National Assembly for Wales

I call Members to order.

The first item this afternoon is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. And the first question, Mohammad Asghar.

I thank the Member for the question. Llywydd, it is for each local authority to determine its own policy and approach to the use of fixed-penalty notices. The Welsh Government supports their use when deployed as a response to genuine problems, issued sensibly, and enforced even-handedly.

Thank you for that reply, Cabinet Secretary. Last year, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council issued only two fixed-penalty notices, and Torfaen County Borough Council 13. However, Newport City Council issued 840 notices, compared to under 300 in previous years. Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council issued over 1,400 notices last year. What reason can the Cabinet Secretary give for the wide inconsistency in the number of fixed-penalty notices issued by local authorities in south-east Wales? And what assurances can he give that they are not being used as a means of increasing revenue only?

Well, Llywydd, the Member is quite right to point to the variation in the way that different local authorities deploy fixed-penalty notices, but that is because there is a repertoire of actions that local authorities can take, including court action, and some local authorities use a different mix of responses to others. And I don’t think it is for the Welsh Government to decide how local authorities should deploy the different responses available to them, and the combination of those responses, in their own localities. I agree with the point the Member made at the end of his question, that local authorities must use fixed-penalty notices as a proper response to genuine problems, and that the revenue that they raise is there to address those problems and not as a revenue-raising measure in its own right.

Public Health England is arguing that parents who leave their cars idling outside schools should be fined, because of the air pollution problem. And I’m wondering, given that the City of Cardiff Council has very effectively used fixed penalties, using cameras on the back of buses, to prevent cars going into bus lanes, what powers Cardiff council might have to tackle a similar problem outside school gates in Cardiff?

Well, I thank Jenny Rathbone for that question. I saw the advice that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, with Public Health England, had published last week, with guidelines calling for clean air zones to be set up outside schools, hospitals and care homes, for example. They don’t, I think, in that document, refer directly to a fixed-penalty regime; they talk about the possible use of bye-laws and other actions to support no-vehicle-idling areas. Given what we know about the pressure on air quality, this seems to me a very valuable report, and I know that colleagues in the Welsh Government will be looking at it, to see whether there are any actions from it that we should think of taking in Wales, including making powers available to local authorities, if that is thought to be the best way of enforcing such a regime.

As a former councillor, I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government will intimately empathise with the plethora of demands that low-level environmental crime places on the caseload of local councillors. And outside of the portfolio of local authority responses that the Cabinet Secretary has already mentioned, including court action, the use of fixed-penalty notices can be an effective tool in helping to tackle low-level environmental crime, which includes dropped litter, dog fouling, and debilitating noise from dwellings and licensed premises. Cabinet Secretary, how does the Welsh Government view the value of local authorities using fixed-term penalty notices as one measure amongst others to deliver a better community for the people they serve? And how can best practice be disseminated?

Well, I agree with the Member that this is one measure amongst others. Fixed-penalty notices are a very familiar part of the repertoire available to local authorities. They were first introduced as long ago as the 1950s. And while I understand some of the concerns that are sometimes raised about them being used as a revenue-raising tool, it’s important to note that, right across Wales, £1 million was raised by local authorities through fixed-penalty notices in dealing with low-level environmental problems of the sort that Rhianon Passmore has referred to, while the environmental cost of cleaning up litter to Welsh local authorities last year was £70 million. So, it is a relatively small contribution to dealing with the problem, and I don’t think it’s an unfair point for me to make to individuals who sometimes complain about the way that local authorities deploy fixed-penalty notices in relation to litter, dog fouling and so on, that the answer is mostly in their own hands, ‘Don’t drop litter and there’ll be no fixed-penalty notice to worry about.’

I thank the Member for the question. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure leads discussions with partners in north Wales on a growth deal. Formal submission of a growth bid is expected in the summer, and that will mark the start of formal discussions.

Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. Following the submission last August of the growth vision for north Wales, I know, and you’ll be aware, that stakeholders in my region, and across the border, such as the North Wales Economic Ambition Board, the Mersey Dee Alliance, Cheshire and Warrington local enterprise partnership, and the north Wales business council have worked hard on collaborating and coming together to press ahead our plans for infrastructure development, the skills agenda and economic growth for the north Wales area. In addition, in order to complement this work, I was pleased to be able to establish the cross-party group for north Wales here in the Assembly, so we can actually work together more collectively in order to press ahead that agenda in the Assembly, to get the financial and the political will to take our ambitions forward for north Wales. I’m glad you said that we’re expecting progress very soon, because I think there’s been a bit of a fear, despite it being much mooted alongside the Northern Powerhouse, that things have gone a bit quiet of late. So, I will just ask: what political commitment remains to the north Wales growth deal from both the UK and the Welsh Governments, and has any financial commitment been forthcoming as of yet from the UK Government, as it has done previously for the deals in south Wales, in respect of Cardiff and Swansea bay?

I thank the Member for that question. The Welsh Government remains firmly committed to the development of a north Wales growth deal. I’ve recently embarked on my latest round of discussions with local authority leaders. I met with the new leader of Gwynedd and the new leader of Ynys Môn recently, and I discussed this matter with the both of them, and also with the leader of Flintshire council. And I know that there remains an appetite right across north Wales to fashion a growth deal bid that will be convincing to both the Welsh Government and to the UK Government. I can’t speak directly for the UK Government on this matter, although every indication we have had is that they too remain committed to taking these discussions forward. We won’t get to the point of talking about financial commitments until later in the process. There’s still quite a job of work to be done in shaping that deal, in putting forward the proposition, and in calibrating the money that will be asked for it against the realism of what can be achieved. That was the process both in the Cardiff and the Swansea city deals, and I quite certainly look forward to being able to help take that process forward in relation to the north Wales growth deal.

Building on the North Wales Economic Ambition’s Board growth vision document last summer, the team developing the growth deal bid have called for devolved powers to be granted to the region, including skills, transport, strategic land use planning, business innovation, advisory functions, careers advice and taxation. By taxation, they’re not referring to business rates, but to tax increment financing. What consideration have you given, or are you giving, to that call, where such financing, which I believe is available to local authorities in England, relates to borrowing funded by the future growth in business rates receipts resulting from the projects developed through the growth deal?

Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree that both city deals and a north Wales growth deal has to be more than just an argument about the sum of money. It has to be about a wider agenda of driving collaboration, speaking with a single voice on key ambitions. And with that may go devolution of some of the sort of responsibilities that Mark Isherwood just outlined. It will be for the proponents of the deal to make that case. Of course, I am aware of TIF and the way that it operates elsewhere. I met the Society of Welsh Treasurers in local government on Friday of last week and had a useful discussion with them about a range of these issues, including the potential for a shared-gain approach to growth in business rate receipts, where it is possible that local authorities coming together in these city and growth deals can demonstrate that there is an additional flow of income as a result of their combined efforts.

The people of Anglesey would like an assurance that the north Wales growth deal will seek to develop the economy across all counties of north Wales, not tying the eastern counties to what’s happening in England only. There are opportunities to the west also, in Ireland, never mind the rest of Wales, and not just in the north west of England.

There is a risk that Wylfa Newydd will be seen to be ticking the box in terms of Anglesey or in terms of the north-west more widely, even. Will the Cabinet Secretary agree that we shouldn’t rely on Wylfa, because if a situation arises where that isn’t delivered, we will be in deep trouble?

Well, the challenge for the people in north Wales working on the deal is to be clear that they are working towards something that will work for the whole of north Wales. When I met with the new leader of Ynys Môn and the leader of Gwynedd, I did talk about the developments at Wylfa Newydd and the importance of being clear that Wylfa Newydd will be part of what comes forward as a significant part of the growth deal, but, of course, the deal is greater than Wylfa. On the other side, in the north-east, I know that, when I talk to people who are responsible for cross-border issues, they are very eager to explain the importance of having cross-border activity with the people in the north-west of England. That is important. But, that’s the challenge, namely to try to create something that works for the whole of north Wales, for Wylfa and for other developments in north-west Wales. It’s crucial that that’s right at the centre of the deal.

Questions now from the party spokespeople to the Cabinet Secretary. Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Adam Price.

Diolch, Llywydd. Last week, as we know, the Government declined to support the Circuit of Wales project, based on the risk that it could be classified as being on balance sheet and, therefore, would have major implications for the Welsh Government’s budget. Now, I’m interested in the decision-making process that led to this assessment in relation to balance sheet classification, as it could arise in a whole host of other projects in the future. We know, from the Cabinet Secretary’s appearance at the Finance Committee this morning, that his department has amassed considerable expertise running into hundreds of pages in this area because it arose in the context of the mutual investment model.

In relation to this specific decision, can the Cabinet Secretary say if the person who prepared the paper on balance sheet classification, which went to Cabinet last week, is part of his team? I’m not seeking a name; I’m just seeking to understand departmental responsibility. Therefore, was the paper in question commissioned by him—by the finance Secretary—or with his knowledge? And did he have sight of the paper before last week’s meeting?

The lead Minister in relation to the Circuit of Wales is, of course, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure. As part of the due-diligence work on the proposals submitted by the company, officials from my department were part of the work that went on in carrying out that due diligence and contributed to the assessment that, in the end, was put together and led by Ken Skates.

I mentioned the mutual investment model, but I understand, from what he Cabinet Secretary said this morning, that he does not believe that the issue, identified as part of the decision over the Circuit of Wales, has any bearing on the classification regarding the mutual investment model. Could he say a little bit more about why he has come to that view, and, if so, was not a similar approach considered for the Circuit of Wales project? Can he also say if he’s aware, in this case, whether any of the following were contacted to give their advice or guidance in relation to the Circuit of Wales balance sheet classification issue? I’ll read them out slowly: her Majesty’s Treasury public expenditure classifications team; the Office for National Statistics’ economic statistics classifications team; the ONS economic statistics classification committee; and, finally, Eurostat’s committee on monetary, financial and balance of payments statistics.

Well, the reason, Llywydd, that I said to the Finance Committee this morning that I didn’t think the decision in relation to the Circuit of Wales had a direct bearing on the mutual investment model the Welsh Government has put together is a matter of timing as much as anything else. The one preceded the other. We had already developed our mutual investment model. I had already made a statement on the floor of the Assembly here about it and answered questions about it, and we had already had to submit that model to the ONS and to Eurostat to allow ourselves to be satisfied that the way that that mutual investment model had been structured did not run a significant risk of those projects to be encompassed within it ending up on the public balance sheets. We did that, as you know, very much in the light of the Scottish Government experience, where their parallel model has ended up with many, many, many millions of pounds having to be found directly from public capital. So, that work is completed, and we’ve taken that advice. In that sense, I do not believe that it has to be revisited in the light of a completely separate project.

As to the Member’s detailed questions as to where advice was sought, I don’t have that information with me. I do know that the information and advice that came from those who had taken that advice was that the risk of the Circuit of Wales being classified to the public accounts was very significant, and that that would have had a very major bearing on the Welsh Government’s ability to carry out the capital investment projects that we have already announced and are committed to providing in Wales.

The First Minister last week said that the ONS are not able to give a definitive ruling until contracts are signed in relation to project proposals, but it is the case that they are able to give a provisional ruling on classification. I’m relying here, Cabinet Secretary, on the ONS official guidance on the classification process, which says:

ONS is occasionally asked to provide classification advice on policy proposals so that the government can understand how these proposals would be treated in the national accounts… Any classification decision based on a near-final policy proposal will be deemed as “provisional” and dependent on the proposal being implemented as described.’

So, my question, Cabinet Secretary, is this: did the Government, in relation to this project, seek not general advice as to the risk of a classification, but a provisional ruling, as set out under section 6, Government policy proposals, of the ONS classification process guidelines?

Well, Llywydd, I’m very familiar with the guidelines that the Member has just read out, because in relation to the mutual investment model, that is exactly the position that the ONS have taken. They have provided us with a general view that the model, as we have developed it, would not end up with classification on the public books, but reserve the right, in any particular project that we then take forward through that model—whether it be Velindre or the Heads of the Valleys or whatever it might be—to give us a separate ruling in relation to that project. So, the methodology that Adam Price has read out is exactly the way that the ONS goes about its business.

The Government was satisfied, Llywydd, from the advice that we received, that the risk of classification to the public books of the project as presented to the Government was too great for us to proceed on the basis that that had been set out.

The Conservative spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, I was unable to get a clear commitment from the First Minister yesterday with regard to the inclusion of a clear poverty reduction stream within future local authority reform. Now, your White Paper notes the need for a golden thread that links community-level aspirations with well-being goals to become a reality. So, therefore, will you commit today to ensuring that a golden thread in terms of poverty reduction is similarly prioritised as a reality within your proposed legislation objectives going forward, with clearly marked strategic direction, ambition, objectives and deliverable outcomes?

I’m not certain, Llywydd, I completely follow what I’m being asked to commit to. What I will commit to is this: that local authorities in Wales, by the nature of the services that they provide, are often the final resort of the welfare state in dealing with people whose circumstances are so difficult that they require the assistance of homelessness services, or social services departments or public health departments, too. So, there is a golden thread, it seems to me, already in what local authorities do in making sure that they provide services for those who most need them.

My approach to local government, Llywydd, is the one set out in the White Paper. My aim is to provide all local authorities in Wales with a renewed, refreshed and extended toolbox so that they have a greater set of possibilities that they can deploy in the way that best meets their local needs and circumstances. And then we must be more willing than we have been in the past to allow them to make those decisions, to be accountable for them to their local electorates, and to be able to respond to the circumstances that they face and are closest to in their own localities.

Thank you. Of course, this golden thread—your words, not mine—will require close working between community councils, local authorities and other public bodies, public service boards and any regional arrangements, and reform may require reorganisation of public service boards. Your White Paper proposes that they collaborate or even merge across local health board boundaries. Given that the proposals for community area committees have now been scrapped, there is little mention of public service boards in the previous Bill’s regulatory impact assessment. So, Cabinet Secretary, what analysis have you undertaken in regard to the costing of these such changes coming forward?

Well, Llywydd, of course, the costs and benefits of the proposals that we will bring forward will be set out in the regulatory impact assessment that will accompany the local government Bill that the First Minister announced as part of the second year’s programme when he made the legislative statement last week. And there will be a new regulatory impact assessment that reflects the set of proposals that will then be in front of the Assembly. I think the Member makes an important point about local service boards, and she’s right to pick up the fact that there was interest in the consultation about the way that we would maybe realign public service boards so that they are better able to match the new set of circumstances with a greater emphasis on regional working and so on that the White Paper set out. And I definitely do intend to pursue some of the views that came through in consultation, and to look at public service boards in the context of these new arrangements.

Thank you again. Of course, local authorities spending on central administration is set to rise by £11 million this year, whilst spend on roads and transport will fall by £2.73 million, and on libraries, culture, heritage, sport and recreation by almost £4 million. The Welsh Labour Government have talked the talk on more streamlined local government, but these figures suggest increased bureaucracy and red tape. Years of uncertainty over reform and reorganisation has not helped in the slightest. Cabinet Secretary, can you suggest why these costs are set to rise so dramatically, and will you commit to ensuring that there is solid and responsible budgeting in this area?

Well, Llywydd, the single greatest contribution to the rise in that £11 million figure is the figure from Conwy County Borough Council, and the Member, of course, raised that with me in the Chamber last month. To another extent, there are some classification issues that lie behind the figure—just things being classified in a different way.

I’ve not met a single local authority leader, Llywydd, who doesn’t tell me how anxious they are to try and minimise the amount of money that they spend on those functions in order to free up money for the front line. The truth of the matter is, as I’ve said here in the past, and I repeated to local authority treasurers again last week, they face even tougher times ahead. The budget available to this Government goes down next year, the year after, and the year after that again, and there is no escaping the fact that those reductions will have an impact on our ability to fund our partners to do all the things that they would like to do, too. So, the incentive and the impetus for local authorities to squeeze as much money as they possibly can out of backroom services, sharing administrative arrangements, being more efficient in the way they produce support services is very well understood in local government, and the reforms that we will bring forward will assist them in doing so.

UKIP spokesperson, Gareth Bennett.

Diolch, Lywydd. Minister, you’ve just been talking about the local government proposed reforms. One of the issues that I think has emerged, from what you’ve told us so far, is the theme of localism versus the need for systematic and mandatory ways of working, to use your own phrase. In other words, we need councils to be able to operate in their own way to some extent, and that they have to conform to Wales-wide standards in some areas. We had the issue recently in England of whether or not a council could or should have excluded the press from a meeting. Now, there is an issue in Wales of the variability of tv coverage of council meetings, so how far will you go down the road of enforcing systematic and mandatory working in this area?

Thank you, Llywydd. Well, Gareth Bennett will be aware—I know, because he’s raised it with me before—that our White Paper makes a series of proposals that will place greater obligations on local authorities, both to broadcast their proceedings and to make their proceedings available to the public. Those parts of the White Paper, I think, were broadly welcomed in the consultation. We have relied, to an extent, on encouragement in this field in the past. The local government Bill will give us an opportunity to legislate to make sure that standards of openness and accessibility that exist in very many of our councils are made available in them all.

Yes, thanks for that. I think the approach of encouraging first is certainly wise, although at some point there may be a need for actually enforcing what you’ve brought in. So, moving on from that is the issue of when you do intervene in cases if a council gets into difficulties. For instance, there have been long-running pay scandals in local government in Wales in recent years, at least one of which is still going on. Now, I don’t want you to comment on any specific cases, but in general, is there a role for you to intervene in cases where there are long-running problems, which don’t seem to be getting resolved and which may tend to bring local government into disrepute?

Well, Chair, there are—and quite properly—established procedures that govern the way that Welsh Ministers can intervene when things go astray in local government. That often relies on advice from the regulators, including the Wales Audit Office, and where we have had to intervene, where there have been failing education departments or failing social services departments, those protocols and those ways of doing things I think have generally been effective. They’ve allowed us to identify the places where intervention is needed, and very importantly, they include a pathway out of intervention as well. So, where local authorities are able to demonstrate that they have put right the things that had been identified, then we’re able to withdraw and allow them to resume those responsibilities, and we see that being done successfully at the level of individual services. And in the case of Ynys Môn, in the case of the council as a whole, a successful recovery by that local authority. What I would say to Gareth Bennett is that I think it is very important to learn the lessons from that and, where we have other instances where processes may appear to go on for too long and be difficult to reach a resolution, then we need to look back at that and see whether those processes need to be tightened up and, where they rely on the ability of Welsh Government to intervene, to make sure that those circumstances are clear and cannot be avoided.

Yes, thanks. You’ve cited the example of Ynys Môn, where there was a resolution, and I think you’re right to look at past examples and where there has been success from the Welsh Government to look at that as a way of dealing with cases that come before you in future. Now, again, it’s slightly sticky because I don’t want to refer to a specific instance, but if there is a case where a pay dispute has been in the news quite a lot and it’s been going on for four years, would the four-year mark tend to interest you as a point at which you may need to get involved in that theoretical case?

Well, Llywydd, I think I would put it like this: that even in such a case, there will be a set of rules that are being followed, and I would be wanting to make sure from the Welsh Government’s point of view that the rulebook, as it exists today, is being followed scrupulously. The assurance I wanted to give the Member in answer to his second question is that when that matter does come to a conclusion, what I will want to do will be to revisit that whole process to see whether we think that the rulebook, as it operated, was commensurate with the issue that it was there to resolve. And if we feel in the light of that experience that the rulebook needs to be revised, and a fresh set of arrangements put in place that ensure that intervention is possible in a timely way and which allows issues to be resolved, then that’s the set of lessons that I will hopefully be able to learn from that experience.

I thank the Member for the question. The 2017-18 final budget aligns investment with key commitments in ‘Taking Wales Forward’. In the communities and children main expenditure group, that includes an additional £10 million in support of our free childcare offer, an additional £6 million for the prevention of homelessness, and £1.4 billion over four years towards the delivery of our 20,000 affordable homes target.

Thank you. Clearly, this portfolio covers things like families, children, welfare reform, financial inclusion, homelessness and housing advice in the voluntary sector. Getting advice in those areas is not only better for people, but it would actually save money for the public purse. Therefore, given that the Welsh Government had already commissioned, alongside the National Advice Network, prior to the 2017-18 budget, the report now published on modelling the need for advice on social welfare, what consideration was given to provision to take forward its conclusions, which they say now need to be properly framed within a wider policy discussion considering the potential severity of problems, their interconnectedness, and, of course, local insights?

Well, Llywydd, I understand the point completely that the Member makes about the need for good advice services and the way that good advice can allow problems to be solved before they escalate. The way the budget-making process works, however, is that it is for portfolio Ministers to identify priorities within the range of responsibilities that they exercise. We then negotiate together over a budget to deliver on those priorities and it would have been for the Cabinet Secretary responsible to make the decisions in relation to the deployment of resources across the wide range of responsibilities, as Mark Isherwood said, that lies within that particular portfolio. We have embarked upon the start of the budget-making round for next year. I will be meeting the Cabinet Secretary concerned in relation to his portfolio and I’ll make sure that a specific question is raised in that discussion on the point of advice services that the Member has raised.

Well, Llywydd, as I said in an answer to an earlier question from Janet Finch-Saunders, the associated costs and benefits of the new model of local government will be published in the regulatory impact assessment that will accompany the proposed local government Bill, on introduction. The First Minister announced in last week’s legislative programme statement that a local government Bill would be included in the Government’s programme for the second year of this Assembly term.

I thank the Cabinet Minister for that answer. But, following on from a number of comments you’ve made earlier, do you not agree that there have been many attempts to reform local government in Wales, including the aborted attempt to institute the Williams commission recommendations, and that the present arrangement of 22 local authorities has proved to be financially and strategically unacceptable? Quite apart from the fact that we have 22 chief executives on highly inflated salaries, with, of course, 22 sets of attendant staff, the authorities are not large enough to institute any infrastructure projects because their budgets are inadequate. So, does he not agree that we need real change to local government, not the incohesive arrangements now in place?

Well, the Member is right enough in the history that he set out about attempts to reform local government in Wales. I think he’s over-harsh on the extent to which local government in Wales has been able to live within its means and has been able to contribute, together, to some major strategic programmes. But, quite certainly, the need to come together in order to be able to discharge strategic responsibilities on a wider footprint is what lies behind the 10 local authorities that came together to form the Cardiff capital city deal and the four local authorities that have succeeded in getting a city deal for Swansea. By coming together in that way, they are undoubtedly able to work better across their borders, to create budgets to which they are all able to contribute, draw on money from central and Welsh Government budgets, and do a better job of the sort of responsibilities that the Member identified.

The Wales Audit Office has previously highlighted the spend by public bodies on external consultants—£56 million last year—and noted that if they do not manage consultancy services effectively, they can be an expensive way to deliver our public services. Meanwhile, the NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership—NWSSP—achieved over £20 million in procurement savings in 2015-16, over £27.5 million in 2014-15, and £26.9 million in 2013-14. Given the scale of those savings, which are exemplary, one can only imagine what could be achieved at local government level across Wales. So, therefore, Cabinet Secretary, how will you seek to encourage the roll-out of best practice within the NWSSP across local authorities through your own reform proposals?

Llywydd, well, I completely agree with what the Member said: that NHS shared services have been a conspicuous success story. Members here will be aware that it took 10 years to move from the original pattern, in which almost every health organisation in Wales provided all these services for themselves, to a point where we have a single shared services organisation for Wales. Part of the reason why it took that length of time is because there are people involved in working in all of these services, and you have to take account of the perspective of the people who work in these services. In our White Paper, we specifically asked the question as to whether or not there was more that NHS shared services could do to work for local authorities in this area, or whether it was better that local authorities develop their own model of shared services. There is some reluctance in local government in Wales to move down the shared services route, and there is a need for the message to be heard clearly by our local government partners that the move to shared services is a journey on which they are all embarked. I will be prepared to be understanding and pragmatic with them about the length of time it will take to reach the point where there is greater shared working, but no local authority in Wales should be in any doubt at all that we are all on this journey and they are on it too.

Thank you for that question. Local authorities in Wales are taking a range of actions on lower pay. Some pay their employees the living wage, some are planning to introduce it, and others are moving closer to it by removing lower pay points.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. You’ll probably be aware that Cardiff University Business School recently carried out a survey of those employers across the UK who’ve chosen to become accredited living wage employers, i.e. paying the foundation living wage, which is of course £8.45—almost £1 more than the UK’s national minimal wage—and ensuring that the contractors that they use also pay the foundation living wage rates. The overwhelming majority of those surveyed identified that not only did the benefits far outweigh any costs, but less than one in five had needed to change contractors, as they too have been content to pay the foundation living wage.

Cabinet Secretary, given that local authorities are, in many areas of Wales, amongst the largest employers, will you join me in encouraging all councils in Wales to provide a lead within their local communities by not just paying the foundation living wage to directly employed staff, but to go the additional step and look to meet the accreditation standards by ensuring that their contractors pay it also?

Well, Llywydd, I thought that Dawn Bowden made a very important point at the start of that supplementary question, when she pointed out that for many organisations it makes good business sense to pay wages of this sort, which result in them being able to recruit and retain staff. At the Finance Committee this morning, we talked briefly about social care as an example of exactly that phenomenon. The turnover of staff in social care can be up to 30 per cent on an annual basis, and yet we know that where there are local authorities and care companies who pay their staff and organise them on terms and conditions that make it attractive for people to take up those jobs, to stay in those jobs, to benefit from the training that is then available, that is a more successful business model for those companies and for those authorities than trying to pay at the bottom of the pay scale, and then having to cope with all the other costs of recruitment, retraining and having to employ temporary staff to cover where gaps in workforce have emerged. So, I think she made the case for the payment of the foundation living wage in terms that local authorities and employers can understand, and I’m very keen, myself, to make that case with them whenever I have that opportunity.

Cabinet Secretary, can I add my support to this growing trend as well? I understand there are over 80 companies and organisations now throughout Wales who are paying the foundation living wage, including, Presiding Officer, the National Assembly and Cardiff council. I think the point you make there is exactly the right one. We do have a productivity crisis in this country, and a lot of it is caused by wages being simply too low. That part of the economy does need to innovate, and also, obviously, provide those employed in it with decent standards of living. So, I think the productivity and efficiency argument is very, very important, and we’ll see more and more practice of this from the 80 companies and those that will join them in the years ahead, I’m sure.

Well, I agree entirely with David Melding that low pay is the enemy of productivity, and we’ve seen that in the UK economy over the last seven years. When wages are held down, it becomes a perverse incentive for employers to keep people on where they could have taken other actions that would have led to greater productivity and, as a result, better wages for those people employed in them. I’m pleased to say, Llywydd, that as well as the National Assembly and Cardiff council, as the Member said, the Welsh Government is also accredited as a living wage employer with the Living Wage Foundation, and not only do we ensure that all directly employed staff, including apprentices, are paid the living wage, our agreement as a Government goes further than directly employed staff. In new Welsh Government contracts, we expect all contracted-out service providers to pay their on-site staff with the living wage, as well.

Llywydd, we work with our public service partners and the Welsh inspection, audit, and regulatory bodies to assist in mitigating the flawed and failed policy of austerity.

I thank him for that answer. At the heart of the question of resilience, as we’ve just been discussing, is the question of well-being and productivity of the workforce, the ability to recruit and retain talent, and, at the heart of that, is the question of pay. So, does he join me in deploring the suppression of public sector pay by the UK Government and the impact that has on the Welsh Government’s capacity to finance in other parts of the public services in Wales the sorts of pay settlements we would want and need? Does he agree with me that the UK Government needs to move beyond choreographed briefings by Cabinet Ministers about this issue to genuinely relenting on the question of public sector pay austerity? And does he join me in hoping that the talents, energy, and passion of Plaid Cymru can be directed to supporting the Welsh Government’s pressure on the UK Government, rather than setting up the kind of dividing lines we saw in the Chamber yesterday?

Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should listen to his Cabinet colleagues and end the damaging public sector pay cap. You heard the First Minister make exactly these points yesterday. We know that public sector workers, since 2010, have seen average pay fall by 4.5 per cent in real terms, and that is damaging both to them and to their families, but also to the communities in which they live, because it suppresses effective demand in the economy, and why I said, in my first answer to Jeremy Miles, that the policy of austerity is an inherently flawed policy. You cannot cut your way out of a depression, and that’s what this Government attempted to do, and, in doing so, it simply added to the problem, rather than trying to solve it. An end to the public sector pay cap would be a very valuable way of stimulating the economy as a whole.

Well, you can look at austerity in two ways: you can look at it in the way that you look at it, as a failed policy, finance Secretary, or you can look at it—[Interruption.] Or you can look at it as living within your means. We all know what happens when the Labour Party get their hands on the finances. It just spirals out of control, and it’s the next generation that has to pick up the debt. [Interruption.] I appreciate that the parties on the left just want to spend other people’s money, they do, but going back to the question—[Interruption.]

I do need to hear the question. Andrew R.T. Davies.

But, going back to the question, the question refers to the resilience of public services in Wales. I was just wondering: has the finance Secretary had a chance to have a detailed conversation around the Cabinet table of how the Cabinet will make use of the additional capital expenditure that’s available via the comprehensive spending review? I believe in the region of £400 million has been made available for capital expenditure that will enhance the durability and resilience of public services in Wales, and will he make a statement as to how he is allocating these additional moneys over the lifespan of the comprehensive spending review?

Llywydd, well I notice that, when it was their own jobs at stake, the Conservative politicians were able to find plenty of money to pass to the Democratic Unionist Party in order to make sure that they stayed in work. There was no problem with austerity then. We have an end to austerity in one part of the United Kingdom, paid for by people in the rest of the United Kingdom. I think we can see just how far an adherence to austerity went when it was the Conservative party politicians’ own jobs on the line. The Member’s serious question was the one that he ended with, and that’s to do with the capital budget. He will be aware that I was able to lay a four-year capital budget in front of the Assembly as part of last year’s budget-making round, and I know that that was widely welcomed, both by our partners and by private businesses, because the need to plan public expenditure over that longer run is inevitably important to them. I am engaged, as I said earlier, in a series of budget meetings with Cabinet colleagues as we move into the next budget round. I am discussing with every one of them how we may be able to deploy the very modest additional capital allocations available to us over the next four years. I will look to make the very maximum use of the public capital available to this Government for a series of important public purposes, prioritising those investments that release revenue, so that we are able to cope with the ongoing cuts to our ability to sustain public services over the next three years.

As the Cabinet Secretary just said, austerity doesn’t seem to like getting its feet wet and doesn’t cross the Irish sea, but the resilience of public services in Wales does depend on the robustness of the Barnett formula. The fact that the Barnett formula has been adjusted but has not been reformed on the basis of needs is an ongoing problem for public services in Wales. So, what assessment has he made, building on some of his earlier points, of the implications for the Barnett formula of the agreement with the DUP and the long-term sustainability of public services in Wales?

Well, Llywydd, my objection to the deal with the DUP is not that the DUP won a series of investments for the people of Northern Ireland; I’m sure those investments will be very welcome. My objection to it was the way that it has run roughshod over the arrangements for funding public services across the United Kingdom. Now, where there were investments in Northern Ireland that were solely for Northern Irish purposes and were not responsibilities of this Assembly or the Parliament in Scotland or, indeed, of English Ministers discharging responsibilities for English services, that I entirely understand. But where you have a deal that puts money into mainstream public services, into education, into health, into infrastructure, there’s no ambiguity at all, and UK Ministers can try as much as they like to hide behind some small print in the way that things are managed—there’s no ambiguity at all that the principle is that, if you invest in those mainstream services in one part of the United Kingdom, you provide all parts of the United Kingdom with a commensurate investment. Because patients in Wales and children in Wales deserve the same investment in their future as people in Northern Ireland deserve the investment that they will now be getting.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

The next item on the agenda is questions to the Assembly Commission. The first question is from Jenny Rathbone.

I thank the Member for the question. In 2014, a group of staff volunteers ran a pilot scheme to assess the feasibility of growing food on the Assembly estate. As you’ll appreciate, the Assembly has almost no suitable growing space, unlike some of the other UK legislatures, and, unfortunately, it has proved not to be possible to grow food on the estate, although our caterers do grow herbs for use in the catering service.

I would wish to challenge that assumption, because I’m engaged in my communities in areas where there is almost no green space and green space is found to grow things. Because there’s a huge amount of evidence that it improves well-being as well as encouraging wildlife. There was an initiative in the last Assembly, spearheaded by Julie Morgan, to encourage both Members and staff to grow food or flowers on the estate, and I could easily identify areas where we could do that. For example, there are passageways that have become greenhouses in the summer, and we can be growing tomatoes, and they would look nice—and, you know, lots of win-wins there. The reason I am raising this is that I was somewhat disturbed to learn that the new chief executive had written to the Community Land Advisory Service providing a similar answer to what you are saying. I would ask you to look again at this, and I’m happy to meet you to discuss this outside the Plenary session.

I thank you for that, Jenny, for that information, and I will certainly meet with you to discuss further. However, I will answer this question in the way that I have prepared at the moment. But I will meet with you later. We are aware of the excellent initiative. As I mentioned, a group of staff volunteers did assess the feasibility of growing food on our estate. However, with almost no available green space, the pilot scheme did conclude that it would not be possible to grow any meaningful amount of food on the Assembly estate. There is a plot of land adjacent to the Senedd. However, this is not owned by the Assembly. So, whilst we have not been able to grow food, we have focused on planting wildflowers and have installed bird boxes in conjunction with the RSPB Give Nature a Home scheme to attract increased wildlife, birds, bees and butterflies within the estate. [Interruption.] The Assembly’s chief executive—sorry. The Assembly’s chief—. I heard some things. The Assembly’s chief executive has recently been corresponding with the Community Land Advisory Service and has suggested that, given the limited amount of growing space available on our estate, we may be able to help to promote its work in other ways, for example, if they explored holding an event at the Senedd. But I will meet with you later to discuss further. Thank you.

Thank you. Some Members have experience of hosting internship placements in the Assembly. These are managed within the Assembly’s political parties and higher education institutions, or by individual Members through their own contacts. Introducing interns to the work of the politicians and political groups is an important part of making this an accessible parliamentary body and engaging people in the work that we do here. Shifting to a Presiding Officer placement scheme would need further consideration given the financial support arrangements for Assembly Members’ staffing.

I thank the Presiding Officer. I thank you, Elin, for that response there. I’m glad to see you haven’t shut the door on the idea. I think it is worth exploring. This year, the Speaker of the House of Commons has introduced this scheme, and it’s an attempt to actually overcome the social mobility problems with internships and placements. Far too often, as we know, placements tend to be within the favour of those families who can afford to support young people going off for longer placements and internships, or it’s in the gift of those who have the connections, and I think it would be admirable if a progressive institution such as our own could actually lead the way—not simply follow what Parliament is doing, but look at the opportunities of supported scholarships for short periods of three months, for example, for Welsh students to be here to learn about the democratic and political engagement within this institution, and particularly those who would not normally have that opportunity, either because of issues of lack of support and lack of finances, or, alternatively, because they come from educational paths where, traditionally, they may lack confidence at that post-16 level to take it through. So, I welcome the fact that it’s not a complete shut door on this, and I’d be more than happy to assist in any way with exploring this further, because I think for us to show the lead in the progressive way that will tackle social mobility builds on the reputation of this young institution to do the right thing and to lead by example.

Well, my door is certainly not closed on this issue, and I have looked with interest since you first corresponded with me on the Speaker’s scheme in the House of Commons in partnership with the Creative Society. I agree with your analysis that interns that we have had in this place and in other places have come from usual suspects or usual places, especially those who are politics students in our universities, for example. And, whilst that is of course valuable and worthwhile for all who’ve involved themselves in that work, we do need to ensure that we are opening up our politics, our political groups, and our work as a Commission, to others who may not necessarily be able to avail themselves directly or immediately of the opportunities of internships.

There are issues that we would need to look at carefully on these matters. Issues of finance, of course, come first to mind, and I do know that the remuneration board is about to embark on a review of staffing support for Members, and this may well be an issue that Members may be interested in making representation to the remuneration board on, but I would certainly want to work with Members here to see what opportunities are available to us, what partners are out there who might want to work with us in establishing an internship programme of this kind, so that every young person in Wales, and outside of Wales, who thinks that they may have an interest in involving themselves and working within this establishment feels that there is a way that they could reach that aspiration.

I’d just like to add my support to Huw Irranca-Davies’s proposal, and I welcome your commitment across the board, Presiding Officer, to opening up politics in this institution. One of my own priorities that I pledged prior to being elected was about making our politics and our politicians much more accessible—not just myself, but actually how we open up opportunities to get involved and understand. I think Huw made some valid points about actually making it accessible to everybody, not just for people with the means and with the contacts to do so. I think it’s right and proper that we try to find a way so that at least we are able to pay interns, and, if possible, it should be a living wage. I think one of the things you touched on is, currently, the inflexibility of our staffing budgets, which don’t allow Members to be able to do that should they wish to. And I think it’s something that we need to actually get the remuneration board to consider. I think one thing I’d like to ask, building on what my colleague Huw Irranca-Davies said about the possibility of shorter-term scholarships, perhaps—I’ve seen other politicians elsewhere looking at the idea of trying to do apprenticeships, or something similar to that work-based learning. So, at a younger age, allowing people to come in, and linking with FE colleges and other training institutions, to see whether we can do that. So, I’d ask that that, perhaps, be given further consideration.

Thank you for those additional thoughts on how a system of this nature could be developed. We all as individual Assembly Members here, I’m sure, open up our doors in our constituency, and provide valuable job experience opportunities for young people, especially in our constituencies. I think maybe the fact that the remuneration board is about to embark on this review of staffing support enables Members here, and us as a Commission, to look at ways in which we could seek to make our funding structures, and staff support structures, flexible enough to allow a more innovative way to provide more flexibility for Members to look at how they can attract people from newer places to access work opportunities in this place.

We now turn to the topical questions. Question 1 [TAQ(5)0193(HWS)] has been withdrawn, so question 2—Steffan Lewis.

What assessment has the First Minister made of the UK Government’s policy paper, ‘Safeguarding the Position of EU Citizens in the UK and UK Nationals in the EU’, published last week? TAQ(5)0716(FM)

European Union citizens make a hugely positive contribution to daily life here in Wales. The UK Government’s proposals are a belated step forward, but still do not provide full clarity for those citizens who are affected, and still, at worst, appear to treat people as bargaining chips, which is absolutely unacceptable to us. Full clarity and certainty needs to be given to all those affected, and that needs to be provided without further delay.

I’m grateful for that answer. Whilst it’s always a pleasure to see the Cabinet Secretary for finance, I tabled this question for the First Minister, because he’s insisted repeatedly that he is the Cabinet Secretary responsible for external affairs. And perhaps his inability to be here today reflects the need for Welsh Government to look again at the need for an external affairs Cabinet Secretary for Wales during these very important couple of years that are upon us.

Last week, the paper, as the Cabinet Secretary has said, fell far short of the expectations that were set by the UK Government originally. They insisted that they would look at an arrangement that would be reciprocal, and when we contrast the UK Government’s paper to that of the European Union, it’s fair to say that that has not been achieved. And, of course, that has had a huge effect on the 80,000 EU nationals in Wales and the 3 million EU nationals across the UK.

The proposals include conferring settled status, which would not be automatically conferred on EU nationals, even those who achieve permanent residence. EU students would be allowed to remain for the duration of their course, but there’s ambiguity around whether they would be allowed to remain after the course has completed. One area of great concern is the ambiguity around the cut-off date, because there is a prospect for EU nationals—in particular those with children—that the parents would have a different immigration status to their children. And actually, from my reading of the UK Government’s position paper, it appears to me that EU nationals will be stripped of family reunification rights, which the EU was not proposing, in its position paper, to be the case for UK nationals on the continent. And on that issue of UK nationals on the continent, perversely, the UK paper says less about the rights of UK nationals on the continent than the European Union paper does on British nationals on the continent. You mentioned bargaining chips. I think it’s very sad to see that it looks like, in the position paper published, EU nationals are being used as a bargaining chip. I’d like to ask the Cabinet Secretary: did the Welsh Government submit its own position paper as part of the UK Government’s process of drawing up its own? If not, does he believe that it’s worthwhile the Welsh Government publishing a position paper now to bring political pressure to bear on the UK Government, so that we can uphold the rights of the 80,000 EU nationals in this country? And is it the Welsh Government’s position that the current EU frameworks relating to citizens’ rights should be transposed into UK law, under the provisions of the repeal Bill, rather than through the method being proposed by the UK Government, which is to start from scratch with UK law, which, as I’ve mentioned, strips EU citizens of the rights that they enjoy?

And finally, we were all told that this was meant to be the easiest part of the European UK negotiations. That’s what the UK Government told us repeatedly. And the fact that we cannot come to a position of reciprocal arrangements on this fundamental issue of the rights of citizens who have contributed to our country—what does this tell us about the next two years when we get to issues that were deemed to be even more difficult than this one?

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd, let me begin by just saying something on the points that Steffan Lewis started with. Because what seemed to me to be a basic mistake in the way that the UK Government went about this part of the negotiations was: instead of describing their paper as a starting point, something for further discussion, a way into some quite complex areas, they insisted on describing it from the beginning as some incredibly generous offer that people were bound to flock to want to sign up to. It inevitably ended, as Steffan Lewis said, in just disappointing people, having had their expectations raised. It’s an utterly curious start for the UK Government not to refer even to the EU paper that had been published in advance of theirs in the document that they published, again offending people with whom you need to be able to come to a sensible agreement. So, my reading of the paper is that it was a sensible enough start, and had it been pitched in that way, and described in that way, I think it would have been easier to get engagement around it.

It leaves, as Steffan Lewis said, a series of ambiguities about the status of EU citizens. Will they be able to support dependent parents? What rules will future spouses apply under, for example? And the issue of the cut-off date is fundamental here. I really do think that those UK politicians that I hear arguing that a cut-off date in the future would result in a mass influx of people to the United Kingdom trying to establish settled status—that is so far from the contemporary realities of migration, where what we have seen is actually a collapse in the number of people coming to the United Kingdom. When I spoke to the CBI last week, what their members wanted to say to me was how difficult they are now finding it to recruit people that they need to work in their businesses. So, the dangers of a cut-off date are much exaggerated at the UK level, and that ought to be resolved too.

Did we publish a position paper? Well, as the Member knows, we didn’t, but I can tell him that that did not mean for a moment that we were unable to unambiguously put our point of view to the UK Government on this matter. We’re told by the UK Government that this will not be part of the repeal Bill mechanism, but will be part of a separate Bill, and there will be things that we will want to say, and want to say publicly, in advance of any such Bill being published.

Steffan Lewis’s final point is, in some ways, the most depressing, isn’t it? If this was the easiest part, if this was an issue on which everybody agreed we needed to get rapid agreement on, then the failure to be able to make rapid progress in the way that we feel was eminently possible is a pretty bleak signal of the difficulties that lie ahead when far more tricky territory has to be negotiated.

Following on from Steffan’s point on EU nationals working in the United Kingdom, today marks the sixty-ninth anniversary of the establishment of the NHS. I think there’s evidence to suggest that there are fewer people now registering to work in the NHS from the EU as a direct consequence of that Brexit vote. Today, I’ve relaunched the ‘Diolch Doc’ campaign, encouraging people in Wales to thank the people from overseas who work and help us in our NHS. But that’s not the question I wanted to ask. The question I wanted to ask was: does the finance Minister agree that the Act that triggered the Brexit process could have a technical flaw in it, in that whilst the Act does authorise the Prime Minister to notify the EU that we intend to leave, it does not, as it’s written, indicate that we should leave?

Now, I understand that coming from an EU enthusiast like me, that’s going to sound like a ruse to stop us from leaving the EU, but it’s not—it’s a genuine question of whether the Act, as it is drafted, could be challenged in court. Would the finance Secretary be prepared to look into this to seek clarifications from Government legal experts?

I thank Eluned Morgan for both parts of what she said. She’s absolutely right about the NHS—the NHS in Wales would not survive without the good fortune that people in Wales have that we are able to attract people from other parts of the world who are willing to commit their futures to be part of our future. It’s absolutely right that we should recognise that and be prepared to say that directly to people who live and work in our communities.

I am aware of the point she makes about the potential technical flaw in relation to the article 50 legislation. I know that there are groups of lawyers—there is one in my own constituency who has argued very much that there is a technical problem with the Act of Parliament that passed at the UK level. I know that they have taken this view to the Commission and I know that it is shared by some very senior previous Law Lords, for example. The Counsel General is in the Chamber and will have heard that point and we’ll make sure that we get a view from Welsh Government lawyers. When I have looked at this and had people come to see me, I often end up saying to them that I wonder whether they are mistaking the law for the politics of this matter, and whether, even if there is a technical flaw in the way that the Act may have been put together, the political majority that was in favour of the purpose of that Act will not, in the end, be held to be more significant.

The UK Government states that securing a deal on the rights of EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in the EU has always been a priority, but of course, prior to the beginning of formal negotiations, both the Commission and the UK Government had said that offers and counteroffers and discussion on deals couldn’t begin until those negotiations formally started. So, the UK has made an offer, giving 3 million EU citizens the certainty they seek about the future of their lives, which would give access to UK benefits on the same basis as UK nationals, but they also say that a reciprocal agreement would provide the same certainty to more than a million UK citizens living in the EU. It’s the UK Government that states that this proposal means that formal negotiations on the UK’s exit from the EU can get off to what they hope will be a productive start. So it is part of a process, and they’ve made that absolutely clear. But in its response, the EU chief negotiator recommended that the European Court of Justice should continue to be the body that upholds EU citizens’ rights in the UK. I understand that other options have been preliminarily discussed—whether a new body might be established, given the outcome of the referendum last year, which applied in part to the repatriation of law-making powers. So, given that the next round of the negotiations between the UK and EU is set to take place on 17 July, what representations has the Welsh Government made to the UK Government on this specific matter?

Well, Dirprwy Lywydd ‘dros dro’, as Steffan Lewis said, if this has always been a priority for the UK Government, then the failure to make adequate progress on something that has always been a priority is a pretty bleak sign for other, more difficult aspects of the negotiation. The Prime Minister’s obsession with the European Court of Justice is becoming a real barrier to making sensible decisions in these negotiations. Mark Isherwood is, I think, right to say that there are some intermediate solutions to this matter, but the quicker the UK Government recognises that and is realistic about it, the faster we’ll reach a resolution. There’s absolutely no doubt that in any trade deals that the UK makes, there will be an independent arbiter of those trade deals that does not reside entirely within the UK’s own domestic court system. That ought to be a solution that they can devise in relation to citizenship rights as well.

As far as the next round is concerned, I wrote jointly with Mike Russell, the Scottish Brexit Minister, for the second time, to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union recently, proposing that the Joint Ministerial Committee mechanism should have a regular part in the monthly cycle of negotiations that the UK Government has now embarked upon, because that would give devolved administrations a guaranteed opportunity to come round the table with the UK Government, wanting to do it constructively, wanting to be helpful in the way that we can contribute to the negotiating position that the UK will take. But, without such a mechanism that is routine and guaranteed, we are left with a set of bilateral phone calls, meetings, letters and so on, which I think is a very unsatisfactory way of conducting inter-UK arrangements between the devolved administrations and the UK Government.

Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on support for ‘Y Cymro’ given current uncertainty around its long-term future? TAQ(5)0192(EI)

Thank you. ‘Y Cymro’ is funded through the Welsh Books Council, and I’d strongly advise any interested parties to discuss any future support with the Welsh Books Council. The Welsh Government does not get involved in the Welsh Books Council’s funding decisions.

Thank you for that response, Cabinet Secretary. After all, it’s extremely sad that ‘Y Cymro’, the only national newspaper available in the Welsh language, is facing such uncertainty and has had to close—hopefully temporarily—last Thursday. It’s encouraging that there’s a group of people, Cyfeillion Y Cymro, who are interested in its purchase, but, of course, there’s no assurance that the paper will continue for the future. The loss of the newspaper forever would be a huge loss, particularly given the important role that the paper has played over the years. ‘Y Cymro’ has been central in reflecting and reporting our history and the development of our culture and language for many years.

Now, naturally, I am aware that things change in terms of newspapers. Newspapers are declining and the world is becoming digital and multiplatform, but safeguarding journalism through the medium of Welsh is still crucially important. After all, the Government funds the ‘papurau bro’. Our ‘papurau bro’ receive public funds and are extremely prosperous. That’s a success story. So, in addition to what you’ve already suggested in terms of the Welsh Books Council, could I ask the Cabinet Secretary whether he would be willing to get to grips with this issue personally and perhaps meet with the people who are seeking a solution to keep ‘Y Cymro’ going in the long term? Thank you.

Can I thank Dai Lloyd again for bringing this issue to the Chamber’s attention? I am most sympathetic to the current uncertainty regarding ‘Y Cymro’. I actually started my journalistic career working alongside journalists on ‘Y Cymro’ back in the days when it was owned by North Wales Newspapers and based out of headquarters in Mold. It has had for many years incredible, committed, talented staff, and it would be tragic if the publication were to be lost forever. It has gone through a number of owners over many years. It started out as a slightly different publication in the nineteenth century, so it has incredible heritage.

My understanding is that the ‘Y Cymro’ grant from the Welsh Books Council stood at approximately £18,000 for a number of years, and, in fact, ‘Y Cymro’ did not request an increase in the grant it was receiving from the Welsh Books Council. I understand that there has been interest from some groups, but there is no confirmation yet that it has been sold. Discussions have taken place between Cyfeillion y Cymro and Tindle, and we understand that they will be meeting with the Welsh Books Council before the end of this week. I would urge any prospective purchaser and owner to engage fully with the Welsh Books Council with a view to securing a level of grant that would enable the publication to continue, if it is possible to save the publication in its current form. I would also offer that any potential purchaser and any potential future managers of the publication seek, at the earliest opportunity, support from Business Wales. That support can come in the form of advice, and it may come in the form of further signposting towards financial support. As I say, I think it would be a sad day for ‘Y Cymro’ to be lost forever, and, certainly, I’ll be keen to follow the progress that potential interested parties make in the coming weeks.

Diolch.

Item 4 is the 90-second statement. Jayne Bryant.

Eighty years ago, 4,000 children were evacuated from Bilbao to the UK following the bombing in Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Homes known as colonies were set up for refugees, including four in Wales, one of which was in Cambria House in Caerleon, where 56 children arrived on 10 July, 1937. It turned out to be one of the most successful in the UK. It was a time of high unemployment and poverty, but the people of Caerleon welcomed the children with open arms. Everyone was involved in fundraising, from the South Wales Miners’ Federation, local volunteers, to the children themselves. They formed a formidable Basque football team, produced their own bilingual newspaper and helped raise money through traditional Basque dances and songs. Children were encouraged by the warden of the house, Mrs Maria Fernandez, to play, learn and socialise with others in the village. Mrs Fernandez was loved and respected by all, and she kept in touch with almost all of the children until she died in 2001, aged 97. Local councillor, Gail Giles, recently stated,

it was a wonderful example of the exceptional courage, struggle and determination in Wales to help the innocent victims of war, and the kindness to those in need.’

A day of celebration is taking place on Monday at Caerleon Arts Festival. We must never forget our proud history of solidarity and generosity to young refugees fleeing violence 80 years ago.

The next item is the motion to elect Members to committees. Unless there are any objections, in accordance with Standing Orders 12.24 and 12.40, I propose that the motions to elect Members to committees are grouped for debate and for voting.

I call on a member of the Business Committee to move the motions.

Formally.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motions. Does any Member object? The motions are therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

The next item is a debate on a Member’s legislative proposal—Bethan Jenkins. I call on Bethan Jenkins to move the motion.

Thank you.

Nid yw bod yn ofalwr byth yn hawdd. Mae’n gyfnewidiol iawn. Un diwrnod, mae bywyd i’w weld yn berffaith, ac ar ddiwrnod arall, mae i’w weld yn chwalu’n ddarnau. Mae gofalu yn ein gwneud yn rhy empathetig, felly rydym yn teimlo poen pawb, ond rydym yn teimlo nad oes neb yn deall ein poen ni. Mae gofalu yn gwneud i ni deimlo ar goll ac yn unig ar adegau. Rwyf am helpu pob gofalwr ifanc, gan gynnwys fi fy hun, i sylweddoli nad ydynt ar eu pen eu hunain ac er ei fod yn achosi gofid, mae bod yn ofalwyr ifanc yn gallu ein gwneud yn gryfach, yn gallach ac yn ddewrach na’r rhan fwyaf o blant ein hoed.

Daw’r dyfyniad hwnnw gan Adele-Caitlin, sy’n 16 oed ac sy’n ofalwr ifanc.

Dylwn ddechrau drwy groesawu’r gofalwyr sy’n oedolion ifanc a chydgysylltwyr prosiect YMCA sydd wedi dod yma i Gaerdydd o Abertawe a Chaerdydd heddiw. Mae’r ddadl hon yn golygu llawer iddynt, oherwydd nid gwleidyddiaeth yn unig yw hyn i ofalwyr ifanc; mae’r trafodaethau rydym yn eu cael yma heddiw yn ymwneud â’u bywydau bob dydd a’u profiadau. Penderfynais gyflwyno’r cynnig hwn ar ôl mynychu digwyddiad gofalwyr ifanc yn y Senedd ychydig wythnosau yn ôl a drefnwyd gan yr YMCA i dynnu sylw at eu prosiect gwych Time for me, sy’n trefnu gwasanaethau cymorth i ofalwyr ifanc ac yn cynnig seibiant a chyngor. Clywais yn y digwyddiad hwn sut y mae gofalwyr ifanc yn falch o’r gofal y maent yn ei roi ac o’u cyfrifoldebau. Maent yn awyddus i allu helpu eu teuluoedd, ond mae’n anodd. Wrth gwrs, yr hyn a glywais gan gymaint o ofalwyr ifanc yw na fyddent yn rhoi’r gorau i’w cyfrifoldebau, ond mae arnynt angen mwy o gymorth, mwy o gydnabyddiaeth i’w rôl a mwy o hyblygrwydd gan ysgolion, gweithwyr iechyd proffesiynol ac eraill wrth iddynt geisio cael cydbwysedd rhwng yr hyn y a wnânt yn y cartref a gweddill eu bywydau.

Rwy’n cydnabod bod yna ofynion o dan Ddeddf Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol a Llesiant (Cymru) 2014 i ddarparu mwy o gefnogaeth, gyda chyfrifoldebau statudol yn cael eu gosod ar awdurdodau lleol. Ond rwy’n clywed gan ofalwyr ifanc a sefydliadau sy’n gweithio gyda hwy nad yw’r fframwaith polisi a’r trefniadau ariannu cyfredol yn ddigon. Mae 11,000 o ofalwyr ifanc yng Nghymru, ac mae’n bosibl iawn fod hwn yn amcangyfrif rhy isel gan fod cymaint o ofalwyr ifanc nad ydynt yn gofyn am, neu’n cael cefnogaeth gan ysgolion, awdurdodau lleol a gweithwyr iechyd proffesiynol. Nid ydynt yn eu hadnabod, a cheir llawer o ofalwyr ifanc, am nifer o resymau, nad ydynt yn camu ymlaen ac yn gofyn am y gefnogaeth y maent ei hangen mewn gwirionedd.

Yn aml, un rhwystr mawr yw diffyg dealltwriaeth. Clywsom fod yna lawer o athrawon a gweithwyr iechyd proffesiynol nad ydynt yn meddu ar yr hyfforddiant perthnasol, yr arweiniad neu’r profiad sy’n angenrheidiol i adnabod gofalwyr ifanc a’u hanghenion penodol, neu sy’n teimlo ei bod yn anodd gwybod sut i ymateb. Mae gormod ohonynt yn methu gofyn y cwestiynau perthnasol wrth ymdrin â sefyllfa lle mae gofalwr ifanc yn mynd â rhiant neu frawd neu chwaer at y meddyg, er enghraifft, neu athro nad yw wedi cael y lefel angenrheidiol o arweiniad. Rwyf wedi clywed am enghreifftiau o feddyg neu weithiwr iechyd proffesiynol arall yn gofyn i ofalwr ifanc, prif ofalwr i riant sydd â chyflwr corfforol neu iechyd meddwl cyfyngus, neu broblem camddefnyddio sylweddau weithiau, i adael yr ystafell pan fo angen i’r gofalwr ifanc hwnnw gael ei lais wedi’i glywed mewn gwirionedd, ac mae angen i’r gweithiwr iechyd proffesiynol glywed am y materion penodol yn y cartref gan y gofalwr ifanc hwnnw. Rwyf wedi siarad â phobl ifanc sydd wedi gofyn i’w hysgolion am hyblygrwydd o ran cadw amser a phresenoldeb oherwydd dyletswyddau sy’n gwrthdaro yn y cartref, a chael eu gwneud i deimlo nad oedd eu ceisiadau yn cael eu cymryd o ddifrif, a bod gofyn i rieni gadarnhau’r hyn roedd gofalwr ifanc wedi’i ddweud wrthynt. 

Ceir stigma penodol o fod yn ofalwr ifanc hefyd, a gwyddom fod llawer o ofalwyr ifanc yn cael eu bwlio. Nododd un arolwg fod 68 y cant wedi cael eu bwlio ar ryw adeg yn eu bywydau. Yn aml, nid yw gofalwyr ifanc yn gweld eu hunain fel gofalwyr mewn gwirionedd, ond yn hytrach fel rhywun sy’n helpu yn y cartref i raddau mwy na phlant eraill. Ymhlith amryw o resymau eraill, mae hyn yn aml yn rhwystr iddynt rhag gofyn am y gefnogaeth honno. Dyna pam rwy’n credu ei bod yn hanfodol ein bod yn cynyddu ein hymdrechion i sicrhau bod gweithwyr proffesiynol ar y rheng flaen yn gallu helpu ac adnabod gofalwyr ifanc. Mae Ymddiriedolaeth Gofalwyr Cymru, ar y cyd â Chymdeithas y Plant, er enghraifft, wedi datblygu pecyn cymorth ar gyfer athrawon ac maent yn gweithredu’r rhaglen beilot ar gyfer Gofalwyr Ifanc mewn Ysgolion yng Nghymru. Cafwyd canlyniadau da a sylweddol i hyn, ond yn amlwg, mae angen gwneud llawer mwy o waith, ac mae angen i ni gael strategaeth ar waith i sicrhau bod canllawiau a hyfforddiant yn cael eu lledaenu mewn modd amserol.

Daw hyn â mi at fy mhwynt nesaf, sef amrywiaeth y ddarpariaeth ledled Cymru. Ar y gorau, gellid defnyddio’r gair bylchog i ddisgrifio’r lefelau o gefnogaeth sydd ar gael. Roedd un awdurdod lleol i’w weld yn gwahardd un gofalwr rhag gwneud cais am asesiad o anghenion gofalwr, ond mae rhai awdurdodau lleol eraill yn llawer gwell am fynd i’r afael â’r problemau y mae gofalwyr ifanc yn eu hwynebu. Mae gofalwyr ifanc yn wynebu rhwystrau eraill, wrth gwrs, yn enwedig materion ymarferol megis casglu presgripsiynau. Ar hyn o bryd, bydd fferyllydd yn rhoi meddyginiaethau i rywun dan oed yn ôl ei ddisgresiwn. Gadewch i mi fod yn glir: byddai’n ddelfrydol wrth gwrs pe na bai angen i ofalwr ifanc fynd i fferyllfa i gasglu meddyginiaethau, a gallai rhai ohonynt fod yn driniaethau ar gyfer camddefnyddio sylweddau, dibyniaeth neu boenladdwyr cryf, neu i drin cyflyrau cronig, ond weithiau bydd angen iddynt wneud hynny, ac mae angen i ni roi mesurau ar waith fel y gallant gael mynediad at y triniaethau hynny mewn modd amserol, ac fel nad yw pobl ifanc yn teimlo eu bod yn cael eu hamharchu. Rwy’n deall bod astudiaethau dichonoldeb ar y gweill ar gyfer cerdyn gofalwyr ifanc a allai helpu gyda hyn a nodi pwy sy’n ofalwyr ifanc, er fy mod yn gwybod, ar ôl siarad â rhai gofalwyr ifanc, y gallent deimlo bod stigma’n gysylltiedig â’r cerdyn hwnnw yn ogystal. Byddwn yn eu hannog i beidio â meddwl yn y ffordd hon, ac i feddwl am hon fel ffordd o helpu pobl i’w deall, i nodi pwy ydynt a gallu symud ymlaen, ac efallai ei gael fel cerdyn gostyngiad mewn siopau ac yn y blaen hyd yn oed, fel y gallwn gynnwys y sector preifat yn y dyfodol.

Hoffwn gloi, gan fod amser yn brin, drwy rannu stori Anna. Mae Anna yn 11 oed ac yn byw gyda’i mam a’i dau frawd, un sy’n hŷn ac un sy’n iau. Mae gan mam a dad hanes o gamddefnyddio cyffuriau ac alcohol, ac mae mam wedi cael diagnosis o afiechyd meddwl sydd ar adegau yn amlygu ei hun ar ffurf newid hwyliau difrifol ac iselder, sy’n golygu nad yw’n gallu bod yn rhiant i Anna na’i brawd iau. Mae hi’n defnyddio cyffuriau ar bresgripsiwn, cyffuriau heb fod ar bresgripsiwn a chyffuriau anghyfreithlon yn rheolaidd—y fam—ac mae gan y brawd hŷn hanes hir o ymddygiad troseddol, mae wedi treulio cyfnodau yng ngharchar, ac nid oes ganddo ddiddordeb mewn helpu’r teulu.

O ran stori Anna, mae hi wedi llwyddo i ymgysylltu â’r YMCA yng Nghaerdydd. Ar y dechrau, roedd hi’n amharod, ac yn ei chael hi’n anodd cyfathrebu, ond erbyn hyn mae hi’n cymryd rhan mewn prosiect ochr yn ochr â’i mam, ac mae wedi canfod bod rhai o’r beichiau a oedd ar ei hysgwyddau wedi cael eu lleihau a bod ei mam bellach yn gallu cymryd rhai o’r cyfrifoldebau gofalu hynny oddi arni. Dyma’r math o berson y mae angen i ni fod yn ei helpu, a dyma’r math o berson y mae angen i ni wneud yn siŵr nad yw’n dioddef yn dawel. Rwy’n credu ei bod yn bwysig fod gennym y Bil hwn ar gyfer gofalwyr ifanc fel y gallwn eu cefnogi, ac rwy’n edrych ar y ddadl hon yn y modd mwyaf cadarnhaol ac yn gobeithio y gall Llywodraeth Cymru glywed pryderon gofalwyr yng Nghymru ac y gallwn fod yn rhan o’r ddadl hon, ac y gall gofalwyr ifanc yma heddiw barhau i fod yn rhan o’r drafodaeth wrth ddatblygu yr hyn y maent ei angen yn eu bywydau bob dydd. Rwy’n credu ei bod yn bwysig i Aelodau’r Cynulliad wrando, ond hefyd i weithredu ar yr hyn y maent yn galw amdano.

Can I warmly welcome this proposal and commend Bethan for bringing it forward and speaking so eloquently and with great passion in this cause? I do think schools are key to supporting young carers and ensuring that their caring roles do not reduce their life chances through poor educational attainment. Often, they will need a lot of flexibility, they will lack a certain structure, and they will need encouragement and further help in meeting the various education milestones set to them.

I would like to commend the whole range of organisations that take an interest in young carers’ work. I think the whole carer sector does have this great ability to campaign under these umbrella organisations, like the carers alliance, and Bethan referred to the Children’s Society, and I’ve just seen the document ‘Supporting young carers and their families: an introductory guide for professionals’. Of course, many professionals will be in contact with young carers without knowing it, and it’s important that we get this sort of general knowledge across there. But in schools I think very specific guidance is appropriate. Schools are—it’s an excellent network into which we can provide this guidance, and I don’t see why all the secondary schools in Wales ought not to have a member of their senior management team have express responsibility for ensuring they have a good young carers policy. The governing body should know about that, and then we should know what sort of action is taken to support and encourage young carers, and then, where necessary, if their education falls behind during a time of crisis or whatever, that there are plans in place to rectify that situation.

So, I think that is very, very important. I also think other very specific ideas like an ID card could be the way forward. Now, there are—and Bethan did hint at this—sensitivities here: it’s not always welcome because it can be seen as a badge you don’t particularly want. But I think we should see it as a way to access certain services and to ensure that professionals realise that this is the accreditation—you don’t have to then check with the parent or guardian or whatever, or it could be used at the pharmacy, for instance, so that prescription drugs could then be collected. So, I think the ID card needs very careful examination.

Now, we’ve been here before, and I hope the Minister will be able to reply to the specifics I have. The previous initiative more or less decided that it should just go ahead on a local authority basis, and whilst I can understand why you’d pilot that, I don’t think there’s been any consistency—I think a lot of local authorities just don’t know it’s out there. I’ve seen no evidence of any best practice being disseminated, so I think, perhaps, a national approach is now appropriate.

Finally, I’ll just echo the need for good respite care—for the person cared for, but also for the young carer, so that they have as fulfilled a life and proper healthy development opportunities whilst they also meet the caring responsibilities, which, most of them, if properly supported, are happily embraced.

I’ll be as generous with other speakers as I’ve been with David Melding. Caroline Jones.

Diolch, Llywydd. I’d like to congratulate Bethan on being selected to take forward a proposal for legislation and to offer my support to her proposals. In Wales, thousands of young people under the age of 16 are caring for relatives with little or no support from their school or from health authorities. Bethan’s legislation recognises the impact that caring responsibilities can have on a young carer’s education and I wholeheartedly support her efforts to ensure education services are flexible enough to maximise the education opportunities of young carers while supporting their caring responsibilities.

Research by the Carers Trust shows us that young carers miss, on average, a quarter of the school year. It is therefore no wonder that young carers have significantly lower attainment rates at GCSE. By encouraging schools and education authorities to recognise the time pressure faced by young carers we can ensure that they are given the necessary educational support and allowed to fulfil their potential. The Carers Trust young adult carers council found that a lack of support at school impacted the mental health of the young carer. These amazing young people give up so much to care for a loved one and the very least we can do is to ensure they don’t face additional barriers.

I will be supporting this legislation and I urge members to add their support to this important piece of legislation. Three in five of us will become carers at some point in our lives and unpaid carers save the NHS billions of pounds each year. Let’s do all we can to make it easier for carers—in this case, young carers—to carry on doing what they do. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr.

I support this motion as well. Children and young people who want to help a parent shouldn’t be denied the right to do so if they freely choose, and they should receive support in that. But I think the question we all need to ask ourselves is: how do we ensure that children and young people do not feel excluded from their parent’s life whilst at the same time preserving their childhood and teenage years that we’d all want them to have?

Since 2006, the number of young carers in Wales has nearly doubled. Children and young people who are also carers are much more likely to miss school frequently, as has been commented just now, and according to Barnardo’s, they’re afraid to ask for help for fear of letting the family down or being taken into care. So, I do support your proposals on this, but what concerns me is that if a child knows that if they don’t help, no-one else will, they will of course provide the help that’s needed. So, what you end up with is children sacrificing their childhood to make good the gaps in care provided to the people they look after. Clearly, we have to do everything we can to help these young carers and essentially, basically, that means doing everything we can to provide the full care that their loved one needs.

The idea of a prescription card is only a useful one because the family have not been provided the correct level of clinical support that sees the adult having the medication delivered. In effect, it’s falling to children and young people to solve a problem that’s been caused by the Government. Besides burdening the young carer with yet another task, it’s reinforcing to the child that they’re not really a child any more: they’re part child and part carer. I’m sure that some young carers have said that such a card would be useful, but that’s only because they’re being faced with problems getting their loved ones medication. The question should not be whether children and young people should have a prescription card, it should be how to ensure that the adult receives their medication, instead of a child or young person feeling that it lies upon them to collect it. There’s a temptation for young people to welcome additional responsibility. It’s part of life that young people want to be older while older people want to be younger, but it’s our role to protect young people from decisions that may not be in their own best interests. If we have rules about the age of someone able to collect medication, it’s for good reason. The risk of harm isn’t reduced simply because we want it to be.

The thing I really don’t like about your motion, Bethan, is that I don’t like the wording in point 2(a) that refers to young people’s care responsibilities. They don’t have the responsibility for care; we do and the state does. The existence of one young carer signals a failure. However, whatever the young carer does day to day for their loved one should remain a choice and never be normalised as a responsibility.

I am also concerned by the perception that guidance is required when it comes to schools. Surely, schools are already providing guidance: young carers are not a new phenomenon. If schools are not providing the support, could it be that they don’t have the resources to properly flag up and support those who need help? If that’s the case, then guidance is not going to make any difference. This Government is the overseer of schools, local authorities and the NHS, and if there are failures, they are on their head. So, I’ll support the motion, but I would like to see a commitment from Welsh Government to at least look at ways of reducing the tasks and care that young carers have to undertake, not just at ways of making it easier for them to provide that care. Thank you.

Thank you. I call on the Minister for Public Health and Social Services, Rebecca Evans.

Thank you, and I’m really glad to have this opportunity today to reaffirm the Welsh Government’s commitment to improving life for our young carers. We’ve long sought to improve the lives of carers in Wales, using the policy, legislative and funding levers at our disposal. Back in 2000, we published our first national carers strategy, and the Carers Strategies (Wales) Measure followed in 2010, further improving support for carers locally. Fifteen months ago, we commenced the implementation of our groundbreaking Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, bringing with it new and enhanced rights for all carers. So, for the first time, carers have an equal right to assessment and support as those they care for have. They no longer need to demonstrate that they provide significant care in order to have their needs assessed and receive the support available to them. And the Act places a statutory duty on local authorities to proactively inform carers of their right to be assessed, and importantly, on completion of that assessment, the local authority must then put in place arrangements to meet the needs identified and to put a statutory care plan in place. So, legislation working for carers in a way it never has before.

To support the delivery of the enhanced carers’ rights under the Act, the Welsh Government has allocated £1 million of funding this year to health, local authorities and the third sector to work in partnership, and a targeted portion of this funding is ring-fenced specifically to support young carers. And this year I’ve brought carers into the remit of our £60 million integrated care fund, further prioritising this group of exceptional people.

I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Education, like all members of this Government, is committed to supporting all children and young people, including young carers, to achieve their potential, regardless of their background or their personal circumstances. But there is no doubt that young carers face practical difficulties in their education, and, because of their personal circumstances, can experience well-being issues that do need to be identified and addressed, both within and outside the school environment.

Schools are best placed to understand the needs of their learners and to support those needs, and that’s why I’m really pleased to inform Members that the Welsh Government’s been working with the Carers Trust Wales on the development of a step-by-step guide for schools on young carers. This new guidance, published just a few weeks ago, helps to identify and support carers in educational settings as early as possible. I know that education colleagues have promoted this excellent guidance to every school in Wales, and I’d be happy to share it with colleagues.

And, additionally, I’ve approved further funding this year to the Carers Trust Wales to support research into the level of support available to enhance young carers’ well-being in the community. Carers Trust Wales will provide me with recommendations as to how to further support the well-being of young carers, and I look forward to receiving them and considering how best to respond.

I plan to drive further support for young carers through our new carers strategic action plan. My approach to develop the plan is in partnership, listening to what carers, including young carers, tell me that they need. Many excellent organisations have been mentioned during the debate today, and I want to hear from them and from the young carers who have joined us at the debate today. I’ve already met with an inspirational group of young carers to hear about their lives, their problems and their aspirations, and a number of them did feel that young carers ID cards would help. I’ve publicly committed to exploring the provision of ID cards for young carers and have funded Carers Trust Wales to develop a national framework to support the implementation of young carer ID cards. This framework will provide the basis for the expansion of young carers ID cards across Wales. And just to be clear, in answer to David Melding’s question, I’m looking at it at a national level, as opposed to leaving it to local authorities, because having done that up to this point—it hasn’t given the kind of results that we’d have liked to have seen.

The Carers Trust, working with Community Pharmacy Wales, has produced ‘A Carers Guide to Managing Medicines’ for adults and young carers. The Carers Trust is also working with the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University to help facilitate pharmacy student placements in order to raise their awareness of carers. To be clear, young carers can already pick up prescriptions for the people they care for, but I do agree that we must raise awareness of this both amongst carers themselves and amongst the pharmaceutical professionals, which is why our new guide is so important.

Our carers provide selfless care for their family and loved ones, day in, day out, and I do recognise the stress that this can cause. Respite provision is important for all carers, but young carers must also be able to access these services. Carers Trust Wales is due to provide me with recommendations with regard to expanding our short break and replacement care provision in Wales. This will include the development of a national approach to respite care, delivering on an important manifesto commitment, and this doesn’t come without financial support.

In May, I announced an additional £3 million of recurrent funding to ensure that local authorities are better able to provide respite for carers in Wales, and this will include and benefit young carers. I’d like to take this opportunity to share with Members that I’ve also committed to the establishment of a ministerial advisory group for carers, and this will ensure equal recognition of carers in line with that of older people and people with learning disabilities. I expect that group to play a key role in monitoring the progress on our delivery for carers. In recognition of the particular challenges facing young carers, and because of the unique perspective that they will bring, I will also be inviting young carers to be represented as members on this group.

So, I hope this reassures Members about the priority that the Welsh Government puts on understanding and meeting the needs of young carers in Wales. I hope it demonstrates that there is exciting work going on, on multiple fronts, through legislation, policy and funding decisions, addressing, but not limited to, issues including education, identification and respite.

I’ll finish by saying that I would be very keen to meet with Bethan Jenkins or any Assembly Member who’d like to help shape the next steps for young carers, particularly at this moment through the new and important work on our carers strategy for Wales. Please be assured that I’ll be considering all of the important points raised during this debate as we move forward. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I call on Bethan Jenkins to reply to the debate.

Thank you to everybody who took part in the debate, and thank you to the Cabinet Secretary for saying that you’ll be willing to meet. I think it’s important that we try and get this right for the carers; they are the most important people in all of this. I would say that the reason why I did bring this was because I feel that there is still a lot that can be done, and without wanting to judge, I think if there was perfection in the system, there wouldn’t be a need for debate here. So, I hope that you’ve heard some of the concerns that I and others have raised, so that we can progress positively. Unfortunately, Caroline, this isn’t legislation; it’s a legislative debate. I would like for it to have been legislation, but perhaps in a future ballot I will be successful, but I’m glad that you’re supportive.

But I’m supporting it.

Yes, definitely, and I think it’s important as well, as Michelle Brown said, that we don’t want to put all the onus on carers, so that they feel pressured and burdened, but we also have to have a balance between what the state provides and what they feel comfortable providing. We want young people to be young people. That’s what they want to do as well, but we have to recognise that people’s lives are complex and they will need to care for those around them. And so, I hope that this is part of a progress of debate. I welcome that young carers will be part of the new group that you’ve announced, and that they can be fully involved in that process.

I will say, though, that people under 16 can’t pick up prescriptions. Over 16, they can, so that’s why I’ve asked Community Pharmacy Cymru if I can have a meeting with them, because young people said to me on that Saturday when I took part in the event that they feel disrespected. They go in to get that drug for a loved one in a very urgent situation, so they need to be respected in that regard. Yes, they’re children, but they have to act in an adult role in that capacity, and so we just have to afford them the same respect as if we were going in to get that prescription, and the respect that they deserve as young carers. I hope this does kick-start the debate, and thank you to everyone who has contributed.

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

The next item is the Welsh Conservatives debate: regeneration projects, and I call on Russell George to move the motion.

Thank you, acting Presiding Officer. The aim of today’s debate is to recognise the importance of regeneration schemes in enhancing the future prosperity of communities in Wales. We also want to draw out of the Government how it proposes to increase investor confidence for regeneration projects. I know that my colleagues hope to be called with regard to regeneration schemes in north and south Wales, and I hope to have time in my contribution to deal with some aspects of regeneration in mid Wales.

So, I move the motion today in the name of Paul Davies, and we’ll certainly be supporting Plaid Cymru’s amendments, as Andrew R.T. Davies also called for, of course, a public inquiry into the Circuit of Wales last week. I am disappointed that the Government is doing one of its ‘delete alls’ to our motion. I’d say, why not add to our motion rather than delete all? The first part of our motion says this:

Recognises the importance of regeneration schemes in enhancing the future prosperity of communities across Wales’.

How can you object to that? So, I would say that I hope the Government will change its position on its ‘delete all’ tactics. It’s a shame because there’s much in the Government’s amendments that I can agree with, but it doesn’t, of course, address as well the aspects of the handling of the Circuit of Wales that we would have wanted to see.

Acting Presiding Officer, the confidence of both the public and major businesses to invest in the regeneration of our communities across Wales, I think, has been seriously dented by the Welsh Government’s handling of the Circuit of Wales. Millions of taxpayers’ money has been spent, there have been allegations of mis-spending of public funds, and this is the latest of a long line of Welsh Government failure to adhere to simple processes of due diligence, governance and accountability, leaving it wide open to significant financial and legal risk.

Last week’s Cabinet statement explains that, following discussions with the Office for National Statistics and Her Majesty’s Treasury, it was assessed that there was a very significant risk that the full £373 million debt of the entire Circuit of Wales project would be classified against Welsh Government capital spending. So, why wasn’t this spotted by the Welsh Government officials at an earlier stage? And why wasn’t the concern about the projected numbers of jobs to be created being an overstatement communicated at an earlier stage? Both questions are yet to be answered. So, I would say that the Government must take, I think, very significant responsibility in this regard.

As the leader of the opposition said yesterday, there is little evidence that the £100 million business park, which has been announced to soften the blow of the Circuit of Wales disappointment, will create the promised 1,500 jobs or the regeneration of Blaenau Gwent, given the Welsh Government’s track record of creating new jobs in this part of Wales. This is the question: what confidence should we have that the Welsh Government will prioritise effective risk management and accountancy best practice in the future, after its failure to do so with the Circuit of Wales? And this is what I’m concerned about as well: that this episode will have a major negative effect on the confidence that we could see in other projects across Wales as well. We know that TVR are refusing to confirm that their new car deal will build in Wales at all.

So, I do say to the Government: you’ve got to send a positive message now that you’re open for business to the rest of the world. What I would like to see is the Welsh Government immediately offsetting these concerns by setting out clearly how it proposes to increase investor confidence for regeneration projects in the wake of last week’s decision. I would be keen also to ask the Cabinet Secretary to explain his logic in not providing or making public the Welsh Government’s response to the UK’s consultation on the industrial strategy. I know that the Cabinet Secretary has said in the Chamber that he would make that available to Members. Yet all we have as Members is a covering letter to the Secretary of State, and not the detail of that industrial strategy. Can you tell us and explain why on earth you can’t provide us with a copy of the Welsh Government’s response to the UK Government’s consultation on the industrial strategy?

The Cardiff city and Swansea deals, I think, are crucial for regeneration, as is the North Wales Economic Ambition Board as well. I know that my colleagues want to address some points in that regard, which leads me to explore a little bit about the missing middle. I pinched that from Adam Price, who mentioned it this morning in committee. The missing middle a little bit more. It’s a shame that Eluned Morgan is not here, because her work was launched last week with regard to rural Wales. So, it would have been useful for Eluned Morgan to take part in this debate today. I read her report with great interest. I appreciate that she asked me for my feedback as well. I think there is plenty in there that is worthy of consideration. Also, perhaps, timely is the fact that the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee is undertaking some work on city deals and the regional economies of Wales. We have evidence from the Mid Wales Manufacturing Group and also Growing Mid Wales. In fact, they gave evidence to our committee this morning.

There is some recurring evidence throughout our committee sessions, and recurring evidence to me as a rural mid Wales Assembly Member, that has been brought to my attention and that exists about dealing with the challenges of mid Wales. One of those issues, of course, is the lack of land available for business expansion. This is a common theme that comes to me a great deal of the time. In fact, as evidence of that, there is a waiting list of businesses that want to expand. Some of them have threatened to go across the border into Shropshire and some of them have. We want to keep those businesses in mid Wales. So, it’s making the land available for business expansion. Of course, there are the urgent improvements that we need for broadband and mobile that affect mid Wales, particularly Powys and Ceredigion, more than any other part of Wales. There are businesses that are not expanding and not coming to mid Wales as a result of not having sufficient broadband.

I also think that we’ve got to look at the unique challenges of mid Wales as well. I think that we have got to have particular support for small businesses. We know that, pro rata, there is a high percentage of small businesses in mid Wales. There are not so many large businesses, but there are those small businesses, and they’ve got their unique challenges as well. So, we do need something that is packaged specifically for them. One of the other unique challenges, I think, of mid Wales, is the fact that we’ve got relatively low unemployment, which of course is to be welcomed. But what we do need is higher paid jobs. We need higher paid jobs for all the obvious reasons, but what I would also say is that we need higher paid jobs to deal with other issues that affect rural Wales—for example, recruiting GPs. We’ve got GPs who’ve got partners, husbands or wives who are professionals as well, who also want to come, but who would have to have higher paid jobs as well in order to attract them to our area. So, we need higher paid jobs for many reasons outside of the obvious ones as well.

The other issue that often occurs as well, of course, is upskilling people. We’ve got a real high percentage of businesses that don’t feel that they’ve got the right skills in the local community in order to grow their businesses. There is also skill retention as well. We’ve got lots of young people moving out. We don’t want them to move out; we want them to stay in mid Wales. So, it’s having a strategy, I think, as well, to regenerate mid Wales and some of those points as well.

So, to finish, I would just like to say that I do hope that the Cabinet Secretary will also today tell us a little bit more about the long-awaited economic strategy—when we’re going to have that brought to us to scrutinise as Assembly Members. I very much look forward to the debate that will take part this afternoon in the Chamber.

I have selected the three amendments to the motion. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally.

I call on Adam Price to move amendments 2 and 3, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Llywydd, once in every generation a specific case comes to light that points to a deeper and more difficult truth about a governing party, often—particularly—when that party has been in power for many years. I’m thinking of the beef tribunal, for example, in Fianna Fáil-led Ireland in the early 1990s, the Scott inquiry in the Conservative Government, and probably too many examples to mention about the Blair Government. But you get the point. I think that the Circuit of Wales is a case in point. Something has gone desperately wrong here. We can’t for certain say what that is yet, but we know that it’s our responsibility to ask that question and get to the truth, and that is at the heart of amendment 3.

I’d just like to speak briefly, though, to begin with, to amendment 2, which is far more straightforward, really, which is simply asking the Government—. Given the fact that probably almost £10 million now has been expended by the Government on this project, surely it would be worth our while, in respect to the taxpayer and the investment in this project, to try and get everyone around the table to see if some of the technical issues that the Cabinet Secretary referred to in his statement on 27 June could be solved.

Now, he may say, ‘Well, look, we’ve got the technology park out of it’. I have to say, though, the idea that actually just building industrial estates is the answer to our economic problems—you know, it beggars belief. Because, if that were true, we wouldn’t have any economic problems in Wales. In economic development, it’s called the field-of-dreams strategy, after the Kevin Costner film about an Iowa farmer trying to create and building a baseball field in an Iowa cornfield—’Build it, and they will come’. They don’t. The whole point about clusters is you have to have a magnet. Read your Michael Porter. The Welsh Government, I think, paid him £250,000 for a cluster strategy in 2002; I got him for free when I studied with him in Harvard Business School. And what he would tell you is, ‘Look, clusters cannot be conjured out of thin air’. The whole point about the Circuit of Wales is that it created an open-air laboratory, a test rink, that would be the magnet, potentially. You can take your view on whether that’s right or wrong, and some Members are sceptical. But, certainly, without it, it doesn’t work. So, surely, the Welsh Government should get around the table to see if these problems can be resolved.

Let’s turn to the calls for an independent inquiry, which both the Conservative party, UKIP, and my own party, have made. There have been a series of misleading statements by the Government—the full range from obfuscation through to statements that are plain untrue, the Government would have known were untrue, and we have 19 words in ‘Roget’s Thesaurus’ to describe that, most of which are unparliamentary, so I won’t test the patience of the Chair. But I’ll go through some of the examples. We might have heard one earlier, by the way. We were told that ONS couldn’t give a definitive statement in terms of balance sheet. We now know, of course, that the Welsh Government themselves had asked for a provisional ruling in relation to its own project at Velindre, but an answer there came not from the Cabinet Secretary as to whether you’d followed that same process to get a provisional ruling in terms of the Circuit of Wales.

The impression was created last week, in terms of the automotive technology park, that TVR and Aston Martin were on board with the technology park without the Circuit of Wales. And yet the record will show, Cabinet Secretary, that they did not know about this until you got up on your feet. That’s what I think the record will show.

Now, I asked the question because what we’ve seen throughout this process is the Government shifting the goalposts and then covering the tracks. I asked whose proposal it was to come up with an 80 per cent guarantee—that was the second proposal that was rejected. I was told by the Government that it was the company that suggested this, in a document dated 15 April 2016. I was then sent a letter by Monmouthshire County Council that actually proved it was the Government. Mick McGuire writing to Michael Carrick on 7 April, before that date, suggesting, and I quote, ‘I’ve spoken to the First Minister’s private office, and they’ve confirmed that he’s happy for officials to advance with the Circuit of Wales and Aviva on a viable alternative business plan B that achieves a fairer sharing of risk. To achieve these objectives, the areas that you need to consider include the guarantee to Aviva should be 80 per cent or less’.

And, most seriously of all, of course, is the statement made by the First Minister during the election campaign, when he gives the reason for the rejection of the first proposal as this: ‘What happened originally was we were looking for a guarantee of £30 million. It went to £357 million.’ When asked when that occurred, he said ‘in the last few days’ and he repeated that in an interview with ‘The Western Mail’ a few days later. And yet we now know, because we have a letter from Aviva, which says this, Llywydd:

the manner in which the deal was rejected did not reflect well on Aviva Investors. Especially as it quoted that we requested a 100% underwrite a few days before the rejection, when in fact this deal had been worked up with the Welsh Government (through civil servants) for many months and nothing in our funding structure changed in the run up to this announcement.’

Now, if what Aviva is telling us is true, then we have been misled in the most serious manner possible. That is why we need an independent inquiry.

The importance of regeneration projects to improving the economy and social conditions in the area cannot be overstated. This is particularly true in my region of south-east Wales, which has many communities that have, sadly, experienced decades of decline. Successful regeneration schemes, bringing jobs and investment to blighted areas, can bring jobs and other benefits that can last for many years. The Welsh Government has a duty to the taxpayer to ensure that regeneration projects are viable and will provide cost-effective benefits in return for the investment. Unfortunately, in many cases, the Welsh Government has failed in its duty. The Circuit of Wales is one example of the Welsh Government’s failure to adhere to simple processes of due diligence, governance, and accountability. I accept, of course, that the current Cabinet Secretary for the economy has only been in office for just over a year. However, it is the case that, over a period of seven years, the people of Ebbw Vale have had their hopes raised and then dashed by false starts and delays to this project. The years running up to the final decision on the Circuit of Wales have been dogged by the allegation of the misspending of public funds, inappropriate intervention by the Welsh Government, and due diligence concerns.

In April this year, the Wales Audit Office published a report into the transfer of over £9 million of public funds to support the project. They found ‘significant shortcomings’ in the way Ministers had managed the risk to the taxpayers. They went on to say that funding decisions were based on ‘flawed’ decisions. The Cabinet statements issued when the final decision was reached not to guarantee the project left serious questions unanswered. Why did it take so long to realise that there was a significant risk that the full debt of the project could be classified against Welsh Government capital spending? Why did it take so long to determine that the estimate of the number of jobs that could be created was significantly overstated? The Welsh Government cannot distance itself from the failure of this project.

Presiding Officer, there is another area that I think we are all ignoring. Right from the beginning, the media only saw one side of the coin. They only wanted this project to go ahead, but they did not look at the other objectives, which were very significant to clear off and to look at, but they totally ignored it. Even though I wrote personally to my local media and the national media, nothing was published. And it is not an isolated incident. The regeneration investment fund for Wales was the subject of criticism by the Public Accounts Committee in the last Assembly. RIFW sold 16 pieces of land to developers at a sum of significantly less than their market value. We found that RIFW was poorly executed due to the fundamental flaws in Welsh Government oversight and governance agreements. The Communities First programme was the Welsh Government’s flagship anti-poverty scheme in Wales. Since its launch in 2001, Communities First has spent over £300 million trying to tackle poverty and deprivation in Wales. Yet, as the communities Secretary admitted, performance had been mixed, and, in his words,

poverty remains a stubborn and persistent challenge.’

In some cases, too much money was spent on staffing, instead of front-line projects. In the Communities First cluster in Caerphilly, more than £2 million was spent on staffing in 2015 and 2016. This was more than five times the amount spent on anti-poverty projects in Wales.

Would you take an intervention?

Go on, then.

Thank you. Would you countenance the fact that, without a whole plethora of anti-poverty strategies across Wales, including this one, poverty would remain at a far worse level, due to austerity, due to Welsh block grant cuts, and due to the cruel disinvestment in the welfare system?

Well, the thing is you know that the money that came from the centre was sent back, I think—that’s what I heard—and there is mismanagement in your own Government. Presiding Officer, regeneration is an important driver within the Welsh economy. The Welsh Government must address, as a matter of urgency, the financial mismanagement that has occurred. This is the only way to ensure the best return on and value for the taxpayers’ money and the communities in need in Wales. There are certain areas in which we need to improve our economy, and they are inward investment from overseas after Brexit, expansion of our aviation industry, improving our financial institutions, and also convention centres. There is a long list, Presiding Officer, which I think only Conservatives can deliver. Thank you.

I don’t think that I could improve upon the devastating demolition that Adam Price conducted of the Government’s case on this, so I shan’t even attempt to do that, but I hope I’ll be able to add to it. This is, in addition, a devastating blow to industrial confidence in Wales and I can’t think that any potential investor in the future could rely upon the word of a Government Minister in this administration.

The Circuit of Wales developers have been led up the garden path numerous times and encouraged to believe that a project, which we now know in the Government’s estimation was flawed from the very beginning, was a practical possibility. What have they been doing for the last three to seven years, as we’ve been through endless due diligence exercises for different reasons, if the most elementary point of all was missed by civil servants in the Welsh Government and by Ministers who ought to know better?

We heard from the finance Secretary this morning in the Finance Committee that he was well familiar with the problems of classification under ONS rules, and indeed the Treasury guidelines—of course he was—and previous finance Ministers too. The whole Cabinet should be aware of this, because it’s a problem that has arisen in many different directions, including in the last year in relation to housing associations and social housing projects generally. If it really were the case that this problem was fatal to the project, then that should have been recognised right from the start and £50 million would not have been wasted by the private sector developers, and £10 million of taxpayers’ money wasted by the Welsh Government in the development funding that they’ve provided. So, I think that this is a major scandal that requires to be investigated independently and I fully support the two amendments that Plaid Cymru have put down. I give way to Adam Price.

It’s interesting as well that, in an exchange with me on 8 February 2017, when I asked the Cabinet Secretary whether the two sets of criteria you will recall that he set down to take the project to the final stage—the 50 per cent level of guarantee of the debt and the risk met, and also the investor term sheets—he said to me,

according to my officials, it does appear that the criteria…have been met’—

have been met.

I can supplement that further with another statement that occurred in the Cabinet Secretary’s most recent statement to this Assembly, where he said also that the level of financial risk borne by the private sector being less than 50 per cent, he explained:

This is because the £210 million underwriting element would carry a higher risk than other parts of the financial package’,

which can’t possibly be true, because there’s £48 million of equity risk here that is not protected at all and goes down the plughole if the project fails, and also another £47 million of debt that is subordinated to the Government’s own guarantee. So, that was a factual inaccuracy, as well, on top. I don’t even understand where the £375 million debt figure itself arises from, but that’s a point of detail that we can explore on another occasion. But the fundamental absurdity of the situation we now find ourselves in is that the Government is not asked to put in a single penny up front by way of investment funding for this project, although, out of the back pocket, as I described it in First Minister’s questions yesterday—a description that the First Minister demurred—we now know that that is provided out of the general reserve of the Government, which is, I think, fairly described as the back pocket. We didn’t know this £100 million was nestling there, undisturbed and available for any wizard scheme that could be dreamed up at five minutes’ notice to be blown on a project for which there are currently no takers. And if ever there were a case of due diligence that needs to be done, it’s into the project that the Government now is proposed not only to put in a contingent liability, but an actual liability for the next 10 years, which itself will be at the expense of schools and hospitals and all the other things that they claim not to be able to finance if they went ahead with the Circuit of Wales project.

So, we now are spending, as I described it last week, shedloads of money on a collection of empty sheds, rather than having a world-class racing circuit on the back of which, as Adam Price rightly said, we might be able to attract, as a cluster, a number of automotive companies to take advantage of the celebrity that that potentially can bring. Why would they come to an empty site in Ebbw Vale with nothing that relates to what they intend to do there? So, I do believe that this Government has not just failed the people of Ebbw Vale, but failed the people of Wales, and after 20 years, I think we’ve seen enough of this Government, and it’s time that they went.

I want to concentrate on the first part of our motion and just say that when regeneration is well thought through, it can bring great benefits. Aberdare town centre is an example. Here in Cardiff Bay, we have seen over the last 30 years a most astonishing transformation in our capital city, and, Llywydd, I’m very pleased to say this building itself is a great example of that regeneration, and I pay tribute to one of your predecessors who’s in the Chamber who saw that project through. It gives the potential for all sorts of development and new hope for future generations. What we’re seeing in Cardiff in the tourist press internationally, in reviews of our economic potential, is that they talk very highly of this part of south Wales, and we must use it as a resource for wider economic development throughout Wales. But it just shows you, with imagination, leadership and vision, and the co-operation of all the key players, what can be achieved.

There’s a great body of international best practice that we are part of, and that stretches from Baltimore to Bilbao and many, many places in between. I think that we now need to set new ambitions for what we’re going to do, especially for the Valleys and the Heads of the Valleys. Other speakers have concentrated on one specific project. That’s not my intention; I will look at some other areas where I think we need to see more effort and ambition.

But can I commend some things that have happened? The city deals offer a way of ensuring that regeneration fits in to a pattern of regional growth and development. Also, it’s a great model, I think, for co-operation between UK Government and the Welsh Government, and local government as well—to co-operate constructively on the city region approaches, which, of course, are all about getting that prosperity and that expertise and the potential it can generate right around the region and in ensuring that other things, like transport networks and cultural networks, are properly integrated so that everyone living in the region benefits. I think that it’s a very, very important concept that we are working through now, and I’m pleased to see the progress so far, but I hope it’s taken much, much more in the future.

However, it’s not just about local, devolved and UK Government co-operating—though they do have a vital role to play—but community engagement, I think, is the other key to the real success of regeneration strategies. For regeneration really to be effective, it really needs to be done by the community, and not merely with, or far worse, for the community. That often has been where there’s been drift and disengagement, and that’s something we need to be careful to prevent in the future.

If I may quote from Regeneration Wales’s report ‘A Guide to Effective Community Engagement’, the—and I quote—

good progress being made in some of Britain’s most deprived communities was due to the adoption of policies with a strong emphasis on social inclusion strategies.’

I do agree with that. One very simple strategy that ought to be central to this sort of regeneration that involves the community is that the community does much of the regeneration. It sounds simple, but often it just does not happen. So, the community workers are recruited locally. The infrastructure, the work that that requires, what projects are chosen and prioritised—that’s done locally. Housing improvement schemes, a great economic multiplier involving local small and medium-sized enterprises, co-operatives, whatever, and certainly local labour pools—very, very important. Childcare—so important to upskilling the workforce in general and encouraging them into the labour market—being provided by local people in co-operatives and working for the private sector, the independent sector or whatever. And then basic skill development, which frankly, in the most deprived regions, is probably one of the biggest interventions that is required, again being based in community institutions and accessible in ways that local people can respond to.

Can I just finish, Presiding Officer, by saying that I think the heart of this sort of regeneration is also greening our urban spaces? You know, the south Wales Valleys before the age of coal were known as this incredible bucolic idyll, the subject of many great painters—Turner, for instance. That sort of vision of the beauty of the landscape ought to inspire us again. I was delighted a couple of weeks ago to go to Maesteg at the invitation of the local Member, who I’m delighted to see is here, Huw Irranca-Davies, and we saw this wonderful project there of a new forest being developed. That’s just the sort of thing, and the ambition, that we should have to really restore the Valleys and give local people the confidence they need for their own economic regeneration. Thank you.

Coincidentally, Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd, and thank you, David, for mentioning the Spirit of Llynfi woodland. It was a great visit and I’m pleased that you were delighted with what you saw there. I think it is one potential way forward on regeneration.

I will be supporting amendment 1, despite protestations from Russell, as I think it does better reflect Labour sentiments on regeneration, and it’s probably neater as well. But I welcome the announcement in amendment 1 on the automotive technology business park in Ebbw Vale, even though I’m a little bit further west, and I also welcome the north Wales growth deal, though I’m a lot further south. But I’m going to get a bit more parochial now. So, on regeneration schemes and the ministerial taskforce, let me put some gentle suggestions forward in my patch of Ogmore that I hope may catch the ear of Ministers.

On transport infrastructure, I’m delighted that the Sunday service on the Maesteg line is now, I understand, being written into the new franchise—it’s a major breakthrough—and also increased frequency options on this line are being actively worked up. These are major breakthroughs in embedding the Llynfi line into the south Wales metro project and getting people to jobs as well as to other opportunities. But as part of this, by the way, we also need to resolve the 5 mph problem—yes, a 5 mph issue—with the nineteenth-century railway infrastructure at Tondu. A guard descends, every morning as I travel, with his key, from the signal box, to hand it over to the train driver as the train is on stop. We wave, and it’s very quaint, and it’s a bit like ‘The Railway Children’. It’s very quaint indeed, but hardly the vision of a modern metro and railway that we want to see. I don’t think it’s the Cabinet Secretary’s vision, either. It’s 5 mph and then a full stop.

Actually, as the options for the metro and the new Wales and borders franchise are worked up, then we also need to anticipate—and Transport for Wales and new bidders need to anticipate—the future shape of transport in this region. So, yes, we want the Maesteg line firmly as part of the south Wales metro, and the Sunday service and the enhanced frequency will help do that, but it’s only a start. To get people up and down and across these valleys to the jobs along the M4, we need to be more ambitious. So, firstly—and this is an unashamed request—what about initially rolling out the non-train, non-tram superfast, super-connected buses, the universal ticketing, and so on in the slightly more western valleys? Because if you’re in the relatively isolated Evanstown or Price Town communities, despite being by car only 25 minutes from the M4 on a clear run at midnight with no congestion, if the bus journey to work at peak time takes over an hour, is infrequent, doesn’t run late enough or early enough to get you to your job, requires a couple of connections, has no synchronicity with train timetables or any other modes of travel, well, you’re as far from a job as anyone else in any valley in south Wales.

More fundamentally, the three northern Bridgend valleys decant primarily to Bridgend, unlike the other valleys east, which decant primarily to Cardiff. Now, as such, I really would welcome the continuing engagement of Welsh Government with the Bridgend County Borough Council’s concept of a Bridgend hub, where multimodal transport modes can converge here and then spin off east and west, towards Cardiff and Newport in one direction and towards Neath and Swansea in the other, or south, in fact, into the Vale as well as the southern Bridgend area. This secondary transport hub along the M4 corridor would significantly enhance the south Wales metro, and make the Bridgend valleys and the coast and Vale of Glamorgan an integral part of the metro.

On the new franchise, let’s hope the successful bidders bring forward options that can extend the service, whether tram and train or other innovative options, along and across these valleys, but also into the wider region of Bridgend and beyond. Outdated, inflexible thinking, along traditional, hard rail infrastructure will not meet the needs of our constituents, or of our need to make it easy for more people to park up their cars and travel with ease on more environmentally friendly transport options. In the ministerial Valleys taskforce, options to strengthen the regeneration of the communities of the Llynfi, the Ogmore, the Garw and the Gilfach valleys are essential. The levels of multiple deprivation and isolation from jobs and other opportunities are as pronounced in these parts of these upper valleys as anywhere else in south Wales. Whatever arises from the taskforce must recognise this and provide the same tools of economic regeneration available to all other areas.

Economic regeneration is about moving jobs closer to people or people closer to jobs. The northern Bridgend valleys have the benefit of being relatively close, as the crow flies, to the M4 corridor. But, unfortunately, Presiding Officer, few of my constituents fly like crows. They travel on congested, single-lane roads in peak times. They’re on a single-line, one-train-an-hour railway track. To reduce the distance between people and jobs and opportunities for training and skills development, I simply ask the Welsh Government, Transport for Wales, Network Rail and other transport providers to continue to work with me and my two local authorities and local communities to enhance the transport infrastructure and regenerate these Valleys towns and communities throughout Ogmore. Diolch yn fawr.

If the prosperity of communities across Wales is to be enhanced, regeneration schemes must, first and foremost, empower the people living in those communities. As I’ve emphasised since arriving in the Assembly in 2003, housing is key to sustainable community regeneration, not just in bricks and mortar terms, but adding value by unlocking the human potential in communities. However, although there was no affordable housing supply crisis when Labour came to Welsh Government in 1999, they then slashed new social and affordable housing by nearly three quarters, and even last year, Wales was the only UK nation to see new home completions go backwards. Contrast this with the UK Government’s announcement yesterday of a £2.3 billion housing infrastructure fund for England to accommodate growing communities and get homes built faster. Having failed to understand or ignored successive warnings and Wales Audit Office reports, Labour’s command-and-control approach towards community engagement has left Wales with the lowest prosperity, wages and employment, and the highest poverty, child poverty and unemployment amongst the British nations. As the 2015 Communities, Equality and Local Government Committee inquiry into poverty in Wales report, ‘Poverty and Inequality’, found:

Since the early 2000s, the level of poverty in Wales has been static…with 23% of the population living in poverty.’

In other areas of the UK with high poverty, the report said:

like north-east England, the level of poverty has fallen more than in Wales over the same period.’

This relative poverty figure has continued, and absolute poverty is also higher than the other UK nations.

After spending £0.5 billion, in fact, on the Welsh Government’s lead tackling poverty programme Communities First, misapplying the findings of the 2009 Wales Audit Office report on Communities First, and dismissing the recommendations in the Wales Council for Voluntary Action report ‘Communities First—A Way Forward’, at the start of the fourth Assembly, this communities Secretary told the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee last month that the programme would not be replaced, that the record of its work in Wales’s most deprived areas had been mixed, and that the figures aren’t moving.

In contrast, as the deep place study in Tredegar found,

the community empowerment agenda has been increasingly framed within the co-production approach’.

Governance for resilient and sustainable places should seek to engage local citizens, they said, requiring a very different perspective from the normal approach to power and community level, and dependent on a willing and open ability to share power and work for common objectives.

Oxfam Cymru has specifically called on the Welsh Government to embed the sustainable livelihoods approach in all policy and service delivery in Wales, helping people identify their own strengths in order to tackle the root problem preventing them and their communities from reaching their potential. This is what we should have been doing 10 years ago. As the Bevan Foundation states, if people feel that policies are imposed on them, the policies don’t work, and a new programme should be produced with communities, not directed top-down. Local area co-ordination in Derby, referred to before, working to people’s strengths and aspirations, drove collaboration between local people, families, communities and organisations, building on the hugely successful model in Australia.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

Would you countenance the fact that the very light regulatory approach of the UK Government in terms of employment has driven up a vast wedge in terms of zero-hours contracts, those working two or three jobs, and the inability of the welfare net to protect those has inadvertently and inappropriately affected the people of Wales due to their propensity for welfare claiming?

In Wales, the only part of the UK governed by Wales, we have the highest level of non-permanent contracts in the UK, and the second highest level of zero-hours contracts amongst 12 UK nations and regions. That is Labour’s legacy. The rest of the UK, look and learn—this is what you would get in London if you repeat their mistakes.

Commenting on the January 2017 White Paper, ‘Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed’, the Bevan Foundation states that, essentially, the public is being asked to agree to major changes in how local services are delivered without knowing how they can make their views heard. Working with the Talwrn Welsh third sector network and the community branch of the union Unite, the Building Communities Trust is identifying the key factors in developing community resilience at local level, using asset-based community development and unlocking people’s strengths. As they say, independent community organisations are well placed to effectively deliver local services, from social care to family support and employability. So let us join the thousands of co-production revolutionaries working in the Co-production Network for Wales. If we believe it’s for Wales, join the people.

Let me finish by addressing the claim in the Welsh Government amendment that it is driving forward the north Wales growth deal, when it was the UK Government that opened the door to a growth deal for north Wales, and it is this that has driven the team north Wales cross-border response. However, from inception, both UK Government and the North Wales Economic Ambition Board have called on the Welsh Government to grant devolved powers to the region, and their silence on this remains perhaps the greatest impediment to the growth deal’s success.

I very much welcome the Welsh Government’s amendment to this debate that welcomes the ministerial taskforce for the south Wales Valleys that includes my constituency of Islwyn. Just last week, I stood in Newbridge train station with the Member for Newport West and representatives from Network Rail and Arriva Trains to discuss the progress of the £38 million investment in the Ebbw Vale-Cardiff railway line, and highlighted the absolute need for the service to Newport, our nearest city.

Since the Ebbw Vale to Cardiff line was opened in 2008, it has been a stunning success. The very latest investment sees, in my constituency of Islwyn, improvements to the station at Newbridge and the laying of additional track across a 7-mile stretch in order to increase capacity. This is the power of Welsh devolution in action, a Welsh Labour Government seeking to put in place transformational transport infrastructure that can revitalise and invigorate Valleys communities, such as Newbridge, Cross Keys, Risca and Pontymister and transform the lives of its people.

In 2015 the Ebbw Vale line was extended with £11.5 million investment from Welsh Government to open an Ebbw Vale town station. This has already improved access to jobs and services for people in Ebbw Vale, and all along the line has transformed access and mobility across its Valleys community. The stunning success of the line is unquestionable, with over 300,000 journeys annually. The Ebbw Vale Town station demonstrates how the line can be expanded as part of a strategic, holistic and multimodal transport interface, as highlighted by Huw Irranca-Davies.

I’m very much of the opinion that, one day, Crumlin should once again have a railway station on the line, and I know, as the line heads towards Cardiff, there’s also demand for a station in St Mellons, which could one day form a Cardiff parkway, linking with the main line to Swansea. These exciting developments are today, and in the future, being progressed by the Welsh Labour Government, using the levers at our disposal and pressing the UK Government to act where relevant powers still reside in Westminster and Whitehall.

Despite the Welsh Government’s call for the devolution of funding for rail infrastructure, the responsibility for its funding remains with the UK Government, and alas, we still await the promised electrification that they have so far failed to deliver for Wales. Maybe the Tory Members opposite would be willing to put a shift in and shake Theresa May’s money tree and get Wales some money. If only they were willing, they would also ensure Wales had the same treatment as the DUP have secured for Northern Ireland—that is the same parity of esteem, the same finance and same treatment.

As Members know, Caerphilly County Borough Council is part of the Cardiff capital region city deal, a deal that—[Interruption.] I have not got time, unfortunately. [Interruption.] I would like to finish—the Welsh Government has committed to contributing—[Interruption.]

Let the Member—[Interruption.]. Let the Member carry on. It is her decision whether she takes interventions or not.

[Continues.]—£503 million, and I will say it again, as I’ve been allowed to say it again, £503 million to the £1.2 billion Cardiff capital city deal. This transformational deal will improve Valleys public transport and create 25,000 new jobs, leaving an extra £4 billion in private sector investment. And I would like to place on record my appreciation to the Caerphilly council new leader and his energetic, hands-on approach to leading the authority as the city deal progresses. I recently met with the council leader, David Poole, to discuss how the communities of Islwyn can benefit from the opportunities that the city deal presents for our Valleys communities and beyond.

Llywydd, let us be in no doubt our Valleys communities have borne the brunt of the Tory UK Government’s cuts, and they have been at the forefront of Government ruthless and cruel changes to welfare benefits, from the introduction of the bedroom tax, to cuts to disability benefits. The impact has been felt most acutely by the communities in the Valleys, and most acutely by our most vulnerable. And while the Welsh Government cannot undo these reforms, it will do everything in its power to support people and help them secure skilled, meaningful work. The new innovative technology park, the city deal, the new employability pathways, enterprise and employment, childcare; and children zones will all play their part in the regeneration of our Valleys heart lines.

Finally, the Welsh Labour Government has a clear and firm direction of travel outlined in ‘Taking Wales Forward: 2016-2021’, creating a south Wales metro, working in partnership delivering an extra 20,000 affordable homes, delivering the Cardiff city deal, and £100 million investment in south-east Wales. No wonder, then, that the nation of Wales overwhelmingly voted Welsh Labour in the recent local election and general elections. Why don’t the Tory Members opposite join us tonight and vote in this debate on the side of the many and not the few?

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, Ken Skates.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I start by thanking the Welsh Conservatives for bringing forward this debate today, and for giving me the chance to respond? I’d like to thank in particular David Melding for his positive, forward-looking contribution. He talked about how regeneration cannot be delivered by a silver bullet, and must be delivered at least with the community that it is intended for. I think Rhianon Passmore and Huw Irranca-Davies spoke with equal passion and commitment for their constituencies. I was delighted to hear about how the metro will transform the people that it serves and the Members also reminded us of the historic neglect in Wales’s rail network by the UK Government. Conversely, Mark Isherwood reminded us of the devastating impact that Tory austerity lasting more than seven years has caused, that the bedroom tax has caused, that welfare reform has caused, that UK Government-sponsored zero-hours contracts have caused.

Will you give way?

Yes, of course, I’d be delighted.

I’m sure you’ll agree that Wales is part of the UK and the UK Government welfare reforms apply throughout the UK. Why is Wales bottom on all the key social measures I quoted?

The Member may have neglected to recognise the fact that we’ve now had seven years of crippling austerity, something that, in this Chamber, he is a cheerleader for, but out in north Wales he’s rather a crocodile-tear apologist for. The fact is we are suffering at the hands of Treasury Ministers in Westminster who belong to your party.

Now, both Huw and David, and, I think as well, Rhianon, highlighted that prosperity, and, effectively, regeneration comes only through intelligent and only through co-ordinated interventions that must work together, and without the right training and the right skills, without the right transport infrastructure, people cannot access the jobs that may be brought to a local area. Equally, without good-quality and affordable housing, young people may well be forced out of a community that they want to build a life in. I don’t feel that that was reflected in the original motion today, and that’s why we put down the Government amendment.

The work that I have been undertaking to refresh our economic strategy and develop the economy of each region of Wales, which I spoke about this morning in the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, is based on that fundamental principle, namely that co-ordinated interventions rather than individual silver bullets are the only viable route to the effective regeneration of communities across the length and breadth of Wales. And that’s also the thinking behind the establishment of the ministerial taskforce for the Valleys. As chair of the taskforce, the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language is developing a new approach to investing in the most economically deprived areas of the south Wales Valleys, to ensure there is co-ordination in the interventions from both the private and the public sector, to ensure effective regeneration. That’s why I’m a member of the taskforce and why the Minister for Skills and Science is as well. Crucially, we agreed from the outset that we needed to work collaboratively with key stakeholders and, most importantly, with those Valleys communities in a way that David Melding rightly highlighted. This has involved an intense programme of engagement with communities across the Valleys and a series of workshops and stakeholder events, which have helped us to map out what the primary focus of a plan should be in the years to come. And these findings led to the development of a high-level plan that seeks to create new, fair, secure and, crucially, sustainable jobs in the Valleys, to ensure that public services are better joined up, make better use of public and community assets, and develop an approach to developing activities relating to the environment and tourism sectors in the Valleys.

We are using both the Valleys taskforce and the north Wales growth deal as mechanisms to drive prosperity. The north Wales growth deal continues to be on the UK Government’s agenda. I thought Janet Finch-Saunders’s reaction to Mark Isherwood’s misrepresentation of the partnership approach was accurate, as I thought it was shameful, too. The fact is that the north Wales growth deal vision largely encompasses Welsh Government initiatives, and I’m pleased to be able to inform Members that I have invited the Secretary of State for Wales to co-chair a task group with me, looking at how we can enhance cross-border economic development in north Wales and the Mersey-Dee area, because it’s absolutely crucial that activities on the Welsh side of the border align with activities on the English side as well. And that applies to the whole of north Wales. Given that there is an arc of nuclear—

Will you be asking him to similarly join you in work on joining the north Wales economy with the south of Wales and with Ireland?

Well, there is a need, absolutely, to ensure that there are better communications and that the growth deals and the city deals of Wales align with one another, and that they’re not competing with one another. But the reality is that much of the economic relationship that exists between the north of Wales and the north-west of England is driven by similar sectoral interests. And, for that reason, it’s essential that we focus our attention, primarily, on the emerging growth deals in both the north-west of England and the north of Wales. That is an economic reality. For the Member’s own interest, the nuclear sector on Ynys Môn is probably the biggest economic driver that is going to be emerging in his constituency in the years to come. That, of course, is strongly linked to the development of the energy sector right across north Wales and into the north-west of England. It’s in everybody’s interests to make sure that the skills are developed on Ynys Môn to capture all of the jobs—

The specific point that I put to the finance Minister earlier today. I think there’s a danger in the north-west of Wales that Wylfa is seen as the one that ticks the box. What are your thoughts on what happens if Wylfa is not deliverable for some reason—of course, that is a danger—and the danger then that the north-west has nothing planned to come out of the north Wales growth deal?

I sincerely hope that the leader of your party doesn’t get her way and stops nuclear energy in Wales. I sincerely hope, for the people of Ynys Môn and the whole of north Wales, that the facility is built. The fact of the matter is that the economy of the region is also built on a strong tourism base, and tourism in north Wales right now is experiencing record success, and it’s also based on a vibrant food and drink industry, which, again, is experiencing record success. So, the industry of Ynys Môn and north Wales is in prime position to take advantage, not just of emerging nuclear energy initiatives, but also in the tourism, agriculture and food and drink sectors, if only Members would listen.

I can honestly say, Presiding Officer, that the decision taken over the Circuit of Wales was the most difficult and challenging decision that I have ever been involved in during my lifetime in Government. It was challenging and difficult because the community for which the project was promised is one that is in need of new opportunities, new growth and regeneration, and, perhaps above all, new hope.

I’ve set out the reasons why we could not go ahead, but importantly, in doing so, I’ve also set out an alternative plan, an automotive technology park, in which we will invest £100 million over the next 10 years. This is an investment in the future of Blaenau Gwent that can support economic growth right across the Heads of the Valleys region, and I want our work to demonstrate that Wales is a good place to do business and that Blaenau Gwent and the Heads of the Valleys offer great untapped potential for those investors.

The focus of the project in the initial stages will be threefold and based on evidence from businesses, from local government partners, from industry and academic experts, and from the Ebbw Vale enterprise zone. All elements will be subject to satisfactory business cases and due diligence. They are, first, to develop a new facility designed to encourage entrepreneurship and to grow the number of SMEs; secondly, the development of an advanced manufacturing facility specifically designed to cater for any number of inward investors, many of whom are in the high-tech, ultra-low-emissions sector and who are currently exploring opportunities here in Wales; and, thirdly, to support the refurbishment of an existing building in the enterprise zone that can act as a skills and apprenticeship training centre to make sure that we provide the pipeline of skilled people to take up quality jobs, looking to a future in which we innovate, incubate, launch and grow more Welsh companies, commercialising much of our home-grown intellectual property. I believe that we can support economic growth in the Heads of the Valleys and stimulate the prosperity that I think everybody in this Chamber would want to see.

I call on Darren Millar to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Llywydd. Can I thank everybody for taking part in this important debate? It was tabled because we believe that there needs to be a renewed focus on regeneration here in Wales, and that we need to get some of those impoverished communities, in all of our constituencies, back on their feet and up and running. I think we have to acknowledge that there have been some epic failures by the Welsh Government over the past 20 years. We’ve seen the Communities First programme utterly fail to deliver, as Mohammad Asghar and Mark Isherwood quite rightly pointed out: £0.5 billion-worth of expenditure and the same level of poverty in those communities today as there was—[Interruption.] We won’t be taking any interventions from you, no, not at all.

In addition to that, we saw the scandal of a land bank, of some of the jewels in the crown in terms of a land bank, sold off on the cheap during the last Assembly term by the regeneration investment fund for Wales at a loss, potentially—we don’t know quite what it is—of at least tens of millions of pounds to the Welsh taxpayer: money that could have, and should have, been invested into regeneration projects. And just now we have seen the situation emerge with the Circuit of Wales project where, for seven years, a company has been strung along by the Welsh Government, who’ve given the impression that they’re doing everything they can to support it, and then they’ve pulled the plug just before things were able to be signed on the dotted line, and I think that those—[Interruption.] And I think that those—.

No, I haven’t got—. I may take time in a second. And I think that stringing people along—. I appreciate you’ve inherited a real mess, frankly, as a Cabinet Secretary, from your predecessor because you’re relatively new to this particular post, but the reality is that, unfortunately, that mess has landed in your inbox and you’ve had to pick up the pieces. I think it’s only right that we should have a public inquiry into the Circuit of Wales debacle, in order that we can get to the bottom of what happened and we can establish precisely what the truth is and whether the Welsh public, whether the businesses that are involved, and whether this Assembly have been misled over what took place.

Other Members have talked passionately about individual issues in their constituency and the regeneration projects that have taken place. David Melding is quite right to point out the fact that there has been some success over the years, particularly in places like Cardiff Bay. I’m seeing a renaissance in the seaside town of Colwyn Bay as well, on the north Wales coast, in recent years, and there has been Welsh Government involvement in that, and I’ll pay tribute to you for helping to contribute to that success. Unfortunately, there are many communities that are still being left behind.

I heard, very carefully, what Rhianon Passmore was saying about the unfairness—the alleged unfairness—of the UK Government in investing in the peace and security of Northern Ireland by making additional resources available to that particular part of the United Kingdom. But what about the need for some fairness within Wales in terms of spending in north Wales and in mid Wales and in west Wales, instead of focusing just on the south, which is what we’ve seen over 20 years from this Government here, Labour-led administrations, and including, of course, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems propping those administrations up from time to time? We haven’t seen the same sustained focus on north Wales and mid Wales. Russell George was quite right: we need a growth deal for mid Wales. We need rural Wales to also be on the map in terms of some attention, so that we can ensure that the businesses in those areas—those rural parts of Wales—get the support that they also need.

I think you’re quite right, Cabinet Secretary, to focus on the opportunities that lie in cross-border working: cross-border working between Wales and England, and particularly in north Wales where very strong economic links already exist. We have seen some success in dragging some economic bleed into north-east Wales in recent years, which has benefited that part of Wales’s economy, but we need to get that drift—that economic success—further west. I can hear very loudly the concerns that are being raised about north-west Wales and they are genuine concerns, and we need to ensure that there’s prosperity from east to west as well as from north to south and south to north. We’ve got to get all parts of Wales able to reach their potential, and unfortunately the policies that we’ve seen to date have not enabled them to reach their potential, and that’s what I want to see.

I think you’ve got to work harder with communities. You’ve got to make sure that we take—. I know you’ll laugh at this, but we’ve got to take the politics out of some of this as well, if we’re going to achieve the sort of success that we want, particularly—[Interruption.] Particularly when we’ve got a range of local authorities with different coloured leadership in terms of the politics, and we’ve got different coloured leadership at one end of the M4 to this end of the M4. So let’s try to work together in order to achieve what I hope we all want to achieve, which is a more prosperous Wales. Let’s recognise, though, that continuing to go down the same formula that you think is going to lead to success and hasn’t in the past is not going to work, and I do think, therefore, that we certainly are very concerned. While we welcome the fact that there’s some extra investment for Ebbw Vale, which has been announced, we’re very concerned that that’s not actually going to deliver any sea change in terms of a difference for the economy in Blaenau Gwent and Ebbw Vale. So, I think that there needs to be a fresh approach. There needs to be more collaboration, more working with local government. We’ve had these wonderful city deals, which I think point us in the right direction, in Cardiff and in Swansea bay. We’ve got a north Wales growth deal, which is inching forward, being driven forward by Alun Cairns and the Wales Office, and I believe that if we work together, we will be able to see the difference that that collaboration can make. So, I urge people to support the motion in the name of the Welsh Conservatives this afternoon.

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

The next item is the Plaid Cymru debate on 1 million Welsh speakers, and I call on Sian Gwenllian to move the motion.

Thank you very much, and I’m very pleased to open this debate today and to move the motion.

In March of this year, I published a report named ‘Reaching the Million’, which was brought together by Wales’s leading independent language policy and planning agency, which is IAITH: The Welsh Centre for Language Planning. I was very eager to contribute to the debate as the Government draws up its strategy that will increase the number of Welsh speakers in Wales to 1 million by 2050. I was trying to encapsulate the main strategic priorities that need to be brought together in order to create a successful strategy. Having the assistance of experienced language planners was crucially important, and it’s important that we use their expertise in full in moving to the future.

The motion before us today is an opportunity to encapsulate some of the main issues and, in turn, my fellow Members in the Plaid Cymru group will look at education, maintaining and developing the economy in areas where the Welsh language is the language of daily communication, legislation and promoting the Welsh language. There this much more than that contained in the ‘Reaching the Million’ document, and each of you will have received a copy of it, and it is also available online.

Just a few words on the amendments tabled. The Labour amendment and the UKIP amendment delete all, and therefore we cannot support them. The Labour amendment is a description of some of the actions in the pipeline, or some that have already been introduced. We look forward to seeing the content of the White Paper and the ideas on a new Welsh language Bill. We look forward eagerly to looking through the 1 million Welsh speakers strategy next week, and the planning board is a step in the right direction, but it is only a step.

The UKIP amendment is negative and devoid of any ambition or vision. The Conservative amendment on the economy weakens our motion. The Welsh language needs to be an integral part of economic planning. It is far more than simply about the use of the Welsh language in business. Indeed, this amendment encapsulates perfectly the lack of understanding that exists on the link between the Welsh language and a viable economy in those areas where the Welsh language is the language of daily communication within communities. Our argument is that if the Welsh language is to prosper, we need to safeguard the heartlands, and to do that we need quality jobs in those areas to prevent outmigration and to create economic and social prosperity.

In terms of the Conservative amendment on the role of the Welsh Language Commissioner, reviewing isn’t the same as strengthening. Therefore, we can’t support this. And in terms of considering the purpose of Welsh language standards, we also see this as an attempt or a desire to weaken rather than strengthen. These amendments by the Conservatives could be seen as a lack of commitment to the Welsh language from that party, and I’m sure that they would be eager to persuade us otherwise. Simply, therefore, we are opposed to these amendments.

We believe that our motion is comprehensive, but it doesn’t cover all aspects by any means. There are a number of aspects in creating 1 million Welsh speakers, and in the report, ‘Reaching the Million’, we summarise as follows:

it will be necessary to: sustain the numbers and percentages of speakers and their current use of the Welsh language; reproduce Welsh speakers through the Welsh language socialisation of children both within the family and the local community; produce new speakers through both formal and informal education and childcare systems—in preschool provision, schools, colleges and ex-curricular provision; create new speakers from amongst the Welsh workforce.

In planning for an increasing number of Welsh speakers, sufficient opportunities will need to be provided for people (young people in particular) to use the Welsh language in all aspects of daily life—at home, in pursuing educational courses and training, in their localities and local communities, in the workplace, on social media and in information technology.

It will also be necessary to ensure viable social and economic conditions to sustain and increase the number of areas with a high proportion of Welsh speakers, by integrating language policy and planning objectives with economic strategies and developments in those areas. Additionally, new social networks of Welsh speakers will need promoting and supporting in those areas where the Welsh language is not as strong.

As a backdrop to this, the most favourable conditions will need to be provided to ensure Welsh speakers are able to use the language. This will involve building upon the current legislative architecture in order to reinforce and strengthen the status of the Welsh language, broaden and facilitate its use in both old and new domains, and develop the rights and confidence of Welsh speakers to use the language in all aspects of our country’s daily life.’

That includes extending standards to the private sector, including the telecommunications sector, banking, and supermarkets. Now, that’s an overview at the outset, and I look forward to the rest of the debate.

I have selected the six amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be deselected. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendments 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally.

I call on Neil Hamilton to move amendment 2, tabled in his name.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd.There is a great deal in Plaid Cymru’s motion that we can agree with, and the reason why we put ‘delete all’ in our amendment is because that’s what Plaid Cymru always does when it tries to amend our motions. So, I’m afraid that we are just repaying them in kind. But we have never yet succeeded in having an amendment passed, so, therefore, I think this is a somewhat illusory threat to Plaid Cymru. I applaud the document that Sian Gwenllian produced, ‘Reaching the Million’, which I think is an extremely interesting and wide-ranging and comprehensive plan and strategy for achieving what I believe to be a common objective of us all in this Assembly. I’ve strongly supported the Welsh Government’s ambition for a million Welsh speakers by 2050, and I’ve frequently said that I think that the Minister for lifelong learning has promoted this policy very effectively, with the sensitivity that is his most notable characteristic. And I think—[Interruption.] No, it was meant affectionately in this particular instance. I do believe that the general approach that the Government brings to this topic is the right one.

Whilst I agree with a great deal of what is in this document, there are a couple of things that concern me, in particular, obviously, one of them, which is mentioned in the motion itself, on the extension of Welsh language standards to the private sector. Whilst I agree that, for telecommunications firms and for banks and big companies of that kind, they have the infrastructure to be able to cope with the extra financial burdens and administrative burdens that that will bring about, it’s a very different story, of course, for smaller businesses. So, we need to have more detail in that element of the proposal before we could support it. So, I’m broadly sympathetic to the aim of Plaid Cymru even in that respect, but I do believe that we need to have more flesh on the bones before we can support it.

The purpose of our amendment was to draw attention to what I believe to be a fundamental tenet of policy in respect of education, that the wishes of parents ought to be given the greatest possible consideration. Now, I agree that that may, in certain instances, be in conflict with the other objectives on which we agree. But, fundamentally, the children who are the subject of this debate—insofar as education is concerned, at any rate—are not our children, they are their parents’ children, and the Education Act of 1996, admittedly before devolution, which set out the legal obligation of Government, says that pupils were to be educated in accordance with parents’ wishes. Obviously, that’s so far as is administratively possible. It’s not in every instance that a parent can have his or her wishes respected, but, fundamentally, that’s what we should try to do. And, of course, in my own region of Mid and West Wales, we’ve had the two contrasting cases in the last year of the case of Llangennech in Llanelli and, of course, Brecon High School, and I very much welcome the decision by the education authority in Powys to continue Welsh-medium education at Brecon High School. I supported the parents there, because that was what they wanted. Similarly, I supported the parents in Llangennech who wanted a different decision taken in respect of the changing of the medium of instruction from English to Welsh in Llangennech primary school. And I do believe that the way forward is by persuasion, and I think this should be properly funded. I agree with, again, that part of the motion and this document that the Welsh language strategy will be expensive, but I think it’s an expense that is worth incurring, because language is at the heart of a culture of a nation, and it’s an irreplaceable gift, which, if lost, can be restored only with the greatest possible difficulty. So, I think it is worth us making the greatest possible effort in order to achieve those objectives.

And there is a ray of hope in this, because, as the report says, from 2001 to 2011, the number of three to four-year-olds recorded as Welsh speakers grew from 18.8 per cent to 23.3 per cent, and we need to build on that, and I applaud the objective that is set in the report of increasing that figure to 35 per cent within a reasonable period, because that is the way in which the language will be sustained. I know from my own personal experience that it’s much more difficult to learn a language once you get up beyond the early years, and, therefore, it is vitally important that we socialise children, as Sian Gwenllian said in her introduction to this debate, as early as possible and make them instinctively familiar with the language. That is the way forward.

I call on Suzy Davies to move amendments 3, 4, 5 and 6, tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and I move the Welsh Conservative amendments in the name of Paul Davies. Thanks also to Plaid Cymru for bringing forward today’s debate and for commissioning the report referred to in the motion. It’ll be interesting to see how much the report has influenced the Minister’s work, and, of course, we need to hear from the Minister on this, because local authorities are preparing their own Welsh language strategies up to 2020, as required by the standards, without any understanding of what the Welsh Government will be looking for when this year ends.

We have our own amendments, so we will oppose the motion, but we’re not hostile to its general thrust. We would like to support point 3(a). I’ve been calling for compulsory, meaningful introduction of Welsh in Flying Start settings for some years now, but in addition to the introduction of Welsh language skills as an intrinsic part of vocational courses such as social care, hospitality, hair and beauty, even, and, of course, childcare. While fluency would be the gold standard, as it were—we shall see—my main focus would be on confidence, and I think we’ve all come to the conclusion that if you haven’t got the confidence to use your incorrect Welsh, perhaps, then there’s no opportunity for it to become good Welsh.

This is reflected in our first amendment. We tabled this in these terms, Sian Gwenllian, partly because I didn’t understand what point 3(b) actually meant. If it was about looking for fertile ground to promote the acquisition and use of Welsh language skills within the Welsh Government’s economic strategy, then I would agree with you. If it was about not rolling back from the standards, I would agree with you. If it was about acceptance that any programme in this territory would have to be multi-speed to reflect that everyone in Wales will be buying into this from different starting points, then, again, I would agree with you.

Amendment 4 relates to the Welsh Language Commissioner, and we invite once again the Welsh Government to consider the accountability of the commissioner, not least as the Liberal Democrats have also called for that role to be independent of Government and accountable to us directly. As Plaid has now embraced the idea of an arm’s-length agency to promote the Welsh language, I wonder if we might see some shift in their previous viewpoint on this too.

It wasn’t so long ago, in a meeting with Dyfodol, I think it was, that I was advocating for the delivery of Welsh language promotion to be brought out of Government, and Alun Ffred was arguing the contrary. While I welcome the conversion to the Welsh Conservative way of thinking, perhaps I can press you on what the length of that arm will be. If you have in mind a body that will simply carry out the Government planning board’s instructions, well there’s no point moving the work out of Government. [Interruption.] Could you wait until the end, please? I don’t know if I’ve got enough time, sorry.

I have to say, and it’s an important point about why we don’t agree with what the Government is trying to say today, at present, I remain to be convinced on the purpose of this panel and that’s why, as I said, I don’t support the Government’s amendment. At this moment, I’m still favour of an independent arm’s-length body to take on this work, but one with the freedom to think differently. However, there is an argument that a Welsh language commissioner accountable to this Assembly rather than the Government might also be placed in an interesting position to be the primary promoter of the Welsh language. We are still in a period where many of our constituents praise or condemn this Assembly for Welsh language policy rather than the Government. This would be an opportunity to strengthen the role of the Commissioner, as called for in part 3(c) of the original motion, in a different way. Amendment 6 invites you to think why not make it the property of the people rather than the Executive—the Welsh language, that is.

Our amendment 5 is not in conflict with part 3(c) of the motion. It simply asks for a period of reflection and analysis before taking the next step with standards. The commissioner has said that the bodies affected are now getting used to the idea, and I hope that we will see formal evidence to that effect in consultation responses to the Government White Paper.

I have more to say, but there’s not enough time. So, I’m sorry, Simon, too.

As it happens, Simon Thomas.

Thank you, Llywydd. I’m pleased to support the motion as drafted, of course, and to reject the amendments, despite some of the explanations that we’ve heard. May I also start by noting my gratitude at the decision of Powys council to keep the Welsh language stream in Brecon High School, and also by drawing the Assembly’s attention to why that decision was taken? Three reasons were given for overturning the intention to close the Welsh language stream there. The third reason was this: to support the vision of the Welsh Government to create a million Welsh speakers by the year 2050. So, for me, this is the first time that we have seen a county council decision overturned or changed because of that target. I welcome that and I just want to expand on what is implicit in that now, particularly in education.

If you bear in mind that, of all the Welsh speakers over the age of 65 at the moment, eight in 10 of them learnt Welsh at home, and, of all the Welsh speakers up to the age of 15, two of 10 of them learnt Welsh at home, then you will see the shift that’s happened over the generations. Yes, we have retained the language in an incredible way in the modern world, but we have done that by seeing the language transfer from where it was the language of the home, the farm, the chapel, work, and so on, to a situation where the language is largely dependent on education.

That’s not entirely a bad thing, because there are benefits, as it happens—specific, educational benefits—to bilingualism, and it doesn’t matter which two languages that entails. There are additional benefits to being trilingual, of course, but there is strong international evidence that being bilingual enhances skills in maths, in understanding, in interpretation, analytical skills. It’s positive that we do have, and are moving towards, a bilingual education system. But it also poses a number of questions on how we’re going to get there.

So, may I first of all ask the Minister in responding to the debate to tell us where the WESPs are now and the work of Aled Roberts in reviewing those, in order to ensure that they are fit for purpose in terms of this new target of a million Welsh speakers? In that context, I’d like to share with the Assembly some of the things that will need to happen in order to reach that target by 2050.A little over 100,000 pupils receive their education through the medium of Welsh at the moment. To reach a million, there is quite some way to go. It’s achievable over 30 years, but there is quite some way to go. For example, if we are to reach a million, then 77.5 per cent of children in Wales will have to have Welsh-medium education by the year 2040. That’s why Plaid Cymru argued in our last manifesto for the last Assembly elections that every child needs to receive Welsh-medium education at least in primary school, so the foundations of bilingualism are laid for all children in Wales, and that there would be more options available following that, depending on the area where you live.

There needs to be determination in certain areas of Wales. For example, if you dig into those figures, you need to increase the figure from 10 per cent of seven-year-olds in Torfaen to 62 per cent; from 5.6 per cent in Flintshire at the moment to 46.5 per cent. The point of these figures is not to criticise those areas that are falling behind—we hope that they will improve—but to show that we can set meaningful targets by council area, by region, even by school. Then you can measure the outcomes. That’s why I’m disappointed that the Government is rejecting this part of the motion that sets out the need for targets and tries to tell a story again. Yes, tell us the story in your amendment, by all means, but we need targets so that we can measure whether this million is achievable, and whether we can do that over 5 years, 10 years or 15 years. These are the kind of figures that we need to do that.

I’ve mentioned the number of children and young people in Welsh-medium education, but we also have to think about the teaching profession. It’s true to say that, traditionally, farming and education were the two Welsh speaking workforces in Wales. It’s slipped back in both areas to a certain extent, but it’s still true to say that one in three teachers in Wales is able to speak Welsh. They don’t necessarily teach through the medium of Welsh, but they are able to speak Welsh. So, you have those skills in place. However, the number of Welsh students training to be teachers has fallen to its lowest level for almost a decade and we need to train an additional 3,000 teachers for the primary sector and 2,600 for the secondary sector just to get on track with the million Welsh speaker programme. These are the targets, and this is how we’re going to measure whether the Government is on the right track or not.

May I start by saying that I look forward now to seeing the publication of the strategy? I hope that it will show the trace of the recommendations and the discussions had in the committee on the language strategy, and suggest specific steps that the Government will consider. Amongst those steps was the idea that this strategy will show the journey for us, for how we go from here, to achieving the aim of a million Welsh speakers, and that it does that with milestones and details so that we can see clearly the journey ahead of us on reaching this ambitious aim.

Simon, and others, have mentioned the importance of education, and I am going to go onto that, but, first of all, I’d like to discuss the question that Sian Gwenllian emphasised, namely this idea of economic prosperity and that prosperity of the language is intrinsically linked to economic prosperity in our communities. In my constituency, there are communities that speak Welsh, there are many communities that in living memory have spoken Welsh but where the Welsh language no longer prospers, and that’s linked to the patterns of economic change over the decades. So, we do need to ensure as we put together an economic strategy that there is an emphasis on how we maintain Welsh-speaking communities. The Government is doing good work with regard to the Better Jobs, Closer to Home project, and we should be looking at that in a linguistic context as well as the context that we’re currently looking at it in.

But within the education system, I also hope that we see changes to the WESPs. Obviously, they weren’t sufficient when they were initially published and the constructive process that has been pursued will, hopefully, lead to far more ambitious plans. But the truth is that, as a matter of principle, we should be meeting in full the demand for Welsh-medium education wherever it arises. We’re not succeeding at present, and that should be the aim. But on top of that, as the language is a cultural asset, of course, but also an educational asset, as we’ve already heard in this debate, then we should be taking specific steps to create the demand for Welsh-medium education over a period of time as well. So, we need that level of ambition so that we can reach the aim ahead of us.

We discussed in the committee how important nursery education is to reach the aim, and I think we should be looking at pilots for parents who can’t speak Welsh who choose to send their children to nursery schools through the medium of Welsh, so that they too should receive training to support their children through their educational journey in the language. That’s part of a wider process—and the strategy is clear about the importance of this—of normalising the use of the language within the family, as well as in the community and in workplaces more widely.

On a personal level, until I was elected to the Assembly, I’d never worked in a workplace where it was possible to speak Welsh. That experience of coming here and being able to speak Welsh or in English as I wish, more or less, has been a very positive and desirable thing on a personal level, and that’s what we should be trying to provide to everyone in all workplaces: that we don’t have to think, ‘Does this person speak Welsh?’—that it’s something that becomes much more natural and much more wide-ranging and widely available to people in general. So, I welcome the emphasis on promotion.

I said in the previous debate that we need a revolution to reach this aim. We need that cultural shift to ensure that people can feel confident and can have the ability to speak Welsh in their workplaces and in their daily lives. Part of that, as Suzy Davies said, is to do with people’s own confidence, but if you’re not sure that the person you’re talking to is going to respond in Welsh, then the question of confidence holds you back whatever your ability in the Welsh language. So, I think that’s an important part of that.

Briefly, on this question of the general right, I would like the Government to look at the discussion that we had in the Pierhead a few months ago with Gwion Lewis, who was talking about creating the general right to use the Welsh language in all parts of social life, but aligned with that that we have guidance to show where it would be more likely that we would be able to use that right. It was a very constructive discussion and it was a very far-reaching proposal, and I would encourage the Government to consider it in due course.

I want to echo some of the initial points made by Jeremy on the importance of the economy in terms of the prosperity of the Welsh language. I have been strongly of the opinion that you can’t separate economic prosperity from linguistic prosperity. Alun Davies will recall that we both occupied a house that is now in my constituency in Carmel during the Newport eisteddfod of 1998, and the banner outside that house said ‘Housing and jobs to save the language’. It was true then, of course, in terms of the pressure on affordable housing, but it’s so much truer now.

We tend to overemphasise the educational elements and the familial elements in terms of language transfer. But for me, the workplace was the catalyst that meant that I became fluent in the Welsh language, because I came from a mixed-language home. My father was a collier, and the Welsh language was the working language for him. I came to understand that and came to understand the vibrancy of that coalmining Welsh language culture. And subsequently, through the miners’ strike, of course, it was the language of work and politics. In looking across Wales, the economic foundation has been so important. Consider the quarrying areas of north Wales. Think about agriculture, where, in that sector, over 50 per cent of farmers in Wales still speak Welsh, which is twice the percentage in the general population, because the industry itself supports people in that economic sense and also maintains the language and culture. This isn’t an original point. Brinley Thomas made the same points in his work of genius on the industrial revolution in Wales. After the industrial revolution, the Welsh language was saved. There were some people who were suggesting that that diluted the language, but Brinley Thomas argued ‘no’: because of the industrial revolution and because of the regeneration in the Welsh language press in the south Wales Valleys, that created that foundation so that the Welsh language didn’t face the same demise as the Irish language.

Therefore, bringing these lessons to the modern day, there is some unwieldy language here—’jargonllyd’, to use Suzy Davies’s favourite word; jargon—in English and Welsh, because there is talk of ‘current maintainable systems’. We’re talking here about the traditional Welsh-speaking heartlands where the Welsh language is still the language used on the streets and so on. Of course, that economic foundation and the issue of economic prosperity is an integral part of the survival of the language in those areas. What I would like to see as we look at regionalisation for economic development—and we were discussing that the in the economy committee this morning—is that we do create a region for Welsh-speaking west Wales so that we can bring those two things together—language and culture and economy—in a forum of regional collaboration.

There are a number of things that that region—. But it’s good to see that the First Minister yesterday, and the Cabinet Secretary for local government, have welcomed this concept. There’s a great deal that can be done. We can look at this question of outmigration. There was a project back in the 1990s—Llwybro—which tracked young people from mid and west Wales who were going off to university, very often in England and trying to—[Interruption.] Well, yes, and I think the Llywydd was responsible for that project. It was an extremely successful project, trying to keep in touch with these young people when they left and then trying to attract them back by identifying specific opportunities appropriate to their skills. Once again, very often in Wales we succeed with projects and then we cast that information basis aside. But there is an opportunity for us to take hold of it again.

One large-scale project would be the railways: linking the west of Wales and seeing that for the first time we could travel from north to south within our own country on our railway. That is a large-scale vision, a specific vision and we need to learn lessons from the past also. But there are real opportunities now to create something that will counteract the current trend and the overemphasis, perhaps, on the city regions by creating a region for Welsh-speaking west Wales.

Thanks to Plaid for bringing today’s debate. As Assembly Members we do need to support effective measures to bolster the growth of Welsh, and we in the UKIP group do endorse those aims. I listened to Sian Gwenllian’s opening remarks, and I agree with her that we need to put an onus on safeguarding Welsh in its heartlands: the idea of taking measures to keep jobs in those areas and stop outmigration in what she termed the areas where Welsh is the language of daily communication. And, of course, Adam Price was emphasising the economic aspect and he also spoke about a west Wales region and possibly treating the Welsh-speaking westerly parts of Wales as a separate entity in some measures of economic thinking. I think there may be some merit in that. So, I think that there are positive ways in which we can encourage Welsh, and I think that what Adam and Sian seemed to be emphasising about the westerly regions being at the heart of the matter, I believe that to be the case, myself. Of course, there are pitfalls when you try to transfer policies through the whole of Wales and I think there are potential problems when you come up with the issue of compulsion.

So, if we refer to the recent example that we debated a few weeks ago of the Llangennech school saga, there was plenty of evidence that the majority of the community there was against the proposal to turn a dual-stream primary school into a Welsh-medium one. Now, you could argue, as Simon Thomas did at the time, that the decision to do that was in compliance with Carmarthenshire County Council’s own WESP, but you could also observe that the plan, in its application in Llangennech, did not seem to have much of a local mandate behind it. We do talk about localism in this place, and there didn’t seem to have been much localism in what was happening in Llangennech. So, I think that sometimes, when compulsion is involved, measures can actually turn out to be counterproductive.

Somebody mentioned here yesterday when we were talking about taxation—I think it was Huw Irranca-Davies—that we have to be very careful as legislators in not creating unintended consequences. By trying to push Welsh-medium schools through force, I believe that you could sometimes work against a target of creating 1 million Welsh speakers. This aspect was recognised by the Llanelli MP Nia Griffith when she expressed her fear that if the school involved were to go over to being Welsh medium, that many parents might simply switch their pupils to an English-medium school, even if this meant moving home. This would tend to defeat the purpose of increasing participation in Welsh. So, Nia Griffith, in this instance, may have identified the possible unintended consequence.

So, to summarise, I agree with the economic ideas about the westerly areas, but I think, as a general principle, we need to make available the opportunity of speaking Welsh to those who wish to do so, but to force Welsh onto people who don’t want to may be counterproductive.

As has already been said by others speakers, Plaid Cymru is very supportive of this aim to reach 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, but it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not through a series of short-term policies that we can change the situation of the Welsh language. Indeed, if this ambitious aim is to be achieved, then this strategy has to be one that can withstand political change, i.e. a change in Minister but also in the party of Government. So, we have to ensure an element of continuity and consistency over an extended period of time.

I want to use my contribution to this debate to talk specifically about an element that needs continuity, a vitally important element if the Government is to win the support of the public in reaching the 1 million Welsh speakers, namely the promotion of the Welsh language. We’ve heard several excellent contributions—from Jeremy Miles and Adam specifically, and others too, and also from Sian. As part of the budget for 2017-18, agreed between Plaid Cymru and the Government, there was a commitment to establish an arm’s-length agency to promote the Welsh language to give a new emphasis and basis for Welsh Government policy to renew and regenerate the language and to create a genuinely bilingual nation. We have to increase the emphasis on promotion of the Welsh language and not just on ensuring rights to the speakers. As it stands, the role of the commissioner is to promote, but Plaid Cymru believes it’s the role of another arm’s-length body, with experts, policies and language planning that have been built over a number of years, and that that body would be most appropriate for devising, facilitating and monitoring the kinds of promotion activities that are now needed and that’s why we need an agency—or whatever it will be called—that will lead on policy, that is responsible for a strategic oversight of the field, and has high status within Welsh Government departments, and other agencies such as Natural Resources Wales and the arts council.

Why is promotion one of the most important elements to expand the use of the Welsh language? Well, even today, in 2017, there is a lack of understanding of the benefits of learning through the medium of Welsh and even how the Welsh language is taught. Every six months or so, without fail, we have an article from one of the British newspapers alleging that Welsh-medium education prevents children from achieving their potential, that learning a dying language is a disadvantage for any child or adult who wants a quality job, and that it’s better to learn a foreign language such as French or Spanish. The most recent example was an article in ‘The Guardian’ a fortnight ago that was factually incorrect and alleged that children receiving their education through the medium of Welsh were under some kind of disadvantage as compared to their peers learning through the medium of English.

In order for the Government to reach the aim of 1 million, we need to have a change of attitude towards the Welsh language in general, as we’ve already heard, and for the people of Wales to take ownership of this objective with full confidence. To promote—’Send your children to a Welsh-medium school. The child will come out fluent in two languages, not just in one.’ Promoting the Welsh language will play an intrinsic role in all of this. Promotion is vitally important. There’s nothing to fear here, only improving the skills of your children, and we believe that we need an arm’s-length agency to lead on this promotion. Thank you.

I call on the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language, Alun Davies.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. Thank you to everyone who’s contributed to this debate this afternoon, and thank you to Sian Gwenllian for moving the motion on behalf of Plaid Cymru, giving us the opportunity to discuss the Welsh language here today. Llywydd, I will be asking Members this afternoon to support amendment 1 in the name of Jane Hutt, but not to support the other amendments. I ask Members to do that because next Tuesday we will be making a statement on the Welsh language strategy, and we will be making further statements on how we intend to implement the strategy. What I don’t want to do today is to tie the Government in to any views where we are due to have further consultation. I don’t want to start that process of consultation by saying exactly where we stand now. I don’t think that would be a wise move. So, I won’t be accepting these amendments this afternoon, not because we disagree with them, but because we want to continue to have that rich debate on how we promote the Welsh language and secure the future of the Welsh language.

In saying that, I want to start with the points that Dai Lloyd finished with, in terms of a change of attitude. Dai Lloyd and I seem to read the same newspapers and hear, occasionally, the same reports. I am entirely clear in my own mind, and I think it’s clear in all of our minds, that it’s not acceptable for Welsh speakers to be challenged because we happen to speak Welsh in Wales. On occasion, when I hear some reports—we heard reports in the ‘Daily Post’ last week about a restaurant in north Wales where people were complaining because they heard the Welsh language being spoken in Gwynedd. Well, I have a very clear message: we speak Welsh in Wales, and we will continue to speak Welsh in Wales, and we have every right to do that. We don’t apologise to anyone for choosing to use our own language in our own country. And we will secure not only the status of the Welsh language, but a change of attitude towards the Welsh language. We are not content to come to any agreement with anyone on that. We will continue to use the Welsh language and continue to promote the use of the Welsh language.

May I also say this? In making progress on the strategy that we’re introducing and the debate that we’re to have, next week we’re going to outline our vision on the Welsh language and how we’re going to achieve that target of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. Everyone, I think, is agreed, that the strategy is challenging and ambitious. But I also believe that we are starting a journey here. We are starting a journey as a nation, as politicians and as a Government. And I was entirely clear in my own thinking last year, when the First Minister and I set this target, that we weren’t setting a target in order to maintain the status quo. We were setting an ambitious target in order to generate change—in order to generate change in terms of the Government’s action and how we as a nation work in a number of these policy areas.

In making that point, may I just mention education? We’ve heard some discussion on education this afternoon. I’m not going back to west Wales; that’s not my intention today, although I have been invited by Adam Price to do that. But I am going to answer the questions that Simon Thomas posed.

Aled Roberts has concluded his work on the WESPs across the country and I will be publishing his report hopefully before the end of term, and certainly over the summer. I will be writing to local councils, responding to all of the WESPs, and I will be asking councils to ensure that they can respond to WESPs and have strategic plans in place that will enable us to reach the 1 million target. I don’t accept all of your figures, but I do accept that we need to have a framework in place and we will put that in place.

We will also of course be making further statements on that. Kirsty Williams will be making further statements on the curriculum and on further education, and also I’m very eager that we don’t discuss the Welsh language in terms of Welsh-medium education and Welsh-medium education alone. It is important that children who attend English-medium schools have the same opportunities to learn Welsh and become fluent in the language by the time that they leave education, and we will secure that through the kinds of curricular reform that we intend to introduce.

May I turn to some of the points made by Jeremy Miles? I’ve followed the debate that’s taken place in terms of our rights to use the Welsh language and I agree that we need to give further consideration to how we actually provide for that right to use the Welsh language and I think the work of Gwion Lewis does offer some discussion points and I look forward to continuing that discussion over the past few months. I do agree that we need a legislative framework that enables us to achieve our vision and to see our plan achieve that 1 million Welsh speakers.

But we must also consider whether we have the necessary legislative framework in place at the moment. We need to consider whether the balance between regulation, public services, and supporting the Welsh language through promotional activity are appropriate and whether they are working at the moment. Some this afternoon have suggested that we need change and some have changed their own minds. I appreciate that and we will consider your suggestions during ensuing debates but I can say that I will be publishing a White Paper for consultation. I will be publishing the White Paper during the Eisteddfod on Anglesey and we will consider how we create the kind of legislative framework that will be necessary for the future.

I don’t intend to discuss the content of the White Paper this afternoon, but I can tell you this: we will not have any dealings on the status of the Welsh language. Some people have questioned how we implement standards. Does that mean that we are diluting the status of the Welsh language? Well, no, it doesn’t, and we don’t intend to do that. In fact, we want to go further and strengthen the status of the Welsh language. We will also need to ensure that there is sufficient emphasis on promotion and I want to shift that emphasis. I want to shift the emphasis from bureaucratic forms of regulation to alternative ways of promoting the language, and through doing that I want to do something even more important. I want to unite the nation on the issue of the Welsh language. We know, and I know, as one who’s learnt the Welsh language, and represents a constituency where you don’t hear the Welsh language on the doorstep and spoken within the community, that on occasion we as Welsh speakers haven’t been united on the Welsh language and we as the people of Wales haven’t been united on the Welsh language.

But what I want to do is this—returning to some of the points that Neil Hamilton outlined this afternoon and on other occasions—ensure that we don’t constantly talk of enforcement but that we celebrate the fact that we have two national languages, that we have two national cultures, that we can enjoy both languages wherever we are in Wales, and that we use the Welsh language to unite Wales for the future.

I call on Sian Gwenllian to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much. The debate started this afternoon with Neil Hamilton agreeing with much that is in the ‘Reaching the Million’ document. So, I don’t quite understand why we have to go after one aspect alone in the amendment that doesn’t genuinely contribute to the vision and leadership that we need in this area.

Suzy Davies emphasised the need to increase confidence, and I agree with you entirely on that. You asked for an explanation of the clause—yes, I agree with Adam—that is a little bit ambiguous, which is ‘sustainable current regimes and systems’. As Adam mentioned, it’s those heartlands, those Welsh-speaking areas where the Welsh language is the natural everyday language, and the need to maintain that network of communities through economic measures—that’s at the heart of that particular aspect.

Simon Thomas talked about the fact that the Welsh language is now very dependent on the world of education and that there are advantages in that, and that there are educational advantages to bilingualism. He spoke about the challenge facing local authorities and the need to set specific targets and milestones on the journey to creating 1 million Welsh speakers. He also talked about the importance of thinking about the workforce, and even though one in three teachers can speak Welsh, they’re not necessarily teaching through the medium of Welsh.

Jeremy Miles talked about the discussion in the committee, and I’m very grateful for the work that has been done by that particular committee and the recommendations in its report. He went on to talk about and agree with what Adam and I have been arguing for: that the prosperity of the Welsh language is intrinsically linked to the economic prosperity of the communities where there are many people who do speak Welsh, and the need for that emphasis to be made in the economic strategy—the long-awaited strategy—and that we hope it will include that particular aspect. Jeremy also talked about the need for the WESPs to be much more ambitious, and he spoke about the need to create demand as well as respond to it.

Adam then talked about our failure, if truth be told, to separate economic prosperity from linguistic prosperity, and that the economic foundation for the Welsh language is a historical thing that we can trace and that we need to maintain now. And as we look at the discussions with regard to local government reform, there’s an opportunity here to look at regionalisation, and that we don’t just regionalise across the north and around the city regions, but that we also, as a counterpoint to that, think about creating a region for the west that would work hand in hand with the city regions, and that would be some sort of forum of collaboration around the vital issues that do require collaboration with regard to the Welsh language. Adam spoke specifically about outward migration and reminded us of the Llwybro scheme and the need for the infrastructure to be far better connected between north and south and east and west in our nation, as well as out from our nation.

I also think that creating a forum, starting with the four councils—Anglesey, Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire—where the Welsh language-speaking communities are particularly strong, would be a means of sharing the good practice that’s seen in some of those councils already with regard to the Welsh language. You only have to look at how the language policy in Gwynedd and the education policies in Gwynedd have succeeded in maintaining and safeguarding communities with a high percentage of Welsh speakers, and that that’s happening despite the decline in other areas.

Gareth Bennett said that he agrees with this need to maintain the heartlands in economic terms. Yes, that’s what we’re saying. But we’re also saying, hand in hand with maintaining the heartlands economically and creating prosperity in those areas, that we need to encourage growth across Wales. We wouldn’t say that we would want to go back to some bygone age. We need to expand across Wales as well, but without the heartlands, it’s difficult to do that. That’s what our argument is. But it gladdened my heart to see thousands of people in Tafwyl over the weekend, in the capital city, in Cardiff, enjoying the vibrant modern Welsh culture in a new context. So, the context is changing, people are moving around, and we need to acknowledge that as well.

Whilst Tafwyl was on in Cardiff, and one of my sons happened to be there, I was in the Felinheli Festival. Another event; a completely different event; a Welsh-medium event, again, but it was a village event, in the area where the Welsh language is the daily language in the shop and on the street.

I can’t let this moment pass without talking about Gŵyl Nôl a Mla’n in Llangrannog. [Laughter.]

Excellent. Well, there are so many festivals—

It is this weekend.

Oh, it’s this weekend. Well, do go to Llangrannog, everyone. And then Dai spoke about the need to promote the Welsh language in all areas, and the need for an arm’s-length body to do that important work.

So, to conclude, speaking Welsh and speaking English fluently make me who I am. The Welsh language opens the door to me to a rich culture that dates back to the sixth century. The English language opens the door to me a rich, global culture. Both are part of my experience. I’m lucky. I’m a bilingual person who uses both languages with full confidence. Even though you don’t hear me speaking English here very often, I can speak English and I can do so fluently. [Laughter.] So, what is the argument for not creating the opportunity for every child to grow up to have one, two, three, four or five languages even? There’s no logical argument. There are clear advantages and it’s that situation of bilingualism or multilingualism that’s normal in the majority of countries worldwide. We need to move towards that situation as soon as possible. I congratulate you as a Government for adopting an ambitious aim, and it’s time to start on that journey and to turn the aim into a reality. So, I’m pleased to hear that the strategy will be announced at last next week. I can guarantee you now that we will be scrutinising it in detail and that we will certainly have comments to make on it. I agree in full with what Alun Davies said: we don’t need to apologise to anyone for using the Welsh language and promoting the use of the Welsh language at all times and in all fields. Thank you.

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

That brings us to voting time. Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to the vote. The first vote is on the debate on a Member’s legislative proposal by Bethan Jenkins. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Bethan Jenkins. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 34, 16 abstentions, none against and, therefore, the motion is agreed.

The next vote is on the Welsh Conservatives’ debate on regeneration projects. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 16, no abstentions, 34 against and therefore, the motion is not agreed.

The next note is on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 27, no abstentions, 23 against. Therefore, the amendment is agreed.

The next vote is on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 23, no abstentions, 27 against. And therefore, the amendment is not agreed.

Amendment three is next. This amendment was tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 23, no abstentions, 27 against. And therefore, the amendment is not agreed.

The next vote, therefore, is on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 34, no abstentions, 16 against. And therefore, the motion as amended is agreed.

The next vote is on the Plaid Cymru debate, on 1 million Welsh speakers, and I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour seven, no abstentions, 43 against. And therefore, the motion is not agreed.

Amendment 1, and if amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1 tabled in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 27, no abstentions, 23 against. And therefore, amendment 1 is agreed.

The next vote, therefore, is on the motion as amended.

I open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 26, 18 abstentions, six against, and therefore the motion as amended is agreed.

The next item is the short debate, and I therefore ask Members to leave the Chamber quietly and quickly before I called the short debate. And I call on Neil Hamilton to speak on the topic he has chosen.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. I’m very pleased to have this opportunity to introduce an important short debate. In 14 years in the House of Commons, I never took advantage of the opportunity to have an adjournment debate at the end of the day, but they tended to be perhaps rather later in the day than short debates take place in the more enlightened atmosphere of the National Assembly.

We hear very frequently that we have an explosion of hate crime, particularly by those who want to associate this with Brexit, and the purpose of my debate today is to question that and to provide a factual background to this important debate. It is true that police forces around the country have recorded significant increases in hate crimes. Only four, in fact, in the three months after the referendum last year, recorded a decrease in hate crimes, and in the case of many police forces, there were very significant increases in the number of incidents that were reported as hate crimes, and this has been held up as evidence that prejudice and a form of madness and mania, in fact, were unleashed by the Brexit process. I think this is much more likely to be a reflection of the fact that there’s been an active trawling for evidence of hate post Brexit, and you will find it if you want it. The websites in particular that encourage people to report things as hate crime very often have political motivations behind them.

Also, the other important factor is that in fact almost anything can be recorded today as a hate crime, even if there’s no evidence for it, and I think this is the most important realisation here. What we’re doing is in fact witnessing the invention of a crime epidemic as a kind of cynical manipulation, fundamentally for political or other reasons. I think the example of what happened to Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, last year is a very good reflection of this. She made a speech at the Conservative party conference that was about foreign workers and this was reported to the police as a hate crime, a hate incident, by a professor at Oxford University, Professor Joshua Silver. He made the complaint because he took issue with what he described as the Home Secretary’s discrimination against workers from overseas, because he said that she had called upon employers to keep lists of foreign workers. It proved to be the case subsequently that he hadn’t actually heard the speech at all. He was merely going on newspaper reports of the reaction to the speech, and, if you read the speech, of course, you’ll see that Amber Rudd didn’t in fact call for employers to keep any lists at all. So, the whole incident was misconceived, but that was reported as a non-crime incident, and that is now one of the statistics supposedly of this upsurge in race hate incidents.

So, there is in fact a disparity between what’s actually happening in Britain today and the way that it is perceived as a result of this particular incident. In fact, in my lifetime, there’s been a very significant reduction in race and other forms of prejudice that has come about partly, perhaps, from the anti-discrimination legislation, but also from society becoming in many ways more cosmopolitan, and, in the world of mass communications, we’re now much more aware of the rest of the world than we were back in the 1950s. I think, therefore, that the climate in which we all live is much less conducive to prejudice today than it used to be. In fact, in recent years, parties like the BNP have completely disappeared. Even the English Defence League, which makes a lot of noise, is hardly to be seen anywhere in the country today. And that’s a very good thing, too.

Compare Britain with what’s happening in France, where you get incidents of people burning down mosques—I mean, that’s a real hate crime. But, in this country, actually somebody shouting something nasty on the bus is what most of these incidents that are recorded as hate crimes are all about. The fact that more than 1 million Londoners voted for Sadiq Khan to become the mayor in London last year, giving him the largest direct mandate enjoyed by any individual in British history, is perhaps another illustration of that.

And, of course, nobody should downplay the hurt caused to those who are attacked and abused. I don’t expect sympathy from anybody, but I have frequently been on the receiving end of a huge amount of abuse in the course of my life, and, I have to say, even inside this institution, which I won’t dwell on today, but it is a fact. But the number of hate crimes that have been recorded by the police has grown year by year. Six years ago there were 42,255. The latest figure I’ve got here is 2014-15—there were 52,528. So, that’s a significant increase, 20 per cent. It’s probably a much bigger number today than it was two years ago. But you need to take these figures with a pinch of salt, in my view. It’s a product of the authorities, in fact, redefining racism and prejudice to such an extent that almost any unpleasant encounter between people of different backgrounds can today be recorded as hatred.

In the aftermath of Brexit, the police said that 14,000 hate crimes were recorded between July and September 2016. But many of these incidents are likely to have been reported through a website funded by the police called True Vision, which allows anybody anywhere to report anything they like, whether they’ve experienced it or not, and, indeed, to do so anonymously. So, these statistics are not worth the paper that they are printed on. You need no evidence to justify a complaint, everything is instantly logged as a hate incident without any question at all, and this inevitably presents a warped view of reality. Indeed, the idea of hate crime itself is entirely subjective, because the police and the Crown Prosecution Service agreed a common definition of hate crime 10 years ago to measure hate crime levels, and hate crime, the police say, is:

Any criminal offence which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards somebody based on a personal characteristic.’

So, it is explicitly subjective, whether this is a reasonable belief or not. The police’s hate crime operational guidance stresses that the victim’s perception is the deciding factor in whether something is measured as a hate crime or not—absolutely no evidence is required. I’ll read the paragraph from the police operational guidance on hate crime to prove the point, paragraph 1.2.3:

For recording purposes, the perception of the victim, or any other person…is the defining factor in determining whether an incident is a hate incident, or in recognising the hostility element of a hate crime. The victim does not have to justify or provide evidence of their belief, and police officers or staff should not directly challenge this perception. Evidence of the hostility is not required for an incident or crime to be recorded as a hate crime or hate incident.’

What sort of a world are we living in where something that isn’t required to be proved is regarded as having been proved, and where no inquiries are made as to the reasonableness of what is reported? That is inevitably going to skew statistics. You don’t actually need to prove a hate crime, just a feeling, because hostility is justified, for these purposes, in dictionary definition terms.

So, apparent lack of motivation as the cause of an incident is not relevant according to the police, as it is the perception of the victim or any other person who counts, as in the case of Professor Silver—he wasn’t actually present at Amber Rudd’s speech, he hadn’t even seen it on television, and yet he reported it as a hate incident.

Now, if we look at the Home Office statistical bulletin that measures these things then you will see that not only do you not have to have a reasonable belief that what happened to you, if it did happen at all, was motivated by some form of hatred within the categories that are listed in the legislation, it can also be that cancelled records are recorded as hate crimes—and, again, I’m quoting from an official document from the Home Office, ‘Hate Crime in England and Wales 2015 to 2016’, statistical bulletin 11/16—because:

A transferred or cancelled record occurs when the police record an offence, but subsequently determine that the crime did not take place, was recorded in error or should be transferred to another force.’

So, cases where an incident has been reported, but the police subsequently discover that there was no such incident or crime, are still reported and retained in the statistics as evidence of hate crime. This is the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world into which we have now wandered. It’s a kind of unhinged subjectivity, which clearly provides those with political axes to grind with a motivation, and the mechanism to carry it out, for making complaints for political reasons.

Now, not only is there such a thing as hatred and victimisation of the kind that I’ve outlined, but there is also something called secondary victimisation, which I wasn’t aware of until I looked into this a little more closely. Again, I quote from the Home Office operational guidance on hate crime:

This is a term used to describe situations where a victim suffers further harm because of insensitive or abusive treatment from those who should be supporting them, for example, feeling they have experienced indifference or rejection from the police’.

So, if the police are, in the opinion of the person who makes the complaint, indifferent towards it—and that indifference may be caused by the fact that the complaint itself is not credible—then that in itself is also reported now as a hate incident or a hate crime. So, we’re piling Ossa upon Pelion here, and we are compounding an error, which is going to lead us down the wrong alley if we are making policy on the basis of such statistics. So, it’s the sanctification of perception over what actually happened that has trickled down into these crime and incident recording statistics that I believe underlies the misconception about the extent to which there is real hate crime in this country. Of course, there are real incidents of hate, we know that, and they’re all to be deplored and the full weight of the law should be used in order to discourage such conduct. But if we allow the kind of myths that I’ve described and the mechanism by which they’ve come into existence to be perpetuated then this will discredit the law in respect of the areas of misconduct where we really do need to concentrate. And it’s also a massive misuse and waste of police time as well. So, there’s a great deal that requires explanation that lies behind these headline statistics.

We all know that in the age of box ticking and targets, the police are very anxious to record as much as possible of this nonsense as incidents and targets, because they are fulfilling their own objectives and they get paid for doing this. So, there is, in terms of police budgets, a reward for recording something that is actually not true. And not only that, of course: it then creates a kind of political panic about hate crime, which gives others in other parts of public administration a sense of purpose, and a search for and an exaggeration of hatred that I believe to be profoundly dangerous, and it is an abuse, actually, of process that should concern us all.

So, yes, we should deprecate any form of verbal abuse and, even more so, of course, physical violence. But what we shouldn’t do is to victimise people who are innocent of any real crime or other form of stigma. And I believe that the huge misallocation of resources that now underlies this epidemic of misreporting actually detracts from the real task of those whose main duty is to enforce the law. So, I’ve called this little debate today merely to break the consensus of silence that has surrounded this particular issue, and, because I have been accused of standing in UKIP on a platform of hatred by a Member of this Assembly, and I’ve had other similar imprecations hurled at me, this is why I have called the debate today, and I’m profoundly grateful to you, Llywydd, for selecting it for debate.

David Rowlands, but there’s only 45 seconds remaining of the 15 minutes.

I’m not too sure that I can get it in within that period of time.

Any crime or incident motivated by either prejudice or hatred of an individual or a specific group of people is clearly deplorable. Fortunately, such crimes are a rare occurrence as the majority of people living throughout Wales and the UK are, quite rightly, respectful and tolerant. Where this does occur, as a civilised and reasoned society, we should always do everything within our power to reprimand those responsible.

I will just go to my last few words on that. Quoting exaggerated statistics does not help those who may be the subject of true hate crime. It simply serves to cause them alarm and distress over its supposed prevalence.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Children to reply to the debate—Carl Sargeant.

Thank you, Llywydd, and thank you for the opportunity to provide—the opportunity to debate and talk about hate crime, and the positive steps we’re taking here in Wales.

First of all, I sat and listened slightly astounded by the contribution that Neil made, and his colleague, around there, because you, like Paul Nuttall, describe the position of hate crime technically as a fabricated event, fabricated figures that the UK Government police agencies have published. And we can’t get away from the fact that you can have an opinion on that, like I do, but the figures speak for themselves. I was taken aback at your comment—and maybe you’d want to clarify that, but you said about, in other countries, people burning down mosques. Then you went on to clarify that as being racist, but then you went on to say, shouting abuse on a bus, is that a real crime? I would say, ‘Yes, it was’, because if you look at YouTube videos—. The assault of individuals on buses is unacceptable wherever that is, to whatever race, colour or creed a person is. We cannot have and should not have a measured approach to what’s acceptable and what isn’t acceptable. This is all unacceptable

Let me just put on record the figures that the Member quoted in terms of detail. I’m genuinely concerned about what’s been happening since 2015, and the crime survey won’t give us all the 2015-18 data until next year, but what we do have to hand are reliable figures of the number of reported hate crimes from the police forces in Wales, and from our national hate crime report and support centre. Both of these sources showed a clear spike in reported hate crime last summer around the time of the referendum. Since March this year, following the terror attacks in London and Manchester, these figures also show that there has also been another spike, albeit smaller, particularly in racially motivated hate crime. The Member cannot disagree with those figures. They are factual, and I’m really surprised—[Interruption.] Sorry, if the Member wishes to intervene, I’m more than happy for—.

Patently, they’re not accurate figures. That’s the whole point of this debate. You’re taking those figures as having to be absolute and accurate. We’re arguing that they are not. So, you can quote whatever figures you want to, Cabinet Secretary, but the truth of the matter is if they’re not being recorded properly and in the right manner, then those figures, I’m afraid, are not accurate.

Well, we certainly do disagree on that issue, because I believe that the recording procedure for individuals to even step over the mark to report hate crime is very brave in the first place—and that they are recorded appropriately in the UK.

We’ve all seen the history of hate crime repeat itself time after time: the rise of Hitler and the Nazis; we’ve had Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists; the National Front; and the BNP, as the Member raises. And I dare say that accusations have been around UKIP as well in the campaign that you have recently been involved in: ‘take back our country’, ‘the breaking point’, ‘take back our borders’, and ‘refugees’. I think it’s quite abhorrent, the fact that you raise this debate in the Chamber today, because I think we should all collectively dismiss the fact that any type of hate crime is, indeed, acceptable.

I recently attended the faith communities forum, and Professor Williams from Cardiff University made a fascinating presentation to the Wales race forum last month on the research into patterns of hate crime and hate crime perpetrators. He found a very small proportion of perpetrators are extremists pursuing their own premeditated agenda of hatred and prejudice, but what he did find, Llywydd, was many ordinary people acting out of more instinctive feelings of anger or distrust.

So, what is happening and what has happened, especially since 2015, to take ordinary people over that tipping point? Well, I’ve alleged the issues around the rhetoric of politics, which has been clear. Since 2015 we’ve seen UK-wide growth in the use of divisive media. I referenced some of that just earlier on. Immigrants are being blamed for the squeeze on public services and household incomes resulting from the relentless funding cuts pursued by the UK Government. Llywydd, this rhetoric has taken the genuine concern about terrorism, and laid the blame on all Muslims without recognising the peaceful beliefs central to Islam. Migrants have been blamed for the lack of job security and decent paid jobs for lower skilled workers resulting in zero-hours contracts and attempting to reduce workers’ rights and benefits—again, featured heavily in your campaign, on your posters, on your vehicles as you were driving around, on your leaflets—spreading, I believe, hate into our country. It’s against this backdrop, Llywydd, that some people have let their frustration and anger about the situation in which they are finding themselves spill over into abuse and harassment of people with different backgrounds from themselves. They feel that they’ve been given a licence to act.

So, what do we do? In the days after hate crime or terror attacks, we see an up-swelling of support and solidarity for people affected. When we see the worst side of humanity, it’s heartening that we also see the best side of humanity stepping forward to show it’s stronger and louder. I put it to you, Llywydd, that amplifying and growing these positive messages is one of the best ways to prevent hate crime. I would hope that this Chamber could collectively come together and support a braver, stronger community right across the world. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you.

That brings today’s proceedings to a close.