National Assembly for Wales

I call the National Assembly to order.

The first item on our agenda this afternoon is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government. And the first question, Dai Lloyd.

Our spending plans, approved by the Assembly yesterday, provide for nearly £7 billion of capital investment over the next four years.

Thank you for that response. Further to that, the Welsh Government’s infrastructure investment plan lists some 350 investments across Wales, with a total value of over £40 billion. You will be aware of that, I’m sure. Clearly, capital settlements provided by the UK Government, or the limited borrowing powers of this Assembly, will enable us to deliver all of those infrastructure improvements required over the next few years. Given the fact that the consultation on creating a national infrastructure commission for Wales, or NICW, is now closed—it closed on Monday—what discussions are you to have with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure on devising an innovative funding system that will enable us to deliver more of these necessary projects, something similar to the vision put forward by Plaid Cymru for the body—our NICW as compared with your NICW?

Well, thank you very much for that second question.

Rwy’n parhau i drafod y materion hyn yn rheolaidd gydag Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet dros yr economi. Roedd y drafft o’r gyllideb derfynol, a gymeradwywyd ddoe, yn dangos cynnydd sylweddol yn y dyraniadau cyfalaf sydd ar gael i’r portffolio hwnnw at ddibenion buddsoddi cyfalaf pwysig. Rydym yn parhau i chwilio am ragor o gyfleoedd i allu buddsoddi yn yr agweddau ar economi Cymru sy’n darparu elw drwy’r gweithgarwch economaidd ychwanegol y byddant yn ei gynhyrchu. Gwn fod Ken Skates yn edrych ymlaen at drafodaethau pellach gyda Phlaid Cymru ynglŷn â gwahanol fodelau i’n galluogi i barhau â’r math hwnnw o fuddsoddiad.

I’m very pleased about the plans to replace the Velindre Cancer Centre with a new building on the Whitchurch Hospital land. Could the Cabinet Secretary provide an update about the funding that will be available for the new Velindre Cancer Centre?

I thank Julie Morgan for that further question. She’s referring to work that was begun by my predecessor, Jane Hutt, because, even with the additional £440 million of capital investment announced in the autumn statement, the Welsh Government’s capital budget will be 21 per cent lower in 2019 than in 2009, and that means that we have had to look for innovative ways in which we can fund very important capital developments in the future. The new Velindre Cancer Centre is one of three such schemes that are in development. They will have a total capital value of around £1 billion. Now, the Welsh mutual investment model has recently been explored with the Office for National Statistics to make sure that, when we are finally in a position to move ahead with it, its expenditure will not count against our capital departmental expenditure limit. And those conversations have proceeded, I think, constructively, and I hope to be in a position to report their outcome to the Assembly within the next few weeks.

Good afternoon.

Gan gyfeirio’n ôl at gwestiwn Dai Lloyd, bydd Cadw, fel y gwyddoch mae’n debyg, yn defnyddio refeniw a godwyd ar wahanol safleoedd Cadw er mwyn cyfrannu at y gwariant cyfalaf ar rai o’n safleoedd mwyaf pwysig yma yng Nghymru. Rwy’n meddwl yn benodol am Abaty Nedd, y clustnodwyd £0.25 miliwn neu ychydig dros hynny ar ei gyfer eleni, ond nid yw’n glir iawn i mi faint o’r gyllideb gyfalaf y bydd yn ei defnyddio dros y blynyddoedd nesaf. Y model buddsoddi cydfuddiannol rydych newydd sôn amdano gyda Julie Morgan—a oes lle i syniad o’r fath mewn perthynas â buddsoddi yn ein hadeiladau hanesyddol pwysig nad ydynt yn ôl pob tebyg, ar eu pennau eu hunain, yn codi llawer iawn o arian?

Well, Chair, in front of the Finance Committee this morning, I explored the fact that there are a range of different capital ways in which we can invest in Wales—traditional capital, financial transaction capital, the new borrowing ability that we will have should the Wales Bill pass, and then innovative funding models. We are trying to use all the levers at our disposal in order to carry out those very important capital investments that are there right across the range of responsibilities that the Assembly discharges. Now, in the case of Cadw, the Cabinet Secretary has had discussions with Cadw about them themselves supporting capital investment through the revenue that they raise, and that’s yet another way in which we’re able to do this, but we remain open to looking at all the different methods that are available to us in order to do important work of the sort that the Member just identified.

Thank you for the question. No local authority in Wales has yet contacted the Welsh Government seeking support for a basic income pilot. Nevertheless I intend to monitor the progress of the feasibility work currently being carried out in Fife and Glasgow. While there are clear competence questions to be addressed here, universal basic income has the potential to make a significant contribution to addressing poverty and inequality.

I welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s comments. He’s referred, of course, to the pilot in Scotland. There is widespread support, I believe, for this concept now across the political spectrum and, yes, on the left—we recall that it was Milton Friedman who was one of the early advocates of this concept, and Richard Nixon actually staged the first ever pilot scheme. If local government did want to experiment in this area, shouldn’t we take this opportunity to look at how this exceptionally innovative concept can contribute towards the well-being of our people in the future?

Thank you for the question.

Rwy’n awyddus iawn i gadw mewn cysylltiad â’r gwaith dichonoldeb sy’n mynd rhagddo yn Fife a Glasgow. Credaf ei bod yn bwysig bod yn realistig ynglŷn â’r hyn y maent wedi cychwyn ei wneud. Maent yn gobeithio trefnu astudiaeth ddichonoldeb dros y misoedd nesaf. Byddai’r astudiaeth ddichonoldeb honno yn casglu tystiolaeth, a phe bai’r dystiolaeth honno’n ddigon cryf, byddent yn sefydlu rhaglen beilot. Ond er hynny, mae hwnnw’n gam ymlaen yng nghyd-destun y DU. Mae hanes o lwyddiant gan incwm sylfaenol mewn rhannau eraill o’r byd eisoes. Talwyd incwm sylfaenol i ddinasyddion yn Alaska ers 1982 o gronfa ddifidend barhaol Alaska. Ac er ei fod yn waith sydd, yn yr Alban, wedi cael cefnogaeth yr SNP—yn Glasgow, caiff ei arwain gan gynghorydd Llafur, yn Fife, fe’i cefnogwyd gan arweinydd y grŵp Ceidwadol ar y cyngor yno—er hynny, pe baem yn parhau ag ef, byddai’n rhaid i ni fod yn barod i wynebu penawdau o’r math a ddefnyddiwyd gan bapur newydd ‘The Sun’ wrth adrodd ar arbrawf Glasgow, gan ddweud ei fod yn talu cyflog am ddim gwaith, hyd yn oed i bobl â swyddi. Felly, mae’r syniad, er ei fod yn ddeniadol o ran y ffordd y gallai symleiddio a chynorthwyo pobl sy’n gorfod dibynnu ar hyn o bryd ar gyfuniad cymhleth iawn o waith rhan-amser, budd-daliadau rhan-amser ac yn y blaen—bydd yn her i’r byd gwleidyddol argyhoeddi’r cyhoedd ynglŷn â rhinweddau’r cynllun.

The Sun’ newspaper will do what ‘The Sun’ newspaper does, if it merits the actual phrase of ‘newspaper’ being put after it. But, could I welcome both the question that’s been put and the positive way in which the Minister has responded? And, whilst some would argue from the right and the left, who are supporters of this approach for different reasons, that you cannot actually pilot it but you need to just do it, I would draw his attention to some interesting work that was done in 2013 in central London, where the equivalent of a minimum universal income was given to 13 homeless individuals, without conditions, with no conditionality, in the hope that something positive would happen. And, of course, the sceptics said ‘Well, that’ll be squandered and wasted.’ A year later, 11 of those were not only in homes, with accommodation, but many of them were actually in work as well. Now, I think this is an interesting area for us to explore, for us to examine, and potentially in future, as we see it evolve in other areas, for us to look at in Wales as well in one form or another. So I welcome the open-minded response that the Cabinet Secretary has indicated.

I thank Huw Irranca-Davies for that contribution. It’s very interesting, the example that he points to. Of course, Finland began a pilot of universal basic income on 1 January this year, which is very much focused on the sort of population to which he referred. That’s a major trial involving 2,000 randomly selected people who are currently unemployed, to see what an unconditional basic income might do in their lives.

The idea is not a new one, Llywydd. A long time ago, in the 1970s and 1980s, I spent my time interviewing a group of people who had marched around the streets during the 1930s, demanding what they called ‘the social dividend’, and what was in fact a simple, basic income scheme. So, it’s an idea with considerable roots in our social policy—always struggled to manage to find a practical way of taking it forward. But it is an opportunity for us in Wales to watch what is being attempted elsewhere and to see whether we could do anything practical with the idea ourselves.

I now call on the party spokespeople to ask questions of the Cabinet Secretary. The Conservatives’ spokesperson, Nick Ramsay.

Diolch. Happy new year, Cabinet Secretary.

Thank you.

I am risking repetition, with this morning’s committee, which you’ve already mentioned, but it is fresh in the mind and extremely important: can you update us on your agreement with the UK Government on the much-awaited fiscal framework?

Can I thank the Member for his question and for the persistence with which he has pursued this issue on the floor of the Assembly? So, Members will recall that discussions with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury began as far back as July of last year and came to a conclusion just after the Assembly went into recess before Christmas, with an agreement between the Welsh Government and the United Kingdom Government on the Welsh Government’s fiscal framework. As well as providing evidence to the Finance Committee this morning, I will make an oral statement on the floor of the Assembly on Tuesday next week, because the fiscal framework has been created within the context of the Wales Bill, and I hope to be able to report to Assembly Members and answer any questions in advance of the debate that we will have on the Wales Bill legislative consent motion.

Thank you for your commitment to a statement next week and also for your team’s efforts in this regard. I think it is a good example of what can be achieved when the Welsh Government, the Assembly as a whole, and the UK Government work together. It’s not always happened in the past, but it’s good to see that progress has been made. Can you clarify, as you understand it, the permanence of this new arrangement? Have the UK Government committed to a long-term arrangement rather than the previous Parliament-long commitment that, as I understand, was the case back then?

Yes, Llywydd, it’s an important point to make, isn’t it, that the fiscal framework will only stand if the Wales Bill proceeds on to the statute book. Making that assumption for the moment, if it does, then this is a permanent agreement. There was a great coup in the last Assembly term when my predecessor, Jane Hutt, negotiated a funding floor for Wales. Establishing that as a principle was a very important breakthrough, but it was a temporary funding floor to last for the period of this comprehensive spending review. The funding floor agreed in this fiscal framework is a permanent part of the landscape between the Welsh Government and the UK Government.

That is certainly good news, Cabinet Secretary, and a major plus of the current Wales Bill as it progresses. These are clearly fiscally complex times for the Assembly with the devolution of new taxes, the consequent variance in the block grant, the advent of borrowing powers—I could go on. I understand that the agreement allows for yearly review of arrangements. Can you update us on arrangements for additional mediation between the Governments if there is a future disagreement over sums coming to Wales? How do you intend to safeguard the independence of arrangements on both sides, when those disagreements will ultimately, eventually show themselves to appear?

I thank Nick Ramsay. One of the distinctive features of the agreement is that it allows for both sides to introduce independent analysis and advice if there are disputes between the parties. That is a novel feature of the agreement and not something that the Treasury has historically been keen to sign up to.

So, the fiscal framework sets out a process as to how any disagreements are to be resolved, and allows at each stage in that process both the Treasury and the Welsh Government to deploy independent advice, secured on both sides, to assist in the resolution of those matters. It’s an issue that I will continue to explore over the next few months as to how we can best obtain that independent advice for Wales. There are a number of options available. I’ll want to weigh them up, but the principle is a really important one: in an era in which the Treasury has generally been the judge, the jury, has been able to have a monopoly of evidence on which decisions are made, we will have an independent strand that we will be able to deploy, and that will create a different sort of playing field and a different sort of debate.

Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson, Adam Price.

Diolch, Lywydd. Politicians from the Cabinet Secretary’s party and from mine have long bemoaned the fact that the UK Government’s capital investment has tended to benefit one corner of the country, the south east of England, over all others. Does he think that the Welsh Government has a better record of achieving an even spread of investment across Wales?

Well, the basic premise on which capital investment decisions are made by the Welsh Government is not geographic. Our ambition is to invest in those capital projects that provide the best return for Wales, and it is the quality of the project, rather than their geographical location, that would be the primary determining factor. That said, there are good ideas and good projects in all parts of Wales, and our capital plans, as set out in the budget yesterday, I think demonstrate that, wherever there are important jobs to be done and ideas that merit investment, this Government will pursue them.

Yes, but does that explain the vast gap that we see in the Cabinet Secretary’s own figures—he’s provided them in a written question—between the different regions of Wales? I’ll just give one example, the spend per capita. Welsh Government capital investment over four years, the last four years, in mid and west Wales is half the over £1,000 per head figure for south-east Wales. Next year, it’s projected to fall to 29 per cent. Nothing can justify that level of gap. I have to say, we heard in the Chamber yesterday, I would say, a rather sneering tone of metropolitan provincialism attacking my party for at least trying to get some concession, some investment in the regions and the constituencies that we represent. We make no apology—[Interruption.] We make no apology for equalising the level of investment.

He is a more thoughtful politician than some of his colleagues, and, by the way, those attitudes were present on the Conservative benches as well, also from Members that either represent or live in the most prosperous part of Wales. I would ask him this: will he commit to equalising the level of investment across Wales, so that it’s not left up to my party, year in, year out, to fight for bloody scraps at the bottom of anyone’s pork-barrel?

Well, Llywydd—. Look, there is a serious point in what the Member has to say, which is that we all need to recognise that all parts of Wales need to feel that this National Assembly is attentive to their needs, and that what goes on here results in decisions where they can see the benefit in their lives. Where I think he goes wrong is in trying to portray the decisions we make as not having any interest in that topic. Of course they do. That’s why you see the major investments that you see in all parts of Wales. It isn’t surprising that population makes a difference to investment. The vast bulk of the population of Wales lives in certain parts of Wales, and it’s inevitable that some of the major investments will follow that, but he —[Interruption.] No, no, the per capita figure doesn’t counteract what I just said, because, cumulatively, those per capita expenditures will result in the agglomeration of investment in particular parts. But, if the serious point he is making is do we need to make sure that we invest everywhere where there are important things that need to be done, and that we can demonstrate to people across Wales that we take their needs seriously, then that’s a point on which I would not disagree with him.

The only crumb of comfort that I, as a Welsh nationalist, can take from the kind of figures that I’ve laid out—which show the Cardiff centricity, I think, of the leadership, unfortunately, of the Labour Party—is that at least one region of Wales should be doing well. But we see the same chronic mismanagement here, and I ask him, in his role as local government Minister: is he aware of the fact that the split in the Cardiff Labour group now threatens to endanger the entire £1.2 billion city deal? What does it say for the Cabinet Secretary’s preferred model of regional economic development, the joint committee model? If Labour cannot even work jointly among itself on one authority, how is it going to work cross-party across 10 different authorities as well?

I think the Member’s line of questioning this afternoon rather risks him being less of a Welsh nationalist than a particular fraction of Wales nationalism. I am confident that the votes that are necessary in 10 different local authorities across Wales to secure the governance arrangements that will allow us to move forward with the city deal, that those votes will take place and will take place successfully across south Wales over coming weeks.

UKIP spokesperson, Mark Reckless.

The Cabinet Secretary said this morning that it was not a foregone conclusion that there’d be devolution of income tax-raising powers and that his group would be weighing it up over the weekend and only deciding on the legislative consent motion on Monday. I wonder if he could help me resolve an apparent discrepancy between that statement and the fiscal framework that he has signed on behalf of the Welsh Government, which states at paragraph 14

the Welsh Government’s funding will ultimately comprise two separate funding streams:

Revenues from business rates, devolved taxes (stamp duty land tax and landfill tax) and Welsh rates of income tax;

Adjusted block grant funding from the UK government.’

He told our committee this morning that partial devolution of income tax may not happen. Why, therefore, has he put his signature to a document that says devolution of the Welsh rates of income tax will happen?

Well, Llywydd, the job of work I was given to do in negotiating the fiscal framework was to negotiate a framework that would see us through were partial devolution of income tax to take place. That’s why the whole of this agreement is built around that possibility, but it was clear to the Treasury throughout that process that the final decision on whether the Wales Bill would receive the legislative consent of this Assembly was for this Assembly to make, and, if this Assembly were not to agree to that legislative consent, then this framework would fall as a result and would have to be renegotiated based on the two taxes that would then be devolved. But it’s not a mystery at all. This framework was designed for the world that may take place if the Wales Bill reaches the statute book, and that’s why partial devolution of income tax is referred to throughout it.

I’m not sure if David Gauke, the UK Minister, would be particularly impressed to hear the Cabinet Secretary’s answer, because he, like you, has put his signature to a statement that says that

the Welsh Government’s funding will ultimately comprise’

and then lists a series of elements, which include Welsh rates of income tax. There’s no reference to contingency or different conditions. It says very clearly that Welsh rates of income tax will be devolved. Now, we are asked to believe that this decision has not been taken, but isn’t the reality that, even before the First Reading and the publication of the Wales Bill, and, in particular, that clause that removes the legislative requirement for a referendum prior to income tax-raising powers, actually, that was stitched up between a Welsh Labour Government and a Conservative Government in Westminster and that discussions were had between those two parties to come to that conclusion before that process even started?

No, I think the Member is entirely wrong. He really, really just misunderstands the whole process here. Mr Gauke will be surprised at absolutely nothing that I said in my first answer, because, in every discussion that I held with him, he understood that a precondition to this Assembly giving its consent to a legislative consent motion, if that is what it does, would be that there was a satisfactory fiscal framework in front of the Assembly that would convincingly explain to Members here how, if—if—partial devolution of income tax were to go ahead, the relationships between the Welsh Government and UK Government would navigate the fiscal consequences. That’s the absolute basis on which this document was drawn up, and Mr Gauke would understand that and, I think, echo that, if he was standing here this afternoon.

And Members can see that clear statement, as can members of the Welsh public, at paragraph 14 of that document. But the Cabinet Secretary says to me that I’ve misunderstood the whole process, and, yes, I’ve come to this with fresh eyes. And, perhaps because of that, I had to put a certain reliance on public documents and assurances given by the Welsh Government to the Welsh people. One of those assurances was given on the ballot paper, no less, of the 2011 referendum, which said that, if that result was for further devolution—a ‘yes’ vote—that would not lead to the devolution of tax-raising powers. Yet, now, despite that promise, these tax-raising powers are going to be forced on the Welsh public, who have no more desire to pay higher taxes than they have to remain in the European Union. Yet, the result of that referendum in 2011—that assurance given on the ballot paper—will be ignored by his Government to the same degree as they’d wish to ignore the decision of the Welsh people on our membership of the EU.

Well, if the Member has a quarrel, it’s not with me, it’s with the Secretary of State for Wales, because this was a decision by a Conservative administration in Westminster, not by any politician in this Chamber. Nor is he right—[Interruption.] Not is he right to imply that what the Wales Bill provides is for an automatic rise in taxation. It simply provides this National Assembly with new flexibilities to make decisions in that field—decisions that may lead to some taxes going up, but could equally well lead to taxes being reduced. There is no automaticity of taxes rising as a result of the Wales Bill, should that Bill reach the statute book.

The Welsh Treasury has established structures to manage effectively our public resources, including our new tax and borrowing powers. In the coming months, I will be announcing the chair of the Welsh Revenue Authority.

Thank you for that response, and, I hope, in the coming months, that you will announce where this is to be located, because the economy Secretary, of course, has said that he is considering Wrexham as a possible location for the development bank. Would you be willing to consider Wrexham as a possible location for the treasury? Because we know that the skilled workforce is there. HMRC is to close their centre there before too very long, so there are skills available—there’s even a building available. It would then be possible, of course, to create a financial hub in the north-east of Wales, which would then underline the fact that you as a Government, as you say, are investing in all parts of Wales.

Well, thank you, of course, for the question. I heard yesterday Sian Gwenllian questioning the First Minister arguing for the authority’s headquarters to be located in Caernarfon. Of course, we’ve received a great many letters from Assembly Members trying to persuade me to establish the headquarters across Wales. I understand the reasons for that. The First Minister yesterday explained the work that is currently under way, and discussions with the unions are also under way about where we can locate the headquarters of the WRA. Now, it’s more than just a location with regard to this debate. As the First Minister said, we’ll have to recruit people with particular skills and expertise in a number of areas, and that will be part of the decision when I can make it.

Cabinet Secretary, the second annual report on implementing Part 2 of the Wales Act 2014 makes it clear that engagement with stakeholders has concentrated mainly on professionals and specialist technical groups to date. So, under these circumstances, can you tell us a little more about what the Welsh Government is doing to promote the Welsh Treasury more broadly to the public in Wales, so that everyone is aware of its role and responsibilities, not just professionals working in the area of taxation?

It’s an important point that the Member makes. As we move to establish the Welsh Revenue Authority, and particularly when we have a chair in place, and a board of individuals to support that chair, one of the important things that I will look to them do is to be the public face of that new authority. It is bound to be an organisation that is of particular interest to those people whose working lives are spent in this area, and the Member is absolutely right to say that the bulk of the discussions that have been held so far have concentrated on that world, and in drawing on their help—both in the way that we have framed the two tax Bills that are currently before the Assembly, but also, for example, in making sure that we have the best possible field of candidates for those very important posts. But as we move on and as we move towards the date when the Welsh Revenue Authority will go live, then it will have a relationship with a far wider population of the public in Wales, and there will be a job of work to do to make sure that communication with that wider public also happens. There will be a communication plan developed alongside the Welsh Revenue Authority. I undertook yesterday in response to the Finance Committee to report termly to the Assembly on how all this is developing, and that will be part of the report that I will make.

I thank Joyce Watson for that. As set out in the 2017-18 budget, approved yesterday, the budget allocation for the environment and rural affairs portfolio next year is nearly £384 million.

I thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for that response. As you know, in recent years many of my constituents have been catastrophically affected by flood events caused by severe weather, and many still remain at risk because of where they live. Therefore, the £33 million capital funding that has been allocated for flooding schemes, in addition to the £150 million innovative coastal risk management scheme, which is due to start next year, comes as very good news for those people indeed. It does demonstrate that the Welsh Government is serious, and also proactive, when it comes to protecting people’s homes and businesses from flooding, and that is critical as future severe weather events are predicted more frequently. Bearing this in mind, will the Welsh Government commit to supporting flood defence schemes, like it has in the past, in the future?

I thank Joyce Watson for that. When we published the draft budget back in October we had some difficult decisions to make on capital investment in order to live within the means that we had available to us. I said to the Finance Committee in my first scrutiny session with them that, if any additional capital were to become available in the autumn statement, my first priority would be to revisit those portfolios where some of those difficult decisions had to be made. I was very pleased—and had a series of discussions with the Cabinet Secretary involved to impress this very firmly on me—to restore the £33 million for flood defence purposes. I was very pleased indeed to be able to do that.

I’m grateful to the Member for pointing to the £150 million innovative coastal risk management scheme, because you do have to see these two things together. It follows on from Suzy Davies’s question earlier about using the whole range of tools that we have available to us to promote capital investment for important purposes in Wales. The Welsh Government is now working with NRW and local authorities to prepare a pipeline of future schemes for investment using that £150 million, and I’m very pleased to be able to give the Member the assurance she seeks that we will continue to work hard in this area to obviate the difficulties that some of her constituents have faced.

Cabinet Secretary, I must say that in yesterday’s final budget debate I was very pleased to hear you refer to the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, but I have to say, when the environment budget was before the committee, it seemed to me in our scrutiny of the budget line that the Act was used much more to interpret the existing budget than to actually shape it. I do hope in the future we will be able to see how lines differ and go up and down and programmes end or get expanded, relating to the priorities in what I think is a very, very useful Act.

Can I thank the Member for that? I read very carefully what a range of scrutiny committees had to say on the budget. It was a theme in a number of committees—looking for greater evidence of impact that budget decisions were being shaped through the lens of the Act. I was very willing to accept, in front of the Finance Committee, that there is more to do and, as we shape next year’s budget, I will be looking for ways, internally, that we can strengthen the way in which the lens of the Act is making a difference to our budget decisions, to then be able to demonstrate to Assembly Members that our budget allocations are being shaped by that Act.

In relation to prevention of flooding in the future, I think there is a whole series of ways in which you can see the goals of the Act, and the five ways of working that it comprises, reflected in these investment decisions.

I’m also very pleased to see the funding being restored to the environment portfolio in terms of flood prevention and mitigation. But, I would like to ask you specifically today about another additional allocation, which is the £40 million over four years of capital funding that you have allocated for energy efficiency. If I recall correctly, you said yesterday that this would be sufficient for 25,000 homes. So, I’d like to ask you more about what the Cabinet Secretary for climate change has asked you for. Is this a scheme for homes only? Does it cover businesses and the public sector too? How can we as an Assembly monitor the success of this scheme in terms of energy efficiency and the number of properties that are safeguarded in this way, and the energy savings and the financial savings that accrue to the community?

The additional funding involves more than just homes. There is work to be done in the area of housing and to assist those people who live in poverty. But, on Monday, the Cabinet Secretary made a statement referring to more than just work with regard to housing. She outlined the things that she wants to do with regard to green growth in Wales, and I’m sure that when there are questions here at the Assembly, and in other opportunities, the Cabinet Secretary will feed back on the schemes that she can now prepare with this additional funding.

A range of mechanisms, Llywydd, exist to promote best practice in local government. An enhanced level of systematic and mandatory regional working will provide new opportunities for local government to share and implement best practice in future.

Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. Flintshire’s Food for Life catering mark is an excellent example, I think, of good practice. Providing nutritious and pleasurable school meals to children, it’s also cost neutral and it provides greater scrutiny of where food comes from, which is obviously very important when we’re dealing with children. It also puts more money into local businesses. So, what proposals does the Cabinet Secretary have for ensuring that all local authorities are aware of the benefits of the Food for Life catering mark?

I thank Jenny Rathbone for drawing the attention of the Assembly to Flintshire’s Food for Life scheme. It is, I think, a really good example of a scheme that does practical work on the ground in a way that brings together a whole number of agendas, both environmental agendas but also agendas in relation to public health, and good practice in terms of food preparation, but also it involves the National Procurement Service as one of the key players in it. It recently received an award from the Food for Life scheme. In a sense, the whole awards agenda is designed to be able to draw the attention of others to good work that is going on in parts of Wales. We will publicise it through the ‘Food for Wales, Food from Wales’ strategy. We will use the National Procurement Service as a second way in which that good practice can be drawn to the attention of others. And, as I said in my opening answer, the fact that we are embarked on a discussion with local authorities about greater regional working—that by itself offers better opportunities for things that happen in one local authority to be shared and then spread into other neighbouring councils.

Cabinet Secretary, you’ll be aware that I raised this issue with your predecessors during the last term, but from April to the end of last year, the press and public were excluded from all or part of over 28 per cent of local authority cabinet meetings. Indeed, over half of authorities excluded the press and public from many meetings, with 100 per cent of meetings in the First Minister’s own constituency of Bridgend actually excluding them, and 90 per cent in Ceredigion. Conservative-led Monmouthshire, however, only excluded them, over that same time period, just once during that time. Now, in line with best practice from local authorities in other parts of the UK, would you not agree with me that it is now time for the elected leaders of our local authorities to recognise that such exclusion from our democratic processes at a local level is not acceptable? And therefore would you endorse support for local authorities such as Monmouthshire—and others, I might add, because there were significantly more authorities doing this? It seems that the message is getting through, but it’s not getting through fast enough. With local government elections approaching, would you agree with me that something needs to be done about this and it’s time for council leaders to actually value and recognise the fact that the council tax payer has every right to be included in the democratic process of any local authority?

Well, Llywydd, I definitely do agree that the proceedings of local authorities ought to be as accessible as possible to local electors within their areas. I think there are some very good examples under the control of all political parties in this Chamber who have control of councils, and we do need to do more to accelerate the spread of that practice. I intend to use the opportunity of a local government Bill, if one comes my way during this Assembly, to legislate to strengthen the obligations upon councils to make their proceedings open and available to the public throughout Wales.

I thank the Member for that question. Good public services play a vitally important role in the lives of all citizens in Wales. The Welsh Government continues to protect funding for all local authorities, so that vital services such as social care can go on being provided.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that reply. Another vital service that is provided by local authorities is adequate street lighting in urban areas. Will the Cabinet Secretary agree with me that Powys County Council seem to have embarked upon a rather bizarre policy of not replacing street lights that go out during the winter in places like Llanidloes because they’re engaged in a long-term plan to upgrade street lighting to more energy efficient LED lighting? Whilst nobody can object to the long-term objective, is it not unacceptable that my constituents have to grope around in the dark over large parts of Llanidloes because the county council won’t replace light bulbs?

I thank the Member for drawing that to my attention. It’s not a matter that I’d heard of previously, and I’m very happy to make inquiries of the local authority about it. On the more general point, I of course agree with him: this Government makes a very significant investment through our invest-to-save scheme in assisting local authorities to upgrade lighting in that way, which not only provides a better level of lighting and a more environmentally friendly form of lighting, but produces considerable savings for local authorities in the longer run.

The Welsh Government is already committed to contributing £503 million to the £1.2 billion Cardiff capital city deal. I hope that we will rapidly reach the point where a heads of terms agreement can be signed to secure the Swansea city deal and the funding that would support it.

I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary and support the city deal, as we don’t believe that devolution should stop at Cardiff Bay. Can I ask, where there’s the prospect of any contribution from the UK Government in any discussions over city deals, whether there is a risk that with the fiscal framework and the otherwise useful funding floor that that might mean that any contribution from the UK Government would be offset by reduced spending by them elsewhere in Wales?

Llywydd, I don’t believe that that is a risk. Discussions on contributions to the city deal happen outside of the fiscal framework and in addition to it. In the Cardiff capital city deal the Welsh Government is contributing £503 million and the UK Government is contributing £500 million. In the discussions that we have over the Swansea city deal, we expect to secure the same tripartite arrangement, in which local authorities make a contribution, the Welsh Government makes a contribution and the UK Government makes a separate contribution, and that is outwith the arrangements that are covered in the fiscal framework.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

The next item is questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the first question is from Jeremy Miles.

Careers Wales provides independent and impartial information, advice and guidance on learning and career opportunities, including labour market information and intelligence. The company is actively supporting schools to engage with employers and businesses to provide students with opportunities to interact with the world of work.

I thank the Minister for that answer. Before I was elected I was a lawyer and when I was a schoolchild I didn’t know any lawyers. No parents of friends or family friends were lawyers but somehow it happened. But in today’s changing economy people may not even know what sorts of jobs are available as they’re going through school, and in regions such as my own we hope to see significant changes in the kind of opportunities coming forward. The Minister will be aware of the World Economic Forum report of this month, which encourages Governments to ensure that the world of work is embedded into the school journey from the earliest opportunity. So, in addition to the advice and the guidance that he referred to in his answer, would the Government consider issuing mandatory guidance to schools about embedding the world of work and the experience and opportunities into the school curriculum from an early age?

Can I say that I very much welcome the question and remarks from the Member for Neath? I recognise his description and I recognise that all too often too many children in schools don’t have the opportunities that others may have in order to look and see the breadth of opportunities available to them. Our friend describes careers in law but there are, of course, careers elsewhere that would be equally as inspiring for children and young people. Can I say that secondary schools are required to provide a careers and world of work programme, which does include work-focused experiences? But I think the point that the Member makes is a powerful one and I will look at the guidance that is available to schools on careers and the world of work to ensure that that guidance does ensure that we provide children in school with not only the opportunity to understand this but also provide opportunities for people to visit schools and to inspire children to reach their full potential.

Minister, can I commend the Welsh Government for promoting the Careers Wales mark. I think it’s an excellent initiative and it’s I think now attracting the membership of most schools in Wales and leading to more informed career choices and identification of necessary skills for students as they prepare to enter the world of work. But I’m told there have been problems in the last few years with effective placements and this would also affect people from outside coming into schools to talk about the world of work, and that looking for effective placements has been crowded out of the curriculum. I think schools do their students a disservice if they don’t emphasise the importance of really effective placements and the vision of the world of work that they can give to students.

I recognise the difficulties that the Member describes. I will say that Careers Wales now have something like 60 school-employer Business Class partnerships established. Certainly, a part of the work in developing the new curriculum is to open up these sorts of opportunities and these sorts of conversations within schools and for pupils and between schools and employers. If the Member has any individual issues that he wishes to raise with me, if he would put them in writing, then I’d certainly be very happy to reply more fully to those individual concerns and place that correspondence in the library for all Members to see.

Minister, in the sort of reverse role from my colleague from Neath, I recently met with the Institute of Mechanical Engineers who had a programme that was encouraging teachers to actually go out into the workplace and gain understanding and knowledge of the engineering and STEM areas, funded by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers as well. Will you be looking at such schemes to ensure that we’ve got teachers in the classroom who can then be enthused to actually drive the agenda forward for more STEM and more engineering graduates and people taking up those professions?

Very much so. The Cabinet Secretary is in her place and has heard the point that you make and she will reflect on that in terms of the wider issues in terms of teacher training and teacher support. I think that’s a very important aspect of what we’re seeking to achieve in terms of leadership of schools as well. The focus on leadership that the Cabinet Secretary’s tried to create since her appointment has been for some of these different reasons. I very much welcome that the Institute of Mechanical Engineers are providing this support to science teachers. And, of course, providing and strengthening the place of the school in the wider community in terms of the world of business and the economy is absolutely what we would seek to do.

Thank you. Presiding Officer, I understand that you have given permission for question 2 and question 5 from Joyce Watson to be grouped.

We have made £500,000 available to allow an extended roll-out of the lunch and fun clubs in the summer holidays. The Welsh Local Government Association will continue to administer the clubs, building on the very impressive pilot schemes already delivered by Food Cardiff and participating local authorities.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Many groups including the Trussell Trust have identified the issue of holiday hunger, whereby those children eligible for free school meals and their parents often go without food during the long summer holidays. Indeed, the charity says demand for its 35 food banks in Wales peaks during July and August. This rolling out of funding for lunch and fun clubs across Wales can have a crucial role to play in tackling the scandal of Welsh children going hungry, but how will the Welsh Government ensure that support reaches those who need it most?

Thank you very much. I recognise the situation that food banks have been reporting. In my own constituency, for instance, last summer, both Llandrindod Wells and Knighton, which has an independent food bank, provided a summer scheme to assist families in those areas. The food and fun schemes are demand led and first require an expression of interest from local authorities. Once this has been received, the WLGA will contact the local authority and work together with them to determine which schools would be appropriate to host a food and fun club.

Whilst the scheme does indeed offer a healthy free breakfast and lunch, which attempts to tackle holiday hunger, I am keen for the focus of the scheme to be on the enriching activities around those meals, so that it offers learners who attend an opportunity to participate in physical activity, in visits and in learning opportunities that would not be available to them otherwise. We do know from the initial feedback from the pilot that the scheme, where it has been run already, has done a lot to address the issue of learning loss, a concept that we know exists, where many children fall backwards over the long summer holidays and schools then have to catch up when the new school term starts again in September. So, this is not just about food, it is about addressing issues of learning loss, physical activity and enrichment activities for children who perhaps would not have them available to them in other cases.

I’m really pleased with this scheme and whilst I recognise that £500,000 isn’t a huge amount of money, it’s money that’s very welcome, and I see that that is for this year and this year alone. So, my question is that I hope you’ll be able to continue this through the course of this Assembly. You talk about the continued enrichment that children within communities enjoy through these fun clubs so that they don’t slip back and lose all of that momentum that was gained in their school term. Will you also look at isolated communities where there isn’t an awful lot happening because of the nature of their rurality, so that those young children get an opportunity just the same as those who live in other areas?

I would hope that we will have expressions of interest to expand the scheme from local authorities across Wales. What’s really important is if the local authorities who currently don’t already operate this scheme—and there are a number across south Wales and a couple in north Wales who already do—if other local authorities have an interest in this, then they need to let the WLGA and us know that they want to participate, so that we can then identify the communities that will benefit from it most. So, if there are individual schools in people’s constituencies that are interested in being a part of this scheme, then, again, I would urge them to get in touch with their local education authority to show an interest so that we can make sure that as many children as possible who will benefit from this have the opportunity. The pilots have been very successful and it is my anticipation that we expand that success and open it up to as many Welsh children as possible, regardless of whether they live in urban areas or whether they live in rural areas. But the emphasis is on local authorities to come forward and I would urge them to do so.

Andrew R.T. Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. It’s never a good idea to put a sweet in your mouth just before you ask a question [Laughter.] This initiative that the Government has brought forward, will it be part of the childcare offer that is being made available, because it has been alluded to at committee stage that schools obviously might form part of the facility through the school holidays? I appreciate this initiative is only funded for one year, but will it be looked upon as part of the offer that the Government is making to increase childcare provision across Wales to meet its manifesto commitment?

As you will be aware, Andrew—and if only putting a sweet in your mouth before the question was the only bad idea you ever had or, indeed, told the Chamber about—[Laughter.] If I could just say, we work very closely across the portfolios to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to this. The food and fun clubs operating out of schools are potentially affecting all children in Wales. The childcare offer is about an opportunity for our very youngest children. These clubs are open to primary school-age children and secondary school-age children, so whilst there may be some crossover, it is not intended to be a part of that scheme; it is above and beyond the childcare offer that will be available.

There is another way of looking at this, of course, and there is a strong argument for restructuring the school year and distributing holidays in a more balanced way across the year. Doing so over the year, rather than having one big block over the summer, would assist in improving attainment levels within schools and make it easier for working parents. Many experts argue that children, particularly boys, from deprived backgrounds do find it difficult to maintain information over lengthy brakes and that they could benefit from briefer school holidays that happen more often. When Plaid Cymru first raised this issue, your party and your spokesperson for education at that time, Jenny Randerson, was very supportive of it. So, what assessment have you made of this proposals of restructuring the school term? And if it hasn’t happened, will you commit to carrying out such an assessment and then report back to the Assembly on that?

Thank you for that question. No assessment has been carried out since I took over this job, although there has been an independent report and some research done on restructuring the school week—for instance, having a four-day school week, allowing for one day at the end of the week to be for teacher preparation and training purposes—but nothing has been done to look at the overall academic year. I absolutely recognise this principle that, for some children, that long summer break does lead to the concept, as I said earlier, of learning loss, and that’s why these food and fun clubs will not just focus on the issue of holiday hunger, but actually look to ensure that they—and the pilots suggest that they have been successful in doing so—address that concept of learning loss, especially with regard to literacy, numeracy and oracy. One headteacher spoke to me recently and said that if it wasn’t for the fact that her high school remained open during the summer, many of those young people would not have an adult to talk to for most of the day and their oracy levels dropped considerably. So, we know that this is an issue. This policy intervention is hoping to successfully attack and solve a number of problems.

I now call on the party spokespeople to ask questions of the Cabinet Secretary. The Welsh Conservatives’ spokesperson, Darren Millar.

Diolch, Lywydd. Cabinet Secretary, the Programme for International Student Assessment results showed that Wales has an education system that is lagging behind the rest of the UK and that we’re in the bottom of the international league table for literacy, maths and science. You and I both know that that isn’t good enough, and want to make a difference. Science, in particular, has slipped back, with PISA scores declining in each and every test since 2006. What action are you taking to reverse the decline in science in Wales?

Thank you, Darren. You quite rightly say that neither you nor I believe that our performance in the PISA tests are good enough, and our performance in science has been particularly disappointing, especially our performance in science from our higher performing children, and our lack of representation on an OECD average level 6, level 5, and level 4. And you will be aware that, earlier this month, I announced the creation of a network of excellence for science and technology. That builds upon my previous announcement for mathematics. The network will look to ensure that our science teachers are the best that they can be. It will include working and connecting schools with higher education institutes, where we have some outstanding science departments and technology departments, and also ensuring that children’s experience of science lower down the curriculum, in their primary schools, where people often begin to form prejudices about studying subjects of this nature, can be addressed. So, it’s a comprehensive package to improve science teaching, and the quality of science teaching, across the board.

I’m glad that you’ve been able to shed a little bit more light on the national network of excellence for science and technology, because, of course, it was an announcement that you didn’t make in this Chamber—you made it in a press release, and we still haven’t received a written statement or a letter from you, as Assembly Members, to inform us about this important development. But, nevertheless, I do welcome the extra effort that the Welsh Government is putting in on that front.

But, as you quite rightly said, in your response to me there, we need to raise the performance of science teachers, and have high-quality science teachers. But you know, and I know, that your predecessors presided over a 45 per cent fall in the number of people qualifying to teach science between 2010 and 2015. And, in fact, that fall was greatest in biology, with over 67 per cent in terms of the reduction in the numbers qualifying. So, what action are you specifically taking to address the needs of the teaching workforce in Wales, to make sure that we’ve got sufficient numbers of science teachers in the future?

You are right: quality of teaching is key to tackling this agenda, and it will be the main focus of the work of the network of excellence. I am currently reviewing the graduate incentives that we have available to attract people into the teaching profession, as well as looking at whether we can refresh our graduate entry programme, so that people who perhaps have had a career in science, or technology, who would then want to move into teaching at a later date. So those are currently being reviewed at the moment, so that we can do what we can to attract our best science graduates into a career in teaching.

This is an issue that needs to be tackled, and it can be particularly acute through the medium of Welsh, as well as individual science subjects, and that then precludes the opportunity for students who want to study science through the medium of Welsh from being able to study three separate sciences, rather than being told they only have to do double-award science. It’s one of the issues we have to tackle, but it is an important one.

I’m very pleased that you are reviewing the incentives available. We all know that, if you want to go into a career in teaching science in England, the bursaries are much more generous than they are here in Wales. In fact, if you want to be a physics teacher in England, you can get a bursary of up to £30,000, compared to getting as little as just £11,000 here in Wales.

I wondered if I could pin you down a little bit, and ask you what the timescale for that review is going to be, given that people want to be making these decisions and planning ahead, particularly with other changes in the HE system, as it were, in train. And, also, what action are you taking to inspire those younger children in science? We all know that there’s been a reduction in the grant to Techniquest recently, in the budget. Now, that’s for understandable reasons, in terms of budget pressures, but what are you going to do to ensure that inspiring places like Techniquest still have the ability to reach out and engage people—young people of primary school age and secondary school age—in the future?

Well, thank you, Darren. I hope to make an announcement on the review of graduate incentives shortly. What’s really important is to understand that, if the Welsh Government is going to put money into training these teachers, they don’t then teach somewhere else. We have to ensure we get good value for Welsh investments, and that those teachers then end up teaching Welsh children in Welsh schools and not using those skills somewhere else. I’m confident, having met the chief executive of Techniquest, that despite the reduction in grant from the Welsh Government, they will continue to offer an ambitious outreach programme from the centre here in Cardiff, and there are many organisations, charitable organisations, alongside Techniquest that continue to deliver very good, very practical and very exciting science talks within schools. I’m particularly interested, and will be making an announcement to this Chamber later on, in how we plan to capitalise on what was being said earlier about the world of work, to be able to develop links between schools and industry. The science and technology industries are a perfect example of demonstrating to a student that if you take and excel in science, these are the kinds of careers that you can go on to do in later life, and we will making an announcement of resources to support that work.

UKIP spokesperson, Michelle Brown.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree with me that if schools in Wales had more teachers on their full-time staff, they would not have to spend so much money on hiring supply staff?

Obviously, substantive posts, with teachers that know their students and know their classrooms and schools well, is the preferable way of staffing our schools. However, what we also know is that in a self-improving school system, we want some of our teachers to move around institutions so that they can share their best practice. There will be times when it is perfectly legitimate to have a planned absence from work for training purposes—a secondment, for instance, for teachers to develop their Welsh language skills—but we also need to make sure that we’re managing those planned absences and that schools follow Welsh Government guidance. There are, of course, occasions when staff will be sick, just like all of us sometimes get sick, and, again, schools need to manage that appropriately.

Okay. Thank you for that answer. In light of the comments from the director of the teachers’ union ATL Cymru that a substantial proportion of the money spent on supply staff goes to line the pockets of agencies, and that all parties should work together to develop a system that provides better value for money, better rewards for supply teachers, and above all, better education provision for our children, when will the Cabinet Secretary invite me and the education spokesmen of the other parties to work together with her on plans to deal with this problem?

My predecessor, Huw Lewis, actually set up a task and finish group to look at the issue of supply teaching. That group’s work has come to an end. The report has recently been sent to me. I am considering the content of that report and a way forward, and I am always very happy to meet with opposition spokespeople, or indeed people from the backbenches of other political parties, to talk about any good ideas they have to tackle this problem. Supply teaching is an important issue. We do know that sometimes supply teachers are absolutely necessary in classrooms, but we need to make sure that they are well trained, they are properly remunerated, there are proper child safeguarding issues that have been addressed, and that children’s learning is not impacted by having a supply teacher in the classroom, and that can be overcome by great planning and leadership within individual schools.

At the end of 2015, the Labour Government said:

It is important to remember that the employment of supply teachers does not fall within the powers currently devolved to the Welsh Government which means we are unable to set pay rates or compel local authorities to operate pools of supply teachers.’

If she gets these powers as part of further devolution, would the Cabinet Secretary impose a set of rules on schools for dealing with the issue of supply teachers?

As I said, we’re not waiting for the Wales Bill and the devolution of teachers’ pay and conditions to address this issue. A task and finish group was set up by the previous Minister and I am currently reflecting on the work of that group and will make a statement shortly on how we will take this agenda forward. But I am keen that teachers’ pay and conditions be devolved to this institution. Let’s be absolutely clear that there is no such thing as a national set of pay and conditions. When we say we want teachers’ pay and conditions to stay in London, what we’re saying is we want an English system here for Wales, because Scotland already has a different system. I’m very keen to be able to develop, in conjunction with the teaching profession, a made-in-Wales solution to issues around teachers’ pay and conditions. The First Minister has made it very, very clear that no teacher in Wales will lose out, but this is an opportunity to align teachers’ pay and conditions with our national mission of education reform and education excellence.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Sian Gwenllian.

Thank you. My questions are to the Minister for the Welsh language. Last Friday, you appeared on the media and said that you believed that the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 was too complex and that we needed to review the way that language standards are drawn up and implemented. Can you expand a little on that view?

Thank you very much. I think that I was clear enough in discussing several times in this place, and in other places, that I believe that it is time to review the current legislative framework that we have, and the standards are part of that. I’ve also been clear that the priority at present is to look at the language strategy and legislation will flow from that. I will be publishing a White Paper on these issues in the spring.

Thank you. Of course, there is nothing wrong with looking at the way in which legislation is working and to simplify it if possible, but we must be guarded because, to date, there may be a question about the willingness and resolve of Government to implement the Measure. So, it’s important that the aim of any review is to simplify the implementation of the legislation rather than weakening that legislation. One could argue that there is room to strengthen and expand the legislation. So, one must ask why only one set of standards has been brought forward in six years. The process may be bureaucratic, but I do think that there is more than just bureaucracy behind this slow pace. For example, it was the Government that decided to reject the draft standards tabled by the commissioner, and it’s the Government that’s cut the commissioner’s budget by 32 per cent in real terms over a period of four years. Do you think that one set of standards in six years is sufficient and when will you, as a Government, publish a timetable that will lead to implementing standards in care, housing, water companies, telecommunications, train and bus companies, and gas and electricity companies, and so on and so forth?

Since I’ve been Minister the only delay that there’s been was from the Plaid Cymru bid to change the standards that were placed before the Assembly on higher education. So, I do take your point, but I’m also entirely clear that there’s no will to slow the pace on this or not to implement the legislation. But, I don’t think that legislation is the kind of legislative framework that we will need in future. I want to ensure that we have legislation that will ensure that we do have the right way to implement policies to support the Welsh language wherever we want to use the Welsh language, and I will be doing that through a White Paper in spring.

You mentioned action there and the Welsh in education strategic plans are one way of taking action. These have now been introduced by all the education authorities in Wales, but apparently they are disappointing to say the least. I don’t need to remind you how crucial it is that we increase Welsh-medium education if we are to reach the ambition of 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. This was emphasised again today by the Welsh Language Commissioner, who was also calling for a radical chance to the education system if this objective is to be attained.

How will you support these local authorities in strengthening these plans from where they currently stand? Will you consider giving Estyn a role as they oversee education authorities and inspect them? They may have a role in monitoring and enhancing the Welsh-medium provision as part of their core work.

I’m very happy to consider a role for Estyn if that will be of use to us during this process. I will say this about the WESPs: we have received plans here and I am considering those plans at the moment. When I’ve had an opportunity to look at them in detail, and when I feel that I am ready to make a statement, I will do so on how we are going to move forward. I hope that I will be in a situation to do that over the coming month.

Thank you, Mike. ERW are making positive progress, as confirmed by their Estyn inspection. I’m confident that, while there’s room for improvement, they continue to play an important role in delivering improved outcomes for learners. We will continue to work closely with them to make best use of resources and to maximise their effort and their impact.

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response? And can I ask the Cabinet Secretary why she believes that the ERW consortium area is more suitable for education improvement within the Swansea area than either the former West Glamorgan area or the Swansea city region?

Well, Mike, it will be important to review the national model for regional working in light of any announcements that my Cabinet colleague, Mark Drakeford, will make with regard to local government reform. It will be important to look at the current status of the regional educational consortia and how best we can continue to deliver school improvement services, and whether there are actually other aspects of education that could be more effectively and strategically delivered by local authorities working together. As I said, I will be working very closely with my local government colleague as this Government takes forward its reform programme for local government to ensure that the role of educational consortia is closely aligned with that work.

ERW’s purpose is to deliver a single, consistent and integrated professional school improvement service. What evidence has ERW given you that it has improved teaching and learning of modern foreign languages? And, if you’re able to take this question, what evidence has it given to you that it’s improved Welsh teaching in English-medium schools in Swansea, helping build a more positive attitude both in schools and in the local authority towards the Welsh language?

Suzy, there are two important ways that I as Minister view the performance of each of our regional consortia. The first is Estyn’s independent inspections of the consortia. With regard to ERW, Estyn’s outcomes were that their support for school improvement was good, their leadership was good, their partnerships were good, and their resource management was good. However, improving quality was judged to be adequate by Estyn. As a follow-up to the Estyn inspection, I met with all regional consortia as part of my challenge-and-review meeting, where we look to see what we could do together, as Welsh Government and the regional consortia, to address any shortcomings in consortia performance and to drive forward improvement. I admit that modern foreign languages and the quality of Welsh language education in English-medium schools was not discussed at those meetings, but I will write to the Member with the evidence that she wants to receive.

Following on from Sian Gwenllian’s question to Alun Davies a little earlier, I too have been looking at the WESPs in the ERW area, and particularly in the Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend areas. I have to say that the targets proposed as part of those plans are extremely disappointing. I don’t think we can overemphasise the undermining that’s happening here. If you’re expecting to achieve a million Welsh speakers by halfway through this century, then you truly have to reform these plans and strategies because, at the end of the day, there’s virtually no vision here in enhancing the capacity of Welsh-medium primary schools in these areas. I would urge you most urgently, Minister, to review and change that.

Thank you for that. As my colleague said earlier, we will be looking at the adequacy of the WESPS that have come forward. This Government has ambitious plans for expanding Welsh-medium education and ensuring the quality of that education is the best that it can be. It’s simply not just about being there, Dai; it’s about ensuring that it is good quality when it is there. We shouldn’t accept second best if we have decided to educate our children through the medium of Welsh. We also have to ensure that there is adequate provision for those parents who want to make that choice, and we have a job of work to do to encourage more parents to see the benefits of positively choosing a bilingual or a Welsh-medium education for their children. So, there is much to be done, both at local authority level and Welsh Government level, for the ambitious plans that we have for Welsh-medium education for our children.

Local authorities are responsible for sixth-form education. When proposing change they must comply with the school organisation code. An outline business case for a new post-16 centre in Torfaen has been approved. We await a full business case, and I should say that capital funding applications are treated without prejudice to statutory proposals.

Thank you, Minister. You’ll be aware of unique challenges faced by young people in north Torfaen, who’ve had no access to post-16 education locally since 2008, with some young people having to try to access sixth forms at other schools or many having to take a long bus journey to Crosskeys college, which is two bus rides there and two bus rides back every day. As you’ve highlighted, Torfaen council are developing plans for a post-16 centre to serve all young people in the borough, and I’m very grateful for the support of your predecessor, Julie James, in helping to progress this vital project. Can I ask, Minister, if you’ll take this opportunity to restate the Welsh Government’s commitment to addressing this injustice in Torfaen as a matter of urgency, and what assurances can you give that you will ensure that all Welsh Government decisions on the final business case are taken as quickly as possible?

I’m grateful to my good friend and neighbour for tempting me into an appalling indiscretion again. She will be very aware that I cannot comment on any proposals for change that might be under consideration by local authorities; these proposals will, of course, be or may be referred to Welsh Ministers for some decisions, and we recognise that. I’m aware that Torfaen is considering this matter, and I think the executive will be considering it, in fact, in the next week or so. Let me say this: I’ve seen the benefits of the post-16 changes that we’ve seen in my own constituency in Blaenau Gwent and I would want to see those benefits extended to students elsewhere in the country as well. I think we need to ensure that we have consistency of opportunity, consistency of service and consistency of provision. Consistency doesn’t always imply uniformity, of course, and there will be different options for different parts of the country and for different areas. But, let me say this: we are aware of the decisions that are being taken by Torfaen and we’re aware of the debate and discussion that’s been taking place with Torfaen. We’ve got a good relationship with the local authority, which has got an excellent new leader now in Torfaen, and I can look forward to continuing to work with the local authority in Torfaen for a conclusion to these discussions.

The new sixth-form centre in Cwmbran will replace all English-medium school sixth forms in Torfaen by September 2019. What discussion has the Cabinet Secretary had with the Torfaen council about helping young people with transport costs to access the new centre in view of the Welsh Government decision to scrap discount bus travel schemes in Torfaen and also in Wales? Thank you.

I must say I am somewhat surprised by the question. Members should be aware that the Welsh Government are constantly in conversation with local authorities about these matters. We have been in conversation with Torfaen about these matters for some time now, and that’s a matter of public record. We will continue to have our discussions and conversations with the excellent local authority in Torfaen, and we will continue that until we reach a happy conclusion.

Thank you, Janet. Engagement and well-being are important factors in supporting children to do well in school. Recognising this, the 2016-17 Estyn remit commissioned a review into the effectiveness of pupil participation and production of a guide to help schools involve pupils in meaningful debate. This report is now available on Estyn’s website.

Thank you. One thousand and five pupils are now registered at pupil referral units in Wales, and the number of pupils increase in each age group from about 11 to 15. Over 51 per cent of those registered at a single PRU and over 40 per cent dually registered are around 15. Now, I know from my own experiences in my constituency, where I’m dealing with cases, that, sometimes, pupil referral units seem exclusive—they don’t appear to be inclusive, and children feel quite disenfranchised from the education system. How are you working with education authorities in terms of resource so that we can actually have in Wales a more inclusive education system that recognises the strengths, the weaknesses and the ambitions of all our children in today’s society and allows them to feel part of our mainstream education system, and allows them to be educated along with their friends and their peers?

Janet, you raise a very, very serious point. I want to ensure that I preside over an inclusive education system, and a system that meets the needs of all children regardless of where they live, regardless of the language of choice through which they study or, indeed, any additional learning needs or challenges they have in accessing their education. Estyn had some very serious things to say about quality in many of our pupil referral units and children who are educated in settings other than at school. You will be aware that Ann Keane, the former chief executive of Estyn, is working with the Welsh Government to address the findings of that report to do what we can to improve pupils’ experience in PRUs but also in other settings where increasingly we find schools or local authorities placing children if they are not able to maintain a place in full-time education. The Member is absolutely right to raise the issue of the education of these children. There is more to be done, and I will be using some of the additional resources made available to me by the Cabinet Secretary for finance to work on this particular area.

Cabinet Secretary, I wonder if you would agree that the prospects for good pupil engagement are greatly enhanced if parents and the wider community are engaged closely with their local schools, and, if so, whether you will work to devise a mechanism or system by which we can be confident that there will be good-quality community-focused schools consistently delivered right across Wales.

John, you will be aware—because we have discussed this previously—that our twenty-first century schools programme will only gain a sign-off by Welsh Ministers if there is a significant community element in all of those proposals that are brought forward. We know, from looking at the evaluation of the pupil deprivation grant, that with schools that use that grant effectively, much of that grant is used on building strong relationships between families and the school to get buy-in into their children’s education. On the announcement that we have made with regard to food and fun clubs in the summer, one of the most successful elements of those clubs is that, on the final day, parents come into the food and fun club to participate in the lunch and activities in the afternoon, again to bind parents into those programmes. So, we are working as a Welsh Government on a number of fronts—both on the physicality of the building of the school, as well as the ethos of what goes on in those buildings—to build strong relationships between parents and schools, because we know that that is when children do best. They don’t even have to go to school to be a focus for Welsh Government. We have spent considerable resource last year, and we will do so again this year, on developing resources for parents to help their children get ready for life in school, and what they can do as parents to make the transition from home into school as successful as it can be. So, we will continue to work on a number of programmes to support families to support their children be the best that they can be in school.

Thank you, Nick. Band A of the twenty-first century schools and education programme will see an investment of more than £1.4 billion over the five years of the programme, which will come to an end in 2019. To date, funding has been approved for 127 of the 150 projects in the programme, and 102 of those are either under construction at present or have been completed.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Monmouthshire County Council has worked closely with the Welsh Government to immeasurably improve, initially, primary schools in Monmouthshire, and Monmouth Comprehensive School is now being rebuilt, with other comprehensives having to wait. There continues to be a real problem with the presence of asbestos in schools across Wales. How are you going to ensure that that twenty-first century schools programme funding is best targeted, so that real issues such as asbestos are right at the front of the queue of being dealt with and are prioritised by the Welsh Government and local authorities across Wales?

Thank you, Nick. I am glad that you have recognised the close working between the Welsh Government and Monmouthshire council. Funding of around £93.4 million has been committed for Monmouthshire, with the Welsh Government contributing £45.6 million towards the sums of the new buildings in your constituency, which is a significant amount of money. The state of a school building is one of the factors that prioritises placement for a school building programme within the programme. So, the state of the school building and its state of disrepair is an important factor. It should be remembered that, when it is undisturbed and is kept in situ and adequately managed, asbestos does not pose a risk, but, as I said, individual local authorities carry out a survey and Welsh Government also assist in that process to look at the state of school buildings, and that is an important factor in gaining approval for a twenty-first century school bid.

Thank you, Adam. I published the Welsh Government’s response to all of the Diamond review recommendations on 22 November. I invited anyone with specific proposals on incentivisation to respond to the Government’s consultation. That consultation closes on 14 February. I will then need to consider the responses before I outline next steps.

I’m grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for her response. Has the Government commissioned any research? For example, there are a great many programmes that have this core aim of attracting graduates or retaining graduates within their home nation once they graduate across the world. I’m aware that over 40 states in the United States use different kinds of debt relief, most often—that’s the tool most prominently used in the United States. Of course, there are economic and social benefits to those kinds of programmes. So, could we have some sort of study that would give us an overview so that we can choose the best option for Wales?

Thank you. I think it’s important to point out that Welsh Government is not averse to looking at using incentives to attract people to Wales. We talked earlier about teacher training incentives, and my Cabinet colleague recently announced a new programme that will ensure that student nurses have access to a nursing bursary, which is not available across the border in England, if they commit to continuing to a period of two-year work post qualification in the Welsh NHS.

As I set out in my response to Diamond, I’m keen to work across Government and with others inside this building, outside this building, to look at this issue. However, I should say that Diamond was clear that the best impact and value for Government investment is to support students when they need it the most, rather than continuing to do what we were doing, in effect, which was writing off loans for graduates. We will continue to offer a £1,500 write-off for all Welsh students when they begin to pay off their debts, but I am committed to ensuring a stable and sustainable system of higher education finance that delivers for students, universities and the public purse. But I’m open to practical, sustainable and affordable suggestions of how we may be able to use a system of incentives in the way that you suggest.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

No questions were tabled under the next item.

That brings us, therefore, to item 4, the 90-second statements. Janet Finch-Saunders.

Diolch, Lywydd. Assembly Members, I am blessed to represent a constituency that is home to Snowdonia national park, providing a unique visitor experience, a safe natural habitat for much of our nation’s rare flora and fauna, all whilst protecting and enhancing our natural beauty and cultural heritage, and its own local development plan. A fifth of the park is statutorily protected for its wildlife and geological interest, which includes 107 sites of special scientific interest, totalling over 62,500 hectares, and 21 national nature reserves, boasting some of the most important natural and semi-natural terrestrial and coastal ecosystems in Great Britain. The park attracts thousands of visitors to enjoy its amazing landscape and the variety of activities. More than 360,000 walkers climb the summit of Snowdon every year, and the park is one of the top destinations in the world for outdoor activities and adventure sports. Overall, our national parks account for £557 million of GVA. However, I am acutely aware of just how much the managing bodies of our parks have to deal with increasingly complex and varied issues at a time of diminishing resources. In welcoming the fact that the Welsh Government has embarked on a process of reviewing designated landscape areas in Wales, we welcome the forthcoming report and we support those working on it with your aims. But I firmly—

Can I thank the Member? Hefin David.

On 4 November, along with hundreds of others, I attended the funeral in Ystrad Mynach of my constituent Cyril Thomas, who passed away on 12 October last year. Cyril was a former assistant headteacher of Lewis Boys School in my constituency, where he taught both history and religious education. The brother of former champion boxer Eddie Thomas, Cyril worked as a miner before becoming a teacher and was president of the school during some difficult times for the education profession in the 1980s and early 1990s.

However, Cyril used his force of personality and care for his pupils to make a lasting and positive difference to their lives, something for which they will forever be grateful. You only have to look at the number of tributes that were made on social media to Cyril by former friends, colleagues and pupils to see how popular and appreciated he was. Indeed, shortly after his passing, a tribute was made to him in the Western Mail. It’s clear Cyril appreciated that the art of teaching and learning was about more than just exam results. It was about the wider school experience, earning students’ respect and, in turn, giving it back to them, whatever their background.

Cyril was a keen singer and lay preacher outside of school and, in his later life, wrote a weekly column in the local newspaper about Ystrad Mynach community life. Cyril will be sadly missed, but he inspired a generation of children. His memory will live on in the local community and in all that his former pupils have achieved.

Bethan Jenkins.

I’d like to use my first 90-second statement to pay tribute to Rebecca Evans, who was killed in a car accident on the M4 at Port Talbot last year, along with her eight-month unborn baby. Many Members in the Chamber will know Rebecca through her work as Shelter Cymru’s education and youth officer. In fact, I met her many times to discuss my financial education Bill. She and her husband, Alex, were on their way to work at Shelter Cymru when that crash happened, and their two-year-old son was also seriously hurt.

Rebecca was only 27, but, in her five years working for Shelter Cymru, she had built its education and youth information service, which, in turn, has helped thousands of young people to understand the practical steps they need to take to live independently. Her devastated colleagues have said that, without her passion and commitment to young people, many would have faced homelessness and an uncertain future.

She also campaigned with young people for the inclusion of practical leaving-home support to be included within the Welsh curriculum. One of Rebecca’s last pieces of work was with Swansea pupil referral unit, helping young people to gain an Agored Cymru qualification in personal and social education in homelessness and housing, a unit she designed herself. The unit workers told Rebecca that her determination got them all through this qualification, and she would not give up on anyone and would always find a way to make things work.

Rebecca, from Bridgend, was part of Encore, an English-and-Welsh-speaking stage school, aimed at budding young stars from age four to 18. She was also an accomplished dancer. I think all Members will agree that Wales will be poorer for Rebecca’s passing.

The next item on our agenda is the Welsh Conservatives’ debate, and I call on Angela Burns to move the motion.

Diolch, Lywydd. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate today. Of course, since tabling this motion, the issue of winter pressures has hit the headlines in both Wales and England. And, to be truthful, I would expect there are concerns across all home nations. We are seeking an update report from you, Cabinet Secretary, on how you think the Welsh health service is coping and how you have evidenced the views that you might have. I’m very conscious that, year after year, health boards promise that they are ready for winter pressures, yet, year after year, we have a situation where people are struggling to give and receive the correct and safe levels of service.

As I said yesterday, having a public debate in response to very public concerns—and you only have to look at the front page of today’s ‘Western Mail’ to understand the pressures staff feel they are having to operate under—. Having that public debate in no way casts a negative light on staff within the NHS. This winter, as in previous winters, many of them have gone over and above the call of duty. They have stood in for colleagues struck down with flu, they have dealt with worried parents of frightened young children suffering from bronchiolitis, a winter perennial, and they have held the line with our more elderly and vulnerable members of society for whom winter can be such a trial. I would like to thank all the excellent staff who work in our hospitals, surgeries, nursing homes and ambulances. You are all a credit to your profession, and the fact that we are debating this issue is by no means a reflection on your abilities or dedication to your jobs. You’re all working under immense pressure and, having been a reluctant but regular user of the NHS in recent years, I cannot speak highly enough of the work that you do.

Cabinet Secretary, the Royal College of Physicians were among a great many organisations, including the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of Nursing—and I could go on with the list—who essentially raised the same concerns about readiness, about staffing levels, numbers of beds available, training and funding during written and oral evidence to the health committee. The Royal College of Physicians stated that:

The challenges facing health boards as they prepare for winter are complex. They reflect wider pressures on the NHS and social care.’

And they went on to say that:

Health boards are operating in an under-funded, under-doctored and overstretched context.’

Given the reports that we are receiving in our constituencies, the stories emerging in the media and concerns being raised by a multitude of healthcare professionals, I ask you, Cabinet Secretary, for an honest appraisal of how you feel that the Welsh NHS has, under your watch, performed so far this winter. How is it coping, and do you feel that it is in a healthy enough position to see out the rest of the winter season?

The British Medical Association, in evidence it gave to committee and in further briefings, states that too many hospital beds have closed over the last decade and the

lack of investment and capacity in social care is increasingly impacting on the provision of healthcare, particularly during times of peak demand.’

Yet, in evidence you gave on 17 November, you said:

we don’t think that there is evidence that year-round capacity is overstretched in terms of our numbers. We’re always looking, though, at whether we have got the right level of bed capacity as part of the system.’

Do you still stand by these views, even though the BMA seemed to think differently?

Now, I do agree that many of these organisations say that the NHS is under this pressure year-round, however, the shape of that pressure changes in the winter, with far more of the individuals at either end of the spectrum being at risk—either the very young or the very elderly. Society has changed and Wales has now got an increasingly ageing and therefore more frail population, and this means there are more complex needs and an increase in the amount of visits to accident and emergency departments. Wales has the highest rate of long-term limiting illness in the UK. In the nine years between 2001-02 and 2010-11, the number of people with chronic or long-term conditions increased from 105,000 to 142,000, therefore placing more pressure on services.

And, finally, the college of paediatrics and child health have highlighted the increased demand on services by children and young people, and they go on to highlight that they feel the number of high dependency and intensive care unit beds are insufficient. Cabinet Secretary, yesterday, I asked you a number of questions during the urgent question, and there are a few I would like further clarification on. You accept that bed numbers have reduced, but said that beds are ring-fenced over winter months in case of extra demand. Can you tell me whether you feel that there are now enough beds available in the Welsh NHS and, more specifically, are they available in the correct locations—community and secondary? It is all very well having bed space for patients, but if they’re not located where we need them the most then they are wasted. Yesterday, I raised the issue of frail and elderly assessment units, which could be set up in A&Es during times of peak demand. Similar units are already deployed in hospitals in other parts of the UK. Could I get on record a commitment to consider this approach, which may help to alleviate the direct pressures on the front-facing parts of our health service and get patients treated more efficiently, a point made yesterday by the college of emergency medicine?

I’m also interested, Cabinet Secretary, in the way that GPs are being consulted and when, when it comes to planning for peaks in demand for services. Do you encourage health boards to bring senior GPs onside at the planning stage, as they will have very different views on what constitutes pressure than hospital staff, because we need to ensure that all parts of our NHS are pulling in the same direction and following the same guidelines and recommendations? And, during the evidence we received, the GPs were very clear in saying they’d not been involved in preparations for winter.

We’ll be fully supporting both of Plaid Cymru’s amendments and, whilst we can support almost all of the Government’s amendments, I do not see the evidence for the statement that you’re investing record levels of funding into the NHS. Statistics that I have show that, this year, the funding is less than 2014-15 and years of underfunding have led to this situation. I am pleased that you are calling on yourselves to provide this status report, which the Welsh Conservatives have asked for because I do think it is only by you, Cabinet Secretary, keeping up the pressure on health boards that we will see any chance of adherence to the plans that so few of the professionals claimed they had part in. I look forward to hearing your response.

Thank you very much. I have selected the three amendments to the motion. Should amendment 1 be agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport to formally move amendment 1 tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally.

Thank you very much. I call on Dai Lloyd to move amendments 2 and 3 tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It’s a pleasure to take part in this important debate. Naturally, we’re talking about winter preparedness. As my fellow Members of the health committee will be aware, we have been continuing an inquiry over the past few weeks into this particular issue. Of course, it’s true to note, as we heard in evidence, that the health service in Wales is under huge pressure throughout the year, if truth be told, but there are some peaks during the winter months.

In the time that I have, I was going to note, following our amendment that notes the importance of the social care services in all of this, that there is a danger that those of us who work in the health service just to go on about the health service. But unless we get the social care services right, then it will undermine the efforts of the health service to get to grips with these particular issues. Specifically, therefore, we need to expand provision in the community in terms of our social care services in the first instance, to prevent some people from having to go to hospital in the first place. So, we need to improve care in the community. That’s down to our GPs and their teams, but it’s also down to social care in the community to enable people to remain in their homes. There’s excellent work going on, but we need more of that provision to prevent people from having to go to hospital in the first instance.

Then, the other issue: when people are ready to go home from hospital. We need to expand that provision as well in terms of social care to ensure that there is as little delay as possible in transfers of care into the home. So, I would like to see—and I’ve talked about this before—social workers in all GP surgeries and social workers on every ward in our hospitals. It would be their responsibility to arrange how that patient goes home promptly. There are different schemes in different places here in Wales. Projects in Caerphilly—I’ve heard of one where there’s collaboration and it encourages social workers to be located in our GP surgeries and our hospitals. It’s improving provision and improving patient experience of the health service as a whole, and that’s in terms of social care.

Having discussed the importance of social care services, what’s important in the winter months is that everyone who needs the flu vaccine does receive that vaccination. That includes everyone over 65 years of age, those with long-term conditions such as heart and lung conditions and diabetes and so on, and also the staff in the health service and social care. We received plenty of evidence that the average number of staff in the NHS that received the flu vaccine could be relatively low in some areas. So, we need to persuade those people because, ultimately, we want to keep our staff healthy as well.

My final point in the time that is available to me: I’m going to talk about, beds because the system is under pressure because of a lack of capacity. One of those is in terms of beds—yes, in our hospitals, but also beds in community settings and in residential homes and so on. I’ve been talking about a lack of beds for many years. People always accuse me of oversimplifying the problem because it’s about more than just about a bed. But ultimately, most of the time we just need a bed, don’t we? You can talk about what kind of bed that is, and who is going to staff that, but ultimately, we’ve seen an erosion in the number of beds available in our health service, and in terms of social care. There’s been a decrease in the number of beds available and yet there’s an increase in the number of patients. Well, that doesn’t add up, does it? David.

I thank the Member for the intervention. I accept and agree that the number of beds is decreasing—as I’m sure the Member will recognise, we’re often told that the more beds you have the more you fill them. But also there’s a serious question of staffing and the nursing requirements to make sure that beds are safely staffed. There’s an issue there we have to address as well, surely.

Yes, I’m entirely content to accept that point. We always accept that point, but sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we need more beds regardless. The system is at its most efficient when 85 per cent of bed capacity is full. We need some kind of give in the system, because when things remain full we don’t have that flexibility to be able to respond to different emergencies. Thank you.

Can I say that I do find it more than just a little ironic that it is the party in Government in Westminster bringing forward this motion on the back of challenges facing the Welsh NHS—the same party that has not just consistently cut funding to the Welsh Assembly but has overseen the biggest crisis facing the NHS and social care in England probably in our lifetime?

But here in Wales, of course, we do face challenges and it’s not just winter pressures that put a strain on the NHS and care services. Rising demand for services is a consequence of the success of the NHS and care sector in keeping people alive for longer. Coupled with an ageing population, we have patients presenting with more complex and serious and severe conditions. This unavoidable reality of rising demand and complexity of needs is a challenge to the health and care sector all year round and these constant pressures inevitably increase during winter months when the NHS also has to deal with higher levels of staff absence through illness. No one is saying either that there isn’t also a challenge here in Wales in recruiting more doctors and other professionals within the NHS—

Will the Member take an intervention?

Not at the moment, no. Many of the submissions to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee identified workforce planning and staff shortages as a key issue for our care services all year round.

However, what we do have in Wales is a Government that is prepared to allocate additional funding and introduce legislation and initiatives to tackle the challenges facing us. Other common themes amongst the evidence that was submitted to the committee included the potential for pharmacists and other care staff to free up GP services and the need for greater integration of health and social care.

Now, in my constituency, Cwm Taf health board were part of a successful pilot scheme where GPs actively triaged patients to pharmacy where appropriate. The Welsh Government has committed to a further roll-out of the Choose Pharmacy scheme across other parts of Wales. I think it’s worth noting that this is in stark contrast to England where the Westminster Government announced a cut in funding available to pharmacies there. Significantly, we have £60 million being invested in the pioneering intermediate care fund, which those giving evidence to the committee identified as being vital to relieving the everyday pressures on our health services.

So, what we can evidence here in Wales are measures to tackle the issues that present real challenges to the NHS all year round but which are exacerbated during winter months. I’ve referred to some of those initiatives already but other measures include the nurse staffing levels Act; the extension of the bursaries for student nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, which, of course, has been scrapped by the Tories in England; investing in primary care with a primary care and workforce plan backed by £43 million; GP practices being offered access to a new support package; promoting the Choose Well campaign to try and alleviate the pressures on emergency services; an extra £50 million to deal with the increased demand in winter months; and ensuring health boards, local authorities and the Wales ambulance service have updated and integrated winter plans. All these initiatives are about longer-term solutions to the challenges faced by our health and care services, and are an integral part of the additional £50 million announced by the health Secretary to help deal with those winter pressures. We should always recognise, of course, that, with all of these initiatives, they would not produce the desired impact if they were not underpinned by the tremendous dedication of all those staff working in our health and care services—

Will the Member take an intervention now, please?

No, I haven’t got enough time.

So, while no-one underestimates the challenges that winter pressures place on our health and social care here in Wales, we have a Government that is working closely with all partners in the health and social care sector to deliver—long-term and sustainable—to avoid the sort of crisis currently faced by the NHS and care sector in England.

I would like to thank the Welsh Conservatives for bringing forward this debate today. So far, winter 2016-17 has been a mild one and apart from the north-east of Wales, there haven’t been any major outbreaks of influenza-type illnesses. However, this hasn’t reduced pressures on our NHS. According to the Royal College of Nursing, our hospitals are so full all year round that the system cannot cope with a seasonal spike in demand. I fear that if we do see a seasonal spike in demand this winter, our NHS may not be able to cope.

At this point, I would like to put on record my thanks to our dedicated health and social care staff who work incredibly hard all year round, but even more so at this time of year, to ensure that patients receive excellent care despite the pressures. In fact, if our health and social care staff weren’t so dedicated and hard-working, our healthcare system would have broken down a long time ago.

The NHS and the social care sector investment has not kept pace with the demands on the system, and has been made worse by poor strategic planning by successive governments. One of the worst decisions affecting the NHS has been the reduction of bed capacity over the last two decades and the closure of cottage hospitals. This has been compounded by a lack of investment in the social care sector. Traditionally, the solution to winter pressures has been to increase capacity by cancelling non-urgent operations. This is short-termism at its worst. It only leads to increased misery for those on waiting lists and only delays the problem, rather than fixing it. The investment put up by the Welsh Government to tackle winter pressures is welcome, but will only be a short-term fix unless we address the underfunding of social care and increase the capacity of our hospitals.

We have a growing and ageing population, so unless we take radical action now, the strain our NHS is under will reach breaking point. Diolch yn fawr.

It’s a self-evident truth that increased seasonal demand puts further strain on an already overstretched service, resulting in lengthy waits for patients. As the British Medical Association Cymru warned last October, the frail elderly and a rise in respiratory conditions lead to more and different admissions in winter. GPs report difficulties in arranging for patients to be assessed or admitted all year round. Such patients can end up being directed to the emergency departments where they join others waiting for a hospital bed to become available. Age Cymru’s public policy statement on fuel poverty last September said that fuel poverty is a significant problem for many older people in Wales—the group most likely to suffer from this—and is a significant cause of excess winter deaths. Ninety per cent of 16,000 excess winter deaths in Wales over the past decade involved people aged over 65, with the highest rate amongst those over 85, who constituted nearly 50 per cent of the total.

In 2012, almost 30 per cent of Welsh households were estimated to be in fuel poverty, spending 10 per cent or more of household income on fuel to maintain heat adequate enough to safeguard comfort and health. Increased household incomes and decreased fuel prices saw this fall to 23 per cent in 2016, but that still represents 291,000 households and 43,000 in severe fuel poverty. Welsh Government targets to eradicate fuel poverty amongst all vulnerable households by 2010 and social housing by 2012 were missed. There is no realistic prospect of achieving the 2018 target of eradicating fuel poverty in Wales, and, as Age Cymru state, many of the mechanisms and measures contained within the 2010 fuel poverty strategy are out of date, or no longer applicable. I think the time is right for the Welsh Government to refresh its fuel poverty strategy, with a clear programme and timescales, credible evidence base, and new fuel poverty targets, rooted in delivery rather than being a hostage to energy price movements.

As Fuel Poverty Coalition Cymru states, the Welsh Government must save lives by implementing the NICE guidelines on tackling excess winter deaths. And although fuel poverty is first and foremost a social justice issue, this First Minister has again given responsibility for reducing it to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs. It is therefore essential that the Welsh Government works with Fuel Poverty Coalition members to instead place fuel poverty at the heart of action to tackle poverty, with strong emphasis on all sectors taking responsibility together. We must put early intervention and prevention into practice, giving real meaning to person-centred and citizen-directed approaches.

Local affordable warmth schemes, spearheaded by the Flintshire affordable warmth partnership, should be expanded, working with local authorities, third sector organisations, and existing public and private sector energy efficiency schemes, to address specific fuel poverty and health issues prevalent in Wales. Independent advice services for people in fuel poverty must be supported, rescuing those in immediate crisis whose needs are not met by current provision. Energy Best Deal sessions, funded by energy suppliers, Ofgem, and Citizens Advice, must be embraced, as must energy company contributions, such as the charitable British Gas Energy Trust, offering advice and support for people struggling with energy bills, and Npower’s Health Through Warmth scheme, helping vulnerable people with cold-related illnesses to fund and install heating and insulation in their homes.

In March I’ll be sponsoring an event in the Senedd, promoting the continuation of National Energy Action Cymru’s Calor-sponsored rural Welsh energy advisorship programme, to assist fuel-poor households in off-grid rural communities across Wales. A written answer I received from the First Minister yesterday stated the Welsh Government’s key programme for tackling fuel poverty comprises its Warm Homes programme, including the Nest scheme. However, Fuel Poverty Coalition Cymru is concerned that the proposed new Welsh Government eligibility criteria will deny help for many households currently eligible, preventing interventions that save public money.

We must embrace co-productive preventative services, designed to operate throughout the year, to reduce winter pressures and enable health professionals to concentrate on meeting clinical needs, such as the British Red Cross support service, planned for Glan Clwyd Hospital, Bodelwyddan—their community navigates this pilot at Clarence House surgery in Rhyl and their welfare centre in Wrexham. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Bevan Foundation told the last Assembly that fuel poverty should be central to the Welsh Government’s tackling poverty action plan. We therefore need a revised fuel poverty strategy now.

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

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the Members who have taken part in today’s debate. And I’m sure that, not just yesterday and today, we will spend more time in this Chamber discussing the reality of winter pressures upon our health and social care services over the coming months.

We all know that there’s been very real pressure over recent weeks in health and social care services here in Wales, and right across the United Kingdom. And it is a testament to the commitment and skill of our staff that, despite these genuinely difficult and trying circumstances, the vast majority of patients continue to receive their care in a professional and timely manner, and the dedication of our staff should be a source of great national pride.

The winter plans of health and social care partners are being implemented in response to pressures that we all recognise. Parts of primary community care, for example, have reported an increase of 30 to 40 per cent in demand for GP appointments, and an indicative increase of 10 to 15 per cent demand in out-of-hours services. But we know, in terms of taking new measures, the 111 pathfinder in the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board area also saw an increase in demand over Christmas—some days seeing over 350 more calls per day than the typical peak volume calls for the first few months of that pilot. But, crucially, that service also appears to be working well in providing care, but also in diverting people away from unnecessary journeys into a hospital. And, again, that is a testament both to the skill and the dedication of our staff, and the design and the delivery of the 111 service. I recognise comments made by a range of Members in this debate about GPs having a critical role to play, both in the design of winter plans, and in the delivery of healthcare throughout the winter. That’s why it is encouraging that primary and community care services are generally coping with recent increased activity. The Welsh Government, of course, are supporting a range of initiatives, including local examples of telephone triage, enhanced pharmacy services that are also helping to manage demand, and I’m pleased that Dawn Bowden managed to highlight a number of those initiatives there. They’re really making a difference to individual staff, but crucially to the patients they care for.

And, again, the Welsh ambulance service has experienced some huge spikes in demand. For example, on New Year’s Day, there were 46 per cent more red calls than the daily average in 2016, but the service, though, has been able to safely discharge up to 200 patients per day without transport to hospital—that’s using its enhanced clinical desk service, all by treating patients at the scene. So, this isn’t a comment of the NHS simply putting more money into the previous system that it’s always run—there is real change, reform and innovation taking place, and it’s led by our staff and informed by the very real evidence of what works on the ground.

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for taking an intervention. I do take the point and support the point that there is excellence going on every day within the NHS, and in particular in our ambulance service. But would you respond to the reports today of a rugby player who broke his neck and had to wait two hours on a pitch before the ambulance arrived to pick him up to take him to hospital? Can you confirm that that is very much an isolated case and isn’t a situation that people are finding happening in other parts of Wales?

I’m only aware of the headline issues in the particular point that you raise, but I think it is an isolated case. And, in fact, the evidence of our statistical evidence of what happens when people make calls is that the great majority of people receive a much faster response, both in red and in the amber category. And that is part of the point where I think we should be proud of what our service is doing. The resilience of the ambulance service in particular, in this winter compared to the one before, and the one before that—I do not think you would have seen the sort of resilience that has generally been delivered by our staff. That is because of the staff, and that is because of a change in the model and the prioritisation of patients with the greatest level of need. And again, I’m really proud of what our ambulance service are delivering, in this, the most demanding time of the year. And management information also shows that attendances at major A&Es are up by as much as 5 per cent for the days following the new year compared to last year. So, demand is continuing to rise, and early in-hospital management data also show that emergency admissions peaked at a five-year high on 27 December.

Now, we are supporting health and social care with record levels of investment, including the additional £50 million support that I’ve previously announced. That’s in addition to the £43 million for the primary care fund, and £60 million for this year’s intermediate care fund, to help prevent unnecessary admissions and delayed discharges. And on delayed discharges of care, we again have a good story to tell in Wales. We’ve gone from a period of a high a few years ago to sustaining a level of reduction. There is always more to do, and that is absolutely the approach I take, in understanding and recognising the achievements and the improvement that is there, and again with what more we need to do to see further improvement, with different partners needing to be involved, engaged and having a stake in that improvement. All of this is being delivered against a backdrop of sustained austerity for public services, and that is an unavoidable reality for all of us in this Chamber, but, more importantly, for our staff and the general public.

We have made different choices to England, which, of course, has been in the news in the last week or so—different choices on planning and funding our health and social care system together. That’s why we chose not to make cuts to social care that Simon Stevens, and others in NHS England, are now saying are a very real problem for them. We were criticised for the approach that we took, in seeing health and social care together in the last term, but I say to people in this Chamber, who are now urging us for more money for social care and for the national health service, not just to look at yesterday, in the final budget, but at the additional £25 million announcement in the draft budget, and an extra £310 million on top of that in the final budget yesterday. We are funding social care to levels that are not seen in other parts of the UK, and we should all be proud of the choice we are making, but it does not come consequence free for other parts of our public services.

I said previously in the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee that we were better prepared for winter than ever before. We’ve learnt from our previous winters. And, in addition, there will, of course, be more learning to come from this winter and more improvements for the years ahead. But I say again that we will expect challenging days ahead, where the pressures will escalate and reduce again. Each of us in this Chamber should feel extremely grateful and fortunate that we are here and not facing those front-line pressures that our staff do.

We will continue to work with partners to deliver the very best possible care at the most demanding time of year, and that is only possible because of the staff we have in health and social care.

Thank you very much. I call Angela Burns to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much indeed for your response, Cabinet Secretary. I have to tell you that I was expecting something a little bit more forensic, given that we were asking for a status report—an update report. In fact, in your amendment, which you tabled to this motion, you said that you’d be providing a status report. What you’ve done is given us a whole series of opinions and also examples of good practice, which I utterly, utterly welcome, but what I don’t see—. This is my job: my job is to challenge you and to question you about what’s going on in the national health service. It’s your job to then hold to account the health boards. What we don’t see or feel, from the health boards, is that true liaison and collaboration with the general practitioners, who are one of the two main front doors to the health service, and who are under immense pressure, and A&E, the second main front door to the national health service, which is also under immense pressure, as the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said.

I don’t hear and didn’t hear any reference to liaison and collaboration with the domiciliary care sector and with care homes, because we need them to be fully functioning and ensure that those plans are in place. What I’m basically asking you for, Minister, is for you to convince us all that you have got those seven health boards at your fingertips. They have plans—. They said that they had plans in place to manage winter pressures and that you are measuring them—measuring their ability to deliver and measuring their outcomes. I look forward to the status report that you said in your amendment you would provide, because I think that you are the only one with the big enough stripes to really hold those health boards to account to ensure that our staff are not worked so hard that they can’t cope and that our public receive the care and support they need at a tricky time of the year.

Thank you very much. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore, I’ll defer voting on this item until voting time.

We now move on to item 6, which is another Welsh Conservative debate, and I call on Angela Burns to move that motion. Angela Burns.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m pleased to have the opportunity to bring this debate to the Assembly today, during what is National Obesity Week. Whilst many of us—and I’m one of them, definitely—are worried about the extra pounds they may have put on after a bit of over-indulgence during the festive period, obesity is becoming an ever-increasing problem within the UK as a whole and in Wales in this particular instance.

Obesity levels are rising in Wales. According to the latest public health survey, nearly 59 per cent of adults are classed as ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’, 25 per cent of whom are classed as ‘very obese’ and 27 per cent of children are classed as ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’. Our motion today calls on the Welsh Government to look again at its public health initiatives—the Minister and I have been talking about the public health Bill only this morning and cuts to the local government budget—to help increase uptake in public health programmes.

I will begin by looking at a couple of key facts. One in four adults are labelled as ‘very obese’ and it’s the highest in the UK. The reason why such concerns exist about the carrying around of such excess weight is the link it has to both chronic and severe medical conditions and the resulting reduction in life expectancy by as much as 10 years. It is a preventable condition and the Welsh NHS spends close to £1 million per week treating obesity, with obese individuals most likely to incur health expenditure.

The problem is that whilst initiatives are in place across Wales, inconsistent results are being delivered. Just two out of seven of Wales’s health boards offer level 3 obesity services and none offer the level 4 bariatric services, resulting in the fact that those in most need of support to lose weight are unable to do so, or have to go to England for that help. It is for these reasons we’re calling for more of a cross-portfolio approach from the Welsh Government to tackle this growing challenge.

We’re supported by the British Medical Association, who have called for the principles of the much-vaunted Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 to be built on. The BMA have highlighted that the Act has failed to include indicators that would measure the prevalence of obesity amongst the Welsh population. Deputy Minister, we would be very interested to know of your views on whether or not you think that that could be changed—forgive me, ‘Minister’, not ‘Deputy Minister’.

Nor does the Government reference obesity in its well-being objective, which accompanied the ‘Taking Wales Forward’ programme. Minister, if you were to rectify those two major failings, it could help to focus more attention on the problems we are currently experiencing. I won’t talk too much about the Public Health (Wales) Bill because you and I have explored that in great detail today, but what I would like to do is focus the rest of my contribution on children.

The Education Development Trust have highlighted how schools can play a role in tackling obesity through school-based interventions. It notes the following interventions have had a positive effect: lengthening the existing time of PE lessons, something I must have raised in this Chamber dozens of times—it seems ridiculous that at primary school we are slashing the amount of time that young children are spending outside, in halls, running around; changing the markings on playgrounds to encourage increased movement and increasing the availability of skipping ropes and other sports equipment; walking school buses; highlighting the harm of carbonated drinks and removing unhealthy vending machines; incorporating nutritional elements into lessons, building on the healthy eating Measure—

Will you take an intervention?

Of course, Bethan.

I just wanted to go on the other side of the argument and make sure that even when we’re talking about obesity that we don’t encourage people to go the other way to develop eating disorders. I’ve met many people who have had weight problems, who have been obese, and then they’ve gone to the other extreme. So, just to add that to the debate here today.

And I think that’s a point absolutely well made. I think that what we can do is use schools to ensure that young people, by the time they leave schools, are actually at an appropriate body weight, understand all the nutritional values, and understand the importance of exercise and the joy in exercise, because so many young people actually find exercise utterly, utterly joyless at school, which is why we need dance and movement and all these other things, especially for young women. Because a healthy child, Minister, will turn into a healthy adult.

The whole point of this motion is to ensure that the Welsh Government does all it can to make sure that our citizens really understand and that they start their adult life fit, in the right place mentally and physically, because they will then stay trimmer for longer, which will therefore mean better benefits for their own personal health and, of course, an enormous benefit to the NHS and to society as a whole.

Thank you very much. I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Social Services and Public Health to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt.

Formally.

Thank you. I call on Dai Lloyd to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It’s a pleasure to move this amendment that notes that taxation of unhealthy products and rules over the advertising of such products are non-devolved matters, and regrets that successive UK Governments have failed to utilise these powers to tackle obesity. So, that’s what our amendment states. In the amendment we note the preventative agenda in this area by acknowledging National Obesity Awareness Week. Now, of course, we need to tackle that preventative agenda and, as we said in today’s health committee in the context of the public health Bill, there are things that can be done in terms of the nutritional standards of the food that we eat, and also with regard to the availability or accessibility of exercise. Now, it’s possible to tax sugar and sugary drinks, and there’s also room for taxation to realise a minimum alcohol price as well. All of these matters do contribute to obesity. Yes, there’s an education agenda, of course, naturally, but there is room to legislate to push this educational agenda forward.

Of course, the majority of these issues are outwith our powers at the Assembly, and where the powers do lie in Westminster there’s not much will to get to grips with that preventative agenda. Because there are no two ways about it: we need to recognise that the food and drink industry are very powerful in this regard, and can have a very heavy influence. We regret the dilution of the standards emanating from Westminster recently with regard to promoting the preventative work that is going on with this issue of obesity.

Diet is a vital part of this issue. I naturally accept the point that Bethan Jenkins made whilst sitting next to me. Fitness is also a part of this issue. But, we have to be sensible about that as well, and we have to make it easy for people to become fitter. You only need to walk 10,000 steps every day to reach the level of fitness that can have that beneficial influence on your health—10,000 steps. We can all do that—the majority of us—in this place just by using the stairs and not always taking the lifts. I’m not looking at anyone in particular here, but 10,000 steps are all it takes. I do understand what the Deputy Presiding Officer thinks about this every time I raise it, but if fitness were to be a tablet or a pill—. Fitness does mean reducing 30 per cent of your weight, and if you’re fit, your cholesterol level is 30 per cent lower and your blood pressure is also 30 per cent lower. So, if there was a pill that achieved that, then everyone would be calling on us as the GPs to prescribe it, but, unfortunately, fitness isn’t available in pill form, so it’s incumbent upon us to do something about that.

Also, ultimately, there are some people suffering from obesity and we can’t do much in terms of pills or fitness to assist them. There are some people who are very overweight and very obese and we need better provision for those people in terms of bariatric surgery here in Wales. I think the last estimate was that there are only three surgeons who have expertise in this area of specific surgery for the very obese. If you remember that over 50,000 of the residents of Wales have a BMI of over 40, which means that they are what is called ‘morbidly obese’, and there’s also a percentage who have a BMI that is over 50, which means that they are very, very obese, ultimately those people have failed to receive all sorts of advice and treatment, and a surgeon has to do something to get to grips with that issue for those people. The services aren’t available for them. As I’ve said, only three surgeons located in Wales are able to provide that service and the demand for it is significant and increasing.

Thank you very much. Julie Morgan.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer, for calling me to speak in this debate. I think it’s very important that we do keep this issue of obesity on the agenda, and, as well as it being National Obesity Awareness Week, I think lots of people’s thoughts, after the excesses of Christmas, as Angela Burns referred to in her speech introducing the debate, are turning to healthy eating. I do applaud the efforts of people to be more healthy in January. I’m not very successful at it myself, but I think doing a dry January, cutting back on sugary foods or starting a new exercise regime are really important. I think we all need to encourage each other to do that.

But, really, the issue is how we get that message across during the whole of the year, to foster long-term good habits. I do believe that we are raising a generation of more health-conscious children and eaters, because, certainly, this is something that is addressed in primary schools. We do know that unhealthy children become unhealthy adults. So, I think it’s very important that we get the message out to the younger generation.

But, as has already been mentioned, the figure of 26.2 per cent of children in Wales being overweight is very worrying. But I am pleased to see that 64 per cent of children report eating fruit every day. I wish it was a higher figure, but, nevertheless, it is 62 per cent, and 52 per cent eat vegetables every day, whereas, I think, 32 per cent of adults say that they’ve eaten five or more portions of fruit and vegetables the previous day. So, obviously, there is a lot of work to be done, but I do think that the Welsh Government has taken some very positive steps to address this issue.

I want to refer, again, to the active travel Act, because I think this is very important and will have an impact in encouraging people to build walking and cycling into their daily lives. We know that, at the moment, local authorities are currently undertaking preparations to create integrated network maps, and they’re to be submitted to the Welsh Government by September next year. I hope those maps will show areas for local walking and cycling routes that communities themselves believe should be prioritised. So, I hope that we are all able to draw attention to community groups and to this process, and encourage constituents to have input.

Like all of us, I am very concerned about the impact of consuming sugary drinks, and I was very pleased today to see that health experts have called for the Coca-Cola Christmas truck tour to be banned. This has been widely reported in the media. I really feel that this is a very detrimental event—this Coca-Cola Christmas truck. It stops at 44 places around the UK, including Cardiff. This Christmas, it was on Queen Street, and there were queues for free samples, which are handed out and that really just encourages children in particular to drink even more Coca-Cola. According to its own website, every can of regular classic Coke has seven teaspoons of sugar in it. I feel particularly strongly against this particular campaign because, in 2016—

Yes, in a second. In 2016, when it stopped at Asda in Coryton in my constituency, the whole of Cardiff was gridlocked because of the excess of people going to get the free Coca-Cola. I just can’t see that this goes along with good health.

I’m sorry that you feel so humbuggy about the Coca-Cola Christmas truck. Will you join me in congratulating Coca-Cola, however, for the way that they have reduced the sugar content of their drinks and expanded the promotion of the zero-sugar alternatives, which now account for over 50 per cent of their sales in the UK?

I welcome any reduction in sugar in drinks, but I think this particular activity is not welcome. I am also disappointed that the UK Government’s sugar tax seems to have been watered down and that things like sugary milkshakes will be exempt, as these can contain just as much sugar as fizzy drinks. I don’t really think that the proposed levy is as high as it could be.

Lastly, I would just like to mention the Daily Mile initiative, which has been mentioned here in this Chamber before and has been taken up by schools in the UK. Of course, one of the first ones to do this was in Scotland and I wondered if there are any examples in Wales. I couldn’t find any examples, but I hope the Minister will be able to tell us, when she speaks, if there are any examples in Wales. It does seem that this is a great concept and so simple to do, when the children arrive in school, to go and run a mile. Thank you.

I would like to thank the Welsh Conservatives today for bringing forward this debate on obesity, particularly just after Christmas, as Angela has said. Doing something good for ‘Jan-YOU-ary’ is a pledge we can all support during National Obesity Awareness Week. It is a matter of national shame that nearly two thirds of Welsh adults and a third of Welsh children are overweight or obese. But we have to deal with obesity in a sensitive way because people react differently, and we don’t want people to look at the size zero in a magazine and think that that is the way that they have to go. So, it has to be a case of educating people in a sensible way.

We must resist the urge to try to solve the obesity crisis by introducing legislation. A sugar tax is not going to magically stop people from drinking sugary drinks, in the same way that duties on cigarettes haven’t had the desired result that we all wanted and expected. We haven’t reduced the number—much—of people smoking. It just penalises those who can least afford to absorb the costs. A sugar tax, apart from being a regressive tax, will also do little to solve the fact that eating healthily is often more expensive than eating junk food. I mean, how often do people through—. You know, they need to get home quickly and they call in and grab a McDonald’s as opposed to going home and cooking. Allotments are now part of the past, really, where we had wonderful veg and fruit, and everything home-grown, which we now class as organic and that for most people is way out of their pricing, or their budget. So what we can do is ensure that we are better educated about the foods that we eat. Schemes such as Change4Life are a great start, but rather than relying on national ad campaigns we should be delivering these messages to every schoolchild in Wales. Part of the new national curriculum should focus on teaching young people how to eat healthily and how to live a healthy lifestyle. The top-down approach hasn’t worked so far, so let’s go for a bottom-up approach instead. Thank you—diolch yn fawr.

National Obesity Awareness Week is about promoting the ways in which individuals, Government, and businesses can improve public health. The aim is to provide the information and resources that can bring about long-term positive changes. This is desperately needed in Wales also. There is a level of obesity in both children and adults that represents a major public health challenge. Nearly a quarter of people in Wales are currently classed as obese.

Deputy Presiding Officer, according to the child measurement programme for Wales, more than 26 per cent of children in Wales are obese and overweight. What, actually, it is is what we take in and we don’t take out in the body—actually, we don’t burn calories. That is the area that we have to look at very carefully, and we have to start from the children, as my honourable colleagues have already mentioned. The children, when they go to primary schools—I think every school in Wales should have a trampoline. The children should enjoy the game and also burn their calories. Most of the school fields have gone for these developments for housing. For God’s sake stop that nonsense and leave these playing fields for children to go and play in the grounds and make sure the calories are burned, as we did in our childhood.

Basically, there are a lot of other things in life that we have to learn. Only standing for two or three hours a day—don’t do anything—and, my friend, it will actually reduce 4 kg in a year in your body, if you just stand; pity we only stand here for five minutes. But if you add up in a year half an hour standing—ladies in the kitchen, children playing around, all these minor things. All these—[Interruption.] We must, basically—[Interruption.] Obesity is getting serious. We’ve got one doctor in this Chamber. There are very serious diseases that are directly linked to this problem—heart, lung, kidney, liver; you name it—there are serious fatal diseases.

And the children, right from the age of 16—and when you’re young and smart, but, when you’re 40 and above, you become obese. That is not right. It is actually not putting the body into active real life and then giving a contribution to the community. It is costing the British Government virtually—it is costing us, the Welsh Government, £1.4 million a week. The national health service—this is serious money. It is not a laughing point, my friends. It is a serious point: £1.4 million a week. Our NHS is actually under strain to look after these diseases directly linked with obesity. So, we have to do something about it.

The British Heart Foundation says that Wales has the highest prevalence of heart failure in the United Kingdom, with more than 30,000 people diagnosed. What a shame. It is clear we need a programme of preventative initiatives to promote public health in Wales. But the Welsh Government approach to tackling obesity is delivering inconsistent results, with little sign of the level declining. The proposed Public Health (Wales) Bill has already been criticised for not including any provision aimed specifically at tackling obesity. We need a strategy in educating people and this must start in our schools, as I said earlier.

Deputy Presiding Officer, there are other areas, there are many areas in the world—. The Chinese—when you go to China, India and other countries, you go out in the morning and the parks are full of people doing exercises. But look at our parks, our areas. We’ve got beautiful landscapes in Wales, but I’ve yet to see the people going out and doing some exercises. What’s the problem? This is some—[Interruption.] Why are we spending money? It won’t cost us anything. Just come out in your gardens and do some exercise.

I know I’m not the right example myself, but—[Interruption.] I must admit—[Interruption.] We must do what we preach, but the fact is, our children—we’re talking of a generation, believe me. Ladies who are obese, it’s actually not helping for our next generation. Those of child-bearing age get problems; they cannot produce more children. Obesity is one of the direct—[Interruption.] The doctor is there. The doctor is sitting there. You can confirm with the doctor. This actually is declining. There is also—[Interruption.] There are, I said, many problems, directly linked, in health, directly to obesity.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the last point is that we must support—

No. No, I—

All right, thank you.

Thank you very much. I must just say, though, I would like to think that men who are standing in kitchens as well could do some exercise at the kitchen sink. My husband certainly does when he’s doing the washing up. I call the Minister for Social Services and Public Health, Rebecca Evans.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Also, thank you for dealing with that point so I didn’t have to. I’d like to thank Members for what I think has, on the whole, been a really interesting and useful debate. ‘Taking Wales Forward’ commits us to developing and delivering four cross-cutting, Government-wide strategies, including our healthy and active strategy. So, this approach will prompt a change in the way that we identify and respond to some of those really stubborn societal issues that are complex and cross-portfolio and which do require a multi-partner approach. Tackling obesity is obviously one such issue.

I think it’s fair to say that we do do a great deal to support people in Wales to make healthy and active choices and to try and maintain a healthy weight, but it is clear that we can’t make the improvements that we want to make on our own. If we are to ensure that the vision of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 becomes a reality, we do need a whole-of-society approach to maximise well-being today and to ensure that the behaviours that benefit health tomorrow are well understood and acted on both by Government, our other partners, and, crucially, by individuals themselves.

The Public Health (Wales) Bill will further progress our efforts to embed health and well-being in all policies and programmes. It builds on the work of the future generations Act by providing Ministers with the power to stipulate the circumstances in which public bodies must carry out health impact assessments, supporting them to consider more systematically how their decisions and plans can contribute to improving health and well-being whilst minimising any negative impacts.

Obesity is a complex problem with no easy answer. We know that addressing it requires commitment right across Welsh Government. Many policy areas are already playing their part: planning, education, health, procurement, sport—they and others all have a major contribution to make. It also requires—[Interruption.] Yes, of course.

Thank you for taking the intervention. In Newport, Minister, as I think you’re aware, we have a Fit for Future Generations group bringing together all those sectors you mentioned to try and get a more active local population. Is that the sort of initiative that the well-being bonds might support in due course?

The initiative that you describe in Newport—I haven’t had the opportunity yet to come and visit, but I’d be really keen to do so because I do know that that is a really good example of partners all coming together in order to address physical activity and well-being and health more widely.

In terms of the well-being bond, this project is very much at its infancy in terms of the concept and we are working with officials, again across different Government departments, to pull together the vision for the well-being bond. We’ll certainly be in a position to say more about that in due course.

Tackling obesity, though, does require commitment from ourselves in Wales and beyond, including the UK Government and the food industry itself. A lot of it does rely on people themselves meeting us halfway and taking that personal responsibility. But, to support this, we do need to create the right environment, where choosing healthier foods and drinks is an easy option and where there aren’t barriers to being physically active. We also need to empower individuals through ensuring that they have adequate skills, knowledge and motivation to make the right choices.

Responding particularly to the Plaid Cymru amendment, we’ll continue to lobby the UK Government to take tougher action on the promotion of unhealthy foods to children particularly. We’re closely monitoring the development of the sugar levy for soft drinks and the action being taken forward to reduce sugar through voluntary food industry targets. These have worked, I think it’s fair to say, with regard to a reduction in salt, but if it’s not successful for sugar then we’ll certainly consider calling for a mandatory approach.

Within our competence, we continue to work through settings-based approaches, including through schools, hospitals and workplaces, and we’re taking the legislative approaches through the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 and our nutrition standards. We’re also employing social marketing and other campaigns, such as Public Health Wales’s 10 Steps to a Healthy Weight. There are many different community-level approaches being taken forward, and I do believe that these have to maintain some flexibility, enough to recognise the different needs of our different local communities. I’d have insufficient time, really, in the four minutes or so that I have to talk in detail about all of these today, but I have described them in previous statements and debates and I’m more than happy to provide further details in future, but I recognise one thing I haven’t talked about in detail in the Chamber previously is the all-Wales obesity pathway, and that sets out our approach to prevention and treatment, and it was mentioned by a number of speakers today. It does include minimum service requirements that health boards should be working towards, and I just wanted to reassure Members that I’ve personally challenged the health boards through my meetings with the chairs to increase the pace of implementation, particularly at level 3 and level 4 of that pathway and obviously would be keen to update Members in due course as well.

I hope, really, that what I’ve been able to set out has reassured Members that obesity and tackling it is very much a key focus for this Government, and we are putting in place the necessary infrastructure for a much more systematic and effective way of working right across Government departments and portfolios in order to tackle it.

Thank you very much. I call on Suzy Davies to reply to the debate. Suzy.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and thank you, everyone, for taking part in the debate today. I, too, like Oscar, am not exactly standing here in a position of strength, but I do want to contribute and sum up today’s debate. We had an individual Member debate just before the Christmas recess, if you all remember, and the scene was set for this debate then. Jenny Rathbone opened that debate with three ways of tackling what I think we all accept by now is a growing problem, with long-term effects, of a condition that society tends to represent through the medium of fashion, through body image, through fad diets—the sorts of things that Caroline Jones was mentioning. And if the magazines we buy and the programmes we watch and the adverts we see don’t begin to change that narrative then genuinely I think you as a Government and we as an Assembly are going to have an uphill struggle trying to get sporadic nudge-based awareness-raising campaigns to have any impact at all. And, at the same time, people of all ages remain vulnerable to the dark side of those glossy magazines and social media and the Sky Living programmes that we all know about, so that we end up with the sort of things—or, shall we say, threats—that Bethan Jenkins mentioned earlier on in the debate, in her intervention to Angela.

It’s why I’m no fan at all, I’m afraid, of using public disapprobation of food and eating as a tool of population behaviour change as we’ve done, perhaps, with smoking and as we’re now starting to do with alcohol. It really does need a completely different approach. None of the ideas we’ve heard of today can be overlooked. They’ve all been really, really good ideas; we’ve heard a lot of them before, but we have to take a sort of reality check, I think, in what these things can look like in real life. We need some genuine, quite firm, political will here as well as public education in order to get through, or make sure that really good ideas don’t suffer from anchors of things that don’t work, and I’ll just give you some ideas of what I’m talking about.

So, for example, I think we’ve all, in turn, over the last five years or so, applauded the idea of the reintroduction of home economics, and Angela mentioned today more space for PE on the school curriculum, but is there the political will to create space on that curriculum, or even to create a longer school day to make sure that that is included? The various healthy school initiatives—I really liked, actually, the evidence you gave in the previous debate, Jenny, about the Flintshire experience and what’s going on up there, but, you know, I tend to think that, however well informed a teenager is, however early we say that eating apples is good, as we do in primary schools to some good effect, you give your standard teenager the opportunity to go out at lunchtime and grab a McDonald’s and that’s what they’re going to do. So, is there the political will to say, ‘Actually, nobody should be leaving school at lunchtime’? I’m not necessarily advocating that, but these are questions I think we have to address to make this stuff happen.

Sugar tax: how high do you go? I am very sad in having tracked the cost of a Mars bar, from when decimalisation was introduced, from 3p to 65p over a lifetime. The size of the Mars bar has shrunk considerably. I am still buying them. I know that they’re bad for me. How expensive do you have to make them to make people stop buying them? And that question matters in poorer communities where access to a variety of shops is really difficult.

On exercise, Dai, as a shorty, I probably take far more steps over a given length than, say, Nathan Gill here. [Laughter.] And, do you know, you are absolutely right about walking: it’s free, but time-poor sluggish individuals—I’m not even talking about me on this occasion—are put off walking by simple things like the weather and, in terms of younger people, by safety. People have been in this Assembly for long enough to know that I’ve talked about safety. [Interruption.] I’m going to mention cycling in a second, but I’m running out of time, okay? So, finally, what I wanted to say about active travel, and for cycling as well, is: please make ‘safety first’ the key ingredient, because if it’s not, it ain’t going to work.

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

We move on to item 7, which is the Plaid Cymru debate. I call on Llyr Gruffydd to move the motion.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It’s my pleasure to move this motion in the name of Plaid Cymru. We are, of course, of the view that students from outside of the UK, be they from within the EU or outwith the EU, do bring cultural, economic and educational benefits to our universities and colleges here in Wales, and indeed to broader society. It’s important, therefore, in light of the major changes that are facing us on a constitutional level, that that should continue and, indeed, that we do what we can to strengthen those international relations between our universities and the European Union and the rest of the world.

In order to do that, of course, it’s important that we ensure that Wales continues to be an attractive place for students. In my view, offering the opportunities to students to remain within the UK post study is something that’s important and would assist in reducing the skills gap in many sectors here in Wales too. The strong presence of overseas students also allows us to develop international partnerships anew. Indeed, as the UK is, over the next few years, going to be in the process of developing a new relationship with nations across the globe, the need is greater than ever for graduates who are internationally literate individuals who can provide the leadership required in order to create partnerships and relationships on a global level in the future. Reducing the involvement of Welsh universities with the international community isn’t conducive to achieving that.

The diversity of our international campuses does enhance the experience of home students through learning a number of different viewpoints held by students from all parts of the world. These, of course, are all important benefits, never mind the economic benefits, which are also referred to in our motion this afternoon.

If you count university expenditure in terms of staff and students, then Welsh universities have an important direct impact on local economies. In 2013, they produced worth £2.4 billion of GVA in Wales, which accounted for 4.6 per cent of all Welsh GVA in that particular year. Welsh universities produced £600 million of export gains in 2014. Universities are responsible for almost 47,000 jobs here in Wales, directly and indirectly, representing some 3.5 per cent of employment in Wales in 2013. In 2014, it was estimated that a total of almost £0.75 billion had been spent on research and development here in Wales, representing some 2.5 per cent of research and innovation spend in the UK. Now, that isn’t as high as perhaps we should be receiving. Plaid Cymru, back in September, did propose that more should be invested in this area, but certainly that, in and of itself, is a very substantial figure indeed.

To defend these interests, we need to safeguard the sustainability of the HE sector in Wales for the future, and we know that the funding situation for the sector is vulnerable as it currently stands. A report by Universities Wales has outlined the significant pressures on the HE funds at present. Now, since 2011, of course, we have seen the direct public funding provided to our universities through HEFCW and so on reducing from almost £400 million to some £112 million over the past five years, mainly, of course, because of the way in which tuition fees now fund much of the sector. Some 10 per cent of the sector’s funding emanates from this public funding at the moment—that’s through HEFCW, and so on—50 per cent comes through student fees, both international students and home students, and the rest comes from research grants, commercial contracts and charitable contributions, and so on. Universities, of course, have now had to borrow much more in order to make capital investments to remain competitive with other universities. Until recently, Welsh universities had borrowing levels that were lower than the UK average, but the most recent forecast suggests that these levels will increase very significantly and may go beyond that average figure over the next few years.

So, what needs to be done? The motion outlines a number of approaches that suggest some of the areas that should be tackled. Clearly, first of all, we need to safeguard the funding and the current EU programmes for research in higher education, or we need to at least provide alternative funding and programmes. Wales has received, as we know, over €140 million from the European framework programme during the 2007-13 round. Projects in Wales received some £12 million in funding from the Horizon 2020 fund in 2014 alone. Welsh universities have received some £180 million in funding from the European Investment Bank over the past five years for the development of campuses and the development of research and teaching facilities, and so on and so forth. So, this is an important area, and some universities are already telling us that partners are withdrawing from arrangements already in place because of concerns that they won’t qualify as international partners for funding unless all partners remain within the European Union.

International collaboration is crucially important for research projects. They enhance the student experience and the experiences of our academic staff. You will see reference to Erasmus in this motion. Over 200,000 students and staff in the UK have participated in Erasmus, not just in HE but in the FE sector, which has benefited very significantly from Erasmus. A survey from the British Council at the beginning of the month said that 69 per cent of people in Britain believe that we should continue to participate in exchange schemes such as Erasmus. There are benefits and international influence that can be gained from welcoming international students. International students and staff who have lived in Wales are more likely to trust in us, to visit Wales in the future and to establish business partnerships with Welsh companies. As has been discussed previously, we know that we can participate in Erasmus without being a member of the European Union. Countries such as Iceland, Russia, Norway and Turkey all bear witness to that. I also know that the Government has already agreed with the view that we need to do what we can to ensure that that relationship does continue.

We also need to ensure the visa and citizenship status of EU nationals working in Welsh universities. The first thing to say is that that is the ethical thing to do, because they are people and not playing cards in a political game. We have a visa regime for academics and researchers from outwith the EU that is so strict that, according to the evidence that I’ve received from universities, it has been a great barrier to a number of research projects and has a negative impact on the recruitment of international students. For example, over the past four years, the number of students from India studying in the UK has declined by some 50 per cent. There is some discussion that the UK Government wants to make the system even stricter, which will create real concern among staff and international students, and some of them will discount Wales as a destination, which is a loss culturally, economically and academically. The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has asked for the Government to exempt scientists from the EU already working in the UK from any changes to the migration rules, so that talented staff can be retained within UK universities, and that is something that we, of course, would endorse.

Also, we need to enable Welsh universities to participate in a post-study work visa scheme. Jo Johnson, the UK Minister for universities and science, has already announced that EU students applying for a place in UK universities in 2017 will be safeguarded in terms of the place and funding until the end of the courses, even if the UK leaves the EU before those courses are concluded. But, of course, without the opportunity to stay in the UK for a year or two after graduating, it’s quite possible that many of those students will choose to study elsewhere in any case. So, in order to attract students to study in Wales, we should consider re-introducing a visa scheme that will enable students to remain in the country to work, having concluded their studies—something akin to what was actually abolished in 2012: the tier 1 post-study—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, okay.

Thank you, Llyr. Do you also agree that it’s not just for working; it’s also postdoctoral aspects, because a lot of students from overseas will continue their studies here through postdoctoral work?

Yes, I agree entirely. It was shorthand to talk of work. You’re quite right to correct me on that. Thank you for doing so.

Of course, the tier 1 post-study work visa, which was abolished in 2012, did allow international students to wait for an additional two years after graduation. Universities across the UK and in Wales are supportive of that. Such a scheme would benefit the economy, enabling talented students to remain here in Wales.

There is a pilot scheme currently allowing four universities in England to take more responsibility for checking the qualifications of the tier 4 applicants for visas. As part of the scheme, qualified students can remain in the country for six months after graduation to seek work, and then apply for a tier 2 visa, but that scheme is far from being akin to what we had in place previously. Plaid Cymru has also called for a Welsh visa system, which would enable Wales to give its own qualification visas, rather than Westminster acting as a barrier between Wales and the world. It’s something that the all-party group on social integration in Westminster highlighted just last week too.

Finally, of course, we need to take international students from the UK net migration targets, and now, individuals such as George Osborne and Boris Johnson have stated that they would be supportive of such a move. A recent survey by Universities UK showed that the majority of the public don’t consider international students to be migrants. Seventy-five per cent welcomed higher numbers of international students, and 91 per cent believed that they should have a right to remain within the UK to work post study.So, there’s a great deal that needs to be done, but what is unquestionable is that students from outwith the UK do make a cultural, academic and economic contribution, which is very important and substantial to Wales. We need to protect and strengthen that, in my view. Westminster must not be some sort of barrier, as I’ve said, between Wales and the world. We can send a strong message on some of the things that we would want to do from the Chamber this afternoon by supporting this motion today.

I have selected the amendment to the motion. I call on Darren Millar to move amendment 1 tabled in the name of Paul Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also want to thank the Plaid Cymru representative for introducing this important debate today. I move the amendments that have been tabled in the name of my colleague Paul Davies on behalf of the Welsh Conservative group.

I think everybody in this Chamber agrees that the higher education sector is of enormous importance to Wales. We know that our universities, as has already been said, are major employers and that they have a significant contribution, which they make on an annual basis, to our economy. They also, of course, do contribute to the success of Welsh exports and those earnings have been growing in recent years. Of course, there’s the employment that they offer to those who are directly employed to them, and of course, those who, through the trickle-down economics, are employed in jobs as a direct result of having universities in their local communities. There’s no doubt in my mind that, because of the increasing global nature of markets and the increasing global nature of our economy here in the UK, we will need to be a country here in Wales with a very highly skilled workforce, and those universities help to deliver just that and many of them have very good and close working relationships with employers to meet their needs.

I think it’s worth reminding ourselves today that it’s not just universities that are delivering higher education. Many further education colleges now across Wales have an increasing proportion of their income down to delivering what traditionally would’ve been delivered in the university sector. I think, at the latest count, around 8 per cent of the income of further education colleges in Wales is actually higher education related. In fact, that percentage is as high as 20 per cent in some of our further education colleges.

So, let’s not forget that that is the context that we’re talking about. Now, I have to say, in point 4 today we’ve tabled a significant amendment that changes the nature of many of the points that have been made. The reason that we’ve done that is because we understand that there is a need to maximise and replace those sources of income, in terms of the research income, for our Welsh university sector in the future if, as a result of Brexit, we no longer have access to funds like Horizon 2020.

Now, Horizon 2020 is a significant source of research funding—it accounts for around 20 per cent of research funding at the moment here in Wales—but it’s not the only source of research funding. Eighty per cent is coming from elsewhere. We also know that there are risks in the future to the proportion of the European research funds that we currently receive—not just because of Brexit, even if we are part of Horizon 2020 post Brexit—and that may well be the case, depending on the negotiations and discussions that take place—then we know that there are hints from the European Union that the focus of Horizon 2020 research funding will be on promoting and developing quality research culture in parts of the EU and those other participating countries that don’t currently have high-quality research. So, we will probably be losing out in terms of our share of that cash in the future. So we don’t know what those changes are going to be yet and it’s difficult to speculate. [Interruption.] Yes, I haven’t got a lot of time, though.

Thank you, Darren, for taking the intervention. But you also recognise that part of Horizon 2020 was actually to look at how we can encourage businesses to get involved in the research profile, and for there to be collaboration across the different countries, and therefore the focus actually is on greater collaboration, particularly with business this time.

Yes, of course, I do recognise that, and I also recognise that it’s possible to participate in Horizon 2020 post Brexit, and I think that’s the point that Llyr Huws Gruffydd is making, which is a very important point. These things should be discussed and should be on the table, but the point I’m making is that there are opportunities for universities to develop other relationships internationally, outside of that, and I think that probably, because of the over-reliance on Horizon 2020, there may have been a lack of focus on developing those links from some of our Welsh universities The same, of course, applies to Erasmus+—it’s an important scheme, it enables a programme of exchange, but it’s not the only programme of exchange operating in Wales and it’s not the only programme of exchange operating across the UK. I think we don’t do it justice, the university sector, to say that that is the be all and end all in terms of those exchange programmes.

Just in terms of visas, if I may for a few moments, there are visa programmes that currently work that support postgraduate students to be able to get entitlements to stay in the UK to start their own businesses, there are ones that entitle them to stay in the UK if they have a job offer, there are ones that entitle people to stay and study beyond a postgraduate course as well. The reason that the visa regime changed was because there was widespread abuse. We know that there was widespread abuse—there were many colleges that were allowing people to have visas on the basis when they shouldn’t have been, particularly in terms of English language qualifications. Many of those, of course, were in that nation—India, Pakistan and others that were referred to in the opening of this debate. That’s why the visa regime changed.

Now, where I do agree with Plaid Cymru is that we need to exclude students from those net migration figures, and that’s why we’ll be supporting that particular part of the motion today. But I do hope that you’ll understand that we need to have some reciprocal arrangement as well with the EU, in terms of citizenship and the ability to stay at work in those universities where we have staff employed. I appreciate the uncertainty is not helpful at the moment, but that needs to be reciprocal in the future.

Well, clearly, as has been said, the higher education sector is crucially important to both our society and economy, not least because its research and development projects are crucial in creating a more prosperous economy here in Wales.

Doubts over research funding make this an uncertain time for the sector. Ending our access to money from international bodies could lead to a struggling university sector, which in turn will have a significant negative knock-on effect on Wales. Brexit, and the potential end to overseas research funding could pull the rug, the floor and the foundations from under our economy. With far less to attract bright people to study and stay in Wales, we push ourselves ever closer to a McJob market. The facts speak for themselves: graduates earn almost £10,000 a year more than people without degrees. Llyr mentioned India earlier, and I think it’s important for us to look outside the European Union in this regard. We would be foolish to underestimate, actually, the wealth, not only of talent but the wealth in the pockets of these students who come here to Wales, and the fact that many of them stay and work in Wales and make Wales their home following on from their studies here in Wales, and long may that continue.

The impact of the higher education sector is spread across Wales, supporting even those areas that do not have universities, which contributed a quarter of that total GVA. Likewise, over 25 per cent of the jobs supported by the sector in 2013 were situated in local authorities without a university—areas such as Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend in my own region, where the higher education sector generated over 2,000 jobs.

We should be proud that Welsh universities punch above their weight when it comes to research. We have the highest percentage of world-leading research in terms of impact of any nation in the UK, according to the 2014 research excellence framework, with almost half of it considered to be having a transformational effect on the economy and society. So, given the significant financial support Wales has received from the EU, Brexit will present considerable challenges to research and development. In 2015 alone, almost £25 million of European regional development funding was approved for proposals to enhance research and innovation infrastructure and build capacity across Wales, at the Aberystwyth innovation and enterprise campus, and Cardiff University’s Brain Research and Imaging Centre. The science and innovation bay campus at Swansea University in my region opened in October 2015 and received a €60 million investment from the European Investment Bank. We can’t underestimate the importance of that investment to the South Wales West economy.

Darren Millar mentioned Horizon 2020 earlier, and while it is true that we still can gain access to Horizon 2020 following leaving the European Union, we don’t know at the moment what the negotiations look like or what type of Brexit deal we will have to know whether we will be able to have the same level of access to Horizon 2020 that we currently have. So, it’s important that we make the case to be part of those types of schemes, whether that’s one of many or not.

The Chancellor’s commitment to add an extra £2 billion a year to expenditure on research and development by the end of the current Westminster Parliament could well add up to nothing if European grant funding disappears, considering that the UK’s gross expenditure on R&D in 2014 was just 1.67 per cent of GDP, one of the lowest of the G7 countries, and we are going backwards. But more than that, what does it mean for new projects? What would it mean for a steel research and development centre at Swansea’s innovation campus, for example—a project that many of us have been pushing for for some time now? It follows that if any additional funding is merely plugging holes, running to stand still, then new investment is very unlikely to get a look in, and proposals like the steel R&D plan, which would underpin the area’s viability as a steel-making centre—something hugely important to the economy of Wales—would potentially face stiffer competition at the very least.

This is a very delicate time for higher education, and we must ensure, as law and policy makers, that we understand fully the impact on our institutions of this significant change to the political landscape, if and when, finally, we vote for the Brexit plan to go through.

I’d like to declare an interest, Llywydd, as an associate lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University. I’m going to be supporting this motion today, and I was hopping up and down in agreement with Llyr Gruffydd’s speech. Particularly, I’d like to draw attention to points—it doesn’t happen very often, but there we go. [Laughter.]—4(d) and 4(e) in the motion. Higher education is an international vocation, and collaboration across nations in teaching and research is highly valued by the academic community. Indeed, I was, in my previous role as a senior lecturer, a link tutor with a college in Greece, where we validated courses, in Perrotis College/ American Farm School in Greece, in Thessaloniki, and I considered myself to be a Welsh export.

I believe that the UK Government’s visa controls, which Llyr has already mentioned, introduced by our Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary, are part of a wider attack on the value of international students and the international student sector to the economy. I think, Darren Miller, you were talking—as a former higher education lecturer—a load of rubbish towards the end of your speech, it has to be said. Theresa May scrapped post-study work visas in 2012. These had allowed non-EU students to stay in the UK and work for up to two years after graduation. Now they are only able to stay for four months. She wanted to go further at that time and expel international students from Britain immediately after graduation, until business leaders talked some sense into her about the potential negative impact on the economy.

In my previous role, I taught the Cardiff Met MBA. In 2008, there was an average of 150 international MBA students on the programme per semester. As a direct result of UK Government policy, there were 30 students left on the programme when I ended my full-time employment in 2016. That’s a direct result of UK Government policy, and it is insulting—[Interruption.] In a second. It is insulting to say that this was because of misdemeanours by those students. That was not the case.

I am not accusing any one of those students of fraudulently applying for visas. I am simply making the point that there was some fraud identified in the system that needed to be addressed. The previous system was not working. There are still opportunities under the current visa arrangements for people to apply for visas and access them.

Not in Wales. That wasn’t happening in Wales. I’ll tell you something else: as a Conservative, your policy is usually to get the state out of things. Well, I tell you what: you are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If you wanted to resolve some of these things at those colleges where there were misdemeanours, you resolve them with those colleges by shutting those colleges down. You don’t do it by damaging the Welsh economy.

Overseas students are included as well in the UK’s net migration figures. That is utterly, utterly absurd. These people are students, not migrants, and they make a huge contribution to our economy, and they still do. In 2013-14, in that academic year, even after these destructive reforms were introduced, international students made up just under one fifth of those in UK education. If we go any further with these proposals with student visas, we are going to damage our economy. It’s therefore difficult to overstate the importance of overseas students to higher education in Wales. I am a member of the University and College Union, and they carried out a survey that found that, post Brexit, two fifths of staff and students were now more likely to consider not coming to the UK or leaving the UK higher education system as a result of Brexit, because of fears that those conditions that international students outside the EU suffer—they will face the same problems within the EU. I met a university vice-chancellor who told me that international staff were vital to the development of outward-looking teaching and research. Yes, David.

Thank you for taking the intervention. Do you also agree that it is not just that they come for graduation and degrees? They want to actually go into the research areas after that. Therefore, they come because they know the research is there. They want to continue their studies post graduation, and even post doctorate, they want to continue working in research. So, it’s a whole picture.

Yes, the MBA students are our future doctoral students and they are our future researchers. Yes, absolutely. They have an intellectual value that should remain in our economy. Subjecting EU nationals to the same, already harsh restrictions as non-EU nationals after Brexit could have a catastrophic effect on our university system, and it will be to the detriment of our already stuttering economic growth. It is therefore imperative that we secure the visa and citizenship status of EU nationals working in Welsh universities, as the motion quite rightly identifies. Our capacity to meet demand for highly skilled jobs relies on that, and that’s why I will wholeheartedly support the Plaid Cymru motion today.

I’m very pleased to add to the agreement that has broken out in the Chamber by agreeing entirely with what Hefin said in giving his speech. We can agree on several other things if we keep away from the issue of pork. There are three things that we can do to ensure the future of the higher education sector in Wales, following the decision to exit the EU, and some of the other aspects that have been mentioned by other Members. Let us be clear on how important this sector is. As has been said—and it’s very important to reiterate the point—this is one of the greatest exports that we have. We are second only to the United States in terms of the international engagement that there is in the higher education sector throughout the British isles. We want to maintain that situation and ensure that that does continue to bring benefits to Wales.

One post is created in Wales for every three students who come to Wales from outwith the European Union. One post is created for every five students coming from within the EU. That corresponds to over £200 million in terms of payments by international students to universities in Wales every year, including £160 million of payments for tuition fees. So, it’s vitally important that we do maintain this flow of income to universities, as well as the fact, of course, that a number of our universities in Wales are within 150 or 200 places of failure or success, according to the level of recruitment to those universities. International students are not only important economically and internationally; they’re important because they enrich our universities, they bring new skills, they bring a new perspective, they form relationships with our domestic students, if you will, and they enhance that process as a result.

Mae tri pheth cyflym y gallem ei wneud i sicrhau hyfywedd y sector yn y dyfodol. Yn gyntaf oll, fel y soniodd Hefin David wrth orffen, mae angen i ni sicrhau statws fisa myfyrwyr ac athrawon a darlithwyr o’r UE mewn prifysgolion, ac ymchwilwyr, sydd yma gyda ni eisoes. Rydym eisoes yn darllen straeon eithaf brawychus am wladolion yr UE yn gorfod profi eu cenedligrwydd a’u hawl i aros yn y wlad hon. Nid ydym am weld rhagor o hynny. Mae arnom angen ymrwymiad clir gan Lywodraeth y DU fod gan y myfyrwyr hyn a’r aelodau hyn o staff hawl i aros yn y sector prifysgolion yng Nghymru. Ceir oddeutu 1,300 o staff sy’n wladolion yr UE ym mhrifysgolion Cymru yn unig, ac mae gwir angen eu hannog i aros.

Yr ail beth y mae angen i ni weld yw system fisa sy’n addas at y diben. Ar y diwrnod y dywedodd y gŵr â’r enw priodol, neu amhriodol, Robert Goodwill, y bydd gennym ardoll o £1,000 ar gyfer holl ddinasyddion yr UE sy’n dod i weithio yn y wlad hon, rwy’n credu bod angen ailedrych yn gyflym iawn sut rydym yn gwahaniaethu rhwng myfyrwyr a gweithwyr yn y ffigurau hynny, oherwydd nid ydym am weld y nifer sydd eisoes yn lleihau o fyfyrwyr sy’n gwneud cais i brifysgolion Cymru—sydd wedi gostwng rhywbeth tebyg i 32 y cant yn barod yn y ceisiadau cynnar yn dilyn canlyniad y refferendwm, o wledydd yr UE—nid ydym am weld hynny’n datblygu i fod yn drychineb go iawn i’n prifysgolion. Felly, system fisa sy’n addas at y diben. Mae hynny, ym marn Plaid Cymru, yn cynnwys system fisa wedi’i rhanbartholi yng nghyd-destun y DU, felly mae gan Gymru ei gofynion fisa ei hun. Nid yw hynny’n newydd. Mae Sadiq Khan, Maer Llundain, wedi galw am hynny, gan bwyso ar adroddiad PricewaterhouseCoopers a gynhyrchwyd ar gyfer Corfforaeth Dinas Llundain. Mae gan Ganada system fisa o’r fath ac mae wedi bod yn gweithredu’r system fisa honno ers nifer o flynyddoedd yn y taleithiau. Yr wythnos diwethaf yn unig, galwodd y grŵp hollbleidiol ar integreiddio cymdeithasol yn Nhŷ’r Cyffredin yn San Steffan hefyd am system fisa gyda system fewnfudo ranbarthol. Gallwn wneud defnydd o hynny wedyn i deilwra myfyrwyr a gweithwyr mudol yn unol ag anghenion economi Cymru.

Y peth olaf y mae angen i ni ei wneud er mwyn sicrhau dyfodol y system addysg uwch a myfyrwyr rhyngwladol yw tynnu myfyrwyr rhyngwladol o’r targedau mewnfudo. Nid yw’n hysbys iawn, ond o’r niferoedd mewnfudo y siaradwn amdanynt bob amser, mae 30 y cant ohonynt—un o bob tri—yn fyfyrwyr ac maent yn dychwelyd adref. Mae’n rhaid i mi ddweud wrth Darren Millar mai’r nifer—a dyma’r niferoedd swyddogol—sy’n aros yn hwy na’u fisâu yw 1 y cant. Dyna natur y bwystfil. Nid yw’n werth gwastraffu’r 99 y cant er mwyn ymdrin â hynny. Iawn, ar bob cyfrif, ewch i’r afael â cholegau sy’n methu, ar bob cyfrif ewch i’r afael â chamddefnyddio—[Torri ar draws.] Nid oes gennyf amser, sori; mae fy amser ar ben. Ar bob cyfrif ewch i’r afael â’r rhai sy’n camddefnyddio’r system, ond am y 99 y cant, mae angen i ni eu tynnu o’r ffigurau ac mae angen dadl onest am wir nifer y mewnfudwyr sy’n dod i Gymru a’r rhan y maent yn ei chwarae, ac nid ymfudwyr yw myfyrwyr.

Whilst it can be a character-building experience attending higher education, the rush to turn every subject and vocation into a degree course has been a character-destroying experience for many young people. The jobs market has been flooded with graduates to the extent that their wages are lower than ever before, their debts are higher, and the taxpayer is footing a much larger bill for the administration of a loan system as fewer graduates are hitting the repayment threshold when expected. Employers are largely filtering candidates between those who have a 2:1 and those who don’t. Some larger organisations are now saying that there are so many graduates that they’re now treating Master’s degrees as the new honours degree.

The sustainability of the Welsh higher education system depends not just on Government funding, but also on its reputation for research and development and on the standard of education and other experiences that higher education establishments can offer here. It would be wrong to just blindly adopt the judgments of the EU when it comes to spending on HE when looking at funding support. The EU has not been known for its thriftiness or its accountability. The Welsh Government needs to exercise its own judgement on whether such funds bring good enough return on investment before replacing the funds. It is better placed than any other to know what is affordable and to react to the needs of the Welsh economy.

Will you take an intervention? Are you prepared to accept that international students directly contribute £22 million to the UK economy?

I accept that and I also argue that if our HEIs were to widen their net, they could actually be making a lot more money in the long term, and be more sustainable in the long term, than focusing on EU students who have to be offered the same terms as home students.

Those currently working in UK universities will be allowed to stay. To say that they might not is, again, perhaps coming from a party that is doing all it can to scaremonger and demand things that will happen anyway so that they can attempt to claim victory further down the line. UKIP has said, time and time again, that those EU nationals living here at the moment should have the right to stay. Theresa May should announce that immediately and stop using people who are settled here as some kind of bargaining chip. The Tory Member who proposed the amendment should be demanding nothing less. I’m afraid his half-hearted amendment to merely explore arrangements for a reciprocal agreement is disgracefully less. UKIP says that those who are here at the moment should be allowed to stay regardless of any reciprocal agreement. The law suggests that that is the case in any event.

Post-study work visas are a vital part of attracting and keeping high-quality graduates in the country and I support their use. However, under EU freedom of movement, we’ve become accustomed to oversimplifying the classifications of those coming here. We had no choice in that. However, many people come to Wales to study. We should at least count them and consider if we can cope with the numbers or whether we need to attract more. There is no reason why we can’t have separate targets for student numbers, but we do need to acknowledge that we have finite resources and public services in this country. To pretend otherwise is irresponsible.

International research funding is important, but has to pass the education principal quality test. There is no such thing as a free lunch and it would be a shame to see research only being done because it is sponsored by profit-orientated, multinational companies. It flies in the face of what education should be about. As far as future graduates are concerned, I totally support the ability of international graduates to remain, work and settle here. But EU open-door immigration currently means a highly qualified graduate from Nigeria would have great difficulty remaining here after their studies, or even coming here in the first place.

Following Brexit, we have a duty to make sure our immigration policy is based on merit, not nationality as it is now. The UK’s HE institutions are very highly regarded across the world. Seven out of the 11 best universities in Europe are in the UK, and while the UK has four universities in the world’s top 20, the other EU countries have none. We have advantages that many countries don’t have. Welsh Government must promote and market Welsh higher education across the globe, once they have the freedom to do so after Brexit. Thank you.

There are some general concerns about the future of the HE sector in Wales, not only as the result of Brexit, of course; the sustainability of the sector has been vulnerable for many years now. But, the implications of Brexit for our universities will mean that it is crucial that the Welsh Government and the UK Government do take action soon in order to safeguard the future of the sector.

As many have already said this afternoon, a successful HE sector is crucial for a prosperous Wales. Therefore, the Welsh Government must do everything needed in order to safeguard the sustainability of the sector. First of all, we need to safeguard the current funding and funding programmes of the European Union or provide alternative funding and programmes.

Taking into account the expenditure of universities, staff and students, Welsh universities have an important direct impact, which is far-reaching, on the Welsh economy. The economic impact of the HE sector in Wales came to a total of £4.6 billion during 2014-15, with £251 million of that coming to Gwynedd alone. There are 3,000 jobs in Bangor University, which is an important part of the local economy of the area, with far more employed indirectly as a result of the existence of Bangor University.

Universities in Wales have raised concerns about the funding system for many years, pointing to the funding gap between institutions in England and Wales as a result of the tuition fee grant, and it’s estimated that the gap was between £73 million and £115 million in 2015. The hope is, of course, that the recommendations of Diamond will actually deal with some of that gap, but the historic impact on the sector has been grave, and the Welsh Government has been underfunding universities in this country. Plaid Cymru has been able to ensure that there will be no further cuts in the 2017-18 budget, but the situation remains extremely challenging. The funding gap has meant cuts to courses, with Bangor University, for example, having to close the school of lifelong learning, although there are some hopes that some provision will be provided in an alternative manner.

Given these funding pressures, European Union grants for research and development, as well as capital funding, have been exceptionally important in supporting the HE sector’s work in Wales and in enabling that sector to remain competitive: £12 million in funding from the Horizon 2020 fund in 2014 alone; £118 million in funding from the European Investment Bank between 2011 and 2016 for developing learning facilities and improving learning and research facilities. For example, Bangor University received funding to the tune of €10 million in March 2016 from the European Investment Bank, and another funding package worth €54 million from the bank in 2014, which is significant funding, not only for the university but for the wider economy, as I’ve said.

Philip Hammond has pledged to safeguard the funding of any project currently receiving Horizon 2020 funds up until the end of the project, even if we do leave the European Union before that programme is concluded, but what happens after that? The autumn statement allocated funding for research and development, but what about the broader range of academic research work that is also being funded through the European Union? We can participate in Horizon 2020 without being members of the European Union. Norway, Turkey and Israel, for example, do succeed in doing so, and it’s also possible to receive funding from the European Investment Bank without being members of the European Union—for example, Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Switzerland do so. It’s important that all efforts are made now, and that we leave no stone unturned in order to ensure that our HE sector continues to have access to these funding sources once we have left the European Union.

Can I thank Llyr for introducing this debate and commend many of the contributors already who’ve spoken in support of the motion? I make no apologies for reiterating some of the points that have been made already, because I think they are worth stating very emphatically. Can I also thank very much Cardiff University, Universities Wales and others for the briefing materials that they supplied in advance of this debate, which raised some of the very pertinent issues that have already been aired within this Chamber?

It’s good that we now have a universities group, a cross-party group, set up within the Assembly that looks at these matters, as well as the group chaired by Rhun ap Iorwerth on Wales in the international sphere, which has looked at many of these aspects of our reach with our education, with our students and our staffing expertise internationally, but also the importance of continuing as a very attractive place to come and to study, to do research, and also to work as well and to extend those employment opportunities. It is worth saying that in the backdrop to this debate and the context for this debate is the mood music that we set as a Welsh Government and also as a UK Government internationally: how does it sound overseas? We know we’ve been through a pretty difficult period. There’s a highly competitive international market for students. We know that the evidence will show that people have been voting with their money and with their feet and choosing other locations, partly because of the disruption last year—the feeling that we were less than welcoming to those from overseas.

I think we need to turn this around, and it was good to see that both the Cabinet Secretary’s speech at Cardiff University and the First Minister’s speech at Bangor University in November as well, in Sian Gwenllian’s constituency, were very well received by the university sector in Wales. They said that they were very reassured that the priorities for the Welsh Government were the right priorities for the university sector domestically, but also the right things were said about how we should look outwardly facing to the world, welcoming international students from the EU and wider afield, but also welcoming the opportunities that we have and making sure that we retain those opportunities and that our expertise and our students also go out into the world and that our staff expertise is shared as well. These points have been made in some way already by the contributors to the debate so far.

But I want to put down some salient facts into the debate. As we speak, there are currently nearly 5,500 EU students of all modes, all levels, full and part-time, postgraduate and undergraduate, within Welsh universities this year. It is equivalent to over 4 per cent of the student population. Those EU students in Wales have generated around about £150 million for the Welsh economy—if you add to that all international students it’s around £235 million to the Welsh economy—and this is, as I say, not only significant in contribution but it’s also a highly competitive market out there as we go forward. I hear the reassurances from Darren Millar that, whilst it’s uncertain, things will be okay in the future. We hope very much that is the case but I have to say the uncertainty at the moment is why Universities Wales are raising these concerns, particularly after the year that we’ve just come out from.

If you look at the staff impact, the criticality of EU staff in supporting the excellence of our Wales university sector, as we speak, there are nearly 1,400 staff from other parts, other countries within the EU—and we’re still within the EU at the moment—within our Welsh universities, both academic and, by the way, non-academic. So, when we look at the issue of visas—skilled, non-skilled, different grades of skills and so on—we have to be careful that, as the Home Office is looking at this issue, we don’t actually by default suddenly find the negative consequence that we’ve drawn certain people into being allowed to be here and we’ve excluded others who are equally essential to the higher education sector within Wales.

Finally, I just want to touch very briefly, Presiding Officer, on the importance of EU research: collaboration and the income we receive. As we speak, the total EU research grants and the contract income for Wales is around £46 million. Others in this Chamber will reassure us that that money can be found elsewhere. I’m glad they are so confident. I’d like to know where it is going to come from. But that is significant, that’s 20 per cent of our income in terms of research, and it’s why we are doing so well at the moment. I’ll stop on that point, because many of the points that I was going to make have been made already. But we do need to get this right here ongoing. But I come back to the context in which we are speaking, which is being an internationally attractive destination for students from the EU but also wider afield. We need to retain that and the expertise that comes with it.

I think the relevance of higher education in Wales can be demonstrated by the recent announcement from Cardiff University to spend £23 million on a new maths and computing building and £32 million on new student accommodation. Indeed, the face of Cardiff has been transformed in the last 10 or 20 years, much of it by the investment from our principal university, and I’m delighted to say I’m a graduate of that university.

I think it’s really important to focus on what will be needed to retain the UK’s universities as probably the second best set of universities in the world after the United States. We are second only to the United States in the number of Nobel prize winners and, if you look at academic citations, we’re miles ahead of any other country with the sole exception, again, of the United States. I mean, we really are a world leader. Incidentally, it’s on relatively modest investment in terms of the total funds required. In preparation for this debate, I did look at the Universities UK website and there are four essential requirements really for the sort of university sector we will need and what that will require to thrive in a post-Brexit environment.

International research collaboration is absolutely key, and it should not surprise anyone, but we are likely to be in a world that is moving away from the natural desire to co-operate with our neighbours, and any shift towards a closed world—. And we’ve heard how visa policy is a very practical way of creating certain unintended consequences. But also as an attractive place to come and study and have a future career, possibly, if you’re in that elite group that’s going to be leading research on new products and all sorts of things.

Secondly, the UK’s got to be seen as a top destination for students. Now, inevitably, as Indian and Chinese, for instance, universities develop, they will be retaining many of their most distinguished students and that’s not a bad thing. But there will be more competition in general for that elite sector of international students. Basically, we are the second destination of choice at the moment, again, second only to the United States, and we have to work very hard to ensure that we retain that.

Thirdly, we have to invest in the research base. That is why our universities are so exceptional. Most of us here were undergraduates and it’s very important, the undergraduate education that is provided by our great universities, but it is actually—. They do that as a consequence really, as a very pleasant secondary effect, of having outstanding research. That’s why they have the lead in the pursuit of knowledge. Without that research base, you will soon lose the ability to educate undergraduates to a high level.

Staff and students need to access international opportunities. I was very fortunate to have a year’s study as a postgraduate in Virginia and I had a particular interest when I was there in the American constitution and federalism. Now, for good or ill, I’ve used it in a UK and a Welsh context, and probably bored you silly on all those matters over the years, but it was basically as a result of my study abroad.

So, I come down to—you know, there are great educational and cultural changes occurring in the world. I’ve mentioned internationalism. The move away from the excoriating experiences of two world wars and then building strength in methods of international co-operation—and education was key to that, as was building international institutions as well. The respect for evidence—. You know, this is the enlightenment—well, that’s what it’s based on, a respect for evidence. I don’t want to bore you about the Tory empiric tradition, but I think it is important to establish what can be tested, what works, and to take that evidence and to accept evidence, sometimes, that perhaps was rather against your initial hypothesis. Above all, the pursuit of knowledge—it is the pursuit of knowledge that improves human outcomes and has led to the most astonishing advances, many of which could not be predicted but occurred as a result of that natural spark, and that’s what we should be pursuing rather than the will-o’-the-wisp, for instance, of a slogan like ‘take back control’.

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kirsty Williams.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Could I begin by assuring David Melding that I for one will never be bored and tired of you using the F-word—federalism—here in this Chamber, David? Can I also thank Plaid Cymru for tabling the motion this afternoon and for the very many valuable contributions of Members? The debate has given us the opportunity to discuss and recognise the vitally important role of the higher education sector in Wales.

Our institutions are national assets that are held in high regard throughout the world, and it is important that we take time to recognise the significant contribution that they make to our economic, social and cultural wellbeing. I am committed to the local, national and international success of our universities. Therefore, this afternoon, the Government will support the motion. I and Welsh Government colleagues continue to work with university leaders and counterparts in other UK Governments to advance the interests of our higher education institutions in a UK, EU, and global context. This includes, but is not limited to, research, innovation and student mobility.

We share the views expressed by many Members here today that students, researchers and academics should continue to be able to access the benefits of international collaboration and exchanges and the important sources of funding that EU programmes provide. The Government, therefore, will not support the Conservative amendment, which weakens the commitment to pursue the best possible outcome for Wales and for Welsh HEIs from the upcoming Brexit negotiations.

Higher education is integral to our sense of self, our sense of history and inquiry, and to our place in the world. Our universities and colleges train our teachers, our doctors, our nurses, our linguists, our artists and our engineers and those who can inspire and train others to pursue their goals and to realise their dreams. But, as much as I am a cheerleader for Welsh higher education, it is also my duty to challenge and sometimes cajole vice-chancellors and chairs. I have spoken previously about the need for our institutions to recognise their civic mission and their importance to society. I want them to recapture their roles as stewards of community, city and country. They should be of their place and of their people. It is from this stewardship that universities will fulfil their national, civic and international roles and responsibilities and it is then our job, as a Government, to share the risks and benefits from investment, policy reform and future skills needs.

Now, there are many other challenges facing the sector, but they are similar to the other key sectors in facing the uncertainty from Brexit, the marketisation approach favoured by the Government in England, and wider economic and societal trends. Of course, there are also many opportunities, and our response to Diamond will introduce a stable and sustainable funding regime and broad system of student support that will be the first of its kind in the UK and possibly a first for Europe. I am also considering the report on post-compulsory education and training systems in Wales that was submitted by Professor Hazelkorn last year. I plan to announce the Welsh Government’s response to the report shortly.

The vote to leave the EU presents particular challenges for the HE sector, and not everything is within the powers of the Welsh Government. Therefore, just before Christmas, I and the Minister for Skills and Science convened a meeting of all four higher education Ministers from across the UK administrations. Although each of us represented different Governments, nations, and, indeed, political parties, we were able, I’m pleased to say, to find common ground, particularly on international higher education issues. I am keen to pursue this pan-UK collaboration and how each Government can work together and with our sectors. I am confident that we can then better support our universities with continuing and new relations and opportunities across the UK and with partners in the European Union.

It is, as has been said this afternoon, essential to remember that our universities operate in a highly competitive international sector. Institutions across the UK, Europe, and around the world compete for students, for staff and for research opportunities. So, whilst we continue to promote and protect the stability and sustainability of our sector, the UK Government must also—they have to—recognise that, although they spend the vast majority of their higher education time thinking about England and English issues, they do also have a UK-wide responsibility on international and research funding matters. The four governments of the UK need to work together on such issues, which further underlines the need for UK-wide representation on the new UKRI board. It simply does not make sense for our nation to walk away from the funding opportunities presented by Horizon 2020. We are the second biggest recipient of those funds behind Germany, and we also remember how important structural funds have been to the higher education sector in Wales.

Now, those who campaigned for an EU exit, and those who were persuaded by that campaign, did so on the promise that it would not be to the detriment of Wales, and I believe we are entitled to not a penny less of the structural funds money that has come to this country and has supported our Welsh institutions to be the institutions that they are today.

This motion today recognises: firstly, the importance of our HEIs in Wales for participation in EU programmes and accessing EU funding, as well as the importance of international students and staff; and secondly, the UK Government’s responsibility for ensuring that the HE sector is not damaged as a result of its approach to immigration policy and the EU.

Let me be absolutely clear, Presiding Officer: Wales welcomes students and staff from across Europe and across the world. Our universities and our communities benefit from that diversity and that dynamism. Our own students benefit from the opportunities such as Erasmus that have let them share their experiences across Europe. I and this Government will do all that we can to support the future of such opportunities and openness in the sector. It has been a disgrace that post-work visa opportunities have only been available to four places in England with no consultation with either this Government or the Scottish Government. Student figures have to be taken out of immigration and migrant figures, and there should be no linking of visas to the forthcoming teaching excellence framework. It would be disastrous.

The motion identifies important areas where universities need the UK Government to take action that will safeguard the future sustainability of the sector. The Welsh Government can support that cause and support the motion. Thank you.

I call on Llyr Gruffydd to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. May I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate? I think the number of contributors has reflected the importance of the issue that we’re discussing and the concern that many of us have on the possible impact on HE institutions in Wales as well as on FE here in Wales and the broader economy. In my opening remarks I failed to refer to the Conservative amendment. We won’t be supporting amendment 1 for the reasons that have already been outlined. It does weaken the original motion. Of course, I would argue that the original motion is stronger than the amendment tabled.

Darren Millar referred to research sources beyond Horizon 2020, and that’s a fair point, of course. There are alternative sources beyond European funding, but the truth is that post-92 institutions, as they’re described, are more reliant on European funding than some of the other institutions. They are more exposed to the risk that comes from endangering the future of European funds. What’s required, therefore, is investment. If that funding is to be lost, then we do need to develop alternative income sources, and we need investment to do that, of course. In the current climate in this sector, where we see cuts and underfunding and so on, finding that additional source is quite a challenge. One university has described it as a need to have some sort of bridging loan in order to invest for development. It’s possible that the Welsh Government—taking into account the Cabinet Secretary’s comments on the role of the UK Government to look beyond the situation in England alone—should also consider making a contribution to that end.

I won’t pursue all the points made by all contributors, but Simon Thomas did remind us that one job is created for every three students from beyond the European Union in Wales, and one job for every five students from the European Union is created. But it’s not just the economic contribution—and that is a significant contribution—there’s also the intellectual contribution, as he reminded us, in terms of the students bringing their diverse perspectives and experiences and so on.

Michelle Brown suggested that universities should cast their nets more widely; it’s difficult to do that when the Westminster Government restricts the numbers that can actually come here, so I’m not sure how you can rationalise that. Huw Irranca-Davies was quite right in reminding us that it’s not just academic staff that we’re talking about when we are talking of international staff; there is an important cohort that make contributions in alternative ways too.

In preparing for this debate, I discovered that Bangor University, for example, is among the 100 most international universities in the world, according to the ‘Times Higher Education’. [Interruption.] ‘Of course’, I hear from a few in this Chamber, and why not, indeed? Cardiff Metropolitan University is on the top of all UK universities when it comes to providing support to international students in the past year, and indeed, on five previous occasions. I’m sure that all universities have their own stories to tell in terms of student numbers from the EU and beyond; their contribution, European funding, the benefit of student portability and the benefits to research and development and so on.

But, on this point, in terms of making applications to universities, I know of one university in Wales where applications from EU students are down 32 per cent—32 per cent. That’s a third. Now, what does that tell us about the impact of Brexit on HE in Wales? What does that tell us about what we need to do to ensure that the benefits that we accrue from the international relations that we have at present do continue and are indeed strengthened? What does that tell us about the need—and I hope you will agree with me—to support this motion this afternoon?

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

The next item on the agenda is the United Kingdom Independence Party debate and I call on Neil Hamilton to move the motion.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Lywydd. I beg to move the motion standing in my name on the agenda. I’m delighted to see that the First Minister has come to attend the debate today. We had a bit of a curtain-raiser yesterday at First Minister’s questions, because I hadn’t anticipated that he would be participating in this debate, but I very much welcome his presence. But yesterday I pointed out that, perhaps, Norway is not the best model that we could follow in the arrangements that we will be trying to enter into with the EU post Brexit. Although Norway and its people have been stalwartly against membership of the EU, right from the first referendum back in 1972, the Norwegian political establishment takes a radically different view. To that extent, I suppose, there are some similarities to the political establishment in Wales, because the people of Wales voted pretty decisively to leave the EU, but, unfortunately, Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party seem not to represent that view in any shape or form.

The Norwegian arrangement, of course, would be, in many ways, even worse than what we’ve got now because Norway accepts the obligations of being part of Schengen, which means, in effect, there is totally unfettered access to Norway in terms of migration. Under EU law, there is free movement; that is one of the four key fundamental freedoms that the EU has brought about. When EU members were, broadly speaking, on the same level of economic prosperity, that didn’t really cause much of a problem, but significant problems have been caused by the widening of the EU to include economies that are very significantly poorer than the western European economies. It would be foolish, I think, of us to deny that this has created widespread public concern and, therefore, the desire to recover control of the UK’s international borders lies at the very heart of the referendum decision. To seek to move back towards the situation that we now have by membership of the EEA would, in effect, be to frustrate and deny the expressed will of the British people.

At least in this respect, Plaid Cymru is honest and open. They reject the effect of the referendum result. They are in favour of not just being in the EEA but actually, even worse, being part of the EU customs union. As far as the Labour Party is concerned, we have no idea what their immigration policy is, and we have the deputy leader of the Labour Party’s own words on that. He expressed on Sunday that he didn’t know what Labour’s policy is. It seems to be: ‘Left leg in, left leg out, and shake it all about’. They have a kind of hokey cokey policy on this. Jeremy Corbyn has said that they are not wedded to free movement but they don’t rule it out. That is the Labour Party’s current policy as I understand it. But that is certainly not what the majority of Labour voters and previous Labour voters in Wales want.

Norway is, of course, a very peculiar case economically because it is a heavily oil-dominated economy. They pay into the EU as part of the EEA arrangements—£400 million a year. One of the advantages of leaving altogether is that we will cease, once and for all, to make contributions to the EU budget and that money will be available to spend on other things in Britain. We have just had a debate on higher education. One of the things that we could spend a portion of that money on is higher education. Norway, of course, has a much higher dependence on EU trade than Britain has; 80 per cent of its exports go to the EU. They enjoy a £10 billion a year surplus with the EU. Britain, by contrast, suffers a very significant trade deficit with the EU—of £60 billion a year, currently. This means that, because we sell a much smaller proportion of our exports, now much less than 50 per cent, to the EU—and it has been declining quite rapidly in recent years—and because we have a massive trade deficit with the EU, we have a much bigger and much better negotiating position than Norway, a very small economy of 5 million people, could possibly have.

The alternative is the arrangement that has been negotiated with the EU by South Korea: a free-trade agreement that was entered into five years ago. South Korea is the eleventh largest economy in the world, and it is an expanding economy, unlike the EU, which is a contracting economy. As a result of Brexit, we have already entered into discussions with Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Norway, and the six members of the Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, which is one of Wales’s major export destinations. Wilbur Ross, a member of the Trump administration, has said that the US-UK deal will be one of their top priorities. The United States is a very important export market for Britain. We export to them £36 billion-worth of goods a year. We don’t require to be part of the single market with the United States in order to export that colossal amount to them. Outside the EU, we will continue to be a major export market for EU countries, and they would be foolish to want to place any inhibitions on their ability to export to us, not least Germany. We export to Germany about £35 billion-worth of goods a year. They export to us £77 billion-worth a year. So, we have a very significant trade deficit with Germany. I am not a protectionist, and I am certainly not a mercantilist. I don’t believe that we should aim to have an absolute trade balance with all countries with whom we do business. We should trade to our maximum mutual advantage, and trade goes two ways. Nevertheless, in terms of negotiations as to the future trading relationships that we are going to have with the EU, certainly countries like Germany will have a very significant voice. The benefits of continued unfettered trade with Britain will be plain for all to see. Indeed, Cecilia Malmström, the EU trade commissioner in the context of the South Korean trade deal, has said that the evidence of the success of that agreement should help convince the unconvinced that Europe benefits greatly from more free trade. It spurs European growth, and it safeguards and creates jobs.

That’s the spirit in which we approach the changing relationship between Britain—and Wales, within Britain, of course—and the European Union. Hence, we end up in our motion by saying that we support the UK Government’s general negotiating position in seeking the maximum degree of free trade with the EU, but consistent with firm immigration control. As the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world, and we have a £60 billion a year deficit in our trade with the EU, surely, common sense as well as political strength on our part dictates that we should be able to negotiate a pretty good outcome for all concerned. It really would be a case of cutting off the nose to spite the face if the bureaucrats in Brussels were to try to frustrate the wishes of the British people to continue to have unfettered access to the single market, although not be a member of it.

But we should remember that 85 per cent of the world economy is outside the EU, and whereas our trade with the EU is stagnating, it is growing very rapidly with other parts of the world. The single market is not necessarily the greatest gift to mankind. I remember when I was the internal market Minister in the Major Government that the approach that I always had to take to negotiating positions was fundamentally to try and stop them doing things that were going to damage the British economy and the European economy as well. Jacques Delors changed the whole emphasis of the EU back in the 1980s when the single market process, which was set in train by the Thatcher Government, was being worked out. Our view was that we should have the maximum possible freedom of exchange of trade, but not develop some kind of overarching regulatory code of laws imposed upon everybody from the centre. That wasn’t necessary, and it’s because the EU has gone down that road that it has been stagnating in the world, relative to other countries, in the last 20 years.

So, what the British people voted for, and the Welsh people voted for, last June in the referendum was to continue the maximum freedom of trade with the EU. It is an important trade destination for Wales—that is undeniable—but at the cost of free movement of peoples, without any form of meaningful restriction, that was a price that the Welsh people decided was too great to pay. So, our motion reconciles these two important elements in the debate, and we wait to hear from the First Minister and from Labour as a party quite how they are going to respect the result of the referendum, which they’re always saying they’re keen to do, on the one hand, but on the other hand to reconcile that with their failure to state to us what kind of immigration controls they’re prepared to see as a result of the changes that will now fall to be made. I very much look forward to hearing from the First Minister today, perhaps, some clarification of that.

I have selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on Mark Isherwood to move amendment 1 tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Mark Isherwood.

Diolch, Lywydd. From its inception, Theresa May’s Government has made it clear that its vision for the UK outside the EU is for a fully independent sovereign state and that the right deal for the UK as we leave the EU will be one that is unique and not an off-the-shelf solution. As our amendment states, we propose that the National Assembly for Wales welcomes the Prime Minister’s intention to build a powerful new relationship with the European Union that works for the UK and Wales, recognises the importance of trade with Europe and the rest of the world, which is vital to the future of the Welsh economy, and welcomes the UK Government commitment to secure a strong trading relationship that provides UK companies with the freedom to trade and operate in the single market and that reciprocal arrangements should be extended to EU businesses trading and operating in the UK.

As he visited Norway, the First Minister said that Wales needs full and unfettered access to the European single market, whilst also claiming to accept the need for the repatriation of border controls, knowing full well the questions this raises. Labour’s shadow Brexit Secretary, Keir Starmer, has proposed reasonable controls on numbers entering the UK, and former Liberal Democrat Minister Vince Cable has argued that it is politically necessary to limit immigration from the EU as part of the UK’s Brexit deal. As Theresa May states,

We will decide for ourselves how we control immigration. And we will be free to pass our own laws.’

We want to give UK companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate in the single market, and let European businesses do the same here. As she also emphasises, getting the best outcome for the UK means not putting all our cards on the table. Some might suggest that only those seeking to undermine Brexit may say otherwise, but I couldn’t possibly comment.

Some warned of dire consequences and instant recession for the UK economy if the people voted to leave the EU last June. Instead, the UK was the fastest-growing G7 economy in 2016. Global businesses like Google and Nissan have said they’ll be creating new jobs in the UK. UK employment is at a record high. The UK’s manufacturing—[Interruption.]—one second. The UK’s manufacturing sector grew at its fastest rate for over two and a half years, the UK construction sector grew at its fastest rate in almost a year and the UK services sector grew at its fastest rate in 17 months. I give way.

Would you accept that the pound has been devalued by between 18 and 20 per cent and that devaluation has given the economy a push, or do you expect us to devalue the pound by 18 per cent each year?

Of course, currency movements are one of the effects of that. It’s funny that it wasn’t factored in by those predicting doom and gloom. Perhaps you could tell us which Jeremy Corbyn was right yesterday, the one who said he wants managed migration or the one who said he was wedded to freedom of movement continuing?

Countries around the world like China and Australia are exploring how to do more trade with us after we leave the EU. Yesterday, we heard from the US Senate foreign relations committee chair that a US/UK trade deal would be a priority.

The Chancellor’s autumn statement showed an £11.6 billion saving in net contribution in 2019-20, once we were out of the EU. A new Civitas study has found that although the UK Government would need to provide almost £9 billion in support for businesses to cope with the impact of failing to strike a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU, the cost would be covered by tariffs on corresponding exports from the remaining 27 EU members to the UK. This is a stark reminder to EU leaders of the need to enter Brexit negotiations with the aim of achieving an outcome that benefits everyone.

As the NFU vice-president said on Anglesey last Thursday:

We’re going to leave the EU and we must unite and move on—we must see this as an opportunity rather than a threat.’

And, as the Prime Minister said on Sunday:

We’re leaving. We’re coming out. We’re not going to be a member of the EU any longer…So the question is what is the right relationship for the UK to have with the European Union when we’re outside.’

Will the Member give way?

When I’m finished with this paragraph, yes.

We will have control of our borders, control of our laws, but we still want the best possible deal for UK companies to trade with and operate within the European Union and also European companies to trade with and operate within the UK.’

If you’re quick.

Could he clarify that we’ll also be coming out of the customs union?

That’s subject to negotiation. I know no more about that than you do.

When people voted in the referendum on 23 June, yes, they voted to leave the EU, but they also voted for change, and this year, 2017, is the year when we start to make that happen.

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

Diolch, Lywydd. I’m moving the amendment, obviously, in our name, which sets out our consistent position that, of the models currently on the table, the EEA/EFTA option is the one that best meets the Welsh economic national interest.

I have a philosophical and an emotional attachment to the idea of being a Welsh European, but I’d like to have the debate today a little bit at not quite the emotional fever pitch that sometimes these debates are held, because it’s exhausting and it’s not particularly illuminating, and just to look at the economic facts, because I think forecasting in this very, very turbulent context is almost impossible. It’s certainly not a science. I can quite understand the degree of scepticism, particularly on the benches opposite, in terms of the forecasts, which uniformly, of course, have been in a negative direction, and if you move in the spectrum towards a harder Brexit, they become even more negative. But I’m prepared to accept that, over the long run, the UK economy will ride out any rollercoaster. In the long run, of course, as Keynes said, we are all dead. I think the particular problem that we face is that it will not be evenly distributed—that ability to flex in response to the challenges and, maybe, the new opportunities post Brexit will not be evenly distributed across the UK. And there are particular sectors and particular territories that face particular challenges: Northern Ireland, clearly, because of its high level of integration with the economy of the Republic. Ironically, in this context, the City of London faces particular challenges in terms of whether it’ll have access through passporting rights et cetera. And then I would say there are a collection of manufacturing-based economies, old manufacturing economies, which particularly have large multinational companies involved in sectors that have very global supply chains, particularly automotive, and aerospace would be another example; electronics is not as relevant to the Welsh economy, but those two other sectors are very, very important. And that’s why I would say that, whatever you think about the macroeconomic prospects across the UK as a whole, Wales faces some very severe challenges if we are not within the single market.

In terms of the actual position, Wales has the highest proportion of its exports going to the European Union, by a long margin: 67 per cent in 2015. Over two thirds of our exports go to the EU—of goods. The average for the UK is 48 per cent. The next one is the north-east of England, with 58 per cent. We are the most EU-intensive, in terms of our exports, of all the economies of the United Kingdom, and so I would appeal to the Members opposite: Wales is a special case. It has a unique set of factors that lead Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales—[Interruption.] Yes, I’ll happily give way.

Just on that point, would you accept that, last year, Wales actually had a smaller share than the UK average, quite significantly, and that much of the shift has been a growth in the EU offset by a collapse in other international trade, where we need to be looking at Europe and the world as we go forward?

Well, I’m all for growing our exports in all directions, and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of optimism, but I’m just stating the facts as they currently stand. I accept that these figures change in response to this very, very uncertain economic environment that we’re in, but the fact of the matter is we are, as things currently stand—given where we are in terms of the economic cycle, then we’re talking about two thirds of our entire export base. And unfortunately, we’re not a nation state; if we had all the levers, then maybe we could be more agile in responding to this new environment, but we don’t. We have at least one arm tied behind our back, probably both. So, we’re not able to flex and respond with the degree of agility that, under other circumstances, we might like to see. And so I would appeal: let’s look at the facts, let’s actually have a Wales-based debate. I remain fully convinced, as things currently stand, that it is absolutely imperative for the Welsh economy that we remain a full participant within the single market.

I’d like to thank my colleague Neil Hamilton for proposing this debate today. Those who opposed the UK leaving the EU are determined to find any possible way of keeping us shackled to an unelected, undemocratic bureaucracy, overburdened by restrictive regulations and unable to control our own borders—all for the sake of access to the so-called single market. The First Minister visited Norway last week to explore ways that Wales could emulate the Norwegian model. The problem is, First Minister, the people of Wales did not vote on the 23 June last year to leave the EU and then immediately become an affiliate member. We voted to free ourselves of the millstone that EU membership places around our necks. We voted to free ourselves from an increasingly insular and shrinking trading block, and we voted overwhelmingly to reject freedom of movement. We buy more from the single market than we sell and the deficit is growing. Why then should we be overburdened with the regulations and restrictions that membership of the single market would impose upon us? In the run-up to the vote last year, the then President of the United States tried to influence the vote by claiming the UK would not get a trade deal with the US. Thankfully, the people of the UK ignored him and we will soon have a different occupant of the White House who is keen to increase trading links with the UK. The Republican Party is now in charge in the US and they want to see a US-UK trade deal. They want to trade with us, they want to trade with us and I’m all for trade. I’m all for trade. I’m all for the benefit of Wales trading with other countries.

When we finally throw off the shackles of the EU membership we will be free to pursue beneficial trade agreements with the wider world. Wales’s exports to the EU only account for 41 per cent of our world exports and that has been declining over the past four years. Our trade deals need to be ambitious, looking at a global market. We don’t need to overburden ourselves with red tape just to maintain access to the single market. We have to embrace free trade with the whole world, rather than solely focusing on an increasingly insular trading block.

As well as pursuing closer trading ties with the US we have to be ambitiously forging closer links with countries in Latin America and Asia.The economies of the countries in Asia have seen exponential expansion over the last half a century, yet the UK’s economy, and that of the EU, has seen lacklustre growth over the same period. As soon as we are free from EU control we should be tapping into these markets.

Wales is the country I was born in and have lived in all my life. I respect the vote of the people of Wales and I will fight for every penny to make Wales prosperous. I am optimistic about our future outside the EU. I would suggest that the First Minister would find his time much better spent if he were to pursue trading links with the likes of China, India and Brazil, rather than seeking ways of maintaining our ties to the EU. Thank you.

It’s maybe appropriate that we are here today standing a few 100 yards from the Norwegian church in Cardiff Bay, which was built in the nineteenth century when Norway had an enormous merchant fleet and had great a trading relationship with Wales. It was then a place of respite for Norwegian sailors in the second world war when they couldn’t return home to their country, which had been engulfed by fascism. So, to look to Norway for inspiration, it’s a very different society but in truth we see there the best available access you can get to the European single market without being a member and we see some greater control over immigration. We’ve heard, and we’ve talked in this Chamber before, about the version of freedom of movement in Norway being a slightly stricter version than we have had in the UK. There is one crucial difference that I think has been underexplored in the relationship between Norway and the EU and that’s this: the European Economic Area agreement doesn’t recognise EU citizenship in the same way, and it’s EU citizenship that gives rise to a number of those rights that people have had many concerns about in the course of the referendum debate. Some of those are social security rights and some of them are around the obligation to support students in the same way, whether they’re EU citizens or UK citizens. So, I think there is an opportunity to explore some of the differences there. We look to Norway for guidance, but we don’t in truth know, at this stage, what the ultimate settlement is going to look like. We may end up with more control over some aspects of immigration than Norway has.

But please let’s not fall into the trap of believing that the current version of freedom of movement is the only way that we can express and continue to express our internationalism as a country. We can look at countries like Canada, which has an open-minded liberal internationalist approach to the world, but has immigration controls that we don’t have for EU citizens. I believe passionately and campaigned passionately on the basis that EU membership is in the long-term interests of Wales and of the UK, and I still believe that, but that is not the same as equating the current freedom of movement rules with being internationalist or being compassionate or even being European.

We look in this Chamber at the process of leaving the EU—article 50, Supreme Court decisions and so on—all of them are vitally important to ensure that Wales has its voice heard in the process of leaving the EU. But, I feel that 2017 is the year that we need to move beyond the mechanics of Brexit and start to articulate the country we want Wales to be after we have left the EU.

The campaign for the referendum and the campaign to leave was run by very wealthy, right-wing businesspeople. It’s not the last word, it’s the first step in a much bigger project to change Wales and change the UK in a way that I do not want us to see happening. We saw that on the weekend with Theresa May talking about a vote for fundamental change. I fear that, as we are to some extent distracted by what are very important issues around the leaving of the EU, those who ran those campaigns are already planning the sorts of changes they want to bring in across the UK. We see that in the great repeal Bill. We have decided that actually most of the Bill is about preserving existing legislation, but the truth of it is, it’s the beginning of a political narrative about repealing a bedrock of protections and rights that we have obviously taken far too much for granted in Wales and in the UK.

I think one of the least inspiring aspects of the referendum debate was the almost total absence of the civic voice in the discussions, so we’ve ended up with a view of post-Brexit Wales as being economistic and partial. It was politicians arguing over money, so the distrusted arguing over the disbelieved, and as a result I think we now have to articulate the kind of vision we want to see for Wales after Brexit, to make alliances and to fight for that vision.

Many people would agree that a major factor in the Brexit vote was public anxiety over immigration. That is not just the conclusion of me and my colleagues in UKIP, it is also the view of Theresa May, previously a ‘remainer’ of course, and the Conservative Government at Westminster. It is also the view of the First Minister here in Cardiff Bay, who has told the Chamber on myriad occasions that immigration was a major issue on the doorstep during the referendum campaign. It seems that only Plaid Cymru is unwilling to accept this reality, or at least they don’t want to do anything in practical terms to confront that reality by trying to restrict immigration. So, Plaid’s oft-stated desire to keep freedom of movement needs to be kicked into touch. Labour don’t seem to know where they are on this. No point expecting a sensible or even consistent line from Jeremy Corbyn. He changes his opinions sometimes by the hour, and is obviously clueless on this issue, as on many others.

The problem for the First Minister, who seems slightly more coherent, relatively speaking, is this: does he think that access to the single market is more important as an issue than freedom of movement, and will his view in any event carry any weight at all with the Labour frontbench at Westminster?

UKIP’s position remains that an end to uncontrolled immigration into the UK from the EU is the paramount objective. That is because we believe that this issue was the paramount concern of those who voted to leave.

I call on the First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Diolch, Lywydd. I listened carefully to the views that were expressed around the Chamber. Could I echo what Adam Price said, that we do need a debate that is based around fact and not so much around the hot air that has been generated by this debate over the past few months?

I’m asked to outline what I think is a way forward for Wales and the UK. I’m happy to give it—I thought I’d been saying that. I don’t believe you can have access to the single market and, at the same time, say that you want full control over immigration. You choose one or the other. I have made the choice to say that I think prioritising access to the single market is the most important issue for us in Wales. Why? The European Union is by far our biggest market, by far our biggest export market. We play fast and loose with that market at our peril. It’s a much, much bigger market for us than the US, a much, much bigger market for us than some of the developing countries, and it’s important that we maintain access to that market.

Our farmers, our hill farmers, would not exist, frankly, if they weren’t able to export. A huge tariff placed on Welsh lamb going into southern Europe would wreck Welsh farming. I know that one of the issues that’s often raised is that we can control farming policy ourselves: yes, but we won’t have the money. From 2020 onwards, not a brass farthing will be available for Welsh farming—nothing. Two hundred and sixty million pounds-worth of subsidy would no longer be available. We hear noises from within DEFRA that they do not see subsidies for farming as part of farming’s future. I know, as somebody who has spent 17 years as a Minister—longer than anybody else on these islands now—that DEFRA have no love for hill farming. Their idea of farming is lowland dairy farming and lowland arable farming. They have no interest in hill farming at all. I have far more confidence, currently, in Brussels than Whitehall when it comes to agriculture, because I know that, in Whitehall, there is no sympathy for Welsh farming and there is no sympathy for Welsh hill farming. And the Tories are silent on this. They say nothing about the money that would be lost to Welsh farming post 2020. Where is their passion? For a group of people who voted for them for many, many years, they’ve been let down by the Conservative Party.

There are two issues that we have to deal with: firstly, I think some reality needs to be injected into this debate. If, in March 2019, there is no deal of any kind, World Trade Organization rules will apply. They will apply; there’s no doubt about that. Tariffs will come into force and we will face tariffs as we seek to export to our biggest market. That means not that this is something that is a boon to the UK exchequer, because what happens with tariffs, which is never mentioned by those who say they’re not a problem, is that tariffs are imposed on goods as they enter the UK, and those tariffs are simply passed on to the consumer; it’s a tax on people. Tariffs are paid by the consumer, not by European businesses. So, the Treasury might benefit, but it means that members of the public in the UK will be paying extra tax to pay for tariffs. That’s what tariffs are all about at the end of the day. It’s not some kind of free money for the UK Treasury; it’s Joe Public who will pay for that.

Secondly, businesses are afraid of different regulatory regimes in different parts of Europe and, of course, the sheer nuisance of customs paperwork. Add that up for every transaction and it creates a barrier between the UK and the EU that we could do without.

What, then, about immigration? I don’t accept that people voted—

Yes.

The First Minister makes a point about the bureaucracy that might be imposed as a result of leaving the EU on firms trading with the EU, but the reality is that 95 per cent of firms don’t trade with the EU and exports to the EU cover less than 15 per cent of our GDP. Eighty five per cent of the value of Britain’s trade will not be affected by this at all.

More than 40 per cent of our trade goes to the EU; it is our biggest market. As I say, we play fast and loose with that at our peril. It may be that some SMEs don’t trade directly with the EU, but they trade with bigger companies that do trade with the EU, and any effect on those bigger companies, like Tata, for example, like Ford, has an effect on the entire supply chain. If you look at the Ford engine plan in my constituency, every single engine is exported—every single one. There is no domestic market for those engines. We must be careful that we don’t lose the advantages, economically, that we have now.

With immigration, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying it, the UK will not control its own borders. You cannot control the UK’s borders unless you’re prepared to see a hard border in Ireland—there is no other way of doing it—and accept the conflict and turmoil that will happen as a result. If you want to get into the UK, you simply have to get into Ireland. They can walk into the UK; there’ll be no immigration control, no border control at all. So, the reality is that the UK cannot control its border in the way that some would want to see.

Now, it’s right to say—and I believe this is correct—that people were concerned about the current system of freedom of movement. I concede that point. People offered me many views on the doorstep: some people didn’t want to see immigration at all; some people wanted to kick immigrants out—I accept that they are a small minority of people; but a lot of people were concerned for different reasons about freedom of movement. My proposal is that we look to do what Norway does already. In other words, there is limited freedom of movement: freedom of movement to a job and some flexibility around that, but there comes a point, if somebody doesn’t have a job, when they can’t work or remain in the UK. The reality is that the UK went beyond what the rules required. If they’re interpreted in the same way as Norway interprets the rules, even though Norway has freedom of movement, you do introduce what I think is a sensible system, which most people would accept. Nobody’s said to me, ‘What we need to do, you see, is prevent all these doctors, nurses and students from coming into Britain.’ We must make sure that we are still able to draw on the best expertise from around the world. Freedom of movement to work, I believe, is a hugely sensible and rational way of dealing with people’s concerns while at the same time not cutting us off from the rest of the world.

We’ve got to be careful as well of free trade agreements; they’re not what they’re cracked up to be. A free trade agreement in China would make it potentially impossible to impose tariffs on Chinese steel, and that means the end of Tata and steel production in Wales. A free trade agreement with New Zealand runs the risk of having more New Zealand lamb into Wales, and that ends up, of course, in a situation where, again, Welsh farmers are hit by a double whammy of no subsidy and having to compete against lamb that will always be cheaper. No matter what we do, New Zealand lamb will always be cheaper than lamb in Wales because of the geography and topography and climate of New Zealand. Our farmers can’t afford for that to happen. [Interruption.] Of course.

Just while he’s on the point of agricultural exports, would he agree with me that we need to look at the example of where we tried to expand our dairy industry to Russia, and then Russian incursions into the Ukraine and the Crimea meant that sanctions were imposed on Russia. If we make strategic deals with our potential enemies, or at least our opponents in trade deals, we will cut off our nose to spite our face.

And I fear what’s being said in the US. I don’t believe for one moment that the US will strike a deal with the UK that is anything other than advantageous to the US. The US President was elected on a platform of protectionism. He is not going to give the UK any favours. It is naïve to think that that is what the US will do.

I also think we need to approach these negotiations in a spirit of co-operation—not a spirit of what I call imperial arrogance, thinking that the world will fall at our feet. Of course the EU exports more in terms of cash to the UK. It would be odd if it didn’t: it’s eight times bigger than the UK. But the reality is that more than 40 per cent of UK exports go into the EU, and it’s only 8 per cent the other way. So, actually, the EU market is far more important to the UK in terms of the percentage of exports than the UK is to the European market. Many European producers know they’ll still be able to sell into the UK, even with tariffs, because people don’t have an alternative. If you want to buy a car, you’ve got little alternative than to buy a car that is at least partially manufactured abroad. It’s not as if there is an alternative in terms of a British-manufactured car. So, this idea that this is the nineteenth century and the world will fall at Britain’s feet is the wrong approach as far as Britain is concerned. Britain is a big economy, but it’s not a big market. We have to bear that in mind as we work out what our position should be.

Timescale: now, it’s been suggested that free trade agreements are one potential way forward. I’m not convinced of that. The leader of UKIP himself said it took five years to negotiate a deal with South Korea. We only have two years. It’s impossible to negotiate a free trade agreement with anybody within two years. I’ve spoken to officials from other Governments who’ve done this, and they all say to me it takes two years to agree to have the discussions in the first place. To have a free trade agreement in two years makes the UK look laughable, when people actually suggest that. Seven years, 10 years—that is the timescale for free trade agreements. So, the transitional arrangements post March 2019 are hugely important. We can’t go off the edge of a cliff and then try and climb back up it. There has to be a bridge between the final outcome and March 2019. Thought hasn’t been given to that.

I listened carefully to what Mark Isherwood has said. I have to say, in all the years I’ve been in Government I’ve never seen a more rudderless UK Government. I have no idea what the UK Government’s position is. I hear different views from different Ministers. The currency market reacts every time Theresa May says something because they don’t know what she—. The leader of the Conservatives has just walked back into the Chamber. If you wanted to play a part in the debate, you’d have been here from the very start rather than walking in right at the end. He talks about chuntering on from these benches; he is the master of that art. If he’d listened to the arguments, perhaps he would have learned more rather than coming in at the end with a closed mind.

But the UK Government has given us no leadership at all. I hear some in the UK Government talk about tariffs as if they are of no consequence. I hear David Davis move his position, which I welcome, actually. He’s moved his position to what I think is a more pragmatic position. I hope that the pragmatists in the UK Government are more dominant than the dogmatists, who spout nationalist waffle, frankly. It’s the only way I can describe it—as being a nationalism for the UK. If you shout at foreigners enough they’ll give you what you want. That’s basically what some of the Conservative Party want, and this issue must be resolved for the good of the British people, not for what is politically convenient because of the rifts within the Conservative Party. That is, I’m afraid, what’s happening at the moment.

Plaid Cymru’s amendment—we will support that amendment. I’m glad they welcome the visit to Norway. I was asked today whether it was a jolly. I knew I’d be asked that as I stood in a temperature of -16 degrees C in the snow. I can guarantee you that it didn’t seem like that at the time. European Free Trade Area membership I raised with them. There’s certainly some concern among the EFTA members about the UK joining, because of its size. Norway is the biggest country in EFTA, of course, at the moment. Even though it’s only got 5 million people, it’s a massive oil exporter. Half the UK’s oil comes from Norway. There are only 5 million people, but there’s £700 billion of a sovereign wealth fund that it built up as the UK spent all its oil money. So, it is quite a major player, despite its size. There needs to be some discussion with Norway and the other EFTA members as to whether the UK would be welcome within EFTA because of its sheer size. But I’m glad to see that the third point that’s put forward in the amendment is, using the phrase that I’ve used, ‘full and unfettered access’ to the single market. EFTA membership is certainly a possibility. EEA membership is, again, something to look at. Customs union is perhaps less attractive at this stage, because of what that would do. I think EFTA membership and/or EEA is actually a better option at this stage, having examined the evidence. But I have to say that, the more you look at this, the more complicated it gets. The one thing we should avoid is thinking, ‘This is all very easy, it’ll all be sorted out in two years.’ It won’t. This’ll take hard slog, hard work, and I’m determined that we get this right for the people of Wales.

I call on Mark Reckless to respond to the debate. Mark Reckless.

Diolch, Lywydd. I congratulate my party leader on his opening of this debate; thank Mark Isherwood for his amendment; Adam Price for his; and thank Caroline Jones, Jeremy Miles, Gareth Bennett and the First Minister for their contributions to this debate. There’s also one sedentary contribution I’d like to reply to, which I think came from Lee Waters, who at one point—if I heard him correctly—said, ‘Why do we keep having these debates?’ My answer is, ‘Because the position of all the other parties in this Chamber keeps on changing.’

We have the amendment from the Conservatives today, and I’m reasonably happy with both the Plaid and the Conservative amendments; the only bit I object to is the ‘Delete all’ at the beginning. But talking to Mark Isherwood, he seems to expect me to know better than he would what the latest Conservative UK position is. I mean, they’ve set up Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade, yet now we have this briefing and certainly from the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, suggestions that we stay in the customs union. So we leave the single market, but stay in the customs union, and waste huge amounts of time and energy having a Department for International Trade that will never be able to do anything. That doesn’t make sense, and I hope that is not going to be the situation we see ourselves coming to.

I’m really grateful for the First Minister being at this debate. When I first heard, when I was first elected, that he was going to be taking charge of this Brexit portfolio after the referendum, I was a little sceptical. I thought, given all his tasks and commitments in leading the Government and everything he had to do, that the level of attention he could give to the Brexit portfolio wouldn’t be great. I have to say that, First Minister, you have shown attention to it, and I think you have kept oversight of this portfolio. You’ve been in the Chamber for all the key things, but I do feel that your position keeps changing. You did say immediately after the referendum that the absolutely key thing was keeping freedom of movement. Within 24 hours you had retracted that, and that apparently wasn’t the case. There then seemed to be a gradual movement, we felt, in the right direction. Plaid Cymru had this great motion that they wanted to be in the single market, but you, with us, knocked down that motion and said very clearly in that debate that what mattered wasn’t membership of the single market, but access to the single market. Unfortunately, I now detect this week, in questions yesterday and, to a degree, in the debate today, that you’ve gone away from that position again, and what you want is to be in the single market, and that’s worth having in return for freedom of movement. You want both those things, having come from a position where you wanted neither. That’s why I think we need to continue having these debates, to try and clarify our understanding of these issues. I mean, we have complied—

Wonderful.

I wouldn’t normally intervene, but—I’m grateful to the Member for letting me intervene—firstly, it is right to say the position changes, because it’s such a fluid situation we find ourselves in. There are always new complications that arise and, as Keynes said, ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’, and that’s one of the things I think you have to be open to.

One point I wanted to clarify: he talked about the Plaid amendment, and said he had no difficulty with the Plaid amendment. The Plaid amendment talks about EFTA membership and EEA membership as being possibilities for Wales. Are either of those scenarios something that he’s prepared to consider?

This isn’t quite correct. It doesn’t talk about EFTA and EEA membership, it says EFTA and/or EEA membership. I think my party would be very happy, indeed enthusiastic, for EFTA membership, but not for EEA membership. The amendment is confusing. Every other part of it, I don’t think we have any problems with. And/or EEA membership, yes, we’re happy with EFTA membership. But what support of the amendment does is allow the First Minister to continue the confusion of his party as, ‘Do they want membership of the single market?’ i.e. the EEA—possibly with the confusion of the Conservatives that you might be outside or inside the customs union—or is he saying, with us, that we should have a free trade relationship, trying to maximise our access to the single market from outside? That really is the matter he needs to decide.

I don’t think the facts have changed. The people voted to leave the EU. Certainly, UK Government policy is changing, but I think people learn more about the complexities of the EU and consider the matter and, yes, perhaps change their view over time, but I’m not so sure that the facts have changed to that degree.

The difficulty with the Plaid issue is they talk about full and unfettered access to the European single market, but I’m not sure there is any such thing. We don’t have full and unfettered access at the moment. In many areas services aren’t liberalised. In goods they got rid of—. Basically the Cassis de Dijon principle of mutual recognition that the EU used to have has been supplanted by, ‘Well, let’s agree politically one, single, top-down standard everyone has to meet in order to be able to sell at all.’ I don’t call that full and unfettered access. And, in the same way, they actually used the applicability of EU law to try and prevent our access when they looked at, say, banning euro clearing—if you weren’t in the eurozone, it was EU law they were trying to do. In the same way with the port services regulation—they would sort of split up and have internal markets in every port in the UK and it would be completely ridiculous and would fetter our access to the single market as well as other markets. That would, again, be done by EU law. We want the maximum possible access, consistent with restricting free movement, and deciding who comes to our country. We’re not going to have a hard border, we’re not going to want to check every lorry that comes across the Irish market, we’re not trying to stop people from the EU visiting the UK; we’re trying to stop them working in the UK on a completely unfettered basis to drive down wages for people at the lower end of our labour market who compete with them. That’s what our motion is saying, and I wish the First Minister would come and bring some clarity by supporting our motion, rather than supporting the Plaid thing, which continues the ambiguity and uncertainty that’s been a feature of other parties’ positions in this Chamber. Thank you.

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

And that brings us to voting time. Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to voting time.

The first vote, therefore, is on the Welsh Conservatives’ debate on NHS winter preparedness, and I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 17, no abstentions, 34 against. Therefore the motion is not agreed.

Amendment 1. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 27, one abstention, 23 against. And therefore, the amendment is agreed.

I therefore call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 19, no abstentions, 32 against. And therefore, the amendment is not agreed.

I now call for a vote on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 36, 11 abstentions, four against. And the motion as amended is agreed.

The next vote is on the Welsh Conservatives’ debate on obesity, and I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 17, no abstentions, 34 against. And therefore the notion is not agreed.

If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Jane Hutt. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 27, no abstentions, 24 against, and therefore amendment 1 is agreed.

I now, therefore, call for a vote on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 34, 12 abstentions, five against, and therefore the motion as amended is agreed.

The next vote is on the Plaid Cymru debate on the Welsh higher education sector, and I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 35, no abstentions, 16 against, and therefore the motion is agreed.

The next vote is on the UKIP Wales debate on membership of the European single market. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Neil Hamilton. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour six, no abstentions, 45 against. The motion is therefore not agreed.

Amendment 1. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 11, one abstention, 39 against, and therefore amendment 1 is not agreed.

I now call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 34, no abstentions, 17 against, and therefore amendment 2 is agreed.

I now call for a vote on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 34, 11 abstentions, six against, and therefore the motion as amended is agreed.

If those who are leaving the Chamber could do so quietly; we do have one item remaining on our agenda. Therefore, the Assembly is still in session, if all Members—.

Os gall pob Aelod adael y Siambr yn ddistaw; mae’r Cynulliad yn parhau i drafod. Ewch yn dawel os gwelwch yn dda. Ewch.

And therefore I call on Joyce Watson to move the short debate tabled in her name—Joyce Watson.

Diolch, Lywydd. I will be talking today about loneliness, and I’m pleased to allow time for both Eluned Morgan and Mark Isherwood to make contributions and I look forward to hearing the Minister or the Cabinet Secretary response.

I was prompted to table this debate by two things. First, an e-mail that I received before Christmas from the British Red Cross. The charity has teamed up with the Co-op to help people in Britain whose lives are diminished by loneliness. They have published a comprehensive report called ‘Trapped in a bubble’, and will be launching four new projects in Wales—one in Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Newport and Torfaen. Then, shortly after Christmas, I read a report about the launch later this month of the commission on loneliness, which was devised by the late Jo Cox and Seema Kennedy MP.

It is a truism that, at Christmas, we feel more together with other people, but more alone when we’re lonely. So, these stories struck a chord. Before her untimely death, Jo Cox helped gather evidence about loneliness in different parts of society: children who are desperately sad, new mums, isolated disabled people, men suffering from depression, and older people. And her work lives on, picked up by Rachel Reeves MP. Academics and charities, including the Campaign to End Loneliness, Age UK, Action for Children, the Co-op and British Red Cross, the Royal Voluntary Service, and Sense, have contributed to the commission. Their evidence shows that more than 9 million people in Britain, almost a fifth of the population, say they are always or often lonely. The Red Cross and Co-operative research supports that figure. Nearly one in five people are always or often lonely, they say. ‘Always or often lonely’—to me, that is an extremely sad phrase, a shocking figure. But what can we do about it? Loneliness is part of life. It was the American writer and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau who wrote:

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.’

People have described this as the age of anxiety. But we can act, and we should act, because loneliness and social isolation is a public concern, as well as private unhappiness. For one thing, it is a public health issue. Loneliness is associated with physical symptoms like hypertension, heart disease, depression, mental ill health, drinking and substance misuse. We debated obesity earlier this afternoon, and some research will suggest that loneliness can be as damaging to health as obesity or smoking. So, there is a clear public health argument. More broadly, loneliness is a combination of personal, community, and wider societal issues. It negatively impacts upon communities as well as individuals. People withdraw. They become disengaged. They contribute less. They take time off from work. So, it affects everyone directly or indirectly. As the title of the debate suggests—’Hidden in Plain Sight’—loneliness is a problem in every street, in every neighbourhood, and probably in nearly every family.

So, how do we tackle it? First, we have to identify it, and that is where the commission and the research can help massively. The Red Cross and the Co-op research shows that nearly three quarters of those people who said they were always or often lonely fall within the one of six categories that are linked to changing circumstances or life’s events. And they are: being a young mum, those with health issues, the recently bereaved, people with mobility limitations, people who have recently divorced or separated or retired, and people living without children at home. What is clear is that loneliness doesn’t have one simple cause. So, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Rather, a mix of activities are needed to prevent these issues, to respond to the experience of those people, and to restore the confidence of those who have been affected for some time.

Age, of course, we all know is an obvious and well-documented risk factor for loneliness. In its submission to the commission, Age Cymru last November surveyed over-60s in Wales, and the results highlight the importance of things like affordable transport to and from social events, lunch clubs, social clubs, and face-to-face visits. That is why people continue to campaign passionately to save services like their local day centres, and why the Labour group on Powys council have also campaigned, and others continue to campaign elsewhere right across the piece. And it is why the Welsh Government’s decisive action to save the bus service between Aberystwyth and Cardiff was vital. I’m sure that the Minister or the Cabinet Secretary will talk more about the Welsh Government’s commitment to supporting our resilient communities. That word, ‘community’, tends to be overused, and it’s applied too loosely. I wince when I hear such things as ‘a mortgage-lending community’. But community—the true meaning of ‘community’—is integral to Welsh life, and I strongly believe that.

Rurality is another risk factor for loneliness and social isolation, prevalent in my own region, though, of course, people can be isolated without being lonely, and they can be lonely without being isolated. Transport and facilities are especially important in a rural setting but so too is a good internet connection, and Superfast Cymru has helped in some aspects. But, again, what’s clear from the commission’s research is that loneliness touches all parts of society: women and men, urban and rural, old and young. ChildLine has helped more than 4 million young people, with more and more coming forward in recent years to confide how desperate and sad and lonely they feel. Social media is, of course, a great way to keep in touch, but is not a substitute for talking to people face to face. It can often make people feel more lonely, and it can amplify how connected other people are, or appear to be.

So, we do need a holistic approach to tackle loneliness, one that, undoubtedly, will have to cut across policy areas and Government departments, both locally and nationally. For the next two years, the Red Cross will provide direct personalised support to 12,500 people in 39 locations in Britain, including those four areas in Wales that I said earlier—Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Newport and Torfaen. Teams of dedicated community connectors and support-at-home staff and volunteers will deliver specialist psychosocial support, safeguarding and assistance to people experiencing loneliness and social isolation. They will provide 12 weeks of intensive person-centred care, identifying activities, interest groups, and local services to help people gain confidence.

I’m looking forward to visiting the Carmarthenshire project, where nearly a third of the population live alone. One service user there, Janet—not her real name—was referred to the Red Cross last spring, having recently suffered a stroke that inhibited her walking. Although she’d suffered with anxiety before the stroke, since she had developed agoraphobia and panic attacks. She had not left her house, even out of the back door, alone since her return from hospital several weeks prior. She wanted to be able to walk to the end of the driveway one day to greet her husband when he came home, and she also wanted to be able to visit her son in Copenhagen at Christmas and to be able to walk independently from the train to her son’s apartment, which was about 400m. Janet was introduced to a Red Cross volunteer, Heather, and they got on well straight away. Heather started visiting her weekly and they would practice going outside the front door, just standing there, and coming back in. In a very short period of time they went in Heather’s car for a visit to the coast, at Janet’s request, and her confidence grew. Soon after, they were walking along the driveway, and Janet started walking it alone, with Heather standing at the other end. By the time Heather’s support stopped, after the three months, Janet was using her mobility scooter to go longer distances alone to the local post office, and she was regularly practising walking alone. And she did, yes, manage to visit her son in Denmark at Christmas.

Age Cymru also do tremendous work in this area and they are launching a new major campaign soon. So, what can we do here in the Assembly? What can the Welsh Government do? Loneliness spans lots of policy areas, as I say, but by formulating and scrutinising more policy and legislation through the lens of loneliness and social isolation, we can begin to tackle it more effectively. That’s the politics. But personally, we can all act and we can all do more. As the Christmas glow fades and the winter chill remains, we could, actually, start a conversation: we could pick up the phone and talk to an elderly or isolated relative and we could, actually, make time for people.

I thought that was a very moving introduction by Joyce Watson and I’d like to thank her very much, not just for that presentation but also for initiating this discussion today.

I think loneliness is a curse, really, particularly for the old and that’s the point that I’d like to focus on because I think, with more people moving away from where they were brought up, they leave their parents and people are left alone. That is particularly true, I think, in rural areas, where we have to be, I think, particularly sensitive. But we are now in an age of austerity and we know that, although the situation is bad now, actually it’s probably going to get worse. We’ve been told by our own finance Minister that local authorities are going to have to tighten their belts in future—it’s been generous this year, but we need to prepare.

The consequence, I’m afraid, of austerity being imposed by the UK Government on Wales and on local authorities is the closure of care homes. That is a lifeline for people who are suffering loneliness. I think we’re going to have to rely more, I’m afraid, in future, on neighbours, on communities, on voluntary organisations, to help out local government in these instances. This doesn’t mean that Government vacates the field. It’s really important that there is a role for the state, but I think that, perhaps, what we should be doing is creating a better infrastructure for us to be able to support volunteers. I think it would be useful to establish a single telephone number, for example, where people across the whole of Wales could phone and then there would be a machine, effectively—a machine of people fielding calls to the correct voluntary organisation. I think in this way, we could be alleviating loneliness, but also helping people practically. Changing light bulbs—you don’t want an old person changing a light bulb because they could fall, break their hip and that will have an impact on the NHS. It’s so much easier for us to help them out.

It was a minute’s contribution, sorry, and you’ve had longer than a minute.

Okay, just one more thing and that is to mention—

Okay, very quickly then.

[Continues.]—the need, I think, to provide a long-term funding framework to help organisations that are taking pressure off the NHS and care services. I wonder if the Minister would consider better funding and a long-term funding framework rather than an ad hoc process that happens at the moment.

Last Friday, I visited the British Red Cross Abergele office to hear more about the Community Connect project to tackle loneliness and isolation and reconnect people with their communities, which Joyce Watson referred to, benefiting from the partnership between the Red Cross and the Co-op. This is because Conwy was one of the four areas that you referred to with 32 per cent of people living in single-person households and 25 per cent aged over 65. But, as you indicated, this is for people of all ages, and not just older people—to help them break that cycle of loneliness and isolation and reconnect them with their communities.

Personalised Red Cross support also includes schemes like Positive Steps to improve the lives of people over 50 across Wales, with eight weeks of intensive support, followed by volunteer-led, longer-term support in the community from RVS Cymru.

Above all, without the right support at the right time, feeling lonely or isolated affects well-being, it contributes to poor health and pressure on public services, so people must be helped co-productively, to identify the strengths they already have in order to tackle the problems holding them back.

I now call on Jane Hutt to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very grateful to Joyce Watson for giving us the opportunity to discuss the challenges we face in tackling the issue of loneliness in our Welsh communities. Our communities have traditionally been, and continue to be, places where people look out for and help each other. But, as society changes, a growing number of people are experiencing social isolation and loneliness in our cities, towns and villages. Where, once, generations of the same family would have lived their lives within miles of each other, in the same street, the same community, today, members of the same family are often scattered across the country or even scattered across the world as they pursue work opportunities or start their own families. As a result, the older generation may be left behind, as Eluned Morgan highlighted in her contribution.

Loneliness and isolation, of course, isn’t just a phenomenon associated with ageing. We all experience periods of loneliness and, as is very clear and has been highlighted in this debate, loneliness and social isolation pose a major public health risk—often referred to as the silent killers, often associated with poor mental health, with cardiovascular disease, hypertension and increased risk of dementia. The Welsh Government is determined to tackle loneliness and social isolation in Wales and we’re committed to developing what has to be a nation-wide and cross-Government strategy to address loneliness and isolation. But, it has to encompass not just Government nationally and locally—local government are playing their role and the health service—but the third sector and our communities as well.

There are a number of community-based approaches to supporting people who have become lonely and isolated and they’ve been mentioned today. Joyce has brought them to the fore in this debate. It’s important that our strategy, any Government strategy, promotes sustainable models that are integrated in communities. We’re already taking action to tackle loneliness and social isolation in Wales through a range of programmes and initiatives and some of these have been mentioned. The previous Minister for Health and Social Services set up a three-year programme of volunteer-led community networks, which were sometimes called compassionate communities. These support lonely and isolated people through a social-prescribing model and help address the harmful effects of loneliness and isolation.

Work is ongoing with communities to protect local facilities that do bring people together, including libraries, leisure centres and museums. These are very important to older people and to people who are living on their own, going through periods of unemployment or isolation. Of course, they have to be able to access those facilities and, indeed, many of those have been threatened and reduced by austerity and we need to ensure that we can protect and safeguard them.

The concessionary bus pass is an important point. It’s become a social lifeline for older people in Wales with 92 per cent saying their bus pass maintains their independence and 81 per cent believing their quality of life would suffer without it. So, our bus services are key, as Joyce Watson has said. They do enable and empower people—not just older people but also disabled people and their carers. It was mentioned in the Red Cross report that mobility limitations result in vulnerability, leading to loneliness and isolation—without independent means to leave your home, befriending schemes, as well as travel and bus pass opportunities. They’re all part of the important links that enable people to be part of community life.

So, the British Red Cross scheme—of course, the Welsh Government funds the British Red Cross in partnership with the Royal Voluntary Service—to support the Positive Steps befriending project is clearly important. It’s key to this. Those two organisations are working together to create a new programme to support older people experiencing acute loneliness, isolation and ill-health. We’ve funded the commissioner for older people in Wales to act as our independent voice, to champion older people across Wales and to deliver the Ageing Well in Wales programme. This brings individuals and communities together with public, private and voluntary sectors to develop innovative and practical ways to make Wales a good place to grow old. The programme focuses on five themes, including loneliness and isolation, and it’s developed a campaign to end loneliness, in partnership with the Royal Voluntary Service, the British Red Cross and Men’s Sheds as well, which it’s important to mention.

We’ve also funded Mind Cymru’s My Generation, a forward-thinking project that aims to develop and deliver a new programme of support to improve the resilience and well-being of older people at risk: those people who are at risk of developing mental health problems as a result of isolation and discrimination, financial exclusion and poor housing. And one of the main aims of our ‘Together for Mental Health’ plan is to reduce the inequalities experienced by people with mental ill health. Discrimination can prevent people accessing the opportunities that many take for granted, and stigma can make people reluctant to seek support, reinforcing the isolation and distress mental illness can cause. We’ve all got a responsibility to engage people in need, to talk candidly and openly about the issues that, left unchecked, result in isolation and mental distress, but we do need to move beyond discussions. There’s no question that the issue has been raised very powerfully by the media, as well as by evidence from the organisations and campaigns involved, but it is incumbent on all of us to look to the role of Government as well as us as individuals and in our communities to address this.

So, I want to end my response to the short debate about loneliness and isolation by referring again, as Joyce Watson did at the start of her debate today, to the ‘Trapped in a Bubble’ study by the British Red Cross and the Co-op. Again, it’s worth repeating what the study has sought and is delivering. It’s investigated the triggers for loneliness in the UK, and identified four areas in Wales—again, I repeat: Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Newport and Torfaen—where people need extra support. We must all learn from that study in our constituencies and regions. Mark Isherwood has already identified and made contact in his region and, of course, in Torfaen, there’s an opportunity, as well as Newport, Conwy and Carmarthenshire; they’re all constituencies that I know Members wanted to follow up very closely.

As a result of the efforts of Co-op colleagues, members and customers, £50,000 was raised to enable the Red Cross to provide support to the people experiencing loneliness and isolation in those areas. Again, to see the continued generosity of people in communities in Wales in these financially challenging times is very heart-warming. But I think also that spirit of generosity makes it clear that the Government—Welsh Government, local government—must not only deliver but develop a national strategy that crosses all departmental portfolios to help us tackle loneliness and to bring together some of the strands of Government action already to make sure that they are looking at this from a strategic perspective and also being clear what our partners can deliver. And I think the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 actually provides that framework in terms of what actions can be taken, and I think the first key principle of focusing on prevention and early intervention is absolutely key in terms of tackling this issue of loneliness and isolation.

Very, very finally, I would like to thank Joyce Watson for mentioning the pioneering work of the late Jo Cox MP and the fact that it’s now being taken forward by both Labour and Conservative women MPs in Westminster, and we, I’m sure, will engage with that. As far as Jo Cox was concerned, combatting loneliness was very much at the forefront of her inspiring work as an MP: her ‘Hope not hate’ campaign. There’s more that unites us than divides us, and I think this is the policy and philosophy where people in Wales will expect us to unite for the common good accordingly.

Thank you very much, and that brings today’s proceedings to a close.