she was. She was fearless in debate, she was kind-hearted, she was true to her faith at all times.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ann in 2019. It was a friendship that I cherish more than anything. I walked the streets of Ebbw Vale with her, where I saw women leaving a hair salon and nail bar quickly to have a selfie with the Strictly Come Dancing star that was Ann Widdecombe. She looked perplexed at how she was a star—she just saw herself as Ann. That's the person I knew every time I met her. She's a loss to this country, to our party and to Britain as a whole. We on these benches, and, I hope, across the Chamber, will pay tribute to her family and to the person whom we will long miss. Rest in peace, Ann.

Following Thursday's Remembering Srebrenica commemoration, attended by Members across this Senedd, we pause to honour the victims and survivors of the Srebrenica genocide. This year's theme, 'We are here', reminds us that, while the genocide sought to erase a people, survivors continue with dignity, courage and strength, and their stories continue to educate and inspire future generations.

We remember the 8,372 Muslim men and boys murdered in the town of Srebrenica alone. We remember the more than 100,000 people murdered across Bosnia and Herzegovina. We remember the 2 million people forced from their homes. And we remember the more than 50,000 women who were the victims of genocidal rape between 1992 and 1995. Because we know that behind every number is a name, a life lost and a family changed forever.

We also recognise the vital work of Remembering Srebrenica Wales. Continued investment in education, including support for more school and college visits to Bosnia and Herzegovina, is essential to ensure future generations learn these lessons and help realise the ambitions of our 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan'. As His Majesty King Charles III said himself in his own words, by remembering the pain of the past and learning its lessons, we can together resolve that it must never happen again.

As we look forward to welcoming Eisteddfod y Garreg las to Llantood in Pembrokeshire, I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to this special festival. In two weeks' time, we will once again celebrate and take pride in our culture, our history and our local communities, which will be displayed on a national stage for the whole of Wales.

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to all the people, communities, organisations and local businesses that have come together to support this Eisteddfod. Their commitment and hard work have been a vital part of the success of the preparations. A target of £400,000 was set, and the communities of Pembrokeshire, south Ceredigion and west Carmarthenshire smashed that target, raising over £500,000—more money than any National Eisteddfod has ever raised, clear evidence of the strength of our communities and their support for the Welsh language and our culture.

It has also been a pleasure to see the celebrations that have highlighted the historical significance of this Eisteddfod, especially as we remember Lord Rhys, who held the first Eisteddfod in Cardigan castle 850 years ago. It is a privilege to be able to welcome the Eisteddfod back home to Ceredigion Penfro, and I'm looking forward to welcoming all Members of the Senedd to the maes during the first week of August. Thank you.

I would like to congratulate and celebrate the anniversary of the BAWSO charity at 30. For three decades, BAWSO has been supporting people the length and breadth of Wales at some of the most difficult periods of their lives.

Founded in Cardiff by a small group of black and minoritised women, BAWSO recognised that survivors of domestic abuse needed services that understood their experiences and the barriers they faced in seeking help. They've grown from a rented room with just a desk, chair and phone to a Wales-wide organisation, supporting thousands of people every year, with a free-access helpline, available 24 hours a day, every day. BAWSO has often led the way in tackling issues such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation, honour-based violence, modern slavery and human traffic, long before many of these issues received the attention they deserved.

As BAWSO marks its thirtieth anniversary, I want to thank staff, volunteers and trustees for everything they do. I particularly want to acknowledge the contribution of their founding chief executive, Mutale Merrill, and their present chief exec, Samsunear Ali, both of whom I've worked closely with over the years. I understand there's a gala celebration event on Friday, and I'm sure all of us here are very welcome there. Diolch.

And finally, Rebeca Phillips.

Diolch, Lywydd. Gaynor Hopkins was born on 8 June 1951 in Skewen, Neath, one of six children to her father, Glyndwr Hopkins, a coal miner, and her mother, Elsie Hopkins. From humble beginnings, she became known all over the world for her distinctive raspy voice, immense emotional range and timeless anthems. Yes, Bonnie Tyler was a legend. With her well-known hits such as 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and 'Holding Out for a Hero', Bonnie Tyler went on to sell millions of records all over the world. Not just a singer, Bonnie was an ambassador for many charities and used her global profile to champion them, supporting events and making appearances at charitable functions. Once saying, 'I'm just a girl from a small town in Wales who just loves to sing', she never forgot her Skewen roots. Sadly, on 9 July 2026, at the age of 75, we heard of the singer's passing. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and all those affected by her death.

Thank you, Bonnie, for being an inspiration to us all with your talent and kindness, and for showing the next generation that dreams can come true. Rest in peace.

Thank you, all.

We now move to item 5, a motion to establish the Llywydd's committee. I call on a member of the Business Committee to move the motion formally. Paul Davies.

Formally, Llywydd.

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

Item 6 is next, a Member debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv), young people and employment. I call on Shav Taj to move the motion tabled in her name and in the names of Jane Dodds and Paul Rock.

Sorry, I'm just taking my jacket off, it's really hot. Diolch, Lywydd. I just wanted to say that I'm really pleased to move this motion today. It's my first individual Member debate, and I'm really pleased that it is on this issue, because it is such a big issue. I'm really happy that it was co-submitted by both the Greens and the Lib Dems. I just want to declare an interest—I have said this previously—I am the former general secretary of TUC Cymru, so this issue, in terms of young people and employment, is very much close to my heart and really important for me.

Can I start by noting that today, in fact, is World Youth Skills Day? This is really a chance for us to celebrate the potential of the next generation of young people in Wales and make sure that this new Government is setting them up to succeed. All of us, ultimately, have responsibility in this area, and, in the spirit of cross-party collaboration, I want to thank my co-sponsors for this debate, Jane Dodds and Paul Rock, for helping to get this issue onto the agenda. On World Youth Skills Day, the timing really couldn't be any better.

It's often said that young people are our future, but I want to remind everyone that the underlying issues related to young people and employment are not problems for the future, they're for the here and now. When it comes to mental health and physical health, a lack of job opportunities, a lack of well-paid and secure work, bullying, harassment and discrimination, or even not being able to catch a bus in time, get to a bus or a train to where jobs actually are, and the impact of AI on entry-level jobs, these are the real obstacles, and they're happening in the here and now, which makes these issues just as urgent as anything else that we may be discussing in the Senedd.

Now, younger generations today may want all of the same things that we wanted back in the days. I mean, I remember my first official paid job when I was 17 or 18 in the Sweater Shop in town. I was paid £2.65 and it really was an awful job. But the first thing that I got to do was to buy my first pair of Nike trainers, because up until then, it was Matchstick all the way, because that was what my parents could afford to buy me from Woolworths. But, of course, young people now want the same things. They want to make their own money. They want to make sure that they can pay their way in life and, of course, start building a future, not only for themselves, but also for many others. Many of them have caring responsibilities. They want to be able to buy a house or even start a family.

Now, Llywydd, as the former health Secretary Alan Milburn has set out in his review, we risk a lost generation of young people. One in eight between the ages of 16 and 24 are not in employment, education or training, otherwise known as NEETs, and I was shocked, really, to find that the data from the end of last year showed that the situation in Wales is actually even worse. One in six young people are not in work, not in education or training, and that should really wind each and every one of us up and make us angry enough to want to do something about it and to work together on these issues, because youth unemployment is not a fringe issue. It is actually the symptom of a systemic failure, bigger than any one policy, bigger than any department or Government, and clearly, now, it demands an even bigger and better response.

Now, I saw during my time at TUC Cymru that the last Welsh Government took some really positive steps. The young person's guarantee that was rolled out, when we were coming out of the COVID pandemic, helped around 10,000 young people to get into work; 30,000 apprenticeships were started; and more people were helped to further their education or even start their own business. But clearly, though, that guarantee hasn't been universally effective. So, it hasn't done all the things that we were hoping to do. Only around half of the people that were supported through these various schemes actually went on to achieve a positive outcome. And that's just the people who were even aware that this support existed in the first place and were able to take advantage of it and to navigate through it as well. But what about the people who weren't aware, who weren't able to navigate the systems that were set up?

Now, as set out by the previous skills and social partnership Minister, Jack Sargent, the various schemes that make up the young person's guarantee are going to be replaced by a new employability support programme, starting next year. I think that if we do this right, it genuinely can be a golden opportunity for us to do things differently here in Wales, to take what works and to streamline it with a real laser focus on moving young people into good, fair work jobs and other opportunities. The UK Government also operates a number of schemes for young people in Wales. The youth jobs grant, which started last month—that gives a real financial incentive for some employers to hire young people who have been out of work and are claiming universal credit. And, of course, there is the economic inactivity trailblazer scheme, which has been piloted in Blaenau Gwent, Denbighshire and Neath Port Talbot, and is currently being reviewed, as I understand it. This scheme, which looks at the underlying big causes of long-term unemployment, gives people the tailored support that they actually need, whether that's for mentoring, counselling or any other kind of special support that that person may need.

Now, despite all of the good work, all of the stuff that we've done so far, the issue with youth unemployment is not unique to Wales, but we can lead from the front when it comes to finding those solutions and implementing them. And we have to start, of course, with the evidence. Let's listen to the people who know best, and that is the young people who are actually at that sharp end, who are facing these real challenges on a day-to-day basis, because we don't have all of the answers, and that is the truth. Some people, young people in particular, are being let down more than others.

The latest stats, the official stats from the Welsh Government, show that 40 per cent of people with disabilities between the ages of 19 and 24 are not in education, employment or training. We know it's not because they lack skills or aspiration or any of those things. It is actually a failure, an abject failure of society, a lack of opportunity and a lack of proper support that's being given. In reality, one in three disabled workers are not getting the reasonable adjustments that they actually need in the first place. Relatively few public sector organisations even have the highest level of Disability Confident accreditation. And according to Mencap, 86 per cent of young people with learning disabilities want to be in paid work, and in reality, it's only 5 per cent—5 per cent—who actually are. This is mind-boggling, and that's just not right.

So, yes, while we have these schemes and they are transforming some lives, there are clearly gaps in the provision, and we know they exist and we need to do something about them. Now, when young people with disabilities consistently say that the systems that they're meant to be using, that are meant to be there—. Well, they say, 'They're not actually built with us in mind.' And that's not an opinion, that's their own individual lived experience. These are the people who know the issues best, and the systems would work better if we did a better job of listening to the people who use them. So, that should always be our starting point—for this Welsh Government, for all of us in this Senedd, we really need to, always, get out into our communities, listen and learn and act.

And what else do young people need in Wales? One simple answer: more jobs embedded. But not any old job—good jobs, good jobs that are well paid, secure and give people a real opportunity for progress into that career, whatever that career may be that they choose. And Wales has a lower jobs density than England and Scotland. So, that's a problem, the availability of jobs. But the quality of jobs has actually been very much lacking too. Now, according to research by the Health Foundation, of all the nations and regions, it is Wales where workers are most likely to face multiple aspects of job quality. Lots of young people are actually overqualified for the roles that are open to them, and they're less likely than older colleagues to access any training and development.

Now, there's always a demand for young people in sectors like retail, hospitality and social care. But once they actually get into those jobs, what actually happens to them? They find themselves trapped in jobs with limited training and not able to actually progress. Now, TUC Cymru has raised concerns, and I've constantly been in front of one committee after the other where I've said that precarious jobs are shaping a generation. Bullying, harassment and poor treatment remain very real issues and are concerns for young people at work.

Working parents are struggling to even help their own children to navigate the world of work, and lots of young workers are also, of course, parents themselves, so it's a struggle for them to balance work and caring responsibilities. So, yes, we need to create more job opportunities for young people, but we need work that is well paid, that is secure, and we need to have welcoming workplaces in the first place, and cultures in workplaces where people feel that they can speak up and that they will be supported in the first place. Not just some warm words, not another policy, not another perfected way of doing things—we need tangible actions. It's so important that young people actually understand, of course, what is acceptable in the workplace and the rights and protections that they have. People who have been paid under the minimum wage, who haven't been given breaks or have experienced harassment in the workplace—they are at risk of thinking, 'This is just the way things are and there is nothing that I can do to change it.'

Now, for some young people, there is a lack of understanding around the jobs that are available, even when they're studying or training to work in a particular industry. For lots of young people, ideas about future careers and the opportunities that they can get are based on their own connections. That can make job seeking even harder, especially if they're from disadvantaged backgrounds. Now, TUC Cymru has done some good awareness work with the Welsh Government teaching young people about their rights at work, the role of trade unions, issues like health and safety and artificial intelligence, and that's through the World of Work programme that's been rolled out in schools, in youth clubs and many other places as well. And I hope that the current Government will continue to support that work.

Another Welsh Government scheme, which deserves praise, of course, is Taith. Now, that was and still is, actually, a distinctly Welsh programme that gives young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to actually travel. Now, last week, I visited Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf in my constituency and I spoke to some of the pupils who have benefited from this scheme. And I was actually honestly genuinely so inspired by the new skills and the confidence that Taith has given them, and this is clearly not a one-off investment—it's a lifelong investment in young people all over Wales. So, again, I really hope that the Government will back this project beyond the current funding, because it definitely has a place in Wales, alongside, I believe, Erasmus+, reaching out to schools, and youth and adult organisations. Those who never thought that they'd have opportunities to even travel—so many of the young kids that I spoke to said they didn't even have a passport. They didn't even believe that this was going to be a real trip. They had the opportunity to go to Malaysia, and now there's going to be a delegation of children that are going to be visiting here. And it was, honestly, just amazing what they talked about.

Now, the new employability support programme coming in next year is a chance for us to build a better system that actually reflects the needs of the people it intends to help. And that gives a real helping hand to anyone who might need it. We need to seize the opportunities in front of us. Where there are jobs being created in sectors like clean energy, in digital and tourism—of course, the electric arc furnace in Port Talbot or the Cardiff parkway project—we need to make sure that young people from every single part of Wales are able to get to where they need to be, both literally, but also in the sense of public transport—affordable public transport—but also that they have the opportunity of good jobs and that they have the chance to progress.

So, while I'm proud to put forward this debate, the real work is for each and every one of us to do when we leave the Chamber. And I know that there are Members from all parties who are genuinely extremely passionate about helping young people—Members with different experiences, working with and on behalf of young people before they even came into the Senedd, with lots of different insights. So, let's come together and let's use those. Let's get out into our constituencies over the summer, let's listen to the people who are facing these challenges and look at what's working. Let's think about what we could do better and then let's get on with it and do it, so that Wales is the best place that it can be for young working people, where no young person is left behind. Diolch, Lywydd.

I'd also like to declare an interest. It might surprise a few people to know that I'm a former young person myself. It was a while ago now, but—. I will say, I think when you think about the journey that young people go through, for too long, they've been kind of mis-sold a promise that if you go to university, then on the other side awaits a golden nirvana, a good job and big success, but the reality is that it hasn't—. Instead, thousands of young people across Wales, and indeed the UK, go into that process and they leave having to go for unpaid or low-paid jobs at the end of it in an unrelated field, because the degree that they had isn't valued by employers or wanted by the economy. They leave with debt. And the harsh reality is that the dreams of those young people going into those university courses have often been broken, and there's a lot of disappointment on the other side. And on both sides of the M4, young people have been mis-sold degrees, pushed through the system and leave with tens of thousands of pounds-worth of debt that they carry with them for decades. An economy of skilled workers that those employers have to go out to the world to look for to fill that—we could be filling right here in Wales. And many people in that generation are really paying the price for the decisions that we, as the older generation, have been making, and, certainly, in this Chamber.

Now, as has already been mentioned, 17 per cent of Welsh young people in Wales are NEET, and that, for a supposed advanced economy, is not an acceptable position to be in. Unlike many of them, I actually started my career with an apprenticeship, and I would say it was easily one of the best decisions I ever made. I would actually like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to those men and women at the civilian technical training school that I went on to work with. They've gone on throughout the world to achieve some remarkable things. It's just a shame that we couldn't keep them employed here in Wales, and that's what we have to look to do. I was able to earn and learn at the same time, and it led to a long and successful 30-year career across aerospace and defence. First of all with the Ministry of Defence at St Athan—a three-year apprenticeship that taught me and my colleagues the fundamentals of aerospace engineering. I then went on to the defence sector at another Welsh success story at General Dynamics, and various senior management positions soon after. So, apprenticeships may well be vocational in nature, but they can lead to some really exciting places for young people.

I know first-hand what apprenticeships can achieve. I understand the power of apprenticeships, for employers and for young people. They have dual value, and it's important that we consider that. Now, I want every young person in Wales to have those same opportunities. I think we can all agree to that premise. I think there will be consensus around the Chamber on that. I think there's power in that. That means shifting our focus away from low-value degrees and putting skilled trades back at the heart of where they belong, which is at the heart of Welsh education, so that people are aware of what those trades mean to the economy as they're coming through school and making those choices.

Now, today, young people who want to become electricians, engineers, plumbers and technicians are fighting over a handful of apprenticeship places. Despite skyrocketing demand, apprenticeship starts in Wales have actually fallen by around 37 per cent over the last decade. The last Government claimed they delivered 100,000 apprenticeships over the last term, but as we all now know, the figures were fiddled and the public were misled on that, and that's a terrible legacy to leave. Terrible delivery and a misrepresentation of data. But we need to turn that around.

Now, this debate today is an attempt to reclaim that narrative; we understand that. But I do think that we can all come together to recognise that programmes like Jobs Growth Wales and ReAct aren't enough to get our students through the process into producing high-quality jobs for employers. Too often these programmes have become a revolving door of courses, placements and paperwork, rather than a genuine route into secure employment and training. Now, of course it's not enough for me to say what we wouldn't do; we are the party that tells the public exactly what we would do. Reform Wales would expand high-quality degree apprenticeships, work with employers and make vocational skills just as respected as academic qualifications.

We also need to have an honest conversation about the impact of uncontrolled immigration on our jobs market. To not acknowledge the direct correlation is not to acknowledge the reality of the pressures that people face. Four hundred Welsh nurses, for example, paramedics and midwives who were trained here in Wales, ready, willing and able to work in our NHS, are unable to find work, while we import staff from abroad. Now, that's completely unacceptable to the men and women who are looking for jobs in our NHS. But that's what happens when Welsh workers aren't put first. Now, we appreciate anyone that wants to work in our NHS and contribute, but it can't be to the detriment of our own Welsh young people. Warm words aren't enough. We need better than the young person's guarantee. That's why—

Jason.

—we'll be abstaining today. Last point, and I will skip over.

Please.

All parties have fallen short when it comes to prioritising the needs of our youngest. They deserve better. Restore will be abstaining. Thank you.

I'm very pleased to contribute to this very important debate, and I thank Shav and the others for bringing it forward to the Chamber.

For many young people, the question is not simply whether they can find work, it is whether they can build a future for themselves here in Wales. We rightly celebrate Wales as a great place to live, but we should also aspire to make it the best place to start your career. That means ensuring that opportunity is not determined by postcode or personal circumstance. Too often young people face very different prospects depending on where they grow up in Cardiff or in Wales. As we've heard, those living with disabilities, long-term health conditions, caring responsibilities or lower household incomes frequently face additional barriers to education, training and employment. If we are serious about equality of opportunity, we must recognise that not everyone starts from the same place and ensure that support reflects that very reality.

In my constituency of Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf, we see the vital role that further education plays in widening those opportunities. Coleg y Cymoedd serves thousands of learners across our region, many from communities that have historically faced higher levels of disadvantage. Its principal and chief executive, Jonathan Morgan, has recently highlighted the significant pressures facing the college currently. Despite receiving more than 6,000 applications for this September, reductions in funding mean that hundreds of prospective learners have been placed on waiting lists. Those learners are seeking qualifications in construction, manufacturing, digital technologies, health and social care, childcare and other sectors where Wales needs a strong workforce. At a time when we are encouraging young people to develop the skills our economy requires and is reliant on, we cannot afford to simultaneously create barriers to stop these opportunities. Investment in further education is an investment in economic growth, stronger communities and better life chances.

We also need a skills system that reflects both young people's aspirations and the needs of Welsh employers. Strong foundations in reading, writing and mathematics remain essential, but vocational education and apprenticeships must be valued equally and linked to clear pathways into secure, high-quality employment. As our economy changes, new opportunities will also emerge in green industries, advanced manufacturing, health and care, and digital innovation. We must ensure young people from every part of Wales can access those opportunities regardless of where they might live.

We should also look beyond our borders, giving young people greater opportunities to study, train and work across Europe, while encouraging them to bring those skills and experiences back to Wales. That can strengthen both individual careers and our economy as a whole. Ultimately, this debate is about more than employment statistics. It is about giving young people confidence that they can build fulfilling lives right here in Wales, and that requires joined-up action across education, skills, transport, housing and economic development. If we get those building blocks right, we will not simply reduce the number of young people who are NEET or improve employment figures—we will create a Wales where young people choose to stay, not because they have no alternative, but because the opportunities here are every bit as ambitious as the futures that they want to build. Diolch.

I'm pleased to support this motion today, and I thank Shav Taj for giving me the opportunity to speak about it. At its heart, this motion is about a simple principle: every young person in our nation deserves the opportunity to build a secure, sustainable and rewarding future here in Wales. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 calls on us to think about the long term. That means ensuring young people are not simply finding jobs, but building careers that are sustainable, resilient and futureproof.

Much can be said about the barriers facing young people, from low pay and insecure work to a lack of progression opportunities, but I want to focus on the opportunities being created by our climate commitments, and the good-quality jobs that can come with them. As Greens, we see meeting our climate commitments not as a burden, but as a huge opportunity. It can create thousands of long-term skilled jobs. Crucially, we need careers that equip young people with skills for life. We should not be directing people into industries with an expiry date attached to them. Instead, we should be investing in sectors that we know will continue to grow and provide stable employment for decades to come.

Some of those careers will be in the trades. We need to deliver renewable energy projects, retrofit our existing housing stock and build the sustainable homes and infrastructure of the future. We need more engineers, more skilled construction workers and more investment in research and development if Wales is to become that global leader.

I'd like to highlight the potential of marine and tidal energy. Wales is blessed with extraordinary coastlines and the second largest tidal range in the world. By harnessing that natural advantage, we can create skilled careers by strengthening our energy security. If Wales isn't ready for this transition, it's our young people who will, once again, miss the boat. We need to be able to equip them to move into these good long-term careers, otherwise the opportunities will simply go elsewhere.

The Warm Homes plan is another good example of where environmental and economic goals come together. Retrofitting homes and building fossil-fuel-free homes from the outset will cut emissions, lower energy bills and create skilled employment in construction and engineering. These are jobs rooted in communities, and jobs that we will need if we are serious about meeting our climate commitments. That's why I'm so pleased to support this motion, and I urge the Welsh Government to consider and ensure that the pathways into green industries are ambitious, accessible and available to young people across Wales. Diolch. 

Thank you to the Member for bringing forward this debate, and to all those who have contributed so far. Creating pathways into employment for young people is critically important, as detailed in the motion. Given this, I truly welcome the spirit of this motion. It is incumbent upon all of us to find solutions to this issue. However, I do feel that there is more room for us to cover. We need more focus on vocational apprenticeships, particularly in relation to the building and construction industry. At this point, I must declare an interest, as my younger brother is currently completing one such vocational apprenticeship.

Trades and construction are a significant employer across our country. However, from the experience of my brother, I can tell this Chamber that the cuts to apprenticeship funding dealt a huge blow to the success of these vocational apprenticeships. I recall months of worry and concern as my brother's apprenticeship hung in the balance. He struggled to find a qualified trade to take him on as an apprentice. We must recognise that the vast majority of trades are sole traders or small in size, people that lack the financial reserves to employ an apprentice and all the costs that can come with that.

Previously, funding was available to help meet these costs. Apprentices could find stable work placements, essential to them completing their courses, and employers were supported. We had a pathway for young people to learn a trade, gain valuable work experience and move into full-time work. However, when cuts to funding came, this pathway was restricted. If you are serious about creating avenues into employment for every young person, then I believe this motion should be calling for those pathways to be re-established.

This leads me on to my next point. In my previous role, I worked in a charity, which, along with a number of other services, ran a successful back-to-work programme. I helped lead a project that took 16 individuals over a cohort of three months, mostly young people who were long-term unemployed, and we would pay them to work with us. Over three months, we gave them real work experience. We also set aside one day where we upskilled the participants in cv writing, interview skills, job search support, manual handling training, first aid, mental health and well-being support, to name just some of the skills we helped our participants receive. Over the two years that this project ran, we helped more than 40 young people back into full-time work.

I took away two key points from my time with this project. Firstly, like I already believed, Government cannot do it alone. We can create all the Government agencies, projects and schemes we want, but unless the Welsh Government is willing to financially support the private sector, and, importantly, the third sector, to provide job opportunities for long-term unemployed people, we will fail to create those pathways into employment.

Secondly, one of the largest barriers to getting people into work is experience. Without real work experience, many young people struggle to have the confidence to apply for jobs. They fail to make it through interview processes or simply don't know where to start when it comes to job hunting. I cannot tell you enough about the number of young people I worked with directly on this project who were able and willing to work, they just didn't know where to start. To see the transition that they went through in that short three-month window with us was remarkable.

So, this brings me on to my final point. We must recognise the importance of a young person's first part-time job, working as a pot wash or waiting tables. Whilst this is not a lifelong career for some, the workplace experience and skills that they gain are invaluable when it comes to moving to other work. This is exactly the point that I was trying to make last week in this place. The tourism and hospitality industry is a vital piece of the puzzle on this issue. I, like many others across Wales, worked in the hospitality sector. I held down a little part-time job from the age of 15, working around school, on weekends and in the evenings. And I recognised that my experience in this sector, working in pubs, restaurants, cafes in a variety of roles, gave me skills that no classroom could teach. It taught me the value of hard work. It helped me develop my interpersonal skills and gave me references for my cv. These are all vital components if we're serious about tackling youth unemployment. So, if we're serious about this issue, I truly believe we must engage with the tourism and hospitality sector, because I tell you they have been supporting young people into work and upskilling them for decades.

So, in conclusion, I do truly welcome the spirit of this motion, but I do believe that we have some more components that we need to consider if we're going to be successful in tackling youth unemployment in the future.

I'll declare an interest as a youngish person. But thank you, Shav, for bringing forward—

Definitely young.

Young for politics. Thank you, Shav, for bringing forward this debate and also for joining the cross-party group on youth employment. The group is focusing on supporting young people and addressing the barriers they face in accessing employment and education, so I’d invite any Members here today to come and join the group. Because this is one of the most important issues facing this Senedd, but I also think it's one of the issues where we do have cross-party support.

There are over 56,000 young people in Wales not in employment, education or training, which is about the size of Barry. We know this is not an issue that affects all our young people equally. We know it disproportionately impacts young men, and we know it disproportionately impacts young men in our most deprived areas. I grew up in one of Wales's poorest estates, in Townhill in Swansea, against the backdrop of Tory austerity. I saw first-hand what a lack of opportunity can do. I saw it fail my friends, I saw it fail my neighbours. I’m so lucky and privileged to be here today, and I'm determined to use my voice to focus on this issue, because we cannot fail another generation.

Young people have limitless potential, the passion to learn and to grow, but the system limits them rather than supporting them. I’ve been speaking to sports leaders in Ely on this issue, and it’s like déjà vu. But it isn't all doom and gloom, because, often, as they do, communities have the solutions. Everything I’m about to mention to you has come to me directly from people in my constituency involved in youth work, or from young people themselves—simple, tangible ways we can change things to begin to tackle this problem.

Firstly, there is transport, with the £1 bus fare for young people. I'm so grateful to everyone who has been a part of this: the previous Government for the pilot, Jane Dodds for negotiating on it and the new Government for continuing it. But it doesn't go far enough yet, because we know the cost of travel is a barrier to learners trying to access educational opportunities, and fixing this has to be a priority of ours over this Senedd term.

Secondly, there's distance. If young people are at risk of disengaging with the education system, they're not going to travel halfway across Cardiff to access education that they're not sure is for them. Expanding vocational education and apprenticeships gives us this unique opportunity to provide education in our communities. We know there are other countries that offer vocational education, like junior apprenticeships, at a much earlier age, before young people reach crisis point and in a way that presents it as parity of qualification. 

Thirdly, there's access. We have a diverse offer out there for our young people, and hopefully that's only going to grow over this Senedd term, but Cardiff and Vale College tell me they've got learners on waiting lists and they're having to turn young people away or put them on courses that don't align with their preferences, which will only worsen the issue of young people not in education, employment or training. And similarly, unless our young people know about the breadth of the opportunities available to them and what they can aspire to be, they cannot possibly make decisions on it. Last week, I spoke to apprentices at Cardiff and Vale College, and every single one of them told me they'd had to drop out, change pathways or do their own research to find what was available to them. We just can't let this go on any longer.

It seems like nothing has changed since I left school a decade ago, where the only employer that came into my school was the army. We didn't get to hear about the science, tech and engineering happening in Swansea University, about the tourism industry in the Mumbles. We just didn't get it at all. And constituents have flagged with me examples of best practice, like the Cardiff Commitment, and hats off to Huw Thomas and Cardiff Council, because I hear brilliant things about this project, and we should be looking at how we can roll that out on a larger scale.

And finally, I'd like to talk about local skills pipelines. I've been speaking to young people in Butetown, and they tell me about the significant developments happening in Cardiff Bay and in Butetown, but how, though they often get public money, no real effort has occurred to utilise the skills available in the community, and instead we're using companies from elsewhere to pursue these projects. So, if we're serious about creating a Wales for the future, about nation building, we must ensure that we support those at the beginning of their journey to reach their potential and achieve great things, because we have the solutions, we've heard some of them today, and by acting upon these, we'll impact countless lives in amazing ways that we will never know. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you to Shav for bringing this forward. It's great to see that there is cross-party support. I really just want to say that when you meet a young person who cannot find a job, it is really heart-wrenching, because there is a sincere lack of hope and a cycle of desperation for that young person going forward.

We know that the youth unemployment figure in Wales is actually rising. It's nine times faster than Scotland and five times faster than the UK average. So, what should concern us is not simply the level of youth unemployment, but the speed at which the situation is deteriorating. For too long, and let's not blame anybody, we have not seen action to deliver the investment and economic growth that creates those high-skilled jobs that young people need. Combine that with the rising costs of housing and the burden of student debt, as we've heard, and it becomes so much easier to understand why so many talented young people feel their future lies outside of Wales.

But this shouldn't be a debate of despair, because that simply is not what young people are telling us. The Open University's business barometer, published this month, found that 71 per cent of young people who are not in education, employment or training, otherwise, as we've heard, known as NEET, would be willing to retrain or upskill to improve their prospects. Eighty two per cent say they would stay longer with an employer who invested in their development. That is heart-warming. This, then, is a crisis of opportunity, not a lack of aspiration—not a lack of aspiration on behalf of our young people. And I will always defend them when I hear all the time those phrases that are about negatively talking down our young people.

They do point to the barriers that there are: poor mental health, financial pressures, employers asking for experience that they've never been given the opportunity to gain. These are not inevitable problems, but policy failures, and we want them to be fixed. I have three areas just to highlight. Firstly, as has been pointed out by many of the speakers, we must address the shortage of education and training places. The young person's guarantee is an important commitment, but it is only meaningful if opportunities exist behind the promise. Secondly, I believe we need to change how we support those young people who are furthest from the labour market. We've heard about those young people with disabilities, but I just want to talk briefly about those young people who've had the experience of care.

Recent research from Action for Children found that one in four care-experienced young people lack the basic forms of identification needed to secure employment. Nearly a quarter have limited or no access to a mobile phone or computer, compared to just 7 per cent of their peers. And 41 per cent of care-experienced young people enter the labour market with a diagnosed mental health condition, nine in 10 of which say it affects their ability to find and keep their first job. These are problems on top of problems, compounded by a lack of understanding and support.

My final point is this: we must not only respond to today's labour market, we must prepare for tomorrow's. As has been said, many of us, perhaps in this Siambr, started with part-time jobs or Saturday jobs, but that opportunity has virtually disappeared. Mine was a Saturday job in the pick-'n'-mix in Woolworths. Probably, most of you here don't even remember Woolworths, and don't even remember pick-'n'-mix. It was a dreadful job, because I not only had to administer the pick-'n'-mix, but I also had to administer Slush Puppies, and the Slush Puppies would regularly go on my feet, and my shoes would end up totally sugar covered. But that gave me the opportunity, believe me, to be able to get into the world of work and then to put on a cv the experience that I had. That matters, because today's entry-level job is tomorrow's skilled worker; it's the first rung of the ladder and if it disappears without being replaced, we risk quietly dismantling the pipeline that supplies the workforce that we need here in Wales.

Our young people have not given up on Wales, but it can feel like Wales has given up on our young people. We need action, Minister. We need to hear from you what your plan is. We need to hear from you how you're going to engage with our young people in order to build the economy that we need to make sure that our young people have the opportunity to get into work and stay here in Wales. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Since the dawn of devolution 27 years ago, the young people of Wales have been let down, both in terms of their education received and their attempts to find good employment, and the two are inextricably linked. It's unforgiveable that a nation like ours with so much potential has become such an unattractive prospect for young people seeking employment, and that we are haemorrhaging precious home-grown talent in our youngsters and they are leaving Wales. But it's little wonder. Wages here are lower and people pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than anywhere else in Britain. So, why would a young person, fresh out of education, yet to put down roots, not seek opportunities and settle elsewhere?

The same stands for our businesses. Our young people—some of our young people—are the innovators of the future, the ones leaving education with fresh ideas for business start-ups. But with sky-high business rates and a poor infrastructure, transport wise, naturally, any business-savvy young person will look beyond Wales to minimise their costs and maximise their earnings.

But even before our young people look at the job market, their choices have been limited by the worst performing education system in the UK. And I blame Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru. They have far fewer opportunities than their counterparts over the border for courses, apprenticeships and degrees. Our infrastructure and transport networks play their part in this problem. They are suffering from a chronic lack of investment, and virtue-signalling policies like 20 mph and a ban on road building have damaged us and meant that business and jobs are not coming to Wales in anywhere near the numbers they should.

I will say though that I very much welcome the commitment from the Welsh Government to a third Menai crossing in my own constituency of Bangor Conwy Môn, something that we have campaigned for for a long time. This will be critical to the expansion and new job opportunities at Wylfa, and that is exactly what we need to be replicating across Wales: investment in our transport infrastructure, building a much needed M4 relief road.

Other harmful policies like the tourism tax. It just beggars belief why you keep hitting the very businesses, as Tom Montgomery actually put across quite well, that youngsters want to go into, in the hospitality industry. They want to work in a fish and chip shop or serve slushies at Woolworths. But we're just doing everything we can to make it difficult for businesses to actually then encourage young people to go and work there.

During the election, the Welsh Conservatives had a robust plan for economic growth. It really was the only credible plan to deliver more jobs and prosperity, and, critically, to bring us in line with the rest of the UK. Now, we are happy to work with Plaid Cymru, and I had a very constructive meeting with the Minister yesterday, Adam Price. We need to work together, as has been said, cross-party, but we need to be serious about using the levers that you have as a Welsh Government. You need to scrap business rates for small firms, pubs and post offices. We need to make public procurement contracts more accessible, particularly to our small business. We've been talking about this for 15 years, but it's not happened. We must give priority to Welsh local firms.

We need to work with education providers to expand the choice of courses available to young people, particularly in STEM subjects and apprenticeships. We need to take action to address mobile blackspots and poor broadband speeds, so that our young people in remote and rural communities aren't left behind and their studies aren't hindered. Crucially, we need to look at the problem with young people and unemployment in the round, starting with the improving of our education system, finishing with fixing our economy. That is the only way to create secure, well-paid jobs for our young people, to rival those of other UK nations and indeed the rest of the world.

So, I agree with many of the really good points that have been made in this debate, but let's not forget who is responsible for the mess we're in with our job market. For Plaid, they've said all the right things about young people and employment before the election, but as I said on the day of my re-election, I will be really watching on this, because you will not grow Wales without growing your young people. I don't feel very optimistic that you will deliver all you have promised, and we will hold you to account on it—

Thanks, Janet.

—but we stand ready to work with you on this.

Thank you very much.

We will be abstaining, however.

Thank you, Shav, for tabling the debate today, and thank you to everyone for their contributions so far. I'd like to start on some points of agreement, firstly with my Reform colleague about the fact that we cannot ignore the pressures of immigration on the employment market for young people. The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford notes that currently 10 per cent of jobs in Wales are occupied by people who are not UK citizens. That's up from 6 per cent in 2021, showing an increased trend of competition amongst the job market that will impact young people.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

Thank you. So, I represent Bangor Conwy Môn, one of the largest towns is Llandudno, and we have the largest bed space, really, across Wales for the tourism industry. We are not suffering from immigration, I can assure you. We're suffering from too high business rates and all the things I've mentioned in my speech. I can honestly tell you we are not suffering from immigration. Immigrants are not taking people's jobs.

Well, you're going to have to take that up with the University of Oxford, because these are their statistics, Janet, but there we are.

I also agree with what Jane Dodds said about the crisis of opportunity that we have in the country at the moment. Previous generations, as has been mentioned, had a social contract in which if you went to work, you worked hard and you did everything that you could, your life would get better year upon year. But, increasingly, young people feel as though that social contract is not in place for them at the moment, and that no matter how hard they try or how much effort they put into the economy, it's not returning the dividends based on the effort that they've put in.

On that note, we can look to China for some symptoms of what has occurred in their economy, which is similar to what has happened here. In China, a social phenomenon occurred called tang ping, which translates roughly to 'lie flat', which was essentially the mass revolt of young people to disengage with the economy as much as possible, refuse to engage in the oppressive working structure, the 996—working nine till nine, six days a week—refusing to engage in social activities, to start families, or engage in society. This ended up getting so severe that the President of China had to do a televised public address, effectively begging young people, for the good of the country, to accept jobs that they were overqualified for, to beg university graduates to do things like work in food delivery. I fear that if we allow things to continue in this country, we could end up in a similar situation for young people. We already saw reports of quiet quitting a couple of years ago. People don't quiet quit from a job because they're lazy; you quiet quit because you're completely disengaged with the system and don't feel that it's delivering for you.

I'll finish with a couple of statistics from the labour market survey that the Welsh Government published in April, and there are two that are really striking. First, the economic inactivity rate amongst young people is at 26 per cent, and that was up 8.1 per cent. But in combination with that, the youth unemployment rate is also at 15.4 per cent. When you take those two stats together, economic activity excluding people in education and youth unemployment, that's about 40 per cent of young people who are not in work, whether they're looking for it or not, and that is a fundamentally shocking statistic for me to read, so I'll finish on that one. We do need to do everything possible to improve young people's prospects in this country. But unfortunately, I don't think the young people's guarantee is the answer, because it was launched in 2021 as the first phase, and we still see how shocking the statistics are today. Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch. I'm going to try and squeeze in one final short contribution before we call the Minister. Sera Evans.

Diolch, Lywydd. I appreciate you squeezing me in, and thanks to Shav Taj for bringing this debate forward. I'd like to focus my hopefully more positive remarks today on a solution to many of the points raised in the motion—which, it should be said, the motion does acknowledge—the need to expand high-quality apprenticeships and vocational pathways. In particular, I'd like to touch again on the important role that junior apprenticeships and strong 14 to 19 alternative routes play in supporting young people to find the right pathway at the right time.

Our success in so many areas depends on our ability to nurture a highly skilled workforce, and in many ways we have the raw material, as it were, a fantastic skills system, but a more efficient rearrangement of the nuts and bolts is required. And it must be said, the Deputy Minister's statement yesterday was a promising start in terms of providing that stability for the tertiary sector. The Government has outlined productivity as a key metric against which it will measure its success, and that might sound like an abstraction, but it's ultimately about people. It's about every young person who leaves school without a clear pathway into work, education or training. That's a missed opportunity for them, for their community, for the economy, the health service, whatever it may be.

Junior apprenticeships can change that. By giving young people practical skills, confidence and a direct route into further learning or employment, they help break the cycle of becoming NEET. The results can be transformational. I mentioned in the Chamber yesterday the junior apprenticeship partnership between Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhondda and Coleg y Cymoedd, which has provided young people at risk of disengaging with a practical, supportive route that keeps them engaged in learning. And I will, Llywydd, draw Members' attention to my register of interests, noting that I am a governor at Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhondda.

One learner, Alice, over time developed confidence and self-esteem, enabling her to find her voice and become increasingly independent. She's achieved GCSEs in maths, numeracy, English and science, as well as an Agored Cymru level 2 extended certificate. This is an exceptional achievement for a learner who was at risk of disengaging completely from mainstream education. Alice's story demonstrates exactly why these pathways matter, and I was glad to hear the Deputy Minister acknowledging yesterday that developing Welsh-medium alternative curriculum pathways will be a priority for this Government, as this is currently a gap in provision. Broadly, there is good practice that the Government can build on and ensure these pathways have a lasting impact in our efforts to eradicate youth unemployment.

Thank you. I call on the Cabinet Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy, Adam Price.

Thank you, Llywydd. I welcome this important debate, and I thank the Member for Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf for bringing it forward. Think of a 19-year-old young woman in Rhyl who left school three years ago and who hasn't worked since. The research on what happens next is clear. Without support, that young person can carry a wage scar of 10 per cent to 15 per cent, which is still visible at the age of 42, running deeper after each further period spent out of work. In terms of just the economic output, the exclusion of one young person costs about £100,000 over a lifetime to the entire society. In Wales, we estimate that about 50,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 are not in education, employment or training. That is a social failure and an economic failure, too: 50,000 futures narrowed, with the whole of Wales bearing the cost.

We should be precise about who these people are, because the diagnosis determines what the treatment should be. They are not from a single group. Around a third are unemployed in the conventional sense, looking for work but unable to find it. Around two thirds are economically inactive, not looking for work or unable to work. And in this context, illness, and above all mental illness, has become one of the fastest growing drivers. Those who left education the earliest are the most likely to remain disengaged from the labour market the longest. A system built only for jobseekers will continue to miss the larger group. A system built only around health barriers will miss the remainder. And because the routes open or close before a young person reaches the labour market, schools and colleges are part of the solution too. So, we need a comprehensive solution that tackles all of these factors. 

It is right that, at the beginning of this new administration and this new Senedd, we ask some hard questions of the system we've inherited. This Government took office with spending on employability support marginally higher per head than other parts of the UK, and with the proportion of young people who are NEET rising sharply on the most recent survey data. So, higher spending in Wales, yet more young people currently adrift. I don't think anybody in the Siambr would find that acceptable, and the Government doesn't either.

One of the key questions for me is how long after disengaging does the system first reach a young person. Actually, is it the system that's disengaged from them, rather than the young people from the system? I've asked my officials to establish that number precisely. In designing any policy, of course investment matters, but as the Member for Caerdydd Ffynnon Taf said, outcomes matter more. The measure of success is not the number of job starts or the people on a programme that we can count, but whether a young person is still in good work or learning six months on, and 12 months on. And that's the standard I want applied to every programme in my portfolio.

The young person's guarantee was designed by the previous administration. Governments change but the commitment to young people should not and does not. Under this Government, under this Minister, I want it to grow even stronger. That's why we're proud to support the motion today. No young person in Wales should be left without a route into education, training or work. Our task is not to do less for young people, it's to do better by them, and doing better also demands honesty. Existing policies—UK and Welsh alike—under Governments of every colour have not been sufficient to the task. We need better.

We're not starting from a blank sheet of paper. Some of the most promising results internationally come from approaches that join up employment and health support together, and from guarantees that put a firm time limit on how long a young person waits for an offer. When I meet with Alan Milburn soon, I will discuss these ideas and how we can work as two Governments together. I want to work as a Minister with everyone in this Chamber, and with the cross-party group on youth employment—there's no monopoly on good ideas—and I want our work to be evidence led. I have to say that I haven't seen any convincing evidence myself that immigration is a major contributory factor for youth unemployment.

We do know some things about what works, and we can draw upon the experience of the New Deal for the unemployed, 25 years ago—one of the most successful interventions ever in terms of active labour market policy. We know that tens of thousands of young people are outside work and learning now, while Welsh employers still report vacancies they struggle to fill. What that tells me is that this isn't only about job preparation; it's structural.

It's no good if a job exists but you never hear about it, or you haven't heard about the young person's guarantee, or you can't afford the bus to reach it, or the bus route doesn't even exist to help you get there. Support on its own is not enough because you cannot train a young person into a job that does not exist. So, you need work on the demand side as well as on the supply side. The work of our new development agency in helping to scale Welsh firms, in building the sectors of the future, and in helping some of our traditional sectors like tourism and food and drink to provide those first jobs, is critical. And we will be asking more of employers. To echo the point that was made by one of the Members here, Governments can do so much, but Governments on their own cannot do everything, and in creating first jobs, we need employers to do more as well.

There's a harder challenge that has been on the horizon and has now arrived. Artificial intelligence, on the early evidence, is not abolishing occupations, but it is stripping out the routine tasks from which entry levels were traditionally built in administration, in customer service, in junior professional work. If firms do not redesign the first rung, it will simply disappear. Our responsibility as a Government is to help make sure that technological change expands opportunity rather than narrows it, and we need the skills system to enable us to do that. Our support right across Government must answer the labour market of tomorrow, not the one of 10 or 15 years ago.

None of this works if a young person cannot find the way in. Too often, we ask the young people that are furthest away from the labour market to navigate the most fragmented part of our public services. Trusted relationships help a young person back into the system: youth services, councils, employers, colleges, trade unions, community organisations. Our job is to make those connections simpler and stronger so that no young person has to tell their story twice.

Llywydd, fair work gives more than a wage; it gives purpose, routine, a place amongst others, community. We'll keep testing what works. We'll ground that in the evidence and the lived experience of young people. We'll be honest about what does not. We'll change course where the evidence demands it. Our focus will be relentlessly on outcomes, not just activity, and the test of everything is simple: whether we reach that 19-year-old in Rhyl sooner, offer them something worth taking, and build a first rung that holds. Diolch. 

I now call on Shav Taj to reply to the debate.

Well, where do I begin? I'm just really pleased that we've had such a good discussion and I just want to first of all really welcome the comments by the Minister. You found me nodding away and I was clearly in a lot of agreement with what you were saying, because the truth of the matter is that we have had a range of different schemes. Some of them have worked and some of them have still had gaps, whether those are the ones that we created here in Wales or whether they were created elsewhere.

The big thing for me, in and amongst everything that I've heard from everybody, particularly the younger Members of the Senedd, is that we need to understand that this is about the social and economic issues and bringing them together. If we are not going to be doing anything very real in relation to building more homes that are affordable, addressing the issues around renters' rights, for example, if we are not going to be tackling the big stuff around climate change and so forth, there isn't going to be a future for anyone. And I worry, more often than not, about my own children, and even when I was first even considering having children, I was thinking, 'Am I doing the right thing?' And now I look at my kids, one’s 15 and one’s 13, and I'm thinking, blimey—. Now I get to be in this building. And my daughter keeps reminding me, 'Mum, it's because of you lot that we're in this situation.' So, I get it from home on a daily basis, so when I walk in—. Look, for me, what I would say, and I'll ask the Minister, is: can you please report back to the Senedd after the discussion that you have with Milburn? Many people that I have spoken to, from lots of different organisations, including the TUC themselves, have said that it's good that we've had that review, but there were still gaps even there. And I think that there's clearly more work to be done.

I just want to say there have been lots of comments made about immigration, and we can talk about these things all day long, but the data doesn't stack up. And I think that I very much do welcome the fact that we have also heard, of course, from Janet, who made it very clear it's about business rates. And I agree. We need to review business rates. There's more work that needs to be done there. Actually, immigration has been a good thing for both Wales and for the country as a whole.

What I would say is that, in terms of public procurement, specifically—

Shav—

It's worth noting—sorry, I'll quickly wrap up—that 75 per cent of public sector procurement across Wales was within Wales. It was for Welsh businesses. And, again, 50 per cent in Cardiff. Now, I'm not saying that we've got all the answers in this moment in time, but I think that we've had a really good discussion today, and I hope that most sides of this Senedd can get behind this and see this really as a starting point rather than an end of this discussion. Thank you.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There are objections. I will therefore defer voting under this item until voting time.

The next item is item 7, the Reform UK debate on bovine TB. And I call on Laura Anne Jones to move the motion.

Diolch, Lywydd. I move our Reform motion today in the name of Llŷr Powell.

This has been a long time coming. I believe that, finally, we have the consensus across this Chamber on how we need to and why we need to tackle this cruel bovine TB disease once and for all. I do so in the spirit of seriousness and responsibility, having seen grown men and women, farmers, on their knees crying due to their cattle being slaughtered by previous Governments' failure to tackle this devastating disease.

Bovine TB is not a party political problem. It is one of the top and one of the most pressing and painful issues facing our agricultural communities still today—not according to just me or my party, but according to the entire rural communities across Wales. When I was first elected to this place in 2003, bovine TB was already devastating Welsh farms and had cast a dark cloud over the industry. Over two decades later, farmers are still living under that same dark cloud, watching healthy cattle taken away, enduring endless restrictions and seeing family businesses and family members pushed to breaking point. I think we can all agree across this Chamber that the present strategy and past strategies have not worked. We cannot keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. We all know what needs doing. Our farmers are calling for a fresh start on this, and a bolder, targeted approach led by science.

This disease causes enormous financial damage, but the emotional toll is harder to measure. Coming from a farming family and community in Monmouthshire, I have seen the reality. I've seen the pain and the hardship it causes—watching cattle they have bred, reared and cared for being taken away to be slaughtered, in many cases unnecessarily. And on that, tests have to be improved. They have to be clearer. They have to be more accurate. For those who haven't seen it in their own communities, they may have seen the recent Clarkson's Farm episode of a cow being taken away for slaughter that was carrying twin calves, which were also killed, because of a test that came back as inconclusive, not definitive.

This is the cruel reality of what our farmers are having to deal with. And this isn't a stand-alone case. The toll that this has taken on some of our Welsh farmers has led them to take their own lives. It is not only the cost to human lives, but the cost to animal lives that must be considered. We must also account for the enormous cost to the public purse. Minister, how much has bovine TB cost Wales every year? How much has decades of failure to tackle this disease already cost the Welsh taxpayer, and how much more will it cost Wales if your Government follows in the previous footsteps of past Governments by failing to do what's necessary?

We also recognise in our motion that wildlife is a source of infection, and that's what's been the missing action. Along with higher standards and everything else that farmers accept, it is a significant part of the problem that now, finally, needs to be addressed. Too often, farmers are falsely portrayed as if they do not care about animal welfare or the environment; nothing could be further from the truth. Welsh farmers are amongst our greatest animal lovers and environmental custodians. They do not want to see any animal killed unnecessarily. Our motion recognises the complexity of bovine TB, with the multiple routes of transmission, as well as the infection from wildlife, but we must recognise and accept that wildlife is a source of infection.

We need to incorporate culling in our plan, but, unlike England, we want to see a more targeted, science-led approach that will identify only wildlife and sets that have TB, not a blanket approach, targeting all sets. This, of course, will save wildlife and save unnecessary killing, and also it will help eradicate the disease arguably better than with the approach in England. If the technical advisory group recommends it, that recommendation must be given full consideration—it just must. The evidence already out there shows that this is likely to be a key element for success in ridding Wales of this cruel disease once and for all.

I'm sure you'd agree, Minister, that we need to look at, firstly, focusing these wildlife control efforts in areas with the highest level of bovine TB disease—in Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion and so forth. Local evidence showing us where this disease is prevalent should be used to identify those sets and show us where the action is necessary. This will, in turn, protect healthy badger populations, safeguard and save healthy cattle and give farmers in the worst affected areas and communities a chance to break that cycle of infection.

For years, after successive Labour Governments, farmers were given strategies, consultation reviews and warm words, and Labour's amendment today shows that they have still not learned that lesson. After 27 years in Government, nearly three decades of failure in tackling this disease, they want the Chamber to congratulate them for a so-called partnership approach and point to statistics suggesting it's improving. But I invite those who feel this way to attend livestock farms, to visit farms and actually listen to farmers, as everyone across Wales wants bovine TB gone for good, recognising the devastation it causes and the urgency to tackle this.

Farmers living through repeated breakdowns, restrictions and slaughter of healthy cattle will not recognise the rosy picture that you present. We are calling for a targeted, evidence-led approach in areas where bovine TB is most severe. Farmers have already paid too high a price for previous Governments not taking that action. They need a plan that works, they need a timetable. Let's be bold with our aims. Let's try to stop cattle, badgers and wildlife having to die unnecessary and painful deaths from TB.

We now have a Minister that agrees that we can no longer skirt around what we all know to be true—that wildlife is part of that problem. We now have a Minister who has said in this Chamber that he would not be afraid to take those difficult decisions if that's what the science points to. We now, finally, have consensus and an agreement across this Chamber that an urgent, different approach needs to be taken to rid Wales of bovine TB. The majority of us agree now that we need a targeted approach and that we need to take these difficult decisions to protect wildlife, save healthy badgers, healthy cattle, and save our farmers from further mental torture.

This is it. This is the time. This is the Senedd to make a significant difference to our farmers and our rural communities. Minister, if you back our motion today and you heed the cry from our rural communities who need real action, Reform, and other parties in this Chamber, I know, will back you, and we will be behind you 100 per cent. We have a responsibility to do this for future generations, and the ultimate responsibility, of course, lies on your shoulders. I hope today that you'll use this opportunity to state your clear intentions, to make an announcement with firm, clear plans and a timetable for action. We are grateful for your warm words to date on this, Minister, but now is that time for action. Let us be the Senedd and you be the Government to change this. I urge you to all come together across the Chamber today, ahead of the Royal Welsh Show next week, and the local shows in your constituencies this summer, and vote collectively for a motion that will send a strong, reassuring message to our agricultural industry that we are ready to take those tough, grown-up decisions, based in reality and science, that will mean we can finally support our farmers, save animals and rid Wales of this cruel disease once and for all. Diolch.

I have selected the amendment to the motion, and I call on Vikki Howells to move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Lynne Neagle. Vikki Howells.

Diolch, Lywydd, and I formally move the amendment. I'll start by addressing the one element of Reform's motion that Welsh Labour wholeheartedly agrees with and that we don't seek to amend, and that's the effect on farmers, their families and farming communities when a herd has a breakdown. We recognise the emotional and financial impact this, the sheer devastation and the longer term consequences of dealing with this status. So, it's important that we are honest with farmers and farming communities, that we take measures that will make things better for them and not take measures that won't have an impact. And that's the case with some of the items contained in Reform's motion, and I will take some time to explore these.

Point 2: whilst bTB is a complex disease and there are multiple routes by which it can be transmitted, not all routes are equal. The main transmission overwhelmingly is between cattle. That makes up 94 per cent of infection in herds—19 out of 20 cases.

Point 3: I'm sorry for any loss of faith in the previous Welsh Government's approach, but our amendment serves as a reminder of that partnership approach based on tackling cattle-to-cattle transmission taken by the previous Government, working together with farmers and with vets. It delivered and is delivering positive outcomes. Herd prevalence of bTB currently stands at its lowest value since January 2017. The number of new herd instances has more than halved. Almost 95 per cent of herds in Wales are currently free from bTB, and the number of cattle slaughtered has reduced by over a fifth. Of course, there's always more that can be done, and we need to do that, building on the evidence base, but we need to recognise that we are building on solid foundations.

I'm grateful to Laura Anne Jones for clarifying in the Chamber today that she is talking about a targeted approach rather than mass culling, but I do want to also say that there is no faith in mass culling. Three out of five members of the public are against a mass cull and even more are against the notion of spending, wasting public money on a mass cull. I'd note that such an approach, if adopted, would fritter away financing that could otherwise be used to support farmers or the interventions that really would make a difference. And in this vein, I'm sure we can all remember the ludicrous comments of a former Tory environment Secretary justifying the failure of a cull in England by saying badgers moved the goalposts. Hardly comments on which to base confidence or public policy.

That brings us on to point 4. It makes lots of reference to the TB technical advisory group, and that's good. It was the previous Welsh Labour Government that established this body, and it's good to see confidence in it from Reform, and I hope from across the Chamber as well. But more than that, we must remember the advisory group's position, namely that more evidence is needed before any change in policy should be considered, and that this should be done without political interference. Taking a broader view of the science must underpin our decision making on this subject. So, there is one key point that I would like to stress: there is simply no scientific consensus that the culling of wildlife, of badgers, is effective in dealing with bTB. There is a growing number of recent peer-reviewed studies that have considered the impact of badger culling in England, and these studies draw on two principal conclusions: badger culling is ineffective in reducing bTB in cattle and that badgers are not the source or the reservoir of the disease. I expect to hear mention in the Chamber today—

Will the Member take an intervention?

Yes.

Do you not recognise that, actually, where badger culling took place in England, reinfection and incidence rates actually went down? So, it actually does prove that, where you do remove infected wildlife, it actually does improve the overall situation with regard to TB. 

I think, James, you're quoting from Birch et al and Downs et al, which I know has been referenced in some of the stakeholder documents that have been sent to us today. But the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals' conclusion is that those studies conflate badger culling and other measures aimed at cattle, and that the authors acknowledge that they were unable to determine whether badger culling is effective in reducing bTB in cattle. That's why we need this steering group to really look at the scientific evidence in the round.

Progress has been made by earlier and more sensitive cattle testing, improved movement controls, enhanced biosecurity and improved herd management, with better Government support to farmers. We know there's a highly effective vaccine; it's the same one used in humans. With the bulk of bTB transmission being cattle to cattle, I'm interested to see what our technical advisory group says regarding more widespread use of vaccine in herds, the practicalities of this and how those costs might be borne.

So, Llywydd, I will conclude by saying to Plaid Cymru MSs in particular that I know that many of you are passionate about our environment, protecting it and nurturing it so that it can be enjoyed by future generations, and I believe that Reform's motion, with its suggestions of slaughter in the countryside, not based on scientific evidence, will not achieve this. Diolch. 

As one of the Members for Gwynedd Maldwyn, I have the privilege of representing one of the largest and most rural constituencies in Wales, where agriculture is the backbone of our economy and our communities, and I'm therefore grateful to speak in support of this motion. Before today's debate, I wanted to hear not from officials or policy papers, but from people living with bovine TB every day. So, over the weekend, I met with farmers from across Montgomeryshire. What those farmers told me was not just about cattle—it was about the emotional, financial and human cost of living under the constant shadow of bovine TB.

According to the latest NFU statistics, in the year to December 2024, there were 500 new bovine TB herd incidents across Wales, and more than 10,000 cattle were slaughtered as part of TB control. They're not just statistics. They represent hundreds of farming businesses, and thousands of difficult conversations around kitchen tables across rural Wales. When we debate bovine TB, it is easy to become consumed by statistics, testing regimes and policy arguments. Those things matter, but we should never lose sight of the people living through the disease every single day.

The farmers I met were not asking for sympathy. They were asking for certainty. They were asking for leadership. Farmers from across the Tanat, Vyrnwy and Severn valleys described living with the constant worry that the next routine test could change everything. Some also told me they had reduced their cattle numbers or moved away from keeping cattle altogether, because they simply could not continue living with the uncertainty and risk of prolonged TB restrictions. That should concern every Member of this Senedd. If farmers are changing the very nature of their business because of the fear of bovine TB, then the impact of this disease extends far beyond the individual farm.

When TB is detected, beef farmers can no longer sell their cattle freely. Dairy farmers continue producing milk, but movement restrictions still disrupt their businesses and make it difficult to plan for the future. The impact, however, goes far beyond the balance sheet. Farmers can prepare for bad weather. They can prepare for difficult markets. What they cannot prepare for is the uncertainty of not knowing whether the next routine test will change everything. Every TB test brings back the same question, 'What if this one comes back positive?' That uncertainty affects mental well-being, family life and confidence in the future. It creates sleepless nights and constant anxiety over whether the business will withstand another breakdown.

One of the most difficult conversations I had was with a farmer who described the reality of having to slaughter a recently-calved cow on the farm because of bovine TB restrictions. That is something no livestock keeper ever wants to experience. It is a stark reminder that behind every policy and every statistic are real people making heartbreaking decisions about animals they have cared for every day.

The farmers also made another point that struck me: whilst vets and testers are rightly paid for carrying out the testing regime, farmers themselves receive nothing for the considerable time spent gathering the livestock, handling the cattle and dealing with the disruption. That time has a financial cost.

The effects don't stop at the farm gate, either. Agriculture sustains livestock markets, feed merchants, agriculture suppliers, contractors, hauliers, machinery dealers and many other rural businesses. When a farm suffers a prolonged TB breakdown, the effects ripple through the whole rural economy. Llywydd, if our shared objective is the eradication of bovine TB—and I believe that is something every Member in this Chamber shares—then we have a duty to ask a simple question: is the current approach delivering that objective? If not, we have a responsibility to examine every source of infection, and every scientifically validated control method available to us. Whatever recommendations are ultimately made by the TB technical advisory group, I believe the Welsh Government has a duty to consider them objectively, proportionately, and on the basis of the available evidence. That's not ideology; it's good policy.

Behind every herd restriction is a farming family carrying an enormous emotional and financial burden. Behind every positive test is another difficult conversation around the kitchen table. Behind every statistic is a farming family trying to plan for the future. Some are now questioning whether they continue keeping cattle, and that should concern every one of us. Because, if cattle leave our farms, the effects are felt throughout the wider rural economy. Our decisions today don't just affect cattle. They affect people, they affect families, they affect livelihoods, and they affect the future of our rural communities.

Llywydd, farmers can live with many challenges: bad weather, volatile markets and rising costs. What they cannot live with is indefinite uncertainty. They deserve confidence that Wales is serious about eradicating bovine TB and prepared to follow the evidence wherever it leads. For the sake of our farmers, their families, and the generations that will follow, I urge Members across this Chamber to support this motion. Diolch.

Could I say, as the son of a farmer, that I was very aware of the effects of TB. TB casts a long shadow over our cattle farmers and dairy producers and our rural communities, and it's one of the main barriers to achieving a Welsh agricultural industry that is productive, progressive and profitable. Having TB on a farm affects all aspects of day-to-day farm management. It affects the marketing of animals, such as the sale of store cattle, breeding animals and calves, which leads to additional costs, additional food, feed, shelter, grazing and so forth.

The loss of productive and breeding cattle due to TB negatively effects the yield, for example, fewer litres of milk, and the productivity of the farm, for example through the loss of genetic potential. TB outbreaks result in significant financial and emotional stress for farmers and families. According to the latest statistics available, throughout Wales during the period from April 2025 to March 2026, 10,395 cattle were slaughtered due to TB. More than 14,000 herd tests were carried out, nearly 2 million individual cattle tests were carried out, and 479 new herd events were detected. These statistics provide little comfort to farmers across the country, who continue to live with this terrible disease. It's worth noting that almost two thirds of the animals that would end up being slaughtered due to TB in Wales over the last 12-month reporting period were in the high TB area in the west, namely Pembrokeshire and parts of Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, highlighting the regional variation in the disease.

We have to also realise that farmers have a high suicide rate, with up to one case per week. A survey of farmers shows that the majority believe that poor mental health is the biggest problem in agriculture. Around 64 per cent of farmers surveyed by Farmers Weekly feel positive about their physical health, but only 55 per cent of farmers feel positive about their mental health. Cases of infection increase stress.

Fifty per cent of farmers surveyed by the Farming Community Network were dismayed or concerned about TB. Some farmers believe that the public don't understand the challenges of farming and feel underappreciated. Thank goodness that Samaritans Wales is aiming to break the cycle of suicide risk in rural Wales by launching the Our Farming, Our Future project. The partnership forged with the farming support charity Tir Dewi works closely with the Wales Federation of Young Farmers Clubs and its members to develop peer-led resources and activities that can be used and shared in all clubs, with the ultimate aim of reducing the risk of suicide in rural communities throughout Wales, and thanks to them for their work.

By the end of the 1960s, the presence of TB in cattle in the UK had almost disappeared. By the mid-1970s, all herds in the UK had been cleansed of the disease, though not all at the same time. We must accept disease control policies that are evidence based, transparent and demonstrably effective. In March 2023, the previous Welsh Government launched a five-year action plan that set out the future policy direction for the TB eradication programme. The bovine TB technical advisory group was established in April 2024 as part of governance reforms set out in the action plan. TAG provides independent expert scientific and technical advice to Welsh Ministers and senior officials on the TB eradication programme and brings together different strands of technical and practical expertise to provide that advice. Its membership includes some of the world's leading experts in science, epidemiology and bovine TB immunology, and that's something that we should all be proud of. And so, in exactly the same way that scientific evidence is used to spur action on the challenges of climate change, we must act on the basis of scientific evidence in relation to TB. That is why we must listen to, read, understand and respect the work of the panel in due course—a body that was established, when all is said and done, by the previous Labour Government. Thank you very much.

I think everybody in the Siambr agrees on one thing: nobody wants bovine TB to be a part of Welsh farming in another 10 or 20 years' time. Whatever our views on how we get there, we all want to see this disease managed more effectively, not only in cattle, but in the general wildlife population as well. The difficulty is that farmers have been hearing that ambition for a very long time, yet, if you speak to them today, the majority don't feel like we're getting any closer to the long-term goal of eradicating the disease. Farmers still live with the same uncertainty, the same movement restrictions and the same crippling anxiety every time a test comes around. They still see healthy, productive cattle being slaughtered. I can't put into words just how distressing it is for me to read the latest data. Over 10,000 cattle were slaughtered in Wales last year alone, with 479 new herd incidents detected—479. My heart goes out to every person doing their best to cope with the mental strain caused by bovine TB. That is why Reform has brought this debate forward today, because we don't think it's good enough to simply carry on with the same conversation we've been having for years and expect farmers to believe that something is about to change.

One thing that has struck me over the last few weeks, and, indeed, during the election campaign, is that I've listened to Plaid Cymru say that they will follow the science. I don't disagree with that. In fact, that's exactly what the Government should be doing. But I keep coming back to the same question: follow the science to where? This isn't a new disease. We're not starting from scratch. Welsh Governments have had years of evidence available to them. They've had scientific advice. They've had the technical advisory group. They've had veterinary expertise, years of surveillance data and years of lived experience from the farmers themselves. Farmers in my constituency aren't asking whether the Government has enough evidence yet. They're asking what the Government has actually concluded from the scientific evidence it already has. Evidence doesn't make decisions; Ministers do. And this current Minister has years of experience in opposition. He knows better than anyone exactly what the science is telling him. At some point, this Government has to demonstrate what it has learned from the evidence it has spent years collecting, and that it's ready to harness that data and take meaningful, tangible steps to manage bovine TB in Wales.

I find myself thinking back to what Plaid Cymru used to say when they sat on the opposition benches. Llyr Gruffydd spoke passionately about bovine TB, he challenged Labour's approach, he spoke about the pressure on farming families and questioned whether the existing strategy was delivering what farmers had been promised. He spoke about the need to listen to the evidence and to the industry. Those were perfectly legitimate questions to ask and they're just as legitimate now that Plaid Cymru is in Government.

Farmers don’t see politics in the way we do. They don’t look at which benches people are sitting on; they simply want to know whether anything is going to actually change. What is this Senedd doing to help them, to make their lives easier and to give the next generation of farmers a future? If the answer is that we need more time, I suspect many farmers will say they've already given successive Governments enough time. If the answer is another review, they'll say that we've had reviews before. If the answer is more evidence, they'll quite reasonably ask what happened to all the evidence that we've already gathered. That isn't an argument against science—quite the opposite; it's an argument for having the confidence to act on the science.

I've never accepted that this debate should be reduced to people choosing sides before they've even discussed the evidence. Whether it's cattle controls, biosecurity, vaccination or a controlled wildlife cull, surely the starting point has to be an honest assessment of what is and isn't working. Because if we can't ask those questions now, after everything farmers have lived through, when can we?

The uncomfortable reality is that, after decades of increasingly stringent cattle controls, Wales is still recording thousands of reactor cattle every year and hundreds of new herd incidents. It is entirely reasonable to ask whether the strategy, taken as a whole, is getting us where we all want to be. I don't think that it's a criticism of farmers—quite the opposite; farmers have done what successive Governments have asked of them. They have accepted tighter controls, greater costs and more bureaucracy, because they believed they were contributing towards better management of the disease. Government now has to show the same willingness to examine its own approach, because—[Interruption.] No, I'd like to make progress. Behind every statistic is a family trying to make a living; behind every breakdown are years of breeding, investment and hard work. I don't believe farmers expect miracles, they know that this is one of the most difficult animal health challenges we face, but they do expect leadership, especially when the Minister talked such a good game in opposition.

With all due respect—and I say this as constructively as possible—does the Minister want his legacy in Government to be that of a doer, or does he want to be remembered as a talker or a promiser? Talk is cheap, farmers are clear: they don't want hope, they want action. Diolch yn fawr.

Bovine TB continues to be one of the most pressing issues facing farmers in Ceredigion Penfro, and the message that I continue to hear from local farmers is absolutely clear. They want to see meaningful action to tackle this disease. Among those affected are my own in-laws, whose farm has been affected by bovine TB for more than two decades. And so, I declare an interest, as through their experience, I've seen first-hand the profound emotional, practical and financial toll that bovine TB continues to have on farming families. Their story is similar to that of many other farmers in my constituency, and together, they reiterate the need for effective measures to address this long-standing issue.

As has already been said, it is heartbreaking. The dread and worry over testing, the anguish and stress over a TB breakdown and subsequent slaughter, and, of course, the anxiety of dealing with compensation payments and trying to run a sustainable business. An NFU Cymru survey in 2023 highlighted that 85 per cent of respondents said bovine TB had negatively impacted their own mental health or someone in their family, and over 93 per cent said that they were extremely concerned or very concerned about bovine TB. So, I really hope that with a new Government and with a Cabinet Minister sympathetic to farmers and the anguish they are going through because of bovine TB, I hope action will now be taken to finally get to grips with this awful disease.

As the second point in the motion notes, there must be a recognition of the multiple routes of transmission, including infection from wildlife. In the last Senedd, I had the privilege of chairing the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee and we held an inquiry into the Welsh Government's bovine TB eradication programme. The committee made some important recommendations in areas like testing, compensation, and even wildlife. The committee was concerned about the lack of data around the role of wildlife in spreading bovine TB, but the reality is that you can't possibly control the disease without dealing with the wildlife reservoir.

We all recognise that there are multiple mechanisms of transmission, and even the previous Welsh Government accepted that in their response to the committee, which is why there needs to be a package of measures that deals with all types of transmission of this disease. The previous Government told the committee that it's not really so much about understanding the mechanisms of transmission in greater detail, as we know they occur, but more about understanding the relative frequency with which they occur and why they occur in different local situations.

So, if we all accept that there is transmission via wildlife, why has there been an absence of efforts to address this in the first place? This cannot be the case going forward. The Cabinet Minister himself has said that wildlife is part of the bovine TB problem and must be part of the solution, and now he's in a position to actually do something about it. Farmers across Wales are watching, and they are tired of having to tell us the same thing over and over again. They now want action.

From April 2025 to March 2026, 3,068 cattle were slaughtered in Pembrokeshire and a further 971 in Ceredigion. That's over 4,000 cattle slaughtered in just two counties over a 12-month period. When I was first elected in 2007, that figure for Pembrokeshire was 2,384 and for Ceredigion was just 296. Of course, testing is far more sensitive than it was back then, but that is still a huge increase in cattle slaughtered, and behind each slaughter is a farming family devastated by it, which is why I've campaigned on this specific issue for the last 20 years.

Llywydd, the Welsh Conservatives will be supporting the motion this afternoon, even though we do not believe the motion is strong enough. However, in the interests of consensus and in order to push this matter forward, we will be voting for the motion. The motion states that in the event that the TB technical advisory group recommends targeted wildlife control, including culling, such recommendations are given full and proper consideration. Well, I believe that the evidence is already there to show that this disease needs to be tackled in the wildlife reservoir, and so I do not believe we need to wait for further information and advice before any actual action takes place.

We of course support maintaining robust biosecurity standards, but the Welsh Government must use all the tools in its box to tackle all transmissions of this disease. Llywydd, we want to see the Welsh Government get on with the job of eradicating bovine TB. There have been endless discussions about whether to introduce a holistic approach or not, and we believe the time for talking is now over. We now want action.

I'm going to do my best to get a couple more speakers in before we come to you, Minister, but I'm going to need the help of Members to do that. Stephen Senior.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Now, for some, this is handkerchiefs out time, because we need to talk about badgers and deer, both of which feature on the cuddly part of the animal spectrum, though I do notice that we have quite a few empty seats.

I looked at some of the data on this, and I have to say, initially, when I looked at England and Wales, the data looked remarkably similar, and I thought, what's the issue? But then I looked at Scotland, and Scotland's really, really interesting. And then I looked at the regions of England, and I looked at the regions of Wales, and a light came on. I could see myself directly what the problem was.

It's strange that some matters have become bizarrely and wrongly a matter of left and right, for example, bin collections and speed limits. For some reason, badgers fall into that category. It shouldn't be the case. Those in this Chamber who are perhaps vegans have a perfectly valid argument to deploy: there should be no cattle in the countryside, as they exist only for our benefit as consumers. No cattle, no badger problem. But for those of us who enjoy dairy products and meat and use leather, we know that there is a trade-off between our wishes and wildlife. The countryside that gives us a delight to be in is rarely natural. It has been created by our farmers over hundreds of years. They do a remarkable job, and we should listen to them.

In a perfect world, we'd have a reliable test for bovine TB. We'd have a proven vaccination for bovine TB, which we'd use in cattle, relatively easily, and in wildlife, which is a bit more difficult to achieve. But we don't have any of that yet, so we have to deal with the situation as we find it. The facts are that in some parts of Wales bovine TB is explosive. It is true that cattle are more likely to catch it from other members of the herd, but it's also true that the first infected in the herd is likely to become infected from wildlife, and there's a clear link between the number of badgers and infection. Scotland is largely clear of bovine TB and has a very low badger population. There's evidence from England that culling badgers in those TB reservoir areas substantially reduces cases after four years.

Food security should be at the forefront of all our minds, not to mention the risk of losing rare bloodlines and losing farmers with extensive knowledge and skills in dairy and beef. We should be working with farmers and vets to ensure that all diseased animals are culled early, but no matter what your view or how you came to it, the fact remains that bovines and badgers cohabit. Much effort and paperwork go into testing cattle pre and post movement. Unfortunately, somebody forgot to send the badgers the memorandum about not moving around. In the real world, strategic culling within these wildlife reservoirs has to form part of TB management, at least for now.

This is a Reform UK motion, but it's a motion to help Welsh farmers. It is an example how this expanded Senedd can work together for the good of Wales. Please support it.

I want to begin by recognising the profound impact, as others have done in this Chamber, that bovine TB continues to have on farming families and on rural communities across Wales. It impacts on people and animal welfare alike. For too many of my constituents in Ceredigion Penfro, this is a daily reality. Time and again, farmers have spoken to me about the emotional and financial strain that bovine TB places on their businesses and their families. Only last week, one constituent told me that they had been forced to cull around 600 cattle because of the disease. Sadly, theirs is far from an isolated case.

Across Ceredigion Penfro, farmers are making heartbreaking decisions that carry enormous financial consequences and take a significant toll on their mental well-being. For some, these pressures have become so overwhelming that they are questioning whether they can carry on in the industry at all. Bovine TB remains one of the greatest challenges facing agriculture in my constituency. Alongside economic consequences, we must acknowledge the human cost. The stress, uncertainty and anxiety experienced by farming families living under prolonged TB restrictions cannot simply be measured in financial terms.

S4C's Ffermio highlighted these realities powerfully, reminding us that behind every statistic are people, families and communities living with the consequences of this disease. I understand this can be a difficult and emotive subject, but I urge everybody in the Chamber to avoid the temptation to use this to polarise debate or for political point-scoring. Precisely because it is so important and so complex, our response must be guided by the evidence. This is not a black-and-white issue. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. The science is not static, and we have to be ready to be responsive to new developments and innovations, as well as what we have learned from past programmes. So, I urge this Government to remain open to considering every measure that can contribute to eradicating bovine TB.

That is why I look forward to receiving the recommendations of the bovine TB technical advisory group, and I welcome the emphasis in this motion that full and proper consideration needs to be given to any recommendations coming from this group, although I do note that the Reform Member seems not to agree with that aspect of the motion. Progress by the previous Labour Government was painfully slow. Without significant change, the bovine TB programme board has said that Wales will not eradicate bovine TB by 2041, and that should concern every Member of the Senedd.

People on all sides of this debate want progress, not political point-scoring. They want confidence that decisions are being taken because they're effective, proportionate and evidence-led. They want a Government willing to make difficult decisions where necessary, knowing that these have been taken following careful and balanced consideration, something I have full confidence that this Government will do.

For my constituency, this debate is particularly significant. Around two-thirds of all cattle slaughtered because of bovine TB in Wales last year were in high TB area west, covering the whole of Pembrokeshire and parts of Ceredigion, as Paul Davies has mentioned. That underlines the need for action that reflects the realities on the ground. A one-size-fits-all approach will not deliver eradication. We need targeted, science-led interventions, involving farmers and vets and other stakeholders as part of a wide strategy to finally eradicate bovine TB. For those reasons, I will support the motion today. 

I welcome the Minister's clear commitment to eradicating TB for the benefit of people, the economy and wildlife alike, and I urge the Minister now to keep his clear focus on achieving that outcome. Diolch. 

And finally—very briefly—Paul Rock.

Diolch, Lywydd. Bovine TB is the cause of so much pain, trauma and uncertainty for farmers and the rural communities of Wales. I am, however, very concerned about the unhelpful and untimely political posturing of the motion, as well as the misleading inferences contained in the wording. The motion calls on the Welsh Government to draw on the scientific evidence, and rightly so, but the motion also appears to imply that a major component of the solution should be a badger cull. Since the previous Welsh Government announced its decision to stop culling badgers back in March 2012, the number of new herd incidents has more than halved, and bovine TB is now at its lowest level in nearly 20 years. All of this has been achieved without any lethal wildlife control. 

As we've heard, the evidence shows that 94 per cent of bovine TB transmission occurs from cattle to cattle. This is where the solutions lie and where improved testing and biosecurity measures have already made a real difference. The technical advisory group is currently considering the evidence relevant to vaccination and bovine TB. The Cabinet Minister recently acknowledged this research and reminded us of the importance of allowing this work to be completed before any decisions are made. The timing of this debate, ahead of the publication of these findings, is therefore premature. So, I urge Members to vote against the motion and in favour of the amendment in order that the evidence presented by the technical advisory group can be given proper consideration at the appropriate time. The group's work is politically independent and must remain so for a robust science-led approach to be maintained. Diolch.

I now call on the Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability, Llyr Gruffydd. 

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you to everyone who has contributed to the debate. I also want to start by acknowledging the significant impact that bovine TB continues to have on families farming across Wales. TB, of course, as we know, impacts the livelihoods of farmers, it impacts on animal health, and on farmers and their families' well-being, too. So, I agree entirely when the motion says that we have to acknowledge the financial and emotional burden that this disease places on rural communities. I have seen those devastating effects with my own eyes, and that's why tackling bovine TB remains a key priority for me, but also a key priority for this Government. 

There's no doubt that bovine TB is a highly complex, challenging and persistent disease. There is no single route of transmission and no simple solution. Cattle-to-cattle transmission remains a significant issue, but it is recognised that wildlife can also act as a source of infection, and that is why our response must be comprehensive and based on the evidence. As Members know, I recently announced my intention to refresh the TB eradication programme. The foundations of the current programme are strong, but we all now need to build on that progress and all step up our efforts if we're to achieve our ambition of a TB-free Wales by 2041.

I've met with the farming unions, with the British Veterinary Association, the TB programme board and the chair of the technical advisory group. Along with the wider technical advisory group membership, their combined expertise and advice will help shape the next phase of our approach. I agree that robust biosecurity standards and practices must remain a cornerstone of on-farm disease control. Effective biosecurity is a shared responsibility, with farmers and veterinarians working in partnership to prevent, detect and respond to disease threats, protecting animal health, livelihoods, public health and the resilience of our farms. But we must also be honest with ourselves. While biosecurity and cattle controls are essential, they're not the whole answer. If we are serious about achieving a TB-free Wales, we have to consider all sources of infection and all scientifically validated control measures available to us. This is why I agree that any future approach must recognise wildlife as one of several sources of infection that can contribute to the spread of bovine TB.

While I recognise that wildlife can play a role in the transmission of bovine TB, it is important that we don't pretend that wildlife is responsible in every case, nor should we prejudge the conclusions of our expert advisors. The technical advisory group is there to provide independent scientific expertise and advice, while the programme board brings together a wealth of practical lived experience and expertise from across the sector. I'm currently awaiting further advice from both groups on the role of wildlife and wildlife interventions, amongst other topics, and I look forward to considering the evidence base and their advice carefully. I also intend, by the way, to publish that advice to inform the wider debate.

I understand the frustrations of those who believe that progress has not been fast enough, and yes, I share those frustrations as much as anyone else. However, it is important that we get this right and that our decisions are grounded in robust evidence, alongside consideration of effectiveness, practicality, deliverability, animal welfare and value for money for the taxpayer. We must also recognise that some progress has been made in Wales. Let's not forget that more than 95 per cent of Welsh herds are officially TB free. That, I have to say, reflects the substantial efforts and hard work of farmers themselves, the vets that they work with and officials across Wales. I think we should always recognise that those efforts are ongoing.

But the challenge we face now is to build on that progress and push forward towards TB eradication in Wales. Innovative projects in Pembrokeshire and north Wales, for example, demonstrate the value of collaboration, stronger engagement between farmers and their vets, and local tailored action. I know that just as no two farms are the same, no two herd TB breakdowns are the same, and the measures to keep TB out of individual herds will also be different again. I commend the work of both of these projects and recognise the positive feedback that they're generating. The knowledge and experience from both of those projects will help inform future policy development. Picking up on some comments made about us knowing what we need to do and that the evidence is there, as Anna Nicholl told us, the science isn't static. That's why we have brought scientists, vets and world-renowned experts together in the form of the technical advisory group. They've travelled halfway around the world to come to Wales to help us deal with this situation, and it's constantly evolving. We're constantly learning from those local projects, from experiences in other parts of the UK and beyond. It's only right that we let the experts advise us and not think that politicians know best.

With regard to the proposed amendment, I welcome the constructive approach taken by the Member in recognising that progress has been made over recent years. However, you can't deny that the programme board's position paper, which was published in March, was clear that a step change is needed if we are to meet our TB eradication target here in Wales. Without that, more animals, more farmers, more farming families will experience the distress caused by TB breakdowns for longer.

Llywydd, the common enemy here is bovine TB, and our commitment is clear. We will update the TB eradication programme and develop a new science-led, evidence-based and holistic approach, which is collaborative too. We are developing it in a collaborative way. There are no quick fixes, I fear, for TB in cattle, but by working together and focusing on cattle, people and wildlife, I believe that we can accelerate progress and move Wales closer to our shared ambition, an ambition that I know we all share in the Chamber, of eliminating TB by 2041. Thank you.

I call on James Evans to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Lywydd. I'd like to declare a relevant interest: I have close family who keep cattle. I'd like to thank all Members for their contribution to the debate today, and anyone who is involved in the industry who is watching this and looking for change here, and all those Members who talked about the financial, emotional and human pressures that bovine TB places on our farming families across Wales.

Laura Anne Jones opened the debate saying we finally have a consensus in this Chamber that something needs to be changed. You raised the stress and anxiety that farmers face, but also the economic damage to the industry. But you also talked about the human cost, and the cost it has in lives in the industry as well. And you also highlighted the infected wildlife and that we need a step change here. As the Minister highlighted as well, the programme board has said we do need to have a step change here in Wales. You did also reinforce about previous Governments failing to address the disease, with numerous projects that really didn't get us anywhere, just got us in the mess that we're in now.

Vikki Howells, it was good that you recognised the pressures that the disease placed on farmers. You also say that cattle-to-cattle transmission is high. I don't dispute that, but they've got to get infected from somewhere in the first place, and that tends to be from the wildlife population. You also mentioned the number of incidents going down, but I'd just like to quietly remind you that the herd of cattle across Wales has dropped by 40 per cent, so there's naturally going to be a drop in the numbers of herds getting infected when fewer and fewer people across this country are keeping cattle, for a number of the reasons that Members highlighted today.

You also said that the TAG needed more science and we needed more science again, but we've heard that from previous Labour Governments for a number of years. They know what the science is, but then when they don't like the science advice they're given, they say we need more, and then we need more again. You can't keep asking for more science until you get the answer you want. If the answer is clear from a number of studies, something needs to be done about it.

Andrew Griffin raised the 500 new outbreaks and 10,000 cattle lost every year. That's already at breaking point. The critical numbers of cattle across the country are so low now, that's putting huge pressure on the wider system, like our abattoirs. Other Members talked about the economic elements of that, especially the jobs that we're seeing lost in some of the abattoirs across the country. It all feeds into the reason why people are not keeping more cattle, because of the human impact of this disease. Having continuous testing of cattle all the time puts huge stress on our farmers, but also puts huge stress on the animals, which makes them very dangerous when you're handling them all the time. That is why we're seeing a rise in people getting injured by cattle with continuous TB testing.

Elwyn Vaughan, thank you for your contribution. I know you've talked on this a number of times when we both sat in the chamber of Powys County Council together. You highlighted the mental impacts that this places on families, and also the work that the young farmers clubs are doing across the country, an organisation that really made me come here a lot of the time. You talked about the work that they're doing to support people with their mental health across the country. And I would just say to anybody watching this debate, if you are struggling with your mental health and well-being in the industry, there are a number of charities in the rural sphere who will step in and help you, because no-one should have to suffer alone.

Helen Jenner, you talked about farmers feeling that we need to move on. We've had these discussions, and I can tell you I've probably talked in this Chamber a number of times about TB, probably more than I've talked about anything else here. And we do need to have some movement. It's pleasing to hear that Plaid Cymru will be supporting this motion today from what I'm led to believe, and that is a positive step that we've got a majority now that wants to get on and do something about this. Our farming families have waited far too long, and the time for action is now.

Paul Davies, I'd like to thank you for all the work that you've done on this for 20 years, and I also recognise the impact this has had on your family. I know you've been a champion of this. I know your colleague who was here, Sam Kurtz, raised a project in Pembrokeshire around this and the work that they've done, but also the work that the previous Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee did on this. There was another piece of evidence that I'd like to highlight to Vikki Howells. That was a cross-party report that came back that said we do need to take action in the wildlife. But I need to be clear: this isn't, as people talked about, a blanket cull of wildlife. This is a science-led approach, because anybody who knows anything about this subject will tell you that if you have non-infected badgers, the best thing to do with them is leave them well alone. Some people who've had badgers on their farms for a number of years have never had instances of TB. This is a targeted approach where you can go in and remove infected wildlife. I know other Members talked about a vaccine, but the problem we have with a vaccine is that when you have the testing done, they cannot actually distinguish which animals have been vaccinated and which animals have not. So, the vaccine is not quite there yet, but thanks, Paul, for all that you've done on this.

Stephen Senior, I agree with everything you said about farmers shaping our environment and how they need to be supported, but also the bureaucratic elements that come with TB—the paperwork that comes with it, with case vets and all the people who come around you all time; it's an absolute nuisance and it puts a lot of stress on our farmers.

Thank you, Anna Nicholl, for your powerful contribution, highlighting the Ffermio documentary. I can remember in the previous Senedd when that was highlighted. I don't think anybody across this Chamber could not be moved by what was said on there and the cow that was culled on there that had a calf inside her as well. A lot of people were moved by that. I actually thought the previous Government would move on that. They moved a little bit on policy on it, but it didn't have a huge step change, which we all hoped it would.

Paul Rock, I respect your right to an opinion about infection rates, but I'd like to say what I said earlier, that, actually, the herd rate has gone down by 40 per cent here in Wales, so there's going to be less infections.

We do need action now and I think we need to have a clear steer in this Chamber for the Minister that, if the technical advisory group comes out and says we need to have a targeted intervention in wildlife, the Minister's got a clear steer that the majority of this Chamber want to move that way and not have more posturing and debates to stall the issue. We need to move on.

And, finally, to the Cabinet Secretary—. I think I'm doing all right for time. And, finally, to the Cabinet Minister, I should say, not the Cabinet Secretary—thank you for your response. It's actually very refreshing to hear a Minister sat in that chair actually saying that we need to get on and sort this issue and not defending a failed policy for the last 20-odd years. Because I do agree with you on biosecurity, that this isn't just a one-size-fits-all, and no outbreak is the same. So, we need to make sure we're addressing the biosecurity. Working with vets—I think that's very important—to understand your individual circumstances and put that right, and, hopefully, the Welsh Government, when looking at grants—. They did an awful lot of work, actually, about raising feeders so that people aren't feeding on the floor, making sure that stalls are covered, to make sure we can get this disease under control.

But I would just like to say to the Minister, one thing that probably hasn't been mentioned is about case vets—something that you probably have had raised, and me—making sure there is that consistency with case vets when they are going out on farms, because there's nothing more frustrating for people if they have different vets all the time, and that does cause a lot of anxiety in the industry.

I'd like to thank all Members, and I'm testing the Llywydd's patience, because it's gone red and people want to go home, but I will say 'thank you' to all Members who have contributed today. There is a differing opinion, but I think there is a majority in this Chamber now that wants us to move on this issue. So, I'd just like to thank all Members today. Let's get the step change we need, let's support those farmers and let's get this disease, finally, once and for all, under control. I advise all Members to support the motion.

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

Item 8 next, the Welsh Conservatives debate: the deposit-return scheme. I call on Janet Finch-Saunders to move the motion.

Diolch, Lywydd. Wales has every reason to be proud of its recycling record. We have the second highest recycling rate in the world, with a national recycling rate of 68.4 per cent. Twelve of Wales's 22 local authorities have already met the Welsh Government's statutory target of recycling 70 per cent of municipal waste, and I have to say, my own local authority, Conwy County Borough Council, get brownie points from me on the fact that they are one of the most successful ones. These achievements are testament to the efforts of our Welsh households, local authorities and businesses, who have embraced recycling and sustainability. That is why the Welsh Conservatives have continuously supported the principle of a deposit-return scheme, because we believe that it can reduce litter, increase recycling rates, encourage responsible behaviour and help protect our environment, our sea mammals and our wildlife.

Now, in 2016, I was incredibly proud to have brought forward a successful legislative proposal for a Bill that would make provisions to introduce a deposit-return scheme and reduce waste in Wales. We're now in 2026. Around the world, successful schemes in countries such as Germany and Norway consistently achieve return rates of over 90 per cent, minimising litter and keeping valuable materials in circulation. So, this debate isn't about whether Wales should have a deposit-return scheme, it's about whether the proposed scheme is fit for purpose, affordable and works for businesses and customers alike. The former Welsh Labour Government chose to create a system that differs from—and this is after 10 years—the rest of the UK by including glass within the scheme, despite all the evidence suggesting it is unworkable. This divergence for the sake of divergence will have very real consequences for the Welsh economy. Wales already collects 92 per cent of glass at the kerbside, so I fail to understand why including glass in the DRS is such a priority for this Plaid Cymru Government. I fear this is shaping up to be yet another Welsh taxpayer-funded disaster.

The inclusion of glass makes the scheme significantly more complicated and substantially more expensive, as glass requires dedicated collection infrastructure, specialist handing, expensive transportation because of its weight compared to plastic and cans and paper, and more costly reverse vending machines, all of which means increased operational costs for retailers and producers alike. And I'll say that again: for retailers and producers alike. We're talking, again, about another hit on our businesses. 

The British Soft Drinks Association has warned that this decision could increase the cost of some bottles by up to 50p, which on something like a small bottle of water would be a huge proportional increase. Leading Welsh manufacturer Radnor Hills described the Welsh Government's plans as a complete and utter mess. Industry representatives have warned that manufacturers may pass additional costs directly on to consumers or even withdraw products from sale in Wales altogether. Now, I don't know about you, but certainly, if I'm having a beverage, I prefer it out of glass. There's far too much ingestion of plastic now from drinking from plastic bottles. So, there is a consumer choice at stake here.

These are not theoretical concerns, they are warnings from the businesses expected to deliver this scheme, and I've always listened to my businesses in Aberconwy and now Bangor Conwy Môn. Even more worrying is the Welsh Government's failure to appoint a deposit management organisation to run the scheme. With a launch date of October 2027, little more than a year away, there is still no confirmed administrator, IT, infrastructure or real implementation plan, just ideology and an insipid plan that doesn't stand up to any scrutiny and has the potential to damage our businesses. Serious questions do remain unanswered: how will this scheme operate on a day-to-day basis? How much financial support will retailers receive for operating return points? Which small retailers will qualify for exemptions? How will producers prepare their supply chains? Why is the Welsh Government effectively creating a hard border by introducing Wales-only labels? This is the same Government that only yesterday was talking about looking outward, looking out internationally and everything, and yet you want Wales-only labels on bottles. How will local authorities fund glass collections? Businesses simply cannot invest without certainty, yet certainty has been entirely absent throughout this whole process.

The Association of Convenience Stores has made its concerns abundantly clear. It warns that local shops may be forced to purchase more expensive soft-drop reverse vending machines capable of safely handling glass or face the risks associated with manually accepting broken glass. This is a clear health and safety concern. Ed Woodall, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores—a cross-party group that I was proud to chair for a full term—warned that, unless an administrator is appointed urgently, Welsh businesses will fall behind the rest of the United Kingdom. He also made another important point: the best chance of success is a deposit-return scheme that is the same throughout the UK. That is what the Welsh Conservatives have always supported from the outset. Sainsbury's, the Co-operative Group and Coca-Cola have all written directly to the First Minister warning that the current policy risks increasing prices, reducing customer choice and creating growing uncertainty for businesses operating in Wales—concerningly, discouraging suppliers trading in Wales altogether. So, why are these warnings from these important businesses, these important industry experts, falling on deaf ears?

These leading industry figures also urge the Welsh Government to appoint Exchange for Change immediately, because they believe it represents the only realistic route to delivering a scheme on time, while ensuring compatibility across all four nations. Yet, despite being the only applicant, Exchange for Change was initially rejected, which is extremely concerning. If this tender is not an attractive proposal to those in the industry, how do you, Cabinet Minister, think you could do a better job of running it? Where would you find the expertise? Where would you create the necessary infrastructure in such a short time frame?

With time running out, the new Welsh Government finds itself struggling to resolve problems of its own making, and the former Welsh Labour Government's own stubbornness. The Welsh Conservatives have consistently warned against creating a separate Welsh system. Businesses trading across the England-Wales border should not be forced to operate different labelling systems, separate supply chains and conflicting regulations. Small Welsh producers should not face unnecessary bureaucracy. Consumers should not face confusion over which containers qualify and which do not. And taxpayers should not face the additional costs of implementing a more complicated system than our neighbours.

The inclusion of glass has already delayed full reuse arrangements involving glass until 2031, recognising that substantial complexities remain. If glass cannot realistically be fully integrated for several more years, why insist on making the initial scheme so unnecessarily difficult now when we want to get on with it? Now we, the Welsh Conservatives, would take a different approach. We would deliver a deposit-return scheme that works from day one. We would align Wales with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to create one seamless UK-wide system. We would remove glass from the initial phase of the scheme to reduce costs, simplify operations and avoid unnecessary burdens on businesses. We would work in genuine partnership with Welsh manufacturers, convenience stores, hospitality businesses and recycling organisations, rather than imposing these bureaucratic and not-wanted solutions without listening.

Cabinet Minister, surely you can recognise you've backed yourselves into your own corner with this ill-thought-out scheme and unachievable time frame. You said in your own manifesto earlier this year that you would introduce a Welsh deposit-return scheme for plastic and metal drink containers, including glass, when this becomes practically feasible. It isn't practically feasible. You acknowledge the inclusion of glass is problematic, so what has changed?

Why are you hellbent on pressing ahead with this plan? It's going to fail. The cost, the potential for fraud, the cross-border interoperability impact on existing collection systems, the cost to local authorities, the risk of suppliers ceasing trading in Wales and, above all, the cost to the public purse, should this fail, makes the scheme completely unviable and impossible to implement by October 2027. A practical, connected deposit-return scheme would reduce litter, increase recycling and improve environmental outcomes, while supporting Welsh businesses and protecting consumers from unnecessary costs. The inclusion alone of glass threatens to ruin this scheme before it's even implemented.

So, Cabinet Minister, we have so much to be proud of in Wales on our recycling rates. In fact, we've been trailblazers and achieved one of the highest recycling rates in the world. So, it's absolutely critical we get this DRS right. I urge you to support scrapping the inclusion of glass from this scheme, and I urge other Members here to support our stance on this. Diolch. 

Thank you to the Member. I've selected the amendment to the motion. I call on the Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Heledd Fychan. 

Formally move, Dirprwy Lywydd. 

Thank you. We go on to our speakers—Laura Anne Jones first of all. 

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. We do indeed have a lot to be proud of here in Wales, don't we? Credit where credit’s due: in terms of recycling, we are absolutely brilliant and world leaders, and kerbside particularly. And if our system to recycle glass ain't broke, why are we fixing it? Reform are not opposed to a deposit-return scheme, but we do argue whether it's actually necessary to do something different for the sake of it. We support practical measures to reduce litter, to improve recycling and protect our environment. We are in sole support of this motion today, and we are opposed to the Welsh Government's decision to create a system separate from the United Kingdom.

This is where the scheme goes from a sensible idea to bureaucratic eco-madness. We are standing on the edge of yet another economic disaster cooked up right here in the Cardiff Bay bubble. The Plaid Cymru minority Government, backed by the leftovers of left Labour's failed policies, is about to push through a scheme so detached from reality that it would be funny if it wasn't dangerous. Now on paper, it sounds lovely, doesn't it? We're going to help the environment. But let's look at the reality. Under their plan, when you buy a drink, you pay a mandatory deposit, and you only get it back if you drag your empty bottles and cans back to the shop. But here's the kicker, the absolute madness that perfectly sums up this establishment in Cardiff Bay: they have insisted on including glass in the Welsh scheme, completely isolating Wales from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Think about what that actually means. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland will operate one broadly aligned system, whilst Wales insists on going its own way. This is classic Plaid-Labour politics, making Wales different simply for the sake of being different. People will be buying drinks in Hereford, Chester, Bristol and bringing them back to Wales, whilst businesses will be expected to understand and administer different rules depending on which side of the border they happen to stand on.

The industry itself has warned that this ideological stubbornness opens up a massive risk of cross-border fraud, with the British Soft Drinks Association warning of a potential £300 million fraud risk because our politicians wanted to look virtuous instead of being practical. It is an open invitation for exploitation. And who pays for this? The hard-working people of Wales, who are already battling a brutal cost-of-living crisis. The British Soft Drinks Association has explicitly warned that forcing glass into the scheme could add up to 50p to the cost of a single bottle of drink—50p on one single bottle. Executives from Tesco, Sainsbury's and Coca-Cola have written to the First Minister, warning that this scheme could cause higher prices and a severe reduction in consumer choice. Major brands are already looking at Wales and saying it's not worth the hassle. They are not going to print separate, expensive Wales-only labels just to satisfy Cardiff Bay. Our supermarkets will have emptier shelves and our Welsh families will have emptier wallets. It is terrible news for our economy.

What about our independent retailers? Our shopkeepers are expected to become waste disposal sites. Wine merchants on the border have already said they are deeply concerned about expanding or investing in Wales because the red tape involved in keeping separate Welsh and English stock is completely unaffordable. Cardiff Bay is punishing the very people who keep the Welsh economy alive. And for what? What is the environmental grand prize here? Wales already has, as I've said, world-class kerbside recycling—credit where it's due. Our communities already recycle over 90 per cent of their glass through normal household collections. The system works. But instead of leaving it alone, this Government wants to dismantle a working system. It wants to force elderly residents, busy parents, those who are disabled to load heavy glass into their cars and drive to a supermarket machine just to get their own money back. This does not reduce carbon emissions. It increases them. Think of all those unnecessary and increased car journeys. It's classic Plaid virtue signalling in its most arrogant and absurd way.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the whole roll-out is a complete and utter mess. With less than 15 months until the October 2027 deadline, the Government has not successfully appointed an administrator even to run this scheme. It rejected the only realistic industry applicant because it was blinded by its own dogma. The rest of the UK is using Exchange for Change, but the Plaid Welsh Government rejected it. [Interruption.]

We haven't rejected it. That's factually incorrect. That decision was made before we were in power. 

The Minister just outlined that that is factually incorrect, and I will take that, then. [Interruption.]

And I'll explain it.

Yes, and you'll explain that. That's great.

If Wales has no compatible scheme in place when the rest of the UK launches, Welsh consumers could be charged a 20p deposit with no easy way to reclaim it unless they cross the border into England. That would turn a refundable deposit into an effective 20p drinks tax on the people of Wales. It is walking straight into the same catastrophic collapse we saw when Scotland tried and failed with this.

Let me clear on Reform's position: we are not against a deposit-return scheme; we are against a separate glass-heavy scheme that creates higher cost, greater bureaucracy and needless divergence from the rest of the United Kingdom. A UK-wide scheme for cans and plastic bottles is one thing, but dragging glass into it, despite warnings, is just silly. We need to unshackle Welsh business from excessive over-regulation. We need to stop treating Welsh consumers like cash cows and ideological experiments. It's time to throw this broken glass policy in the bin where it belongs, align with the rest of the UK, and start focusing on policies that actually grow our economy, lower people's bills and support local business. We will be supporting the Conservative motion today. Diolch.

I welcome the fact that the Conservatives have tabled this debate today and that they agree that Wales needs a deposit-return scheme, and I'm hopeful that that is something that we'll all agree on, actually, this afternoon. What we're talking about when we talk about a deposit-return scheme is a very effective way to tackle the scourge of litter by providing a network of deposit facilities that match up with the increasing prevalence of patterns of on-the-go eating and drinking, which is such a common feature of today's busy society. Janet has talked about litter, and I agree with her. Litter is on our streets, in our parks, in our rivers, on our railway tracks and on our roadside. Litter finds its way into our areas of natural beauty and, sadly, into our seas also. I think we could say that there's cross-party consensus that litter is a blight on all our communities, and it's one of the issues that always comes up in conversations with our constituents.

I'm pleased that, under the previous Welsh Labour Government, we passed legislation to enact a deposit-return scheme and that schemes are also set to be enacted across the rest of the UK. And, as others have mentioned, Wales should be very proud of the fact that we are the second best recycling nation in the world, but litter persists as a problem, and evidence actually suggests that it's getting worse, despite the sterling efforts of local authority street cleaning teams, Keep Wales Tidy and volunteer litter pickers across Wales.

The debate here today is about the form that this deposit-return scheme will take. I've heard the calls, as others have also, from the drinks industry, calling for glass to be excluded from the scheme, but I don't agree that we should follow that path. And the reason for that is because of the increase in prevalence of glass litter. And the figures here are really stark. The occurrence of glass bottles in our litter in Wales has more than doubled over the last four years. By including glass, the scheme will offer a greater environmental benefit, but also, importantly for us on these benches, economic opportunities for green growth, while also exemplifying the approach outlined in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

Now, 'green growth' is a small phrase, but it's really important because what it means is jobs. There's an opportunity here for Wales to lead the rest of the UK when they eventually catch up with us and include glass in their deposit-return schemes, with glass recycling plants in Wales that could lead the way on that, building expertise in an industry that is a sustainable, futureproof green industry. Many other European countries manage to recycle glass through deposit-return schemes without harming the businesses that sell beer bottles and other drinks in glass. Finland is a really good example. It's been offering a deposit-return scheme for glass since 1952. So, I would ask Reform and the Conservatives why they think if other countries can do it, we can't here in Wales. It seems to me that that kind of thinking is talking Wales down, and that's not where I want us to be. The statistics show that deposit-return schemes work to reduce litter and improve our environment, and I want to see the widest possible scheme offering the widest possible benefits and a chance for Wales to create those green jobs for the future. Diolch.

I'm grateful to be able to take part in this debate here today. In this Chamber, of course, we've already heard that many of us share the ambition for a deposit-return scheme that builds on Wales's world-leading recycling rates, but I think we must also agree that a good policy must work well in practice, not just look good on paper. And the question is not whether we should improve recycling, but whether creating a separate, more complicated deposit-return scheme than in the rest of the UK is the best way to achieve that.

In answer to previous speakers' challenge back to the Conservatives a moment ago, the fundamental issue here is the divergence away from the rest of the UK and the complexity that creates in the system, increasing the cost, increasing the pressures for businesses and, ultimately, for consumers, who are the ones who will pay the literal cost of this at the end.

As a Member for the Fflint Wrecsam constituency, I see every day how interconnected our communities are here in the UK. People are constantly moving between England and Wales to work, shop and visit family, with businesses trading seamlessly across that border. What they need is that certainty and consistency, not that divergence and additional bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake. That's why, as Janet Finch-Saunders outlined in her opening, we've consistently supported a fully aligned, cross-nation, four-nation, deposit-return scheme approach.

It's also the position of the Welsh Beer and Pub Association, which has warned that different schemes across the UK will create unnecessary complexity and, ultimately, additional costs. The association has called for a fully aligned, four-nation approach, which would mean excluding glass from the scheme. Glass would create unnecessary complexity and additional costs for producers, retailers—and, again, let's not forget those consumers, who are the ones that would be paying for this through their purchases. Those costs could ultimately lead to higher prices, reduce consumer choice as some brands will reconsider the Welsh market, and greater pressure on smaller Welsh businesses. Again, the previous Labour speaker talked about the opportunities around green growth, but what hasn't been acknowledged is the potential losses because of the higher costs of dealing with this proposed scheme.

The Association of Convenience Stores has raised similar concerns. We'd all share the feeling that local shops are at the heart of communities across Wales, particularly in our rural areas. They'd play a vital role in the success of any deposit-return scheme. Yet, many convenience stores simply do not have the space to accommodate glass returns, and the specialist reverse vending machines required are significantly more expensive. Especially at a time when many independent retailers are already under pressure, this is a very serious concern for them. The inclusion of glass is not simply an environmental question, it's a practical one. We should ask whether it's the right way to achieve our environmental ambitions, without placing unnecessary burdens on retailers, producers, and importantly, again, consumers.

It's already been mentioned in this debate, Deputy Presiding Officer, the question of readiness. With the scheme due to launch in October 2027, a little over a year away, businesses seem to lack the certainty they need. The Association of Convenience Stores, as we've already heard, has urged the Welsh Government to appoint the deposit management organisation as soon as possible so those retailers can invest, adapt their operations and train staff appropriately. Without that certainty, the October 2027 deadline will become increasingly difficult to achieve. I know the Cabinet Minister wants to, perhaps, speak to that point specifically in his response, and I look forward to hearing from him on that.

I also think the Cabinet Minister does get this issue. I know that he sees the problem that businesses are facing at the moment with this and the issues that divergence will create. I ask the Cabinet Minister to reflect on what he, I'm sure, feels in his heart of hearts are the issues this is going to cause, and actually reflect on the costs it's going to cause to businesses. Your Plaid Cymru Government here often talked in their campaign that they wanted the economy at the heart of this new Plaid Cymru Government. So, listen to what businesses are telling you on this scheme at the moment, listen to their concerns and align with the rest of the UK.

So, I ask the Cabinet Minister specifically: will the Welsh Government commit to working with other UK nations to deliver a truly interoperable deposit-return scheme? Will you consider that the inclusion of glass at launch risks increasing costs for Welsh businesses and consumers? Will you acknowledge that? And will you urgently appoint a deposit management organisation so that businesses have the certainty they need to prepare?

Deputy Presiding Officer, I will wrap up by saying that environmental ambition and economic common sense should go hand in hand. We can deliver a successful deposit-return scheme, but only if it is practical, affordable and aligned with the rest of the UK. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

No-one in this Chamber should be indifferent to litter, and we've heard that already. No-one wants plastic bottles and cans on our beaches, in our rivers—I spoke about this when I talked in the rivers debate—in our parks or alongside our roads. Wales can be rightly proud of its environmental record, absolutely, but good intentions do not automatically make good policy, and we should be aware of that today. The test of this deposit-return scheme is not whether recycling matters—of course it does—the real question is whether Ministers are proposing a solution to a genuine problem, or whether they are trying to fix something that is already working remarkably well, particularly with regard to glass.

Llywydd, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that, on glass, the proposal risks moving from sensible recycling into, as Laura Anne Jones mentioned, 'recycling madness'. I actually find it quite amusing that some people speak as if recycling is a modern phenomenon. I grew up in a society where reuse and recycling were simply a part of everyday life. My parents and grandparents belonged to the 'make do and mend' generation. They encouraged the same in me. If something broke, you repaired it; if something could be reused, you reused it. Nothing was thrown away unnecessarily and, as a child, a part of that was actually taking bottles back and getting thruppence, which you'd spend on sweets and things like that, and we did it every week. You took the bottles back to the shop for those few pennies. There was no blue bin in the yard at that stage, so you took things back. Nowadays, there is a blue bin in the yard we can throw glass into.

So, I'm not opposed to the principle of deposit-return schemes, because I grew up with one. I understood the logic behind them. Indeed, I believed in deposit-return schemes long before they actually became fashionable. But life has also taught me something else. A deposit-return scheme only makes sense when it improves upon what already exists, and the Government proposal does not improve upon that. That brings us to the fundamental question before us today: what problem are Ministers actually trying to solve here? Indeed, Wales already, as we've heard, recycles around 92 per cent of household glass through existing collection systems. That's an extraordinary achievement, and we're not underperforming in Wales. We are not the laggards of Europe. We are amongst the best performers anywhere in the world, as other speakers here have said.

So, let's be honest about what is being proposed. This is not a debate about moving from failure to success. It is a debate about imposing significant costs and disruption on Welsh businesses and Welsh consumers in pursuit of what may amount to little more than a marginal improvement. That is the point at which sensible recycling, as I've mentioned, risks becoming recycling madness. Now, don't take my word for it. Yesterday, I met with representatives from the food and drinks industry, and this is what they told me: 'Why should we be expected to work harder, comply with more regulation, absorb more costs and take more risks for no profit at all?' These are not multinational corporations, they're Welsh businesses, Welsh breweries, Welsh food and drink producers, people who employ local workers and invest in local communities.

So, what's the potential answer? Welsh consumers could still pay a 20p deposit on containers sold in Wales, despite there being no practical system through which the money could be reclaimed. Llywydd, that would not feel like an environmental policy to many people; it would feel like a tax on Welsh consumers. So, I ask again: what is the problem that Ministers are actually trying to solve here? If reuse is truly the future, then pilot it, test it, prove it, gather the evidence, but do not place additional burdens on Welsh producers before the evidence exists. Environmental policy must be guided by common sense. There's a difference between environmental responsibility and environmental overreach, there's a difference between solving problems and creating new ones, and there's a difference between sensible recycling and recycling madness. So, we should build on the success we've already got, we should improve on what works, but we should not burden Welsh businesses and Welsh consumers with disproportionate costs in pursuit of marginal gains.

When a country already recycles 92 per cent of its household glass, spending millions to chase the final few percentages—1 per cent, actually, so I believe—is not environmental leadership, it is taking a success story, fixing what is not broken and turning sense into nonsense. That's why I can't support the proposal by the Government, and I actually support the motion. Diolch yn fawr.

There seems to be absolutely no disagreement here in the Siambr that we need to support recycling and a deposit-return scheme. Really, the only thing I am wrestling with is that I seem to agree with the Conservatives in relation to their motion. So, my concern, like has been heard, is the decision to include glass when the rest of the UK is not. And that is why I voted against the DRS scheme when it came around here in the Senedd. There were a few reasons, and one is about listening to businesses. They are the heart and soul, big or small, of our economic system here in Wales. And the other, which is just to respond to the issue of 'Why shouldn't we do it here in Wales when we can see it in other countries?', is that, actually, we have a huge border with another country, a country that I want to continue working with. I don't want us to be independent. So, we need to be looking at how we are going to work with England, who have a huge border with us. Like many, I've spoken to businesses across my constituency, large and small, and the message has been remarkably similar: they support the scheme, they understand why we're doing it, but they're worried about the uncertainty created by a Welsh-only approach to glass.

One conversation that really stuck with me was with a small independent cider producer. This is exactly the sort of business that we want to support. They told me that, even with the proposed four-year transition period, they still don't know how a separate Welsh system for glass will work alongside the rest of the UK. We also spoke to Radnor Hills, which is in my constituency, Wales's largest drinks producer, right on the border with England—literally, they're about five steps away from the English border. Around 95 per cent of their sales are outside Wales. They ask a simple question: does it really make sense to redesign production lines, labels and warehousing for the remaining 5 per cent? The answer clearly, for them, is 'no'. That warning matters because these are the businesses that have to make the scheme work. They need time to trial stores in store reverse vending machines, ensure accessibility, train thousands of colleagues and adapt complex supply chains.

And, as we've heard, we've seen what happens when implementation gets ahead of preparation, in Scotland. We saw that their attempt to launch their own deposit-return scheme was delayed repeatedly before Circularity Scotland collapsed. Wales should learn from that experience, not repeat it. If we do that, Wales can continue to lead on recycling. We need to be listening to our businesses. We need not to be different for the sake of it. We need, in time, potentially, to develop a glass recycling scheme that the rest of the UK has the confidence to adopt. Let's get this right first. Then, let's lead. Diolch.

Thank you. And finally, Peter Fox.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. Wales has one of the best recycling records in the world. We've heard that several times, and, certainly, I'm proud of what we've done in Monmouthshire, boasting a recycling rate that exceeds the Welsh average. So, this debate is not really about whether we care about recycling—clearly, we all do. The question is whether the Welsh Government is capable of delivering this scheme properly, and, based on what we have seen so far, I have some concerns. But I hope that the Cabinet Minister, being a pragmatic and sensible man who understands the situation, will allay some of our fears.

With just over a year until it is implemented, businesses still do not know how the scheme will run, what exemptions will exist, or how the return points will be funded. Indeed, I was speaking to a retailer here in this building earlier today who was really anxious, not really sure how it was going to work, how they were going to fund it, how she could afford to run the reverse vending machines in her place. So, there are lots of questions unanswered. So, I think being different is not the same as being better. All other UK nations are proceeding with plastic and aluminium, but only Wales, as we know, is insisting on including glass. And as Jane Dodds pointed out just now, we are facing that absurd situation where a glass bottle sold in Hereford operates under one set of rules, yet, across the border in Abergavenny, suddenly the system changes.

Now, businesses trading across the England-Wales border should not have to operate two separate systems simply because the Welsh Government has decided to go its own way. Every additional layer of complexity means additional costs, and those costs ultimately end up being paid by consumers. It is very easy to design a scheme in Cardiff Bay; it is much harder to make it work in a village shop in Monmouthshire, an independent retailer in Cwmbran, or a family-run convenience store serving its local community.

When Coca-Cola, the Co-op and Sainsbury's are all raising concerns, Ministers should pay attention. When Welsh producer Radnor Hills describes the scheme as a complete and utter mess, Ministers should definitely pay attention. Instead, to date, concerns have been brushed aside. So, I ask the Welsh Government: if this scheme is ready, where is the administrator? If implementation is on track, why are key operational decisions still unresolved? If businesses need certainty today, why has the Welsh Government left them waiting until tomorrow? Those are serious questions, and so far Plaid Cymru have not provided convincing answers.

We support a deposit-return scheme, we support higher recycling rates, we support reducing litter and protecting our environment, but environmental ambition must be matched by common sense. A successful scheme must be affordable, workable and aligned with the rest of the United Kingdom. The Welsh Government should abandon this unnecessary disparity, remove glass from the initial roll-out and focus on delivering a scheme that actually works for Welsh consumers, Welsh retailers and Welsh businesses. I encourage all to support our motion.

Thank you. I call on the Cabinet Minister for Rural Resilience and Sustainability, Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. Firstly, as many have already done, I'd like to congratulate the people of Wales on achieving one of the highest recycling rates in the world. That is clear evidence of the people of Wales's commitment to protecting the environment and the great importance placed on looking after the environment, with clean streets, beaches and public spaces being considered not only an environmental priority, but also a reflection of community pride and of Wales's identity as a sustainable nation.

I also want to thank the Conservatives for tabling this debate so that it gives me an opportunity to reaffirm this Government's commitment to delivering a scheme that works for Wales in accordance, of course, with the Deposit Scheme for Drinks Containers (Wales) Regulations 2026. 

Now, deposit-return schemes are an internationally proven way to increase recycling, to collect high-quality materials, to support reuse, and that is important, and, of course, to reduce the environmental impact of single-use drinks containers. And for Wales, this offers us an opportunity to build on our recycling success by helping to commence the transition to reuse, drawing from the proven success, as I said, of some of the world's best schemes that are out there. So, getting this scheme right is about ensuring the scheme will work for Wales so that it delivers clear return on investment and brings real benefits to producers, retailers and consumers.

Now, while there may be different views on aspects of the scheme design, I think we can all agree on the shared ambition to introduce a successful deposit-return scheme that works for Wales, whilst being interoperable with the other schemes in the UK. The position on the scope of the scheme has been established, of course, with the Senedd having passed the regulations that are now in law, including the inclusion of glass and the phasing in of reuse. Reopening these fundamental elements would only create further uncertainty and certainly delay the October 2027 launch date being called for by industry, and the benefits that DRS can bring to Wales as well would subsequently be delayed.

Now, I would like to directly address some factually inaccurate claims that I've seen circulating about the costs of this scheme. Let me be clear: figures cited of a DRS in Wales costing £200 million or adding 50p to the price of drinks in glass bottles are not accurate. They relate to industry's upper estimate of the potential cost of fraud in the absence of a scheme in Wales. They don't reflect the scenario that we are working to, and we are clear on the need to bring in a scheme in Wales in parallel with those elsewhere across the UK. In line with the well-being of future generations Act requirements, it's important that we're also taking a long-term view, with DRS playing an important role as an investment in a more sustainable circular economy for Wales longer term.

Businesses have been clear that they need certainty and for the scheme to be delivered in parallel, as I say, with the schemes in the rest of the UK, and the regulations provide a clear framework for industry to prepare, to invest and plan with confidence, and we are committed to working in partnership with industry to deliver the scheme by October 2027. And as has been quoted—as a Government, our manifesto commitment is clear—whilst glass is in scope from the outset, the full requirements in relation to glass need to be implemented pragmatically and when feasible, particularly for SMEs.

So, we're therefore committed, as I say, to working with industry to ensure the practical implementation of the regulations, and we're fully committed to interoperability with schemes across the UK. And with international examples having already demonstrated that variations in scope within a shared single market are entirely deliverable, so interoperability shouldn't be confused with uniformity, and the need to ensure that Wales has a scheme that works for us, as well as the rest of the UK, is perfectly achievable. There are examples; somebody mentioned Finland earlier, and there was reference to a long border in Wales. The Finnish border is about 20 or 30 times longer than the situation we have in Wales. We have US states, of course, that have interoperability that work to very different systems.

Thank you so much. I was going to come to that, and I was the one who mentioned the long border. The difference, though, is, isn't it, that Finland is a country on its own and makes its own laws, and there's no opportunity then for you to go—you have to go across a border, literally. I don't even know where Finland's—[Interruption.] 

Okay. Where Finland is.

Thank you, Russia. I'm sure it's got a—.

Okay, if you think—[Inaudible.]

So, could you—? Would you mind, please, Minister, addressing the issue around the border and how those companies—like Radnor Hills, for example—will be able to look at a scheme that works for them? We're looking at—

Sorry, this is more than an intervention; this is a bit of a speech. Well, no, come on. I mean, I am limited in time as well.

I've just asked you a question. Diolch, thank you.

You're welcome to continue. Thank you.

Diolch yn fawr, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I mentioned the US states as well. You know, they are in a similar position. Those aren't the same hard borders that you believe exist everywhere. These schemes can be and will be interoperable. Large tracts of the regulations in Wales actually mirror word for word the regulations in England. It's a journey that we're on. I know exactly where we want to get to, and there's a trajectory that we need to see happening. Wales was given the ability to include glass. We do have the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 because it was seen as an opportunity to see how that could be developed and how that could work, and I'm keen to achieve that, but as I say, working with the industry and working with the people of Wales who have already showed an ambition to go further.

I want to make a point about the appointment of the deposit management organisation; that's where I was. Look, our aim is to take a balanced and pragmatic approach. I was saying that, combining long-term ambition with deliverability, and we currently are working at pace to complete the formal process of appointing a deposit management organisation. There was an assertion made earlier that we had rejected—we hadn't. That had happened under the former Government. We are now picking up from there, and I'm optimistic that we will bring this to a positive conclusion in short order. My focus, and that of my officials, is firmly on making sure that the organisation appointed will be able to deliver a scheme that works in Wales, and it would be inappropriate for me to prejudge the outcome or to comment on any individual applications, because, obviously, the appointment has to be made through a fair, transparent and robust process in line with the regulations. But, as I say, I hope to bring a positive conclusion to that in short order.

As we have learned from international schemes, the appointment of an effective management organisation is a critical milestone in implementation, as once they're appointed, they play a pivotal role, of course, in working with producers, retailers and wider stakeholders to oversee delivery, to provide certainty to the industry and to help ensure that the scheme is launched successfully, as is planned in October 2027. And as has already been mentioned, the scheme in Wales is necessarily different because, of course, our starting point on recycling is very different. We are focused on putting in place a scheme that delivers clear benefits to Wales.

One of my colleagues, Carrie Harper, said in a discussion last week on fair funding that today's underinvestment becomes tomorrow's disadvantage, and the same applies here to the economic opportunities associated with a DRS scheme and the wider circular economy. If Wales is required to wait for others to catch up, then we risk missing out on potential investment, on potential jobs, and the benefits that we're already seeing in our wider economy from our status as one of the best recycling nations in the world. Too often, decisions affecting Wales are made elsewhere by organisations whose priorities might conflict with Welsh interests. Wales should be able, of course, to shape our own future, but we also should be able to capture the value of our own resources and realise the economic benefits of the transition to a circular economy here in Wales, rather than seeing those opportunities accrue elsewhere.

These decisions aren't always the easiest, I accept that, but they are the right ones, and I believe the people of Wales expect us to show that leadership. Ultimately, our goal, necessitated as I say by our current cycling rates, isn't simply to deliver a DRS for recycling, which everybody has been talking about, but it's one that supports Wales to move up the waste hierarchy, so that drink containers are used and reused again and again, so that valuable resources remain in circulation, so that producers can then benefit from a reduction in the materials needed to package their drinks, and so that the people of Wales can also benefit from the environmental improvements and economic opportunities that this is already bringing to other countries and regions around the world.

Now, Wales is a leader in this area, Dirprwy Lywydd, and we've already shown that decisive action can deliver real benefits for the environment and for the economy. And by introducing a deposit-return scheme that reflects the unique needs and circumstances of Wales, we can build on our excellent record in recycling, we can reduce litter, we can even increase recycling rates further, but we can also support businesses and communities across Wales and accelerate that transformation into a more circular and low-carbon economy.

As I've said, I'm completely clear about where we want to get to, but we will work pragmatically and collaboratively with others to ensure that we move closer to that aim. We have a real opportunity here to build on our successes and to lay the foundations for a more sustainable system in the future. And I am looking forward to working with partners across Wales to try and realise that ambition. 

Thank you, Minister. I call on Darren Millar to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I think anybody watching this debate in this Chamber will be thinking to themselves, 'Look, I recycle already. This issue shouldn't really affect me.' But we all know, all of us here, that it will. It'll affect every single person who buys a drink in a glass bottle; it'll affect shops, supermarkets, convenience stores, online retailers, our high streets; and it will, of course, affect those independent businesses, like breweries, cider makers, and other food and drink manufacturers. But most importantly of all, this is going to affect people's pockets, and it's going to cause them inconvenience.

I want to set out right now that the Welsh Conservatives support recycling. We want to thank the people of Wales for the efforts that they make to recycle. It's something pretty extraordinary that Wales is one of the best recycling nations in the world. That's something we can be really, really proud of. So, we don't object to recycling, but we do object to Wales going its own way on this particular issue because of the confusion, because of the extra cost, because of the unnecessary complexity that this might create.

Our system at the moment isn't broken: 92 per cent of glass containers are currently recycled under the current arrangements, the kerbside arrangements. And this scheme makes recycling more complicated for the consumer and the household. Let's think about this, right? At the moment, you buy some bottles of beer or milkshake, or whatever your preferred beverage might be, or a bottle of HP sauce, and you consume it, and you generally pop that bottle into something that you leave at the end of your drive or outside your front door for the council to collect, very efficiently, in large, usually, very often, electric vehicles that they then take to a local recycling waste transfer centre. Under the new scheme, we're going to expect people to think about, first of all, where they bought that bottle of sauce, where they bought their milkshake—yes, because it's not going to work otherwise on a cross-border basis. You will get this issue of fraud that people have raised. So, they'll have to think, first of all, 'Where did I buy this bottle from? Which shop? Which side of the border do I need to return it to, or can I leave it at the kerbside for collection?' And then, if they bought it from a retailer in England and it's been delivered to Wales, they won't necessarily be able to get the credit for that return if they take it to a local shop. It's absolutely bonkers. And not only that, but they then, after they've worked out where they bought their product, have to jump into their car and drive, causing potential emissions into the environment, all the way to a shop, and that shopkeeper, then, has to find somewhere to store their bottle for another vehicle to come and pick it up, when it could have been picked up by the van passing the end of their road, or the end of their drive, sent by the local council. It's inefficient, it's not necessarily going to be good for the environment.

So, it's bonkers. We don't need it. We need to change the approach. We need a consistent approach across the UK. And I have to say, you must listen to the voice of these retailers, you must listen to these consumers, and you must listen because we have made mistakes before by rushing in. We all remember the 20 mph fiasco in Wales. And I will say this, and it feels like a prophetic moment, you'll see a similar backlash across Wales as a result of introducing this system, Cabinet Minister, if you don't listen. Let these words ring in your ears over the next few months, as you contemplate these matters and decide on the future of a deposit-return scheme. 

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

I will move now to voting time. Unless five Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to voting time. So, the first vote is on item 6, a Member Debate under Standing Order 11.21(iv): young people and employment. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the names of Shav Taj, Jane Dodds and Paul Rock. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 51, six abstentions, 31 against. The motion is therefore agreed.

We now move to the votes under item 7, the Reform UK debate on bovine TB. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Llŷr Powell. If the proposal is not agreed, we will vote on the amendment tabled to the motion. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 79, no abstentions, nine against. The motion is therefore agreed. 

We move now to the votes under item 8, the Welsh Conservatives' debate on the deposit-return scheme. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. If the proposal is not agreed, we will vote on the amendment tabled to the motion. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 38, no abstentions, 50 against. The motion is not agreed.

I now call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Heledd Fychan. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 50, no abstentions, 38 against. Amendment 1 is agreed.

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

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 50, no abstentions, 38 against. Therefore, the motion as amended is agreed. Thank you very much.

If you are leaving the Chamber, please do so swiftly and quietly so we can move on with the next item. Please leave swiftly and quietly so we can move on with the rest of the agenda.

Please leave swiftly and quietly so that we can move on with our agenda. Thank you.

I now move to today's short debate. I call on Lyn Ackerman to speak to the topic that she has chosen.

Diolch. I'm giving a minute to Jayne Bryant and Peredur Griffiths.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to bring forward this short debate on improving access to local economic opportunities in Casnewydd Islwyn. Economic opportunity is not only about whether jobs, courses, schemes or support exist somewhere in the system; it is about whether people can see those opportunities, reach them and use them. People in Casnewydd Islwyn want decent work. They want young people to have a future close to home. They want local businesses to succeed. This depends on the Welsh Government, local government, colleges, employers and community groups working together. But Government has a role in making the system easier to understand and easier to access. This is the argument of this debate.

If a young person cannot see the links between what they study and the work available to them, ambition starts to look like something you have to leave the area to find. We should want people here to see a future in Wales and understand the route to it. If an adult wants to retrain or move into better work, this starting point should not depend on already knowing how the system works. If a local employer wants to expand, take on apprentices or invest in a site, they should know where to go, what support exists and who is responsible. They should not have to chase different parts of the public sector to find out.

Economic development sounds abstract. Its impact is not. A secure job changes a household. A training route gives someone confidence. An apprenticeship changes what a family believes is possible. That is why access to opportunities should be treated as a delivery test. Can people see what is available? Can they reach it? Can they use it?

I want to ask the Welsh Government three things. First, how will you make the local economy offer—skills, training, apprenticeships, employment support and growth sector routes—more visible in constituencies such as Casnewydd Islwyn? Second, how will you strengthen the links between education, skills and local employers so people understand what skills are needed and how to move from one stage to the next? Third, how will you make it easier for local employers to engage with the public sector when they want to grow, invest and create jobs?

This debate is about access. Casnewydd Islwyn has ambition, capable businesses and communities that want to see delivery. The task is to make the route into opportunities clear. This is the spirit in which I bring this debate forward. Thank you.

I thank the Member for bringing this important debate here today. Coleg Gwent is the largest provider of full-time further education in Wales, with over 18,000 learners, including campuses in Newport and Crosskeys, and the college is a major employer, with over 1,200 staff. The college is seeing record levels of applications for courses, and I think everyone in this Senedd would agree that colleges like Coleg Gwent are vital in preventing young people from being lost to long-term disengagement from education and the labour market. They always give people a second chance, and I look forward to seeing how this new Welsh Government will support them. Diolch.

I thank Lyn for giving me time to take part in this debate. We both represent Casnewydd Islwyn, along with Jayne and Natasha and others here in this Chamber. Recently, Lyn and I visited the semiconductor company KLA in Newport. KLA have been a real success story and are about to outgrow the state-of-the-art R&D and manufacturing facility that they have. KLA is part of the CSconnected semiconductor cluster in Casnewydd Islwyn, which supports thousands of jobs directly and many more indirectly through the vast supply chain of local firms. These are well-paid jobs. For example, the average wage at KLA is well over £60,000 a year. KLA conduct outreach work and bring their company and wider industry to the attention of children and young people through visits to schools and work with sports clubs.

What I'd like to know from the Government, and echoing what Lyn has asked, is how this Government can assist companies like KLA to get their message out to our communities and how young people in particular understand that there will be well-paid jobs in a cutting-edge industry and that they are available locally so they don't have to move away from the communities where they grew up. I'd also like to understand, similar to what Jayne was asking, those links with schools, further education and higher education institutions to try and make those pathways for those young people to be able to get into those jobs. Diolch.

Thank you. I call on the Cabinet Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy to reply to the debate—Adam Price.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I would like to thank the Member for Casnewydd Islwyn for bringing this debate before us this afternoon, the final debate of this session, on such an important topic. I'm also grateful for the contributions from other Members. This is a valuable debate, not only about the economic future of one constituency, but about the broader role that the south-east of Wales can play in ensuring prosperity for the whole of Wales. This constituency is unique. In one brief journey, you can go from Caerleon, where the Roman legion dwelt, through Newport, the city of the Chartists, and up the valley, through Risca, Newbridge and Abercarn, to Blackwood—communities that built Welsh industry with their own hands.

There are very few constituencies that capture so much of Welsh history in so few miles, and there are few that hold so much of its future: advanced manufacturing, world-leading innovation, public services that are strong, a skilled workforce, digital industries that are growing, and excellent educational institutions. When we talk about economic growth, it's not the scale of the growth that matters alone; the real question is whether that growth actually increases living standards, creates better paid jobs and strengthens communities. That's why this Government has set an ambitious objective for itself and for Wales to halve the productivity gap between Wales and the UK.

'Productivity' isn't a word that warms the cockles of one's heart, perhaps. As far as I know, nobody's written a poem about it—to date, at least. Perhaps at the next Talwrn y Beirdd, we will see that. But its significance is simple and striking. More productive economies pay higher salaries, they attract more investment and create greater opportunities for future generations. If we are serious about the prosperity of the whole of Wales, particularly in those communities that have too often felt that they have been ignored, then we must tackle Welsh productivity. It's not jargon; it's a salary on a Friday, ultimately, it is sustenance for families and for communities.

The good news is that Casnewydd Islwyn already holds many of the key ingredients for Wales's economic success. Start with Newport—a city with a habit of arriving early at the future. In 1839, thousands marched down Stow Hill to demand a vote a generation or more before the rest of Britain caught up with them. Newport is early again today. It has become one of Wales's most important economic centres. It is home, as we've heard, to globally significant semiconductor and advanced manufacturing businesses.

The modern world runs on slivers of silicon thinner than a human hair—in our phones, our hospitals, our electric vehicles, in our artificial intelligence—and a remarkable share of that capability globally sits within a few miles of the communities we are discussing this afternoon. Isn't that an exciting thing to say? We were at the heart of an industrial revolution in the past and we are there, right at the centre, at the leading edge today. The growth of the semiconductor cluster in south-east Wales settles an old argument. Wales can compete internationally in high-value, knowledge-intensive industries. Not in theory, but in practice, now. These are precisely the sectors that drive productivity and create the highly skilled, well-paid jobs our communities deserve.

Alongside that industrial strength stands another major asset, the University of South Wales and its Newport campus, of course. A university is not simply a place young people pass through for three years. As an anchor institution, it is part of the economic machinery of the region. Its work in engineering, digital technology, cyber security, business innovation and workforce development helps ensure that local employers can find the skills they need. It provides a vital bridge between research, innovation and commercial opportunity. If Wales is to attract and keep high-value industries, institutions like this one will be central to the mission. The same is true for Coleg Gwent and further education. FE and higher education together, working as a regional version of the team Wales approach, is going to be so central to our economic success.

Newport's strengths reach well beyond manufacturing and higher education. This is now the city where the United Kingdom counts itself and registers its ideas. The Office for National Statistics keeps the nation's numbers—this nation, and the one next door, and the one up north as well. The Intellectual Property Office guards its inventions here. There's something quietly satisfying about a city that for too long has been undercounted, I think, in the national story, being the place that does the counting in so many contexts. More practically, perhaps, these organisations have made Newport a hub for highly skilled employment, drawing talented people into the city and creating room for the private sector to grow around them. Add excellent connectivity through the M4 corridor, the rail network, which we are seeking to build out and build upon, and access to wider regional markets, and Newport has become a nexus, a driver of economic activity, not just for itself, but for the wider region and for the nation as a whole.

The same is true of the Valleys communities that give this constituency its unique character. When Victorian engineers wanted to build the tallest railway viaduct in Britain, where did they choose but Crumlin? Blackwood, Newbridge, Risca and Abercarn carry a proud industrial heritage and a workforce with deep experience in engineering, manufacturing and the skilled trades. These communities built the Welsh economy once, but they're not museum pieces; they have an equally important part to play in building the next Welsh economy too.

Now, our challenge is to make sure that investment reaches every part of Wales and every part of this constituency, and, as you've said, that local people can reach the opportunities being created. That means investing in skills, creating, as the Deputy Minister is now doing, and fashioning a skills system that actually delivers the needs of our employers, but crucially as well allows our young people to achieve their true potential, backing local businesses, improving transport, digital connectivity, enabling people to find quality work close to home.

It also means learning from our own history, and few places teach the lesson better than this constituency. For generations, coal came down these valleys to be burned at Uskmouth and exported out of the port, and too much of the wealth it created went elsewhere. For too long, Wales has hosted energy projects without keeping enough of the value they generate. That must now be reversed. If Welsh land, wind, water and sea bed create wealth, the people of Wales should see more of the value of it. The energy story of Casnewydd Islwyn is already turning. At Uskmouth, the old coal-fired power station is being transformed into one of the largest battery storage hubs in the United Kingdom, storing clean power on the very site that once burned Valleys coal. Beside the steelworks at Llanwern sits one of the largest solar developments in Britain. The uplands above the Sirhowy and Ebbw valleys have the wind, and beneath them, the flooded workings of the old collieries hold warm water that mine water schemes elsewhere are already putting into homes. Even our newest industries point the same way, because a semiconductor cluster is a hungry customer for clean, reliable, affordable power. So, the question for this constituency and for Cymru, for Wales as a whole, is no longer whether the energy transition will happen here, it's who will own it, who will drive it and who will benefit from it. That's the question my work on behalf of the Government on a national energy strategy is designed to answer, and we will explore the levers we can use in Wales to build a strategy that benefits the people of Wales and Casnewydd Islwyn economically and socially, to ensure that we maximise that prize.

The strategy will set an ambitious yet reachable energy target, including targets for local community and Welsh public-owned energy. The Basques have done it. Iberdrola, a Basque company, is one of the biggest giants across Europe now, because they designed their manufacturing system, but also their energy system, around ensuring that the benefit was kept. We can do that in Wales as well.

I think crucial to this, of course—. Private development and private capital, in any economy, will always play a central role, and we want to attract that capital to invest in Wales to enable us to achieve our potential, but we cannot do it alone through private development. That's why developing our own public energy company, as I said, but also co-ordinating across the different parts of Government, across the different organisations—that's going to be essential to ensuring that we achieve the potential in Casnewydd Islwyn and across Wales.

That's why the creation of a new national development agency matters so much. On this very point about the confusing landscape that we have at the moment, we want to actually have a single front door. If I am a business owner or an investor or a founder and I want to know where to go, then we need to simplify and streamline that, because we want to work faster and further with those companies to ensure that we maximise the opportunity, not just for them, but for Wales as a whole. Our vision of a development agency reflects our determination to be more ambitious, more strategic, more proactive. It will work to attract inward investment, but crucially as well develop our own businesses to scale up, to strengthen local and regional economies and deliver the high-value jobs that we need.

Crucially, we understand that there's an important role here for transport; it's not a separate issue from economic growth. That's why we're joined at the hip, myself and the Deputy Minister for Transport, because infrastructure is a key part of how we deliver socially and economically for our nation, and for every part of our nation. The south-east Wales regional transport plan gives us a platform to connect communities in Casnewydd Islwyn and across the wider region. We're building further on that plan. We have an ambitious vision in terms of how transport can contribute to ensuring that we have the potential there.

The south Wales metro is central to that ambition still. It must mean better connectivity between trains, buses and exchanges, and between those and people, as they walk, cycle and scoot, making it easier to reach work, training and education, without having to rely on a car for every journey. For the communities of Casnewydd Islwyn, the test is simple: is the investment increasing real access to opportunities across Casnewydd Islwyn, across the wider region in the Valleys and the Cardiff capital region, and across Wales?

Dirprwy Lywydd, the economic story of Casnewydd Islwyn isn't just a story of potential. It's already a place of significant strengths, higher manufacturing capacity that is internationally recognised, with a digital economy and innovation that is developing, major employers in the public sector, a prominent university and communities with a proud history of skills, resilience and enterprise. Those strengths are firm foundations for the future. As we aim towards halving that productivity gap between Wales and the UK, building the industries of the future and establishing a new development agency to encourage growth and investment, constituencies like Casnewydd Islwyn will be at the heart of our success.

And it's no accident that this constituency carries the name of a poet—Islwyn. There is a theme developing here, isn't there? The poet Islwyn from Ynys-ddu in the Sirhowy valley taught us that all is sacred. He was right. There is nothing ordinary about these communities, or the people, or their future, and the work of building that future is already there.

Our aim is clear. The vision is an exciting one. We can take inspiration from the excellence that we see, as I saw when I visited KLA and saw the future of Wales before my very eyes—young people with the highest level of skills, and a company that has laid down roots in broader clusters in a microcosm of the Wales that we want to create. Thank you.  

Thank you very much, Minister. And I thank you all again for your contributions this week. That brings today's proceedings to a close.