National Assembly for Wales

I call the Members to order.

It gives me great pleasure to announce, in accordance with Standing Order 26.75, that the Public Health (Wales) Act was given Royal Assent yesterday.

The first item on our agenda is questions to the First Minister, and, the first question, David Rees.

The Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children has had discussions with the UK’s prisons Minister regarding the proposed site for development of a new prison at Baglan, and Welsh Government officials are also having ongoing discussions with Ministry of Justice officials regarding the proposal.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. As you know, the site that’s been identified by the MOJ is within the ownership of the Welsh Government, and lies next door to a housing estate, a residential care home, a GP resource centre, with four surgeries in there, and other businesses on that industrial estate. It also lies within the enterprise zone, which was established when the threat to Tata was raised last year, with the intention being to grow and invest in businesses. Now, I don’t believe that a prison would actually encourage that. For these businesses to grow, they actually want more space. They need larger units of 10,000 sq ft plus. I’ve met with local businesses and they want to grow, they want to stay, but if they see a prison coming, damaging their growth opportunities, they have told me they will leave Port Talbot and possibly even Wales. Will the Welsh Government reject any bid from the MOJ for that land, and instead invest in building these units, which can allow them to grow, and commit itself to that as it has done elsewhere in Wales?

Well, the prison itself will create 500 local jobs and generate £11 million in revenue for the local economy. Could I reassure my colleague that, as somebody who has a prison in his constituency, and who was the ward councillor when the prison was being built in my ward at the time, there were concerns at the time, no question about it, but that those concerns were never realised? We didn’t lose investment. In fact, a brand-new housing estate is being built almost up to the prison perimeter at the moment, and those houses are being sold. So, whereas people will inevitably have concerns about something new in the area, what we know not just from Bridgend, but from elsewhere in Wales, is that prisons do generate jobs and, ultimately, of course, they don’t have a negative effect on the local economy or town.

Following on from that theme, last week, in a question that I asked the Cabinet Secretary, I asked, ‘Why did you let the land go forward for consideration to be used for a prison?’, the Cabinet Secretary said, and I quote

‘the Member’s incorrect in her assertion that I had an option in terms of the land issue regarding the prison.’

Could you please clarify this? Did you offer up that piece of land to the MOJ to consider? If you did not, how has it come about that a piece of Welsh Government land is being considered in the first place? If it is earmarked for potential other usage, why has it not been earmarked for that use before now, for businesses locally, as David Rees has said, and can you confirm that you would be looking at other options in relation to this particular location? I’d also like to ask you: I’ve had an email from a member of staff at Cardiff prison, who said that the staff are already being told that Cardiff prison is going to be closed for shopping development, and that Swansea prison is going to be closed also. Can you confirm this, or have you had any conversations with the MOJ with regard to this?

No, we haven’t had conversations along those lines. If she’s got that e-mail and she feels able to share it, I’d very much like to see it. I’m not sure whether she’s against the prison, or whether she has other questions, but, from our perspective, we know the prison can generate, as I said, 500 jobs, and I speak as somebody with a prison in my constituency. It had no detrimental effect at all on the immediate area, or indeed on the town of Bridgend, or indeed on investment. We know that a prison is needed—another modern prison is needed in the south of Wales. There’s no getting away from that, but, of course, it’s hugely important to work with local people and businesses in order to reassure them, based on what I’ve seen with my own eyes in Bridgend.

First Minister, the Ministry of Justice have indicated that they’ll be holding a two-day event in Port Talbot in order to garner people’s views on the new prison prior to submitting a formal planning application. While this is welcome, we need a more complete public consultation on the proposals. What discussions has your Government had with the MOJ about a more detailed public consultation, and what role will the Welsh Government play in seeking residents’ views on the new prison?

Well, ultimately, the final decision on the exact location of any prison is a matter for the Ministry of Justice and not for Welsh Government. It’s now, of course, a matter for the UK Government to seek planning permission. It’s in the UK Government’s interest to make sure that there is full consultation locally—you can’t give people too much information. I remember what happened in 1995-96, when the Parc prison was built in Bridgend, people did have a lot of questions, and those questions were dealt with by way of a public consultation. And, of course, we see ourselves 20 years on—not without teething troubles, I have to say, when the prison was opened—but, 20 years on, the prison is accepted as part of the community, and has created hundreds of jobs.

The core funding provided to Welsh local authorities each year is distributed according to relative need. The formula is agreed with local government through the partnership council for Wales, and it takes account of a wide range of factors.

Thank you, First Minister, for that answer. As you know, a large percentage of Wales’s area is rural. I remain particularly concerned that the Welsh Government has not gone quite far enough in recognising rurality in its funding of local authorities over the last few years. Delivering services such as social care in a rural setting is always going to face additional costs when compared to an urban authority, and the same applies to other services provided by councils as well. Will you undertake to revisit the local government funding formula to see whether greater weighting can be given to rurality over the years ahead?

Well, if you look at the—if I can use the word—‘rankings’, for local authorities, Denbighshire’s allocation is the fourth highest, Gwynedd is ninth, Carmarthenshire is tenth, Ceredigion fourteenth, Powys fifteenth, Pembrokeshire seventeenth. In comparison, Swansea is sixteenth, Flintshire nineteenth, and Cardiff is twentieth. It would seem to me that rurality is taken into account. And the reality is, of course, it’s a matter for local authorities to agree amongst themselves what they wish the funding formula to look like, rather than one authority wanting to change it without the support of others.

We all know, First Minister, that the only way that you can deliver any public service is through the staff. And there’s evidence come out this week that the public sector pay cut and freeze over the past decade is such that, now, teachers’ pay has fallen by £3 an hour, police officers’ by £2 an hour, and nurses’ wages have absolutely stagnated. And the result of that at the moment, in the nursing profession particularly, is that we are now seeing 51 per cent leaving that public sector service over the last four years. So, do you agree with me, First Minister, that the Tory public sector pay freeze is now risking our public service delivery?

Absolutely, I do. The time has come to ditch the public sector pay cap. We need to make sure that public sector workers are paid properly for the job that they do. I do not accept that there is some kind of financial restraint at play here, given the fact that £1 billion was found as part of a bung for Northern Ireland. If it can be found for Northern Ireland, the money can be found for our public sector workers.

Well, one of the specific challenges in rural areas is dealing with older people, and older people with dementia—well, not just older people, but others who have dementia. That’s a challenge that became very apparent during the recent general election, of course. And this is encapsulated in the debate that is currently ongoing on the future of the Bodlondeb care home in Aberystwyth, which serves north Ceredigion, and mid Wales to an extent. I’m sure that the First Minister would join with me in saying that the consultation started on Monday, so everyone needs to express their views as part of that consultation. But will the Government, through the Minister, have discussions with Ceredigion County Council, particularly around some of the new possibilities that the Government is providing, through extra-care beds or extra-care homes, to see whether it would be possible to fit what happens with the future of Bodlondeb into the broader pattern serving mid Wales?

Well, of course, this is a matter for Ceredigion. I did allude to Bodlondeb last week in the Chamber here. But, of course, the Government is perfectly happy to collaborate with local authorities, to see what other methods of delivering a service may be available in their areas. And, of course, that is true of Ceredigion, and true of every other authority.

The First Minister will be aware that, yesterday, I published an economic development plan for rural Wales. [Assembly Members: ‘Hear, hear.’] Thank you very much. What assurances can the First Minister give me that the recommendations endorsed by a group of experts from rural Wales will be considered in the context of the new economic strategy for Wales?

Could I thank my friend, Eluned Morgan, for the work that she has done, and the deep interest she takes in rural communities across Wales? We know that rural Wales will have specific challenges particularly with regard to Brexit. We welcome, as a Government, the publication of the report, and it will form part of the strategy that we have to deliver further for rural Wales in the next few years, post Brexit.

Questions now from the party leaders. The Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood.

Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, the Governments in England and Scotland have announced that they will act to provide free access to abortion services for women from the north of Ireland. Will Wales follow suit?

The answer to the question is ‘yes’. That’s what we want to do. We’re looking at the detail of how that can be done, but we want to make sure that the same service is on offer in Wales as it is in England and Scotland. There are issues such as, for example, travel costs, and issues such as how you provide ongoing care for a procedure, rather than people just going home. These things are being considered at the moment, but I can assure the leader of Plaid Cymru that what we’re looking to do is to make sure that Wales, England and Scotland offer the same service.

I welcome your answer, First Minister, so thank you very much for that. Faced with this Westminster Government that is committed to austerity, Wales needs a Government now that is proactive on health. Almost 30,000 Welsh nurses have seen a 14 per cent cut in their wages since 2010 due to the NHS pay cap. On page 56 of your manifesto, you say that you will scrap the NHS pay cap. The Scottish Government has announced that it’ll get rid of the pay cap in its next budget. All I’ve seen from the Welsh Government is a letter to Jeremy Hunt. The UK Government has effectively rejected that letter and is now committed to that pay cap. It’s time now, First Minister, for you to take action. Why haven’t you yet announced any plans to lift the pay cap and will you make it a priority in your next budget?

We want to lift the pay cap. There are financial implications that we believe should be met by the Westminster Government. I don’t know what their view is, if I’m honest with the leader of Plaid Cymru, on the pay cap. I’ve heard different views from different Ministers at different times. It shows the lack of leadership that exists in Westminster. She and I are in exactly the same position in wanting to see an end to the pay cap. We will continue to press the UK Government for more resources and we will consider what we can do financially in order to move forward with that.

If it’s that much of a priority, First Minister, you should be able to commit to this today. We’ve got a Labour Government in Wales, we’ve got 28 Welsh Labour MPs, and the NHS pay cap still remains. You might be happy to blame others in terms of the Westminster budgetary constraints, but you could be taking action today to protect workers, NHS nurses and NHS staff in Wales. The whole point of devolution is to pursue a different way, a better way, and you could have made a clear commitment today to look at where that funding could come from in the next budget. So, your lack of action begs the question: what is the point of Labour if you’re not able to protect Welsh workers? First Minister—[Interruption.]

Can I please hear the leader of Plaid Cymru and can I hear less of Ministers in the Government? Allow the First Minister to hear the questions.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I’ll give you one more chance to come clean on this now: do you have any regrets about implementing Tory austerity, and when will you commit to lifting the NHS pay cap?

The leader of Plaid Cymru asked what the point of Labour is. I can remind her that we have 28 MPs and her party has four. That is the point of Labour. People have faith in Welsh Labour. We saw that in the general election campaign. They keep on saying, ‘Do this, do that’. Well, people aren’t listening to them. She and I are in the same position in terms of the public sector pay cap. Surely, there are two things she must agree with. Firstly, that the first port of call must be to secure the money from Westminster. Surely, we don’t give up on that. That is something that we need to pursue. Secondly, surely she doesn’t expect us to make a decision on the hoof, without examining all the potential costs, and that is something—

It’s in the manifesto.

The Llywydd rightly stopped people heckling the leader of Plaid Cymru, so she can do the same for me. As I said, this is something that we want to take forward, but the first port of call is to say to the UK Government, ‘You found the money for Northern Ireland; now you find the money for Wales’.

The leader of the opposition, Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, last week, obviously, the Government took the decision not to back the Circuit of Wales development at the Heads of the Valleys in Blaenau Gwent. One of the proposals that was put forward was, obviously, the development of an automotive technology park that potentially could create 1,500 jobs over its lifespan. The enterprise zone has been in existence in Blaenau Gwent for over five years now. In its first four years, it created 172 jobs, and in the last year the figures are available for it managed to create a mere eight jobs. What confidence can you give that this technology park that you’re proposing will actually generate the jobs that you say it will generate—1,500—when your enterprise zone, which has been going for five years, hasn’t even generated 200 jobs?

Can I, before I answer the question, offer my sympathies as well to the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, and, indeed, his group, and the family, fiancée, friends and colleagues of Ben Davies? It was a tragic event that we saw in Greece. So, first of all, could I express my sympathies with regard to what happened to Ben? We all rely on our staff and it was a deeply tragic incident for such a young man.

The simple answer to this question is ‘£100 million’. We’re going to put £100 million into the technology park. We’ve talked to businesses to assess the level of demand, bearing in mind, of course, that this formed part of the circuit scheme, the technology park. It was something that was mooted as part of that scheme. We feel that it can be taken forward, and, having taken soundings from businesses on the need to invest, of course, in skills, this is something that we can support. One of the issues that we have faced in the Heads of the Valleys for some years is investors saying that there are no buildings for them to go into. Now, speculative building is not something we want to encourage, but this is based on what businesses themselves have been saying to us. On that basis, we’re confident the jobs can be created.

Thank you, First Minister, for your remarks about the tragic death of our deputy chief of staff, Ben Davies. Politically, we are divided in this Chamber, and that’s what this Chamber is for: debate and discussion. But, actually, the human spirit unites us all, and from a party perspective, a group perspective, and from Ben’s family’s perspective, I’d like to thank all the Members who have expressed their condolences and wishes to be passed on to the family in the support that they will need in the days, weeks and months ahead. They’ve gone from being in a position of planning a wedding to arranging funeral. That really does put everything in perspective when we focus on what we debate and discuss within this Chamber.

But if I could go back to my line of questioning, if I may, First Minister, I do take the point that the alternative offer that the Welsh Government have put on the table of this £100 million over 10 years and the opportunity to open up the door for 1,500 jobs in this alternative offer is most probably sincerely made by the Welsh Government, but the evidence that the Circuit of Wales pointed to was that, actually, in their extensive discussions—and you referred to this in your answer to me—about the development of a technology park based on the automotive industry, you would need a track for testing, and that opportunity for testing facilities to be coterminous with the technology park, to be successful. Time and time again, we have seen the Public Accounts Committee reports and scrutiny reports about the ‘build it and they will come’ mentality of previous governments having failed, and considerable sums of public money being put on the table and actually thinking the money will solve the problem. How can you have this confidence this time round, when the evidence points to the fact that, actually, you have to have the two working together to make the technology park a success in an area that desperately needs that success to create quality employment opportunities?

We have had discussion with businesses, particularly those in the automotive sector, and they have said to us that a circuit is not required to move forward with the technology park. It’s something that would be nice to have but not essential to have. I think if I represent it in that way, it’s a fair representation. But, certainly, the development of the technology park in their view is not dependent on the development of a circuit. What is absolutely crucial is that we secure the jobs in the technology park and protect the public purse. That’s hugely important, and that’s exactly what we’ve done in taking this decision.

Will you, therefore, then, First Minister, make public all the evidence that you’ve based your decision on—the £100 million investment and the due diligence that you as a Government, I hope, have undertaken, and the ability to have confidence that that 1,500 jobs figure will be reached—so that in two, three or four years’ time, we’re not looking back at a big shed that is empty and these job opportunities lost to that particular area of Wales? As I’ve said—and I sincerely mean it—I hope the jobs come, but if you look at the track record of the five years of the enterprise zone, which was an automotive enterprise zone, I might add, you haven’t managed to create 200 jobs in that area, and in the last year where figures are available, only eight jobs have been created, despite all the incentives of the enterprise zone. Will you, therefore, make public the evidence that you’ve based your decision on to sanction £100 million-worth of investment, and the feasibility in the figure that you’ve put forward of 1,500 jobs being created?

We will make available all that can be made available, subject to commercial confidentiality discussions, of course, with other businesses. But I think it’s right with this decision and this project that as much information is in the public domain as possible. We’re not afraid of that and, certainly, it is something that we are considering: how can we get as much information into the public domain. We saw some emerging today in an unfortunate manner, but we want to make sure that the information is there for Members and for members of the public.

Leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch, Llywydd. I’d like to continue this line of questioning with the First Minister, if I may. Is it not a tragedy that the Circuit of Wales project appears to have been strangled not because of any credible doubts about the viability of the racetrack project—because there was nothing in the Cabinet Secretary’s statement to that effect—but because of a technical internal accounting device by Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Office for National Statistics? Shouldn’t we look through the form of the accounts to the substance of the project? It’s an entirely private sector-funded project upfront. All that the Welsh Government was asked for was a guarantee, for which they would be paid £3 million a year. It was secured on the assets that are to be constructed, because the guarantee doesn’t even begin until the construction phase is completed, and 100 per cent of the assets were available to secure what was a loan of less than 50 per cent of the funding. So, on the face of it, that appears to be pretty good security. And is there not a way through this, even at this late stage, that we could continue to look at the possibility of untying the Gordian knot with the Treasury and see if there is an imaginative solution to this in accounting terms, which would enable the private sector money to be put in, which, on balance, I think would be better than for the Welsh Government to have to commit its own money upfront, which is now what is proposed?

The issue is this, isn’t it: the problem has always been that if this project had strong support from private investors, it wouldn’t need a guarantee from the Government, and it would be able to stand on its own two feet without that guarantee. As we said in the Chamber last week, the difficulty that we have faced is that no final decision will be given by the ONS or Eurostat as to whether this financial deal will be on or off the balance sheet until the contracts are signed, by which point it’s too late. And, of course, at that point we are in a position where, in two or three years’ time, if the circuit didn’t work out, the guarantee is called on. That is the problem with this. Now, we cannot take that risk. We know that we would not get a final decision from them. The fact is that, as the deal is currently structured, it does not appear to have met our conditions. If a new proposal comes forward then, of course, we’d examine it. But we cannot take the risk with public money and take the risk of this money appearing on our balance sheet. If that were to happen, we would be treated as if we had already paid that money over and the money would be cut from our capital budget, which would mean, for example, potentially having to make cuts in this financial year. That’s not something that we as a responsible Government can take a risk with.

I fully understand that point and that, of course, was included in the original statement. But the idea that, for a project that would be funded privately to the tune of £375 million, a guarantee on the part of the Welsh Government that would cover less than half of that could be put on the Welsh Government’s books as entirely a public sector project is self-evidently ridiculous. And therefore, there must be a way through this. The Welsh Government guarantee would never be called upon upfront in any event under the terms of the deal, because it’s an annual amount that the Government would be obliged to pay. The worst-case scenario is that the assets were built and that the racetrack itself never made a penny of profit so as to pay the interest to the investors—Aviva in this particular instance. Then, the Government would be called upon on annual basis to pay that element of the guarantee to them. You will never be called upon to provide £210 million in a single lump sum, and the £8 million worst-case guarantee is amortised over a period of 35 years. It’s absolutely preposterous that these Government accounting conventions should be used to frustrate a project that would utterly transform the whole of south-east Wales. Surely the Welsh Government ought to exert itself and strain every sinew to try and find a way through.

We can’t ignore the reality of the fact that there is a high risk, in our judgement, that we would see £373 million lost to the Welsh capital budget. That is something that no responsible Government could ignore. I come back to the point that if the project was able to stand on its own—. This isn’t a Government project; this is a project that’s come forward from a private consortium. The question that’s never been answered is why the project can’t stand on its own two feet. If it is deemed to be that successful by the private investors, then people will ask the question why that is. We have worked, of course, with the business, they’ve brought forward several schemes over the past few years and we’ve tried to help them in any way, but they did not meet our conditions that we set down. We’ve examined all the risks, and it’s quite clear that the risks are too high to proceed with this scheme.

But not too high, apparently, to conjure up £100 million out of the back pocket as a reaction to this failure. And, if it’s possible to find £100 million upfront, effectively, now, why is it impossible to find £8 million a year, in three years’ time, for the following 30 years? Surely—I repeat the question—with an ounce of imagination, there must be a way through this. And the Welsh Government would have the united support, I think, of all the parties in this Assembly behind it to make this project succeed. Surely the prize is too great to give up at this stage.

It is the responsibility of the circuit to bring forward any new proposal, not the Welsh Government. This isn’t a Welsh Government scheme. The circuit were given conditions that they had to meet and they did not meet those conditions when we looked at the due diligence. He says it’s £100 million out of the back pocket; it’s £100 million over 10 years. So, not suddenly £100 million in the space of one year. That is the commitment that we make to Ebbw Vale to bring the jobs to the technology park, and we are confident, having spoken to businesses, that that technology park will be a success.

Yes. As I said in my statement on the legislative programme on 27 June, we will introduce a local government Bill in the second year of our programme to reform local government.

First Minister, local authorities deliver key services to our communities, so it’s vitally important that we have a thriving local democracy. A fundamental requirement of that is local authorities that reflect their local populations, but the most recent local elections delivered something like 28 per cent of our councillors across Wales in terms of women councillors, with individual local authorities ranging from something like 10 per cent to 40 per cent. So, we do need to make progress. Would you agree with me that one important aspect of making necessary progress is to have strong role models amongst our female councillors in Wales? Would you also join me in welcoming the re-election of Debbie Wilcox to lead Newport City Council, and, in a subsequent election, to lead the Welsh Local Government Association, and so to lead local government in Wales?

Yes, I do very much welcome Debbie’s election. She’s the first of many, I hope, because we can’t say that local government representatives are truly representative of the entire community in Wales. We’re a long way from being able to say that. I can say that, prior to the local elections, we ran a number of projects as part of the diversity in democracy programme; 51 individuals from under-represented groups participated in the programme, and 16 of them stood as candidates in the local government elections this May. So, some progress, but true to say much progress needs to happen yet.

First Minister, the future generations Act is referenced widely within the local government reform White Paper, and it is abundantly clear that this particular Act provides us with a superb opportunity to contribute towards successful reform of local government. Tackling poverty is also a key theme within that Act. Given the timing of the cessation of Communities First, and in line with local authority reform, what consideration have you made to include a poverty reduction stream in those changes going forward?

Well, as part of the local government Bill that we will introduce, we will of course—this is no secret—look at ensuring that local authorities work together on a regional basis in order to deliver services for the people that they represent. I’m sure local authorities will accept that poverty reduction is, of course, a hugely important role that they are able to play, and of course they will be able to do that working together across a wider area.

There’s been a great deal of emphasis on collaboration between councils at the regional level in the Welsh Government’s White Paper, ‘Resilience and renewed’. Plaid Cymru is eager to see the four western counties of Wales working strategically on issues that are unique to west Wales and arise from that unique knitting of the rural economy, housing, planning and the Welsh language. We could enhance that to create a regional assembly for the west, which would work alongside the city regions. As Eluned Morgan notes, the Government here does need to support rural Wales, but the creation of a new commissioner isn’t the most efficient way of doing that, in my view. Do you agree that encouraging collaboration between the westerly counties does provide an initial solution that is cost-effective and practical as well as being sensible?

Yes, I do, and it’s all-important that that does happen. The aim of the Bill—and we always use the word ‘Mesur’ in Welsh, Llywydd—is that that does happen, because we’ve been looking at the educational consortia model, and we’ve seen that things have improved year on year, when you see the local education authorities working together. Of course, that’s what we want to build on in looking at the legislation.

Young people’s access to tobacco products has been successfully reduced as a result of legislation. The Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, the seal of which I applied yesterday, provides further safeguards with the introduction of a retail register and an offence of handing over tobacco products to those under 18.

Thank you for that. Well, the 2016 Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association’s anti-illicit trade survey found that 62 per cent of Welsh smokers purchased non-duty-paid tobacco products. The financial rewards of this illicit trade are high; the penalties are low. This is threatening one in eight corner shops in Wales and across the UK, and most worryingly, people don’t understand the added health risks of this type of tobacco. What consideration has your Government given alone or perhaps working with the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to tackle this?

It is a matter ultimately for the HMRC to enforce any breaches of excise law. That is not a reason to lower taxes, obviously, on tobacco—the Member’s not suggesting that, in fairness to him. But it is hugely important that people are able to provide intelligence to the enforcement agencies and, of course, I know that checks are carried out at the airports, particularly from areas that are seen as areas of risk when it comes to importing tobacco and cigarettes, particularly from jurisdictions where the prices are very, very low. But, obviously, we seek to work with HMRC in order to reduce and eliminate smuggling.

First Minister, in 2015 small shops and retailers fell into line with large businesses with it being illegal for them to display cigarettes and tobacco in public. At the time the Minister for Health and Social Services, Mark Drakeford, stated smoking still causes around 5,450 deaths in Wales each year. Around half of all regular smokers will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses, and that’s why we will continue to work tirelessly to reduce smoking levels to 16 per cent by 2020. First Minister, what progress is being made to hit that 2020 target, what challenges do we face to meet it, and what further action can the Welsh Government take to fulfil our aim?

Well, the tobacco control delivery plan will be published later this year. That’ll ensure that action remains targeted to achieve our goal of reducing adult smoking prevalence to 16 per cent by 2020, and it will outline a number of measures to reduce smoking further, to prevent young people from taking it up in the first place, to improve cessation support, as well, and, of course, to further denormalise tobacco use.

We are supporting specific actions in our transition to a low-carbon economy, such as deploying renewable energy and increasing recycling. We are also establishing the longer term framework to meet our legislative target within the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 of reducing emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

Thank you, First Minister. You will know that the Climate Change, Environment and Rural Affairs Committee has just published a report last week evaluating the performance of the UK and the devolved nations against their environmental targets and noting improvements in Wales in the waste and industrial sectors, but also noting an increase in emissions from business premises, homes and in the transport sector. On the basis of this performance, they say it’s likely that Wales will not attain the target of a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 and that action needs to be taken as a matter of urgency. Does the Government accept that assessment and what specific steps will the Government take on the basis of the committee’s report?

Yes, and, of course, the greatest source of emissions is the energy sector itself, so what we need to ensure is that more renewable energy is available, for example in the lagoon in Swansea bay. That would make a big difference, not just to the environment but also, of course, by creating jobs in Wales. So, we’re still waiting to see what the UK Government will decide on the Swansea lagoon.

First Minister, Natural Resources Wales’s report ‘Tree Cover in Wales’ Towns and Cities’ found that 1 per cent of all tree cover is found in areas of high-density housing, and the Welsh Government’s own report on local air quality management in Wales identified increasing tree cover as key to improving general well-being, reducing greenhouse gases and improving air quality. Are you committed to seeing a significant increase in the amount of urban woodland we have?

Yes. People welcome woodland. They welcome broadleaf woodland particularly. I remember, in my days as rural affairs Minister, one of the issues that used to exercise people was clear felling and what they saw as the scars that were left on mountainsides as a result. We know that there is more work to be done in terms of increasing the amount of tree cover in Wales, and we are working with NRW to facilitate that.

Although it’s true what the First Minister has to say in terms of heavy industry and energy generation in Wales, it’s also true to say that the poor condition of our housing stock is also adding to carbon emissions as well as the difficult transport situation that we face in Wales. The sad fact is that, whatever we have as targets, there are more carbon emissions per capita in Wales now than there were 10 years ago, and they’ve reduced in Scotland and in England. You do have the tools to deal with this: in the environment Act, you set out that you will secure carbon budgeting, and during the next year you’ll have to prepare for that. Will you give a commitment, therefore, that the first Government carbon budget will set out how you will reduce emissions?

Well, one thing that I can tell the Member is that we’re not going to reconsider that target. The focus now is to ensure that we take action on that target and consider which regulations will be required in order to achieve that. As regards how we proceed, of course we wish to ensure that we proceed with the regulations on the carbon budgets, and we have to consider what the correct levels would be for doing that. And, of course, those levels will be established on evidence emanating from the consultative body.

It plays a rich part in our culture and tradition. We’re almost a year on from the Euros, which did more than, I suppose, any politician could have done in raising Wales’s profile around Europe and the world. Yes, one of the things we sometimes forget is, at a time, in the nineteenth century when we had very little else to show as a nation, sport played a huge part in developing modern Wales and giving people a sense of nationhood. It was in 1905 that a national anthem was first sung at any sporting event anywhere in the world, at the Wales-New Zealand game. So, it is hugely important, not just in terms of adding to our culture, but, of course, as an economic driver, particularly in Swansea.

Can I thank the First Minister for that response? I think we all—or most of us really enjoyed Wales’s success last year at the Euros, and that we really did see Wales being promoted as a major player in Europe because of it. I think it is, of course, crucial that Sport Wales also realises the importance of professional sport in Wales. Does the First Minister agree with me, regarding Swansea City Association Football Club and the importance of Premiership football for promoting Swansea and Wales? Thirty-eight Premiership games a year are shown on television throughout the world with the word ‘Swansea’ being mentioned. That’s the best publicity Swansea or Wales get from anywhere. Is the First Minister also very pleased that Swansea are spending yet another season in the Premiership?

The simple answer is ‘yes’. I don’t think I can go very much beyond that, but Mike Hedges is absolutely right to say how important Swansea City is as a brand for the city of Swansea as well. We’ve worked, through Visit Wales, with the club since 2011 to increase the profile of the club, and, of course, the profile of Wales.

Well, after Mike Hedges, exactly the same: the tremendous effects of the success of our national team—football team—in reaching the semifinals in Euro 2016 we had in promoting Wales in the world. Now, I think that cricket is also the sport that is commonly played among Commonwealth countries, and some of the countries that are much smaller than Wales are representing on the world stage and flying their flag in the cricket fields all over the globe. Why can’t, First Minister, we agree on this, now, that the time has come for us, Wales, to have our own cricket team to represent Wales on the world stage?

This is an issue that I’ve certainly supported in the past—certainly a one-day team. Not a test team; I don’t think we’re playing close to that level. But it is odd that we see Ireland and Scotland playing in international tournaments and not Wales. We did have a one-day team at one point for a few years. I know there are concerns in Glamorgan because of the financial advantage they get, being part of the England and Wales Cricket Board, as it’s sometimes forgotten about, but from my perspective, I’d very much like to see us represented internationally at cricket, as long as, of course, there’s no financial hit on Glamorgan and their ability to play at the highest level.

First of all, unfortunately I think Mike Hedges was right, actually, about Swansea.

It’s not unfortunate.

As a Cardiff City Football Club fan it is. To be serious, though, I’ve had a lot of complaints from constituents that they don’t feel that we support cycling enough in Wales. Geraint Thomas has just been the first Welshman to ever wear the yellow jersey, and I would hope you would congratulate him on that formally. I would just like to know: what is your Government doing to promote cycling more?

We’ve had events, of course, being held in Wales. There was the Tour of Britain, if I remember. I remember being in Caerphilly, watching it as it crossed Caerphilly mountain. We have, of course, the velodrome in Newport, which is a very good facility for people to be able to use, and the fact that we have had success in international cycling—Geraint Thomas, of course, at the moment; Nicole Cook and others in the past—shows that we do have the facilities in place to promote cycling. We know, of course, that cycling, again, is one of those sports that is an elite sport at international level, but is a hugely important activity in terms of improving people’s health when they are cycling for recreation.

A working group has been established to take forward the recommendations contained in the taskforce’s report. That includes support for professional learning opportunities for supply and newly qualified teachers, and the development of a programme to support and build capacity in the system via school cluster arrangements.

One of the issues raised by the report was the variable, inconsistent and complex picture of supply teaching. I was pleased to see that the Cabinet Secretary picked up all 10 recommendations, although she did recognise that care must be taken with regulating standards of commercial supply agencies. I’ve got a constituent who is a supply teacher who’s written to me, and she tells me that she’s employed through an agency who deduct a third of her salary before she takes it home. She also feels that supply teachers should be both recruited and employed by local authorities and/or by consortia. That’s her view. Can the First Minister confirm that the Government is, as he’s indicated, taking forward these recommendations and will press ahead with them imminently? But also, what can be done with regard to regulating agencies and achieving parity of esteem between supply teachers and their full-time equivalents?

This will become easier when teachers’ pay and conditions are devolved, but it is right to say that—. I’ve heard it myself in my own constituency about people complaining about agency fees that are paid. There’s no requirement, as far as I can see, that local authorities have to go through an agency; it’s just that they choose to go through an agency. Nor are they required to go through a particular agency, nor are school heads, necessarily. I think it is important that local authorities examine the way in which supply teachers are provided in their areas, even though it’s a matter, I believe, for school heads, rather than local authorities, to make sure that school heads themselves understand that there are options available to them when it comes to recruiting supply staff.

Can the First Minister give an assurance that no school that has a successful model for them of supply cover will have that replaced by a top-down model applied across all schools, whether in Wales or by local authority?

It has to be fair, of course, to the supply teachers. A successful model will be one where teaching staff are available to a school, but where teaching staff are treated fairly as well. That, to me, is a successful model. Where those models exist, there seems to be no reason to change them.

One of the great disappointments, I think, when the Minister’s written response to the report was published, was that the Government at the time wasn’t able to give any lead on the two recommendations that were most far-reaching in terms of providing a solution to this situation, namely regulating the private sector, as Hefin David mentioned, in terms of improving standards, but also creating a regional system for direct employment. The Government had pledged to come back with a response once more work had been completed on those two points. Is the Government in a position to publish that response now?

With regard to the regional footprint, we’re moving on with that—I can confirm that—to ensure that that does happen. With regard to dealing with business in the private sector, of course, there are issues that cross into an area that hasn’t been devolved. So, at present, we are considering how far we can go with that.

Thank you, First Minister.

The next item on the agenda is the business statement and announcement, and I call on the leader of the house to make her statement.

Diolch, Llywydd. I have three changes to report to this week’s business. The Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children will make a statement shortly to update the Chamber on developments in Wales following the Grenfell Tower fire. I’ve also re-ordered two of today’s oral statements, and the Business Committee has agreed to reduce the time allocated to tomorrow’s questions to the Assembly Commission. Business for the next three weeks is shown on the business statement and announcement found among the meeting papers available to Members electronically.

Leader of the house, is it possible to have a statement, please, and I think I have asked for this before, and there was an indication that one would be forthcoming but wasn’t made available, on the northern access road—you’ll be familiar with it—around the St Athan enterprise zone? You’d also be very familiar with Llantwit Major Town Council’s and Llanmaes Community Council’s very strong observations and objections to this new road that is proposed for the St Athan area. The planning application’s gone in from the Welsh Government and, to me, certainly, there doesn’t seem to have been a coherent case put forward as to why Welsh Government are very keen to spend £15 million on this piece of road when the existing infrastructure, with a modest investment, could quite easily accommodate the revised traffic levels that potentially could arise from investment in the enterprise zone area. I do believe that it would greatly inform local people if this statement could come forward and, in particular, the community council of Llanmaes and the town council of Llantwit would benefit from a clear and objective view as to why the Welsh Government have sanctioned £15 million of expenditure on a piece of road that, locally, no-one I find in support of.

Well, as the Member says, this is—. Andrew R.T. Davies, as you quite clearly state, it’s now in a stage of a detailed planning application to the Vale council to build what is known as the northern access road. I do recall—and I think it was last year—when there was an exhibition about the proposals for this road in St Athan, and I said it should be also in Llanmaes and in Llantwit Major as well, so that the local people—. Obviously, I’m speaking as Assembly Member here in respect of this proposed development. What is very important is that the local community have to be engaged, as, indeed, the town and community councils are. Obviously, then we await the full consideration in terms of the planning application before the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

Leader of the house, following the latest £9.3 million Circuit of Wales debacle, inherited from a former Minister, I’m looking for a statement from you on the following: Kancoat, £3.4 million wasted on a company with a weak business plan; Oysterworld, £1.4 million lost; Kukd, £1 million on a company now being investigated. We had the Lisvane land deal in Cardiff North, where land was sold for £2 million when it was worth £41 million, a £39 million loss; the Rhoose land deal, £7 million; two shops in Pontypridd, losing £1 million without a valuation. Who sells anything without a valuation? The Welsh Government. The chief executive of Natural Resources Wales unexpectedly retires after a £39 million contract was signed without a business case. Leader of the house, I have no individual view on any of those things mentioned, but do you think that there is a whiff of corruption around this Labour administration, or does it just stink of rank incompetence?

Once again, the Member uses his, I would say, role as a member of the Public Accounts Committee in such a way to list out a number of issues that are properly, and have properly been, scrutinised by that committee.

I welcome the response of the First Minister in First Minister’s questions to the leader of Plaid Cymru about the issue of access to free abortions for women from Northern Ireland in Wales. I wanted to applaud the efforts of Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, whose campaigning and actions resulted in the Westminster Government making this decision in England. I call for a detailed statement from the Welsh Government, from the health and social services Cabinet Secretary, about how this will be implemented in Wales. I understand that, last year, 724 women from Northern Ireland accessed abortions in England and Wales. So, could we have a statement to clarify the Welsh numbers? The funding—I note the funding from Westminster will be from the UK Government’s equality office. And, obviously, what about the issue of travel and expense costs? Because a Supreme Court case earlier this year was brought by a pregnant 15-year-old and her mother, who travelled from Northern Ireland to Manchester, and the cost was £900. Obviously, this sort of payment adds to the stress and stigma attached to such a distressing occasion.

Well, I’m glad Julie Morgan, the Member for Cardiff North, has also chosen to raise this again this afternoon, obviously following a question to the First Minister. I want to again repeat what the First Minister said, that we strongly support women’s right to choose to have an abortion. We are looking into the provision of abortions in Wales to women from Northern Ireland. We believe that a woman from Northern Ireland in Wales should be able to access an abortion for free, on the same basis as women in Wales, and we are exploring how that can be achieved. Of course, that does include, as the First Minister said, not just travel costs, expenses costs, but also support for that person, for that woman, who may come to Wales and use that opportunity. Obviously, this is something where—. The Cabinet Secretary for health and well-being is looking at this very carefully and will be able to update in further detail in due course.

But I would also like to join the Member in congratulating Labour’s Stella Creasy MP. I think that what was very important about the approach that she took was to engage a number of MPs cross-party in Westminster. It was a Labour-led core but it was co-ordinated—. And, of course, you could see, across the Chamber in the House, that support coming from all benches, and, indeed, of course, that did result in the response from the UK Government. Now, yesterday, Justine Greening, who’s the Minister for Women and Equalities, issued a letter to all MPs in relation to abortions performed in England for women from Northern Ireland. She said in that letter that payments would be funded through the Government’s equalities office, allowing the Department of Health to commission abortion services in England for those from Northern Ireland. So, it is quite clear that we now need to ensure that this can also, and will, apply to Wales.

Leader of the house, may I ask for a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Economy on benefits delivered by enterprise zones in Wales? Last week, the Cabinet Secretary announced that a new automotive park would be created in Ebbw Vale and promised to keep this Assembly updated on progress in this regard. In November 2015, Welsh Government figures revealed a mixed picture in relation to jobs created in our enterprise zones. In the previous year, more than 1,000 jobs were created in the Cardiff and Deeside enterprise zones. This compared with just seven jobs created at both Ebbw Vale and St Athan. Could we please have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary with an update on the present position of enterprise zones and their development in the light of Brexit, please? Thank you.

I thank the Member for that question. In fact, the Cabinet Secretary met with the chair of the enterprise zone for Ebbw Vale only this morning and was able then to impress on him the importance in terms of the opportunities that are now presented as a result of his announcement and allocation of funding last week. And it is all-important that we look to this in terms of the jobs created, and I know the Cabinet Secretary would like to update Members with a statement not just in terms of the enterprise zone in Ebbw Vale, but across the whole of Wales in terms of all the enterprise zones.

Leader of the house, you’ll no doubt be aware that the ARCH project and the Swansea bay city deal look to develop Swansea and south-west Wales as a regional centre of excellence in health, building on the success of the postgraduate medical school. Now, current discussions around a major trauma centre for south Wales will potentially undermine all that. Reports last week suggested that Cardiff is set to be recommended as south Wales's major trauma centre, with Morriston Hospital in Swansea set to be designated as a major trauma unit as part of a wider network. Now, there's history here, of course, of centralisation of services in Cardiff. The leader of the house and I were, both significantly younger, involved in past battles in terms of trying to protect paediatric neurosurgery, lost from Morriston to Cardiff, and, later on, trying to protect adult neurosurgery, lost from Morriston to Cardiff. People in Swansea and south-west Wales are therefore concerned at what appears to be potentially yet more centralisation of key health services in Cardiff. Strong arguments have been made that Morriston is better located to become a major trauma centre, with a greater proportion of the south Wales population living within an hour's travelling time, and with mid and west Wales being Swansea's natural hinterland. Also, Morriston has a well-established burns and plastic surgery unit, which serves Wales and the south-west of England and is a leading unit nationwide. Given the concerns in Swansea, and competing views, I would be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary for health would bring forward a statement on this topic. Diolch yn fawr.

Yes, I do recall, of course, those discussions from way past, and the work in collaboration that was achieved, how that was moved forward. I'm very interested also in your comment about the importance of the ARCH proposal, which I believe and understand—because there was very much a cross-government, Welsh Government support for that—is also contributing to the Swansea bay city region deal in terms of the opportunities, very pioneering and innovative and cross-cutting aims and objectives, in terms of health and well-being as part of the economic development of Swansea bay and the city deal.

I think it is important just to recognise, in terms of the trauma centre proposals, that progress is being made in developing plans for a major trauma network for south Wales, but no decision on the location of the major trauma centre has been made as yet.

Leader of the house, can I ask for a statement to update us on the success of the Year of Legends tourism strategy to date? I know many Members here have been active in the Year of Legends campaign, including in my own constituency, where I have been campaigning to bring the gold cape back to the town where it was first discovered in 1833. And I'm grateful to the First Minister for his words of support in this Chamber, and to the Cabinet Secretary for economy for all he's doing on that.

As we head towards peak tourism season and the school summer holidays, it would be timely to assess where we are in terms of the Year of Legends and the wider tourism offer we have, given that it's so key to the north Wales economy and, indeed, the Welsh economy as a whole.

Thank you to Hannah Blythyn for that question. It's very timely, I think, at this stage of the year, to be asking for an update from the Cabinet Secretary, who is here beside me, on the Year of Legends campaign, and also the opportunity to tie this in to the gold cape. Now, just to enhance the opportunities here, I understand the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure has asked his officials to take this forward. Tourism officials have received an application from Flintshire County Borough Council for funds to host the original gold cape at Theatr Clwyd. The fund is very competitive, oversubscribed, as the Member will know, but officials are writing shortly to those organisations who will be successful at the first stage, inviting them to submit a full application. I understand that this is very much part of an ongoing research programme, and I welcome the question.

Could I ask for an update on two matters? First of all, there’s been a briefing today by the Public and Commercial Services Union for members in their offices regarding the Department for Work and Pension’s estates programme in Wales. Since the election of the new Government, I’ve written to the Westminster Government, urging them to re-examine the case for closing the DWP offices in Llanelli, and also the case in Ystradgynlais as well, for different reasons. However, I understand from what I’ve been told today that there’s a likelihood of imminent announcements regarding these offices in Wales, and the decision being taken by the Department for Work and Pensions. So, if that is the case, can I have an undertaking from the business manager that the Government will make an immediate statement in response to that, setting out how it may respond in places like Llanelli to that announcement, particularly in terms of assisting people who may actually be left in a position where they cannot move and take up jobs due to home commitments, work commitments, care commitments and travel distance and cost? I think some of the burden of a DWP decision may possibly fall on the Welsh Government, so I’d welcome the commitment to respond to that.

The second issue I’d like to raise is that of the decision announced over the weekend—not actually announced in Parliament until Monday—by Michael Gove, to withdraw the United Kingdom from the London’s Fishery Convention, which was signed in 1964, and which has probably been overwritten several times by the common fisheries policy. So, it’s a kind of a rhetorical signal of a Brexiteer, rather than a reality in political and legal terms. However, it does raise two questions. One is: what discussions were had with the Welsh Government regarding this, as fisheries are a devolved matter? Welsh fishermen and women may be quite relaxed about this, in that we mainly have an inshore fleet and a shellfish industry, but I think there are some trawlers coming out of Milford Haven that may travel to waters that are affected, at least by the principle of this withdrawal, and of course it does raise the question of access to each other’s maritime limits after we withdraw from the common fisheries policy. So, can we have a statement from the Government, setting out what discussions have been around the London Fisheries Convention, or indeed, the common fisheries policy; how that has been discussed with the Welsh Government; what discussions have happened with the Welsh fishing industry around these; and whether there’s any intention of the Welsh Government to make any public announcement on this, as the Scottish Government, I note, has in fact welcomed it?

Thank you, Simon Thomas, for those two questions. Indeed, I recall that you raised the issue of the proposed closures of the DWP offices, and of course those concerns are not only shared by the Welsh Government, but by other Assembly Members and their constituents. And, again, it is important and timely that you raise this, for us to re-examine where we are on this in terms of our representations, and also with an impending announcement.

On your second point, in terms of Michael Gove, one can question, with the way things are going at the moment, under whose authority, and what authority, he made that statement in terms of the fisheries convention. But, I think, my understanding—. It’s only in the last week, I think, that you might have asked the question to the Cabinet Secretary about Michael Gove appearing to ignore the devolved administrations. In any case, I understand that a meeting might be in the offing with the Cabinet Secretary, but quadrilateral meetings with the Scottish Minister and Welsh Cabinet Secretary have been postponed. And, clearly, as far as I understand, the Cabinet Secretary, the Welsh Government, certainly was not consulted before this was announced at the weekend. And it is very important that you, again, draw this to the wider public attention, in terms of the way that we are being treated and disregarded.

Can I support the calls for an update on the Year of Legends strategy? I really appreciate the fact that there’s a fellow colleague in north Wales seeking to get some of our treasures back into the region. One of the other treasures that is associated both with the Delyn and Clwyd West constituencies is the finger bone of St Winefride, of St Winefride’s holy well fame, who, of course, was originally interred in Gwytherin, in my own constituency, and whose bones were, frankly, pinched by the monks of Shrewsbury abbey in order to encourage people to visit that town. And I wonder whether we could have a message from the Welsh Government on the importance of that relic to north Wales, and whether there might be an arrangement and an opportunity to host a visit by that relic, in conjunction with the Roman Catholic Church, to both Gwytherin, and indeed to Holywell, at some point in the future?

Can I also call for a Welsh Government statement on the Ministry of Defence estate review? This is something that I know many colleagues across the Chamber have expressed concerns about in the past. I appreciate that defence matters are not devolved to this National Assembly, but the estate review will have a significant impact across Wales—in north Wales, in Prestatyn and Wrexham, and in places like Chepstow, Brecon, and elsewhere. And I think it’s very important that the Welsh Government has a clear position on this, and that the Assembly—on a cross-party basis—can come together around a common message, in terms of the importance of the footprint of the defence estate here in Wales, given the contribution that we make to the armed forces personnel more generally. So, I would appreciate a statement on the Welsh Government’s position on that, and any discussions that you might be having with the UK Government, and the Ministry of Defence.

Thank you, Darren Millar. On your first question, the Cabinet Secretary, as I’ve already stated, is going to do an update on the Year of Legends. And, clearly, you have identified one possible missing legend, which should be considered—those relics, more than one, I think—but, particularly, you referred to St Winefride at the holy well in Holywell. And I think this is very important that these are charted and tracked, and that they’re recognised. So, I know the Cabinet Secretary will want to respond on that particular local issue for you, in your region—constituency, sorry.

Second point: I think many Members are very concerned about the MOD estate review. I certainly am as a Vale of Glamorgan Assembly Member, as far as St Athan is concerned. It has an impact on many constituencies, and I will ask the Cabinet Secretary to follow this up, for an update from the MOD.

I thank the leader of the house.

The next item is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children on an update following the Grenfell Tower fire. And I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make his statement. Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Llywydd. Llywydd, thank you for the opportunity to update Members on the actions being taken by Welsh Government, landlords, and fire and rescue services in Wales, in the light of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I am committed to keeping Members updated on our actions, and I’m sure Members will agree that this is not a party political issue, but one of concern to us all, and of course, in many cases, our constituents. Accordingly, I briefed opposition spokespeople this morning, and will provide regular updates to Members as the situation evolves.

Llywydd, our immediate priority, both for the Welsh Government and social landlords, was to ensure that the particular Reynobond cladding implicated in Grenfell Tower was not fitted to Welsh high-rise tower blocks. I reported last week that no cladding of this type was found. Our focus moved to the aluminium composite material, ACM, in general, and this has been identified in seven blocks. This cladding has been tested. Clearly, the situation demands close co-operation by a range of agencies and services. Resident safety and peace of mind is the very highest priority for all organisations involved with this issue, and I am pleased to say that we’re working together effectively. Along with others, the Welsh Government is absolutely committed to taking a measured and proportionate response that recognises the importance of tenants’ safety and peace of mind.

To understand the experiences of those living in the affected properties, yesterday, I visited tenants in Swansea, where I had some very positive and insightful discussions, which will be helpful in shaping our activity as we move forward. I was also able to explain the steps being taken to ensure that the high-rise tower blocks are safe. I was able to hear from tenants, first hand, what their concerns are surrounding the safety of the cladding material, and they made it very clear that they appreciated the advice provided by the landlords.

I am, naturally, anxious to deal with the understandable concerns of the tenants as quickly as possible. It is essential that Government action should be based on the best possible professional advice. Our excellent fire and rescue services remain closely involved in supporting landlords and in ensuring that all proper and reasonable steps are taken to safeguard the tenants. Their professional and measured approach to risk management and fire safety is crucial. Indeed, I believe the only subsequent evacuation to date in England, from the Chalcots estate, occurred following a joint inspection of the estate by the London Fire Brigade and a decision that some of the blocks needed to be evacuated on a temporary basis.

I am pleased to say that Swansea has implemented a comprehensive set of measures following their test results. This action is fully in line with the DCLG guidance, which was updated on 22 June. This sets out mitigating measures to be implemented, as appropriate, without delay, where it is determined that insulation materials within ACM cladding are unlikely to be compliant with the current building regulations. The measures range from checking fire-risk status—and in Swansea’s case, an assessment has been conducted very recently—and ensuring residents fully understand emergency fire procedures, particularly the meaning of ‘stay put’, to the effective implementation of preventative measures, which include checking the compliance of insulation or other materials that form the facade of the building.

The local authority is in regular contact with the residents and has fire wardens on site to reassure tenants. The Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service has confirmed that it undertook fire safety audits at both Clyne Court in Sketty and Jeffreys Court in Penlan on 21 June of this year. The fire safety arrangements were found to be satisfactory against the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, where it applies. Similarly, a full range of risk management and mitigation measures are in place in Newport—again, fully in accordance with DCLG guidance. More generally, we continue to be in close contact, again, with the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.

The Welsh Government will, of course, continue to stay in close touch and work with Swansea and Newport, and all other local authorities affected, as further guidance and advice emanate from the UK expert group. I’ve also established a Welsh fire safety advisory group, chaired by Des Tidbury, my Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser and Inspector for Wales. That group will meet for the first time this week. To ensure consistency and effective communication, there needs to be a strong and effective relationship between the two groups, so I’ve asked the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government that Des Tidbury sits as a member of the UK expert group also. I expect to hear a response from his shortly.

As I have explained, our primary focus has been, and remains for the time being, on high-rise tower blocks within the social housing sector. We are, though, now engaged with local authorities and the WLGA to identify all private sector residential high-rise blocks. We are working to ensure that we can identify the freeholders and managing agents of these blocks and provide them with appropriate advice and guidance, in line with what we have provided to the social housing sector. My expectation is that, where an owner identifies that a residential high-rise building has, or is indeed suspected of having, ACM cladding, they will send samples for testing and take the same additional precautionary measures as social housing landlords have taken.

All of this activity, geared to ensuring we can improve safety measures and give reassurance, only happens with the full support and engagement of our partners across the piece. I would like to thank them for their continued effort. As I said at the outset, this is a fast-moving issue, and I will ensure that Members are kept fully informed and updated. Thank you.

Can I welcome this statement from the Cabinet Secretary and can I thank him for the briefing he gave opposition spokespeople this morning and the promise of further briefings from him and his officials? I do think it’s important we are kept informed of, as he said, what is a rapidly changing situation. Can I ask him, in terms of the immediate assessments that have been carried out, what conclusions have been reached about the role of cavity spaces, which, I understand, were key in the appalling tragedy at Grenfell Tower? This is where there is a gap, obviously, between the cladding and the main structure of the tower block, and this constituting a key risk. Are similar cavity spaces present in the Welsh tower blocks that have been inspected? Under what circumstances would the Minister advise social landlords to remove the cladding? I do understand there may be a danger that if cladding is just removed, then even more dangerous and inflammable material could be exposed beneath. Are there circumstances, therefore, under which the Minister anticipates relocation being an option if immediate assurances of safety cannot be established? I’m also advised that the cladding material on Grenfell Tower and—I don’t know, but I assume—the other cladding materials that are present in Wales, one of the difficulties with them is that they are designed to act as rain screens, which unfortunately means that when the fire service attempts to control and extinguish fires, they’re much less effective in the action they take as the water is being repelled. Obviously, containing and extinguishing fires is key to the general fire resilience of these buildings. Is there any difference in the cladding material acting as a screen in Wales, as seems to have been the case in London?

Cabinet Secretary, many tower blocks are in the private sector or are public buildings such as schools and hospitals. How are the assessments of these buildings being made? Does he have any further information for the Assembly this afternoon on this aspect of the challenge? Finally, how are the latest findings and the advice that emerges that was based on these findings being disseminated to tenants in a usable, reassuring but clear way, to private landlords and management companies that run many private blocks of flats, and also to those running schools and hospitals? Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your questions, David Melding. Llywydd, if I may—several questions there. First of all, on the issue around cavity spaces, the Member raises issues around that. I would be reluctant to offer a view on that in the prematurity of the public inquiry into that. I do think there were several aspects of the Grenfell Tower that appear to have significant factors in contribution to the fire system breakdown, whether that be compartmental or actual exterior failings, but I wouldn’t like to pre-empt that. Of course, if cavity spaces are part of that process, then we need to look at that very carefully in the advice we receive.

In terms of the cladding and the advice in terms of relocation, and giving advice to remove cladding, I’m taking the advice from the independent advisory group from the UK—the Department for Communities and Local Government. These are professionals, and I don’t think this is a political decision. This should be based upon evidence and their advice. If they suggest that the removal of cladding is the best option, then we will seek to remove that cladding and we’ll talk about the implications of finances after that. But the Member is right to also say that just removing the aluminium cladding of a building can pose a further risk by exposing the insulation process. So, we have to be measured in the processes that we are going to implement if we do do that. Also, the issue is that what the tests have been conducted on has been part of a composite of the unit. So, only a sample to provide whether the substance contained in the sample was flammable or combustible, whereas I think the next stages we possibly need to be looking at are about the whole-system approach in terms of where we’re able to test a whole system to see whether the activity of that panel is safe and complies with British standards and the regulations, as was thought when it was installed. I think that could be the next stages that we move to—giving confidence to the people who live in those premises that the fire services have both checked and continue to work with tenants of the affected areas to give them reassurance about the safety implications of the fire systems that are in place.

On the issue of Grenfell Tower, again, the Member raises issues about building regulations. I’d also raise a point of caution in terms of, again, understanding what the true effects are of testing. At this time, we are aware that our buildings have cladding installed that complies with building regulations, and therefore if the building regulations are wrong, then we have to have a review of that. I’ve got a meeting again with Lesley Griffiths in terms of the detail of that, but also listening to the advisory panel in terms of what their thoughts are on this.

On other buildings—education, health and public buildings, leisure, stadiums—we have started the activity of asking for feedback from all of the relevant agencies. I’ve written to all Cabinet colleagues. I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Education has written to local authorities to ask around school buildings and other university buildings. My primary concern on a risk basis assessment is, first of all, the high-rise blocks of flats, and then I think we need to move to where people reside of an evening, cook, and there are, therefore, some student accommodation that should have a high priority in making sure that we are absolutely certain about the safety mechanisms around those.

The other point of interest is in terms of the private sector, which is a little bit more difficult in terms of how we identify them. And I’m working with Ken Skates’s department to look at what connections we have with private sector landlords and larger companies, but also for the Rent Smart Wales team, with the registration of landlords, to use the data around that to contact individuals around property management again. We do have powers of intervention, but there are lots of powers with other authorities in terms of non-compliance. So, if a private landlord was not to seek to comply with sample testing et cetera, then the local authority, or the fire service, indeed, could ask and require that with prohibition notices. So, we do have things in place subject to the need to do that.

As you say, Cabinet Secretary, I think it is important to have clarity in terms of exactly what is being tested, so if just the 4mm or so of external cladding is being sent for testing, then it obviously doesn’t include the wider building external wall system. So, I hear what you say in terms of perhaps moving on to that wider, more comprehensive and significant testing. So, I wonder if you could say what the process is of making that move. You have your external panel, but, at the moment, obviously, it’s UK Government and BRE that are conducting tests. So, is that a suggestion you might make, advised by your external panel, and it would then be a matter for the UK Government to come to a decision?

And will it be possible to consider the unique construction techniques and safety measures in place in each building, because I know some registered social landlords in Wales do feel that it’s absolutely critical that that is the approach? So, for example, where there are systems in place that involve fire breaks, so that there would be materials on each floor within the ventilation shaft between the insulation and the external cladding, if there were those fire breaks in place that expand in the case of a fire to seal off, as it were, the so-called chimney effect, that might well be a matter that should be considered as to the overall safety of those external wall systems. So, I do feel that there is a lack of clarity in many people’s minds, Cabinet Secretary, in terms of exactly what’s being tested, as to whether that is the best test that can really give us a picture of the safety measures in place, and provide necessary reassurance to residents.

The other question I’d like to ask is: will you continue to work with registered social landlords in Wales, and others, to make sure that tenants are properly involved and are properly communicated with to ensure safety, but also to provide necessary reassurance? Because I think, whatever view we take of recent events, it will always be the case that there will be that need to involve residents and communicate with residents if we really are going to have the best safety systems and, indeed, proper reassurance.

And just finally, I’m sure you would join me, Cabinet Secretary, in urging responsible media reporting of these matters, because I know, again, there is concern amongst registered social landlords in Wales and, indeed, tenants that some of the media reporting is unhelpful in terms of helping us ensure that necessary safety and reassurance.

I thank John Griffiths for his questions. I’ll take his last point first and, I think, his most pertinent, actually. The people we really need to think about here are the residents of these blocks, and that’s what our primary concern must be, both in making sure that there is a reality of safety but also that the perception of safety is addressed in terms of what their views are. I will not be making a statement to this Chamber prior to informing residents of what the issues are. I don’t think it’s fair for media outlets to allow residents to be unnecessarily worried, and they should be always contacted by the landlords first, and then I will, of course, inform the Assembly of the actions taken by landlords.

There are two areas the Member raised questions on. First of all, the sample position. The sample was based upon the requirements of DCLG advice and of BRE’s testing facilities, and they’ve been consistent. However, the consistency of the samples is that they’ve all failed, which would indicate to me that the question arises about what exactly we are testing for here, and I think that’s what led me to understand what the panel is now considering about whether a full-system approach to testing is important. The Member raises a very important issue that most of the buildings are very unique in the style of build and what constitutes their fire safety. So, that has to be taken into consideration in the round as well, about what the systems are. That’s why I said earlier on to David Melding, in terms of the Grenfell Tower, that I think there were several issues that had an effect on the severity of the fire there, not just the cladding element of this, and the potential breaches of other fire regulations in the whole-system approach is something that we need to be mindful of. The very simple analogy is that—. In the same way as testing is taking place, we know there is flammability and combustibility in the small amount of sample that was tested, but, in a system approach, that may not be an issue. In the same way as we drive a car with eight gallons of petrol in it, and, on its own, petrol is very flammable and dangerous, but, within a system approach, it’s safe to drive a vehicle, and this could be exactly the same as this composite material within a structure that is considered as a whole-system approach. So, we are awaiting advice from DCLG on that, and if the advice comes for further system testing, that’s what we will apply. If that advice doesn’t come forward and the advice is, ‘This is dangerous, it needs to be removed’, we will follow that advice as well.

I’m not making, as I said, any political decisions on this; this is based upon evidence of the experts, and I will rely on them to give me, along with confidence for residents, the processes that need to be in place. But I will keep the Member apprised of the issues that are raised with me on a daily basis.

I’d like to raise the issue of hotels, in particular, with you Cabinet Secretary. I’d be grateful if you could let me know if you have, or you are prepared to, look at changing regulations into banning designated smoking in hotel rooms. A constituent has raised this issue with me over a large period of time. One, there’s a safety issue, but, two, beyond this statement today, of course, is the issue of occupying that room after somebody who has been in there smoking. I appreciate that’s beyond today’s statement. Other constituents have also highlighted a number of examples of breaches of fire regulations over about six months, so it does seem like an appropriate time to raise this with you today. So, the two issues are: one, the banning of designated smoking in hotel rooms; and your views on a better inspection regime, particularly in hotels.

The Member raises two interesting points. I think it is something for the future to consider in terms of, initially, smoking in hotel rooms in general. The other issue about regulation of hotels is: I think what’s important here is that we don’t get pushed into a false sense of insecurity and doing something for the wrong reason. It has to be based upon the evidence provided. Can I give you assurance? I spoke to the chief fire officer yesterday and he said to me that the last thing we want to do here is tell people that it’s unsafe to live in tower blocks, because it isn’t. Providing all the procedures are in place, with fire breaks and fire safety inspections—that they are not breached; they are intact—tower blocks are safe areas to live. He says that the issue of Grenfell has brought to the forefront some real issues that need to be addressed about inspection regimes et cetera.

Installations is another one that was raised with me today by Dawn Bowden, in fact—about how the installations of some service providers may breach the fire integrity of these panel units by drilling et cetera, and installation of aerials or dishes. That’s something that I’m going to take up with Lesley Griffiths’s regulation team, to make sure that that isn’t a problem. And if it is a problem, we need to regulate around that. So, this has raised issues again, but the overall principle is: generally, tower blocks are safe, but we have to ensure that the cladding that’s been placed on these buildings—either it’s fit for purpose or it isn’t, and we’re learning about that every day.

Thank you for the meeting alongside David Melding this morning. As Plaid Cymru spokesperson for housing—although you wouldn’t realise it today—I just wanted to say, in relation to your point about this not being political, I totally agree, but I think that the Government should expect Assembly Members of all parties to be able to scrutinise effectively, and that is part of our role in doing so. The same with the media: I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to take a view on what the media does. I would be assured that if you tell the tenants and the landlords before it gets to the media, then there would be no problem with them finding out in that way. In fact, I would assume that you would be able to speak to everybody involved before any of the media gets to speak to tenants.

I wanted to ask, with regard to the relationship that you have with the fire service—you’ve indicated that they have put mitigating measures in place, such as fire marshals and so forth. I want to be assured from you, in writing, possibly, whether they’ve said that they are comfortable with the current setup, therefore comfortable with the fact that the cladding is not being removed, but the mitigating measures that they’re putting in place instead are going to be robust enough to ensure that tenants are safe if there is a situation of risk at those flats. I think we all need to be assured of that here today.

With regard to fire safety also, I need to be assured that there’s capacity within the system for the fire and rescue service to be able to deal with this. So, for example, if the UK panel advises that interim measures are needed on the cladding, do we have enough capacity in the system here for those authorities to take forward action? You hinted at the fact that the UK advisory panel would be potentially recommending whole-system testing, rather than sample testing of cladding. Can you clarify what that means in practice, and will you be going ahead with such testing here in Wales, or will it not be for you to decide, but they will be part of a sampling process across the UK?

I thank you for the information on keeping us updated with other bodies. I’m wanting to understand how you’re going to collate all of the information from the Cabinet Secretary for health, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Cabinet Secretary for economy, so that AMs can be assured that all that information is going to a central location. I have been told by some Plaid Cymru AMs that they’re finding it difficult to find out information from Hywel Dda health board as to what’s happening with the testing that they’ve carried forth on their systems. If we could get some clarification, that would be good.

You said that you’re going to be issuing guidance to local authorities in relation to private landlords. Are you satisfied this is enough, and what powers do you have to intervene should it not be something that they are receptive towards?

With regard to—my final question—building regulations, if the UK advisory panel does confirm that testing of cladding is conducted to a higher safety requirement than current Welsh building and fire safety regulations require, do you agree that this could mean taking a larger look at building and fire safety regulations? How will you decide whether or not to take a closer look at that aspect of the situation? I understand from the new Government of Wales Act that you will have powers over building regulations as a Government in future, apart from, sadly, the Crown Estate, which will include airports, will include shipping ports and will include nuclear power stations—they will be reserved matters. So, how are you going to be able to regulate or to legislate in this area if you don’t have all the tools that you may need in future?

Thank you for your questions. First of all, I am very comfortable with the scrutiny that takes place in the Chamber by yourself or any other Members on this issue. I am very clear that I do believe that this shouldn’t be partisan; it is about constituents who we all share an affiliation to and making sure the safety of this is paramount. So, I don’t mind the scrutiny in any case.

Can I say, in answer to specifics around the fire service, that I have spoken on several occasions to the senior officers in my team? I’m on call with them on a regular basis, alongside the landlords as well. Swansea council have, of their own volition, introduced fire marshals 24/7 on those blocks of flats. That’s aside from the fire service, and this is based on advice from DCLG. Everything that DCLG has advised in terms of the fire safety process, Swansea and Newport are implementing—either have implemented or are implementing in that process, and they are working alongside the fire service to deliver that.

I will look to see if I can qualify the discussions we’ve had by writing to the Member. I’m aware of that. I would hope that my word is good enough today for the Chamber, but I also respect that the Member may wish to see that in writing, and I will have a look to see if I can respond to her in that state.

The capacity of the fire service, I am aware, is okay. They have told me again—this was one of the questions I had in the discussion with them about the ability to resource the issue around this—that there are no issues. In fact, they were very proactive in making sure that they were going to use staff, alongside local authority staff or landlord staff, to work with tenants, to give them confidence. I think they’re a much more trusted source than politicians telling everybody it’s going to be okay. When the fire service says it, I think it’s just more of a trusted voice.

Just for clarification to the Member, when I said the issue around testing and then a whole-system approach to testing—this is not a decision of mine. This will be based upon advice from the DCLG group. If they move from sample testing to full panel testing, then, of course, that’s where we want to be, as well. I think that gives, actually, a truer result of the effects of fire safety on a building when you have a whole-system test, but if they do not recommend that and they recommend something else, that route I will take also. I will not be making a decision other than what the recommendations are from the DCLG advisory group. These are specialists in fire safety, and I will listen to those words of advice carefully.

In terms of activity across Government, I am the lead Minister on this, irrespective of building regulations or fire safety or health or otherwise. I am the Minister leading on this particular issue. I will have a conversation with my team in respect of the issues you raised with one of the health boards. If you could provide me with more detail about that, that would be really useful.

This is really fast moving. To do a full assessment of buildings at risk for organisations—with this material on them—is something we weren’t expecting. So it is taking a little bit of time, but I’m hoping that co-ordination can be coming together on that, and I will make a point of informing the Member of exactly how that is going.

On other actions we have in place, I mentioned earlier on to David Melding, with regard to what we can do if things aren’t happening on the ground, that we have the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which can be used regarding common areas of blocks of flats et cetera. We also have the role of fire service safety checks, again, where they can put prohibition notices on these areas, which can stop either the trading or the ability for them to rent properties. We can stop that through Rent Smart Wales as well. So, there are lots of actions we can take, and I am considering what powers I have also in terms of this field, but I will let Members know more detail about that.

A final point, if I may, Llywydd, on building regulations. We do have powers to amend building regulations already and we have a building regulation advisory group. But, again, I will not be seeking to amend building regulations, or the Minister won’t be, unless we’ve got evidence provided to suggest that we should. The current stated position is that the units that have been installed are compliant to building regulation standards. Now, if they are wrong or they require changing, then we will have a full assessment, again, in line with the UK Government. These panels don’t just spread from Wales and England. These are used on international buildings all over the world, so we have to be very cautious in our approach: not a knee-jerk reaction to changing building regulations because it feels right. We’ve got to base this on evidence on what is right by the expert panel.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your statement and thank you for all the work you’re doing with other public services to identify whether we have a problem in Wales and, where we do, to rectify it. I agree it’s absolutely important that we don’t overreact on this, and I’m confident that my local authority is doing what is necessary to identify whether we have a problem, and, if we do, to rectify the situation.

I’m pleased to see that you have also asked local authorities to identify freeholders and managing agents of private sector tower blocks, because I’ve got many of them in the city centre of Cardiff. I just wanted to probe a bit further. You say in your statement your expectation is that where an owner identifies a residential high-rise building has, or is suspected of having, ACM cladding, that they will do the right thing and send samples for testing. What if they don’t? What are your powers in that regard? And in relation to the obligations of landlords and managing agents of private blocks in relation to regular inspections of the common areas of private sector flats, what sort of record is there of where and who has actually carried out these obligations? How do residents get to find out when a fire safety check has actually been carried out of these communal areas? How can the fire service—our excellent fire service—hope to target those who are not complying if we don’t have a complete record?

Really useful questions from the Member today, and I thank her for her comments, particularly around the fire and rescue services and their ability to act on the issues that she’s raised.

Can I first of all take the issue around testing and private sector testing? We are working with local authorities to identify the individuals at the first point, and they will be given guidance on what we expect to happen. I’ve yet to find an agent that doesn’t wish to comply with that process, but it is early days, and I expect there may be one or two that may wish to push the boundaries—if that’s what they seek to do. But there are powers within the Building Act 1984. So, under the Housing Act 2004, in response to identifying a hazard, the local authority has a range of enforcement options. Taking emergency remedial action under section 40 and making an emergency prohibition order under section 43 to prohibit the use of the premises are all actions that can be taken by local authorities should they so wish, in addition to the fire service with their risk assessments on fire safety and prohibition notices as well. So, we do believe that there are enough powers to deal with the issue once we’ve identified a non-compliance in the system, if that is to be the case. But I can’t see any reason why a person wouldn’t want to move to ensure that their building is safe.

There are regular intervals for fire safety inspection tests, and the fire service hold those data. I will write to the Member and put a copy in the library of the detailed process in terms of fire safety regulations and checks for buildings of this type so that the Member is confident in the response, and also other Members can have access to that.

Thanks, Chair, and thanks, Minister, for the statements that you’ve made on this subject so far to keep us updated on the measures that are being taken. I feel swift action was necessary, both to investigate potential fire risks and also to alleviate the fears of people living in high-rise blocks. As you stated, peace of mind is an important factor here. A lot is evidently being done. I think linking up what we’re doing here in Wales with what they’re doing elsewhere in the UK is important. So, the appointment of Des Tidbury to the UK expert group would be a good move.

I’m also encouraged that your investigations are moving away from social housing, where they understandably began, into encompassing also private blocks, and also that you’re extending your scope to non-residential buildings. You did talk about the building regulations side of things. I know that that issue has been raised. I’ve noticed, in the national press, there has been some questioning of the building regulations as they apply in England. Possibly, the same may apply in Wales. There are suggestions that changes made in recent years may make those processes less robust in assessing possible fire risk. I know this is an ongoing investigation of yours, so I’m not expecting a definitive answer now, but if you would just bear that aspect in mind and keep that with you as you go forward. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. I’m not aware that there was a formal question there, Llywydd, but I do recognise the comments made by the Member, and we’ll take that on board.

Finally, Dawn Bowden.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, we spoke this morning about the issues that I raised with you, but can I just say I was very pleased, when I visited the only high-rise tower in my constituency, which is in Merthyr Tydfil, that the cladding on that building is not of the ACM type, but is of the Rockwell type, which means that it is fire retardant and it’s covered by a render finish? The flats there also have sprinklers in every dwelling.

The issues, which I raised with you—I’m very pleased with your response on those because it was a particular concern, when it was raised with me, that companies like BT and Sky can come into a block of flats without the landlord knowing, without their permission, and can drill through fire barriers to install phones and satellite dishes, rendering those fire barriers less effective in the process, and then the landlord has little or no chance of getting those companies to come back and to reinstate. So, I’m very pleased that you are going to look at that. As an absolute minimum, I guess, those companies should be compelled to seek the permission of the landlord to go into that building, and agree with them what the works and the reinstatement of those works should look like.

But the other issue that was also raised with me was those leaseholders, i.e. those people who, under right to buy, have bought units within tower blocks and are not subject to the same conditions that tenants are in terms of notifying what is the building owner how many people are living in that accommodation and whether they store flammable equipment in there, or potentially dangerous equipment like oxygen tanks and so on. Tenants are required to do that, leaseholders are not, and yet they’re in the block and so provide the same kind of potential danger. So, in addition to looking at how these outside companies can come in and drill into the firebreaks and so on, can I ask you, Cabinet Secretary, if you could also look at whether there are ways in which leaseholders can be compelled to disclose to building owners information that they may need to be able to assess a fire risk in that building?

I thank the Member for the discussion I had with her this morning, and also the issue she raised with me this afternoon. The issue about the third party element of this is something I will take up with Lesley Griffiths in terms of building regulations and the compliance methods used for accessing buildings of risk, and it’s something that I will ask them to look at. I think I mentioned earlier I believe that the public inquiry may indicate that there were breaches to firebreaks within the Grenfell Tower flats through installation of third party activity or later post-dated developments. So, it’s something that is a serious concern. I will raise that with Lesley Griffiths.

In terms of leaseholders, there are some elements of control around leaseholders. There is a duty for tenants to inform the body in regard to what is deemed to be stored in there, in terms of dangerous materials. But there is also the issue around changing front doors. This is an activity often enjoyed by new leaseholders in the building—often not replacing them with fire doors. So, there is an issue where the local authority or the fire service can promote prohibition notices on there for change of use and return back to a fire-door process. I do believe there are some prohibition notices live currently, at the moment, in terms of looking at resolving those issues, but I will take the points that the Member has raised with me this afternoon and talk to other Ministers to see if we can resolve some of the concerns that she has.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

We will move on now to the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure: historic environment policy and legislation. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to make the statement—Ken Skates.

Thank you, acting Deputy Presiding Officer. A little more than a year ago, the first Wales-only legislation for the historic environment received Royal Assent and became law. Since then, the greater part of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 has been brought into force, and an impressive body of supporting policy, advice and best-practice guidance has been published. It is an appropriate time now to take stock of what we have achieved and to look ahead at what lies in the future.

The 2016 Act has placed Wales at the forefront of the UK nations in the protection and management of the historic environment. For instance, following the commencement of the relevant provisions at the end of May, Wales alone can claim statutory historic environment records for each local authority area. They provide local authorities, developers and others with the essential information they need to reach well-informed decisions on the management of the historic environment. They also play an important role in helping people to learn more about, and engage with, the local historic environment. The legislation has given these vital records a stable future and their importance has been underscored by statutory guidance for public bodies.

Wales also now boasts the only statutory list of historic place names in the UK, and perhaps even the world. The list included nearly 350,000 entries at its launch in early May. It will raise public awareness of the importance of these elements of our national heritage and encourage their continuing use by individuals and public bodies. Specific instructions on the use of the list in naming and renaming streets and properties have been included in statutory guidance. We are also leading the way in making the processes for scheduling a monument or listing a building more open, more transparent and accountable. Owners and occupiers must now be formally consulted before a designation is made, and, importantly, historic sites are given protection during this period of consultation. Owners have also been given a right to request a review of that decision, which would be undertaken by the Planning Inspectorate. The 2016 Act has also provided a range of new or refined tools to give increased protection to our precious historic assets. For example, we’ve made it easier for local planning authorities to undertake urgent works to deteriorated listed buildings and, crucially, we’ve reduced the financial risk by making any costs a local land charge. We’ve closed loopholes in existing legislation that hindered efforts to prosecute individuals who seriously harmed scheduled monuments through unauthorised works or malicious destruction.

Of course, it is far better to prevent damage in the first place, so we have developed alongside the legislation a new web resource, Cof Cymru—National Historic Assets of Wales, to give owners, occupiers and members of the public free, authoritative information on the description, location and extent of designated and registered historic assets right across Wales.

From the outset of the legislative process, we recognised that the 2016 Act would need to be supplemented by up-to-date planning policy and advice for the historic environment, which reflected not only the provisions of the Act but also the current conservation philosophy and practice. I’ve worked with the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs in the production of a revised historic environment chapter for Planning Policy Wales, and the first technical advice note, or TAN, for the Welsh historic environment. TAN 24 covers all aspects of the management of the historic environment within the planning system and has replaced a number of outdated Welsh Office circulars. These measures are being complemented by best-practice guidance that will help local authorities, the third sector, developers and owners and occupiers to manage the historic environment carefully and sustainably for the benefit of present and future generations. The first nine titles appeared in May and are available from the Cadw website. They include the management of world heritage sites and historic parks and gardens, and also advice on the preparation of lists of historic assets of special local interest, and, of course, tackling listed buildings at risk.

While we can be justifiably proud of our achievements in the year since the Historic Environment (Wales) Act became law, there is still work to be done. During the passage of the legislation, concern was expressed across the Chamber about listed buildings that had been allowed to fall into disrepair. This led to an amendment that will give local authorities the powers to take additional action to secure the proper preservation of such buildings. However, any regulations that we introduce must be genuinely useful for local authorities and contribute positively to the resolution of the complex challenges presented by decaying listed buildings. So, we have commissioned research that will provide a sound evidence base for our proposals for regulations. This is an opportunity to find a way forward for many buildings that are blighting our communities, but we will need the input of stakeholders across the historic environment sector to shape effective legislation.

The Act’s provisions for heritage partnership agreements also remain to be commenced. These agreements, which have been greeted with enthusiasm in the sector, will support the consistent long-term management of scheduled monuments and listed buildings. They will benefit both owners and consenting authorities by embodying the necessary consents for agreed routine works. Since these agreements will last for a number of years, it is important that the regulations and the guidance are well-founded and practical. We are therefore seeking partners for pilot schemes to inform further progress.

Work to bring the statutory register of historic parks and gardens into effect is well under way. A review of the boundaries of the almost 400 parks and gardens on the existing non-statutory register has been undertaken. All known owners and occupiers of registered historic parks and gardens will be notified of the boundaries of the registered areas during the remainder of 2017 and in early 2018. Once that notification process is complete, the statutory register will be brought into force.

Finally, we come to the Act’s provisions for the advisory panel for the Welsh historic environment. Assembly Members will recall that, at the end of last year, I convened the Historic Wales steering group to undertake a review of heritage services in Wales. Following their recommendations, I asked for a business case examining the options for the future governance arrangements for Cadw, including potential legislative implications. Until I have received that business case and have taken a decision on Cadw’s future, it would be premature to consider the detailed arrangements for the advisory panel.

During the scrutiny of what was then the historic environment Bill, many here voiced their desire to consolidate the legislation for the historic environment to give Wales a single, bilingual body of law accessible and comprehensible to practitioners and the public alike. Therefore, I am delighted that, in recent evidence to the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, the Counsel General has identified the historic environment legislation as a suitable pilot for the Welsh Government’s ambitious programme to consolidate and codify the law for Wales. Building on the work that we have already done, this represents an exciting opportunity to make Wales the envy of the UK nations.

The activity I have outlined here today will provide a coherent foundation for improved protection and management of the historic environment for generations to come. It recognises the significant contribution that the historic environment makes to the economy, the prosperity of our nation and the well-being of its citizens, and its importance in fostering the quality of place and the pride and resilience of communities.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement this afternoon? As today’s statement makes clear, the greater part of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 has now been brought into force, and, following the commencement of the relevant provision at the end of May, Wales now has statutory historic environment records for each local authority area. Of course, these records should help introduce greater transparency and accountability into decisions taken on the historic environment, and will be important tools for local authorities and other stakeholders in developing the sustainable management of the historic environment.

Now, the creation of these lists has resulted in increasing the workload of local authorities in this area, and this naturally comes at a cost. Therefore, can the Cabinet Secretary tell us whether there has been any push back from local authorities regarding the preparation of lists of historic assets of special local interest, particularly the cost of doing this? Perhaps he could also tell us what discussions he’s had with the Law Society, and the Welsh Local Government Association, about the revision of local authority search forms, commonly used in conveyancing, to ensure that applications for searches of the various registers are standard procedure and don’t come at any additional cost?

Now, councils have made provisions in their budgets to use some of their new powers to carry out works on a building when the owner hasn’t done so, in both emergency and non-emergency circumstances. Whilst I appreciate that it may be a bit early to ask for an assessment of those powers, given that they only came into force in May, I’d be grateful, however, if the Cabinet Secretary could indicate how the Welsh Government intends to monitor the use of these powers. If these powers are not used, then we need to be clear whether that is because of the financial position that some local authorities may find themselves in. I note that today’s statement highlights that planning authorities can undertake urgent works by making any costs a local land charge. This is a significant step forward in addressing deteriorated listing buildings, and perhaps the Cabinet Secretary could tell us a bit more about these land charges and how they can be used to aid in the recovery of costs associated with urgent work. Indeed, could the Cabinet Secretary provide an initial assessment of these local land charges, and whether they have been effective in addressing urgent works on any neglected listed buildings so far?

Of course, it’s essential that the historic environment Act is supported by the most relevant and updated planning policy advice, and I’m pleased to see the work that has been done with the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs in developing a revised historic environment chapter for ‘Planning Policy Wales’. The first technical advice note for the Welsh historic environment, TAN 24, provides guidance on how the planning system considers the historic environment during development plan preparation and decision making on planning and listed building applications. However, it’s important that that technical advice note is constantly reviewed to ensure its effectiveness. So, therefore, can the Cabinet Secretary tell us how frequently the planning guidance will be updated, and what impact will this have on planning authorities, particularly in relation to contentious planning applications?

Now, I understand that the Welsh Government will be compiling a statutory register for historic parks and gardens, which will certainly help owners, local planning authorities, and other stakeholders, to look after the sites in a much more informed way. Therefore, perhaps the Cabinet Secretary could tell us a bit more about the review of the boundaries of those parks and gardens in Wales, and provide some timescales on when the Welsh Government intends to see this statutory register brought into force.

Today’s statement also refers to the governance arrangements of heritage services, and I understand that the Cabinet Secretary is still considering action in this particular area. I understand that there is still quite a bit of work that is taking place on this, but perhaps the Cabinet Secretary could give an indication of what timescales he’s considering in addressing governance arrangements, so that Members can better understand when the statutory advisory panel for the Welsh historic environment will be fully established.

Llywydd, can I once again thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement this afternoon, updating Members on the Welsh Government’s direction of travel in this area? Perhaps the Cabinet Secretary could indicate which parts of the historic environment Act are still yet to come into force, and tell us what sort of timescales are involved in ensuring that all aspects of the Act are fully implemented? And, finally, the Cabinet Secretary is aware of my interest in war memorials, and so perhaps I could tease out some information about how this Act, and the Welsh Government’s general policy in this area, is better protecting war memorials across Wales. It’s so important that guidance is developed to help local authorities and all stakeholders to manage Wales’s historic environment carefully and sustainably for the benefit of present and future generations, and I look forward to scrutinising the Welsh Government in this area to better protect and support our historical sites for the future. Diolch.

I’d like to thank Paul Davies for his contribution and for his questions, and, indeed, all Members in the Chamber, for the keen interest that has been shown in the development of this legislation over quite a lengthy period of time of their continued interest in the subject matter.

The historic environment is crucially important, not just to national and community pride, but also to the economy. As I said in my statement, it employs more than 40,000 people, is hugely important to the tourism sector, contributing something in the region of £900 million to the economy annually, and, therefore, it is right and proper that we make the preservation and promotion of the historic environment a priority for Welsh Government.

I’m going to address first of all the question concerning local government capacity, because, of course, this is crucially important in the successful delivery of the provisions within legislation. I do recognise that there are severe pressures on local government, and, in particular, on non-statutory areas of service delivery, such as conservation, not just here in Wales, but right across the UK. And those pressures are likely to continue; they will not improve, given the likely level of expenditure reductions across the public sector. And that’s why I set up the task and finish group, led by Cadw and the Welsh Local Government Association, to consider the resilience and also the capacity of conservation services across Wales, and to identify options for collaboration in response to issues such as the consistency of advice that can be offered, timeliness in making decisions, tackling buildings that are at risk, and also the ability to utilise new powers.

I’m not aware of any pushback from local government to the historic environment Act. However, I am determined to ensure that local government has the tools, expertise, and the capacity to be able to properly and fully protect the historic environment. It’s one of the reasons why I think it’s important that regional delivery is considered with regard to conservation, and that’s something that I know my friend and colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government is keen to pursue and to promote.

I’m in touch on the question of the historic environment records, sometimes conflated with the lists of local interest. The historic environment records are a statutory historic environment record that exists in the UK, the only historic records that exist in the United Kingdom. The four regional Welsh archaeological trusts are discharging the duty to compile and keep these up to date, rather than the local authorities. And those archaeological trusts, which are supported by Welsh Government, I have to say are doing an exceptional job in ensuring that the records are properly maintained and properly kept up to date. They are available through the Archwilio website, which has been established specifically for the historic environment records. And all new records created after 1 April 2016 are available bilingually.

To support this, statutory guidance on historic environment records has been issued for local and national park authorities, and also for Natural Resources Wales, and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales will be monitoring the standards and also the service levels of the historic environment records. That’s to ensure that they are maintained and monitored by those trusts that are responsible for them on a consistent basis. It will also include coordinating and validating audits, on a five-year cycle.

The Member also asked about buildings, and, in particular, buildings that are at risk, and whether local authorities are currently utilising the new powers available to them for urgent works. There is no magic bullet for dealing with buildings at risk. But we have supported local authorities in preparing buildings-at-risk registers. And new guidance on tackling heritage at risk, and managing change to listed buildings, was published on 31 May, on the same day the provisions relating to urgent works to listed buildings came into force, giving additional powers to local authorities. But I do recognise that there is still more to do. So, the provision made for the introduction of preservation notices in the historic environment Act I think also gives us the opportunity to develop new measures to address the often intractable challenges posed by decaying listed buildings.

But, in specific regard to urgent works, local planning authorities are often deterred from using the powers that they have by the prospect of legal complications, and, even more so, the prospect of financial loss. The 2016 Act has made the use of urgent works easier by extending it to any listed building, provided that it does not unreasonably interfere with residential use, and it also reduces financial risk by making any costs incurred a local land charge upon which, as the Member identified, interest can be charged until fully recovered.

I think it’s too early to assess whether this has been successful. Plans are in place, Presiding Officer, to collect data from across the provisions in the Act and to inform formal evaluation of the Act. It’s anticipated that it will be five years before sufficient data are available to measure whether the Act and the associated measures have made a difference to the protection and the management of the historic environment. That applies equally to the effectiveness of TAN 24, which the Member also raised.

Then, in terms of Historic Wales and the work of the steering group, my officials are currently developing the business case for change within Cadw. That will consider the options for Cadw’s future, including a consideration of any improvements that can be made to the status quo. But, whatever the outcome, it will also highlight best practice, which will help shape the future of the organisation. I think it’s too early to pre-empt whether any legislative change will be required, but, if it is required, then this, of course, will in turn impact on the timescale for delivery and the advisory body that I spoke about.

The Member also raised questions regarding historic parks and gardens—specifically, when I anticipate the statutory register will be brought into force. Given that Cadw is currently engaging with owners and occupiers, notifying them, and that this work will carry on into the first part of 2018, I anticipate that the register will be brought into force in the summer of next year. In terms of any changes to the boundaries, owners and occupiers of registered parks and historic gardens are being notified in the current year.

I’m going to move on to other provisions that the Member asked about—provisions or measures that have not yet been introduced. Heritage partnership agreements still require work. That’s because we want to make sure that they are developed on the basis of sound evidence. So, we are currently looking for partners that can take part in pilot schemes to ensure that heritage partnership agreements are effective. They have been widely welcomed within the sector, but, in order to make sure that they operate most successfully, I think it’s important that we have the right partners to develop pilot schemes that we can base future agreements on.

Also, there were other areas of work that I outlined where there is further effort to be made in ensuring that the Act can be delivered in full. This work includes some of the points that I raised in my statement concerning powers available to local authorities concerning the disrepair of listed buildings where owners have potentially deliberately allowed listed buildings to fall into disrepair. I outlined how regulations would have to be genuinely useful to local authorities and contribute positively to the resolution of the challenges that are presented to local authorities, and so a sound evidence base is still required for that particular piece of work.

As I’ve said, we also believe that we will need the input of stakeholders right across the historic environment sector to shape effective legislation if it is to be brought forward.

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement on the policy with regard to the historic environment? Many points have already been mentioned by Paul Davies, so I won’t repeat those, but I would like to push you further. You say here, on the second page, a matter that you have already mentioned, that you want to make it easier for local planning authorities to deal with the work in an emergency where there are buildings that are listed that are deteriorating in their condition. That’s fine for emergency work, but what about work that is less than urgent, but is still vital to improve a building to return it to a satisfactory visual state, such as the Palace Theatre in Swansea, for example? Vital work is needed. I wouldn’t call it urgent or emergency work, but it does need to be done. There need to be stronger powers for local authorities than currently exist to take action in this regard. I don’t know whether the Cabinet Secretary wants to expand on that: where the need is less than urgent, but is a need regardless. Because some of these buildings can cause local embarrassment.

Turning to what interests me, which is local historic names in this statement, remembering that maintaining historic names is vitally important. As you have already said, Part 4 of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 mentions,

‘the compilation of a list of historic place names in Wales’.

That’s happened. The website, as you’ve said, lists over 350,000 historic place names in Wales, including the different spellings of those places, and forms of those names, over time. We should welcome that kind of resource, but it doesn’t ensure any legal protection for the historic place names of our country. At the end of the day, it’s just a list. We continue to face a situation where there is no protection for historic place names in Wales. This lack of statutory protection is atrocious when you consider the importance of these names in the context of the history of our nation. Without statutory regulation there’s a danger that many of these historic place names that are listed will become no more than history, as these living names are changed and forgotten.

Perhaps the Cabinet Secretary will remember my attempt to bring forward a Bill on safeguarding historic place names back in March. He’ll remember from the explanatory memorandum to that Bill—and I quote—the importance of maintaining place names as part of the historic environment:

‘Historic place names provide invaluable evidence about social, cultural and linguistic history. The names of settlements, houses and farms, fields and natural features provide information about past and present agricultural practices, local industries, changed landscapes and current and former communities. They provide evidence for the development of a rich linguistic heritage — Welsh, English and other languages.’

Many other languages: Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, French, Norman, English and many more. The Cabinet Secretary will remember the debate that we had in March. There are further examples of the loss of names: ‘Maes-llwch’ in Powys turning in ‘Foyles’; ‘Cwm Cneifion’ in Snowdonia turning into ‘Nameless Cwm’. Under the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016, there’s nothing specific to prevent the change of those names. It could still happen. You could argue that the weakness of that Act in safeguarding those names is a threat to a vital component of our historic environment. The March Bill was rejected, as you know, because you voted against it, even though there was strong support in civil society for safeguarding place names, from the Welsh Place-Name Society, Mynyddoedd Pawb, the Welsh Language Commissioner, and so on. You noted, rather, Cabinet Secretary, your intention, as you have announced today, to expand the use of the register of local place names and to introduce guidance alone, not an Act, and I quote from your statement in March, that the,

‘use of the list of historic place names will be specifically considered. In general terms, that guidance will direct these public bodies to take account of the list of historic place names when considering the naming and renaming of streets, properties and other places’.

Consideration alone, before disregarding it perhaps. Note from his comments that only the need to consider would be—

I may have to remind the Member that this is an opportunity to question the Cabinet Secretary. Thank you.

And the question is coming. There is one question that has already been asked, in my defence, Llywydd.

Please ask your question, Dai Lloyd.

It’s worth emphasising that, because it’s consideration alone that people must undertake of this long list of historic place names, despite the fact that, in other countries, such as New Zealand, there are statutory safeguards in place—there is a law to safeguard Maori names, for example—we don’t have that here. So, the question is: can you, Cabinet Secretary, put your hand on your heart and say that the amendments that you have put forward to this are sufficient to ensure that we are a nation connected to ‘Cwm Cneifion’ rather than ‘Nameless Cwm’, or do you believe that you have done enough to safeguard our historic culture and heritage or not?

Can I thank Dai Lloyd for his contribution and his questions? I think he’s absolutely right to raise the issue of buildings that are at risk but not necessarily requiring urgent work. I’ve already outlined why I think that there’s no magic bullet for dealing with buildings at risk, whether in the long term, the medium term or immediately. But local planning authorities for those buildings not requiring urgent works already have numerous powers to assist with tackling neglected buildings, and I would like to see them using these powers more often. For example, section 215 notices under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 can require an owner to undertake a variety of works to tackle the condition of land or a building that is adversely affecting amenity. There is no reason, in my view, why these can’t be used more widely on listed buildings.

But it’s important to acknowledge that the vast majority, I think—and I’m sure the Member would agree with me—of listed building owners maintain and manage change to their buildings with great care, with pride and with a good degree of sensitivity. I think what’s essential is that we foster, support and encourage all of the owners of listed buildings, who are often our greatest allies in caring for our treasured historic buildings, to be equipped with the knowledge, intelligence and support required to take responsibility for the buildings that they are custodians of. For that reason, we’ve produced nine documents that relate to best practice. The guidance includes, ‘Managing Change to Listed Buildings in Wales’. Further titles are planned, but I do think that through a package of measures within the Act, we will encourage a greater degree of responsibility in civil society for the maintenance of historic assets.

The Member, I know, has a very keen interest, and I do admire his interest, in lists of historic place names. I know that this has been a contentious issue. It’s been an issue that many Members have spoken passionately about on numerous occasions in the Chamber, and I do respect all views on this very important issue. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales has already undertaken to compile and maintain the list, and that work is taking place right now. I have to pay tribute to the royal commission for the dedication that it’s shown to this endeavour. Indeed, a full-time member of staff has only just taken up post this week, I believe, at the royal commission, to curate the list, to assist with inquiries and to promote the list and the importance of historic place names. The list is substantial already, containing more than 350,000 historic place names, and it will doubtlessly grow very swiftly as research yields new information. Users of the list are also encouraged to contribute their own information about place names. The aim of this work is to, again, develop a more responsible culture and behaviour across Wales, and a greater degree of respect, not just for the historic environment, but the place names that are attributed to our historic assets.

The Member noted the statutory guidance, ‘Historic Environment Records in Wales: Compilation and Use’. This directs local and national park authorities, and Natural Resources Wales, to take account of the list in naming or renaming when considering the naming and renaming of streets, of properties and of other places. Without the list and those historic environment records, which often underpin the list of historic place names, I do not believe that local authorities, national park authorities or Natural Resources Wales would be in a place to be able to make informed deliberations. Now, thankfully, they will be in a position to make informed decisions. On the best practice guidance on historic place names, well, I’ve asked my officials in Cadw to begin preparing a new publication on historic place names as part of the best practice guidance that complements the Act. It will be aimed at a wide audience to communicate the importance of historic place names to the heritage of Wales, and also to explain what the list offers for those engaged in the management of that heritage.

In terms of the question of legal protection of historic place names, again, this is an issue that has been raised and debated in the Chamber on numerous occasions, and I do respect the Member’s views and the Member’s work in this particular field. Options for the legal protection of Wales’s historic place names were, I believe, thoroughly considered during the passage of the 2016 Act. Formal legal protection would require a consent regime that would be complex, it would be costly and difficult to run, if not impossible to enforce. The approach that we’ve taken—. I do respect Members’ views on this matter, but I equally believe that the approach that we’ve taken is proportionate and, crucially, deliverable. The list will record our rich legacy of historic place names for posterity, it will also raise public awareness of their importance as integral components of our nation’s heritage, with a view, as I outlined, to improving the degree of respect for historic place names in Wales. This, coupled with the statutory guidance issued to public bodies, will, I believe, encourage the continuing use of historic place names in daily life.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement, and can I say that UKIP Wales welcomes many aspects of this legislation? In particular, that the Government is making the scheduling process for monuments and buildings more open and accountable. We also welcome the proposal to put owners and occupiers at the heart of the consultation process, with a right to request a review of a decision by the Planning Inspectorate. Would the Cabinet Secretary confirm that this appeal process will be independently assessed?

Again, we take note of and support the research commissioned into the complex challenges presented by decaying listed buildings. In this regard, can the Cabinet Secretary please confirm that this research will take into account the views of non-specialists and local opinion, as well as stakeholders and local authorities? You‘ve also mentioned in your statement your intention to set up the statutory register of historic parks, and you’ve given us earlier some timeline with regard to that, but can you also tell us what protection these historic parks will have until that register is in place?

Yes. Can I thank the Member for his contribution and his questions? I agree that it’s my fault that the consent regime for scheduling monuments and listing buildings in transparent, it’s open to scrutiny and that it’s transparent, and for that reason we’ve endeavoured to make sure that those who could be affected by the scheduling of a monument or the listing of a building do have the ability to seek a review. Now, it’s absolutely essential in turn, as the Member outlined, that that review process is independent, and so for that reason we would expect the Planning Inspectorate to make a decision in the case of a review to ensure that there is independence, and that there is a safe separation of responsibilities from Cadw.

As far as the consultation on further work that is going to be undertaken is concerned, I think I outlined in my statement that I believe that we need to consult as widely as possible across the sector, and that includes not just experts but also people who could be affected. I think it’s absolutely vital that owners and occupiers of historic buildings have an opportunity to contribute to the debate, the discussion and, ultimately, to legislation if it should be brought forward.

In terms of gardens and parks and the list of historic parks and gardens, we believe there are nearly 400 of these across Wales. The work that’s taken place to date has involved a huge number of owners and occupiers. The aim of the list is to ensure that we have a substantial and exhaustive historic record of all parks and gardens in Wales. Enforcement is a more difficult issue for us to deal with because often enforcement cannot be delivered in a way that is full and fair for owners, given that historic parks and gardens are susceptible to climatic change where they may not responsible for incidents or for degradation of a park or a garden. This was something that was considered—an enforcement regime and protection—but it was thought to be too difficult to manage in a similar way to the proposals for legal protection for historic place names. Actually making sure that something is proportionate and deliverable is essential, but with regard to historic parks and gardens, it was thought that such action may not be deliverable.

At the end of this week, Cabinet Secretary, I will be travelling to the north of my constituency. In fact, I will be traveling to Harlech. When it comes to arranging meetings or any other events in Harlech, there is a natural place where we settle upon that is mutually convenient and extremely important to the area, and of course I’m talking about Harlech castle. I know that the community, like myself, are hugely grateful for the Welsh Government’s recent £6 million investment in the castle and consequently actually putting it back in good shape, now attracting more than 100,000 visitors last year, which was a 35 per cent increase. So, the extra protection afforded to places like that—historic monuments—is hugely important. It’s not only important to the preservation of the physical structure, but to the well-being of the local area. As you well know, it is a world heritage site and it sits within a nearby conservation area, a site of special scientific interest, and an area of special conservation.

So, the question that I have is: whilst we look after and preserve and put forward Acts that protect those buildings and those areas, you will know that within virtually the same footprint of that site we have the St David’s hotel, which is practically falling down. Some would like it to fall down very soon. I suppose my question is this: whilst we’re putting all the investment into the area, and whilst we’re putting lots of protection into the castle, it is marred by overlooking what is now a derelict building. On top of that, of course, there’s the uncertainty of the college site and also the theatre. But I know, Cabinet Secretary, that you’ve put some money into co-funding some regeneration work, and I wonder whether you’ll be able to tell me how much that investment was. I understand and appreciate that you’re in conversation with Gwynedd Council in trying to solve some of the problems, as well as Snowdonia National Park. But I also wonder whether you’re able to confirm, Cabinet Secretary, if you’re speaking with your colleague the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language regarding the future of the college, the theatre and the site, so that when we do put in protection and we do put in some investment that actually does deliver positive change, it isn’t spoiled by those things that it overlooks.

Can I thank the Member for her contribution and for her questions? Joyce Watson is a great promoter of Harlech castle, a great promoter of the region, of the town itself, and also a great champion of the natural environment and wildlife tourism, which we also know is a huge contributor to the Welsh economy. I’d also like to pay tribute to the keen interest that Joyce Watson has shown in the regeneration of Harlech, which has been sparked by our considerable investment in the castle.

The Member rightly noted that we have recently approved a not insignificant sum of money to support further regeneration in Harlech. It’s my hope that the local authority will be able to work with local stakeholders, shopkeepers and community leaders and action groups in ensuring that the right projects are identified for priority work, and that, together, some of the big challenges concerning other assets—some might say ‘eyesores’—in the area are actually dealt with speedily, because I do share the Member’s frustration at some of the decay that is apparent not far from the castle into which we’ve pumped millions of pounds.

As a result of the investment that we’ve made in Harlech castle, we’ve seen a huge increase in visitor figures. Visitor numbers last year grew by 11.2 per cent, and the Member is right; they now exceed 100,000 visitors in total. That’s an additional 8,000 paying visitors, which, in turn, is driving investment back into the Cadw site. And it’s worth noting, as well, that the new bridge that was installed at the castle has been recognised—it’s an award-winning bridge, and it’s become something of an iconic feature locally. The Harlech castle improvement project has been successful in receiving the RICS culture and heritage award.

It’s my view that we need to ensure that we reflect on the fact that the castle is part of an incredible natural environment. The Member identified the world heritage site and the national park as being complementary components. We have developed guidance on maintaining and managing world heritage sites in order to contribute to the work of other groups that are preserving and promoting the historic environment, but I do believe that, with specific regard to Harlech, it’s essential that all parties at a very local level and at a local authority level work together, overcome domestic frustrations that may exist, and focus on the single purpose of identifying the challenges, overcoming them, and ensuring that regeneration can be delivered. And Welsh Government is very happy to lend a hand where possible.

And finally, Rhianon Passmore.

Diolch, Llywydd. I also would like to welcome very much the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure. May I take this opportunity to praise the passionate and committed approach to this important area of responsibility that the Cabinet Secretary has always taken?

The Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2016 is an important piece of legislation, and I note in the statement that the 2016 Act is rightly praised for providing a range of new or refined tools to give increased protection to our precious historic assets. These historic assets take in an all-encompassing range of Welsh life, and, in my constituency of Islwyn, the Navigation in Crumlin is an historic, iconic and important Welsh colliery site. It is among the top 10 most endangered Victorian and Edwardian buildings in England and in Wales, and the Navigation contains a number of listed buildings.

I was encouraged to note in your statement, Cabinet Secretary, the new web resource of Cof Cymru—National Historic Assets of Wales. This give owners, occupiers and members of the public free, authoritative information on the description, location and extent of designated and registered historic assets across Wales. I have done some homework and have actually visited this helpful website, and I’m delighted to have clearly been able to see the various listed buildings at the Navigation, which include the winding engine house, fan house, workshops, stores, pithead baths and outbuildings. That’s 11 in total—all of them grade II listed and a significant and historic record for Wales. Would the Cabinet Secretary agree with me that it is imperative that the Welsh Government does all that it can to ensure that these important historic assets tell the story of our nation and are retained for future generations, as highlighted by the historic Memo in Newbridge, now in full and thriving community use? We know that funding demands place great pressure on us all—£1.2 billion swept off the Welsh budget in recent cuts from the UK—and I am heartened to hear of the £250,000 grant from Welsh Government in 2015 for the colliery.

I want to place on record my appreciation to the Friends of Navigation, who are a group of passionate, highly dedicated local volunteers who maintain and manage this site with the aim of restoring the site and buildings, bringing them back into use. This is an aim that I fully share, along with seeing, in the not-too-distant future, the railway station reintroduced in Crumlin in order to open up our Valleys communities.

Cabinet Secretary, how do the principles and purposes of the 2016 Act—a groundbreaking Act, in my view—and the ensuing best principles, guide, safeguard and revitalise our important historic monuments such as the Navigation? It is a colliery site that my grandfather and my ancestors worked within, and which is today a solid but slowly disintegrating legacy of an international, historical, cultural and industrial heritage. Equally, it must play a part in the new Welsh vision for future generations to come.

Can I thank Rhianon Passmore for her contribution and pay tribute to her keen interest in this subject since being elected to the National Assembly last year? She’s passionate, clearly, about the historic environment, and in particular the historic assets within her constituency. I’d also like to pay tribute to the volunteers of the colliery. I think they do a magnificent job. Not only are they showcasing one of our most important historic assets in Wales, they are also making sure that it is maintained in a way that, without their efforts, without their hard work, it could potentially crumble, so I’d like to thank them for their dedication and commitment. I’m also very impressed that the Member has taken time to browse our online resource. I’m very pleased that she’s found it an impressive resource, and I’m hoping that she’ll share her experience with others. If it’s a TripAdvisor rating she’s going to give it, hopefully it will be five stars.

I do agree that we have to ensure that we tell the story of Welsh heritage. It’s absolutely essential that we go on interpreting the magnificent past that we have: the story of Wales over the millennia. For that reason, it’s essential that we support the groundbreaking pan-Wales interpretation plan, which I think has been hugely significant in drawing together the many facets of our historic environment and shaping them in a compelling narrative.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item is the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport on the new treatment fund and the progress report. I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make his statement. Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. The new treatment fund became active immediately after it was established in January of this year. The purpose of our new treatment fund is to speed up access to those medicines that have been proven to demonstrate clinical and cost effectiveness and therefore represent good value for money for the NHS resources and the public purse. This statement is to update Members on progress.

This Government is providing £80 million over the next five years to speed up access to medicines that have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence—NICE—and the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group, the AWMSG. In practical terms, that means we are allocating an additional £16 million a year to health boards. In return, health boards must make these recommended medicines available for prescribing, where clinically appropriate, within two months. This represents a reduction in the required implementation timescale of a third. Health boards are also required to plan for the implementation of NICE recommendations from the earlier date of the publication of the final appraisal document, rather than waiting for the publication of the final technology appraisal guidance. That makes a difference because it can reduce the time to availability by up to eight weeks. All new cancer medicines with an interim recommendation from NICE must also be made available within the same time frames.

I have issued directions to health boards mandating the new timescales for implementation. A surveillance system has been established to monitor health board compliance on a regular basis, and the All-Wales Therapeutics and Toxicology Centre will publish a report of the data later this year after summer recess.

We’ve designed our new fund to treat all conditions equally, assuring Welsh citizens that we want to see an evidence-based new medicines approach being made available quickly and consistently regardless of condition. The annual allocation of £16 million for 2016-17 was released in two tranches between January and March. That’s helped to support the delivery of effective, new treatments for a wide range of life-limiting and/or life-threatening diseases, including heart failure, cancer, arthritis and diabetes—to name a few. A list of medicines recommended, to date, will be published alongside this statement.

This £80 million fund is for the express purpose of enabling recommended medicines to be made available faster and to reduce variation in access across Wales. That was a commitment we put to the people of Wales in May last year, and we’re delivering on that commitment to make the funding available and to set the new parameters for faster and more consistent access. I will, of course, hold health boards to account for putting this into effect and making this a reality for patients across Wales.

In the first two months of the fund, health board compliance showed some variation in the availability of recommended medicines on health board formularies, and that was reflected by the First Minister during questions on 20 June. He commented that whilst some good progress had been made, there was still more to do to ensure full compliance with the new timescales across the whole of Wales. Following that, discussions have taken place at a chair and chief executive level since the fund was established. Health boards and trusts are absolutely clear as to the specific purpose of this fund and our commitment to secure faster, more consistent access to recommended medicines.

So, I’m pleased to report that the latest data show a further improvement. As of 9 June, there were 17 applicable medicines. One health board, Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board, made 15 of the 17 recommended medicines available by this date. All 17 medicines are now available within Cardiff and Vale, and the board has confirmed that systems have been reviewed to ensure full compliance going forward. The other six health boards, however, had made all 17 medicines available within the time frame. And Velindre NHS Trust has made all but one of the relevant medicines available within the two-month time frame, but all are now available as well.

The money for the fund is being provided to ensure that new medicines are available within that two-month time frame. I previously indicated that, in exceptional circumstances, the chief medical officer can be contacted to agree a further month to comply. If organisations do not meet the required timescales, moving forward, then I will have no hesitation in clawing back the allocated moneys, either partially or completely.

The approach that we are taking to supporting faster access to medicines with proven value for money across all diseases is supported by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, and they continue to work with us on improving planning, through our forward planning, to introduce new medicines—in particular, strengthening the data for financial forecasting and the earlier identification of new medicines, which may require substantial infrastructure development.

In January, when I launched the new treatment fund, I said a concerted, joint effort was needed between the pharmaceutical industry, NHS Wales and the Welsh Government to deliver a sustainable and responsive approach to the introduction of new medicines. That was illustrated effectively just last month when the new breast cancer treatment, Kadcyla, was made available quickly because the manufacturer engaged with NHS Wales to secure an early agreement. The new treatment fund has had a positive impact on the time taken by health boards to make new, recommended medicines available sooner, and good progress has been made. That now needs to be consistent across Wales, with every health board achieving full compliance within the two-month timescale for every medicine. I expect that full compliance to be sustained over the five-year period of the fund, and to make a real difference with and for patients. I will, of course, continue to report progress to the National Assembly.

Good afternoon, Cabinet Secretary, and thank you very much for your statement today. We’re delighted to read of the progress that has been made, because we do welcome the £80 million commitment by Welsh Government over the next five years, and we welcome the plan—or your intention for the proper plan to be put in place—for the implementation of NICE recommendations, and we think it will make an enormous difference.

There are just a couple of questions I would like to ask on this. You mentioned earlier about the First Minister’s comments, saying that there was some variation in the availability of recommended medicines on health board formularies and that you are taking steps to try to address this issue. You may recall that, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the use of radium-223 as a prostate cancer treatment available here in Wales. There is real confusion. I can’t get any answers from anyone, and I’d be very grateful if you would look at this. The health board in north Wales is using the new treatment fund to make it available. The health board in south Wales says, ‘No, you have to claim treatment for this through the individual patient funding request route.’ And when I ask Members’ research services and Welsh Government, I’m having real difficulty in getting the answers back. I think my real concern isn’t so much this one particular drug, although I think it highlights it, but are there many other areas where there is this disparity in how a treatment is being made available to people in Wales? I know that you will agree with me that the one thing we must stamp out is the postcode lottery, so I’d be very grateful for your commentary on that particular element of your statement.

You also talked about the fact that, in exceptional circumstances, the chief medical officer could be contacted to allow health boards further time to comply. I wonder what you might consider to be an exceptional circumstance. Health boards are mighty organisations. They have a significant amount of resources at their disposal. I just wonder what could possibly be an excellent excuse that would mean that they weren’t able to implement what they should be implementing on time.

I was really pleased to see your commentary about the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. I think they do sterling work in trying to work together. I am pleased to see that they are going to be doing the data sharing and the planning. Will we be able to bring any transparency to this? Of course, I’m sure that we’ve all had many pressure groups approach us about particular drugs, and I’m sure that your door is always being beaten down either by groups or reps from drugs companies. It would be really great, though, if we could bring any transparency available, obviously without breaching commercial confidentiality, so that patients and campaigners in Wales really understand what’s being looked at, so that they can have a feeling for how close or far away the decision-making process is on a particular drug that they feel should be included.

Finally, I was wondering, on the financial side, will the allocated moneys that you do end up claiming back from non-performance by particular health boards be retained within the new treatment fund? If not, where would you intend to put that money? If it is being retained within the new treatment fund, how would you then disperse that money? Would you be giving it to them at a later date, or would you be sharing it out among some of the more proactive health boards? I think that’s quite a tricky one because we do want to get rid of that postcode lottery, but we can’t hang around and only do it at the pace of the slowest and most tardy of our health boards. Thank you.

Thank you for the comments and questions. I think we have had a brief discussion about radium-223, which you mentioned last week, and I’m happy to repeat my undertaking to look at the issue and to report back—not just to you but, as it has been mentioned in the Chamber, I will make sure that a copy goes to other Members as well. I am sure that a number of them will take—[Interruption.] Yes, I understand about the particular issue, but with the principle of making sure that the new treatment fund does what it’s supposed to: that it resolves the differential access in terms of time and also geographic access to recommended treatments. And that’s the point of it. What we are able to set out today is that there’s been real progress. So, you can see that there are only indications across the relevant seven health boards and Velindre where that access hasn’t been made within the timescales set. So, that is significantly better than before the introduction of the new treatment fund. But I want to see that people genuinely meet the objectives that we set. That brings me to your point about the accountability for—[Inaudible.]—because there may be exceptional circumstances where it is possible that there are good reasons why people can’t meet the two-month timescale. It may be that there are wider infrastructure challenges about delivering the treatment safely and effectively that are there. But those should be matters that are properly understood in advance. If they don’t understand those, and it’s something that arises during the implementation, they need to notify the chief medical officer, to make sure that that’s properly understood, rather than that simply being a pressure valve or a get-out if it just seems to be difficult. To be fair, the new chief executive at Cardiff and Vale and the chair understand that there’s a requirement to use the moneys for a purpose.

And that takes me on to your point about clawing back money. I haven't made a definitive decision on what would happen if we did claw money back. My aim is not to have to, frankly. But if we did, we would then consider how best to use it within health spend. I have found some of the frustration that any Minister in any Government would find about trying to achieve Government objectives and how you achieve change successfully and sustainably, and our accountability mechanisms are often difficult, in the sense that you can do something with the whole organisation—that's what an escalation framework is for, if the organisation overall is not succeeding, not delivering as it should do on a range of really important fronts. On more specific measures, like this, I don't think we'd be suggesting that we should remove individuals at the head of an organisation, but there's got to be some form of accountability, and I have found that, actually, the potential use for money in a way that is visible has a really encouraging effect on encouraging organisational compliance. So, as I say, I am optimistic that I will not have to claw back moneys, but if I do, well, obviously, I'll report back about the fact of that and how those moneys will be used.

On your last, and broader, point in the middle about the ABPI and welcoming the engagement with the decision-making process, again, to reiterate: this is about recommended medicines. So, the NICE appraisal process—again, independent expertise. The same for the AWMSG, because they aren't politicians deciding what is good for them in the short term. It's not about having there a large enough or emotively-run-enough campaign to persuade people to change the view of politicians; otherwise, all of us are vulnerable and susceptible, not just to campaigns persuading to change our minds, but actually the evidence, and this has to be a genuinely evidence-led process. Otherwise, we can all anticipate that money will be used for purposes that we cannot objectively justify—we're talking about precious but significant public resource that's going into this area to genuinely benefit treatment of patients across the country.

May I, too, welcome this update from the Cabinet Secretary on this important fund? Just a few questions from me. In terms of reference, in a way, how much do we think the introduction of the 17 new drugs has cost health boards in Wales in real terms? I assume that it’s not all being paid for from that £16 million annually, because the purpose of the fund is to enhance access to these drugs, not to pay for them all. Or is central funding the default now for all new drugs and treatments?

One thing that strikes me is that, although I welcome the fact that there is compliance within the two month period, what happens with older drugs—drugs that aren’t, perhaps, new, but drugs that are older and haven’t been available when they should have been? Those are also very important for patients. And what is the process that should be followed in terms of patient advocacy and so on to ensure that a solution is found?

And, finally, we are talking here about drugs, but this is a new treatment fund. So, what happens when a drug isn’t the appropriate treatment, and it may be a new form of physiotherapy or an expensive new piece of machinery? How can this new fund feed into that when alternative treatments are required?

Thank you for the three areas of questions. If I deal first with the financial point, then—you're right that the new treatment fund is not there to pay for all of the costs of medicines. It simply would not. If I can sort of point out, in the last three years, expenditure on new recommended medicines increased by a third, from £186 million to £247 million annually. So, the new treatment fund could not possibly fill that gap. This is about making sure there is, as I say, more consistent access, geographically and in timescales. We've actually managed to squeeze down the timescale in which the new recommended medicines will be available by introducing the fund. That's the express purpose and point of it. We recognise that there were some potential variations that, on an equitable basis, you couldn't and you should not try to live with. So, the fund is delivering against that point and purpose at this point in time, but, again, as you and others in the room do, I look for further improvement to ensure we have full compliance.

On your point about older drugs, there are two points—older drugs that are still appropriate as treatment options, and older drugs where new purposes are found. On the one, there’s a point about the licensing and availability and the evidence base for the use of those in a different way, but, where it’s still an appropriate clinical treatment, then, again, that goes into clinicians still being charged to use their judgment to actually provide the most clinically appropriate treatment.

A good example has been with a debate we previously had on hepatitis C. Actually, clinicians together, by forming an effective network, supported and challenged by peers, haven’t just agreed different ways to make use of new medications, but also the particular brandings within those about the drugs they use altogether. Actually, they’ve driven down the drugs bill and, at the same time, raised the effectiveness of the treatment they are providing. So, it doesn’t mean that every single indication we have means that older drugs are simply passed over. Those drugs that are appropriate remain on the formulary and it is for clinicians to actually then properly and appropriately prescribe.

On your broader point on the new treatment fund for those issues that are not medicine related, well, we’ve thought about the new treatment fund, and I made clear this is actually about the provision of medicines. So, other forms of treatment are about the rest of the funding within the national health service, whether that is, for example, new forms of radiotherapy or chemotherapy, whether that is, for example, other new surgical techniques, or whether it is forms of physiotherapy and others, as you’ve indicated. But, in many of these fields, it’s actually about how we consistently apply what we already know, and that is much of our challenge about quality improvement in experience terms but also in outcome terms as well.

If you look at the significant progress we’ve made in the area of cardiac rehabilitation, for example, it wasn’t learning something new that saw that significant improvement that was welcomed by the British Heart Foundation so that they then branded us as world leaders in this field, it was actually about the more consistent application, using a multi-disciplinary team, to better meet the needs of patients that had already been understood.

So, this new treatment fund is about medicines—faster, rapid access, on a more consistent basis, to effective medication. Those other issues are different quality improvement challenges for our service, which I’m sure you and I and others will return to on many occasions in the future.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. The new treatment fund has brought hope to many cancer sufferers, making drugs such as Kadcyla routinely available to Welsh NHS patients. Of course, it is not just cancer patients who will benefit from the new treatment fund, and it will fund more than drugs.

Cabinet Secretary, while I welcome the introduction of the fund, I do have some questions about the day-to-day operation of the scheme. Clinicians who oversaw the introduction of disease-modifying drugs for MS patients state that it took over two years following the approval of Sativex for patients to receive it, because the infrastructure needed to administer and monitor the drug was not in place. Many of the new types of medication becoming available require close monitoring and have to be administered in a day bed. Cabinet Secretary, will the new treatment fund ensure that it’s not only the cost of the medication that is taken into account but also ensure that the infrastructure is in place to deliver the medication?

Of course, the scheme will only fund the first 12 months of treatment costs, with local health boards having to meet the ongoing cost of treatment. Cabinet Secretary, how are the local health boards being made aware of new treatments in the development pipeline so they can plan for future funding needs? It is proving difficult to get information about what treatments are available under the scheme. Cabinet Secretary, do you have any plans to publish a continuously updated list of available treatments so patients can be clear on what is available and whether their local health board is complying with the fund?

Do you have any plans to regularly publish data on the operation of the scheme, such as the number of patients who benefit, what funding is allocated to each treatment, and the length of time taken from approval of the treatment to when it is received by patients? The fund will provide health boards with £16 million per year. Cabinet Secretary, how do you ensure that the budget is maximised, and what systems do you have in place to ensure that any overspends do not impact on other areas of patient care?

Finally, Cabinet Secretary, England’s chief medical officer has said that cancer patients should be given whole genome screening in order to help select the best treatment for the patient. So, Cabinet Secretary, is this something you will consider and could the new treatment fund be used to fund the initial introduction of this type of screening? Thank you. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you for the comments and questions. The last point I think we tried to cover in the statement I made last week about our approach on precision medicine. That’s a different question to the new treatment fund, and I think that’s one that I’d be happy to discuss in more detail with Members on a future occasion. We’ll be launching our precision medicine strategy over the summer, and I’m sure it’ll be a matter that members of the health committee and others will take a continuing interest in. It’s a really significant and exciting area of development, but, as I say, that’s not really the point and the purpose of the new treatment fund.

Now, on the point you raised about this being not just about cancer, that’s exactly where we are and that’s why we say that we’re not taking a condition-specific approach, because we don’t think that we should value the lives of some NHS patients more preciously than others depending on the condition that they have, and, again, to remind people again that the English cancer drugs fund spent over £1.27 billion and yet they think that only in about one in five cases they can justify the use of it. So, that’s broadly £1 billion wasted or poorly used. We want to avoid that sort of poor use of public funds that I think we could and should be rightly criticised for if that were the approach that we chose to take in Wales.

The point you make about Sativex is instructive in that we made a choice, with our own appraisal process, to approve Sativex for a particular group of patients. The English system has still not got to that point. So, in that sense, there’s a real benefit for patients in Wales. The challenge then has been making sure that all of the infrastructure around the prescribing and support for people who it’s potentially clinically appropriate to prescribe Sativex for is there and in place. I know that there are continuing challenges about this: challenges within, if you like, the service wholly within Wales, but also those patients who are going to see consultants as a regular part of their treatment where those consultants are based in England, and the challenge of those consultants making prescription choices for people where Sativex is an available choice, and there are challenges about those consultants in their desire or their willingness to make a clinically appropriate prescription. But it isn’t simply the case that it’s a blockbuster drug for everyone with MS. It does still have to be clinically appropriate and a proper trial of the course of treatment to be provided, because it won’t work for everyone. It is an issue that is absolutely on my radar, but, again, it’s instructive about what we want to try and avoid wherever possible with the new treatment fund to make sure those infrastructure challenges are understood properly and early in advance.

It also goes to your point about service planning. Part of the way we’ve introduced this new treatment fund is to understand that, in the first 12 months of introducing new treatments, new drugs, the first 12 months are the ones most difficult to plan for, and to understand that’s because of the additional cost that comes and how that’s then budgeted for properly through the lifetime of health boards and relevant trusts. But it’s also about developing the more grown-up relationship that I described with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. I had a useful meeting with them some months ago where we agreed about understanding and sharing more information with the service on treatments in the pipeline, and understanding how the service can plan more effectively for those. So, patients should benefit, we should make better use of public resources, but also it should still be good for those businesses as well, for the products they which to sell to the service.

On the final point that I haven’t covered yet, that’s about publishing information: I indicated in my statement that I’ll publish information at the end of summer recess. There’ll be a quarterly release of funds, and I expect to publish information at least twice a year, but I’ll give consideration to whether we could or should publish information more regularly than that, and that’s really about understanding the data that we have and making sure they are properly robust. But I’m keen to make sure that information continues to be put into the public domain about the use of the new treatment fund and the likely benefit that patients across Wales could and should be receiving.

Thank you. First of all, I’d like to welcome wholeheartedly this statement today, and the fund, which obviously was a manifesto pledge, which we have delivered on. Thank goodness we were not diverted to the cancer drugs fund, as was set up in England. So, I think it’s really important, as the Cabinet Secretary has said, that the fund applies to medicines of all conditions, so that everybody has an equal chance; I think that’s very important. The issue about MS drugs has already been mentioned, and at an MS Society Cymru round-table meeting last week. The issue of the difficulty of delivering the drugs because of the lack, perhaps, of the infrastructure to deliver them is something that I would like to emphasise as well, because that did come up very strongly from patients who were attending the meeting, about the difficulty of actually getting the drugs and monitoring the drugs. And, for some drugs, you need regular MRI scans and all those sorts of issues. I’d like to reinforce those points.

I welcome the fact that the Cabinet Secretary has said that he will be publishing a report in August that will show where we’re going. I was also interested in his response to Rhun ap Iorwerth about drugs, because I was looking at the list of drugs and noticed that sofosbuvir is on it—a treatment for hepatitis C, as the Cabinet Secretary mentioned. And, obviously, this was made available in 2015 and is now on the list of these drugs. So, I just wondered if you could explain again how the older drugs are treated as the new drugs in this scheme.

[Inaudible.]—for sofosbuvir first and the treatment for hepatitis C, there was a previous individual choice made about this particular generation of funds, and moneys released specifically for it. We’re now talking about these drugs being generally available across the scheme. There’s a challenge about whether we deal with drugs on an individualised basis, which we have done in the past, or whether we actually deal with the evidence of their process and then see them delivered across the service. I’d still say that sofosbuvir is still a relatively new drug, and we’ve got people who are now having a significant improvement in the quality of their lives as a direct result of it being provided. Again, it goes back to the example I gave about how hepatitis C clinicians have come together to agree how to use that, and we’re actually now in a better position in terms of how we treat Welsh citizens as a direct result.

On your broader point about MS, again, I recognise there’s a real issue here as to how we gear up and provide it consistently across Wales in a way that is still clinically appropriate, so that the medicines have the effect that is desired and that clinicians are properly monitoring their patients through that as well. But I do know there is a continuing issue that the MS Society have raised with me as well in a recent Neurological Alliance clinicians meeting.

I’m happy to reiterate again that we made a choice that we were criticised for at the time in not going down the cancer drugs fund route, not only for the ethical challenges but, actually, because we could not be at all sure at that time that it would be a good use of money. We now know that it was a very poor use of money, and I think it would have been not just ethically outrageous, but, you know, thinking about the finances that we face in this term, the reality that we’ll see money for the Welsh Government and wider public services in Wales reducing year on year—if we had chosen to waste precious funds on doing something that was politically convenient at the time, we could and should have faced a high price for doing that, and I think we did absolutely the right thing in refusing to take the condition-specific approach. It certainly had no evidence base to support the use of the great majority of medication and, again, I’m really pleased that we are, at an early point in the term, delivering on the manifesto we put before the people of Wales in May last year.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item is a statement by the same Cabinet Secretary—the Cabinet Secretary for health—and an update on the pathfinder 111 NHS service in Wales, and I call on Vaughan Gething to make his statement—Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to have this opportunity to update Members on the NHS 111 pathfinder service in Wales. This is testing the practicalities of implementing a new and integrated service to help meet people’s urgent care needs.

The Welsh 111 service brings together NHS Direct Wales and GP out-of-hours call handling and triaging into a single service. It provides many opportunities to simplify access to services for patients, whilst supporting the delivery of primary care plans for Wales. The service supports patients in making the right choices about care, in the right place, at the right time.

The new 111 service provides health advice and urgent care support through a free-to-call telephone service. This directs patients to the most clinically appropriate service for their needs. This should allow patients to be treated closer to home, whereas, too often in the past, this would have been in an emergency department, which is not always the right place for their care.

The Welsh 111 model was launched in Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board in October last year, and extended to Carmarthenshire in May 2017, this year. We’ve already received positive feedback from local clinicians, operational staff and, more importantly, the public who have made use of the service.

The 111 service in Wales differs from other UK models. We have a far greater proportion of clinical staff within our service than significant areas of England, for example. The 111 pathfinders in ABM and Carmarthenshire demonstrate that the service can support the assessment, direction and management of patients more effectively, using a range of healthcare professionals in a clinical support hub. That hub utilises the skills of experienced GPs, nurses and pharmacists, working within a clinical contact centre, and the hub is operational during the peak periods of out-of-hours demand. The GP within the hub has both a direct clinical role in dealing with complex calls, and crucially they also act as a supervisor, overseeing and managing queues. They also act as a resource for the wider unscheduled care system, for example, paramedics and nursing homes have a direct line in to 111 and there have been tangible benefits.

Between 4 October last year, when we launched the service, and 30 April this year the service within ABM has dealt with more than 73,000 calls. Access to the service since launch has been good and the feedback from patients, particularly via social media, has been positive. I am also pleased to say that locally within ABM and Carmarthenshire the in-hours GP services and emergency department staff have been positive about the service, and importantly there are no significant patient safety issues.

We’ve commissioned a formal evaluation from the Public and Corporate Economic Consultants unit in association with the University of Sheffield, and that report is expected in late July. That report, together with the valuable information gleaned by those delivering the 111 pathfinder, will help us to identify issues that need to be resolved prior to any final decision being made about the pace and timing of an all-Wales roll-out. When we launched the pathfinder in Wales we wanted to build on the good practices and initiatives that were already taking place, whilst learning lessons from similar services in England and Scotland. We want to ensure that we have a clinically safe and robust service in Wales. Adopting the pathfinder approach with some caution will ensure that lessons from the evaluation can be incorporated, and take on board advice from clinicians and patients. These can then be built into the design of our permanent model.

I recognise that there is more still to do if we are to implement a national service to support the people of Wales using prudent healthcare principles. I have therefore asked the 111 programme board to provide me with a robust plan by autumn this year for taking the service forward. I expect that plan to set out options for how the 111 service could operate post pathfinder as a national service to support patients and the NHS to treat patients with urgent care needs more effectively.

I want this plan to outline the future strategic role of the 111 service and its role at the heart of our unscheduled care system here in Wales. I’ll therefore consider a number of issues, including: the potential role of the 111 service as a single point of access for non-emergency health services, and the potential to integrate other healthcare inquiries into 111 in the longer term; agreeing how expanding the range of specialists employed within the clinical support hub could better support patients with complex and specific conditions, for example, paediatric diabetes and mental health; to quantify the resources required to deliver the service on both an interim and a longer term basis; the opportunities and economies of scale and other benefits that may be presented by the co-location of 111 clinical support hubs with the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust’s clinical contact centres; the potential to expand the opening times for the hub to provide greater resilience and support to other areas of the NHS; and the development of a nationally agreed and managed directory of services, along with an IT digital platform allowing Skype calls for transforming the way that patients and professionals interact.

In conclusion, though, I am very pleased with the progress that has been made to date, which I have seen for myself on a visit earlier this year, and I want to acknowledge the hard work of the 111 team centrally, but in particular the clinicians and operational staff who are making this work and making it a successful pilot to date. The 111 pathfinder service has been a success so far. Lessons are already being learnt and considered as plans are developed for the future roll-out. A number of big decisions do, though, still need to be made, but I have made it clear that this is about doing it right, not necessarily doing it quickly. I believe that 111 will provide us with significant opportunities to enable patients to receive the most appropriate service for their care needs, at the right time and in the right place.

Cabinet Secretary, thank you very much for your statement today. This is still a service in its infancy, and I have questions in three specific areas. The first is about resources, both human and financial. I wondered if you can give us a bit more of an overview as to how the intended pulling together of NHS Direct Wales and GP out-of-hours will go, based on the experiences that you have in ABM and of course the very few months that it’s been rolled out in Carmarthenshire. I’ve had a number of meetings with staff in these areas and also with staff throughout Wales, and one of the areas that comes up quite a lot is how difficult it is to get human resource, to get people, involved currently in NHS Direct Wales. There is a feeling that it is understaffed. It’s hard to recruit and so I wonder what is going to happen when this service pulls all those people together. How do you intend to be able to recruit them? On the financial resources element, can you perhaps give us an overview of the kind of cost that you anticipate, because I’m not clear whether or not you think that putting these two services together will just give you a fund of money and that’ll be what you spend? I would suspect that you might need some pump-priming exercises to carry this forward.

The second area I’d like to just have some clarity on is about the clinical directory. I picked here that there’s a potential development of a nationally agreed and managed directory of services, along with an IT digital platform. One of the things that I’ve really picked out from the pathfinder projects is that the directory of services is quite different for the different areas, and I anticipate that that will continue as it’s rolled out across Wales. I have a concern that if this becomes a national directory of services, then what flexibility will you look to build into the system to ensure that it reflects the local area, so that if you’re phoning in Angle or from the middle of Cardiff, you’re going to have access to quite different directories of services? You’re going to have access to, or no access to, not just what I would call medical clinical services, but other help that you might be pointing people into, because this is about general well-being as well. So, I’m very keen to explore with you how you see that directory of clinical services going. I’m extremely concerned that one directory that is supposed to fit all of Wales will actually not do what we could do very successfully with this, which is enable people to understand it. I think I’d just like to illustrate that by saying that I’ve met a number of clinicians who’ve said, ‘Wow, it’s not until those pathfinder services came together that we realised some of us didn’t realise that we did this or could offer that.’ So, if the clinicians don’t know it, how is the person in the street going to know about it?

Finally, you mention that you’re asking some organisation, the Public and Corporate Economic Consultants unit, to have a look and to evaluate it. I just wondered if you’ve got any interim commentary that you could share on how you think it’s gone and what feedback you’re currently having from either ABM or indeed from Carmarthenshire. Some of the feedback I’ve had has been very, very positive but there are some glaring holes, and I’d just be interested to know what your feedback is. Thank you.

Thank you for those comments and questions. I’ll come back to, if you like, the last bit and the first bit and try and take those together. On the point about financial resource, there has been a need for pump-priming to get the service to work, because this is an additional service in some ways, but also we’re trying to bring together things that already exists. So, it’s how current budgets are used, but also how we get people into the right place.

The point about the directory of services is well made, and I tried to convey in my statement about the challenges and questions that are set about options for me as well as the service about how we take this forward. You can understand the attraction of having a national directory of services to allow you to deliver consistency, balanced against the point you make about what is flexibility and the understanding of that. One of the things that we regularly find is that the clinicians, of course, don’t know everything. How could they know every single part of the service that is provided within a health board area, let alone across the country? I think sometimes it isn’t about whether clinicians know all of that; it’s about how you get information to the person who’s advising the member of the public. Equally, we don’t expect the member of the public to know every single thing about how the health and care service system works. It’s about how we help that person to navigate that system and to make the right choices, because that member of the public is still making a choice about what to do.

But I think the most encouraging thing—this comes back to your first and last points—the most encouraging things is that we had a service that was designed in a cautious way, that understood that in parts of England where it had had its most negative publicity, there was something about understanding the model, having enough clinicians to be receiving the call and giving advice in the first point, to make sure that there was high-quality advice being provided—it wasn’t simply about redirecting people into an emergency department. You will have seen, I’m sure, recent reports in the last few weeks that there’s still concern that, in some parts of England, that is what is happening. But we learned directly from colleagues in England, but also from Scotland, too, where they’re taking a slightly more cautious approach.

But, within Wales, we brought together people running out-of-hours services. Steve Bassett, in particular, has been really important, and because clinicians are seeing other clinical leaders bringing things together and having those conversations, it’s made a real difference as to the level of buy-in we had at the start. Because there was scepticism not that long ago whether this would really work, not just amongst the public, but within the clinical community as well. So, we had a sense check done not just by Steve Bassett, but also Linda Dykes, who’s an emergency consultant in north Wales, but she’s also working as a GP as well—she can see both sides of, if you like, the primary and secondary care divide. She’s still doing work on how to bring some of that care together in north Wales too. So, that was important, again, with the buy-in and the credibility that she has.

But the most encouraging part of this is that, yes, you do need to bring those people together to make sure that the clinical support hub and the quality of care that is being provided remotely are actually delivered, but also, we have had really positive statements made from emergency departments about the fact this has been a good thing. Andy MacNab, the lead consultant for emergency medicine in Swansea, has commented that he thinks it’s a good thing and they haven’t seen an inappropriate bounce in numbers in terms of people being inappropriately sent to them, or not sent to them as well.

So, as we go through the evaluation, that’s what I expect to understand—to see what’s come from it—because my anecdotal feedback has been positive so far from individual staff, from the project team and the numbers that they see. It’s a real positive. The PACEC group are the same people who did the evaluation of the new ambulance model, as well. I hope that will give Members some confidence. This is something where you see a different evaluation that has looked critically at what’s been done, talked about those things that have done well, but, equally, pointed out areas for improvement. That’s exactly what we want from the evaluation, and that helped to guide me and the wider service in making choices and providing advice, which, of course, I will update Members on in due course.

You have described how the 111 service works, and, for the record, I think it’s a good idea, and I look forward to measuring its success in future. You say the pathfinder service has been a success so far, but its success, of course, will be measured in its outcomes. You tell us that 73,000 calls were made to the ABM service between October 2016 and April 2017, but, again, it’s outcomes that are important. What effect has that had, for example, on the number of patients attending emergency departments? We speculated, as this was being launched, whilst wishing it well, that if it had been a miserable failure, it would probably lead to an increase in the number of patients attending EDs. I assume from what we’re hearing in this update that that certainly hasn’t happened, but we need to know what the evidence is. We need to be able to measure the impact of 111, not just measure the positive feedback, as important as that is, of patients in that part of Wales.

You tell us that lessons have already been learnt. Perhaps you could give a taste of what lessons have been learnt, and, as much as it’s a pleasure to have you making another statement to us this afternoon—the second one in a row—you tell us that a formal evaluation has been commissioned from the Public and Corporate Economic Consultants unit in association with the University of Sheffield and this is expected in late July. Why make a statement now?

In terms of making a statement now, I gave commitments to make a statement before the end of summer recess, so I’m delivering on the commitments that I had previously made. I’d have thought that’s a good thing for a Minister to do.

Now, look, in terms of the evaluation—the broader point—we already have really positive feedback. In terms of the initial surveys that have been done, over 90 per cent of patients say they’re happy with the service they’ve received. So, that’s a good place to start, but the formal evaluation is really important to go into more depth, and I would expect that Members will be interested in seeing the evaluation when it’s published. There’ll be more questions for us to go through, whether in this forum or in committee, because I need to understand, before I make choices in the autumn about the future of the service, the different impacts in terms of the roll-out and how a programme might work, but also the choices we make, going back to Angela Burns’s comments about a directory of service, but also to have a more in-depth understanding of the impact across the whole system. As I said, it’s really good to have the direct feedback from somebody like Andy MacNab, working in a really busy emergency department, and to understand that this hasn’t led to a significant bump up in the numbers coming in—certainly the numbers coming in inappropriately. There will be more of that detail with the evaluation.

Whilst I’m sure you’re delighted to have me make another statement, I hope that in the future, when I make further choices in the autumn, I’ll talk about the reasons why we’re making choices at that point in time for what I think will be a continuing impact across our unscheduled care system. Because we do know that just leaving things as they are—just leaving it with NHS Direct Wales and just leaving it with the primary care out-of-hours service and emergency departments—that doesn’t properly meet the needs of people who have real care needs. It’s about how we manage those needs, how we deal with them properly and appropriately, in the best way, to make use of the resources that we already have. I think one of the key lessons has been that our broad approach in having more clinicians within that team within the hub has made a real difference, and actually it’s made a really big difference to people in primary care as well, who feel much better supported, and our ability to staff that particular group has been improved. So, there are real advantages. You don’t need to take my word for it; clinicians will say that as well, and we’ll see what the evaluation says in due course.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. The 111 service has been well received by a lot of my constituents who had the benefit of the pathfinder service. However, quite a lot of constituents are still unaware of the service, and whilst I appreciate the infancy of the scheme, we must ensure that those hard-to-reach constituents are made aware of the service. I am pleased to see that you are considering the wider roll-out of the service, and I look forward to receiving the results of the formal evaluation.

As the recent National Survey for Wales shows us, one in four of the Welsh public find it difficult to make a GP appointment, which puts pressure on out-of-hours services. The 111 service addresses this problem, and the sooner we can make it available in the rest of Wales, the better. Cabinet Secretary, what are the major barriers preventing the wider roll-out of the service at the present time?

You mention the development of a digital platform to allow Skype-type chats. So, Cabinet Secretary, do you see video-conferencing playing a greater role in primary care, particularly in rural areas? And how can we improve our infrastructure to make greater use of voice over IP services in future?

Finally, Cabinet Secretary, you have asked the programme board for a robust plan for wider roll-out by the autumn. What do you envisage will be the timescale for the complete roll-out of the service to all local health board areas? I look forward to working with you to ensure this service, which hugely complements our primary and urgent care services, is available to every person in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you for the comments and questions. I’m pleased that there’s recognition of a service innovation that the Member recognises her constituents have commented on positively. It is, of course, a service innovation based around the ABM area, with Carmarthenshire starting afterwards, so a real innovation starting in south-west and mid-west Wales. The challenge always is understanding what you need to do before you actually start with the roll-out, and we did have to make changes. If we’d simply tried to implement the system with the old primary care out-of-hours system, NHS Direct Wales, it would not have worked. We need to get buy-in from clinicians, so actually something has to go into that. It should be easy, if we’re going to roll out the service, to get that sort of buy-in on the back of a successful pathfinder, but there are some pretty significant challenges ahead of that. We need to understand, both from a financing and from a recruitment point of view, about putting more people into clinical contact centres, to make sure that we learn lessons from the scripts that people are given to use and guide people when using the service, and to make sure that we understand we have genuine buy-in from people across the whole health and care system, if this is going to roll out on a national basis.

The roll-out would not be done in a big bang by pushing a switch, I think, to then go across the country at one point in time. I think that would be foolish, and we’d risk trying to deliver what looks like a service innovation and improvement and undermining it by going in that sort of way. So, there must be a proper and organised roll-out. That’s why I indicated in my statement that I’ve asked the programme board to come back to me with a robust plan on the back of an evaluation to understand the choices that are available to us. I will need to come back to Members in the autumn once I’ve had that advice and I can indicate the path that will be taken on rolling out this service.

The other point that I haven’t answered is your point about telemedicine. I think that not just in video-conferencing but in all parts of telemedicine there is huge potential across Wales, and not just for rural Wales, actually, to improve the quality of care, and particularly the quality of experience for individual patients. We see it in some parts of our system already—in eye care, for example, transferring images in a way that is really positive for patients and good for the service, but also delivering a greater efficiency for citizens making use of the service, as well as the staff within it. So, not just in this area but across our whole health and care system there’s a real potential and a need to do that on a more consistent and demanding basis.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item on our agenda is the debate considering the case for new taxes in Wales, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary for finance to move the motion—Mark Drakeford.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. It’s always seemed to me that each Assembly term has its own character and particular contribution to make to the journey that has been devolution. Amongst the defining characteristics of the fifth Assembly, I believe, will be the assumption of our new fiscal responsibilities. A great deal of time has been taken in this first year—and, I believe, profitably taken—on the floor of the Assembly and in committee, in securing a fiscal framework for Wales, scrutinising and agreeing two new tax Bills, establishing the Welsh Revenue Authority, and putting in place the first set of arrangements for the independent oversight of these new responsibilities. This afternoon’s debate draws attention to a further strand in these new possibilities for Wales, because when we published our tax policy framework and work plan in June, the plan included a commitment to test the Wales Act 2014 power, which enables Wales to make the case and propose new devolved taxes.

Now, Llywydd, the process for introducing a new tax in Wales is quite certainly not a straightforward one. The Government of Wales Act 2006, as amended by the Wales Act 2014, has a new Part 4A introduced to it. This Part allows additional devolved taxes to be specified, but that requires an Order in Council to be made. And for an Order in Council to be made, a draft of it has to be approved by the National Assembly and by each House of Parliament. The road on which we are embarked today, then, is inevitably a long one, but once a new devolved tax is specified, the National Assembly will have competence to then legislate in that field in the usual way.

The command paper published alongside the Wales Act 2014 sets out the criteria that the UK Government would use to assess any new tax and the information that would need to be supplied in support of any proposal. As far as the tests are concerned, they include the extent to which any new tax affects UK macro-economic or fiscal policy, the extent to which it increases the risk of tax avoidance, and the extent to which it creates additional compliance burdens for businesses and individuals. As far as the information that would have to be provided is concerned, the Welsh Government would need to include full details of the taxable activity; the estimated revenue and economic impact; the estimated income on UK revenue or interaction with UK-wide taxes; expected impacts on businesses and individuals; assessment against all relevant legislation and directives; and compliance and collection plans.

Now, despite that rather daunting list, I continue to believe that it is important for us, as part of the work of this Assembly term, to test this new possibility and to see how the machinery that the Wales Act 2014 puts in place would work in practice.

Will the Minister give way?

Of course.

I wonder, as the Minister laid out that range of criteria that have to be run past both the House of Commons and the House of Lords—and quite right that they would want to scrutinise this, or as he put it, that we would want to test the machinery—the worry is that it sounds similar to the old legislative competence Order process in some ways, in that it’s enormously creaky, and our interpretation of what might be a suitable and proportionate tax that was within the devolved competencies, that didn’t risk non-compliance, that didn’t put undue burdens on business, might be interpreted very, very differently by either House of Parliament.

Well, Llywydd, I tend to agree with what the Member has said. I might well prefer that our hands were less constrained and that this Assembly was able to make decisions about the future of tax policy in Wales without some of these constraints. But, just as in the LCO process, sometimes you have to begin with the machinery that you have and, pretty soon, in its operation, some of its deficits may become apparent, and a less cumbersome set of mechanisms emerges. We won’t know that unless we put the machinery to the test, and that’s what I am proposing we begin to work on this afternoon.

Ideas for new taxes in Wales have been put forward by a number of individuals and organisations since the Wales Act 2014 achieved Royal Assent. The Bevan Foundation’s 2016 report ‘Tax for Good’ outlined eight possible Welsh taxes—from public health taxes such as a sunbed tax and a takeaway packaging tax to a land value tax and a water tax. I am very grateful to the Bevan Foundation for making this first contribution to an emerging debate. I don’t think that they would expect that the scope of our consideration would be limited to the ideas that they outlined, and I want to look beyond that research for other ideas that support our commitment to fairness, well-being and growth. So, there have been suggestions already for new taxes to support Welsh services, such as a tax to fund social care—ideas put forward by Gerry Holtham and Eluned Morgan, which I am keen to consider as part of this debate. Other tax proposals begin from an ambition to use fiscal levers to decrease detrimental practices such as targeting land banking through a levy on unused land, and I do intend to take a particular interest in the vacant land levy that has recently been introduced in the Republic of Ireland.

New taxes also present us, Llywydd, with an opportunity to build on Wales’s strengths. We could consider taxes that aim to increase our levels of recycling, or look at the tourism tax that has been proposed in Scotland. As part of this process, I am very keen to hear ideas from all Members in this Chamber, both today and over the summer months, and I will be asking other stakeholders for their ideas too. I want to start a conversation around these new taxes with political parties, with the public, businesses and organisations across Wales. I want to hear how new taxes could operate alongside other policy tools to deliver improvements for our communities. Maybe unusually, Llywydd, sitting here in the Chamber this afternoon, I have received e-mails from members of the public setting out other new ideas that we could think about in this field. That is very important to me because I want to make viewing taxes through the eyes of the taxpayer central to the way that we develop Welsh tax policy.

Would the Minister give way?

Of course.

I’m grateful to the Minister. I just want to understand—because he said at the outset that he would like to test this system in this Assembly. Given that there is quite a complicated process, as we have heard, in the Houses of Parliament, and given that, at the moment, with all these various tax ideas, there isn’t one obvious, salient tax that is commanding a great deal of public discussion or support—though I’m going to mention one that I think might have something to do with it—how does he think it is practical to test this thoroughly during this Assembly?

Well, Llywydd, the route that I am proposing this afternoon is that we begin the debate here today; that we collect ideas further over the summer; that in the autumn I will test those ideas against the criteria set out in our tax policy statement published last month; and then that we propose a shortlist from that longer list of ideas, on which we will then carry out more detailed work over the months that follow. At the same time, it would be my intention to alert the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to that work and to let her know that, some months later, it will be my intention to have identified a particular candidate that we will use to send around the circuit that has been created. So, it is ambitious. This is not an immediate set of actions that we can embark upon. But, I do think it’s possible within this Assembly term to have identified an idea, to have sent it round that track and, hopefully, to have arrived successfully with a new idea that we can put into practice in Wales. But even if we don’t succeed to that extent, we will have learned a lot from testing the machinery itself.

So, Llywydd, let me conclude by saying that proposing new taxes brings with it a new set of responsibilities. The Government will support the two amendments from the Conservative Party this afternoon, and I'm happy to reaffirm that I'm not intending to use powers simply because we have those powers, but saying I'm not in favour of change for change’s sake is not the same thing as saying that there cannot be a case for change, and that's the proposition we are testing in this debate. We will use the criteria set out in the tax policy framework. We will identify a candidate tax to test the new machinery, and in doing so, I think we will add to the repertoire of policies that are available to Wales in this new area of responsibility.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. I call on Nick Ramsay to move amendments 1 and 2 tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Nick Ramsay.

Diolch yn fawr. I'm pleased to contribute to today's thought-provoking debate, Cabinet Secretary, and to move the amendments in the name of Paul Davies. As the Cabinet Secretary has himself said, these are times of change for this institution and for Wales. We're about to see the introduction of the first new Welsh taxes in 800 years—how many times have we heard that in this Chamber over the last few months—when UK stamp duty and landfill tax are switched off and their Welsh replacements kick in in April next year. And the Welsh Revenue Authority will hopefully be fully operational by then and in place to collect those taxes.

As we know, the tax landscape will change again the following April with the introduction of the WRIT, the Welsh rate of income tax, and the significant revenue that will bring directly to the Welsh Government, although, of course, still being collected, in that case, by HMRC.

Of course, these taxes will replace existing UK taxes and will mirror them to a certain extent. So, today's debate is welcome, because, as the Cabinet Secretary has indicated, it does move us on from the arguments hitherto and initiates the discussion about potential new taxes over and above replacement taxes, what those taxes may look like and how they may be developed.

Now, critically, the public must be involved in this process, and I'm pleased that the Cabinet Secretary has recognised this. The public must have confidence in it and, more than this, they must feel a sense of ownership. After all, as we know, Government money is, at the end of the day, taxpayers’ money, and we should always remember that important fact.

Now, Cabinet Secretary, you've set out the enormous complexity of getting a new tax established. I was going to ask you exactly what you meant by ‘testing the machinery’, but I think you've given us a very clear indication of how complicated this process is, not just in us playing our role at this end of the M4, but also then looking at the other end of the M4 in the House of Commons and the House of Lords—and Huw Irranca-Davies referred to the previous LCO system; he knew how difficult that was. I think, at this early stage, it's probably understandable that there is the complexity, but I fully appreciate the fact that you feel there is a need to test all this to see how we can move forward.

Turning to the amendments, and amendment 1, the maxim that there should be no change change’s sake, which you yourself mentioned and which is lifted from your own written statement issued on 5 July, to which there was a link on the Assembly website, it also appears in many other documents and has been referred to numerous times, both by yourself and by your predecessor, Jane Hutt, when she has given evidence to Finance Committee over recent years. I think, listening to—. I couldn't quite work out whether you're supporting our amendment or not. I think you were, but I think you were interpreting it in a particular way, which is fair enough. I agree that it's a good maxim. I agreed with it when you said it to committee. I think it is important that, where possible, and for smoothness and for ease of transition, the structure of new taxes should not deviate from that of their counterparts across the border where it is beneficial for there to be a similarity.

As you recognised, this has moved on slightly, in that I’m suggesting it should also apply to new taxes—I suppose what might be called stand-alone taxes; the formation of creating those stand-alone taxes. And I think it is important that, as you yourself alluded to, we shouldn't just be looking to create taxes for taxes' sake and merely to test the system, but we should be looking to create taxes that have potential to really improve the lives of people in Wales and to add to the tax system, and I think that is your intention. You’ve clearly got an appetite to test this new aspect of the devolution machinery. That does, of course, need to be done cautiously and, as I said, any new taxes should be introduced for the right reasons.

If we’re looking for examples of taxes, then I suppose the plastic bag levy, as it was called—although it was not a tax, obviously, it was a levy, for the reasons of the day and the way that the Assembly worked in those days—I think would have met those criteria that you are now setting forward. I think, in fact, environmental taxes are probably the most obvious candidates for the testing of this machinery and the Welsh Government would certainly be right to focus on these and certainly having them in the mix in terms of testing the tax machinery.

It’s clear that the Welsh Government has the experience of legislating in this area in the past and, by and large, it seems to have worked—well, not fallen apart, at any rate, so that certainly would qualify as working.

Turing to the second amendment, Presiding Officer, I know I’m short of time, but, briefly—this is calling on the Welsh Government to make arrangements for an independent review of any new taxes to be completed within six years of their introduction. The importance of a review of the new Welsh replacement taxes, LTT and LDT, was discussed during Stages 2 and 3 of the legislating process. I think, although we didn’t get an amendment, for various reasons, on the books at that point in time, I know that you agreed with the principle of a broad review, after a period of around six years, into the way that new taxes are working. I think that this was a good principle and I think it would also be very wise for us to introduce this into the new stand-alone taxes—I can’t think of a better thing to call them. So, that’s why that amendment’s there. I hope that you will support the amendments and, as I say, we are more than happy to support the broad thrust of this motion.

I welcome this debate and I welcome, in general terms, the Government’s desire to test this provision. In reference to one of the amendments, I’ve never quite understood this phrase, ‘We’re not in favour of change for change’s sake’. I mean, in the very basic sense, I don’t think anyone would be in favour of that, but, actually, change for social change’s sake, change in the taxation regime for a purpose, I would hope we would all subscribe to as well. There is just a hint of a kind of sense of inertia, sometimes—an innate conservatism in the argument against change for change’s sake. [Interruption.] Look, even in the taxation field, changes are constant. When VAT was first introduced—was it 8 per cent? It’s now risen, of course, to 20 per cent. Corporation tax was 52 per cent some decades ago and, of course, it’s going to fall even further to 17 per cent. So, look, change is constant, even in the taxation field. I’m an experimentalist. In a world that is changing, in every sense, we always have to be searching for new levers, for new policy responses, and taxation has to be part of that. So, I welcome this positive approach to exploring new opportunities.

In terms of the potential candidates for that first test, then we will all have our preferences. I think Gerry Holtham and Tegid Roberts and others have made a very, very good case—even based on the exacting criteria that the Cabinet Secretary set out, actually. We have a huge hole in our public finances, as we realise, because of the demographic change et cetera, and the rise in non-residential care costs that are coming our way. We need to find a way of addressing those, and we’re not going to be able to do it within the strictures of the current Barnett block. So, I think Gerry Holtham has—[Interruption.] I’m certainly happy to give way.

Thanks for giving way. I suppose you shouldn’t be surprised that a Conservative would appear slightly conservative. I wouldn’t have said that I was talking about an argument of inertia; I would have preferred the word ‘caution’. I’m not going to put words into the Cabinet Secretary’s mouth, but in terms of that maxim, ‘Not having change for change’s sake’, I think that applies particularly at a transitional phase. I think we would all agree that, when you are testing machinery and bringing in a new system like this, we should be very mindful that there’s a very robust and reasoned and clear and transparent rationale behind, certainly, the introduction of those initial new taxes. That was my point.

But to turn that argument on its head, if the figures that Gerry Holtham has produced to support his case—you know, the 67 per cent rise that’s coming our way in the short term in non-residential care costs—it would in incautious, of course, not to find a means of funding the quality of care that we, in a decent society, would want to provide. I think that it’s a very, very interesting proposal. Of course, it’s based in a European tradition of social insurance; it adapts that to this particular case, and some innovative examples of inter-generational equity in terms of a sliding scale, in terms of the level of funding, and even a suggestion of a lottery prize once a year, maybe, to sweeten the pill. It’s certainly the kind of example, I think, of—yes, a creative and innovative proposal, but it really goes to the heart of one of the key problems that we’re facing—there are others—I think, in economic development. I think the Bevan Foundation suggested looking at innovation tax credits. The Irish have responded to the OECD’s proposals in terms of differentiating business taxation to encourage investment in tangible assets like research and development—having a different corporation tax rate, a so-called knowledge development box of 6.25 per cent, I think, for R&D activity, exclusively, by companies. So, there are interesting proposals out there. The Cabinet Secretary has already referred to a wide-ranging review of property-related taxes, and that’s both in the personal field in terms of council tax, and in terms of business rates—that opens up a whole other debate about land value taxation that has been around for over 120 years, and I’m sure that other Members will look forward to joining that debate in due course.

Well, the Cabinet Secretary for finance is always beguilingly reasonable in what he says. I’m, perhaps, going to take a rather different tack in my speech from others who have participated in this debate, because, generally speaking, I’m not in favour of introducing new taxes, although I’m strongly in favour of having the maximum sensible devolution of taxes. We have a problem in Wales, of course, because our average income is so much lower than the average of the rest of the United Kingdom, so the tax base is more difficult to exploit, if I can use that word in a neutral sense. But, broadly speaking, I’m in favour of maintaining the link between Government decisions and accountability for them through the system of raising taxes. I do think that the devolution of taxation does give us opportunities, as Adam Smith—Adam Price has just pointed out. [Laughter.] Freudian slip there, I think.

As long as you don’t call me Arthur Laffer. [Laughter.]

I’m sure he’s coming my way. [Laughter.] But as pointed out in relation to corporation tax, certainly, the Irish example is a very interesting one. I’m sorry that my attempts to move the Cabinet Secretary in that direction in the past have met with rebuff. When we had the tax policy framework statement just a few weeks ago, I’m afraid he didn’t prove to be very susceptible to those blandishments, but I do think that Ireland has made very effective use of differential rates of corporate taxation, and within the corporation tax itself, as Adam Price pointed out, to have differential rates, which has enabled the Irish Government to prioritise certain important areas of high-value-added activity, and that is what we need most of all, I think, in Wales: to increase the tax base. And I think that tax system can be used in this way—[Interruption.] I give way to Mike Hedges.

But, surely, with corporation tax, it’s almost like a voluntary donation by major companies when they can decide where they’re going to repatriate their profits to, where they decide to pay for intellectual property rights et cetera. So, it’s a voluntary contribution—the rate doesn’t matter, it’s the size of how much they actually want to pay.

Well, that is, perhaps, true, within the European Union, and this is the position that Luxembourg finds itself in, of course, presided over so successfully by Mr Juncker for so many years. It’s rather, perhaps, paradoxical that the EU Commission wants to wipe out the opportunities of that kind for the rest of Europe. But outside the EU, we do have the opportunity to be internationally competitive in terms of corporate taxes, and I hope that the opportunity will come to us to enable us to do that in due course. Edmund Burke famously said that:

‘To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.’

And, if you make a proposal to tax Peter to pay Paul, that will always be very popular with Paul and not popular with Peter. So, these are not easy equations to sum, but I’m not generally in favour of using taxes for reasons of social engineering, and I’ve made this point in relation to the sugar tax proposed only recently, and to which we’ll no doubt return at length in due course. But what I do think we should do is use the tax system to encourage wealth creation. Whilst taxes in themselves don’t encourage wealth creation—by definition, almost—nevertheless, the difference between taxes in one jurisdiction and another can certainly do that.

Our problem in Wales in many respects was pointed out by the Bevan Foundation in their publication on devolved taxes in Wales just two years ago, that 48 per cent of the population of Wales live within 25 miles of the border with England, and 2.7 million people—that’s 90 per cent of the total population of Wales—live within 50 miles of the border. Taking England and Wales as a whole, 16 million people in Wales and England live within 50 miles of the border between the two countries, compared with only 3 million living within 50 miles of the England-Scotland border. So, it is, in many ways, more difficult for us to take decisions that make us less competitive through the tax system, but actually more beneficial for us to use the tax system in the way that I started off by describing. So, we have greater opportunity to take advantage of a differential tax regime compared with England, and I do believe that that can make a significant contribution towards raising the level of income and therefore the standard of living of ordinary people in Wales. In the United Kingdom generally, it is interesting that, over the last generation, the proportion of revenue derived from higher earners has increased as tax rates generally have fallen. And I think there is a lesson for us in all that.

I see I’ve reached the end of the road for my speech, Llywydd, but will leave this as work in progress for the future. But I welcome today’s debate and I’ll certainly support the Government motion, as well as the Conservative amendments.

I welcome the opportunity to start engaging in this debate today, and I welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s opportunity to start thinking. It’s not so much of an opportunity for thinking, but thinking aloud, which I intend to do.

Any proposal to introduce a new tax in Wales will be assessed against a range of criteria, including the extent to which a tax affects UK macroeconomic or fiscal policies or the single market—well, that will only last for the next two years, perhaps, depending on whether we’re in the single market or not—may be non-compliant with the European Union for the next two—that, again, only lasts for the next two years, and an awful lot of these rules, such as the Azores judgment, et cetera, will themselves no longer apply to us. Increased tax avoidance risks—I think the border is always something we need to give serious thought to. Creates an additional compliance burden for business or individuals—almost any tax is bound to bring additional burdens, because somebody will have to do something—and is aligned with devolved responsibilities. I think also the key, perhaps more than that, is: is a tax fair or perceived to be fair by the public? The general view on tax, certainly by those of us on the political left, is the richer you are, the more you should pay. Taxes that protect health and the environment get a favourable response, but the public need to be involved. This is us starting off the debate, but it’s a debate where 3 million other people may well have a view, and should be engaged in having that view.

Taxes that I’m suggesting to be considered include those suggested by other people and those looked at by other legislatures. It’s neither a definitive list nor a shopping list. What it is is some thoughts on what could be considered in the future. None are fully thought through, and, again, many have been suggested by others, both here and in other places. Taxes not considered are those that would generate cross-border movement at the extreme end, e.g. an additional tax on alcohol that would lead to booze cruises to Chester, Shrewsbury and Bristol.

I have broken the taxes to be considered into four different types of taxes: environmental, health, additional tax on items currently taxed, and new taxes to raise money to support public services. Taxes pay for public services. I think perhaps sometimes people talk about cutting taxes and doing all these things with taxes—if we don’t have the taxes in we can’t have the public services we all want. Far too often, people seem to think we can have North American-style taxes, and Scandinavian-style public services. That’s not feasible.

There are effectively two types of taxes: new, and supplements on current taxes. Environment taxes I want to throw out for consideration, many have come out before—. Plastic bottles—charge per bottle to pay for its collection and disposal. Also, this may lead to the return of glass as opposed to plastic bottles, which are obviously reusable and some of us are old enough to remember Corona bottles and getting 5p and 10p back on them. A polystyrene tax, to reduce use of these trays, and also a chewing gum tax to pay for its removal from a whole range of places, including people’s clothes, when it’s been attached to the bottom of desks.

Health taxes: sugary drinks and food—. I know it’s been raised before by others here and elsewhere, but it’s still worth considering. Should it be a tax on all sugar, or should it be a tax on added sugar? Salt—a tax on salt in food, either charged above a certain amount, or charged per percentage of the product that is salt. Fat—a charge on the percentage of the product containing fat, or a fat supplement above a certain percentage of fat in a product.

How about supplementary taxes? Diesel—produce a supplementary charge on diesel. We know the damage diesel does to the environment. Supermarkets and large stores above a certain size—a rates supplement. Add higher council tax bands, so that more is raised on the very large and expensive properties—and I would urge the Cabinet Secretary to give serious consideration to that, because he can actually do that without any need to go through the long process he described earlier.

Car parking spaces—charging for the car park area and the number of parking spaces associated with a retail outlet. Development land tax—a tax on the land that has been given permission for development or is in a local development plan for development. It gets taxed a certain number of years after permission has been given, even if developers have not started, and subsequently for another period of time if development is not finished. This would make a charge on land banking—[Interruption.] Sorry, Nick.

Thank you for giving way. You just mentioned a diesel tax. Is that diesel tax a typical example of a type of tax that would encourage tourism near the border? So, you would end up with a load of flows across the border of people in their diesel cars to go and get it cheaper elsewhere, so that would be a very difficult one to implement.

I wouldn’t think so, because you can’t get that much diesel into most cars, and therefore the cost of traveling to get the diesel—[Interruption.] The cost of travelling to get the diesel will actually be more than the savings possible.

Each tax needs to be considered against unintended consequences so that they would affect behaviour in a positive manner. What are the dangers of it being misrepresented as Labour’s land value tax was, being described as a tax on gardens—the only punch the Tories have landed on us in the last election?

Finally, perception, is a tax fair or perceived to be fair: let’s look at these taxes, let’s see what can be done, and let’s end up with a fair tax and let’s get some money in for public services.

Gosh, that was a lot of new taxes from Mike Hedges. I’m not sure whether the diesel tax would operate quite in Swansea as it might in Newport or Monmouth. But I first looked at today’s motion and read

‘it will be necessary to test this new aspect of the devolution machinery.’

My first reaction was: ‘Why?’ Surely a prerequisite is wanting to impose a new tax, and many people in Wales feel they’re paying quite enough tax already.

When the Cabinet Secretary told the Finance Committee in Newport on 23 March he wanted to test the machinery during this term, I asked him, ‘What does that mean?’ The Cabinet Secretary told us:

‘We have to propose things and those propositions will have to be tested in front of two Houses of Parliament.’

But why do we have to? The Wales Act provides us with a power, not a duty. Yet the Cabinet Secretary told the Finance Committee

‘the job of this Assembly…is to flesh out the machinery that is currently there for us to test this possibility…. We would learn how that proposition would be then tested at the other end of the M4, and we would learn a lot by doing it.’

So, is the Welsh Government keen to impose a new tax because it potentially can, or is it keen to practice, to pull some levers, and press some buttons and see what happens—a bit like my three year old when I let him in the front of our car? And how does the Cabinet Secretary—? [Interruption.] When it’s stationary, I hasten to add. And how does the Cabinet Secretary expect Westminster to respond to this approach for testing in front of two Houses of Parliament? Won’t Westminster expect us to be seeking, actually, to impose a new tax, not just experimenting to test this new aspect of the devolution machinery, as our motion says?

The Cabinet Secretary said he wants

‘a subsequent Assembly to have the legacy of the learning’,

so, can he clarify: will this be an academic learning exercise or does he expect the Welsh people to pay a new tax in consequence?

In Newport, the Cabinet Secretary referred approvingly to the Bevan commission report, talking about a tourism tax, a sunbed tax and the takeaway packaging tax. Just now, he didn’t mention quite as many as Mike Hedges, but he did say also a land or garden tax and a water tax. But aren’t we trying to encourage tourism and aren’t we in danger of forgetting the purpose of tax? Surely it is to raise money when necessary, not to experiment or punish people for using sunbeds or eating takeaways.

As Mark Reckless has just reminded us, this discussion was started at a Finance Committee meeting in Newport, when the Minister first mooted the Government’s desire to look into the possibility of novel taxes and to take a new tax around the route. I interpreted that as two things: (1), yes, using the powers transferred to this place, but also that the Cabinet Secretary was eager to see which areas were most appropriate for use of taxation in order to generate change in that area.

I disagree to a certain extent with Mark Reckless, who’s just concluded by saying that the purpose of taxation is to raise funds for public services. There is another purpose for taxation, and that is behavioural change—changing the way we behave either socially or, an issue that I’m going to address specifically, environmentally. Because generation of funds isn’t always the aim. Take, for example, the plastic bag levy, or the landfill tax that we’ve just passed. The purpose of those—they do raise some funds, but their main purpose is behavioural change, and to change our attitude towards scarce natural resources.

So, I just want to endorse some of the things that have already been said, specifically by Mike Hedges, if truth be told.

Os trown at rai o'r ffyrdd gwastraffus yr ydym yn defnyddio ein hadnoddau naturiol, rwy’n meddwl y dylem ystyried ein pwerau newydd ar drethiant fel ffordd o ffrwyno'r rheini a defnyddio’r adnoddau naturiol hynny’n well. Felly, os edrychwn ar boteli plastig, mae 400 o boteli plastig yn cael eu gwerthu bob eiliad yn y Deyrnas Unedig ar hyn o bryd, mae miliwn o boteli plastig yn cael eu prynu ledled y byd bob munud, ac mae'r nifer hwnnw’n mynd i fyny 20 y cant erbyn 2021. Felly, gallem atal 4 miliwn o boteli plastig bob wythnos rhag bod yn sbwriel ar ein strydoedd ac yn amgylchedd y môr drwy fabwysiadu rhyw fath o system seiliedig ar drethi. Gallai hynny fod yn gynllun dychwelyd blaendal, gallai fod yn dreth wirioneddol, fel sydd gan y Ffindir, er enghraifft, a, drwy ymestyn yr egwyddor honno o boteli hefyd at fathau eraill o blastig sy'n seiliedig ar betrolewm, fel polystyren, bydd gennym y potensial, rwy'n meddwl, am dreth yng Nghymru a allai wneud gwahaniaeth go iawn.

Nawr, yn yr Alban, mae Llywodraeth Plaid Genedlaethol yr Alban wedi lansio astudiaeth fanwl ar gynllun dychwelyd blaendal yno. Rydym yn gwybod bod gennym fwy o waith i'w wneud. Rydym, yn gwbl briodol, yn ein canmol ein hunain am ein cyfraddau ailgylchu yng Nghymru, ond, pan fyddwch yn edrych ar bethau penodol ynghylch plastig, mae ailgylchu poteli plastig ym Mhrydain, er enghraifft, ar 59 y cant. Yn y cynlluniau hynny â chynlluniau dychwelyd blaendal—gwledydd, ddylwn i ddweud, â chynlluniau dychwelyd blaendal—neu drethiant, yr Almaen, Norwy a Sweden, rydym yn edrych ar ailgylchu dros 90 y cant o boteli plastig.

Mae gennym hefyd swyddogaeth ryngwladol go iawn i'w chwarae yma. Rydym wedi sôn am drethi domestig, ond mae hwn yn faes penodol lle y gallwn ddefnyddio ein trethi i gyflawni swyddogaeth ryngwladol. Felly, mae rhwng 5 miliwn a 13 miliwn o dunelli o blastig yn cyrraedd cefnforoedd y byd bob blwyddyn, ac, yn anhygoel, erbyn 2050, mae rhai pobl wedi amcangyfrif y bydd y cefnforoedd yn cynnwys mwy o blastig yn ôl pwysau na physgod. Rwy'n meddwl bod unrhyw beth y gallwn ei wneud yma gyda'n trethi domestig sy'n ein helpu i ymdrin â’r argyfwng rhyngwladol hwn o blastig yn llygru ein hamgylchedd yn rhywbeth y gallem yn sicr ei ystyried.

Byddwn yn ychwanegu fy mod yn meddwl y byddai treth plastig neu dreth tecawê, neu ba bynnag gyfuniad yr hoffech ei roi at ei gilydd, yn cael llawer o gefnogaeth gan y cyhoedd. Byddwn yn synnu'n fawr pe na bai Gweinidogion Cabinet wedi cael negeseuon e-bost gan aelodau'r cyhoedd am hyn. Rwyf i’n sicr wedi eu cael, ac rwy’n meddwl bod pobl yn barod ac yn fodlon i edrych ar hyn, oherwydd rydym wedi arloesi—fel y dywedodd Nick Ramsay—rydym wedi arloesi gyda'r dreth ar fagiau plastig, a fabwysiadwyd gan weddill y DU ar ein holau, ac mae wedi llwyddo i leihau bagiau plastig 70 y cant yng Nghymru. Byddwn yn hoffi—. Dyna fy mhwynt, rwy’n meddwl, o fy safbwynt i, am dreth a fyddai'n cael cefnogaeth gyhoeddus eang, sy'n ymdrin â gwir angen o ran adnoddau naturiol. Ni fyddai'n codi swm enfawr o arian, mae'n rhaid dweud, ond efallai y byddai, fel treth arloesol gyntaf, yn fwy derbyniol i lawer o bobl oherwydd hynny, oherwydd byddent yn gweld ei bod yn creu budd cyhoeddus heb fod yn ymgais, fel taliadau parcio neu bethau eraill sy'n cael eu hystyried fel ffordd o godi arian at ryw ddiben ysgeler yn y Llywodraeth; byddent yn gweld bod hyn er lles yr amgylchedd.

Rwy'n meddwl bod hon yn ddadl dda iawn yr ydym wedi ei chychwyn yma, ac rwy’n edrych ymlaen at weld y gwaith yn mynd rhagddo. Byddwn yn ychwanegu un peth at y cymhlethdod enfawr y mae’r Gweinidog Cabinet wedi’i ddisgrifio, sef y Pwyllgor Cyllid, oherwydd mae gennym ninnau swyddogaeth yn hyn hefyd, beth bynnag sy'n digwydd, rwy’n meddwl. Dydw i ddim yn siarad allan o dro wrth ddweud y bydd y Pwyllgor Cyllid, beth bynnag fydd barn Aelodau unigol am y dreth arfaethedig, y byddwn ni’n craffu ar y dreth yn drylwyr, ac yn gwneud hynny ar ran holl bobl Cymru, a byddwn yn sicrhau bod unrhyw dreth a gynigir gan Lywodraeth Cymru yn addas i'r diben a bod y pwrpas iawn y tu ôl iddi.

Like many others, I thoroughly welcome this debate. I welcome the debate because it’s given us freedom, as an Assembly, to free-range a little bit and to say, ‘Well, we’re not afraid of throwing some of these things out into the open,’ in a way, I have to say, that presaged this with the tax for good. There’s the answer, Mark, that you were looking for. It isn’t a tax just for testing it to see if the circuits run properly and the lights come on; it’s actually the tax is for good, and I think part of this debate is to throw some of those ideas forward as to what it might be, and it could well be the model that Simon has just said there now.

We know what good the plastic bag tax in Wales did, and the massive impact it had on recycling rates and reducing the amount of plastic bags that were going into the waste in the natural environment and so on. So, it might well be a logical extension of that, but there might be other ones to do with social care. That tax is for good is the issue, but it’s right that we do test the machinery. I think the Minister is absolutely right, and this is part of our stepping up to the mark here, to encourage the Minister, in some ways, to say, ‘Do do this, but pick the right one.’ I think he’s right to do it with care, to take this forward with consultation, in order that we do test some of the ideas of what would be the best service to the public good.

I would say in doing that, however, we do need to guard against certain things. One is unintended consequences, and within that, by the way, even though I’m an advocate of environmental taxes and levies, we have to be cautious in the way that we design them, to make sure that there aren’t unintended consequences. So, if, for example, Simon’s idea there, and one that’s been advocated by many environmental groups, were one that came into play in a few months’ time and it was the one that was taken forward to test the machinery, let’s also make sure it doesn’t have any unintended consequences.

Secondly, I would say, let’s make sure—not least in times when we know, as always, people are finding it tough—that there is nothing regressive about any of the proposals we bring forward, and ideally they would be progressive rather than regressive. And not only on individuals but also on businesses, that that cost of complying with any new taxation is not unduly onerous. It will have an impact; you can’t avoid that with a tax, if it impacts on a business, but that it’s not unduly onerous—that it is within what we would consider proportionate.

Finally, of course, as has been laid out not only today, but also in the Bevan Foundation paper, all those aspects of: is it within our devolved competence; does it deal with cross-border issues; does it deal with issues of tax avoidance, and so on? And I would say, in addition to the proposals that are within here, let’s throw some in the mix as some suggestions. Within here it talks about a tourism levy. I have personally some concerns about that and the unintended consequences to do with the reputation of the country and so on. It was looked at some time for the south-west of England. A huge, huge dump of tourists into that area of the country through the summer months and so on, of course you could put a tourism levy, but if it was the only place in the country that had a tourism levy within the UK, well the impact there on reputation and profile of that as a tourism sector is quite interesting, but there are some advantages to it. Innovation—[Interruption.] Sorry.

Will you take an intervention?

No, there’s no intervention.

No, no. Innovation tax credits taking over from where we are with the research and development tax credits, to make good the shortfall we have in Wales in terms of innovation and R&D; a workforce development levy, which would, in effect, take over from the apprenticeship levy—and we know some of the difficulties with that, and we would take control; and the other ones laid out, but let’s throw a couple of other ones in here.

The social care one has already been mentioned. I think that is worthy of looking at, but it is a hefty one to actually test the machinery on. The vacant land levy, I think, is fascinating because we all know the amount of not only land backed by investor communities, but derelict properties on that land that are left as an eyesore. What about tax relief for democratic engagement? The point that was made in actually getting more people to engage in the democratic process: maybe we should be incentivising them to do it by some sort of tax relief for democratic engagement if they participate in elections. What about a windfarm windfall? Because some of the windfarms that were set up 20 or 25 years ago give, frankly, diddly-squat to the communities that they’re in. Maybe you should be looking at those for those older historic windfarms that are reaping the dividends now. What about an out-of-town development levy to promote high-street regeneration and subsidise free parking? What about a minerals and opencast levy to fund the remediation of those opencast and quarries? What about a flood alleviation or climate change adaptation levy on larger land owners to promote investment in water catchment management schemes and flood prevention? Now, I have to say, those are not all—. I said about unintended consequences, I talked about avoiding regressive taxes, avoiding non-devolved issues; I say that none of those—. Mark, just in case you’re going to put them out in a press release, none of those are firm proposals. I’d want them all checked through, first of all. But we should be looking for the right one to test this, so that we end up with a tax for the common good. There is a reason to do taxes, and if they change behaviour or they actually make better the environment we live in—or the standard of living that we have—then that’s a good reason for a tax.

I, too, would like to add my support for the plastics tax, and perhaps some of it could be used to invest in water fountains so people would be able to fill up with water rather than having to buy yet another water bottle. Also, I think it’s perfectly right, in response to Neil Hamilton, that we should impose a tax on those who choose to adulterate our food with sugar, salt and fat in order to pay for the health consequences and the costs of looking after them. Why should we put up with fast-food packaging littering our landscape and expect someone else to pick it up? A takeaway packaging tax could be given to local authorities to pay for the extra road sweeping required.

But I want to use most of my time to discuss the idea of a modest carbon tax. We simply aren’t grasping the nettle of change required to avert the environmental disaster that experts warn will be with us within 15 years, never mind that of our children and grandchildren, unless we change radically. The climate change committee last week exposed Wales as an outlier in efforts to reduce carbon emissions. So, this is a proposal that I think encourages wealth creation, as well as tackling the scandal of air pollution, which DEFRA admits is killing a population the size of Maesteg every year in the UK. Levels of nitrogen dioxide emitted mostly by diesel vehicles are above legal limits in nearly 90 per cent of urban areas.

Would you give way?

Okay.

I find it astonishing to sit here and listen to you discuss air pollution when your party is responsible for what will be an explosion of air pollution, due to Cardiff’s local development plan. Would you now condemn that plan and the air pollution it will bring?

If you listen on, I will tell you why my proposal will help sort out some of this air pollution.

We can’t rely on the UK Government to sort this out. They’ve already suffered two humiliating defeats in the High Court, and the latest plan is even weaker and wobblier than their earlier ones. It requires local authorities to exhaust all other options before introducing clean air zones, enabling them to charge for polluting vehicles entering a polluting zone when that, in fact, is the only effective option for changing things. Instead, the Tories are saying we should just breathe in toxic air until 2050, when nearly every car and van will be zero emissions, by which time many of us will be dead. So, I think we could pilot a carbon tax in areas that already have illegal levels of air pollution, like the centre of Cardiff around Westgate Street and Newport Road. We urgently need a clean air zone. Cardiff is one of the most car-bound capitals in Europe, and we absolutely need to re-engineer the investment that we need to make in a public transport system to enable people to switch to other modes of less damaging transport. At the moment, the Cardiff underground map is little more than a piece of artwork, rather than being a plan with enough capital identified to make it really happen. So, the quickest, fairest way of making clean technology competitive with fossil fuels is simply for carbon to start paying its true costs. A fee starting at £10 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted, increasing by £7 a tonne each year, could quickly make clean energy the cheapest go-to choice. A revenue stream rebated equally to all households would fuel demand for new carbon neutral technologies and cushion lower income households during the transition. Those who already tread lightly on the world’s resources, particularly those who don’t have a car, would actually gain a dividend from this carbon tax. It would be socially just that those without a car would be rewarded rather than penalised as they are at the moment. As both the fee and the household dividend rise steadily each year, a clear economy-wide price signal is sent to all investors, generating even more capital to finance new, low-carbon alternatives. The clean technology needed to power our economy already exists. A levy on carbon will provide the economic incentive for investors to deliver those technologies to scale. So, let’s deliver on the well-being of future generations Act and make it a reality with a carbon tax.

We’ve spent much time considering how our law-making powers can reshape our society and now we can consider how our fiscal powers can contribute too. This is exactly the kind of ambitious and open debate that this place was created for—an opportunity for us to challenge the status quo and truly set Wales apart. But, as well as considering what we could do with new taxes, we should also be thinking about how we can harness existing tax-varying powers too. We should do this within an agreed, coherent set of principles, against which we can test our revenue-making approach. So, today I would like to suggest three such principles for us to consider—transparency, fairness and resilience—with some specific examples of steps we could take to ensure that our tax system meets them.

First, to transparency. I am supportive of many of the ideas that have been spoken about today, including the sugar tax, the sunbed tax and the take-away packaging tax, suggested by the Bevan Commission: taxes that try to nudge behaviours. But, I am also a strong believer that revenues from taxes aimed at achieving behaviour change should be used to incentivise the positive behaviour we are trying to encourage. So, petrol duty, for example, should be invested in sustainable forms of transport, to give people a viable alternative to driving. Similarly, the sugar tax could be used to subsidise the cost of locally grown decent food, and revenue raised through the take-away packaging tax ploughed into community regeneration schemes. In this way, we can ensure that the pockets hit hardest by the taxes also benefit the most. If we sign up to any of these taxes, we need to have a clear idea of the behaviour change we are trying to incentivise. We need to work with communities across Wales to decide how best to do this—democratising our tax system and making our aims transparent in the process. But, before we become too distracted by the shiny new taxes we could bring in, I think we should examine the taxes already under our control and exercising duties coming our way.

This leads me to the second principle I would like to speak to: that of fairness. In a few months, we will adopt responsibility for land transaction tax and landfill disposals tax. In 2019, we will have the additional income tax powers. Clearly, these are important steps in our evolution into a proper Parliament for Wales. But, we should not lose focus on powers already under our control, namely business rates and council tax. We have done little to differentiate ourselves from how these taxes operate in England. Business rates could be a powerful tool in addressing concerns on town-centre regeneration. Yet, in Llanelli town centre, for example, some shops have seen their business rates skyrocket. Shops around Station Road, a deprived part of town, have seen the average value per square metre rise from £80 to £200, while some shop rates in Parc Trostre out-of-town retail park have fallen, and whilst purpose-built town centre car parks have to pay business rates, Trostre’s vast car park is free of such charges, and this works directly against two policies we want to encourage: the promotion of sustainable transport and town-centre regeneration. Imagine what we could achieve if we restructured rates to more accurately reflect the challenges our town centres are facing, and if we re-examined the case for charging rates on out-of-town car parking, just as they’re taxed in town centres, whilst ring-fencing any revenues raised for local regeneration projects.

Now, there are similar issues with council tax, which remains one of the most regressive taxes there is, whilst also being one of the taxes most difficult to dodge. In his Senedd paper written for the IWA on the issue, Gerry Holtham pointed out that, for homes worth less than £44,000, council tax amounted to almost 2 per cent of the property value, whilst for homes worth over £424,000, that amount dropped to 0.5 per cent. Now, there are clear opportunities for making the council tax fairer. Adding additional council tax bands, which I notice Plaid Cymru included in their manifesto, would shift—[Interruption.]

To be fair, I was involved in drafting the paper some time before your manifesto was written, so give me some credit.

They would shift a greater burden of contribution on to people with large, expensive houses—money that could be used to boost social care budgets or to remove people altogether with less money or smaller homes from council tax. But, as Gerry Holtham has pointed out in the celebrated commission that bears his name, there aren't many wealthy people in Wales, and the few there are are highly mobile. So, if we put—[Interruption.]

I'm sorry, Nick; I'd like to, but time’s against me.

If we put extra burdens on the richest, they could easily hop across the long, porous border with England. So, if we are to increase their property taxes, we should look to balance that out by reducing their income tax with new powers—that's the bit Plaid Cymru didn't mention. It would smooth the move to a more progressive tax system that focuses on land and property and may well have the effect of attracting into Wales more people in the high income bracket to shore up our weak tax base.

And that brings me on to my final principle, Llywydd, if I might: the need for our tax system to be resilient. Over the next 20 years, we're estimating that 700,000 jobs in Wales are at risk from automation, and the implications of this from a tax revenue and social security perspective are clear: tax receipts will drop at a time when some people will need help most. We must ensure the safety net is fit for purpose, and we need a national debate about how such proposals as universal basic income in Wales would work. Clearly, much of this is some way off. We have hurdles to overcome. We may need a profound rethink of our taxation system. But it's important we start the debate now, so we're prepared for the challenge to come. Diolch.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for finance to reply to the debate.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Well, Nick Ramsay opened the debate by hoping that he would be thought-provoking, and I don't think he will have been disappointed. I want to thank all those Members who’ve taken part.

Let me say to Nick as well that if I didn't think we had an idea that merited consideration on its own terms, then I wouldn't send it out to test the new machinery, but I don't think we will be in that position at all. Nick Ramsay himself referred to environmental taxes, and if anybody thought that we weren't capable of coming up with an idea that was sufficiently robust in its own terms, then they should have listened to Simon Thomas and his exposition of environmental taxes in relation to the use of plastic bottles here in Wales. I'm sure we will, at the end of this process, have an idea that stands up to examination and is worth testing, too.

Llywydd, the debate, as often happens here, exposes a fault line through the Assembly. On one side of the debate, you have those Members who are instinctively hostile to taxation. So, Neil Hamilton, I thought, was very open in saying that that was indeed his position, and Mark Reckless, with his description of taxation as a punishment and a burden, exposed his position on that fault line, too. On the other side of the fault line, you have Adam Price, when he described the need for change with a purpose, and Huw Irranca-Davies when he talked about the common good. For me, taxation is not a burden on people. It is the way in which we come together collectively to make our individual contributions so that we are able to do together what not any one of us would be able to achieve by ourselves. That’s why, because we have that basic belief that taxation is the way we act together to promote our common goals, we are interested in testing this new machinery, cumbersome and difficult as it may be.

And I wanted to thank all those Members who contributed potential ideas to that expanding list of possibilities. Mike Hedges went through a long list of possibilities. He reminded us of taking Corona bottles. I used to take Tovali Special bottles back in Carmarthen in order to make sure that my grandmother gave me the change that came from returning bottles on deposit. Who would have thought that the chewing gum removal tax would have made its way back onto the floor of the Assembly? [Interruption.] Thank you very much. Or, indeed, that a diesel tax could have been turned into a debate on diesel tourism? But, there we are—it’s been the nature of the debate, and, in doing so, it has added to the richness of the possibilities that we have here to test. And Jenny and Simon Thomas and others have all added other ideas to the new set of possibilities.

Let me just end by saying that Huw Irranca-Davies, I thought, reminded us of why sometimes having a procedure that is testing is important, too. We will need to test any ideas that we develop against their unintended consequences to make sure that they are progressive both in purpose and in impact. That’s why I intend to use the summer and into the autumn, as I explained earlier on in opening the debate, to get as wide a range of ideas as we can to begin with, to bring them down to a shortlist of the most promising ideas, and then to have to come down to one candidate to test the machinery. In doing so, I hope we will end up with a tax that is fit for the purpose we would intend, that does good things for us here in Wales, and, even if we didn’t, I return to the point I made, which is that, in testing the machinery, we will learn a great deal, maybe about the defects of the machinery itself, and, in that way, we will be able to go on developing the way in which our fiscal responsibilities, new in this Assembly term, can go on being a valuable part of the way that we do business here in Wales in the future.

The proposal is to agree amendment 1. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

And that brings us to voting time. Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will move immediately to the vote. And the vote, therefore, is on the debate on new taxation, and on amendment 1. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 44, nine abstentions, none against. Therefore, amendment 1 is agreed.

The second vote, on amendment 2, and I call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. [Interruption.] The vote is open.

Mae'r bleidlais yn agored, am y tro olaf.

Close the vote. In favour 53, no abstentions, none against, and therefore amendment 2 is agreed.

I therefore call for a vote on the motion as amended, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 53, no abstentions, none against, and therefore the motion as amended is agreed.

And that brings today’s proceedings to a close.