Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru

I call the Assembly to order. 

The first item on our agenda this afternoon is questions to the First Minister, and the first question is from Caroline Jones.

I thank the Member for that question. The Welsh Government supports a wide range of measures to protect and enhance biodiversity in South Wales West. To provide just one example, at Kenfig burrows, we are investing £428,000 to restore complex sand-dune ecosystems, supporting scarce and specialised species, such as orchids and song birds. 

Thank you, First Minister. With my region home to one of the last remaining colonies of the fen raft spider, and as the species champion for this rarest of British spiders, I take a keen interest in preserving the biodiversity of South Wales West. My region is also home to one of the greatest example of sand-dune habitat in Europe—the Kenfig national nature reserve, as you've just mentioned. First Minister, in just a few short months, these 1,300 acres of managed coastal sand-dunes and wetlands will be potentially left without any management. Bridgend council walks away from running the nature reserve on New Year's Eve and a lease for its future management is yet to be signed. It is vital that the Kenfig national nature reserve is properly managed going forward in order to protect this vital part of our natural heritage and an important part of the nation's biodiversity. First Minister, please can you update us on progress being made by Natural Resources Wales to take on the long-term lease for the nature reserve and the steps they will take to protect the many rare species of plants and animals that call it home?

I thank the Member for that supplementary question and for the work that she does as the species champion for the fen raft spider. As she says, there are only a tiny cluster of sites in south Wales now that support that spider, and it's a good example of why urgent action is needed to reverse the decline in species and in biodiversity across Wales. Of course, Caroline Jones is right as well to point to the importance of the dunes and the ecosystem that it supports in the Kenfig burrows area. Llywydd, I pointed to investment that the Welsh Government is making—nearly £0.5 million there—but that's only part of what we are doing with others in that part of Wales. There is the sustainable management scheme, the Dunes 2 Dunes project—another £312,000, focusing on the landscape between Kenfig burrows and Merthyr Mawr warren, again a place where we are managing dunes habitat to improve biodiversity and to provide benefits to the local community.

I know that NRW and Bridgend County Borough Council are working together to make sure that there is a long-term plan to create a resilient ecological network in that part of Wales, just as we are in so many other parts of our very beautiful nation. 

I'm sure you'll join me in thanking the many volunteers who love the Kenfig reserve and who have contributed countless hours of their time to it, and, of course, they've challenged the trust that owns the site about its future. Could I also just to take this chance, as it's Christmas, to thank the environment Minister and NRW for their correspondence and engagement on this over recent months? However, I've got to say that it seems unlikely to me that NRW will have themselves the capacity to deal with the daily operational control of this site, and they will probably need partners in the future. Can you tell me what your expectations of NRW during this period are likely to be, whether you'll be offering them any one-off funding, or supporting additional human resource for this important task, and do you have any advice for the trust that actually owns this site about permitting income generation there that can contribute towards the cost of conservation?

I thank the Member for that. My expectation of NRW is that it will proceed in the way that we expect things to be done in Wales, and that is in close conversation and partnership with both other public bodies and, as Suzy Davies has said, with those voluntary organisations and the many volunteers who provide their time to them in that part of Wales. We want NRW to engage with those organisations, with the other public authorities, to come up with a plan that will deal with the management of this very important ecosystem well into the future. And that is the way that NRW are used to doing things—whether it is the large-scale investment, of the sort that we've already described at Kenfig burrows, or whether it's in the work that they do supporting very local community groups, through the landfill disposal community scheme, in the Member's own area; £8,000, right at the other end of the scale, to save Priors meadow, one of Gower's last remaining historic hay meadows. The approach that we take, right across the spectrum, is, as Suzy Davies said, to recognise the contribution that those local groups and those local volunteers make, and then to work with public authorities to maximise the contribution that we can make in that sort of partnership.

First Minister, obviously the dunes are one ecosystem, but another variety of the ecosystem is forestry, and particularly in the Afan valley, where we've seen many trees being felled by NRW because of various circumstances. But do you agree with me that, when harvesters come in, and are contracted to fell those trees, they should remove all of the trees? Because there are many tree stumps, tree logs, left in the Afan valley—left on the ground, just simply rotting—when they could have been used for biomass, for example, and we could then replant more safely, because, whilst logs are on the ground, you can't replant properly. And when are we replanting the whole of the system, because it is crucial that, if we're going to fell trees, we replant trees, so we can keep on building the ecosystem up?

I thank David Rees for that. He's right, of course, to point to the real impact in the Afan valley of larch disease, and that has resulted in the need for felling of trees in that forest. We know that leaving some trees to rot, to provide habitats for insects and others, is important, but that's a minority, of course. And, as he says, other trees that have been felled need to be removed and dealt with in other ways. I think it's very important, Llywydd, that, in the Afan valley, the replanting, the restocking of that area provides a resilient forest for the future, and that's why NRW has taken the opportunity in the Afan valley to restock the area with a diverse range of trees. We understand that monoplanting of just single species leaves those areas vulnerable when disease strikes. To provide resilience, you need a wide range of different species, and that will make sure that we won't have a repetition of some of the species attacks that we've seen in parts of our woodland, not just with larch, but with ash and other species across Wales.

Question 2 [OAQ54850] has been withdrawn. Question 3, Hefin David.

I thank the Member for that, Llywydd. Once again this year, despite continued cuts to our budget, the Welsh Government has provided £25 million in bus services support grant to assist local authorities in sustaining and improving bus services across Wales.

This summer, we had the news from Stagecoach that they plan to discontinue the number 25 service, which runs from Caerphilly to the Heath hospital, via Thornhill crematorium. After working with more than 300 residents, and Wayne David, we managed to persuade Stagecoach to reinstate the service on an hourly basis, from January, as a six-month trial. The outcome was the result of pressure from residents and from my office. We want to see that service continued indefinitely. We've also managed to get Stagecoach to provide a service to the Heath hospital from the Caerphilly constituency. But I've also had contact from residents in Senghenydd, in Bedwas and in Nelson about services connecting cross-valley and connecting to rail stations. So, my question to you, First Minister, is: what are your longer term plans in the year ahead for bus services that will enhance public service in the Caerphilly constituency?

I thank Hefin David for that, and I want to congratulate him for the campaign that he helped to lead in Caerphilly that has resulted in the restoration of the 25 bus service, connecting Caerphilly on an hourly basis with the University Hospital of Wales. It's not a surprise to learn of his effectiveness there, working with Wayne David. I see, Llywydd, this week that an independent assessment of the availability of public representatives to their local communities right across the United Kingdom put Wayne David at the very top of that list—the Member of Parliament that provided the most available and accessible service to his constituents. Six Labour MPs from Wales in the top 20 across the United Kingdom—no surprise there either. And it's no wonder to me that the Member here, working with Wayne David, has had the success that he has had. He, I know, will want to congratulate Stagecoach as well on the recent award of funding that it has had for 16 electric buses, and those will all be stationed at their Caerphilly depot.

Our plans for the future, Llywydd, recognise the change in the way that bus travel will be organised in the future. Bus travel, we believe, will become a demand-responsive service in many parts of Wales. Pembrokeshire have already begun their pilot service from September of this year. We will have our first urban responsive transport pilot in Blaenau Gwent, beginning in the middle of 2020. That's all funded from the Welsh Government's £24 million local transport fund, and we will bring forward a bus Bill to the floor of this Assembly during the remainder of this Assembly term. It will provide local authorities and Transport for Wales with powers to intervene in the provision of local bus services, reversing the negative impacts of Tory deregulation and allowing our public authorities to make sure that the very significant public investment that is made in bus services in Wales is used to make sure that those bus services are provided in the public interest. 

First Minister, Powys County Council has had to reduce public transport networks considerably in recent years. With the continued strain on social care and the well-being agenda, I wonder if you recognise the importance of public transport especially in rural Wales. Can I ask what your Government is doing to support local authorities to ensure that all people in rural communities across mid Wales have access to key services to allow them to have fulfilled lives? 

Well, Llywydd, of course, we recognise the importance of bus services in rural areas. Powys County Council has chosen to reduce the support that it provides for bus services under the strain of austerity, which means that our local authorities have to make invidious choices in every part of Wales, because if there is less money from his Government to invest in public services in Wales, then, of course, local authorities end up making those decisions. [Interruption.] It's not a poor answer, it is a poor service that Wales has from his party and his Government, and his residents in Powys find themselves on the receiving end of it. 

With funds so scarce for improving bus services, it was no surprise that there was huge disappointment and harsh criticism when it became clear that the transport Minister had personally intervened to ensure funding for bus services in his own constituency. I now understand that the Minister has referred himself to the First Minister to inquire into the suggestion that he has broken the ministerial code. Can the First Minister tell us whether he has completed that inquiry and what his conclusions were? If not, when will that work be done, because people need to know that there is full transparency in the way that funds are spent on bus services, and that those funds are spent in an entirely fair and equitable way in all parts of Wales?

Well, the Member is right to say that this has been referred to me under the ministerial code. I will conclude my investigations in the normal way and the Member will be better off waiting to see the results of that.

Questions now from the party leaders. The leader of the opposition, Paul Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, in the very first meeting of the National Assembly for Wales, the then First Minister, or First Secretary, Alun Michael, said that we must deliver three things for Wales. First, we must deliver a better life for the people of Wales. Secondly, we must deliver a sense of unity and purpose, and, thirdly, we have to deliver a new confidence in ourselves in Wales and in political life. First Minister, Welsh Labour have run the Welsh Government for over 20 years. On reflection, can you honestly say that the challenge set by Alun Michael has been met?  

Well, Llywydd, I can say very confidently, despite having to deal with a decade of his party's austerity, with everything that that has done to undermine the prospects of a better life here in Wales, despite the disunity that his party have spread with their policies of inequality, and despite their attempts to run down Wales at every opportunity that they have, that, of course, a Welsh Labour Government has invested in a better life for people here in Wales, better economic prospects, better public services—a country that faces the future with a greater degree of self-confidence and sense of purpose, quite certainly, than we did back in 1999. And all of that is a tribute to what successive Welsh Labour-led Governments have achieved here in Wales.

Well, First Minister, you might think things have improved under your party's stewardship, but the people of Wales certainly don't think so. In fact, the outcomes point to nothing but failures when you look at our NHS, our education system and our economy. First Minister, under your party, accident and emergency waiting times are the worst on record, the Welsh NHS has been the only part of the UK to see its budget cut. This year's Programme for International Student Assessment results confirm that Wales is, yet again, the lowest performing country within the UK for all subjects. We're still at the bottom of the list of UK for gross value added per head. You've failed to get a grip of the housing crisis and actually build enough houses here in Wales. You've failed to meet any of your targets to eradicate fuel poverty. Welsh farmers are facing over-regulation and a lack of action on bovine tuberculosis. And our cash-strapped local authorities are struggling to make ends meet.

What a record of delivery, First Minister. If Wales continues under your party's leadership, you'll still be dithering on the M4, and you'll still probably be working on the Heads of the Valleys road when the Assembly has its thirtieth anniversary. First Minister, like your health Minister has bragged in the past, are you proud of your record of delivery, and will you now accept that you've failed to deliver a better life for the people of Wales?

Llywydd, I think the Member will need to practice his stump speech a few more times in order to get it completely fluent. Look, he was right, wasn't he? We are cash starved here in Wales. Why are we cash starved? Because of the policies that his Government has pursued—a decade of destruction by his party here in Wales. And despite all of that, despite the cancellation of electrification of the main line, despite his party's failure to invest in the Swansea bay tidal lagoon, despite the fact that our budget is lower a decade later than it was when his party came into power, our NHS treats more patients more quickly, more successfully than at any time in its history. I know they don't like it when we say—but those are just the facts of the matter—more patients—

Those are my constituents.

—more quickly, more successfully than at any time in its history, including the Member's constituents. Yes, she doesn't like it, but it's true.

Our education service—we saw it last week. He didn't have a good word to say for the children of Wales last week, or their teachers, or all those people who have succeeded in making our PISA results the only part of the United Kingdom where results have gone up in all three domains in our PISA tests. That's an achievement of our young people and our teachers here in Wales.

And he mentioned the economy. Has he not seen the figures published today of what his party is achieving at the UK level? Not a scintilla of growth in the UK economy in the last month or in the last quarter. Contraction in construction, contraction in manufacturing. At the end of a decade of his party's stewardship of the UK economy, we find ourselves at the bottom of every league there is going.

Let me remind the First Minister why the UK Government in 2010 had to reduce spending: because your party colleagues destroyed our economy and left us—[Interruption.]—and left us with a black hole of £150 billion. I know the Labour Party don't like the truth, but that is the truth. Because let me remind the—[Interruption.] Let me remind the—

I do know it's two days before a UK general election, and I was expecting quite a bit of noise this afternoon, but this is taking it a bit too far now. Can we hear the leader of the opposition in a bit of silence?

And let me remind the First Minister, it was Liam Byrne, the former Labour chief financial Secretary to the Treasury, who left that note and said that there was no money left—his words, not my words. I have to say to you, First Minister: your lack of humility when it comes to genuine scrutiny of your Government's record is absolutely frightening, and it gives us a real snapshot of life if the UK Labour Party came to power under Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.

Of course, in less than 48 hours, the people of Wales will take to the polling stations to vote for the next UK Government. Now, your party calls its manifesto 'Standing Up for Wales', but the reality couldn't be further from the truth, could it? You're completely at odds with the people of Wales when it comes to Brexit. We're facing the prospect of an unaffordable four-day week. And you yourself have confirmed that tax rises would come under a UK Labour Government. First Minister, in your last First Minister's questions of 2019, just over 20 years after the first FMQs were asked and answered, will you now commit to genuinely standing up for the people of Wales and representing their wishes, and start delivering a new confidence in Wales and in politics?

Llywydd, the Member refers to a lack of humility. Did he see his Prime Minister yesterday? Did he see him, asked to look at the picture of a child lying on the floor of an NHS hospital in England, where he refused to look at it, where he refused to say anything about the plight of that child? Don't talk to us here about humility. Talk about humanity, just for a moment, and the utter lack of humanity that his leader showed at that moment, demonstrating absolutely why he does not have the trust of people in Wales or people across the whole of the United Kingdom.

This party stands up for Wales. This party stands up for Wales in the face of every onslaught that his party performs. We stand up for people faced with the fear and the horror of universal credit. We stand up for the people of Wales where they have to deal with the consequences, the deliberate consequences, of his party's policies, which will create 50,000 more children in poverty here in Wales. We stand up for those people who go in every day to our public services—starved, to quote the leader of the opposition; cash starved by his party—to try and make those services as good as they can possibly be. We stand up for the people of Wales, and that's why, in 20 years of devolution, the people of Wales, in every election that they have been asked the question, have chosen to put the future of this country in the hands of the Labour Party. And that's what they'll be doing again on Thursday of this week.

The Leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price.

First Minister, how much money is being handed over to private sector management consultants to try and fix the Welsh NHS?

Llywydd, no money is handed over to private consultants. When we take the advice, for example, of the Public Accounts Committee here, urgently to employ additional assistance for our health boards, we take that advice. The money that we spend in securing that advice is a fraction, an absolute fraction, of what is used elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

First Minister, we both agree that creeping privatisation is a threat to the NHS. The surprising thing, perhaps, is that that threat, in part, comes from you. You're funding a management consultancy gravy train at a time when front-line staff and services like A&E are stretched to breaking point. Perhaps I can help you out with some of the figures, First Minister. Freedom of information requests have revealed that the big four consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers was paid £335,000 for 12 weeks' work to deal with winter pressures in Betsi Cadwaladr. Don't you think that that money would have been better spent on more doctors, nurses and social carers to manage the winter crisis, rather than pen pushers with PowerPoint presentations?

As we see, Llywydd, the Member works hard overnight to produce his spontaneous additional questions on a Tuesday. This Government needs no lessons in keeping the private sector out of the health service here in Wales. Under the Labour Party, the NHS in Wales goes on being publicly funded, publicly provided—provided with the essence of the public service ethos which is what brings people in to work in our NHS every single day. Where we need to reinforce the efforts of those people by getting assistants to make sure that our systems are as good as they can be, that the support is there for them, we do that. I make no apology at all for doing that, because it allows us to make sure that our NHS goes on being what the British Medical Association said in the British Medical Journal recently—the Welsh NHS remains the closest to the founding spirit of Aneurin Bevan of any NHS in the United Kingdom.

First Minister, that same freedom of information disclosure also revealed that some of these management consultants in north Wales are being paid up to £1,000 a day, which is more than most nurses earn in a week. Now, let me present one more sobering statistic that points to your mismanagement of the NHS in north Wales: PwC are being engaged by you to cut costs—or, as it's euphemistically known, to find efficiency savings. You put them on a pay-as-you-cut contract that will see 11 per cent of any so-called saving paid back to them in a bonus. Now, don't you agree with Unison, which said over the identical practice in England, that instead of filling the pockets of management consultants, this money could have been better spent improving services for patients? When are you going to stop doing in Wales what your party is promising to stop in this election in the country next door?

Llywydd, this Government invests record amounts of money in our health services. The rise in investment in the health service in Wales last year was faster than in any other part of the United Kingdom. In return, we expect our health boards to manage that money with the best possible result, because that is the result that Welsh patients expect. And while the NHS in Wales is in our hands, then patients in Wales know that, here, they go on having free prescriptions, here, we have nurse bursaries. We don't need, as his party does—they put in their manifesto that they're going to restore something that they were responsible for cutting. Here, we never cut it at all. Here, patients have free parking in their hospitals. We don't need to put it in our manifesto here, because Welsh patients already have that.

Welsh patients understand, Llywydd. Welsh patients in north Wales understand—Welsh patients in north Wales understand that this Labour Government invests in providing them with a service of the sort that they recognise. Satisfaction rates in the north Wales NHS went up last year in both primary and secondary care. The leader of Plaid Cymru thinks that he's clever to shout at me about his question. What his question does is what he does as he trails around the television studios, which is to run down Wales. His party, the party of parts of Wales, those parts that they think it's worth putting up candidates to vote for them—his partial response in that area is typical of his response altogether. The Welsh NHS is safe in the hands of the Labour Party, recognised by patients across Wales, in north Wales, and in every part of Wales.

Leader of the Brexit Party, Mark Reckless.

First Minister, you and the Welsh Government have been influential as your party's policy on the EU referendum has evolved from saying you would respect it to doing the reverse. You claim the second referendum you want, because you don't like the result of the first, would be between a credible 'leave' option and 'remain'. Can you confirm that what you call a credible 'leave' option would be remaining in the EU customs union, remaining part of the EU's single market and remaining subject to the EU's freedom of movement? Wouldn't that be a rigged referendum between 'remain' and 'remain'?

I thank the Member for his question. He is a guide to us on the evolution of political positions, having evolved his way around this Chamber a number of times. Of course, he believes that nobody else should be allowed to change their mind, while he changes his mind with significant regularity.

In a referendum, and the only way, Llywydd, that people in Wales will ever get to have a second referendum is by voting Labour on Thursday—in that second referendum, there will be a viable 'leave' option offered to people, in which we will—to the regret of many of us. If we were to do that, we would have left the political institutions of the European Union, we would no longer be members of the European Union, but we would not do it in a way that guarantees damage to our economy, to jobs, to our future prospects.

First Minister, I've always backed Brexit, as you try to block Brexit as well as looking to rig the question for a second referendum. Has Welsh Government led the way for your party to rig the franchise? You lost your majority at the last Assembly election and you continue to lose traditional support. Rather than listening, learning and changing your policies, you've instead decided to follow East Germany's Bertolt Brecht by changing the electorate. Can you confirm that UK Labour—[Interruption.] Can you confirm that UK Labour is following the Welsh Government here too? As you lost on the current franchise, would your rigged referendum give the vote to 16-year-olds, EU nationals and prisoners?

Llywydd, I tried to listen hard to the question because I really wasn't following it at all. Where is the Member correct? He's correct in this: only a vote for the Labour Party will put this deeply divisive decision back in the hands of the people, where we believe it belongs. In that referendum, the party and the Government that I lead will campaign to remain, as we're entitled to do. Just as he will campaign to persuade people to leave, we will campaign to persuade people that our future is better off in the European Union. Do I think that 16-year-olds should have a vote in that election? I certainly do, because it is their future and the future of young people and the future of generations to come that would be at stake in such a referendum. Those young people deserve a chance to make their voice heard, to be persuaded by him or by me, because it is their future that will be at stake in any such choice. 

Llywydd, the Welsh Government supports NHS staff through increased professional education and training, prioritising recruitment and retention and taking action to ensure that health and well-being is valued and protected in the workplace.

Thank you. Well, last week, nearly four years after the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 received Royal Assent, your health Minister issued a short statement stating only that the all-Wales nurse staffing programme is driving the exploratory work of extending the 2016 Act. At the end of last month, the Royal College of Nursing in Wales launched its progress and challenge report on the implementation of the Act, which said that the nursing workforce in Wales is facing a national crisis: the high number of vacancies, estimated by them at around 1,600 minimum, are compounded by greater shortages in the care home sector and the prospect of significant losses to retirement over the next five to 10 years. How, therefore, does the Welsh Government—do you—respond to the questions they posed for the Welsh Government in the context of north Wales? How are the special measures arrangements for Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board monitoring and supporting the board to be compliant with the Act? Will you increase student nursing numbers, as the health board has requested, and will you support the placement of non-commissioned student nurses from Glyndŵr University, as the health board has requested?

I thank the Member for the question. I attended the RCN event to celebrate the passing onto the statute book of the safe nurse staffing Act here in Wales and everything that has been done since to make sure that there are the right number of nurses in the right set of circumstances on every ward. They welcomed the fact that the Minister is progressing to make the impact of that Act felt in new settings. I spoke with many nurses that evening, Llywydd. I spoke particularly to a group of nurses from north Wales, who told me how much more difficult their lives are made by the persistent criticisms of that board, particularly from members of the party opposite—how that does make it more difficult to recruit and retain people in that health board. [Interruption.] Those are the words of nurses talking to me. I'm just telling you what they said about your party and its impact on their daily working lives.

Here, in the Welsh Government, we have increased nurse training places by 89 per cent since we began our six-year journey of increasing every single year the amount of investment that we make in the training of medical and professions allied to medicine here in Wales. We deal every day with the impact that Brexit is having— another party policy of his party—particularly an impact in north Wales, where staff that were recruited to come and work here in Wales from the Republic of Ireland and Spain have felt the chill of his party's Brexit rhetoric and have decided to make their futures elsewhere rather than here in Wales. And that is particularly the case, Llywydd, in the care home sector to which the Member made reference in his question. The impact of Brexit in our care home sector, whether that is in nurses who are qualified, whether it's in care home staff, will be real and felt in the lives of people here in Wales. 

We go on doing everything we can through our 'Train. Work. Live.' programme and everything else to make sure that we have the staff we need here in the Welsh health service. It's not helped by many of the things that we get told on the floor of this Assembly by him and his party. 

I'm sure the First Minister will agree with me that one of the key factors for any workforce to feel safe and supported is if they feel that there are proper systems in place to enable them to effectively raise concerns if they see something that they feel is wrong, if they see practices that they don't feel are safe, if they see that there are practices that they don't feel are respectful and effective. I'm sure the First Minister will be aware that there are concerns that our current practices here in Wales are not sufficiently independent, and those concerns are raised by both parents and families and also by professional organisations. Can the First Minister say whether or not he is convinced that we are putting the right steps in place here in Wales to ensure that staff can be supported when they raise concerns, and will he undertake to have a further discussions with the Minister for Health and Social Services to reassure himself that there is no more that we can do to ensure that concerns are raised safely—more that we can do and are not currently doing?  

Well, I entirely agree, Llywydd, with what Helen Mary Jones has said about the importance of a culture in our public services and in the health service that people who have concerns know that, when those concerns are raised, they will be listened to respectfully; they will be regarded as having the expertise that people who work in the services at the front line have, when they see things that they believe are going wrong or could be done in a better way. When I was the health Minister working with Vaughan Gething, we jointly commissioned Keith Evans to produce the 'Using the Gift of Complaints' report. Keith Evans, as you know, was a very senior executive in Panasonic and he brought to the NHS that sense of how, if someone has taken the trouble—whether it's a member of staff or a patient, if they have taken the trouble to let you know about their experience and how they think things should be put right, you should regard that not as a complaint to be worried about, but as a gift that that person is making to you, because it is their contribution. As people tell you time after time in Wales, if they take such an action, it's in order to make sure that somebody else doesn't experience something that they have seen or they themselves have gone through. And of course we keep that under review. We're going to be reviewing the 'Putting Things Right' policy over the coming months, and the health Minister and I regularly discuss ways in which we can do what we can to create the sort of culture to which Helen Mary Jones referred.    

First Minister, we all know the pressure the NHS staff are under, especially at this time of year. Another Christmas and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board remains still under special measures. Will the north Wales health board still be under your Government's control and supervision next Christmas? 

Well, I'll answer that question this time next year, Llywydd. 

Llywydd, I thank the Member for that. The Minister for Health and Social Services has made a commitment to consider the introduction of a rapid access model to treat pancreatic cancer. Discussion of these matters has already been held with the Wales Cancer Network. 

Thank you, First Minister. Following our very well-supported cross-party debate on this, I was contacted last week by a lady who'd just had a diagnosis last week of pancreatic cancer, but had been told she would have to wait two months for surgery. She was upset and shocked by that. Her husband was understandably very angry and I really felt for both of them, because we know that pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers and really needs to be treated within 21 days. I'm very grateful for the update that you've just provided and that you are already taking action following the debate that we held here, but what assurances can you give that, in the interim, while we look at that rapid access issue, we also look at urgently commissioning operations across the border in England for patients who are well enough to be able to make that journey to have their operation in a timely way? 

I thank Lynne Neagle for that supplementary question. Of course, she is right that pancreatic cancer is one of the cruellest of cancers, that early diagnosis of it is particularly difficult because of the vague symptoms, as they call it in the clinical world, that it tends to present with. She will know as well that, even when early diagnosis is possible, a significant proportion of patients who are suitable for surgery also have jaundice at that point in the illness' path, which has to be treated before the surgery can take place. So, there are some real clinical challenges in dealing with pancreatic cancer through surgery.

So, we've got two issues to deal with here in Wales, Llywydd. There is the current pathway to which Lynne Neagle referred—and she'll be pleased, I know, that Swansea Bay University Local Health Board is aiming to recruit a fourth pancreatic surgeon to increase operating theatre capacity from two all-day sessions at present to three all-day sessions in the future, that they're expanding their clinical nurse specialist workforce at the same time. While that is happening, they are already referring patients across our border to capacity elsewhere, and patients from Wales who have been offered surgery, for example, at King's College Hospital in London—patients have already accepted this offer and undergone surgery there. So, there is work to do and more work to do in making sure that the current pathway works to the maximum extent and then there is—as I know the Member discussed during the debate that we held here just a week or so ago—the latest advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, producing an evidence appraisal earlier this year so that surgery can be offered more quickly to patients whose cancer is detected at the earliest stage. That is the discussion that has already been held with the Wales Cancer Network since that debate took place. The Minister is meeting next week with the Wales Cancer Alliance and the UK pancreatic cancer charity is part of that alliance. They have been very supportive of the single cancer pathway that we've developed in Wales and we will now we be looking to see ways in which that latest NICE advice can be incorporated into the way that that single cancer pathway is being developed.

First Minister, Pancreatic Cancer UK has said it's

'disappointing to see the Welsh Government refusing to acknowledge the fact that pancreatic cancer is a cancer emergency when other UK Governments have accepted the need to act faster when there is a clinical need'.

Now, I do welcome what you've just said, because it does seem quite a change in emphasis in terms of rapid access to surgery, but it's a general approach that we need, because this is a relatively common cancer and the prognosis remains really very disappointing, whereas, in the last 40 years, many other common cancers have increased the survival time and the chance, indeed, of going into permanent remission. That's what we need, and I do hope that this is the first step you're making to really focus on pancreatic cancer so that it is brought to the same sort of level that we have, in fairness, achieved for other common cancers. 

I thank the Member for that. The Welsh Government absolutely does recognise the significance of pancreatic cancer and the challenge that is faced in providing successful treatment for it. In the middle of the first decade of devolution, survival rates at one year for pancreatic cancer in Wales were 18 per cent. In the middle of this decade, they were 28 per cent. Now, 28 per cent is still at the bottom end of what other cancers are able to achieve, but it's nonetheless a 10 per cent increase in one-year survival rates within a decade. And if you are able to detect pancreatic cancer at stage 1, then the one-year survival rates are higher than 60 per cent. So, we do know that where we are able to get an early response to pancreatic cancer, there are successful things that can be done. The challenge lies, as I said in my answer to Lynne Neagle, as we know, in making that early diagnosis, because the symptoms aren't easy to detect and they are masked because they look like they might be a different condition.

We've done enormous things in Wales over the last five years to increase the early diagnosis of cancer. Llywydd, of 100 patients who are referred by a GP as having suspected cancer, 93 of them turn out not to have cancer at all. But the reason that that is a good thing is that it demonstrates that we have widened the number of people coming in to the system in order to get that maximum chance of the earliest possible diagnosis. Pancreatic cancer is not the easiest cancer by any means to make that work and we now know that where you can make it work, surgical interventions have a more important part to play. We go on being determined to work with our cancer network here in Wales to improve early detection and diagnosis and then to put in place the services that respond to that with the maximum clinical effectiveness. 

I accept what the First Minister said in the sober and serious answers that he has given to earlier questions, and in contrast very effectively with the pantomime that we had at the beginning of questions today. The fact remains that Wales does have one of the lowest cancer survival rates in the world amongst countries of comparable data. For surviving five years we're thirty fourth out of 36 in the latest figures that I've seen from Pancreatic Cancer UK, whose ribbon I'm wearing today.

I'm sure the First Minister will accept from me that if we look back 10 or 15 years, we looked at prostate cancer in much the same dim light, but tremendous advances have been made in the treatment of prostate cancer in that time and the same could be true with greater priority for pancreatic cancer sufferers as well. I know the Government has been swift to declare a climate emergency; I can't understand therefore why it's feeling in any way inhibited from doing the same thing for pancreatic cancer because this is going to make a tremendous difference potentially to the lives of a large number of people given the incredibly distressing news that this brings to people who suddenly find that they are sufferers. The survival rate for a month is only about 25 per cent, or whatever it is—for a year it's only 25 per cent or so. So, the greater the degree of priority the Government can give to this the better it will be.

I thank the Member for that serious question and I'll try to continue to give him a serious answer. The reason why I think we are reluctant to pick a particular form of cancer and to declare that an emergency is that, for every patient who has a diagnosis of any form of cancer that is an emergency in their lives. We have been reluctant, I think, for very good reasons to go down a route in which we have a hierarchy of different conditions, in which we try and pick out a particular condition and try to say that it is somehow more important and more significant than another condition.

That's not to say that I don't understand the case that is made because of the very particular impact that this cancer and the difficulties of early diagnosis have. So, I'm not for a minute dismissing the case that is made, but in a serious answer that's the reason why we've been reluctant to go down that route. Pancreatic cancer for anybody who is suffering from it is an emergency, but so is it for somebody who has a liver cancer or a lung cancer or a breast cancer. And I'm reluctant to say that one form of cancer is somehow more urgent or more of an emergency than another because, from the patient's point of view, I really don't think it looks like that.

I thank the Member for that question. The Blaenau Gwent Valleys taskforce initiatives include £500,000 to establish Parc Bryn Bach as a gateway site for the Valleys regional park. At the same time, the areas will benefit from the foundational economy challenge fund, the empty homes grant and, in the new year, the integrated responsive bus pilot planned for Blaenau Gwent.

I'm grateful to you, First Minister, for that response, and also to the economy Deputy Minister, who's been leading on many of those initiatives. I'm also grateful to the economy Minister for his words and meetings in this last week about developments with Thales and with TVR. The Welsh Government has committed significant resources and made a number of statements on supporting the investment in TVR and supporting the growth of the Thales presence in Ebbw Vale, and we're all very pleased to see those investments taking place within the borough. But we're also looking at the overall framework of Tech Valleys, and it's important that the commitment that was made by this Government to £100 million investment over the coming decade to change completely the economic future, not just of Blaenau Gwent but of the whole of the Heads of the Valleys region, is delivered and that we can see those elements of delivery falling into place over the coming period. First Minister, can you outline to us how you expect Tech Valleys to be developing over the coming 12 months and the investments that you anticipate seeing being delivered in that time frame?

Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that and for the continued interest, of course, that he takes in these matters. He will know that I, together with Ken Skates, met with senior figures from Thales on Monday of last week, including the chief executive officer of Thales UK, and they were very keen to talk about what they have already achieved through their presence in Ebbw Vale.

It was very encouraging indeed to hear of the work that they are doing with young women in particular in schools in that area and the very deliberate efforts that they make as a company to make sure that the jobs of the future that they will create are genuinely gender agnostic, and are as equally available to young women as they are to young men. They've taken, as the Member will know, some very practical actions to make sure that that can happen. They did talk to me about further investments that they hope that we will be able to make alongside them to go on making the national cyber security centre a vibrant part of that local economy, remembering that south-east Wales has the greatest concentration of cyber security companies anywhere in the United Kingdom, attracting very real interest from international investors in that as well.

As for TVR, we continue to work closely with that company. I was very pleased to see that they took part in the automotive forum, the major meeting of the forum that we held last week as part of the Aston Martin formal opening. There is money available from the Welsh Government to invest alongside TVR in premises in the Blaenau Gwent area. We need the company to be in a strong position to guarantee that they are also able to put on the table the private investment that is necessary to make a success of the infrastructure investment that we would make as a Government. Those discussions are being led, as Alun Davies said, by the Deputy Minister, I know that he is happy to meet and give you a more detailed briefing on where the discussions with TVR have currently reached.

I thank the Member. Although provision of broadband is not a devolved matter, the Welsh Government has stepped in to protect Welsh citizens from market failure. Over £32 million has been invested, for example, in providing over 111,000 premises across west Wales with average broadband speeds of 82 Mbps.

Thank you for that, although I have to say that your efforts to protect broadband speeds haven't been altogether successful. A report released by consumer group uSwitch last week reinforced the discrepancy between broadband speeds. For example, in Penffordd, the slowest average download speeds were recorded, which meant a two-hour Netflix HD film would take more than 11 hours to download. However, in Clare Walk in Pembroke, that same film could be downloaded in a mere 11 minutes. My concern about this is because, as we know, broadband speeds are vital for health, for education, for communications and for entertainment. You have had serious sums of money, and I note that in the Labour manifesto, you are offering free broadband to all in your Christmas festive getaway. But, what can you do to ensure that the money that you've been given by Westminster for these projects already [Interruption.]—I'm going to ignore the squeaks in the background—actually ensure that we have broadband fit for purpose? You've had loads of money.

Llywydd, the Welsh Government is not given money by the UK Government for this purpose because this is a non-devolved responsibility. So, the Member's questions would be much better directed to those who are responsible for this matter. What the Welsh Government has done is to use money provided to us for other purposes, and money that we get from the European Union, to make good the failure of the Conservative Government to address the matters—the real, very proper matters—that the Member has raised.

She is quite right to say that the Labour Party, in our manifesto, makes proposals that would address the difficulties that the Member has identified. Under the current universal service obligation. We have a position in Wales that is not universal. It is certainly not an obligation. In some parts of Wales, it's barely a service. The Labour Party and our manifesto recognises that, in the future, broadband will not be a nice-to-have service or an accessory; it will be an important utility, and ought to be treated as a universal service.

We will invest to make sure that those communities right across Wales who rely on broadband for their businesses and for their homes will have it under a Labour Government. People in Wales who are interested in that and who have heard what the Member says will know who they have to vote for in order to get it.

Llywydd, these actions are set out in the cancer delivery plan for Wales. They include a focus on early detection and the introduction of a single cancer pathway. In that way, we can continue to improve cancer survival rates in Wales.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. The fact is that diagnosing people at the earliest stage is critical to giving patients the best chance of surviving cancer. However, all but one health board in Wales are struggling to recruit and retain radiographers. Approximately one in 10 nurse endoscopy posts are vacant, with some boards having to bring in teams from England to clear backlogs. First Minister, what action are you taking to increase the clinical training places in line with present and future patient need in Wales, please?

Llywydd, I said earlier, in answer to another question, that the Welsh Government has now, for six years in a row, invested every year more money in the training of our clinical and professions allied to medicine, so that we have the workforce that we need here in Wales. That certainly includes an increase in the number of radiographers in training.

But, as well as having more people coming into training, you also have to create the conditions in which those people are able to exercise and to develop their skills, so that they are able to do the very skilled and necessary work in the health service. That's why we have created a digital academy here in Wales, in the Cwm Taf area. It provides a place where radiography can be not simply improved in terms of the numbers of people going into it, but where we are able to create the conditions in which that very specialist skill, which is developing over time, will be done differently in the future, where the workforce of the future can be created.   

Thank you, First Minister.

The next item is questions to the Deputy Minister, Jane Hutt, and the first question is from David Melding.

The Wales Audit Office report and the 2019 White Ribbon campaign have highlighted the need to implement the Violence Against Women Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 rigorously across the public sector in Wales, in partnership with specialist services. 

Minister, as you know, the auditor general has said that victims and survivors face a fragmented system that is inconsistent, complex and short term. And he says that progress on delivering on the key aspects of the Act is poor and has not had the desired impact. And he calls for effective collaboration and joint working in key areas, and that we must redouble our efforts to ensure that there is this sort of co-ordinated approach. Now, I think it's very important the Government reacts to this very considered criticism because there is cross-party support to improve services in this vital area. And as we make so many gains in how the public reject any talk of accepting domestic violence as in any way a norm—and we've seen our emergency services respond, police magnificently as well, in changing their systems on how they deal with these issues—we've got to ensure that the services that we then provide the survivors and victims are the best they can possibly be. Now, I know we can't get there overnight, but it is important that we look at this very, very carefully to ensure that we do get better services. 

And I thank David Melding for raising this question today. You will be aware of my written statement on 25 November, where the report did show that—. The Wales Audit Office published its report and it did show that the Act is improving services across Wales, but clearly there is more to do. I think it's important that the WAO report says that the Act is helping to drive the transformation of violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence services, and that it's been critical in driving change. But, of course, this actually involves not just Welsh Government in the lead, but local authorities, local health boards, setting their clear strategies for awareness raising, prevention and regionalisation, and also making sure that they do focus on addressing underperformance and setting strategic equality objectives. So, this groundbreaking piece of made-in-Wales legislation is helping to drive the transformation of services, but, clearly, we have to address the recommendations. 

I want to raise with you a case concerning a 14-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted. The perpetrator pleaded guilty and, in September, received a sentence of 24 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years. A sexual harm prevention order was made for 10 years and he was also ordered to register as a sex offender for 10 years. The suspended sentence has resulted in this convicted paedophile being allowed to return to his home less than 300 ft away from the family home of the victim. His continued presence is making the whole family, but particularly the vulnerable teenaged girl, feel intimidated, unsafe and unable to move on. The whole family are undertaking counselling and mental health support to come to terms with what has happened, but the ongoing, daily traumatic reminders of what happened means recovery is nigh on impossible. 

This is not justice. This is an outrage. It's because of cases like this that I want to see the criminal justice system devolved. Surely, we would put victim protection, child safeguarding and public safety at the heart of a Welsh-run criminal justice system. We have legislation in Wales that should offer protection to the child victim in this case, and others in a similar situation. The Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 should be one option to provide protection. Furthermore, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 makes it clear that well-being includes the right to be free from abuse and being in control of your day-to-day life. The convicted perpetrator in this case needs to be moved before any more harm can be done. This girl should not have to face her abuser every single day. 

Deputy Minister, what hope can you offer to the family that I met this week?

Well, again, I thank Leanne Wood for bringing this to our attention in this Chamber today. Clearly, we have responsibilities in terms of safeguarding our children from child sexual abuse and exploitation, and, indeed, we are developing and consulting on the statutory guidance. But it is also a responsibility of the justice system, and I will also make sure that this case is raised at the highest level in terms of our police and police and crime commissioners. 

The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 makes clear that local authorities need to provide adequate authorised Gypsy and Traveller residential and transit sites. In 2013, we published guidance on managing unauthorised camping on roles, responsibilities and rights, to ensure a fair and consistent approach to dealing with unauthorised encampments.

Thank you, Minister, for that answer. In the Republic of Ireland, they've put in place measures that, obviously, assist local authorities and the enforcement agencies in moving on illegal sites. Have you given any consideration to the effectiveness of such provision here in Wales? And, secondly, very often when illegal sites do develop, there's a huge clean-up bill that local ratepayers have to pick up on. What measures have the Welsh Government taken to consider the strengthening of local powers to retrieve some of the costs back from the illegal travellers who've set up sites, and yet it's local ratepayers who end up picking up the tab for the mess?

As I said, we have published, of course, the managing unauthorised camping guidance, in 2013, and it does set out our clear expectations of how public authorities will resolve such encampments. Also, it is important that we consider the proportionality of any actions in resolving encampments, weighing the rights and obligations of all involved. I have to say that the Welsh Government supports consistent, humane and effective resolution of unauthorised camping, respecting the rights to a nomadic lifestyle of Gypsies and Travellers, and the rights of the wider community. And certainly we're very concerned—I was very concerned—about the recent consultation that was published by the UK Government. It is something where we will be responding to that consultation, urging the UK Government to think again and to adopt our approach.

Our Safer Communities programme is taking forward recommendations arising from the 'Community safety in Wales' report produced by the Wales Audit Office. It does so via a multi-agency approach with key partners.

Thank you very much for that wonderful response, Minister.

You will be aware that Swansea's high street has struggled over recent times with regard to crime in the area, in terms of drug use, prostitution, theft, and violence. The problem has been there for months—years, really—and 75 crimes were recorded in the months of September and October alone. Now, given that you as Welsh Government have a key role to play both in terms of community safety and regeneration, and supporting initiatives like treating drug and alcohol misuse, homelessness, rough-sleeping and victim protection, what more are you planning to do, in conjunction with South Wales Police and Swansea Council, to tackle this problem on one of Swansea's key gateways?

Well, the Welsh Government is committed to making our communities safer, and it has to be joint action that is taken to reduce anti-social behaviour and crime—not directly devolved matters, but we have responsibilities to make sure that we can do everything in our power to make the people of Wales safer and feel safer. We are, of course, embedding a public health approach at the heart of our programme. I chaired the latest meeting of the Policing Partnership Board for Wales. For example, we focused last week on substance misuse, which, of course, is an issue, as you have raised. And I think Operation Sceptre, during the period of 1 July to 30 September this year, including a Swansea taskforce, in terms of dealing with substance misuse—. But this is—. Clearly, Swansea Bay critical incident group, which is also looking at these issues, is crucially important. But we are taking forward the recommendations arising from the Wales Audit Office report on community safety, as I said, via this multi-agency approach.

I wonder, Deputy Minister, if I can just push you a little bit further on that. Because, as you know, fairly recently, South Wales Police, in order to try and combat street prostitution in particular on Swansea's High Street, have introduced, with some controversy, the public protection orders. The result of this, perhaps predictably, is that both the women and those who exploit them have simply moved elsewhere. I wonder if you can give us further information about what the taskforce has recommended, because I think it should be of concern to us all that the police have told us that the best way or the only way to get the greatest intervention to support these women against exploitation is actually to arrest them, which I think is probably a hammer to crack a nut there. What can you tell us about the devolved services you have access to that can help the women and, of course, some men as well, out of this trap without the prerequisite of an arrest? 

Well, I'm also very grateful, Suzy Davies, that you've raised that issue about vulnerabilities as well, particularly of women in this situation, and clearly there is a balance to be struck here about addressing issues, such as substance misuse and the impact of that, that I've outlined in Operation Sceptre. But it is clearly the responsibility not just of the local authority and health board, but also—. I have to say this takes me to the female offending blueprint in terms of how we can intervene and seek to support women in this situation, and look at the Safer Wales approach to ensuring that safety on the streets is for those who are most vulnerable and that the Swansea bay issues are being dealt with on a multi-agency basis. 

The Welsh Government has a long-standing commitment to supporting the provision of advice services. Our grant funding ensures that some of the most vulnerable people in Cardiff, and throughout Wales, access the advice and support they need to resolve problems with their housing, debts or welfare benefits.

Debt is obviously a rising concern in the current situation. We know from the 'Wales in the red: Assessing the impact of problem debt in Wales' report earlier this year that Cardiff, as our biggest city, has also got the highest concentration of debt. Nearly 200,000 people across Wales are grappling with severe debts and another 200,000 already showing signs of financial distress. And unfortunately this is the time of year when people are being encouraged to spend money they haven't got. 

But, nevertheless, the main causes of people getting into serious debt are reduced income as a result of the gig economy we now have to grapple with, as well as illness or injury and unemployment, which are very difficult to mitigate, as people normally have no idea that this is coming. Terrifyingly, I read that this means many are using credit cards to cover gaps in their daily living costs, and we also know that cuts to in-work and out-of-work benefits over the last nine years under this Tory austerity Government are a major factor.

People in severe debt in my constituency often find the problem so overwhelming they are slow to come forward to get advice. How is the Welsh Government ensuring that people can get easy access to debt advice services when they get into such difficulties? 

I thank Jenny Rathbone for that important question. It's an issue that I've been raising locally in Cardiff and Vale in terms of the role of the credit unions as well as advice services in providing affordable loans leading up to Christmas, and that can indeed avert and prevent the rise of debt at this particular time of year.

But I think advice services are crucial in terms of delivering not just access in terms of the offices available by Cardiff and Vale Citizens Advice, but also locating within the heart of communities when people do struggle to access advice particularly around debt services. They have to be delivered at the heart of their communities to reach the people who need them. But I would say that, last year alone, the service in Cardiff and Vale particularly helped over 3,500 people resolve problems relating specifically to social welfare issues. And what is crucial in terms of preventing debt is that, actually, that included generating income gains of more than £4.5 million. 

Minister, I think it's very important that we value the role of the voluntary sector in particular in advice giving, because, as you said, they are at the heart of communities, they are accessed by people more readily very often, and it's very important, I think, that we continue to support organisations that have this function and that the city as well realises how important giving help to voluntary organisations is, through an element of core funding or funding them for advice services, and that it's money well spent. 

I thank David Melding for that question. What's important in terms of the single advice fund arrangements, the single advice grant funding that I've awarded to providers, is that although there are lead providers—like, in this circumstance, Cardiff and Vale Citizens Advice, in answer to this question—they also have advice partners and access partners, as well as other partners in the voluntary sector.

Thank you, Deputy Minister.

The next item is the business statement and announcement. I call on the Trefnydd to make the statement—Rebecca Evans.

Diolch, Llywydd. There is one change to this week's business. Tomorrow's debate on the motion to annual the Renting Homes (Fees etc.) (Specified Information) (Wales) Regulations 2019 has been withdrawn. Draft business for the next three sitting weeks is set out on the business statement and announcement, which can be found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically.

Minister, may I ask for a statement from the Minister for Education about her approach to relationship and sexuality education in Wales? Constituents have contacted me to express their concerns that the Welsh Government advisors have called for lessons to be made compulsory in Welsh schools. In England, headteachers are expected to talk to parents who wish to exclude their children from these lessons to explain the benefit of receiving this important education. However, parents will still have the right to withdraw their child up to the age of 15. Minister, may we have a statement on whether the Minister will follow the constructive approach of engaging with parents, as in England, or does she support removing the rights of parents to have a say in this aspect of their children's education altogether?

Well, Llywydd, the Welsh Government has recently closed a consultation on exactly this specific issue. And I know that the education Minister will be keen to update the Senedd on the outcome of her deliberations, when she's had the opportunity to fully consider all of the responses to that consultation.

Given the Government's commitment for there to be 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, can we have a statement outlining whether the Government regrets the comments of a Labour MP who described a Plaid Cymru candidate as being obsessed with the Welsh language? Does the Government consider that everyone who speaks Welsh or who is learning Welsh is obsessed with the Welsh language? Will you agree to have a word with the MP concerned to explain that these slurs against the Welsh language from Labour cause divisions and are wrong? And will you agree with me that using the Welsh language as a weapon in this way should not be tolerated, that this sort of dog whistling is unacceptable, and will you commit to us this afternoon to putting a stop to it?

I want to mention a problem concerning the funding for end-on courses. This was brought to my attention by a constituent who's been left in poverty because she is being denied the financial assistance that she was entitled to as a student with dyslexia. The Student Loans Company are withholding the funding because they're waiting for a policy decision from the Welsh Government regarding these end-on courses. Student Finance Wales say they cannot release any money until they hear from the Welsh Government. A spokesperson for the Student Loans Company has said that they warned the Welsh Government of this issue when it first arose and made it clear that they would not make any payment to students on these end-on courses until either the legislation or letter of authority is issued to them.

My constituent is one of the fortunate ones. After quitting her course because she could no longer afford the bus fare, she was persuaded to change her mind by the college that she attends because they offered her a bursary to tide her over until Christmas. In correspondence with the education Minister, I have been assured that she will be bringing forward amending regulations to rectify this position imminently, and that, of course, is to be welcomed. Can the Government now give an undertaking that this matter will be finalised before Christmas to bring assurances to my constituent and others who find themselves in the same position? Also, will efforts be made to contact all of those students who may well have quite their courses as a result of this bureaucratic blunder to let them know that financial support will be reinstated, giving them the option to continue with their studies?

Llywydd, there's been no party that has done more for the Welsh language than the Labour Party. The Welsh Government and the Welsh Labour Party has a long and proud history of supporting the Welsh language and being enthusiastic about the Welsh language, and ambitious for the Welsh language. And that's why Cymraeg 2050 is central to all Welsh Government policies, and we're committed to ensuring that we work together to reach that 1 million Welsh speakers and to double the use of Welsh. And the Welsh Government is passionate about this agenda.

In terms of the second issue, I'm pleased that you had the reassurances that you were seeking from the education Minister, that she will be bringing forward the appropriate regulations, and I'm pleased that the college was able to offer your particular constituent the support that she needs to be able to keep attending her course through until Christmas. Obviously, I will speak to the education Minister about the timeline for bringing forward those important regulations and the amendments.

Last Tuesday, the Minister for Economy and Transport reported on employment and people with disabilities. Can I ask for a Government statement on what action is being undertaken by the Welsh Government, and more importantly Welsh Government's financially supported bodies, to increase the number of people with disabilities employed?

Secondly, my opposition to incineration is well known and well documented. I would like to ask for a statement on the carbon dioxide emissions from biomass incinerators and an explanation of why the Welsh Government will not impose a moratorium on new incinerators, excluding those for medical waste disposal, and also on new biomass plants. We know that burning and other changes to matter does not destroy them. The mass of mater is always the same before and after the changes occur. The law on conservation of mass states that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to the other. So, what we actually end up with with incineration is turning carbon and other elements into dioxins and carbon dioxide.

Thank you to Mike Hedges for raising these two issues. The first related to Welsh Government's work in terms of supporting and enabling disabled people into the workplace within the Welsh Government context. As a disability confident leader level 3 organisation, we are committed to increasing the number of disabled people working within this organisation. So, using the social model of disability to remove barriers, positive action and targeting disabled people through outreach and encouraging applicants to ask for adjustments during the recruitment process have seen the number of disabled people joining the Welsh Government rise over the past few years. But we're certainly not complacent, which is why we have our diversity and inclusion action plan 2020-4 currently in development, and that will set out the next steps for us in terms of ensuring that those interventions continue and continue to be effective in terms of supporting disabled people to enter this organisation.

We have responsibility for board appointments to Government-sponsored bodies only. We don't have responsibility for the staff employed by those bodies, but certainly we would want to encourage them to look to Welsh Government for the leadership and the work that we can do there. But, as I say, I think there's much more for us to be doing on this particular agenda.

Mike Hedges's views on incineration are well known and I will ask the Minister with responsibility for waste to provide an answer to what were some quite detailed questions.

Could the Minister make a statement on Government initiatives to stimulate the economy of Pontypool and its immediate Valleys communities, including Blaenavon? Pontypool was once a thriving industrial community, with companies such as ICI, formally British Nylon Spinners, which at one time employed some 6,000 people; Panteg Steel Works with around 3,000; Pilkington Glass, 700; and Warner-Lambert around 600. All have been lost in the past 20 years or so, with no substantial companies being established in that time. Surely it is time the Welsh Government did something to attract industries that would replace them. Could the Minister make a statement on whether there are any large employers in the pipeline, because it is notable that there appears to have been little major investment in the area for more than 20 years?

And finally, could the Minister make a statement on any initiatives brought about by the Valleys taskforce that might halt the decline in this once thriving community?

Well, I'll certainly ask the Minister with responsibility for the economy, and the Deputy Minister, who leads on the Valleys taskforce work, to write to you with an update on the work that has been going on in the Pontypool area and the work that is planned for the Pontypool area, in terms of supporting industry, innovation and employment and investment in the area.FootnoteLink

Can I concur with Mike Hedges's previous comments and requests on two issues? Firstly, on the request for a statement and update on what the Welsh Government is doing to help disabled people into work or back into work. Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of visiting Legacy International Group Ltd, based in Merthyr but serving the whole of south Wales. They have got a number of projects going forward to help disability-confident projects to try and achieve their goals. I thought there was a worthwhile number of projects going on there, so I think I'd like to hear what support is going on to help those.

Secondly, Mike Hedges raised the issue of incineration, which I know a number of Members have raised over the last few weeks and months. I've had an issue in my own constituency just outside Usk with a plan for a new incinerator. As Mike will know, when those proposals come on, they cause great controversy locally and people do look for reassurance. Perhaps we could have a statement from the Minister with regard to how people can be reassured, and perhaps that these projects shouldn't go ahead until and unless there is a confirmation of their safety.

And finally, last week I raised with you the issue of Small Business Saturday and asked what Welsh Government was doing to look again at the business rates regime and support available for small businesses across Wales. On Saturday I visited a small business in my area, N. S. James of Raglan. I'm pleased to see that that small business is doing well, but, of course, across Wales, in all our constituencies, they are the backbone of our local economies. I asked you last week and I will ask again if we could perhaps have a statement from the Welsh Government on what support is available to support small businesses in Wales.

I thank Nick Ramsay for raising those issues. We did have a statement from the Minister for Economy and Transport just last week in terms of disability and disabled people's employment, so perhaps it's a little too soon to have a further discussion on that. But I know that he will be keen to update Members on the progress of the work that he was discussing in his statement last week, and, obviously, I'm very interested to hear, as I know the Minister will be, about those particular local projects that you described as well.

Again, the request for a statement on incineration: I'll make sure that the Minister with responsibility for waste is aware of the interest in a statement from Members.

And I was delighted to support Small Business Saturday. So, on the Friday ahead of it, I spent quite some time in Pontarddulais talking to small-business owners in that village, and they were very keen to talk to me about business rates. Many of the businesses I spoke to benefited from Welsh Government's rate relief, to the point at which they were paying nothing at all for their business rates, which I thought was excellent. And I'm very pleased this afternoon to be moving regulations with regard to the multiplier rate for the Non-Domestic Rating (Multiplier) (Wales) Order 2019, and that will mean that we are moving this year to using the consumer prices index rather than the retail prices index, and, of course, that's a benefit, then, to Welsh businesses of around £10 million, and that's on top of the support that we already provide.

We all know in this room that the bus pass replacement deadline comes up on 31 December. I know we've seen reports and I've also had constituents come to my office about how difficult it has been to get that replacement. Many people, especially from the elderly generation, have been pushed online, but then I'm being told by some of the office staff who are administrating the process that they can't cope with doing that because they didn't anticipate people going and doing it online. So, it seemed to be a bit of a mishmash of what happened in that regard. I know that improvements are sought to be made, but can you assure us that you are going to do that and that you're going to encourage everybody who can have a replacement bus pass to be able to do that before 31 December?

My second question, and you may think I'm being premature but I don't think I am, because the tickets are already out for the Euro 2020 championships, and it's a really bad time, I think, because everybody is thinking of Christmas, but, anyway, people are planning their visits to Rome, to Baku, and Baku and back next year, but many won't be able to afford to go, or they may not be able to for various other reasons because of their work commitments. So, what discussions are you having with the Football Association of Wales, with councils across the country, to set up fan zones yet again, and to improve and expand on the fan zone concept, because I know that many were overrun last time, many were very popular, so that we have planning well ahead of June so that we can be assured that the fans who can't get to the games, wherever they may be, can see Wales and they can support Wales from home, and do so in style.

Thank you. On the issue of the bus passes, I know Transport for Wales are working really hard to ensure that people do have their bus passes with them in good time for the end of this year. There are particular issues—for example, people who have been waiting for their bus pass and then applied a second time, and, of course, that flags up the particular case then as potential fraud. So, that actually delays the printing of those bus passes. So, we would encourage people, if they haven't yet received their bus pass but they have applied, not to apply a second time, because that would potentially slow down their application. But I will ask the Minister for Economy and Transport to explore if there is a further and current update that he can provide on what is an issue of huge importance to all of us as Assembly Members and in terms of the constituents we represent.

Never too early to talk about Euro 2020—I know that the Minister for sport and the Minister for International Relations and the Welsh Language will be having, or are already having, important discussions with the Football Association of Wales and local authorities and other partners to ensure that as many people as possible get to enjoy watching those games and feel the atmosphere around them. So, again, I'm sure that there will be a statement coming forward in due course.

Just one request for a statement and one for a debate, both involving health. You will have heard, I'm sure, in the press and media last week the heartbreaking case of my constituent Thomas Griffith Jones, who has dementia but is facing being moved to Stafford because of his intensive care needs. The Government has said—the First Minister said in response to an oral question that had a written response recently—that the Government's aim is that there is an expectation that every Welsh speaker with dementia will receive care in his or her language of choice, for clinical reasons. That clearly contradicts the reality of the situation. We know how crucial it is that one receives care in one's first language when dementia is a problem. Welsh is Twm's first language—his only language, if truth be told. I have spoken to the local authority. They are willing to co-operate as part of the regional partnership, but it's the responsibility of the health board ultimately, and the Welsh Government is responsible for Betsi Cadwaladr health board. The health Minister has told me that he will contact the chair of the health board. We need urgent action to secure care for Twm and similar cases. We need a statement to tell us what the Government is going to do now as a matter of urgency to increase capacity, because this isn't a unique case.

The second issue is on dental care. I'm in contact with many constituents who are struggling to find an NHS dentist. On Ynys Môn last week, I passed the latest concerns on to the health Minister. I'm also in contact with dentists, as it happens, who are keen to come to Ynys Môn to work and are being faced with barriers, including being told to go and work for some of the big multinational companies rather than through local surgeries, but I'm pursuing that elsewhere.

One case in particular involves a diabetic constituent. As a side effect of being prescribed Metformin, her teeth have all become loose. Her GP referred her to Ysbyty Gwynedd's oral department back in March. She was told she needed a dentist's referral. Ultimately, she had to go private, having also been refused a referral through the NHS emergency dentist unit in Llanfairpwll. Now, the private remedial work is estimated to cost around £5,000. She feels penalised for the side effect of her diabetes and the lack of access to NHS dental provision and is really not in a position to afford the necessary work. I've been banging on about this, as have other Members, since I have been elected here. We're still not seeing signs of improvement in dental provision in the north of Wales. We need a debate, we need it in Government time, and we need it soon.

Well, I'm familiar with the first issue you raise, which is that of the case of your constituent, Twm, and I can understand how deeply unsettling and upsetting this is for Twm and for his family as well because of course it's the expectation that people should be treated as close to home as possible and that they should have access to that expert service that they require. Clearly, we understand the importance of receiving services through the medium of Welsh, especially if that's your first language, because people tend to lose their second languages first when they do have dementia. I'm pleased that you've raised the case with the health Minister and that he has undertaken to discuss it with the chair of the health board. I know that he will give you the response or the result of those discussions as soon as possible. I'll also make him aware of your request for a debate on dentistry provision in north Wales specifically, especially given the circumstances that you've just described.

Thank you, Trefnydd.

The next item is a statement by the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs on the clean air plan. I call the Minister to make the statement. Lesley Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. I'm pleased to launch a 12-week public consultation on our ambitious, cross-Government plans to improve air quality across Wales. I know all in this Assembly agree that the people of Wales have the right to breathe healthy air. Although our current overall air quality is good and compares well with the rest of the UK and the EU, we can do better and there is clear scope for further action.

'The Clean Air Plan for Wales: Healthy Air, Healthy Wales' sets out a national framework that will enable all of us, across Wales, to work together to secure further, sustainable improvement in a way that reinforces our work on climate change, decarbonisation and environmental growth. It is an important milestone in our efforts to further improve air quality in Wales, and brings together work across many Government departments and public sector organisations through four central themes, which are: protecting the health and well-being of current and future generations; supporting the environment, ecosystems and biodiversity; supporting a prosperous Wales; and supporting sustainable places.

It is vital that our approach protects the health and well-being of current and future generations. Our first theme highlights current and planned actions to reduce air pollution, risks and inequalities, including committing to new evidence-based, health-focused targets for particulate matter in Wales that take account of stringent World Health Organization guideline values.

The second theme recognises the importance of protecting our natural environment, ecosystems and biodiversity and promoting environmental growth for future generations. One of the greatest challenges we face is to find a way to secure a healthy, resilient and productive environment for the future while continuing to create jobs, housing and infrastructure. We will measure progress through new indicators for biodiversity.

The third theme supports a prosperous Wales. We want to be an innovative, productive and low-carbon society that recognises the limits of the global environment and uses resources efficiently and proportionately. Thriving businesses are important to a successful Welsh economy and we need to deliver our ambitions for economic growth alongside our commitments to clean air and healthy environmental growth. Driven by a combination of regulation, investment and technical advances, significant progress has already been made to reduce air pollution from industry. To achieve further improvements we will continue to work with stakeholders, targeting particular industrial air quality challenges.

The fourth and final theme recognises the importance of reducing airborne pollution in public places. 'Planning Policy Wales' recognises the importance of air quality and appropriate soundscapes to the health and well-being of people and the environment. We are producing further guidance for local planning authorities and developers to support the detailed consideration of air quality and soundscapes in the planning process. A joined-up approach between national transport and planning policy supports an increase in public transport use and active travel, reducing emissions and public exposure. We will work with stakeholders to encourage a modal shift from private vehicle dependency to sustainable forms of transport.

Whilst we can take the lead and set an example through Government actions, we cannot deliver the plan on our own. Successfully addressing air pollution means Welsh Government, its agencies, local authorities, business and industry, non-governmental organisations and of course the general public all working together. We will empower everyone to reduce their impacts and exposures to local air quality through better education and awareness raising, and develop targeted and integrated communications to inform and enable behavioural change.

Our new clean air Act for Wales will play a key role in helping us achieve all of this by delivering the First Minister's manifesto commitment and reduce the burden of poor air quality on human health, our economy, biodiversity and the natural environment. I will be consulting on more detailed proposals for the Act by the end of the current Assembly term, taking into account the responses to this consultation.

Over the next 12 weeks, I am hoping for a constructive discussion on the proposals in the plan, and encourage you and your constituents to respond. Together, we have an opportunity to improve air quality throughout the country, for us, our children and future generations. Diolch.

Thank you, Minister, for your statement this afternoon. The clean air agenda policy area is vitally important for Government and for politicians of all shades of colour. If I could just read this statement—I think, in itself, this would focus minds—

'Preventable deaths due to respiratory disease in the most deprived areas of Wales run at over 60 per cent in men and 66 per cent in women, compared to only 11 per cent in both the sexes if you happen to live in a nice leafy suburb or out in the country.'

That truly is a shocking statistic, to say the least, and something in a policy area that we do have many of the levers over, where we can make a difference.

It is also worth reflecting on Wales's position over the last couple of years, which has shown that emissions in Wales between 2015 and 2016 went up by 5 per cent, and, between 2009 and 2016, went up by nearly 1.5 per cent, as opposed to a 5 per cent reduction across the UK. So, the levers that Welsh Labour have been pulling in this particular area clearly haven't been working, although I do believe in the sincerity of the Minister's statement this afternoon to try and change the narrative on this particular subject. That's why it is with regret that I stand here and do lambast the Welsh Government for not bringing forward a clean air Act and actually legislating in this particular area. I can remember first calling for the then First Minister Carwyn Jones to pull partners together and actually get a discussion going where we could get a piece of legislation on the statute book by the end of this Assembly.

Regrettably, now, despite the current First Minister's leadership commitment, we will not see that Act come into this Assembly. I hear the Minister will point to Brexit as maybe one of the problems, because of the pressures in her department, but there is a consensus in this particular policy area across this Chamber to make those improvements. And, unless these improvements are enshrined in law, many public partners and private sector partners will not be able to deliver on the improvements that they're meant to make. And so I would again urge the Minister to reflect on this particular area. Time has not completely run out—there is still nearly another 18 months to go before the Assembly election, and, as I said, with goodwill, we could make progress on this matter.

However, if you do still continue to decide not to bring forward legislation in this area—as I understand in this statement, we're just talking of a White Paper—will you commit to creating time in the Assembly calendar before the Assembly goes into dissolution to debate this particular subject and vote on any recommendations that might come from the White Paper and the consultations that you hold? Because I do think that's an important area to understand how exactly you will take this particular item forward.

Also, as we heard in the business statement, there's a big issue around incineration in Wales, and the particulate matter that does come around. Whether it be my colleagues from the constituency of Monmouthshire, the Member for Swansea, or in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan in my own region, there does seem to be a cross-party consensus on this particular issue. Can you highlight today how the clean air strategy, or plan, as you've brought forward, will take forward and address some of the concerns in this particular area around incineration?

Biodiversity you've touched on and the importance of creating a biodiversity culture here in Wales. We know, regrettably, that the Welsh Government's tree-planting targets have been missed by a country mile. How can we have confidence that this particular plan, when it talks about increasing biodiversity across Wales, will actually be able to deliver on the improvements that you talk about making in this particular area?

Also, you touch on an expert group—an expert panel has been set up to look at interventions in the domestic setting, and, in fact, it does talk about eradicating all emissions from domestic sources. Could you enlighten us as to exactly what those interventions might look like, because that's quite a bold statement, and what interventions Government will be looking to make, because I presume you're in possession of that information, as you've had an expert panel, obviously, advise you on that particular area?

It is disappointing, as I understand it, that Welsh Government still does not subscribe to making improvements to World Health Organization standards on air quality, merely the EU standards, although you do touch on it in your statement—that you'll be guided, rather than actually saying you will want to hit those targets. Can I understand why you will not set yourself that very stretching target that the World Health Organization has, as opposed to, obviously, the EU targets that you've set yourself against?

We are all supportive of greater access to public transport, but there is a very clear divide between the country and the town. In many instances, in country locations, regrettably, there isn't a public transport option. So, I would be most interested to know how you will create the policy area that will make those improvements where public transport exists so that they are a valuable alternative to using private cars, without penalising people in rural locations, where, very often, the only mode of transport that they do have is via a private motor car that's parked on their drive.

I think that it's important now, obviously, as you said, that people do engage with this consultation and, ultimately, that we do see a response form the Government that does map out the future of this particular area. We cannot carry on having statistics from Public Health Wales that highlight that between 1,400 and 2,000 premature deaths a year are linked to poor air quality. I do refer back to that opening statement that I made in this statement, about how the inequalities—. If you live in a poor area, there is a 60-66 per cent chance of you dying of respiratory failure, as opposed to an 11 per cent chance if you live in a leafy suburb. That is an inequality that we cannot stand by and allow to continue.

My colleague David Melding, in his urban renewal paper that he brought forward some 18 months ago, did highlight how ambitious the Welsh Conservatives are in this particular policy area, and how we would willingly work with the Welsh Government to create those clean air zones in urban settings and safe spaces around schools, so that come 2021, we are still not talking about this, we do have action, and we can point to areas in Wales that can be beacons of excellence, rather than those statistics that I used in my opening remarks, which show that, actually, air quality has deteriorated in Wales by 5 per cent in recent times, as opposed to other parts of the UK, where it's improved by 5 per cent.

Thank you, Andrew R.T. Davies, for that very long list of comments around the consultation that I have launched today. I will try my best to answer all your questions. I have to take task with him about his lambasting of the Welsh Government. It's good to see the British Lung Foundation here in Wales recognising the good work that we have been doing. I'm very pleased about the plan, whereas the Tories' plans in England were described by the British Lung Foundation as a missed opportunity with risks of going backwards. So, I'll just put that out there straight away. However, it is nearly Christmas, so I'm very pleased that you are happy to work with us around that.

Certainly, I do remember David Melding's paper, and I'm very happy to work with you. We don't have all of the answers. Certainly, this consultation, I hope, will bring forward some really good responses that we can take forward. We've had the programme, I'm launching the planned consultation today, and then we will have the clean air Act. I heard what Andrew R.T. Davies said about the Act, and the fact that we are not proposing it during this Assembly term. I have committed to producing a White Paper before the end of term. I know that you said that we will blame Brexit. Well, Brexit is a massive issue for my department. You know that my department is absolutely, completely embraced in European legislation and funding and regulation, et cetera. So, it has taken a focus away from things like this. I would love to bring a clean air Act forward this term, but I am committed to a White Paper.

I have to say, legislation isn't the answer to everything. We do have levers that we can use, and I think that we have made significant progress over the last couple of years. One of the things that we've been doing as a Welsh Government in relation to air quality and improving air quality is building an evidence base that we didn't have before. A lot of the time, we looked to the UK Government because they were the ones with all of the evidence. But, I think that we now have the climate emergency, we have the biodiversity issues that you referred to, and the air quality. While there is overlap, they are three very separate things that we have to bring together.

Some of the things that we have been doing—. You'll be aware that local authorities currently have powers to introduce low-emission zones, for instance, and clean air zones, so that is already available; they don't need further legislation to be able to do that.

You referred to incineration. Obviously, waste doesn't sit with me, but I've had several discussions with Hannah Blythyn, the Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government around incineration and what we can do. And, of course, we are a responsible nation. We have to deal effectively with our non-recyclable waste in a way that prevents it from polluting the environment or sees the problem being exported. I think that it's very important that we take that responsibility. So, while the incineration of waste material for heat and power is higher up the statutory waste hierarchy, if you like—it's above landfill—I think it is a transitionary step. We need to find a solution to move away from single-use plastics, for instance, and I know the Minister is looking at banning or restricting certain single-use plastic products. 

You raise a very important point about woodland. We haven't been planting the number of trees that we would have liked to have done, but again, you will see an increase in that, because I'm ensuring that that does occur.

In relation to domestic combustion, this is a really interesting area, because obviously that's indoors, that's where people are, and unfortunately the air can be polluted. So, I've been asked the question, 'Are you going to ban wood-burning stoves?' No, we're not. But, what we need to look at is the fuel that's used. So, for instance, we are looking to ban wet wood because we know that the fire obviously has to work even harder to produce the heat, so to look at people using dry wood. If people use wood with varnish or paint on, for instance, that can obviously increase the chemicals. So, I'm going to consult on proposals shortly to ban or restrict the sale of wet wood and traditional coal also, because we know some of the Welsh anthracite smokeless coal, for instance, is actually considered to be a clean product. 

In relation to the World Health Organization guidelines, I know that you have raised this with me before and I think I answered that we don't know yet whether it's possible to achieve the WHO guidelines absolutely everywhere across Wales, or how it could be achieved at all, really. So, we are looking at that. We do comply with current legislative limits for particulate matter in Wales, but if you look at the guidelines, I think that's about 50 per cent more that we need to look at. So, it's something that we will look at very, very closely. Again, we'll consult on new targets for particulate matter in Wales, and that will take account of the WHO guidelines as part of the development of a clean air Act for Wales. 

Your last question around transport—you'll be aware that the Minister for Economy and Transport will be brining forward a transport strategy that will have a focus on rural areas. He's also got the buses Bill coming forward. I absolutely agree, we want to see behavioural change with people from that mode, from the car to public transport, but for that to happen, the public transport has to be there. So, again, I've been having discussions with the Minister about all aspects, also around taxis, for instance, and using more low-carbon cars. So, once the strategy is published, you'll be able to see the link between those. 

Can I thank the Minister for her statement on the clean air plans? Obviously, as chair of the cross-party group on a clean air Act for Wales, I want to see an Act, basically. I commend what the Minister says as far as it goes, but I think we need urgent action now. The time has come for urgent action, because this rim of air that we breathe is only 10 miles deep. We have to look after it, you know. When we talk of space travel and distance to planets and stuff, we're talking billions of miles and light years and stuff, but the air we breathe is only 10 miles deep. We have to look after it. 

Now, of course, we've had, going back in history, original clean air Acts that reflected the suffocating fatal smogs and pea soupers in London in 1952 and other large cities in the 1940s and 1965s, Manchester and Liverpool. Legislation to produce smokeless fuels then arrived. Obviously, the air cleaned, but there's still pollution there, it's just that the difference now is we can't see it. But our foot has literally gone off the pedal because we're no longer being blinded by those pea soupers. And obviously, the other anomaly was that producing the smokeless fuels for London meant that we managed the transfer of that solid particulate air pollution that was in London, we transferred it to Abercwmboi in the Cynon Valley, that was tasked with producing the smokeless coke fuels instead—a bit of irony.

But anyway, that, along with the legacy of heavy industry and their pollution, and we still see it with open-cast coal and the steel industry and heavy metals like nickel, they're still swooning around the lower Swansea Valley—. So, it's not just the history of pollution that is still very much alive. Obviously, as has been said, we're still producing it as well, actively, with rogue road traffic accidents and road traffic distributions of all sorts. We have huge delays on the M4 at the best of times. 

Now, we have declared a climate emergency, we have the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and we have serious levels of air pollution damaging health and killing people now, today. That's 2,000 deaths per year in Wales. We have increasing asthma levels, we have increasing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease levels, we have a legacy of pneumoconiosis from the miners, silicosis from our quarry workers, asbestosis still lingers around, and we have increasing rates of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis—idiopathic is Latin for 'We don't know the cause', but I suspect one of these days we'll find the cause to be air pollution, largely caused by our cavalier attitude to air pollution over the generations. Inhaled particulate matter 2.5 particles are killers, nitrogen dioxide also is a killer, nanoparticles of plastics can get absorbed into our blood system, into our circulatory system and heart. So, we have the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013, which needs a serious step-change in action. So my first question is: what is the Minister doing to help realise that step-change in legislation we already have?

In addition, as we've heard—. Over the years, I've been involved in at least two campaigns to halt incinerator developments—in Crymlyn Burrows near Swansea and also now in Llansamlet in Swansea. Will the Minister agree—? She's heard the other comments about proposed incinerators in other areas, in Usk and in Barry, not just the Llansamlet one; will you agree on a moratorium on building incinerators, at least in residential areas and near schools? Because, if there's a climate change emergency and if we're talking about all these deaths from air pollution, surely we can do something about it.

And, as I've said, I personally favour legislation. There's nothing like the back-up of the law to make sure that people act rather than plans, however well-meaning. A clean air Act to enshrine in law World Health Organization air quality guidelines; a clean air Act to mandate Welsh Government to produce a statutory air quality strategy every five years; a clean air Act to provide a legal statutory duty on local authorities to monitor air pollution, to assess air pollution, to take air pollution seriously, and to take action against it, to take seriously air pollution concerns in planning applications; and we need a clean air Act to introduce a right to breathe, whereby local councils have to tell vulnerable groups when certain levels are breached. Can I invite the Minister to agree to that last point?

And so, finally, as everybody bleats that the health service costs increasing amounts of money year on year, nobody believes in investing in changing behaviour to stop people getting ill in the first place. No, we just slag off the NHS for hoovering up money, when the health service has to tackle the problems that Governments should stop happening in the first place. So, we have an obesity agenda that causes increasing diabetes and increasing cancers, well, legislate in schools for 120 minutes of physical activity per week, then. Ban advertising and junk food. Channel a Welsh sugar tax to this education agenda. Don't slag off health for having to deal with the consequences. And, as regards air pollution, yes, legislate to form a clean air Act, to tackle those increasing asthma rates, to tackle the suffering from COPD, those increasing levels of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the damage to growing children's lungs. We no longer tolerate dirty water, we should no longer tolerate dirty air.

The Welsh Government has been tasked with reducing emissions in the quickest way possible after being found in breach of EU regulations nearly two years ago—23 months ago, to be precise. Let me not be accused of exaggerating the issue. Nearly two years ago, it was found guilty of breaching EU regulations on air pollution. Why hasn't Welsh Government proposed for this Chamber to sit an extra day in order to bring forward policies and frameworks set in this plan to address the public health crisis that air pollution presents today? Two thousand deaths per year in Wales. If that was a drug, if that was a tablet, we'd be jumping up and down to ban it and sort it out within a matter of days or weeks. There's a plan and a White Paper, and perhaps legislation in 18 months. The challenge is dire. The time is now. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you, Dai Lloyd, for that contribution. I think we have made significant progress over the previous two years, and you will have heard my answer to Andrew R.T. Davies about the non-legislative options that we have and that we've implemented. I have committed to bringing a White Paper forward, and I also set out in my oral statement the actions that we'll be taking forward.

I think you make a very important point about behavioural changes. And I've just been at Conference of the Parties 25 in Madrid for a couple of days, and it was really interesting talking to my counterparts from all over the world about behavioural change. I think it's really important that we learn from each other, and we see what happens if you don't take the public with you. And I think, in Wales, we've got a good record to tell about behavioural change. If you think about recycling, we were next to bottom in the recycling league table 20 years ago when devolution began. We're now third in the world. And that is because of leadership, I think, from Welsh Government and funding, our local authorities engaging, and, most importantly, the public also doing so. If you think of organ donation—again, we really lead the way on behavioural change, so I think it's really important that we make people aware of the dangers of poor air quality, and that they understand the actions that we can all take, and it is sometimes difficult to think about what changes you can make in your own life to improve it. So, I set out in my oral statement the work we will be doing around behavioural change. I think people are getting to the stage now where they don't want be told what they can't do; they want to be told what they can do. So, I think it's really important that we enable them to do so.

You refer to our heavy industrial heritage and around coal, and you'll be aware that, now, coal extraction has reduced to a level where there are relatively few active opencast coal sites operating in Wales. But we do recognise that our industrial heritage was built on coal, and it still plays a very important part in Welsh life. So, what we need to do is find low carbon alternatives to coal, both for energy and other industrial usage. So, we do need that rapid transition to clean energy industries. But I think we need to do it in a way that it preserves and protects the places where people live and work.

You referred to the M4. You'll be aware that the Burns commission is currently undertaking a piece of work for the First Minister. I'm sure air quality will be part of—. We need to look at part of the solution for the M4, and, obviously, air quality, and improving air quality needs to be done.

You'll be aware of the five nitrogen dioxide—we've put 50 mph in five zones to reduce nitrogen dioxide, and, certainly, the interim data that the Minister for Economy and Transport received showed improvements now that those 50 mph zones have been put in place, and I do hope that continues.

Around active travel, we are putting in record amounts of funding into active travel, and you'll be aware the First Minister launched the low carbon delivery plan back in March, and I asked all Ministers to look at those plans and proposals in there to see if they needed to be updated in light of the climate emergency, but air quality absolutely sits there as well, and active travel is somewhere where I know the Minister for Economy and Transport and the deputy Minister put increased funding.

Around incineration, that sits with the Deputy Minister for Housing and Local Government, and I know she has been asked to look at a moratorium, and I'm sure she will update us in due course.

Planning clearly has a massive role to play. And, again, air quality and soundscape was addressed in the new 'Planning Policy Wales' that was issued last December. It's a key component of the natural and the built environment, and it places the issues on an equal footing with other objectives, such as housing, transport and economic development.

I welcome this statement by the Minister this afternoon. Air pollution is one of the biggest issues of our time, and a significant public health issue. Throughout the world, we're not only warming the atmosphere as a result of greenhouse gas emissions, but we're also damaging our most-needed lifeline: the air that we breathe.

In Newport West, areas like Caerleon, which, from its historic significance, has narrow roads, an increasing population and poor public transport options—that creates a perfect storm of air pollution. In Newport, we also have the M4 running through the heart, which is in close proximity to houses and schools, and where idling traffic regularly sits. And I'm glad that you've already mentioned that this will be on the agenda of the Burns commission. Newport City Council have worked hard to bring forward proposals to improve air quality in our city, but there is still much more that can be done.

Action to reduce traffic near our schools is a must. Last week, pupils from Maesglas Primary School in my constituency held a climate change protest along a busy road near their school, calling for change. And it's our duty to listen and to respond to these calls.

Small measures can help. For example, idling traffic is often the biggest contributor of air pollution outside schools. Just a minute of an idling engine can fill 150 balloons with exhaust fumes. So, for those who absolutely have to drive at that moment, encouraging them to switch off their engines when they're parked up will help reduce air pollution.

Another relatively simple measure that can make a huge difference is tree planting. Urban trees are particularly effective at absorbing carbon dioxide, with one study showing that urban green zones absorb as much carbon dioxide as rainforests. We know the ambition of the Welsh Government on planting trees, but more can and must be done, quicker and faster. For many schools, there are no trees or hedges as a barrier to the road. Measures like that could help with pollution levels, and help to disperse fumes. Could the Minister outline what plans the Welsh Government has to work with schools and community groups to encourage them to plant more appropriate trees within their grounds?

And I’m also very pleased to see that this consultation will review the powers local authorities have to tackle emissions from indoor burning of fossil fuels, such as wood and coal. Indoor pollution is a significant issue, and something that's very often overlooked. And I'd also like to welcome the inclusion in the consultation of bonfires and fireworks, and the contribution they make to levels of harmful emissions.

Finally, the 2019 Welsh index of multiple deprivation has shown that areas of poor deprivation also have poor levels of air quality. There are pockets in my constituency that are amongst the most deprived in Wales. How will the Minister be working with her colleagues across Welsh Government to address this inequality?

Thank you, Jayne Bryant. You will have heard my answer to previous colleagues around the M4, but I do think it is important that the commission will consider all problems and opportunities and challenges and objectives for tackling congestion around the M4. And I understand there will be an interim report—I think it's before the end of this year, which, obviously, I will watch with interest.

Around air quality and schools, again, it's a very important point. And if you look where we spend our time, we spend our time indoors—and I'll come back to what you were saying about domestic combustion—and also in the workplace, and, of course, outside—places like schools. So, you'll be aware of our statutory guidance to local authorities—we published that back in 2017—which recognised schools and active travel routes, amongst others, as sensitive receptor locations. And we know that we've—. We've given guidance so that local authorities have to take a risk-based approach in siting their monitors. They need to be informed by where the evidence indicates people are likely to be exposed to the highest levels of air pollution, and, clearly, schools is an area where this needs to be done. I mentioned that we've already got levers, and local authorities have powers—particularly around engine idling; I think that's a very important point that you raised.

Tree planting—again, other Members have raised the issue that we're not planting enough trees, as we should be, but, as I say, we are making progress here. You'll be aware of the First Minister's manifesto commitment to a national forest. And within that national forest, we are looking at a concept called tiny forests, where you have an area the size of, perhaps, a tennis court, which can be used to plant trees to make that tiny forest. So, we're looking at, for instance, hospitals; schools would be an area where we perhaps could work, to see if that can be done.

Indoor pollution—I mentioned that we will be looking to ban wet wood, because we know that wet wood uses more—there needs to be more energy from the fire to burn it. So, we will be looking to do that. And in relation to some forms of coal being more polluting than others, we will be taking further advice on that, and consulting on proposals to restrict the use of bituminous coal going forward.

Around bonfire and fireworks, this is something that's raised with me quite often in relation to noise pollution. But, as you say, it can also obviously have an impact on air quality. So, again, I look forward to consultation responses around that. Across Government there are many—probably the majority of my Cabinet colleagues that I'm dealing with—. I mentioned before that 'Planning Policy Wales' had been changed at the end of last year to ensure it was looked at, and, clearly, with Ken Skates, around the transport strategy—I've had significant discussions with him around that, and I know he's launching the strategy in the very near future as to how we can address air pollution caused by transport.

But I go back to behavioural change. I think it's really important that we hear what people think they can do. And I think, looking at the consultation that I've launched today, and why I'm urging Members to encourage their constituents to put forward—perhaps individual constituents wouldn't think to put forward this sort of consultation. So, I think it's really important that we use existing organisations such as Healthy Air Cymru and the British Lung Foundation to help us with this plan.

Minister, can I commend the work of Healthy Air Cymru, which is the umbrella group campaigning for a clean air Act? And I think if you look at their literature and the campaign material you'll see clearly why we do need an Act to embed the World Health Organization air quality guidelines, to ensure that we mandate a strategy on air quality every five years, and also ensure there are statutory duties on local authorities. It's a very coherent approach and there's a cross-party consensus here that this is what we should have. So, I think many people are disappointed that we're not going to see this in this Assembly term. It was raised in the very early days of the Assembly, because you may recall clean air was not mentioned in the Government programme at all, and the Government, rightly, got a lot of criticism across the sector because of that.

Can I just say now more positively that, in our 'Liveable Cities' document, we also looked at the situation around schools in particular, because we think we can move here very quickly? Jayne Bryant mentioned idling cars—the whole issue of dropping off children immediately at the school, creating a huge level of pollution. And we don't have great data, so one thing we could have is all schools having to monitor the quality of the air, particularly around the drop-off points and any busy road. I think it's very important that we raise the bar here and ensure that our younger citizens have the right to the best possible quality air, and that's something you could do tomorrow, or at least start the process tomorrow.

Thank you, David Melding, and, obviously, my officials particularly have worked very closely with Healthy Air Cymru, and I was very pleased they welcomed the plan this morning and I'll certainly continue to work with them. I just mentioned, in my answer to Jayne Bryant, I think it's really important that we work with our stakeholders going forward.

The First Minister's manifesto commitment was to improve air quality through the development of a clean air Act for Wales. It would absolutely provide a formal mechanism, and I am committed to bringing forward a White Paper before the end of this term. But, as I say, we do have access to a wide range of levers to take forward action now to improve air quality, and local authorities currently have powers, for instance, to introduce low emission zones and clean air zones, either charging or non-charging. They do, again, have the powers to introduce fines for engine idling that you referred to as being an issue. But I do think we need to consider how we can enhance these powers through a clean air Act, and that is absolutely the intention of this Government.

Talking about schools, when I mentioned to Andrew R.T. Davies that I'd recently been in Madrid for COP25, which is still ongoing, one of the things I saw in Madrid was living walls. So, incredible, really high walls just covered in greenery and with irrigation in them, and you just wonder why we don't have more of those in this country, and that's certainly something I'd be very keen to take forward.

And you talked about the schools monitoring their air quality. I think I mentioned to Jayne Bryant that they need to take a risk-based approach in siting their monitors. They know the local population and the local area the best and they need to make sure they look at the guidance that we've given around schools and active travel routes.

Minister, can I welcome the statement you've made today, and can I welcome the decision of the Welsh Government to actually produce an action plan, because it is critical? I do note that it refers quite a few times to Port Talbot. As you fully understand, the implications for Port Talbot are huge. We have a motorway going through that. We have the steelworks and other industries within there. We have a combination of everything your plan says, in reality, and therefore I've got a few questions, and I'll try and keep to my two questions because I know the Deputy Presiding Officer would like a focus on questions at this point.

On the issues about 'Planning Policy Wales', you talked earlier in a response to that. It is important that we again get support on that, because it has to address how the local development plans will look at this question of air quality and air quality management, particularly in planning proposals that will include either incinerators or some form of aspect that will increase air pollution in that area, whether it be in a residential area or an industrial area. And, therefore, will you be looking at local authorities and asking them to review their LDPs to ensure that they're up to date to meet this plan?

Regarding motorways, as you've highlighted, the section on M4, junctions 41 to 42 in my area, is one of the roads that had to limit itself to 50 mph. Again, will you assure me, give me reassurances, that you're talking to the Minister to look at how you address that matter, because putting them off the M4 onto local roads is going to make air quality in the areas worse for the residents of those local roads, particularly children, as they're going to be walking along those roads to their schools? Therefore, it's not a solution; we have to find alternative solutions, rather than simply either closing junctions or taking traffic off the M4 and putting them on local roads. 

Andrew R.T. Davies highlighted the issue about public transport and, again, that's crucial. The Minister for Economy and Transport is going to be bringing forward a public transport Bill. Could you ask him to ensure that it meets this plan, because there are many areas where people don't have cars and the bus is the only option? If we're going to make sure that they can actually use the bus, they have to have a bus to use. Therefore, that Bill must ensure that it puts an onus upon areas that have no other alternative to cars other than a bus, and to ensure those buses are available.

I do welcome the review of the action plan for Port Talbot—it is time we had that—but can you also ensure that it looks at nuisance dust as well as the PM10s, PM2.5s and nitrogen dioxide? Because, whilst people might think that's not necessarily a health issue in one aspect, it's the well-being of people as well we need to address, and it does impact upon my constituents heavily in that area.

I welcome the indoor pollution reference in the statement and we need to publicise that more, because I was up the attic only last week, getting Christmas decorations down. When you look at the plan and what areas actually affect indoor properties, you start to realise how we can all be affected by something simple, but people might not know that. I was unaware of some of the points in that plan. 

Behavioural change is important, but we need alternatives if you want behavioural change, and that's the problem. Sometimes, we do not have those alternatives available for behavioural change to occur. I think I'll end there. 

Thank you. [Laughter.] 

Thank you, Dai Rees, for those points. I'll just refer to Port Talbot and Tata Steel and, obviously, the Member never misses an opportunity to speak to me about air quality in Port Talbot. As you know, the short-term action plan was put in place to specifically prevent exceedances to legal limits and safeguard residents' health. We've never exceeded European legal limits for particulate matter in Port Talbot; I think it's very important to make that point. However, like many of these things, it's about perception, and I know that you've had concerns that your constituents have had a lot of dust. I think Dai Lloyd made a very important before that it's the stuff that we can't see that causes the most problems, not that we can see. However, the perception is that that is really damaging.

I think you're right about the 50 mph zone; you don't want to get perverse results. As the transport strategy comes forward—I think the Minister is bringing that forward next week—we can certainly ensure that this plan fits into that strategy. I think it's very important that that is the case, and also the public transport Bill, because you're right: we can't expect behavioural change if that form of travel is not there for that person. I mentioned in an earlier answer to Andrew R.T. Davies about the rural areas of Wales that, if you haven't got the public transport infrastructure in place, then people are not going to make that modal shift from the car.

There's also the economic impact, I think, to consider around public transport because, if people look at the cost and it's so much cheaper to go in the car, again, that will definitely affect people, and also, if you're sitting on a bus and you're sitting in a bus behind 200 cars, you're going to think it's not worth it. However, if there's a bus lane and you're able to go in the bus lane and be much quicker—. I think it's just simple things because, as I said, I think Wales has really led the way on behavioural change in relation to recycling and organ donation, so I think we can do it here as well.

Oh, sorry, you asked me about planning as well, and I mentioned that 'Planning Policy Wales' had been changed, but it is important that local authorities look at this clean air plan going forward to ensure that it fits in.

Okay. We have reached the time, but I've got two more speakers and I'm sure that they will only ask questions. Huw Irranca-Davies. 

I always get to this point. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I give a broad welcome to the statement and the announcements today, but, like many individuals and organisations outside, this is a bit like that 'Bake Off' moment, where they describe to us what they're going to do and we're licking our lips at it but we're waiting to see what actually comes out of the oven? So, there is a bit of anticipation on timescales and detail and so on going forward, which I'm sure will come. But could I just say—? I've said this before and I mean it absolutely thoroughly: this is our equivalent nowadays of the cholera epidemics in London in the mid-nineteenth century. The evidence clearly shows that this is a social justice issue and it shows what measures need to be taken. The question is now whether we are minded to move firmly and fast to actually take the necessary actions and the Minister has described some of that within her statement today and some of the ideas of what we could do. What we now need to do is actually to action them and get on with them. 

So, let me ask some specific questions here—and it is a social justice issue, because this affects by and large the most disadvantaged communities more heavily and it is the children in those schools in those. So, I'm going to focus on transport. First of all, I would ask the Minister: do we not now have to do what the active travel hierarchy says, which is to invest most in cycling and walking and public transport, and, actually, the little metal boxes that we're in—they're down the bottom of the list, not at the top of the list as they currently are? That's part of the sequence to doing this air quality issue because we've literally now—quite literally—driven ourselves into an air quality cul-de-sac where we're sitting in air-conditioned, surround-sound, heated-seat metal boxes, dropping our children off to school, competing like pinballs with other mums and dads to squeeze along zig-zag yellow lines, and then we bang our heads on steering wheels as we sit in another daily crush on the motorway or back road rush-hour rat runs on the way into work in towns and cities. Now, Chris Rea may happen to be one of the largest individual donors to the Conservative Party, but he was wise indeed when he said

'this is the road to hell.'

So, can we look at—? How soon can we look at introducing 20 mph default speed limits? We've talked about them. It's the right idea. We now need to get on with it. Why aren't school exclusion zones mentioned within this specifically? I hope you haven't ruled them out. I hope, in the consultation, school exclusion zones, where we can either say to parents, 'Do the walk or cycle or scoot to school with your children, accompany them'—like I did myself, I'm not speaking out of turn here—'or, alternatively, park elsewhere and stride'. The park and stride stuff that's been done by Sustrans, Living Cities and so on—

Yes. And finally.

And finally—. Finally—gosh, I always get to this point when I know others have spoken for—. Sorry. My final point, then, would be: have you had time to look at Sustrans's 20-minute neighbourhood planning principle proposals, which is the idea that no community in Wales should be developed where you are more than 20 minutes away by bike or cycle from all essential services? Because, in that regard, we can stop them driving everywhere and we can get to it without diminishing the air quality. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Follow the evidence: let's do it.

The Member's passion is very clear, as always. So, we're already bringing forward a broad range of actions. We've been implementing them and obviously we know we need to go further. This is a 12-week consultation. Nothing has been ruled out and, as I said to colleagues from the Welsh Conservatives, I'm very happy to listen to anybody's ideas to make sure that this plan brings about the improvement that we want to see in relation to air quality. You focused more or less on transport and I think you're very correct to do that. Active travel is clearly an area where we need to improve and we have improved. I mentioned in an earlier answer that the Minister for Economy and Transport and the Deputy Minister have put forward significant additional funding around active travel for this purpose. The transport strategy that the Minister will be bringing forward looks at specific modes of transport. It includes, obviously, buses, and there will be a public transport and buses Bill. We're looking at taxis. I know that in Cardiff they're looking to replace the current taxi fleet to have much lower carbon emissions.

Many of the actions are within the context of decarbonisation of transport, because we know that improving that air quality by reducing emissions is the right way and it will be a key pillar in the development of the transport strategy going forward. We need to encourage a shift from an over-reliance on cars. You're quite right. I couldn't possibly quote what you said, but certainly we need to be looking at walking, cycling and public transport, but that infrastructure has to be there for people to use it. In my earlier answer to Dai Rees I was saying that there's also an economic aspect to this because we go back to those areas of deprivation. We need to make sure that that public transport is affordable.

I just want to emphasise my disappointment that we aren't going for a clean air Act in this Assembly, because it is in the manifestos of all three main parties for this general election, so there is huge consensus around this and, therefore, I wonder why it isn't possible to move forward on something that we can all agree on. It's also in the Liberal Democrats' manifesto as well. 

Not repeating what other people have already said, picking up on Jayne Bryant's point about the lack of hedges around schools to protect them from air pollution, can we therefore ensure that all local authorities are stopping the indiscriminate spraying of pesticides around school perimeters, because that makes it impossible to produce these hedges if they're then being killed off?

The other thing, picking up on an idea in the Green Party's manifesto, is the importance of ensuring that new housing developments aren't built in areas where there is no ready access to public transport. My question, apart from the one back to the local authorities, is: once we've re-regulated bus services and we now have Transport for Wales commissioning train and bus services, is it the aspiration of the Government to make travelling by public transport cheaper than travelling by car?

So, if I can just start with the last part of Jenny Rathbone's question, you will have heard me just say in answer to Huw Irranca-Davies that is really important, because people have to consider how much public transport costs, if they've got a car, compared with the car. So, we absolutely have to look at that.

I am aware that a clean air Act is in several of the parties' manifestos. I have looked at that and I think most of them don't give timescales for it. Obviously, it was a manifesto commitment of the First Minister. I have committed to bringing forward a White Paper. The reality is—. And I know Andrew R.T. Davies said, 'Oh, you'll blame Brexit', but that has been an issue for my department. We may need to bring forward emergency legislation in order to pay farmers, for instance, next year. I don't what the impact on the legislative programme is going to be if we do leave the European Union. So, I think we have to be pragmatic about this. I think it's very important that we bring the White Paper forward, but I also think it's very important that people recognise that legislation is not the answer for everything and we do need to use the levers that we have.

We need to have a focus, I think, on behavioural change. Having been at COP25 in Madrid for a couple of days—and I've met with many of my ministerial counterparts from around the world—it's really interesting that there has been a significant focus on behavioural change and enabling people to make those changes: not telling them what they can't do, but telling them what they can do, and I will continue to do that. Obviously, raising awareness with people is really important and very much a part of the plan.

In relation to your question around pesticides and schools, I will write to the Member about that. I'm not aware of anything specific that I've written to local authorities about, but I will certainly write to the Member about that.

Thank you very much, Minister. Thank you.

Item 4 on the agenda is a statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government—child poverty progress report 2019. I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government, Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. This morning, I laid a copy of the Welsh Government’s progress report on tackling child poverty. The results make difficult reading. The headline figure—and the one I'm sure that Members today will all want to focus on—shows that child poverty in Wales has risen. This inescapable fact is something that should concern each and every one of us. 

In a rich, developed country like the UK, almost a third of children are living in poverty. It is a sobering statistic and a sad indictment of the inequality that has been allowed to take root across the UK over the last decade. There is no doubt that child poverty is rising in Wales because of the actions taken by the UK Government over the last decade. A decade of austerity cuts that have reduced the funding available for vital public services and a decade of cruel welfare cuts that have transformed what should be a safety net into a punishment system for those who rely on the state to help them in their hour of need. Reforms that have withdrawn child support from a third child, that have wrongly judged the disabled and long-term sick to be well enough to work, and created a sanctions regime that has driven unknown numbers to suicide. Reforms that have forced people to pay for having the luxury of a spare bedroom and have seen the use of food banks mainstreamed for millions.

Deputy Presiding Officer, when we look more closely at this report, it shows that where the Welsh Government has taken direct action to influence the lives of families and children throughout Wales, our policies are having a positive impact on the root causes of poverty and inequality. Our economic inactivity rate has fallen by five percentage points—double the rate for the UK since devolution. The number of workless households in Wales has fallen by more than 18 per cent. The employment rate here in Wales is now higher than the UK as a whole, and the percentage of working adults with no qualifications is falling.

The evidence shows that key Welsh Government programmes are making a difference by mitigating the impact of poverty, helping people to find and stay in work, and are providing support through the social wage, worth £2,000 a year to some households. But with 29 per cent of children in poverty in Wales, the action we can take can only ever mitigate what has become a deliberate policy intention of this and former UK Conservative Governments to increase inequality across the UK.

The independent Resolution Foundation has projected that by 2022, the UK Government’s policies will lead to 37 per cent of children in the UK living in poverty. This is higher than in any other period since the second world war. This is a shameful epitaph to be placed on the record of the UK Government. We won’t stop working to make families’ lives better in Wales, and we will use every lever we have to build greater resilience to support people and communities. As a Welsh Government, we can make a real difference to those families living in poverty in Wales, but we cannot undo this fundamental inequality that is being imposed on us from beyond our borders.

We will look again at everything we are doing as a Government—our activities, our policies and our priorities—to ensure that we do everything within our powers to support our most vulnerable citizens in these most uncertain of times. As part of this work, we have asked the Wales Centre for Public Policy to explore the case for the devolved administration of aspects of the benefits system. In taking this forward, we will look at the recent work by the Equalities, Local Government and Communities Committee about the future of welfare benefits in Wales. We've already started to outline some core principles for change, including compassion, fairness, dignity and understanding, with the aim of taking a more citizen-centred, humane approach.

I am leading a review of the programmes and services we fund to ensure that they have maximum impact on the lives of children living in poverty. This work will help to inform how we prioritise our funding to support programmes going forward. This review will take place alongside the planning of our budget priorities for 2020-21 through a poverty lens. Throughout the review process, we will ensure that the voices of those with a lived experience of poverty will inform the options going forward. It will also be informed by the findings and recommendations of a range of stakeholders, and through working closely with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, the Bevan Foundation, the End Child Poverty Network and Chwarae Teg. 

We will take on board research and analysis by organisations such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Oxfam and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The final report will include proposals for a future programme of activity and a timetable for that delivery based on the recommendations, and I will make a further announcement once the review is complete in the spring.

It is more important than ever that we focus the collective impact of our devolved powers to deliver on our priority of tackling poverty. We know this will not be easy. I welcome this progress report, despite the difficult messages it contains. It sets out our achievements as well as the scale of the challenge that we still face in Wales, and shows the continued commitment of the Welsh Government to make a difference. Importantly, it will act as a benchmark for measuring our renewed efforts for ensuring that all children in Wales have the opportunity to live enriched lives and reach their full potential. I commend this report to the Assembly. Diolch.

The fact that child poverty in Wales has risen should, as the Minister says, concern each and every one of us. But I wonder if she could tell me why she states that the employment rate in Wales is now higher than the UK as a whole, when the latest figures published by the Senedd Research Service show that the employment rate in Wales is lower than in Scotland, England and the UK as a whole, and doesn't mention that those same figures show that economic inactivity was up 24,000 to 441,000, or failed to mention that Wales, after two decades of Labour Government, has the lowest wages across the GB nations.

You refer to the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee report about the future of welfare benefits in Wales. As a party to that report, I won't comment. I look forward, however, to hearing how the Welsh Government responds.

You refer to austerity cuts, well, my dictionary describes 'austerity cuts' as not having enough money, and, as such, that was an inheritance, not a choice. We know that, because of the actions taken since 2010, public spending can now begin to increase significantly again. Why do you instead champion the economic policies favoured by those high-deficit countries that tried to defy and deny austerity and ended up having far, far, far higher cuts imposed on them—exactly what your party's proposing at UK level now, in bigger interest rates and the sort of austerity we haven't seen here since the second world war?

Now, as I said, Wales has had a Labour Government for over two decades. Why did you fail to mention figures before 2010? Even before the financial crash, official figures show that Wales had the highest child poverty levels in the UK: 29 per cent in 2007; 32 per cent in 2008, even before the crash. In 2012, child poverty snapshots from Save the Children said that Wales had the highest poverty and severe child poverty rates of any nation in the UK, and in May this year, the End Child Poverty Network reported that Wales was the only UK nation to see a rise in child poverty last year to 29.3 per cent.

In fact, the UK policy matters—. Those are official figures, please check them. The UK policy matters you refer to apply, of course, across the UK, but only Wales has a Labour Government. You state that evidence shows that key Welsh Government programmes are making a difference by mitigating the impact of poverty. Will you, therefore, apologise, for example, for the Child Poverty Action Group's poverty facts summary published in May, which said that Wales had the highest overall poverty rate in the UK in 2018, or for the findings of the Joseph Rowntree report on poverty in Britain published last December that said that of the four countries of the UK—all of which had the same UK Government policies affecting them—Wales has consistently had the highest poverty rate for the past 20 years, not simply nine?

Wales, as we know, is referred to in many other reports. The End Child Poverty Network Cymru has been calling for some time on the Welsh Government to produce a new child poverty strategy with more ambitious targets to eliminate child poverty. In May, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Dr Steffan Evans, officer—. In an article for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Dr Evans from the Bevan Foundation argued that child poverty is still a significant issue in Wales and that there has been a 'Lack of joined-up thinking', whereby the Welsh Government's poverty alleviation policy has 'not been working in harmony' with other areas such as housing. And, of course, the Children's Commissioner for Wales said in March that the Welsh Government should write a new child poverty delivery plan, focusing on 'concrete' and 'measurable steps'.

Why has the Welsh Government failed to support calls for any appropriate plan, as debated in an individual's debate earlier this year? And how does she respond to calls by the sector, recognising that the Welsh policy levers that the Welsh Government has within its power are exactly the area they would like to focus their influence on, as they agree there are powers the Welsh Government can and should be using to tackle the root causes of poverty? That was stated in recent months, not a decade ago.

You state that throughout the review process, you will ensure that the voices of those with a lived experience of poverty will inform the options going forward. Seven years ago, the Welsh Government rejected the Wales Council for Voluntary Action's 'Communities First—A Way Forward' report, which found that community involvement in co-designing and co-delivery of local services should be central to any successor lead tackling poverty programme. And, after spending £0.5 billion on that programme, the Welsh Government then phased it out, having failed to reduce the headline rate of poverty or increase relative prosperity in Wales. As the Bevan Foundation said, if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don't work, and a new programme should be produced with communities, not directed top down.

How, therefore, do you respond to the statement by Carnegie Trust in their latest report on turnaround towns that the enabling state approach, such as moving from target setting to outcomes, top-down to bottom-up, representation to participation, is the way of moving forward from the status of provider of welfare towards a more enabling style of Government, with a shift in the relationship between citizens, community and the state, where communities are best placed to bring a wealth of local knowledge and collective energy to the decisions that affect them?

Finally, how do you respond to the evidence available from the Co-production Network for Wales that we need to measure what matters? Their toolkit says that it matters most to the people that your activity supports that the people co-design as well as participate in the evaluation. So, how will the child poverty review lead that you're currently seeking to employ be seeking to apply those new lessons, or old lessons, to ensure that the needs that continue after two decades are finally addressed in a way that tackles the causes and not simply pays for the symptoms?     

Mark Isherwood asked me how I respond to a whole series of statistics that he read out. I respond in this way: the people who should be apologising for these appalling figures are the Conservative Government, who have implemented the most heartless, pitiless, merciless regime of universal credit that the world has ever known—[Interruption.] Let me quote you some statistics. [Interruption.] Let me quote you some statistics.

The current level of benefit is 12.5 per cent of an average wage. In 1948, when the welfare state was created by the Labour Party, it was 20 per cent. In the Elizabethan era, in 1599, under the poor laws, it was 16.5. So, congratulations, you have lowered—lowered—the standard of living for poor people in this country from where it was in the Elizabethan era. You are the people who should be apologising, not this Government.

This Government has done an enormous amount to mitigate the effects of a cruel and heartless Tory Government that has imposed a bedroom tax—a bedroom tax. How long after your child has died do you have to start paying more money on the room that they have vacated? How long? Do you know? No, I doubt it. How long before you accept that a woman with three children—three children—has to prove that she was raped to get support for that third child? How dare you tell me to apologise for anything. You should be ashamed.

I welcome the honesty in the statement that child poverty has risen and is projected to continue to rise. It's definitely the case that the social security cuts and wider austerity agenda of the Tories has been a big factor in this. There's no doubt about that. However, the Minister will also be aware that research by Loughborough University has singled out Wales as the only nation experiencing a rise in child poverty in recent years.

We don't accept that the Welsh Government has done all that it can. Indeed, there have been examples where the Welsh Government has made proposals that would have made things worse had they been implemented: the proposal to cut the school uniform grant; the reduced threshold for free school meals. Wales, of course, was the only country not to retain the family fund in its previous format, which saw thousands of families with disabled children lose out.

We can also point to the many committee reports that have made serious and significant recommendations for the Welsh Government to make things better. But, I don't really want to dwell on all of this. Instead, I have a number of questions, looking to the future. Given that many of the welfare cuts were started under Labour in Westminster when Tony Blair gave Lord Freud his first ministerial job, do you accept that you need to have administrative control over welfare if you are to seriously tackle the dishonesty of the Department for Work and Pensions when it comes to the assessments of disabled people, and to end the dishing out of sanctions like confetti?

Do you accept that you need to have a strategy for tackling and eliminating child poverty that includes smart targets and named responsibility for each action? And finally, do you think that you need to copy some of the legislation in Scotland and enshrine duties to tackle poverty and child poverty in law—duties that should be extended throughout the public sector and could, for example, be used to prevent schools demanding expensive clothes exclusively as uniform requirements, which is, I'm sure you would agree, scandalous?

On the administrative control, we have a report that we're awaiting from the Wales Centre for Public Policy. We have had the interim report, but we are expecting the final report shortly. So, once we've got that report, we are, of course, looking to see what that report tells us in terms of taking administrative control.

I share her wish to administer welfare benefits in a more humane fashion. I said so in my statement. We would very much like to see people who are entitled to benefits get them in the first place without having to go through the misery of an appeal and so on. But we also have to be very careful that, in doing that, we don't make the situation worse and that we are able to mitigate the sanctions and mandation system, which is driving so many people into despair in this country. So, I want to be very clear about what we want to achieve with that. And when we get the report we will certainly be sharing it with the Assembly and looking to see whether we can administer it in a more humane way.

In terms of a strategy, I personally have had discussions with the child poverty action group and the children's commissioner about what we mean by a strategy. I don't want to divert resources into collating something if it doesn't do something. What we need to do is make sure that our programmes are actually getting to the people who need them and that they're the most effective they can be. So, I'm leading a review across the Government of a whole series of our programmes to ensure that they continue to be fit for purpose, or whether they need to be changed, whether they need to have different targets. Because as the universal credit regime is rolled out, we need to hit a different tier of people.

The other disgraceful thing—I have to say an absolutely disgraceful thing—is the number of children who are in working households where they are still in poverty. Clearly, the universal credit system does not work. One of the things that people on the benches opposite never want to take any responsibility for is the level of local housing allowance, which we've discussed in this Chamber before, which has not been increased for four years, and which is driving huge numbers of people in the private rented sector into poverty as a result of having to top up their rent payments. The benches opposite could solve that tomorrow morning if they wanted to. They choose not to. So, there are a number of things of that sort that are very difficult to mitigate.

Leanne Wood will be aware that we are looking to make sure that people who live in the private rented sector have houses that are fit for human habitation, meet certain standards and are treated fairly by their landlords. These are the mitigation effects that we can do. Unfortunately, we cannot change the level of local housing allowance.

What we can do, though, is build a lot more social houses so that we can get people into the right sort of housing, and the faster we can do that the better. We're working very hard with councils right across Wales to get that programme running, now that we've got the Tory cap on the housing revenue accounts removed.

And in terms of the Scottish model, there are difficulties with Scotland. We're of course happy to learn from anyone who's able to do this effectively, but Scotland is encountering difficulties in what it's doing. We are very happy to learn from any country that's able to do this more effectively. The ones that are, of course, most effective are the ones that have proper progressive Governments, like those in Finland, where the tax system matches the need of public policy agenda. And that's what we would like to see when we have a Labour Government return to Westminster on Thursday.

Can I thank you for your statement, Minister, and the Welsh Government for its efforts in trying to tackle this issue? Because I think it is important to recognise the Welsh Government does not hold all the key economic levers in this situation, and that you've worked against that backdrop of Tory austerity that you've already referred to, and which as you rightly point out includes the callous welfare reforms responsible for much of the continuing scandal of child poverty, coupled with, as you've already highlighted, the in-work poverty of many working parents caught up in insecure low-paid employment.

Now, under the last UK Labour Government, contrary to what we heard from Mark Isherwood earlier, 600,000 children were lifted out of relative poverty, but under this Tory Government, to their eternal shame, it's now predicted that child poverty will rise to its highest level in 60 years. Indeed, in my own consistency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, child poverty remains amongst the highest in Wales, despite some significant improvements in area like the Gurnos.

Minister, given that women are still the primary carers in most families and households, it's crucial that we tackle women's poverty in order to tackle child poverty, and to make sure that our policies are informed by an understanding of the gender differences in both the causes and consequences of poverty. And I've picked up a few statistics that I think help to create a picture of that situation: 46 per cent of single-parent households in the UK are living in poverty, and 90 per cent of single parents are women. And 27.8 per cent of females are economically inactive, compared to 19.6 per cent of males, and this is four times more likely to be because they are looking after the family or at home.

Women also make up 58 per cent of working-age benefit claimants, so any changes or cuts to benefits and any long periods of waiting for payments are more likely to affect women. So, tackling these issues requires all of us in devolved and UK Governments to work together. And if we're going to make real progress, we need two Governments pulling together in a common cause to tackle poverty. But I have to say that, at the moment, it feels like Welsh Government is spending to mitigate the impacts of child poverty caused by the UK Government's policies and battling a UK regime that clearly does not share the same passion or priorities. And I hope, like you, Minister, that that will end on Thursday of this week. In developing our actions against child poverty, can you assure me that the Welsh Government's policies are also gender informed, given the statistics that I referred to earlier?

Yes, I'm very happy to assure Dawn Bowden that we're looking very carefully at that. That's one of the reasons that the former First Minister commissioned the gender review, of course, and we're taking forward phase 2 of the gender review. One of the primary findings of that gender review, which is no surprise to any of us, is that income inequality drives gender inequality, which drives domestic violence and other issues. Until you can get women earning at the right level, without the gender pay gap, you continue to have those problems. Let's be clear, we know, across the world, what is the most effective way of getting people out of poverty, and that's to educate and pay women properly. And so the Government needs to step up to that plate.

With the welfare reforms that we've had from the UK Government, of course we've moved money from the purse, as they used to say, to the wallet. So, you've actually taken money out of women's pockets and put it into that of the male head of the household. That also drives domestic violence, it also drives a woman's inability to leave a situation that's intolerable to her, and it drives the rise in single-parent families, because the levels of personal debt under the current Tory Government have skyrocketed as people fail to make ends meet. And personal debt drives insecure mental health and insecure mental health drives relationship breakdown. And so these things are not accidental. This is a deliberate policy by a Government designed to make working-class people poorer, let's be clear, and all of the attendant problems that go with that.

So, we have Boris the Prime Minister who, as elected mayor of London, cut police numbers very substantially, and is now pretending that he's going to put it back. It doesn't actually make up the numbers. And then we're all astonished that we have knife crime rising. We slash youth services, but we're astonished that we can't get children to attend properly schools and all the rest of it. We cut vital public preventative services but we're astonished that acute service provision rises.

Mark Isherwood has the brass neck to quote statistics at me about levels of pay in Wales whilst supporting a Government that cuts trade union rights and refuses collective bargaining to a large number of workers. I would suggest very strongly that there are a number of policies that work in many countries around the world where we do not have driving inequality, and I would highly commend the British public to vote Labour on Thursday so that we can become one in their ranks.

Can I welcome the statement by the Minister? Far too many children live in poor households. Tonight in Swansea some children will go to bed hungry. Even more mothers will go to bed hungry. Some will go to bed in a cold and damp house. Some children will change their school sometimes as often as every year as their parents move from one short-term privately rented house to another. There are now more children living in poverty in working households than in workless households, mainly due to the prevalence of low-paid, insecure work. What insecure work can mean is that someone has low guaranteed weekly hours, such as seven or 10 hours per week, possibly in a shop you'll be visiting in the run-up to Christmas. Most weeks they will work between 30 and 40 hours at the minimum wage and be able to survive. If they go back to their minimum guaranteed hours for one week, then they have a financial crisis. They'll have to access the food bank and be unable to afford either the rent or electricity tokens.

I will again press the Government for two actions that I believe will help alleviate this hardship. The first is to build large numbers of energy-efficient council houses. That will get people out of the very expensive damp and cold privately rented houses, which will then be able to go back into the private sector and become owner-occupied again.

Holidays are a time of great concern to parents. If you talk to parents in some of the poorer areas of Swansea, the thing they hate most is the summer holidays. Ten extra meals per child per week are needed. I will again ask the Welsh Government to fund free breakfasts and continue the free school meals through the school holidays, starting with the summer holidays next year. This would be the one action that would have the most beneficial effect on people living in poverty, which far too many of my constituents are.

Thank you for those points, Mike. It's well worth pointing out that the level of child poverty across the UK has risen. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 2018 report on child poverty, child poverty has been rising since 2011-12, which is an interesting correlation with the inception of a Government, and a total of 4.1 million children now live in relative income poverty—a rise of 500,000 in the last five years. So, I think it is clear that there are driving policies causing this.

Here in Wales we have a number of things that we're doing to tackle the inequalities that poverty brings. So, for example, since 2012 more than £475 million has been made available through the pupil development grant to support children and young people to reach their full potential. The school holiday enrichment programme has provided opportunities for children aged seven to 11 years from disadvantaged areas to be more active and, more importantly, as Mike points out, to eat healthily through the school holidays, develop friendships and make use of local school facilities during the summer holidays.

We are certainly looking at how we can extend the school holiday enrichment programme across Wales, because I absolutely accept Mike Hedges's point that a child that is hungry is not a child that's reaching its full potential. We're also supporting people into training and work, and our £12 million per annum Communities for Work Plus programme has supported a further 2,227 individuals into employment. But it's not just employment, is it? It has to be good employment. It has to be secure employment. It has to be employment that's not on a low guaranteed hour or, worse still, zero-hours contract. And for that we need different employment legislation at UK level. We need to make sure that people cannot be exploited and that, instead of regarding the people who are being supported by universal credit as the problem, we regard the businesses that don't pay them adequately as the problem, and we have a taxation system that properly reflects that. And to do that, we need a proper progressive Labour Government in power.

I'd like to thank you, Minister, for your statement here today. As you will know, Penrhiwceiber in my constituency was earlier this year identified as having the highest rate of child poverty in Wales, and I think that's a shameful indictment of a decade of Tory austerity. In the fifth-richest country in the world, there is no need for such suffering, but it's a suffering that's been engendered by the Tories' assault upon our welfare system.

I'd like to thank you for attending the round-table meeting that I organised in that proud and close-knit community of Penrhiwceiber back in September, and I know that you were impressed by the evidence presented to you there by community groups working so hard, often with Welsh Government money, to try and mitigate some of the worst impacts of child poverty. I know that those present at that meeting will be following today's proceedings carefully.

In your statement, you refer to the review of Welsh Government programmes and services that you're undertaking to ensure that they have maximum impact on the lives of children living in poverty, while recognising, of course, that most of the levers are outside of Welsh Government control. Are you able to provide us with any more detail on this, Minister, such as how the review will ensure that children's voices are heard front and centre? And will there be any focus on the impact of child poverty upon children's mental health? You will recall that we heard some quite startling evidence from schools present at that meeting about the mental health of children within that community, which I feel is closely linked to child poverty. What more could the Welsh Government do in this area?

Secondly, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. Do you agree with me, Minister, that by continuing to pursue welfare reforms such as universal credit, the bedroom tax, the two-child limit on tax credit, reforms that are scheduled to push an extra 50,000 children into poverty by the time that they are fully implemented, this inhumane Tory Government could be in breach of several articles of the UNCRC? And I refer in particular to article 26, which states that every child has a right to benefit from social security, a right that is currently being denied to the third or fourth children of such families, or to the children of those families who have to wait four, six, eight or even 10 weeks to access their first instalment of universal credit, and also article 27, which states that every child has the right to an adequate standard of living. What state have we come to, Minister, where the policies of the Government of the fifth richest country in the world could be seen to contravene this most important of human rights treaties, and what work are you and your colleagues in this Welsh Labour Government doing to impress the seriousness of this situation, not just on the UK Tory Government, but on the wider international community?

Finally, Minister, recognising that the greatest increase in child poverty is among working households, the very best way to lift children out of poverty is to enable their parents to access secure, well-paid employment. The excellent work of Communities for Work Plus and Parents Childcare and Employment has been widely documented in my community, but could you tell us a bit more about what other work you're doing with colleagues across Government to try and grow secure, well-paid employment opportunities within these communities most affected by child poverty, particularly within the south Wales Valleys?

Yes. It was a real pleasure to come up to your constituency and listen to a group of very committed people to discuss how we can get together and make sure that all of our policies hit the right people at the right time and how we can access them, and, actually, as a result of that meeting, we've initiated a number of actions across the Government to ensure that our policies line up nicely together, as it was highlighted there that we have very well-intentioned policies that don't always line up as nicely. So, that's one of the work streams that we're taking forward to make sure that people don't fall into the gaps between policies.

So, in terms of how the review is happening, over the next six months, we're reviewing all of the policies across the Welsh Government—it's quite a complex thing to do—to make sure that we know where they are, what they're doing and what they're supposed to do to ensure that we don't have any groups that are left out inadvertently as a result of that and then to talk about what we should do to transform them going forward. So, it's at that point that we'll want to take into account the voices of children and others, but we will be working closely with the commissioners and the human rights commission, Chwarae Teg and a number of other organisations to help us come to those conclusions, and also, of course, beside the Deputy Minister with the gender review, which is a very important part of this piece of work. So, it's about linking them together.

In the meantime, of course, we have a very large number of things that we do to support the health and well-being of low-income families. We have a £6.9 million Healthy Start voucher and nursery milk scheme, providing vouchers for pregnant women, new mothers and children under four from low-income households to get fruit and vegetables, milk and infant formula, plus free multivitamin supplements. I do want to emphasise that, because there are very worrying signs right across the UK of low birth weights in poor women, and we know that low birth weight has a massive effect on you for the rest of your life. So, it's really important to make sure that we get the right services to pregnant women to make sure that a poor diet doesn't affect the birth weight of their child and then its life chances. Isn't it appalling to be saying that, in the fifth richest country in the world, that that's something that we have to look at? Absolutely shameful. So, we are doing our best to make sure that we get those schemes out to the people who need them most.

Sixty thousand people are supported annually through the £126 million housing support grant to help prevent homelessness, because, again, high levels of personal debt and insecure housing drives people into homelessness—hidden homelessness often: not all rough-sleepers, but many people who are sofa surfing, haven't got a secure place to live, or, as Mike Hedges pointed out, are going from private rented to private rented very quickly. So, we have a whole range of legislative programmes designed to give people more security of tenure in their rented home and to make sure that that rented home is fit for purpose. And I will say at this point: to make sure that our good landlords that we have across Wales are recognised and appreciated and valued, I'm looking to put an awards scheme in for those very good landlords so that people can recognise who they are, and the managing agents that work with them, so that we can reward the good landlords and isolate those who don't behave in the right way, and our legislation will help us do that.

We also have an enormous number of other initiatives around a more generous social wage. So, these are cash equivalent services that have the effect of leaving money in the pockets of Welsh citizens. So, some families in Wales are around £2,000 a year better off as a result of things like the council tax reduction schemes, which of course reduces council tax liability for some of our most vulnerable households. It is very important to understand that we are really helping people with how much money they keep in their pocket. Because that's what you want: dignity, isn't it, and command of your own budget. One of the things that really annoys me is when I hear Tory Ministers saying that poor people don't know how to budget. They do know how to budget. My family knew how to budget. If they had to get by on what they got by on, they would know what budgeting is really about. 

We're also investing £104 million in the Warm Homes programme between April and March to deliver to another 25,000 homes of people on low incomes or living in deprived areas of Wales better heating. Because, as Mike Hedges has pointed out also, and I think you pointed out in your submission today, but it also came up in the round-table, if you're paying high bills to just keep your home above frost level and you don't have enough to eat and you're struggling to clothe your family, you're not in the best position to make the best of your potential and that means that you're not in the best position to look for work. This regime is actually stopping people being able to access good employment by not allowing them to put their best foot forward. It's completely the opposite of what we should be doing to assist people into well-paid work. So, I'll be delighted to work with you, Vikki, further on the round-table outcomes and with any other Member who wants to hold such a session in their constituency also.

Thank you very much, Minister.

Item 5 on the agenda this afternoon is the Non-Domestic Rating (Multiplier) (Wales) Order 2019 and I call on the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd to move the motion. Rebecca Evans.

Diolch. I move the motion to approve the Non-Domestic Rating (Multiplier) (Wales) Order 2019. The Order sets the multiplier for non-domestic rating purposes for 2020-21. In 2011, the Welsh Government set out its intention to change the measure of inflation used to calculate the multiplier in Wales from the retail price index to the consumer price index from 1 April 2018.

For 2018-19 and 2019-20 this was effected through Orders approved by this Assembly. This Order sets the multiplier for 2020-21 on the same basis. In order to be effective, this Order needs to be approved before the vote on the local government finance reports—the final local government and police settlements— for 2020-21.

The Non-Domestic Rating (Multiplier) (Wales) Order 2019 will set the multiplier for 2020-21 using the consumer price index rather than the retail price index. The Order will result in a smaller increase in the 2020-21 rates bills to be paid by businesses and other non-domestic property owners than would be the case if the RPI figures were used. Through our use of CPI, businesses and other ratepayers in Wales will benefit by a further £10 million in 2020-21. This is in addition to the benefits resulting from the change of indexation in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Our intention is to continue with the same approach in future years.

The Local Government and Elections (Wales) Bill, introduced on 18 November, contains provisions to make the change a permanent one. I'm grateful to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee for its consideration of the multiplier Order.

Non-domestic rates are largely devolved. Using CPI rather than RPI to calculate the multiplier limits the increases in rates bills that ratepayers would otherwise face. This change will help businesses and other ratepayers in Wales while maintaining a stable stream of tax revenue for local services. The change is fully funded by the Welsh Government and there'll be no impact on the funding provided for local services. I therefore ask Members to agree to approve the Order today.

Thank you. I call on the Chair of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Deputy Llywydd. I have a very short statement to make, because we considered this Order at our meeting on 2 December 2019 and we laid our report before the Assembly on 3 December 2019. Our report raised one merits point under Standing Order 21.3, which noted the decision made by the Welsh Government to use the lower consumer price index figure as part of the calculation of non-domestic rating bills rather than the default, and higher, retail price index figure. This mirrors the Welsh Government's approach in the equivalent Order from 2018.

Our report also notes that this Order was made under the made affirmative procedure. This means the Order, although having already been made, will not have effect unless it is approved by the Assembly and that approval must happen before the Assembly approves the local government finance report, which will take place in the new year. Diolch, Deputy Llywydd.

While we welcome the Welsh Government's decision to use the consumer price index rather than the retail price index, this will still see business rates rise for struggling businesses across Wales. Using CPI still results in a 1.7 per cent increase for business rates across Wales, and, at a time when businesses are struggling and our high street is in serious decline, the worst thing we can do is to raise business rates once more, even by any small amount. The Local Government Finance Act 2012 allows for a figure less than the retail prices index, so why then use CPI when we could have set a rate that would have frozen business rates, which would have stimulated the economy?

We welcome the fact that the increase is not as high as it could have been. However, our struggling high street and business owners across the nation still cannot afford this hike in business rates. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. Can I call on the Minister for Finance and Trefnydd to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. The multiplier is a key component of the NDR system and it determines the level of each non-domestic rates bill and thus the overall yield generated by the system, and it's really important to recognise and reflect on the fact that non-domestic rates do provide a significant contribution to the funding of local services in Wales, so over £1 billion a year. So, we do need to remember, when we are thinking about alternative approaches for business rates, that were we to suggest that there should be cuts in business rates then we need to also suggest where those cuts might fall. So, would it be schools? Would it be libraries? Would it be social care? These are genuine questions that need to be answered. But, in calculating the increases using CPI rather than RPI, we are ensuing that ratepayers will receive a lower bill than they otherwise would have done, and, of course, Welsh Government is maintaining its commitment to business rates relief, So, this year, for example, we have a £230 million investment in local businesses to ensure that, actually, half of businesses in Wales pay no rates at all. So, Welsh Government is very alive to the pressures that businesses are facing, but we do have in place a significant programme of reliefs, which are there to help business.

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

Item 6 on our agenda this afternoon is a debate on the Children's Commissioner for Wales's annual report, and I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services to move the motion—Julie Morgan.

Diolch. I'd like to start by thanking the children's commissioner for her tireless work on behalf of our children and young people. I know that Assembly Members will agree with me that the commissioner plays a crucial role as an independent champion advocating for children's rights and well-being.

As Deputy Minister leading the work across the Welsh Government on children's rights, I welcome the children's commissioner's annual report, its important recommendations, and her scrutiny of the Welsh Government. And it's particularly important to highlight the work of the commissioner this year, as 2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we have, as a Government, made every effort to mark. In Wales, we're extremely proud of our progress on children's rights, being the first UK nation to appoint a children's commissioner in 2001. We adopted the UNCRC as the basis for our work with children in 2004, and enshrined children's rights in law through the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure in 2011. And the Measure means that all Ministers are required, by law, to consider children's rights before making or reviewing our policies or legislation. This legislation ensures that children and their rights are at the heart of everything we do, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission recently concluded that the 2011 Measure had led to a significant positive impact on policy in Wales. They said:

'We have no reservations in concluding that the Measure has achieved its objective of embedding the Convention in policy-making in Wales.'

A very practical demonstration of our commitment to children's rights is our work to bring forward legislation to remove the defence of reasonable punishment. This is in line with our commitment to a child's right to grow up in a safe and nurturing environment. We believe that physically punishing children is simply not acceptable in Wales. Article 12 of the UNCRC emphasises the central importance of hearing and taking into account the views of children and young people when taking decisions that affect them. It's for this reason that we have introduced legislation to ensure that 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the Assembly election in 2021, and local government elections in 2022. I know these reforms are considered as radical by some, even controversial for some, but I think what we're doing is demonstrating our commitment to children's rights by making progress in these really crucial areas.

Let me now turn specifically to the commissioner's annual report and the Government's response to it. In this year's annual report, the commissioner has made 14 recommendations for the Welsh Government across children's services, health, education and transport. We published our response to the annual report on 3 December, which sets out our comprehensive response to each of the commissioner's recommendations as well as the actions we have taken or intend to take in these areas.

Our commitment to children's rights, I think, is clearly demonstrated by the Welsh Government accepting, or accepting in principle, 12 of the 14 recommendations in this year's annual report, and I think this shows the seriousness with which the Welsh Government takes children's rights and our absolute commitment to work very closely with the children's commissioner.

I know that Assembly colleagues will be keen to discuss the annual report and our response in more detail, but I'd like to highlight briefly one important example of the way in which we are responding positively to the recommendations in the annual report. This is in the crucial area of tackling bullying. This is an area that the children's commissioner has done a lot of valuable work in, and I know that many Assembly colleagues have got a very keen interest in this area of work. The children's commissioner's recommendation in this area calls for the Welsh Government to ensure that schools keep a record of all incidents and types of reported bullying. The commissioner would like to see all schools use this information to plan, monitor and evaluate their preventative and responsive anti-bullying work.

Now, the Welsh Government has accepted this recommendation. On 6 November this year, 2019, we published new anti-bullying statutory guidance, 'Rights, respect, equality', to help schools deal with bullying. This guidance sets out the expectation that schools record all incidents of bullying, outlining the specific types of bullying and that they monitor processes regularly and analyse data as part of their self-evaluation. The guidance is clear that schools should respond to specific trends and emerging issues in a swift and effective manner, in consultation with learners and their parents/carers.

I think it is with practical reforms like this and the others in our response that we will ensure that we make progress towards the health, happiness and safety of all our children, because it is their right and it's our responsibility.

Where we have the levers for change, we will act in the interest of children's rights. We have to acknowledge, however, that decisions made in Westminster profoundly affect children's lives here in Wales, and I think that has been amply illustrated in the debate we've had previously—

Will the Member take an intervention?

Certainly, yes.

Thanks for giving way, Julie. I quite agree with what you've just said about the importance of schools recording data when it comes to bullying, but would you also agree that, in the interests of transparency, it's important that data isn't just recorded but that it's available to parents should they request it so that we do get an accurate picture of bullying, and, more importantly, the types of bullying that are going on in different schools? Because those might vary from area to area and will need a particular response, depending on the particular situation.

I understand that the Member is asking that the schools publish the data that they gather—

I didn't say—. Sorry.

Do you want to clarify?

I didn't say 'publish' per se, because I could understand that that could raise some issues—

That could cause some difficulties, yes.

—but that that data be available if it's requested, rather than being kept away, because some schools might not want that sort of data being in the public domain or being available to parents, for obvious reasons.

Yes. I think that is something that we could certainly discuss with schools in terms of making it available. Thank you.

Where we have the levers for change, we will act in the interest of children's rights, but, as I've just said, the decisions made in Westminster do profoundly affect children's lives here in Wales, and we have debated that vigorously this afternoon. For example, the Minister for Housing and Local Government spoke earlier about the austerity and the welfare cuts and how they have affected and increased child poverty, and I think that that is something that we are doing our best to mitigate, but obviously, we don't have those very powerful levers. I know that there's a great deal of passion and expertise on children's rights here in the Assembly, so I look forward to hearing your views. I think that it's absolutely crucial that the issues of children's rights are at the heart of our policy making right across Government, and that we can continue to improve outcomes for children and young people. I do think that we've made progress, but I would always acknowledge that we still have a lot to do.

Thank you to the Deputy Minister for introducing the report and the Government's response. Now, there are major achievements that we can all be proud of here in Wales, and that is the recognition and the work of our Children's Commissioner for Wales. When you think of some of the projects that she's worked on—. We now have the election of Youth Parliament, which we've worked together with her on; the first secondary school rights conferences for students and staff; and the support given to major public bodies to adopt a children's rights approach.

The annual report goes to highlight some fantastic facts that emanate from the commissioner's office: the fact that she has engaged with 9,857 children and young people across Wales; directly trained around 700 children and young people to be rights ambassadors in their schools and communities; and undertaken the first ever education rights survey, securing 6,392 responses.

Now, as the commissioner has stated, there do remain significant children's rights challenges across Wales. So, it was with much interest that I read her report and recommendations to the Welsh Government. With regard to residential care for children with the most complex needs, the Welsh Government have, sadly, only accepted the first recommendation in principle. What is being called for is new ring-fenced funding specifically for the purposes of jointly commissioned mental health and social care residential provision for children and young people with the most complex needs in Wales. But, there is no commitment made as regards that funding. This is despite the report highlighting that the transformation fund and integrated care fund do not give Wales-wide coverage.

More so, the report includes a powerful real example as to the impact that the lack of current provision has had on a child with complex behavioural needs. For example, it shouldn't have to take the commissioner's intervention for a child to be moved from an adult ward after many weeks. That is not good enough. So, I encourage the Deputy Minister to urgently progress her work to develop commissioning arrangements and, as a minimum, to ring fence funding for the short term.

Similarly, I think that more can be done on clamping down on profit making in children's care services. The urgency of this is clear when considering that a third of Welsh children in foster care are placed with independent agencies, and the commissioner’s findings that some young people have been acutely aware of the financial costs of their own placements, and the parents are uncomfortable with there being an element of profit making in their need for care and support.

While I welcome the fact that you are continuing to work with the national fostering framework to recruit more local authority foster carers, could you please provide an update on the development of a national strategy for commissioning and managing the full spectrum of placements for children in care? Similarly, Deputy Minister, I would like clarity on your refusal to place a duty upon all relevant bodies to pay due regard to the UNCRC in the delivery of the curriculum. Despite the existence of the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, I believe that this is a mistake. The commissioner is right that the best way to ensure that children learn about their rights are in environments that respect those rights, and that is to place a duty on the face of the Curriculum and Assessment (Wales) Bill.

This is supported by the fact that only 34 per cent of children and young people that participated in the Right Way Education Survey had even heard of the UNCRC; that young people have told the commissioner that they need help to understand their rights; and the evidence that we have been hearing in the Children, Young People and Education Committee, through our current inquiry into children's rights in Wales. So, it would interest me, Deputy Minister, to know how you are working with the Minister for Education to address those concerns. 

We need to do everything we can to champion children's rights in education and schools, so on this now, the thirtieth anniversary of the UNCRC, I encourage you to reconsider the rejection of the commissioner's recommendation in this regard. 

I welcome the report, I do believe there's more we can do, as you have said, as regards children's rights in Wales, but I would like to commend and thank the children's commissioner for all that she does, working with us and working with Government, to support the rights and the needs of our children in Wales. 

I'm delighted to be able to participate in this debate today. Reference has already been made to the thirtieth anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I think, of course, we must also remember another important anniversary that we will be commemorating tomorrow, which is the twentieth anniversary of the Waterhouse report. It was this Assembly's response to that report that led to us being the first Government administration in Wales to establish a children's commissioner—creatively, since we didn't have the legislative powers to do it at the time. And I think it is absolutely right to say that we have come a very long way towards realising children's rights, particularly children's rights for some of our most vulnerable people. But, as the Minister has said, we have got a very long way to go. 

There is so much in the commissioner's report, and I'd associate myself with everything the Minister and Janet Finch-Saunders have said about our gratitude to the commissioner, to her team, to the way that they work so effectively to remove the barriers to children's rights being realised. It's impossible, in the time available for me today, to comment on everything that I'd like to raise, but I would like to comment on three specific areas of the commissioner's recommendations, and perhaps ask the Minister for a little more information about the Government's response. 

On the first set of recommendations around residential care for children with the most complex needs, I'm very glad that the Government is accepting the commissioner's recommendations, although I share Janet Finch-Saunders's worry about recommendations accepted in principle, which we know from experience are often more honoured in the breach than the observance. I would urge the Minister and the Government to put urgency into their actions in this regard.

I've been dealing just this week with the case of a very young man who has very various and very complex needs, both relating to the autism spectrum and to mental health. His family has discovered this week that he's likely to be placed in a remote institution a very, very long way away, in England. And we really need to move on this, because every day that those young people are away from home is a day too many, and every day that their relationships with their families are fractured is a day too many. 

I'd like to refer to the Government's response to the commissioner's recommendation 5, which is about ensuring that the new curriculum—that there's a duty, mentioned by Janet Finch-Saunders, on all relevant bodies to pay due regard to the convention. Now, I'm a bit confused by the Government's response, because the Government is saying that, given that the Ministers have to give due regard to the convention, it is unnecessary to place a duty on other bodies to give due regard to the convention. But, it is my understanding, Deputy Presiding Officer—I'm sure the Minister will correct me if I'm wrong—that the Government has already placed a duty of due regard on bodies through the additional learning needs legislation. So, I'd be interested to hear from the Minister why in principle you can do that in the additional learning needs legislation, but it isn't right to do this in the curriculum.

Janet Finch-Saunders is right, of course, to say that it is not enough for the curriculum itself to have rights-respecting content, it must be delivered through rights-respecting institutions. And while we have some of the most amazing schools here in Wales, and I'm sure we all visit them on a regular basis, particularly in secondary education, there is a long way to go for those institutions to become fully rights-respecting. I am therefore confused at the Government's reluctance to place a duty of due regard in the legislation. I'd be interested to hear more from the Minister about her reasoning for that. 

Of course, there are those of us who are arguing for a fuller incorporation of the convention. We have partial incorporation into our legislative framework, and it is time to move on that. Had that taken place, the Minister might be right, it might not be necessary to place a duty of due regard on other organisations. But, as things stand, I'm confused that they won't do so. 

I'd then like to refer briefly to recommendation No. 7, which the Welsh Government has also not agreed to accept. I really am confused by this, because the commissioner asks for a review and the Government rejects the recommendation and then says that they're going to hold a review. Now, I may be missing something here, but I think there is a need—and it's good to see the Government saying that they're looking at this across portfolios, because of course this affects a number of portfolios—and if the Government accepts the need for a review, why are they saying that they are rejecting the commissioner's recommendation? Is it that they don't want the same sort of review that the commissioner recommends? So, it would be helpful, fully accepting the Minister's, and in this case the Government's, good intentions in this regard, to understand why the review that they are going to undertake is different from the review that the commissioner has recommended. 

And, as a final comment with regard to these issues about transport, the Government's response says that the arrangements for school transport and safety are generally working well. Well, I'm sure from my constituency caseload that that isn't always the case, particularly with regard to students post 16. I would argue, as the commissioner does, that the legislative framework that we have with the Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2008 is outdated as we have more and more young people staying in education full-time from 16 to 18 and even beyond. And it's of course particularly important that those children with additional learning needs have appropriate transport.

I'll bring my remarks to a close, Deputy Presiding Officer. There is so much more, I'm sure, that we would all like to say. I know these issues will be explored further at length in the appropriate committee, but I do think there is much to be proud about with this institution's commitment to children's rights over the 20 years of our existence. 

There are lots of buzz words in the report—'empowering', 'rights', 'consult', 'engage'—but I'm actually very disappointed with the report. And what I find most disappointing, indeed unacceptable, to be frank, is that there is not a single mention of parental alienation—not a single mention in the whole report. Now, parental alienation is where a parent is alienated from a child. It can happen to dads, it can happen to mothers. I know this because I see so many of them in my office, week in, week out, almost. It's a form of emotional abuse of children, it's a form of child abuse that is accepted and, more to the point of this report, this is evidence that it's a form of child abuse that is, in fact, ignored by the very people who should be doing something about it. 

If you are a child who has been alienated from a good and loving parent, you are more likely to live in poverty, you are more likely to do less well in education, you are more likely to suffer mental illness, you are more likely to self-harm, you are more likely to abuse substances, you are more likely to have difficulties yourself in forming relationships as an adult. I think that's the omission of this huge issue in Wales and, indeed, the UK. I think it's a staggering dereliction of duty and it's also irresponsible to not talk about this. 

There's lots of mention of the convention—the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. To be perfectly frank, in Wales it's not worth the paper that it's written on, because you have organisations in Wales, publicly funded, who facilitate and work with people who are indulging in parental alienation or carrying that form of abuse out. And there are organisations that really should not receive public money until they have policies in this area, but they have no policies because it is ignored and, indeed, accepted. 

A lot is said nowadays about the voice of children, and I want to flag up the voices of children in care, and I've mentioned this several times in this Chamber. I mentioned it last time I was speaking on these matters. There are so many children in Wales who do not want to be in care. They want to be with their parents and they are simply not listened to. This area is not being addressed and really this should feature again in this report, but it doesn't.

I'm really concerned as well that when children in care allege that they're being abused, they're simply not being listened to. I said this last time; I'll say it again now because we're a few weeks further on: there's a case that disturbs me greatly that cannot be dealt with by the children's commissioner because it's an individual case. I have extreme concern at the way the police have dealt with this matter. We are now in December. I have been trying to get a meeting with the most senior officer in South Wales Police in public protection since July, and I have been unable to organise or have this meeting. That really tells me that South Wales Police do not take child abuse or alleged child abuse seriously. That's a point that I want to put on the record, and it's a point that we should all be talking about as we go towards the police and crime commissioner elections in May next year.

As I said, I think it's a huge, huge gap in this report, that an issue that affects so many children, so many mothers, so many fathers, so many grandmothers, so many grandfathers, so many families is not even mentioned in the report. To check that—I'll finish now—I even went through the document with a search to see if 'parental' was in there; it wasn't in the document. 'Alienation'—I typed that in; it wasn't in the document, just in case I'd missed it reading through, and I've read it through several times, and very disappointing. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you. Can I call on the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services to reply to this debate? Julie Morgan. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you very much to the Members who've contributed to the debate, and thank you to those who thanked the children's commissioner for her work. I want to draw attention right at the beginning here that I didn't mention in my speech the creation of the Youth Parliament, and I'm very glad that Janet Finch-Saunders mentioned that because, obviously, that is a huge step forward in terms of giving a voice to children and it was obviously something that was strongly supported by the children's commissioner. So, thank you, Janet, very much for mentioning that.

Now, to pick up some of the issues that were raised, on the issue of residential care and the need for residential care for children who have complex needs, the Government absolutely acknowledges the need to commission specialist accommodation for children who have got complex needs, especially for those at risk of going into secure welfare or mental health placements, or who are stepping down from secure provision. And we do know that we have a great shortage of that sort of facility. It isn't just about increasing capacity; it's about promoting trauma-informed models of care. I think we've got to ensure that there are appropriate joint commissioning arrangements in place between health, social services and education so that the needs of these children are met and that they don't fall between different types of provision. We do know that there is a problem often in obtaining places for complex children with difficult needs, and it does happen that they do end up going sometimes outside Wales, sometimes going far from their own home, and this is something that we're working very hard to stop.

What this really links to is Neil McEvoy's point in his speech where he says that many children don't want to be in care. What we are trying to do in the Government is to reduce the number of children who need to be in care, and I know he supports that policy. But I think it is all caught up with having adequate provision for those children that do have to come into care. So, we are exploring this through the work of the children's residential care task and finish group, and we are promoting regional approaches through regional partnership boards and the integrated care fund, although I have to say progress is patchy. We have a lot more to do in this area.

So, we've commissioned a piece of work to develop and implement, to try and find solutions for this very small group of children, but very importantly that we get satisfactory provision for them. I hope we'll be able to report back within six months on these proposals and I hope we will be able to get a plan for the whole of Wales for our needs for this very complex group of children, and that we won't end up in a position where we have to send them out of country, out of county, and far from their homes, because it's absolutely right that children—we all know—want to be near their families, particularly want to be near their siblings, and we've got to make sure that this happens. So, we are doing this bit of work and I hope we'll get information from that that will enable us to move forward.

Another point made was about profit-making in fostering. Again, I think that is a very important point because I know that, sometimes, children are aware that people are making profit of looking after them and we really have to rebalance this provision, and that is one of the First Minister's priorities—to rebalance the social care provision. So, we want to encourage local authorities to do much more to ensure that we have fostering placements that are local authority fostering placements. So, we are responding to that recommendation in a very positive way.

Another issue was about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and how we make sure that it happens, which, I think, is the key issue. Now, I'm not completely rejecting any move towards any further legislation on this, but I'm very aware that the Deputy Minister for equalities and the Chief Whip is carrying out a bit of research that is looking at this in the round, and it's looking to see whether it may be possible. We may need a human rights Act in the next Parliament. So, we need, really, to look at this very carefully and in the round. So, this issue is not being rejected. What it is is that work is already going on and we want to make sure that there is an opportunity to address this in a holistic way all round.

And then the transport issue for children with special needs. The transport issue is particularly concerned with post 16 because that's where the issue is really arising, I think, and that's where I see it arising, and we will be carrying out the review, particularly looking at post 16. The comment, from the Government, that it seemed to be working fairly well, that is really with under-16s where it seems to be working very well. So, we'll be looking at the review for the post-16s, but, obviously, we want any child who needs transport to have it—

Will you take a very brief intervention?

Yes, of course.

Thank you very much. I'm still a little bit confused, though, because you're undertaking a review, and the commissioner has asked you to undertake a review, but this is the recommendation that your written response says that you're rejecting. Perhaps you can clarify—. I think my concern was whether it was a different kind of review or that she was asking for something different from what you're doing. And I couldn't see that, either in her report or in your response, so I just wondered. We're looking for a bit of clarity on that because it seems to me, in fact, that you're accepting the recommendation, at least in part.

Well, the commissioner is calling for every child with special needs to have transport, and we don't think it's necessarily necessary for every child because some children will be able to walk. So, if you take it in that sort of technical way, we are rejecting it for those reasons, but we do acknowledge that there are issues, particularly post 16, and that's what we're going to look at. 

And then, finally, I think, to come to Neil McEvoy's point about parental alienation, I want to reassure him that this is an area that is being considered very carefully by the Government. It's taken into account in—. Certainly, I've had numerous discussions about it with CAFCASS, and so it's certainly not something that is being ignored. I think it's very important to recognise that what this report is about is a specific list of things. It isn't about everything that the children's commissioner is interested in, because the different reports each year cover different issues. And so, I know that the children's commissioner is very concerned—

Will you take a quick intervention?

—yes, in a second—very concerned about children in care and is certainly very supportive of our agenda to reduce the number of children in care.

Thanks for accepting the quick intervention, Deputy Minister. The problem that I have with the children's commissioner is that if you read what she said about alienation, she effectively denies that it happens, and CAFCASS are belatedly cottoning on now, which is progress. England are further ahead than Wales. But it seems that we have a children's commissioner who fails to recognise this huge problem and that's what really concerns me.

I can assure you that the Government has certainly considered the issue of parental alienation and England, in fact, has very much the same approach now as Wales. We've certainly come together in our approach to this and we're taking a very balanced, very non-emotive response to parental alienation and looking at it in a very balanced way. So, I can assure him that it is on our agenda. Thank you.

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

We have not deferred any items to voting time, so therefore that brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.