National Assembly for Wales

I call the National Assembly to order.

Before we begin today’s business, I wish to make a brief statement. I’ve reflected on yesterday’s Plenary session, and, indeed, on several recent Plenary meetings. Regrettably, there have been exchanges here that have been unfitting and unpleasant.

I have said previously that I want to encourage democratic debate that is vigorous and robust. However, Members should be able to disagree on issues without resorting to personal insults. I expect Members to show proper respect for the Assembly and courtesy at all times to other Members. This applies to us all, including Ministers—proper scrutiny should not be met with personal attacks.

Therefore, I want no more heckling of Members as soon as they get to their feet, no more shouting of insults from a sedentary position, and no more attacks on character. Upholding the integrity of this place is paramount, and we will do that if we listen considerately and allow everyone to make their points—that is the essence of democratic debate.

A copy of this statement has been issued to each Member.

The first item, therefore, on the agenda are questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, and the first question, [OAQ(5)0050(EDU)], was withdrawn. The second question, therefore—Neil Hamilton.

Diolch, Lywydd. I’m most grateful to you for your statement.

The new Tenby Church in Wales primary school opened in September this year, in what the headteacher has described as a state-of-the-art new building. I look forward to seeing the school for myself and speaking to those benefiting from this investment, when I officially open it tomorrow.

I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for that response. Mr Palmer, the headteacher, also said, in addition to welcoming the state-of-the-art school that he heads, that he is trying to build on a blank canvas and that there are insufficient funds for outdoor play equipment and for furniture, that several rooms remain unfurnished, including the meeting room, IT suite, foyer and additional learning areas, and that they have no PE equipment. He also wants planting boxes, raised planting beds, and plants to go in them, and a school that tells people what the institution is and is attractive and welcoming. Perhaps the Cabinet Secretary can tell us what she might be able to do to help them obtain all those essential items.

Can I thank the Member for his supplementary question? Together with the Welsh medium school, Ysgol Hafan y Môr, Tenby Church in Wales primary school has seen an investment of over £8.5 million, supported by £4.8 million from our twenty-first century schools programme. Tenby Church in Wales primary school has been provided with, as the headteacher says, a state-of-the-art building and suitable equipment. This includes the most up-to-date LED touchscreens in the county, Wi-Fi provision throughout, a state-of-the-art sound system, and comprehensive CCTV coverage. I understand that the local authority is keen to work with the school, and its school governing body, to resolve any concerns that they may have regarding equipment in the school. And, as I said, I will be able to see for myself tomorrow, when I visit the school.

When you visit the school tomorrow, I’m sure that you’ll be very impressed with the new additional learning needs dedicated classrooms, which are an enormous step forward for the provision of services and support to children with additional learning needs in south Pembrokeshire. However, the school next door, the Welsh medium school, doesn’t have quite such up-to-date facilities, and I wonder whether you would be able to discuss with those who will be meeting you to talk about the new schools, and the £8.5 million that’s been so welcomingly spent, will you actually talk to them about how we’re going to be able to provide, in the south of the county, additional learning needs support for children who come from a Welsh-speaking home and Welsh-speaking background? Because it will be very distressful for them to be able to only get support through English-speaking medium.

Can I thank Angela for that question? As you’ve said, the new Church in Wales Tenby school does have excellent special educational needs provision within the school. The establishment of a stand-alone Welsh medium primary school in Tenby is a welcome development. It meets the growing demand for Welsh medium education in that part of the world, and I’m very pleased that Pembrokeshire have invested in that school. It is my ambition that we have equality running through everything that we do in education, and access to support for additional learning needs through the medium of Welsh is crucial in establishing that. You will know that I and the Minister for the Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, do intend to publish an ALN Bill before Christmas, and ensuring there is equitable provision for those students who study through the medium of Welsh will be crucial.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for the replies she’s given so far. This is one of the first twenty-first century schools in Pembrokeshire, of course, so we need to learn from this experience, which hasn’t been perfect, but that’s a learning process. And I agree with the Cabinet Secretary that, really, it’s now down to the county council to negotiate properly with the school governors, on the provision of the additional facilities, or the facilities that some people feel are missing from a twenty-first century school. And that’s already been raised by my Plaid Cymru colleague, Michael Williams, with Pembrokeshire directly. So, when you go tomorrow, Minister, will you be in a position to view all these facilities for yourself—I’m sure you will—but, in particular, if you do find, and if you do hear, that there’s still an ongoing issue there, will you take the opportunity to talk directly to the county council in order to resolve these issues as soon as possible?

Simon, my officials have already been in touch with Pembrokeshire County Council concerning the statements made with regard to the facilities within the school. The county council do dispute some of the statements that have been made, but acknowledge that in other areas, such as, for instance, the reuse of school furniture from the previous schools, that is indeed a fact. Now, when developing a new school, the county council would usually liaise with the governing body over a period of time to address these particular concerns. Because this is a new school, those usual arrangements were not in place, and Pembrokeshire have assured my officials that they do indeed intend to work collaboratively with the governing body and the head to address any outstanding concerns. I will see for myself the facilities tomorrow, and my officials will continue to work with Pembrokeshire and the school to make sure that the children have what they need.

Thank you, Hannah. Citizenship and political education are important parts of the curriculum and will be central to the new curriculum. One of the four curriculum purposes is that all pupils become ethical and informed citizens. In the current curriculum, learners study citizenship and politics through personal and social education, as well as the Welsh baccalaureate.

Thank you. I welcome the opportunities that the Welsh baccalaureate and the wholesale review of the curriculum gives to embed action and programmes that enable and empower our young people to become active citizens and, ultimately, hold people like us to account. There’s so many good examples out there. In my own constituency alone, there is the eco committee at Ysgol Croes Atti in Flint, which raises awareness of environmental issues locally and encourages learners to promote a healthier and greener future. And, of course, the Ysgol Merllyn school parliament that I was pleased to welcome here a couple of weeks ago, and I know that you actually met them. They actually have a proper election campaign and an election day, and the eligibility to vote is that you have to be for, and in, full-time education. And what that does is that it embeds with those children the importance of voting at a very young age, and being an active citizen. Will you, Cabinet Secretary, commit to visiting some of these examples, not just in my constituency, but across Wales, to help inform the provision of citizenship and political education in the future?

Thank you, Hannah. I did, indeed, have the opportunity to meet with some of the children from the school council. Indeed, I met my counterpart, the minister for education on the school council, and she had plenty of good ideas about how we can improve education not only in that school, but across Wales. As you say, currently, these issues are predominantly dealt with in the active citizenship theme in the existing personal and social education framework, as well as through the Welsh baccalaureate. At both key stage 4 and post 16, learners have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of society and the community in which they live, and an awareness of global issues through events and perspectives. The education service works very hard here at the National Assembly to provide opportunities under the Welsh baccalaureate for young people to come and use our facilities and to debate, and we will continue to look at examples of good practice as we develop this area of learning and experience for our new curriculum.

Cabinet Secretary, I was last week refused permission as an Assembly Member to hold a public meeting in the new Ysgol Bae Baglan in Port Talbot by the headteacher at the last moment, trying to discuss local parking issues and access to community facilities at the school. The reason given was that it was a political meeting, but it was not a political meeting because we had representatives from other parties and other AMs from other parties there at the meeting. I don’t expect you to comment on this particular example, but how can we expect pupils and students to engage in the political process if headteachers, locally, do not know what processes are and what is deemed political and what our role is as Assembly Members? What training will you therefore carry out for headteachers who may not know what those rules are?

The availability of school facilities for meetings of that nature are a matter for the individual headteacher and the governing body, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment.

I think the issue of political education in schools may be quite pertinent now that we have the local government Minister’s proposals for extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds possibly at some future date. So, I wondered how we ensure that political education is taught in a balanced way to represent different political viewpoints.

I am delighted that the Cabinet Secretary has signalled his early commitment to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. Many of those 16 and 17-year-olds who I meet on my visits to schools and colleges are very anxious to be able to have a formal say in the political process. As I outlined in my answer to Hannah Blythyn, we have an extensive range of opportunities for children to learn about politics and the communities that they live in, and I believe in the professionalism of our teaching staff who deliver our curriculum to do that in a balanced and objective fashion.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, we are in the process of reforming the curriculum here in Wales, with many schools looking at specific areas, from the curriculum itself to CPD, and the digital competence framework, of course, is now seeing the light of day. We have over 100 pioneer schools working in different ways in Wales through the four different consortia. But, there is some concern developing, from what I hear from the sector, that there is a risk that some of these are working in ruts. The Welsh Local Government Association themselves have said that there is concern that they are working in parallel rather than working in collaboration. There has been a call for delay in order to take a step back, to take stock, to rationalise perhaps and to draw everything together before moving forward more robustly. Do you agree that getting this right is the important thing, rather than doing it swiftly?

Thank you, Llyr, for your question. I think it is true to say that, historically there has been some disconnect between the pioneer schools and different networks. That’s why we have brought them all together under a single network to try and ensure that there is greater collaborative working across the pioneer schools. We are also redoubling our efforts to ensure that those schools that are outside the pioneer network also feel part of this exciting process of co-developing the career curriculum with the teaching workforce themselves. I recently launched a new curriculum blog to allow us to directly communicate with all those in the field of education about these changes, and we will continue to review our progress to ensure that everybody feels that they are part of this important co-design of our new curriculum.

I’m pleased that you recognise that some of those schools that are non-pioneer schools feel somewhat excluded from this process. The Education Workforce Council has warned that there is a two-tier system developing that could be causing splits. So, I welcome the fact that you acknowledge that and that you intend to do something about it.

Of course, you then need the capacity in order to do this work of developing a curriculum, attending meetings, dealing with the other schools and the consortia, and so on and so forth, while continuing to do their daily work, in terms of teaching in a climate that many would acknowledge is already challenging in terms of pressures of work, and so on.

A number of teachers have recently been working hard to redraft work programmes in light of the publication of the new GCSE specification. That’s been quite depressing for some, knowing that that work could perhaps be swept aside as a result of the new curriculum, which could be introduced within 18 months in certain circumstances. Despite the difficulties there, are you confident that the capacity and the resources are in place among the workforce in Wales to deliver this programme, which is a change that will need to be made to a high quality and within a challenging timetable?

I am absolutely confident in the profession to be able to develop the new curriculum in conjunction with the Welsh Government for teaching and learning in 2021. The Member, Presiding Officer, is absolutely right to say that this needs to be resourced. Therefore, there are resources in my education budget to ensure that those schools that are participating in this pioneering work are not disadvantaged and have the facilities and resources that they need, for instance, to backfill when teachers or headteachers are engaging in this activity. What we do know is that, whilst it presents challenges, there is also fantastic opportunity for school-to-school learning when schools participate in this work. The professionals that I have met—and I have addressed in the last few weeks over half the headteachers in Welsh schools—what they tell me is that being part of this process has led to benefits for their individual school because they have learned from others and they are taking those lessons back. So, as we move towards our curriculum, we are using that opportunity to improve on our self-improving schools system, which they very much welcome. But, it has to be resourced, and I am confident that the resources are there for them.

It is going to be quite a challenge, of course, to ensure that the teachers we have today are actually prepared to deliver this new curriculum and that they are ready for that. Being part of a pioneer school is going to help many to be part of that process in a more natural way than would happen outwith those pioneer schools. But it is also important that the new teachers that come into the reformed education system are prepared for that system. Given that some schools will, perhaps, be introducing this new curriculum in 2018, how confident are you that the arrangements are in place to ensure that new teachers going through the teacher training process at present are prepared for the new curriculum?

You will know, Llyr, that a school cannot be better than the teachers that are within it. Therefore, equipping our teachers—both those who are new to the profession and those teachers who are already in the profession—with the skills that they need to deliver the new curriculum is absolutely crucial. That’s why, you know, we are embarked on a radical reform of our initial teacher education programme. We are out to consultation as we speak on the new criteria for the new ITE courses. But I expect change now. I don’t expect higher education institutes to sit back and wait for those new courses. That’s why I am greatly encouraged by the conversations that I have had at the University of South Wales, Trinity Saint David, Aberystwyth and Cardiff Met about the changes that they are making now with local schools in their area to improve the offer for our initial teacher training. We need to get it right for them. Otherwise, the curriculum redesign will be for naught.

Welsh Conservative spokesperson, Darren Millar.

Cabinet Secretary, the Cymdeithas Ysgolion dros Addysg Gymraeg has warned that there may not be GCSE textbooks available for students and for staff by the time that they need to be developed in order that they can take advantage of preparing their pupils properly for the new GCSEs and A-levels that are going to be introduced from next year. What do you say to that?

Thank you, Darren. As I said to Angela earlier, equity in the education system in Wales is crucial to me. While I acknowledge that the WJEC publishes specs and sample papers in a bilingual area, there is a concern about the availability of Welsh textbooks. I do not expect children who do their exams through the medium of Welsh to be disadvantaged in any way, and I am not satisfied that the current situation does not provide a disadvantage for those children. Myself and the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language have met to discuss this, as I have with my officials. It is my intention to set up a summit with all of those involved to look at ways in which we can address this concern, to see what we can do in Wales itself, with our universities and schools, our teaching profession, and the Welsh publishing sector to be able to address this failure in the market. It is clear to me that we cannot expect English publishers to put us at the top of the list. If they will not do so, we will need to do something different. If you would like to come along to the summit, Darren, you would be more than welcome.

I would be very happy to attend, Cabinet Secretary. I am grateful that you have taken such action to set one up. Of course, it is not just the publishers’ fault here. We have Qualifications Wales, which is yet to approve the details of the qualifications that those young people are going to have to sit. I am pleased to hear you refer to the fact that HE providers and further education providers will also be present at the summit. One of the great things that we have seen in Wales in recent years is the success of Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol in terms of ensuring that HE providers are able to offer courses through the medium of Welsh for young people to study in. What consideration have you given to extending their remit into further education so that FE providers can also benefit from the expertise that the coleg Cymraeg has?

Thank you for that, Darren. As you will be aware, I recently established a task and finish group to look at the future arrangements for the coleg. They have done tremendous work in expanding the opportunities for students to study through the medium of Welsh at a higher level. I believe that there is capacity, potentially, to do that at an FE level, and I don’t want to prejudge the work of the task and finish group under the chairmanship of Delyth Evans, but I believe there is an opportunity to better enhance the opportunities for students to study through the medium of Welsh not only at HE, but at FE level.

Of course, we’re only going to be able to achieve these ambitious plans for the future if we’ve got a workforce that is fit to deliver these courses through the medium of Welsh. What consideration have you given to the warnings that you have been receiving from different organisations in the education field who have been saying that we do not have sufficient numbers of teachers who are proficient in the Welsh language to be able to deliver these ambitious plans, and what action are you taking in order to address that shortage of teachers in the Welsh language?

You’re absolutely right, Darren. We need to make sure, if we’re to achieve our ambitions for Welsh-medium education, and indeed for enhancing the learning of the Welsh language in English-medium schools—unless we have the workforce readily available to do it. You will be aware that, as I’ve said to Llyr Gruffydd, we are reforming our initial teacher training education offer. There are incentives for those with Welsh language skills to come into the teaching profession, and we provide resources to allow teachers who are already in the profession and who want to develop their Welsh skills to go on sabbaticals to allow them to do just that. The feedback I’ve had from that scheme is very positive indeed, and we need to do more to encourage teachers to take part in that sabbatical so that we can increase the availability of Welsh language skills within that teaching profession, and give them the confidence to use those skills in the classroom.

UKIP spokesperson, Mark Reckless.

Diolch, Lywydd. Last week, ‘The Sunday Times’ published it’s ‘parent power’ tables, including the top 400 state secondary schools across the UK weighted by GCSE and A-level results. Is the Cabinet Secretary happy that the top Welsh school in that ranking was one hundred and eighty-second?

What is important to me is the progress that Welsh schools are making. Members should note that, last year, Welsh GCSE results were exactly the same as those of their counterparts across the border in England. But I’m not content to just benchmark our education system with that across the border. I want to benchmark our system with that that is the best in the world. That’s why we continue to work proactively with the OECD to ensure that the reforms that we are undertaking will allow us to reach those ambitions.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her answer, and of course next year and afterwards we may not have the opportunity to make such comparisons across the border because the GCSE grading system is changing in England from A to G to 9 to 1, and Wales is not taking that path. As a parent seeking to compare primary schools, and standards across different schools, I’ve found that a much greater challenge in Wales than I did in England, because the key stage 2 results do not appear to be published in a comparable form that allows easy comparison between schools. Is that the intention of the Welsh Government, and would it not make sense to publish such data in an easily comparable form so as to elucidate rather than obfuscate the differences between schools?

Presiding Officer, the Member has come across from a system that believed in competition. The Welsh education system is based on a system of collaboration and co-operation. It is by working together in a self-improving school system that we will deliver the education that our children need. The data that are available at the end of primary school are primarily there to inform teachers both in the primary sector and the high schools that those children will move on to how best we can support those individual children to meet their full potential. It is not there as a stick to beat the profession and beat individual schools; it is there as a diagnostic tool to assist the teaching of individual children. There is a plethora of information available to Welsh parents on the My Local School website. It looks at a complete picture of the performance of our schools. Data around achievements is one important area, but the well-being of the school, the value added in the school and the ethos in the school are equally important to the parents that I meet and talk to.

I note the Cabinet Secretary’s response, but the complete record is not available. I would quite like to look at what the key stage 2 results are for different schools across Wales, and to compare what the trend is in that and what improvements there have been, and to make comparisons, appropriately adjusted, between schools, as would many other parents. The system is set up for her and for the profession, yet somehow parents are not judged capable of making sensible and appropriate comparisons. Of course collaboration is important, as well as competition, but what on earth is served by suppressing data that should be available to allow people to make proper comparisons?

Can I also ask her, just before—because I’m not sure I’ll get very much in response to that—? When we move the GCSE results—. We’re having a new curriculum, yet we’ve chosen not to move to the 9-1 grading they have in England. Is she not concerned that Welsh students—if not now, down the road—may suffer disadvantage? Because many will seek jobs in London or elsewhere in England and, as happens now with Scottish highers, quite often even at quite significant sized companies, those results are not necessarily well understood. After the passage of years, or perhaps decades, if in Wales we have students who are graded A-G, when they are graded 9-1 in England, is she confident that that will not be a disbenefit to Welsh students?

I’m absolutely confident that the quality of the qualifications that we are offering our students in Wales is comparable with anybody’s—comparable with anybody’s. They are tough, they are stretching, they are robust and they equip our children with the skills that they need to succeed in the world of work and in further education.

Presiding Officer, the Member seems to suggest that there is no data available to parents. There is a plethora of information available to parents. There are the Estyn reports, which are publicly available for parents to look at. There is the school categorisation system, which is available for parents to look at. It is simply not true to suggest that parents have no access to information about the performance of their local school. It’s not the case. There is a wide range of information readily available to parents to see how their individual school is performing. Assessment and test results are there primarily as a teaching aid for the individual children. They are not there to provide false and competitive league tables for the Member. We believe in a self-improving school system, based on the principle of collaboration and co-operation, because we know, internationally, that is what works best.

Presiding Officer, prior to answering this question I would like to put on record an interest in this matter, in that I have a child attending a Welsh-medium primary school in mid Wales.

The national strategy for small and rural schools will provide support for schools to work together as well as a £2.5 million grant. This will support Welsh-medium and bilingual primary schools to work together and to share good practice. This will strengthen local authority Welsh in education strategic plans.

Thank you, Minister, for your answer. In spite of efforts from the headteacher and governors of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant Primary School in my constituency, in order for them to achieve a balanced budget, they have to make reductions in staffing from five to four teachers. In doing that, this will lead to the combination of English and Welsh infant streams in the afternoons, compromising, of course, their bilingual status as a school. Do you recognise the higher cost that small rural dual-stream schools face, and what do you think is a solution in ensuring that bilingual schools are not compromised?

Many of the matters the Member has referred to in his question are, of course, matters for the local authority rather than matters for us here. But let me make a more general point in response—I think the general point does deserve a fuller response than that.

You’ll be aware that the Cabinet Secretary made a very comprehensive statement to the Chamber on the issue of rural schools. She emphasised, at that point, the importance of equity, which she has again referred to this afternoon, in terms of ensuring that people are able to access education in the Welsh and English languages equally. We continue to wish to ensure that rural schools and schools across the whole of Wales have the right framework available to them, plus the resources, to ensure that they are able to offer those educational opportunities. I will also repeat what I’ve said on previous occasions in this place—that we are anticipating the Welsh-medium strategic plans to be provided to us next month, and I will be taking a great interest in what all local authorities are proposing over the next strategic planning period.

It’s clear that within these WESPs you would, hopefully, be seeking to ensure that language streams aren’t being mixed. That’s what’s happening now in Llanrhaedr-ym-Mochnant, as I understand it, given the current cuts—that the foundation phase is being mixed together in terms of language streams. That’s not appropriate or good practice. There are also similar problems developing in Llanfyllin, and possibly in Llandrindod Wells. Yes, there’s been a failing by the county council, and that’s been ongoing for a number of years, to prepare appropriately for the growth of Welsh-medium education in Powys, if truth be told. But, in looking at the WESPs, will you ensure that you don’t allow the situation to continue and that there should be no mixing of language streams, and that you therefore put the appropriate pressure on the county council to make appropriate provision to retain the language appropriately within these schools?

Llywydd, we’re all aware that proposals are being discussed in Powys at present. It’s a possibility that those proposals will come before Welsh Ministers for a decision. So, the Member will not be able to tempt me to offer any comments on the specific examples that he’s described in Powys this afternoon. But may I say this about the principle behind the question? I don’t want to create one model and solely one model for the provision of Welsh-medium education and bilingual education. I want to hear from local authorities about their plans, and after I’ve had the opportunity to consider those proposals, I’ll return here and make a statement on that at that point. But at present I don’t want to create any kind of linguistic straitjacket and say that there’s only one single model for Welsh-medium education throughout the whole of Wales.

Thank you, Vikki. Educational attainment in the Cynon Valley broadly presents a gradually improving picture. Having reflected on the recent Estyn inspections of consortia, I am confident that, whilst there is definitely room for improvement, they continue to play an important role in delivering improved outcomes for learners.

I recently met with representatives of the Central South Consortium at Mountain Ash Comprehensive School in my constituency and was impressed to hear about the year-on-year improvement the consortium has seen across every performance indicator, from key stage 2 to key stage 5. Success in areas like Cardiff is often based on work with pupils drawn from a range of diverse backgrounds where English is often not the first language. What lessons does the Cabinet Secretary think could be drawn from work with these groups to improve the performance of children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly in constituencies such as mine? How can the Welsh Government best support consortia in delivering such work?

Thank you for that. You’re quite right, within the Central South Consortium, we have a wide range of schools that the local education authority is operating. I recently visited Fitzalan High School here in Cardiff where there are 40 different languages spoken amongst the children in that school. I am very keen that each consortium develops a comprehensive plan for the effective use of the pupil deprivation grant, which is our primary tool aimed at ensuring that children from a poorer background attain their full potential. I am concerned, in some areas, that the use of PDG is not as effective as it could be. For instance, some schools do not follow the advice of the Sutton Trust toolkit, which has best practice and evidence-based interventions. I have asked, in my challenge-and-review meeting with Central South, that they ensure that there is best use of that significant resource that is going into our schools and that it is used to best effect.

Cabinet Secretary, the National Association of Head Teachers recently pointed the work of the consortia, praising some aspects of support, but made the point that there’s considerable challenge—and I’m the first one who would want challenge within a system, because, obviously, that progresses the system, hopefully, but they were pointing out a serious lack of support from the regional consortia when developing senior management teams and, in particular, pathways for headteachers to come through. Now, across the UK, there’s an issue about attracting people into the profession, in particular to become headteachers. Do you recognise the point that the National Association of Head Teachers makes about there not being enough support coming from the regional consortia to assist the development of the headteachers of the future?

Thank you, Andrew. I recently had the opportunity to address and meet with the National Association of Head Teachers at their conference in Newport. I think leadership is one area where we have not made as much progress as I would like to have seen across the country, and the consortia have a crucial role in identifying and supporting the continuous professional development needs of our future deputy heads, assistant heads and headteachers. You will be aware that I recently announced my intention to establish a national leadership academy. The shadow group, chaired by Ann Keane, is beginning their work in this particular area, and I would expect the consortia to be a crucial component in working alongside that body to look at opportunities to proactively seek out the next generation of leaders and provide them with the necessary support.

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring access to independent information, advice and advocacy services for children and young people with special educational needs. Where legal advice is sought, children, young people and their families can seek out private legal representation and, in some circumstances, may also be eligible for legal aid.

I thank the Minister for his answer. Following cuts to legal aid funding by the British state, there are now only three legal aid providers working in education law in Wales and England, and not one of them is based in this country. We know how hard parents of children with special educational needs sometimes have to fight to get the special education provision that their children are entitled to, and given the divergence increasingly in policy and in law between Wales and England in terms of education, the lack of a Wales-based legal aid provider is a real barrier to accessing legal advice for those parents. So, will the Welsh Government intervene urgently to secure equality of access to justice for parents of children with special educational needs?

I would prefer, actually, to remove the need for that sort of process at all. The Member will be aware from yesterday’s business statement that I will be introducing the additional learning needs Bill to this place before Christmas. We will be introducing a tribunal system as a part of that, and the rationale and the philosophical underpinning, if you like, of that legislation is to provide each individual learner with additional learning needs with an individual development plan that will take them from pre-school through beyond further and higher education, to the age of 25, and will provide a means for resolving those issues without, I hope, the need for recourse to legal aid or to any form of litigation. Our approach here is to ensure that we remove that pressure from parents within the system, although I accept and certainly agree with the criticisms he makes of the UK Government and their approach to this policy area.

One of the criticisms of the Welsh Government’s approach to this area, of course, is the fact that, if you’ve got a young person in further education, they don’t have the same rights to be able to challenge decisions made about them in terms of the support that they can receive. Is this something that we can hope to see addressed in your additional learning needs Bill?

Yes.

Question 5 [OAQ(5)0059(EDU)] has been withdrawn.

All children in Wales are entitled to free foundation phase education from the term following their third birthday. We know the foundation phase works and that’s why I am committed to giving everybody, in our approach to learning, the best possible start in life.

Thank you for that answer. Almost three years ago, the then education Minister wrote to me confirming that local authorities can, and I quote, provide these places—education for three-year-olds—in a nursery school, a nursery class within a primary school, or non-maintained setting, such as a playgroup or a private day nursery. Now, three years on, Swansea council is still only funding education for three-year-olds in local authority settings, so there’s no parental choice there at all. As Welsh Government has now adopted a target of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050, do you think that Swansea’s position, which does nothing to promote the growth of these places in Mudiad Meithrin settings, is one that you can support?

I’m grateful to the Member for her question and the way she has pursued this matter over a long period of time. I’m also aware of her view of the approach being pursued by Swansea council in these matters. I said in answer to an earlier question from Simon Thomas that I’m looking forward to receiving the Welsh in education strategic plans next month, and I will be looking towards how all local authorities in Wales will be seeking to plan for the growth of Welsh-medium education in their own areas and districts. I will expect that from all authorities equally. And in reviewing those plans, I will be looking at how they will be measuring future need, how we can stimulate future need and how we can develop to grow Welsh-medium education in order to deliver our vision and ambition for a bilingual Wales.

How exactly will the progress in provision contribute to the strategy for 1 million Welsh speakers? That is, do you have a specific target within the education field for three to four-year-olds in terms of how much of a workforce you will need in order to provide bilingual education in the future?

We do have current targets. Targets exist at the moment in terms of the number of children that we have in Welsh-medium education in all age groups. We also know that we haven’t succeeded in attaining those targets. So, during the planning that’s ongoing for the new Welsh language strategy, which will be published next March, workforce planning will be a crucial part of that and a central part of our plans. You will have heard the response from Kirsty Williams to a previous question from Darren Millar about how we can expand Welsh-medium education and training through the medium of Welsh too. These different elements will be a central part of how we draw up the new Welsh language strategy.

We’ll be publishing the additional learning needs Bill before Christmas.

Minister, one of my constituents with additional learning needs has been waiting over seven months for an appointment with the child and adolescent mental health services, and in the interim has been receiving just a few hours of schooling each week. How can we expect young people like my constituent to reach their full potential if we are denying them a full and rich education? Minister, what steps are you taking to ensure that children and young people, like this six-year-old child, with additional learning needs get the full-time education they’re entitled to?

If the Member has individual cases, then clearly she can write to me and we’ll take those up with the appropriate authorities. But let me say this in terms of the overall vision: the additional learning needs Bill will be published before Christmas, and I’m looking forward to the debate and the conversation that we will have in this place and in committee, and the wider debate across Wales, during the parliamentary process of that Bill. I will be publishing the code of conduct, the statutory guidance, to deliver that Bill at the beginning of February, so Members will be able to review, study and scrutinise, not only the primary legislation but the secondary implementing legislation as well. But both these pieces of legislation form part of a much wider transformational programme that I launched some weeks ago with a written statement, pledging that we will ensure that all deliverers of additional learning needs have sufficient support and the training necessary. We will also be ensuring that resources are provided to enable local authorities and others to deliver the transformational programme as we envisage.

Hello. [Laughter.] Right. [Laughter.] We are all very much looking forward to the publication of this Bill. I am very grateful to you for meeting with me last week with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Diabetes UK and for listening to the concerns about the need to include a duty to meet the medical needs of children in school in this Bill. Can you update us on what your current thinking is on that?

It was more of a surprise to me than it was to other people. [Laughter.]

I’m grateful to Lynne Neagle for both the time last week in conversation on these matters, but also the work she’s been doing as Chair of this committee in preparing the committee to ensure that we have the widest possible scrutiny of this legislation. At the end of the day, I want to have a good Act rather than a fast Bill and I think it’s important that the committee plays an important role in that. In terms of the conversation that we had last week with Diabetes UK Cymru and with the royal college, I was very impressed with what they had to say. I thought they made a very strong and effective case for significant changes in the way that we bring forward this legislation and the way the transformation programme will work, and all of those points were noted and you will see them referred to as we proceed with the legislation.

Deaf people have a right to access education. I’ve had concerns brought to me by constituents that this isn’t really happening as it should and there are staff at only level 1 or level 2 signing. So, Cabinet Secretary, would you please engage with British Sign Language students who have passed level 6 to work in the education sector, so that we can try and improve matters of access?

I’ve already met on many occasions with deaf students, families, organisations and practitioners working with those people in order to ensure that this legislation reaches out to all parts of the educational community and that all parts of our community receive the education that they need and deserve. Deaf people will be an integral part of that and as part of the wider transformational programme—not simply the legislation, but the wider programme—we will ensure that education is delivered by people who have the appropriate training in all languages whether it’s BSL, English or Welsh.

Claiming that it will

‘Transform the education support for children and young people’

with autistic spectrum conditions, the ‘Refreshed Autistic Spectrum DisorderStrategic Action Plan’, published today, then only really refers to the Bill you’ve already referred to, the additional learning needs and education tribunal (Wales) Bill. How will you provide assurance to parents such as myself, who had to fight to get a statement for their children because it was being used as a rationing process, a certificate of entitlement, recognising, for example, that exclusions of children who didn’t get statemented, who went to school action and school action plus categories, short-term exclusions doubled when they reduced for children in the general population unstatemented children? Is it not a real concern that the individual development plans proposed will enable providers to ration provision in the way, in practice, parents have seen for too long in Wales and beyond?

I fully accept that, for too long, parents have had to struggle and have been through very difficult and emotional times struggling to get the educational provision that they require for their children, and a part of that is not simply statementing but diagnosis as well. There has been a wide number of issues there that refer to the journey of the child, in this instance through health and social services, sometimes educational institutions and organisations and structures. I accept that there have been significant difficulties and sometimes failures there in that system. The introduction of the individual development plan, of course, is a way of moving away from that. It does deliver, we hope and we anticipate, and this will be a matter for Members to test, of course, during the parliamentary process. We will introduce flexibility for each individual learner so that we have the capacity within the code of conduct to have an individual development plan that reflects the needs of that individual and not simply the needs of the people delivering the service. So, we will be focusing in on that individual, but also delivering portability of that individual development plan, so that they can access services and it will be recognised by professionals both in different services and in different areas. So we will, I hope, be striking the balance so that people do not have to struggle, fight and campaign, sometimes, for the services and the education that they fully deserve and should have without any of that struggle. But we will also be ensuring that we do this in a way that is tailored for the individual.

I thank the Minister.

The next item is questions to the Counsel General and the first question is from Lee Waters.

Thank you for the question. I’d refer the Member to the written statement published last Friday. This case raises profound issues about the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements and the framework for devolution, and it’s right that Wales should be heard on those issues, and we will be putting our case at next week’s hearing. Because this is a matter of considerable public interest and importance, I have been as open as possible in the statements that I’ve issued and the answers I have given in the various sessions, as well as choosing to publish in full, online, the full text of our written submission to the Supreme Court.

Thank you. Given that the case to exit the EU was based, in part, on the importance of returning powers to Parliament, is the Counsel General as perplexed as I am that the UK Government is challenging the view of the court that Parliament should have a role in triggering this? Would he agree that this is a matter for all the Parliaments of the UK, not just the Westminster Parliament? And has he been in contact with other law officers to make sure that our interests are safeguarded?

Well, I can’t say that I’m perplexed. The UK Government has obviously decided on its own course of action, which is to lodge an appeal against the decision of the High Court. The submission that I filed on behalf of the Welsh Government, as Counsel General, sets out very clearly the view that we have, which actually supports that decision that the prerogative is not the appropriate mechanism for making significant constitutional change, or, in fact, for overturning the legislation of the United Kingdom Government, and also in respect of the constitutional arrangements that exist.

I’d refer the Member, in fact, to one of the points that we make in the submission to the Supreme Court that if the UK Government’s position was, in fact, correct, if the logic employed in the UK Government’s case is correct, then, in actual fact, the Prime Minister could have revoked article 50 at any time, even without any authorisation in the form of a referendum. So, we say that that clearly would be a perverse analysis and is plainly wrong.

We don’t think it pays sufficient respect to the democratically elected institutions of Parliament, this place and the other devolved legislatures. So, we think that giving notification under article 50 will modify the competence of the Assembly and the functions of the Welsh Government, as set out under the Government of Wales Act 2006. We say that the prerogative cannot be used to dispense with the constitutional statute. We also say that any modification to the legislative competence of the Assembly, or indeed any modification of executive functions within devolved competence, will engage the Sewel convention and that this is a key constitutional practice that is vital to the proper functioning of the United Kingdom. It provides for a dialogue between democratically elected legislatures about changes to the devolution settlement. We say that the UK Government does not have the power to short-circuit it through the use of the prerogative, so we will therefore be arguing for the High Court’s clear decision in Miller to be upheld and for the UK Government’s appeal to be rejected.

Since yesterday, I’ve had the advantage of reading the Government’s printed case, which will be presented to the Supreme Court next week. Rather bizarrely, it seems to ignore the one crucial and fundamental point in this whole saga, which is that the Government seeks to trigger article 50 consequent upon a decision of the whole British people in a referendum. In all the long history of legal disputes with the King in the seventeenth century, culminating in article 1 of the Bill of Rights, and following legal cases that establish the limited power of the Crown in relation to the prerogative, Parliament was acting as a proxy for the people and to control the autocratic use of the prerogative by the King. This is completely different. The people themselves, all the people of the United Kingdom, have been asked for their view on whether we should stay in or leave the EU. They voted to leave. The mechanism for doing that is to trigger article 50. Parliament has no role to play in that in any further respect. The people have spoken. There will, of course, be plenty of opportunity to consider in Parliament all the consequential effects of triggering article 50 through the need to revise all the legislation that has been passed in relation to the European Union since 1973. So, far from ignoring Parliament, this is to give Parliament the opportunity to fulfil the wishes of the British people, as stated in a referendum where they said, without any condition or qualification, that we should leave the EU.

The Member seems to be saying different things. On the one hand, he says there’s been a referendum, and that authorises the Prime Minister to proceed and totally to bypass Parliament, and then, on the other one, he says it is about empowering Parliament. But the position is very clear: we have a constitution, we have arrangements between the devolved Governments that are set, and encompassing all of that, we have the question of the rule of law. What the Member is very clearly saying is that we should disregard the constitutional settlement. He is saying we should disregard the constitutional settlement, and he is also saying that the rule of law does not apply. I made the point very clearly yesterday that the reason we put this submission in was for two things. It is nothing to do with the issue of the merits or demerits of the referendum itself. It is about standing up for democracy, the constitution and the rule of law. It quite worries me that the Member consistently appears to want to bypass the rule of law. That road leads only in one direction.

The Member knows that this answer is subject to the established law officers’ convention. The Welsh Government is pressing for improvements to the Bill as it progresses in the House of Lords. You will understand the reasons behind the law officers’ convention, and, whereas the nature and content of such discussions remain confidential, I can inform the Member that I have visited Scotland and I have held a meeting with the Lord Advocate to discuss issues of mutual interest.

I thank the Counsel General for that response and for pushing the boundaries of the convention as far as he can within this Chamber. I’m not sure if he’s making a rod for his own back here, but far more questions are being posed to him now that he’s answering them, so that’s something to bear in mind. One thing that is true of the Wales Bill, it would appear, is that, unfortunately, we won’t have a separate legal jurisdiction—something that’s been requested over many years by Plaid Cymru and something that the First Minister, more recently, has also been pushing for. Accepting that, for the time being, it’s unlikely to happen, as the chief law officer in Wales to all intents and purposes, what are you doing now to deal with the fact that there will be no separate legal jurisdiction and that there will be problems and difficulties arising as a result of that? What’s he also doing to prepare with the legal profession in Wales over the next five or 10 years in order to build the case for a separate jurisdiction, because it will come in due time in a further Wales Bill?

The Member raises an extremely important point, and I probably have to concede that, at this stage, we are not going to get the establishment of the distinct Welsh jurisdiction that I’ve always thought was a reasonable transitional process. It was very interesting hearing the Lord Chief Justice’s evidence to the Justice Committee in Parliament, where he was asked about this issue. And, quite rightly, he said this was a political matter, but he did refer very specifically to the fact that there is a growing body of Welsh law, with significant legislation, such as the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, and other legislation. The issue of the jurisdiction poses increasing challenges. And, again, I think the net effect of all this is that there will, inevitably, be a distinct Welsh jurisdiction; I think it will, inevitably, lead to a separate jurisdiction at some stage in the future. The systems we have we can manage, for the time being, but we are clearly on a path to significant jurisdictional change.

I would just make the point that I’ve made a number of times, that there is a sort of mythology in the sort of status that has developed around the concept of the jurisdiction, which really bypasses the fact that the reason for wanting to create a jurisdictional basis for Welsh law is that it is, ultimately, about the efficient administration of justice. And that is why I think, inevitably, we are on that path, and we will be there. I take some comfort in the possibility of the establishment of a justice commission of some sort in the Wales Bill, and I think that will enable us to continue to look at that.

I think, also, developments in respect of the appointment of a president of tribunals and so on also gives an indication of the way in which the Welsh legislation is going, the administration of justice is going, and the way in which, ultimately, the jurisdictional issue is developing, and going.

Without trying to tempt the Counsel General to go into political spheres, would he agree with me that one of the major weaknesses in the debates that we’ve been involved with, particularly in the second House, on the Wales Bill, is the unwillingness of law officials and UK Government Ministers to reinforce and to standardise the Welsh constitution more clearly, for the people of Wales and for Welsh politicians, and, indeed, for all the citizens of Wales? Would it be possible for him, as our chief lawyer here in Wales, to hold direct discussions with law officers in the rest of the UK on the dire need to bring the Welsh constitution to be at least a little more similar in clarity to the Northern Irish and Scottish constitutions?

Thank you for that question. And, again, I suppose I ought to repeat that, although meetings with law officers do take place, the subject of those meetings, for obvious reasons, remains confidential, other than, obviously, there are matters of mutual interest to discuss.

He raises, certainly, a point that is raised in the Law Commission’s report, which very much deals with issues around codification, and, I think, deals with the points that you’re raising with regard to the need for a clear framework and accessibility in respect of Welsh legislation. That is something that is very much under review at the moment, and I would hope to be able to make a statement at some time in the future on this very point.

The Member will know that this question, again, engages the established law officers’ convention. Nevertheless, I can assure the Member that the Welsh Government will work tirelessly to ensure that Wales’s position is protected, and that will, of course, involve very careful consideration of the likely impact of the UK Government’s Great Repeal Bill on Welsh legislation, and whether legislation by this Assembly would be appropriate.

Thank you for that response. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to ensure that EU legislation that relates to devolved areas is actually transferred here to Wales?

Well, the Member will probably be aware that there’s extensive work under way, across the Welsh Government, to ensure that we maximise our influence in the discussions with the UK and, in turn, in formal EU negotiations, and thereby to secure the best possible outcome for Wales. The Cabinet sub-committee on European transition is providing strategic direction to the Welsh Government’s work relating to the UK’s exit from the EU, and, of course, a European advisory group has been established, comprising business people, politicians and others with European expertise, and this will advise on the wide-ranging impact on Wales of the UK’s exit from the EU and how we can overcome challenges and take opportunities to secure a prosperous future and a continued positive relationship for Wales with Europe.

I think I would also refer the Member to paragraph 10 of the legal submissions, which are online and which have been filed with the Supreme Court, because that, I believe, actually sets out our position—the Welsh Government’s position—in respect of some of those issues. Paragraph 10 of that submission says that a large number of the devolved functions of the Welsh Government derive from EU law, and will therefore be lost upon the UK’s withdrawal from the EU treaties. We then list a number of examples: for example, the designation of special areas of conservation, designations for the natural resources body for Wales emissions trading scheme. Welsh Ministers have also been designated as a competent authority under the nutrition and health claims, and there’s a whole raft of these competencies that Welsh Government and Welsh Ministers actually have, and those will actually disappear.

These functions will, to the extent that they are maintained or modified, require a new legislative base after the EU treaties cease to apply. The difficulty we have with the great repeal Bill at the moment is that we have actually no indication as to precisely how it would operate, what it might contain, but I think what is very clear in terms of our position is that the UK Government must recognise that any powers in the devolved fields currently held at EU level must be exercised at a devolved level, unless there was a clear and agreed reason for them to be held by the UK Government. And, in that event, there must be a mechanism for co-decision making in these areas.

Well, it will come as no surprise to the Counsel General that, as a member of the UK Independence Party, I obviously welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is working on a new Act of Parliament to repeal the iniquitous 1972 European Communities Act. However, to set UKIP’s position with regard to this, whilst we support the Act, we’re also adamant that it in no way rolls back the competencies of this Government, and that we in Wales must be free to change or amend any part of the Act that affects those areas devolved to this Assembly. Does the Counsel General agree with me that it is vital that we not only retain those competencies given to us, but we shall also be able to amend the devolved areas covered in the Act to best serve the Welsh people?

It is certainly the Welsh Government’s case that there should be no rolling back of those devolved areas, and those powers currently residing in Europe that relate to those devolved areas should be dealt with as I have outlined. So, I welcome the comments that the Member has made. I would urge him to go one step forward and actually support the concept of the rule of law in respect of the matters that are before the Supreme Court as well.

Members will know my advice is legally privileged. However, Members will know that the Human Rights Act is embedded in the Government of Wales Act 2006 and consequently impacts on legislation made by the Assembly and Welsh Ministers.

Thank you. The UK Government has indicated that it plans to abolish the Human Rights Act, and, Counsel General, you’ll be aware of Amnesty International’s campaign against this. Far from what its detractors will you have believe, the Act protects ordinary people’s freedom, safety and dignity, and helps people hold authority to account when things go wrong. Indeed, the Act was instrumental in aiding families of Hillsborough victims in finally finding the truth. Will you, Counsel General, outline the implications of the abolition of the Human Rights Act for us in Wales?

Thank you for the question, and, as has previously been set out by the First Minister in his evidence to the House of Lords EU Select Committee, the Welsh Government is fundamentally opposed to the repeal of the Human Rights Act 1998, and, similarly, to any withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights. The Human Rights Act affects the Welsh Ministers and the Assembly in two very direct ways. Firstly, they are public authorities for the purpose of the Human Rights Act 1998, which means that they cannot act in a way that is incompatible with convention rights. And, secondly, the Welsh Ministers are under a statutory duty by virtue of the Government of Wales Act 2006 not to act or to legislate incompatibly with the convention rights, so that any Assembly Bill provision is outside the Assembly’s competence if it is incompatible with convention rights. It is almost certain that imposing compliance with a British Bill of Rights on the Assembly will require the Assembly’s consent by a legislative consent motion.

Can I refer specifically to the Amnesty International campaign, which is a campaign I very much endorse, because the Human Rights Act has been something that has been grossly misrepresented by certain political organisations and parties? For me, it is a jewel in our constitution, in our legislative framework. It is very interesting, some of the points that have arisen in the Amnesty International campaign, and I was very disappointed to see that the posters were subsequently banned by Network Rail. But, just referring to the comments that were made, for example, by Becky Shah, whose mother died at Hillsborough, she said that:

‘Without the Human Rights Act we would never, ever have had the second inquest. Without the Human Rights Act we would never, ever have got the verdicts of unlawfully killed against all the parties that were culpable. It was an absolutely imperative piece of legislation.’

Again, the parents of John Robinson, who died in 2006 from a ruptured spleen, where, again, the issue of second inquest arose, where the family said that it was

‘fundamental to everyone, in all walks of life. It opens access to justice for the man in the street. From the outset, all we wanted to know was the truth, and we were denied that by an inadequate first inquest. Using the Human Rights Act helped us achieve our goal.

For me, my personal view and the view of the Welsh Government is one of opposition to it. The idea of supplanting the excellent Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights with a Bill of Rights, in my view, could do nothing other than probably lower the standards of human rights, and what would that say about the standing of the United Kingdom in the world—at the time, with everything that is happening, to be saying that our objective now is to lower the standard of human rights?

I refer the Member to the written statement published last Friday, attaching my written submissions to the court. As I’ve previously said, this case raises profound issues about the United Kingdom’s constitutional arrangements, and the legal framework for devolution. It’s right that Wales should be heard on those issues, and we will be putting our case at next week’s hearing.

Thank you for that response, and I agree with the decision to become part of this case by the Welsh Government. If I have read the submission to the Supreme Court correctly, the Welsh Government is of the view that article 50 should be triggered through a Bill before the House of Commons—not a motion or simply a vote in the Commons, but a Bill. If that is the case, have you considered the kind of Bill that would be an appropriate vehicle for that process? Would it, for example, include a specific section related to Wales and European legislation currently implemented in Wales, and the continuation of that legislation? And have you discussed at all with other law officers how such a Bill could allocate time to respect the decision of the people of the UK as a whole and the referendum whilst also respecting the place of this Assembly in the democratic process?

The Member raises a very, very important point in that we do actually also have to think beyond the ultimate judgment. If the judgment is upheld, and it is necessary for Parliament to legislate, then further issues arise: firstly, in respect of the Sewel convention, in that the Bill will inevitably impact on the devolution settlement and we would have a voice at that stage. What I would hope—and, again, I think it’s the same comments that have been made by the First Minister from time to time—is that, at that stage, the UK Government will work to seek consensus from all the devolved Governments of the United Kingdom to work collectively for a common objective, ensuring that the voices of all parts of the United Kingdom are heard.

I welcome the robust stance of the Counsel General in making sure that the voice of Wales is heard at the Supreme Court. That’s right and proper, I feel strongly. Would he recognise that, in those areas of competences that he’s referred to, of course, is the very prominent area of competence in Wales of agriculture and rural development? Whilst it’s right that whatever comes out of the appeal hearing and the subsequent repeal Act should recognise where the competences lie, they should also recognise where the funding paths lie. Any suggestion that competences could remain here, but funding—or under some framework, these competences of funding—disappears up to the end of the M4, is frankly misguided and very dangerous for Wales.

I would certainly agree with what the Member says. Any suggestion that, on the one hand, a competency is laid with the Assembly within our devolved area but that the funding is then removed to another body, whether it would be to Westminster or wherever, raises very serious issues in respect of the rolling back of devolution, and a significant change in direction of the devolution settlement, and certainly, the undermining of the referendum that took place within Wales and the parliamentary process in respect of the Government of Wales Act, and also in respect of the current discussions and legislation going through Parliament in respect of the Wales Bill. So, I would totally reject that approach, and I would affirm that, with the responsibilities that come to Wales within the devolved framework, they should also bring the capacity to being able to carry out those responsibilities, which means the funding for those areas.

Thank you for the question. We continue to make representations. The proposed changes to civil litigation and small claims are likely to have serious impacts on people across Wales, and we are continuing to challenge the UK Government on reforms that restrict access to justice.

Thank you for that response. Do you, Counsel General, agree with me that this is a further step in restricting ordinary people’s rights and access to justice through the courts system?

The simple answer to that is ‘yes’. I’ll elaborate on it to the extent that we continue to make representations to the Ministry of Justice about its raft of reforms to the justice system to ensure that access to justice is available for everyone in society, including the most vulnerable. We have serious concerns about the quality of the evidence provided by the Ministry of Justice in support of its proposals to reform the process for soft tissue injury whiplash claims, which it is currently consulting on. Of course, last week, ‘The Law Society Gazette’ reported that data in the consultation paper was, in fact, out of date and could be potentially open to judicial review. So, we are pressing the UK Government to emphasise to it the importance of ensuring that the rights of all people are protected.

One of our concerns is that the proposal to increase the small claims limit from £1,000 to £5,000 would prevent many people who have suffered injury, losing the right to free legal advice. We are concerned about how robust the supporting evidence is. We’re also concerned about the basis on which this is pressing ahead, because one of the objectives with regard to the whiplash soft tissue injury aspect is to provide a cap on damages of £450, which is well below the existing small claims limit. So, if that was the objective, one would ask why this is actually taking place. Well, you have to look at it to see a more general direction that’s being taken, and that is to increase the small claims limit. One would ask why that is taking place and for whose benefit. What seemed to me to be very clear is that the insurance industry lobby is extremely powerful and is effectively promoting a series of reforms. The UK Government is consulting on those reforms. I would have to say that this is a battle that has been going on for a number of decades. Every reform that takes place results in injured people receiving less access to justice and the insurance industry increasing their profits. I have not yet seen a situation where there has been a reform that has reduced damages and has actually led to any reductions in insurance industry premiums. I think that is a concern if that is the potential outcome of these reforms. So, as I say, there is a consultation under way. The Welsh Government will be responding and we will be giving considerable thought to the content of that response to the consultation process.

As Counsel General, I have not yet had any specific discussions regarding promoting gender equality within the legal profession in Wales. However, equality is an important aspect of my desire that the legal sector in Wales is to be cherished and nurtured, supported and encouraged to innovate and grow, but is also representative of the society in which it operates.

I thank the Counsel General for that response. Statistics from the Bar Standards Board show that, amongst barristers, the gender balance is almost equal in terms of barristers being called to the bar. But, by the time it comes to practising as a barrister, there is a huge difference, with almost twice as many men as women actually practising as barristers. What is the Counsel General’s view as to what can be done to tackle this issue in the legal profession?

Whilst not, perhaps, directly relevant to the question, the Welsh Government has made representations in these areas, in particular about the composition of the Supreme Court. The issue has also been raised by the Judicial Appointments Commission itself and by a number of justices themselves. The Member may well be aware of some of the comments made by Baroness Hale, the sole woman on the Supreme Court. There are some data that the Members may be interested in: there are 108 high court judges and, of them, 21 are women and three come from an ethnic minority background. In the Supreme Court, of 12, there is only one female, and that is Baroness Hale. They are predominantly white, male, privately educated and, in general, unrepresentative. Under way at the moment are considerations of appointments of a number of deputy High Court judges and High Court judges. There is one Supreme Court judge to be replaced, and five to be replaced in due course over the next couple of years due to retirements. Of course, Lady Justice Hale said that the UK Supreme Court should be ashamed if it doesn’t increase diversity. What she also said, of course, is that, of the 13 appointments over the decade that she has sat, all but two were from Oxford or Cambridge, and all but three went to boys boarding schools.

The point, I think, that the Member is making, of course, is that our judicial system, to have the confidence of the people, should be representative of the people. I think it is very clear that, not only in terms of the representations made by the Welsh Government, but within the Judicial Appointments Commission itself and within the legal sector itself, there is a recognition that there is a need for far greater diversity. The UK has one of the lowest proportions of female judges in Europe, and this is something that has to be addressed. We also have to pay some attention, I think, to the actual legal profession itself, because, from start to finish, the number of female lawyers is where the judges are ultimately selected from. So, we have to ask why the system has failed up to now. If we look at the Queen’s Counsel system, only 13 per cent of those are women. So, there are significant issues that, I think, have been recognised but are hopefully going to be addressed, and are very much in line with the thinking of Welsh Government and representations from Welsh Government itself.

I thank the Counsel General.

I have accepted three urgent questions under Standing Order 12.66 and I call on Bethan Jenkins to ask the first urgent question.

Yes. I had a meeting today with the management team of Trinity Mirror South Wales, where I raised this worrying matter and expressed my concern at the proposal to close the Cardiff printing press.

Thank you. You’ll appreciate that, as Chair of the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee, I have an interest in this particular area, given that we will be carrying out more work as a committee over the next five years into looking at the landscape of the media in Wales and the retention and development of journalists, and the work that surrounds journalists here in Wales. We were told when they opened this new printing press around 13 years ago that they would be able to secure more printing jobs as a result of this new set-up, as opposed to fewer possibilities for the future. So, can you tell me, as part of your discussions with them, why this turnaround has come about, how the staff in Cardiff will be supported, and where will those Welsh daily and weekly newspapers be printed in future? I would have thought, with the acquisition of Local World, which the ‘South Wales Evening Post’ is part of in my region, that there would be more of a case for that printing press to be retained and sustained in Wales so that we can see a future for journalism.

My final question in all of this is: what are your concerns, therefore, if this is a printing press that is leaving Wales, and how does this speak for the future of journalism in Wales when we are already suffering from a democratic deficit here?

Can I thank the Member for her questions and say that I couldn’t agree more with her concerns? I also recognise the important work of her committee and the increasing importance that it will take in the coming years in analysing the media landscape and the important role that the print media plays. This proposal is currently out to consultation and I will be responding formally.

Unfortunately, as the Member may be aware, it is not a decision that is being taken here in Wales locally or by the Media Wales team. Instead, it’s being taken by another company within the Trinity Mirror group. So, I’ll be making direct representation to that company, in which I’ll be seeking assurance over the future employment of those people who would be affected if closure goes ahead. It’s my understanding, based on the discussions that I had with the local team today, that printing would be concentrated and consolidated in three presses in England, those being Watford, Birmingham and Oxford, which is clearly unacceptable given the significance of the newspapers that are currently printed in Cardiff to south Wales.

Now, unfortunately, there is a trend in consolidating printing presses across the UK, and we’re witnessing this as sales of newspapers fall and activity instead moves towards an online presence. That said, it is absolutely essential—and the member will recognise that this is a long-standing argument—that the print media recognises a need to be realistic in the profits that it expects to return in the twenty-first century. In being more realistic, it should take greater account of those people who are employed in printing and in journalism within those newspaper groups, whether they are owned by Welsh companies or owned by British companies.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

I call on Adam Price to ask the second urgent question.

Yes, I firmly believe our steel industry has a sustainable future in Wales, and we are fully committed to doing all we can to achieve this. However, we will not respond to media speculation as Tata explores options for the future of the plants in Wales.

The Cabinet Secretary’s obviously referring to the very worrying report from Reuters yesterday based on an e-mail circulating among the trade unions and other sources. Could he say at what point he was aware of the possible proposal to close one of the two blast furnaces at Port Talbot and if he raised this in his letter to the new interim chair of Tata, Ratan Tata? Could he also say: the First Minister has previously indicated that, in the absence of sufficient long-term guarantees to primary steel production, the Welsh Government would ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to intervene to prevent a merger under his public interest powers—is that still the position of the Welsh Government? The Cabinet Secretary has previously referred to the need for a long-term guarantee. Can he state on the record that three years absolutely would not be a sufficient guarantee? The report referred to Tata and ThyssenKrupp taking a minority stake and the possibility of a third investor. Would the Welsh Government, in conjunction with the UK Government, be prepared to be that third investor, subject to appropriate guarantees? Finally, if all these avenues fail and acceptable guarantees are not forthcoming from Tata and ThyssenKrupp, would he, as a last resort, be prepared to temporarily nationalise Port Talbot, as the Welsh Government will be able to do, according to analysis by the House of Commons Library, under the terms of the Wales Bill currently before Parliament?

Can I thank the Member for his question and say that I do understand the concerns that will have been presented as a consequence of recent media reports? But there are many, many reports that are circulating at the moment, including some that are more positive. I reflect on one just on Friday, for example, in ‘The Guardian’ that suggested that Tata was looking imminently at announcing that all 11,000 jobs would be secure for at least a decade. I therefore think it’s not the role of Welsh Government to provide a running commentary on media speculation, but instead to stand firm in the position that we take in terms of potential intervention.

The Member is absolutely right to say that three years of guarantees would be insufficient. We share that view. We have been, as the Member is aware, in discussions with Tata for some time regarding a significant package of support that would be compliant with European state aid rules. That support would be conditional on Tata agreeing to certain criteria. It would go beyond three years, it would include at least two blast furnaces being operated, and it would also include local management control, which in turn would then enable the UK and Welsh steel interests in Tata to identify new market opportunities and also to develop new products and innovation that would put it on a sustainable footing for the future.

It’s my firm belief that the best assurance of sustainability for Tata is the development of a competitive business, which in turn requires investment in research and innovation and in modernisation of those plants that are contained within the UK Tata Steel family. The Member raises the question of actions that could be taken by the UK Government in regard to a potential merger and I would say that the UK Government should do all it can to secure the long-term production of steel in the UK. It is unfortunate that, in the autumn statement, insufficient regard was paid to immediate action and intervention that could be taken, but I think the Member is right to say that the UK Government should consider all of the levers at its disposal to ensure that there is security of employment at Tata Steel sites right across Wales and indeed the UK.

In terms of the support that we would offer, as I say, we would expect the conditions to include more than three years—as a very minimum, five years—but also the guarantee of at least two blast furnaces. I’m confident, as I say, that the direction of travel that’s been taken by the steel sector in Wales is one that we can be proud of in the last 12 months. All steel manufacturing sites are showing positive results but, within the Tata family, I think the journey that has been taken as part of the bridge has been incredibly impressive and bodes well for the future.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that set of answers, because I think it’s important that the steelworkers and people in my community understand the strong position the Welsh Government is taking on this position? Since the start of 2016, we’ve heard very bad news. It started with job losses, then the possible closures. Steelworkers in Port Talbot, their families and their whole communities have been living with a sword over their heads for this whole 12-month period. The speculation—from positive news on Friday to less positive news yesterday—is not doing any good to the morale of the workers or their families. It’s important we get clarity on the position of the steelworks and the future of our steelworks.

In that sense, can I join Adam Price in saying: will you be making strong representations to the UK Government to ensure they take positive action? I’ve yet to hear Theresa May actually say anything positive about steel making. It’s about time she did and about time she committed to the UK steel industry. That is important—and therefore Greg Clark similarly—to ensure that we have a strong voice here and the UK Government is prepared to back it up, because they control issues on pensions, and it’s been known that the Tata joint venture discussions with ThyssenKrupp are dependent on the pensions being resolved. So that’s an important area. It’s also about energy costs, to show that there is a future for steel making. But perhaps you can go a bit further than the UK Government and actually seek a meeting with Ratan Tata to actually say to him directly how this affects communities and the steelworkers, and the commitment they have given to the industry across recent months, and that they should be rewarded for that commitment and not punished through all this speculation.

I couldn’t agree more with the Member. I think he speaks eloquently about the need to capture security at a time when media speculation is causing something of a rollercoaster ride of emotions within many families and households that rely on the steel sector. And I will most certainly be requesting a meeting with Ratan Tata to follow up my letter to him, which was sent yesterday. The meeting that I had with the chief executive back at the end of September was very positive, but I do wish to ensure that our message is conveyed at every opportunity to the highest level of Tata management: that we are ready to support them if they are prepared and ready to make the right decision. I will be meeting tomorrow with the Secretary of State for Wales, where I will relay the message from both sides of the Chamber that it is essential the UK Government acts where it knows it can to secure the long-term sustainability of the steel sector in Great Britain, and especially in Wales.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your answers to Adam Price and David Rees, and thank you also for what I’m now taking to be your definition of what a sustainable future for steel might mean, which includes the retaining of the two blast furnaces and longer than three years in terms of the support that you’re prepared to provide. If it emerges that a guarantee can’t be given to save both blast furnaces and won’t be given to secure more than three years’ sustained investment, does that mean that you will be reducing the support that you’ve already committed to giving Tata Steel? In your answer to me in questions in July, you indicated that any Welsh Government support to Tata was conditional on sustaining jobs and sustainable steel production for the short and long term, but also that you would work with any alternative buyer—and, of course, the potential of ThyssenKrupp isn’t one that appeals to all of us—but that you would work with them if they would guarantee a sustainable future for the Welsh steel industry. So, if that guarantee doesn’t end up being given, does that mean that existing support will be reduced?

Secondly, I appreciate what you say, that you don’t want to respond to every single press release, but I’m intrigued to know what’s the letter that which you wrote yesterday. Obviously, you’re seeking reassurances on what we’ve heard recently, but are you also seeking reassurances that the press speculation of a $500 million investment in the plant would be forthcoming?

And then, finally, as my other questions have already been answered, last week, or the week before, in response to the question raised by Bethan Jenkins, you indicated that the 49 new full-time job equivalents that had been announced for Tata were part of a strategic plan from Tata in terms of employment, rather than just doing a bit of backfilling or emergency cover. And I’m wondering whether the press speculation that we’ve heard today about job losses seems to contradict that comment. Perhaps you could just give us some clarification on that.

Well, it would seem to contradict it. What we do know—. The facts are that there is a strategic plan at the Port Talbot site and, as a consequence, a significant—more than four-dozen people were, or are, in the process of being recruited directly by Tata in Port Talbot. I am happy to publish my letter to Ratan Tata once he has received it, and I would hope that it will be received, if not today, then in the coming days, so that Members are aware of the assurance that I have given him of our position in being willing and ready and determined to work with Tata to secure the long-term future of Port Talbot and the other steel sites in Wales.

The Member raises a question about hypothetical scenarios whereby Tata might seek only three years of conditions. We’ve said our minimum is five years. That is an absolute minimum. And we are still in contact with other potential interests, including, for example, Excalibur. And our position is: we will work with others if others can secure the long-term future of Port Talbot and the other steel facilities across Wales.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I’m particularly concerned about the pension scheme, as has been mentioned previously in this debate. Tata bought Corus, as you will know, for more than it was worth and just before a recession, and it should have done the due diligence and known the liabilities, although those of us who have been involved in other pension issues such as the Visteon pensioner campaign will know that even a £700 million deficit in a scheme with obligations of £15 billion is really not all that great, and less so now that it is claimed to be just £50 million. Do you agree with me, then, that this is what makes ThyssenKrupp’s involvement so galling? Here is a company where a €9.7 billion pension scheme is two thirds wholly underfunded. That’s according to Bloomberg, which also said that the German group

‘makes more money with elevators than it does selling steel.’

Does the Welsh Government really want a company with a pension underfunding of more than €6 billion and such weak growth attaching itself to Welsh steel, and has it spoken to Tata Steel specifically about these issues?

I thank the Member for the question. I’ll say my concern is the long-term employment of the people who work in the steel sector, and as far as pensions are concerned, Tata has restated that it is seeking a solution for the British Steel pension scheme. Again, we’d urge all parties towards achieving a satisfactory solution that is in the best interest of all members of the scheme.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

Before I call the third urgent question, I would like to remind Members of the sub judice rule. If active proceedings of a criminal case or a case involving a jury are in progress, then Standing Order 13.15 prohibits discussion in this Chamber. Members need to be satisfied before speaking that they are not pursuing matters that would breach that Standing Order. I now call on Russell George to ask the third urgent question.

I thank the Member for his question. North Wales Police issued a statement about historical sex abuse within football. They confirmed they are working with the ongoing Operation Hydrant. I would encourage members of the public who have any knowledge of abuse of children or young people to contact the police.

Can I thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for your response? At the moment, of course, this is very much commenting on historical cases of abuse, and it’s clear today that most people involved—the majority of people involved—in football coaching are there for the right reasons, and do a great job with young people and society as a whole. I think it’s important that we say that today. I would ask the Cabinet Secretary what enquiries he has made in discussions he has held with the football governing body in Wales since the scandal first emerged two weeks ago, and what measures, investigations and support will be offered by the Government and the various football bodies in Wales to support any individuals involved, and ensure that justice is delivered.

Thank you for your question. My officials are in contact with the Football Association of Wales and football in the community trusts to ensure action can be taken as and when required. Whilst policing is a non-devolved matter, the Welsh Government is determined to learn lessons and prevent a further repeat of any child sexual abuse, and we applaud the courage of players who’ve come forward to expose the harrowing acts committed against them and acknowledge how difficult this was for them and their families. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 will help ensure that local safeguarding partners are supported by more robust leadership and a stronger, more effective framework for multi-agency co-operation in this space.

I agree that it’s important that we applaud the courage of the people who speak out in these cases, and the Waterhouse inquiry demonstrated in the year 2000 that children at that time hadn’t been believed, and that people hadn’t listened to them. And what that did, of course, was to place the spotlight on advocacy services here in Wales, which are a hugely important part of the provision in this context. Since then, of course, we have seen a whole host of reports—three by Assembly committees and four by previous children’s commissioners—expressing concerns about advocacy services in Wales. But we’re now, as I know the Cabinet Secretary will agree, looking forward and hoping that the national approach to statutory advocacy services will be put in place next year. But would you recognise, however, that we haven’t had the necessary strategic leadership from successive Governments here in Wales on this? Because waiting over 10 years to reach the point that we have reached—and we’re still not in a position where this national approach is in place—is unacceptable.

I thank the Member for his question. I have recently met with the children’s commissioner and with the WLGA and the director of social services to discuss the issue of the advocacy service. I am aware of the Assembly committee doing an inquiry into this and I have been given confidence by those authorities that they will have a service of advocacy in place by the end of June next year.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item on our agenda is 90-second statements. Steffan Lewis.

Diolch, Lywydd. I thought it fitting in the week when Wales hosted the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly that this National Assembly take a moment to recognise the bond between Wales and Ireland, and the significant contribution made to Welsh life by Irish people. The flow of people between Wales and Ireland spans millennia and, of course, led to a Welshman becoming their patron saint. Of course, not all visits over the years from across the Irish sea were of a friendly nature, and not all were universally welcomed here. Indeed, notable Welsh figures such as Iolo Morganwg lamented the arrival of Irish people to the shores of Pembrokeshire and Anglesey following the rebellion of 1798.

The most notable migration of Irish people to Wales, of course, occurred in the context of the horrors of the great famine, ‘an gorta mór’, where the hungry came for food and for life itself. A memorial stands in Cathays cemetery today, recognising those who fled that famine and as a mark of remembrance to the hundreds of thousands who perished.

The Irish community have enriched Welsh life, providing us with sportspeople, artists, workers, friends, and even a health Minister, and 2016 marks the centenary of the Irish proclamation of independence, a period and an event in which Wales featured. Irish prisoners of war were held at Frongoch camp, and it is said that two Welsh soldiers facilitated the escape of Irish rebels, Ernie O’Malley, Frank Teeling and Simon Donnelly from Kilmainham gaol in 1920. As their centenary year comes to its end, it is fitting, Llywydd, that we recognise the contribution of Irish people to our nation, and commit ourselves to strengthen the bonds between our two countries in the years to come. Diolch.

Janet Finch-Saunders.

Diolch, Lywydd. Tinnitus—not often mentioned here in the Senedd. Its impact debilitating, and the consequences can be devastating. Last year, James Ivor Jones, a much-loved member of my local community, took his own life in a tragic way after struggling with tinnitus for six months. His son describes his suffering as unbearable, and he sadly now suffers with the condition.

It is, though, often unrecognised, undiagnosed and underestimated. Often described as a ringing in the ears, sounds heard can include buzzing, humming, grinding, hissing, whistling and sizzling, and in some cases actually beating in time with a person’s heart, having a significant negative impact on day-to-day life, leading to sleeping problems and severe depression to 60 per cent of sufferers. Treatment, when available, includes sound therapy, counselling, cognitive behavioural therapy, and tinnitus retraining therapy. There is no single treatment that works for everyone, and diagnosis at a very early stage is considered crucial.

Action on Hearing Loss Cymru have highlighted that there is a postcode lottery for diagnosis and treatment here in Wales. I am speaking up today to call on the Welsh Government and all Assembly Members to become more aware of this illness, and would ask you to commit to an increased awareness, focus, and support early access to early diagnostics intervention and help for those suffering. Thank you.

Eluned Morgan.

All around Wales there are care homes, hospital wards and communities where people live without creativity, inspiration or hope for the future. Reported levels of loneliness and mental health are spiralling. I was the former chair of Live Music Now in Wales, a role now undertaken by the former Presiding Officer, Rosemary Butler. This is a charity that sends and funds high-quality musicians to play to people who don’t usually have access to live music. The organisation focuses in particular on working in care and nursing homes and in special schools, and I can testify to the fact that the experience of being exposed to the arts for residents is truly transformational.

The Welsh Assembly’s new cross-party arts and health working group, in collaboration, where appropriate, with the Arts Council of Wales, is in a unique position to bring these two worlds of the arts and health together. The group has written to both the health Secretary and the culture Secretary to ask for help in funding a study to prepare an evidence-based report where efforts would be made to collate the information and great work that’s already being undertaken in Wales to help justify a shift of funding from health to the arts and, where necessary, to do more pointed research in order to harden the evidence needed.

In care homes, the value of creative interaction is underrated, in particular in fields like dementia. Participation in the arts and music by older people can significantly improve their quality of life and mental health, and we believe that providing exposure to the arts is more cost-effective than popping pills. We hope that a dedicated piece of work commissioned on the subject will justify our position and help to make the case for shifting a proportion of that funding from health to the arts with a view to improving health and well-being outcomes for the people of Wales.

Thank you for your 120-second statement. [Laughter.] Diolch.

The next item on the agenda is the statement by the chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee and I call on the committee Chair, Jayne Bryant.

Diolch, Lywydd. Today is Gerard Elias QC’s last day in office as the commissioner for standards. I would like to thank him for all his hard work in establishing this landmark role over the last six years and welcome his successor, Sir Roderick Evans QC, to the position of commissioner for standards.

Gerard Elias was appointed in 2010 following the passing of the National Assembly for Wales Commissioner for Standards Measure 2009. He was an excellent appointment for the Assembly, bringing his wide range of experience, having worked in the legal profession for over 40 years. His strong commitment to public service led him to having held a number of public appointments. These include a deputy High Court judge, recorder and former leader of the Wales and Chester circuit, chancellor of the diocese of Swansea and Brecon, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s Cricket Discipline Commission and chairman of Sports Resolutions UK.

The Measure of 2009 sought to ensure the National Assembly for Wales had a commissioner for standards able to promote high standards in public life among Assembly Members; had the powers to establish him or her to investigate complaints rigorously; and, finally, a commissioner who was clearly independent of the Assembly and therefore able to act with complete objectivity. These are all matters of great significance to ensure that the people of Wales have confidence in their elected Members.

During his tenure, Gerard Elias has aspired to and achieved the aim of the Assembly being a beacon of standards in public life. He’s established a well-respected, independent office and shaped his role to ensure that there is confidence in the standards of the Assembly. I believe he has taken a measured and balanced attitude to managing complaints and engaged in constructive conversations across the board, from Assembly Members to the wider public, about reasoning for his decisions and those who brought forward complaints.

This pragmatic and approachable style has been valued by Assembly Members and all those who have worked with him. Alongside his work on complaints, he’s been a source of salient advice to the standards committee, particularly during the fourth Assembly’s review of the code of conduct and associated guidance, which culminated in the compendium document that was issued to all Members at the beginning of the fifth Assembly. Of particular note was his work to ensure that the Assembly had adequate sanctions and appropriate sanctions if a transgression by a Member occurs and his updating of the requirements for the declaration and registration of interests, which has brought more clarity and transparency to the system.

These changes made here have helped to ensure that the rules governing the Assembly standards are fit for purpose in the changing context of devolution. Furthermore, Gerard Elias instituted the biennial standards commissioner lecture on standards in public life, which broadcast to Wales that standards in public life do matter. Having secured two Lord Chief Justices in office to attend was a real achievement and an excellent innovation for the Assembly. This is an initiative I understand the new commissioner intends to continue.

I’m also delighted to take this opportunity to welcome Sir Roderick Evans QC to the role of commissioner for standards. I’m sure Members will agree that he’s an excellent appointment. Sir Roderick is a retired High Court judge and, in addition to a distinguished legal career, is also a fellow of Aberystwyth, Swansea and Bangor universities, a fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and was welcomed into the Gorsedd of the Bards in 2002. During his comprehensive recruitment procedure, Sir Roderick attended a public confirmation hearing at a meeting of the fourth Assembly. At this hearing, he comprehensively set out his vision for the future of standards in the Assembly and his approach to the potential challenges during this Assembly and beyond. His appointment was unanimously confirmed by the fourth Assembly.

The role that Sir Roderick is taking on is still relatively new and continually evolving. Undoubtedly, there will be challenges to ensure that the Assembly maintains the high levels of standards achieved thus far, not least as the committee starts its review of lobbying and identifies those areas that need further guidance and advice. The committee is looking forward to working with Sir Roderick to support him in building the office of commissioner for standards further, and to uphold the high standards of the National Assembly for Wales.

I’m sure all Members will join me in welcoming Sir Roderick to the post and thanking Gerard Elias for all the hard work he’s done in developing the role of commissioner and upholding the standards of the Assembly. [Assembly Members: ‘Hear, hear.’]

May I thank the Chair for her statement and welcome her, of course, to her role? This is her first formal statement to this Assembly, and I thank her for that and look forward to working with her as a member of the committee. May I also endorse the thanks to Gerard Elias QC, appointed, as we heard, in 2010? As a member of the standards committee in the last Assembly, I can testify to the fact that he did promote the high standards that we all strive to achieve. He has been an independent-minded figure, of course, but also entirely objective in his consideration of the cases that were brought before us. Our debt, as Members and, indeed, broader society, to him is very great in that regard.

You referred to the review in the fourth Assembly of the code of conduct and the related guidance, and, yes, that led to a summary document that has been presented to all Members of the fifth Assembly. That’s a valuable contribution, I think, to securing the high standards that everyone wants to see, but it does so in a robust manner, yes, but without being impractical or unreasonably burdensome. I would ask you, Chair, in looking to the future, that striking that balance is a very important thing, that is that expectations in terms of standards are commensurate to the level of risk that exists, and that we need a system that is effective and robust, but simultaneously practical and reasonably implementable.

I would also endorse your welcome to Sir Roderick Evans QC into his role. I had an opportunity to question him as part of the confirmation process, and I am entirely confident that not only will he continue the good work done in the past few years, but will of course also build upon the work of his predecessor.

The role, as you said, is still evolving, as is this institution, of course, and there will be challenges facing us, and we must not rest on our laurels. I’m sure that you would agree with me that safeguarding standards is an ongoing process in an institution such as this one. May I perhaps ask you whether you would agree that devolution of additional powers, particularly in relation to taxation, perhaps, will further highlight the need to continue with this work of safeguarding standards in light of what will be, I suppose, as a result of more powers, more external interests and influences and more lobbying, and that it’s important that we continue to ensure that the highest standards are maintained under the new commissioner, as we move forward?

Thank you very much, Llyr. I really appreciate your kind words as well at the start, so thank you very much. I think the commissioner, Gerard Elias, has sort of got into me straight away about the need for vigilance, but also proportionality, so I think the committee hears that loud and clear. And, as you quite rightly say, with the new powers that are coming to the Assembly, those key words are really important—that we continue to be vigilant always, and to be proportionate.

Can I also welcome the statement from the Chair of the Standards of Conduct Committee on the incoming standards commissioner? The commissioner plays, of course, a very key role in aspiring to achieve the highest possible standards from us as Assembly Members, so that the public can have confidence in their elected representatives. I think we’ve been fortunate to have had an excellent standards commissioner in Gerard Elias QC, and I think he’s done an exceptional job, always thoroughly objective and independent in the way that he’s conducted himself as well. I’ve no doubt whatsoever that Sir Roderick Evans QC will continue in that vein, and I want to, on behalf of the Welsh Conservatives, also welcome his appointment. I’ve no doubt that he will be also very exceptional.

I think it is crucial that the new commissioner’s remit is firmly established in order for him to fully understand the breadth of his role, and so I would appreciate knowing whether you as Chair of the committee feel that it is time, perhaps, to reflect on the scope of the role of the commissioner to see whether, because of the changing arrangements in this Assembly, there may be an opportunity to refresh that in some way.

Of course, the standards committee is also there to hold the commissioner to account, and we all have an opportunity to have a look at the commissioner’s annual report. But I wonder whether there might be additional opportunities to monitor the work of the commissioner and his office in the future, and whether the standards committee may have some additional opportunities to be able to do that, perhaps in a little more depth.

I’m sure the Chair will agree with me that it’s important that the new commissioner has a strong engagement with Assembly Members from the very start. Obviously, none of us in this Chamber want to see him too often, I’m sure, for all sorts of reasons. But, it is important to have a good rapport and an understanding of each other’s respective roles, and I wonder whether there might be an opportunity for the Chair of the committee to arrange for Assembly Members to be able to do just that in the future.

We’ve also got to make sure, of course, that there’s transparency in the work of the commissioner, and that the regulations and the code of conduct are constantly under review, and that they are understandable by Assembly Members, the commissioner and, indeed, members of the public. I wonder whether there may be, again, an opportunity for the committee to look at these things in the round, particularly in terms of public engagement and understanding the role of the commissioner, if they want to make complaints, for example.

I think that the way that Assembly Members, at all levels, engage with their constituents continues to change. There’s far more done by social media, for example, now than there was 10 years ago when I was first elected to this institution. And, as a result of that, I think it’s very wise that we constantly keep things under review. But I do very much hope that the new commissioner, in undertaking his role, will consider that part of our work, in particular going forward, to see whether there may be any changes necessary to the code of conduct in order that they can reflect the new landscape of communications, if you like. But just to put on record again my thanks to Gerard Elias, and the warm welcome that we want to give to Sir Roderick Evans.

Thank you very much for the warm welcome to Sir Roderick, and your kind words again about Gerard Elias, because I think it’s great to have all parties on the same page on this, because he has done a fantastic job.

I think you raise a really interesting point about the need to look at the role in the future, and I’m happy, along with colleagues on the standards committee, that we can have a discussion about that. I’m keen that we do keep up to date and follow things through appropriately. Your point about transparency is absolutely crucial, and, again, that’s an area where we feel strongly that we have to be vigilant. And the point again about social media: as you said, this role has changed incredibly over the last few years, and it is really important that we uphold those standards through social media as well.

Can I also add my congratulations to the Chair of the standards committee on the excellent way that you delivered your first statement to the Chamber? That also reflects the way that you’re running the committee in general anyway. Okay. Being new to the standards committee, I had little time to get to know Gerard Elias personally. However, I’m very aware of the legacy he’s left from his time in office, not least in his input into the compilation of Standing Orders—the Standing Orders rulebook. This is, of course, an invaluable asset to any newcomer to the Assembly, as well as giving first-class guidance to established AMs and Assembly staff. In my short time as an Assembly Member, I have come to realise the high regard in which Gerard Elias is held by all those involved in the Welsh Assembly. His legacy is sure to be a lasting one.

Can I also now turn to Gerard Elias’s successor, Sir Roderick Evans? It shows the growing stature of this Assembly that we’ve been able to secure the services of a person of such high standing. I’m sure he will bring as many attributes to the role, with an independence and authority that is so important to our democracy. I am equally sure that all in the Assembly, and particularly those of us in the standards committee, welcome him wholeheartedly to his new role. I know that the role of the standards committee will change over the coming years, but I’m equally satisfied that the Chair will lead us very competently in that role.

Thank you very much, again, for your kind words on that as well. And, like you, I’d like to echo the points about the compendium, because as a new Member myself, I’m very grateful to have everything in one place. So, we’re looking forward to working with the new commissioner. He’s already come to the committee on a number of occasions, so he’s going to ensure a smooth transition as well. So, thanks very much.

Thank you to the Chair. I see Gerard Elias in the public gallery. You’re too far away from me for me to work out whether you’ve been blushing at all the praise bestowed on you. But if I may echo the thanks that have been expressed this afternoon from all parts of the Chamber, on behalf of all of us, for the quality of the work that you’ve undertaken on our behalf, and wish you well for the future. Diolch yn fawr. [Applause.]

And we now move on to the Plaid Cymru debate, and I call on Adam Price to move the motion.

Diolch, Lywydd. It’s a great pleasure to propose this motion in the name of my—we don’t have honourable friends in this place, do we? But, he is a friend and he is quite honourable. [Laughter.]

It’s a timely debate, obviously, because we have the fourth national Small Business Saturday coming up, which is taking place across the four nations of the United Kingdom. It’s a nationwide campaign in each of those countries, designed to encourage people to shop locally and support small businesses, and I’m sure that we’re about to hear that it enjoys—I can fully anticipate probably—cross-party support in this Assembly.

Of course, it’s become something of a truism in politics to say that small businesses are the backbone of our economy. But it’s demonstrably true, isn’t it. When we look at the data, small and medium-sized enterprises account for 99 per cent of Welsh business stock, and they provide employment for well over half the private sector workforce. That’s jobs for more than 0.5 million people. And, of course, we’ve seen, as Wales has endured waves—wave after wave, it often feels like—of structural economic change, as we’ve lost many of our heavy industries, and our large employers, unfortunately, have gone by the wayside, it’s the small businesses and the medium-sized businesses of Wales that have had to take up the slack, and they’ve done that heroically in many cases, not under circumstances that anyone would choose, and certainly not of their choosing. So, this debate is about coming up with timely and innovative public policy proposals to support that core economic motor upon which we all rely. We can’t achieve all the things that we want to in terms of the quality of our public services without this wealth-generating engine, which is the foundation of so much that we want to achieve as a nation and as a society. So, this debate is absolutely crucial.

It seems to me that we are at a bit of one of those turning points in the economy. There are positive indicators. If you think about the potential role of small businesses, there are some things to be cheerful about because as a result of new technology—principally, but not exclusively of course, the internet—entry barriers for people who have a good idea and want to run with it have come down. They’ve come down in Wales and right across the world, and that is reflected in rising entrepreneurialism. It is reflected in the kind of buzzing start-up sub-cultures that we see in this city and in towns and cities right across Wales. So, that’s one vision of the future. [Interruption.] Yes, I will give way.

I thank Adam for giving way. Would he note that that’s not only an exclusive innovation within new start-up companies, but actually established high-street companies that may look like very traditional high-street front windows as well? Amongst these is a shoe shop in my constituency, in the Garw valley, in Pontycymer, which looks like a very traditional, if somewhat old-fashioned, quaint shop from the front and yet it has one of the highest internet trades in Dr. Martens in the UK, on the internet.

Yes, absolutely. Are we going to see him sporting those next week as well—or maybe now? [Laughter.]

I think that existing businesses reinventing themselves, absolutely, is as entrepreneurial as the start-up. Possibly we get too taken up with the hype, maybe, purely of the start-up, but actually the role of existing businesses and established businesses, we know, from the work of the FSB on creating the Welsh mittelstand, and having that continuity of rooted businesses and ensuring that there is proper succession planning, is absolutely critical as well.

The nightmare opposite vision of the future, of course, is one in which we all buy our goods from a single, monopoly provider, called Amazon. That’s the hyper-warehouse capitalism vision of the future, where there is a single global supply chain and very little is produced locally, and you see that that embedding that you have through the existence of small businesses within the local economy is lost.

So, how do we get more of the positive vision and how do you get less of the negative one? That is the exam question, if you like, I think, to political parties and to politicians right across the western world at the moment. We’ve set out in our motion some of our ideas and I’m sure we’ll hear some of the other parties’ ideas as well.

When we look at the data, of course, it is a mixed picture. So, on footfall, as we see different patterns of retail emerging, footfall is up: in Cardiff, it’s actually doubled in terms of city centre football—I mean ‘footfall’, but maybe that’s another question entirely; let’s not go down that route—between 2007 and 2015, and there were slight increases in Pontypridd and Bridgend as well. So, it’s not all doom and gloom, but actually if you drill down into the figures—

Will you give way?

Yes, certainly.

Speaking as a Member for Cardiff via the South Wales Central region, will the Member recognise that it is welcome that the footfall has increased in Cardiff centre, but it has predominantly been focused on the St David’s 2 redevelopment, which is an all-singing, all-dancing retail development and eating option and, very often, people don’t break out into the wider Cardiff experience, and that it’s important that the local authority and Welsh Government promote Cardiff in its wider sense and not just the St David’s development?

Yes, absolutely, and he’s anticipated my point really. These shimmering cathedrals of modern retail have an important part to play, of course, and we wouldn’t want people going elsewhere and going further afield to have those kinds of experiences, but when we look at the picture of some of the smaller towns that, traditionally, are particularly associated with smaller businesses and, indeed, as he rightly says, some of the centres within cities as well, we see a different picture, and it is a more negative one. So, large falls in footfall in places like Aberystwyth, Caerphilly and Holyhead, et cetera. That’s partly to do with the effects of online; it’s partly to do with the competition from out-of-town shopping centres as well. We do see, overall, that there has been a significant decline in the number of retail businesses within many of our towns and cities within Wales, and, of course, we have a higher vacancy rate compared to England, for example: about 15 per cent in June this year compared to 11 per cent or 12 per cent in England and Scotland.

So, the challenge of the changing pattern of retail certainly is a very, very important one for us in Wales, and we need to respond to it. Part of the response has to be, as we’ve discussed many times in this Chamber, looking at the issue of business rates. It doesn’t seem to me right that we are actually taxing people that are in physical retail premises effectively at a higher level than those that are trading online. So, we need to have, I think, a more innovative response to that.

In the amendment—we’ve linked this to a wider potential, which is to turn the whole of Wales into an enterprise zone. We need to build some competitive advantage, some comparative advantage, for our businesses overall—that’s small, medium-sized and others. It’s not an original idea, I must confess, making the whole of Wales—as the Cabinet Secretary knows, but I’m not referring to the article in ‘The Spectator’. Actually, it was the Ulster Unionist Party that recently called for Northern Ireland to be made an enterprise zone as a whole, so I’m not sure that’s the kind of Celtic alliance that my friend behind me would have supported. But good ideas can come from any direction, and, certainly, we need to be looking at coming up with new and innovative ideas that give our businesses, particularly the small and medium-sized businesses and start-ups, et cetera, that kind of edge.

Procurement—again, a key issue. We obviously have rehearsed many times the importance of the public sector, and I think my colleagues will refer to that, but I would also urge us to look at the private sector. Let’s look at what our large private sector businesses can do as well in terms of local procurement. Why could we not actually have a buy local and buy Welsh campaign that includes the private sector and have a kitemark for corporate local responsibility, if you like, so that we know that, even when we are shopping or having business with larger businesses, they themselves are actually locked into a local supply chain? The Romanian Government have just passed a Bill that insists that 51 per cent of food in local supermarkets in Romania is part of what they call the ‘short supply chain’—that is, it’s basically part of the local food system. And they are still within the European Union. It’s a much more creative interpretation possibly than we’ve had up until now in terms of EU procurement rules. If they can do it, then, certainly, we can as well.

The development bank, the national infrastructure commission—these new institutions that we’re going to create absolutely need to listen to the needs of small businesses. Small businesses haven’t always had—they have the FSB now, but they haven’t always perhaps had the lobbying power of large businesses. Sometimes, when we look then at creating these institutions, the needs of small businesses are ignored. I’m glad to see that the business case for the development bank, in particular, is emphasising the need of providing loans to microbusinesses. Similarly, with the national infrastructure commission, I know what the small businesses in Wales think is the pressing infrastructure need. It’s not actually the bottlenecks of the M4, it’s the bottlenecks in our digital infrastructure, it’s the inability to get connected to the same extent that businesses around the world are. That’s where, I’m sure, they would like to see us invest.

I have selected the six amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be deselected. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure to move formally amendment 1 tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Move.

I call on Nick Ramsay to move amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Diolch, Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to contribute to this debate and to move the Welsh Conservatives’ amendments in Paul Davies’s name. As our amendments highlight, Wales has the worst high-street vacancy rate in the UK, and footfall is down by 1.4 per cent, compared with October 2015. Okay, one of many statistics, but an important statistic nonetheless. I think we are all very well aware of the important role our high streets play in local economies across Wales, and that’s in urban and rural parts of Wales. We’ve had many, many debates—some of us more than others—in this Chamber about this over the years. I’ve spoken in many of them, and, in the last Assembly, I chaired the Enterprise and Business Committee’s report into high-street regeneration. I’ve got a copy of it here. It still makes very pertinent reading. That report made a number of recommendations—21, in fact. How many of those recommendations that were accepted at the time by the Welsh Government have been acted on? Indeed, in those days, the revaluation was not even on our radar, but there were other issues to do with the decline of our high streets that were on the radar, and which the Welsh Government was aware of. Three years on, I think it is important we do have an update on the implementation of those recommendations.

There’s no doubt at all that we need an integrated approach, which involves a close relationship between the Welsh Government on the one hand, the retail industry, a simplified planning system, and business rate reform. Of course, although this is one of those catch-all, or catch-many-things, motions that includes many different aspects, uppermost in our minds over the last few weeks has been the impact of the business rates revaluation. I have to say, turning to the Government’s amendment to this motion—well, it’s almost an alternative motion, I suppose you would call it—yes, we know that the revaluation is not designed to raise additional revenue, and we know that, overall, rates have fallen, but that doesn’t help those businesses that have been affected by an increase in rates. Let’s not forget that those businesses that have seen increases have, in many cases, seen nothing less than eye-watering increases. Only yesterday I received an e-mail from a constituent with a business in Tintern, who said, I quote, ‘It is with concern that I note the increase to my business rates of 60 per cent, which I think is unreasonable, unjustifiable and plainly diabolical. We are a visitor centre, which we could not run from a lock-up shop.’— Could not run from an internet site, indeed. ‘There is no admission charge. Your decision’—and this was addressed primarily to the Valuation Office Agency, copied to me—’Your decision will ultimately be the making of whether we continue in business or not.’

There was another one received a couple of days ago: ‘I’ve just received the revised rateable value for my business, and due to, at present, a non-increase in the small business rate relief threshold, my business will be charged, for 2017, nearly £2,500 that it is not charged now. I cannot support this cost and it will cause my business to close.’ The e-mail goes on: ‘Can you please advise how this can be avoided, or please come to my shop-closing sale that I intend to hold?’

Heart-wrenching, heart-rending e-mails from people who are at the end of their tether now they realise the effect that this will have on their businesses.

Cabinet Secretary, this is a deeply worrying situation. If nothing is done, we could see a loss of small businesses next year on a scale not previously seen, at least in those parts of Wales where the worst effects are seen. That will have a knock-on effect for high streets, employment and shoppers. This cannot be the intention. I’m sure it’s not the intention of the revaluation or the Welsh Government. Our businesses need action and reassurance, so we therefore support the call to expand the transitional relief available to small businesses affected by this revaluation. These aren’t just statistics; these are real people with livelihoods, staff to employ, and families to raise. Making ends meet can be difficult enough, as we know, without these sorts of rates hikes.

As the motion says, the current business rates system places a disproportionate burden on small businesses here, compared with the rest of the UK. At the end of the day, this is also a question of fairness. The Labour Party have always proclaimed to be the party of fairness—or always did—so, I don’t see how you can stand by and allow such a disparity to develop between the winners and the losers, both within Wales and, indeed, between Wales and across the border, where we have seen different relief support packages coming through.

To close, Presiding Officer, and just turning briefly to the last parts of the motion, we believe a target to increase procurement levels is a good idea. Levels of Welsh procurement are way less than they should be. I met with a local engineering firm in Chepstow last year that had given up on applying for contracts this side of the border because of the dominance of larger firms in the process. So, we need a greater weighting towards local firms and, yes, a buy-local strategy would be a very positive development. So, there’s a lot of good things in this motion. In conclusion, I thank Plaid Cymru for bringing it forward. Let’s get on with the job of regenerating our high streets and providing necessary support for our local businesses, so that they may flourish, put money back into the local economy, and improve the local economic environment for everyone.

My comments relate to section 2 of the motion, which refers to parking charges. Empty town centres and boarded-up shops are an all too familiar sight across Wales, despite attempts to liven things up with a little bit of tinsel and Christmas lights at this time of year. The decline of the high street across Wales reminds us that we need a strategy from the Government to support local businesses in our communities. As we’ve heard, it is becoming increasingly difficult for commercial operators to survive on the high street. Whilst developments on the outskirts of towns flourish, and online shopping is on the increase, high-street retailers are seeking support from Welsh Government. In my constituency, in Bangor, one in five shops is empty, although I have to say that there are signs that things are improving since establishing the business improvement district in that area.

In another town, Caernarfon, it’s a story of success as independent, niche operators create excitement. So, the picture isn’t an entirely bleak one. Following an agreement on the budget between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Government, a fund of £3 million has been established that will enable local authorities to pilot the use of parking facilities for free in town centres across Wales. This will also enable local authorities to assess the actual effect of this on the regeneration of town centres. I hasten to add that it’s not free parking every hour of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year, in all car parks: that isn’t the answer. That’s not a realistic thing, to start off with, and it could also militate against the intention, with office workers misusing the scheme and parking there through the day, for example, meaning that there wouldn’t be room for people who want to come to the town centres to shop.

Evidence from Welsh Government itself has shown that out-of-town destinations that offer free parking benefit at the expense of town centres. Lots of councils across Wales do offer free parking schemes over the Christmas period in an attempt to attract people to spend their money in town centres. Gwynedd Council, for example, this week has stated that it wants to offer free parking across the county to encourage people to visit our town centres over the Christmas period. But what our motion today notes is our success in establishing a new fund that will allow local authorities to offer free parking facilities at specific times in towns across Wales. In Plaid Cymru’s opinion, this will be a fund that will allow local authorities to make a bid for a grant to offer free parking for a few hours to support towns that really need that support. We would need specific criteria to ensure that specific towns qualify for this scheme. I think that the best way forward would be to create a pot of money that local authorities could bid for, and then to have criteria for the funds. For example, a council would put a bid in for £100,000, say, to offer free parking for three hours a day for a year in a small, convenient car park near the town centre, and the funds then would go partly to compensate the council for the fees that they would lose. The bids would have to be measured against criteria—for example, a high street that has lost such and such amount of footfall for such and such a time, a car park near the high street, and an explanation of why the council thinks that it would make a difference. The council would have to measure the success of the scheme as well in order to increase the evidence available related to the effectiveness of offering free parking in increasing use. The fund should allow councils to trial the scheme in specific areas.

So, that’s an outline of some ideas about how we should go about implementing this fund, and we look forward to being part of that discussion, if possible, so that we do develop a scheme that is viable and is genuinely going to have an effect.,

We need a holistic strategy to regenerate our high streets. Offering free car parking as a policy on its own, of course, isn’t going to solve the whole problem. But Welsh Government does need to try and pilot these kinds of alternative schemes to try to overturn this historic decline.

This Saturday, as part of Small Business Saturday, I’ll be visiting a range of small businesses that enrich my constituency, starting with the Headmistress hairdresser at the Maelfa shopping centre in Llanedeyrn, celebrating 40 years cutting and shaping the hair of local residents. I’m sure that, during that time, she has listened to all the achievements and disappointments, including the births, deaths and marriages that mark the milestones in people’s lives. Next, I will go to the excellent butchers next door—the best butcher in Cardiff by a long way—a man who knows exactly where all his meat and eggs come from, and makes his delicious pies himself. What’s not to like about a stew pack at £2.96 a kilo, which even the poorest family can afford, as well as the fabulous salt marsh lamb, and other cuts for special occasions? I’ll then walk across the corridor to the fruit and veg shop, run by another local member of the corridor. Every day for the last 40 years, she has left home at 5 o’clock in the morning to go to Bessemer Road wholesale market to make sure she gets the best value fresh produce for her customers. She delivers bulky items like sacks of potatoes to people who don’t have cars.

These people provide a service to their community and aren’t just interested in the bottom line. That is one of the fundamentals of small businesses. So, I’ll add my voice to those encouraging people to spend at least £10 in local shops this Saturday. We either use them or lose them, and people need to be mindful of the community cohesion they offer beyond the ability of the warehouse emporiums, which have a role for dry goods or large wholesale purchases, but can never replicate the intimacy and community cohesion of small businesses. That’s why Labour-run Cardiff council is investing £1 million to regenerate the Maelfa shopping centre, and I salute them for it.

Turning now to the contribution of Nick Ramsay, the glass-half-empty approach, I’d like to point out to him that, compared with the Welsh Labour scheme, where more than 70 per cent of small businesses in Wales will receive support either through the retail relief scheme or the other schemes that are available—. Compare that with the UK Government, run by your party, where only a third of business rate payers will pay no rates at all. Over 60 per cent in Wales will not be paying, so I think that we need to get some balance into this debate about the immense support that the Welsh Government—[Interruption.] Yes, I’m happy to do that.

I’m very grateful to you for giving way on that. I did actually say in my contribution that, on average, there is a reduction in rates across Wales. So, I did acknowledge that. My point was that, for those businesses in those parts of Wales that have been affected, they have been particularly badly affected. I think it would be a complacent approach not to recognise that, and to put in particular measures for those businesses so that they don’t have to suffer. We don’t want anyone to suffer from this revaluation.

Okay, I understand that. But there is also a further fund to assist with transition where businesses have seen a rate rise. We have to remember that the valuation office is an independent body, as is highlighted in amendment 1. It is independent of both Welsh Government and the UK Government.

While some rateable values have increased, overall they have fallen as part of this revaluation. There’s £10 million on the table in transitional relief to businesses that have been particularly affected, so more than three quarters of all businesses in Wales will receive some form of tax cut to cover their rate bills over the next year. There’s going to be, over the next year, £200 million in financial assistance to businesses through mandatory and discretionary reliefs.

I’m also very proud of the work that’s done to regenerate town centres through Vibrant and Viable Places—£110 million to bring town centres back to life, since 2014 up until next year—new affordable housing, upgraded community facilities, creating jobs, supporting people into work and securing additional investment, mainly through the EU.

Car parking—I just want to highlight the fact that car parking is not the panacea for regenerating communities. There’s lots of examples of where free car parking actually prevents people who need to shop from actually getting a place. So, there’s lots of interesting examples produced by Sustrans that people actually want better facilities for pedestrians and cyclists and that they are more likely to return to the high street and spend more money over time than customers arriving by car. Unlimited free parking hurts high streets.

Outside the UK, in New York, new bike lanes and removal of parking boosted trade on Eighth Avenue compared to other areas of the city. And an innovative approach used in San Francisco has demand-sensitive charging where the parking price changes depending on how many spaces are filled, ensuring turnover of customers at busy times. I think that’s a really interesting bit of evidence from across the world. We have to look in detail at what works. Cheaper car parking is not the panacea to make our high streets a success again.

I will be mainly focusing on business rates, but if I could just follow up on what Jenny Rathbone has just said, no-one is making the case that city centre parking is a panacea in any way. But they should be recognised by their actions, and I notice that the Labour council in Rhondda Cynon Taf have just announced free parking over the Christmas period in order to promote town centres in that area. So, you must take action yourself if you are to criticise others.

But I want to focus on business rates, and the opportunities provided by reforming business rates to regenerate many of our town centres. I will be spending Small Business Saturday visiting small businesses, and I hope to be in Narberth, one of the towns which has succeeded and demonstrated how changes to business rates can regenerate the centre of a small town. There was a business rates holiday over a long period in Narberth in order to allow new businesses to be established and to actually break that link that you would have to commit for a long period to take over a property. Anyone who’s visited Narberth will now realise that that approach has led to a number of small businesses establishing, from butchers to craft shops to food outlets, but also everyday shops. So, you can go to Narberth and find what you need for your weekly shop and pay very little to park, if I may say, for an hour or two.

But it’s also true to say that the Government hasn’t responded to the increase in business rates in an appropriate manner that actually learns lessons from towns such as Narberth and other towns in Wales. We are at risk of creating a business rates system that could be among the highest in Britain, and I don’t think that that puts the local high street in an ideal position by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t think that the Government is demonstrating that they want to see the kind of local market establishing itself, as Adam Price outlined in opening the debate. We’re about to move to a system where, in terms of the rates, we in Wales will be the most expensive in that regard in Britain. That doesn’t give us that edge, and it doesn’t show support for businesses, and it doesn’t actually put businesses in that competitive position that we would like to see in promoting our small businesses on the high street.

That, of course, is a pledge broken by the Government. They pledged to have an improved system in their manifesto, and of course we saw the greatest spin possible that continuing the current regime was in some way a cut in business rates. Well, the small businesses have seen through that spin and have seen that the devolution of business rates hasn’t benefitted them in the most appropriate way. I do hope that this will be a temporary system, because if we are serious about developing the economy, we must use all economic tools possible. We have very few of these tools, and there aren’t many provided by the Wales Bill either. But we do know that business rates are one of the most powerful tools that we have in our armoury—outwith the block grant, of course. So it’s one of the things where we can make a difference.

One thing that we can do and consider in earnest here in Wales is to change the multiplier to the CPI, rather than RPI. Another thing that we could look at is why on earth we have one multiplier across the whole of Wales. Not all areas of Wales are the same; not all businesses are the same. In Scotland, they have different multipliers for small businesses and larger businesses, and I would like us to look at that—[Interruption.] In just a second, yes. But I would hope that we could look at regional multipliers, too. For example, I’m always banging on about the Cleddau bridge being tolled, and that is a toll on small businesses in an enterprise zone. We can consider how we could use the business levy to respond to the toll in that area. I will give way on that point.

Diolch yn fawr. You mentioned the question of the split multiplier that applies in England and Scotland. Isn’t it the case, though, that we have to be cautious about drawing those direct comparisons, because the nature of the tax base is actually very different—certainly in England—from Wales? In particular with the small number of higher value rateable properties in Wales, the burden on those of carrying the discount for the larger small business sector would be probably uneconomic. Would he acknowledge that?

I’m not sure if I accept the argument entirely. I accept the evidence that you’ve provided, and it’s one of the things that I want to mention, because it’s one of the issues around parking. One of the things we haven’t done in Wales is to use business rates to look at things such as car parks in supermarkets and out-of-town developments, where there are no taxes at all. So, in looking at that, I do think we need a fresh approach. We’ll have to gather that evidence, but I think we need a fresh look at how we can move forward here.

The final thing I want to mention, as my time is coming to an end, is the fact that we perhaps could reflect on business rates and reflect on the issue of business rates for tourism businesses. There was a meeting last night of the tourism marketing association of Abersoch, where there was a great deal of discussion on the fact that a number of businesses are only operational for six months of the year, when tourism is at its peak. Any overview of new business rates has to take tourism businesses into account.

Small Business Saturday—what a fantastic way of helping our amazing business owners, our shopkeepers, hotel owners, leisure facility operators, cafes, our pubs, those in the service industry, our farmers, our cab drivers; in fact, all those who get up early in the morning, work hard all day to provide for themselves and their families—the small business owners who we expect to provide for us all year round, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, in fair weather or foul, good health or bad, and even when they feel that everything is actually competing against them, and that Government policy is working against them: business rates, rents, overheads, VAT returns. Such initiatives can have a real boost to town centres across Wales, such as Conwy in my constituency, where 92.5 per cent of shops are independent. Here in Wales, though, we still have the worst high-street vacancy rate in the UK, with footfall down by 1.4 per cent since last year. So, there is room for improvement.

We recognise the benefit to town centres and our high streets that free parking can have. We welcome the £3 million of funding has been awarded for a pilot scheme designed to end town centre parking charges announced in last month’s budget. Neath Port Talbot and Swansea councils will be offering free parking over the festive period to attract shoppers and benefit local businesses and town centres. But, this should be promoted all year round, not just in the lead-up to Christmas or for Small Business Saturday. Such initiatives can help to combat the loss of business to out-of-town retail parks. Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen offer free parking all year round, as they prioritise the regeneration of their town centres. Yet Cardiff council, which almost doubled the maximum parking charges to £10 last year, despite much opposition, saw a profit of £3.5 million. This is not the way councils should be gaining revenue. We must look at an improved business rates system and better relief.

Thank you very much for that. Just to point out that the whole purpose of raising the money from parking charges is to give councils the money to introduce safer roads for cyclists and pedestrians. That’s an important source of revenue, otherwise we won’t be able to make advances.

Thank you for that, but how many businesses are under the cosh and do we lose as a result of these high car parking charges?

We are calling for improved rate relief for businesses valued up to £12,000, and tapered for those up to £15,000. In response to the draft revaluation, the Federation of Small Businesses has called for more regular revaluations to ensure that bills are more reflective of economic circumstances and rents, and for an agreed position on the local retention of business rates as soon as possible. Local retention would ensure local authority support, showing support for businesses, and could be reinvested in promoting and regenerating our high streets.

Finally, it is essential that we recognise the benefit of small shops to the Welsh economy and our communities. There are 3,096 convenience stores in Wales, providing almost 25,000 jobs in Wales. Seventy-four per cent are owned and operated by small business owners. These offer valuable community services—local notice boards, cash machines, mobile phone top-up, parcel collection and click and collect services. Seventy-nine per cent of independent retailers in Wales engaged in some form of community work in the past year—collecting money for charity, providing support to community events and activities, sponsoring a local sports team or hosting local community or business association meetings and projects

Deputy Llywydd, we must acknowledge and value our high streets to ensure that our town centres remain prosperous and vibrant after Small Business Saturday, after Christmas, all year round. Small Business Saturday, 3 December—let’s tweet it, let’s Facebook it, and let’s celebrate it. [Assembly Members: ‘Hear, hear.’]

I’ll follow your call to arms, Janet—your passion shines through. I think we should be having this debate in relation to how we want our debates to be perceived by the public, and how the public can actually engage with the debates that we have in the Assembly. I say this because I sometimes think that we can come up with quite high-end ideas, but when we talk to people on the street, they’re very simple about what they actually want to see happening in their communities. For example, in Neath, they want to have actual decorations on their Christmas tree that will make the experience of going into town more pleasurable. They want to be able to have a pleasurable shopping experience across Wales, and I think what we’re missing in this debate is a unique selling point for our town centres: Hay-on-Wye, an excellent place to go to buy books; Penarth, boutique shops. Let’s look at how we can make a map of Wales and look at different towns in a different light, and sell that to ourselves and sell that to people who come to Wales.

I often imagine myself as a tourist in Wales, or as a traveller. What would I do if I wanted to go abroad, and what would I want to see? I think we should try and scope our services and our small businesses in that manner to offer somebody something different in the different towns and cities that they visit. I think we are lacking in that. We’re not selling ourselves effectively to Wales, so how then can we sell ourselves to an international community in that context?

Last night, I did a Facebook update on the fact that I was going to buy Christmas presents early to get it out of the way, because I was feeling a bit of a Scrooge and I didn’t really want to spend all of December shopping. I said that I was buying them online, and I had instant criticism from people for buying online. But there are local businesses who sell online, and I don’t want to name brands, but Etsy is a really good website that incorporates lots of different products. You can actually tailor it so that you can buy from Wales only, and then Welsh producers only who make their own crafts and make their own things. And I think, again, this is something we need to be developing and specialising in, because it doesn’t have to mean that if you’re buying from the internet that you’re buying from the Amazons of this world. There is value in just sitting at home, in bed, just clicking on something and not having to go to the town centre. That’s a light-hearted comment; I’m saying there’s a mix of how people want to approach small business, and how we can engage.

But I certainly think what we need to do more of is to see small businesses as part of the community and for the community to feel that the businesses are working with them. Bridgend was used by Adam Price as an example, but I know that businesses there are increasingly frustrated about the fact that they are seeing not enough people coming and shopping in their town centre. The elephant in the room, is it not, is that in some town centres there are not the quality shops or the variance of shops that people want to have? You know, people will not go into our town centres if they do not have the type of shops that they want to shop in. It’s just the reality of life.

In Merthyr, where I come from, my dad has a poem on the bench as part of one of the grants that the Welsh Government gave—a really pretty bench with poems all over the town centre, but that does not mean that more people are going to come into the town to sit on those benches, because the shops that are there are not the shops that they want to shop in. So, I think that these are debates that we really need to be having so that we can encourage people, again, to see the value of our town centres. I don’t know if Andrew R. T. Davies—

Thank you very much, Bethan. You mentioned Bridgend town centre and as someone who’s very familiar with Bridgend town centre, going back to the 1970s when it was a market town, one thing that the shopkeepers in Bridgend do need—and they’re not trying to recreate some era of the 1950s and 1960s—is consistency from the local authority about what plans they have for development. We’ve had pedestrianisation, now we’re reversing that. A bit of consistency would give them confidence to invest in the product that they’re offering the consumer coming into Bridgend, would it not?

Yes, exactly, and I think all they’ve wanted to do is to try and tell the council, ‘Look, these are our problems. This is what we’re trying to overcome. We want people to spend their money here in the town centre but currently they’re not.’ We have to get around that and I think sometimes that the intransigence of local authority officials is actually stifling development in their own backyard, which is an embarrassing indictment on them when actually the businesses only want to support what the council is doing in relation to those business developments.

I’ve had my little rant for the day but I think that it’s important that we try and support our businesses, as Janet said, not just on Small Business Saturday but every day of the week, even if it is online.

I’m very pleased to take part in this debate and I commend Plaid Cymru for bringing this motion before the Assembly. Adam Price can always be relied upon to be an attractive face of his party—[Laughter.]—and is a fund of good and interesting ideas. And there are some of them in this motion. [Interruption.] You want me to withdraw that remark. [Laughter.]

Edmund Burke said that

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

A good part of the debate today has concentrated upon the business rating system and rightly so. I listened with interest to Jenny Rathbone’s attempt to defend what I think is a very largely indefensible system, and surely it’s a mark of a very bad tax if such a very large proportion of the people who have to pay it have to be relieved of at least a part of the impost it imposes upon them. What we should be looking for are taxes that relate to people’s ability to pay and they should be borne by as large a number of people as possible at low rates. On that basis, then, taxation does not get in the way of generating wealth and increasing prosperity.

The part of the motion that refers to making the whole of Wales an enterprise zone is certainly an interesting idea, but the whole point of enterprise zones has been that it’s been for targeted intervention on specific areas that have specific problems. But I’m very much in favour of making Wales into an enterprise zone in the widest sense. In another place, in the 1980s, where I was imprisoned inside the House of Commons night after night after night as a result of the problems that revaluation of property then caused for local government finance, we debated these issues at great length. Subsequently, when I became the deregulation Minister in the Major Government in the early 1990s, I tried to make it my mission to turn the whole of the United Kingdom into a low-tax, low-regulation economy so that we would then be able to obtain the competitive advantages to which the motion refers for the whole of the United Kingdom. So, I’m broadly in favour of the approach that Plaid Cymru are taking here.

Business rates are an archaic form of taxation, as we know. Adam pointed out the other day that they go back to the 1601 poor law in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth. It is bizarre, isn’t it, that you will pay more in a tax if you improve your property? But that’s the way in which the rating system works. So, it’s a disincentive to people to improve properties. The way the economy has changed—this was referred to again by Adam Price the other day—with the growth of the internet, properties that are based in specific locations on the high street are of less and less importance as a proportion of the national economy, and yet, the burdens that are imposed upon shops, as were very eloquently described by Janet Finch-Saunders, have denuded our town centres of life and vivacity. It’s a bad tax indeed that empties out the centres of our towns and cities, although interesting ideas such as Simon Thomas pointed out in Narberth are certainly a response to that. But the shop vacancy level in Wales has been referred to by several participants in this debate today and I know that this is one of the biggest hurdles anybody thinking of setting up a business has to jump; it’s something you simply can’t avoid, even though the purpose of the tax was to be unavoidable and that’s why it’s a tax on property. The way it works now is that, yes, indeed, the tax is unavoidable for the property, but it’s not unavoidable for the business, and if the business can’t afford to site itself in a property to pay the tax in the first place, then it’s actually a very counterproductive tax indeed.

So, it’s the inflexibility of this tax as well, which pays no account of the changes in the levels of prosperity from one year to another, which is important to consider. We go through a business cycle, but the tax itself stays the same and so, actually, when the economy’s going into a downturn, it actually accentuates the downturn. So, that is indeed an irrational form of taxation. We’re just going through this revaluation process now, and although I know it’s intended to be revenue neutral, as Nick Ramsay pointed out in his speech, it’s going to hit particular constituencies very hard, and Monmouthshire is one of those areas where the overall rise in rateable value is 7 per cent. It’s actually 9.2 per cent in Conwy up in north Wales, whereas, of course, in other areas, there are significant reductions. The Vale of Glamorgan, for example, is having an 11 per cent reduction in rateable value, and Neath Port Talbot the same and so on and so forth.

The way in which this revaluation is going to impact upon people will vary from place to place. But we must, as part of the impending opportunity that we have to re-evaluate the way in which we tax properties, really look at innovative answers to these problems, and tax, at the very least, land values rather than the buildings upon it. So, this is the first of many such debates I’m sure that we shall be having on this subject.

There have been quite a variety of ideas that have been triggered by this Small Business Saturday debate—some of them cross-party overlapping, which is quite interesting. Today a constituent raised with me the opening of out-of-town retail parks—Russell Jones on Twitter—and he said that it was one of those many challenges facing the high street. Absolutely. And that’s been touched on by many Members in the Chamber today.

With regard to free town-centre parking, it may or may not be a way forward, but I question whether it would be helpful in every case, as Jenny Rathbone has said. But, actually, Sian Gwenllian more or less agreed with that contention and suggested some quite intuitive solutions to some problems, as did Simon Thomas. So, I don’t think Jenny, Sian and Simon are a million miles apart, to be honest with you. It was really helpful to hear. In fact, in Caerphilly—[Interruption.] Don’t be cheeky. [Laughter.] In Caerphilly, more parking not free parking is the issue. I had a short debate two weeks ago on small and medium-sized enterprises; you’ve probably all been watching it on Senedd.tv—[Interruption.] Thank you, Lee. I mentioned that I’d discussed with an AM from another party what we should do with our small firms and our town centres. One of the discussions we had—. It wasn’t actually Bethan Jenkins I discussed it with, but the answer was: they’ve got their own unique personalities, our town centres, and we should be making the most of that—localised approaches. And I’m currently working on a business connections project in my constituency and engaging with owner-managers and discussing some of these localised approaches. Perhaps we should all do that as AMs.

But time and time again, business rates do come up. Under the recent revaluation, traders on Cardiff Road in Caerphilly had a higher rateable value than many shops in Cardiff city centre. This, of course, had been the situation since 2010. Rateable values in Caerphilly, actually—Nick Ramsay won’t be pleased to hear—have since fallen, but they sure as hell couldn’t go up. I’m concerned, sitting in the Grazing Ground tearoom on Cardiff Road, that the building opposite is occupied by William Hill and the building next door is occupied by Coral betting. Two betting shops next door to each other. I suspect if there were two independent bookies next door to each other they wouldn’t be able to make sufficient profit to continue. So we need to look at why these things are happening.

The revaluation has improved matters for many businesses, and the Welsh Government’s rate relief scheme is making a difference to those whom it benefits. Nonetheless, small businesses in our town centres need to know that the scheme into which they pay will not disadvantage them in comparison to others. The permanent rate relief scheme, being introduced in 2018, must address these issues.

It’s an interesting problem. At the Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee, chaired by Russell George, the FSB praised the simplicity of the Welsh Government’s scheme, but if you’re going to introduce progressive measures into it, then you start to add layers of complexity. If you start messing with multipliers, as Jeremy said, you add layers of complexity and it becomes a minefield to negotiate. So, I don’t envy the Cabinet Secretary’s job, but I would be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary could set out what action the Welsh Government will be taking, up to, including and beyond the point at which the business rates will be reviewed, to help support our high streets and town centres.

I’m grateful to you for giving way. I understand what you’re saying about the problem of additional complexity, and there is great virtue in a simple system. But, nonetheless, people out there in businesses in my constituency and in some others are deeply, deeply worried about this, so they need reassurance. I understand there’s going to be a system put in place for rate relief, but people aren’t reassured at the moment. The Welsh Government need to give them something, just something, that’s going to put their minds at rest.

I think that the complexity of taking action and having unintended consequences could then make it worse for other people. It’s almost like a game of Jenga that we’re playing here—you change one thing and the whole thing could come crashing down. So, I think using the next 12 months to look at what’s going on, to get that feedback and to try and make those changes would be a good thing. But, as I say, it would be interesting to hear from the Cabinet Secretary as to what is planned.

Just to take us back to the beginning, with regard to an all-Wales enterprise zone, I would warn—and Adam Price did use this phrase—any Member against repeating the careworn phrase, ‘small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy’—it’s not only Adam and his party that have used it. This implies that owner-managers have a responsibility for economic growth, which of course they don’t. Economic growth is not their responsibility. In fact, there’s often a distinction between policy makers’ desire for small-firm job creation and the indifference of owner-managers to achieving that objective. They find alternatives to employment and, as I’ve said before, they are quite rightly reluctant employers in many cases. So, instead, we should be looking to make life as easy as possible for owner-managers, without imbuing them with the responsibility for our economic salvation. I think there’s a danger if we think, ‘Okay, we’re going to move away from inward investment to small businesses being the lifeblood of our economy.’ I think that’s a dangerous thing.

Finally, I will be spending £10 locally for Small Business Saturday—wonderful idea from the Federation of Small Business. I’ve enjoyed everybody’s videos, and I hope you’ve seen mine. This debate today is a very good way to highlight that cause.

Thank you very much. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure, Ken Skates.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I start by thanking Members for their contributions to this important debate today? As we’ve already heard from colleagues on all sides of the Chamber today, town centres are at the heart of local communities, providing places to live, shop, do business and to socialise. As Jenny Rathbone outlined, town centres and high streets bring people together in a more convivial environment than generic shopping malls. They bring soul to towns and cities.

We’ve seen evidence of the growing cultural shifts in the way people shop, where people shop and when people shop, as well as the challenging economic environment facing us all. This makes it particularly challenging for our town centres. Some solutions and interventions are in the gift of Welsh Government of course, some are dependent on wider economic factors, and some solutions rest in the hands of small businesses themselves. Initiatives such as Small Business Saturday can, indeed, help increase footfall in town centres and encourage people to shop and buy locally. This year, we will be promoting the campaign through Business Wales, although, for future years, given her demonstrable passion and commitment, I’m tempted to ask Janet Finch-Saunders to lead on its promotion.

As a Government, it is important that we deliver a wide range of advice and initiatives to support businesses in Wales. Through Vibrant and Viable Places, we’ve invested £110 million in 11 town and city areas, creating jobs, supporting people into work and leveraging in an additional £300 million of investment. Through our town centre loan scheme, £20 million is supporting job creation and economic growth, and increasing the supply of housing and improving housing quality. We’ve supported business improvement districts that have helped town centres such as Bangor, and we’ve also supported 20 town centre partnerships in Wales. As this shows, the Welsh Government recognises the importance of a vibrant and diverse high street that supports local enterprise.

Now, business rates clearly are an issue that is consistently raised. Our small business rate relief scheme supports around 70 per cent of all ratepayers in Wales, and more than half of ratepayers will pay no rates at all. Even under the new scheme in England, only a third of businesses will pay no rates. The overall rateable value in Wales is falling and, for the retail industry, it’s decreasing by 8.5 per cent, demonstrating that Wales has not fully recovered from the economic downturn.

Having assessed the impact of the 2017 revaluation, we’ve considered a range of options for supporting effective businesses and consulted on a transitional relief scheme. Consequently, our transitional relief scheme is specifically targeted at small businesses, allowing them to phase in any increase in liability over three years. Nick Ramsay and Hefin David have asked for assurance to be given to small businesses in their constituencies, and my friend and colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government will provide additional support to more than 7,000 ratepayers. A new, permanent small business rate relief scheme will be introduced from 2018 onwards. We’ll consult widely with stakeholders on the design of the permanent scheme and we’ll reflect further on the responses received from our consultation on our transitional scheme. With transitional relief, with small business rate relief and other mandatory—

Yes.

Thank you. I’m grateful to you for taking the intervention. This has been debated extensively in the Chamber here about the revaluation, and I take it the Valuation Office Agency is an independent body, and the Government has no influence over that. In fairness, the Government has put £10 million of its own money on the table, but do you recognise the severity that certain businesses are faced with with the revaluation? The demands that they’ll be paying from next April really pose a huge question mark over their long-term viability. Are you going to be working with the Cabinet Member for finance to see whether the transitional relief money can be extended to help some of those most disadvantaged by this revaluation?

I think it stands to reason, with £10 million available to assist small businesses, that this Government will help, wherever possible, with the challenge that some small businesses face due to revaluation. We will continue to do that and we will assess any means of assisting those businesses that are hardest hit. But revaluation is not a tax-raising measure, and I think the Member himself would recognise that it simply redistributes the rates payable between properties based on their relative values at the time of revaluation. That said, £10 million is being made available for a relief scheme, and we will look at any other way that we possibly can to assist those businesses that, as I say, are hardest hit.

Another important element of our support, of course, is enterprise zones, and that features in this debate, and a number of Members have spoken about enterprise zones and the potential to create a single enterprise zone for the whole of Wales. As Neil Hamilton identified, scale is an important consideration. The larger the scale of an enterprise zone, the greater the budgetary and deliverability implications, and the greater the risk that any added focus is diluted to the detriment of overall impact, unless there is significantly more financial resource available. Whilst existing zones are spread across Wales, the specific geographic footprint of each enterprise zone allows us to focus and target activity in a practical way. That said, I am keen to examine objectively all of our interventions as part of the work being undertaken on the prosperous and secure strategy for Wales. Of course, I will consider change wherever necessary.

Adam Price spoke about the potential development of a hallmark for Welsh products—a buy local hallmark. It’s a very interesting idea. I recall when I was a member of the enterprise committee, under the chairmanship of Nick Ramsay, I think I proposed a similar idea of a Welsh wheel that would not only capture, on food and drink products, sugar, fat, calorific content and salt, but also environmental impact, which, of course, would be heavily influenced by whether a product is derived, produced and packaged within the UK.

Simon Thomas raised the town of Narberth, which I recall was visited by the former enterprise committee. I think the only other Member in the Chamber—. Ah, David Rees was with us on that occasion as well, with Nick Ramsay. We learnt a lot on that expedition. We learnt that scale is important. The larger the town centre, the more difficult it can be to adjust to modern shopping practices. One problem we know that many high streets face is that, with bank closures and so forth, and shop closures, sometimes you can have, in a high street, a post office at one end, you can have a pharmacy at another, and you can have vacant shops in between. It doesn’t make for a desirable shopping environment. The key to Narberth’s success is that it’s contained in an area whereby there are no vacant premises, or very few vacant premises, but it’s easily accessible, and it’s easy to navigate around. I think Bethan Jenkins made the very important point that quality of place is essential to the success of a town centre and high street. Again, this is something that was very clear in the visit to Narberth.

As highlighted in the short debate a couple of weeks ago, microbusinesses and small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of local economies the length and breadth of this country, and they provide a vital role in creating jobs, and in increasing productivity and driving growth right across Wales. That’s why we will always ensure that the interests of small and medium-sized businesses are given due weight in the work of the national infrastructure commission and the development bank of Wales.

I’m also taking the opportunity to take a fresh look at what our economic priorities should be in this fifth Assembly term. I started the process by calling on people, businesses, trade unions and organisations across Wales to feed in their views. There is a remarkable consensus around the importance of skills, of infrastructure, and the influence of wider levers like procurement and planning. These priorities will feed into the four cross-cutting strategies that will set the framework for this term of government. I think we can all agree—and it’s been shown today by all Members’ contributions—that we have to use all tools available to us to provide support to town centres and high streets across Wales to help stimulate local economies.

Thank you. I call on Adam Price to reply to the debate. Adam.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. It’s been a wide-ranging, largely positive and, indeed, at times, a deeply passionate debate. Thank you, Janet Finch-Saunders, for injecting that note of passion. I’m not going to say it often, so, enjoy. [Laughter.] Indeed, thank you as well to Bethan Jenkins for reminding us that we can even do our bit for the Welsh economy while in our pyjamas, or whatever our choice of nightwear is. [Laughter.]

To take us down back to policy, business rates has clearly been one of the key themes because it is one of the most pressing policy issues that’s facing us at the moment. The finance Secretary is in his place, so I’m sure he will have heard, from all sides, Members referring to the problems that businesses face, particularly as a result of the revaluation, and we would urge the Government to look again at topping up the £10 million that is in the transitional relief, or maybe reintroducing, of course, the retail relief that was created in 2014, actually partly because of the delay in the revaluation, and was unfortunately cancelled before the election earlier this year. So, let’s see some additional action because of the small businesses that are facing problems at the current time. It’s great to see that the parking policy is going to be there, the pot of £3 million right across Wales. Yes, it is true that there is evidence that a simple, blanket free-parking policy—. I don’t think anyone argues that that would work. But there are data available, and there have been experiments across Wales. It is important that we do collect those data as well to see, where parking—and it will be a different pattern in different areas—is a particular problem, can we actually help in that regard. It is—

Will you give way?

Very briefly, yes.

Very briefly, can I just ask that, as part of the package that you have negotiated, how much of that is set aside for evaluation to make sure that those lessons are captured?

Well, I don’t know, but it’s a question that, jointly, we can put to the Government. Certainly, I’d be very keen that it is done on a proper data-gathering basis so that we can learn the lessons for the future as well. I think Hefin David made a good point, actually, that, obviously, the motivation of owner-managers is going to be different. Ultimately, they are there, obviously, to make a profit so that they can sustain the growth of their business. Certainly, they are not simply there as job generators. But they are, importantly, wealth generators, of course, and I agree with him that, actually, maybe we need to shift the focus of our economic development policy on to value-added rather than simply on job numbers. So, I think it is consistent with what he argued there. I think the idea of an all-Wales enterprise zone—. I’m grateful for the support of my fellow Amman Valley alumnus. I referred to the UUP-Plaid Cymru—if that is an unholy alliance, then this is probably taking us down a very, very dark route indeed. But I think the purpose of making the whole of Wales an enterprise nation, if you like, is to give us the tax levers, all of the tax levers, that, of course, can be deployed differently for different sectors, maybe, and also in different parts of Wales. But, unless we have those tax powers, of course, we won’t be able to use them to good effect as a nation. That is, ultimately, I think, the purpose. It’s very, very important for small businesses, but for businesses of all scale as well, that we, actually, as well as getting a new economic strategy, have the levers, the policy levers, that are going to enable us to deliver on that.

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

We now turn to the Welsh Conservatives debate. I call on Angela Burns to move the motion.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I wish to move the motion before us today, tabled by the Welsh Conservative group, and, by doing so, highlight the innovations that cross-border healthcare can offer in improving the outcomes for patients on both sides of the border. We would also wish the Assembly to note the very sound recommendations made by the Silk commission, which are reflected also in the Welsh Affairs Select Committee report on cross-border health arrangements. We ask the Welsh Government to recognise the challenges that cross-border working brings.

Our motion today, Deputy Presiding Officer, will look at ways of improving patient outcomes for patients based on both sides of the border, will consider the recommendations made on this issue by the Silk commission, and will also use the evidence taken by the Welsh Affairs Select Committee to highlight a number of concerns raised by patients and other health organisations. We will also seek to make constructive suggestions for improving cross-border healthcare. The challenges of cross-border healthcare are unlikely to prey upon the minds of most of us, and yet it is an issue that impacts on every one of us living in Wales. It doesn’t matter whether you are one of the 50 per cent of Wales that lives within 25 miles of the English border, or any other user of the NHS, because we rely on being able to access services, from GPs to specialist care, from the English NHS. Yet many patients and organisations find that the system is often mired with confusion and uncertainty because they are not really aware of where they are getting their services from.

Over the years, very clear differences in health policy between Wales and England have developed. Devolution has enabled the respective Governments to promote policies that they see fit to reflect the needs of their own populations. However, it does mean that we need to be more alive to problems that this may generate, and find a more robust and constructive solution. These problems are not insignificant, given that some 56,000 Welsh patients are admitted to English hospitals every year. The Welsh Affairs Select Committee report says that there’s no practical or realistic prospect of diverting these well-established cross-border flows, nor would it be desirable to do so. So, we say that, whilst there is no way of altering this pattern, there must be ways that we can improve the situation so that patients on both sides of the border get fair access to health treatments.

Geography is not the only challenge that we face. The sparsity of our population gives us problems in equity of access to health services, and so it is a real positive that many rural communities in Wales are able to access health services by crossing the border to a centre closer to them rather than having to travel miles within Wales, particularly if they’re relying upon public transport.

Now, to try and address some of the challenges faced by the respective services, a cross-border protocol was introduced by both Governments, with the latest iteration being in 2013. This protocol sets out who is responsible for providing which services and to whom. However, the seven Welsh LHBs do remain responsible for Welsh patients. In turn, the English clinical commissioning groups remain responsible for English patients. Now, this can and does cause tensions, which can arise when different policies come into play on either side of the border, and we have a situation where one set of rules can apply to different patients at the same surgery, depending on where they live, or different rules even apply to neighbours, depending on which GP surgery they are registered at. Another tension comes over disparate policies between Wales and England concerning patients choosing their own location for treatment. If they’re in the English system, they can choose which hospital to go to. However, this freedom is frowned upon by the Welsh Government, who state that providing patients with more of a voice is important. Now, this debate isn’t about looking at that policy. The challenge of patient’s voice against patient’s choice means that those English patients receiving their treatment in Wales lose the rights that their countrymen have across the border. So, we’re seeking equity across the whole piece.

Waiting list targets are another issue that causes tension. Ninety-five per cent of English patients have a legal right to start treatment within 18 weeks of referral, and no-one is expected to wait over 36 weeks. However, in Wales, our ambitions are not set so high, with a 26-week target for starting treatment, but there is no legal right. According to figures from last month, almost 5 per cent of patients in Wales waited longer than 36 weeks from referral to treatment. Figures show that, even for routine procedures, waiting times can be as much as two and a half times longer in Wales as in England. This is a very confusing situation for those who live around the borders of our country. Worryingly, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee highlighted that many clinical commissioning groups operating along the English side of the border operate two waiting lists within the same surgery—a Welsh list and an English list. Now, can I and my colleagues here echo the views of the committee that the Welsh Government and the Department of Health need to resolve this problem, and as a matter of urgency? So, Cabinet Secretary, could you provide assurances that this will happen, and that you will address this as a matter of urgency? It seems to be highly unfair for one surgery to operate such a difference between whether you’re a Welsh or an English person.

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee report, which was published in March 2015, also stated that the then Welsh Minister had said he would move to amend the necessary regulations in Wales to remove barriers to GPs providing services on either side of the border. I think that’s a very welcome step forward.

Cabinet Secretary, I would be interested to know whether any progress has been made on this subject, and whether, in fact, this is an ambition that you would want to see happen. I understand that the protocol is subject to a three-year review. As I’ve already established, the last protocol was drawn up in 2013, so I believe I’d be correct in saying that we must be due another review before the end of this year. Cabinet Secretary, will you provide an update as to whether this review has taken place, and, if not, do you intend to review, and when might we see such a review?

The Silk commission, which reported in March 2014, goes further than the provisions of the 2013 protocol and argues that current arrangements should be strengthened by developing individual protocols between each border local health board in Wales and the neighbouring NHS Trust in England. I wonder if you’ve got any views on whether or not that should be moved forward.

Additionally, Silk called for English and Welsh health services to work more closely together to develop better joint strategies to maximise joint efficiency savings, but there’s a lack of clarity as to how far that has been moved forward. We need to make the cross-border situation more of a level playing field when compared to services other people in Wales can access. So, can I ask, Cabinet Secretary, that, when policies are introduced in health in this Assembly, they are automatically assured or looked at to ensure that they are suitably border-proofed so that Welsh people are not disadvantaged overly if they are going to an English GP? I appreciate it may only affect a relatively small number of people, but this needs to be done to provide greater consistency in healthcare and also fits into some of our discussions yesterday emanating from the chief medical officer’s report surrounding reducing health inequalities.

I know my colleagues will wish to speak more about individual areas on the border, but it’s worth touching on some of the key issues. Due to the free-prescription policy, patients from Wales being discharged from an English hospital sometimes are asked to pay for their own medicines and then have to try and claim back. Also, the policies pertaining to discharge to social care are different between the two countries, leading, quite often, to patients routinely facing delayed transfers of care. May I just add a quick rider here? This is not just stuff I’ve dug out of nowhere. This has come from the Silk commission report, from the Welsh Affairs Select Committee report, and from the NHS Confederation. So, these are all verifiable instances that are happening out there today.

Finally, the lack of co-ordination between IT systems on either side of the border is fast becoming a problem. Although I know there’s currently a study going on surrounding establishing an electronics referral system between Welsh GPs and English hospitals, I would like to know how this pilot is progressing and when we will learn of its outcome. I really feel the issue of IT services is important. If we can get this right, it may really help to streamline services and outcomes.

Evidence was given to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee from a doctor based at the Countess of Chester Hospital in England who deals with diabetes. He described how blood samples taken by Welsh GPs are sent to Wrexham Maelor, even though the patient is under him. Due to a lack of cross-border compatibility, he is unable to access the results and provide a full consultation. The Royal College of Physicians backed up this view and gave evidence as to how it was often easier to repeat blood tests rather than find results from across the border. This has just got to be a shocking waste of time and money. We need to be able to resolve this. The committee went on to detail how there is currently no joint programme of work between the English NHS and the Welsh Government around central IT arrangements.

I do recognise there’s a divergence of approach here, with England looking at improving interoperability for local IT services in England, and we want to develop a single national system. But I’m sure, Cabinet Secretary, you will agree about the importance of patient information being transferred effectively between primary, secondary and tertiary services, no matter which side of the border they’re on, and across the border. So, I wonder if you can tell us or give us some guarantees that this issue will be addressed as soon as possible. Would you also consider a short-term fix that may be given that would enable patients who are receiving cross-border care to have a hard copy or an electronic copy of their records to take with them to their appointments? I believe we can trust patients to take care of their own medical data.

The OECD report into the quality of the UK’s health service raised concerns over the whole area of cross-border and, whilst they found that there were good joint-working arrangements, they did propose that collaborations could help health boards deliver meaningful change by a range of initiatives, such as mentoring partnerships between health boards, staff exchanges and ensuring open comparison of results. I would be interested to learn from you, Cabinet Secretary, if you intend to take any of those OECD recommendations forward.

Cabinet Secretary, the Welsh Conservatives would like to see both national health services, and the relevant commissioning groups, and the Governments of the two countries, working together in a consensual way to ensure that patients on both sides of Offa’s Dyke get the best possible deal. With more cross-border co-operation, we may be able to better address the concerns that have been raised by many of the witnesses to the various committees. We may also find ourselves in a better position to tackle some of the staffing issues that currently face the Welsh NHS and reduce the ever-increasing reliance on bank and agency staff. And with the workforce pressures in mind, I would confirm that the Welsh Conservatives will be supporting the amendment put forward by UKIP. I trust, Cabinet Secretary, that you’ll take our observations forward, and I look forward to your answers to the questions I’ve raised.

I have selected the amendment to the motion, and I call on Caroline Jones to move amendment 1 tabled in her name—Caroline.

I move amendment 1 in my name. Diolch, Ddirprwy Lywydd. I would like to thank the Welsh Conservatives for bringing forward this debate today. As the Welsh Affairs Committee discovered, the increasing divergence between the healthcare systems over the border not only causes confusion for patients who rely on cross-border services, but also difficulty in accessing services. As others will no doubt mention, witnesses to the Welsh Affairs Committee identified problems due to in-country commissioning and a lack of compatibility between healthcare infrastructure on either side of the border. But I want to focus my contribution on the third area, namely GP performers lists.

The maintenance of separate performers lists in England and Wales not only affects the ability of GPs to operate freely on either side of the border, but, as the Welsh Affairs Committee discovered, acts as a barrier to GP recruitment. According to both the British Medical Association and the Welsh NHS Confederation, many GPs will not go through the process of applying separately for inclusion on the list in the neighbouring country, and this has prevented GPs on the English performers list from taking up vacancies on this side of the border. The BMA also highlighted the fact that separate performers lists were preventing locums from operating across the border. This is adversely affecting care, particularly in rural areas close to the border. It has always been difficult recruiting GPs in rural areas, and with an ageing population of GPs, we are starting to see more and more rural practices close. However, if those practices were able to rely on support from neighbouring practices on the other side of the border, we would be able to offer primary care in those areas.

The people of Wales expect a national health service—a service that delivers first-class healthcare, regardless of where you live or where you receive treatment. The inability of GPs and locums to operate cross-border is adversely affecting healthcare in rural Wales. I am not opposed to increased divergence in the healthcare systems in England and Wales, but that divergence should not impact on the level and quality of treatment for patients. UKIP believes there should be a single performers list for England and Wales, and calls upon the Cabinet Secretary to work with the Department of Health to achieve that aim. Bureaucracy and processes should never get in the way of patient care. I urge Members to support the amendment tabled in my name. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much.

I’d like to thank Angela Burns for introducing our debate and the issue so well today. Matters of healthcare have dominated my inbox and my postbag since becoming an AM, but I suspect that’s the case for Members across the Chamber. But, because of the cross-border elements in my own constituency, the issue is all the more dominant, and in my contribution today, I would like to highlight some of the issues that my constituents face in accessing cross-border health services.

Now, of course, the county of Powys is the most sparsely populated and the largest geographical county in Wales. And of course, that brings us unique challenges. Powys has no district general hospital. Residents are served generally by the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford, or by Gobowen. Residents in the west of Montgomeryshire are served by Bronglais, but 80 per cent of my constituents are served by hospital services over the border, and this means, of course, for my constituents, they have to travel huge distances to access healthcare services. The differences in policy between England and Wales have a direct impact on the access to, the consistency of and the quality of care for patients in my constituency. Many patients suffer from a postcode lottery when it comes to waiting times, funding decisions and different treatment priorities. This means that mid-Wales patients often fall between the administrative cracks when accessing care. This is an issue that is the biggest in my postbag, perhaps more so than other AMs. I’m dealing with those administration issues of people falling between two different systems.

I’ll give a few examples here. One of my constituents—I’ll call him Mr L—requires a transcatheter aortic valve implantation—I hope I’ve pronounced that correctly—at Stoke university hospital, but funding has been declined twice. If Mr L was a resident in England, he would have had the operation without even the need for a funding request in the first place. Mr L, of course, is informed by consultants of the situation, because they are frustrated as well; consultants are frustrated that they have to operate a two-tier system; they’re frustrated that they have to give less of a service, as they see it, to Welsh patients.

Mrs E and Mr M need a total knee operation and a complete left hip respectively. Both are waiting 26 weeks for an operation in Gobowen, instead of 18 weeks if they were resident in England. The different waiting times, also—. The different targets, I suppose, that both hospitals have to work with in regards to two sets of targets is, of course, an issue here. Hospitals are facilitating a two-tier system when it comes to supporting Welsh and English patients. I’m forever getting this issue raised with me, where a patient will be told, ‘Ah, Mrs Jones, you’re going to have to wait 18 weeks’, and then as the consultation continues, ‘Oh, hang on, I notice you’re from Wales, it’s 26 weeks’. That’s a regular occurrence. That perhaps wouldn’t happen if a patient lived in Wales and went to hospital in Wales. The consultants are normally used to seeing English patients, so this is one of the issues that comes about.

A number of constituents have also expressed a big concern about PET scans, where normally only one PET scan would be allowed. But, of course, in England, two PET scans are allowed—usually one before the operation and one post-operation. So, the confusion regarding waiting times, funding arrangements and treatment priorities is rife, and my message to the Welsh Government, and the UK Government for that matter, is: work together to break down these barriers and provide clarity for patients and clinicians.

I strongly agree with the Welsh NHS Confederation, which has said that there needs to be greater cross-border citizen engagement to raise awareness of devolution and the differences in treatment availability. Again, this is one that fills my postbag. I’m forever replying to constituents saying, ‘This is my advice for how you deal with your particular request, and I’ll make representation on your behalf’. Then I’m going on to give them a lesson in devolution, because often one of the issues that is raised is, ‘I’m a taxpayer, we’re supposed to have a national health service, what’s gone wrong here?’ And, of course, then I’m answering, ‘Well, actually, you’re wrong; we have no longer got a national health service, we’ve got two different Governments with different priorities’. I’m forever answering that, perhaps on a weekly basis.

The Welsh Affairs Select Committee—

Are you coming to a conclusion, please?

I will come to an end in that case. I would just say in that case, Deputy Presiding Officer, that when we are making policies, we should be making sure that they are border-proofed to provide consistency of healthcare.

When you have a country where 50 per cent of the population live within 25 miles of the English border, the matter of cross-border healthcare is an essential one. We can’t draw a neat line and insist that the population living on the border must trot off to be seen just by the Welsh NHS staff. It’s unrealistic, it’s impractical, but most of all, it simply wouldn’t suit many members of the public who live on the border. So, having a constructive and healthy relationship between health boards on both sides of Offa’s Dyke is imperative, and this week’s publication of the report on the sustainability and transformation plans for Shropshire and Herefordshire are critical to healthcare delivery in Powys—an area that I, like the Member opposite, represent.

Now, whilst we in Wales recognise the importance of cross-border working, I think it’s worth noting that, in the guidance to English trusts, the Tory Westminster Government made no reference to cross-border working arrangements nor the care that should be provided to Welsh patients. I therefore welcome the fact that this omission is recognised by the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin partnership board and that there is a specific reference by the English health boards that their hospitals are the main providers of acute care for communities in Powys and that they understand that within those transformation plans.

But let’s be clear, whilst it’s true that Wales needs our border patients to be treated in Shropshire and Herefordshire, their services would not be sustainable without Welsh patients—without the money given to them by the Powys teaching health board. For many people living in Powys, the majority of their hospital care is provided in England.

The recently published strategic commissioning framework sets out how the Powys teaching health board works with providers in Wales and England to deliver the standards of quality and access that they expect on behalf of Welsh patients in line with Welsh and UK arrangements for cross-border healthcare. It also helps to deliver the recommendations set out in the Welsh Affairs Committee report on cross-border health arrangements.

Now, I’ve met with health campaigners in Powys who have real concerns, in particular about access to primary care. GP recruitment is not just a problem on the border; it’s a problem that we encounter across most of Wales and I do hope that the Government recruitment drive on this issue will go some way to resolving this problem. I think it’s worth underlining that for patients and providers in Powys, the added difficulties of working across two governments, differing structures and political direction, does mean that there is an issue in terms of accountability. But I don’t think it’s impossible for health providers, even at primary level, to come together to do what’s right for patients and to provide a seamless service. There’s an example of this where GPs on the Powys-Shropshire border are working closely together for the communities in Knighton and in Clun. Now, the two current practices have worked alongside the health board to overcome the challenges of rural healthcare across that border and they therefore are meeting the expectations of the Welsh Labour Government’s programme for government.

This morning, the Future Fit programme board met and recommended a set of preferred options for the delivery of healthcare that will impact patients in Powys and in particular patients in Montgomery. These recommendations end years of uncertainty about where services should be delivered. So, whilst I welcome the return of a consultant-led women and children’s centre to the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, I’m keen to explore further the impact of moving the majority of day-case surgery to Telford. I’ll be meeting with Powys teaching health board in the new year, seeking to establish if more day-care surgery can take place this side of the border, reducing travel time for Welsh patients. In many ways, the border between England and Wales might seem bigger than ever, but in terms of healthcare, as we’ve seen just today, through collaboration, positive engagement and respect for the NHS on both sides, progress can be made to resolve those problems that are felt on both sides of the border.

Speaking in the Welsh Conservative debate on cross-border issues here in May 2009, I stated:

‘Cross-border movements in health…services are a long-established fact of life, reflecting geographic and demographic realities.’

I referred to the Welsh Affairs Committee report on cross-border services then, which concluded that there was a lack of effective communication between the Welsh Government and the Department of Health in England, and called for the two to work together to ensure that Welsh residents’ rights to access English services are protected and vice versa. They considered that an improved Government-level protocol was essential to standardise and clarify funding arrangements and accountability mechanisms, stating that the result should be seamless care for patients based on clinical need.

The Flintshire governors on the board of the Countess of Chester Hospital had stated that their hospitals of first choice are the Countess of Chester and the teaching hospitals of Liverpool, and orthopaedic patients had expressed their need for continued access to Gobowen hospital. They referred to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee’s statement that citizen engagement should not stop at the border, and to Flintshire local health board’s annual report the previous year, which said that more Flintshire patients were treated as out-patients, day cases or emergency cases at the Countess of Chester Hospital than at either Wrexham Maelor or Glan Clwyd hospitals.

Although the Welsh Government health Minister, during the third Assembly, stated that her overriding aim was to secure as many services as could be safely provided within Wales’s boundaries, and although the impartial Assembly Research Service told me in 2013 that they’d spoken to a Welsh Government official who confirmed that it was Welsh Government policy to repatriate Welsh patients presently served in English in-patient settings, the last Welsh health Minister wrote to me stating that this information is incorrect—there is no hidden policy to repatriate Welsh patients. However, in a meeting with the Countess of Chester Hospital in September 2013, I was told that Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board was reducing or cancelling referrals and pulling activity back across the border, despite not having the capacity. As they said, the focus should be the patient and they wanted to contribute to the provision of quicker, better and more economic cross-border care.

Early last year, the Welsh Government announced that it was commissioning pain management clinics from England, after waiting lists in Wales reached 78 weeks. I’ve been contacted by constituents in pain who’d always received their treatments at the Countess of Chester, but were now instead being added to long waiting lists in Wales. When I took this up with the health board, they acknowledged that there was a waiting time for this service, but said that they had not been able to secure additional NHS capacity in north-west England. So, I contacted the chief executive of the Countess of Chester who replied that Wales withdrew from their pain service two years previously, and as a consequence, they could no longer accept Welsh referrals. But he added:

‘maybe this is something that you might discuss with the Welsh Government to see if there’s a political will for us to be seen as part of the North Wales acute healthcare solution.’

When I did this, however, the then health Minister simply passed the buck back to the health board.

Although the Wales-England protocol for cross-border healthcare services was implemented in April 2013 to improve communication, the Welsh NHS Confederation states now that the decision-making process on each side of the border needs to be more co-ordinated, coherent and transparent. The 2016 Welsh Affairs Committee report on cross-border health arrangements between England and Wales expressed concern that there’s a lack of communication regarding changes to healthcare services, which could have an impact across the border, and recommended that formal protocols are put in place to ensure consultation between Welsh local health boards and English clinical commissioning groups, when changes to services impact on populations across the border.

As Dr Dai Lloyd said here in 2009:

‘Mature nations work together across boundaries in historical time-honoured fashion for the better health provision of all of their people.’

Excellently put. As I then said, we must avoid at all costs a slate curtain in services between these two British nations. Our long and porous border should be a cause for celebration and co-operation, rather than an obstacle to efficiency and effectiveness.

Plaid Cymru will be supporting this motion and the amendment. The recommendations made by the Welsh Affairs Committee are sensible ones, and I hope that Governments on both sides of the border consider them. A cross-border flow of patients is, of course, one of the facts of life across Europe, and certainly worldwide. I’m sure it often makes sense for a patient to cross a border to receive the appropriate treatment. I could draw your attention to several examples of collaboration, for example the sharing of health facilities in that low-population area on the border between France and Spain in the Pyrenees; insurance brokers in the Netherlands contracting with hospitals in Belgium for specialist services; and French women choosing to give birth in Belgium because the hospitals there are closer to them and because of a perception of a better standard of care. So, this is nothing new and it benefits everyone that we get things right, and to organise the kind of collaboration that takes place.

There are a couple of matters that I’d like to raise. The first is that there are several proposals on the table to centralise emergency services in England, and it would appear that many more are in the pipeline. These will inevitably affect people in parts of Powys and north Wales especially, who will face even longer journeys in emergency situations and a corresponding increase in risk as a result. I do ask the Welsh Government to acknowledge this and to consider what arrangements can be made to mitigate the effects of these changes. This isn’t an argument against cross-border services. Remember what I said earlier—cross-border travel does happen when it makes geographical sense. But in a situation where people have to travel over three hours in north Wales for services across the border, then that’s not the same thing. It’s unacceptable. Distances of that kind suggest to me the need to plan a health service that’s more appropriate for a rural area.

The second point is that changes to services could benefit Wales if we have the right mindset here. Too often, I think, in the past, specialist services have been seen as something that the people of Wales must travel to England to receive, perhaps because we don’t have the population levels to justify such services. But do remember that more people from England come to see a GP in Wales than go the other way for primary care. But if we consider people in England who live on the border as prospective users of specialist services in Wales, then we could justify establishing, or developing or strengthening these kinds of services here, and bring funds into the service located here, as well as—and this is an important point—increasing the attractiveness of the NHS in Wales for prospective staff and so on. I would therefore ask the Government and the Cabinet Secretary to keep an eye on changes to services in England to see whether changes there give us scope to extend our services here. After all, as we heard from Eluned Morgan, our population here does add to the critical mass to help support and maintain services in England, and we could overturn that by offering more services to our neighbours.

Finally, I want to discuss those cross-border issues that don’t affect Wales and England but affect Wales and the rest of Europe. I’m talking about the rights that Welsh citizens have to access medical treatment in Europe by carrying a European health insurance card, and, of course, the reciprocal rights that European citizens have when they visit Wales. Even though I’m sure I can leave one party in this Chamber out of that consensus that’s developing on cross-border treatment, the rest of us, hopefully, continue to be supportive of cross-border Wales-European health services of this kind. So, I would seek that assurance that this kind of cross-border healthcare is not going to be left off the table in Government discussions.

In conclusion, as I say, Plaid Cymru will be supporting the motion today, and I note, in my final words, that if the rest of Europe can agree on the practicalities of cross-border healthcare, then certainly issues between Wales and England on a cross-border basis can also be resolved, for the benefit of people on both sides of the border.

Healthcare pathways for patients have always crossed the Welsh and English borders. Before devolution, this was not a problem as there was a single NHS. The NHS Act of 1946 provided for the establishment of a comprehensive health service for England and Wales. The United Kingdom Government was responsible for services in both countries, although from 1969 the NHS in Wales became the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Wales. Now, with the advent of devolution, responsibility lies with the Welsh Government. However, since half of the Welsh population live within a 15-minute drive by bus, car or ambulance to the border, movement across it to access health care is routine. Around 55,000, as Angela just said, Welsh residents are admitted to hospitals in England each year. Welsh hospitals admit some 10,500 people resident in England. There are just under 21,000 English residents registered with GP practices in contract with the Welsh NHS. The figure for Welsh residents registered with GPs in England is somewhere between 15,000 and 16,000.

We all want to see people get the treatment they need in the best place for them. Clearly, sometimes those services will be across the border. The Welsh Affairs Committee, in their report, found concern about difficulties and delays accessing secondary and specialist services on a cross-border basis. In particular, patients were worried about a perceived move towards in-country commissioning on the part of the Welsh Government. They believed the ultimate aim was to treat all Welsh patients within Wales irrespective of whether it was in their best interests. In some cases, patients living in south-east Wales receiving treatment at Hereford or Bristol were told that Aneurin Bevan Local Health Board would no longer fund their treatment. Aneurin Bevan Local Health Board introduced a policy in September 2012 of minimising referrals outside of Wales. They said, and their quote is:

‘the Health Board is the primary provider of secondary care services for the resident population of…Gwent…Where this cannot be provided by the Health Board’s own services…then the Health Board will look to plan and secure the necessary services with other NHS Providers in Wales through its agreed care pathways.’

Quote closed. Only if a Welsh health board could not provide the appropriate services would Aneurin Bevan health board look across the border. Although they changed this policy in 2013 for English residents with a Welsh GP, they did not do so for Welsh residents. As a result, prior approval is still required before a Welsh patient in Gwent can be referred to an English provider for treatment.

Many specialist services are simply not available in Wales, Deputy Presiding Officer. Specialised services are commissioned on a national basis by the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee. Concerns have been expressed that it is not always possible to formalise service level agreements between Wales and England due to key differences in the contract documents. Key differences cited include differences in access criteria, waiting time targets and the fact that Wales does not operate a patient choice scheme. Different IT programmes in use in the healthcare services in Wales and England also make it difficult for primary, secondary and tertiary systems to communicate with each other across the border. Deputy Presiding Officer, cross-border movements to access healthcare have existed for many years. For many residents of border areas the nearest health provider may not be in their country of residence. It is vital, therefore, that the border does not become a barrier to accessing the best healthcare. If we promote the innovative use of cross-border healthcare, we can deliver the improved patient outcomes we all wish to see in Wales.

Finally, I would like to ask, Minister: the waiting list and the cancellation of patients in Wales are really, really at crisis point. I know that, for some of my own constituents, at least half a dozen times, their operation was cancelled after waiting two and a half years. And after that—the sixth time—the operation was cancelled. What a disaster in the NHS. We should use our own family to operate, within not only an 18-month wait but before an 18-month wait, and let these waiting lists be shortened as soon as possible in Wales. Thank you.

As an Assembly Member serving constituents for whom accessing specific services across the border is the norm, I welcome this debate and the opportunity to be able to briefly contribute. I have already raised many times in this Chamber how the north-east of Wales is economically and culturally connected to the north-west of England, and the border assists as a two-way path to prosperity, as opposed to a somewhat artificial barrier. Indeed, there should also be no such barrier when it comes to accessing specialist secondary services. For those living in parts of north Wales, accessing specialist services in the north-west is a standard practice that predates devolution. I, like many of those living in Delyn and across north-east Wales, have experienced this at first hand and seek the same as everyone else for my nearest and dearest, that is, ensuring the best possible specialist treatment as close to home as possible, whether that be heart surgery at Broadgreen Hospital in Liverpool, or cancer treatment at Clatterbridge hospital on the Wirral. I welcome the cross-border protocols put in place by the Welsh Government for the treatment of patients who have been referred across the border, but the challenge is actually how they are followed and implemented to best effect on the ground, on a day-in, day-out basis, and of course to make sure that any Wales-domiciled patients receiving treatment in the NHS in England are treated no less favourably than their England-dwelling counterparts.

From the correspondence and conversations that I have had with constituents, it seems that better communication with users of cross-border health services at a primary care level is key, even at the basic level of people understanding why they are being referred for specific treatment across the border. By taking steps to build on the work of the Welsh Government in respect of cross-border healthcare, and by actually working together at all levels, we can and must ensure the provision of the best possible high-quality care for patients who access cross-border health services.

Thank you very much. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport, Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Members for tabling a debate on this topic, so we can discuss the reality of cross-border treatment for patients between England and Wales. The Welsh Government, of course, has been keen to ensure that the approach to cross-border patient flows is sensible and pragmatic and to focus on providing the best care for all of those who need it. That has been the primary focus of the cross-border protocol.

The Welsh Government’s aim is to ensure that all patients receive high-quality healthcare at the right time and in the right place. Sometimes, services provided across the border in England will be what is best for Welsh patients. There have, as has been discussed today, long-established patient flows into England for hospital-based care. Local health boards have the flexibility to refer patients out of their area for treatment, where a patient’s clinical need and circumstances justify it, or where services are not provided in Wales.

There is, though, the reality of the party political approach that has been taken to describing NHS Wales, which has unfortunately got in the way of some of the debate. The Offa’s Dyke comment was not particularly helpful, and has still not really been undone. But, to be fair, and to Angela Burns’s credit, she has not taken that partisan approach to talking about cross-border healthcare and what we actually need to do about it. [Interruption.] Suggestions that NHS Wales don’t pay on time were previously made in the past by English organisations in suggesting that NHS services in Wales weren’t paying upfront for Welsh patients. That simply isn’t true. That was really disappointing and actually damaged relations at one point in time between different organisations that were having to treat Welsh patients. Indeed, it is right—and many people in this Chamber have made this comment before—that those services over the border do rely on Welsh patient flows to make those services sustainable. So, there is a need to have a genuine and sensible conversation about how patients get treatment and where they get it.

And, of course, it isn’t just the standard secondary care treatment because, of course, there are specialist services, where people do need to go over into England. Hannah Blythyn described some of those in her comments. Of course, north Wales has a link to the trauma centre in Stoke. Now, that has actually improved outcomes. People travelling further geographically to go to the right centre in England has actually made a real difference for them in improving outcomes. That’s a good example of commissioning the right care, at the right time and in the right place to the benefit of patients in north Wales.

But of course, there are not just patient flows out of Wales and into England because Morriston Hospital in Swansea serves as a specialist burns centre for Wales and south-west England, and Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff provides specialist cancer services for Wales as well as treating a number of patients who are referred in from England. We do know that there are challenges in some settings in England where Welsh health boards commission care normally—Powys and Betsi in particular. Services in the Wye valley, Gloucester and Shropshire clinical commissioning group, for example, have been—or still are—in special measures. It is a matter that I discuss regularly when I meet people from Powys Teaching Local Health Board—how they are safeguarding their own assurance about not just the quality of care, but the timeliness of that care, and to make sure, as has been suggested in some of the comments, that Welsh patients aren’t treated in a less favourable manner, and that they’re getting the care that they’re actually commissioning. So, it is a regular part of the conversation at a performance level as well as at a more strategic one.

We also know, unfortunately, that some of the specialist gender identity service in Charing Cross clinic will be discontinued, and that brings us back to the challenge, I guess, at the start of this—how do we ensure that the right care is delivered at the right time and in the right place for the public that we are here to serve?

I note the findings of the Silk Commission, and I’m happy to inform Members that the Welsh Government is in ongoing discussions with NHS England concerning healthcare provision along our border. These discussions more recently focused on GP referral arrangements, and we will be taking account of the wider needs of border patients who will benefit from a more formal agreement being put in place. Because as has been recognised, there is more cross-border flow of primary care patients into Wales than out. Over 20,800 English residents are registered with a Welsh GP, compared to 14,700 Welsh residents registered with an English GP.

As a Government, we would not look to instigate or prevent individual protocols between local health boards and clinical commissioning groups, as any formal arrangements between those organisations are best undertaken at a local level, by those organisations that are best placed to assess and deliver on individual patient need.

I have looked at the findings of the Welsh Affairs Committee inquiry into cross-border healthcare, and I recognise that many of the conclusions and recommendations highlighted within their report were already being actioned at the time of the report’s publication. Since the committee’s inquiry, the Welsh Government continues to work with the Department of Health in England, and to an even greater extent with NHS England, to help the Department of Health address its issues with non-compliance with its legislation—the legislation in respect of English residents registered with a Welsh GP who require secondary care. This does highlight that some of the challenges here are about different systems, and about the way that NHS England now sets out in an apparent constitution apparent legal rights, so it’s difficult to see how those are enforced. But it doesn’t have a practical impact, I think, on performance, which you know is a real challenge, and meeting some of their waiting time targets. The language in the legislation hasn’t changed that. But there is that real practical conversation to be had about how we get through some of those challenges.

Of course there are real challenges about how some treatments are provided to English residents who see Welsh residents getting a better service. Many of the examples given in the debate today have been the other way around, with people saying, ‘Actually, we’d like to have what England has’, but on a range of issues, for example, Sativex, we understand that that’s a challenge in England, where it hasn’t been available at the same period of time. Ironing out the wrinkles is a two-way process in the way that we talk to each other.

Indeed, I’ve heard the conversation—again, Eluned Morgan’s point—about cross-border healthcare and the way it’s planned. We were previously concerned that conversations were taking place on NHS Future Fit across our border that weren’t properly taking account of the patient flows from Wales in making that choice. Now, we’re encouraged that a choice has been made today, but it does clearly need to go to clinical commissioning groups in England, so we still need to make sure. Those conversations are not yet complete, the decision isn’t yet finalised, and we need to be part of the conversation. Actually, since the start of that, Powys health board are now engaged properly as part of the programme board to understand what is happening in the way those decisions are being made.

We recognise that collaborative working does continue at a local level on the cross-border network. Healthcare commissioners and providers, including GPs, do come together on a quarterly basis to discuss local issues affecting cross-border healthcare. I want to address here the issue of the single performers list, because we won’t be supporting the amendment. We would be happy to see a single performers list, but the Department of Health in England are the issue. They’re not keen to see that happen. We’ve done all we can do to make sure that GPs can be performers on both lists in Wales and in England. We’ve done all that we could do to make that an easier and simpler process. It really does matter in areas across the border. But we want the Department of Health to come and talk to us and actually agree a way forward. We’re not in a position to require them to act in the way that we would wish them to, and that I know Members in this Chamber would wish today. It’s been a helpful discussion on that point, actually, because I simply can’t give guarantees for the English system.

We will continue to make changes that improve NHS Wales, but we can’t be held back by a UK Government refusal to do the same thing either at the same pace or in the same direction. There’s the reality of having differing systems between the borders. I’m keen, though, to do what we could do and should do, and including on the point raised by Angela Burns on sharing patient information. There’s an issue there about the quality of care that people receive.

The challenge isn’t what we do now. The challenge is what we can do to further improve on what we have. I’m happy to work with NHS England to improve outcomes, but it does, of course, require a willing partner and a level of trust. I’m happy to work in that manner now and in the future for the benefit of patients in Wales and England.

Thank you very much. I call on Darren Millar to reply to the debate.

Thank you, Deputy Llywydd, and thank you to everyone who’s taken part in this debate. I think it’s been a good-natured debate and there have been some very important points that have been raised about some of the challenges that are presented as a result of having two different health systems on both sides of the border, and the consequences that many of our constituents face as a result of that, particularly in mid Wales, as Russ George has said, and indeed in parts of north Wales, as has been identified by Mark Isherwood and Janet, and of course we mustn’t forget either, Oscar, your comments in relation to some of your constituents down in Gwent.

These are really serious issues and they do boil down to poor planning, sometimes on the English side and sometimes on the Welsh side, a lack of communication between health organisations on either side of the border when they’re trying to plan for the needs of their population, and a lack of recognition sometimes as well about the differences in terms of the aspirations of the Welsh Government on targets and treatments. It’s all very well, Cabinet Secretary, you saying that every health board has the right to refer across the border—that’s absolutely right—but very often there’s a commissioning process that you have to go through in order to commission those services across the border, or those treatments, or referrals, in a way that there aren’t barriers to English patients having referrals to some of those specialist hospitals.

Very often, my postbag is filled up with reports from individuals saying they’re having problems in accessing some of those services that they need to access. I do recognise that this Welsh Government has given a commitment to maintaining those cross-border health service relationships and that’s very important. We certainly didn’t have it when there was a coalition arrangement with Plaid Cymru in the third Assembly, where there was a deliberate policy decision that was taken to repatriate services across the Welsh border and bring all of those patients back. It was a great disservice to patients in many parts of Wales, that particular policy, but I’m pleased that that situation has now been reversed and that the importance of maintaining these health service relationships is absolutely recognised.

The Cabinet Secretary said another important phrase: he said that Welsh patients shouldn’t be treated in a ‘less favourable manner’ as a result of being referred to a hospital over the border in England. But the reality is, they are. In north Wales, if there’s a patient who is referred from the Betsi Cadwaladr health board for orthopaedic surgery to a hospital over the border in England, even if that hospital is able to treat them within the 18-week target that the English NHS has upon it in terms of waiting-time targets, they are very often having to wait for 52 weeks because the Betsi Cadwaladr health board is saying, ‘You’re not allowed to treat them in any time less than 52 weeks because that’s a disservice’—[Interruption.] That’s absolutely the case. I’ve got copies of letters, Cabinet Secretary, which I’m happy to share with you, if that’s what you would like to see.

Are you winding up, please?

We need to make sure—. I fully agree with your aspiration that there shouldn’t be disadvantage, but we have to begin to realise some of these things and we’re not going to be able to realise those things if you remain ignorant of the facts—[Interruption.]

Thank you. You’re out of time. You had far more time and there were no interventions, so I was generous.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Interruption.] Sorry? No? Sorry, but can you all concentrate? The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Thank you. It’s only because it’s nearly Christmas I’m being generous. Okay then, we’ll defer voting under this item until voting time.

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

We’ll move to the voting time on the Plaid Cymru debate on small businesses and I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. If the proposal is not agreed, we will vote on the amendment tabled to the motion. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion eight, no abstentions, 41 against. Therefore, the motion is not agreed, and we proceed to vote on amendment 1.

If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be deselected. And so I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the amendment 28, no abstentions, 21 against. Therefore, amendment 1 is agreed.

We now move to vote on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion 45, no abstentions, four against. Therefore, the motion as amended is agreed.

We now move to vote on the Welsh Conservatives’ debate, and I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Paul Davies. If the proposal is not agreed, we will vote on the amendment tabled to the motion. Open the vote. Close the vote. For the motion 48, no abstentions, one against. Therefore the motion is agreed.

We now move to—[Interruption.] If you’re leaving the Chamber, please do so quickly and quietly. We are now going to—. We are now moving to the short debate. If Members are leaving the Chamber, please do so quickly and quietly.

I now move to the short debate, and I call on Nick Ramsay to speak on the topic he has chosen. Nick Ramsay.

Diolch. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’ve agreed to give a minute of my time to Mark Isherwood. There is a brief opening presentation with a difference at the start of this short debate. So, can I firstly ask you all to close your eyes for a minute or so?

Thank you; you can open your eyes now. The sounds you’ve just heard are sounds that blind and partially sighted people hear on a daily basis. Without sight, as you can imagine, these noises can be very disconcerting. I recently undertook a blindfolded walk with Monmouth Visually Impaired Club, and my experiences were nothing short of profound. The walk from the Monnow bridge to the top of town is normally straightforward, but, with a blindfold, everything was different. After a short space of time, I was disorientated and completely dependent on the people around me for support. The traffic noise was bewildering, and retailers’ A-boards compounded the dangerous complexity of this new obstacle course, as did the plethora of mismatched pavement and road surfaces. In short, it was one hell of an eye-opener, if that’s the right expression. Of course, I was able to remove my blindfold once we’d reached the relative safety of the Punch House tavern at the end of my journey, but it left me thinking, ‘What about my new friends who don’t have this luxury?’

The reason for this debate is that this week is National Eye Health Week. Lots of events are taking place across the country to raise awareness of the importance of eye health and having an eye test. I believe the Minister for Social Services and Public Health had her own eyes tested recently, but still one in 10 people do not get their eyes tested on a regular basis. Many people do not realise that their long-term sight can be affected, and that 50 per cent of sight loss is avoidable with early detection and treatment. Everyone should have their eyes tested every two years. If you have diabetes or a family history of glaucoma, you should have a test every year.

Losing your sight impacts on every area of your life. It is the sense that the majority of people are most afraid of losing. I’m now going to speak a little about the different things that blind and partially sighted people experience in their day-to-day lives, and how policymakers can make this better for those living with sight loss.

If you’re unable to drive, your only choice is to use public transport, something that can be difficult for many reasons, not least because information at bus stops is often not provided in the most accessible formats. In 2015, the Royal National Institute of Blind People Cymru and Guide Dogs research for ‘Get on board’ found there were many issues blind and partially sighted people faced when accessing public transport: incidents such as rudeness to partially sighted passengers who mistakenly pulled over the wrong bus, because it was too difficult to make out the number in time. Often, a blind or partially sighted person will learn a route to enable them to live independently. If they’re not helped to find their stop, or if audio announcements are turned off, people can very easily end up in the wrong place and may no longer be able to travel independently at all. In rural areas, information at bus stops is often out of date or too small or weather-beaten. Rural bus services are integral to blind and partially sighted people who cannot drive. Funding for these services must be protected.

New developments are not always sympathetic to the needs of people with sight loss. A building with lovely glass ceilings may be in vogue at the time, but this can cause problems for people with sight impairment as the light can cause difficulties for the eyes understanding the route to take through the building. This is a very scary and also unsafe situation for someone with a visual impairment. The redevelopment of Aberystwyth bus station a couple of years ago meant you had to cross the path of a potentially oncoming bus to enter the station, with no helpful tactile paving, and it was incredibly unsafe. This has now, thankfully, been rectified, but there must be more understanding at the outset of the principles of safe design in the upcoming planning and policy developments.

Many people associate going blind with old age, but the reality is that many people are born with sight impairment. Of the 106,000 people in Wales living with sight loss, there are an estimated 1,935 children and young people aged between 0 and 25 years. Children with a visual impairment are at risk of poor outcomes, as 80 per cent of learning is visual for children who have full sight, which is why children born with any sight impairment need understanding of the additional support and adjustments needed to ensure that they have the same access to education as their sighted peers.

As children with a visual impairment learn differently, it’s vital that specialist teachers who understand this are able to support teachers and learners. Research undertaken by RNIB Cymru has shown that the number of teachers holding the teaching qualification for this speciality has been decreasing as teachers get closer to retirement age and are not replaced. The qualification for teaching children with a visual impairment has been made mandatory in England. The only university that currently provides the course in the UK is in England and is oversubscribed, so Welsh teachers are not given priority to access that course. It’s also vital that school inspection regimes monitor the provision of specialist support across Wales.

We’re about to enter an important time in the development of additional learning needs policy in Wales, and this is the time when we can really make a difference to visually impaired learners. The additional learning needs Bill must ensure mandatory specialist learning training for staff teaching blind and partially sighted young people.

If I can turn to health, as most sight loss conditions are degenerative but also treatable, and in some cases blindness is preventable, it’s important that ophthalmic patients are reviewed within the NHS within a clinically-led timeframe that doesn’t just focus on the first appointment but that the patient’s full treatment is monitored, with follow-up treatments built in. At present, the referral-to-treatment time target only focuses on the initial diagnosis and first treatment. There’s no target for follow-up eye appointments and therefore the risk to the patient cannot be adequately managed. This is why an RTT target that does not focus on the clinical time frame is potentially damaging, as it drives attention and resources away from ensuring timely follow-up appointments.

The fact is, improved outcomes in ophthalmology will lead to better health outcomes overall and achieve savings. For example, almost half of all falls experienced by blind and partially sighted people were found to be attributable to their sight loss. Blind and partially sighted people also need timely access to rehabilitation services. If the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014’s primary aims are to be realised, then blind and partially sighted people must be assessed by trained and experienced professionals. A specialist assessment will also mean that blind and partially sighted people will know what support they need.

Charities in the sight loss sector are increasingly concerned about the provision of rehabilitation for visually impaired people. They believe the commissioning process should guarantee qualified rehabilitation officers are employed in local authorities. The minimum coverage recommended is at least one rehabilitation officer per 70,000 of the population. Now, I’m not saying that that’s not being achieved, but, currently, local authorities, whilst being asked to do more with less increasingly, are attempting to provide the minimum service for their population and not carrying out sufficient equality impact assessments to ensure that the more complex needs of someone who is losing their sight are met.

Eye clinic liaison officers are also in each health board across Wales, offering support to people with sight loss at the point of need. They’re recognised by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists as an integral part of a minimum service team within the eye clinic. Without the right support, the impact of sight loss can have a major effect on other areas of a person’s life, such as falls, isolation, and on the ability to stay in work. In an RNIB published study carried out at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, it was found, using social-return-on-investment methodology, that an investment of £1 in the early intervention service brings a return of £10.57 to health and social care budgets in Wales, so there are real savings to be made.

Finally, England has only just launched standards for accessible information for people with sensory loss in the NHS. This is over two years behind Wales, so we’ve really made progress here. However, with people with sight loss in Wales still facing major barriers to their healthcare, more needs to be done. They’re still leaving hospital every day unsure of how much medication they are meant to take, or unsure of what advice they have been given. In the hospital setting, simple actions such as a change in the colour of materials so that there’s a greater contrast between food and plates, or beds and wards, toilets and floors—the list goes on—would stop patients from going hungry, losing their way or taking a fall; simple changes, but changes that can have a real effect. The standard in England contains penalties for services that do not ensure that people with sensory loss receive information in the format they need. Is it time that we in Wales think about applying this sort of regulation to our standards? Perhaps the Welsh Government’s annual report on the public sector equality duty should focus more on these types of duties.

So, in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would ask you all to think about the issues affecting people with sight loss in Wales during this National Eye Health Week. Attend one of the events if you can, and let’s all of us do our bit to raise awareness of this issue and to try and improve the standard of living of visually impaired people living in Wales today and tomorrow.

Shared space or shared services remain a significant issue for people living with vision loss in Wales, where no kerbs, no safe crossing points, pavement obstacles and a reliance on eye contact turns high streets into no-go zones for blind and partially sighted people and guide dogs. A Flintshire constituent told me, ‘Both of my children and I have vision loss, and if we want to access the village shops and facilities, we have to cross the road unassisted by a pedestrian crossing, or walk in the road itself’. This, she said, is risky and scary. She added, ‘I’ve visited the Senedd, and the lack of marking of the steps and slopes outside the building makes it very difficult for someone with vision loss to navigate safely.’ As the RNIB states, local authorities should work with blind and partially sighted people under their public sector equality duty to assess existing shared spaces and involve them when new schemes are put forward. Of course, the same goes for the Assembly.

Thank you. I now call on the leader of the house, Jane Hutt, to reply to the debate.

Can I begin by thanking the Member for Monmouth, Nick Ramsay, for raising this important matter and using the short debate during National Eye Health Week? I’m very grateful to him for highlighting the significant impact that low vision and sight loss has on people. Improving access to services for this group in all aspects of Welsh life is so important, as you so adequately have demonstrated in your short debate.

The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 places a responsibility on specified public bodies to set and work towards well-being objectives, which contribute towards each of the well-being goals. One of the goals, of course, is to create a more equal Wales with a society that enables people to fulfil their potential no matter what their background or circumstances. As a Government, there’s work going on in many areas that supports this goal of creating a more equal Wales. One example is our disability equality forum, which allows us to engage directly with disabled people and hear from them how Welsh Government legislation policies are affecting their lives, and how things might be improved. Our framework for action on independent living sets out the action we’re taking as a Government to promote the rights of disabled people in Wales to live independently and exercise the same rights as other citizens. I recall, as many Members from previous Assemblies will, that we did actually take forward this framework for action as a result of a petition that then led to Government responding and developing this framework.

Many issues raised by disabled people are about local service access and delivery, which is, of course, so important to people living with sight loss. We know that local disabled people’s groups and organisations, where they exist, can be very effective in keeping up the pressure for improvement at local level. And it’s important that this continues. As a Government, we’re funding Action on Hearing Loss Cymru, working with RNIB Cymru, to train and support people with sensory loss to share their personal experiences with service providers in the health, social services and housing sectors. As part of this work, a best practice guide for housing providers has been published and similar guides are planned for social services and GP services.

Our digital technology can have a key role in improving access to services for disabled people, including those with sight loss, and this is another area of work that can help reduce isolation and enhance the capacity for independent living by giving disabled people the same choice and control over their lives as everyone else. So, Welsh Government’s digital inclusion programme, Digital Communities Wales, works with disabled people’s organisations so that these organisations can deliver digital skills support to the disabled people they work with. But we also recognise that e-accessibility can be a barrier to more people benefiting fully from the numerous opportunities presented by the internet. I’m aware of research that shows that disabled people are more likely to be digitally excluded, so it’s particularly important that we fully understand the issues, because arguably disabled people have even more to gain from digital technologies that are progressing all the time, as technology can open up opportunities that were previously out of reach. If we look at Digital Communities Wales, for example, it’s supported RNIB Cymru to deliver its lottery-funded Online Today digital inclusion project, which helps people with sensory loss to get more out of computers, tablets, smartphones and the internet.

If we move on to the area of employment, disabled people have told us how important accessing and remaining in work is to them. We also know that, sometimes, negative and inflexible attitudes by employers and managers can adversely affect disabled people. It’s vital that we tackle this, because disabled people have told us that being in employment promotes independence, confidence, health and well-being, as well as providing a route out of poverty and enabling participation in society. As a result of hearing these ongoing concerns, Welsh Government officials are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to raise awareness amongst employers and disabled people of the support that is available through the Access to Work schemes.

Nick Ramsay, you raised the important issue of public transport, which is an area of real concern. There are a number of examples where we in Wales have taken a lead in advocating improvements in our public transport system to improve accessibility. You raised the important issue of access to bus services. Since 2013, it has been our policy that public service vehicles operating local scheduled bus services should have next-stop audiovisual announcements on board. These systems do enable people who are blind or living with sight loss to use our public transport system with confidence, and they reduce the risk of passengers being left at the wrong bus stop in an unfamiliar area that can be a significant distance away from their final destination. In March, we published our voluntary Welsh bus quality standard, which, for the first time, directly linked the payment of grant funding made available from our bus services support grant to the delivery of Talking Bus and other quality expectations. It’s for this reason that we’ve welcomed the Secretary of State for Transport’s decision to introduce an amendment to the Bus Services Bill that will improve the availability of accessible information on buses as a requirement of the Equality Act 2010.

The award of the next Wales and borders franchise and the development of the north Wales and south-east Wales metro systems will provide a transformational change to public transport in these areas that’s long overdue. We’re determined that improving accessibility of the rail network to improve the passenger experience should be at the heart of the work that we’re doing with the rail industry.

Moving on to the crucial area of health, in December 2013, the Welsh Government introduced the all-Wales standards for accessible communication and information for people with sensory loss. The aim is to set up standards of service delivery that people with sensory loss should expect to be met when they access healthcare. Every patient or service user who requires communication support should have this need met. In implementing the standards, Action on Hearing Loss Cymru and RNIB Cymru have worked closely with the NHS Centre for Equality and Human Rights to develop training for NHS staff specifically around the needs of people with sensory loss. ‘Treat Me Fairly’ is an e-learning package that has been developed and accepted by all local health boards as statutory mandatory training at induction. It is about fair and equal treatment for everyone accessing healthcare and is very much centred on communication.

Access will increasingly improve as primary care is organised better. For example, there is a need for more options on how to get help and advice on a wider range of self-care services and professionals to respond. We are managing more people in primary care, including direct access for many conditions, rather than needing a GP referral. Our Wales eye care service leads the way in the UK, and I was very proud to be part of that development many years ago as health Minister. And I recall Dr Dai Lloyd and others—still one or two from then—and David Melding, who were involved at that time, I think in the first Assembly session. It is actually recognised as a significant advance in the provision of primary eye care services. There are two key aims: to preserve sight through the early detection of eye disease and to provide support to those who have low vision and whose sight is unlikely to improve.

Thank you for recognising, Nick, how Wales is ahead in terms of the NHS, but we mustn’t be complacent. There is more to learn, clearly, as you say, and we look to that evidence. The Wales eye care service’s prudent pathways benefit the patient by making their care more accessible and closer to where they live. They also ensure that optometrists in primary care and ophthalmologists in secondary care work at the top of their licence.

The social care provided by local authorities in Wales is a major component of the care offered in the community, and we’re driving improvements for the implementation of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. So, we must be assured that the prevention of avoidable sight loss is a key priority. It certainly is a key priority of this Welsh Government, and this drives our policies. The challenges we face in eye care are well known. The number of people with eye disease is predicted to increase dramatically, and the burden on eye care services will continue to increase, but it’s good news—

Thank you, leader of the house, I should say, for giving way on that. Just for the record, I did identify one area where the Welsh health service was ahead of that across the border in England, but there are also other areas where we are falling behind a little bit, and we need to make sure that we are ahead across the board. I’m sure you’ll agree.

Yes, and I think, Nick Ramsay, I did say we’re not complacent, we have more to learn and we would want to look at the evidence. Clearly, that’s the case.

As I’ve said, we do have new developments to bring forward in terms of new patient pathways that can help prevent sight loss, and better support for people living with low vision. I’m very conscious of the fact that Mark Isherwood particularly always encourages us to talk to the people who actually experience sight loss or other issues, conditions and barriers in their lives. Of course, that’s what we have to do, as well as looking at evidence of how services are being provided cross-border and elsewhere, not just here in Wales or the UK.

Significant progress has been made in improving access and tackling conditions that have had an impact on people’s sight, from investing in new services that detect conditions as early as possible to providing more services closer to people’s homes. I think, since the launch of the eye care delivery plan, which was refreshed and renewed in 2013, the Welsh Government has seen the tremendous efforts by all health boards, including secondary care ophthalmologists, primary care optometrists, local authorities, community health councils, and the third sector. But I am also glad that Nick Ramsay has mentioned the importance of addressing the needs of children and young people. Again, an example of how this is an all-age cross-Government policy area where we need to ensure that we look, in this context, to our education services, our teaching profession, and indeed beyond that into the wider life needs and circumstances of children and young people, which is very important out of education as well as in education. But, as the Member has said, the ALN Bill will provide an opportunity to look and consider these needs further.

I think Nick Ramsay has introduced this short debate today in a very powerful way. You had that experience of walking through Monmouth town. I remember recently going on to the track in Llandow, in the Vale of Glamorgan, which many Members will know of, where I had to go in a go-kart with a blindfold. I think it was actually organised by the RNIB, and it was a terrifying experience. But this is where you learn very quickly. It’s only for us just a one-off experience, isn’t it? I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate today the importance that the Welsh Government places on improving health and well-being of all those people in Wales who are blind or partially sighted. Challenges remain, of course, particularly with an ageing population, but it is an all-age issue in terms of needs. We have got legislation, policies and programmes in place to support and meet these needs. We’re determined to ensure that those living with sight loss can lead inclusive and fulfilled lives. Once again, I want to thank Nick Ramsay for bringing this very important issue so powerfully to the floor today.

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