Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I call the Members to order. 

It gives me great pleasure to announce today, in accordance with Standing Order 26.75, that the Childcare Funding (Wales) Bill was given Royal Assent today. 

The first item on our agenda today is questions to the Finance Minister and Trefnydd, and the first question is from Dai Lloyd. 

Following the conclusion of a review of the National Procurement Service and Value Wales, we are engaging stakeholders to develop a new approach to procurement, which will seek to further drive up well-being through public spending across all parts of Wales.

Thank you for that answer. Obviously, increasing the level of local spend in the context of public procurement is something that the Welsh Government has talked a lot about over the past two decades, but the stats show that talk is cheap. We continue to receive concerns from local companies who are frustrated at the lack of support in bidding and winning local contracts. Now, Scotland are light years ahead of us in this regard, and we hear of other parts of the UK—Preston, for example—where a concerted attempt has seen an increase in local spend by £200 million over a six-year period. When is the Welsh Government finally going to get to grips with this agenda and start to work effectively with local and regional bodies to properly support Welsh-based companies?

Thank you for raising what is a very important issue, in terms of ensuring that our Wales-based suppliers and our entire Welsh supply chain is able to benefit from in excess of £6 billion every year that we do spend on procurement. It isn't fair to say that this agenda hasn't moved forward, because we now win in Wales 52 per cent of the annual procurement expenditure, and that is up from a baseline of 35 per cent in 2004. So, we are making progress, although, clearly, progress isn't as far-reaching as we would have hoped, which is why the former Minister introduced the review of the National Procurement Service and Value Wales, and decided to make some quite far-reaching changes in terms of how we will develop this agenda even further. 

It was an in-depth examination, which demonstrates that the way forward really has to be through a much smaller unit, which is more focused on a smaller number of things. So, greater focus will be given in future to collaborative procurement agreements that are aligned to those regional and local priorities, which you've talked about, and also I'd like to explore how we can better support our small and medium-sized enterprises to work in collaboration, one with another, as we see in other sectors—the dairy sector in Wales does it very well, for example. So, we can learn from other sectors to see how we can take this agenda forward here in Wales. 

I think you've just confirmed, Minister, that, of course, as a Government, you're still actually looking into the procurement system. But can you reassure us that, once you've made some firm decisions on this, you will actually learn lessons so that small businesses in particular can have the opportunity to actually participate in the procurement system?

Absolutely, and this is one of the reasons why the previous Minister introduced the review in the first place, to ensure that small businesses, of which we have so many in Wales, are able to benefit from the huge investment that we make in the public sector every year in Wales. 

The size of contract decides who is able to bid for it. The smaller the contract, the better the opportunity for smaller, local companies. Bundling up contracts to make one large one only benefits the very large companies. Will the Welsh Government support using smaller public sector contracts to support local economies? This idea that you have one health budget—they purchase all the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board food from one place—excludes local firms. 

Again, this is another area where I will be exploring to determine how we can best take forward this agenda to benefit those SMEs we have right across Wales, to ensure, as I said in response to previous questions, that they are able to maximise their take from that important spend that we make and the investment that we make. 

The Welsh rates of income tax were agreed by the National Assembly for Wales on 15 January. Welsh Treasury officials are working with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to prepare for their introduction on 6 April 2019. The recent Wales Audit Office and National Audit Office reviews concluded that implementation is on track.

Can I thank the Minister for that answer? Your probably think it's groundhog day and that we did have quite a discussion about this last week. We've been talking about the devolution of income tax now for some considerable length of time, and the reality will soon be with us. As well as the mechanical act of raising taxes, that also requires an accurate forecasting ability, and we know that that has been done at a UK level now for a considerable length of time, but we have very little experience in Wales of making those forecasts. What are you doing to build up the capacity of the Welsh Government so that we do have accurate predictive forecasting so that you're able to make the best decisions in the future? 

Thank you very much for raising this issue, and, of course, the importance of forecasting is to ensure that we're able to take well-informed decisions. And this is one of the reasons why the arrangements with regard to the provisions of data will be one of the items that we do set out in that service level agreement, which is currently being finalised between Welsh Government and HMRC.

HMRC will continue to provide us with monthly reports on pay-as-you-earn income tax liabilities via its real-time information system. This won't provide complete coverage of Welsh rates, but it will certainly be a very useful and very timely and consistent indicator of revenue collection. But they will also be publishing outturn information on it as part of the annual accounts in July, and that obviously gives us a fuller and more complete picture of what happened in the previous financial year. So, having that accurate data will be certainly something that we're working very closely with HMRC on, and it will allow us then to forecast and make the right decisions for future years. 

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Nick Ramsay. 

It is groundhog day again, Minister, because I'm going to ask you about income tax again as it is such an important and pressing issue. Last week, we brought the debate to the Chamber on that pressing devolution of income tax, and you were asked by a number of Members on this side what your intentions were in terms of those rates and your commitment to keeping the rates of tax as they are, consistent for at least the next two years. Can you reconfirm that commitment today? 

This really is becoming groundhog day now, because, of course, I reconfirmed that commitment in our debate and the way in which we supported the motion that the Conservatives brought forward last week, I believe on the same day the First Minister had also reconfirmed that commitment. We have no plans to increase income tax during this Assembly term. We've made that very clear. It was a manifesto commitment.

We've also been clear that we can never say that we will never increase income tax here in Wales as well, because income tax is one of the taxes that we pay to ensure that we're all able to enjoy the public services that we have here in Wales. Any thoughts of increasing income tax and any other work that we do on tax would clearly need to be very much evidence based, and very much in terms of listening to what the impact might be on people's lives here in Wales as well. So, no decisions on income tax would ever be taken lightly. 

I would also say that it will be for all of us, as political parties, to set out our future agendas for income tax, in terms of how we present our offer to people across Wales for the next Assembly election, and, again, a manifesto commitment that we would expect to be something that we would all be thinking about. 

Thank you, Minister. I fully appreciate that you have in the past said, and your predecessor has said, that the intention is not to increase income tax, but it does seem that the ground has moved slightly on this. Certainly, the vocabulary has changed. The First Minister, shortly after he came into post, recently said that it is not the intention to do so. You have again said today that it is not your intention to raise it, but that does mean that the door is left open. Should the economic situation change over the next couple of years, will you fundamentally rule out raising income tax levels before the next Assembly election, or are you saying that the door is open? It's a very important question to be answered, because businesses out there and the public are concerned about this issue. 

Businesses and the public I think deserve better than to have unreal fears raised through a series of hypothetical questions and hypothetical scenarios, which have been raised by you on the Conservative benches. I'll just be very clear again: we have a manifesto commitment not to raise income taxes during this Assembly—we have no plans to do so.  

You answered that question without using 'project fear', or I could hear the phrase coming from the other side of the Chamber. I do welcome that commitment, Minister, and I know I've been going on about this now for some time, but I've asked you the question because it is very important to the public. I am starting to get people coming to me, who are concerned. I think it is dawning on people that this massive change in devolution is happening to Wales. The literature has recently gone out to taxpayers in Wales that income tax is going to be now part of the Welsh Government toolbox in terms of dealing with economic decisions. Could you update us on that process of keeping people informed? I know that the letters have been hitting people's doorsteps. Have you had any increased correspondence yourself on this matter? And has the Welsh Revenue Authority had any queries or concerns raised by members of the public about how the process is happening?

Thank you very much for the question. Of course, it's HMRC rather than the Welsh Revenue Authority administering this particular tax. They have had a number of queries from people in Wales. The leaflet and the letter that were sent out offered people the opportunity to have Welsh-language services. So, they had 126 requests to have their service given to them in the Welsh language. We've received a very small number of calls and e-mails—fewer than 20—on this particular issue. We do have a comprehensive programme of communications with taxpayers in terms of notifying them of what the Welsh rates of income tax mean and, of course, what they also don't mean. 

So, we've done some surveys to establish a baseline understanding of where people are with this and we'll be undertaking further work on this in due course. But, of course, we've got our new web pages and the first burst of an eight-week social media campaign—we'll be doing some more of that as well—because it is really important now that we have this opportunity to establish a new relationship with the people of Wales in terms of how they understand that the taxes they pay contribute very meaningfully to the work that we do here in the Assembly.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you, Llywydd. On the eleventh of this month, the Minister answered two written questions tabled by me on Barnett consequentials for Wales as a result of the 10 December funding package for the Crossrail project. I was told that discussions are ongoing between Welsh Government officials and UK Government officials. Is there any update from the Government on those negotiations?

Thank you very much for raising this. I'm afraid I don't have a further update beyond the fact that discussions are currently ongoing between HM Treasury officials and Welsh Government officials with regard to that Crossrail investment and what potential consequentials could be in Wales. We are awaiting further detail from the Treasury. I have to say that it is very difficult to get timely answers from the Treasury at the moment, but as soon as we have any further information, of course, we'll share it with Members.

An answer has been given to my parliamentary colleague, Jonathan Edwards MP, who asked a very similar question to mine of the UK Government. He received this response:

'As the Government is providing a loan to the GLA, this is being treated as a long-term reprofiling of DfT’s budget. The Devolved Administrations...have been offered Barnett consequentials of the DfT reprofile and it is up to individual DAs if they take up this offer.'

Can you confirm that the offer has been made? What was the nature of the offer that was made? Were there conditions attached to that? Is it the fact that conditions have been attached to it that is slowing a decision down from Welsh Government, and shouldn't this be a priority to see a potential new source of money as a way of investing in transport—investment that's desperately needed?

As I say, those discussions are ongoing in terms of how any potential consequentials could be used in Wales and over what time period—whether it would require any reprofiling of our existing capital spend. But I will endeavour to update members on this as soon as I possibly can.

We know that transport infrastructure spending in Wales is way behind the curve, compared certainly with the south-east of England and the London area, and, in fact, if capital spend here in Wales had kept pace with capital spend per head in the south-east of England and London, an additional £5.6 billion would have been spent here in Wales over the past 20 years. Now, I see that as £5.6 billion missed. Would you agree that this is a classic case of underfunding Wales by UK Government? Would you agree to making it a priority to see if there is a source of funding here? And would you, perhaps, consider that this has been a failure by Welsh Government to stop that gap from increasing over the 20 years since you came into power in 1999?

I would suggest that comparing spending in Wales to London and the south-east isn't necessarily a particularly accurate comparison to make. Normally, when you make comparisons, they are with other parts of the UK that are relatively similar in terms of population and income per head and those kinds of issues.

We're making really significant investment across Wales in terms of capital investment. You'll know about the plans that we have for the city deals, the north Wales growth deal; we're really keen to see what more progress we can be making on that. Of course, last year, in May alone, we announced another £266 million of new capital investments alongside the publication of the Wales infrastructure investment plan midpoint review. And our budget, which we recently passed through the Assembly, obviously builds on that. So, we have investment of an additional £60 million on road refurbishments, £78 million further for the local transport fund, almost £43 million over two years on the Taff's Well rail depot, £35 million investment in the social housing grant and £25 million to create seven strategic hubs across the south Wales Valleys in line with our ministerial taskforce work on the south Wales Valleys. So, we are certainly making serious capital investment here in Wales.

UKIP spokesperson, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch, Llywydd. I wonder if the Minister saw one of the attractions of her new job as taking responsibility for the complexities of local government finance in the years ahead, and whether she agrees with me that the funding formula for local government is now looking increasingly dated and requires reform. In particular, one of its defects is that the mechanism within it seems to work so as to force councils to raise council tax almost every year. Welsh Government predicts council spending over the next year, and a larger need prediction brings about a larger block grant. The need prediction is based upon council spending in previous years, so if there's a previous history of high council taxes, then you get more money; if you've got lower council taxes, then you get less money. So, councils need to increase the council tax every year to get higher financial need estimates and higher grants from the Welsh Government. So, there's no incentive whatever within the formula as it currently is for local councils to get better value for money or to economise in spending. What we need to do is to have a formula that removes such a perversity.

Thank you for that question. I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you now and let you know that it is actually Julie James who had this given to her in her portfolio. However, clearly, I have a strong interest in ensuring that we do fund local government properly here in Wales, which is why I attended, alongside Julie James, the finance sub-group very recently. The finance sub-group brings together leaders of local authorities, police and crime commissioners and others to talk about specific issues, such as the local government settlement funding formula.

I will say that we were clear in that meeting that, actually, Julie James and I are very open to other ideas. If local authorities feel, as a collective through the Welsh Local Government Association, that this formula isn't working for them and they want to come forward with other ideas as to how things could be improved, then certainly we would be keen to explore any ideas that they have to bring forward to us.

I'm sorry I misunderstood the complexities of the shuffled portfolios within ministries as well as between them, but rises in council tax are imposing enormous burdens upon individuals and, indeed, businesses. The average band for council tax has more than trebled in Wales since 1997 and it's gone up by two and a half times since the Assembly was created. Even the former CEO of the Welsh Local Government Association, Steve Thomas, has said:

'The fact is that the formula as it currently stands is held together by duct tape and sticking plasters'

and can't continue. We do need to have an urgent review of local authority funding and to reconsider the link between the Welsh Government's predictions of local authority need and previous years' council tax rates, which are embedded in the formula. As the finance Minister, of course, the Minister must be a pivotal ingredient in any change that might be brought about in the future. So, I'd just like to get some idea of the extent to which the Welsh Government sees this as a priority. It's not something that can be answered overnight, and it may take several years to bring about meaningful change. So, are we going to see any moves towards some kind of revision being made during the course of this Assembly?

Thank you for that question. I was clear with the finance sub-group that I do take a very strong and direct interest in this agenda. So, whereas a finance Minister would normally have a slot on their agenda, I've been clear that I'd like to actually come along for all of it, to hear for myself, really, the kind of pressures that local authorities are under, and the kind of ideas that they have for things that could alleviate the serious pressures they're under. I think it's fair to say that, when Julie James introduced the local government settlement debate, she was very clear that she wasn't planning to sell the settlement as an excellent settlement to local authorities; she very much reflected on the fact that we are living in the ninth year of austerity, and there is huge pressure right across Government. She made all of those points about Welsh Government funding being comparatively so much less than it was a decade ago.

The core funding that we currently provide to local authorities, as the Member will know, is distributed according to relative need, and that takes into account a formula that has a wealth of information, such as demographic, physical, economic and social characteristics of those local authorities, and also it takes account of their ability to raise their own funds—through council tax, for example. There have been incremental changes to the formula over the years. So, over 2017-18 and 2018-19 significant changes, actually, were made to the funding formula, to take account of the additional costs incurred as a result of increased travel times in relatively sparsely populated areas, for example. So, as I say, the Minister and I are very much all ears for ideas that would come forward from local authorities.

One of the features that I think does need to be looked at is that, when you look at the councils that have had an increase in funding most recently, many of them have seen a substantial increase in their reserves. So, this is money that could be spent on public services but is being held in bank accounts and not available for dealing with the current problems. Rhondda Cynon Taf, for example, has a staggering amount of £152 million in its reserves, up from £148.9 million in the previous year. Torfaen has nearly £30 million in reserves, up from £24 million, and Neath Port Talbot is up to £76 million from £65 million. So, surely, there must be some kind of control on councils keeping an excess of the cash available to them in reserves. After all, the Auditor General for Wales has recently criticised community councils for reserves rising to £38.7 million in Wales by April 2018. So, I hope that the finance Minister will support my call for the role of reserves to be reconsidered in relation to the block grant settlement.

Well, clearly, council leaders will have to manage their budgets effectively, but within those reserves, what perhaps isn't always completely obvious from the top-line figures, certainly, is that much of it, or a certain percentage of it, will already be committed to a number of projects—school building projects and so on. So, I think it's important to delve down into the figures to have a fuller picture, really, as to the plans that the local authority has for those reserves.

We recognise the importance of local post offices in serving our communities. While responsibility for the post office network is non-devolved, we continue to make representations to the UK Government regarding our concerns over the closure of post offices.

In the last month, we've lost three bank branches in the Rhondda. Barclays announced that they're closing their branches in Tonypandy and Ferndale, and more recently, Santander have announced that they are going to close their branch in Tonypandy as well. This now means that there is not a single bank branch in the Rhondda Fach. Now, it's clear to me that in the wake of this callous closure programme from the corporate banks, the post office network is going to take on an extra level of importance. In the past, we had the post office diversification fund. That was a key component of the Plaid Cymru-Labour One Wales Government that awarded grants to post offices to make those businesses more sustainable. If we could protect and strengthen the post office network, it could ensure that people and communities do not become completely cut off from financial services. So, in the light of this, will you consider making funds available to reactivate such a fund?

Thank you for raising that. I'm afraid that in the current climate we just don't have the funds available to us to be undertaking work that is rightly the work of the UK Government. The UK Government does have a £2 billion post office network transformation programme to modernise those post offices. It's very much in the way that we did previously through the diversification fund. Welsh post offices are able to apply to that fund, and I'd certainly encourage them to do so.

I was disappointed with the beginning of that answer, I have to say, Trefnydd. With so many bank closures, we are relying on post offices for access to cash now. Can you clarify whether the post office charges banks for the service that people can use there, or, possibly, is the charge the other way round? Does the post office charge the bank or does the bank charge the post office? And is there any difference in those charges depending on where those post offices are located? As we've heard recently, a differential is now being considered for the Link ATM network with more deprived and rural areas incurring smaller charges between the two organisations than, perhaps, city centres. But that could be a disincentive or an incentive for post offices, depending where they are. Obviously, I accept that Welsh Government has limited powers in this field, but in deciding which post offices you could support through your financial inclusion policies, how do you horizon scan for new threats to access to cash in deciding which post offices you could support?

Thank you very much for raising that. Of course, bank regulation and the post office network are both responsibilities of the UK Government and we've been very clear time and time again that the UK Government does need to take a more coherent and strategic approach to community banking. We believe that all banks, when they leave a community, do have a responsibility to the customers who have often been giving their loyalty to that bank for decades, in many cases.

We know that, actually, six banks in total, that we're aware of, are due to close later this year, including the one previously mentioned in Tonypandy, which is one of the reasons that we're interested in exploring the idea of a community bank for Wales. So, we're in some very early-stage discussions with a number of stakeholders who are keen to explore with us the feasibility of establishing that community bank in Wales. That work will be led by partners who will prepare a full market assessment and business plan with the intention to submitting it then to the Bank of England as an application later on this year. Banking professionals working within the Development Bank of Wales will support the work, providing advice and guidance where appropriate and ensuring that the creation of a community bank does integrate with the existing financial institutions, including, for example, the Development Bank for Wales and the credit unions. The credit unions particularly are a really important part of that financial inclusion that the Member was talking about.

Welsh tax policy will be developed in line with the principles set out in our tax policy framework. I will be taking a considered approach, seeking to raise revenue fairly, and engaging widely with taxpayers and other stakeholders.

Minister, taxation powers offer the opportunity to introduce change to the tax system to help create a fairer and more equal Wales. At the moment, private schools sustain an institutionalised unfairness and inequality, working against social mobility by entrenching educational inequality that feeds through to careers and life chances, with ex-private school pupils disproportionately featuring at the top of professions and businesses. Will you carefully consider ending the tax advantages of charitable status for private schools to further equality of opportunity and outcome in Wales?

Thank you very much for that question. Of course, fairness is our No. 1 principle in the tax principles that are guiding us in terms of the development of our tax policy in Wales. I can confirm that I do intend to consult over the next 12 months on proposals to place independent schools and private hospitals on an equal footing with their public sector counterparts in respect of the payment of non-domestic rates. The consultation will consider removing charitable rate relief from private schools and private hospitals where they're registered as charities. State schools and hospitals, of course, are obliged to pay non-domestic rates, as are all other ratepayers, and this is an important contribution to the cost of the vital local services that are delivered in our communities. So, this brings in the question of equality, which you've mentioned, alongside fairness—if we do change the eligibility of these institutions as a result of the consultation, it will put them on an equal footing with the state schools and hospitals. 

Would you agree, Minister, that Welsh Government policy with regard to Welsh rates of income tax must include a commitment to providing comprehensive and accessible guidance to Welsh taxpayers, and can you confirm that guidance will be provided by websites such as those of Welsh Government and the Welsh Revenue Authority?

And my other point is, Minister: if people living in south-east Wales work the other side of the border—we know one person in this Chamber lives in England and is here in this part of the world—so if there's a tax difference between the two regions, the two countries, where's the benefit for the tax? Can he or she claim and go for the place of residence rather than where they earn the money?

I can confirm that most people will be paying tax in their place of residence. However, there is an exception within the rules that means that all Assembly Members will be paying the Welsh rates of income tax regardless of where they live. I will confirm that there will be a comprehensive communications programme to ensure that people are well aware of Welsh rates of income tax and what it might mean for them, and obviously to be able to have any questions that they have answered.

Together with my officials, I am in regular contact with UK Treasury Ministers about a range of financial issues, including discussing the implications of the current position regarding the impact of Brexit on public spending and our budget.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Obviously, many of us have often mentioned the shared prosperity fund, because we don't know what it is and where it comes from, but that focuses on European structural funds and regional development fund money. The question I have is: are there other funds in Europe that are coming to institutions in this country? I'll give an example—it was raised with the cross-party group on steel last week—the research fund for coal and steel, which actually funds research into steel areas to ensure that we have a sustainable steel industry for the future, something critical to the Welsh economy. When they raised this question with the Treasury, they were basically told, 'It will go back into the pot', and it will not be ring-fenced for anything, so we may not get a ring-fenced research fund for steel and coal. When you meet the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, can you please raise the issue of any funds that come back from Europe, or that would have been allocated to Europe for particular topics in particular areas—remain in those so that we can benefit from that? Because the loss of something like £200 million to £400 million of accessible funding for research into steel is a huge loss to this country.

Absolutely, and the Member is well aware that we were promised that Wales wouldn’t be a single penny worse off as a result of Brexit, and it is absolutely imperative that we hold the UK Government to that commitment. David Rees is right: there's a huge amount of focus on the shared prosperity fund because of the importance of it to our communities, and the investment that it makes, but there are so many other programmes and funds that we do benefit from—so, the steel research programme, which has been referred to, is one of them, but also a number of smaller programmes. And we really do need to ensure that we continue to have access to a wide range of programmes, a wide range of networks, and the wide range of innovation funds that we have at the moment. I will certainly be pressing that case, as I know my colleague the Brexit Minister will be in the meetings that he attends very regularly, and the First Minister's very regular, now, meetings with the Prime Minister.

Finance Secretary, what use have you made of the £31 million that the Treasury have made available to the Welsh Government for Brexit preparedness? This money has arrived with your good self, but when I've questioned various Ministers at question time, there's a look of bemusement that this money is slushing around the Welsh Government. So, can you be specific what that £31 million has achieved, please?

Thank you very much for the question on the Brexit preparedness funding. Of course, we have introduced the £50 million fund for preparedness for Brexit and a number of statements have been made by portfolio Ministers as to how that's been spent. For example, the police partnership resilience scheme has recently been announced, the Association of Directors of Social Services Cymru Brexit support scheme, and preparations for the successor arrangements for those EU schemes, such as what will become the shared prosperity fund and so on.

There is another £10 million within the funding of that £31 million, which is yet to be allocated. I'm having discussions currently with the First Minister and with officials across Government with a view to coming forward with a further announcement as to how that money will be spent, but that discussion is very active at the moment.

I draw Members' attention to my register of interests, as chair of the programme monitoring committee dealing with European funding. Could I concur with the comments that have been made by David Rees, my neighbour in the Aberavon constituency and also Chair of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee, on the red lines that the Government have drawn, both in terms of the whole funding, which we understand could, actually, be greater, based on the current EU calculations, than the current £680 million that should come to Wales, but also the levers in order to make the decisions on how we allocate and distribute that funding, perhaps in a different way, post Brexit as well? It seems all the more urgent after last night's vote, once again.

The Treasury typically tends to be—at the moment, certainly—fiscally conservative, but with a small 'c' conservative in their approach as well towards devolution. So, could I re-emphasise the point that David made, which is: what discussions is she and her officials having with Treasury officials, who, ultimately, will be the ones sitting around the Cabinet table, that not only help influence but will make the determination on whether the Welsh Government's red lines are respected, and that the money is passed back to Wales and also the levers of power to do as we want with it?  

Thank you very much for raising the important point that it's not simply the quantum of money that is important, although that clearly is—it's actually how that money is made available to us to allocate to our Welsh Government priorities. We can't see a rolling back of 20 years of devolution through attempts by the UK Government to power grab in this area. Proposals such as a city deal kind of scenario for using that money are completely inappropriate.

There is no role here for the Secretary of State for Wales. This is very much funding that the Welsh Government needs to be allocating to meet our priorities in our communities, because we have the local knowledge, the understanding and the necessary networks to ensure that we make effective use of such funding here in Wales.

We're very, very clear that the baseline of the Welsh Government's block grant must be increased every year in line with the level of funding that we currently receive from the EU every year, without any clawback or top-slicing of that funding as well. I would just put on record again that we're extremely frustrated at the lack of detail from the UK Government with regard to the shared prosperity fund.

The 2019 pay remit guidance for our sponsored bodies is currently being finalised and will be issued by the end of February.

Minister, obviously, this, then, has to be applied from 1 April, and I think it's really important that we see its publication as soon as possible. The end of February is cutting it very fine for them to put various measures in place so that they can implement these pay awards effectively. Is there any prospect of you accelerating the announcement, which is already fairly late, I think, in the cycle, so that they can carry this out effectively—this financial planning?

Thank you for raising this issue. The development of that guidance is very much an iterative process, so those bodies should be having discussions with officials in the process of developing the guidance. What I will say is that we can expect the guidance to look similar, in some ways, to the guidance last year, so building on the themes that we were keen to develop there. So, transparency, for example, was an important theme, as was encouraging sponsored bodies to pay the real living wage, as defined by the Living Wage Foundation, and ensuring that pay policy statements are published in line with our commitments towards the transparency, particularly, of senior pay.

We will ensure that the guidance supports fair pay and look favourably on sponsored bodies who pay the same rates as the Welsh Government. I can also confirm that there will be no intention to have a cap on public sector pay awards, and this will maintain the approach that we had last year.

Consideration was given to the care needs of the whole of Wales, including north Wales. For 2019-20, funding of £1.46 billion has been allocated to Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board to improve performance, drive transformation and integration and help people live healthier, independent lives for longer.

Diolch. Last month the Countess of Chester Hospital, a fifth of whose patients come from Wales, reported concern that there'd been a 26 per cent increase in delayed transfers of care for its Welsh patients over the previous year. At the same time, there'd been a 24 per cent reduction for patients coming from the English side of the border, the west Cheshire patient catchment area that they service. Officers raised concerns about funding from the Welsh Government. Welsh Government denied claims they were not paying their fair share. The health Minister criticised the trust board chairman in the media. And the Welsh Government said health boards and local authorities were aware of the need to reduce delayed transfers of care and that the rate of improvement had been significantly evident in recent years. Well, clearly, these figures show that wasn't the case. So, clearly, there's a disagreement between the two sides, ongoing for many years, which is now having serious implications on the experience of patients over the funding arrangement. What is going on, Minister? Can you confirm that now or can you drill down and establish what's really going on and report back to this Assembly? 

Thank you for raising this issue. I know, certainly on an all-Wales level, we're seeing some of the lowest levels of delayed transfers of care that we've had since records began, but I appreciate the circumstance you describe is unique in the sense that we're talking about cross-border provision. I'm not aware of the issue but I will certainly have discussions with the health Minister to explore the matter further. 

Statistics already exist for problem gambling in Wales from the Gambling Commission. We will include questions on gambling as part of the national survey for Wales in 2020-1.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I very much welcome, at long last, the inclusion of gambling-related questions in the revised health survey. It's something we have raised year after year in this Chamber, so that is a step forward. But there is a lot more data that is actually required in terms of the impact within education, the impact on students, the impact on health and so on. It seems to me that this isn't something alone that we can rely on, but it is essential that we have a comprehensive, strategic collation of data to understand what is happening, because without that data it is impossible to actually develop strategies for dealing with problem gambling. I was wondering what strategies Welsh Government is considering with regard to that data at the moment. 

Thank you for raising this issue and for doing it consistently. I know that you've campaigned for this data to be gathered over many years and I'm pleased that it is now going to happen. The chief medical officer I think demonstrated very clearly in his annual report how gambling is becoming a public health issue that we do need to address in Wales. And to do so, obviously, we need good data and good statistics to inform us. We have arranged to include questions on gambling in the health behaviour in school-aged children and school health research network survey during the last year. That was a survey of children aged 11 to 16. That data is currently being collated and analysed and clearly that will help inform our way forward as well. Other sources of information will also be important.

So, officials are considering the findings of a report that was published this week on gambling and public health by Public Health Wales and Bangor University to help inform local and national actions that we can take here to prevent problem gambling and the harms that that causes across Wales. And also, we'll be keen to listen to important partners as well. So, on Monday of this week, the chief medical officer co-chaired, alongside the Gambling Commission, a round-table discussion involving a range of key stakeholders. Obviously, data from the national survey, then, will be used to allow us to track the progress that we can make in terms of combating harm from problem gambling in Wales. 

And finally, Darren Millar. 

I welcome the work that's being done to improve the availability of data on problem gambling. It is an issue that we need to take more concerted action on to address. I wonder, in terms of some of the other action that you could take, whether you can tell us whether any consideration has been given to the use of business rates as an opportunity to reduce the impact, if you like, of the cumulative number of shops that appear to be popping up in some communities across Wales on local high streets. You will know that we've raised concerns in this Chamber in the past about the fact that some communities, particularly impoverished communities, in Wales, appear to be targeted by unscrupulous gambling companies with a proliferation of betting shops. Is there something that you can do to increase business rates in a punitive way in order to reduce the potential impact of those shops on those communities?     

Thank you for raising this issue, and also for highlighting what the chief medical officer also highlighted in his report, that the harm caused by gambling is very much unequal in its distribution, and that people who are economically inactive, for example, and live in deprived areas are much more likely to suffer harm from gambling. I will certainly give further consideration to the suggestion that you've brought forward today. 

Thank you, Minister.

The next item is questions to the Minister for International Relations and the Welsh Language, and the first question is from Mandy Jones. 

Thank you, Llywydd, and thank you, Mandy.

We're committed to building on Wales’s recent success in hosting major international events. To that end, we're working closely with partners in Wales, the UK and internationally to identify and pursue new opportunities for attracting major sporting and cultural events to all parts of Wales.  

Thank you for that answer. In recent years, Cardiff has been a fantastic advert for Wales around the world by hosting major events. The events are a perfect opportunity to showcase everything Wales has to offer and boost tourism during the event. How is this Welsh Government planning on replicating the success of Cardiff in other parts of Wales, including in my own region? 

Well, thank you. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that in north Wales we have spent about £6 million on major events since about 2008. Of course, it's absolutely right that, very often, these international events will be focused on a capital city; sometimes that is a requirement by some of these organisations. But, if you look at what we're doing—for example, FOCUS Wales is an urban music festival in Wrexham, which is highly successful; Festival No. 6—you'll have heard about that—in Portmeirion, which is very successful. Unfortunately, that's not happening this year, but the Good Life Experience is another one in north Wales and, of course, the Llangollen international festival, the Tour of Britain, the biggest UK professional road cycling event, and, of course, the Wales Rally GB. So, we're already doing quite a lot in north Wales. 

Mandy Jones rightly observes that the Welsh capital has a very good record in attracting major events, particularly in the sporting field. One of the items of perhaps what may be described as constructive feedback that we sometimes get from organising bodies and visitors, though, is it would be better if people coming in by road weren't held up in jams, often for hours, through the Brynglas tunnels. Does the Minister therefore believe that this should be resolved by delivering on the promise in the Welsh manifesto to deliver a relief road for the M4?  

Well, thank you. Of course, I think our priority would be, where possible, to encourage people to come by public transport, and how much easier will that be now that we have a bit more control over the rail network? So, I do hope that there's that co-ordination between the Welsh Government and the major events team in making sure that, when Cardiff is hosting these events, that, actually, they will be using public transport wherever possible. But, of course, there is an issue that we also need to address in relation to those hold-ups, which are of no benefit to anybody.  

There is one major event in the pipeline for us on Ynys Môn—the opportunity to stage the Island Games in 2025. The executive committee of the Island Games internationally has been very supportive of our plans and I’m very grateful to them for that, and we will be submitting our final bid in a matter of weeks, so this is a crucial time. We’re extremely grateful for the support that’s been shown from the local authority and by the major events team within the Welsh Government under previous Ministers and we look forward to working in partnership with you over ensuing years, up until 2025.

Do you, as a new Minister in this portfolio, agree with me that this is a priceless opportunity for Anglesey, which will be an economic boost, which will be good for health, fitness and sports and leave a legacy for many years? Would you agree that it is an event that the Welsh Government should be very proud to support?

Thank you, and may I thank the Member for his investment in these games? I think that this is a huge opportunity for Ynys Môn, which has witnessed some issues over the past few weeks, and it's good to see a positive on the horizon as regards the Island Games. We are supportive of the games in principle. What I would like to see now is my team develop a valid business case with local government, and we’re extremely aware that this has to be ready by 8 March. So, the idea of pace and moving quickly is one that we are taking seriously and my officials will collaborate with the officers in local government to see how far we can take this, but I’m very hopeful that we can support this.

I'm very grateful to my friend and former colleague Mohammad Asghar for that question. I thought I'd get that in. [Laughter.]

A review of the free swimming programme was completed in September 2018. And, as part of the recommendations of that review, future options for the programme are being developed and I expect them to be submitted to me very shortly. I will then determine the future direction of the programme.

Thank you very much, Minister, for the reply. A recent report from Sport Wales found that the free swimming scheme for children and pensioners is no longer fit for purpose and that it needs a radical change. It went on to say that the scheme only cost half of the annual £3 million of funding provided by the Welsh Government, but that councils rely on this income due to cuts in their budgets. Minister, what discussions have you had with Sport Wales regarding the findings of this report, and will you confirm that you remain committed to supporting this scheme, which brings great health benefits to the young and elderly in our society?

I certainly remain fully committed. Indeed, I'm very keen to develop an overall programme of physical activity in Wales, and I do recognise that swimming is a fine physical activity to be encouraged widely, along with other physical activities. What I'm very keen to see developing is the option for more people in Wales to participate. It is not our intention, in any sense, to reduce the amount of funding on the promotion of physical activity, but to broaden the possibilities. 

As has been said, there are substantial benefits to swimming in terms of health—fighting obesity, reducing the number affected by type 2 diabetes and, something we don't talk about often enough, helping people build muscular strength, especially after they've left hospital. It is, along with other exercise, an excellent way of reducing current and future health problems, and aren't we better off trying to stop people being ill than dealing with them when they are? 

I am grateful for the support from my present colleague, Mike Hedges, on this issue. I'm very keen to see the response to the activity of Sport Wales in assessing the first report that it has produced, and there has been a sub-group—the free swimming initiative steering group—on which local authorities, Swim Wales and Welsh Government are represented, which has been undertaking this work. I have had discussions with some members of that board already and I hope to consider their report to me as soon as I receive it. Welsh Government has contributed some £30 million towards the free swimming programme. As I said earlier in response to Mohammad Asghar, there are no plans to scrap free swimming for either the 16-and-under age group or the over-60s. However, there are issues surrounding the effectiveness of the scheme, which are set out very clearly in the reports I've already received, and as soon as I have some information I will make a further statement to Members.

I just wanted to ask the Deputy Minister if he would look at the way in which the free swimming is promoted in your review, because I recall last summer, in my constituency—Pentwyn leisure centre is a great facility, but it was very poorly advertised in the super-output areas of deprivation that are alongside the leisure centre, and they are the people who most need to be informed of when they can go swimming for free, because they simply don't have the money to go swimming unless it's free. So, I wondered if you'd look at that, because, if money is limited, it's crucial, it seems to me, that those people who can't afford to go swimming otherwise are the ones who are prioritised for this information.

Well, we are now increasingly working across Government and with local government in the promotion of all forms of physical activity, and I will certainly remind the local authorities through the relations with us directly within the group that's been studying this issue that there is no point in having a scheme that is not taken up because of a failure to promote. And, therefore, in the overall work that we are now undertaking in promoting physical activity across Government, we will pay particular attention to those areas of deprivation, which, along with all the other areas of our society throughout Wales, could benefit most from these schemes and from greater physical activity.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian.

Thank you, Llywydd. As Minister with responsibility for the Welsh language, can you confirm that English isn't introduced in Mudiad Meithrin's cylchoedd meithrin or in Welsh-medium schools until a child reaches seven years of age at the moment? And, if so, will you confirm, so that we can be entirely clear on this, that the proposal in the Welsh Government's White Paper for the new curriculum would be to make English a compulsory subject in such settings?

Thank you very much. You will be aware that, as regards Welsh-medium education, it has moved to the portfolio of the Minister responsible for education, but I think it's worth underscoring the fact that we understand that Welsh-medium immersion is essential as regards realising our vision for 1 million speakers. I have received an assurance from the Minister for Education that the current Welsh-medium immersion arrangements, which are provided by Mudiad Meithrin, for example, will continue unchanged as part of this new curriculum.

Well, the major question arising from what you've just said is: what's going to happen for the future? What about the next generations of children? Will they too continue to be immersed in the language? Your strategy—and it is your strategy as Minister for the Welsh language, the 1 million Welsh speakers strategy—does state unambiguously that Welsh-medium immersion education is the main method of ensuring that children can develop their Welsh language skills and for creating new Welsh speakers. Indeed, international evidence and Donaldson's emphasis itself confirm that. I've heard you mention a number of times that you do expect every department within the Welsh Government to give due regard to the Welsh language and the 1 million Welsh speakers strategy in every policy development and in all elements of their work. And, given that the Welsh Government proposal threatens that very effective system that exists at the moment in terms of immersion education, and is entirely contrary to one of the cornerstones of your language strategy, I would like to know how much communication there has been between you and the Minister for Education, Kirsty Williams, in developing this proposal. And can you tell me too what is the evidence that the education department has used to promote this proposal?

I’m not sure whether I made it clear enough in my first reply, I think I need to underscore that there is no change on the policy on immersion. There is awareness, and we’ve been doing this throughout the years. We have a history that people are emulating throughout the whole of the world as regards the efficacy of this specific policy and this will not change in future. So, I want you to be totally clear that that is the position, not just for now but for the future too.

I must also emphasise that it is worth seeing in the new curriculum that that target of attaining a million speakers is not just for people within Welsh-medium education but for whole generations, all of the schoolchildren going through the system, so, everybody will benefit. But, of course, as regards the immersion system, that will be different to those.

I assume from that, therefore, that you will delete the clause in the White Paper and will do so as a matter of urgency. You’ve confirmed that immersion should be developed and continued for the future, so the natural step is to withdraw that clause to scrap the whole discussion around it, because it’s unnecessary; so, it doesn’t need to be in the White Paper.

But in addition to the need for developing immersive education, normalising the Welsh language in the education system as a whole is crucially important if we’re to reach that target of a million Welsh speakers, including increasing teaching through the medium of Welsh in English-medium schools. In 2013, Professor Sioned Davies’s report stated that urgent changes were required in the way in which the Welsh language was taught. Sioned Davies recommended that second language Welsh should be abolished by 2018 and that there should be a single learning continuum. A former Minister for the Welsh language, Alun Davies, told me in this very place that

'The second language Welsh qualification will be replaced...in 2021'.

Clearly, there’s been some slippage in the timetable, but I do welcome the announcement that there will be one Welsh language learning continuum from 2022 onwards, that there’s a sign of progress at last and it’s something to be welcomed, therefore.

What we need now is confirmation on the timetable and a commitment to publish an exemplar qualification in order to facilitate preparation in our schools. So, can you commit today to work with the education Minister on a clear timetable in order to publish a comprehensive qualification for the Welsh language as an example?

May I just say that I’m pleased that you welcome that we have listened to Professor Sioned Davies? I’m also very aware that we need to improve the way in which we teach second language in our schools, and, for that reason, we convened a symposium last year where we brought together people who truly understood and had studied the best way of learning Welsh as a second language globally, and we’ve used that and are demonstrating that as a new way for people to learn Welsh in schools where Welsh is not the main language of the school.

These are issues for the Minister responsible for education, but as regards the qualification, it’s not the Government that’s responsible for the qualification, but, of course, a great deal of work is being done at present to prepare and look at how this continuum will work as regards ensuring that a qualification will be available that will be appropriate for both first language Welsh speakers and those who have gone through the education system without that education being in Welsh throughout the school.

Conservative spokesperson, Suzy Davies. 

Thank you, Llywydd. Well, I’d like to start with the issue of teaching English in Welsh-medium settings for very young children too, because you may not be directly responsible for education but you are responsible for the target of a million Welsh speakers. And we heard yesterday that English is already being used in some of the early years settings and foundation phase settings, and I recognise that, but in my experience it is really a matter of considering the welfare of specific children and their communication needs at the time, and that is very different to 'teaching English'. I don’t doubt the intentions of the education Minister or your own intentions that they shouldn’t undermine the immersion system or progress, but I don’t think it’s sufficient to say that this is already a requirement within guidance for the foundation phase. It isn’t a sufficient response in my view. 

We’re not talking about the same thing as introducing more Welsh language into the English-medium sector, I want to know what 'teaching English' means. What evidence can you provide to us that English is being taught in Welsh language settings at the moment and what disadvantages do those children face at the moment that are intended to be overcome by this proposal in the White Paper?

Well, you’re quite right to focus on the fact that education is central to our target of having a million speakers. Of course, by 2050, we hope that about 40 per cent of Welsh schoolchildren will attend designated Welsh language schools. In order to attain that target, we must ensure that we are committed to this immersion system and I hope that you heard what I clearly said to Siân Gwenllian.

May I—[Interruption.] We have made it perfectly clear that there is no—the Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin—I hope that they will understand that there is no need for them to change the way in which they are actually operating at present. This is a White Paper, of course, there are no clauses, and I am sure that the Mudiad Ysolion Meithrin are making it clear that they don't want to see this. It's clear to us that this will not happen. I hope that I have made it clear enough that there will not be any change in the current system when it comes to the nursery schools.

I’m sorry, Minister, it isn’t at all clear what 'teaching English' means in the new system. Because, as we heard from Dai Lloyd yesterday, we aren’t aware of nurseries that teach English at the moment. They use English for the sake of the well-being of children, but they don’t teach English, so I do think that we need some clarity around that issue for the future.

If I can remain on the issue of education, a few weeks ago, I raised with the education Minister the unintended consequence in Gwynedd of cuts to the education improvement grant. Part of the grant had been targeted and spent on intensive work with non-Welsh-speaking children having moved to the area, to help them acquire Welsh language skills that they need to access education within that county. Despite that, the Minister said that she was confident that the children who needed additional Welsh language skills could learn them successfully, and I do hope that she’s correct there. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child gives a right to children to education and these policies here due regard to the UNCRC. Would you be willing to work with the education Minister to satisfy yourselves that the children who need this intensive support still receive it, or ensure that there are other methods delivering the same outcomes for them? Thank you.

We are very aware that there are circumstances when people come into a community, where they're unable to speak the language, particularly in some of our more Welsh areas, where they need that immersion when they are slightly older children. There are schools for latecomers located throughout Wales and, very often, some local authorities have to collaborate in order to ensure that that provision is available. And, of course, I will collaborate with the Minister responsible for education to ensure that that system continues. Of course, local government is under a great deal of financial pressure, and we are very aware that we wish this to carry on and we don’t wish to see any cuts in this field.

Thank you for that, because we all want to see children who move into Wales still benefiting from similar services to those that I mentioned, and it has different impacts in different parts of Wales, of course, but in Gwynedd specifically, it is hugely important that children can acquire the skills that they need in accessing education there.

If I can just turn now to another issue, at a cabinet meeting of Bridgend County Borough Council in my region, at the beginning of this month, the Conservative councillor Tom Giffard asked a question in Welsh, and the response from the members was to ignore the question, and the chair of the council tried to move on to the next item on the agenda. Having insisted that his question be answered, the councillor was asked whether the question could be repeated in English, and the member pragmatically agreed to do so on this occasion, because there were no Welsh-speaking officers at all in the chamber. Under the test of reasonableness and proportionality, I don’t expect every councillor to be able to speak Welsh, or that there should be interpretation available in all councils in Wales. However, standards do apply to Bridgend council, and at the moment, they send all of their translation work to external companies. Wouldn’t it be a good idea for them to use some of those funds to employ somebody who is experienced in written translation and interpretation to meet their needs better and to help their progress in creating a bilingual environment for their workforce?

Thank you, and I do hope that councils across Wales will be supportive of a person’s ability to speak in Welsh, even if they have to repeat a question in English. But I do think that there is a way of improving the way in which we deliver translation services throughout the whole of Wales. We have a technological scheme in Welsh Government to look at how we are going to use technology to improve the provision of translation. We’re creating a translation memory—this is one of the things that we are looking at in great detail at the moment. If everybody who uses the Welsh language inputs into the system, the data will be much improved, and the provision will then be improved. So, I do think there are means of looking at how we can get local authorities in particular to collaborate, which would save a great deal of money for them. And also perhaps they could use our translation memory in Welsh Government and it could all be put in one pot and we will all benefit from the one system. That is part of the technological plan that we are aiming for at present.

UKIP spokesperson, Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Llywydd. I'd like to welcome the Minister to her new role, and also welcome back the Deputy Minister to his. One of the policy areas of your department is the staging of major events. I was interested to hear the answers that you gave in response to question 1 from Mandy Jones, and the supplementaries. Of course, Mandy was perfectly correct in her point that, although it's very good to have events coming to Cardiff, there's also a need to spread events across Wales in general and also to include north Wales, so I was also interested to hear your response to Rhun's enquiries about the Island Games that are projected for Ynys Môn. Clearly, there are going to be a lot of Members coming to you, pitching for these kinds of events.

One major event that was discussed previously in this Assembly term was a future Commonwealth Games bid coming from Wales, which was something that Ken Skates was very keen on when he had the portfolio for major events. I appreciate what you said earlier about certain events being city based, and indeed, the Commonwealth Games is one such event. But I think Ken Skates did have the idea that certain parts of the bid could be put to different parts of Wales—it wouldn't necessarily be totally focused on one city. Of course, I'm not stating which city should be at the heart of such a bid. But have you looked at a future Commonwealth Games bid and is that something that has crossed your desk thus far?

As it happens, I did have a briefing on the situation in relation to major events this morning. This was not one of the issues that arose in that context. I think what's important for me is that we have an overview of not just what's going on where and when, but that we can map it out on a year-by-year basis so that we have an understanding that, if we support one particular major project one year, it may be that we don't have so much for the next year, but if there's a really big project that we see coming down the track we may want to hold back. So, getting an overview, for me, is quite important. The Commonwealth Games is not one of those major events that is on our agenda at the moment. We of course had the very successful Volvo Ocean Race last year, which, I think, really put the Year of the Sea on the map. The fact that we had, last year, 22 cultural and sporting events across the whole of Wales, attracting over 0.25 million visitors to Wales, bringing in about £72 million-worth of money—. These are all really successful stories, I think. But, of course, when you host such a huge event as the Commonwealth Games, you also have to look at the cost implications for us as a Government.

Yes. I think that's sensible because you can sometimes get claims about these events leading to massive infrastructure and massive sporting participation later on. We had these hyperbolic claims about the London Olympics in 2012, and they don't always actually lead to those outcomes. So, certainly, we would be wise to look at these things carefully.

To look at another possible event—if you can comment on the specifics of this one—we did have the very successful Champions League football final coming to Cardiff. That's one that, of course, is focused on—a question that is focusing on Cardiff. That was in 2017. Now, that was a good event and was an example of good lobbying, but we did notably miss out on having any part in co-hosting the future European football championships in 2020. There is a possibility that Wales could co-host a future European championships as, increasingly, UEFA are minded to have more than one nation actually hosting an event. By 'nation', they define that as an area that has their own football association. So, theoretically, Wales could co-host a future European championships with the other home nations. Is that something that you would be minded to have a look at?

I think the fact that 160 million people tuned into the Champions League final really meant that Cardiff in particular was put on the map in a way that we, perhaps, haven't seen before. So, football is an international language unlike any other, and I think the tragic events that we've seen last week for Cardiff City is also an example where the kind of focus that we've seen on Cardiff that we didn't particularly want means that this international language is something that everybody's focused on.

There will be, I think, opportunities for us to co-operate with other parts of the United Kingdom to look at future football events and, of course, the bigger, the better as far as we're concerned. So, we will look at co-hosting some events of that scale and nature in the future.

Thanks for clarifying that point, and I look forward to future announcements. Now, there's been some talk in recent years of a major conference centre being built in Cardiff. Whether there's enough demand for this when there is already one being built in Newport, I don't know. There may be a danger of oversupply and, of course, we have to be wary of white elephants sometimes being constructed. On the other hand, there may be a belief within the events management sector that there's enough demand for both conference centres. I don't know if you have any view on that, Minister.

Well, I did have a very constructive meeting with the international convention centre authorities last week, with the Celtic Manor, and I think there's great excitement about what that really could do for Wales and for bringing people to Wales. One of the issues we discussed there, with other leaders of local authorities, was the need to perhaps look at developing a convention bureau for the whole of the Cardiff capital region. So, the very clear impression that they gave us was that the international convention centre itself and the Celtic Manor would not be big enough in itself to host the numbers of people that they're expecting to come. So, there are opportunities for Cardiff and Newport in terms of hosting, hotel rooms, and there's a real excitement, I think, building around that. And I must make it clear that I hope that that international convention centre will be a part of the international strategy that I will be developing in the next few months.

Thank you, Rhianon. Our tourism strategy sets out our priorities to support the tourism industry across Wales, including the south-east region. This includes marketing campaigns in the UK and overseas, and capital development funding for new and existing tourism businesses, along with revenue funding for regional projects.

Thank you for that answer. Islwyn contains some of Wales's most stunning natural landscapes, such as the internationally famed Cwmcarn Forest Drive and also the Navigation colliery, and it was announced recently the gateway status of the drive within the Valleys initiative. But, any qualitative international visitor experiences are immeasurably enhanced by attention to detail, and, for many tourists to Wales, the quality of facilities such as basic footpaths, toilets, signage and car parking are integral to that experience. So, it was great news for Wales last week when the Welsh Government announced £2.2 million being offered to 23 projects that will improve that experience for visitors across Wales, especially in these times of austerity. So, Deputy Minister, how can the Welsh Government work with Caerphilly County Borough Council and tourism and visitor organistions across Islwyn to ensure that they are aware of the Valleys experience and can benefit from potential future funding opportunities from the tourism amenity investment support scheme—never more important for our economy at this time and for our place in the world during this looming period of potential instability for Wales?

Thank you very much for drawing attention to the essential importance of basic visitor infrastructure. I can confirm—and I don't need to tell you because you know—that both the environment around Cwmcarn and in particular, the Cwmcarn adventure hub, which I visited also recently, is an ideal location for all forms of outdoor activities, and Caerphilly, as a local authority, is very committed to the development of the tourism offer. The European Union investment here, of course, through the Tourism Attractor Destination programme, will see over £1.8 million invested in that destination. I'm very keen, particularly because of my own background and the type of area I represent, in the co-location of tourism projects, especially adventure tourism, with our historic landscapes, including those that have hosted our valuable but often damaging industrial heritage in the past.

Minister, I heard your spiel—very nice—regarding Cwmcarn forest, which, actually, is in my region. Cwmcarn forest offers visitors a wide range of activities, including walking, fishing, mountain biking and, more than everything else, going with friends and family for barbecues there. It's a wonderful place to go. However, this popular and scenic Cwmcarn Forest Drive still remains closed, since 2014, to cars, which is totally unacceptable. It is only for Natural Resources Wales to cut down thousands of diseased trees. So, what discussions have you undertaken on the effect of this closure on visitor numbers to Cwmcarn forest? And, what discussions have you had with ministerial colleagues to ensure the speedy reopening of this road so that visitors can come and enjoy the breathtaking scenery? The Minister mentioned that the Welsh convention centre is on its way, and, especially after the abolition of the Severn Bridge tolls, we're expecting, in summer, which is only a few months away, an influx of visitors, and this scenic place should be open, not for us, but for the overseas visitors. This is one of the most beautiful places in south-east Wales.

I will undertake to speak with Natural Resources Wales about the management of the Cwmcarn forest. But I have to emphasise that there are very exciting projects located near the Cwmcarn adventure hub, which is part of a £4.6 million Monmouthshire and Brecon canal adventure triangle, which is being promoted by Caerphilly County Borough Council, as well as Torfaen County Borough Council, and there will be a substantial benefit for this investment. This could include an enhancement at Cwmcarn forest for glamping accommodation, infrastructure works to the Crumlin arms—arm; I was thinking of a pub, obviously—to the Crumlin arm of the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal, and also improvements to trails to the wonderful Twmbarlwm in west Torfaen. All these are under discussion. I'm quite frankly more interested in people getting out of their cars and using our facilities. Of course, people can come in cars, but I would equally like to see people coming along our canal—

Going for a barbecue.

I understand that the Member wishes to offer to organise barbecues in the Cwmcarn forest, and I am certain this would be very attractive to visitors.

International priorities will be shaped through a new international strategy, and we're at the start of that process, but I've been clear that the focus is to create a more prosperous and sustainable Wales through increased export and investment, whilst increasing Wales’s influence and international recognition.

Yes, Minister, I think it's very important to continue to open Wales to the world and the world to Wales, which I think has been an important benefit of devolution. One aspect of that has been the programme for Africa, and I think the evaluation of that shows that it is punching well above its weight. We have, I think, 20 per cent of the hospital-to-hospital links, UK to Africa, in Wales. We were the first Fairtrade Nation in 2008. Size of Wales exceeded the target of planting a million trees in Uganda, and I think there's a new target now of 10 million. In 2015, some 80,000 people in Wales benefited from the work under the programme, and some 0.25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, and we have over 150 community-to-community links, which I think is absolutely fantastic. So, given that success and the importance of this work, I wonder if you would consider increasing the budget, because I think it's been at something just in excess of £900,000 for several years now. In contrast, in Scotland, they've gone from something like £3 million to £15 million over a similar period of time. So, given the great importance and the value of this work, Minister, I wonder if you will look carefully at whether we might be able to increase the budget.

I think we're really proud of our Wales for Africa programme, and it's an example of where a small amount of money has really gone a very long way, and has transformed the lives of people in a very fundamental way in some of the poorest parts of the world. So, this is very much part of what we'll be building into our international strategy. And you're absolutely right—in Uganda, the ten-millionth tree will be planted this summer, so that's something I think we should all be very proud of. 

We've recently announced 15 small grants with a budget of £250,000, so there's a whole host of new organisations who will be receiving money, but we will be looking at the budgeting in the context of what the international strategy looks like. So, the first step will be prioritising, and then making the finance fit to those priority lists. But, absolutely, Africa is very much on our agenda.

Minister, to mark its hosting of the Rugby World Cup, the Japanese Government has launched the Japan-UK season of culture. There's an active committee in Wales promoting events here. I do hope it will get extensive participation from the Welsh Government because we should celebrate our links with Japan. They've done so much economically, and there are many cultural linkages as well, and this is the sort of thing that we do need to project Wales abroad more and build on those rich traditions that have already been substantially developed.

Thank you. I think we've got a very long and proud tradition in terms of our relationships with Japan. Of course, we had a lot of companies move in in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and they really transformed parts of our communities. It's very sad to see now companies like Sony have said that they will be moving their headquarters out of the United Kingdom as a direct result of Brexit. So, that is something that, of course, we lament, but it’s happening already. The same thing, I think, is true for Panasonic. Wales Arts International is, I think, an organisation that has been looking at what we can do in relation to the Rugby World Cup. There are great opportunities. I've been speaking to somebody involved in promoting paintings and selling artwork abroad, and she's made a very comprehensive link with a museum out in Japan. So, already, things are building up towards that world cup, and I know that the Minister with responsibility for agriculture and rural affairs has expressed an interest in visiting Japan, because they've recently announced that they will be lifting their suspension of exports of Welsh lamb to Japan. So, there's a real opportunity for us to boost and to jump off this Rugby World Cup to find new markets at a time of real difficulty, in particular if we have some kind of 'no deal' Brexit, where it would be very difficult to export into our traditional markets. 

I do welcome the fact that this role exists, particularly as it’s important that Wales can express views on things that happen at the international level. In that context, I wonder whether you could explain to us what kind of debates you can bring before this Chamber so that we can have debates on what is happening on the international stage. For example, I’ve been working with the Kurdish community here in south Wales, who have been canvassing and campaigning against the fact that many politicians and campaigners are imprisoned in Turkey and are on hunger strike, indeed, because of the fact that the Turkish Government is treating them unfairly. If we as a Senedd have a view and can debate issues of international importance, then that sends a clear message to the world just how important those issues are at a global level, but also for the Kurdish community, which is a large community here in south Wales. So, can I ask you: what is your vision for having discussions on non-devolved issues, but things that are hugely important to the people of Wales and people on a global level more generally?

Thank you. I do welcome the fact that we have the opportunity now to look at what’s happening in the wider world. I am aware, of course, that this is a reserved matter to a great extent to the Government, and of course we have a great interest, particularly if there are links between the people of Wales and the other areas of the world. As regards the matter of the Kurds, may I say that I met the Turkish ambassador on Monday and raised this matter of the imam from Newport who has been on hunger strike because he was concerned about the events in Turkey? We must of course remember that this is the tenth largest country in terms of receiving our exports, but we must ensure that the trade fits in with human rights.

Whilst diplomatic relations are conducted officially by the UK Government, the Welsh Government will not refrain from developing relations with regions or nations or people where that will be of benefit to Wales.

I understand that the Welsh Government intends to extend its network of embassies, as it were, within the Spanish state. Can I ask you whether it’s an intention to look specifically at Catalonia, and the Basque Country, of course, where there is a close relationship between Wales and those nations already? I raised these issues specifically because in a recent visit by a delegation from the Catalan Government to Brussels, Meritxell Serret, who works for the Catalan Government, had said that they—the Catalan Government—were interested in opening an embassy here in Wales, particularly if we were to do likewise there.

May I ask also—? Because Meritxell herself is a refugee who is unable to return to Catalonia at the moment—and the Llywydd herself visited the former Speaker of the Catalonian Parliament, Carme Forcadell, who is in prison there—would it be possible for the Minister on behalf of the Welsh Government to raise this issue with the Spanish ambassador? I know that that is a reserved issue, and so on, but this is a very unusual situation in the history of recent European democracy, and it of course is in the tradition of Wales, in thinking of what happened during the Spanish civil war, that we express our full co-operation with the people of Catalonia at the moment.

Thank you very much. I think there are about 20 offices across the world belonging to Welsh Government. What I want to do at the moment is to review their influence and their efficiency and what impact they have. One of our committees has asked us to ensure that we get value for money out of them, so before expanding the network I wish to ensure that what we already have is right and proper. But I do think it's right that we need to develop the natural relationship that we have with regions such as Catalonia and the Basque Country.

I don't think that we have necessarily always got to open offices. If we're going to focus on economic development, for example, it might be better to send people from here who have expertise in a particular specific field, rather than having generalists present there, and this is what I want to consider when I look at the future strategy. But we're not just going to focus on economic issues. There are, of course, cultural issues. And, where we already have a relationship, it makes sense for us not to break that relationship. But I understand with foreign affairs what makes things happen better than anything else is personal relationships, and we must make sure that we build on those. I think that we are all duty bound to do what we can to raise the Welsh flag while we travel abroad, too.

Minister, this is the first time I've questioned you in your new role, so congratulations on your appointment. I think it's great that there is this renewed focus and emphasis on fostering international relations between the Assembly and other, sometimes troubled, parts of the world.

I see from my diary that on Thursday you're hosting an event in the Senedd setting out your international strategy with key stakeholders—Wales on the world stage. Love Zimbabwe will be represented at that event by two of my constituents, Dave and Martha Holman. I hope you get a chance to catch up with them. The situation in Zimbabwe is truly tragic. The joy and hope of just a matter of months ago has now been replaced with more bloodshed and sadness and sorrow. Can I ask that, as part of your renewed international strategy, there is a focus on holding out a helping hand to the people of Zimbabwe, whether they be in Zimbabwe or whether, like my constituents, they be living here in Wales? The people from Zimbabwe that I know really do feel great affection for Wales and are very grateful for the warmth and affection they've had from the Welsh people, so I think it would be excellent if you could look into fostering a relationship with that particularly troubled part of the world.

Thank you. I'm very much looking forward to hosting that event on Thursday of this week, where we're launching that consultation on what the future strategy for internationalism in Wales should look like. Of course, as part of the developments in the Wales for Africa programme, Zimbabwe will feature, I'm sure, already in that. One of the things I'm keen to do is make sure that we develop a really comprehensive database of what is going on already in Wales, so that if people from Wales go to Zimbabwe, they will be able to contact people and make sure that we build those networks. So, linking that diaspora in Wales is something that also needs a lot of focus, but soft power is something that we mustn't lose sight of. Those personal relationships are something that I think we want to foster and encourage. But Zimbabwe—I look forward to meeting those representatives on Thursday.

Cymraeg 2050 is an ambitious long-term strategy. Our initial efforts have concentrated on laying firm foundations for the future, building from the ground up to secure enough learners through the education system. We’re on track to reach our 2021 targets as regards the early years sector, and, of course, the Welsh in education strategic plans have helped us to do that.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Last year, the North Wales Economic Ambition Board launched a document called 'The Welsh Language in North Wales'. It was a document that was aimed at promoting and increasing bilingualism across the region. The findings in that report identified the fact that employers in both the public and private sector are wanting to have more employees who have the ability to speak both English and Welsh. So, there's a growing appetite, but, unfortunately, there are not sufficient opportunities for people to learn the language, particularly adults. I wonder what work you might be able to do with the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, and others in the North Wales region, to promote opportunities for adults to learn the Welsh language where they don't have any Welsh language skills, so that we can see the sort of ambition in this document fulfilled in the future.

Thank you. I think we've really increased quite significantly our relationships with businesses and our promotion of the Welsh language. So, we're very proud that the National Centre for Learning Welsh has put considerable effort into teaching Welsh in the workplace, and that's been taken up by literally thousands of people. So, I would encourage them to make sure that they are looking into the opportunities there. The other thing, of course, is that the Welsh Language Commissioner can provide lanyards and badges and provide services through the medium of Welsh, to make sure that people are aware of who exactly speaks Welsh so that you do get an opportunity to practise the language.

Of course, we've got Cymraeg Byd Busnes. What we've done is to provide about 11 different officials who can go into companies and help them to increase their use of Welsh, making sure that they, perhaps, can translate little bits of information. We're also very keen to see people coming out from schools and colleges—colleges in particular. We've moved now from simply concentrating on higher education into further education, and now there's an action plan that is delivering a new model. Of course, the more people we can get to keep hold of their Welsh and use it in the workplace, the better.

Thank you, Minister.

The next item is questions to the Assembly Commission. The first question is to be answered by Commissioner David Rowlands and is to be asked by Huw Irranca-Davies.

The Assembly has a secure undercover facility for the storage of bicycles. We currently provide storage for 69 bikes, with further capacity planned for this year. In addition, there are publicly accessible racks outside Tŷ Hywel for use by visitors. We also provide showers, lockers and tumble-dryer facilities for cyclists to use.

I thank you very much for that response, David. This morning, as usual, I got off the train at Cardiff station, got onto my bike, cycled up to Cathays Park for a meeting and cycled back through the park, through the frost, all the way here, my scarf flying behind me, on my sit-up-and-beg bike—all the way here. It was great, when I arrived, to find that all of the bikes were there—this time of year, with all of the frost and everything else, it is packed out down there in storage, which is a great testament to the success of what we're trying to do to promote cycling and active travel. But it is packed to the gunnels. So, could you give me some more details on those proposals you mentioned to actually expand the capacity, and just make clear that, in expanding capacity, it is the indoor capacity of safe storage that we want, for security, but also so that our saddles, our bikes and our gear aren't soaking wet when we come out in the evening? 

We are, of course, keen to expand the use of bicycle transport for work. In keeping with this, we are planning, as I said, to introduce extra car parking spaces this year—[Interruption.] I'm sorry—

Carry on, David.

Of course, it will require a much more expansive approach to cycle provision. In order to do that, we will be, obviously, looking at the possibility of taking out car parking spaces at some time in the future. Obviously, we're hoping that that won't impact on those people using cars because, hopefully, they will be using bikes and therefore, obviously, the necessity for those car parking spaces will be reduced. 

Question 2, again to be answered by Commissioner David Rowlands—Jenny Rathbone. 

Yes. The level of food waste generated on the Assembly estate increased slightly from 4.23 tonnes at the end of 2017 to 4.59 tonnes at the end of 2018. Obviously, in operating a catering service, food waste will never be totally eliminated, however our contractor Charlton House is very proactive and has introduced a range of initiatives, including menu planning around weekly demand, batch cooking and condensing food counters towards the end of service times. In addition, we should point out that all our food waste goes for composting and waste cooking oil is converted to biodiesel.

Thank you for that interesting answer. I would agree with you that Charlton House tries very hard and it isn't just down to the caterer to reduce the food waste. But as Lesley Griffiths, some 18 months ago, suggested that we should be halving food waste by 2025, it's obviously really important that we in the Assembly are showing the way and not just suggesting that other people do that. Clearly, in a country where many, many people do not have enough food to feed themselves, food waste is an offence, really. But I appreciate that when you're in the hospitality industry, it can be very difficult to control food waste because people order food that people don't turn up to eat. However, I do think that we need to all focus on this and that when we're organising or hosting events we ensure that whoever's paying for that food is thinking very clearly about exactly what they're going to need and the numbers they're going to need it for, but also if we could institute some form of disbursement of surplus food to those who are in need of food, and there are many of them, unfortunately, in our capital city. So, it'd be great if we could have some further conversations on how we might be able to do that in order to reduce, rather than increase, the amount of food waste we're generating.  

Well, the Assembly Member for Cardiff North is absolutely right in saying that the source of food waste with hospitality menus—although it's calculated on a per head basis, consumption of the food provided is strictly down to those attending, of course. So, there is very little Charlton House can do to reuse any of the leftover food items. Stricter hygiene rules mean most items cannot be recycled. Obviously, where items such as packeted biscuits are in place, they will use those and recycle them. But I think you're absolutely right, it's a tragedy to see good food wasted when there are people who desperately need that food. 

Thank you. Question 3 to the Commission is to be answered by the Llywydd. Helen Mary Jones.

Members of the Welsh Youth Parliament met in their regions for the first time on 19 and 26 January. It provided an opportunity for them to get to know each other, consider priorities and meet with some Assembly Members and staff members for the first time. They also took part in training and discussed the residential weekend, due to take place here on the weekend of 22 to 24 February.

Thank you, Llywydd. I'm sure that all Members here will be really pleased to hear of what is incredibly positive progress. I was fortunate to meet the Youth Parliament Members from Mid and West Wales in Carmarthen and was very impressed by some very committed and engaging young people. I was also very struck by the support arrangements that were there in place to support those young people who will find it more difficult to participate. Among the young people I met were representatives of young carers and of the Gypsy/Traveller community, and it felt to me as if those arrangements were working very well. Will the Commission keep those arrangements under review to ensure that those young people who may not find it as easy to participate continue to get the support through the process? 

May I thank the Member for that question and, along with a number of other Members from this Siambr, who have taken time to meet the Youth Parliament Members in the various regional meetings. I’ve seen photos of many of you in various meetings over these past two weekends. May I also thank you for praising what we’re trying to do to ensure that each one of the 60 Members, who are equal in their role as Members of the Youth Parliament, who come from diverse backgrounds with different challenges—it’s important that we as the Assembly Commission and as the Assembly give each one of them the support they need to be able to undertake their new roles? There is a great deal of excitement among them to participate in the Youth Parliament and we must ensure that they have the appropriate support to do so, and to keep that under review as the Youth Parliament evolves during its first two years and as these young people participate in their democracy on behalf of their fellow young people in Wales.

The regulatory impact assessment that will accompany the Bill to be introduced in the near future will assess its potential costs, both for the Assembly itself and other persons and organisations affected. Costs to the Assembly Commission identified in the regulatory impact assessment will be absorbed within existing budgets and capacity. 

Thank you, Llywydd. As you'll be aware, during the Commission consultation there was a majority agreement that the Assembly should change its name. However, the consultation also disclosed the fact that there is concern about the cost of the changes, and you yourself, Llywydd, addressed us on 13 June 2017 by advising that, and I quote,

'The Commission…will plan the change so as to minimise the cost. We intend, in time, to change just the Assembly’s name, avoiding the need for any wholescale rebrand or a change to the logo.'

Now, I know there's some ambiguity at the moment as to what name or names we're going to be known as, so my question is: how much has already been spent on the transformation process to date, and could you clarify the ambiguity that remains about the projections of costings, and how will this impact on us as Assembly Members and, indeed, the rebranding of our own offices?  

As you are aware, I'm about to introduce the Welsh Parliament and Elections (Wales) Bill as the Member in charge of that Bill. That will be introduced within the next few weeks. That will be accompanied by a regulatory impact assessment and explanatory memorandum, which will go into quite substantial detail on many of the issues you've addressed in your question. I can confirm, as I've said previously, that we are not undertaking a wholesale rebranding of this Assembly; we are undertaking to implement in legislation a name change to reflect our role as a national Parliament, in accordance with the mandate given by an Assembly decision in July of 2016, and that will be done at the most minimal of cost, outlined, as I've said, in the regulatory impact assessment that will be published when the Bill is introduced.   

Thank you, Llywydd. 

Item 4 is topical questions and I have two this week, and the first one is from Bethan Sayed. 

Thank you for the question. I commissioned an independent review of the health board's handling of concerns raised about Kris Wade. Healthcare Inspectorate Wales published that report yesterday. I now expect the health board to take urgent action to address the findings and recommendations. We will implement measures in response as quickly as possible across Wales. 

Thank you for that reply. This report is, of course, the third one if we include the desktop review into safeguarding at the health board, and the report shows there is still a lack of clarity on how some recommendations, which stretch back before this particular scandal, have or will be put in place. When we discuss this report, I think we should all remember what it's about—sexual assault against very vulnerable women in a care setting where they thought that they were safe. The women did not feel that they were believed, and do you agree, Minister, that this is totally unacceptable? If the #MeToo movement is to have impact, public authorities must listen to all women, be they vulnerable or not, but, more importantly, believe them too.

There are parts of the report that are deeply problematic. There is criticism of governance at the health board. It says that board members were aware of allegations individually, but nothing formal was done until far too late. Disconnect between the board and operational services has been apparent since the 2014 'Trusted to Care' report. What are you going to do differently, Minister, now in relation to governance, so we don't have to have another report in a few years' time and the same press-ready, recycled responses from you? Will you look to explore the possibility of special measures to oversee the implementation of recommendations, particularly in this report? And will you personally instigate a review of governance in ABMU and an urgent change of leadership at the board level?

Finally, I'd like to ask, as I did yesterday, to seek assurances of the independence of Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. And I say this again because I think it's vitally important. The press were given a briefing at 9 o'clock in the morning and I was only afforded the same report at 6 o'clock that evening, under the alleged proposition that they had to keep that private for families. If it was so private, why were the press afforded that briefing before elected politicians in this place? I only got the report because I proactively asked—no other AM got that report—and an MP that has taken an interest in this area also. Just for the sake of clarity, we need assurances that HIW is entirely independent, because if they are, why did they treat the press differently to elected politicians in this place? 

Thank you for the series of questions. I'll start with your final series of questions about HIW and their independence. Yes, they are operating independently. They made choices about who to see and how to conduct the investigation. I think they saw about 40 different people, current and past staff members, as well as the families of the three women, together with the family of Christine James, who, as we know, was murdered by Kris Wade.

The report was made available to the women who had complained, their families or their representatives, a week before publication of the report. As well, HIW met with the women a week before the report. The report was then made available to them on 28 January. And, on the twenty-eighth, HIW held a technical briefing for the press and they also provided you with a copy of the report. Publication of the report is a matter for HIW, and not a matter where there was any kind of interference from the Welsh Government. There is no question that the conclusions of the inquiry and the process to reach those conclusions was anything other than independent. 

I want to return to the point that we are talking about—three vulnerable women who were let down. And I am deeply sorry that those three women were let down not just by an individual within the health service, but actually how the whole service then reacted to the complaint, and in particular the reaction after the first complaint, where it's acknowledged that it was not promptly recognised as a safeguarding issue and dealt with as such. The second and third were. As we know, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to proceed with a prosecution. Now, that is outside the remit of both the health board and indeed the Welsh Government. But I do agree, you start by believing the complainant—that has to be your starting point. Otherwise, we know that we will not encourage people to raise complaints as they should do, and then to handle sensitively the complaints when they're investigated.

On to the, I think, two further points that you raised—in terms of an action plan and what will now happen, within a matter of weeks, the health board will need to submit an action plan to Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. They won't submit that plan to the Government, it will go Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, and they will determine whether that action plan is adequate. And no doubt, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales will return to see what progress, including the pace and consistency of progress, that the health board makes against dealing with those recommendations. There are three recommendations for the Government that I've already committed to taking forward. 

In terms of your call for special measures and a change in leadership at the health board, of course, the chief executive is new and was not in place at the time of the desktop review, nor, indeed, when the incidents took place, and, indeed, in terms of the board themselves, there is no suggestion from Healthcare Inspectorate Wales that there should be changes at board level. And I do remind the Member and others who are here or watching that placing a health board or a trust in special measures takes place following advice given by both the chief executive of NHS Wales, the Wales Audit Office, and, indeed, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales. Should that have been a matter that Healthcare Inspectorate Wales thought was appropriate, then they would have said so and there would have been the opportunity to convene an extraordinary meeting under the escalation status.

So, these are matters where I'm advised by people who are properly independent, and that is a safeguard for people in Wales that we're not either placing within special measures or out of special measures healthcare organisations simply to suit a politician within Government or outside, and that is absolutely the right thing to do. But I'm determined that the health service will deal with the recommendations in this independent review and will do so seriously and promptly. 

This is a situation of utmost gravity and the fundamental issue is: why are issues relating to the care of people with learning disability persistently ignored? That's the fundamental issue here, because the AMBU board knew of both the allegations against Kris Wade and the problems in the learning disability directorate itself, but failed to act. The Crown Prosecution Service failed to take the women's allegations seriously, despite police going back to ask them to reconsider. The police wanted to pursue the situation; the CPS failed to take any action. The view from the service is that the Welsh Government always kicked the attempts to develop effective liaison between learning disability services and the criminal justice system into the long grass. I'm not going to have the political debate about what's devolved and what's not devolved now, but, surely, with matters of such potential gravity, you need to be able to work together as opposed to just ignoring the situation, because, over the years, there are myriad reports on the additional morbidity and mortality of people with learning disability in general hospitals. They're not being listened to either there. And I know about the multi-agency learning disability advisory group, but that is exactly what it says on the tin—it's an advisory group only. There's no change in outcomes for people with learning disability. This case highlights a situation of utmost gravity. So, also, can I ask: why didn't senior health board executives think or feel that the allegations in the Kris Wade case were serious? Why did Welsh Government agree to an internal desktop review back in October 2017? If there was no case to answer, why have a review? If it was serious, have a proper review, not just an internal desktop review. And, finally, is Welsh Government proud of the treatment of the medical whistleblower in this case?

I agree with a fair amount of what Dai Lloyd has said about this being a matter of real seriousness and gravity. It is a serious issue. That is why I ordered the inquiry, with the report that we've published. And, if you look at the report, there's no hiding place in the report. It sets out a range of areas where there is a need for real improvement. It sets out a range of failings and disappointments about past conduct. And that is important to have an honest picture to improve upon. But, actually, in terms of learning disability, I recognise what Dai Lloyd says about differential mortality. That is not a cause for celebration, it is a cause for not just for concern, but for action. That is why the Government has, of its own volition, undertaken a review across Government in terms of learning disability services, which I, Rebecca Evans in a previous role, but also Huw Irranca-Davies in a previous role as well, have been actually part of undertaking and reviewing and taking forward, because we do recognise we need to do better. We recognise there are real challenges and a need for improvement. There's no lack of understanding or commitment from the Government to do better. If you want to see examples, there's real leadership from the chief nursing officer as well on this issue. She has made it a real priority within the last few years, because of the mounting evidence about differential outcomes and the failure to make appropriate progress.

For example, earlier this term, I met the family of Paul Ridd to look at what had happened with his care, where, again, he was let down, and the family then came back, after a period of time—we quite understand that they were angry and did not want to come back. They then decided they wanted to do something to make sure others did not go through the same experience. And that has actually been a really positive experience for this health board as well. The learning they have taken on board for matters on the ward—and, indeed, Melanie Thomas, one of the nurses they have dealt with, the learning disability co-ordinator, was actually recognised for her work on learning disability within the recent new year's honours list. 

So, there is good practice within Wales. As ever, the challenge is how consistent is that and that the learning isn't simply kept in one part of our service. So, I do recognise that there have been failings. I want to be clear that the Welsh Government does not authorise a desktop review as the only response that should take place. The health board undertook a desktop review, and, following that, I was not satisfied that was the appropriate course of action, that the learning had actually been deep enough or, indeed, that they'd learnt all the lessons and asked all the right people. So, I ordered Healthcare Inspectorate Wales to undertake a review.

In terms of the treatment of the whistleblower, well, the challenge here is that Healthcare Inspectorate Wales went through that. I would always want whistleblowers to be believed, and I would want—. Again, you start off by believing the whistleblower and taking what they say seriously if you want the right culture to take place. I certainly do believe there's more learning to take place and it's been raised directly with me by the British Medical Association. I think we will be in a better place but, as ever, we will continue to learn from where we get things wrong as well as where we get things right. There is much that we should not be proud of here, but also I think what is most important is the commitment to do better in the future. 

Thank you very much, Minister. The second topical question this afternoon is to the Minister for Economy and Transport. Rhun ap Iorwerth. 

Diolch. My officials met with the company management on Monday, along with Anglesey council representatives and the local Member of Parliament, Albert Owen. The meeting was very constructive and all parties have now agreed to work together in an effort to retain employment at the site. We are also ready to provide support to the employees throughout the consultation period. 

Thank you for that response. I’ve just met senior officials locally and at a national level. I’m grateful to Welsh Government officials and Anglesey council officials for working with REHAU. It was an announcement that came from nowhere, if truth be told. It’s a company that’s operated in Amlwch for over 40 years. There is a productive and loyal workforce there. It’s a company that’s not in difficulties. This is a restructuring, and, unfortunately, Amlwch is having to pay the price for that because of the reduction in the demand for the particular product produced there—104 work there, of course. The north of Anglesey can’t afford to lose those jobs. It’s an area that’s suffered blow after blow economically. There was the Hitachi announcement, of course, about the suspension of the Wylfa Newydd scheme, which came just a week before REHAU’s announcement. There are further jobs, some 150, to disappear from the old Wylfa site in about a year's time as the decommissioning process continues.

I’ve asked specifically over the past few weeks to you and the Government for economic development support anew for Anglesey, and this area specifically. But, in terms of REHAU, I have four questions. May I ask for further assurances, in addition to what you’ve said initially, that the Government will provide sufficient resources to make a substantial offer of support to the company that may persuade them to diversify or make other products there, perhaps? Could I have further assurances too that the Welsh Government will provide support for keeping all options on the table for possible continuation of the work there, including looking at any options for supporting management buy-outs and so on and so forth? But, if the worst comes to the worst, I do hope that we will be able to rely on the Government to invest substantially in reskilling opportunities and seeking re-employment for the workforce. May I ask for assurances in that regard? And also the workforce is concerned about what kind of redundancy packages may be available, if it does come to that point. May I have an assurance from the Government that all advice and support will be referred to them to ensure that they are—in a position where they aren’t able to negotiate through unions, I understand—given fair play?

Can I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for raising this important question for his constituents and perhaps, first of all, give some background to the decision that's been made by the company and then highlight some of the options that—collaboratively with the company and with the Anglesey council officials that the Member refers to—we are looking at taking forward, including the support that might be available for those options? And then, thirdly, if I could, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'd just like to touch upon the work that has taken place now within Welsh Government concerning both north-west Wales, in particular Anglesey, and also, given alarming news from Airbus and speculation over the future of the Broughton site over the long term, the support that we are looking at offering north-east Wales as well—in fact, the entire north Wales region.

First of all, in terms of the background, Rhun ap Iorwerth is absolutely right: the Amlwch site produces a particular type of PVC edge band for furniture products that has seen a sharp decline in recent years—a decline of something in the region of 75 per cent. Its sister site in Tortosa, Spain, has a number of advantages over the Amlwch site, including the fact that it has room to accommodate expansion, whereas the Amlwch site is limited. It has a more diverse product mix as well, and it has an established tooling capacity on site. Now, in terms of the options and the work that is now taking place and the potential support that we could offer the business, first of all, we're looking at the possibility of investing in the Amlwch site in order to create as level a playing field as possible with the Spanish sister site. Secondly, we are looking to assist the Amlwch site in diversifying the manufacturing base of the actual plant so that it can produce more than the specific edge band products that we've seen a sharp decline in over recent years. This, in turn, would allow a longer term strategy to be implemented that would see resilience built into the business. And then, thirdly, and I think very importantly, we and the company are exhausting all of our contacts, not just within Wales and the UK, but internationally, to look at whether there are third parties that could utilise the Amlwch site for manufacturing activity on a contract basis or, indeed, allow third-party manufacturers to utilise the existing facility. So, every option is being examined at the moment. 

A number of actions have arisen from the meeting that took place on Monday, including, of course, all of the support that could be offered by Welsh Government to workers if the site were to be closed after the consultation period. We'll be relaying all of the available support in the ReAct programme to the workforce. We're identifying those third parties that could come into the Amlwch site or use the Amlwch site to produce other products. And I'll also be communicating with the main board of the company. Of course, the company is based in Germany. Its administrative headquarters is based in Switzerland, and it's run by a Swiss family. I'll be seeking to establish lines of communication with the board in order to influence the company's decision over the next 90 days.

Looking more widely and broadly at Anglesey, north-west Wales and, indeed, the whole of north Wales, I have asked officials in my department to examine all opportunities for accelerating capital spending projects in north Wales, and in particular on Anglesey, given the decision relating to Wylfa Newydd. I think it's absolutely essential that we bring forward a pipeline wherever and whenever possible in the region, but particularly on Anglesey, which can replace the jobs that have been promised in the shorter term with the Wylfa Newydd project whilst a decision is made over whether to resume that particular programme of work.

When REHAU Group announced proposals that may lead to the closure of its manufacturing site in Amlwch, after being there for over 40 years, it not only said that there was no sign of the market for PVC edge band recovering, but also that the manufacture of alternative products on the site was, quote, 'impossible due to space restrictions'. Given what you've just told us, what discussion have you had either prior to this decision or announcement, or now that you're in dialogue with the company since their announcement, regarding the space on the site so that they could possibly diversify?

I thank Mark Isherwood for his question, and he is absolutely right: there is no end in sight in terms of the decline in demand for the particular product that's produced at the Amlwch site, and he's also right—and as I have already stated—that there's limited space on the site. However, what we're looking at doing is diversifying and switching from what is a declining product—there's a declining demand for that particular product—to either other products within the group that could be diverted temporarily or more permanently to the Amlwch site or indeed those third parties.

Now, if we were to remove some of the edge band production from the Amlwch site and then see new products brought into the site, it would, of course, require a degree of investment, and that's specifically what Welsh Government officials are now working with the company in examining. If support is required from Welsh Government, then I'm sure that we would look on it very sympathetically indeed, not least because all of the examination so far of the business would lead us to believe that it is a very responsible employer and, therefore, in our view would in all probability be able to abide by the four points of the economic contract and, of course, given what the company has traditionally produced, we believe that, in terms of the lens through which we invest in business and our calls to action, the business would be in a position to be able to draw down support. But, first of all, we need to examine precisely what opportunities there are within the group and with third parties.

Thank you very much, Minister.

Item 5 is the 90-seconnd statements, and the first one this afternoon is from Vikki Howells.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Last week, my constituency office hosted a Friends Against Scams training session. Organised by Centrica British Gas, it highlighted the scale of the problem. Fifty-three per cent of people aged 65 and over have been targeted by scams, which altogether cost the UK economy somewhere between £5 billion and £10 billion a year. The human consequences are considerable. Victims of scams lose large sums of money, but they can also lose something even worse: their dignity. Scams can lead to stress, depression and isolation. Some victims consider, attempt or commit suicide, and people defrauded in their own homes are two and a half times more likely to either die or go into residential care. The average age of a scam victim is 75, although anyone can be a victim. Scams can be postal, telephone, doorstep or online. Whatever the mechanism used, they are criminal, fraudulent, and what makes it worse is that scams generate a sense of shame. Their victims suffer in silence as it's estimated that just one in 20 scams are reported to the authorities.

My thanks to Matt and Rachel for coming to Aberdare to explain how Centrica British Gas is taking action to raise awareness of scams. I proudly wear my Friends Against Scams badge, and I'd encourage other Members to sign up to this valuable training. We all have a role to play in raising awareness of the damage that scams cause to help make Wales a nation of friends against scams.

Thank you. Jayne Bryant.

Newport County AFC travelled to Middlesbrough for their fourth round FA Cup tie last weekend. Not only were their two managers from Pillgwenlly and went to the same school, but we also share a landmark. Newport's transporter bridge is one of only six such bridges still operating in the world today. Middlesbrough is home to one of the others. To celebrate this FA Cup clash, the chairman of the Friends of Newport Transporter Bridge, David Hando, proposed to present a canvas print of the Newport bridge to the manager of the winning team, both of whom were born in the shadow of the bridge. Saturday's match ended in a draw, and we now look forward to the replay decider at Rodney Parade.

Whilst we await the final football result, we already know that Newport has won the battle of the transporter bridges. Opened in 1906, it's a much loved icon on Newport's skyline and a symbol of our proud industrial and maritime heritage. It spans the wide and fast-flowing River Usk, which has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world. It took four years to build and cost £98,000. Along with Newport City Council, the dedicated volunteers of Friends of Transporter Bridge are working hard to secure a £10 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Newport's beloved transporter bridge has been at the heart of our city for over a century, and I encourage people across Wales to support the campaign to ensure it remains there for future generations.

Thank you. 

We now move on to a motion to suspend Standing Orders 11.16 and 12.20 to allow the motion to amend Standing Orders to be debated, and I call on a member of the Business Committee to move that motion—Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Formally move.

Thank you. The proposal is to suspend the Standing Orders. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, that is agreed.

So, we move on to a motion to amend the Standing Orders, and I call on a member of the Business Committee to move that motion—Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Again, formally move.

Thank you. There is no debate, so the proposal is to amend the Standing Orders. Does any Member object? Therefore, in accordance with Standing Order 12.36, that motion is agreed.

Item 6 is a debate on the Public Accounts Committee report on the NHS informatics systems, and I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—Nick Ramsay.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today about the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into NHS Wales informatics systems. Members will recall that last November, the Public Accounts Committee published one of its most damning report to date. In fact, 'scathing' was used to describe our 23-page analysis of NHS Wales informatics systems—NWIS for short. 

In committee, the chief executive responsible for hosting NWIS described its ambitions as world leading. However, we do not consider this to be the case, and in fact, our report highlighted a raft of problems with the dysfunctional, outdated IT systems that support our NHS. Our report made uncomfortable reading. Initiated by the auditor general’s report into informatics systems in NHS Wales, our inquiry found that many of NWIS’s digital projects are behind schedule, and some are only on schedule because their timescales have been re-ordered to show them on track. Lines of accountability are unclear, there is widespread dissatisfaction across the NHS at its performance, and major systems have repeatedly given up the ghost and with worrying regularity.

It's a matter of great concern to the committee that NWIS, first envisioned in 2003, has been unable to keep pace with advances in technology. While the technology products we have available—day-to-day use has changed beyond recognition in that time. Medical staff in Wales are still struggling with outdated IT systems that don’t deliver on their promises. And in fact, just after Christmas last year, it was reported that NHS Wales still has over 1,000 fax machines in use at hospitals and GP surgeries, with £550,000 spent on supplies since 2015, and one GP describing them as 'relics' that needed getting rid of. I'm sure you'd all agree that, particularly in a time when an e-mail offers a quicker and more secure means of transferring patient information, this is an unacceptable situation.

Sadly, these sentiments echoed throughout our inquiry. We heard how front-line medical staff are struggling with archaic and fragile IT systems. In some instances, this had led to treatments for chemotherapy and radiotherapy not being prepared on time; patients attending for treatment only to experience delays; and health professionals being unable to access blood test results and patient records. We even heard that some health professionals have resorted to paper-based records because ICT systems were simply not reliable enough. These shortcomings are also contributing to an increased likelihood of error and poor patient experience.  

We do not see how this can be addressed without a radical rethink. In 2016, the total cost of developing and rolling out the new systems needed across all Welsh health boards was estimated at £484 million. But the committee could find little evidence of where the money would come from and whether it would be additional NHS funding or found within existing resources. The budget NWIS operates with is utilised predominately for keep the IT system going. So, we need to find another way to ensure that the necessary innovation is funded.

Our inquiry has also raised serious question marks about the competence, capability and capacity across the health system to deliver digital transformation in Welsh healthcare. And yet, we discovered a culture of self-censorship and denial amongst those charged with taking the agenda forward, in NWIS itself, as well as its partners in the health boards and the Welsh Government. 

We are particularly concerned at the apparent lack of openness and transparency across the whole system. Digital transformation requires an open culture, but the committee found that the culture at NWIS was the antithesis of this. The auditor general’s report identified a pattern of the organisation being 'overly positive' in reporting its progress. The committee’s evidence gathering found examples of this again and again. Troublingly, this mindset seems to be consistent with that of the health boards and the Welsh Government teams working alongside NWIS, as the committee found a collective reluctance to openly discuss the true state of progress. 

We also found that witnesses were reluctant to be critical of progress or arrangements on the record. Some written evidence from two parts of the NHS was remarkably similar and the committee was left with the impression that we were getting a pre-prepared line. As a result, the committee could have little confidence in many of the assurances that we were given by NWIS and the Welsh Government. If the problems with NWIS are to be addressed, then an open and honest reflection on the current state of play and the barriers to progress is essential. Indeed, it is quite possible that this culture has prevented the committee from hearing a comprehensive range of issues and problems. In short, we remain unsure of the scale of the issues.

We are concerned that neither NWIS nor the Welsh Government are fully ready to openly recognise the scale and depth of the problems. The committee is concerned that this cultural problem may be masking wider and deeper problems, which we did not uncover. We believe a fundamental change in behaviour from NWIS and the wider NHS digital team is required if progress is to be made.

The committee is deeply concerned about the slow pace of delivery of modern informatics systems across the NHS in Wales and the underlying weaknesses in support and oversight arrangements. It's apparent that nobody is happy with the current state of affairs and nobody seems willing to take responsibility for the challenges. NHS bodies are frustrated with the slow roll-out and problems with systems they have, and are concerned about confused accountabilities. NWIS is frustrated at the lack of direction from the wider NHS. However, for us, the greatest frustration is that digital can improve the NHS and it is not being utilised anywhere near enough. A simple example is that electronic records lead to better patient care and outcomes, but in too many cases, the NHS relies on outdated paper-based records. 

The committee found little evidence to show that the need to increase the pace of change had been picked up. The chief executive of NHS Wales’s acceptance of the Wales Audit Office report, which was published in March 2018—and in a letter to this committee, he referred to the 18 months of work undertaken. This suggests that the initial evidence was gathered approximately two years ago in September 2016. Now, the committee recognises that, while the auditor general was undertaking his work, the Welsh Government and the wider NHS were taking steps to begin to address many of the issues. Nonetheless, we remain concerned about the pace and urgency of action, as we saw little evidence of change.

Our report not only endorsed the findings of the Auditor General for Wales and the parliamentary review, but also made five recommendations of our own. We welcome Welsh Government’s acceptance of these recommendations and its commitment to a number of reviews to look at informatics and the development of a national informatics plan. However, we were disappointed that the response, yet again, did not seem to recognise the committee’s deep concerns about the slow pace of delivery of new informatics systems across the NHS in Wales. There still appears to be little recognition of the radical overhaul that is required and the urgency with which this needs to be delivered. We seem to be stuck in a long period of review with little change.

We note that the outcomes of the reviews will lead to change, but this needs to be achieved at pace as informatics in NHS Wales have failed to keep up with modern technology, and every day, staff within the NHS are struggling with systems that simply do not work. It simply is not good enough and the complacent attitudes of those tasked with delivering these systems in NHS Wales need to change. They must be open to the change that is needed and recognise that so far, the approach has not delivered.

The Welsh Government’s reviews and national informatics plan are scheduled for completion within six months, at which time we expect an update of the latest position regarding the plan. We will also wish to seek assurances that the Welsh Government and the wider NHS will act with the necessity needed to put in place the resources and practical changes required to improve informatics in the right timescale. We've invited relevant officials to attend a committee meeting later this year, in July, to provide us with a full progress update and to share with us the outcome of the reviews being undertaken. We sincerely hope that the committee’s report will kick-start the process of improvement and deliver to the people of Wales a modern ICT system to better deliver health services in Wales.

Jenny Rathbone. 

Could I withdraw my name, please, Deputy Presiding Officer?

Okay. Fine. Thank you. Mohammad Asghar.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak this afternoon on the Public Accounts Committee's report on the informatics system in NHS Wales. The benefits of investing in new technology and IT are clear. Informatics can create a safer, more accessible and more sustainable healthcare system, helping the NHS to deliver better outcomes for patients and making more efficient use of financial and human resources. This report follows the previous documents by the Auditor General for Wales, published in January last year. He found that although the vision for an electronic patient record is clear and key elements are in place, there are significant delays in delivery. He went on to say there were key weaknesses in the arrangements to support and oversee delivery, and to ensure the system delivered the intended benefits. The auditor general made a number of recommendations, which, I am pleased to say, have received a very positive response from the Welsh Government. Following this report, the Public Accounts Committee agreed to hold its own inquiry into the informatics system in NHS Wales. It is very much the case that the committee's report is supplementary to that of the auditor general. During our hearing sessions, many concerns emerged or re-emerged. The main issues of concern remains the slow pace of delivery of a modern informatics system across the NHS in Wales and the underlying weaknesses in support and oversight arrangements. This concern is reflected in the frustration expressed across the NHS over delays in delivering electronic patient records, as well as concern about the resilience of core systems.

We had hoped that the pace of change would have increased since the auditor general's report a year ago. However, this is not the case. In too many cases, the NHS still relies on outdated paper-based records. The NHS Wales Informatics Service is frustrated at the lack of direction from the wider NHS, but we've found that the NHS still does not openly recognise the scale and the depth of the problem. This may be indicative of a wider potential problem, which may reveal further matters of concern that are not yet apparent. What did become apparent was a lack of openness and transparency across the whole system. Some witnesses appear to be reluctant to go on record as being critical of the progress made, or of the arrangements in place. The auditor general found that NWIS was 'overly positive' in reporting progress. Deputy Presiding Officer, their complacent mood does not sit comfortably with the committee's finding that many digital projects are behind schedule, and others only on schedule because their timescales have been amended to show them on track. Shifting the goalposts does not address the problem. The sheer pace of technological change means that the continuing delay could result in the NHS in Wales being run on outdated IT systems.

In addition to the strong endorsing of the existing recommendations made by the auditor general, this report makes five recommendations. I welcome the fact that all five recommendations have been accepted by the Welsh Government, in particular the request of the committee to receive six-monthly updates from the Welsh Government on progress on implementing the digital recommendations contained in the parliamentary review and the auditor general's report. This is essential if we are to speed up progress and deliver an IT system that is fit for purpose and delivers better outcomes for patients in Wales. I was lucky enough to meet Dr Alice Groves last week. She went to America with a group of doctors who went on a fact-finding mission especially to see this informatics system in America, and the American doctors were shocked when they were told that the NHS in Wales is still using outdated fax machines and, in some instances, that operations are being cancelled in NHS Wales operating theatres because the files for the patients were not received by the operating theatres. What I heard from Dr Groves was that we are miles behind in this field of NHS service in Wales, and we should follow a little bit and learn something from the US health service in Wales also. Thank you.

Having been absent from this place for some time, I sometimes find myself reflecting on my return about what has changed and what has not. I remember having to deal with a constituency situation where information could not be transferred effectively between two hospitals in Carmarthenshire. The upshot of that was, in fact, that the patient, who was a young adult—his parents were given his records to drive from Llanelli to Carmarthen. Not a very safe use of anybody's data, but absolutely the only way that they could get the information through in time. I did not expect to find myself, Deputy Presiding Officer, returning to this place after such a length of time to see that we still have, as this report highlights, outdated IT systems. The fact that we still have anybody using a fax machine—I don't think I would remember how to use a fax machine if I was called upon to do so—has been quite a shock to me, and as the Deputy Presiding Officer knows, I am not easily shocked.

I won't repeat the points that have been made already in Nick Ramsay's admirable contribution to this debate. There is no need to rehearse the issues; the issues are there clear enough in the report for everyone to read. But it is worth reflecting that we're not talking here about a theoretical debate or about something that's purely technical; this affects people's lives. The Velindre Cancer Centre reported that one patient did not receive chemotherapy treatment as blood results were unavailable and that there was a delay in radiotherapy treatment for eight patients. These are real patients; these are real people's lives.

What I want to concentrate on in my contribution today, Deputy Presiding Officer, are the issues of culture, the issues of the apparent inability to admit that there are serious issues, the tendency to move the goalposts instead of admitting that projects are running behind time, and simply not to acknowledge that there is a problem. And I will repeat this that Nick Ramsay said. The report says:

'Our inquiry has raised serious question marks about the competence, capability and capacity across the health system to deliver a digital transformation in Welsh healthcare. And yet we discovered a culture of self-censorship and denial amongst those charged with taking the agenda forward—in NWIS itself as well as its partners in the health boards and the Welsh Government.'

Now, I think that's a very, very serious charge. I was, therefore, pleased to see that the Welsh Government was accepting the committee's recommendations. But when I read the detail of that acceptance, it seemed to me that we were once again being told that everything was all right because the Welsh Government was already doing what the committee had said that it needed to do and that everything would be absolutely fine. Well, we only have to listen again to Nick Ramsay's contribution today to know that that isn't the case. And it isn't just me commenting on this culture. I would quote to the Minister his Labour—and now ministerial—colleague Lee Waters, saying,

'Digital change isn’t just about technology, it’s about a change of culture. It’s about being open. It’s about using data to solve problems. Instead of designing services from the viewpoint of what a health board or a local authority thinks a citizen needs, a digital approach involves designing services that meet the needs of the end user.'

And I think that's absolutely—absolutely—correct. I am not reassured by the Government's response yet, and I hope that the Minister may be able to provide myself and, more importantly, the committee members who have done this very valuable work with reassurance that things from now on will really change, because they certainly have not yet.

Now, I think the six-monthly reporting to the committee—and I am particularly glad to see that the Government has committed to do that—. It is unusual for a committee to ask for that on an ongoing basis, and I think that does show how seriously they take these issues, and therefore so should we all. I think that would be important and that's very welcome. More important will be to see whether or not the Minister is prepared to abandon his apparent complacency and be ready to take a robust lead in delivering change and creating a culture that can accept challenge. Whether he can, or whether he will choose to do so, remains to be seen.

I now call the Minister for Health and Social Services, Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'd like to thank the committee for their report and the debate today. We may not agree on every single issue at the end of it, but I think there is a shared ambition for our digital future within the world of health and care. Of course, 'A Healthier Wales' puts digital technology transformation and basic, essential use at the heart of transforming health and care. I'm clear that it is our ambition to have the investment, systems, skills and leadership in place to deliver that.

This is a key aspect of our daily lives, and, of course, health and care is no exception. Our challenge is catching up with the reality of how we live our lives. People expect information about their care to be available where and when it is needed, and that is what our national approach aims to provide. I do recognise concerns over the pace of delivery, the stability of our systems and leadership. I made a clear commitment in 'A Healthier Wales' to accelerate digital change for the benefit of society and, indeed, the wider Welsh economy. The Government's additional investment of £25 million of capital and £25 million of revenue for digital in the next financial year will make a significant difference to help us to drive that change. To ensure that we work with increased pace and focus on priorities, we now have a three-year national informatics plan developed through engagement with health boards, trusts and policy officials, and we will focus on replacing cancer, eyecare, pathology and hospital pharmacy systems. We'll increase investment in technology to aid the mobilisation of our care professionals and the delivery of an online service.

It is worth remembering that, in Wales, we have taken an incremental approach to developing IT systems for the NHS. When Informing Healthcare was set up in 2003 it had an annual budget of £30 million. In contrast, in England, the national programme for IT was cut short after spending £7.3 billion and the National Audit Office reported that money spent on care record systems did not represent value for money. In addition, the Major Projects Authority concluded that the programme in England was not fit to provide the modern IT services that the NHS requires.

We already have achieved a range of things in terms of digital delivery. Our national systems allow professionals across health and care to access a single, up-to-date view of the patient's care record and for images to be shared across Wales. The level of services is improved, time is saved and risk and cost reduced. Wales is one of the first countries to use a national test results service, meaning that test results are available where and when they're needed, regardless of organisational boundaries. I've seen for myself, as I hope Members have, too, the difference that Choose Pharmacy makes for patients, who can now get prescribed medicines from pharmacists in an emergency without reference to a GP because they have access to the patient's information. That system is now live in more than 95 per cent of eligible pharmacies, and for a change in an IT project, it is on budget and ahead of schedule.

GPs in Wales are able to use one of two centrally managed IT systems to provide everything from desktop support to managed print services, hopefully allowing GPs to focus more of their time to treat people in their care. Patients are increasingly able to make use of digital technology to help their own care and treatment, from booking appointments online, ordering repeat prescriptions and accessing data from their health records. There is, though, much more to do. The introduction of text reminders, as one example, has helped to reduce the number of missed appointments.

Our approach to digital systems supports a system where health and care are integrated and they must have the citizen at the centre. So, the Welsh community care information system has already gone live in 13 organisations and I'm clear that I want more to come on board progressively until we have the whole country covered, to deliver a shared view of the patient, of the person, to colleagues in health and social services, to improve safety and the quality of care. This is the first time that such a programme has been delivered on a national scale anywhere.

I'm very grateful to the Minister. I'm wondering if you can provide us today with—. What you've been saying is very positive, and we'd all welcome that, I'm sure, but can you provide us with the latest figures with regard to outages in the current NHS system? If you're not able to provide those figures today, would you be prepared to write to Members in that regard? Because that is, obviously, absolutely crucial—the positive developments that you're describing today won't work if the systems keep crashing.

I'll come to outages later in my remarks. In Wales, we're developing an online directory of services that aggregates information from across health, care and voluntary sectors to make it easier for citizens to find information on services relevant to them. As outlined in my response to the Public Accounts Committee, a review of NHS digital architecture is under way, and that will guide plans for how the architecture is developed for the future to take account of advances in the marketplace and best practice from elsewhere. We still want to be a learning and open service. I'll be acting on the review's report, which is due before the end of this financial year.

As we become more reliant on our systems, in what is a complex environment, it is doubly important that the systems are safe and resilient, and there were a number of outages last year. NWIS have now stepped up to maintain and upgrade our systems, and I'm pleased to report that there have been no major incidents with IT systems since the start of September last year. I've also increased investment in cyber security and established new processes in the event of cyber or system failure.

But delivering the change that we're looking for will require the right level of digital skills and leadership within the health service. That requires looking across the whole system, not with a focus on just one organisation within it. As promised in my response to the Public Accounts Committee, the review of informatics governance in the NHS has now been completed and its report has been submitted to the Government.

Simple points solutions will not work. We need rather more radical, multiple and co-ordinated actions across all parts of the system. There is widespread support for change and a clear recognition that now is the opportunity to create a more resilient and responsive system that is genuinely fit for the future.

The review makes a series of recommendations for both the short and medium term under four key themes: establishing a chief digital officer for health to strengthen national digital leadership; creating a new standards authority and mandating informatics standards; establishing a new digital development team to support innovation and to accelerate the pace of delivery, with priorities set nationally; and to bring together the current dispersed regional and national informatics services in a shared service arrangement for data infrastructure and delivery.

I will, of course, publish the report in due course. In the meantime, I've asked my officials to work with the health service to consider the recommendations. I will update Members before Easter recess on our response to the review's recommendations. Of course, it's not just the digital skills and capability of our workforce that are important. We must be mindful of the impact on our citizens, in particular those who may have difficulty taking advantage of new services. I therefore have committed £3 million for a health-focused element to our digital inclusion programme over the next three years to build a network of champions in the service and in the community. We will continue to look beyond the boundaries of health to bring benefits to our citizens. NWIS is working with colleagues elsewhere in the public sector, and the digital health ecosystem for Wales is fostering collaboration between the service, academia and industry to drive innovation. Whilst not losing sight of the achievements, I know there is much more to do. I am confident that we will deliver a healthier Wales, with improved digital capability and access at its heart.    

Thank you. Can I now call on Nick Ramsay to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank all of the Members who've contributed to today's debate? It might have been a little shorter than some debates that we have in this Chamber, but I think that all of the points that Members made were well made and to be welcomed.

There have been some recurrent themes that have been touched on by all Members, starting with Mohammad Asghar, who mentioned the issues of transparency and the need for openness. I think we need to know the scale of the problem before us, and to accept that so that we can find solutions—that's key. And that's what PAC reports like this are here to do: to shed light on those areas where things are failing—respecting the fact that there are other areas where progress is being made and success is happening—those areas that are failing, like in this area, need to be put right. 

Helen Mary Jones reminds us she's not easily shocked, but you are right to be shocked or taken aback by this report. It is a hard-hitting report—I don't make any bones about that. It is a scathing report. It doesn't hold any punches, because it is reporting on the evidence that we received, and deep concerns that were in some sectors about the problems that we're facing with the informatics in the NHS. As you said, Helen Mary, this isn't a theoretical debate. It's actually, as I speak here now, as you spoke earlier—out there in Wales, it is affecting real people, it's affecting staff and it's affecting patients. Perhaps 50 years ago when computers were, well, certainly in their infancy and informatics probably wasn't even imagined, these sorts of issues were obviously not relevant. But now they are. They're relevant to other areas of life and they're increasingly relevant to the health service.

I'm glad, Helen Mary, that you quoted Lee Waters—Lee Waters, a previous member and a valued member of the Public Accounts Committee. I know that these are issues—a different hat on now, of course, so you're not part of this debate today, but you put a lot of work in with the rest of the committee and that's to be welcomed as well. Digital transformation, when you quoted Lee, is about being open. That echoes Mohammad Asghar's earlier comments as well. That's what we're trying to achieve here. 

Turning to the Minister's response—and I think it's a well-meaning response, as Helen Mary said, it's a response that contained a lot in it to be welcomed. Thank you for the spirit that you delivered it in, Minister, and thank you for your evidence that you gave to the committee. I'm pleased that the Welsh Government has accepted our recommendations. I'm pleased more than anything because they need to be accepted. You're right: we all want improvement in this area.

The issue that we have—one of the predominant, overriding issues—is the pace of change. It cannot be right that Assembly Members who were here back in the early days of devolution, when we were discussing exactly the same problems, have now come back and everything is as it was. That can't be right. So, pace is the issue. Yes, there have been improvements, yes, things have moved on in some areas, but it needs to happen quicker. We need to have capacity. We need to have a capacity within the Welsh Government, within the NHS system—a capacity and the skills that are required to put this situation right. The committee wasn't convinced that that capacity is there at the moment. There was evidence of capability in the system—we had a long discussion about the difference between capability and capacity—but there were concerns about the scale of that capacity. 

Outages—Members mentioned the number of outages. I'm pleased to hear there haven't been any since last September because, quite frankly, with the scale of some of the outages that were happening, they were really holding the system back and holding progress back. That has to be sorted out so that we can move on.

There is support for change—within the Welsh Government, dare I say, within this Chamber itself—of course there is support for change across the board. We all want this sorted out. It is going to take money, but it's also going to take a change of mindset—or a moving on of the mindset is probably a better way to put it—because there is undoubtedly a desire, amongst all the stakeholders that we took evidence from, for this position to be improved. But we're nowhere near there yet. We're on a road, but we want to get where we're going far faster than we are. Let's give the NHS the informatics system that it deserves. Let's give the people of Wales, patients and staff the system that they deserve and need. We've waited a long time. I plead with the Minister to employ your commitment to this to make sure that we do get an improvement in the informatics system that we all want to see. 

Thank you very much. The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36. 

We now move on to item 7, which is the Plaid Cymru debate on prisons and criminal justice. I call on Leanne Wood to move the motion. Leanne. 

Diolch. I'm pleased to move this motion in Plaid Cymru's name that has followed the publication of a piece of research that deserves serious attention. The finding by the Wales Governance Centre that Wales has the highest incarceration rate in western Europe should be a source of shame for us all. It's also deeply concerning that this trend has developed without detection until the Wales Governance Centre disaggregated the data. These findings and the concerning wider picture that they point to should prompt us to ask some searching questions about what it is we want from our justice system and how it is serving those aims. And that is what I hope that we can start to do today with this debate. 

The truth is that the England and Wales criminal justice system is failing our communities. We have a higher incarceration rate than England, despite having a lower crime rate. Women are more likely to receive an immediate custodial sentence than men. Imprisonment rates among BAME communities are more disproportionate relative to the population in Wales than in England, and Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have the highest average sentence length. So, if you're a person of colour in Wales, you are both more likely to be imprisoned and to receive a longer sentence. White people, however, are underrepresented.

Looking at rates of imprisonment across Wales, we also know that Wales's most deprived communities have higher rates of incarceration. There is a clear link between poverty and crime and the treatment of working-class offenders by the courts. Inequality is built into the heart of our justice system, whether that's racial, gender, class or geographic inequality, and this is no accident. It is political decisions at Westminster by the Tories and New Labour before them that have got us to this point.

I remember when I served as a probation officer in the mid 1990s, the prison population was half of what it is now. Years later and we have a privatised probation service, a lack of confidence from the courts in community-based responses, coupled with austerity-driven cuts to legal aid and not being able to access justice, and that has all resulted in more people in Wales being sentenced directly to prison.

Added to this, half of all magistrates' courts in England and Wales have closed since 2010. People now have to travel much further to access justice. There is a clear link between austerity, the privatisation of the probation service, the pursuit of profit and poor performance in supervision and monitoring. While community-based solutions have been gutted by successive Governments, they've handed over more and more of the justice system into private hands, with prisons being run for profit by private companies, such as G4S, who have been linked to serious human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, conditions in prisons have deteriorated to crisis point, as previous research by the Wales Governance Centre has revealed. While the number of prisoners held in Wales rose by 23 per cent from 2010-17, the level of recorded self-harm incidents increased by 358 per cent during the same period. In 2017, there were 2,132 self-harm incidents in prisons in Wales. This figure equates to five separate incidents of self-harm taking place in Welsh prisons every day. On average, a prisoner in Wales takes their own life every four months.

Levels of violence are also increasing our prisons. Since 2010, the total number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in Wales has increased by 156 per cent, compared to an 86 per cent rise in the number of incidents in English prisons. Assaults on staff and prison disturbances have also increased in England and Wales, and a disproportionate number of disturbances took place in Parc prison, Wales's only private prison.

Our prisons are overcrowded, unsafe and unfit to meet the needs of a modern justice system. The truth is, prison doesn't work, not if our aim is to create a just, fair and safe society, or if we want people to be rehabilitated so they don't keep committing offences over and over again.

At Westminster, the Tories and New Labour before them have taken an approach to justice that is punitive, unfair and focused on generating private profit from criminalisation and human suffering. We could do things differently, and full devolution of the criminal justice system would allow us to do just that. Probation services could be brought back under full public control, alongside establishing a rehabilitative prison system with a specific focus on assisting people and helping them to break the vicious cycle of reoffending through well-resourced, community-based courses and initiatives.

We could also look at wider opportunities to decriminalise activity that doesn't cause harm to our communities. Decriminalisation of drugs and treating substance misuse as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue would reduce the dangers associated with drug use and ensure that resources aren't wasted on prosecuting people for minor, non-violent offences, such as possession of drugs or shoplifting to feed the family. The criminal justice system could focus on establishing problem-solving justice initiatives that seek to tackle the root causes of offending at an early age, and focus on prevention rather than retribution after the crime has been committed. In particular, custodial sentences would only be used for women and young people in the most exceptional circumstances. For both of these groups of people, more often than not, a custodial sentence only makes things worse, and the same, of course, goes for people with mental health conditions.

Our current focus on punishing people gets us nowhere, leading only to more families being torn apart, cycles of reoffending, substance misuse, unemployment, homelessness and mental health problems. Focusing on full rehabilitation, restorative justice approaches and trauma-informed work with offenders would help us create safer communities. And that's why Plaid Cymru is also in favour of giving prisoners the right to vote, in the interests of human rights and rehabilitation. Disenfranchising an entire section of the population in this way cannot be justified, in my view, in a modern democracy. And what a strong signal Wales could send about our determination to fully rehabilitate prisoners as citizens this motion would send. 

Turning to the amendments to this motion, I'd first like to address the amendment by the far-right fearmongers UKIP, whose amendment tries to link ethnic origin or nationality to criminality. What a disgraceful thing to do. This is another pathetic attempt by UKIP to turn people against migrants, and I would urge everyone to vote against that.

We'll also be voting against the Conservative amendment, which seems to be an attempt by them to stick their heads in the sand about the disastrous effects of their party's austerity and privatisation. Warm words by the Ministry of Justice about a focus on rehabilitation must be backed by significant action to be meaningful, and, so far, the record is not good.

I'm pleased that the Welsh Government have today supported our calls for a fairer justice system that works. I've been disappointed recently, however, to hear the new First Minister say that he's not in favour of the full devolution of justice to Wales, and instead favours a more piecemeal approach. I would ask him, if he agrees with what we are calling for, from focusing on rehabilitation to ending private profits from prisons, then why wait?

I look forward to seeing the outcome of the work by the Commission on Justice in Wales considering this issue, but there is already a broad consensus across this Siambr and in the general public that criminal justice should be devolved to Wales. So, I would encourage the Welsh Government to support our motion today and make it clear that they are in favour of full devolution. Let's demand the tools to do things ourselves and to build a better system. Devolving responsibility for criminal justice would enable us to forge our own path in Wales. Rather than topping the league for imprisonment and the poverty and misery associated with it, we could create a fairer, transformative system that would be a beacon for justice around the world. What's stopping us?

I've selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2 and 3 will be deselected. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call on Gareth Bennett to move amendment 1, tabled in his name. Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Llywydd, and thanks to Plaid Cymru for bringing today's debate. This isn't, I would have to add, a debate that is particularly welcomed by us here on the UKIP side of the Chamber, since our view is that criminal justice is rightly a matter for the UK Government. We don't really go along with the aspirations of Plaid Cymru that criminal justice should be a devolved issue. It seems that the Welsh Labour Government are creeping by inches towards Plaid Cymru's position, so we find that we in UKIP are increasingly in opposition to Labour over many criminal justice issues as well. 

Perhaps I should start on areas where we do agree. UKIP doesn't see any role for private contractors working in the criminal justice sector. We think that this is necessarily a role for the state, and we would like good terms and conditions for people working in the prison system to ensure that high standards are maintained. High rates of suicide, violence and self-harm among the prison population clearly are no good thing, and we also have to take account of the increasing rates of assaults by prisoners against the prison officers.

There can be a problem with short custodial sentences. To be fair, we had evidence to this effect on the communities committee last year, when we did our homelessness inquiry. Some prisoners on short sentences go into homelessness almost by default once they are released because the housing authorities haven't had any time to put any tenancy in place for them, so the released prisoner can fall into a cycle of prison and homelessness and possibly end up back in jail for reoffending after only a short time. So, there are issues over the use of short sentences.

The problem with this is that serial offenders are not really appropriate for community sentences, since their track record suggests that they will in all probability reoffend, meaning that we will then have more victims of crime. And there is a problem that only two thirds of community sentences in England and Wales are actually completed. We have a problem with having enough probation officers to run the community sentences properly, so you can't just have a blanket assertion that we have to rule out short sentences. Sometimes, offenders have to be given a short sentence because there is no viable alternative.

There is an issue of overcrowding in jails as the prison population has risen substantially in recent years. Plaid Cymru and Labour don't seem to want more prisons to be built; this seems to be their position, although they say that it is superprisons that they are specifically against and not prisons per se. I think that, in truth, neither Labour nor Plaid like the idea of us having prisons at all. One of the causes of overcrowding in jails is the rising population in England and Wales generally—

Will you take an intervention?

—I'm not taking any interventions, thank you—partly caused, of course, by mass immigration, and, of course, because the Home Office no longer has much choice over who can actually come and settle in the country, many foreign criminals, particularly from eastern Europe, have taken the chance to settle here and carry on with their criminal careers in the UK. So, we have the figure that 11 per cent of all prisoners in England and Wales are now foreign nationals.

Will you take an intervention?

No, I'm not taking any, Rhun. Thanks very much. Of course—

Racist.

[Inaudible.]—you're probably just scared of an argument.

Racist.

Of course, we can try to deport these people—

Racist.

—but we are up against court challenges, and really we won't be able to get rid of the large foreign element in our jails—

Racist.

—until we are out of the European Union and the European Court of Justice, and preferably also out of the European Court of Human Rights.

Labour and Plaid are both committing themselves today to prisoner voting. This seems a bit odd, since we are having an inquiry on precisely this subject on the communities committee at the moment, but we have only just got into this inquiry, so why Labour are already committing themselves to a position on this, I don't know. Of course, I wait to hear what the Labour spokesman says, but it does seem that the Government may be holding the committee a little bit in contempt here. We do have a distinguished new member of the committee in Carwyn Jones, who, until a few weeks ago, was the First Minister, and he seems to be genuinely interested in this inquiry and genuinely to be undertaking it without a preconceived view. Is he not allowed to have a meaningful view on this issue because the Labour Government are already staking out a position on this? But, as I say, I look forward to hearing how the Labour Minister expounds their view on this matter today.

To summarise the UKIP position, we oppose the Plaid motion, we oppose the Labour amendments, we don't really like the Conservative amendment a lot, since they're only focusing on rehabilitation and community sentences and nothing else, which doesn't really give a holistic or practical solution to the problems facing us here, so we will abstain today on the Conservative amendment. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I call Mark Isherwood to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Darren Millar—Mark Isherwood.

Diolch, Llywydd. As we've heard, the Wales Governance Centre's report, 'Sentencing and Immediate Custody in Wales' found that Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe and that, although the total number of prison sentences rose in Wales between 2010 and 2017, they fell by 16 per cent in England. The report's authors stated that wider research is needed to explain Wales's high rate of imprisonment, and this is particularly relevant given that many of the services required to manage offenders and ex-offenders and promote rehabilitation are already devolved. Such a difference in delivery within what is a shared criminal justice system provides yet another reason why the calls for devolution of criminal justice should not be answered. These calls also continue to fail to acknowledge that criminal activity does not recognise national or regional boundaries and that 40 per cent of people in Wales live within 25 miles of the border with England and 90 per cent within 50 miles. As the former First Minister has also pointed out, dangerous offenders could still be sent across the UK after devolution to address the lack of category A prisons in Wales. Reading Plaid Cymru's virtual reality motion, you wouldn't know that the UK Ministry of Justice was focused on rehabilitative services, community sentences and reducing reoffending in England and Wales. I therefore move amendment 2.

The UK Government has consistently stated that the proportion of prisoners who reoffend on release in England and Wales is too high. Last August, I attended an event held in Wrexham by HM Prison and Probation Service in Wales to discuss the 'Strengthening probation, building confidence' paper, under which all offender management services in Wales will sit within the National Probation Service from 2020. HM Prison and Probation Service in Wales will explore options for commissioning rehabilitative services such as interventions and community payback. They will build upon the unique arrangements they already have in Wales through their established prisons and probation directorate and upon successful existing local partnerships, better reflecting the devolved responsibilities of the Welsh Government.

The UK Government's prison reforms are not about increasing capacity but about replacing ageing and ineffective prisons with buildings fit for today's demands. Superprisons are not a one-size-fits-all model. Berwyn prison Wrexham is the first custodial facility in England and Wales to be designated a rehabilitation prison. It is a training and resettlement prison divided into three houses, each divided into eight communities, plus a care and support unit. Following his recent visit to Berwyn, Labour's Wrexham MP said he was very pleased that there were constructive signs for the future.

Sentencing guidelines already state—[Interruption.]—already state that custodial sentences will only be imposed on young offenders in the most serious cases. The UK Government has already rejected community prisons for women in England and Wales and they will instead trial five residential centres to help women offenders with issues such as finding work and drug rehabilitation in the community. The Ministry of Justice is also already working on banning short prison sentences in England and Wales, with Ministers stating that short jail terms are less effective at cutting reoffending than community penalties, where such sentences were long enough to damage and not long enough to heal.

Plaid Cymru's call, echoed by Labour Ministers, for prisoners to have a right to vote in Welsh elections is not mentioned in either of their 2016 manifestos. The Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee are currently undertaking an inquiry into voting rights for prisoners, and any support for today's motion will be pre-empting our findings. In the committee's online discussion, only 24 per cent thought that all prisoners should be allowed to vote. In a 2017 YouGov survey, only 9 per cent of people in Wales said all prisoners should be allowed to vote. Not voting is just one of the facts of life arising from being in prison, reflecting a decision by the community that the person concerned is not suitable to participate in the decision-making processes of a community.

Our priority must be the human rights of victims that are violated by murderers, terrorists, rapists and paedophiles. The European Court of Human Rights did not rule that all prisoners should be given voting rights, and a UK Government compromise on this has already been accepted. Any consideration beyond this should focus on the case for allowing prisoners to vote as part of their rehabilitation in preparation for re-entering broader society. Instead of the top-down model proposed by this motion, continuous attention should be given to what works and what we need to do differently in order to design the system backwards. Diolch yn fawr.

I call on the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip to move formally amendment 3, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans.

Formally.

Diolch. Bethan Sayed.

Thanks. I think it's really important that we keep this particular issue at the top of the political agenda and try and discuss this in a constructive way if it's possible—not from what I've heard from some contributions today. One of the things I was most keen to talk about and to put on the agenda when we had the campaign in Port Talbot against a new superprison in Baglan was that the campaign should simply not be about 'In my backyard'. The issue of a prison raised much larger issues of importance to Wales and those needed to be explored and discussed in a constructive way. The proposed prison was about much more than simply housing prisoners, and the arguments surrounding a prison as some form of economic investment always lacked credibility, especially when the land was already designated as a business park and should, in my view, have been developed as such years ago.

What the proposed prison in Port Talbot was truly about, in my view, was a Westminster Government that had failed to invest in Wales, had cancelled major infrastructure projects or failed to back others. It was another example of a Westminster Government that believed that Wales, having a flatlining economy, would jump at the chance to host anything with even a mild prospect of investment, regardless of what that investment was or the implications of it. We deserve better than that now and we did so then when the campaign was at its height. I must say, too, that the Welsh Government did, at the beginning, jump at the prospect of a prison; I remember the words of Carwyn Jones when he was First Minister. So, I am very pleased that the backbench Member now, but Minister at the time, Alun Davies was changing his mind on that and putting forward some very progressive ideas.

What this prison was about for us, and what it became about for many involved in the prison campaign was a conversation about our future and how we deal with the wider issues surrounding criminal justice. Is it right that the fate of Welsh prisoners is decided by a Minister in England? Is it right that, despite 20 years of devolution and an increasing body of Welsh law, we don't have a say over this huge, increasingly important aspect of policy? Is it right that Wales's prisoners are sent to English prisons and England's prisoners are kept here in Wales? And, of course, the wider question: why do we keep going down the road of mass incarceration instead of having a conversation about why we send people to prison in the first place, who actually needs to be in prison and how we need to focus on their rehabilitative needs? We had many of those discussions as part of the campaign in Port Talbot and we showed that, contrary to what some people may think, there is not as widespread a view as that which UKIP espouses—the throw-away-the-key attitude that some people may have. Do people believe that those convicted of a crime should pay penance? Yes. And we believe that too; we don't believe in having no prisons—that would be entirely absurd. But there is also true understanding and an eagerness to ensure that those convicted of less serious crimes are given a chance to turn their lives around and rectify their mistakes in a decent way.

We have to be wary, though, that the Ministry of Justice is still exploring the possibility of a new superprison in south Wales. The argument stands, as it did in Port Talbot, that we do not need another prison in south Wales. And I think the Ministry of Justice actually does itself a disservice in how it perceives Welsh politicians, because just by moving to another area of south Wales doesn't mean that we're not going to campaign, it doesn't mean that they're going to not face local opposition; we will take that campaign to that community, wherever it is, whether I represent that area or not, because we do not want that prison here in Wales. So, I hope that the Ministry of Justice takes note of that.

I believe that the UK Government position on this is predicated on the notion of more of the same. They hold a position that doesn't take reform seriously, seeks to deliver justice and rehabilitation on the cheap, locking people up in large prisons without enough resources, and they do that because the staff there have told us. Whistleblowers have come to us and said that that is what is happening. Under those circumstances, it's no wonder that the MoJ are looking to build more prisons.

So, we take a different view, as Leanne Wood has mentioned earlier, and argue strongly that, by refocusing how we treat convicted people, by overhauling sentencing laws and penal policy and by renationalising and reprioritising probation and rehabilitation, then we can cut and reduce the demand for prison places. Now, I don't have much time left, but what I would like to end on is trying to, perhaps, re-understand what this meaningful conversation with the MoJ actually means. I didn't understand it under the other Minister and I still don't understand what it means. We need clarification on—if the policy is not to have more prisons here in Wales, when and what those meaningful conversations with the MoJ will be to change your mind. What will it take for the Welsh Government to change your mind on some of these key issues of principle in relation to what we want to do with the future of our criminal justice system? If I get that clarity here today, I will be very pleased indeed, but I am thankful that we are continuing this debate and that we can address some of these issues, hopefully, in a progressive way.

I agree with much of what Leanne has said in terms of the current state of the prison system being a source of shame, as well as the fact that more people in Wales are incarcerated than any other group of citizens across the whole of Europe, but there are some serious questions that need to be asked in understanding why that is. How much of that, these harsher sentences, is to do with the fact that English judges are coming to Wales and handing down longer and more severe sentences than they do to people convicted for the same offence in England? I'm unable to answer that question, but it's a serious one that we have to ask, and that obviously feeds into the arguments as to why we might need—why we do need—a criminal justice system devolved to Wales. Is it, alternatively, because of greater levels of deprivation in Wales that therefore increase the number of people who are turning to stealing and robbing and committing violent offences as an alternative to holding down a job? Or are the Welsh police better at detecting crime and apprehending individuals who are breaking the law?

Will you take an intervention? I just might be able to help you with some of the questions that you're asking there, because I recently met with some representatives of Napo, my former trade union, the National Association of Probation Officers, and they were telling my that clearly what's happening is: the fact that the probation service has been partly privatised has meant that that that privatised element of the probation service now doesn't have the confidence of the courts. So, instead of being able to recommend sentences that we used to call community service, now called 'unpaid work', or group work—I used to run anger management groups or drink drive groups, for example—probation officers are not making those recommendations now, because they don't have faith in the system. And what is more likely to be happening is then people are either fined, or they have to go to prison, and more people are going to prison, in their view. That's the explanation that they give me for this higher incarceration rate in Wales. 

Okay. Well, I'm sure that that's a very important reflection, but it wouldn't explain why more people are going to prison in Wales than in England, because you have the privatised probation service in England too. My understanding is it is across the piece, but if you know something more than that, obviously you can come back. Anyway, I think these are the sorts of things we want the commission for justice to answer, and, at the moment, they are not going to report until the end of this year. So, I don't think we can second guess what they're going to say. 

There's a great deal wrong, and clearly the levels of recidivism are an absolute disaster. It costs more to put somebody in prison than it does to put them up in Claridge's or somewhere like that, and yet we should hardly be surprised. The overcrowded conditions breed self-harm, suicide, assault and desperation. That's something that we have to recognise. We also have to acknowledge that some good work is going on to try and reduce the level of self-harm, including suicide, through the one-to-one conversations on a regular basis between prisoners and a designated officer that we heard about, both in Parc in Bridgend, as well as, I heard about, in Cardiff prison, when I visited last week. It is clear that if the prisoner feels that they are having their grievances heard, they are less likely to resort to really unproductive ways of expressing that frustration. So, I think we should commend the prison service for instituting that sort of thing.

I would also like to commend the work by the Prison Advice and Care Trust in Cardiff prison, which is to make the cafe, the area where prisoners meet their families, much more friendly and a pleasanter place to be, which is both beneficial to the families and beneficial to the prisoner. We know that recidivism is far, far reduced if prisoners maintain contact with their families. But I think that the sort of responses that we heard from Mark Isherwood are just the sort of problem that we have with a sensible debate about the criminal justice system, which is driven by the Daily Mail. We cannot go on like this. We cannot send people to prison if we are, at the same time, not being able to ensure that the law is being enforced in prison. It is completely unacceptable that prisoners have had their belongings stolen whilst they are being transferred from one prison to another. That is against the law, and the law should be upheld, both in prisons—.

I think that one of the greatest arguments in favour of enfranchising prisoners is it forces politicians who make the decisions about the system have a much greater awareness of what goes on in prisons and the ways in which we need to fix it to make it a less grossly expensive operation that doesn't actually produce the result that we want, which is to reduce the numbers of people who are returning to crime on release. So, I think it's premature to be voting at this moment on how, on when, prisoners should get the vote, because the local government committee is in the middle of an inquiry on this important matter. But we are where we are, we have the debate that we're having, and I think it's one we need to continue.

I want to highlight in my contribution this afternoon three particular aspects of the effects of the current system on those currently incarcerated and the consequences. I want to first of all look at the services that are provided—or not provided—for prisoners who speak Welsh. Members of the Chamber will have seen the Welsh Language Commissioner's report, 'Cymraeg yn y carchar', Welsh in prisons. It was a very thorough piece of work, and it was very disturbing. She was able to highlight that provision is not consistently made. She even found that there were instances of prisoners being told not to speak Welsh to their families, and I have personally come across situations where mothers have been told not to speak Welsh to their Welsh-speaking children when those children do not speak English because they're so small. That is a clear breach of those prisoners' human rights. It is more important, indeed, particularly, as the commissioner highlights, because so many of our prisoners have learning difficulties, they may have low levels of education, they may have disabilities, and many of them have mental health issues.

It's clear from this report's findings that the provision currently available to Welsh speakers is inadequate and inconsistent, and when it comes to women prisoners, who are all incarcerated beyond Wales, often absolutely non-existent. This has to be addressed, and it is, of course, the legal responsibility of the Minister of justice and the UK Government to address this. It is clear from the commissioner's report that they are failing to do so.

Presiding Officer, I just simply don't believe that however much individuals working in the system—and the commissioner does highlight some good practice, it has to be said—try to meet the needs of these prisoners, they are ever going to do it, and instead of trying to fix a broken system under Westminster control, this is a strong argument for me that the criminal justice system needs to be controlled by those politicians who Welsh-speaking people and their families elect, and that, of course, is us. We need to devolve the system.

I want to build a little on the points that my colleague Leanne Wood has already made about women prisoners. To begin with, I think we need to address the question as to why women are so routinely incarcerated for offences for which men would be given community penalties. I think we know the answer to that, and I think we know that offending behaviour is perceived by many, when it is done by women, as more transgressive. It is based on sex discrimination, on sexist assumptions about what is acceptable behaviour from women. You know, 'Boys will be boys', they get into a fight, they'll get a community penalty. Girls get into a fight, 'That's outrageous; that's completely transgressive', and they are likely to end up with custodial sentences. And in addressing the problems around women's treatment in the system, we have to base it on that understanding of sex discrimination.

We know that there were 227 women from Wales in September 2017—the most recent figures I could get—who were serving custodial sentences in English prisons. Most of those women are mothers. So, that is at least 200 Welsh families a very long way away from their mothers, and we know that the effects on children and families of incarcerating women can be devastating.

Also, we know it doesn't work. We also know that women end up going back into custody, again, very often, for non-payment of fines, and this has got to stop. We need to look and we need to examine the attitudes within the system that are leading to women being incarcerated when men were not. We need some facilities for women prisoners here in Wales, close to their families. We know that that's absolutely crucial in terms of their likelihood to be able to rehabilitate and reintegrate successfully into society. I think we need to debate whether we need a small, secure unit—whether we need a small women's prison here in Wales for those offenders who really cannot be supported in the community. But the vast majority of our women prisoners should not be in prison at all, and they should be helped, not punished.

Lastly, Presiding Officer, I want to talk very briefly about the youth justice system. We've discussed this in this Chamber on a number of occasions. I want to talk from a very personal perspective, because the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services will remember a time when I was actively engaged in this field, running a youth justice project for Barnardo's. All the young people we worked with—and they were mostly young men—would have gone into custody had they not come to us. And one of the things that I want to put to bed is the idea that community penalties are soft. They are not. On a number of occasions when I was working with young men, for example, confronting them with the victims of their offences, they asked me to breach them and send them into custody, because they knew how to do custody. Custody was relatively easy. Facing up to what they'd done wrong and making amends for it was much, much more challenging.

Now, that was a very thoroughly researched project, funded by Barnardo's, researched by universities. Only one in 10 of those young people reoffended at all, and those who did reoffended much less seriously. It was expensive, but it was a lot cheaper than incarcerating them. We have known, Presiding Officer, for 25 years that young offenders are usually young offenders because they are young people in trouble, and once again we need to intervene in their lives in a way that supports them. Because I know from personal experience—and I can see those young people's faces today—that if we intervene in a manner that supports them, we can not only change their lives for the better, but we can prevent them from reoffending. We need a Welsh approach to dealing with our very, very troubled young people, and we need, again, to make those decisions here.

I think we all share some gratitude to the Wales Governance Centre for the work they're doing in the reports and analysis that they've published, but also in publishing Welsh stats and an understanding of the secure estate, and how the prison and probation service works and serves Wales. Taken together, all of this work is describing a failing system. The system is failing, and it is our job here today and here in this place to fix that. We have to ask the fundamental question: why is this system failing and why is it failing so consistently and over time? My answer to that question is that it's because we have a broken settlement. Until the settlement is fixed, we are unable to solve the problems that are endemic in the criminal justice system.

The England and Wales jurisdiction is a relic of history. That is what the Welsh Government says in its evidence to the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales. It describes how the system—the final legacy of the Acts of Union, the Tudor Acts of Union—how it today creates a system that is failing people in Wales. The Welsh Government was very clear, in the evidence that I gave to the Thomas commission, the evidence that the former First Minister gave to the commission, and the evidence that the Counsel General, who is in his place today, gave to the commission—that the system is failing Wales, it's failing the people of Wales, and that the criminal justice system must be devolved to Wales. We were very clear about that.

We need to understand the real implications of this. If a jurisdiction, and if policy over criminal justice, was simply some sort of dusty, academic subject, I frankly wouldn't be that interested in the devolution of it. It's because of its human impact on people today that I've been persuaded that this is not simply a matter that is important, but a matter that is urgent. [Interruption.] I will give way.

I'm grateful to Alun Davies. Can I, just for a question of clarity, be clear that we're talking here about the whole of the criminal justice system?

Yes. I don't think I qualified my words in any way at all. Certainly the Welsh Government hasn't qualified its words at all. What the Welsh Government has said is that this has to be done as part of a process. It's not qualified its support for the devolution of the criminal justice system.

We need to devolve and then unite the policy area. We need to ensure that we have a secure estate, we have the support in social services, and we're able to deliver a holistic approach to criminal justice, and we can't do that at the moment. This is probably the only area of policy where neither the Welsh Government nor the UK Government is able to deliver its policy ambitions in Wales. It's a real achievement for both Governments to fail to deliver their policy objectives.

I did regret the tone and content of the speech from the Conservative spokesperson in this debate this afternoon. I will say to him that the conversations that I had with Ministry of Justice and Home Office Ministers were far more constructive than perhaps he's been briefed about. The Ministers in London—in Westminster—are very aware of the failings of the system in Wales and aware of the reasons for the failings of this system.

Did you not hear me devote the majority of my speech to listing the initiatives launched by the Ministry of Justice over recent years to reflect that very finding, not just in Wales but in England too?

They have launched a number of initiatives over a number of years, but they recognise that they can't deliver their policy objectives through those initiatives in Wales because we don't have a settlement that enables them to do so. They're very aware that their objectives simply can't be reached under the current settlement—they're very aware of that.

So, we need, then, to design a system that meets Welsh needs. We need to ensure that mental health and substance abuse are a part of what we do across the whole of the criminal justice system. We need to address the appalling situation facing women and young people, but we do also need to address the estate for men as well. The estate as it currently stands is simply not fit for purpose, and we need to understand that we do need investment in the whole of the estate. We do need to create small local prisons with rehabilitation and rebuilding lives at their heart. We need to ensure that the decisions that are taken today on probation are taken forward in future. 

But none of this is possible without the devolution of the system. I regret that the Government has sought to amend the Plaid Cymru motion this afternoon—I believe that it's an error of judgment. The Government would have been better off supporting the Plaid Cymru motion. I'd be interested to hear the Minister's explanation as to why she's seeking to amend the motion today. I'll be very clear as well: I'm not minded to support the Government's amendment today, because I believe it does bring equivocation into an area where the Government has been very clear.

I'll finish by saying this:

'All candidates for the First Minister role are in agreement that justice should be devolved. This is the view of the Labour group in the National Assembly. My colleagues share the same views as me.'

That is Carwyn Jones, as First Minister of Wales, giving evidence to the justice commission in November of last year. I hope the Minister will be as unequivocal in her response this afternoon, because we are failing people today and we are failing people tomorrow. Unless we are prepared to take the difficult decisions and invest in the people of this country in the criminal justice system, we will also be guilty of the same failures that the Conservative Government in London are presiding over. I don't wish to be a part of that. As a Minister in this Government, I sought to take a radical approach to delivering social justice for everybody. We cannot deliver social justice unless we support the devolution of the criminal justice system and we invest in the people who are part of that system. 

I call on the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip—Jane Hutt.

Diolch, Llywydd. I do welcome the debate on these very important issues. The publication of the Wales Governance Centre report, 'Sentencing and Immediate Custody in Wales', is very timely, building on their earlier report, published in the summer of last year, specifically 'Imprisonment in Wales: A Factfile'. The findings of this report from the governance centre will, of course, assist us in further establishing a clearer picture of the criminal justice system in Wales.

The report has also further highlighted the importance of needing Wales-specific data in understanding justice policy and practice. I discussed that with Dr Robert Jones when I met him following the publication of his report. I commended them—the centre and Robert Jones—for their work and for the ongoing engagement that the governance centre has with the Welsh Government. I took the opportunity also to say I valued the briefing on the important work he's been undertaking, including a briefing for me on the research they're undertaking for the justice commission.

I'd like to comment on the wide range of policy points raised in the motion today. I, too, see the need for a different sort of criminal justice system in Wales that's rooted in rehabilitation and the community, as the motion indicates and as has been expressed today in this Chamber. We need to gain a better understanding of why people end up in prison and what we could do to prevent them from going to prison, often for short sentences, which, as has been said, can have a devastating impact on their lives and the lives of their families and communities.

We recognise the need to protect our communities from harm and where we cannot divert people away from crime in the first place, we must ensure that all we do is in a holistic and rehabilitative way. We don't believe that building more prison places is the right way to solve the crisis in our criminal justice system. There's clearly a distinction between wanting to take a different approach to improving facilities and wanting to build additional facilities. We want an improvement in the standard and condition of the existing secure estate. We do not want an increase in the number of prisons or prison places in Wales.

Services, of course, don't end at the prison gate when an individual leaves prison, as the First Minister stated in Plenary last week. This Government is fully supportive of the reunification of the probation service in Wales. There are welcome steps being taken in relation to the probation service in Wales, but we must go further. This is our chance to shape the future direction of probation services, which need to be flexible and innovative in their approach to meeting the needs of individuals, helping them achieve best outcomes and maintaining stability within their communities. Leanne Wood would be, I'm sure, pleased to hear that I'm meeting Napo tomorrow to discuss these issues, because they are so relevant and key, and this debate is, as I said, very timely. 

Only by ensuring that the correct level of support post release can be provided—including appropriate housing, health and social services provision, and encouragement to access education and skills to maximize job opportunities—can we begin to address the issue of the revolving door occurrence of people regularly returning to prison. So, I'd encourage and support any proposals to end or limit the use of short-term sentences. Costly process serves little if no purpose in terms of rehabilitation, but, as I said, can have a devastating impact on people's lives. 

Turning to other policy issues in the motion—the right to vote for prisoners in Welsh elections. The Minister for Housing and Local Government is exploring options for extending the rights of prisoners to vote in Welsh local government elections and we've consulted on a package of proposals in terms of electoral reform with a view to bringing forward a Bill later this year. But of course, the Assembly's Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, chaired by John Griffiths, is undertaking an inquiry on this very issue of voting rights for prisoners. I'm pleased the terms of reference include considering whether some or all prisoners should be given the right to vote in Welsh elections or whether distinctions might be drawn between different categories of prisoner. So, the Welsh Government supports the principle of the right to vote for prisoners but awaits the committee's findings. 

I want to make a strong point as well about women and the criminal justice system. I was also appalled by the statistics—and Helen Mary as well as Alun Davies and others on this point. I strongly endorse the principle set out and many of you will remember Baroness Jean Corston's seminal report on this issue. More than 10 years on, these principles that she outlined remain the same. It's clear that women are being sent to prison often for low-level, summary offences. Thank you for your insights today on this issue.

Consequently, the use of ineffective short-term prison sentences on women who have not committed serious offences can have a catastrophic impact on them and their families. Short sentences don't enable rehabilitation in its fullest sense, because, obviously, they're often not in prison long enough to be able to even complete or access programmes that could be beneficial in terms of education and rehabilitation.

At the same time, the children of women serving a custodial sentence will in turn suffer. As the Prison Reform Trust report, 'What about me?', published last year states, only 5 per cent of children whose mothers are in prison are able to stay within the family home. The longer-term impacts of the imprisonment of women are far reaching and must be considered seriously. Any proposal to reduce the impact of incarceration on women should therefore be welcomed.

I'd also like to thank Alun Davies, my predecessor, for the work that he undertook in this key area of policy, and the commitment he made to address these issues across the full range of aspects arising within this debate, and widely welcomed. We need to ensure that, as far as Welsh women are concerned, they have safe and secure facilities that are fit for purpose, and I do look forward to, obviously, moving the female offending blueprint for Wales. Alun announced it last year in December. It was developed jointly with Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, and that will help identify the additional support required for the delivery of appropriate justice system services for women in Wales.

So, I think it's important, Llywydd, to say that in setting out his immediate priorities for reform—and he did that in his first First Minister's questions—the First Minister identified those immediate priorities that youth justice and female offending are areas we are working on with the Ministry of Justice, through the blueprints announced in December, to see what progress can be made within the constraints of the existing devolution settlement. The Welsh Government didn't establish the commission to ratify its own view; it is independent and it has heavyweight expertise from across all the areas it's investigating. Our amendment was laid in order to recognise the important work of the Thomas commission, and, of course, we all across this Chamber look forward to the conclusions and recommendations that it will provide.   

Will you take an intervention? 

Rhun. 

Thank you very much for taking an intervention, and it's to add to comments made by the Member for Blaenau Gwent sitting behind you, really. If it is genuinely a political ambition of yours to move towards the full devolution of the criminal justice system, no, you're not proposing to do it in a way that satisfies us in terms of the pace of change, but why not at this late stage decide to back our motion as it stands in order to show that there is unity here on the direction of travel, and where we want to get to in the end?   

Well, I think the purpose of our amendment was wholly, I think, positive and constructive in recognising that it will inform the direction of travel, which I think we share; we've supported so many points of your motion. But can I just say, Rhun, in terms of the commission, as Alun Davies said, we submitted a considerable body of evidence—Alun formed part of the ministerial team—we produced an overview evidence paper and, of course, it's supplemented by other papers, and we got to look at the whole range—family justice, the legal sector, jurisdiction. This is covering all those points, and also victim and offender education and employment—a whole range of evidence. 

I'm grateful to you. The evidence was very clear that the Welsh Government proposed to the Thomas commission. It considered the jurisdiction to be a relic of past times and an impediment to the delivery of social justice in this country today. Will you now state unequivocally that you stand by that evidence—the evidence of the Counsel General, the evidence I gave as a Cabinet Secretary, the evidence of the former First Minister? I have to say—I repeat—the amendment from the Government was an error of judgment. We support as a party and as a group the delivery of the devolution of the criminal justice system. I don't understand why the Government seeks to remove that single sentence from the motion this afternoon. Will you state unequivocally that you support the devolution of criminal justice? 

Well, I think, Alun, as I repeated the weight and breadth of the evidence that you gave as part of that team that gave that evidence, with the Counsel General and the former First Minister—of course, this Welsh Government stands by that evidence that you gave. I give you my commitment to that, but, of course, I do think we have to look at the justice commission. Our amendment was to be constructive and helpful to move us forward, because the issues raised by the Plaid motion are crucial, but they form part, I believe, of a wider picture that Lord Thomas was looking for. 

So, in conclusion, I do welcome this debate. It's a debate I hope we're going to have many more of, and they will be debates and statements brought forward by the Government in order for us to develop this journey that we're on together in terms of devolution of criminal justice. I think what's important about this debate—let's go back to why we're doing—

No, no, let's not go back—

One word only—

I've been very, very tolerant. You need to come to an end. 

Can we just welcome the Wales Governance Centre's report on sentencing and immediate custody as a very important report for us here today in Wales? 

Leanne Wood to reply to the debate. 

Diolch, Llywydd. I'd love to thank almost all of the Members for their contributions this afternoon. I'm not going to address UKIP's argument, because most of them made no sense and most of them were not backed up by fact—they were mostly informed by fake news, I think. If they really believe that nationality and ethnicity are linked to offending rates, then I wonder whether they see the historic parallels of such a stance. Your contribution was racist, racist, racist, racist.

I wasn't surprised to hear the Tories attempting to justify their disastrous criminal justice policy, That great line, 'criminality knows no boundaries', is a classic from the Brexit party. Why don't we have a European police force then, European prisons, a European criminal justice system? And, no, we are not opposed to having prisons—we are opposed to having huge prisons, we are opposed to having prison spaces that our country doesn't need. Of course our prison estate needs modernising, but we are arguing for the devolution of the criminal justice system so that we can do prison differently—more rehabilitative, smaller units for those people who have to be there. But overall, our policy aim should be to reduce the prison population and use more community-based sentences that we've all got confidence in. 

Bethan Sayed has outlined exactly what the prison campaign in Baglan was all about. She also put the issue in the context of the wider infrastructure investment priorities. People in Port Talbot have engaged in that debate as to how our criminal justice system should be developed in the future. Now, the whole of Wales needs to engage in this debate. Because what we do know is that when victims of crime are asked what they want, time and time again, they say that they want to stop the offender repeat offending. And what's the best way to do that? More people in prison? No, it's better community rehabilitation, and the research is absolutely clear on that point. 

Jenny Rathbone asked about the reasons behind the high incarceration figures for Wales, and I've explained what Napo's explanation is behind that. But there's no doubt that out higher deprivation levels in Wales have an impact on that as well. 

On the question of votes for prisoners, we're pleased that Labour supports this call. The UK Government has repeatedly failed to fulfil its human rights obligations in this area in line with international standards. We agree with the judgment from the European Court of Human Rights that there is no place for the automatic disenfranchisement of all prisoners. Further consideration can be given as to whether there should be restrictions on this, and I look forward to continuing with the inquiry and considering that point further.

Diolch, Helen Mary, for outlining so clearly the needs of Welsh speakers and the discrimination that women face in the system. We have to change what we do with all offenders, but for women and young people, the matter has reached a point of urgency. I'm of the view that we don't need a women's prison in Wales. We need to take a completely different approach if we want to see different outcomes, and she powerfully made the point that community sentences can be tough. They can be really tough. My experience as a probation officer, seeing clients crying in the room begging to be sent back to prison, is exactly the point that she's made, but it shows how tough community sentences can be. 

Yes, Alun Davies, the system is failing and it is failing badly, and that's why Plaid Cymru has been campaigning for the devolution of the criminal justice system, in its entirety, for decades now. And I welcome the fact that you have come on board. And I welcome the fact that you support the full devolution of the whole of the criminal justice system, because the Government amendment, as you pointed out, has deleted that part of our motion. And I very much hope that those Labour Members who do want to see the criminal justice system devolved in full will vote accordingly today. Let's see. 

It's disappointing, though, that we didn't get an adequate explanation from the Minister as to why they couldn't support us on this point, especially in the light of the contribution made by Alun Davies. It's not a constructive or a helpful amendment, Minister, and I think you should vote it down. 

I welcome, however, what you said on the probation service, and I look forward to discussing that further with you. We have to end the privatisation of unpaid work and group work, as well as one-to-one supervision. I understand that the Ministry of Justice don't want to renationalise those elements, and they want to keep it in private hands, so I hope that you can have some influence on that point. 

It's clear from this debate that most Members accept that the system is failing everyone. We have to be prepared to do things differently, and we can only do that if we have control over the relevant policy levers. We can't keep putting this off.

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

That brings us to the next debate, which is on the prospects for a Brexit deal following the House of Commons vote, and I call the Counsel General and Brexit Minister to move the motion—Jeremy Miles.

Thank you, Llywydd. The events last night in the House of Commons, rather than clarifying the issue, have confused things further. Of course, we welcome the fact that the House of Commons has stated clearly that a 'no deal' Brexit is an unacceptable outcome to the Brexit negotiations, a view expressed by this Assembly a fortnight ago, which demonstrates the force of decisions taken within the Assembly informing opinion. The UK Government must listen to this and, as the First Minister of Wales told the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom last week, must state clearly that leaving without a deal is not an option. I don't want to rehearse the debates of last week, but leaving without agreement would be disastrous. It is impossible for any credible Government to continue without stating clearly that that simply isn't an option.

The first step will be for the Government to introduce the necessary subordinate legislation to abolish the reference to 29 March as the leaving date. But these steps aren't enough alone. In one way at least, the Prime Minister was right in insisting that it isn't possible for us alone to remove the sword of Damocles hovering above us—the threat of leaving without a deal on 29 March. Although a majority in the House of Commons, in this Assembly and in the Scottish Parliament, as well as the trade unions and the business community almost in its entirety believe that a 'no deal' Brexit is unacceptable, that fact doesn't mean that it is now impossible. And even if the UK Parliament were to redefine the date of departure, unless each of the 27 other member states of the European Union also agreed to the extension of the deadline of two years set under article 50, this will not happen.

We are deeply concerned at how little time remains, with the deadline of 29 March looming very large on the horizon. There is an assumption with Westminster that we can get very close to the wire and then demand an extension to article 50. This is a dangerous assumption. The longer we wait to ask for an extension, the weaker the negotiating position of the Government. The closer we get to 29 March, the greater the concessions other EU member states will seek from the UK in return for securing their agreement. And the nearer we are to the European elections, the more difficult it will be to reconcile anything more than a short extension with the arrangements to reshape that Parliament to reflect Brexit. So, we need to ask for an extension to article 50 now, something that, last night, the EU indicated it would consider positively. The UK Government need to face the fact that threats and ultimatums will not somehow lead the EU to compliant submission because, while I'm sure that no-one in the EU wants the UK to crash out with no deal, can we blame our European partners if they're exasperated beyond measure by what they have seen in the last few weeks?

And whilst Brexit is surely the dominant issue in British politics, we delude ourselves if we think that Brexit is the main focus in France, in Germany, in Spain, in Portugal. Any other mature democracy, faced by the challenge of the sort posed by Brexit would have seen a Government seeking to build a broad-based consensus about how to move forward in admittedly difficult circumstances. But the Government of the United Kingdom manifestly failed to reach out. Rather, it embarked on a narrow partisan strategy to unite the Conservative Party, not the country, a strategy based on red lines, self-imposed deadlines and on an inability to listen to or respect the legitimate interests of the other party in the negotiation: the EU-27. It's a strategy that has failed to do anything to bridge the deep divisions in our society.

Even so, the historic defeat on the withdrawal agreement and political declaration would have, in any normal times, resulted in the resignation of the Prime Minister and an immediate change in direction. But, following that defeat, we heard encouraging words from the Prime Minister about cross-party discussions, reaching out to devolved administrations and looking to build consensus. It sounded like the Prime Minister had finally learned from the UK Government's mistakes. When the First Minister met the Prime Minister last week, he was clear that the UK Government was at a crossroads. The Prime Minister could continue in the direction in which she has slowly moved since the Lancaster House red lines by now embracing a customs union and participation in the single market across the whole economy, or she could stick to her deal and doggedly try to continue on a journey that had already taken her down a cul-de-sac.

Llywydd, despite those encouraging words following her defeat two weeks ago, it's now quite clear that the Prime Minister is going round in circles in her cul-de-sac, reiterating red-line positions, failing to see the urgent need to extend article 50 and failing to rule out 'no deal'—in short, a continuation on the road to nowhere. Can anything be more ludicrous than the Prime Minister imposing a three-line whip on her own MPs to get them to instruct her to go away and do something she only two weeks ago said was impossible? Rather than looking to unite Parliament on a way ahead consistent with a vision for a post-Brexit relationship with the EU that continues to be endorsed by the National Assembly, the Prime Minister has chosen to double down on the backstop, even though the EU has maintained, and repeated again last night, that the backstop is not open for renegotiation while her red lines remain in place. And, Llywydd, can I say that we support the legitimate concerns being expressed by our neighbours in the Republic of Ireland and the European Union on the risks that Brexit poses to the peace and prosperity that the Good Friday Agreement has brought to the island of Ireland? The Prime Minister is about to demand that Ireland and the other EU-27 re-open a deal that she has so recently said was final, done, the only deal on the table. If they refuse to give up the cast-iron guarantee, can we blame them that they would refuse to do that in return for the UK's assertion that they can be trusted to honour their agreements?

So, while with Brexit it's always impossible to be certain of the future, the Prime Minister's next dash to Brussels looks pretty much doomed. And, even if she does return with some token concessions or reassurances, who can be sure that it would assuage that handful of deluded Brexiteers who genuinely believe that crashing out with no deal will just be a minor inconvenience?

Let's be clear: the Prime Minister is going to need to secure lasting support for her approach to Brexit. Trying to build a strategy on side deals with the DUP and the concessions to the European reform group will only weaken the Government's position domestically as they try to pass the necessary legislation in the coming weeks. So, we condemn the UK Government for failing to see the need to establish common ground across political parties on Brexit for the long term. By contrast to the strategy of divide and rule seen in Westminster, right from the start the Welsh Government has looked to build consensus, typified by our White Paper 'Securing Wales' Future', agreed jointly with Plaid Cymru. In that White Paper, we were clear about the trade-offs that would be needed if we were to honour the results of the referendum. We recognised that people had not voted to make themselves poorer and that Wales could not afford the massive economic costs of severing access to the single market and being outside a customs union, and that this meant we would have to accept a future where, like Norway, we had less control over our regulatory environment than we do as a member state.

Our evidence-based approach continues to result in this National Assembly being able to agree majority positions to reject the UK Government's deal and set out the form of Brexit, with participation in the single market and a customs union, that would command our support, agreement on the need to extend the article 50 process, and agreement to rule out the prospect of the UK leaving without a deal. Our ability here to find common ground puts us in a position in this Assembly of strength when we seek to influence the UK Government by being clear what is and what is not acceptable for Wales.

Last night, the House of Commons failed to back any coherent way forward except a worrying attempt to kick the can down the road. It seems increasingly clear that the choice the country may indeed end up being faced with is no deal, a bad deal that cannot command a stable majority in Parliament, or putting the decision back to the people. Another public vote is not an easy path; there are many obstacles on the route, both principled and practical. But while we, as a Welsh Government, will continue to urge Parliament to unite around a withdrawal agreement and a rewritten political declaration that reflects a more credible, more stable, Norway plus-type Brexit—which, by the way, renders the backstop redundant—we also know that time is running out, and so the work must now begin of preparing for a public vote.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on Neil Hamilton, therefore, to move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Gareth Bennett—Neil Hamilton.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I beg to move the amendment in the name of my colleague Gareth Bennett.

We are at the culmination of two and a half wasted years. When the EU withdrawal Bill was enacted, the leaving date of 29 March was on the face of the Bill, and everybody has known that we've been heading to 29 March in the last two years. It's a shocking dereliction of duty on the part of the United Kingdom Government that we're in the shambles that we are today. Although, I have to say, it was entirely predictable, given that Theresa May was openly going into a cul-de-sac from which she couldn't emerge, because the EU never wanted a deal in the first place; they wanted a British capitulation.

We know that Monsieur Barnier said in 2016 that he will have done his job if, at the end of the process, the terms are so bad for Britain that the British people will want to stay in the EU. That is the background to the so-called negotiation that has been undertaken in Brussels. We could've read the book Adults in the Room by Yanis Varoufakis, who set out exactly, with, actually, clear precision, all those years ago, the tactics that would face Theresa May and the British negotiators when they got to Brussels, because he said that the EU negotiators are only concerned with one thing: how to signal to the rest of Europe that anyone who votes in a Government or votes in a referendum in a manner that challenges the authority of the deep establishment in Europe will get crushed. And that is exactly what has happened. I'll give way.

Thank you for taking an intervention. I understand why you're putting that spin on it, but isn't the effect of what you're saying that there is no deal as good as being a member of the European Union?

No, because Theresa May could have chosen an entirely different course, which is to say, right at the start, that we want the kind of deal with the European Union that Canada, South Korea and a handful of other countries have managed to secure, which preserves a wide measure of free trade between us, but doesn't involve all the governmental entanglements that actually gave rise to the referendum result, which is the background to our debate. I think what is evident from the speech of the Counsel General today is that, of course, he does not and never has accepted the result of the referendum in June 2016, and it's only in recent times that they've become rather more open and transparent about something that they've always wanted to do, which is to reverse that vote. I mean, everybody has paid lip service to the vote of the majority of the British people two years ago, but they've always wanted either to undermine it so fatally that it was meaningless, or they wanted, explicitly, as they now say, to attempt to reverse it with a second referendum, even before the result of the first referendum has been implemented.

Of course, there is a track record for this throughout the whole of Europe; people have had to keep on voting until they produced the result that the EU deep establishment, in Mr Varoufakis's words, wants. Well, this time, it isn't going to happen, and I regret that we are in this unpalatable situation today, but we're never going to be able to deliver on the result of the referendum on the basis of a policy of taking 'no deal' off the table, because that is actually the strongest weapon that Britain ever had in these negotiations. Because, yes, there will undoubtedly be some convulsions if there is a 'no deal' on 29 March; there will be transitional costs—there's no doubt about that—but, as the European Union will also have very significant costs imposed upon it, this merely proves that the deep political establishment in Brussels has absolutely no interest in the welfare of the people of Europe, let alone the people of the United Kingdom. They do not want a deal, because they want a punishment Brexit to deter others who might choose the same course that Britain did two and a half years ago.

But let's not overestimate the costs that are going to be imposed upon Britain if there is no deal. Yes, exports to the European Union are important; export of goods amounted to £164 billion in an economy of £2 trillion, and the average tariff rate in the EU's common external tariff is 2.5 per cent. It will matter much more for some sectors of the economy, particularly agriculture, than others, but agriculture is less than 2 per cent of the—[Interruption.] I've no time, I'm sorry, no. I've got four and a half minutes; I haven't any time to give way. I'd love to give way, but I can't.

But we are massive net importers of food. There is a massive market within the United Kingdom for British farmers to exploit if there is no deal. The real losers will be foreign farmers: the bacon producers in Denmark, the wine producers in France, the lettuce producers in Spain—not that that's of great concern to me. So, the future of Britain lies outside the European Union, which is a shrinking part of global trade: 30 per cent of world trade in 1980, down to 15 per cent now, and it will be down to 10 per cent in 20 years' time. Let's leave this sclerotic union. Let's have the courage of our convictions and the belief in ourselves as a nation to make a success in the world with the freedoms that leaving the European Union brings.

I call on Adam Price to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Adam Price.

It's difficult not to be a little depressed at this point, particularly after that speech, but it's our responsibility in this place to offer at least some direction and some hope. Brexit started with people offering false and contradictory promises: we could leave the EU and still have unfettered access to its markets without being subject to its laws. Now, Parliament yesterday succumbed to this same strain of Brexit fantasy. The UK Parliament voted last night that (a) a 'no deal' Brexit is not an option, and (b) the Irish backstop must be removed from the withdrawal agreement, even though the EU has said, and said again within minutes of the parliamentary vote, that that is not an option. We've gone from gridlock to groundhog day repeatedly throughout this sorry saga, and we'll be there again in two weeks' time. Westminster has kicked the can so many times down the road that can kicking should become the new national sport.

Now, Mrs May will go back to Brussels for the second time and try over the next fortnight to convince her EU counterparts to reopen negotiations, which they will again refuse to do, and the end result of this is that we are skidding towards a 'no deal' Brexit that Parliament has said it doesn't want but will be the default outcome unless article 50 is extended, which, paradoxically, Parliament voted against last night. Westminster, in essence, yesterday willed the end of blocking 'no deal' without willing the means of backing a viable alternative. The Brady amendment is not only undeliverable, it's indecipherable. That would never deter, of course, the likes of Boris Johnson, for whom having one's cake and eating it is an article of faith. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the temporary coalition that Theresa May has cobbled together with the ERG and the DUP is the unspeakable in pursuit of the unachievable. What precisely are these 'alternative arrangements'? Brexit negotiators spent two years trying to find these mythical alternatives to the backstop, and in the end even the British Government had to give up. Do we really believe they're now going to be miraculously discovered in the next two weeks? The backstop is there. The backstop is there to ensure that, if a broader trade agreement hasn't been reached, and other solutions can't be found, Ireland—north and south—doesn't see the return of a hard border; i.e., if alternative arrangements don't work, the backstop kicks in. What the EU is now being invited to agree to by the UK Government is alternative arrangements in the event that alternative arrangements don't work—in other words an insurance policy without insurance, a safety net without a net, a backstop without any back.

Now, some Tories fantasise that Mrs May is now going to go to Brussels and extract a u-turn out of them on the scale of Mrs Thatcher's famous Fontainebleau moment. But whatever else could be said of Thatcher—and there is a lot that could be said—she was at least consistent: the lady's not for turning. Mrs May has just conducted the mother of all u-turns. Up until three days ago, she was saying the backstop was necessary and she owed it to the people of Northern Ireland. Now she says she wants it binned. No wonder EU member states are unimpressed. The only real choice left now is either a 'no deal' Brexit or a people's vote. Politics is broken at this point in time. But, in 58 days' time, it will be more than mere politics that will be at stake, and people will not forgive us, and history will judge us harshly if we did not do everything we could to stop an avoidable disaster, which is why it is right, with Westminster stuck, that we come together here in this Parliament to find a way out of the mire. So, today is a positive step, but let's all remind ourselves of the most important word in this motion, 'immediately'. We have so little time. We need to act decisively, without delay, today.

Following yesterday's debate in the House of Commons, it's very evident that we need to prepare for Brexit. Many people watching the debate this day will find it very ironic, actually, that the joint Labour, Plaid, Lib Dem motion before us—because that's what it is, an unholy alliance of three parties in this National Assembly who are wishing to seek to frustrate Brexit—[Interruption.] You're seeking to condemn the UK Government for failing to engage in cross-party negotiations in point 1 of this motion, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Prime Minister has invited and held discussions with other political parties, including the leader of Plaid Cymru, including the First Minister of the Welsh Government—[Interruption.]

Will you take an intervention?

—and it is the Labour Party's leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has, thus far, failed to engage.

Are you taking an intervention?

I'll take one in a moment, Llywydd. It is a disgrace, frankly, that he's been happy to meet with terrorists without conditions in the past, yet he has not been prepared to meet with the Prime Minister until last night when he finally caved in under pressure. I'll take the intervention that came first. 

Okay. I'm sure he's been spending some time before the debate psyching himself up for this, but one of the things he said—. He talks about an 'unholy alliance' of Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Liberal Democrats: just last week, the Conservative Party was accusing the Labour Party of tribalism. You can't have both. 

Well, look, we've seen the tribalism in this Chamber, and it's very evident for everybody to see. [Interruption.] Not only have there been meetings between political leaders, but, of course, the Welsh Government itself has been involved, through the many meetings of the Joint Ministerial Committee, which have included many, many conversations and discussions on Brexit.

Now, in point 2 of the motion, the Assembly's being asked to support the extension of the article 50 deadline. We were accused of wanting to kick the can further down the road a few moments ago in terms of the UK Government's position, and, yet, this is kicking the can right down—not just down the road, but on to the next street. You know, the reality is that, last night, during a series of votes, the UK Parliament soundly rejected those calls. A majority of MPs recognise that extending the deadline does absolutely nothing to solve the fundamental disagreements—[Interruption.]—that many people have on Brexit. So, voting to seek an extension here in this Chamber today is absolutely futile, and we know what it's motivated by; it's motivated by people who want to frustrate Brexit because they don't agree—

Will you take an intervention?

—with the opinion of the British people, which was expressed in the vote in June 2016. I'll take an intervention. 

Thank you for taking the intervention. Well, of course, the UK Parliament voted last night that 'no deal' was not an option. In that case, in negotiations with all the parties, a Prime Minister who's been accused of having an open door but a closed mind, do you not think it would be logical for the Prime Minister to now say that 'no deal' is not an option and that she should support the sovereignty of Parliament? 

No-one can say that 'no deal' is not an option because it requires the agreement of all parties. So, the Prime Minister is not in a position to say what other people's opinion is. [Interruption.]

What the Prime Minister is doing and has consistently been doing has been fighting hard to get the best possible deal so that we're not in the 'no deal' situation. That's why she has produced a deal, and, frankly, it is the only deal that's on the table, the only deal that has the possibility of being able to get through Parliament, and get the backing of Parliament, with this adjustment to the backstop that Parliament has voted to seek. So, we're in a position now where the Prime Minister has a very clear mandate to seek the renegotiation of that aspect of her deal with the European Union.

And to those who say that the only way to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland is to accept the backstop, I'm afraid that I disagree wholeheartedly because the problem, of course, is not just the fact that we have a situation where the backstop is a thing that we're not even allowed to get out of without the permission of the EU, because that's another fundamental thing that everybody else seems to ignore. But the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told an EU committee just last week that in the event of a 'no deal' scenario, and I quote,

'we will have to find an operational way of carrying out checks and controls without putting back in place a border'.

Now, if the EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, is prepared to concede that it will be possible to carry out checks and controls without putting a hard border in place in a 'no deal' scenario, then it's absolutely possible to do the same in a 'deal' scenario under the arrangements as set out in the Prime Minister's deal. [Interruption.] Sorry, I haven't got time to take another intervention. 

I just want to say very briefly, point 3 of the motion makes it clear that the Welsh Government is now advocating preparations for a second referendum, yet the Welsh Government has continuously told people in Wales that it respects the result of the referendum in 2016. It clearly doesn't, Llywydd, because otherwise, it would be supporting the implementation of that view. Let's remind ourselves: the people of Wales, and the people of the UK, voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, and leave we must. A second referendum would represent an absolute betrayal of the people of Wales, it would set a dangerous precedent for our democracy.

So, in closing, Llywydd, I want to reiterate the Welsh Conservative Party's commitment to delivering Brexit, our determination to support efforts to do so with a deal, and in an orderly fashion, and our commitment to engage with others, including other parties in this Chamber, to see Wales and its people flourish when we leave the EU.

Thank you very much for that. So, 29 March is only a matter of weeks away, and for many businesses and organisations across Wales, the uncertainty about Brexit is very alarming. I know from conversations I've had in my own constituency with companies in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney that they are very concerned about that. I can only surmise that representatives of UKIP and the Conservatives have not been talking to companies in their constituencies, because otherwise they would be—[Interruption.] No, I'm not taking an intervention. Because otherwise, they would have had the same response that I've had about the concerns that they have.

And we know that yesterday's about-turn by the Prime Minister may have won her some extra time with her own backbenchers, but it does seem, Adam, that they suddenly like the way that this lady is turning. But all I can hear is the tick-tock of the clock, and while the clock continues to tick, I'm alarmed at the toxic nature of the debate about our future relationship with our EU partners, and that should be a worry for all of us. Daily talk of a wartime mentality, being in the trenches, the spirit of the blitz; this is not what our relationship with the other 27 EU nations is about. At times, I feel that we're only one step away from calling our EU colleagues 'Johnny Foreigner'. For goodness's sake—the EU did not bring us to this mess. It was the Tories and their internal divisions over Europe that did, and I won't sit back and accept that their anti-EU rhetoric isn't trying to make the EU to be the bad boys in this situation. The EU did not ask us to leave. They remain united as 27 nations while, in the UK, our own Government can't unite as one.

So, for me, this is now a debate about protecting jobs in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. It's about ensuring that the security of our people is not threatened. It's about making sure that we have uninterrupted access to the medicines that our citizens need. It's about ensuring the rights of our citizens. It's about ensuring that we do not endanger what, quite frankly, is still a fragile peace in Ireland. 

Llywydd, as far back as last July I asked the then Brexit and finance Minister, now the First Minister, whether it was time for a pause in article 50. It was clear to me then, as it is now, that we didn't have the time to get an acceptable agreement on the terms of our departure from the EU. Now, six months later, the UK Prime Minister has done exactly what she said was not possible. She is going to go back to try and reopen the negotiations after telling us for months that it was her deal or no deal. 

But I still believe that a pause would give us all time for more considered negotiations and, importantly, to resolve some of the conflicting tensions in our own nation. I'm clear that a pause in negotiations is not overturning the referendum, it is simply amending the timetable for talks under article 50. Let me draw one parallel: if I was to sell my house today, it would probably take me until the end of March, probably at the earliest, to complete that process, and that would be the legal transaction just to sell one house. I can't see, therefore, how a whole country is going to renegotiate and complete all of the associated legal arrangements that are required for withdrawal by 29 March. I may be wrong, but, for me, common sense tells me that logistically that just isn't possible.

Having said that, I've no faith that this Prime Minister, however long she's got, is going to deliver what we need for our country. As I've said before, this is not about what is best for our country—this is now about holding the Tory party together. Running down the clock to a 'no deal' Brexit—[Interruption.]—to appease the DUP and the ERG would be a betrayal of monumental proportions. It's a risk that we cannot allow to happen. It would be the worst of all worlds, so I'm relieved that a majority of MPs last night gave an indication that no deal will not be the outcome after this next round of negotiations, but we do need to break any ongoing deadlock.

Throughout this process, I have not been an advocate of a second vote or referendum. Representing a 'leave' constituency, I have felt that there was an obligation for the UK Government to try to negotiate an effective deal for our exit. Even though it's become increasingly clear that there is currently little hope of getting consensus in Westminster, my preference is to ask for that pause—that extension of article 50—to see what consensus might yet be achievable. But, neither do I now dispute that it is also sensible to say that the UK Government should at least start preparing for the possibility of a second vote, because should the position remain deadlocked in Westminster, and if we do not have a general election to help resolve the issue, it is only the people who can have the final say on whether or not this final deal should be accepted, so I will be voting for this motion today.

I will speak briefly about why I believe this motion before us is a valuable one, and why we in Plaid Cymru have been able to come to an agreement on a form of words with the Government, even though there are differences between us on several elements of the Brexit debate. But I think that this is a significant step forward in terms of putting the Assembly’s stamp on the Brexit debate, even though it does feel quite hopeless at present that any influence or any emphasis is given to the voice of our national Parliament in this debate.

Clause 1 reminds us that this is a Conservative Party project—that’s what Brexit is, to all intents and purposes—and that there has been a need from the outset for cross-party talks if the Prime Minister was going to show that any consideration was being given to the opinions of other people. For Darren Millar to say that the Prime Minister has reached out—January 2019 is not the time to do that, when the referendum happened in June 2016. The clause also includes a reference to the need for the devolved administrations to have been listened to clearly from the outset, because there was a valid opinion here that needed to be heard in the debate.

Does the Member accept that there have been ongoing discussions between the Welsh Government and the UK Government throughout this Brexit process? I mentioned the joint ministerial council meetings earlier on, in which Brexit has been a constant feature on the agenda. That shows that there's been engagement with the devolved nations in a meaningful way. 

I remember my late friend Steffan Lewis saying that if he was a nationalist going into the meetings with the UK Government, well, he was certainly a nationalist coming out of them, because, as the former First Minister said behind me, they were a complete waste of time in terms of many of the inter-governmental discussions.

The point that we’re making in this motion today is that the voice of our national Parliament needs to be heard. Yes, there are inter-governmental discussions that have been taking place on an inadequate basis, but there hasn’t been enough of an emphasis given to the voice of our own national Parliament.

Moving to the second clause, the second clause reiterates the view expressed in the vote in the Assembly recently rejecting a ‘no deal’ outcome, and it also reminds us that this date before us, 29 March, is a result of a huge political error that was made back in 2016 to trigger article 50 and in an unrealistic way. Our party in Westminster did reject that proposition, but we are hoping that, through this vote, we can express the view of our national Parliament that we do now believe that we need to extend article 50 because we need more time. Decisions made under this kind of time pressure are often not very good decisions.

The third clause is the vital one. We come here to the issue of a new public vote, to ask people democratically whether they now like the Brexit set out before them. We say very clearly that we believe that it does appear now that there is no way to come to a sensible outcome that would keep Wales in the single market, for example, or within a customs union, and would make the point that because of the inevitable element, as it appears to us, we need to move at once to prepare, to give the Welsh people a voice in 2019, asking their opinion now as to whether they believe this is for the benefit of Wales.

Point 4 reiterates, as I have already said, the need for further engagement with the devolved legislators.

I’ll move now to our amendment. What is here is an idea. I don’t know whether it’s a perfect idea, but it is an idea about how we can try to express this parliamentary national voice, possibly by having the Welsh Government bring a delegation together to speak in Westminster and Whitehall at a governmental level and at a parliamentary level, to give the Welsh perspective and to give our perspective. Maybe there is further work to be done on that, but I do think it’s a good idea—[Interruption.] Mick Antoniw. 

I appreciate it's an idea and it's a proposal and so on, but will you recognise that, in terms of the position representing the Welsh Assembly, you've got a First Minister who's almost living in Downing Street at the moment trying to engage with UK Government, and, of course, at the inter-parliamentary forum, which is a meeting of all the constitutional and legislative bodies, the Welsh position has been put time and time again by Dai Rees and me, who attend that forum, and even only the other week or so, with Chloe Smith, again presenting that? I don't have a particular objection, but I just wonder what the point is when that position is so clearly put at the moment. It may actually be a distraction from the real issue of constitutional change. 

I recognise the point that you make and I recognise the value there has been in some of the contact that there has been. We think there's more that can be done. We encourage innovation in how, you know, in these last few weeks even, we look to maximise leverage for Wales in any way we can. But it's for that reason of thinking maybe there's another way that we can discuss that we will, with your permission, not push this to a vote today, Llywydd, and hopefully we can have further conversations about how we can work innovatively on this. But I think we do have here a motion that we are pleased to be able to table jointly with the Government that again states a clear position by the National Assembly for Wales, standing up for what is right for Wales in the Brexit context.  

I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for his speech. He says that, last night, he was able to agree a form of words for the motion with Welsh Government. I just wonder when Welsh Government were cosying up to Plaid Cymru, who want to break up our United Kingdom, whether they thought of an alternative approach that they might take, one of supporting the UK Government in its negotiating position and going to the European Union and saying, 'We don't want 'no deal', so therefore you need to change your position so that the withdrawal agreement becomes acceptable to the British House of Commons'. When there is a negotiation between the UK Government on one side and the European Commission on the other side, does the Welsh Government not think, are they not concerned about what side they appear to be on when they start a motion with the phrase 'condemns the UK Government'? What does that say about them? They then ludicrously go on to condemn it for its failure to engage in cross-party negotiations, when it is their leader who, until tea time today, was refusing to meet the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?  

Will you take an intervention? 

I will. 

What is the point of actually having a meeting with a Prime Minister who says, 'Come and meet with me and discuss, but I will not change any of my red lines'? The point now, of course, is that Parliament has said 'no deal' has to come off the table. It has said that, and the question is whether Theresa May will listen to Parliament.  

The Member is right that the House of Commons has said that, but it said it by 318 votes to 310, and it chose only to say that and express an opinion, and when given the opportunity two or three times to do something about it, voted by a majority twice as large not to and to support the UK Government in its negotiating position to put pressure on the European Union to make alternative arrangements to the backstop, so that there can be a deal that Parliament can vote on and agree. That is the only way to avoid 'no deal' unless, as more and more obviously, debate by debate, we see from those benches you want to reverse the outcome of the referendum, ignore the people in Islwyn or in Merthyr Tydfil who voted 56.4 per cent to leave the European Union. They were told by their Member that they'd got it wrong, and she now thinks they should prepare to vote again until they agree with her, because she somehow is better. I don't agree with that. 

Will you take an intervention? 

I had thought that, in the third part of this motion, actually, the Welsh Government was not willing to call for a second referendum—was using weaselly words that work should begin immediately on preparing for a public vote, whatever that may be; perhaps it was a general election, perhaps they couldn't agree. Perhaps, like the people in the House of Commons, who didn't even dare put an amendment for a second referendum because they know how few MPs support it, that actually they weren't pressing for a second referendum. But we hear from Member after Member that that is what they want. They think the people of Wales got it wrong. They think they are better. They think their voters, their electors, should be made to vote again because they disagree. Well, that is not what we believe on these benches. We had a referendum. We voted to leave in the UK and in Wales. We should respect that result.    

Will you take an intervention? 

I will. 

It strikes me that the seriousness with which that referendum result was given, or the respect that it was given, has been reflected in the fact that we have spent two and a half years trying to see if there's a way of reaching an agreement. It's not as if it's been ignored; we've just got to the point after that negotiation and seeing, 'Listen, this is the alternative', and perhaps politicians can't make that decision. It should be up to the people.  

The Member didn't accept the result from the word 'go'. He's managed to inveigle the Labour Party gradually into agreeing with Plaid Cymru on a Brexit in name only and pushing that, and, as we get closer and closer to the deadline, being more and more clear in their belief that their voters were wrong and they should be made to vote again. But when they say, in part 2 of this motion, that it,  

'Reiterates its view that a no deal outcome would be catastrophic',

but then go on to request an extension of article 50, they take the pressure off the European Union to agree a deal. Now, maybe they want to extend it because they want to extend and extend and extend so we stay in the European Union forever. If so, why don't they come out and honestly state that as their position? 

If not, we have a backstop with Ireland that basically will mean that the United Kingdom is not allowed to leave the customs union unless the EU gives us permission. It will mean that Northern Ireland is subject to regulatory annexation by the European Union outside the UK regime. Those positions are unacceptable. The border should be dealt with through the trade discussions, and, with goodwill on both sides, we can avoid having a hard border, we can continue free trade, and we can have a prosperous United Kingdom and a prosperous Ireland. But what that requires is for the European Union to change its position, come to alternative arrangements instead of that Brexit, instead of that backstop, and then we will have a deal that takes us out of the European Union  and makes a success for Wales, the United Kingdom and the European Union.  

Presiding Officer, we've heard from different parts of the Chamber this afternoon a whole number of reasons why we're in the mess we're in today. But not from one person—not from one person—who advocated leaving the European Union have we heard any recognition that it was the lies told in that referendum that's led directly to the undermining of our politics today and the situation we're facing today. The political crisis that we're facing today is a direct consequence—a direct consequence—of the lies told in that referendum. Let me say this: we have moved, in a little less than three years, from being promised £350 million a week for the national health service to the threat of soldiers on the street and the imposition of martial law. It's not a great success, is it?

And let me tell you this as well, when I hear these Conservative Members—when I hear these Conservative Members—telling me that I should respect the referendum, what I hear are other Conservative Members who not so long ago were speaking in the House of Commons to undermine the devolution vote in 1997 within two months of the ballots closing. They didn't respect that referendum during the campaign, they didn't respect the referendum when the result was announced, and they've fought hard to stop the devolution process ever since.

So, don't you come to this place and lecture us on respect for the political process, because what you've done—what you've done—over three years has been to undermine the political structures and institutions of this country in a way that I cannot remember at any point in my lifetime. And I think many of us, wherever we are sitting in this Chamber today, will recognise and understand that the last few years have been the worst few years for politics that any of us can remember. [Interruption.] I will give way to him.

The fundamental reason those few years have been so difficult is people like the Member will not accept the result of the referendum. Now, the fact is, his constituency voted 'leave' more than anywhere else in Wales.

Sit down. Sit down. Let me tell you—let me tell you—those votes were bought with snake oil, and they were bought with a fantasy. And let me tell you this—let me tell you this—when I listen to the closest allies and friends of this country speaking with horror at what they're seeing, I take notice and so should you. The words of Simon Coveney, the Irish Tánaiste, this morning should reverberate in this Chamber. Somebody who has sought to work with the United Kingdom Government, somebody who I remember from European Council meetings, who is more pro-UK than any other Irish politician I've met, is wringing his hands with horror at the situation created by the British Conservative Party and the UK Government. And when I hear Neil Hamilton telling me that we should be looking forward to the great choice of food that we'll have on our empty shelves in a few weeks' time, what I hear are the leaders of retail businesses telling us it's a lie and a fantasy. Perhaps you should listen to what you're being told.

So, I welcome the Government's motion today. I welcome the Government's motion, and I welcome the commitment of the Welsh Government to a second referendum, and I welcome the commitment of the Welsh Government to a vote that is based on a premise and a prospectus that we will all understand. I hope that referendum will be a straight choice between the deal that Mrs May has negotiated—which is an appalling deal, so we hear from her own party—. I don't understand how Darren can ask us to support a deal that he himself, through his criticism of the backstop, says it's unworkable and that we need an alternative to.

Will you give way?

And that is the deal that their Government themselves are asking us to support. I will give way.

I am grateful to you for giving way. I supported the deal. I wanted to remain in the European Union and I fought hard to achieve that, and failed. But I don't think it was failure in the face of a barrage of lies, though there was a lot of slipping and sliding what people said. But I've accepted the result.

I greatly regret the fact that if every Conservative had voted for that deal two weeks ago, it would have passed by one vote. And I greatly regret the fact that an awful lot of Members of the Labour Party know that the backstop could have gone through if enough of them had supported the deal as well. And then we wouldn't be in this current position.

Look, I'm not going to, for one moment, defend the position taken by the Labour Party in Westminster. The vote on Monday on the immigration Bill was an absolute shambles; it was a disgrace. The Labour Party should approach this on the basis of our values and our principles and not on the basis of expediency, and there's been far too much of that from our front bench in London, and I regret that as well, and I've been very, very clear about that.

So, let's ensure that we move forward now to a vote, that we are able to suspend article 50 to enable the position to be clarified, that we are able then to have a debate that is based on facts and understanding and based on an option to remain in the European Union and to remain a leading part of one of the most powerful international institutions in the world. Far better that than to shrink back into some imperial fantasy about the past. I want to see a future where we can all participate in European decision making and where we can all look forward to a future that our children will be proud of and not ashamed because we turned our backs when the going got tough.

I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this somewhat fiery debate today. Since the referendum and since entering the Assembly, I've done all I can to try and unite those people who voted to leave and those who voted to remain in the EU in my constituency. It would be naive to second-guess exactly why each and every person voted the way they did, although I do believe in some of the comments made by Alun Davies there. But also what is really clear to me—when I spoke to constituents, and those included students, businesses, older voters and others, it is clear that they voted in the hope that their lives and living standards would get better. Nobody wanted to vote to make themselves poorer or to be worse off.

Llywydd, earlier this month, I had the opportunity to host a Brexit conference, which we discussed in this Chamber before, and the views and findings from that conference were very clear: people wanted clarity for future investments, they wanted people to work together cross-party, and they wanted the Prime Minister to rule out a 'no deal'. I still believe to this day that the Prime Minister has been on the back foot and has been far too slow to rule out that no deal. Any view that not doing so is somehow strengthening her negotiating hand is a farce, and because that hasn't been the case so far, despite the Prime Minister's so-called tough approach to Europe, she has had to face embarrassing defeats and our reputation around the world has been damaged.

The Prime Minister should have and could have extended that hand of friendship, not just to those in Europe but to MPs across the House of Commons, AMs in this place and especially to the business community. The Prime Minister did not have to do this alone, but as a result she has been found wanting. And it's not the well off who will suffer and it's not us directly in this Chamber who will suffer. It's the people, like many of my constituents, who struggle every single day to make ends meet: those on universal credit, those who go to food banks, those struggling to make their mortgage payments, those taking the risks to start new business and those who work for businesses that trade with Europe. And I'm not prepared, Llywydd, to see those people suffer because politicians can't work together because certain politicians—

Will you take an intervention, Jack?

—seem unwilling to compromise. Yes I will.

Thank you for taking an intervention. You've listed a whole load of issues that are very real to people. Would you agree with me that it wasn't our membership of the EU that created the poverty that exists in this country but that it is as a consequence of the political decision of austerity by a Government that still doesn't recognise the need to do something for people and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the membership of the EU, even though they traded that?

Thank you, Joyce, and I absolutely agree with you there, and I've said many times in this Chamber that austerity needs to end, and that comes directly from London.

Carrying on, I'm not willing either, Llywydd, to see the North Wales region suffer, and the impact of north Wales on the Welsh economy cannot be and should not be underestimated. We in north Wales have got a higher employment rate, lower economic inactivity levels, gross value added per head higher than the rest of Wales, and gross disposable household income per head higher than the rest of Wales.

The Government last week was absolutely right to use the time on Tuesday to deliver a series of statements on the impact of a 'no deal' Brexit, and I saw some people on social media, including some journalists, saying that that was a pointless exercise. I do not believe them. It is also very important to listen to experts in these turbulent times, and I find it completely irresponsible to shrug our shoulders, not report on and disregard warnings from companies such as Airbus in my own constituency, who have warned time and time again about the need for a deal.

I will finish my contribution today by saying that I do believe there is a deal to be struck in Parliament and the Prime Minister will find her job a lot easier if she ruled out a 'no deal' completely. She could, and she should, have done that a long, long time ago. Llywydd, political game playing will do nothing to improve the lives of those people who are just about managing, as the Prime Minister likes to say. Members of the Chamber, I will finish on this final comment: the people of Wales and the people of the UK deserve so much better.

I'm pleased to follow my colleague Jack Sargeant because I think he brought back the reality of what goes on on the ground as a consequence of this whole issue. I was going to talk about the chaos last night we saw in Westminster, which was the culmination of two and half years of frantic efforts by a Government that didn't have a clue what it was doing. But it is important we remind ourselves of actually what 'no deal' does mean for the people we all represent. Every one of us was elected by the people of Wales and a 'no deal' impacts upon them more than us. Jack was quite right, we're probably in a position where it won't affect us so badly, but our constituents are—. I'll give you an example in my constituency, as Jack did in his: steelworks. You all know the steelworks in my constituency—you should by now, anyway—and we all know the challenge it was facing two years ago. And it's still facing challenges. I met with steelworkers this week and the consequences of a 'no deal' are—you might think, 'Well, there's not going to be much tariffs on steel, so it's not going to be a problem.' But, of course, they serve the automotive industry and there are huge tariffs on the automotive industry. So, 80 per cent of their market goes to the automotive industry. But the other aspect they serve is, obviously, to sell steel elsewhere. And on WTO rules—I offer UKIP an opportunity because in their amendment, they want to go to WTO rules. Tell me where WTO rules are better than what we have now? [Interruption.] Yes, I'm more than happy.

The British people voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union. That means leaving the customs union, that means leaving the single market. I didn't want a 'no deal' exit from the EU, I wanted a free trade deal with the EU, but it takes two to tango. Are we actually just going to capitulate to the bureaucrats of Brussels or are we going to listen to the British people?

Llywydd, I think we heard from the horse's mouth ourselves: there is no better deal than what we've got at the moment, and WTO is not going to improve. In fact, in steel, there's a WTO agreement. We can actually import steel from Turkey without tariffs. We have to pay 40 per cent on steel going to Turkey. That is going to damage our industry. And we face other rules and other consequences because we lose the protection of the EU if we go out without a deal and we will face US 232 sanctions as well as everything else. The protection the EU has will go. So, the steel industry suffers badly on WTO rules as we leave, and that's the impact we have on our communities. An industry that is a key industry in my constituency will be damaged because of that issue. And going on WTO rules, as their amendment says, will be damaging to my constituents and the constituents of the region around me. So, we cannot do that. And my constituency did vote for it, and I will not deny that, but I'm not actually saying anything else, but I'm telling you there are implications. And let's remember one thing: the two and a half years we've had since then, you know my role has been looking at the implications of Brexit, and we've been taking evidence of this, and now they're identifying some of the issues that will happen when we leave on 29 March without a deal. I'll take an intervention.

With Turkey, the Member gives an example of why it's so bad to be in a customs union with the EU while having no say over its trade policy. But does he recognise that one positive result for the competitiveness of steel produced in his constituency since the vote to leave the European Union is an exchange rate that is 15 per cent lower? And, yes, WTO will bring challenges, but it will also likely bring an even more competitive exchange rate.

I appreciate the exchange rate is more competitive and, therefore, the exports become more attractive, but I also have to remind the Member of the imports that are required in the raw materials. And whilst we've been in a situation where you have six-month deals down the line, we will come to a point where that's going to end and we have to start looking at the changes and costs increasing on the raw materials. So, it's not a win situation. So, in a sense—. Please don't say, 'Oh, well, it's working one way but forget the other way.' It does impose upon us greatly. 

Can I also remind Members that we had a debate yesterday on the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee's reports on 'no deal' preparation, and we discussed very carefully the implications facing us of no deal. And I'm very much appreciative of the Welsh Government's statements last week on the actions they're responding to. But take today's report on health, and we talked about two things on health. Today, the chief executive of University Hospitals Birmingham has indicated that operations may be cancelled as a consequence of a 'no deal', and he wasn't saying, 'Look, we're not going to be able to do it, because—'. There'll be some changes. But what he was saying was, 'We can't manage the huge distribution of all the medicines that are being stored. We can't manage the replacement of equipment that is elsewhere.' We buy our medical equipment very much from Europe and if we don't have a deal, how do we ensure that the spare parts and other pieces come in? It is a consequence of a 'no deal' that we will see our constituents bearing the brunt of some of the difficulties. Unfortunately, in many of the discussions on the politics side, we forget the people we serve. The people we serve need better from us and I think the issues of no deal are not acceptable for that.

We are out of time for this debate, but with its importance at this stage, I'm prepared to extend that time, but if the remaining contributors could be short in their contributions, I'm sure fellow Members would welcome that. Hefin David.

I doubt if anything more I can say in this Chamber will persuade any other Member to change their position on this. But I think when you have reservations about a motion, I think it's wise to report it to the Chamber to be recorded on the Record. I respect very much those people involved with the people's vote campaign, and some of the best speeches I've heard in this Chamber have been from Lynne Neagle arguing for a people's vote, but I don't share that view. I have a great reluctance to support a referendum. I read, as Mark Reckless said, the words 'public vote'—I read that as 'referendum'; I understand that to be the Government calling for a referendum. I feel that the perceived need to hold a referendum is a sign of weakness in a representative democracy and a weakness that is demonstrating the starkness that is the lack of strength of a representative democracy, but I would say that is true of the very first referendum we held on the Brexit decision and it would be true of a future referendum.

Therefore, I am somewhat reluctant to support the Government and Plaid Cymru motion, but I am reassured by the fact that it says that a public vote will be taken when it is the only option that remains. And I fear what we saw last night in Westminster is a failure to reach an agreement that could've been reached in Parliament, and I fear that that will continue, and therefore the only option we will be left with is a referendum, which will be a suboptimal option, but it will be the only option. But we should also remember that it's come about because of the failure of our democracy and we should all, here and in Westminster, take responsibility for that.

Finally, I'd say, when you try and solve intractable problems with binary choices, you don't come up with solutions and I think we should be very careful about moving to a referendum without continuing to work, and, as Dawn Bowden said, delaying, possibly, article 50, and continuing to work for consensus in Westminster.

There are only a few points I want to add, and those really aren't to do with the pros and cons of what's happening, but actually the state of the constitutional crisis that we're in and I think having an understanding of how serious that crisis is.

We have a Government that doesn't have a majority, it no longer has a mandate, and as I've said before, it really doesn't have any legitimacy and that is the crux of it. Because the honourable thing to do—the honourable thing that I think all parties would, in the past, have done, when they had such major defeats in Westminster, would've been to go to the people to seek a new mandate. And that, ultimately, is the real way forward—to actually seek a mandate from the people—and that's what our constitution actually requires. But when you have a situation where you've got a Government that is so obsessed with its own internal politics rather than the interests of the country, you end up with a situation of constitutional paralysis and that's where we are now. And that's why you end up with a position, within our unique constitution that is a combination of prerogative convention and procedures—you end up with a situation where someone who is potentially the next leader of the Conservative Party—Rees-Mogg—is talking about the Queen exercising her prerogative and proroguing Parliament. That is sheer—[Interruption.] That is sheer insanity. But what a crisis that you've actually got a potential leader of the Conservative Party seeing the way out to revert to the tactics of the English civil war some 300 years earlier. Is that what you've actually become?

What, for me, is perhaps one of the most serious issues that emerges at the moment is the fact that there are still something like 600 statutory instruments that have to be passed through Parliament before the end of March, otherwise we will end up with whole gaps in legislation that are just not working. We will leave the EU and we will not have a viable and lawful legal basis on which we can operate in so many areas. That is why—and I put this to the Counsel General—the issue really, one of the most immediate issues, is actually an extension of article 50, because any rational assessment of where we are is that whatever view we take we cannot resolve the paralysis we are in without more time, and we desperately need that time. One of the most immediate issues is that we've got to have, and apply to the EU for, an extension of article 50. Do you agree?

There is a film that is very popular at the moment in cinemas. It's called Stan & Ollie. I'm reminded of the catchphrase that that comedy pairing had: 'This is another fine mess you've gotten me into.' And what a fine mess we are in as a result of what has happened at Westminster. The reality is this: the Prime Minister said to Britain, 'I have a deal; the deal is all there is—it's this deal or no deal.' And now she is saying, 'Well, forget I said that; I'm now going to go back to the EU'—who, incidentally, don't want to talk to the UK—'and get a better deal.' It's a sign of weakness. I must remember, next time I buy a car, to go back the following day and say, 'Actually, I now want to renegotiate the price, because I'm not happy with the price I paid in the first place.' Michel Barnier said to me in July last year, 'The problem I have is the UK doesn't know what it wants,' and that's exactly the problem we face now. And could I remind Members that no party in 2017 stood on a basis of exiting the EU with no deal? The problem we have is that in 2016 the referendum was based on an idea, not a plan. Nobody could say with certainty what would happen if people voted to leave. And that means, of course, that there will be some in this Chamber who will interpret the vote as saying it is a vote for leaving the EU on whatever terms, even if it means no deal, and there's no way of disproving that. There are others, like me, who advocate that people didn't vote on the single market or the customs union; I didn't hear that on the doorstep. There's no way of disproving that either. So, how are we to get past this impasse? We know, in 2017, people rejected a hardish Brexit in the general election, so we know they don't want to go down that line. 

I'm troubled, Llywydd, at the cavalier attitude—probably the right phrase, given what Mick Antoniw has just said—that is taken towards Ireland. The reality is that, in the referendum campaign, Ireland wasn't mentioned because people forgot the border was there. I didn't, because I'm familiar with that border, and what I can say is this: that border is impossible to police, there are more than 200 crossing points, smuggling has been endemic for many, many years, and it is a place where there was great conflict. When you crossed that border in the early 1990s, you crossed into Newry, and you would see helicopters zigzagging across the sky because there was a fear they would be shot down. Belfast had a helicopter in the air all day long and all night long, there was a ring of steel around the city, and people were being shot on a regular basis. More than 3,000 people were killed as a result of the 25 years of conflict brought to an end in 1998. We toy with that agreement at our peril, and it disappoints me when I hear some, perhaps not in this Chamber but outside, who take the view that this is some kind of small problem that could easily be resolved. I ask the question: what are these alternative arrangements that we have been told exist, because for the past two years none have been found? There is no border anywhere in the world that is governed by a system that relies solely on the use of technology, and the reason for that is this: it doesn't exist. And so saying, 'Let's go back and find alternative arrangements' is simply a way of putting off the inevitable for a fortnight, and that's a fortnight we do not have, both as a nation here in Wales, nor as the UK. 

So, now we're in a position where we're looking to talk to people who won't talk to us about arrangements that we have no idea what they look like and nor does anyone else, and all at the behest, all at the behest, of 10 Members of Parliament representing the DUP—one section, but 36 per cent of the population in Northern Ireland; very much the tail wagging the dog. They say, 'Well, look, we want to make sure that there's no regulatory difference between GB and Northern Ireland.' Well, that doesn't apply for abortion, that doesn't apply for civil partnerships. It's picking and choosing what you want. The reality is that the political establishment have had a blind spot for Ireland and now, of course, they find that that is the one issue that is taking up so much time.

I can't take lessons from the Conservative Party because, for eight years, they did not accept the result of the 1997 referendum. In 2005, they stood on a manifesto that said, 'We want another referendum'. If it was okay then— 

Will you take an intervention?

—then what is the problem with the principle now? Of course, David. 

I'm grateful for his giving way, because I was elected in 1999. I accepted the result in 1997. The senior members of the group, once we moved to Nick Bourne's leadership, did a lot of work at that time, and our members didn't always thank us. I think you refer to UK manifesto—loose wording in that—but it was never—never—the policy of the Welsh Conservative Party in this Chamber.

Well, it was certainly the policy of the UK party, and, of course, the Prime Minister has been reminded of that in the past. Certainly, it is the case that the referendum was not accepted by the UK—. I hear what he says about the Welsh Conservatives, and I know his own personal view, but the reality is it was not accepted by the UK Conservatives and, of course, it's not accepted by UKIP now. So, when I hear people saying, 'We shouldn't have a second referendum', I dismiss what they say.

Two more points I want to make—I see time is coming to an end, Presiding Officer—since when were the views of business to be dismissed so flippantly by the Conservative Party, by UKIP? Apparently, the voice of business, apparently, business leaders—[Interruption.]—are part of project fear. Some of the language I've heard from free marketeers—. In a sec. Free marketeers would make the most strident Marxists blush, because they have run down businesses and have said, 'Businesses don't know what they're talking about.'

Of course.

You've talked about the need to listen to the voice of business. The voice of business supported the Prime Minister's deal and encouraged everybody in the House of Commons to do so when it was put there to the original vote. Your party didn't, though, did it? Why not?

Well, I mean, that ignores the fact that a large number of Conservative MPs didn't support her either. That's the problem that we have here; she couldn't carry her own party. That's the problem you have in your own party.

Just one final point—[Interruption.] Just one final point: circumstances have changed in the last two years. I do not see why we now cannot ask people to express a view in the light of current circumstances. Surely, Brexiteers or remainers, we will spend all our time debating what Brexit should look like without asking the people. So, let's settle the question once and for all and settle the question by asking the people.

The Counsel General and the Minister for Brexit to reply to the debate, Jeremy Miles. 

Diolch, Llywydd. May I start by thanking the Member for Bridgend for reminding us of the powerful impact in the daily lives of people of judgments that are made in relation to Brexit, and how getting those judgments wrong can have catastrophic consequences in real lives? There were a range of contributions from Assembly Members in this debate. The vast majority I welcomed. Some, I'm afraid, I disagreed with fundamentally.

Adam Price and Dawn Bowden were reflecting on the response that we would get from the European Union. We know, don't we—President Tusk reminded us just last night—the backstop is part of the withdrawal agreement, and the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation. So, we believe that there's an obvious alternative Brexit deal available, as several key figures in the EU have acknowledged: to commit to a closer economic relationship of the sort that constituents in Jack Sargeant's constituency and steelworkers and large businesses in David Rees's constituency would want to see—the form of Brexit this Assembly has supported. But even mentioning this has caused outrage yet again today from those hardline Brexiteers like Neil Hamilton, who believe that 'no deal' is actually a desirable outcome. The Member for UKIP actually advocates a 'no deal' outcome. Let's be clear about that. We've said—. I've said—. I said at the start—

Will the Member give way?