Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I call the National Assembly to order.

The first item this afternoon is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, and the first question, Paul Davies.

Thank you, Paul. Local authorities are responsible for planning and delivery of their education services, balancing local needs and demands. When proposing change, they must ensure that they comply with the statutory school organisation code.

I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for that response. Now, the Cabinet Secretary will be aware that a number of consultations have been held regarding secondary provision in Haverfordwest over the last two to three years, which has delayed the progress of improving education for children and young people. It’s now important that Pembrokeshire County Council start delivering, because this number of consultations, which have resulted in huge delays, have been damaging to children’s future in the area. Therefore, in the circumstances, will the Cabinet Secretary tell us what role the Welsh Government is playing to ensure that there are no further delays and that we see the establishment of an 11-19 English-medium school in Haverfordwest as soon as possible?

Thank you, Paul, for that question and the points you make regarding the importance of delivering change in Pembrokeshire to further improve the educational outcomes for children and young people in your constituency. You will be aware that, if there are any changes, there is a possibility that some of those changes will be referred to Welsh Government for decision. Therefore, it would not be right for me to make any comments on the merits of any proposals.

I do expect councils, as I said, to comply with the obligations that are placed on them by the school organisation code. I am due to go out to consultation on the robustness of that code later next month. But I’m keen to ensure that all authorities take advantage of the £1.4 billion that exists in the twenty-first century schools programme to deliver up-to-date, first-class facilities, which we know makes a massive impact on the teaching of the teachers who teach in those buildings and the children who receive their education in them.

I want to ask my question in Welsh. Does the Minister have any evidence to support the comment I heard recently that schools that offer education just from the ages of 11 to 16—that is, to GCSE level—are doing better generally than schools that offer education to children from 11 to 18. Is there any truth in that comment?

Thank you for that comment. Some of our most successful schools are 11-16 schools, but I am not aware of any comprehensive study that looks at the comparative outcomes of schools that offer curriculum through 11-16 or 11-18. What’s really important is that local authorities take into consideration the unique characteristics of the area in which they are delivering education. We are seeing a broad variety of schools, as I said, working across 11-16, 11-18, and, increasingly, we’re seeing the development of through schools, where children are educated for the entirety of their educational journey on one particular site. I had great pleasure recently, joining with the Presiding Officer, of opening such a school in Llandysul. It’ll be interesting to be able to compare outcomes of these different models so that we can learn what works best. But each local authority will have to make the decision that is right for their local population.

Both questions do throw up an interesting conundrum, I think—both the saga that’s happened in Haverfordwest and Eluned Morgan’s question. And it is a difficult task, because what’s likely to happen now in Pembrokeshire is we’re likely to have some 11-16 schools, some schools with sixth forms and some provision in further education college but in a separate sixth form provision in that FE college. And it just seems that it is a piecemeal approach that we are taking, in a small nation of 3 million people, allowing these local solutions that, on the face of it, appear to be wonderful, but are they actually delivering the highest educational standards? And that’s where Welsh Government comes in. So, has she been able to form a view yet as to whether the best provision of post-16 education is through a school-based campus approach or through an FE-college-based approach?

I don’t see it to be my job or, indeed, the job of Welsh Government to dictate to individual communities the nature of the schools within those communities. I think local education authorities are best placed to make a judgment, in consultation with parents, teachers, pupils and their local populations about the types of schools that best fit with them. We know that some of our best performing schools are 11-16 schools. We know that other schools that have sixth forms also perform well. There is not one size that fits all, even in a small nation, and I think it is an important principle that Welsh Government sets the expectations we have for all schools, which is excellence for all pupils and driving up standards, but, as for the nature of individual schools, that is best left to local populations to decide what fits their communities best, and I do not want to dictate to those communities from the centre.

We need to see a significant increase in the number of children and young people in Welsh-medium education if we are to achieve our ambitious target of a million speakers by 2050. The final version of the Welsh language strategy will include targets to measure outcomes and delivery.

I thank the Minister for that response, and I would agree with every word. It’s impossible to attain that target that we all want to see achieved without there being a significant increase in Welsh-medium education. But, to date, there’s been no link between the targets within the Welsh in education strategic plans at a local authority level and the national targets set by Government for growth in Welsh-medium education. Is it the Minister’s aspiration and desire to actually marry those two things and have one national target that would then be shared and disseminated at a local level? And what is he doing in the difficult yet important debates taking place now in communities that face the turning of English-medium education into Welsh-medium education, where that step forward, of course, will benefit both Welsh-medium and English-medium education in those communities?

I will maintain the spirit of agreement this afternoon by agreeing with the analysis in the question. It is important that we have targets that are reachable and which also allow us to reach our broader target on an all-Wales basis. I expect local authority WESPs to be presented by December this year, and those plans will show how local authorities expect to reach their targets during the next five years. I will certainly look at these and ensure that they are ambitious targets and that they help us reach our national targets. When we publish our Welsh language strategy in the spring of next year, there will be national targets and a strong link between the national targets and the targets of every local authority. So, yes, I do see that link. The link is vital and it will be a vital part of the plan for the future.

Will the Minister join me in congratulating the area of Neath Port Talbot, where we are seeing a growth in children wanting to go to Welsh-medium education schools? Will he also welcome the fact that Neath Port Talbot council is recognising this and building a new secondary Welsh-medium school on the old Sandfields Comprehensive School site? Will he also work with his Cabinet colleagues to ensure that transportation to those schools is secured so that families in the Valleys areas can access the school safely?

Yes, absolutely. I think Members across the Chamber will want to join together in welcoming the developments that we’re seeing, and developments in a constituency are certainly to be welcomed, as they are elsewhere. But, enabling children and young people to attend these educational institutions is absolutely essential. There’s no point opening doors if the students can’t reach there. So, we will be ensuring, and we will be working with Cabinet colleagues to ensure, that we have a comprehensive and holistic policy that provides a provision for Welsh-medium education and a growth in Welsh-medium education, but also which enables students to reach Welsh-medium education at whatever level that might be.

At the moment, the Welsh Government is investing in the region of £1.6 million in the sabbatical programme to enable teachers to develop their Welsh language skills. To date, the scheme has attracted fewer than 250 teachers. What was the target? Generally, is the cost of £6,400 per teacher good value for money, and has any one of those teachers moved to work in a Welsh-medium school?

The workforce development schemes have been very successful in the area of education, and we continue to invest in education to ensure that that success continues and that we can build on the foundations that we have. We have, as I was discussing with the Member in committee this morning, a budget agreement, and we will continue to discuss how we implement the budget agreement in order to develop Welsh for adults and also to develop Welsh in the workforce, including the education workforce, where we expect to see an increase in the provision of education, and that means ensuring that we have enough teachers who can teach through the medium of Welsh.

We now move to questions from the party spokespeople to the Cabinet Secretary. First of all, UKIP spokesperson, Michelle Brown.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. What provision is the Cabinet Secretary putting into place to ensure that young people in Wales can focus on technical and vocational education without being diverted by subjects in which they may have no interest?

Thank you very much, Michelle, for your question. As you will know, the Welsh Government has embarked on an ambitious reform of our national curriculum, based on the recommendations of Professor Donaldson, which will provide for a broad range of educational experiences for all our children, ensuring that they are equipped to play a full part in our modern, working world.

Thank you for your answer, Cabinet Secretary. Schools in the private and independent sectors achieve better results than those in the state sectors. Are you trying to learn from best practice in the private and independent sectors?

I’d like to know on what basis the spokesperson for UKIP makes such a sweeping remark about the comparison relating to the achievement of our hard-working teachers and pupils in the state sector. I would reflect, Presiding Officer, on a conversation that I had just this summer with a parent celebrating the success of the GCSE results at the former John Beddoes High School—a school that had been put into special measures and now forms part of the Newtown collaboration—celebrating the fact that their GCSE results were better than those of the neighbouring private school in Lucton.

I note that the Cabinet Secretary has invited the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to assess whether Welsh Government educational reforms are on track. I think this is a good idea, but isn’t this an admission that, after 17 years, the Welsh Government is out of its depth concerning education policy?

I would remind the UKIP Member that I have not been the Cabinet Secretary for 17 years, but I don’t believe that anybody in this Chamber, even those of us who have been here since the start, would agree that Welsh education is where we would want it to be. We can, and we must, do better. My invitation to ask the OECD to come and test the proposals that I have for driving up standards in Welsh schools is not an admission of failure; it is an admission of confidence that I believe that we’re on the right track and that things are getting better in Welsh education, but I want to test that against the very best international standards.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you, Llywydd. The UK Home Secretary has mentioned the intention of her Government to reduce the number of international students studying in the UK by introducing a number of new restrictions. While recognising the importance of international students to universities and, indeed, the wider Welsh economy, can I ask what assessment the Government has made of the impact of such changes on Wales, and particularly perhaps the proposal to link an application for a student visa with the quality of the institution that they make an application for—something that the leaders of Welsh universities have described as an entirely destructive blow to them?

Can I thank the Plaid Cymru spokesperson for raising what is a very, very important and serious issue for our higher education institutions? I regret very much the statements that have come from the UK Government with regard to international students. Public surveying demonstrates that the public regard international students as a very welcome addition to UK society. We have been very quick to ensure that we can provide clarity for EU students especially who were planning to come to study in Wales. They are very welcome, and I’m very concerned that the impact of any immigration policy at the UK level will impact on HE. I’m especially concerned that the Westminster Government has introduced a pilot scheme with regard to visas for Bath, Cambridge, Oxford and London without any consultation with either us as the Welsh Government or the Scottish Government, and I continue to pursue this point with my counterpart, Jo Johnson, in the Westminster Government. I will meet Mr Johnson shortly to discuss my concerns.

Thank you for that comprehensive response. I’m pleased to hear that a meeting is due to take place because statements such as the ones we’ve heard from the UK Government will undermine the status of the UK, and, of course, Wales, as a result, as regards being an attractive place for international students. We have seen, with the UCAS statistics last week in terms of early applications for the next academic year, that there’s been a reduction of a third, in terms of Welsh universities, in terms of EU students, and an 11 per cent fall in terms of international students. Now, you say that a meeting is to take place, but I would like to know more about what proactive steps you are taking to restore and to enhance Wales’s reputation and the reputation of the universities in Wales as a destination for international students. So, what programmes will you put in place to promote Wales as a destination in light of these statements from the UK Government?

Thank you. You will know, Llyr, that, as a result of the Brexit vote, I have established a higher education and further education working group to advise me on the impact of Brexit. We know that, for each institution, their exposure to international students is slightly different, and therefore potential drops in student numbers will affect different institutions in different ways. That group is looking at the moment to see what proactive plans we can put in place, not only to continue to develop relationships with EU students but also to look at markets that perhaps in the past we have not sought to market our universities to. We have good exposure often in the far east but, for instance, the North America market is a market that has not been particularly pursued by institutions, and we need to look to do more. We are working with Universities Wales and individual universities to see what we can do to support initiatives to market ourselves across the world because we have such a fantastic HE offer to make to international students.

I’m grateful again to you, and clearly your view is quite unambiguous, but I have to say that the Welsh Government’s position on free movement of people has been anything but consistent, of course. We know it was dropped from the Government’s principles for EU withdrawal over the summer recess. In September, the First Minister told us that the issue of free movement of people is something that will need to be examined, and, by 25 September, the Cabinet Secretary for the economy told the BBC

‘we cannot maintain free movement of people’.

At the same time, of course, free movement is one of the seven key areas of the Liberal Democrats’ plan for Britain in Europe, so maybe you could clarify for us today, Cabinet Secretary, whether you agree with the leader of your party on this, or whether you agree with the leader of your Government.

Who I do agree with, Llyr, is with the universities across Wales who tell me that international students are an important part of the wider successful future of a HE sector in Wales. I will leave no stone unturned to protect the interests of Welsh universities, and not to hinder their ability to attract students either from the EU or from the wider world. We have an excellent offer. They contribute much to our university sector, as do international lecturers who come to work in our institutions. I will leave no stone unturned to ensure that that important resource is not hindered by decisions that are being taken by the Government in Westminster.

The Conservatives’ spokesperson, Suzy Davies.

Thank you, once again, Llywydd. The Mudiad Meithrin lost £470,000 last year, and is going to close its crèche in the Old Library centre in Cardiff because of a lack of take-up of the service. Now, at the same time, I hear from the staff of the ‘cylchoedd’ themselves that they receive less than the living wage on a practical level because they can’t complete all of their preparatory work, clearing-up work and general admin within the time for which they are paid. Mudiad Meithrin is a fundamental part of the structure to develop the use of the Welsh language and to promote Welsh-medium education. Is the problem a poor financial model or do you need to look more closely at this to see what has gone wrong?

I hear the points that the Conservatives’ spokesperson has made. If she has any evidence that people aren’t getting the wage that they should, she’s free to write to me with details on that and I will be pleased to answer her. But, more generally, the Mudiad Meithrin, as you’ve suggested, is a vital part of our plans to expand and develop Welsh provision for early years children, and we have confidence that Mudiad Meithrin can continue to be a partner for the Welsh Government.

I’m delighted to hear that, and we also share your aim to develop the use of the Welsh language in daily life, even in areas that have traditionally been non-Welsh-speaking. A former Mudiad Meithrin worker has opened a bilingual bookshop in Caerphilly indoor market, where she hopes to develop coffee mornings, after school clubs and reading sessions to encourage the use of the language at a local level. The high street is an ideal place to actually encourage people to use their hidden Welsh language skills, even if the quality of language isn’t particularly strong. That’s the intention behind our Tipyn Bach, Tipyn Mwy scheme, which is slowly being introduced in my area, supported by the local menter iaith. How much additional funding in the draft budget will be used to secure the future for and get the best outcomes from Mudiad Meithrin and the mentrau iaith too?

We’re considering at present how we’re going to divvy up that money in the future, but I do agree with the points that have been made. Boosting the use of the Welsh language is just as important as learning or teaching Welsh. We do want to ensure that we are collaborating with the mentrau iaith to ensure that people have opportunities to use and speak and improve their Welsh, particularly in areas where Welsh isn’t used on the street per se. Also, we want to see Mudiad Meithrin being able to provide provision and opportunities for children who want Welsh-medium provision where that’s possible.

We have to find a balance between learning or teaching Welsh and learning or teaching through the medium of Welsh and the use of Welsh. The use of Welsh is something that we probably haven’t discussed enough recently, but certainly it’s going to be a key part and a central part of the strategy that we will publish next year.

Thank you for that response, too, but it’s not quite clear how much money will be provided to those two organisations. But I look forward to hearing more on that.

Mae gwneud yr achos dros sicrhau bod sgiliau iaith Gymraeg yn fantais yn yr economi hefyd yn nod rydym yn ei rannu. Cynhelir Sadwrn y Busnesau Bach ymhen mis, ac wrth ei hyrwyddo i fusnesau yn Abertawe yr wythnos diwethaf, roedd cwsmeriaid a staff yn dangos parodrwydd, yn betrus mewn rhai achosion, i wneud mwy o ddefnydd o’r Gymraeg yn eu busnesau. Mae adroddiad Comisiynydd y Gymraeg, y buom yn sôn amdano’n gynharach heddiw, yn nodi bod o leiaf 10 y cant o’r holl siaradwyr Cymraeg dros 30 oed wedi dysgu’r iaith y tu allan i addysg ffurfiol neu’r cartref. Felly, rwy’n meddwl tybed sut y gall sefydliadau fel y Ffederasiwn Busnesau Bach a siambrau masnach ddefnyddio eu cysylltiadau busnes i’ch helpu i gyrraedd eich targed o 1 filiwn o siaradwyr drwy’r gymuned fusnes.

I hope that they will be able to help us do that. In terms of your earlier question, we haven’t reached final decisions on some of those matters. Those matters are still being discussed within Government. I gave an undertaking to write to the committee when we have concluded those discussions this morning, and I’ll circulate that more widely to Members if that’s required.

In terms of the wider use of the Welsh language in small businesses and businesses, I think it’s fair to say that’s one area where we haven’t fully succeeded in the past, if you like. Certainly, I would like to see businesses feeling confident to enable their staff to use Welsh with customers to enable customers to feel comfortable opening conversations in Welsh. I think one of the things that we haven’t succeeded in doing in recent years has been promoting that easy comfortable casual use of the Welsh language. I think all too often people feel that, if their Welsh isn’t of a sufficient quality or standard, they can’t start a conversation in Welsh—they feel that they’ll be corrected or whatever. You may have those sort of concerns.

But I think one of the things that we need to do—and this is a point I’ve tried to make to the committee at an earlier hearing. This not simply the Government’s strategy, but something for the country and the community as a whole. That means all of us joining together to help people learn to speak Welsh, to help people use their Welsh, and to enable people to feel confident and comfortable using their Welsh, however strong, or less than strong, perhaps, that might be. So, I think that’s something we can all join together in and I look forward to businesses being an absolutely key and essential part of that.

Diolch yn fawr, Adam. Developed by the system, for the system, categorisation provides a picture of how well schools are doing and the level of support that they need to do even better. Importantly, the system also identifies schools with the capacity to support others, acting as a driver for collaboration and sharing expertise and excellence.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her answer. We have exchanged correspondence on this issue over the summer, therefore she’ll be aware that I have met with a headmaster in a local primary school who had conveyed concerns to me about the possibility for schools to present data in a misleading way in order to improve their categorisation. Now, in her response to me, the Minister said that her officials weren’t aware of any extensive concerns. But, since then, local teachers have contacted a newspaper to say that they have been put under pressure to treat the data in that way. So, could I ask the Cabinet Secretary to say if it’s possible to manipulate the data in the way that’s been suggested? And, if it is possible to do that, can we have an independent inquiry to see how extensive this is, and, more importantly, can we change the system in order to avoid a situation where teachers and headteachers are put under pressure to deal with the data in this way?

Thank you, Adam. I think the first thing to say is that it’s important to remember that the school categorisation system is not a system that is based on data alone. There are different factors as well as data that go into the school categorisation. If there was any evidence that people were acting in such a way, it would be dishonest and it would be unprofessional. If teachers have evidence of that, I would like to see it and I would treat it most seriously. I’m always open to looking at ways in which we can perfect the methodology around the school organisation code. If the Member, or indeed any Member, has an idea about how we can make the school organisation code methodology more robust, I’m always willing to look at that and I would not be afraid to amend it or change it.

With regard to teacher assessments, we do know that teacher assessments—the quality of them—need to improve. Estyn tell us it is improving, especially when we have group validation and other teachers looking at how teachers from other schools have come to their judgment and an evaluation on an individual child’s work. But the offer is a genuine one to the Member: if you feel that you have ideas on how we can make the schools organisation code more robust, I’m willing to look at that and I’m not afraid to change it.

Cabinet Secretary, in your predecessor’s written statement on 28 January this year, Huw Lewis said that the system is not about labelling or creating crude league tables. He also said that any school performing below agreed performance of free school meals would be awarded yellow at best. I can see the rationale behind this, particularly in areas of high free school meals uptake, but it does mean that some schools performing very well in other areas have been marked down. Is this still an absolute rule? Are you keeping this model under review? How are you achieving that very difficult balance between labelling, which is a necessary part of this with that colour scheme, and making sure that schools are treated fairly?

Thank you, Nick. As I said to Adam Price, if the Member—. Or, indeed, the offer has been made to the teaching profession: if they have ideas of how we can make the school categorisation system more robust, for instance in the field of value added, and how can we put that into the system, then I am happy to look at it and, as I’ve said, I will not be afraid to change it. I think it is an important tool of accountability that we do look and we do name the level of support that an individual school needs. I will make no excuse; even where schools have a small number of children on free school meals, that school needs to deliver for all of its pupils. I will be relentless in my focus on ensuring that our poorest children have the best educational opportunities, even if that means there are just one or two of them in a particular school. Their life chances are as important as anybody else’s.

I want all young people to have the opportunity to participate in sport and physical activity. Schools can provide a safe and structured environment for playing rugby and touch rugby is a good way to introduce new players to the game.

Thanks. The Wales Touch Association are the junior European champions; they won at the championship in the summer. The under-18s have won the championship three years running, which is amazing. It’s a great sport to improve handling skills; and it’s big in the southern hemisphere. My question, really, is about the WJEC, and I’m wondering if you could possibly help out. Touch rugby is being taken out of the subjects that pupils can choose for GCSE, and it doesn’t seem to make sense. I had the privilege, actually, of playing a game of touch recently with the kids, and it’s great, you’ve got girls and boys mixing in, a great standard, a lot of fun, and it really should be a sport available for GCSE, in my opinion. If you could look into it, I’d be very grateful.

Can I join with the Member in congratulating the success of the teams? I know the Member invited the teams recently—I think last week—to the Chamber to celebrate their success. I share with you an enthusiasm for the game of rugby in all forms. Indeed, my youngest daughter competed recently in the Urdd tag rugby tournament, here in Cardiff, and she enjoyed herself immensely. The Member will be aware that qualifications are independent of Government, but we are also, as you know, developing our curriculum. The areas of experience and learning are currently being developed at this time, and I’m sure an opportunity for children to participate in this sport will form part of that.

Presiding Officer, with your indulgence, can I take this opportunity, on behalf of all Members, to wish our national team the very best for their opener in the autumn internationals against the Wallabies on Saturday, and express our condolences to Alun Wyn Jones, who had been expected to captain the side on Saturday but will not be able to do so because of the death of his father?

If I could identify myself with the comments of the Cabinet Secretary at the close of that question, I’d like to do that. As someone who still plays rugby, albeit veterans’ rugby, and is still dealing with the many letters from the traumatised individuals who saw me with my shirt off at Cardiff Arms Park—that’s too much of a frightening prospect, that is—I do take the point that rugby in any shape or form is a great leveller and, ultimately, a great way of bringing people together in a team mentality. Sadly, team sports have suffered in the field of education in recent years—in recent decades, even—and I’d be interested to know what action the Cabinet Secretary will take, working with her Cabinet colleague, the Minister for health, who has responsibility for sport, to make sure that there are the coaching programmes and there is the time within the curriculum for teachers who do want to get their coaching certificates to enable greater team participation in sports within our school environment, whether that is in primary or secondary.

Could I thank the leader of the Conservative Party for his question, although as for the image he paints, once again, about him having his shirt off, can I remind you that Halloween was on Monday, not today? [Laughter.] Over the last three years, the Welsh Government has invested, with Sport Wales, £3.7 million to deliver physical literacy programmes for Welsh schools, and the 2015 school sport survey demonstrated a significant increase in the number of pupils taking sport for the second successive survey, which I’m sure is to be welcomed. We have to recognise that, if we’re going to encourage people to participate in sport, we have to offer a whole range of sporting activities, not just team sports; some people would prefer different options. We know, for instance, that girls love to participate in street dance-based activities, perhaps, rather than a team sport. But, like you, I believe in the important life skills that young people can develop playing sport, and sport and physical education will continue to form a very important part of our new curriculum developments as we take the Donaldson review forward.

Thank you, Mark. Consideration for the needs of these children runs throughout the statutory code. The code sets out factors that should be taken into account, and that relevant bodies should place the interests of learners above all others, with particular attention being paid to the impact of school proposals on vulnerable groups of children.

Thank you. As you said, the code specifies the need to pay particular attention to the impact of the proposals for school closures on vulnerable groups, including children with special educational needs. Despite that, you recently took the decision to support the decision by Flintshire to close John Summers High School, which caters for some of the most vulnerable pupils in the area, taking pupils from pupil referral units and children excluded from other high schools that wouldn’t be sent to bigger schools. Half of the pupils are living in an area that is amongst the top 5 per cent of the index of multiple of deprivation in Wales, and almost a third fall within the school action, school action plus and statemented additional learning needs categories, something which the council’s consultation document failed to acknowledge. Given that under normal pupil criteria, the Welsh Government has set a minimum figure, I understand, of 600 for school numbers, why isn’t the Welsh Government applying greater flexibility under its existing legislation and code, where particular needs arise, to enable smaller schools to meet those needs in the unique way that only they can?

Thank you, Mark, for that question. The closure of John Summers school is not an easy one and not one I took lightly, but took on the advice provided about how best we could improve educational outcomes for all children in that particular area. You will know that, in my progressive agreement with the First Minister, there is specific mention about the need to review the schools organisation code, especially with regard to smaller schools. I will be making further announcements on my consultation on the schools organisation code and how it could be reformed and strengthened, if necessary, later on this month.

My concern is about the rights of families to get an independent assessment of additional learning needs, both independent of the school and the local education authority. I’ve had several constituents who are educational psychologists contact me about the absence of a statutory role for educations psychologists in the draft Bill, and there has been no statutory obligation for families to be able to have access to an educational psychologist in the draft code as well. That means that only families who can afford to pay for an educational psychologist are potentially able to access that. Given the number of cases I get where people’s special needs haven’t been identified while they were in full-time education, that causes me considerable concern and I wondered what you’re able to do about it.

Thank you, Jenny, for raising that important point. Welsh Government recognises the importance of educational psychology; that’s why we support the professional development courses for educational psychology here in Cardiff. As you will be aware, the Minister has stated his intention to bring forward the draft Bill before Christmas of this year. Views around the role of educational psychologists were raised when the previous administration consulted on the draft code and Bill in 2015, and those matters have subsequently been discussed directly with the Association of Educational Psychologists. As I say, we recognise the very important role that educational psychologists play in the current special educational needs system, and strongly believe that they will need to continue to do so under our proposed ALN Bill. The ongoing development of that Bill, the code and the wider ALN transformation programme has been undertaken in light of those conversations that have been and will continue to happen between the Minister and the profession.

Obviously, the special educational needs code is currently, as it stands, being considered as part of the school organisation code. While reading it, it was clear to me that it says that children should have their needs met, that the views of children should be sought and taken into account and that the parental role is vital. If we bring you back to the debate that we had on the autism Bill last week, when I met with people from my region, it was very clear to me that the parents or the children didn’t feel that they had been considered in many of these discussions. So, I wonder, when you are minded to talk to organisations like the National Autistic Society, whether you will be looking at this code in relation to amending it so that parents and children can be heard more effectively, so that they don’t come to us with stories whereby some children are not actually going to school at all at the moment because the provision simply is not there for them.

Thank you for that very important point, and I’m sure the Minister who will be taking the Bill through the Assembly has heard what you have to say. Can I say that I too recently met with a local autism group? Given that my constituency neighbours your region, many of the people that came to the meeting were actually from your region. I was very concerned to hear that those parents felt that they could not begin to get their children on the assessment path unless they were given permission to do so by a school. Can I say that that is not the correct position? That is not the case. As a result of that meeting, I have asked my officials to write to Neath Port Talbot local education authority—and indeed, we’ve picked up this feedback from Pembrokeshire authority as well—to make it absolutely clear to the LEA that is not the case, that is not the only referral route in, and that they should not be saying that to parents. We’re also developing a new resource for parents that will explain quite clearly their existing rights and how they can access help for their children, and that, I’m hoping, will be published early in the new year.

The statutory school organisation code requires a number of different factors to be taken into account by relevant bodies developing school reorganisation proposals, including the Welsh language. Wherever proposals affect schools where Welsh is a medium of instruction, local authorities should carry out a Welsh language impact assessment.

Thank you for that response. Clearly, it is a requirement that this should happen. But my question is: who checks the quality and accuracy of these assessments? Because they are the basis for far-reaching decisions and there’s nothing to say that one of us here couldn’t establish a company that could begin to draw up such assessments. So, I want to know who polices this system, in the hope that the public aren’t expected to do that, because clearly you need an element of expertise to do that effectively.

I expect local authorities to be able to do that, and to ensure that they have the necessary expertise to have assessments that are comprehensive. If that isn’t true, or if you or any other Member has concerns about the system and how it works, you are welcome to write to me to ensure that we can change the system, if we need to do that.

The issue of language impact assessment would also have an effect on planning applications more generally. This question of training and guidance as to how to carry out these assessments is relevant to both sectors, I think. Can you explain who is responsible for planning the training and the guidance in this area, and if it is the Government, from which budget line is this cost met?

The Government will be responsible for ensuring that there is a workforce in every area that can make the provision that we need for the future. I welcome the addition to the budget that we have now, to be able to develop a workforce for the future. The Member will be aware that the Cabinet Secretary, Kirsty Williams, has made a statement this morning to say that there is a working group looking at how we develop more workforce skills through the FE system. We do recognise that we need more skills, and that we have to do some workforce planning. The working group will be an important part of doing that.

Thank you Vikki. Presiding Officer, I understand that you’ve given permission for questions 7 and 10—

Cabinet Secretary, there’s not sufficient time to group the questions, so question 7 will be taken on its own.

Apologies. Vikki, Schools Challenge Cymru is a temporary intervention to accelerate improvement in our most challenged schools. The programme’s central funding ends in 2016-17. However, I will reflect on verified GCSE results and evaluation findings to embed lessons learned and inform deployment of the £100 million pledge to raise school standards.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I recently visited Pontypridd High School in my constituency and had a useful discussion with the headteacher on how Schools Challenge Cymru was helping them to drive up standards. For example, 2016 marked their best ever performance in terms of GCSE results. Having taught myself in a Schools Challenge Cymru school, which last year was the second best improved school within the Schools Challenge Cymru cohort, I know also of the positive benefits that the programme has brought in terms of staff morale and student morale too. Schools Challenge Cymru is benefitting participant schools, there’s no doubt about that, and I’m keen that any progress is not lost. What lessons can the Welsh Government take from the programme so we can further build on progress made and share best practice more widely within the education system in Wales?

Thank you. Like you, Vikki, I would like to congratulate Pontypridd High School on their reported improvements. I’m committed to building, as I said, on the progress made in Pathways to Success schools, ensuring that the lessons are learnt about how we can share that across the wider school system. We’re working closely with local authorities and the regional consortia to ensure that exit plans for all schools are robust and in place and that we take a holistic approach, so that the successes that you’ve seen in those schools that you have visited continue, and that best practice can be shared as part of our commitment to a self-improving schools system.

As the Member for Cynon Valley has just said, this programme is making a difference in some schools in Wales, including Milford Haven comprehensive school in my own constituency, but I appreciate that results seem to be patchy across Wales. However, given that the programme will now end just three years after its establishment, is the Cabinet Secretary satisfied that a programme like this has been given the necessary time to actually prove itself?

Thank you, Paul. Again, I’d like to congratulate the success of the school that you’ve mentioned. You have also recognised that those successes have not been universal in all schools that have taken part in the programme. Unfortunately, in some cases, we’ve seen some schools fall backwards, which is very concerning.

Let’s be clear, when the Schools Challenge Cymru programme was started, it was a two-year commitment and a two-year programme—that’s how it was launched. My predecessor, Huw Lewis, decided to extend the programme for an additional year, but it was made quite clear that it was a time-limited programme. What’s really important is that we learn from what has worked in those individual schools and that we spread that best practice to all schools in Wales, remembering that only 39 schools in Wales were part of the programme. There are positive lessons to be learnt, and we are carrying out a detailed evaluation of the programme so that we are aware of what has worked and that we can replicate that.

Coleg Cymunedol y Dderwen in my constituency in Ynysawdre was put under Schools Challenge Cymru in 2015. In a remarkably short time, under a new executive headteacher, Nick Brain, with strong leadership right throughout the school, not only with Nick, but throughout the school now, under Schools Challenge Cymru, this year it had a record-breaking year of GCSE results: 93 per cent of students achieving at least five GCSE grades A* to C—34 per cent higher than the year previously; 56 per cent of students achieving the gold standard of at least five GCSE grades A* to C; and, in short, the best results achieved in the short history of Coleg Cymunedol y Dderwen or its two predecessor schools of Ogmore and Ynysawdre comprehensives. So, to echo the comments of my colleagues who’ve spoken previously, Vikki and Paul, how do we build on that success to make sure that that is now continued long into the future, so that all of my pupils, no matter where they live, no matter what background they come from, have the very best opportunity in life?

Once again, could I congratulate the immense hard work that has gone on in that new school for the improvements that they have seen? It is a testament to the dedication of the staff and the commitment of pupils and parents, and Nick Brain is to be congratulated. Huw, you have touched on the very central point of how we can drive educational change in this country and that is outstanding leadership. We know that that can be one of the biggest drivers for educational change, regardless of whether a school finds itself in a specific programme, or outside of a programme. I’m committed to developing the leadership capacity of Wales’s headteachers and the next generation of school leaders, and I’ll be making further announcements of my leadership academy and funding around that later on this month.

I must say I’m very disappointed that Schools Challenge Cymru has come to an end and I would have much preferred to see it recalibrated rather than abandoned. There is an evidence base that we can draw upon from Manchester and London of where it has succeeded and I do think it’s important the Cabinet Secretary does prioritise investment in schools, where there is evidence to justify that.

In terms of learning the lessons, from my understanding of Schools Challenge Cymru, a key part was the word ‘challenge’ and the use of a peer group to put a school under support and scrutiny. So, how can that be captured in an all-Wales programme, and how can the Secretary ensure that that isn’t watered down?

Thank you very much. The Member should not be surprised that the programme has come to an end, because as I stated at the very beginning, the programme was never intended to be anything but a shorter-term intervention for the period of three years, and we have now come to the end of the three years. We’re carrying out a detailed evaluation into the aspects of the programme that have indeed, in some schools, delivered tremendous results and change. We want to work on that. You say, ‘What can we do around the issue of challenge?’ Well, the regional consortia and the challenge advisers who are employed by the regional consortia—that is exactly the role that they have within the consortia, and we’re working very closely with the Schools Challenge Cymru schools and the regional consortia to ensure that the progress that they have made does not slip back, and that we can learn the lessons of what has worked and avoid the pitfalls of parts of the programme that have not been as successful as, I’m sure, you or I would like.

And finally, David Melding.

Minister, I think you’ve heard from everyone that underperforming schools are turned round by leadership and expectations. We should expect our youngsters, regardless of their social background, to achieve really good GCSE results, and then many of them ought to have a tutor immediately as they enter their A-levels who takes them through the process of applying for the top universities—that’s how we get success.

Can I thank you, David? You’re absolutely right. Leadership, in all its forms, from the head of an individual institution to the middle-tier management to the individual subject leaders within the school—leadership at all levels in our schools is absolutely crucial, and that’s why we will set up the leadership academy—details of which I will announce later on this month.

We have to have high expectations of our children. I’m afraid, in the past, we’ve written too many children off. We have let their postcode or the size of their parents’ bank account be a determinant of what we expect of those children. That’s why this Government prioritises spending on children from our poorer backgrounds, via the pupil deprivation grant, and our Seren programme is designed to ensure that our highest performers, regardless of their background, have the help and support that they need to make applications and be successful in obtaining places at Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities, and the Seren programme is delivering great success for us.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item is questions to the Counsel General, and the first question comes from Simon Thomas.

Thank you for the question. The Member will know that this answer is subject to the established law officers’ convention, but the Welsh Government remains committed to securing the best possible settlement for Wales. To that purpose, our officials are continuing to engage with UK Government officials as the Bill progresses in the House of Lords. I can say also that I have recently delivered lectures on the Wales Bill and broader issues of access to justice to Cardiff University, University of South Wales and the recent Legal Wales conference in Bangor, and copies of these speeches, with all the details of the content, are available upon request.

I thank the Counsel General for his kind invitation to read his speeches, which I’m sure will be taken up by many Members, as many Members as those asking the questions, I’m sure. [Laughter.] When we look at the Wales Bill and recent developments, we see with the concession on the devolution of teachers’ pay and conditions that at least the door has been opened a little to improvements in the House of Lords from the original Bill, and I’m sure the Government will welcome that as much as I do. But there’s still one outstanding issue that, in my mind, doesn’t make this Bill sustainable or fit for the future, and that is the question of legal jurisdiction. The First Minister has said very clearly that he believes we can establish a separate or distinct legal jurisdiction, and that would be the best way forward. He said that on Monday night on ‘Sharp End’, which is why I was disappointed that on Monday in the House of Lords the Labour spokeswoman for Wales, who unfortunately isn’t here, though I was going to mention her under her other hat of Baroness Morgan of Ely, said that it was premature to establish a separate legal jurisdiction. Can I put it to the Counsel General, not that he will reply to this kind of political report, but could I put it to him that it’s this sort of confusion from the Government and the governing party that means that the Conservatives over there are running rings around you on the future of the constitution of the United Kingdom? But, on a legal question, does he agree with me that the legal profession at least, have come to a considered view on this by now, and they believe that it’s inevitable that we shall have two legal jurisdictions, one for England and one for Wales?

I thank the Member for the supplementary question, and when he reads my speech he will see rather detailed views of my own thinking on the issue of legal jurisdiction and, of course, the transitional compromise that I think was put forward, which was, at this time, a distinct jurisdiction would make very much sense and do a lot to resolve the contradictions that exist. I think the Member will have heard me say previously my concerns about this sort of mythology that’s developed around the concept of jurisdiction, as though it’s anything other than an administration. In the past, when there was only one legislature within England and Wales, it made sense to have a single jurisdiction. We now have two legislatures. I think I will give you advance notice of my speech, for when you take the opportunity to read it—I think it is an inevitability that we will move towards a distinct jurisdiction and, eventually, a separate jurisdiction.

The Member will also, I’m sure, have read with interest the comments that have been made in the House of Lords’s recent report on the Wales Bill and the comments that are made there, which I think are very important, because not only do they make a number of comments about the list of reservations being so extensive and the legal test that governs the Assembly’s powers being so complex and vague that they’d be a recipe for confusion and legal uncertainty, but the key point they really make, and that jumped out at me, was when they say that the committee notes there is

‘no evidence of a clear rationale’.

I think that is the fundamental problem. That permeates through the Wales Bill, not only in terms of the list of reservations, which is 35 pages, 195 items, but also in the thinking around the concept of how you administer an area where you have two legislatures and how you ensure that that is efficient and complementary to not only the Welsh legislature, but also the English legislature.

I can see that my good friend’s speeches are going to be very popular stocking fillers this Christmas, undoubtedly. [Laughter.] But he’s mentioned that he’s had time already to do some other reading—of the House of Lords report. I should make clear that there is still the opportunity to improve this Bill if there is a will to do it in the remaining stages in the House of Lords and in the Commons as well—to make it something that is useful to the Senedd, to the Assembly and to the Government as well. But there is work to be done. Did he note, as I did, that in that House of Lords report from the Constitutional Committee there, they said that the lack of clarity over the demarcation of powers between the UK Parliament and the Welsh Assembly not only risks future litigation, but the need for further legislation to clarify the settlement? Now, that’s the scale of the work that needs to be done. So, does he agree with their assessment that, actually, this—unless the improvements are made—could mean more litigation and less clarity?

I certainly do agree. The problems associated with the conferred-powers model—and I think there was agreement on the need to move to a reserved-powers model—are accepted almost universally. The only problem is that a reserved-powers model becomes self-defeating if you attempt to reserve just about anything and everything and the kitchen sink as a reservation. In those circumstances, it becomes self-defeating, and the only consequence of that is that you end up with more and more matters having to be determined in the Supreme Court at considerable length and considerable difficulty, and it does not give what we all want from a legislative system, and that is clarity and stability.

I apologise, I haven’t read all the Counsel General’s speeches, but I am delighted to ask him a question. He anticipates this upsurge in litigation to the Supreme Court with disagreement and uncertainty on the basis of the Wales Bill, at least in its current form. I wonder what consideration he’d given to the resource implications for his office of such an upsurge in litigation.

Well, the more cases that are, the more costs there are that are borne by the public purse, and that is absolutely another reason why we want clarity and stability, so that matters don’t have to go to the Supreme Court and that they don’t have to involve rather complex legal arguments and teams of lawyers to resolve. That is one of the key things that the whole purpose to having a clearer constitutional settlement was sought to avoid.

I welcome the Law Commission report, and, together with the First Minister, am carefully considering the recommendations and implications. I will provide an interim response to the commission before the end of the year, and will make this available to Members.

Can the Counsel General set out the route-map for the codification process, and indicate the benefits and potential risks that could arise from codification?

Well, I was very pleased to receive the report. As I took up my position as Counsel General, improving accessibility to the laws of Wales is not only of great interest to me, but it’s also very important to Wales as a legislature, and, of course, follows on very much from the excellent report from the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, which, I think, made many of these points—considerable work, and a report that has been referred to in many subsequent reports as being fairly authoritative on this issue.

The codification report sets out many of the benefits that could follow from codifying Welsh law, estimating, for example, that, in addition to unquantifiable social benefits, there might be efficiency gains of around £24 million a year, were we to bring order to the law in this way. I’d rather sort of present that argument as I think there are considerable advantages to businesses, to investors, within Wales, to actually know what the law is, to know where it is, and to know it is simple, clarified and consolidated.

Of course, putting this into practice is complex. It will require consistency over a long period of time—over more than one Assembly. We are, effectively, establishing a Welsh legal statue book—that would be the objective. So, those are the recommendations. You’ll be aware of the recommendations that have been made by the Law Commission, which are very, very detailed. They are being given a lot of thought in terms of how we might implement it, what would be the particular legislative, Standing Order requirements, and so on, and what would be the particular cost and the resource implications, which, again, are significant.

But I can say that I’m of the view that the status quo is no longer an option, that we need to tackle the issues over accessibility of legislation, because, as a Government, we have a responsibility for ensuring that the law is well promulgated, but also that it is accessible—accessible not only to lawyers, judges, and businesses, but to the citizens of Wales as well. And I think it’s something I’d consider fundamental to both our political and legal systems, and is an issue of some importance to all sectors, as I’ve mentioned with the business community. So, I will be making an interim report. Under the protocol that exists with the Law Commission, there will be a final report, a final response, before the end of June 2017.

Thank you for the question. The Members know that this question engages the established law officers’ convention. But what I can say is that the Welsh Government will play a full part in discussions around the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, and that will, of course, entail careful consideration of the implications of withdrawal for the devolution settlement.

Thank you, Counsel General. You will be aware of the ongoing High Court action in respect of article 50. What steps has he taken to ensure that Welsh interests are being protected in respect of this action?

The High Court action concluded last week. It was a very important case that was brought, which relates to the use of the royal prerogative to trigger article 50. All sorts of issues have been raised as to whether this approach, for example, is in breach of the bill of rights, and subsequent court decisions and legislation. It is a major constitutional case.

The constitution, devolution issues and the devolution statutes have been referred to in that case, so I’ve considered it prudent to have conducted a watching brief on that particular case. The case has already been listed to leapfrog the Court of Appeal to go to the Supreme Court, commencing on 7 December. Once the judgment from the High Court is received, I’ll be giving that consideration, with a view to considering any potential devolution issues, constitutional issues, that are important to Wales and to the Assembly, and considering any further steps thereafter.

In the external affairs committee on Monday, we had evidence that the European repeal Bill, if it’s anything more than a simple saving Bill, could breach the Sewel convention and claw back powers from Welsh Ministers. Does he agree that we need to be vigilant that the repeal Bill is not used, as the Wales Bill is being, to row back on elements of the Welsh constitutional settlement that are not convenient to the UK Government? And, if he does agree with me, what steps can we take at this stage to ensure that doesn’t occur?

Thank you. I’ll refer to the Sewel point in a moment, because the point about the rowing back of powers, of course, is exactly the point that was made on the Wales Bill by the House of Lords select committee, where they asked the Government to explain whether the Wales Bill is actually intended to reduce the legislative competence of the Welsh Assembly in some areas, and if not, what steps they plan to take to ensure that the competence of the Assembly is not inadvertently reduced. And that point equally applies, I think, to the so-called great repeal Bill. The problem is that no-one has a clue at the moment what a great repeal Bill might actually be, what the extent of it might be, what it might actually contain, and how it would impact on the devolved Governments, on the devolution statutes, and indeed on the overall constitution of the United Kingdom. But, certainly, as far as the Sewel convention is concerned, it is a convention, so it is a non-justiciable matter, but it is a convention whereby there is agreement that the United Kingdom Parliament will not legislate in devolved areas without the consent of the devolved Governments. That is on the statute books as far as Scotland is concerned, and is proposed to go on the statute book as far as the Wales Bill is concerned. It remains a convention, but I would certainly take the view that any legislation that was brought, where it related to devolved areas of responsibility under the Sewel convention, would have to come to this Chamber here to be considered and to be voted upon.

Will the Counsel General confirm that triggering article 50 merely begins the process of negotiation with the EU about the terms upon which we’ll continue to trade with them or have other inter-governmental relationships? It doesn’t really have anything to do with devolution at all, except that the process of withdrawal from the EU is in itself a giant devolution process because we’ll be repatriating powers that currently are in Brussels to either Westminster or to Cardiff. And, in this context, it enhances and entrenches the devolution process to Wales, because it will enhance the powers of this Assembly, and indeed of the Welsh Government.

I thank the Member for that question. I can tell the Member that I consider the points he makes to be fundamentally legally and constitutionally incorrect. [Interruption.] Triggering article 50 is an irreversible process. The authority for that is the statement that was made by the UK Government in the recent case that has actually been referred to, and the implication of that is that after a two-year process, the 1972 Act ceases to take effect. All subsequent legislation that was created as a consequence of that, plus all the interrelated legislation that relates to the Welsh constitution and the devolution settlements of all the devolved Governments will actually fall. So, the Member is not only wrong; he is misconceived in his understanding of events.

Thank you, Counsel General.

I have accepted an urgent question under Standing Order 12.66, and I call on Dawn Bowden to ask the urgent question. Dawn Bowden.

Yesterday’s decision was extremely disappointing, and our thoughts are clearly with the workers there and their families. We will be working with the directors and management at the abattoir facility, with a view to being able to minimise the impact that the decision has on the premises and any resultant job losses. Further discussions will be held with directors of the wider group in order to identify opportunities that may mitigate the worst effects, should the consultation period conclude with job losses.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your response because it certainly was with considerable shock that we learned about this announcement only yesterday afternoon, and we know that we’re now starting a 45-day statutory consultation process. It was only earlier this week that I was at a conference, speaking at the Bevan Foundation, on the living wage, when I was talking about the signs of uplift in the economy in Merthyr—we’ve had lots of new jobs coming into the area—so this was a real body blow to the area, as you’ve already identified. If those proposals do follow through, it goes without saying almost that we’re talking about 350 workers and their families who will be affected, as well as the impact on the local economy, and all of this in the lead up to Christmas.

I’m pleased that the company has agreed to meet with me and with Gerald Jones, the MP, and I believe with you and the First Minister to explore the basis of their proposals and the suggestion that they will relocate their entire retail function to the site in Cornwall, which, from what I know at this point in time, seems to be somewhat illogical when the distribution plant or the distribution centre for the meat factory in Merthyr is actually in Avonmouth. If the packing plant is taken to Cornwall, then it doesn’t seem very logical that you have a slaughterhouse in Merthyr, the meat packed in Cornwall and then it’s brought back to a distribution centre in Avonmouth. So, I hope that all of these things will be taken on board when we have the conversation. So, can I just ask the Cabinet Secretary to assure me that the Welsh Government will be doing everything that it can to support the people who are affected potentially by these proposals?

Yes, I can and I will, of course, meet with the company along with Dawn Bowden and the First Minister, and I’ll also be liaising closely with my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for environment and natural resources in an attempt to ensure that our response is across several departments.

The announcement gives, I think, very significant cause for concern for those staff who are working in the company’s retail packaging operation in the Merthyr Tydfil site. The other 700 jobs, we’ve been assured, are safe. However, we’ll be working with key partners to ensure that there is a co-ordinated response to any job losses after the 45-day consultation period expires.

I think we also need to understand what the logic is behind the company’s decision for the very reasons that the Member has outlined, especially given that the company signed up to conditions of support with Welsh Government that meant that jobs would be secure at that site up until 2021.

I would also like to extend my condolences to the workers and their families who have been affected by this statement. This is a blow to the community—a community that already faces enough economic and social challenges.

I accept that it’s early days as of yet, but is it clear yet why the company has decided to relocate these jobs to Cornwall? I accept what the Cabinet Secretary has just said, but given that there’s already been investment by the Government on the basis of a jobs commitment, how can he be sure that the rest of the jobs won’t follow to Cornwall or to another site?

What is the specific strategy now for the Government for the consultation period that has started? Is there hope, in the Cabinet Secretary’s opinion, that it would be possible to intervene to save, if not all, then some of the jobs that are under threat? As I said, there has been investment in the past, is consideration now being given to further investment? Is that an option in order to try and save those jobs?

Yesterday, we had a statement on the Valleys taskforce group. Does this group have a role in this kind of situation? Has there been correspondence between the Cabinet Secretary and this group to see whether there might be a broader role for it in this situation in Merthyr?

Finally, does the Cabinet Secretary believe that this statement reflects a broader problem in the meat processing sector? Some unions have raised this question already. Is the Government therefore considering having a broader risk assessment in the sector on a national basis so that we can respond before these kinds of statements happen again in the future?

Yes, can I thank the Member for his question and, again, share his concerns for the workers that are affected in terms of the reasons given by the company and the rationale that we have learned of? The red meat sector in the UK is, of course, facing significant challenges, and the company believes that its Merthyr site is no longer sustainable. We wish to know why that is the case and why the decision was taken to relocate those positions to Cornwall. In terms of the conditions that were applied to the very generous support that we gave to the company not just to take over that site, but also sites on Anglesey and Flintshire, there was a minimum condition of 1,000 jobs for eight years. If those 350 jobs are lost, there would still be the 700 jobs. However, there would have to be an adjustment in terms of the support that we give the company, and therefore there would be the potential to claw back that support. I’ve been assured today that there are no implications in terms of jobs at other sites on Anglesey or in Flintshire, and that the other 700 jobs at the Merthyr site are safe. However, I’ve asked that my officials remain in close contact with the company during the consultation period with a view of us being able to assist in the best possible outcome for all of those people who could be affected by this decision.

I declare an interest in that I supply product to the factory, I do, but this is devastating news to say the least. The company that currently operates that site is the third owner in 17 years. So, that gives us a sense of how many companies have been through the process of reorganising this site. The whole point of that site was that it was an integrated site, in that you turned the product into a shelf-ready product, ready for the consumer, and it is vital that that integration, I would suggest, stays, but the company, obviously, commercially has the ability to choose where they do that operation. It is vital, Minister, that you get the assurances that the rest of the plant is not in jeopardy. If that plant were to go, then the implications for the livestock industry in Wales are absolutely devastating. I would put it on a par—and I don’t want to be exaggerating this—with Port Talbot shutting, in relation to the implications for the local community, but also the implications for the wider agricultural community. It would have a massive knock-on effect particularly in the cattle section of the livestock industry in Wales. I hear that you’re going to meet the company, but I would urge that you do go up to the factory, Minister, along with the First Minister—who I think actually could have been the rural affairs Minister at the time when the factory opened—and actually, for yourself, see the integrated nature of the process up there and really get the assurances off the 2 Sisters Food Group that the other remaining jobs on that site are safe and secure not just for the next month, not just for the next six months, but are there in the long term. If there is any way that the Welsh Government can step in and keep the integrated nature of that plant intact by retaining the 350 jobs that are under threat, then I urge you to leave no stone—no stone—unturned because the ramifications to the wider economy are huge.

Yes, can I thank the Member for his question? For the reasons that he outlines, it’s essential that my department acts with my colleague’s department in identifying any opportunity to retain what is a fully integrated facility and one that’s very important, not just to the agriculture sector but also to the economy of Merthyr Tydfil. I’ve already sought and received assurance that those 700 jobs—the additional 700 jobs at the site—are safe, but I will be seeking assurance over the long-term viability of the site if we cannot retain it as an integrated facility. But my wish would still be to support the maintenance of over 1,000 jobs at the site. During the course of the 45-day consultation period, I’ve told officials to do all that they possibly can to give those 350 people at the plant who could be affected by the decision the best hope of ongoing employment within the company.

Finally, Simon Thomas.

Thank you, Llywydd. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement. In addition to being a huge blow to local people in Merthyr Tydfil and the surrounding area, of course, as has just been mentioned, this is going to be a blow to the food chain in general in Wales. We heard in the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee this morning from your colleague, Lesley Griffiths, about the growth in the food industry in Wales over the past two or three years. It’s one of those industries that are prospering. In losing these jobs, we are not only losing the ability to process meat once it’s been slaughtered in the abattoir, but we’re losing skills, we’re losing investment and we’ll be losing the opportunity to build other businesses around the processing that happens on that site. So, it’s extremely important, I think, that the Government leaves no stone unturned in overturning the company’s decision as it currently stands, because retaining these jobs in Wales is not only important to Merthyr, but it’s important to the food chain in general in Wales.

One final very specific question to the Cabinet Secretary: can he confirm today that no other public money is being used in Cornwall to attract these jobs from Wales? I want to ensure that Cornwall, which is a European assistance area—as is Merthyr, of course—isn’t using European funds to attract jobs from one region that receives financial support to another region.

I’d like to thank Simon Thomas for his question and say we are trying to ascertain whether any public money is being used to attract those jobs from Wales, not least because public money is already being used to secure those jobs here in Wales. As soon as I have any information with regard to the use of public funding to attract the jobs from Wales, I will of course share it with Members.

But the Member is also absolutely right in that the food sector is a growing sector for Wales. It’s something that we can be incredibly proud of, and I know from my work that it’s one of the most important parts of the Welsh export portfolio, not only supporting valuable economic activity, but also ensuring that Wales has a quality brand abroad that it can be very proud of.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item on the agenda is the new item of 90-second statements. May I remind Members that these are 90-second statements, not 90-minute statements? So, I will expect every statement to finish within 90 seconds. The honour of making the first 90-second statement goes to Jeremy Miles.

Diolch, Lywydd. Thank you for this opportunity to speak about and celebrate the Neath abbey ironworks, and thank you for this innovation in the Chamber.

The ironworks today are a dilapidated site, but as with many industrial sites in Wales, they were once a place of great innovation, of the earliest copper smelting and, latterly, the founding of ironworks that were strategically vital to the Welsh economy. Its export was exported to India, and it was a major place of employment for the people of Neath and beyond. In its heyday of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it saw Neath being a globally connected town.

We are indebted to the friends of the ironworks for keeping an awareness alive of the site, and recently to a public lecture in the town by Professor Huw Bowen of Swansea University, which charted a reclaimed future for the site as a place of exploration and of enterprise, where our heritage can be a guide to our future. The spirit of innovation embodied in the ironworks should not stay in our history. A place that exported the earliest steam engines around Europe should awaken the imagination of schoolchildren and help us all lift our sights as we build the future economy of our country. So, our task is to turn the example of this jewel of our Welsh economic heritage into inspiration for a new generation of innovators in a modern Neath and a modern Wales.

John Griffiths—beat that.

Diolch, Lywydd. This week marks the one hundred and seventy seventh anniversary of the Chartist uprising and march on Newport for political and democratic reform. On 4 November 1839, over 20 Chartists were shot and killed. They lie in unmarked graves at St Woolos cathedral. Their leaders, John Frost, William Jones and Zephaniah Williams, were tried at Monmouth Shire Hall, convicted of high treason and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, later commuted to transportation for life to the new world. Today, Newport is known as the city of democracy and every year commemorates these momentous events. Friday will see the re-enactment by local schoolchildren, including Maindee primary in my constituency. I will be at St Woolos cathedral, along with Jayne Bryant, for the commemoration, and there will be a Chartist convention and other events.

Llywydd, Chartism was the first working-class mass movement and the Newport rising the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in Britain. Of the six points of the charter, only annual parliaments has not been enacted. The legacy of the Chartists is the mass suffrage we enjoy to this day.

Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Lywydd. I would like to use these 90 seconds to highlight the wonderful work being undertaken by the Sandville Self Help Centre in Ton Kenfig within my region. The Sandville Self Help Centre was established in 1983 and is a charity that’s open to all people suffering health issues, offering help in a very relaxed and happy atmosphere. They are a person-centred service, giving social and psychological care to patients and their families. Their motto is,

‘Listening, Looking, Learning, Loving, Laughter will enable you to Live a Longer healthier Life’,

which is something I’m sure we can all support. They provide transport from the Bridgend area to Velindre hospital for patients who require radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Every week, they offer a range of complementary therapies and activities set in beautiful surroundings away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. With beautiful views and a welcoming environment, the Sandville Self Help Centre pride themselves on being a home from home, with no clinical appearances and a warm family environment. I’m sure Members will agree with me that the world would be a much poorer place without places like the Sandville centre and people like Gwyneth Poacher and the dedicated staff and volunteers who run it. Thank you.

I thank the three Members.

The next item on the agenda is the motions to elect members to committees. I call on a member of the Business Committee to move the motions—Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Formally.

Does any Member object? If not, the motions are therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

That leads us to the next item, which is the Plaid Cymru debate on climate change. I call on Simon Thomas to move the motion.

Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. I’m very pleased to bring a Plaid Cymru debate to the Assembly today, which I genuinely hope everyone in the Assembly will support, because the purpose of the debate is to endorse, from Wales, the international agreement on climate change reached in Paris last year just before Christmas. We do that in advance of the international assumption of the agreement on 4 November and the fact that the agreement will be discussed in the Conference of the Parties in Marrakesh later on this month. I understand the Cabinet Secretary is attending that. I want to empower her and I want her to take a strong message from Wales that we’re part of the international fight to tackle climate change and we want to play our role, and that we want to do more than play our role—we want to lead in as many aspects as we can as a nation.

I want Wales to become a ‘zero hero’, as they say, a hero for zero carbon, working on a trajectory that takes us away from using carbon for our energy and using alternative sources. I do that with a very personal interest as well because, very recently, I visited Pen y Cymoedd in my friend’s constituency, Vikki Howells’s constituency, and my own home valley of Aberdare and Cwm Cynon.

Pen y Cymoedd is the large, renewable energy windfarm that’s just been constructed across the Heads of the Valleys, stretching from Ogmore almost, over towards Merthyr Tydfil. Seventy-odd turbines have been erected above Tower colliery. You pass Tower colliery in order to get to Pen y Cymoedd. My great uncle worked in Tower colliery. In fact, in the 1950s, he was the leader of the gang that broke through from Aberdare to the Rhondda. They didn’t talk too much about that; there wasn’t a great Valleys rivalry in those days. But, he broke through from Tower colliery and led the gang that broke through to unite the pits underneath that mountain. And that mountain is closed for coal now, but it’s open for wind, it’s open for renewables, it’s open for a new future.

And this debate is really about embracing the future. We’re not looking back to the past. In the same valley is the opencast at Bryn Pica where my father worked. I don’t want to go back to that past, I want to go back to an energy future in the Valleys and the rest of Wales that really is safe and sustainable, gives high-quality jobs for our young people, and is healthy—and is healthy. When those seventy-odd turbines at Pen y Cymoedd are redundant, or may need to be repowered, or even come down because we’ve moved on, they will leave nothing but peat behind them. They won’t leave coal slags to bury villages, and they won’t leave pollution to destroy our rivers. So, this is why we must embrace a real revolution of zero carbon and a real energy revolution in Wales. And that’s why Paris is so important. When you get a situation where China—China, we’re told, is the great carbon polluter and is not doing anything about renewables, but China’s overtaken the European Union on renewables, I have to tell you—is complaining that Trump will be pulling out of the Paris agreement, the world has changed. The world has changed and we must change with that and, more than that, we must lead that change here in Wales.

So we have set forward this debate today, hoping that the whole Assembly will join with us to send that message. It’s also an opportunity to review what the Government has set out for itself and what the Government is likely to achieve in the near future, because there are very good and positive ambitious targets that this Government has set out, both in terms of policy and in terms of legislation. So, for a start, we have a 3 per cent reduction in our own basket of domestic greenhouse gas reductions to do year on year from 2011. We’re trying to aim for a 40 per cent reduction in gross greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 against the 1990 baseline, a commitment that the Ministers have confirmed to me is still a commitment for this Government, although it’s not in the programme for government. And we passed the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 in the previous Assembly, which set out a new approach to tackling and measuring climate change, including the long-term goal, by 2050, of reaching 80 per cent lower than the baseline of greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s really where you start to get into zero-carbon territory and really where we start to see some real changes in Wales.

So, we want to understand what the Government is likely to do under the Environment (Wales) Act and also under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, which, of course, has seven well-being goals and several of them—three of them, in fact—all relate specifically to climate change. So, the context is, if anyone doubts that we should endorse an international agreement because we’re not an international nation state parliament, I accept that, but our legislation has already moved us almost there, so why should we not now state internationally that we want to join with other nations in doing that? There is, however, a weakness, and it would be remiss not to use a debate like this to highlight some of the weaknesses within the Government’s own framework.

There is a move under the environment Act for carbon budgets and interim targets, but they won’t be published until 2018, so we are losing already some of the initial impetus and movement forward that we should be having. The Welsh Labour Government has produced a programme for government, but it produced a programme for government and a draft budget before publishing its future generations Act aims, so really that is the cart before the horse—that’s talking about what you’re spending before you’ve decided what you should be spending the money on, and that is the wrong way around, and it’s a lost opportunity in this budget cycle that I hope the Government will correct in the next budget cycle.

And, unfortunately, the UK Energy and Climate Change Committee that’s examining—[Interruption.] Just in a second, if I may; I’ll just finish this point. The UK committee on climate change examining the Government’s programme for carbon reduction says that we are not going to meet our 2050 target unless we have more rigorous and more intense action. I’ll give way to Mark Reckless.

The Member says that we should know how much the Government is spending. He will recall, as do I, that before the election great play was made by the Labour Government of the £70-odd million they’d be spending every year on climate change projects. Indeed, the previous Cabinet Secretary criticised quite strongly those who thought this money might, in any sense, be better spent elsewhere, yet we learned today on our committee that, actually, over the next two years, there is going to be a 35 per cent reduction in this budget to £49 million, and the largest areas are the ones that were reclassified into this budget to give the impression of action against climate change, but were actually the flood protection, which is going down by some 45 per cent, and the fuel poverty programme to help with insulation for the poorest people in our society, which is going down by 28 per cent. What does he think that says about this Government’s actual commitment?

I did think for a second that a statement had wandered into a speech, but there we are. The Member’s right, of course, and we had the evidence this morning in the committee. The commitment has been reduced, and I think the Government has a real question to answer. My colleagues will address the energy efficiency point, in particular, during this debate, because I think there’s a challenge there for this Government to walk the talk, as it were.

I would have to say to the Member, however, that even a reduction from £70-odd million to £50 million is better than wiping out the budget altogether, which I think was in his manifesto commitments, so—.We have to say that, I think. But the rest of my speech will be concentrating on the Government’s faults in this regard.

I think we are really missing a huge opportunity here to also move ahead on renewable energy. I know that some people are sceptical here that renewable energy can possibly answer our problems, but renewable energy is just short-circuiting the several billion years it takes to create gas and coal. We have plants that can use chlorophyll to take the energy of the sun and turn it into carbon. We don’t need that anymore; our technology has moved on. We take the energy of the sun directly in solar and in wind, because wind is solar energy, and we take it and we use it directly for our own purposes. All we need is storage—storage is the missing gap—but there is immense work being done in places as far afield as Lampeter and Trefforest to develop really innovative storage solutions for renewable energy.

So, let’s take that as our opportunity, and let’s also embrace some huge challenges but important infrastructure projects like the tidal lagoon in Swansea bay, which really now must get the support of the Westminster Government and must go ahead, both in terms of infrastructure spending and skills, but also as a signal change of the approach that we’re going to take towards energy for the future. I know that the Government is supporting that, but I very much hope that the Government will be supportive in a practical way, and look at ways that it can actually support the supply chain around it, look at ways that it can really send a signal to Westminster that we’re ready to go for the tidal lagoon, and that Wales has the skills and the people and the job creation and the ambition to see that happen here.

As has already been mentioned—because my final comments were on the cuts to the capital allocation, but Mark Reckless has already mentioned those, so I’ll just conclude by saying at this stage that I’m looking forward to this debate because I really think this is something that should unite us. I really think this is something where we can argue about the detail of what should be doing to tackle climate change, but the idea is that Wales, with an honourable tradition of energy production, with a very strong skills tradition of using our natural resources for energy needs, and a very honourable tradition as well of international co-operation and collaboration, can really send a strong signal. It will be heard in Marrakesh—yes, even Wales’s voice will be heard in Marrakesh. I know the Minister would want to do that anyway, but, by coming together as an Assembly, we can make our voice heard. I also hope that the Assembly itself can be represented in Marrakesh, because I think it’s important that parliaments go to international collaborative events as well. I know that other parliaments will be there, and I hope that we will rise to that occasion.

I’d like to thank Simon Thomas for bringing this important debate forward. He is right that there is much common ground on this issue. The Paris agreement, which was 23 years in the making, is an unprecedented show of global unity on one of the most pressing issues that we face. And it is our best chance, even if it doesn’t go quite far enough, of addressing irreversible and catastrophic climate change. I also agree with him that the Government isn’t doing enough, and that there are some policies that are taking us in the wrong direction.

The most pressing example, I think, is the policy announced in the draft budget for subsidised free car parking in town centres—£3 million inserted at Plaid Cymru’s insistence on a one-off policy, for which there is no evidence, to increase car dependency. So, I think there are some issues here of double standards. And I think it’s a challenge for us all—it’s a challenge for all people in modern politics. We recognise that this is a long-term challenge, we understand the short-term pressures to take us on different paths, but we do have to have the courage of our convictions to resist that. I was deeply disappointed and very frustrated that the draft budget has included this policy, which we as a National Assembly just a few weeks ago voted against. We’ve got to resist this pork barrel politics that’s going to hit us in this Assembly without a majority, and there is a temptation to get headlines in local newspapers. But, actually, we need to be looking beyond that.

Another example is the feasibility study that Simon Thomas has been pushing for, for the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen railway line. Again, I think all of us who have done that journey would love to see that, but the truth is the cost of that feasibility study could double the number of buses covering the same route now. We could take action now. [Interruption.] Within a finite budget, Simon Thomas, it is one or the other at the moment. You negotiated something on car parking that took us in the wrong direction, and then the feasibility study into Carmarthen to Aberystwyth is taking resources away from something that could be done to tackle climate change now in the short term. I think we should—[Interruption.] I will take an intervention.

I’m just curious as to how you influence the budget, as a backbench Labour Assembly Member, if you’re so annoyed at how Plaid Cymru influenced that budget?

Well, I’m sure Ministers are listening very carefully to me now—this is how I influence the budget. I don’t have the power that a minority party has when it comes to passing the budget. But there’s a serious point here. I think we can unite around this and I would certainly agree that we should be pushing the Welsh Government for as assertive action as possible to make sure we deliver all our rhetoric on the need to address the challenges that face future generations. So, let us focus on what we can agree on.

Simon Thomas has mentioned the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, which I think has cross-party support, he’s also mentioned energy efficiency in housing, on which again, I would warmly welcome the Welsh Government doing more. Much work has been done with the Nest and the Arbed scheme and I’d like us to go beyond that. Why not take advantage of the low interest rate to invest in a more ambitious scheme? For a cost of around £3 billion, we could create 9,000 jobs on an ambitious scheme that could take significant carbon out of the environment, generate local skills, huge health benefits—and, if that was done on a UK-level, it could reduce 23 metric tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. So, we need to be imaginative. I think we need to think long term, we need to resist short-term pressures and follow the evidence of what works. I think, that way, we will honour the spirit of the Paris climate change agreement.

There’s much we can agree on, but Simon Thomas is right—there are mistakes being made currently—but I think Plaid Cymru needs to take its responsibility for their role in that too.

I’m going to concentrate on renewables, but I firstly just wanted to pick up on something Simon Thomas said about the windfarms and then the mines being closed in Aberdare. He would be mindful to know, though, that there’s still opencast mining happening at Tower, and that’s something that I want to try and pull away from here in Wales, which is why I think focusing on renewables is so important to Wales.

In 2011, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that close to 80 per cent of the world’s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid century if backed by the right enabling public policies, and, in doing so, could represent a cut of around a third in greenhouse gas emissions. So, it remains our aspiration to produce as much electricity as is consumed in Wales from renewables by 2035.

We all know that we do have such a big potential environmentally, economically and socially to reap the benefits of our natural resources. While I do support what is coming through in relation to having powers up to 350 MW, it’ll be no surprise for people here today to know that Plaid Cymru wants to see all of the powers over our natural resources devolved to this institution so that we can harness our powers and all of our potential. It was one of my gravest problems that water was reserved in the initial Government of Wales Act to Westminster, when water is a key natural resource for us and should be something that we can own and we can shape here in Wales.

I also don’t buy the argument that it isn’t possible for us here in Wales to change the landscape regardless of some of those powers not being within our grasp. The Fourth Assembly’s Environment and Sustainability Committee said in its report, ‘A Smarter Energy Future for Wales’, that it recommended setting up an umbrella not-for-profit energy service company, under which local authorities, city regions or communities can offer energy supply locally, and amending planning policy so that it prioritises local and community renewable energy projects. These are things that we have said time and again would help shape our own future here in Wales, which is why, as a Member who represents the Swansea valley, it’s great to see that there are developments there, such as Awel Aman Tawe, which are developing these smaller scale developments. But we have to see much more investment in this, because, as an idealist, I’d like to see a situation where we don’t have multinational corporations running our windfarms and taking profits away from Wales. I want to see a Wales in the future where we are running it as a nation. We need to look at countries like Denmark and other such countries in the Nordic—being vaguely obsessed with the Nordic countries for various reasons, I think we should look at what they’re doing on the environmental agenda. When you look at windfarms, they’re everywhere and it normalises how people see them and view them, and they have that very laid back approach to its development, whereas we always seem to have an issue with such developments.

Awel Aman Tawe have set up a solar PV co-operative, Egni, which develops solar PV energy on community buildings. I know that our councillors in Wrexham, for example, put efforts in place to put solar panels on all of their social housing—and I’m sure the Minister will know about that—so that, then, they not only could help those directly in those houses, but helped Wales and those social enterprises in that particular sector. It is also in the process of setting up a community windfarm consisting of two turbines in the upper Amman and Swansea valleys, and all profits from the scheme will go into the local regeneration process. They are trying to get this through, and despite local people supporting it, it still hasn’t gone through the planning stages. So, it’s all about working with community groups and schools to make sure that they understand the importance of renewable energy.

With the right infrastructure in place, including changes to the planning system, these schemes could be enabled much more so throughout Wales. I believe that there were 104 community energy schemes in Wales and there were much more—sorry to compare with Scotland again—but there were more than 11,940 individual renewable energy installations in Scotland. So, I’d like to know why we are falling behind Scotland when we’re able, surely, to be able to put much more investment into this area. Diolch yn fawr.

I’m very happy to support this motion, as is the Welsh Conservative party. Can I thank Plaid Cymru for tabling it this afternoon?

The Paris agreement, as we’ve noted, is very important. It will ensure, we hope, that we keep the temperature increase below 2 degrees centigrade and aim for a reduction of 1.5 degrees—that’s very, very ambitious and many people feel that those sorts of increases are already locked in. So, it does call for emissions to peak as soon as possible and rapid reductions thereafter. It’s very important that, as a devolved administration, as the legislature here, we examine the Executive’s priorities and commitments and what they’re identifying in their draft budget and ask these sorts of questions about how we’re going to be doing our bit to ensure that sort of progress is delivered.

I’d like to concentrate on things that affect particularly in Wales. Obviously, it’s an international agreement and there’s a lot of stuff about the partnership we lead with the developing world, which I think is very apposite—but perhaps for another day. We need partnerships with active citizens and NGOs. I really think this is crucial to the whole debate. Without citizens agreeing with the choices and urging us to make some of the choices—like, perhaps, not always having car parks in city centres and improving public transport and active travel in all sorts of ways—and also the NGOs playing that scrutiny role and coming up with best practice and developing new ideas as well. That’s clearly very, very important.

I notice that the Paris agreement does refer to cities having a key role to play in reducing emissions. I think we need a revolution in urban design, frankly, and how we live in our cities. We can turn that to our great advantage, and it does mean that we put people, particularly children, first and not motorised transport and other technologies like air conditioning, even in a climate like ours, in all sorts of buildings now. These things have to be revisited and challenged.

I was very pleased that Theresa May used her maiden speech at the UN to promise the UK’s ratification of the Paris agreement by the end of the year, and other Governments have moved ahead as well, with even more pace in some cases, so that, I do believe, the Paris agreement will become formal in terms of its enforcement on Friday. So, I think we should remember that on Friday. Key to what the states parties are promising is to have nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, and that they get reviewed every five years to make them more ambitious. I think it’s going to be very important that the devolved administrations are part of that process, and if the Minister’s got any information on that and how we will be participating in the UK’s NDC, I’d very much like to hear it.

Can I just conclude by reminding everyone how serious the current situation is? There are now levels of carbon dioxide amounting to 400 parts per million in the atmosphere: that’s 40 per cent higher than pre-industrial levels. This is measurable. This is something that cannot be refuted. There are people that question the effect of that increase on the atmosphere, of course, though I have to say, it’s overwhelmingly plausible now that that is the main contributor to the rapid increase in temperature that we’ve seen. In the last four years, more than a trillion tons of ice have been lost from the Iceland ice sheet. That would fill 400 million Olympic swimming pools. There is also now a clear danger of feedback loops developing that will accelerate the loss of ice from the Arctic. Meltwater, for example, can penetrate to the bedrock, lubricate the base and quicken the movement of glaciers. This has been called by one person ‘meltwater cannibalism’, and it is really quite a shocking thought. At the end of the last ice age, Llywydd, sea levels rose by more than a foot a decade. We don’t have as much ice as they had then, but the consequences of Arctic ice going, some of which—a fair bit in Greenland is obviously on land, and a lot of ice is on land in the Antarctic—and whilst floating ice won’t actually affect sea levels, this will, and we could be facing the rapid need to adapt to what is already locked into the system. But we should now be doing as much as possible to prevent any worse damage than is now inevitable.

Climate change, of course, is a global threat and requires a global response. International co-operation, each nation doing its part, will be essential to mitigate the threat that climate change poses, and to react to the effects of our warming world. The Paris agreement, as has been mentioned, will enter into force in two days’ time on 4 November. After being agreed in December 2015, it was ratified remarkably quickly for an international treaty, hopefully a precedent for other treaties that might be on the horizon in the not-too-distant future. It suggests that there is a growing recognition of the desperate need to do something before irreparable damage is done to our planet. It was an unexpected outcome of the conference that the emissions goal was increased beyond was previously agreed. While keeping temperatures well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels had already been decided, the agreement also now sets an aim for emissions to peak as soon as possible and for emissions from human activity and absorption by carbon sinks to balance sometime in the second half of the century.

We need to see the Welsh Government match this increasing global ambition. Every country, no matter its size, can play a meaningful role in reducing emissions, but we will need a new, radical approach. Indeed, I echo David Melding’s call for a revolution. We have seen Wales fall behind other countries, as my colleague Bethan Jenkins has mentioned. In Scotland, there has been real progress and, as a devolved country, it should act as an inspiration to us here. It’s not good enough that emissions have fallen by just 18 per cent in Wales since 1990, while sea ice shrinks and sea levels rise.

The well-being of future generations Act commits Wales to being a nation that, when doing anything to improve the economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being of Wales, takes into account of whether doing such a thing may make a positive contribution to global well-being. This must become more than a pleasant aspiration on paper. It must result in real action being taken, and urgently. The Welsh Government should start by endorsing the Paris agreement before attending the Marrakesh climate change conference later this month. This would signal that Wales takes seriously its responsibility for working to tackle climate change alongside our neighbours and as part of the global community.

The UK’s vote to leave the European Union will make things harder. Collaboration with the rest of the continent could be endangered at a time when it is needed more than ever, but it also presents Wales with an opportunity to set a distinct and more ambitious path. Given the current political atmosphere in England, it would not be surprising if we saw environmental legislation being watered down once the UK leaves the European Union. As responsibility for the environment is already devolved, Wales can be more radical and remain steadfast in our commitment to reducing emissions. On this point—I’m feeling in a very optimistic mood today—I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will today indicate whether or not her Government is prepared to take the opportunity that is coming in the coming years for Wales to take its place at every global conference and international organisation as a member in its own right, as a sub-state nation, when it comes to climate change and the environment—that we will actively seek membership for our country in global organisations where, perhaps, the European Union has represented us in the past, and to ensure that the United Kingdom does not speak for us once we have left the European Union.

Of course, the impact of leaving the EU is more than just political. EU funding that currently backs environmental projects will be lost. Programmes like Glastir, the sustainable land management scheme, will need to find alternative funding to replace the support from the EU agricultural fund for rural development. We cannot let climate change initiatives like this disappear when the funding from Europe dries up. The consequences of failing to act will be grave. There will be a huge impact upon human lives across the world. As the global temperature increases, the inhabitable areas of the world will change, causing food insecurity and leading to even more population displacement than we see now. Climate change is already an international crisis, and can only get worse if we do not act. Wales must play its own part, far bigger than the size of our population, in global efforts to prevent this disaster from happening.

‘The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway.

‘Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice are being replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

‘Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable.’

I must apologise, because I neglected to mention that this report was from 2 November 1922, as reported in the ‘Washington Post’. Yes, you all saw it coming, didn’t you? But it doesn’t make this statement any less powerful and, hopefully, thought-provoking. I brought it to your attention, this article, because I want the Members of this Assembly to critically examine the data upon which the so-called climate change debate is based. It is often quoted that the overwhelming opinion of the scientific establishment is in agreement that climate is warming due to man’s activity. What is not divulged is that the vast majority of this scientific body are not climatologists at all and that amongst true climatologists, the percentage of believers falls dramatically.

There is also a great deal of evidence to prove that anti-global-warming scientists do not get funding and their work is rarely published, whilst anyone who puts the appendage ‘due to global warming’ at the end of their work invariably gets into print. There can be no doubt that there are huge vested interests, both in the scientific and the commercial world, in promoting this global warming agenda—to say nothing of the political agenda. However, a true appraisal of the scientific data shows empirical knowledge based over a tiny historical period. Facts about the longer historical evidence are fastidiously ignored, as is evidenced by the article I have just presented.

It takes just a glance at climatic history, with unbiased perspective, to see that climate change is, in fact, cyclical. In Roman Britain, grapes were grown as far north as Newcastle, whilst, in Victorian times, the Thames froze over regularly. We are told time and time again that the ice in the Arctic is melting to critical levels. Yet, even a cursory look at the history shows this happens on a regular basis. In 1962, for instance, two American submarines met at the North Pole, crushing up through the ice, which was said to be just 2 ft thick. Submarines have been able to repeat this exercise on many occasions since. Incidentally, this would not be able to be achieved at this present time.

Looked at objectively, there is a huge amount of scientific evidence to prove the cyclical pattern of world climate, a great deal of it far more dramatic than that which we are experiencing at the present time. I leave you with one last observation: there has been no discernible temperature rise for the last 15 years—a rather embarrassing admission by no less a body than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global warming proponents put this down to a short hiatus, and I quote one article here—just a pause in this global warming cycle.

I put this paper to you for just one reason: it’s to let you know that you cannot accept, without questioning, scientific evidence that’s put before you by interested bodies. I ask you just to look at this—I will agree with all of you, and all Simon has said, and all Bethan said, with regard to us having renewables. I am a great believer in renewables. I think, in fact, that Wales should look at water-generated energy, rather than a wind-generated energy—after all, we’re one of the wettest places on earth. So, this is not to say that we shouldn’t carry on with this business, it’s simply to make you question the reasons we are doing it. Thank you.

I think we should all question the reasons we are doing this. And if we’re not to listen to interested bodies, are we to listen to disinterested bodies, then, or how are we supposed to proceed? I have to say that a bit of critical examination, which you are right to highlight as being needed in any discussion of this kind—it works both ways, really, as well as being objective and unbiased as well. So, you know, it’s right that all views are heard, but I have to say that the overwhelming—the absolute overwhelming—evidence is there, and that you cannot deny, that climate change is a reality, no matter what the ‘Washington Post’ said in 1922, with all due respect. And it’s something that we can’t get away from, and it’s something, certainly, that we won’t bury our heads in the sand about.

A’r hyn rwyf i eisiau ei wneud yn fy nghyfraniad i y prynhawn yma yw atgoffa Aelodau, fel rwyf wedi gwneud yn flaenorol yn y Siambr yma, o’r gwaith a wnaeth Pwyllgor Amgylchedd a Chynaliadwyedd y Cynulliad diwethaf. Un o’r gweithredoedd olaf gan y pwyllgor, a dweud y gwir, oedd cyhoeddi ei adroddiad ar ddyfodol ynni craffach i Gymru. Mi oedd yna lu o argymhellion, wrth gwrs, yn yr adroddiad yna, ac mae rhywun yn poeni weithiau bod rhai o’r adroddiadau yma yn mynd ar goll rhwng Cynulliadau. Ac nid wyf yn ymddiheuro am y ffaith fy mod i’n atgoffa Aelodau o fodolaeth yr adroddiad yna, ac, yn sicr, Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet hefyd, oherwydd mae rhywun yn teimlo bod nifer o’r argymhellion yna yn mynd ar goll braidd, lle bod ganddyn nhw, rwy’n teimlo, gyfraniad pwysig i’w wneud, yn enwedig, efallai, o ran prif ffocws fy nghyfraniad i, o safbwynt arbed ynni, a sicrhau ein bod ni’n lleihau’r galw sydd yna am ynni, a’n bod ni’n helpu pobl i ddefnyddio ynni yn fwy effeithlon. Er enghraifft, mae’r Almaen, fel rŷm ni’n gwybod, wedi ymrwymo erbyn 2050 i sicrhau bod 80 y cant o’i hynni yn dod o ffynonellau adnewyddadwy, ac mae hefyd wedi ymrwymo ei bod hi’n torri ei defnydd ynni mewn adeiladau gan 80 y cant hefyd. Mae un agwedd yn mynd law yn llaw â’r agwedd arall, a hynny yn ei dro, wrth gwrs, yn ôl cynlluniau’r Almaen, yn mynd i greu miliynau o swyddi a chyfrannu yn adeiladol at ei GDP hefyd.

Nawr, rŷm ni’n gwybod bod aelwydydd yn y Deyrnas Unedig yn gwario rhyw 80 y cant o’u costau ynni yn gwresogi ystafelloedd a dŵr yn y cartref. Felly, fel rŷm ni’n gwybod, mae angen inni wneud yn siŵr bod cartrefi mor effeithiol ag sy’n bosib o ran ynni i gadw gwres, ac felly, wrth gwrs, i leihau costau, yn ogystal â’r manteision eraill. Rwyf wedi sôn, wrth gwrs, ddegau o weithiau ynglŷn â’r gyfarwyddeb perfformiad ynni adeiladau sydd wedi dod o gyfeiriad yr Undeb Ewropeaidd—y nod yma sydd gennym ni, sy’n dal i fod ar hyn o bryd, am y tro beth bynnag, i fod yn agos at sero o ran allyriadau erbyn diwedd 2020. Ac mi oedd penderfyniad Llywodraeth Cymru yn y Cynulliad diwethaf, wrth gwrs, i ymgynghori ar gyrraedd safonau perfformiad ynni sy’n 25 y cant neu 40 y cant yn fwy effeithlon na safon 2010, ac wedyn dim ond mynd am 8 y cant fel canlyniad, yn siomedig.

Er bod newid, wrth gwrs, yn mynd i fod o safbwynt yr ymrwymiadau Ewropeaidd, am wn i, rŷm ni’n gorfod cwrdd â nhw, byddwn i’n awyddus i weld mai cychwyn y daith yw cyrraedd y nod honno, ac nid diwedd taith yn y pen draw. Oherwydd mae’r drefn bresennol o barhau i adeiladu tai sydd ddim yn ddigon ynni effeithlon yn cloi’r aneffeithlonrwydd yna i mewn am oes y tai yna, ac felly’n golygu nad ŷm ni’n cyflawni’r lefel o effeithlonrwydd ynni y byddem ni gyd eisiau ei gweld tra bo’r tai yna’n bodoli, heb, wrth gwrs, fynd i gost ychwanegol o retroffitio’r tai yna. Felly, mae’n yn agwedd gwbl allweddol o’r gwaith, a’r retroffitio hefyd, gan fod nifer o dai sydd gennym ni nawr yn rhai a fydd yn dal yma mewn 50 mlynedd, wrth gwrs. Mae Arbed a Nyth, fel rŷm ni wedi clywed, yn gwneud cyfraniad, ond cyfraniad pitw yw hynny, wrth gwrs, er mor bwysig yw e, yng nghyd-destun maint yr her sydd yn ein hwynebu ni. Mi oedd Plaid Cymru, wrth gwrs, am fuddsoddi biliynau o bunnau dros y ddau ddegawd nesaf i gwrdd â’r her yna, drwy’r comisiwn isadeiledd cenedlaethol i Gymru, ac rwyf yn teimlo bod yn rhaid inni godi’n gêm yn y maes yma.

Fe glywsom gyfeiriad at Ddeddf Llesiant Cenedlaethau’r Dyfodol (Cymru) 2015. Wel, wrth gwrs, rŷm ni’n sôn fan hyn nid yn unig am fanteision amgylcheddol o safbwynt lleihau allyriadau carbon, ond hefyd y manteision economaidd sylweddol o safbwynt creu swyddi, a hefyd rhai cymdeithasol o safbwynt mynd i’r afael â thlodi tanwydd. Felly, os ydym ni o ddifri ynglŷn â chyrraedd datblygu cynaliadwy yng Nghymru, ac os ydym ni o ddifri ynglŷn â chyflawni’r ymrwymiadau rŷm ni’n awyddus i’w cwrdd â nhw o safbwynt cytundeb Paris, yna mae’n rhaid inni gychwyn wrth ein traed a sicrhau ein bod ni’n lleihau’r defnydd o ynni rŷm ni’n ei ddefnyddio yng Nghymru, a gwneud hynny yn bennaf, wrth gwrs, drwy’r stoc dai.

I don’t want to fight climate change battles with climate change sceptics and climate change deniers again. I would simply say, for those who are interested in looking at where the science is on this—a very good lecture was given by Lord Stern at the Royal Society on 28 October this month on the criticality of the next 10 years, and, by the way, the challenges and the opportunities that come from that as well if we respond to it in the right way. So, I’m not going to go fighting over past battles that have frankly been put to bed.

We are in an unprecedented period of climate change, and unless we take action, and in a speedy way—. Lord Stern originally said, way back in the Stern report, that we have to take immediate action, we have to invest in the right measures, and invest in it heavily to drive forward change in mitigation and adaptation. He is now saying that we are behind the curve again. We’ve got to really speed it up. And, in fact, Lord Deben’s report that was produced last year, from the climate change commission, which was presented in the House of Commons, said exactly the same—there is now an even greater urgency to move on. And we can do it, and we all have a role, as individuals, as families, as communities, and as Government at all levels. And it was great to see last Saturday—I couldn’t go and join them because I had other meetings—that Surfers against Sewage—who wouldn’t be against sewage, frankly—together with Stop Climate Chaos were down on the beaches at Porthcawl clearing the beaches, but also—. There were 50-odd people there apparently—the youngest one was literally a baby in arms, and, of course, some people who were in more advanced years—cleaning the beach, but also talking together about what they could do locally in terms of initiatives to make the planet better and to develop community energy schemes and so on.

I was there back in 2009 when the Cumbria floods happened—when they hit. I was actually standing in the Met Office. Hilary Benn, Secretary of State at the time, had brought together, in a great innovation, the Met Office and the Environment Agency in a flood forecasting centre in London. I was there looking at the panels as we were able to say, with around about 36 hours’ advanced notice, the scale of what was going to hit us, and it did hit. As we know, the cost to Cumbria was not far short of £300 million damage, economically, to the local area. Bridges were swept away and rivers changed their courses overnight. Bill Barker, a local policeman, lost his life on a bridge that was swept away in the floods. And there was more besides: the devastation to hundreds, if not thousands of people, who weren’t out of their houses temporarily, but for months, and in some cases, actually, for years to come as well. Since then, we’ve seen more and more and more.

There can be nothing controversial now about saying that the frequency and the intensity of traumatic weather incidents here and abroad is recognised by everybody as being more severe, more frequent, more devastating for lives. And whilst it hits us in this country—. And I was there, by the way, as well when we produced the maps that were showing the scare stories in the newspapers of the land that showed the potential, over the next 50 to 100 years, of coastal inundation, and we saw what the effects of that would be in places like East Anglia and the Fenland. But we also produced the action plans and the toolkit that would say what we could do to actually avoid this happening in its entirety—to work with nature where we had to and to defend where we had to as well. There are ways out of these situations if we choose to actually do it. But it is pressing and it is urgent.

It was great that the Welsh Government was represented there last year at COP21 in Paris, and they were not only part of the negotiations that were going on but also the ratification of what would be done by policy makers, then, in the regions and in the nations here on the ground. I was there as part of the global alliance of legislatures, looking at the practical implementation of what flowed from COP21. And COP21 was significant—we had, for the first time, the big, global players that we needed to be there. There was agreement that that wasn’t the end of it—that was only the start of it. We then needed to ratchet it up.

That, I think, is where we need to look here at Wales. How do we ratchet it up? How ambitious are we going to be? In my final comments, let me say: we can do this—we can do this. How intent are we at keeping fossil fuels in the ground? How intent are we at driving community energy and clean, green energy, and at building green jobs around that, using energy efficiency as national infrastructure to boost economic growth, and using renewables, including the tidal lagoon? It’s absolutely scandalous that we’re not using the second-highest tidal drop in the world right on our doorstep here. What more can we do with liquefied petroleum gas and with getting rid of petrol and diesel and moving to LPG and electric transport? A development of a south Wales and north Wales integrated, low-cost public transport—decarbonised system or low-carbon system; incentivising carbon reduction in the higher-intensive industries, including down the road here in the steel industry; not just zero-carbon homes, but energy-positive homes, like the SOLCER house; and recognising and explicitly rewarding public and environmental goods, including climate change adaptation and flood alleviation in our rural and agricultural policies—all that and so much more. We have led the way in Wales before. We can do it again, and we can do even more. And I think there’s a will in this Chamber today to urge the Minister to be bold and all her colleagues as well.

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

Diolch, Lywydd. I’m really pleased that Plaid Cymru have brought forward this debate on climate change today, especially in the run-up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP22, in Marrakesh, where I will be attending to participate in discussions on this global challenge.

As we’ve heard, last year, my colleague Carl Sargeant, in his role as Minister for Natural Resources at the time, was present in Paris at COP21 and worked with other key partners to add to the momentum for a global deal. This included a private meeting with the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, along with a small group of other state and regional governments, who are acknowledged as global leaders, where he discussed our collective impact to deliver climate action. So, although we cannot formally ratify the agreement ourselves, the Welsh Government has, of course, welcomed the commitment by the UK Government to do so.

So, 2015 was a momentous year, where we saw the adoption of the UN sustainable development goals and the agreement on a binding international framework for tackling climate change at the Conference of the Parties 21, where a new international agreement was signed by 195 national Governments. This not only sets the context for tackling the causes and consequences of climate change, but it also sets the context for the decarbonisation of the global economy.

In terms of today’s motion and point 1, the Welsh Government supports the motion and endorses the Paris agreement. Our Environment (Wales) Act 2016 provides us with the legislation to enable us to play our global part and deliver on this important agreement. The Paris agreement locks in a long-term objective to avoid catastrophic climate change and sets a long-term goal for net zero emissions in the second half of this century, which all countries will work together to achieve.

Colleagues will be aware that our environment Act received Royal Assent this year and was purposely designed with the international context in mind. The Act requires us to reduce our emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050, but more importantly, there are also provisions in the Act to increase this target in the future, allowing us to keep up to date with advances in technology, international policy and the latest scientific evidence. So, our aim for at least an 80 per cent target reduction by 2050 is in line with wider UK and EU obligations.

Wales, along with the UK, is part of a leading group of countries taking legislative action to tackle climate change. Similarly, the environment Act requires us to set interim targets for 2020, 2030 and 2040, with a series of five-yearly carbon budgets to review our progress and ensure that we’re on track to meet our targets. We’re also required to set the interim targets and the first two carbon budgets by the end of 2018, taking into account a number of areas, such as science, technology and the most recent ‘Future Trends’ report, to name a few, which will take time to complete all of the analysis. By setting interim targets and carbon budgets, we can ensure ongoing and progressive reduction, based on evidence, technology and lead-in time. We’ll also need to take advice from the advisory body on what levels to set the budgets, ensuring that we are robust.

The Paris agreement put in place a global mechanism for countries to have national decarbonisation plans, to reduce emissions and revisit these every five years from 2020, with a view to raising ambition in the future. This is similar and very much in line with our environment Act framework, which requires a report to be published at each five-yearly budgetary period, setting out proposals and policies for meeting the carbon budget, including the areas of responsibility for each Welsh Government Minister’s portfolio. These policies and proposals will form our delivery plan, providing transparency and accountability, designed to help deliver emission savings and provide certainty to drive investment for a low-carbon economy.

Last year at COP21 the Welsh Government became a founding signatory of the RegionsAdapt initiative, which focuses on the adaptation actions we can deliver as state and regional Governments. These examples underline that partnership working at state and regional level can deliver action on a global scale, contrary to the myth that our action in Wales has no impact globally. More widely, the agreement continues the commitment to help developing countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. Members will be aware of our Wales for Africa programme, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year. Over the past five years, over 4.2 million trees have been planted in Mbale, Uganda. The project, which is part of Size of Wales, focuses on poverty alleviation and climate change adaptation and mitigation. As part of the celebration, I’m aware that my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for health was in Uganda last week. I think it’s very apparent that, as a result of this project, dozens of community-based tree nurseries promoting agri-forestry across the Mbale region have been created, and that has raised awareness of climate change to thousands of people, both in Uganda but also here at home.

Turning to point 2 of the motion, we again support this. I will not only be taking a message to Marrakesh about how, here in Wales, we endorse the agreement, but also about how, here in Wales, we already have legislation in place to deliver on this important long-term goal. I will also, in Marrakesh, be able to highlight our very pioneering legislation that’s already gaining international recognition, along with our action on waste, natural resource management and our Wales for Africa programme. As part of my visit, and as the vice-president of the international Network of Regional Governments for Sustainable Development, I’ll be taking an active part in a number of events and meetings highlighting the significant impact we are making, but also I will use the opportunity to learn from others.

Another important message I think I need to give is that we need to deliver on this commitment, not only for legislative reasons, but more importantly the case for action on climate change is very clear, and is a case that’s fundamental to our prosperity, our resilience and the health of our society, framing all aspects of our future.

If I can just turn to a couple of points that have been raised by Members, I heard what Mark Reckless said about the £70 million, and I had scrutiny before committee this morning. I think it was very good that Simon Thomas helpfully reminded us that UKIP wanted to remove the climate change budget completely. Climate change actions and policies are absolutely cross-government, so that £70 million will be across all portfolio activities, not just my own. But I hope that I did reassure committee members this morning about that.

I have a very wide and diverse portfolio, and I think part of that, the renewable energy part of the portfolio, is very exciting, particularly in areas where we’re working with community energy projects. Just last week, I opened the Taff Bargoed hydro scheme, and I’ve also visited a community windfarm. It’s very good to see how these communities are coming together, and how we’re able to support them.

I absolutely agree with Lee Waters about the energy efficiency programmes Arbed and Nest. I also think it’s important that we know more about the condition of our houses and our housing stock, and I’m co-funding a survey with my colleague Carl Sargeant, the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children, in relation to obtaining that information.

I think the point Steffan Lewis made about whether we’ll be able to be a member in our own right post EU is a very good one. How good would that be, to be able to go and do that? So, that’s something we can look at. Llyr Gruffydd referred to the ‘Energy Wales: A low carbon transition’ report, and Welsh Government will be bringing forward a response to that before the Christmas break. Also, like Huw Irranca-Davies said, you don’t want to argue again regarding climate change. The scientific evidence is very, very clear. Climate change is happening. Greenhouse gas emissions from man are extremely likely to be the dominant cause. Human influence on our climate is very clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.

So, in conclusion, I do welcome this debate today and I very much look forward to representing Welsh Government in Marrakesh at COP22.

I call upon Simon Thomas to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’d like to thank everyone who took part, and begin by particularly thanking the Cabinet Secretary for her endorsement of today’s motion, and particularly the way she set out how our own legislation does in fact help us deliver our commitment within Paris, something that I set out at the beginning as well. I was particularly interested to hear what she said about the RegionsAdapt initiative and how we can play our role there. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, and that’s exactly, I think, what we want to unite behind when we send a Minister to somewhere like Marrakesh. This is not a party political issue in that sense, which is why I was a bit disappointed with Lee Waters’ contribution, which seemed to be more designed to react to Plaid Cymru bringing this forward rather than the content of what we brought forward. But, there we are.

The rest of the contributions were varied and positive on the whole. I particularly want to start with David Melding’s contribution, because I thought he made a very important point: that this has gone beyond countries. It’s gone beyond state actors; this is now something that we all own. I think I’d particularly like to bring the attention of the Chamber to the fact that Paris before Christmas was followed by Paris in the springtime with the business and climate summit, where 6.5 million businesses were represented, which also agreed to bring forward their own business plans in line with the Paris objectives. This is reality. This isn’t arguing the toss about 1922 newspaper cuttings. This is what business is doing today, and this is what the voluntary sector, community NGOs and the wider sectors are doing, and that’s what we really want to work with. David Melding also reminded us that NASA figures now show that we’ve passed that very important threshold of 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. The last time we had that threshold we had dinosaurs roaming the earth and no ice at either of the poles.

That brings me to UKIP’s contribution, to which I have to say: you know, you can take a 1922 newspaper clipping if you want and you can put that against 97 per cent of the scientific community who say that climate change is happening. Yes, it’s happened over millennia; yes, it’s happened for billions of years; but it’s happening now and it’s exacerbated by man’s effect on the environment. And that’s the thing we have to get into contact with. And, yes, there are vested interests, David Rowlands. Let me tell you about the vested interests: £26 million spent lobbying EU parliamentarians, just between October 2013 and March 2015, by oil and gas companies. That’s the vested interest that’s holding us back.

There’s no conspiracy here. A low-carbon future for Wales is good for our health, it’s good for our economy, it’s good for our environment, it’s good for the next generation, and it gives us more independence because we’re not reliant on importing oil and gas. What conspiracy is here to somehow say that climate change is being used to bash people? This is about the future. Sorry, you’re in the past. Stay there, because we don’t want to change the trajectory that we’re going on.

I cannot. I’ve answered your points in summing up and I now must sum up. [Interruption.] You’ve had five minutes. I’ve answered your points in summing up. I must make progress.

He is not taking an intervention and you are not heard.

I must make progress, because everyone has had their chance to be heard and now is my chance to respond to what they said.

I’d like to thank Bethan for particularly bringing attention to energy noir, as it were—the really positive side of energy in the Scandinavian countries. I’m glad to say I went to Denmark myself three weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, crossing the bridge several times a day, but more importantly learning about community ownership. I visited an offshore windfarm there with several dozen turbines, but two of the turbines were owned by 10,000 individuals—two turbines owned by 10,000 people. Now, if they can organise it in Denmark, we can organise it here. Yes, we have community energy schemes; yes, we have Ynni Ogwen and things like that; but, we really must get to a deconstructed grid where you can really own your local energy and then contribute out with that. That’s where the future lies and that’s what they do in north-west Germany at the moment with a very exciting project there where they’re using wind energy in remote areas that don’t really produce for manufacturing—a lot like mid Wales—and then contribute it back to the rest of Germany. So, that’s really important.

Steffan Lewis made an important point about leaving the European Union and I think, to be fair, the Cabinet Secretary also responded to that point. Llyr Huws Gruffydd made a very important point to remind us of the National Assembly’s environment committee report, which I think is still valid reading, on a smarter energy future. It’s very much based on some international comparisons as well, particularly the Energiewende in the German context.

Finally, Huw Irranca-Davies, thank you for your experience dealing with the floods and being part of a Government that has had to deal with some of the challenges that come from there. You’re right to remind us of Nicholas Stern, who I think is a Welsh resident, and his hard work over the years, not only to persuade us that climate change is happening, but also to persuade us that we have a role in it, and more importantly to say that we created it, but we can solve it as well. This is about technology. This is about the future. This is about the way we organise our lives. No conspiracy, no going back to the past, just seize the future, and Wales could be at the forefront of that.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? The motion without amendment is therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The next item is the Welsh Conservatives’ debate on broadband access, and I call on Russell George to move the motion.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’d like to move the motion in the name of Paul Davies and indicate my party’s support for both of Plaid Cymru’s amendments today. We won’t be supporting the Government’s amendment today, on the grounds that it doesn’t adequately reflect and acknowledge the failure in delivering the Welsh Government’s 2011 programme for government commitment to provide next generation broadband to all premises by 2015.

Neither does its amendment indicate any kind of urgency in using the levers at its disposal to get on and sort out the lack of mobile coverage in large areas of Wales. Beyond a loose intention to work with the regulator and network operators, and an intention to reform the planning system, and an intention to reflect on the Scottish Government’s mobile action plan, there is very little in the way of commitments to reassure communities across Wales that find themselves without adequate broadband connectivity or mobile coverage.

Now, Deputy Presiding Officer, I don’t want to be ungenerous to the Government; the Superfast Cymru project has undoubtedly improved the availability of fibre broadband across Wales, benefiting both residents and businesses in the intervention areas, and I for one get very excited when I see an Openreach van parked up at various locations in my constituency, working on a particular green cabinet, but let’s just state the facts here: it’s undeniable that the Welsh Government has failed to deliver on its 2011 ambition to, and I quote,

‘ensure that all residential premises and all businesses in Wales will have access to Next Generation Broadband by 2015, with the ambition that 50 per cent or more have access to 100Mbps.’

Now, the reality is that we are well off providing universal broadband access to next generation broadband, and according to Ofcom’s ‘The Connected Nations Report 2015’, only 26 per cent of premises have download speeds of 100 Mbps. So, that’s just half of the Government’s stated objective. Now, a couple of weeks ago, my colleague, Darren Millar, responded to the Minister in regards to a statement, and what he said was the Government has overpromised about superfast broadband and failed to deliver, and the Minister dismissed his comments. Well, he is correct: the goalposts have been repeatedly moved, people have been fobbed off, and businesses have been unable to plan for the future. Constituents keep asking me why the Welsh Government just can’t let them know when their business or property is going to have superfast broadband. They get told ‘yes’, then they get told ‘maybe’, and then they get told ‘no’. All people want is to be able to have the Welsh Government be upfront with them on whether or not they’re going to receive an upgrade. So, I would urge the Minister to bring forward a timescale for your commitment to provide a contract to extend superfast broadband access to every property in Wales.

Now, given the fact that you have a gain share written into the Superfast Cymru contract, whereby the Welsh Government receives a profit share where take-up reaches more than 21 per cent in any area, I do ask why the Welsh Government has not been focused on broadband as it should have been, and why exploitation so far has been so woeful. Now, my understanding is that 0.6 per cent of the original budget allocation for the Superfast Cymru project was dedicated to marketing and communications, so I would say that there’s little wonder that Wales has still the highest level of people who do not use the internet in Britain, and the Welsh Government, I’d say, can’t be bothered to encourage people to use it, in spite of spending hundreds of millions of pounds in trying to provide it. Indeed, the evaluation of the next generation broadband Wales programme highlighted the lack of coherence and strategic approach to marketing and communications and has criticised the Welsh Government’s 50 per cent take-up target for its lack of ambition, when take-up is already expected to approach 80 per cent by 2020. So I would be grateful if the Minister could set out today how the Welsh Government intends to encourage universal take-up of next generation broadband and how it intends to improve digital literacy, which I suggest will be essential for Wales’s future economic prosperity.

Now, my inbox, on a regular basis, is full of people with concerns about their lack of broadband. Every day, I’ve got more than one e-mail asking me when they’re going to get broadband in their particular area. The other issue filling my postbag—or my inbox, now, probably, more to the point—is in regards to mobile coverage. Now, I’d say it’s essential that the Welsh Government uses the devolved levers at its disposal to work with the regulator and network operators to promote the telecoms infrastructure investment and network deployment. Members will be aware our motion also indicates the Scottish Government’s approach. The Scottish Government doesn’t have any additional powers to the Welsh Government in this area, yet they have put in place a mobile action plan, which commits to non-domestic rate relief for new mobile masts in non-commercial areas, reform of the planning system to support commercial investment in mobile infrastructure, and improving public sector assets for the telecoms industry, and various forms of collaborative work with the telecoms industry. In contrast, the Welsh Government in its amendment to this motion commits to reflecting on the progress made by the Scottish Government. Why don’t you just get on with it and bring forward a similar plan for Wales?

The Welsh Government is consistently, I’d say, playing catch-up here. The UK Government has already implemented proposals making it easier to upgrade existing sites and build new masts, and, in spite of representations from the mobile network operators and from myself, correspondence to your previous Minister, Carl Sargeant, still we have not reformed permitted development rights here in Wales, and we’re lagging behind England and Scotland. Please, Minister, don’t tell me that you’re going to have discussions with colleagues. Don’t tell me that your officials are talking to other officials. Tell me that you have an agreed plan of action, and that you have a timetable.

I very much hope that Members will contribute to this debate today, and I very much hope to have a positive response and a plan of action from the Minister.

Thank you very much. I have selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, then amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Skills and Science to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally.

Formally. Thank you. I call on Dai Lloyd to move amendments 2 and 3 tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Dai Lloyd.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very pleased to take part in this discussion today, and I’m also very pleased to recognise that the Conservatives have accepted our two amendments. So, superfast broadband—we naturally accept and celebrate the fact that over 89 per cent of homes in Wales can have access to superfast broadband. It’s important to recognise that, but, of course, experiences in some local authorities in Wales are very different. Some are doing very well—in Merthyr, 98.32 per cent of households can receive superfast broadband, and in Blaenau Gwent, 97.9 per cent of households can have the same broadband. But, some local authorities—mainly those in rural areas—are missing out.

As I’ve said in this Chamber before, in Ceredigion, only 60.4 per cent of households can have superfast broadband. In Powys, only 65.67 per cent of houses can have the same superfast broadband service. BT figures this week confirm that less than 1 per cent of Welsh houses have a speed lower than 2 Mbps and less than 7 per cent of Welsh homes are under 10 Mbps. We understand, of course, that ensuring access to this service is going to be more difficult in some rural areas and in some urban areas where there are local problems, such as planning restrictions or physical restrictions that prevent laying cables. While it’s obvious that we need more expenditure to target these areas, we also need to recognise that we need to see more local co-ordination between individuals and community groups in order to deliver a superfast service.

The Welsh Government’s access to broadband scheme, of course, is one that allows individuals to make an application for financial support, but the purpose of our amendment today is to give local authorities a prominent role, so that there is an expectation that local authorities co-operate with local groups in a strategic way, rather than the reactive system that is characteristic of the current system that we have.

Once the infrastructure is in place, it’s obvious that we need to make the most of the economic opportunities and social opportunities that arise from that access. It’s worth noting, of course, that fewer than one in every three people who can have a superfast service do take advantage of that service. The Government has already introduced a marketing and communication campaign in order to promote the use of broadband once it’s available in areas, but we need to look at the effectiveness of this campaign to ensure that more individuals and businesses make use of the new technology that is available.

This technology is vital for Wales as we try to close the huge gulf with the rest of the UK and Europe. I welcome the fact that BT Wales is introducing the G.fast service in Swansea, and I’m looking forward to seeing the review of this pilot scheme. But, as we welcome the fact that some parts of Swansea can have a speed of about 500 Mbps as their superfast broadband as part of this pilot, we must not forget those areas that still don’t receive a basic service. On that basis, I encourage Members to support the amendments that we’ve tabled. Thank you very much.

Digital connectivity is critical in our modern-day lives. Digital skills are becoming increasingly essential for getting access to a range of products and services. Those people equipped with the knowledge and tools to engage with the digital technologies tend to earn higher wages, reflecting their greater productivity. However, in Wales, a lack of digital infrastructure and poor digital skills mean that communities across the country face high levels of digital exclusion.

Wales has the highest average of people who do not use the internet in Britain. Welsh Government targets to provide high-speed broadband to homes and businesses have been missed. Deadlines have been extended with damaging consequences for jobs and the economy. The relentless pace of emerging digital technologies has already transformed the way we communicate and work. Businesses require a workforce with high-level specialist skills.

The Tinder Foundation reported that, already, almost 90 per cent of new jobs require digital skills. They found that 72 per cent of employers said they’re unwilling to interview candidates who do not have basic IT skills. A study in 2014 concluded that 35 per cent of jobs could become automated over the next 20 years. Jobs in office and administrative support, transportation, sales and services, construction and manufacturing are the ones most likely to be computerised or automated. This is the challenge facing Wales—a challenge that Welsh Government is failing to meet. In Wales today [Interruption.]—Yes, go on.

I thank the Member for taking an intervention and give my full welcome to the decision by Google Digital Garage to actually come to Wales for a period of three months to set up training schemes here in Wales—in fact, the first two days were in my own constituency in Port Talbot. The Welsh Government has been very much involved with them to actually bring them into Wales, so we can get that digital training.

That’s good news, but still we’re lagging behind many other countries. In Wales today, over 14 per cent never use the internet. That is a fact, David. Thirty-eight per cent are without basic digital skills. How are they going to employ people? Basic start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises lose out because of a shortage of domestic workers. I recognise that employers of low-skilled staff have a duty to upskill their workforce. But the Welsh Government must ensure that what is taught in the schools and colleges matches the requirement of businesses in Wales.

The digital competence framework aims to develop digital skills that are useful in everyday life and transferrable to the world of work. I welcome this. However, it is hard to see how effective this framework will be without complete roll-out of broadband infrastructure and effective skills training for teachers and parents.

Education is the engine for a more digitally skilled workforce. The Welsh education system must be designed to equip everyone with strong numeracy and literacy skills, including information literacy. Evidence shows that students who were only exposed to digital education in designated ICT classes suffered a distinct disadvantage when compared to those whose schools chose to mainstream technology and digital skills across the curriculum. But, students using technology in the classroom by itself if not enough.

Will you take another intervention?

Go on, David.

Again, thank you for taking the intervention. Do you therefore welcome Donaldson’s review, which puts digital competency and digital framework at the heart of some its work, and therefore the curriculum will actually involve what you’re actually saying?

Yes, I agree with it. That’s what I’m saying, we are lagging because of the policies in the past by the Labour Government. We are lagging behind; that’s what we are trying to work out to get it on board as soon as possible.

But, students using technology in the classroom by itself is not enough. This only translates into learning key digital skills through good teaching. Given the pace of technological advances, schools need to keep up with the latest innovations. Teachers need to be continuously upskilled so that digital skills can become more mainstream rather than as a stand-alone subject.

We must not underestimate the role of parents. Parents who are familiar with IT and regularly use it are able to play a crucial role in their children’s IT use in a way that does not distract from learning. So, parents need the resources at home to enable this to happen. Deputy Presiding Officer, the Welsh Government must ensure that investment in digital infrastructure and skills matches the pace of growth in this sector. This is vital if Wales is to secure a place as a digital world leader. Thank you.

I commend the Welsh Conservatives for bringing this motion before the Assembly today. Russell George I think set out very neatly the problems that we’ve faced in the past and the limitations of what the Government has on offer for us for the future. UKIP will support the motion and, indeed, the Plaid Cymru amendments to it, and I hope that they will commend themselves to the majority of Members.

I thought what Russell George said about the Government’s lack of urgency does require some emphasis and underlining in bringing superfast broadband to the overwhelming majority of Welsh people. Admittedly, the Superfast Cymru programme has brought a rapid advance, and that’s to be greatly welcomed, but I still think we have to compare ourselves with other parts of the United Kingdom and indeed other parts of Europe to see how far behind we are in Wales. According to the thinkbroadband website, today, 88.3 per cent of households in Wales get speeds of 24 Mbps, but the measure in Scotland is not 24 Mbps, but 30—[Interruption.] Sorry?

It’s 30 Mbps here too.

Sorry. Well, in that case, I apologise and I congratulate the Government on following Scotland. [Laughter.] I should’ve been a diplomat, really.

But the regional and constituency variations, of course, are disguised within that global figure. If we take my region of Mid and West Wales, against the Welsh average of 89.4 per cent for 24 Mbps, it goes down, for Ceredigion, to 58 per cent; Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, 61 per cent; Montgomeryshire, 61 per cent; Brecon and Radnor, 63 per cent; and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, 74 per cent. For Llanelli, it’s 92 per cent and that’s the only constituency in the entire region that exceeds the Welsh national average. I do think that this is totally unacceptable in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Businesses depend, overwhelmingly today, for their success, and Wales depends, for a great deal of its prosperity, upon connectivity at the right speed and it’s holding us back in so many different ways.

One point that has not been made in the debate today that I think deserves some attention is broadband penetration by socio-economic group in Wales. According to the Ofcom report in 2015—which I appreciate will have been, to an extent, overtaken by recent developments—but in 2015, only 63 per cent of adults on household incomes below £17,500 a year had taken up broadband, in comparison with 92 per cent above that £17,500-a-year threshold. So, digital exclusion for those at the lower end of the income scale is a reality of which I think we should collectively be ashamed, in this Assembly, that we’ve got into this state now. It can’t come too soon that we should improve these statistics.

Russell George in his speech referred to a groaning postbag, or digital postbag, of complaints, and although he probably gets more from Montgomeryshire than I do, I do get some from his county, but also of course from other counties within my region. It is extraordinary really how, within a very short distance of a relatively urban area, people can be almost totally bereft of connectivity. I’ve stayed at the Waun Wyllt hotel at Five Roads near Llanelli, for example, which is just a stone’s throw from Llanelli—unable to get any mobile signal at all. It’s a big problem, I think, for many rural hotels and other businesses, that their businesses are held back by the lack of what is now regarded as an absolute necessity for modern living, not just for business purposes, but also for human interaction in so many different ways.

I have a complaint from a constituent in Llanwrda in Carmarthenshire who says he’s been waiting for fibre for many years, but his BT internet speed remains a pitiful 0.2 Mbps. He says: ‘I realise installing fibre is a difficult project, but on nine ocassions, Openreach or Superfast Cymru have given me a timeframe but then rolled it back when they’ve been unable to produce. In June 2016, my installation date was moved yet again and became September 2016’—and he still doesn’t have a connection, even now. I realise that that’s just an individual case, but if it was just one individual case, not one of many, then we could ignore it—not ignore it, but at least we could put it into perspective. But because there are so many of these instances, even now, I believe that the Government not only should be held to account for its past failures, but also for its present lack of urgency in rolling out a proper superfast broadband connectivity programme for the whole of Wales.

This debate is very timely, especially given some of the difficulties now presenting on broadband matters across Wales, and not least of all within Aberconwy. Rather than cultivating connectivity, the Welsh Government now has on their hands a major digital divide, with many caught up in a postcode lottery to access and download speed. Just 60 per cent of properties in rural Wales have access to a fixed speed of 10 Mbps, compared with 95 per cent in urban areas. I have many constituents who cannot even obtain speeds of even 1 Mbps, and similarly, Wales has the worst 3G coverage out of the devolved nations. A particular issue for my constituency is that a lot of the premises in the rural areas of Aberconwy are connected to cabinets that are simply miles away from their properties. Consequently, even when the cabinets have been upgraded with fibre to the cabinet, premises cannot take advantage of the digital development. The phone line connectivity and the basic infrastructure simply isn’t there, and it will come as no surprise that Conwy and Denbighshire have the lowest rate of internet usage, with 18 per cent of people not using this vital resource, now seen as an essential fourth utility.

For our Welsh farmers, the Welsh Government has moved farming applications and registrations online, such as Rural Payments Wales and EID Cymru. However, without a reliable connection, many farmers now have to outsource this work, at cost, or potentially face serious penalties. In 2014, nearly £0.5 million was accrued in penalties by our hard-working farmers: it simply isn’t fair. The failure to provide superfast broadband to many remote areas has actually served to increase the isolation of our rural communities, creating a massive digital divide between the haves and the have-nots. With banks closing on a weekly basis, it is assumed by city banks that business owners will simply go online, but if only they could. It is now, therefore, a given that all communities must have access to next generation broadband and the taste of connectivity that other parts of the UK simply take for granted. Ninety per cent of small businesses in Wales have cited that a reliable interconnection is crucial to their operations, and seen equally as important as any other basic utility. So why, therefore, is it that only 58 per cent of homes and businesses have access to superfast broadband that works effectively?

But I would, in speaking, like to thank the Minister Julie James AM for her advice and assistance with some of the tricky issues I’ve raised with her department recently. I actually do believe that you are doing your best to fulfil the targets promised and those aims. But, I have to say, there needs to be a corporate approach by this Welsh Government with all Cabinet Secretaries and the First Minister himself, to provide more resources and to provide you with the support to carry out your work and the task ahead of you.

North Wales has just recently been named in ‘Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2017’ as one of the top regions in the world—fantastic. But if those in the hospitality industry and our rural businesses are only offering a third-class internet service, this is going to impact negatively. It is estimated that an increase in digital capabilities of SMEs across the UK could unlock economic returns of £18.8 million. These must be supported to capitalise on such opportunity.

Digital growth is key to driving forward innovation in our economy, with 12 per cent of GDP being generated through the internet. However, in Wales, we have an outdated infrastructure to support a faster broadband provision. Issues raised locally at surgeries of mine are that BT Openreach and superfast broadband simply don’t talk to one another—silo working. There isn’t a joined-up approach when difficulties arise, and a lot of buck passing takes place. So, it does follow that, on behalf of the people and businesses in Aberconwy, I want to place on record my extreme disappointment that the previous Welsh Government failed to deliver on its own ambition in the 2011 programme for government that all residential premises and businesses in Wales would have access to next-generation broadband.

The recent statement by the Minister makes clear that £12.9 million of funding generated through predicted take-up levels can, hopefully, be used to provide superfast broadband access ahead of the end of the current contract on 27 December. However, I agree that this extra funding will only go part of the way to addressing the remaining unconnected premises and more focus must be placed on BT’s overall performance as regards their infrastructure. Again, I would reiterate, I am asking the Welsh Government to support and act on the calls of the Minister Julie James AM to look to extend deployment to 2018 and beyond, to take up the mantle and to ensure that this fourth utility is delivered universally.

Although digital connectivity is now critical to our day-to-day lives, too many communities across Wales face high levels of digital exclusion, and Wales has the highest rate of non-internet usage in the UK. Against its target for the Superfast Cymru project to reach 96 per cent of properties existing in 2011, the Welsh Government has extended the completion of the build phase to June 2017, following an open market review that showed that the number of premises needing to be addressed under the project had increased. When I questioned the Minister for Skills and Science regarding this in the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, she stated the Welsh Government was

‘only allowed to intervene in the market where no commercial operators said they would go.’

She cited, for example, no Superfast Cymru in central Wrexham, Swansea and Cardiff accordingly. She said that

‘if you look at a map of Superfast Cymru, it excludes all of the areas where the commercial company said that they would roll out.’

But when they conducted another open market review, after concerns were raised with her by many Members, including myself, this showed that the commercial operators have revised their plans and would not be rolling out into those industrial areas. She added that, in consequence, 42,000 premises had been added to the original target and the deadline extended by a year.

FibreSpeed in north Wales was developed as a public-private partnership after winning a competitive tender from the Welsh Government to provide high-speed broadband services across north Wales industrial estates, business parks and other locations to increase economic growth. The Welsh Government made a significant investment in this, understood to run into many millions. Questioning the then Deputy Minister for Skills and Technology here in June 2014, I referenced a letter sent to Members by FibreSpeed expressing concern that the FibreSpeed investment had been overbuilt by Superfast Cymru and that they were seeking guidance from the EU Commission on potential breach of EU state aid rules. In an October 2014 letter to Members, the Deputy Minister for Skills and Technology, who is also the current Minister for Skills and Science, responded to my question, stating that through discussions with FibreSpeed Ltd, and via a prior legal technical exercise undertaken by the Welsh Government, the 2014 open-market review had determined that the 793 postcodes serving business-only premises would now be included in the scope of the new Superfast Cymru infill project on the basis that FibreSpeed does not intend to provide broadband connectivity to business premises in the future and its pricing is deemed unaffordable. So, Minister, the Welsh Government has some serious questions to answer. How many millions of thousand pounds were wasted on a Welsh Government project resulting from a Welsh Government tender? What went wrong and why were FibreSpeed placed in this position?

Responding to me in committee, you also stated that the Welsh Government had just specified a percentage and number in its Superfast Cymru contract and that it’s entirely up to the deliverer, BT, to get to the premises number. However, we also understand that BT missed out many thousands of users by classifying premises such as student halls of residence and holiday parks as single addresses. In north Wales, I’ve attended two meetings with the British Holiday and Home Parks Association’s Clwyd branch and BT Wales’s next-generation access manager to address the provision of broadband in rural Wales, which continues to affect park businesses and their ability to meet the demands of customers—the visitors on whom the north Wales tourist economy depends, echoing the comments made by my colleague Janet Finch-Saunders. The BT programme manager has proved an invaluable contact for them, providing information on current and future provision, including the Welsh Government scheme to help businesses such as these to access fibre on demand. However, park businesses have told me that the problem is finding someone to sell the product. BT Local Business denied all knowledge of the Welsh Government fibre-on-demand scheme, and when they finally tracked down a company prepared to sell this, it was in England. As they stated, it gripes them to go to an English company to buy a Welsh project that is financially supported by the Welsh Government. They added that, for one thing, retail price put it out of the reach of many businesses in Wales.

Against England’s 95 per cent target, the UK Government published the findings of its £10 million innovation fund pilot for the final 5 per cent most remote communities in England in February. So, finally, Minister, when and how will the Welsh Government take action to reach the final 4 per cent of premises here, and not just the first 96 per cent? Thank you.

I call on the Minister for Skills and Science, Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I begin by thanking the Welsh Conservatives for bringing forward this motion today? I also thank Members for their contributions to the debate. I thank them because it’s very clear that there is a critical importance around digital infrastructure for the people, communities and the economy of Wales. As has been made very clear in the contributions today, there is no need to reiterate the growing importance of high-quality fast broadband connections to both homes and businesses right across Wales. I will just bother to reiterate that, as the Welsh Government, we have made it more than plain that we want as many people as possible to be able to access fast, reliable broadband services and, crucially, for them to be able to make the most of that access.

Mark Isherwood did a very good job for me in explaining how the superfast project worked, and I’m very grateful to him for that, but I will just reiterate a couple of the points. Superfast Cymru is a project that is designed to deliver 30 Mbps downloads, and not 24 Mbps, to the people of Wales. It is a market intervention. That means that, without the intervention of a Government programme, we would not have had any superfast or other roll-out of any kind of broadband service to those areas that could not command a commercial market.

We have been in conversation with the UK Government about this for quite some time, and I’m delighted that the UK Government has now seen fit to bring forward a Bill that puts a universal service obligation in place, but it is important to remember that this is not currently considered to be infrastructure. So, this is not something that we can just go and do whenever we want to. We can’t just throw money at it and build some more or anything else. We have to go through a state aid programme in order to do a market intervention. So, it’s been a long time coming to get it to be a universal service obligation. We’re delighted with that, but Members would do well to remember that the universal service obligation currently proposes 10 Mbps and not 24 Mbps or 30 Mbps, and that we’re currently working very hard to make the UK Government see some sense and put some accelerators into that, so that, at the very least, it will go up from 10 Mbps in the future, even if they didn’t see fit to put it higher than that in the past.

I’m grateful to Janet Finch-Saunders for acknowledging the meetings that we’ve had and so on. But I’m quite genuine in this—this is not a party political thing in any way. We do actually need to make sure that the Government’s universal service obligation is fit for purpose and actually assists us in our mission to get this broadband out across Wales. So, if any Members want to contact me, I will tell them what our concerns are—and I think I’ve provided them already to Janet Finch-Saunders. I’m happy to provide them to anybody else who wants them, so that they can assist us in helping the UK Government to arrive at a position where the universal service obligation is actually something worth having, and that we can then fund it accordingly. So, I just wanted to make those points.

In terms of the commitments that we’ve heard a lot about us breaking, obviously you won’t be surprised to find that I refute that. It’s important to remember that the percentages and the numbers of properties change all the time. If we just set a level of properties in 2011 and said, ‘We’ll get through all of those’, then everything built after that wouldn’t have any broadband. It’s a truism to say so, but it’s worth repeating. And actually, one of the reasons we did the further open-market review was to include in some of the properties that were built afterwards. Again, it’s a matter of some concern to us that the UK Government is not seeing fit to put that universal service obligation into all new builds at the moment. So, you do have a ridiculous situation where you build a new housing estate and then afterwards you dig up the road to put broadband in. Clearly, this is not sensible. I appeal to all Members of all political parties to get on board with trying to persuade people to get some common sense put into some of these universal service obligations.

Anyway, turning to what we’re doing, we’re working very closely with Ofcom, the UK Government and the network operators to deliver better digital infrastructure with what we’ve got now, right across Wales. We’ve been trying to improve broadband coverage right across. Also, you have to bear in mind that the increasing demand for mobile data has complicated the picture. When we started these programmes, broadband and mobile were two very different things, but now they’re not. So, the technology has moved very substantially as well, and we’re very keen to keep on top of that.

I’m hosting a round-table meeting later this month, which will include representatives from Ofcom and industry, to discuss how we can improve mobile connectivity in Wales. That debate will focus not only on the plans of industry to expand mobile coverage and capacity, but also explore all the levers we have available to us here in Wales. Obviously, one of the primary levers there is the planning regime. I’ve commissioned some research to look at changes and proposed changes to planning in England and Scotland on mobile phone infrastructure, how they apply to Wales, and alternative approaches appropriate to our topography and population density in Wales. Just to put that in English, I’m not all that certain that the people who live in our national parks really want a 250 ft mast every 10m in order to get mobile connectivity. So, clearly, there’s a trade-off between what you want to get and what you have to have in order to get it. We want to make sure we get that right for the people of Wales. Russell George, I know, has problems with other types of masts with generators on the top, and I’m not too sure that his constituents would be all that happy with masts carrying mobile signals either.

So, we know we want to do it, but we want to do it right. We want to make sure that we get that balance right and that people get the connectivity, but not at the expense of other amenities, which is why people live in the national parks and want to come and visit us in the first place.

So, we’re doing that piece of research. We want to get it right for Wales. We know that having access to the digital technologies, and the motivation and skills to use them effectively are more important than ever, and people’s perception of what they’re prepared to put up with to get that is changing. So, we do want to get that right.

In terms of digital exclusion, we’re very committed to tackling digital exclusion and improving digital literacy, which aren’t quite the same thing. So, I’d like to thank Mohammad Asghar for his contribution, but just point out that basic digital literacy—the ability to actually get online, organise some files and folders, do some basic things with public services and so on—is not the same thing as having the skills necessary to work in a digital economy. We need both of those in our society and we’re working very hard to get them.

We have a digital competence framework that I hope all Members are familiar with, and which we have just recently launched. Indeed, I visited a pioneer school in my colleague Mike Hedges’s constituency on Monday morning to look at the digital competence framework in action, and it was very impressive indeed. I’m sure that Members will all have schools in their areas that will be able to show them how that’s working. I think that it’s important to realise that Donaldson is really working well in Wales, and that the advance we’ve made here in Wales of saying that literacy, numeracy and digital competency are the basic frameworks of a modern education are alive and well and very much at the forefront of educational thinking in Wales.

We’re also delivering our Learning in Digital Wales programme, including Hwb, the all-Wales platform for schools, and increasing broadband speeds for schools as part of the programme.

We need to get a buy-in, though, for all organisations and wider society so that we can achieve a truly digitally inclusive nation. So, during a recent oral statement I made on this issue, I provided Members with an update on time frames of possible future intervention to further extend superfast broadband. Work is well under way with plans to launch a further detailed formal open-market review process later this autumn. Once we’ve got the outcome of that review, we’ll be in a position to confirm both whether and how a new procurement to provide access for further premises can be taken forward. I’ll provide more information on that as the process continues, as I’ve said in my statement. I’ll make sure that Members are kept up to date.

I just want to correct the misconception, though, that Superfast Cymru has slipped. The completion date was moved back and it was due to projected negotiations between the UK Government and the EU on the national broadband scheme. Members will recall that that further 40,000 premises followed an open-market review and it was in line with similar contracts of this size. So, there we are.

Just to round this off—and I’ve said it lots of times and I’ll say it again—I make the same offer that I made to everybody at the end of my statement: if you have specific problems in your constituency, I’m very happy to come with you and explain how we can address them. In terms of the overarching programme, we are very much on top of BT. I have very regular meetings with them. We are in regular touch about their performance to the target dates. I assure Members that they are not under any impression that I am complacent about their ability to deliver the contract. I share Members’ frustrations about the slipping timescales for individuals, but my issue is whether the whole contract delivers overall, and I assure Members that it will so deliver, or BT will pay the very serious financial consequences that arise as a result of that failure and we will then use that money to make sure that their failure is covered off. However, I will say on behalf of BT that they are very co-operative with that, that they come to the meetings with full information and that we have no reason to think that the contract will not be successful in its outcome.

I think Members have been invited by BT to a further update on that, which I’m hoping to attend myself. BT are also very helpful in coming out to Members’ constituencies with me and explaining some of the details on the ground. Overall, I want Members to understand that this is actually a very successful contract, that actually Wales is at the forefront of digital inclusion and digital literacy and digital connectivity, and that although some of the figures seem low, actually they’re very high. I recently had an experience in a European capital city where I could not get my phone to connect to anything at all. So, I do think we’re in danger of talking ourselves down. I understand Members’ frustrations, but, actually, we should be very proud, as all of us are, of the commitment of the Welsh Government and the place of Wales in the digital future for the twenty-first century.

Thank you very much. I call on Russell George to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’d like to thank all the Members for contributing to this debate today. I did notice that there weren’t any Labour Member backbenchers that contributed, apart from David Rees popping up a couple of times for some interventions, so perhaps that’s a sign that broadband is good in all those constituencies, which would be welcome news. And I should say as well—David. [Laughter.]

Thank you. Just to clarify a point, broadband is problematic in some areas of my constituency as well.

Thank you, David, for your third intervention in our debate today—it’s welcome.

I should say, to be charitable to the Minister, I agree absolutely with Janet Finch-Saunders that I do think that the Minister is very passionate in her area here and I very much welcome that. She’s agreed to come to various constituencies with Members and explain the situation. Even if there’s a few hundred people frothing at the mouth, she’s willing to come, and I think that should be very welcomed. I also pay tribute to BT who are also very engaging, I think, with Assembly Members—always willing to meet and correspond as well, and come to constituencies as well. So, I thank the Minister for that.

There are a few issues I would raise. I think, first of all, there is, of course, a great frustration—the Minister’s right and she accepts that—but, certainly, the frustrations are, I would say, not only in rural areas but urban areas as well, as David Rees has pointed out. I did take Neil Hamilton’s contribution—I listened very carefully to him—a very good contribution, and of course his region covers, I think, nine constituencies and only one constituency actually has above the Welsh average for superfast broadband. I think that just demonstrates that this is very much a rural problem—not exclusively, but very much a rural problem. And that, of course, ties in as well to Janet Finch-Saunders’s points with regard to the farming community as well. We know that the biggest issue is in rural Wales—that’s where farming businesses are located—and the Welsh Government has put ever more pressure on making sure that Welsh farming businesses submit applications and certain documents online. Well, they simply can’t do that if they haven’t got good, fast, reliable broadband.

The Minister also made the point, quite rightly, that there are changes to the way in which mobile networks and mobile operators—. Mobile is changing and evolving. Mobile now is for data as well as voice calls, and I accept that. That’s happened more in recent years, and I accept that there are issues there with regard to delivering broadband. But, in many ways, that could be a solution, of course, to delivering broadband in particular areas; if there’s good, fast, reliable mobile, then of course that also meets the demand for broadband, via access over the mobile network.

Dai Lloyd also, in his contribution as the Plaid spokesperson, called for the establishment of a bespoke local scheme to ensure that no home or business in Wales goes without access to next generation broadband. This certainly, I think, has merit, and I certainly think that that’s an issue that should be explored. He also pointed, of course, to Blaenau Gwent and the fact that 99 per cent of Blaenau Gwent has access to superfast broadband. But, of course, that’s access; it doesn’t mean that they’ve got that broadband, it means they’ve got access to it. And you’ll find, actually, that only a small fraction of those in Blaenau Gwent who can access broadband have actually taken that up, which of course is very much the point of our debate today with regard to highlighting the lack of take-up, which is a point that he later made himself.

He also spoke of the fact that digital connectivity is now an essential part of modern life, which contributes not only to economic prosperity and delivering a tangible uplift in skills and educational performance, but also has a positive impact on healthy living and the environment. Indeed, I fully agree with that, and I fully agree that access to broadband is rapidly becoming a human right, not a privilege.

So, in conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would say that the intention of the Welsh Conservatives in this motion today is to call on the Welsh Government to devote a lot more time, effort and resource to ensure that we have a telecoms infrastructure that is fit for the twenty-first century Welsh economy. Whether it’s connecting with family or friends, or helping children to study at home and do their homework, or driving growth for local business, digital connectivity is now a crucial part of our day-to-day lives and Wales can no longer afford to be the poor man or woman of Britain, as it sadly is at the moment. But when it comes to broadband take-up and mobile coverage, I think that this has to be a top priority, because certainly I would like to be here in a few years’ time when my inbox is a lot less full of people contacting me with broadband and mobile issues. But I certainly hope that the Welsh Government’s current commitment to have all of Wales having superfast broadband by the end of this Assembly term will be delivered. I want to be standing here in the future saying, ‘Thank you, Welsh Government, for delivering this and for reducing my inbox considerably.’ But I very much commend this motion to the Assembly today, and I urge Members to support it.

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

We’ll move on to the next item, which is a debate by the United Kingdom Independence Party on lung cancer, and I call on Caroline Jones to move the motion. Caroline Jones.

I propose that the Assembly for Wales notes that November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month, and I’d like the motion to be proposed formally.

Formally? You don’t wish to speak?

Sorry, yes, I do wish to speak.

Okay; sorry. You carry on, then.

Thank you. Sorry, I’ve never done it before. Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. We have tabled the motion before you today to mark Lung Cancer Awareness Month and to recognise that, although progress has been made, lung cancer survival rates in Wales remain amongst the worst in Europe. Lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer worldwide. Every year, more than 1.5 million people die from lung cancer. In the UK, one person dies every 15 minutes, and by the time this debate is over, lung cancer will have claimed another four lives.

Here in Wales, lung cancer claims the lives of around 2,000 people every year, accounting for a quarter of all cancer deaths. Thankfully, advances in diagnostics and cancer treatments mean that a diagnosis of lung cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. More and more people are surviving, but, unfortunately, not enough are.

The UK Lung Cancer Coalition recently launched a campaign, 25 by 25, which seeks to raise the five-year lung cancer survival rates in the UK to 25 per cent by 2025. The campaign has the backing of Macmillan Cancer Support, who are founding members, and is fully supported by the UKIP Assembly group.

Our five-year survival rates are amongst the poorest in Europe. In fact, in the latest Europe-wide comparison study, Wales ranked twenty-eighth out of 29. Only 6.6 per cent of Welsh lung cancer patients are still alive five years after diagnosis, compared with 16 per cent in England. The Welsh Government have made improvements and investment in cancer care in Wales. Overall cancer survival rates have improved, and there has been an increase in one-year survival rates for lung cancer, but five-year lung cancer survival rates still lag behind other UK nations and our European counterparts.

We simply aren’t diagnosing lung cancer early enough. In Wales, only 12 per cent of lung cancer patients are diagnosed during the early stages of the disease. The vast majority of patients are diagnosed during stage 3 or stage 4, which significantly reduces their long-term chances of survival. The UK Lung Cancer Coalition recently undertook a survey, and found that access to investigative tests and referral are still the greatest delays to rapid diagnosis, with 36 per cent of patients surveyed waiting over one month for a definitive diagnosis after an initial suspicion of cancer, and 17 per cent waiting over two months. We welcome the Welsh Government’s commitment to improving access to diagnostic tests, but we must do more.

Cancer Research UK undertook a study of cancer services in Wales, and they found that issues with diagnostic capacity are delaying some patients receiving a definitive diagnosis, and therefore starting treatment. They also found that there is variation in GPs’ direct access to diagnostic tests. According to Cancer Research UK, further investigation is needed to understand the workforce and equipment capacity needed to meet demand. The rise in cancer incidence, as well as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s decision to lower the threshold of referral for suspected cancer, will increase demand for diagnostic tests in the coming years.

Cancer Research UK recommended that the Welsh Government conduct an urgent review of the state of direct access to diagnostic tests for GPs. However, one of the biggest barriers to improving lung cancer survival rates remains a lack of awareness amongst patients. In a recent survey of lung cancer patients, only 27 per cent of patients saw their doctor because they recognised that they were experiencing signs and symptoms of lung cancer. Over 40 per cent of patients did not know that chest pain, weight loss and tiredness are possible symptoms of lung cancer. This is why debates such as the one we are having today and events like Lung Cancer Awareness Month are so vital. We must do all we can to increase awareness of the signs and symptoms of lung cancer among patients.

This summer, for the first time, the Welsh NHS ran a lung cancer awareness campaign. The Welsh Government are to be congratulated for taking this step. I hope the Cabinet Secretary will commit to running this campaign annually. England have been running the campaign since 2010 and have been successful in raising awareness and increasing the numbers of patients diagnosed at stage 1. Perhaps this is why England has been so successful in increasing its five-year annual survival rate, which has almost doubled since 2004 to just over 16 per cent.

Improving early diagnosis is just one of things we have to get better at here in Wales. We also have to ensure that, once diagnosed, patients get the best level of care possible. The recent Wales cancer patient experience survey showed that people with lung cancer had poorer experiences than people with other kinds of cancer. One in 10 Welsh patients do not have access to a clinical nurse specialist. Macmillan Wales have called for better support when people are diagnosed and awaiting treatment for lung cancer. They have also asked that we ensure that everyone who is diagnosed has their needs assessed and addressed in a written care plan, as outlined in the current cancer plan.

The UK Lung Cancer Coalition report makes a number of recommendations for the Welsh Government. These include conducting a public consultation on the current national cancer standards for Wales, which should then be updated based on the recommendations provided; reviewing cancer diagnostic services in Wales with a focus on lung cancer; ensuring all patients have access to a lung cancer clinical trial nurse in all aspects of their care; and working with other bodies to address and assess local variations in lung cancer treatment. I hope the Cabinet Secretary will take these recommendations forward. Even if we achieve 25 by 25, we will still have the majority of lung cancer patients dying from the disease and we must ensure that those patients who do not survive die with dignity. It is a sad fact that only 46 per cent of those who died from cancer received specialist palliative care.

A recent Marie Curie survey found that seven out of 10 people with a terminal illness do not get the care and support they need. If current trends continue, 7 per cent of the Welsh population will be living with cancer by 2030 and the number of people dying in Wales will increase by 9 per cent. We know that around 6,200 people who die each year don’t get the palliative care they need, but these figures come from Marie Curie—they are not coming from the NHS and therefore don’t feed into workforce planning.

In England, the NHS conducts a survey of the bereaved, called ‘VOICES’, which shows the level of care and support given to families at the end of the lives of their loved ones. We don’t conduct this survey in Wales. If we are going to ensure that everyone who needs specialist palliative care gets it and we are going to ensure that people’s individual needs, priorities and preferences for end-of-life care can be identified, documented, reviewed, respected and acted upon, then we must conduct a survey of the bereaved here in Wales.

Finally, I would like to address the amendments. We will be supporting both of the Welsh Conservatives’ amendments. It is regrettable that there has been a stark increase in the number of women with lung cancer. Incidence rates in men are now a third higher than women, compared with double 10 years previously. However, I urge you to reject the amendments from Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Government. We are not criticising the Welsh Government or the lack of investment. Yes, progress has been made, particularly on one-year survival rates, however there is a lot, much more, for us to do. The main reason for holding this debate today is to raise awareness of the issues and to work together to improve lung cancer survival rates.

Wales should not be in twenty-eighth place; we should be leading the way. We have a wonderful health service with hugely dedicated staff; let’s give them the tools to improve cancer care. Let us ensure that everyone with lung cancer gets an early diagnosis with appropriate treatment. Let us also ensure that everyone who needs it has access to specialist palliative care and ensure that everyone can die with dignity should the time come. I urge you to support our motion. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. I have selected the four amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3 and 4 will be deselected. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally, Chair.

Thank you. I call on Angela Burns to move amendments 2 and 4 tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It gives me great pleasure to take part in this debate tabled by UKIP today. I’d like to move amendment 1 and amendment 4 tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Amendment 2 regrets that the number of female lung cancer cases in Wales has increased by more than a third over the last decade. In fact, the rate for women in Wales is amongst the highest in Europe and has climbed from 54.8 per cent cases per 100,000 to 69.2 per cent, which is, by anybody’s standards, quite a significant jump. We also move amendment 4, which is to ask that the Welsh Government should improve access to screening, education and awareness.

Now, in the Welsh Government amendment to this motion, I note, Cabinet Secretary, that you mentioned that there is an extra £1 million for end-of-life care. May I ask you to clarify if that is just for lung cancer, for cancer services, or for all end-of-life and whether it would include adults and children, because, of course, that would predicate the amount of money that we might think might come towards people who are suffering with lung cancer? In the amendment, Cabinet Secretary, you also mention the cancer delivery plan and I’d be most grateful if you would clarify what weight, in the refreshed cancer delivery plan, will be given to lung cancer outcomes, because, as Caroline Jones so ably put it, there are more deaths in Wales from lung cancer than breast or bowel combined, and yet it’s a far less well known cause in terms of raising funds for research.

Cabinet Secretary, I’m not arguing that lung cancer should have special treatment—far from it. However, as such a huge cause of illness, especially in those from less affluent areas, it does deserve to receive equitable treatment. We need to break the stigma that lung cancer is a smoker’s disease. We need more awareness in the public and within the medical profession to ensure that better early diagnosis that would ensure better survival rates. As Caroline has already mentioned, one-year survival rates in Wales are among the lowest in Europe, and yet stage 1 lung cancer can be survived if diagnosed early enough.

Sadly, the postcode lottery does exist in lung cancer diagnosis. Potentially treatable stage 1 lung cancer survival rates are 90 per cent in the least deprived areas of Wales and that’s something to be applauded and something to be very grateful for. Yet, if you are a poor person, if you live in one of the most deprived areas of Wales, your chances of surviving lung cancer drop to only 74 per cent. That is a vast gulf—a vast divide—between those who are more affluent and those who are far more deprived. One-year survival rates are the lowest in all of the UK and the second lowest in Europe.

Early diagnosis can deliver a dramatically different outcome. I just want to tell you a brief story of somebody who has been in correspondence with me. His wife was lucky enough to receive early diagnosis because, as he puts it, it was a GP who thought outside of the box and therefore treatment was speedy. Initially, his wife was given a terminal diagnosis—an awful thought, given that she was only 43 years of age. But there was a great response to radiotherapy, a proactive oncologist who found a great surgeon and the inoperable became operable. Currently, the scans, 18 months later, are clear. I share this story, because he says, ‘I am internet savvy; I pushed for treatment; I paid for scans in England and I spent a lot of time following NHS paper chains to find the right treatment or the right specialist, and I had outstanding support from the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation’. Cabinet Secretary, many people are not as lucky as this man and his wife.

The third point that I really want to raise—. We’ve talked about getting rid of the stigma, we’ve talked about the importance of early diagnosis leading to greater survival rates, and finally, Cabinet Secretary, surely, we need to see a greater proportion of research funding going towards lung cancer. Lung cancer contributes to 22 per cent of all cancer deaths, but only receives 7 per cent of total cancer research funding. Surely, this is yet another inequality we need to try to right to stop those in poorer areas being more likely to die from it, to give more research funding towards this less fashionable cause, a smoker’s cause, with that stigma attached to it, and yet a cause that kills more people in Wales than bowel cancer and breast cancer put together.

I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move amendment 3 tabled in his own name.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the amendment tabled in my name. We have a great deal to celebrate in Wales, without doubt, in terms of cancer treatment. There are people surviving today who would not have done so just a few years ago. There is innovative research going on in our universities, but there is so much more to do and so much more room for improvement. Unreasonably long waiting times for diagnostic services are a problem that has existed over many years, and that’s contributed to the fact that cancer survival rates in Wales are lower than the European average. We also know that the picture is at best mixed in terms of end-of-life care, and we do note those two areas as priorities in our brief amendment today.

Although I do agree with much of what’s contained in the amendment tabled by the Labour Government, we cannot support the wording as it currently stands. With Wales at number 28 in a league of 29 European nations, as we’ve already heard, in terms of survival rates, I don’t believe that the Government can truly talk about significant improvement in Wales. Survival rates are improving generally for cancer, and that reflects improvements in treatment and it reflects hard work by doctors and nurses across the whole of Europe. The truth is that here in Wales diagnosis still happens at too late a stage in too many cases and survival rates are lower here than in nations that have far higher rates of smoking.

Of course, we can’t talk about lung cancer without mentioning smoking. It is worth noting here that the interim leader of the party that has tabled this motion today has denied, apparently, this link between smoking and cancer, and has said that doctors have got it wrong. If we so choose, we can choose to ignore those comments and look at them as an effort to garner attention and nothing else, but there’s a very serious point here. The tobacco industry spent decades and spent many millions of pounds denying that their products killed people, similar to what we see with climate change deniers today, as we’ve seen in another example by the party opposite here in the Assembly this afternoon. As a result, the message about smoking and cancer took far longer to permeate the public consciousness and there was far too great a delay until governments took action. The results were that millions of people lost their lives in the interim. It still happens in some nations where the tobacco lobby can still buy influence. So, when a prominent politician makes these kinds of comments, it undermines the efforts to prevent cancer and puts lives at risk. The party opposite should consider that along with its attitude towards scientists and experts more generally.

The number of smokers has declined, of course, and, hopefully, is likely to fall further, but it has taken decades to actually get to this point. If you will forgive me for just a second while I go on something of a tangent, there is a lesson that I think we can learn from that on the issue of obesity and other problems that are often seen as problems that emerge from lifestyles. The lesson is that we can’t simply tell people to change their lifestyles; we have to assist them to do that. Willpower alone is often not enough to enable someone to give up smoking. People need help from patches or, yes, e-cigarettes in order to give up, and other steps, such as higher taxation, bans on smoking in public places in order to denormalise smoking and so on and so forth. Perhaps we should be thinking about obesity in the same way. Willpower simply isn’t enough to tackle obesity—people need help. Governments need to take action.

If I can return to the topic that we’re discussing this afternoon, we should, of course, bear in mind that lung cancer actually does also affect people who don’t smoke and have never smoked. The Conservatives highlight the issue of women specifically in their amendment 2, and we will certainly support that amendment. We will also support amendment 4. Increasing awareness and fighting the stigma that the Conservative spokesperson referred to are things that we must address. Whatever the cause of the disease and whoever suffers from the disease, I hope that each and every one of us would agree that providing the best possible care is always the aim, aiming towards that day when we can say in all earnestness that we have made significant ground in this battle.

That there has been an improvement in one-year survival rates is obviously to be welcomed, but the statistics on the five-year survival of lung cancer patients do rather detract from that achievement. It is shocking that lung cancer survival rates in Wales lag so far behind those of the rest of the UK. Early diagnosis is key. Waiting times to see consultants to have tests and receive assessment for treatment urgently need to be minimised. I acknowledge the increased funding of the NHS in Wales proposed in the draft budget. However, those funds will only bring real benefit to cancer patients if they are spent on additional front-line staff rather than fancy initiatives, talking shops and backroom non-medical staff.

Whilst end-of-life care is extremely important to any patient with a terminal illness, the goal is obviously to keep cancer patients alive in the first place so they don’t need that kind of end-of-life care. Government proposals in this regard, however compassionate, cannot address the poor survival rates of cancer patients.

We look forward to seeing the detail behind the Government’s refreshed cancer delivery plan and, in particular, to see whether that plan contains innovative thinking or whether the plan will be a rehash of things tried before. It is the responsibility of the Welsh Government to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to support medical professionals in their efforts to increase survival rates in Wales. I don’t for one moment think that these poor results are caused by a lack of compassion on the part of the Welsh Government or anyone in this Chamber or by neglect on the part of our medical staff. However, it is clear that the strategy tried up to now is not working. It is time for some fresh, imaginative and pragmatic thinking on the part of the Welsh Government, and I look forward to hearing its new proposals in due course.

I’m very pleased to take part in this debate. Lung cancer is a huge challenge for the health service in Wales, as it is throughout the UK and throughout the world, but I think it’s very important to remember that progress can be made and is being achieved. I think you’ve only got to look back on the survival rates for other cancers. Do you remember what it was like for breast cancer a relatively short time ago? The survival rates for breast cancer have dramatically improved. Every small step that is taken with lung cancer takes us forward to getting much better survival rates. I think we’re all aware that many cancers now have become chronic diseases, that many people live with cancer, and that is the position I think we must be moving towards, and we are moving towards, with lung cancer.

I work very closely with Velindre cancer centre in Cardiff North in my constituency, and they’ve highlighted for me the opportunities that are available with the new treatments for lung cancer and the improvements brought about by research and by access to national clinical trials. I think it’s important to remember as well, when we do talk about lung cancer, that there are different types of lung cancer. But examples of the new drug treatments for lung cancer, which are going to be made available in Wales over the next few months for the different types of lung cancer include crizotinib, which, in September 2016, was approved by NICE, and the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group approved osimertinib in October. That was only last month; these are two very recent approvals. Pemetrexed maintenance has now been approved by NICE in August, and we will soon have that available. So, it is very exciting that we have these new developments for treatment.

Patients at Velindre also benefit from access to clinical trials and increased opportunities to have treatments such as the matrix clinical trial, which is about delivering personalised targeted medicine, based on genetic testing of their cancer. These are all developments that are happening very swiftly, and we must make sure that we are able to take advantage of them, as I know that we are, and with the new treatment fund that the Welsh Government is committed to, access to new drugs will certainly be helped.

I think it’s also important to say that we do carry out outstanding research in Wales. I wanted to highlight just something that has come from Velindre in my constituency. PhD students from Velindre have carried out research that has led to cell-free DNA testing for lung cancer patients, and that’s using blood tests instead of biopsies. This testing is done for English patients as well as Welsh patients and is carried out in Cardiff, in the regional genetic hub. So, I think it’s important; we don’t want to talk ourselves down. This really innovative stuff is happening in Wales and it’s important that we do acknowledge it.

So, there are encouraging developments, but we all know that the key issue is prevention and early diagnosis, which has been well aired here today. I think it is accepted that there is a link between smoking and lung cancer, and I congratulate the Welsh Government on its work to reduce smoking and to prevent young people from taking it up in the first place, because I think that that is vital—and to protect them from second-hand smoke. I think the legislation that has been carried out in these particular areas has been absolutely groundbreaking. It’s really transformed the health service. I am particularly pleased that from 1 October 2015 it was illegal to smoke in private vehicles when someone under the age of 18 was present. I’m looking forward very much to the public health Bill, when we know that cigarette smoking will be further restricted in parks, hospital premises and other areas. This has all gone along with the agreement and support of the public.

So, we have been working on prevention. We do need to have early diagnosis, and I also am very pleased that we saw the launch of the Be Clear on Cancer campaign to help raise awareness on lung cancer by diagnosing and treating lung cancer earlier. So, there was a lot of work going on, and I’d like just to end, really, by thanking the Welsh Government for its big commitment to developing the new cancer treatment centre at Velindre, where there is a huge amount of capital going in to ensure that the sort of services that we will be able to offer to all cancer patients, including lung cancer patients, who have to go into hospital as in-patients will be having first-class treatment.

Thank you. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport to make a contribution. Vaughan.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’d like to start by thanking Members for tabling this debate and for helping to raise awareness and draw attention to lung cancer awareness month. I, of course, recognise the impact that lung cancer has on individuals and their families. As has been recognised today, lung cancer kills more people than bowel cancer and breast cancer combined. It has the highest age-standardised mortality rate of any cancer, and the gap between the most and least deprived areas has actually widened. However, the motion doesn’t take account of the latest data, which shows that one-year survival for lung cancer has increased by a third in women and by nearly a quarter in men. Given the high and rapid mortality of lung cancer, and the difficulty in diagnosing, which has been recognised in some contributions today, in its more early and treatable stages, this actually is a real success to recognise and build upon that increased rate of survival.

Will you take an intervention?

In fact, dealing with the challenges of diagnosing in its earlier and treatable stages, part of the challenge is that it’s difficult to recognise. Part of the big challenge in improving survival rates is actually getting earlier diagnosis and recognition. It’s why we’ve been running with the third sector campaigns to raise awareness on this and, in particular, with partners in primary care. The early symptoms may include a persistent cough, coughing blood, persistent breathlessness, unexplained tiredness and weight loss and an ache or pain when breathing or coughing. So, an awareness of those symptoms and actually seeking help if those actually arise is a key part of actually raising awareness and improving earlier diagnosis.

Just a point of clarity, Cabinet Secretary. I appreciate that the survival rates in women have gone up if they’ve been diagnosed early enough, but overall, would you not agree that there are more women now suffering from and getting lung cancer than there have been in the past?

Indeed. We recognise that more people are being treated and more people are being diagnosed with cancer, and that’s the reality. It’s something about the population we have, and it’s also about the greater recognition of the fact that people are being diagnosed later in life than they otherwise would have been. We recognise that we’re not the only post-industrial country with an ageing population to have a problem with lung cancer. However, survival from lung cancer is poor relative to many other cancers in most countries, but our ambition, as set out in the cancer deliver plan, is to close the gap with the best in Europe. We recognise that we are not there now.

The 2013 cancer plan is currently being refreshed by the Wales cancer network, and I will endorse and publish a new plan by the end of this month. The Government amendment and the contribution from Rhun ap Iorwerth recognise that we’re going to provide £15 million of capital funding for 2016-17 for diagnostics, and this will support work to improve cancer diagnosis in addition to the £10 million we’ve already invested in replacing linear accelerators and our commitment to a new £200 million Velindre Cancer Centre mentioned by Julie Morgan in her contribution. Of course, the £15 million capital funding was agreed as part of the budget agreement with Plaid Cymru, recognising our shared priorities to improve diagnostic services.

The national cancer implementation group has already been taking forward a lung cancer initiative over the past year, and I was pleased to hear this mentioned in the opening contribution from Caroline Jones. This includes a symptom awareness campaign that ran over the summer, and a programme to help improve lung cancer surgery outcomes, a really important part of improving survival rates. We also want to help people to be ready for surgery, so prehabilitation before surgery, and to provide enhanced recovery.

Through NHS Wales’s participation in the British lung cancer audit, we have already seen improvements in the quality of services, including increases in our lung resection rates. There’s still more to do, but some of our services do perform incredibly well against several elements of those national standards. For example, treatment by a specialist nurse in Wales is 88 per cent, compared to a British average of 78 per cent, and the management of the condition in an individual being discussed at a lung cancer multidisciplinary team is 99.6 per cent in Wales compared to a British average of 94 per cent. So, all is not lost. There are some areas where we perform very well compared to UK counterparts.

The specialised services committee in Wales is also reviewing thoracic surgery services here in south Wales with a view to improving the model available. Cardiff and Vale health board was also partnered with Novartis to redesign and shorten the lung cancer pathway, and improving the pathway was a really important part of improving outcomes for patients across the board. The GP contract includes a national priority area for cancer prevention and detection, but also includes an analysis of all cases of lung cancer in 2015 to inform practice development and cluster action plans. I hope that deals with one of the points made in the opening speech.

We have of course partnered with Macmillan to support improvement in identifying suspected cancer in primary care, as well as post-diagnosis support and treatment. This Government will continue to implement regulations on environmental hazards such as asbestos and air pollution, but as has been recognised in a number of contributions today, smoking remains the highest risk factor for lung cancer. With smoking rates of up to 29 per cent in our most deprived communities, we can see the importance of continuing to have a focus on tobacco control and smoking cessation to address the biggest preventable cause of lung cancer and the inequalities in cancer incidence and outcomes.

The October United Kingdom Lung Cancer Coalition report stated that

‘significant steps have been taken in Wales to improve outcomes for those diagnosed with lung cancer’.

I’m happy to say I met representatives of the coalition in February and my officials met them again in June. Work is already progressing against many of their recommendations. This is an area where we recognise more improvement is necessary, but we continue to invest over £6.4 million annually in specialist palliative care services, and we are committed to ensuring people approaching the end of their life here in Wales have access to high-quality and specialist palliative care. That’s why we’re focusing on supporting hospice-at-home services, developing a consistent approach to advanced care plans, and rolling out the care decisions document for the last days of life. Also, we’re ensuring comprehensive paediatric palliative care arrangements are in place.

I’m happy to say that, this week, I’ve had conversations with stakeholders about how we do we improve both paediatric and adult end-of-life care services. One million pounds of funding is already available to both cancer and end-of-life implementation groups. The end-of-life implementation board is funding support for hospice-at-home services to enable people to die comfortably in their preferred place of death. We recognise that far too many people still die in a hospital bed, where it’s not the choice of where they want to end their days and equally not the most appropriate place for that to happen. One hundred and fifty-nine thousand pounds has also been allocated to support staff with advanced communication skills involved in end-of-life care.

The end-of-life care plan is also being updated and I expect to publish the new plan in January. Working with other parties in the Assembly, in particular with Plaid Cymru following our budget negotiations, we’ve included an additional £1 million for end-of-life care within the draft budget. This is for all end-of-life care services, rather than a specific section or a specific set of conditions, which I do not think would be either manageable or, frankly, ethically desirable.

These priorities do include the further expansion of hospice-at-home services and extending the reach of serious illness conversations, but I do think that we should recognise that, here in Wales, we’re in a better position than our UK counterparts on end-of-life care. However, there is more, of course, that we could and should do. The Government amendment confirms recent improvements in one-year lung cancer survival and the approach set out in the cancer and end-of-life delivery plans. We also highlight the important partner arrangements we have with the third sector, in particular the Wales Cancer Alliance and hospice sector, and the additional £240 million for the health service in the draft budget.

We should recognise and celebrate the progress that has been made, but we will continue to work with and welcome the constructive challenge of the third sector and will continue to work with our clinicians right across the NHS. So, this Government recommits itself to the further improvement that all of us would wish to see.

Thank you very much. I call on Neil Hamilton to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I hope everybody will agree that this debate has been conducted in as non-partisan a way as we possibly could. That was the spirit in which UKIP has put this motion on the order paper today and the way in which my honourable friend, Caroline Jones, opened with in her speech. I regret the fact that the Government has put down an amendment that seeks to delete the bulk of our motion and replace it with a wording of its own. We would have been quite happy to accept the bulk of the wording of the Government amendment were it not for their wishing to delete our amendment in the first place.

It’s very noticeable that the health Secretary in his speech of course concentrated on the areas where he could point to improvements, but you don’t actually succeed in making as many improvement as you can by ignoring or seeking to hide the areas where you’re failing. Yes, it’s all very well to talk about improvements in the one-year survival rates of cancer, but what about the figures for the five-year survival rates that are referred to in our motion itself?

In the ‘25 by 25’ 10-year strategy document produced by the UK Lung Cancer Coalition, the figures are given that, in England, it’s a 16 per cent survival rate after five years, Scotland is 10 per cent, Northern Ireland is 11 per cent and Wales is 6.6 per cent. There is room for vast improvements in that figure. I believe that this Assembly is right to draw attention to the current situation with five-year survival rates and it’s wrong for the Government to seek to remove that from the motion on the order paper today.

We accept the amendments of the Conservative group. I listened with care to what Rhun ap Iorwerth said in his speech. Of course, there is much that we can approve in his motion as well, but because he referred to the achievement of Plaid Cymru in its negotiations in the 2017-18 budget, I think that goes against the kind of non-partisan spirit in which we have introduced this debate today. So, we will therefore oppose that amendment.

He did mention Nigel Farage in his speech as somehow being a smoking sceptic. I’ve no idea if he is or not. As Rhun ap Iorwerth knows, we don’t talk to each other. [Laughter.] But, Nigel Farage isn’t right about everything. [Assembly Members: ‘Oh.’] For one thing, he didn’t want me to come to this place. So, if honourable Members think that he’s wrong about everything, then that’s an implied welcome of me as a Member of this house, and I thank them for that. But it’s been an interesting and a useful debate, because our motion is predicated, of course, on point 1, which notes that November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month and this debate, I hope, has helped to improve awareness.

Everybody, virtually, has mentioned today the importance of early diagnosis in the successful treatment of cancer, and Julie Morgan made a very important point, I think, that the diagnosis of cancer today is not necessarily a death sentence or, indeed, an early death sentence, and it was very interesting to listen to what she had to say about the important work that is being done at Velindre and the successes that they’ve had in the research work that is being done there. And I pay tribute to the Cabinet Secretary for health as well, because he has certainly made a significant contribution towards the improvements in the health service in Wales, and I applaud his ambition further to close the gap between the survival rates for cancer of all sorts in Wales and the rest of Europe. We approve of, of course, and welcome all the extra investment and other improvements that he mentioned in the course of his speech.

Angela Burns made some very important points in her speech as well, about the necessity for earlier screening, greater awareness through education et cetera, and very importantly made the point about the postcode lottery that still does, unfortunately, exist in diagnosis of stage 1 cancers. So, whilst we commend the Government for their successes and achievements so far, there is much more to be done, but because they are not prepared to own up to their failures in the past, I hope that, in the course of the vote this afternoon, our motion will pass and the Government amendment will be defeated.

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

It has been agreed that voting time will take place before the short debate. Therefore, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to voting time. Okay, thank you.

Symudwn at y cyfnod pleidleisio, felly, a galwaf am bleidlais ar y cynnig a gyflwynwyd yn enw Paul Davies. Agor y bleidlais. Er eglurder, dadl y Ceidwadwyr Cymreig yw hon. Cau’r bleidlais. O blaid y cynnig 15, neb yn ymatal, yn erbyn y cynnig 31.

Therefore, we will now proceed to vote on the amendments. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. So, I call for a vote on amendment 1. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the amendment 27, abstentions four, against 18. Therefore, amendment 1 is agreed, and amendments 2, 3 and 4 are deselected—2 and 3, sorry, are deselected.

We’ll go to a vote now on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. For the amended motion 29, nine abstentions, 12 against. Therefore, the amended motion is carried.

We now move on to vote on the UKIP Wales debate. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Neil Hamilton. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion seven, no abstentions, 43 against. Therefore, the motion is not agreed and we will proceed to vote on the amendments.

If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3 and 4 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the amendment 27, against the amendment 23, no abstentions. Therefore, amendment 1 is agreed. Amendments 2, 3 and 4 are therefore deselected.

I call for a vote on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. For the amended motion 39, nine abstentions, two against. Therefore, the amended motion is carried.

We now move on to the short debate. If Members are leaving the Chamber, please do so quickly and quietly. If you’re going to chat, can you chat outside, please? Hurry up. We’re still in session. We move to the short debate, and I call on Hannah Blythyn to speak on the topic she has chosen. Hannah Blythyn.

Thank you. It’s my intention to try and give a minute to Jeremy Miles, Mark Isherwood, Llyr Gruffydd and Michelle Brown.

North Wales is proud of both our industrial heritage—steel, coal, slate and manufacturing—but also of the beauty and culture that can be found at our fingertips, from Snowdonia, Caernarfon castle and Conwy marina in the west, to the Clwydian range, Flint castle and Theatr Clwyd in the east. Just last week, north Wales was the only region in the UK to make the Lonely Planet top-10 best regions in the world. We came in at No. 4, with the way our former industrial landscape has been reinvented to create a series of world-class attractions catching the eye of judges.

The Welsh Government has taken a proactive approach to intervention and action to boost our economy in north Wales—the Cabinet Secretary quite literally by taking to the zip wire in Snowdonia—but the challenge for us going forward is how best to enhance investment opportunities in our amazing heritage and tourist assets in order to create a new economy for north Wales, one which builds both on our regional reputation and offers a sustainable route to prosperity for our people, our communities and our businesses—a new economy that recognises our pride in our industrial past and makes the most of that to boost our heritage offer, but also demonstrates in practice our ambition and hope for the future.

Like many others, my politics and values were shaped largely by the decimation of Shotton steelworks during the 1980s. Whilst I recognise the steel industry still remains in condition critical, the Shotton site has risen from the ashes of the 1980s to become not one, but two profitable, viable businesses of Colorcoat and panels. When it comes to Shotton, it’s not just about saving our steel but innovating the industry. A potential icon of innovation, as, indeed, Shotton steel forms part of iconic constructions such as the Millennium Stadium and the Shard in London.

We have strong economic foundations to build on across north Wales, and the advanced manufacturing sector is a cornerstone in the prosperity of the region, from the manufacturing might of Airbus UK to the industrial and business parks of Wrexham, Deeside, St Asaph and west of Delyn. To drive this forward, we need to ensure that young people and adults in the region are equipped with the skills that not only meet employer demand, but, importantly, provide a personal passport to sustainable and decent employment. Links between FE, business and the labour market are growing. Coleg Cambria has a new aerospace training facility that has benefited from over £2 million of Welsh Government funding, alongside the aerospace centre, a joint venture between Coleg Cambria and Swansea University, which means students studying aeronautic and engineering courses in the region have access to first-class training facilities.

But I believe we should start that one step earlier, and embrace the new curriculum planned in Wales to raise awareness of emerging employment markets and opportunities, and the skills required with school students. An advanced manufacturing centre in north-east Wales would be key to driving our regional skills forward, making sure that we not only equip people with the skills to go into work, but support those already in work to develop their potential on an ongoing basis. And moving slightly west, the port of Mostyn geographically and practically links the advanced manufacturing sector in the east to the energy sector of the west, shipping the A380 wings from the Broughton site to Toulouse, and in recent years becoming one of the main centres in Europe for the assembly and installation of turbines in the offshore renewable energy sector.

Indeed, energy is a high-value economic sector of the future for the north of Wales, with the chance to exploit opportunities as a result of Wylfa Newydd, offshore wind, biomass and tidal energy projects. To do this successfully, we will need to take full advantage of connections with educational institutions and research centres not just in Wales but over the border in the north-west of England. This sector also has a clear potential to open up cross-border supply chain opportunities.

It’s important that we have the mechanisms in place to support projects in aerospace, packaging, advance materials and food and drink, alongside acting to ensure we are ahead of the curve in north Wales in emerging growth areas such as digital and creative industries, but also futureproofing traditional industry to meet the demands of a more digital world—creating the sustainable skills for the future, enabling us to be a world leader and to pave the way.

I kicked off this debate talking about the amazing tourist assets across north Wales. Well, this doesn’t just give cultural value to our region but economic value also. Tourism is the main source of employment in many parts of the region and the visitor economy is significant. It is possible to bring together our history and our hope for the future, taking forward the Welsh Labour manifesto pledge to create a culture corridor across north Wales—a better signage, support and promotion of the jewels in our tourist crown—but combining this with an avenue of innovation bringing decent jobs, opportunities and skills. As an Assembly Member for a constituency where tourism is a great contributor, I will be working in partnership with representatives from industry and community to address any challenges we face and to drive forward locally. I intend to act as a signpost for support for tourist venues and ventures, bringing a fair share to our area.

In building and maintaining a new economy for north Wales, partnership is crucial—partnership between workforce, workplace and Welsh Government, along with other sector and industry stakeholders. We must recognise—in terms of the work we create and support for skills we encourage—the role our communities and trade unions play in generating economic prosperity. As a trade unionist, I’ve long called for procurement and access to financial support to be caveated to community clauses, such as the creation of apprenticeships, upskilling of existing workforces and the maintaining of decent terms and conditions.

The proposed national infrastructure commission has the potential to play a significant part in unlocking a pipeline of projects and procurement in the region that support economic growth and create opportunities for those living in the area. I’d urge careful consideration of the structure and position of the commission to make sure it better reflects and represents the varying needs of our nation.

Economic levers can be used strategically to empower both home-grown enterprises and enable individuals to fulfil their potential in better jobs closer to home. We know that small and medium-sized enterprises are the lifeblood of local employment and of our local economy, and are often a key component to the wider supply chain. Any steps to grow a new economy for north Wales should take into account the value of SMEs and initiatives developed to support their growth and meet our needs in north Wales.

No young person in north Wales should feel they have to leave their family, home and community in order to further their prospects. Or if they choose to go away for work, like I did, it’s for us to ensure that there is a draw to bring people back home—embracing the chances created by devolution and the jobs this has generated, making devolution work better for us and the young people of north Wales, by bringing a greater diversity of decent jobs and opportunities to our area.

Improving our region’s transport infrastructure is a key part of any strategy to grow our economy and ultimately unlock the economic potential of north Wales. Upgrades to the A55, the A494 and the A43 are a crucial part of not just allowing people to physically access work and business but also serves as an enabler to a dynamic, regional economy. We know that the east-west link and vice versa is key to both travel to and from work in the area, but it also allows access to our many amazing tourist attractions, and ease of travel is a core component in boosting our appeal as a tourism destination and is a consequence of visitor economy. It’s with this in mind I welcome the recent announcement by the Welsh Government to press ahead with plans to improve parts of the A55 and the A494, as well as looking at additional ways traffic can be eased and improving the main route in and out of north-east Wales. I know this is something important to constituents, commuters and sightseers alike.

An integrated public transport system that reflects the reality of modern work and life would make a real difference in terms of people’s ability to be able to reach work, but also for investment and visitors to reach us. The advancement of the metro system, as proposed in the Welsh Labour manifesto, offers a long-term solution, but in the meantime we need to take steps to ensure that buses and trains better link up and to take the hassle out of travel with an integrated payment system fit for the twenty-first century.

The ability to work and to communicate on the move, whether that’s through Wi-Fi or charging points, is also key in making our public transport a more attractive option for people to work, play or stay in our region. And turning to the new Wales and borders franchise, we in north Wales are not only looking for resolution to the now well-rehearsed challenges faced in travelling to and from our capital city—journeys that are better connected in terms of travel and comfort—but also better links to airports in the north-west of England and the promotion of enterprise and attractions across north Wales.

It is crucial to make our cross-border connections more competitive and appealing. The Wrexham to Bidston line is a vital vein in our interconnectivity. Improvements to this line and service are much warranted and needed. North Wales is not just physically connected to our near neighbours in the north-west of England, we’re economically connected as well. It’s with this in mind that I welcome the Welsh Government commitment to hold a summit of leaders from the Mersey Dee area and Northern Powerhouse to establish a route-map, taking place, as pledged, within the first 100 days of this Government.

Now is the time to put this plan into action, continuing to work with regional stakeholders and partners, such as the North Wales Economic Ambition Board and the Mersey Dee Alliance, and for the Welsh Government to provide the levers to emancipate economic development across north-west and north-east Wales. This is something that I am personally and politically committed to.

I’d like to make clear today my intention to establish a cross-party Assembly group to take this work forward, as Assembly Members, to add political support and strength to the work that is key to shaping a new economy for north Wales. Cabinet Secretary, may I take this opportunity to invite you to attend an inaugural meeting in the Senedd and also to take part in a launch event in north Wales?

Whilst we in Wales cannot avoid the shadow of austerity and the unchartered waters we find ourselves in post the EU referendum, there remains an opportunity and, I believe, the political will to do things differently; to work together with Government, regional stakeholders, business, entrepreneurs, educators and trade unions for a new economy for north Wales—working together for a new economy that invests in our people, our communities and our country and making devolution work for north Wales.

Thank you to Hannah Blythyn for allowing me a minute of her time. I obviously represent a south Wales constituency, but my contribution to the debate is to say, really, that the priorities that Hannah Blythyn identified in her speech are ones that we should applaud and support in all parts of Wales. They’re vital for our economic development and our resilient economic future, whichever part of Wales we live in.

I just want to mention one aspect, which is common to both my part of the world and Hannah Blythyn’s, which is the development of tidal lagoon technology, which we hope to pilot in the Swansea bay area. But there’s obviously a proposal, which I hope becomes a reality, for that to be rolled out across north Wales as well. It’s absolutely vital, not just for the green economy generally, but in terms of the investment in the Welsh economy—close to half of the investment will remain in Wales. The jobs created by the construction of these lagoons will be good jobs, not only on site, but also, as she mentioned in her speech, across the supply chain, for different parts of our economy. The lagoon in Swansea is estimated to add about £76 million a year to the Welsh economy over 100 years. Imagine what that would be like if we could replicate that across Wales.

The North Wales Economic Ambition Board’s growth vision for the economy of north Wales, supported by all six councils, universities, colleges and the business sector, and submitted to the UK and Welsh Governments this summer, has cross-border co-operation at its core. As it says, this is about developing a strategy for the Northern Powerhouse, complementing the Northern Powerhouse, integrated with the strategy growth bid submission for the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership, and having the Growth Track 360 plan for rail investment at its core. What it doesn’t call for is the metro proposed by Welsh Government. What it does call for, alongside investment, is for the devolution of powers by the Welsh Government over employment, taxes, skills and transport, stating this would boost the economy, jobs and productivity. It would create at least 120,000 jobs and boost the value of the local economy to £20 billion by 2035. So, what they need to know, alongside the UK Government, is whether the Welsh Government is going to agree to talk with them about devolving those powers, parallel to powers being devolved to the Northern Powerhouse, or not. Without that, the rest is candy floss.

May I thank you for the opportunity to contribute and thank Hannah Blythyn for her contribution this afternoon? Clearly, it is important that we develop the north Wales economy as an economic powerhouse in its own right—that’s crucially important. Yes, it’s important that we ensure all possible economic benefits from the Northern Powerhouse in England, but my concern, of course, is that if there isn’t a strong focus on the north Wales economy in and of itself, there’s a very real risk that we could fall between two stools here—between the Northern Powerhouse in northern England and the city regions in the south. The north Wales economy isn’t a bolt-on to those and it’s important, as Hannah has done, to acknowledge that there is a strong precedent in place now to develop the north Wales economy. I know that the Cabinet Secretary would agree with that and that that will be reflected in the Government’s economic strategy.

Cross-border co-operation is a welcome suggestion—in fact, I think it’s a great idea. I probably would say that though, because it was in our manifesto last year. The reality in north Wales is that we’re closely linked with the north-west of England in terms of economics, transport, business and family relationships. Many of us commute daily into England to earn pay that we subsequently spend in Wales. However, we need quality employment in north Wales. The reality for many people is that they will obtain a great education, but then are lost to England because that’s where the work is. Links with England, and more importantly the rest of the globe via our access to international sea lanes, gives us the scope to prosper, but we need to remove the drag factors from small and medium-sized businesses, reduce red tape and allow business people to do business without paternalistic interference by Government. So, I would definitely be in favour of mutually fostering cross-border co-operation, but I’d like to hear from Hannah how she sees that actually working, because it wasn’t clear from your contribution. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I start by thanking the Member for Delyn for bringing forward this very important and very relevant debate today on the economy of north Wales, given that the autumn statement is due very soon? I’m very pleased to have a chance to respond to the comments made by a number of Members, and I think I should start my contribution concerning the future of north Wales by recognising the strengths of the regional economy as it is today.

In many areas, such as aerospace, energy and advanced manufacturing, north Wales is at the cutting edge of industry, and compared to Wales as a whole, north Wales has a higher employment rate, lower unemployment rate and a lower economic inactivity rate than the rest of Wales. Both economic output and household income per head are higher in north Wales than the rest of Wales. I want to build on this strong foundation, which is why we’re taking clear actions to encourage further economic development in north Wales. The Member for Delyn is absolutely right to point to the fact that the Lonely Planet recently declared north Wales to be the fourth best region on the planet, and we couldn’t hope for a better endorsement of the work of the Welsh Government and the work of Visit Wales in enhancing north Wales as a visitor destination. It’s of huge value to the economy and it also enhances a sense of pride in place that north Walians have.

We have long recognised that north-east Wales benefits from a cross-border economic area that extends into the north-west of England and down into the midlands. Indeed, the Mersey Dee area alone generates the equivalent of half of the entire GVA of Wales, and north Wales certainly does not exist in splendid isolation from any of the English regions or from the rest of Wales. So, cross-border connectivity is absolutely essential. Coherent, collaborative working across the border, such as that being undertaken in the context of the Mersey Dee Alliance and Growth Track 360, is a positive example of cross-border partners coming together and pooling resources effectively with pace and with clear purpose. I’m very eager to build upon this type of collaboration on both sides of the border, particularly given the common goals that we have in securing investment in rail modernisation, as well as in our shared sectoral strengths and the opportunities that they present.

When I first took on the economic portfolio, one of my first priorities was to hold a summit in north Wales with key cross-border stakeholders to seek agreement on defining a coherent vision for north Wales that aligns with the Northern Powerhouse. This was undertaken in July and I organised it because I see an opportunity for us to build an arc of economic prosperity from Holyhead in the west that links into the Northern Powerhouse and coherently aligns the economies of Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds with the economy of north Wales. Recently, I’ve been undertaking fact-finding visits in the north-west to meet with key individuals and to see what opportunities there are to share strategic facilities. For example, I recently visited Sheffield university’s advanced manufacturing research facilities and other strategic facilities across the Northern Powerhouse.

In addition to this, I’ve been working with our partners across the border, as well as with a broad range of stakeholders across the north Wales region, to develop a proposition to the Treasury for a north Wales growth bid. The economic ambition board in north Wales, working with the north Wales business council, has been developing the proposals, and it’s important that we progress this work at pace. We need to know from the UK Treasury, through the autumn statement, whether the door will be opened for negotiations.

In terms of investment, I believe a strong pipeline of investment projects is being planned, which means that energy and advanced manufacturing will continue to be key growth drivers for the north Wales economy and provide long-term local employment for many decades to come. Jeremy Miles is absolutely right to point to the significance of the tidal lagoon project in Swansea bay, because if that is a success, we would see as a consequence of that, in the future, the development of more tidal lagoons around Wales, including, importantly for north Wales, in Colwyn Bay.

As part of a wider transport modernisation programme, officials have started work on developing the vision for a north Wales metro, identifying a range of potential interventions for the short, medium and longer term. This is absolutely critical if we are to genuinely maximise the benefits of cross-border connectivity, and this has been identified by those who put together Growth Track 360 and who agree that the north Wales metro concept is vital for our region.

In April, we submitted the strategic outline business case for the north Wales main line electrification, developed again with the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, which we fund, the Mersey Dee Alliance and the Cheshire and Warrington LEP. We’ve been working with Merseytravel to deliver the Halton curve reopening, which will allow direct trains between Liverpool, Liverpool airport, Chester and north Wales. We’ve also been examining options to increase rail operational capacity at Wrexham General and Chester stations and by introducing new signal blocks to the north and to the south of Wrexham. I’m pleased to be able to contribute an additional £10 million, which was agreed with the Liberal Democrats as part of a previous budget agreement, to support faster routes between the north and the south.

In addition to this, we’ve taken forward major road improvements such as the third Menai crossing and, of course, we’re assessing options to tackle congestion on the A494 in Deeside, which our colleague Carl Sargeant has been pressing for for many years. I can confirm that consultation on two options for that £200 million road project will begin in March of next year. An investment of around £32 million is also being planned to upgrade junctions 15 and 16 on the A55 as a way of improving safety and journey times.

To continue driving this work forward in north Wales, we need to intensify our collaborative working on both sides of the border, not just in the public sector, but also in the private sector. I welcome this debate in helping us to do that. I also welcome the establishment of the cross-border Assembly group here and suggest that, in the spirit of collaboration, the group, which I will gladly join, meets early with the newly formed cross-border all-party parliamentary group as well.

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