National Assembly for Wales

I call Members to order. 

The first item is questions to the First Minister, and I have received notification under Standing Order 12.58 that the leader of the house, Julie James, will answer questions today on behalf of the First Minister. The first question, Mark Isherwood.

Yes. Independent general practitioner contractors and health boards will employ GP locums where there is a service need. GP practices must ensure that they are appropriately qualified and registered.

Thank you very much indeed. Well, in 2014, the chair of the north Wales local medical committee wrote to Members calling for urgent action to tackle a growing crisis unfolding in general practice. In 2016, the vice-chair of the north Wales local medical committee wrote to Members saying that they were very aware of how precarious general practice is in north Wales, with some areas, such as Wrexham, at risk of losing more surgeries in the very near future. And, of course, Gresford is now under threat. Last week, new Welsh Government figures showed the number of registered GPs working in Wales at its lowest level since 2013, with 83 fewer in 2016 and 2017, with just over half of the GP practitioners leaving the workforce rejoining as locums. How, therefore, do you as a Government respond to the reasons given to me by some locum GPs in north Wales two and a half weeks ago for not working in Wales as being: more affordable medical defence cover for locums doing sessions in England than in Wales, on top of the separate performance list issue; extra bureaucracy when dealing with pension contributions; the curtailment of training links with north Wales medical schools; the 'stress and danger' of working in the Welsh system; and different and inferior IT systems, et cetera, et cetera?

It's true that using the same data source as previous years does give a fall of 83. However, statisticians have found quality issues with the data, which may mean it's considerably lower. And a more complete measure of GP capacity in Wales is to include all GP practitioners, locums, retainers and registrars. Using that method shows that there's a 0.3 per cent drop of about eight since 2016. However, I'm very pleased to say that, contrary to the gloomy impression, which I don't think is at all helpful, given by Mark Isherwood, following the conclusion of all three rounds of our 'Train. Work. Live.' recruitment into GP training posts, the Wales Deanery confirmed the appointment of 144 places, which surpasses the 136 training places available at the beginning of the recruitment round, which compares to 121 places filled following three rounds in 2016. This is an increase of 19 per cent, which I think everybody can be very, very pleased about, and it completely contradicts some of the gloom and despondency we hear from the opposite benches. 

Cabinet Secretary, isn't one of the issues with locums the fact that not only can they earn £800 plus a day without the responsibilities of running a practice, but that the tax system under which they operate means that they can effectively, by setting up as a co-operation, pay just 20 per cent tax and the rest as dividends? And what, effectively, the locum system is actually doing is undermining GP practices. Is it the case that the Government is making representations or having discussions with the UK Government about changing the tax system so that it cannot actually work in this particular way and we actually give support to those who take on the day-to-day, ongoing running of GP practice and the long-term medical provision that we require from our GPs, rather than what is, understandably, people who can see far better terms and conditions and earnings by coming in as locums?

Yes, it's true that the introduction of IR35 in the medical profession has probably led locum GPs to consider their taxation affairs. Taxation policy is not devolved to the Welsh Government, but it does affect, obviously, our GP workforce in the same way as it does across the rest of the UK. It's not absolutely clear how it's affecting individual career decisions by GPs, but there are many other factors currently in play like professional indemnity and last person in a practice liability and that sort of thing. 

Of course, we have a different model in Wales as well to support this, and whilst the independent practitioner model has served us well for many years, many GP practices are finding it challenging to respond in the current situation. So, we are looking at different ways of providing that, including employed practices, and facilitating locums where younger doctors do want the flexibility that being a locum provides. So, we are looking at very different ways of providing that, alongside the multidisciplinary practices that we're also looking to implement in large numbers of practices in Wales. 

Another sign of the pressure on primary care was when those figures last week showed the number of GPs working full-time in our primary care surgeries in Wales hitting a low of more than 10 years. And, I'm sorry, but I'm not as relaxed as you are about that. You said again today, as we've heard from Government in the past, 'Don't worry about the number of full-time GPs; we've got plenty of locums.' Well, I'm afraid that's not acceptable, because what you have in a locum is somebody who will more likely work fewer hours, for more money, and it undermines the sustainability of the NHS. Isn't it about time that we saw concrete steps from Welsh Government to stop the drift towards agency and locum working, and to put primary care on a more sustainable footing for the future?

Well, again, I just disagree with the take that Rhun ap Iorwerth puts on this, because, as I said earlier, there are a number of ways of looking at how many people work as GPs, as locum GPs, as retained GPs, as GP registrars, in Wales. Many of Wales's medical centres are training practices, which are responsible for training the next generation of GPs. And, as I said in response to the earlier question, we are doing very well on our training—we're recruiting more than ever before and filling all of our training places, including in previously hard-to-recruit areas, such as Ceredigion, and so on. So, I don't think it's at all helpful to put the negative spin that you're putting on it, and actually what we really want to do is broadcast the fact that so many people are very happy as a result of our 'Train. Work. Live.' campaign, to come and fill our training places and then go on to work in Wales.

Will the standing First Minister make a statement on the provision of social care in North Wales?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, but social care plays a critical role in helping people live independently, working in partnership with health, the independent and third sectors, to manage demand and improve outcomes for people both in north Wales and nationally. This is why 'Prosperity for All' places social care as a sector of national importance.

Thank you for that answer. Hampshire County Council is aiming to leverage voice-activated home-speaker Amazon Echo skills to assist with adult social care. The technology can help people not only suffering with physical illness, but also help those who are suffering from loneliness and depression. According to the council, over 9,000 people are currently benefiting from assistive technology such as Amazon Echo, with 100 new referrals being made each week. Will the Welsh Government look at introducing their own trial to help tackle the social care demand in north Wales?

Yes. We already have several trials in place. It's a matter of great interest to us how we can use medical technologies of all sorts to assist with both social care and, actually, medical care. We have active pilots in place looking at exactly how we can exploit those technologies.

Cabinet Secretary, alarmingly, social service departments in local authorities in Wales overspent by £383 million against their budgets in 2016-17, with Cardiff Council alone exceeding their budget by a staggering £190 million. Now, many are predicted to massively overspend again over the next 12 months. Costs in social services are predicted to increase by another £344 million in the next three years, and there is evidence now that, by 2035, the number of people aged over 65 living in Wales will increase by 35 per cent and those aged over 85 by 113 per cent. This is a ticking time bomb. Now, Cabinet Secretary, what frameworks do you believe the First Minister and, indeed, your Welsh Government are putting in place now to ensure that our social care providers, and their budgets, are effectively resourced and that they are indeed futureproof for the next 20 years?

I always find it very difficult when the Conservative Party go on about spending, in view of the money—[Interruption.]

You have the money. You have the budget. You have the budget.

It's very handy to be able to have a divided brain on this subject, but I am happy to be able to tell the Member that, here in Wales, public spending on personal social services for families and children has gone up by 22 per cent between 2010-11 and 2016-17, which is a considerable difference to the spending rise in England, which is only 5 per cent.

Well, I agree that the funding coming from London is insufficient—we clearly would agree with that. But the question is, really, what is this Government doing in preparing for the reality of this £344 million injection that will be required by 2020? Just pointing fingers and blaming others isn't really answering the question. Now, only last month as well, of course, we heard that one of the UK's largest care providers, Allied Healthcare, was in financial difficulties. So, as well as telling us what more the Government will do to try and address the significant shortfall in funding, can you tell us how you will ensure that the most vulnerable in our society won't actually suffer as a consequence of Allied Healthcare's ongoing problems? 

Yes, in terms of Allied Healthcare, we are aware of the contractor's requests to go into some kind of administration, and we are working very hard to ensure that we have a good plan in place. I know the Minister has been working very hard to ensure that we have continuity of care practices in place for anybody who could be affected by that, though I hasten to say, so as not to set any hares running, that we are not in a position at the moment of any care ceasing in any of the places where Allied Healthcare care is provided. 

In terms of the overall issue, obviously an ageing population is a problem right across western Europe, but here we have made absolutely certain that we work alongside health to pool resources with social services, and, of course, we've stopped many of the cuts to social services that have occurred in the UK. But it is extraordinary to be able to split the austerity agenda and the results of austerity, which are insufficient money for public services, from the effects of that, which I know that you're not doing. 

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

Diolch, Llywydd. Would the Minister prefer the support of the Scottish Labour Party or the Tories and UKIP in Wales? [Interruption.]

If the leader of Plaid Cymru is referring to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, then we would prefer to have done the very best for Wales, which we have done. 

I'm sure the Minister is aware that, yesterday, the Scottish branches of the two parties in her Government joined together to oppose Westminster. Instead, in Wales, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have caved in, given our leverage away and weakened the hand of people here in this country. On 27 November 2017, the First Minister said in this Assembly, and I quote,

'we wouldn't accept a sunset clause. Who is to say that it wouldn't be extended ad infinitum in the future? It's a matter of principle',

he concluded. A five-year sunset clause now forms part of the agreement that your Government has signed up to. Can the Minister explain: has the Government lost all of its principles? 

No. I think, again, the hyperbole that's being demonstrated by Plaid Cymru here is really not helpful at all. Just to be absolutely clear, the Welsh Government has secured significant changes to the UK Government's EU withdrawal Bill that protect the devolution settlement, which this party agrees with. Welsh Ministers have come to an agreement with the UK Government that many areas already devolved will remain devolved. The Bill, as originally drafted, would have allowed the UK Government to take control of devolved policy areas, such as farming and fishing, and that is no longer the case. After months of intensive talks, an agreement has been reached meaning that the Welsh Government will be able to recommend that the Assembly gives consent to the Bill on the basis of an inter-governmental agreement and amendments to the Bill that have been published, and which do not say what the leader of Plaid Cymru is currently saying that they say.  

This is not my hyperbole. Those were the words of the First Minister, and this is nothing short of a Labour-Tory stitch-up. You were backed by Brexit believers while losing the support of every branch in your own party, and people in Wales can see that you've sold this country short.

Westminster now have control over at least 24 policy areas and many of those are extremely important to people's lives: control over agriculture, environment, public procurement—all of those issues now sit in Westminster. The only conclusion that we can draw is that you believe that the Tories in Westminster are better placed to act in the Welsh national interest than your own Government. [Interruption.] Well, let me tell you, Minister, my party doesn't trust the Tories, and we don't trust Westminster with our farms, with our environment or our NHS. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us: when Westminster concludes a dodgy deal with Donald Trump, how does her Government plan to stop them opening up our NHS to private companies now that you've given those powers away? [Interruption.]

I'm afraid the leader of Plaid Cymru has fundamentally misunderstood the powers in the Bill. The UK Government cannot act in place of the Welsh Government, and my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, when he took us through in great detail the Bill only very recently on the floor of the Senedd, explained the way that the freezing of the powers would work, the way that we have got concessions so that English Ministers cannot act where they would otherwise have been able to act, and, of course, the sunset clause, in its current form, whereas the comments that she talks of are, of course, from the original Bill. So, I would recommend to the leader of Plaid Cymru a very careful reading of the Bill, which she clearly has not undertaken.

Leader of the opposition, Andrew RT Davies.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Leader of the house, could you give me an assessment of what the life choices are of young people here in Wales?

I think the chances of young people here in Wales are very good indeed, but we could do more and, again, as I emphasise, without the austerity policies of the UK Government, we could do a great deal better.

Well, Leader of the house, when it comes to education, many of the things that can be done to improve life chances for young people are within the gift of the Welsh Government, and, sadly, the achievement has been hindered by some of the policies that have been brought forward by previous Labour Governments. But in the field of dyslexia, there's a real poverty of ambition in trying to improve the life chances of children identified with dyslexia in our schools. The gap with children achieving A or A* to C in selective GCSE grades has widened since 2015. Thirty-three per cent of pupils used to be getting those results at GCSE. Now, 36 per cent of pupils are not hitting that target in English. When it comes to science, which used to be a positive territory for students who were identified with dyslexia, now there's a 10 per cent deficit in children achieving five good grades at GCSE. You don't need money to make that difference, you just need the policies in place to make the improvements. Over the last two to three years, we've seen a massive decrease in the number of children achieving the grades we'd like to see who've been diagnosed with dyslexia. Why isn't the Government doing more in this particular field?

Of course, that was the whole point of the additional learning needs Bill—to give support to those who are most vulnerable in our system. But I do think that it's quite extraordinary to say that it's not money, but it's policy, because, of course, the policies for additional learning needs always involve additional support for the pupil. It's an absolute fact that the more additional learning needs the pupil has, the more support they need and the more money that costs. But, of course, we want to do the very best for all the people in our school system, including the most vulnerable and those with additional needs and that's what the legislation aims to do.

I clearly identified how the gap is widening and that clearly is unacceptable, especially over the last two to three years, where, in English and science in particular, there's been a real deterioration. Over the border in England, they've introduced phonics as a policy area to improve the ability for children to improve their reading. Since 2011, 147,000 more six-year-olds are benefiting from this policy area in England. From 2011 to 2016 that number is—147,000 children. Will the Welsh Government be developing more strategies to assist children identified with dyslexia and make sure that these numbers, which I've quoted you today, are arrested and actually put into decline so that children identified with dyslexia have a better life chance here in Wales?

We do teach phonics in Welsh schools. I've personally visited schools and watched their phonics tuition, so I'm absolutely well aware that we teach phonics already. I'm sure that more could be done to teach more children phonics. But I do think the statistics that you're quoting are a little misleading because most dyslexic children have additional time and take different exams. So, I'm afraid I don't have the detail of that at my fingertips, but perhaps if the leader of the opposition would like to let us see these statistics he's quoting, we'll be able to respond to them fully.

Leader of the UKIP group, Neil Hamilton.

Diolch, Llywydd. It's always a pleasure to see the leader of the house at the lectern. I hope it doesn't mean that the First Minister has sadly become a bit demob-happy.

I wonder whether the leader of the house is aware that minimum pricing for alcohol is being introduced into Scotland today and that that has resulted in a bottle of Sainsbury's Basics London Gin being increased from £10.50 to £13.13, a bottle of Asda Rich & Ripe Red Wine from £3.19 up to £4.88, and 18 cans of Tennent's Lager, which cost £12 at Asda will be increased to £15.85. These are significant increases by percentage and does she not agree with me that this is going to impact disproportionately upon people with low incomes? I know she's concerned about the impact of austerity upon people, so is this the right time to be adding extra burdens on them when one of the ways in which they try to alleviate austerity is to have a moderate drink? It's not going to affect the people who've got serious alcohol problems very much, but it is going to affect the overwhelming majority of people who drink responsibly. 

First of all, on his remarks about the First Minister, which I think were particularly ill-judged, the First Minister is, of course, on an extremely important mission to Doha, coming in on the first Qatar Airways flight to Cardiff Airport, something which we're all immensely proud of. And, Llywydd, I feel obliged to say at this point that when I returned to Wales as part of my professional career in 1993, the first sad task I was given was to work on the compelled privatisation of Cardiff airport from the public sector, because it was making such an enormous amount of money it was an embarrassment to the then Government. I'm delighted to say that this Labour Government has been able to put it back into the public sector where, of course, it's gone from the very poor performance it had in the private sector to a sterling performance in the public sector. So, I'm grateful to the leader of UKIP for giving me that opportunity to say that.   

In terms of minimum pricing for alcohol, I know that he doesn't agree with the policy, but large numbers of people die as a result of alcoholic poisoning, and that's something that this party takes very seriously indeed. 

I think what the leader of the house is admitting is that it's a sledgehammer to miss a nut, because the vast majority of people are going to be affected in their pockets but it's not going to make any difference to their health. At the moment, up to 76 per cent of the price of a bottle of whisky is taken in excise duties and value added tax. Of course, this is not a tax that is proposed to the minimum pricing of alcohol, so the extra profit, if any, that is made will go into the pockets of the supermarkets. So, there won't be a fund from which public health benefits could be spread by Government policy. Surely, a much better way of tackling this problem is to target the problem drinkers themselves, rather than to impose burdens upon people who don't have a problem. 

Of course, the minimum alcohol pricing policy isn't the only policy that we have in place to assist people who suffer from alcohol abuse and substance misuse problems. The leader of UKIP is quite right to say that it can be an issue with austerity that people attempt self-medication and so on, but we're very wedded to making sure that those people have the correct support that they need to be able to stop the abuse that they suffer. And we know from the research that minimum alcohol pricing is one of the pieces of armoury in that kit. 

But, of course, alcoholism or alcohol dependency isn't the only public health problem that exists in Wales. There's a significant problem with obesity, there's a significant problem with cardiovascular disease, and the Public Health Wales Observatory has recently published figures that show that the risk factors for heart disease are: physical activity, 71 per cent; unhealthy eating, 67 per cent; alcohol, perhaps surprisingly, only 43 per cent; and being a current smoker, even more surprising, only 23 per cent. So, where is this policy of minimum pricing of alcohol going? If the state has allocated to itself the power to try to alter people's behaviour in their private lives by using the tax system or a variant upon it, why shouldn't we introduce a tax on food, a tax on salt, or any other of the known factors that might be a cause of deterioration in individuals' health?    

Well, of course, this party has a very different idea of the state's role in people's lives than UKIP does. I'm not entirely certain that it's consistent in UKIP. But, of course, we have a number of things at our disposal that the Government does indeed do. We have done a very large number of things in public health. So, for example, adult smoking prevalence rates fell to 19 per cent ahead of our 20 per cent target in 2016. Smoking amongst young people is at its lowest level, with 7 per cent of boys and 9 per cent of girls aged 15 to 16 smoking regularly, compared to 9 and 14 per cent in 2009-10. And 425,000 men and women are routinely screened in Wales for breast, cervical and bowel cancer. These are state interventions in people's lives, but they're very welcome, and they contribute hugely to public health agendas here in Wales, of which we're very proud.     

Our national transport finance plan sets out our commitments for trunk road improvements across Wales, including the south-east.

Thank you. The recent changes to the A4042 Rechem roundabout in Pontypool have caused massive disruption for local residents and commuters, and I've received a very large volume of correspondence from constituents regarding not just the huge delays, but also fears over the safety of the road. I'm very grateful to Welsh Government officials for agreeing to meet me later this afternoon to discuss proposed changes that could rectify this being put forward by the developer of the nearby housing estate. What assurances can you offer my constituents that Welsh Government officials and the South Wales Trunk Road Agent, working closely with the developers and Torfaen County Borough Council, will be looking at this as a matter of priority, and that a new system will be put in place as soon as possible? 

Yes, I understand, as you just said, Lynne Neagle, that transport officials are meeting with you after this session to discuss the issue in more detail, and we have received a number of concerns about the new road layout and are working with the local authority and the developer responsible for carrying out the work and its design to address the situation as a matter of urgency. I understand that it's likely that the road markings recently installed will have to be changed to improve traffic flows, and this will take a little while to implement because of the safety checks that need to be completed. So, in the meantime, the temporary 40 mph speed limit will remain in place and new lanes provided will remain closed to traffic in order to maintain safety. The work is being carried out to increase the capacity of the roundabout, as I know she knows, to accommodate the new developments in the area. The officials are more than happy to work with you to resolve the issues.

The project to do dual the A465 Heads of the Valleys road is currently the largest road-building scheme in Wales. In October last year, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport announced a comprehensive programme and cost review of the project due to the delay in completion targets with significant cost implications. Will the acting First Minister advise of the timescale for this review, and will she commit her Government to making a statement in the Assembly on this important issue as soon as the review is completed?

Yes. The Cabinet Secretary is indicating to me that he's more than happy to update Members by way of a statement.

The leader of the house will be aware of the public health scandal that is the A472 between Crumlin and Hafodyrynys. It isn't a Welsh Government trunk road, but I wondered if the Welsh Government has considered reclassifying it as a Welsh Government trunk road. It is a major route, after all, for the region and the area, but more importantly, with the resources of the Welsh Government, perhaps that trunk road's public health issues could be better resolved.

I'm afraid I don't have any details of the road that the Member is talking about. I'd be more than happy to make sure that he's written to with the details.

I think we all welcome the potential economic benefits that Trago Mills is clearly going to be bringing to Merthyr Tydfil and the surrounding areas, but its location immediately off the Cyfarthfa roundabout on the A470 is a source of ongoing concern. The management of the opening of Trago Mills last weekend actually went very well and I think was generally very good, but the traffic remains extremely heavy in the area, given that we also have the Cyfarthfa retail park immediately opposite, and this coming bank holiday weekend, I'm sure, is going to be a bit of a nightmare up there. I think the problem is largely due to the fact that the Trago Mills development was given planning permission some 20 years ago when traffic was much lighter and the other retail developments weren't there.

So, can you please assure me of two things: one that there is going to be a long-term permanent solution to relieve the pressures for local residents at Cyfarthfa; and can you also confirm that consideration is being given to the review of time limits on planning permissions for such developments, which take no account of changing circumstances in an area over such a long period of time?

Thank you for raising that. We're fully aware of the importance of the A470 strategic corridor. The section around Trago Mills is currently being investigated and appraised to the requirements of the Welsh transport appraisal guidance, known as WelTAG. Studies are on hold at the present time whilst the unsettled traffic patterns and demand return back to average conditions following the opening of the Trago Mills store, which we know increased demand considerably.

The bedding-in period is expected to last about six months, by which time the study will recommence by testing projected trends with those known post-opening of Trago Mills. The sensitivity testing will better inform the appropriateness of the longer term solutions that are proposed. Once the stage 2 studies along the corridor have been completed and appraised, transport interventions to address congestion will be addressed. That's expected to be completed by early 2019, and in the meantime there are medium-term measures to be progressed.

The issue about the time limits for planning consent relating to major developments is a matter for local planning authorities to consider. I know the Cabinet Secretary has a consultation out at the moment, and I'm sure that the local authority and you will be responding to that. In this case, as you know, the decision for planning consent was made in 1994 by the Mid Glamorgan planning authority and included highway improvements appropriate to the scale of development at that time, but, as the Member has highlighted, that situation has changed very much. So, the studies will inform improvements in the road once the traffic has settled again.

Integrating housing and health is the platform to effective prevention and early intervention for people with social and health care needs. This is why both housing and social care are priorities in 'Prosperity for All'.

Can I thank you for that response? As you know, the 1945 to 1951 Labour Government had housing and health in the same ministry, led by Nye Bevan, somebody who we both hold in very high regard.

Poor housing has a serious effect on health. People, especially the old and young, become more susceptible to illness when living in cold and damp conditions. Poor conditions mean that people can't be discharged from hospital when, medically, they're able to be. But if you discharge them, you're going to have them back in again because the conditions they're living in are such that they're going to make them ill. What is being done to improve poor quality housing and thus reduce hospital admissions?

I absolutely agree, poor quality home can have a very significant impact on people's lives, particularly for those from the most disadvantaged communities.

Quality standards, including the Welsh housing quality standard for social housing, are critical to helping deliver the Government's wider well-being agenda. The Welsh housing quality standard will ensure that, by 2020, more than 220,000 households in Wales will have a home that is safe, warm and secure. Currently, as at 31 March 2017, 86 per cent of social homes in Wales meet the Welsh quality housing standard. The Welsh Government is investing a further £108 million of capital funding a year to social landlords to ensure that the Welsh housing quality standard is achieved in the time period.

I think this is a very important question; I thank Mike for raising for it. Forty five per cent of accidents occur in the home, and accidents are in the top-10 causes of death for all ages, particularly high amongst children—after cancer, I think the highest—and older people. Now, in the many interventions that we make, for instance, insulation of homes, social care visits, we should be making an assessment of the safety of homes because very, very many vulnerable people could be protected if we did that and thought about preventing accidents.

Yes. The Member raises an important issue, and as part of the Welsh quality housing standard, of course, making sure that homes meet a standard where accidents are very much minimised is important.

There are also a number of schemes for adaptations across Wales, and I'm delighted to say that in my own council, the speed of adaptation has increased out of all recognition from where it was 10 years ago. But the Member makes a very good point, and we are very keen to ensure that as we develop new homes in Wales, the best safety standards are incorporated in the design.

Shelter Cymru's guidance to private tenants about taking action if their home is unhealthy or in a dangerous state, and I quote:

'Firstly, you need to think carefully about whether to take action. In particular, consider whether your landlord is likely to try to evict you rather than do the work.'

Although the tenants can then ask the council to send an inspector, they are still under risk afterwards if the landlord decides to throw them out, or if they have a grudge because they have taken that action. In that regard, will you look to putting legislation forward in relation to protecting long-term renters and encourage longer term tenancies with clear and significant penalties for landlords if they take this type of action? Because, of course, we want to ensure that their houses are healthy, but if they are judged for taking action, then that is something we should all be concerned about.

Yes, the Member raises a very good point, and, obviously, we want people to be both safe and healthy in their homes, but also to have secure rental arrangements because we know that insecure rental arrangements, particularly for families, contribute to long-term mental and ill health. I know that the Minister for Housing and Regeneration has very much this in mind when we're looking at our new housing Act that's coming forward in this Assembly term.

The review, which is being led by myself, will help ensure that gender equality is placed at the heart of Welsh Government policy making and delivery, and that Wales becomes the safest place for women in Europe.

I welcome the review, of course, as long as the outputs are clear and that it will lead to an improvement in equality. In announcing the review in a speech in Oxford, the First Minister said, as you have also done, that he wants Wales to be the safest place for women in Europe. Again, I agree entirely, but turning those words into a reality will require commitment and firm political will. At the moment, the gender equality agenda is part of the range of responsibilities that you have as leader of the house. What's your view on having a Minister who could focus entirely on promoting equality for women?

Well, it's an interesting thought. I think it has pros and cons that are very well rehearsed and the Llywydd probably won't permit me to take an hour's speech on the pros and cons. But what is essential, of course, is that any Minister with responsibility puts it at front and centre of what they spend their time doing. The reason for the rapid review is to ensure that we haven't missed anything out; that there are no gaps and that we don't have any unintended consequences; but also that all of our policies are aimed in the same direction at the same time.

I'm very much looking forward to receiving the first report in June. We have a number of stakeholder events and I have a number of meetings with various influential women, survivors, bystanders and people who use our services, and so on, across Wales to gather as many opinions as possible while we look at focusing all our efforts on achieving equality somewhat faster than I think we would if we'd just gone along as we were in the first place.

Leader of the house, you told me in questions last week that the gender review will include the pay gap across all public sector organisations. As just one of the top-50 companies in Wales has a female chief executive—that's the Royal Mint—I'd be keen to understand how private companies that used to be in public ownership, or at least have strong public sector connections, are being included in your review. How do you envisage the review helping to persuade large private companies of the type that are currently under the purview of Welsh language standards, for example, to reduce their gender pay gap?

One of the things that we're looking at in terms of the economic action plan, the fair work agenda and our procurement policies is to see what levers we have to ensure that those goals are goals that are striven for in the private sector as well as in the public sector. I do think it's important for us to get our own house in order first, as well, but we are very much hoping, both by soft influence and by direct leverage using our funding, which a large number of private sector organisations in Wales receive, to be able to shift that agenda rather faster than it currently appears to be shifting.

Leader of the house, yesterday, I welcomed a student pilgrimage from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David; they'd walked from Merthyr to Pontypridd and down to Cardiff. They had banners with the suffragette message, 'Deeds not words', and in fact, the students were mainly from the College of Art in Swansea—I think that's in Mike Hedges's constituency—and they presented me with their pilgrimage manifesto. They also sang 'Bread and Roses', which was very moving, on the Senedd steps. But what they want is equality of opportunity; free childcare; job security for women on maternity leave; to continue the fight for equal pay; a commitment to diversity of representation in public organisations; and a commitment to supporting cohesion in communities through creative initiatives. So, leader of the house, I'm sure you will agree that this manifesto accords with the objectives of the gender review. Will you ensure that the voices of these students are heard and welcomed?

Very much so. Actually, it's in my constituency and I was very sad not to be able to—.

Apologies.

I did actually make my best effort to get there, but it wasn't sufficient and, sadly, I missed them, so I was very disappointed. I'm very pleased that you were able to see them there. They're an inspirational group of young women and I absolutely concur with their agenda. Would that we could do it faster.

We continue to invest in healthcare services in Mid and West Wales, including £3 million recently for Withybush General Hospital and £25 million for Glangwili General Hospital. We are also investing £6.6 million in Llandrindod Wells County War Memorial Hospital. We will continue to work with health boards in the region to provide healthcare services that deliver the best possible outcomes for all patients.

I'm grateful to the leader of the house for that reply. She may know that I've raised the provision of health service facilities in the Welsh uplands, based on Blaenau Ffestiniog, in the Assembly on many occasions. The cottage hospital there was closed some years ago and has recently been replaced by a new office building—plenty of desks, but no beds. There is a continuing problem with GP recruitment, of course, and retention, and in other ways as well.

There is significant dissatisfaction amongst local people in Blaenau Ffestiniog and the surrounding area, and they recently submitted a petition to the Assembly to call for an independent inquiry into the provision of health services in the Welsh uplands. Tonight, there is a meeting of people from Blaenau Ffestiniog and Dolwyddelan to consider the possibility of taking legal action to compel an independent inquiry. I wonder whether the Welsh Government would see it as advantageous to facilitate an independent inquiry, because it couldn't possibly prejudice the provision of health service facilities in the area, but it could do a great deal to alleviate public concern.

No, and I think the Member undermined his own argument by referring to a health centre as an office building. That doesn't really assist the—

It is an office building.

—the free flow of information. 

It's not an office building. Have you been in there? Have you been inside?

I think that it's very important to get the facts out when we're discussing health, which is always in emotive subject—

Who's First Minister here?

I don't think the leader of the house requires any support from her ministerial colleagues. Leader of the house—

Member for Blaenau Ffestiniog who knows what he's talking about.

There are many Members—there are at least five Members for Blaenau Ffestiniog in this Chamber, something that has been central to the respect we have as Assembly Members in this Chamber from the start. Leader of the house.

As I was saying, there are a range of fervently held opinions on the subject, and a large variety of them expressed, as we've just seen, Llywydd, in the Chamber itself. But I think that the Cabinet Secretary has this well under control and has already answered several questions on the subject, as the Member himself said.

Leader of the house, I have raised my concerns over the future of west Wales health services on numerous occasions in this Chamber. For my pains, I've been accused by members of the Government and backbenchers of scaremongering, talking down the health services and harming staff recruitment—all by myself, I've harmed staff recruitment.

The current Cabinet Secretary approached the Welsh Conservatives to take part in a parliamentary review, which we did with great pleasure. One of the aims of that was to help to depoliticise the NHS in order to try to look for a strong future for the whole of Wales in the NHS. So, imagine that wave of cynicism that swept over me this weekend when I saw Labour Assembly Members, Labour MPs and the Labour political party campaigning outside Withybush and Llanelli to save our hospitals. Do tell me, please, leader of the house, in your role as chief whip, what are we to look forward to? Will the name-calling of us here, if we have the temerity to argue about this, end? Will it continue? Will you be talking to your colleagues? Above all, are we going to look for rational debate, or will the Labour Party continue to scrabble for votes in a desperate attempt to try to mitigate the problems they know they're facing with a health service that they've been in charge of for the last two decades? I'm really cross, Vaughan, because you want us to be depoliticised—that lot, get a grip.

The Member makes a very good point about the conduct of public affairs. I personally do not indulge in any of the behaviours that she mentioned. I don't agree with politicising—

Let's hear the leader of the house, please.

However, there is an open—. As I said, I know that the Member feels very fervently, as do I, that, sometimes, politics is unnecessarily divisive and political, and I do not agree with personal remarks being made about others in any way, shape or form, and I know that she agrees with that. However, there are, as I said, a range of fervently held views on any healthcare reform. There is an open consultation at the moment. A large number of people across the political spectrum have fervently held views on that subject and are making them known during the consultation period. The consultation period has a large number of weeks yet to run. I'm sure there will be more demonstrations and fervently held views expressed in that way during the course of the consultation, and then, once the consultation is closed, we will have the opportunity to discuss the outcome of the consultation, once the responses have been analysed.

The Welsh Government recognises the financial barriers that can stop people entering higher education. That is why, following the Diamond review, we have reformed student support, so that new full-time and part-time undergraduate students are entitled to support equivalent to the national living wage whilst they study.

The National Union of Students report 'Class dismissed: Getting in and getting on in further and higher education' is, I think, an important contribution to a debate that needs to concern us all, because, in light of these drop-out figures and the skills challenge that are posed by the fourth industrial revolution, we need to be raising the skills base of all our young people to respond to the uncertainties of the job market ahead. I'm somewhat concerned that we still have quite a big difference in the numbers of young people achieving degrees in Wales, compared with, for example, the south-east of England: 26.5 per cent in Wales compared with just over 32 per cent in the south-east of England. I just wondered how the Welsh Government can address this, because it's clearly amongst working class young people that we need to be getting them to take up further education.

Yes, absolutely. Our new student finance package is supported by the National Union of Students in Wales, and answers many of the questions raised by the review in England. It's the most generous in the UK, and it's designed to give more help towards living costs by providing the equivalent to the national living wage through a mix of non-repayable grants and loans. This means students can focus on their studies rather than worrying about making ends meet.

Wales was the first country in Europe to provide equivalent living cost support in grants and loans to full-time and part-time undergraduates, as well as postgraduates. The total amount of full-time student support awarded for the academic year 2015-16 was £797.5 million, which is an increase of 7 per cent on the previous year. Our recent performance data suggests retention rates for undergraduate higher education students in Wales are improving. Data for Wales for full-time first degree young entrants from low-participation areas shows a reduction in withdrawal rates from 9.1 per cent in the 2015-16 data to 7.6 per cent in the 2016-17 data. Because, as Jenny Rathbone correctly identifies, it's not just getting into university; it's staying there and being able to concentrate on your studies and not be undermined or disadvantaged by having to work through your student life in a way that's unfair and disadvantages you in your future endeavours. So, our support package is absolutely designed to do just that, because we want to support those communities who have the brightest children, from whatever their background, to make sure that they can be the very best person that they can possibly be.

We continue to support heritage tourism initiatives in south-east Wales. For example, the Welsh Government-led heritage tourism project provided £1.058 million for visitor improvements, including access, interpretation and other facilities, at Caerphilly castle and Blaenavon ironworks. We continue to invest and to promote heritage sites to attract additional visitors to Wales.

Thank you, leader of the house. Newport has a rich cultural history dating back 2,000 years, and included in that is Caerleon, which was one of only three permanent fortresses in Roman Britain, dating back to the first century AD. It's home to the most complete amphitheatre in the UK, impressive fortress baths, and the only remainder of Roman legionary barracks on view anywhere in Europe. The redevelopment of the Roman legionary museum was announced at the recent review of the National Museum Wales, and it's an opportunity to further promote and develop Caerleon's Roman heritage. How will the Welsh Government work with the museum and Cadw to attract visitors from across Wales and the rest of the world?

Yes, I have to say I only very recently visited Caerleon Roman works and museum and had a thoroughly lovely time. I particularly liked the baths, and the illusion of people swimming in the baths is particularly effective. For anybody who hasn't been, I highly recommend it. It's a very educational and pleasant day out, so I couldn't recommend it more. We have had initial conversations to consider the future of the heritage offer at Caerleon. We're going to be involving other partners in due course, as suggested by the Thurley report, to ensure a consistent and coherent experience for tourists. Essential work to the roof at Caerleon will mean its closure for some months, unfortunately. The museum is working in partnership with Cadw, and will continue to offer an excellent education experience for schools. The Roman baths, amphitheatre and barracks will continue to be open to the public throughout the period of the museum closure. I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a really excellent experience all round, and very educational.

Thank you to the leader of the house in her role in answering on behalf of the First Minister. 

The next item is the leader of the house, in her role as leader of the house, and the business statement and announcement. I call on Julie James to make the business statement. Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. There are no changes to this week's business. Business for the next three weeks is shown in the business statement and announcement found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically.

Well, may I both acknowledge your endurance and call for two Welsh Government statements, the first on the Welsh independent living grant? As, amongst other things, the chair of the cross-party group on disability, I've been articulating concerns in this Chamber and in correspondence with the Welsh Government since the decision was taken by the Welsh Government to move the Welsh independent living grant into local authority funding, unlike the situations in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where a partnership with the third sector was established. The Northern Irish commissioned under the Scottish model to ensure that the independence and control of the service user was protected. I last raised this early in March with the First Minister, describing the proposal as a betrayal of the right of disabled people to live independently and make their own decisions, but, once again—despite my calling on the First Minister to recognise that independence means giving people choice and control, and not having to agree how they spend their money with well-meaning experts in county hall when they're the real experts in their own lives, the First Minister once again rejected this. However, I've now been copied on a report from a charity of which I'm patron, stating that at the recent Welsh Labour Party conference in Llandudno, on a motion put down by the Clwyd South Labour Party, delegates voted to support the continuation of the Welsh independent living grant, despite the policy of the Welsh Government, and it's been reported that this will now be maintained at least until the Assembly elections in 2021—welcomed by the campaigners led by Nathan Lee Davies from Wrexham, but still keen to stress there's some way to go in securing the grant in the long term. Therefore, given that this isn't just a decision, I'm sure, for any party conference—this is a decision for this place—I think the Assembly must have a statement to bring us up to speed on what is a very important matter for a large number of people, particularly the campaigners who've been fighting so hard to achieve what appears to be some progress in this respect.

Secondly, and finally, could I call again, following calls last week, for a statement on the A487 Caernarfon to Bontnewydd bypass, although my request comes from a slightly different angle? We know that there was a public inquiry. We know that, following the inquiry, the Welsh Government said it would consider the inquiry report and make a decision by the winter. We know that, in March, the Welsh Government said it needed more time to consider the plans, but concerns have been raised with me by local businesses that a document they submitted to the inquiry detailing objections not to a bypass, but to the yellow route favoured by the Welsh Government, presented—. But a legal representative from the Welsh Government, the Welsh Government's barrister—. On the basis of his submissions, they refused the right to question the Welsh Government on the contents of the document, although the legal advice they'd received advised that no judge would make a decision based on any draft report, and any judicial review would only be possible on the issuing of orders. Dare I say that your barrister had said that they should have gone to a judicial review following publication of draft orders, against the legal advice received. They have raised concern with me over what they have described as the total intransigence of the Welsh Government over 10 years in considering the impact on jobs and businesses locally. They do support strongly a bypass, but have been trying to put forward their case—albeit without success to date—in asking the Welsh Government to adopt the orange or black route to protect businesses and jobs. This is a very important matter. The document I referred to is a detailed submission, which confirms that, if you read properly the original submissions, there was 75 per cent local support for the black route. That was not presented in the WelTAG evidence; it wasn't questioned at the public inquiry. I therefore support calls for a statement to the Assembly on this important scheme and in the context of these valid objections and a real threat to jobs in two major local employers on the route.

Well, on the first matter that he raises, we continue to maintain that a static grant can't possibly meet all of the demands of every disabled person in Wales, who have complex and varied needs. No change has been made in Government policy, and therefore I can't see that there's any requirement for a statement since nothing has changed in the Government's policy. And, as Mark Isherwood said himself, he asked the First Minister about it back in March.

On the bypass, there's a public inquiry under way. The Member has made his remarks about the conduct of that inquiry, but, clearly, it wouldn't be right for the Government to comment on the conduct and legal submissions in a public inquiry.

I notice, leader of the house, that it's been stated today that the incinerator proposed for Barry is likely to be operational by the end of the year, and I think there are wider lessons for the whole of Wales from the experiences the people of Barry have had over the last couple of years. Something has gone seriously wrong, I think, if we have a incinerator so close to homes, in an area of deprivation as well, in the context of air quality, which we're all trying to improve in Wales, without an environmental impact statement. It has been stated, I think, by the environment Minister here previously, that she's minded to request such an environmental impact study be done, but we're told nevertheless the incinerator's going ahead. So, I would very much like, and Plaid Cymru would like, to hear a statement from the environment Minister about whether we'll see such an environmental impact study. And if that impact study, of course, does give rise to questions around emissions, around transport links, around storage of wood, around all of the things that the local residents have been complaining about, then we need to understand how that might impact on the granting of final licences and conditions for the incinerator in Barry.

Also, I'd like to ask whether such a statement, if made, can also include any work that the Government's done with Ofgem around the fact that the current proposal seems very different to the one that originally got granted the renewable obligations certificate—it's so old, this proposal, it goes back to days of ROCs, I understand; it's done under a previous regime. But there's been a lot of change since then, including the incinerator itself being at least 10 per cent bigger in terms of its output than it had been previously. So, I think all of us would appreciate, not just for Barry but for the wider lessons that we draw on the environment in Wales, an oral statement so we have the ability to question the Minister on that.

The second item I'd like to raise is the fact that many of us did celebrate Welsh food and farming at lunchtime today, and we're very grateful to the National Farmers Union, I'm sure, for launching their campaign, We Are Welsh Farming/Ni Yw Ffermio Cymru. But the context of raising this with you today is, of course, we have this proposal of the Asda-Sainsbury’s merger, telling us this will be done with lower prices. No jobs will be lost from the shops, the shops won't close, but somehow we'll have at least 10 per cent lower prices. Now, there's only one way to squeeze lower prices out in those circumstances, and it’s from the suppliers, and the suppliers are our farmers. And, when you squeeze our famers, yes, you may get something cheaper in the shop, but you're actually squeezing our communities, because those farmers are recycling the pounds that they earn within our communities, and that's clearly demonstrated by Welsh Government's own work as well as the union's work themselves.

So, if we're going to see such a major merger and a consolidation in the supermarket sector, then it does beg the question that the supermarket ombudsman needs to be beefed up considerably, because we don't want to see any supplier—but I'm talking particularly of Welsh farmers here— be squeezed by an irregular market and the use of too much pressure and too much anti-competitive, in effect, market forces being used. So, it would be good to have a response from the Welsh Government, perhaps a letter from the Welsh Government at this stage, to the Asda-Sainsbury’s merger, what discussions you're having with UK Government around this, what steps can be taken to protect Welsh suppliers and Welsh farmers in particular, and whether you think—you, I think, yourself personally, but certainly Government has said in the past that it's very interested in beefing up an ombudsman and making sure that the voice of the supplier in the supermarket chain is strengthened, as well as, of course, what we're seeing now, which is the supermarkets themselves being strengthened. 

I think, on that second point, Simon Thomas makes an excellent series of points. It is very worrying that such a large merger is considered, especially when one of the partners, effectively, is Walmart, which is not exactly renowned for—what shall we say—progressive policies in regard to its purchasing. It is, as you know, subject to the competition commission, but my understanding is that the competition commission generally looks at the effect on consumers and not on suppliers. The Cabinet Secretary for rural affairs and myself have some concerns about this and we will be expressing those concerns to the monopolies and mergers inquiry, because actually I share your concerns about the suppliers. There is only one way to squeeze it and it is at that end. So, it is certainly an issue for us that we will be considering. 

In terms of the Barry incinerator, I'm not absolutely certain where we are in that process. I think probably the best way forward would be if the Minister updates us by way of a letter as to where we are from our point of view and then we can take it forward from there.

Leader of the house, I'd ask for two statements. Do you know when we could expect an update on the surgical use of vaginal mesh in the NHS? I've raised this a number of times in the Chamber and I understand that a task and finish group is due to report soon. I think it would be appropriate if we had a statement following that in the Chamber. 

The second statement I'd ask for is on animal welfare. Last week, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported that prosecutions for animal cruelty in Wales are at a four-year high and many of the instances dealt with by the RSPCA throughout 2017 concerned horses and other equines. It's frequently the case that they've been abandoned, and horses are being found sick, dying or sometimes dead. One significant problem is the difficulty finding out who owns those and perhaps registration could possibly help. So, could we have a debate in Government time on this and animal welfare more broadly?

On the vaginal mesh, I know that the Cabinet Secretary is due to make a statement once the report has come out, so we'll be sure to bring that forward as soon as is possible once that's been done.

The Cabinet Secretary is also due to make a statement on animal welfare. We are very well aware of the issue about tracing the ownership of horses, which is, Llywydd, a massive issue in my own constituency, even though it's city centre, which you wouldn't expect. We are aware of that. I know the Cabinet Secretary takes it very seriously and is going to make a statement shortly.

Leader of the house, may I ask for a statement on the levels of child obesity in Wales? The latest child measurement programme's annual report shows that more than a quarter of children in Wales are overweight or obese. This is much higher than in England. Areas such as Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly in my region both produced results higher than the Welsh average. I understand the Welsh Government is working with Public Health Wales to develop a new strategy to tackle obesity. Could we have a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for health on when the strategy is likely to report, and what measures he intends to take to tackle this problem in the interim period in Wales? Thank you. 

The Cabinet Secretary has indicated that he's expecting to run a consultation and he'll provide an update before the summer recess on that consultation. 

Leader of the house, I'd like to ask for two statements if, possible. The first relates to the announcement today by the Welsh Local Government Association, who claim that children's services in Wales are nearly 'at crisis point'—and I quote. Now, clearly, increasing demand and reducing budgets is a recipe for disaster, as we all know. We have seen recently the difficulties in Powys, and it's clear that other councils in Wales are feeling the pressure in terms of the demands on their services and their ability to respond. So, with that backdrop, can I ask if the Minister for Children and Social Care therefore would be prepared to bring forward an oral statement at the earliest opportunity on the pressures facing children's services, and what the Welsh Government is planning to do to address them? That's the first one. 

The second request relates to plans to develop a metro system for Swansea bay and the western Valleys. As I've mentioned previously in this Chamber, the development of a metro system that, in principle, looks to improve travel times for people in south-west Wales is to be welcomed, naturally, but you'll be aware of concerns within Neath with regard to the need to protect the status of Neath railway station as part of any metro proposal. Feelings are running high in Neath at the moment. So, given that work has started in terms of the development of the strategic outline business case for the metro, would the Cabinet Secretary for transport be prepared to bring forward an oral statement outlining the work currently being undertaken and how he sees the project developing? Diolch yn fawr. 

Taking those in reverse order, on that one, my colleague the Assembly Member for Neath has been extremely vocal in his opinions about any potential closure of Neath station. No such closure is remotely on the horizon. We can't even get the UK Government to electrify the line, never mind straighten it. So, I think that's just pie in the sky. There is a conversation about the Swansea bay metro, quite rightly, and the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Transport has put money into a feasibility study for that, but that does not include the closure of Neath station. 

On the children's services, the Minister for children is due to make a statement on those issues very shortly, and of course my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for local government is due to make a statement on Powys later on in today's agenda. 

Can you give me an assurance that I will receive an honest and clear response from your Government on a simple issue, which I have been pursuing now since January? I've asked the Minister for the Welsh language how many staff are located in the Government's Welsh language unit—those staff responsible for preparing Welsh language standards regulations. Having received the response 'loads' in a committee, I received a response to a written question that it was the Permanent Secretary who should answer such a question. I received no response from her until last Thursday, and that was because I had to raise the issue here in the Chamber. I was given this response, which was shocking:

'I am content that there are sufficient policy officials within the Division to take this work forward in line with Ministerial priorities'.

That was the Permanent Secretary's response. So, first, I haven't had a response to a simple question from an Assembly Member, asked in January. Secondly, isn't this another example of a lack of transparency within your Government—part of a pattern and a culture, unfortunately? And thirdly, is the head of the civil service, who is supposed to be unbiased and impartial—should she be giving a response that one would expect from a Minister? Is this an attempt to evade giving an honest answer to a simple question? So, I would appreciate your support in securing an answer to my question. I don't think that this Assembly, or your Government, should allow this kind of anti-democratic behaviour.

I'm aware of the issue. I think that, actually, it turns out to be relatively complex. But I will write to you, Siân Gwenllian, and make sure that you have, however complex the answer is, a direct answer to your question.

Thank you, leader of the house.

You deserve your cup of tea now. Thank you for that.

We move, therefore, to our next item, which is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance on the Wales infrastructure investment plan mid-point review 2018. I call on the Finance Secretary, Mark Drakeford.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. At the height of the recession, and in the early years of the UK Government’s flawed and failing austerity programme, my predecessor, Jane Hutt, published the first 2012 Wales infrastructure investment plan. Ever since, this plan has been at the heart of the Welsh Government’s work to create and sustain economic growth, and to support vital public services. Its goals and priorities have guided our significant infrastructure investment right across Wales, including, in the last Assembly term alone, £1.2 billion to provide more than 11,500 affordable homes, £1.3 billion to support our twenty-first century schools and education programme, where 100 schemes have already been completed and 60 more are on their way to completion, and £1.8 billion to modernise our transport infrastructure, from the Heads of the Valleys road to the Newtown bypass.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we have done this, and more, at a time when our conventional capital budget will be 20 per cent lower in real terms by the end of the decade than it was in 2009-10. And all of this just at the point in the economic cycle when the UK Government should have stepped up and not shied back from investing in the future. Here in Wales, in the six years since the WIIP was first published, we have invested £9 billion of Welsh Government capital funding, and developed new ways of drawing in investment from elsewhere, to deliver ambitious projects, which deliver lasting benefits for the people of Wales.

Now, Dirprwy Lywydd, a great deal has changed since that first WIIP was published in 2012. Back then, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, promised that austerity would be over by 2015. Now, it extends to 2025. We have had the European Union referendum, and the decision to leave the European Union. The impact of the uncertainty that this has created must help explain why, at a time when economies across the eurozone are growing at their fastest rate for a decade, growth across the UK is faltering, and is at its weakest since 2012.

Dirprwy Lywydd, that is the background against which our mid-point review of the Wales infrastructure investment plan is to be published today. The review reflects on the experience of the past six years, where we can see progress, and where we can draw lessons for the future. It takes account of the many changes—some of which I've just identified—that have occurred over the lifetime of the plan so far, and it sets out our investment priorities for the remaining period of the plan, aligning it with the aims and goals of 'Prosperity for All' and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and setting the Welsh Government’s spend more directly in the context of the investment that others plan to make in Wales.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we have ambitious plans to invest further in Welsh infrastructure, with plans already set out to invest an additional £6.5 billion worth of capital in our priorities between now and 2020-21. And today, I can set out a new capital funding package of £266 million to support the delivery of Government priorities over the next three years. Amongst other objectives, these investments are strongly aligned to support the work of my Cabinet colleague Lesley Griffiths in the vital field of carbon reduction.

The new funding allocations include: £60 million over three years to accelerate the creation of active travel routes to connect residential areas, work, education sites and services; over £60 million over the next three years for the NHS, for the all-Wales capital programme; £31.5 million over three years for the next generation access broadband phase 2; £25 million over three years for the new Tech Valleys programme; and £15 million over two years to fund a pilot, as part of the ministerial taskforce for the south Wales Valleys, to ensure that schools in the area become community hubs and provide community learning centres with extended services. The mid-point review also includes an up-to-date pipeline of Welsh Government, local authority and private sector investments. It provides the details of more than 350 schemes with a value of around £42 billion, including this Government’s own flagship commitments.

Llywydd, as members of the Finance Committee will know, my principle has always been to exhaust the use of the least expensive forms of capital before using other more expensive sources. The plan, therefore, relies on our efforts to begin with to commit the vast bulk of our conventional capital, well in advance of spend, then to move on to deploy every pound of capital available to us through the regional development funds from which Wales benefits as a result of our membership of the European Union—that amounts to over £720 million in additional investment—then to make full use of the £1 billion in borrowing powers now available to us, and then to go on supporting additional borrowing for investment by our local authorities and our housing associations. 

And because, even when we have pushed at the limits of all these possibilities, we still have vitally important public purposes that could otherwise not be afforded, we have devised our own mutual investment model, building from the Scottish Government’s not-for-profit schemes, to find a way to fund the new Velindre cancer hospital for south Wales, to complete the dualling of the A465 Heads of the Valleys road, and to enable us to accelerate band B of our twenty-first century schools and education programme. And, Dirprwy Lywydd, I can announce today the latest development in this area, because in line with the provisions in the Government of Wales Act 2006, agreement has now been secured with the UK Government that it will bring forward legislation to enable Welsh Ministers to issue bonds for capital investment expenditure, providing the Welsh Government with a further set of borrowing levers in the future.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we are in the process of establishing a national infrastructure commission for Wales, and later this afternoon the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs will make a statement about our preferred option for our new land use plan, the national development framework. Together, these will provide a strategic picture of our national and regional infrastructure needs, and help us ensure our investments are aligned and targeted to where they can have maximum impact in the face of continuing austerity.

Deputy Presiding Officer, this mid-point review of the infrastructure investment plant will help us to work in a more integrated and and collaborative way within Government and with our partners. It will ensure that our infrastructure is robust, will contribute to the growth of the Welsh economy and will help us to formulate the long-term future of our nation and its people. I commend this plan to the Assembly.  

Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement this afternoon? I think we all recognise that we do remain in a time of public spending constraints. We certainly in the Welsh Conservatives welcome proposals to invest in our economy and public services, despite those obvious challenges.

Can I just say in responding at the start to your statement, Cabinet Secretary—? On your point about UK funding, which you made at the start of your contribution and at the end, the almost obligatory comment now on funding cuts—. Yes, spending cuts, you're quite right to say have extended beyond the original cut-off of 2015 that was set out back in 2010. But if the alternative was deeper, yearly cuts, then I think I would probably stick with the Chancellor's current timescale rather than look at those cuts having been faster and deeper at the time. And we know that, yes, the deficit has taken longer to come down than was previously hoped, but the UK Government is getting there in that regard. Debt itself will soon be cut, not just the deficit, and that will, in the longer term, set the UK economy and the Welsh economy on a sounder footing, so you will have more money to invest in those important public services and infrastructure. [Interruption.] You might not agree with that, Lee Waters, but many people do agree with that.

Your statement covered a wide range of investment proposals and a wide range of spending areas. I will just touch on a few of them. I warmly welcome the proposals to continue developing the twenty-first century schools programme through the second band of funding, in partnership with local authorities across Wales. I recently visited the site of Monmouth Comprehensive School, due to open in September. It's a really impressive state-of-the-art building, which shows what can be achieved when Welsh Government works with Conservative local authorities such as Monmouthshire. It will extend opportunities for modern teaching and learning. While you've increased the funding available for twenty-first century schools, could you advise of any changes to the timescale of the next phase of the programme? Is that as was originally envisaged?

On house building, we recognise that there are growing pressures on the housing market, particularly in south-east Wales, and commentators are concerned with the removal of the Severn bridge tolls and the effect that that will have on local housing supply in Monmouthshire and other local authorities in south-east Wales. How confident are you that the funding you're providing for the development of affordable housing proposals, across certainly south Wales, will be met?

You touched on the Heads of the Valleys ongoing investment scheme. I had a tour of the new road—the Clydach gorge part of the road—a few weeks ago, and it's certainly a very impressive piece of infrastructure, which is widely welcomed, I know, by businesses and local people. However, of course, on the downside, it is coming in considerably over budget and considerably behind timescale, which is leading to delays far in advance of what was originally anticipated and were tolerable by local people. So, I think my question would be: in relation to that project and similar large infrastructure projects, what mechanisms are you putting in place to make sure that the taxpayer is getting value for money, that projects like this are delivered as efficiently as possible and that there is proper scrutiny on the public purse? I know that, in future, the Public Accounts Committee, which I chair, will look at spending like this, but I'm thinking, in the meantime, what is being done at this moment in time to make sure that that spending is efficient?

I don't think you mentioned the critical care centre—I might be wrong—currently being developed in Cwmbran. That's another project on which there has been significant delay. However, it is now going up and, again, looks like an impressive building. So, could you, just at this mid point in your infrastructure programme, guarantee that that will open on the timescale that we are now looking at?

Can I finally say, as well as mentioning UK spending cuts, you also mentioned the obligatory Brexit, which features in many statements and debates—we've got another one tomorrow, I think—in this Chamber? I appreciate your concerns about Brexit and that it creates some uncertainty for your Government, but I would point out that that wasn't a decision of the UK Government; that was a decision of the UK people and the decision of, actually, a majority of the Welsh people. It probably wasn't the decision of a majority of my constituents or probably yours in Cardiff West, but it certainly was a decision that the Welsh people took. Do you not agree, Cabinet Secretary, that, rather than constantly bemoaning the effects of this, it is for the UK Government and the Welsh Government to now get on with delivering a stronger economy in the light of what's happening? I think the people of Wales will be looking to you to set forward a positive vision for the future that will take Wales where we need to go at this important juncture in our history.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I thank the Member for those questions. Let me take the two general ones first. As far as public spending constraint is concerned, the choice that faced the Government ought not to have been between steeper, swifter cuts and the long, slow strangulation of the UK economy, which they have embarked upon; the choice ought to have been to use counter-cyclical investment, particularly of an infrastructure sort at a time when the costs of borrowing had never been lower. And instead, George Osborne, rather than doing what was done in the United States of America and on the continent of Europe to take that opportunity to stimulate economic growth, chose the most inopportune moment you can imagine to reduce capital investment right across the United Kingdom. Now, of course, I entirely agree with what Nick Ramsay said: the UK Government is not to blame for the Brexit decision and I didn't suggest that they were. What I am reflecting in my statement is what private sector businesses and organisations tell this Government and tell the UK Government all the time, which is that the uncertainty about Brexit is having an impact on their ability to plan investment into the future. I believe that there are steps that the UK Government could have taken to have provided greater certainty in the way that they have gone about Brexit, but it is an unavoidable fact, for the UK Government as well as ours, that a major change of this sort, whatever view you may take of it, brings huge uncertainty with it, and that is making an impact on investment decisions of private businesses not just in Wales, but across the United Kingdom.

Can I briefly deal with the more specific questions the Member raised? I appreciate very much what he says about the twenty-first century schools programme. Monmouth local authority, like all local authorities in Wales, has benefited significantly from band A. We're now moving into band B and the five-year time horizon for band B of the twenty-first century schools programme remains unchanged.

I am confident that the capital investment we are making in affordable housing—the single greatest investment we will make as a Government—in order to achieve the 20,000 affordable homes that we want to see built during this Assembly term, provides the investment necessary and that we are on track to make sure that it is changed into the provision of that badly needed housing on the ground.

The point that the Member made about the previous phases of the Heads of the Valleys road has been well rehearsed here. There are genuine topographical challenges in that part of the construction. What I've announced today are the further steps we are taking to complete the whole of the Heads of the Valleys road using our mutual investment model.

I didn't mention, he's quite right, the critical care centre, Dirprwy Lywydd, because that is already catered for in funding terms in the plans that the Government has already announced.

I welcome this mid-point review. I've not had an opportunity to read it all as of yet, of course. I assume the Cabinet Secretary has. Could he share with us—? As this is a review, of course, it will have identified certainly things that worked very well and others that may not have worked so well, and, of course, it's those that didn't work so well that are perhaps those where lessons can be learnt. So, what didn't work out quite as the Government may have hoped when the WIIP was first announced six years ago? One of the objectives set at that point was to change the process more generally for investment, for example to bring the need for far more robust business cases in order to assess projects and to use evaluation techniques of a world-class quality. Now, has that happened to the extent that the Government had hoped?

Secondly, I'd like to turn to the question that—. We've rehearsed this issue many a time, Cabinet Secretary, but it is this issue of the balance of regional infrastructure investment across Wales. You did refer to it, actually, in your remarks in relation to the strategic picture that needs to take account both of national and regional needs. We've produced figures, of course, previously that have shown certainly the kind of imbalance in terms of capital investment that typically we see across the UK, and the fear is that we are becoming potentially a microcosm, a version, of that problem in the UK of over-concentration of capital investment, actually in the corner of the country that is already relatively affluent. Of course, we can't avoid it at the moment, but we have had—. Well, all our First Ministers have come from Cardiff and the M4 corridor around it, and we may have a fourth—

It includes Carmarthen. 

—well, that bit of the M4 corridor in south-east Wales—representing it. Obviously, politics does impact upon these decisions, so how can we make sure, whoever the next First Minister is, that there are structures in place, particularly looking at the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales, to ensure that we get a better spread of investment across Wales? 

And finally, on the issue of the scale of ambition, it's great, by the way, to see the power there for the Welsh Government to raise bonds; I think we've actually called for that previously. But then the next question is, of course: what is the scale of our ambition in terms of the quantum? And there, Cabinet Secretary, you're absolutely right that there has been this historic opportunity with the low interest rates et cetera, and probably, we would say, a backlog of underinvestment in the past in the Welsh infrastructure. The WIIP was there to address that and to seize that opportunity, but yet, even if we take the figures that are in your statement—the £1 billion for the mutual investment model, the £1 billion in terms of the borrowing powers—that takes us up, in terms of financing on an annual basis, to about 1 per cent of the annual budget. The Scottish Government have a target of 5 per cent. And so, if we were to match their ambition in terms of our appetite for financing a capital programme on that scale, then we would be in a totally different situation, wouldn't we, in terms of the level of capital investment that we're currently able to finance. The 350-odd projects, the £42 billion—at the current rate, it will take 20 years, a generation, for us to actually work our way through the WIIP as a whole—there or thereabouts. Shouldn't we take this opportunity as we're reviewing the WIIP also to ask ourselves, 'Is the scale of our ambition equal to the opportunity and equal to the challenge that Wales currently faces in terms of its infrastructure?'   

Dirprwy Lywydd, thank you. I'd like to thank Adam Price for his questions. 

To answer his first couple of questions first, looking back over the first period of the WIIP, what will be some of the lessons I think we would learn from it? Well, I think the first is that we are putting considerably more emphasis in the mid-point review on the way in which Welsh Government investment has to act in a complementary way with the investments that other public sector bodies make in local government, for example, but also the major investments that go into transport, energy and water, and so on, by other major investment players in Wales. I think we've learnt the need to make sure that those things are better aligned.

I think we've learnt as well of the need of public authorities to have a finer-grained grasp of infrastructure within their own localities. So, the national assets working group we've set up, which has done—as I know Adam Price knows—a mapping exercise in the Cwm Taf area, trying to make sure that all partners on the ground are aware of the infrastructure assets that are owned by others, is therefore able to make better investment decisions, sharing facilities, releasing land for housing, creating better jobs in the management side of infrastructure and making the public pound go further. And I think that's something else we have learnt in this first part, and that's why we've produced a relatively modest sum of money—around £2 million—to make sure that that mapping exercise can be replicated right across Wales. 

Adam Price asked about whether we had succeeded in strengthening the way in which business cases are brought forward for investment, and the five-stage business case model has now been adopted as standard, and that was very much driven by some of the work that went into the original WIIP.

I don't dissent from the proposition that geography has to play a part in the way in which investment decisions are made, but I've never believed myself that it ought to be a determining criterion. I think, in the end, it has to be the quality of the proposal that comes forward, the return on public investment that it provides and the impact that it will have on the future of our economy. Those have to be the things we look at first, and then, of course, we have to see how investments can help us to spread and sustain prosperity in all parts of Wales.

I didn't mention in my statement the over £600 million of capital investment that will come with the city deals that have already been announced. And, of course, the growth deal for north Wales is now making further progress. There's the metro in Swansea, mentioned by Dr Dai Lloyd earlier this afternoon; the north-east Wales metro; the major investments that are going on in Anglesey to make it an energy island and the ambitions that we have there for marine energy in the future. I think we are able to show that we are investing in all parts of Wales. It's an important criterion that we use, but it is not the decisive one.

As far as ambition is concerned, I'm grateful to Adam Price for welcoming the news on bond issues. It is a matter I know he has raised regularly in the Chamber. I can tell him as well that I have already written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury alerting her to the fact that I intend to make a case for extending the borrowing powers available to the National Assembly as part of the forthcoming spending review.

The difference between Scotland and Wales, however, is rooted at least partly in the level of PFI debt that Scotland drew up in the first decade of devolution, which we, thankfully, decided to avoid. And there is a choice that he and I have rehearsed many times outside the Chamber and here: every time you finance borrowing, you have to eat into the revenue that is available to the Welsh Government for other purposes. And a case can be made for diverting more of our revenue to support additional capital borrowing, and it's a perfectly respectable case that can be made. But every £1 we divert in that way is £1 less for the very urgent revenue demands that the Government faces on all sides of the Chamber. We know that we don't have the money we need for our schools and our hospitals and all other great public services. So, it's a matter of judgment and there's a balance to be struck, and it's a challenging one to get right.

I wholly endorse what the finance Secretary has just said about the choices that have to be made, and the reality is, of course, that we are constrained by the Welsh block, which is out of our hands. Half of the budget goes on health, another quarter goes on education, and the remainder is split between the other heads upon which the Government spends. The amount available for capital spending is therefore limited, and the finance Secretary's hands are tied. So, we are talking here about a small part of the Welsh Government budget. The urgent need for Wales, as the poorest part of the United Kingdom, is to raise the tax base here, now that we've got limited freedom to raise future revenues from taxation. This is going to become increasingly important to make Wales a more attractive place for businesses to locate and to expand and to attract entrepreneurs into the country and to encourage those who are already here.

I know that the finance Secretary starts all these statements with the ritual trip down austerity avenue, but the fantasy that a UK Labour Government would have done anything very much different from what the Conservatives have done had they been in office after 2010 I think is nonsense. The Alistair Darling plans, on which the Brown Labour Government fought the 2010 election, was actually more restrictive than the plans that George Osborne proposed in his first financial statements. The idea that you can carry on spending money forever and have infinite deficit spending is disproved by the experience of countries as various as Venezuela and Zimbabwe. We've doubled the national debt since 2010 to nearly £2 trillion, which is now £22,000 for every single person in the United Kingdom. Yes, we've lived in an era of low interest rates, but if the Government's financial policy had been much more relaxed, then those interest rates would not have fallen as fast and as far as they did. Now, of course, there's only one way forward for interest rates, and that's up. So, we have to be ever more cautious, I think, in balancing the books, or moving towards that. George Osborne was continually pushed off to another day—Philip Hammond similarly—the day on which the budget is balanced. Now, that has implications, of course, for us here in Wales too. But for the future, looking at it in the very longer term, we want to have a tax policy in Wales that is going to encourage growth and investment. You have to create wealth before you can spend it. If you spend it before it's been created, then you end up in the same position as Mr Micawber. 

But to move to the specifics, I just want to make a couple of points. The statement says that the plan's been at the heart of the Welsh Government's work to create and sustain economic growth, but, of course, economic growth in terms of private sector businesses in Wales has been modest since the inception of the plan, and, in fact, mid and west Wales is one of the worst. I do endorse what Adam Price has said about the need to have a more equitable spread of investment throughout the country.

Wales, according to the Barclays entrepreneurs index, has the second lowest number of high-growth companies in the UK, at only 77. The number of companies receiving venture capital funding has also increased from 23 last year now to 32. The value of this investment hasn't increased; it's stable year on year at only £9 million. These are very disappointing figures.

The StatsWales figures on active business enterprises per 10,000 population show that, overall, the Wales figures have an increase of only 57 active businesses per 10,000 since 2012. And mid and west Wales figures are very much below the best areas and the Wales average overall. Mid Wales being, for these purposes, Powys and Ceredigion combined, shows an increase of only 31 active businesses per 10,000 population between 2012 and 2016. So, we need to do something to ensure, from the Welsh Government's ability to spend, that we build upon these modest successes so that we reduce the imbalances in Wales. Looking at the increases in business turnover between 2012 and 2017, again from the StatsWales figures, Wales has seen an overall increase of 13.8 per cent. Pembrokeshire has seen only a 3 per cent increase. I know you're never going to have everybody at the average throughout the whole country, obviously, and things change over time, but we should, I think, at least endeavour to ensure that there's a greater equity in the way Government is spending. I'm sure that Lee Waters will find that it grows on him the longer it gets. The other—[Interruption.]

No, you don't get much longer because you've had far more time than the other two spokespeople. So, if you could come to some questions, thank you.

Right, of course. I defer always to your authority, Deputy Presiding Officer.

I would just like to make a further plea, lastly, in relation to broadband access because, again, for mid and west Wales, of the 10 constituencies with the slowest broadband connection, seven out of 10 were in mid and west Wales. In Carmarthen East and Dinefwr and Montgomeryshire, Ceredigion and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, over 50 per cent of broadband connections are slower than 10 MB per second in 2016. I do applaud what the Welsh Government has done in this respect to improve connectivity, but I think there is a lot more that still needs to be done, and it can only be done if we can provide greater finance for it. So, I wonder if the finance Secretary could give us his reflections on those few points that I've made.

Thank you very much. Let me first of all identify a small number of points where I would not agree with what the Member has said. He said that the Welsh Government's hands are tied. Our hands are not as completely tied as they once were, very largely due to the work carried out by my predecessor, Jane Hutt, in setting off down the road of innovative ways of adding to the conventional capital that is available to us. And I tried to set some of those out in the way that we have supported borrowing that was capable of being undertaken by housing associations and local councils and in the way that we have used sources of funding outside the Welsh block. Of course, the big context is set by the block in the way that Neil Hamilton said. Let me say to him: austerity isn't an avenue, it's a dead end. That's what the continual pushing into the distance of the day when we will finally see it come to a conclusion demonstrates.

I've not argued at all, Dirprwy Lywydd, this afternoon, for infinite spending, but the clue is in the term, isn't it—'capital' investment? Capital spending is not just money poured down the drain, it is the money that we use to create the conditions in which we get a greater return as a result of the investment than we would have if we hadn't made it. And that's how we manage—and I agree with what he said here—to try and raise the tax base in Wales, to try and make sure that our economy is able to do better. What do businesses coming into Wales expect to see? They expect to see the sort of infrastructure that they know public spending will support the investment that they are willing to make. And so I don't agree with him that capital investment is somehow something that we should be sceptical about. We invest today in order to succeed tomorrow, and the success we have tomorrow more than pays back the investment that we make in order to get there.

I thank him for what he said at the end about broadband access. He's seen that there's over £30 million in today's announcement of additional investment over the next three years in broadband access. My understanding, but you'd hear much more of it from my colleague who has responsibility for it, is that that money will, in part at least, be spent in those parts of Wales where the broadband challenge is at its greatest and to enable us to accelerate the infrastructure that we need in digital technologies, again because businesses in that part of Wales—their future and their growth depends on it.

I very much welcome the statement by the Cabinet Secretary, who I'm sure agrees with me that the choice is often between austerity or growth and what austerity is doing is strangling growth in the British economy and the Welsh economy. Could I also say that it wasn't serendipity that Wales has got low PFI? It was good decisions taken by the Welsh Government at the time. They could've followed Scotland and England and built up that debt.

I'd like to put on record my personal congratulations to Jane Hutt, the person who started off this 10-year programme. I just look at the benefits it has given to my constituency: the new secondary schools, the new primary schools, the improved transport infrastructure, the new homes. That's what we try to get elected for—to improve the lives of the constituents we represent. Capital expenditure is incredibly important, not just to provide the buildings, but very much to reflate the Welsh economy. You put money in—capital expenditure—and you buy goods and you employ people and the money gets circulated inside the economy. This is something that doesn't seem to have crossed Philip Hammond's mind, because it probably doesn't appear on his spreadsheet.

It's a very important point that Adam Price raised about bonds, but the important thing about bonds is not to use them, but to have the capacity to use them to keep the Public Works Loan Board honest. Very few people—. You'll see them used—bonds—by local government bodies. Transport for London took out a very substantial bond, but very few other people have. When the Public Works Loan Board started looking at increasing interest rates, people started looking to bonds in order to push their rates down. I think it's important that we have the ability to use bonds, not necessarily because we want to use them, but because they give us power over the Public Works Loan Board, which, if we didn't have that, would be the only lender we could go to.

Can I just say I very much welcome the £60 million over three years to accelerate the creation of active travel routes to connect residential areas with key employment and educational sites and services? I'm sure that my colleague Lee Waters is going to say more about that later on. When will the split by region or local authority be available, or will local authorities have to bid, and how will those bids be decided?

Inside this money, will there be extra money available for the Swansea bay city region for transport within that region? I know we use the word 'metro' because that's the word we've got used to, but improved bus and rail links, opening additional railway stations, making it easier for people to cycle and walk within that area is really what I'm talking about in that. For relatively small sums, huge improvements can be made in terms of ensuring that cycle routes are completed, that buses and trains actually meet each other so you can get off a bus and catch a train or get off a train and catch a bus, rather than being unco-ordinated, and that buses get close to the railway stations, rather than making people walk 200 yards, or 200m in modern parlance, when it's raining.

My final question is: waste recycling collaboration, will there be money available for that, and how will that be distributed?

Well, let me begin by agreeing, as Mike Hedges predicted I would, with a point he made at the outset: the problem with austerity is that it is self-defeating. It creates the problem it claims to address, and that's why we find ourselves in the position that we do. He's absolutely right to say, of course, not using PFI was a deliberate decision by Welsh Governments in the first decade of devolution, and I well remember the criticisms that were levelled at the Welsh Government at the time for making just that decision. I think we now see the wisdom of it. Every one of us, Dirprwy Lywydd, I think, can point to the impact of capital investment during the first period of the WIIP in our own constituencies, whether that is in health or in education or in transport or in housing and the other key purposes that were identified for it.

Can I thank Mike Hedges for reminding us of the multiplier effect of capital investment? It isn't just the building that you see, or the transport link that is created, it's the supply chains that it supports, it's the jobs that are created there, it's the spending in local economies, it's that benign economic cycle that capital expenditure brings.

Dirprwy Lywydd, Mike Hedges was also right to remind us that the issuing of bonds does not extend the capital limit of the Welsh Government. It doesn't give us more money to invest, but what it does is it gives us more choices in the way that we can get to that capital limit, and were the day to come where the interest rate in the Public Works Loan Board were to rise—and the UK Government were tempted to do that, as Mike said, not that long ago—we would have somewhere else to go. That's an important lever in our hands.

I'd like to be able to answer the more detailed questions that Mike raised in relation to active travel, to the Swansea area, to waste recycling and so on, but those are things that fall to my Cabinet colleagues. They will provide the detail to Members in a series of announcements that I'm sure they will be making over the coming days.

Cabinet Secretary, can I also welcome the midpoint review of the Wales infrastructure investment plan, which I did launch, as you stated, in 2012? We developed the plan to ensure that Welsh Government decisions on capital investment are made in accordance with agreed Wales-wide strategic Welsh Government priorities. Can I welcome the £9 billion invested as a result of the WIIP, including that pipeline of the wider public sector and private sector investment in terms of profiles and planning, and welcome the fact that that has been in accordance with the five-case business model that has underpinned the efficiency, maintenance and management of the plan?

Thus, two questions from me: in terms of the innovative finance schemes you are progressing, can you update us on the current and post-Brexit access to loans from the European Investment Bank? The bank has played a key role in infrastructure investment in Wales, including the private as well as the public sector, with the landmark Swansea University second campus as a clear example—of course, also backed by Welsh Government and European regional development funding. Will we be able to continue to access European Investment Bank funding? Can you also confirm that the European structural funds—and you highlight the £720 million that is being used for capital investment in Wales in this programme—will be fully drawn down in this programme timeline, and for what key purposes? Can I thank you for opening the Llantwit Major Comprehensive School learning campus, which, of course, was as a result of the twenty-first century schools investment programme, funded in partnership with the Vale of Glamorgan Council?

Just finally, Mike Hedges and you in your response to him, talked about the wider impact on the economy. The impact today on the construction sector is crucial, and it would be helpful to know if you can identify the jobs that will be created. We have shown in Wales that we can be innovative and we can, in fact, challenge austerity through innovation and careful management and prioritisation of our resources.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. First of all, can I say to Jane Hutt that the Llantwit Major learning campus is an absolutely excellent example of what I said about how all our constituencies have flagship places that we can point to that are there because of the work that the WIIP set in motion?

The Member made a very important point about the construction sector. I attended an event at Coleg y Cymoedd yesterday, in which I was able to meet several groups of young people—I was very pleased to see a number of young women amongst them—who are following courses in engineering and in the railway industry, making sure that they have the skills that are needed for the construction sector in the future, and to hear from the Institution of Civil Engineers, for example, just how important the WIIP has been to them in allowing them and their Members to plan ahead for capital investment that they know is here in Wales.

Two specific questions from Jane. Firstly, in relation to the European Investment Bank, we have argued from the beginning that the UK should aim to remain a subscribing partner of the bank. We are a major capital holder within the bank, and of course Wales has benefited from it. The European Union UK phase 1 report on the negotiations says that there is a prospect of what is called a 'continuing arrangement' between the UK and the EIB. I have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the basis of that report, to press on him the point that we clearly see merit in a mutually beneficial relationship with the bank, and making a number of technical suggestions to him, based on our experience as to how an ongoing relationship with the EIB could be secured.

As to structural funds, we continue to operate within the Chancellor's guarantee, which sets a limit of 2019 for us to commit all structural funds available to us during the current round. I remain hopeful, Dirprwy Lywydd, if not optimistic, that that transition arrangement, which is part of the first phase 1 deal, once it is confirmed, that that will mean we are able to use structural funds in the current round on the basis of business as usual. That is to say that they will go to the end of the seven-year period, and two years beyond that, so that we are able to make even better use of the resources that are available to us.

Thank you. Finally, Lee Waters.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Cabinet Secretary, I rise to praise the Government. I warmly welcome the announcement of £20 million a year for active travel investment. Having been the first Government in the world to set out a statutory requirement for long-term planning to get walking and cycling to be a more commonly used, everyday option, I think it's right that the resource is now beginning to be put in place—not least because this is a cross-cutting benefit, not only tackling public health but climate change and congestion too.

There are a number of questions I have, but as you rightly remind us, the details are for the relevant Cabinet Secretaries. A question for you, perhaps, is if you can help point us, in the future, to the total amount of investment the Government now makes in walking and cycling schemes. It is quite difficult to disentangle the various different funding streams, and I think it would be helpful, given the scale of this announcement, to have a global figure, which would allow us to compare our spending with other countries. And also, you mentioned that the £60 million is to connect residential areas. As the Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for planning is also present, I thought I'd take the opportunity just to underline the importance of getting the maximum benefit from this investment. It can't be just a matter of Welsh Government giving grants for new infrastructure. We must ensure that when new developments take place, that is hardwired into the design. So, the new 'Planning Policy Wales' iteration that's out to consultation must include, not as desirable but as an essential requirement, that active travel routes are included within planning policy. So, I would encourage you to have conversations with your Cabinet colleagues to make sure that we get the most out of the investment that you've announced, which I very warmly welcome.

Dirprwy Lywydd, thank you to Lee Waters for those points. I said, in my statement, that one of the key principles that links nearly all of the investments I've announced today is the contribution that I want to see them making to the efforts being made by Lesley Griffiths to reduce carbon emissions right across the Welsh Government. The money going to active travel will certainly help to do that. It will improve air quality, it will build physical activity into people's daily lives, it will provide those wider health benefits, and it is designed, as I said, to connect residential areas with key employment, educational sites and other places where people have to go in order to carry out their daily lives. So, other Government Members will have heard what Lee Waters has said about making the very most of the additional investment and, of course, I agree with him there. I don't have a figure immediately in front of me that would draw together the total amount of investment that the Welsh Government is now making in walking and cycling and other active travel initiatives, but I'm very happy to commission that, and I'll write to the Member with a figure that he can then rely upon.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.

Item 4 on the agenda is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs on the national development framework. I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Lesley Griffiths.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Creating sustainable places where people can lead active and healthy lives and be proud to say where they come from is a priority of the Welsh Government. The planning system plays a central role in delivering these places, and the process by which we do it is place making. There are many components to successful place making. The Government must play a part in this by providing leadership and putting in place a policy framework for the planning system that has place making at its core.

Last February, I launched, for consultation, a new version of our national planning policy, 'Planning Policy Wales'. The document expressly recognises the multifaceted nature of the well-being goals and ways of working under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The revised version of PPW seeks to put sustainable place making at the centre of our national planning policy. To complement PPW and enhance place making, yesterday I issued for consultation the preferred option for the national development framework. This is the first formal outward-facing stage in the preparation of the NDF, which will replace the Wales spatial plan. Unlike the Wales spatial plan, the NDF will have development plan status.

The NDF will play an important role in the delivery of the Government’s national strategy 'Prosperity for All', which, in turn, recognises the role of the NDF and the need to co-ordinate the planning of new homes, facilities and infrastructure by local authorities, health boards, housing associations and other key partners. The NDF will have a 20-year time horizon and will sit at the top of the hierarchy of development plans in Wales. Beneath it will sit strategic development plans and local development plans, and the legislative provisions require any plans beneath the NDF to conform to it. This represents a very powerful mechanism for shaping the planning system in Wales, and it is essential that local development plans are prepared and reviewed in a timely way if we are to give effect to our place making ambitions.

The preferred option is the product of considerable stakeholder engagement, testing and challenge, and reflects the structure of the draft PPW. Taken together, PPW and the NDF strengthen the role of place making in the planning system. We must turn away from thinking of the important issues of the day, such as housing, transport, health and energy as discreet issues, and recognise their combined impacts on places. It is time to re-energise the planning system and local planning authorities to deliver sustainable places for future generations.

The consultation on the preferred option for the NDF closes on 23 July. I encourage everyone with an interest in the long-term development of Wales and the creation of sustainable places to make their opinions known by responding to both consultations on PPW and the NDF. Thank you. 

Can I welcome the announcement today? One of the disadvantages—and, Deputy Presiding Officer, you'll share fully in this—of first being elected in 1999 is that we remember going around this race course in the first place, and the spatial plan was regarded as being highly innovative, ground-breaking indeed, a 20-year vision, integration across the main public policy areas so that they're not viewed as discreet entities, regional planning as a new concept that was going to give relevance to the planning cycle. That was published in 2004. And I cannot tell you how much it dominated the first Assembly, this whole concept of thinking spatially. We updated the plan in 2008 and then you did a further update in 2013. And, about half way through this whole process, in 2009, the chair of the north Wales economic forum heavily criticised the plan saying that it was good in theory but it was very difficult to actually see what it delivered. I think that's a very broad criticism and it's not entirely fair, but I think it does sum up some of the frustrations. 

Can I just ask some very specific questions? When will the draft national development framework be laid before the Assembly for its consideration, because there is a danger that it'll come to us very late, in the sort of late evening of this Assembly term? I just wonder if you have anything further to tell us on that. And what then have you learned from the Wales spatial plan? What is being preserved in that concept, and what is now being ditched as not being effective? And I notice that, obviously, its statutory significance, in that local development plans have to refer to it, is a big change. 

I'd like to know how the national/regional significance divide will be defined. I think that's part of the problem at this level of planning. And will your regions be the same six sub-regions in the Wales spatial plan—with slightly blurred boundaries, it has to be said—or have you come up with a different way of doing this? When will local development plans have to show that they are compliant with the NDF? It could be a long time, I think, before that happens, given the length of time this is going to take to get through the system. And how will the strategic development plans, the regional plans, work alongside city deals? I think these are some very important questions. 

And then, on housing, I know we'll have some further detail possibly this afternoon, but you do say that you are now going to have regional housing projections, and I just wonder how that will fit alongside the revised projections that were produced in 2015, but not taken up—the Holmans alternative projection. And how will that current review in developing regional housing projections fit in with the recent announcement on the affordable housing supply review that is now going on?

However, it's important we get this right. Obviously, we have new legislation in this area, and I think it's important that we strive to get an integrated, coherent planning system. But, on reflecting on one of the major initiatives in the early stages of devolution, spatial planning, it doesn't seem to me to have been a stunning success. 

Cabinet Secretary.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you, David Melding, for your observations and your questions. I think the Wales spatial plan—. I wasn't here in 1999, but I think it was very innovative, but it did have limited influence, and it didn't have the statutory weight to be able to influence decisions in the way that the national development framework will do. It also had, I think, very limited national strategic spatial prioritisation, and I think it lacked that national overview that I think we desperately need. So, that's what, certainly, I've learned from looking at how the Wales spatial plan developed. So, the statutory development plan—and you referred to this in your comments; the statutory development plan status of the NDF will ensure that it can set the direction to lower-tier development plans and then influence that decision making.

You asked about the timeline. We'll be out to consultation next year. This is the first stage of this process. It's very technical, but nothing's been written; there is no content yet. There's been a huge amount of stakeholder work that has been undertaken by my officials—I think they've spoken to about 200 different stakeholders over the past year to get to this stage, but this is really the first stage of preparing. So, next year, 2019, we'll go out to consultation. That's when, obviously, there will be scrutiny, and a plan will be in place in 2020.

You asked about city deals and growth areas and about LDPs and SDPs, and I've made it very clear to local authorities they have to have LDPs in place. We are trying to get them to work at a strategic development level as well. It is meeting with a little resistance, shall I say. Next week—I think it's next week—I'm meeting with all the lead members of planning, where we will be able to discuss this further. The planning system is very complex, and I think we need to get some simplification of it, if you like. And one of the ways of bringing all these different tiers together, and it's why I went out to consultation with PPW—. And also, in my own portfolio, I have energy policies, which sometimes clash with planning. So, I think it's really important that we get everything right, and the NDF will help us in that way too.

So, the planning system will obviously play a crucial role in delivering the Cardiff and Swansea city deals—the proposed north Wales and mid Wales growth deals also, if those bids are approved—by setting out our strategic spatial policies on housing, on employment, on transport, on education, on digital infrastructure, on tourism. And I have had conversations with all my Cabinet Secretary colleagues ahead of this stage also.

In relation to housing, I've also met with the Minister for Housing and Regeneration. What I want the NDF to do is to provide strategic direction for housing, again linked to connectivity infrastructure; I think it's very important that that happens around key facilities, and also where there are areas of growth, so we have that very clear focus on place making. I do think there is an opportunity for the NDF to identify a national policy-based population and housing projection. That could include an all-Wales range of housing numbers for a planned period. It's something that Scotland are looking at, and I'll be very happy to learn from them.

Thank you for the statement. The national development framework will set the national strategy for planning for the next 20 years, as you note. So, it is very important that the Welsh Government consults as much as possible to ensure that the right objectives are set and that the right strategy is in place to deliver the framework. Of course, the strategic development plans and the local development plans will have to dovetail with the framework, and that's another reason for having a thorough consultation in rural areas as well as in urban areas, and with different demographic groups in Wales.

I think it's also very important on this point that the people of Wales—and the local authorities, if truth be told—understand what the purpose of the national development framework is and its relationship with the two layers underneath it. Now, it looks like something completely technical and boring on the surface, but I think it's important that people do understand that this does set out the framework for development for such a long period of time, and that they have to be part of that process. So, I think that having a clear explanation of what the purpose of this is, right at the beginning, would be very beneficial.

I agree with David Melding that we do need to learn lessons from the spatial plan for Wales. I wasn't here in 1999 either, but I do remember that period, and I remember that it was very unpopular, that it caused a great deal of ill-feeling and opposition. So, I hope that this framework won't suffer the same fate and follow the same direction. So, could you give assurance that this consultation will be a genuine consultation and not just a tick-box exercise where the final decision and the favoured option is already decided—that that's not what we'll end up with?

Now, the document does mention providing

'direction for the three regions across Wales—North Wales, Mid & South West Wales and South East Wales.'

Who says that those are the three regions that we have in Wales? The framework also mentions focusing on strategic housing, providing connective infrastructure in the city deal and growth deal areas and support for rural areas as well. I don't understand entirely what that's supposed to mean. Is the intention to compel local authorities to work on matters that have been decided by the Welsh Government within regions that are set out and directed by the United Kingdom Government—the city regions and so on, which are currently being emulated by the Welsh Government?

Turning to the issue of the Welsh language, of course the lack of affordable housing is a particular problem in several communities, while other communities feel that housing has been built in the wrong place, without the facilities and services that are needed for the growth in population. The major challenge that Wales will face over the next 20 years, of course, is developing the Welsh language and ensuring that it flourishes, and the planning system does have a part to play in that objective of reaching a million Welsh speakers.

This potential for the planning system won't be achieved if the Welsh Government doesn't provide strong leadership and robust leadership in this area. I would suggest at the beginning that we need reform and strengthening of technical advice note 20, which contradicts the Planning (Wales) Act 2015. We've had this discussion before, but I'm sticking to my guns and I very much hope this will give us an opportunity to have that discussion again.

Now, there is an opportunity with the framework for the Welsh Government to give clear leadership to local authorities with regard to linguistic planning. So, my final question is: will you provide certainty that the national development framework will include a clear statement and an unequivocal statement about the importance of the Welsh language in planning how to use land? Thank you.

Diolch, Siân Gwenllian. I can absolutely reassure you that it is a genuine consultation. As I said in my answer to David Melding, not a word has been written yet. This is really the start of the process, even though there has been huge consultation with stakeholders by my officials over the past year. I think I mentioned about 200 stakeholders and that includes all local authorities—you referred to local authorities—health boards, public services boards. But the real hard work starts now. And it is very technical and, because it isn't something tangible, it is hard to ensure that people do understand just what an important document this is and what it is intended to do. 

It will be a national land use development plan. You know that I'm out to consultation at the moment on the draft marine plan. So, that's obviously for the water and the sea. This is an equivalent for the land and, as I've mentioned, it will replace the existing Wales spatial plan and it will set out the 20-year spatial framework for land use in Wales. So, it is a context for new infrastructure, it's also for growth at national, at regional and local levels also. 

You asked about rural communities and, again, how I envisage the NDF working is it will support living and working in rural places to make sure that they're economically and socially and environmentally sustainable and vibrant. The policies within it will provide a framework for rural housing, for instance, which you referred to, but also services, facilities—including health and education—and employment and connectivity. That's to make sure that our rural communities retain and attract people and obviously help deliver a much more prosperous and sustainable rural Wales.

You asked specific questions around the Welsh language. We are under a duty to consider the impacts of the NDF on the language and we're doing that as part of the integrated assessment process. Planning can obviously create conditions whereby the language is allowed to thrive and that's providing opportunities for new jobs and for housing and community facilities. So, I believe the NDF can indirectly help us reach that target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050, which we want to do, by promoting developments in the right places.

In relation to local authorities, I mentioned that officials have been in discussions with local authorities so that they do understand where the LDPs and the SDPs fit in. I think what the NDF gives us is a better means of showing the major development priorities for Wales, and that's ensuring also that the planning system is aligned. So, I want to work with local authorities and developers to show where our priorities are, but also to help them reach difficult decisions more quickly. Because you'll be aware that sometimes things land up on my desk and I think that that will help them before they get to that situation—that will help them. So, what the NDF will do is sit, if you like, at the top of a pyramid of development plans, with strategic development plans for the regional level and the local development plans at the local authority scale. It's hugely important that the three work well together. We want to avoid duplication, for instance. The NDF will focus on the national matters, if you like—the matters that affect that large part of Wales—but the strategic and local development plans will remain responsible for the detail and for identifying sites for different types of development.

I thank the Minister for today's statement. We're talking today about plans and planning and, as the Minister just outlined a moment ago, we seem to be heading towards broadly three types of plan: local development plans at the bottom, a national development framework at the top, and strategic development plans in the middle.

We have had issues of public contention over LDPs in recent years, with councils feeling that, in some cases, their hands were tied in having to proceed with LDPs that were not always universally popular with some, or large portions, of their electorate. So, I think one of the problems, or one of the issues, or, to use a popular phrase in Government, one of the challenges that you're going to have going forward is: how do you retain democratic consent for a major overhaul of planning, involving decisions taken at regional and even national levels? That may be the main challenge that you have, going forward, because if we've had a problem at a fairly localised level with LDPs, how do we ensure that we don't actually magnify these problems, going forward, with larger-scale planning like the SDPs and the NDF as a whole? So, I suppose my first question is: broadly, how will you ensure that you retain a large measure of democratic consent to these kinds of proposals? It's going to come down a lot to the structure of what you set up.

David Melding, who spoke first, gave us what I found a very interesting historical look at what was attempted in the first Assembly term with the spatial plan, which, I must confess, I wasn't much aware of. I don't remember it being a matter of massive newspaper talk at the time, but perhaps my memory fails me. But, obviously, it was a major development of the Government in the first term, which didn't really work. So, now we are where we are with a new scheme. So, how will you learn from the lessons of the spatial plan? I wonder what lessons you take yourself, Minister, from the relative failure of the spatial plan and how we can ensure that this plan will not replicate those failures. 

I think there are problems, and I'm hopeful that this will be broadly a success, but I can see issues, going forward, because you also have a local government reorganisation, which is still in the mix, which your colleague sat two doors down from you is in charge of. Obviously, there's a separation between you as the planning Minister and him as the local government Minister, and that can sometimes cause problems. You're obviously going to have to work closely together on this to ensure this is a success. I wonder how these things are going to dovetail. At the same time, we've also got the city deals coming in, the growth deals, so I hope this all doesn't become very messy and I hope that you can retain between the two of you, and the housing Minister as well, a broad measure of control over this. So, I wonder broadly what your thoughts are on those points.

One issue that I did particularly want to ask about was the SDPs. I know you stated that these are going to be statutory—sorry, the NDF will be statutory. So, this will influence, is bound to influence, decisions taken at the lower tiers. I'm just slightly puzzled as to who actually takes the decisions with the SDPs. It seems to be the local authorities together. You said you were trying to get them to work together at a strategic level. How does that work with your statutory powers? How will that actually work in practice? Will they be working at the same level as the city deals? Will it be the city regions that actually take the decisions over the SDPs, or will it be some other conglomeration of different local authorities? Diolch yn fawr.

I thank Gareth Bennett for his comments and questions. I think I need to reassure—. Well, I've ensured my officials have reassured local planning authorities, and I'm very happy to reassure members that the NDF isn't some kind of power grab or a bypass for good, effective local decision making. If we think about it, over 25,000 planning applications are dealt with by local planning authorities each year, and only a handful are taken by Welsh Ministers. That won't change as a result of the NDF. What the NDF gives us is a better means of showing the major development priorities for Wales and ensuring that that planning system is aligned. You're absolutely right; you heard me in my answer to Siân Gwenllian that the NDF will sit at the top of a pyramid of development plans and the SDPs and the LDPs will be underneath at a regional and local authority level. 

Local authorities have already played a very significant part in reaching this very early consultation stage. They've been very involved with early engagement. However, I do think there is much more we can do with them. I have an offer on the table to all local authorities to work with us as we gather our evidence now ahead of bringing forward the draft NDF. I will continue to seek the views of local authorities, but of course there is an onus on them to play a very full and active role. I've also made it very clear that the NDF is not an excuse to delay any work on local development plans or the review of LDPs that is currently taking place by all the planning authorities. There won't be any surprises in terms of the content of the NDF, because we expect them to work with us in preparing it. 

You referred to the Wales spatial plan, which you didn't know about, being a failure. I wouldn't go as far as to say that, but I will go—. I think David Melding referred to the sort of enthusiasm that the first Wales spatial plan was greeted with, and I think it's absolutely fair to say that it didn't deliver the meaningful change that the first Government wanted. 

You asked me what lessons we've learned and I think the big lesson that I've personally learned, and clearly officials have learned, is that because it didn't have that framework and that status of being a development plan, it didn't have the teeth, if you like, to bring forward that meaningful change. So, that's why we've given that status to the NDF, because I don't want it just to become some sort of glossy document that sits on the shelf and it doesn't have the teeth to drive that change that we want to see.

I work closely with all my Cabinet Secretary and ministerial colleagues. I mentioned that I've met them all before we've even got to this stage to see what their priorities are. It's very much a cross-Government document. We don't work in silos. We work very closely together, and I referred to what work I've been doing with my colleague the Minister for Housing and Regeneration. The Cabinet Secretary for Local Government, as you say, is initiating work around reform. This will dovetail with it. Obviously, we've got 25 local planning authorities with the 22 local authorities and, clearly, in the work that Alun Davies is taking forward, I will work very closely with him on that. 

I strongly support the principle of a national development plan and a strategic development plan sitting above the local development plans. I think that we too often look at areas in isolation, and for those who know the area near where I live, you have Parc Trostre and you have Fforestfach retail park, which are both three or four miles apart. They have an effect on each other, but they're dealt with by different planning authorities, and under any changes anybody's put forward in recent times, it would still be under different planning authorities. We've seen the development of a second campus in Swansea, which I think has been a tremendous building, but it actually has a much bigger effect on Swansea than it does on Neath Port Talbot, the council which by serendipity it appears in. It was a bit of land that nobody used, and they followed a stream down to get a boundary. So, I think it is really important that we do end up having a strategic overview. 

Can I go back to before the spatial plan? The spatial plan only replaced the old county plans. The county plans existed and they designated areas within a county for different usages. It's quite interesting that the county plans disappeared, because the counties' planning departments disappeared, because somebody decided that if there was a planning department in a district and a planning department in the county, there must be some form of overlap there where you can bring efficiency in by merging them. People have always wanted to merge things to bring efficiencies in; one day it will work. And we found out then that the county plans disappeared, so you didn't have a county development plan, which was very useful. I think that we do need overall development plans, because people are always affected by the area next to them, and that's not solved by the boundaries of Wales or the boundaries of council areas, however big you make them, or by the boundaries of the city regions. 

I've got two real questions. Will you be looking to designate land for forestry? One of the great failures over the last few years is that the amount of afforestation that should have taken place in Wales hasn't. Many people in this room are very keen on increasing the amount of forestry in Wales. Will you be designating areas, like the county plans used to designate areas for minerals and areas for forestry? Will that be in there so that you can have areas designated, so that we can actually have enough land available for afforestation to actually meet our plans? 

The second question is: we've now got a marine plan separate to the national development plan—why? I've come to the conclusion that the sea at every point meets land. And I'm also of the view that ports, for example, have an effect on marine; at least part of them is on land and part of them is at sea. Surely, one unitary plan covering marine and land would be better than having two plans, because I'm sure somebody in the future will be wanting to join them.        

Thank you, Mike Hedges, for those questions. I'll take the second one first. I think that's actually a very good point as to why we did separate plans, and I suppose when I came into the portfolio exactly two years ago I was very conscious of the fact that we didn't have any strategic view of our marine—our seas and our waters—and it was becoming more and more of an issue, and I was very keen to get the marine plan up and running. As it was, it took me just over a year. If I'd have waited for the NDF as well—and, obviously, the NDF isn't going to come until 2020—that would have prolonged it, but I think it is very important that they do dovetail very much together. 

In relation to your question around forestry, certainly, I absolutely agree with you that we're not planting as many trees as we would all wish to, and clearly that's a piece of work that my colleague the Minister for Environment is taking forward. I think what the NDF has the potential to do is aid the delivery of the natural resources policy that we've brought forward. I think there's potential for all three of the NRP's priorities to be supported by the NDF. Obviously, the planning system has a key role to play in helping to reverse the decline of biodiversity, for instance. So, we can certainly look as to whether we designate areas for forestry and, again, I mentioned that is absolutely a blank piece of paper at the moment. So, we can certainly see what responses come in from the consultation, but I do think that that is an area that we can look at going forward.

Thank you for the statement, Minister. I just want to focus on one aspect of it, and that's energy. The statement, rather than the consultation, makes it clear that energy is at the heart of the place making, as you suggested. Specifically, there's a great deal of talk in the consultation, in the paper, of renewable energy, which is in the Welsh Government's hands, of course. But it's also true to say that there are major energy developments beyond renewable energy that can affect communities. You think of the Aberthaw power station, for example. The climate change committee heard evidence just last week that the closure of that power station, which is in the pipeline from the Westminster Government, is crucially important for the Welsh Government's climate change targets. We've just seen a planning application for the reopening of the coal mine in Aberpergwm, which raises questions as to how energy developments of this kind fit in with the other concept that you espouse, because the purpose of any national strategic plan is to deliver on the ground what you have within national policy; that its purpose. So, when you talk in the consultation about nationally important energy projects, can you just tell us today whether the 'national' there is referring to Wales or the UK? I only use 'national' in reference to Wales, of course, but I occasionally see it being used in the context of the UK. So, it's just so that we can understand that fully, so that we can be clear about that.

Secondly, as has been mentioned already, your alternative choice in this consultation talks about three regions in Wales, which means that mid Wales goes with the south-west of Wales. But, of course, we do have four regions to all intents and purposes with the ambition region in north Wales, the Ceredigion and Powys growth area, and then the two city regions in the south. As you perhaps know, yesterday, there was a conference held in the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, looking at energy in Swansea bay city region—it was held by the Institute of Welsh Affairs—and one of the things that was discussed and indeed was recommended in that conference was that there should be energy and renewable energy targets at a regional level in Wales. That is, in order to reach your national targets, as set out in this consultation, you will also need regional targets, because different regions may perform better than others in terms of renewable energy—mid Wales makes a significant contribution in terms of wind turbines, for example. So, related to this idea of three regions, are you wedded to that, and, as a result, will you be introducing renewable energy targets on a regional basis?

Thank you. In relation to the word 'national', I too am talking about Wales when I refer to the NDF. I think getting our energy policy and our planning policy aligned and correct is very important. I mentioned a clash of policies at times, and I'm having to look at a planning application for renewable energy, say wind turbines, and because it sits outside an area—you know, the planning policy—there is that clash. You mentioned another one that's just come before me. So, I think it's really important that we do align our policies, and that's one of the reasons for going out on 'Planning Policy Wales' in order that we are able to reach the targets that I set for renewable energy and the types of energy back in December.

In relation to the regions, no I'm not wedded to these, and I think this is an area that we can look at over this period now when we're looking at the preferred option and setting the scene, if you like, ahead of the draft NDF coming out next year. Looking at whether we should have regional targets for energy is something that we can look at. I think the most important thing is that the NDF supports our decarbonisation aims and helps us build resilience to the impacts of climate change. I think that's something that I would want it, obviously, to do.

If we're going to achieve our strategic decarbonisation goals, I think that has to be a central goal of the NDF, and that includes, obviously, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent by 2050. So, what I want the NDF to do is support the delivery of our targets through policies that then support generation through a range of technology, and also provide a framework for the delivery of local energy generation also.

You mentioned major energy infrastructure, and, again, I think it gives us an excellent opportunity—the NDF—to spatially express our very positive planning policies on energy infrastructure in order, again, that we can meet our climate change obligations and also our renewable energy targets. My officials are currently examining opportunities to map the potential for new large-scale renewable energy infrastructure across Wales. And, again, placing those in planning policy I think will enable us to show real leadership where we consider the developments are best placed.

I'm very pleased, and I very much welcome the hardwiring of the well-being goals and the ways of working of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 into the planning policy for Wales, and into the national development framework. In the light of that, I wonder if you can say a little bit more about its development plan status and whether it enables you to do some of the following. For example, does it enable you to make it clear that out-of-town shopping centres will not be welcomed in the future because of the damage they do to place making in city centres or town centres? Does it enable you to insist that significant new housing developments will only take place where there is also decent public transport links, as it's impossible for us to meet our climate change obligations unless we control development to areas that are properly connected? Does it enable us, for example, to repeal the Land Compensation Act 1961, which is one of the main barriers to the development of new land for housing where there is housing need, as it enables people to hold on to land in the hope that at some future date it might become considerably more valuable than it is in its current status? So, I'd be keen to understand a little bit more about what levers this new national development framework gives you to really deliver on the well-being of future generations Act's aims.

Thank you, Jenny Rathbone. You're absolutely right—I think the ways of working in relation to the well-being of future generations Act have been absolutely integral to the development of the NDF, even during the work that we've undertaken to date, but absolutely for the work ahead. We've really considered how the ways of working shape what we do and how they can help us achieve the sustainable development that we want to see. They've also been used to inform the review of the evidence and identify issues, and also to look at the structure of the assessment framework. It's obviously a requirement of several pieces of legislation that we do undertake a variety of assessments in relation to the NDF. So, we have really sought to integrate the approach already at the assessment process.

You ask about specific points, and I think you're absolutely right—it's vitally important that when we're looking at where housing developments are going to be placed, for instance, that there is the public transport around it. When I've had discussions with my Cabinet colleagues and ministerial colleagues ahead of this, it's been something they're looking at. So, for instance, when I was talking to Kirsty Williams, if she was looking to put a new tertiary college somewhere, it would be important to look at what surrounds that—whether the housing is there, whether the public transport is there. So, absolutely, that will be part of this.

You ask me about the 1961 compensation Act—I'm afraid I don't have the answer to that question, but I'll certainly be happy to send a note to the Member.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.

The next item is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services on Powys County Council—an update on support under the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009. I call on the Cabinet Secretary, Alun Davies.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. Following a critical inspection by Care Inspectorate Wales of Powys County Council’s children’s services, my colleague Rebecca Evans, the then Minister for Social Services and Public Health, issued a warning notice to the council under Part 8 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. On 16 April, my colleague Huw Irranca-Davies, Minister for Children and Social Care, provided an update on progress on the actions arising from the warning notice.

Earlier today, Care Inspectorate Wales published their report of their inspection of Powys’s adult services. The inspection highlights areas of significant concern for Powys to address. It was clear in the previous report on children’s services and in today’s report on adults’ services that improvement in the authority as a whole is necessary to enable improvement in social services.

In November last year I received a request for formal support from Powys’s leader, Councillor Rosemarie Harris. I subsequently exercised my powers under the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2009 to provide Powys with a comprehensive package of support to assist with corporate improvement. This was developed in partnership with Powys County Council and the Welsh Local Government Association.

In December 2017 I appointed Sean Harriss, an experienced and well-respected local authority chief executive, to carry out a rapid review of the council. I tasked him to scope the main challenges facing the council and to provide a report setting out his findings and the steps required to address them. His report, 'Review of Leadership, Governance, Strategy and Capacity', was published in February 2018, and I provided an update to the Members on his key findings. The report highlighted that the council had made progress but still faced significant challenges in strengthening its corporate leadership and capacity. The report also stressed that those challenges could be overcome with, and I quote, an 'increased capacity and capability in the local authority coupled with an enhanced and intense package of sector led improvement’.

To ensure continuity and consistency, I asked Sean Harriss to continue his work with Powys County Council and oversee a second phase of support. He has provided them with support in the following key areas: performance and quality, vision, organisational change, and, finally, strengthening the budget position.  

We met again, yesterday, and he provided an update on progress at the end of his second phase of work. His assessment was that progress is evident, but significant challenges remain, and enhanced corporate leadership capacity is necessary to deliver and sustain the level of change required. This requirement was reflected in his February report, which recommended the appointment of an experienced interim chief executive with a proven track record of transformational change.

Powys council has been following up this recommendation and I would like to congratulate Mohammed Mehmet, previously chief executive of Denbighshire County Council, on his appointment as the interim chief executive of Powys County Council. His track record in Denbighshire speaks for itself, having led the council through a period of significant challenge to being one of the best performing authorities in Wales. With the appointment of a new acting chief executive, Mr Harriss’s time and work with Powys will now draw to a close. I would like to thank him for his work with the council, but also, Deputy Presiding Officer, I would like to recognise the work of David Powell, the interim chief executive, and also the positive way in which the council, its staff and members have responded to these challenges.

The leader of the council and the new acting chief executive will be supported by the new improvement and assurance board, which has been established with a broader remit and replaces the former social services improvement board. I am pleased to say that Jack Straw, who chaired the social services improvement board, is continuing as chair. 

The Welsh Government and Powys County Council have appointed Bozena Allen, a former director of social services, to the role of the social services external member, and Jaki Salisbury, a former chief executive and director of finance, to the corporate role on the board. They will provide support, challenge and guidance to the council. They are experts in their field, with a proven track record of successfully implementing and leading organisations during periods of transformational change. The board held its first meeting on Wednesday, 25 April, and the board will provide regular updates on progress and will advise on where further sector-led or Welsh Government support is required.     

Deputy Presiding Officer, I believe the actions for the council are clear. They must deliver the social services improvement plan they have in place for children’s services and ensure a similar plan is delivered for adult services. They must also follow through on the recommendations in Sean Harriss’s review of leadership, governance, strategy and capacity. I will expect the council to implement an up-to-date, robust and sustainable medium-term financial strategy that prioritises its spending in key services and can deliver the package of measures needed to transform the council. I have provided some investment to assist with this.

I have met the leader of the council today, and she has assured me of her commitment to driving through progress and ensuring Powys County Council is able to offer the same high-quality services that people have a right to expect. The Minister for social services also joined us in that meeting. Both I and my colleague the Minister for Children and Social Care will continue to update Members on progress. Thank you.  

Diolch. Russell George.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement this afternoon? Can I also thank and put on record my thanks to Huw Irranca-Davies and his predecessor Rebecca Evans for being very open to providing briefings for relevant Members and keeping us updated, following the inspection of Powys children's services? Also, I appreciate the Cabinet Secretary's offer, as well, to meet for a briefing. I appreciate that. It's also encouraging, I think, that Powys County Council themselves have provided the opportunity for briefings for Assembly Members with regard to the recent issues.

I am pleased to learn that the actions seem to already be taking place by the local authority to implement the recommendations, and that the leadership of the council seem to be positively taking forward the recommendations in a transparent and positive way.

You stated, Cabinet Secretary, or you started your statement, by referring to the Care Inspectorate Wales report published today, which highlights areas of significant concern for Powys to address with regard to adult services. I was pleased, looking at that, that it does highlight the fact that the morale of staff has been boosted now. That wasn't the case some time ago, so I think that's positive. Can I ask you: how are you going to measure the improvements that the local authority are required to make? Ultimately, improved outcomes will determine, of course, whether adult services are sufficient enough to no longer need such a high level of intervention from Welsh Government. So, could you outline some specific targets for improvements and clarify what work is currently being undertaken with Powys to develop these?

The report published today also repeatedly highlights the fact that the workforce delivering adult services has a high sickness and absence rate, high turnover and inconsistent levels of supervision. So, I wonder what role the Welsh Government will play in establishing a workforce strategy that is able to build strength in the workforce and deliver a timely, informed and effective service.

You have congratulated Mohammed Mehmet on his appointment as the interim chief executive. It's my understanding he's the acting chief executive, rather than the interim—if you could clarify that. But I have picked up myself very positive feedback on his appointment. You referred, yourself, to his track record in your statement. Are you confident that the new chief exec or the acting chief exec is the correct appointment? It perhaps would be useful to know, as well, what the recruitment process is—what Welsh Government's role is in that recruitment process.

Finally, do you recognise that, in order to build capacity and to ensure that these improvements are lasting, that stability to the political landscape is important? Therefore, do you agree with me that the proposals in the Green Paper on the local government reform to preserve Powys as a single local authority on the same footprint as the health board contributes to the stability and gives that best possible chance for lasting improvements to be made?

I'd like to thank the Conservative spokesperson for his kind words at the beginning of his contribution, and also on his ingenuity at engineering local government reform into the final contribution of that speech.

I'll start, perhaps, most easily, by answering some of your final questions first. The Welsh Government does not have a role in appointing the chief executive of Powys or any other authority. It's a matter for the authority to take those decisions. Clearly, the Welsh Government stands ready to assist and to support, but it is right and proper that the local government itself takes these decisions. The appointment of Mohammed Mehmet was made by Powys County Council, in line with their procedures, and I welcome the appointment. I have absolute confidence in him and his ability to lead the professional workforce in Powys County Council and to deliver the professional leadership that is required in order to restore the council to where we all wish it to be in the future.

In terms of the role of Welsh Government, the Conservative spokesperson has, Deputy Presiding Officer, asked a number of questions that refer to the potential role of the Welsh Government, in terms of workforce strategy and delivering against a series of interventions. Let me say this: I think one of the positives, looking at the interventions that have been delivered to Powys and with the support of Powys, has been that this has been very much led by people who have experience of and are rooted in the delivery of social services and also local government. This is local government sustaining and supporting local government. I hope that we will be able to put in place, over the next few years, more structures that will enable local government to sustain and support local government services.

I hope the days of interventions from Welsh Government will soon be at an end, in fact. I hope that we will be able to put in place structures and means and processes by which local government will be taking responsibility for the improvement of services delivered to and by and for local government. That is how it should be. It's right and proper that local government has those structures in place and, certainly, Welsh Government will seek to do all it can to provide the help and support required to reach that point.

The Conservative Member has asked a number of questions on how we will measure improvements and the high level of intervention required in order to deliver on our targets and objectives. I will say to him that I expect the improvement board to publish its objectives and to publish its work streams in due course, and we will all be able to hold the improvement board to account for how it achieves and delivers on those ambitions.

But let me also say this: like him, I've read the report on adult services, which was published at lunch time today. We see the failings there. We recognise the failings, but we also recognise what has been said about the service delivery there. The point that was made by Russell George in his contribution, about staff and workforce morale, I believe, is absolutely central to everything else we're seeking to achieve here. We are putting in place the structures and the people who can help ensure that we have the technical skills and the managerial skills to deliver the services that we require and that the people of Powys have a right to expect. But more than that, we need to address issues of corporate culture; we need to address corporate culture in Powys, and sometimes elsewhere as well.

I hope that the wider changes, which the leader absolutely recognises are being made, will deliver that change in culture within the organisation as well. I will say, Deputy Presiding Officer, to Members that the meeting that I had with Councillor Harris this afternoon was a very good and very positive meeting. The Minister for Children and Social Care and I left the meeting feeling very positive about the commitment that Councillor Harris was making to improvement and the journey that she is leading within Powys. And it is certainly a matter for myself and all ministerial colleagues involved in this that we will ensure that Welsh Government provides all the support that Powys requires in order to complete this journey.

I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement and for the opportunity to discuss many similar issues in the past, with the Minister too. May I just start with the point that the Cabinet Secretary finished with? I'm pleased to hear that he's confident that things have improved in Powys, but in looking at three issues—the report on children's services, the report today on adult services and, of course, the work that he has done on governance within Powys council—we do see that, broadly speaking, it's the same people who are improving the service now who were responsible for the initial problems. Although they've changed their functions, they are still part of the same group, to all intents and purposes, who have been there since some of the decisions were taken, particularly the budgetary decisions that led us into these particular problems.

So, may I start with that overview by welcoming Mohammed Mehmet and wishing him well as he starts in his role as interim chief executive, and may I say that myself and other Members met, about a week ago, with senior officials and the council leader? We were certainly impressed with the answers given by the senior officers. I think they have a grip on the situation now, but as the Minister with responsibility for local government, are you of the opinion that the lack of capacity that had been highlighted has now been addressed in terms of senior staff, in terms of the Cabinet's understanding of their role in driving this work forward in Powys, and in terms of the funding allocation to address these problems? So, in terms of the lack of capacity and those three specific issues, are you now content, in the light of your meeting today, with those areas?

If I could turn to the report published today, of course, we're discussing that in the context of a far worse report in the context of children's services, which will colour our response. It's difficult to know how we would have responded to today's report if we hadn't seen the earlier report. Because, as Russell George mentioned, many of the things that should have happened are now in the pipeline, and we welcome that, of course, but one of the things that both reports have in common is a lack of understanding—and not just a lack of understanding, but the absence of any understanding—of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. Are you of the opinion that the training is now in place in order to ensure that every officer in Powys who has responsibilities under that Act is now getting that necessary training?

The second thing that both reports have in common is the staff turnover—with staff moving, churn, a lack of continuity in terms of staff. It's been suggested to me that the more stringent regime has driven some staff to decide that they want to leave the service, but it's still staff turnover, and staff do need to understand the situation in Powys and be clear about their responsibilities. So, what's responsible for this lack of understanding? Is it the natural turnover of staff—the natural churn? Is it the nature of Powys as a rural authority? Is it the fact that they are dealing with cross-border issues in England too? Are you now content that that issue has been addressed, particularly in relation to training?

One of the other things that emerges from the report today is that deferred care for adults is having an impact on broader services in Powys, in hospitals and care specifically. So, I would like to know whether you have more to say about tackling that particular issue too.

Finally, one of the things that I think has brought us to this situation in Powys is the political culture that's existed in the council in the past: a lack of challenge, a problem in terms of sharing information, a lack of transparency among some senior cabinet members. That may be changing. I am aware that some political groups are now more eager to hold people to account and, in that context, are you of the view that the council itself is giving sufficient support and training, and support in the broadest sense, to the opposition parties and to individual councillors so that they can hold the current cabinet to account, and that they have the necessary tools to understand those problems and to be part of the solution to those problems too?

I'm grateful to the Member for the way that he has given his contribution this afternoon—a very constructive and positive contribution, and I very much hope that there is the agreement across the Chamber that we do need when we are dealing with some of these issues in Powys, to have that kind of approach.

Now, you've asked several questions, and, unfortunately, I think I'm going to answer most of them in the same way. Yes, the situation has improved, and there is improvement happening in Powys, but that doesn't mean that we can step back and think that we've reached the kind of ambition and objectives that Russell George suggested in his contribution. So, I agree with you that we need an overview of the situation in Powys, and not just to look at children's services or adult services or governance alone and individually. We need to look across those services and all the reports and the analyses that have been made.

I'm not sure that I agree that, in your words, the same people who caused the problems are the ones who are trying to solve them. We have seen new appointments, as I suggested in my statement, and I do hope that they will be able to change the way that the council is run and the style and culture that you have mentioned. You talked about the culture in the council and I agree with you on that. We do need to change not just the way that people are working, but how they work as well, and that means that we need a change of culture. I believe that all Members in the Chamber acknowledge that that takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Also, we need to ensure in all parts of the Chamber that we do give some support to the leadership to enable them to do that, whilst at the same time ensuring that the appropriate tensions in terms of scrutiny and accountability still take place within the council. I do acknowledge that it's a balance we have to strike, but it's a difficult one to strike sometimes.

I do think that there is capacity within the council, as it stands today, and that that's sufficient to enable the council to meet the objectives that we've set for them. I do believe that they have the current capacity to do that. Of course, if we do find, over the next few months, that they require additional support, the Welsh Government is willing to ensure that they do receive the support that they need. Our objective is to enable Powys to improve Powys. Our objective is to ensure that Powys can move forward on this journey with our support, and to ensure that they have all of the resources that they need in order to do that.

I agree, and I do see, that there is a lack of understanding sometimes about—. You've named the social services and well-being Act, and I agree with you on that; I think it goes further than that sometimes as well, but we also need to ensure that people do receive the training that they need to enable them to do the work that we're asking them to do, and I'm confident that that can happen and that that is going to happen.

You asked about staff turnover and morale amongst the workforce in Powys, and in the social services workforce specifically. I acknowledge the point that you make. It's not for me to give my opinion on the nature of Powys as a council that serves a rural region. I wouldn't agree that there is a problem in that regard. I think that the problems that Powys has experienced have been problems within the council itself, and they've been problems that have arisen because of the culture within the council. I do hope, as we improve the way that services are run in Powys, that we will see a better culture in Powys as well. We need to ensure that we understand the impact on additional services within the council, I agree with you on that, and I'm confident that the new chief executive and leadership will be able to do that.

To conclude, the political culture in Powys has been a very Powysesque one over the years, and all of us who have represented the county in this place, and those who represent the county today, understand that. We also see, sometimes, that the political culture—I'm being very careful with my words here, but it hasn't been a culture that has encouraged scrutiny and has promoted the kind of vital tension that any democratic institution needs. I think that is changing, and the councillors on all parts of the political spectrum in Powys need to take responsibility for improving Powys, improving the way that they run the council and also improving how they scrutinise the executive in Powys. I have seen this happening in my council in Blaenau Gwent, and I'm confident that the change of political culture that is required—and I agree with you on that—is possible in Powys as well.

Can I also commend the Cabinet Secretary and his two colleagues for the way in which they have been open and transparent—[Inaudible.]—tragic affair. This isn't a subject out of which anybody is trying to make any party political points, for it would be quite wrong, and I think the sensitivity that the Government Ministers have brought to this difficult task is highly commendable. Because you certainly don't want to reduce morale still further in Powys County Council and we all appreciate the difficulties of local administration in a county that is so extended and where transport links are difficult and the population is highly dispersed. In rural areas, social problems are often much more difficult to solve than they are in concentrated urban areas. So, we all have tremendous sympathy for the county council and the difficulty of the tasks that they have to perform. But, ultimately, as in all these kinds of cases, it's down to a failure of leadership and I do take the point that Simon Thomas made, that a lot of the same people who were involved in the decisions that brought us to where we are now are still in place. The question is to what extent they have the capacity to learn from those mistakes and not repeat them. That is, at the moment, something that we have to take on trust, and I appreciate the Cabinet Secretary's difficulty in making a statement like this today. All that's happened, fundamentally, is that we've put new people at the top in these places who have to take the fundamental decisions that are going to, we hope, sort things out in the future. And I certainly wish Mr Mehmet well in his difficult task.

What I reflected on most in the original report about the children services was the bald statement that

'the most significant challenge appeared to be the simplest, namely that of good communication and coordinated planning, based on a thorough understanding of Child A’s daily lived experiences and the significant impact of serious early childhood trauma.'

It was the professionals who, paradoxically, had the difficulties in communicating. The child himself was very eloquent in being able to describe his needs. And that is a most extraordinary situation to be in. I'm sure it's been a traumatising experience for those who are on the staff of Powys County Council. Nobody should underestimate that and one should be sympathetic. I don't like pointing the finger of blame in these circumstances except with the aim of having some positive outcome. And I think the approach that the Government has taken to this, with the Cabinet Secretary in the position of—well, akin to the one described by Walter Bagehot in The English Constitution about Queen Victoria, that he has the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. He very properly, I think, in answer to Russell George, pointed out the separation in functions between the Welsh Government on the one hand and local authorities on the other. I do think, though, as one of the more combative Members of this place, that he does have the necessary skills to draw people along as well. He has the leadership skills, which, without wishing to be too heavy-handed about it, give us the opportunity, I think, of making the best out of the bad job that has been inherited from the past. 

One of the extraordinary things, I felt, in Sean Harriss's report was where he says: 

'there is some lack of understanding of “what good looks like” in the organisation'

and that

'the Council at times was “insufficiently daunted” by the size, scale and nature of the change required.'

I hope that that has now been addressed. He also said:

'The Council is insufficiently clear about what needs to be done and how to do it.'

I do hope the new appointments will address that lacuna as well. Although Sean Harriss's report was strong on management speak, we all, I think, know what needs to be done. And it's got to be a co-operative enterprise. There is a peer group that has been put together to co-ordinate things. Can the Cabinet Secretary tell us how often he's going to be able to report to us on the progress that is being made by these new individuals and organisations? Because at the moment everything is being taken on trust; nobody has any alternative to that. But we will I think very soon be in a position to ask are the right decisions being taken, are the new management teams being put together, and be able to draw some conclusions as to the lessons that have been learned from the past. 

The conclusion of Sean Harriss's report was that, in five years' time, all the residents of Powys should be assured that the management of the county council and provision of all its services are being provided to the highest possible standard. So, I think that we need to be assured in a relatively short time frame that the remedial decisions that are essential have been taken. So, I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary could reassure us on those points.

Deputy Presiding Officer, I'm grateful to the leader of UKIP for his kind remarks and the tone in which he's addressed the Chamber this afternoon. I seem to be starting every contribution today by answering the final questions first. How often will we report? I think I'm very happy to report on a termly basis to Members here, and I'm sure that the Minister for Children and Social Care, who also of course has a remit in these matters, will be content and happy to do so on a similar basis. I do see he's nodding from his seat so we will assume that is now a commitment on behalf of us both to do that. We will find a way of ensuring that those reports are made available to Members, whether it's a formal statement on the floor or whether it's through committees or through a written statement. But we certainly will look towards discussing with Members how they would wish to receive those updates.

I will again emphasise that Ministers are always available to particularly those Members representing Powys constituencies to speak to privately and to have conversations, if that is needed or necessary, and we're very happy to continue to do that. I think when my colleague Rebecca Evans first raised these issues she was very, very clear about where the issues lay. I think it's also fair to say that she was clear in how she wanted to see the Government and the local authority work together to resolve some of those issues. Clearly, those issues were seen to be wider later than at first, and it's right and proper that we take a wider view of these matters as a consequence of that. 

I don't wish to provide a commentary this afternoon, or at any other time, on some of the reasons—and the leader of UKIP, Deputy Presiding Officer, talked about a failure of leadership. I think that's clear at some levels; I think that is absolutely clear. However, what I would like to be able to do today is to ensure that we have a focus on taking the authority forward, rather than looking backwards to the reasons for and why that happened. There may well be a time and it may well be appropriate for a committee of the council or of this place to take a look at those matters, and I would certainly wish to co-operate with any inquiry that does take place into those matters, but, for me, I'm anxious that we do now deliver leadership and deliver leadership that the people and staff of Powys want, need and deserve, and we will do that through working together. We will do it through learning from each other and, I hope, as the leader of UKIP has said, learning from potential mistakes that have been made in the past.

He is absolutely right in what he has said about issues around communication and planning. Those are serious issues and they are matters that will be and must be addressed. I am absolutely confident that the people who have been appointed to leadership positions within Powys have the skill base to be able to do it, but they also have the understanding of what leadership means and what transformational leadership means. This isn't a matter of steady as she goes, it's not a matter of ticking boxes, and it isn't a matter of simply remedial action to address individual issues within an individual department. This is about transformational change within an authority to address the culture within the authority, how that authority runs itself, and then to be held to account for those changes by the people they represent in Powys.

I recognised a great deal of what Sean Harriss wrote in his report. You've quoted him saying that there was a lack of understanding of what 'good' looks like, and a lack of understanding of what needs to be done and how to do it. I have to say to Members that that is not the first time I've read those sentences in a report of this sort. I know that there is some reticence in different parts of the Chamber about some of the proposals that I've made to address some of these matters, but I will say to Members that it is incumbent upon all of us to look seriously at the structures we have in place, and to ensure that we are able not just to address individual issues in individual authorities when they arise, but that we put in place structures that are more sustainable in the future.

Members will have seen the press coverage today of social services functions in local authorities, and what is being said by the WLGA. I will say here that I agree with the comments made by the WLGA today. I do not believe that the structures we have in place are sustainable for the future. I've made that very, very clear. It is for each individual party represented here to then consider their response to those challenges, and I hope that we will be able, over the coming weeks and months, to look towards an agreed vision of the future, where we have strong, robust local authorities able to take responsibility for improvement of services for local government, delivering within local government. And I hope that we will be able to do that in a co-operative spirit and a co-operative approach, which is exactly what the leader of UKIP has suggested this afternoon. That is what I seek, and I think there is great agreement for that not only in this Chamber, but throughout local government as well.

I just want to pick up on the very last point that the Cabinet Secretary made, and that's one about co-operation. We all know that, over the years—and we've heard it being asked for—there are many, many examples of best practice in local government. We have asked over the years, when we have reports like this, about the sharing of that information. So, it's not new, it's not rocket science, we know it's out there, Powys council would have known that it was out there, because other authorities have gone through the same problems and come to some resolution. So, I suppose, in a way, that is my first question. 

The other thing that may be useful—and maybe the Cabinet Secretary might think of it, and it has been done before, certainly in child protection—is to ensure that the councillors, when they are challenging this improvement within their authority, understand the questions they ought to be asking, rather than simply scoring political points against each other. Because we all know—and I don't want to look back in history—but we do know, some of us, the history of the failure to work together politically in Powys, and the disruption that that causes because there is no overall leadership. And I have very often struggled with the reconfiguration of who is in charge and who is supporting who, why and how. And, you know, I'm pretty educated in political configurations, so if I'm struggling with it, I'm fairly certain that the public would have been struggling with it too. So, I suppose my plea today here, above everything else, is that the councillors and the political leaders in the council put the politics aside, put the people first and that they drive change and step up to the challenge that they now have to face. And that challenge, it is fairly clear, is political leadership, it is about putting the right policies together, and it is about ensuring the implementation of those policies in an agreed forum with our support.

So, I suppose my question to you will be: will the improvement and assurance board continue to co-ordinate the improvements in both adult and children's social services in Powys, and will Welsh Government continue to support that process until a time when you feel that they can continue without that support? And also, where I started, will it be the case that local government in and of itself will start to help local government improve, and can you somehow help ensure that best practice is emulated and is learnt from?

Some fascinating questions. Yes, I hope that we can ensure that best practice—. You know, local government delivers some fantastic services. We tend to debate these issues when there are issues with those services, and I think we should also celebrate the successes of local government in delivering services to millions of people day on day. And we should recognise that, where there are issues, the people who are best placed to resolve those issues happen to be in local government as well, in my view—people who are experienced professionals at delivering high-quality services and who are able to identify the weaknesses that we have described this afternoon and debated today and identify solutions to those areas. So, I hope that best practice will be able to be understood throughout local government and that we can help local government, if necessary, put in place the sorts of structures required in order to make best practice something that is seen and witnessed across local government throughout the whole of Wales year on year.

In terms of where we're going with the improvement and assurance board, we put in place the board under the leadership of Jack Straw, the former chief executive of Swansea, in order to deliver the assurance we require that the lessons have been learnt and that the improvements are being delivered. I have provided funding for that board in order for it to be able to pursue its work. I have given an undertaking this afternoon and the Minister for Children and Social Care has also given an undertaking that we will report back regularly to Members on the improvements as they're taking place.

The improvement and assurance board is there to improve not just social services but wider corporate issues within the council. I'm absolutely confident that we have the structures in place that will ensure that those improvements take place and do so in a timely manner. I will ensure that we have all the information made available to Members so that Members on all sides of this Chamber can hold us to account for those commitments and those assurances that I give today, this afternoon.

In terms of the political culture within any institution, it is very much in the hands of the members. The members do need to fulfil the roles of accountability and scrutiny. It is absolutely clear and right that opposition members and members representing the executive have to hold the executive to account. That is true here, it is true in Powys, it is true in any democratic institution. But how the authority leadership is held to account is a different question. I hope that all members of all political parties and no political parties represented in Powys will do so in a way that is constructive and that is positive. I perhaps don't share entirely your optimism, Joyce, that politics will be put to one side—we've said that before on other occasions—but I do hope, and I do know the opposition leaders in Powys—. I know Matt Dorrance, James Gibson-Watt and Elwyn Vaughan, and I know that they're all deeply committed to the people of Powys and to serve the people of Powys. I know that all of the opposition leaders will work hard to ensure that Powys is put back on the right tracks and will work with the executive to ensure that that happens, whilst at the same time, holding the executive to account in the way that they're elected to do. That is a difficult balance to find, but I'm absolutely confident that the members of Powys County Council are able to do that.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. 

Item 6 is a statement by the Minister for Housing and Regeneration on low-cost home ownership. I call on the Minister for Housing and Regeneration, Rebecca Evans.

Thank you. The Welsh Government believes in social housing; we believe in affordable housing. It's our ambition for everyone to live in a home that meets their needs and supports a healthy, prosperous and successful life. We know that we must work across Government to achieve this. 'Prosperity for All' not only affords housing the priority it deserves, but reaffirms our long-standing commitment to both social housing and affordable housing. We will deliver 20,000 affordable homes during this term of Government. Social rented housing will account for the biggest proportion of this. Last year alone, we supported the investment of £179 million through our social housing grant and housing finance grant programme. 

Under Thatcher's right to buy, we lost 139,000 homes from our social housing stock. We have legislated to put a stop to that, preserving our social housing stock for those who need it most, and giving local authorities the confidence to build. And I want to work with them to build at scale and pace. We know that no single type of tenure is right for everyone. We believe that home ownership is not just for people on higher incomes. People on lower incomes have aspirations to own their own home, and we will help them in ways that do not diminish our social housing.

Rising house prices and higher deposit requirements have made it more difficult for potential home owners to get their foot on the housing ladder. Indeed, the Resolution Foundation recently published their prediction that under half of millennials may own their own home by the time they reach 45. This is why I want to increase and improve the range of options available to people who wish to own their own home, providing new opportunities alongside our longer-standing products. Between January 2014 and the end of March 2018, our Help to Buy—Wales scheme had supported the construction and sale of nearly 6,900 homes, with more than 750 in the immediate pipeline awaiting completion. The scheme will make a significant contribution to the delivery of our 20,000 affordable homes target.

Help to Buy—Wales is delivering exactly what it set out to do. It provides a shared equity loan of up to 20 per cent of the property's value, allowing buyers of new-build properties to move into a home with a minimum deposit of only 5 per cent. This is especially important for first-time buyers and, as a result, they make up over 75 per cent of Help to Buy—Wales applications. In addition, it continues to provide a boost to the housing industry by supporting the construction of new homes across Wales. Investing in housing has clear benefits for the economy, supporting the construction industry and the associated supply chain.

We continue to make Homebuy—Wales available. This shared-equity scheme offers purchasers the opportunity to buy an existing home, and has particular appeal in the areas where there is limited new build, including rural areas where there is little volume building. I have asked my officials to revisit this established scheme and, in collaboration with local authorities and registered social landlords, consider whether any additional measures can be identified to improve and support its growth. I am keen to consider additional home ownership opportunities for people living in rural areas where house prices are particularly high. My officials are exploring options such as self-build, which may provide additional opportunities.

I am pleased to draw Members' attention to the fact that we have made significant strides to improve our low-cost home ownership offer in the last few weeks, introducing two new schemes and the Your Home in Wales website. I launched the Rent to Own—Wales and Shared Ownership—Wales schemes to help a broader range of people access home ownership. Rent to Own—Wales will help people who can afford monthly payments but are not able to save enough for a mortgage deposit. Shared Ownership—Wales will help those who have access to a small deposit and are able to get a mortgage on a proportion of the value of the property.

The Welsh Government is investing £70 million in these new home ownership initiatives as part of our commitment to build 20,000 affordable homes during this term of Government. Early interest in the schemes has been very positive, with six housing associations across Wales now registered to take part and offering a portfolio of homes. The focus will now be on improving the supply of homes across all local authority areas in Wales. The launch of these two new schemes represents an increase in the options available to support aspiring home owners, including first-time buyers and young people hoping to stay in, or return to, their communities. 

Clear information is essential for people considering buying their own home, and I recognise that, with a number of different options, there does need to be clarity about what is available. That's why I have launched the Your Home in Wales website that provides key information on all Welsh Government-funded home ownership schemes. This practical guide will help people determine which scheme is best suited to their personal circumstances. These schemes will all contribute to our ambitious target of delivering 20,000 affordable homes during the lifetime of this Assembly.

I want to lay the groundwork for the prospect of setting even more stretching targets in the future, in response to a range of housing needs. I also want Welsh Government to continue to create a climate that drives innovation and improvements in terms of design, quality and energy efficiency. To support this, Members will be aware that I've commissioned a review of affordable housing supply. To ensure that the review is fair, transparent and robust, I am establishing an independent panel to oversee this work under independent chair, Lynn Pamment. The review will need to balance the growing need for affordable homes against a backdrop of continuing pressures on the public expenditure available to support house building, and I look forward to providing detail as the review progresses.

Our low-cost home ownership schemes, combined with our work in other areas of housing and our forthcoming review, clearly demonstrate that the Welsh Government is committed to achieving its ambition for everyone to live in a home that meets their needs and supports a healthy, prosperous and successful life. 

I feel I ought to start in a more generous spirit than I did last week, because we often clash on housing matters. So, let me just welcome some of the tone of this statement and such phrases as: 'I want to work with them to build at scale and pace'—that's the various people building houses; 'We believe that home ownership is not just for people on higher incomes'—well, that's why I defended the right to buy, although the Minister can coherently hold to this principle as well, I'm not denying that, even though we would disagree; 'The focus will now be on improving the supply of homes across all local authority areas in Wales'; and 'I want to lay the groundwork for the prospect'—'prospect' is a bit weak, but anyway—'of setting even more stretching targets in the future'. So, some of the tone has improved, but I fear now I have to go back to type and just remind people of our current situation, and I'll try, also, to compare it to that of England, which is also in a housing crisis. I've always been balanced in my remarks, and I don't think the Welsh Government has invented the sort of housing market that we're currently in, but it's just its level of response and the projections that it has come out with for housing need that I have particular problems with. If we don't have the correct targets to aim for, we're not going to meet the justified aspirations of so many people, especially younger people and people forming families.

If I look at the house building stats, the current projections, which are accepted by the Welsh Government, are that we need 8,700 homes each year—8,700. That's 5,200 market, 3,500 social. In fairness, the Welsh Government now has a target of 4,000 social each year—or 'roughly affordable' is a more general description. The alternative Holmans projection produced in 2015 estimated that the following was needed each year: 7,000 market, 5,000 social. That gives you 12,000 as a target. It couldn't be achieved instantly, but it's something that you would have to work up to. If the alternative projection is more accurate—and I think there is a high level of academic opinion, anyway, that it is—we will be short of 66,000 homes by 2031, and I'm taking 2031 as a reasonable period of time now in which to look at our deeper housing strategy. That is a real concern, and I do hope your review is going to look at these projections seriously and come up with a serious response, which the Welsh Government has never done. It has never responded officially to Professor Holmans's projection and said why it doesn't agree with him. It just has ignored it, it has made no attempt to refute it.

Now, look at England: the UK Government wants to build 300,000 homes each year in England by the mid-2020s. That equates, or would equate if we had the same target by the mid-2020s, to 15,000 homes each year in Wales. It is a massively different scale, and I think, when you're setting the strategy in these fundamental reviews, you've got to talk this language and tell us where you want to set your targets, what is your pace or whatever—scale and pace, to use the words in your own statement.

Let me just tell you what we are doing at the moment. In 2017, we built 6,885 new dwellings. The last time we reached the Welsh Government's target of 8,700 was in 2008. That's the scale of the current crisis. Now, I don't completely blame the Government for this, there are wider factors, but target setting is really, really important.

Can I just come to a couple of focused questions? What is the Minister's latest estimate of the number of affordable homes that we are building in Wales each year? We're now two years through this five-year Assembly and I want to know if we're anywhere close to the scale and, therefore, the pace to meet the 20,000 target, because by my calculations—the data is not very complete and we await more releases, obviously—there are grounds for being concerned. By the time of your affordable housing supply review report, and that's set to be completed by April 2019, we will be over halfway through the Assembly's term. It'll be too late then to be told that these targets are no longer realistic or that we need more ambitious targets. I think we need to know what your ambition is now. In particular, why is the review, in terms of its terms of reference, not even looking at housing need? The current projections are not being met, of course, as I've outlined, but they're not high enough anyway, even if we could meet them, but there's nothing in the terms of reference that I can work out—of course, we've not had the opportunity of closely scrutinising you on this—that they will be really looking at projections. It's only on the best evidence and projections that we can base housing policy and strategy for the future. Thank you.

I thank you very much for those comments and particularly welcome the way in which you opened the remarks in a positive sense. I will certainly seek to move forward in that spirit as well. You mentioned that you are pleased to hear that I'm keen to work with local authorities, particularly, to start building at scale and pace, and you would have heard me talk in the Chamber previously about the work that I'm doing to try and work with local authorities to increase the borrowing cap. I just would provide an update, really, that I've consulted with local authorities on a couple of proposals. One is in the short term: how do we use that unallocated borrowing capacity that we have, so around £17 million—how do we focus that at the local authorities that are ready to build? And to also challenge them over the medium term to work up some potential schemes that could be brought forward very quickly, should additional money and borrowing capacity be made available from the UK Government? We're certainly having those discussions with the Treasury, and as soon as I'm able to update Members further on that, I'll be pleased to do so, but, as I say, there is work progressing with that.

In terms of housing need, I'm very aware of the Public Policy Institute for Wales report that Alan Holmans was commissioned to do and was published back in 2015. I do recognise that those figures now need to be updated. I know there's been much debate between you and Welsh Government over several years on those figures. You refer to the alternative projection, which is the projection that suggests we would need 12,000 units a year. Those alternative projections, as I understand it, were based on an earlier set of household projections—the 2006-based census—and those don't take account of the most recent changes to household size and type, as recorded by that census. So, we are moving on a different trajectory, which is why we need to look again and do some further work and reassess those figures. So, we are doing that. 

My officials have met with experts, with a view to developing a robust piece of work that will look at housing need across Wales, and it will very much be in the context of that that the review takes place. I would also say that officials have been gathering information about the method of determining housing need that is used by other UK Governments, and they've certainly had some constructive conversations with officials—from the Scottish Government particularly. So, this information, combined with advice from external experts, will help determine the approach that we take, but I just want to reassure Members how seriously I take the issue of housing need in the future and having robust targets that are achievable but also very much reflect the need that is in the community, but also looking at housing need, breaking it down into the different types of tenure and different types of housing: social housing, intermediate housing, affordable housing and, then, market housing.

Where Welsh Government does have the opportunity— . Although we don't have many levers in terms of market housing, actually I believe that we can create a climate for improving the delivery of, and speeding up the delivery of market housing. One of the ways that we can do that can be through our innovative housing programme, which I think will provide us with ways in which to build houses at a much quicker pace in future. I was very pleased that, last Thursday, we opened the 2018-19 round for applications, and this is the first time, now, that we've opened this not just to social landlords, but also the private sector, so that private sector builders can apply for funding in order to support the innovation element of their build as well. I think that this could give us the opportunity to see more innovative housing built at scale. This is a £90 million investment, over three years; £19 million was awarded to 22 innovative projects over the last year, so £71 million remains. So, there is plenty of opportunity for good schemes to come forward, but I'm very clear that although we're at this stage of innovating and testing out lots of different ideas, we are going to have to come to a point where we actually, through the evaluation of the various different projects, decide what's best for Wales and where we want to put our efforts in terms of creating the kind of scale of build that we would want to see in the future. 

In terms of whether I'm confident that we are going to hit our 20,000 target—yes, I am. And I can tell you that we're breaking down that target: 5,500 units of social housing grant; 1,500 housing finance grant 2; 6,000 of the units will be through Help to Buy; 1,000 will be rent to own, or shared ownership, and those are the two schemes I've particularly been highlighting today; 1,000 we would hope would be built through the local authority council house building programme; 1,000 through the innovative design programme; 1,000 through section 106 agreements; 800 through Vibrant and Viable Places; and RSL self-funded build—2,500. That would actually take us over the 20,000 mark. And one of the reasons that I am confident that we are able to achieve that target is because, as Members will be aware, house builders often work on a three-year rolling programme, so we're able to see the kind of projects that are coming down the line and the volume of houses that are in the pipeline. That does give us confidence that we will be able to hit that target. But as I say, I would like the review to be looking at setting even more stretching targets for the future. 

Thank you for an advance copy of the statement, and before I go into some questions about this particular statement, I'd just like to ask your views on some of the news reports, over the weekend, about the fact that there are councils in England that are minded to buy some housing stock here in Wales—I think Merthyr council was quoted. This isn't a new phenomenon, actually. When I was a student at Aberystwyth university, I saw a DVD from a borough in London, wanting to promote Ceredigion as a place to live for tenants in London, which, obviously, I don't think is a bad thing—we should encourage people to come to Wales if they choose to come and live in Wales—but what does that mean for you, as the Government, if there are councils in the city of London that are buying up stock that potentially you want to develop here in Wales, with Welsh councils? How can we understand what your engagement is with those particular local authorities, to know what that will mean then for our targets here in Wales?

We do welcome the review being set up. I also welcome the terms of reference, and particularly the focus on funding options to secure the long-term affordable housing choices that we have. I understand—as we all do—that financial considerations are important in the current environment, but of course, we need to be ambitious, not just in the social rented sector but in terms of homes to buy. It's estimated that if the UK had built 300,000 homes in the UK per year since 1996, then the average UK house price today would be only 7 per cent lower than it currently is. The current housing crisis is not only the product of a lack of homes. It's the product of a lack of accommodation amongst lenders and Government to recognise the role that unstable jobs, stagnant pay and the rising cost of living are having across the whole sector. So, where Government can step in to help, then we certainly would welcome that.

It's crucial, given the cost of housing and the rising cost of living, combined with stagnant wages, that there is real support for people trying to obtain an affordable home. So, I do welcome this website launch. It's important to have all of the help and information available in one place. We have been critical in the past of perhaps some piecemeal announcements and lots of information in lots of different places, so we are hopeful that this website will serve to alleviate that, to a large extent.

In terms of the two new schemes launched and other aspects of the review, I'd like to ask some specific questions. How much of the £70 million does the Welsh Government estimate it will recoup from the funding, particularly in relation to rent to own? Are you confident that the amount is enough? In terms of the other existing schemes, I feel it should be pointed out that Help to Buy isn't only a scheme for first-time buyers. The average price of a home under the scheme was £180,000, and a quarter of buyers were not first-time buyers. So, perhaps there could be a way to be more focused on the actual target audience. This scheme was initially launched as something to help the construction industry too, I believe, so I would like to ask whether the review could look at whether there are more effective ways to assist first-time buyers.

An FOI by ITV recently showed that there are now 43,000 empty homes in Wales—almost double the number from just a few years ago. This is despite the Welsh Government scheme to attempt to put empty homes back into use. So, could your review look into how effective current policies are in this regard? I understand that councils have powers to put homes back into use, but clearly they're not using those powers, otherwise the numbers would not be as low as what I have just quoted.

I'd also like the review to investigate what could be done about high rents and increases. At the moment, average private sector rent increases are lower than the amount allowed for rent increases in the social rented sector. So, this is something that needs to be looked at, along with other options.

Finally, you mentioned rural communities and how you want to look at other innovative ways of encouraging rural communities to look at housing options. I would also like to say that we need to have more community involvement in communities, so that if they can identify potentially what is needed, be it language, be it specific characteristics that need to be potentially retained in those areas—quite often a controversial topic, but a topic that we need to address—then what will your department be considering as viable options in that regard?

Thank you very much for those questions. I'll begin where you left off, in terms of the support for house building and support for people aspiring to own a home, particularly in rural communities. Because we know that, in rural communities, there is a particularly acute challenge in terms of affordability, particularly, I think, for some of our key workers—nurses, teachers and so on—who find it really difficult to be able to afford a home within their own community.

The role of our rural housing enablers is particularly important in terms of working alongside local authorities, and with our housing associations, in those rural communities, in order to pinpoint the areas where we do need to be putting in further investment and creating further opportunities for home building. I'm particularly keen to see what we can do about encouraging self-builds, and I've asked officials to provide me with some advice on this. It's something, actually, that could be beneficial for all kinds of communities, but I think in rural communities particularly it might be something that provides opportunities for people.

We've also established a rural strategic group, and that includes those rural housing enablers, housing associations, local authorities, Community Housing Cymru and the WLGA. They are a group that now meets quarterly in order to advise Welsh Government, but also to test ideas and share good practice as well. I agree that our housing proposals, but also working in partnership with planning, do offer the opportunity to support and promote the Welsh language, particularly often again in rural communities. I think that housing does have an important role to play in supporting the Welsh language.

You also referred to empty homes, and I share your concern about the number of empty homes that there are across Wales. Some of those properties could quite easily provide people with a much needed home. So, we are committed again to working with local authorities in Wales to bring back houses into use and to provide ongoing support to those authorities, to our Houses into Homes and town centre loan schemes. These initiatives, which are operated by local authorities together, have amounted to over £50 million, providing home owners with the finance that they require in order to renovate those properties and bring them up to a standard that is suitable for rent or for sale.

The terms and conditions of the Houses into Homes scheme have recently been amended to enable local authorities to have greater flexibility so they can offer a more customer-focused solution to the problem of empty houses, and loans are now available to bring empty houses back and commercial buildings back into use, but actually splitting them into flats as well in order to try and create a greater number of homes as well. So, there is work going on on empty homes, but I agree that we need to be considering what further we can do. Locally, I know of good examples in Swansea where the council is providing funding to empty home owners who are then encouraged to bring their homes up to a standard on the understanding that they will have a guaranteed tenant. So, that meets both of our agendas in terms of creating greater amounts of social housing, but also bringing empty homes back into use as well. 

The rising cost of living and the difficulty in securing enough funding for a deposit is one of the real drivers behind the rent to own Wales scheme and the shared ownership Wales scheme, and it was remiss of me not to point out earlier that the rent to own scheme particularly was one of the agreements that we came to with Kirsty Williams, who's been particularly passionate about this and the opportunity that it provides for quite some time. 

The rent to own scheme provides people with the opportunity to move into the house that they want at an early stage, but then they will be able to pay rent on that property and, between two and five years later, will be able to claim back 25 per cent of the money that they paid as rent and use that as a deposit, alongside some of the value of any increase in the value of that property as well. So, it's an opportunity for people, often young people, but as you say not always young people, to move into the house that they would like to live in and like to settle down in at an early stage. 

Six housing associations are working with us at the moment but we are having discussions to increase that and I would like to see these houses being made available across Wales. Whether people choose to go for rent to own or the shared ownership scheme will be a matter of judgment for that individual, but those particular houses are available for either scheme as well. 

I'll certainly be having some discussions with officials in terms of conversations they've had with the local authorities about the stories that you referred to over the weekend. But I will say that cross-border movement of people is very much something that's on my radar, particularly in the Newport area following the announcement of the removal of the tolls on the Severn bridge. I've had discussions with house builders and they're telling me that it is genuinely having an impact on the pressure on the housing market in that area. They're seeing increased desire for house building in the area, so there'll be some discussions that we need to be continuing to have with the local authority there to ensure that we're able to meet the needs of people within the area who want to stay within their area as well.

Thanks to the Minister for today's statement. I'm sure that we'd all acknowledge that there is a major problem facing today's younger generation who are seeking to get onto the housing ladder, and that is that, for many people, houses are simply not affordable. A major issue is that wage increases are not keeping pace with house price increases, which does create a challenging environment if we are trying to improve home ownership rates.

Your statement today focused quite a lot on shared ownership schemes. I think, to some extent, it's good to try and be innovative in helping people to raise the finance to get onto the housing ladder, and I appreciate there are different kinds of schemes—two in particular that you talked of today—but, unfortunately, shared ownership is not always a viable solution. A lot of the time, even shared ownership schemes are out of reach for many workers. Many people in jobs paying well above the minimum wage still can't get approved for mortgages in shared ownership schemes. An unfortunate consequence of this is that the same people then often end up spending even more money than the mortgage payments would have been on their monthly rent.     

There is a potential danger in making it easier for people to get approved for mortgages, because the schemes have to be sustainable for those people; it's not just about the down payment, as I'm sure you'd appreciate. What we don't want is people managing an initial down payment then struggling to keep up their monthly payments, and ultimately defaulting on their mortgages. So, there are a lot of issues relating to shared ownership. There is a fair bit of evidence that shared ownership does not automatically convert easily into full ownership. So, do you recognise that there is a big difficulty in meeting this challenge and achieving your targets? Are low-cost housing schemes providing value for money to the public purse, do you think? And are the eligibility and affordability checks robust enough? 

Another problem is the changing labour market. If home owners become unemployed they can face difficulties, as they're not automatically eligible for housing benefit. This isn't a devolved area—I understand that—but we do have a workplace now in which very few people are going to have a job for life. People even with good CVs can face periods of, hopefully temporary, unemployment. If they have taken out a mortgage, not everyone has taken out insurance. Some people are not even aware of this issue when they take out a mortgage in the first place. So, I suppose this is another case for financial education to be included in the school curriculum. Flowing from that, Minister, another question is: are you liaising to good effect with the education Minister on this issue of providing school students with this kind of financial education? 

I was encouraged to hear you mention self-build homes in today's statement. There have been surveys that suggest that many people in the UK, including in Wales, would consider building their own home given the opportunity. There was recently on one of the UK's leading plot-finding websites 'currently wanted' adverts for self-build homes in Wales. We do have a much lower rate of self-building in the UK generally than many other European countries. On the important issue of finance, lenders tend generally to perceive self-build loans as a higher risk, and I don't believe there's currently any Welsh Government grant available to people who want to do self-build. I appreciate that you say you're looking at this now, so this is something you are peering into. Also, I know that the Welsh Government did relax some planning requirements to enable the development of Lammas, which was a rural eco-village in north Pembrokeshire, so there has been some flexibility displayed in this field in the past. I wonder if you have any more information today on any proposals for Welsh Government self-build schemes. Thank you. 

Thank you very much for those questions. I'd begin by reflecting on your comments about wage increases and how difficult some people find it in order to get on the housing ladder. Our schemes today do make that easier, but I agree it's not for everybody. So, there will be an important focus from Welsh Government on ensuring that, actually, we have a healthy housing sector right across the piece, and I would start by saying that this involves work with the private rented sector particularly. You'll be aware that we already have Rent Smart Wales up and running, and that's providing assurance that those people who are renting homes to people are sufficiently licensed and have the information that they need in order to be good landlords. 

I've also committed to very shortly be introducing legislation in order to ban fees charged to tenants by letting agents and also committed to working with the sector in order to continue to drive up standards. You'll be aware, also, that we've recently finished consulting on our homes-fit-for-human-habitation standards. So, I'm quite pleased that we are working in a really constructive way with the private rented sector in order to increase and improve the offer that they're able to give, partly because I think the sector is going to become even more important in future for all of the reasons that people have described about how difficult it is for many people to get on the housing ladder—and, actually, not everybody will want to, because they'll have different priorities and different lifestyles that might not mean that they want to be settled down in one particular place. 

So, I think a healthy housing sector across the piece is important. But I would just provide reassurance that we take eligibility and affordability really seriously in terms of the products that we offer. We don't want to set people up to fail in any way. So, we're very keen that people obviously take all of the absolutely important and vital advice that they need. One way in which we are enabling some of that to happen is of course through the accredited conveyancing scheme, which I introduced as part of the package on leasehold reform. That will ensure that people are getting the adequate information they need, not only about leasehold, but are getting the kind of quality advice that they need in order to make that decision as to whether homeownership is right for them.

I completely agree on the importance of financial education, and that is certainly something that we are progressing in schools, particularly through the curriculum reform, but we're not waiting for that. There's also good work already happening as part of our financial inclusion delivery plan, which seeks to ensure that people do leave school with a strong understanding of the important information that they will need simply just to run a home, because, actually, it's a lot more complicated than people often imagine.

On the issue of self-build, I appreciate the comments that you've made today and I'll bear them in mind as we look to develop some further proposals in this area, which I would hope to share with the Chamber in due course.

House prices are driven by scarcity. It's in the large house builders' interests to reduce supply below the demand, as that will increase prices. The converse would also be true, and if you visit Spain you'll see a lot of semi-built houses because supply started to exceed demand. It's also in the interests of landowners to reduce the supply of land for houses so as to increase the value of their land. If they sold all their land in one go, then the value of that land would drop dramatically.

Help to Buy, of course, added money to the demand side. I think what I've found strange—and perhaps others have as well—is that I've met a number of young professionals over the last few months in their early 30s who are still living in privately rented accommodation. These are people who've done all the things that we as society have told them to do. They've gone out and they've studied hard, they've got good degrees, they've then followed that by getting good jobs, and they're still unable to buy a house. Now, people of my generation—and I was talking to Peter Black about this a couple of months ago—in our 20s, we went to a building society, got some money and bought a house. It was quite simple. There wasn't much fuss about it, actually. But young people now today—I use the word 'young' to describe people in their 30s, which perhaps tells you something about my age, if nothing else—. There is that problem. Most of the low-cost housing is older housing, often pre-twentieth century housing. It's certainly true in my constituency, and I believe it's true in your constituency as well, that the older housing is the cheaper housing rather than the new, modern—I say 'new'; the post-war semis and detached houses that have been built.

What is the Welsh Government going to do to improve the quality of older housing? Bring empty homes back into use: I mean, we've all, in our campaigning days, wandered around knocking on doors and wondered why No. 23 was empty—and you could see it was empty, rather than somebody hadn't registered—and then, going down another street, wondering why there were three empty houses in a block of nice terraced housing.

Supporting co-operative housing: I know I bang on about this, probably more than anybody else in this room would like to hear, but I think co-operative housing, it's something that is so popular in North America and in Europe—Vancouver's got more than Britain—that we really do need to look at it. It's a third method of providing houses, and it's something that has been ignored by Governments—well, I was going to say from a certain time, but it's been ignored by Governments for ever in this country. It's on the too-hard list. We need to build more council houses and, I think, get councils to sell land and use that to build council houses so they're building it out of their own resources. 

And the last thing is: what about—? The LDP identifies large chunks of land, and, I think, in Swansea, it's 10 houses or more. There are lots of infill sites in existence in Swansea. I can't talk about other parts of Wales, but, in Swansea, there are lots of infill sites. How about encouraging councils to allow self-build on those infill sites? This could actually deal with it. We always talk about the LDP, but, you go down a street, and there's quite often a gap where you could build two houses, but nobody has—and, over the garage often, where the garages used to be—that could be available for self-build. Why don't we do some more of this? We give money to housing associations, we support large builders, we set targets. How about doing some more innovative things that will actually get more houses built and get people moving into them?

I thank you very, very much for those comments. I particularly would begin by saying that I share your interest in co-operative housing and seeing what further we could do there, because, in the time I've been in post, I've been able to see—well, one particularly stands out in my mind, the example of the co-operative housing that we've supported in Carmarthen. I was really struck by the fact, actually, that's not just about building homes, that really is about building communities, because there was two years' worth of work that went into working alongside those residents before they even moved into their new homes in order to help them become good co-operative members, but also to create a community as well.

The skills that people have learned through being engaged with that, and the value that they've had, goes well beyond, I think, just the homes that they're able to live in. So, we do provide funding to the Wales Co-operative Centre for support for that work. But one thing I will say is that we all, I think, need to be encouraging local authorities and RSLs to be considering co-operative housing because, actually, there is a lot of heavy lifting needed at the front of this, which is perhaps one of the reasons why it is less popular and there hasn't been as much take-up as I would like. But I have agreed further funding for the Wales Co-operative Centre this year to see what we can do in terms of furthering the work on co-operative housing. I understand that there are discussions with at least 25 interested parties at the moment, so I would hope that this is an area where we can see some growth in future, just purely because of that added value that you get when you do undertake co-operative house building.

Land for housing is another area where I do recognise that there is a lot of pressure, so I'm keen to see what more we can do about utilising Welsh Government land, which I know can play a really important part in the provision of housing in Wales. A number of significant Welsh Government-owned sites have already been brought forward for housing delivery, and I'm in close contact with Ken Skates and his department, looking at the land that Welsh Government owns and whether we can bring it forward for use by RSLs particularly, potentially offering it to them at a market rate but without having to put it on the market, for example. So, looking at innovative ways in which we can support land for RSLs in particular.

We do have a land for housing scheme, and that is a loan scheme, which enables RSLs to purchase land to support the delivery of affordable and/or market homes, and that scheme has already invested £42 million to date. That's going to facilitate the delivery of over 2,800 homes, 85 per cent of which will be affordable homes. We're also looking much further afield than Welsh Government-owned land—so, land owned across the public sector—because that can be really key to the delivery of further affordable homes in future. Affordable homes have actually been delivered on land made available by the public sector during the last year to the number of 689. So, it is something that is happening, although I accept that it's something that we need to be looking at scaling up as well.

You mentioned, of course, land sitting vacant, and you'll be aware of the proposals for the vacant land tax. I think that's a positive way in which to stimulate and encourage house building in future and prevent people and organisations sitting on land that isn't going to be used for the purpose for which we understand it. 

I think small and medium-sized enterprises also have an important role to play in terms of building on those small parcels of land, land that would not be attractive to larger builders, but could be attractive to small builders or to self-builds. So, we're working really closely with the Federation of Master Builders, the Builders Merchants Federation and Welsh builders merchants in promoting a wide range of schemes that we already provide and we're also working through the house builder engagement programme, which also includes representatives on there of small private developers, including SMEs, to understand the barriers that they face to building more housing, and what we can do in order to tackle that. I met the house builder engagement programme alongside Ken Skates and Lesley Griffiths just in the last couple of weeks to understand further the barriers that there are, particularly around planning in terms of building those smaller schemes as well.

So, there is clearly a lot happening, but I appreciate that there's lots more to do, and improving the quality of existing homes is something that's of concern to me. Some of the homes in the greatest disrepair are those homes that are in the owner-occupier sector, and we need to be thinking about what we do—. Once we've achieved the Welsh housing quality standard in the RSL sector and local authority sector, then we need to start thinking, really, about the support we might be able to offer to people who own their own homes but just don't have access to the finance that they need to bring them up to a standard that we would want to see.

I'd like to welcome the review of the affordable housing supply, and I feel that local authorities are under pressure to entice big developers with low affordable housing targets, because that's the only way you can get big developers to build. I fear that the current local development plan system works with that grain rather than against it, to the outrage of residents who want affordable housing. For example, an estate has been agreed in my constituency for 260 houses, of which 60 are affordable. That is what happens when you put tactics before strategy and you have LDPs before you have strategic development plans. I don't think the Government has been right on that.

I'd like to just read to you some evidence that was given by the chief planning officer to the policy and resources scrutiny committee in Caerphilly council regarding targets for affordable homes. He said:

'It's only a target, and if it's not viable for the developers then we have to accept a reduced figure. Developers know the targets exist but they have their own set fixed costs, including their profit margins. If the developer can't make what they expect to be a profit, and the landowner can't sell the land at a price that they feel satisfactory, then no development takes place.'

This keeps us trapped in this housing crisis and I feel that the last bit of the answer to Mike Hedges that you gave does give us hope in that small firms can start to break through and start to smash that cartel—the cartel of the big four housing developers. I'm hoping to hold a cross-party group later this year and I would like to know, Minister, if you'd be willing to attend that cross-party group and hear from small house builders there. But, also, do you agree that the dominance of the big four construction companies actually works against the provision of affordable housing?

I thank you for those questions and I'd certainly welcome the opportunity to come along to a meeting of the cross-party group and I look forward to agreeing a date with you in future.

I think that your passion for small and medium-sized enterprises and also the recognition that you have of the fact that they can play a greater role in house building in Wales is very welcome. You'll be pleased to learn that we have our Wales property development fund and that's a fund specifically for SMEs to have access to finance, because, often, a lot of money needs to be spent upfront on all of the various planning and so on that is necessary—so, lots of money to be spent upfront and they often can't access that from normal sources. So, Welsh Government is able to step in there and provide access to finance to get those small and medium-sized enterprises building again. I'm very pleased to have increased the funding, previously, that is available to that. I'm also intending to announce a significant scheme designed to support SMEs and increase home building shortly, and I look forward to making a further announcement on that. So, there's been a little bit of a teaser in the Chamber today.

In terms of Help to Buy, or in terms of the role of the big developers, I think one of the cards that we have is the fact that Help to Buy is such a boon to that particular part of the industry, and they very much, I think, rely on Help to Buy. So, I think that we can be asking more through Help to Buy, for example the work that we've done on asking for sprinklers to be installed in new homes. There was some resistance to that at first, but, actually, because we do have a strong working relationship now through our home builders engagement board, I do think there are opportunities to start looking to the next Help to Buy to see what we should be asking there in future, because this one will come to an end at the end of this Assembly, and it's important we start thinking about what do we do in future, and also having those discussions with the Government across the border to understand what their plan for Help to Buy is, so we can have an understanding of the finance available to us, but also, having discussions, really, in terms of the context of the challenges that are facing us around climate change and our keenness to move towards zero carbon and so on.

So, I think that there is opportunity to work closely and constructively with all of the large home builders, as we did when we had that agreement with them to not sell any new-build houses as leasehold, for example. I think there are opportunities for positive working, whilst also trying to ensure that we get the maximum for our money in terms of the investment that we make.

As you've said already, Minister, I think we do need to understand the particular situations across Wales if we're going to make the progress necessary to meet the demand for homes in our country. In Newport, it's clear that that pressure for new homes is very considerable indeed. Since July of last year, when the announcement was made that the tolls on the Severn crossings would be abolished at the end of this year, there's been a 5 per cent rise in the lower quartile of house prices, up to February this year, and the average is 3 per cent. I think the 5 per cent is particularly difficult, because it is that lower-cost housing that's most affordable for first-time buyers, and that's where the biggest increase in price has taking place. Everybody, I think, expects these trends to accelerate as we get closer to the abolition of the tolls and, indeed, when they are actually ended. So, I would very much urge Welsh Government to recognise that situation and work with Newport City Council, the registered social landlords, the developers and others to meet that particular challenge.

I'm sure you know, Minister, it's not as if a lot of work isn't taking place in Newport by the city council, the housing associations and developers. Six hundred units of affordable housing have been delivered between 2013 and 2017, and there is a continuing programme over the next five years. As Hefin David said, viability is stated as an issue by the big housing companies when it comes to meeting the affordable housing proportions that are expected. The power that they have is a real problem as far as that's concerned, and we would like to see that addressed.

Help to Buy has been particularly significant in Newport and, indeed, since 2014, 1,248 homes have been purchased with the help of that scheme, and that's nearly a fifth of the Wales total, so obviously that is particularly significant. I would ask that you look at how that scheme will be taken forward in the future with regard to the particular challenges of Newport and how it's helped meet those particular issues.

Could I just end, Minister, by saying that, in view of all of those challenges, yes, Help to Buy has a big role to play, and affordable housing as part of big schemes and viability issues are very significant, but I would agree very much with what others have said—that we need to be innovative beyond that. Self-build, actually, has quite a significant history in Newport in places like Llanvaches and Penhow in my constituency, for example, and there is real interest in self-build. So, it's not just for rural areas, as, in fact, you said earlier; it's obviously applicable in urban areas as well.

We do have a lot of empty properties, and I wonder what might be done to force those empty properties to be brought back into use, subject to the appropriate level of support to be put in place to enable that. Nonetheless, if that opportunity isn't then taken, what might be put in place to enforce the bringing back of those properties into constructive use?

And finally, co-operatives. We've had a recent example in Newport of co-operatives playing an interesting part in meeting demand, but I wonder whether you could look at expanding that again, in the way that you mentioned earlier, building on what's already in place in Newport.

Thank you very much for those questions. I do very much recognise that the market in Newport is being impacted by the plans to scrap the tolls on the second Severn crossing. I recognise that and we're very alive to that in Government. 

That is why I was so pleased to attend, this week, the launch of Melin Homes's vision for Newport and parts of Monmouthshire for the next five years. They intend to build 1,000 new homes, but also, while they're doing that, trying to keep as much of the value as they possibly can within the community, which is why they're putting lots of focus on the work that they do in terms of employment and apprenticeships. I was really pleased to meet up with some of their apprentices and understand the benefits and the opportunities that they're having as a result of the investment that Melin Homes is making in them. And this is an opportunity for me to congratulate Melin Homes on being number 17 in The Sunday Times list of best not-for-profit organisations to work for. Certainly, speaking to those apprentices gave me a strong sense that they felt that they were very much being invested in and that they were working in an organisation where they felt valued as part of that culture. And the organisation, as well, has a really strong focus on encouraging women within it, and they hope to promote or attract women to take on larger numbers of their maintenance jobs as well, so moving women and providing opportunities for women in fields where they haven't always been available. So, that's certainly very positive, and I look forward to those 1,000 homes coming forward in the Newport area.

On co-operatives, I also think there are opportunities for co-operatives in the future, as we look to where we go beyond leasehold. Because we've got the Law Commission review going on at the moment, which I wrote to Assembly Members about earlier on today, but actually I think that we could be looking at co-operative models for running blocks or even estates and so on in future. So, I think there is plenty of potential for co-operatives to come much more to the fore in terms of how we deliver housing and those associated services in Wales as well.

On the empty properties, I did outline in my response to Bethan Jenkins some of the schemes that we have, but I think there is an issue as well, which I've asked officials to advise me on, in discussion with officials from Ken Skates's department, about compulsory purchases, because often it is the case, not only for housing but also in terms of high street regeneration, that owners either can't be found, in many cases, or that they're reluctant to let go of properties that are proving to be a blight on the high street or that aren't being used to a purpose for social good. So, I think that this is an area, again, that we can be making some inroads into, working across Government.

Thank you, Minister.

The next item is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Education on digital skills and coding, and I call on the Cabinet Secretary to make the statement. Kirsty Williams.

Diolch yn fawr. A vital part, Presiding Officer, of our national mission is to equip all learners with high-level digital skills that ensure that our young people are digitally competent to become enterprising, creative and critical thinkers. I know that this is an area of interest to many Members, so I thought it would be helpful today to outline progress made.

Our national education action plan sets out how the school system will implement the new curriculum, with a focus on leadership, professional learning, and excellence and equity at the heart of a self-improving system. The digital competence framework—the DCF—aimed at embedding digital skills, was made available in September 2016 as the first element of our new curriculum. Digital competence will form one of three cross-curricular responsibilities, alongside literacy and numeracy, within the new curriculum. That, in itself, is a clear signal of the importance that I and the Welsh Government attach to this important area. A range of tools is available on our learning platforms, Hwb and Learning Wales, to help schools implement the DCF, plan their provision and develop a digital vision. Digital pioneer schools are actively supporting schools across Wales to implement and develop the materials hosted on Hwb.

To enable schools to be fully embedded in the DCF, regional consortia are undertaking detailed work to configure digital professional learning to the new professional standards, national professional learning models and the leadership academy's endorsement requirements to develop a national digital professional learning framework for all schools. This new framework will support teachers and leaders to develop effective, sustainable digital learning experiences for pupils, equipping them with the necessary knowledge and skills to work in an increasingly digital society. The teaching and leadership standards consider in detail important concepts and behaviours relevant to digital learning. Detailed web design work led by the Welsh Government will be undertaken during the summer term, prior to making the interactive digital professional learning framework available to all schools through a phased approach.

Presiding Officer, you will also know that I have spoken many times of the importance of coding. Last June, I launched 'Cracking the code', our plan to improve coding skills. Backed by over £1 million-worth of funding, we are working with consortia, businesses, third sector partners and universities so that more learners have the opportunity to develop these skills in advance of the new curriculum. In addition, 'Cracking the code' is supported by a number of key stakeholders, such as Code Club UK, Sony, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and Technocamps. And only this morning, Presiding Officer, I had the opportunity to visit St Philip Evans school, here in Llanedeyrn, in Cardiff. It is a fantastic example of how digital competency and coding skills are being developed from the earliest of ages. I'm sure that some of the nursery and year 1 students could have put some of us to shame with their understanding and their ability to see the importance of these skills.

'Cracking the code' is also aimed at increasing awareness of coding, as well as supporting schools, and I'm pleased with the progress that we have made in a short space of time. At the end of March 2018, 473 active clubs were registered with Code Club UK, and that's an increase of around 173 clubs, compared to June in the previous year. Many more schools are working with Code Club UK and the four regional educational consortia that may not have formally registered with Code Club UK as of yet, thus making it difficult to ascertain the actual numbers of clubs that are currently running. Alongside 'Cracking the code', Technocamps—the industrial liaison unit of the department of computer science in Swansea University—has received over £1.2 million of Welsh Government education funding to deliver computer coding workshops to pupils and teachers in schools in Wales. This gives teachers and learners hands-on experience with a range of coding activities and tools, and it ensures that every secondary school has at least one teacher with direct experience of working with code.

The next phase of the Learning in Digital Wales programme will give teachers more choice about the digital tools that they employ in the classroom, with the introduction of Google for Education into the Hwb platform from spring 2018. Building upon the existing set of tools available, including Microsoft Office 365 and Just2easy, teachers will be able to choose from a wide range of tools, such as Google Classroom, facilitating powerful class collaboration and device management for Chromebooks.

Members will be aware that prioritising schools’ access to superfast broadband was a key part of the progressive agreement that brought me into this Government. Together, we must ensure that every school has access to superfast broadband, and our infrastructure must meet our ambition. I have therefore since announced an additional £5 million to upgrade broadband connections in schools across Wales, and the work is currently under way. There are a small number of schools where issues around broadband capacity continue to frustrate. All but one of those schools' orders have been placed with internet providers—infrastructure providers—and we continue to work with all schools to find solutions.

Alongside this, a set of digital education standards to help schools access tools and resources is being developed. Working with local authorities and regional consortia, we are currently undertaking an assessment of 180 schools to help shape standards and understand what support and guidance will be needed for the future. It's also important to recognise that our work does not stop at schools. In a recent visit to Coleg Meirion Dwyfor, I witnessed at first hand how the college is working with key partners and schools to encourage young learners to get involved in coding programmes. The students involved in the college’s coding clubs initiative spoke of their joy at working with local schools and the progression achieved from one visit to the next and the enthusiasm of learners in completing coding programmes, which, in their own words, were praised as almost market ready.

In my annual HEFCW remit letter, published last month, I outlined my expectation for the council and universities to further increase their engagement with industry and schools in enhancing access to coding. That is why I have made available £1.2 million to support Welsh universities in the establishment of the Institute of Coding. This includes £200,000 to support the civic mission activity of coding initiatives in schools, colleges, work-based learning providers and universities. The funding will allow Cardiff and Swansea universities to become active members of the UK-wide consortium that is creating the Institute of Coding. The institute will train the next generation of digital specialists at levels 6 and 7 and allow partners to develop and deliver innovative, industry-focused education across the United Kingdom. This new funding will ensure that Wales plays its full part and that we are well placed to reap the benefits of the institute.

Presiding Officer, as I have outlined, this Government is taking a number of significant actions to ensure our young people are equipped with high-level digital skills. However, what is especially important is that all of these actions, taken in turn, form a cohesive plan delivered in way that will raise standards in the classroom, while supporting pupils in becoming enterprising, creative and critical thinkers. Thank you.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement today. I welcome the news that Swansea and Cardiff universities are to receive funding to expand coding in schools, colleges and communities. This will help these universities to be part of the UK Institute of Coding, created by the Conservative Government, which is a partnership deal with leading tech firms, universities and industry bodies in an effort to bolster future digital skills in this country. I'm sure the Cabinet Secretary will join me in praising this UK Government initiative.

Coding is a skill that every organisation needs. Today, code is so fully integrated not only across businesses, but also our entire lives, that almost all businesses have code at their core. So, may I ask how will she ensure that Government planning to provide Wales with specialised digital skills will keep pace with the scale of the challenges that lie ahead? Teaching youngsters how to succeed in the digital world is crucial. The Welsh report called 'Cracking the code: A plan to expand code clubs in every part of Wales' made several commitments under each strategic heading. However, many of these commitments are vague, with no timescale for change, therefore making progress difficult to monitor. So, how will the Welsh Government monitor the progress of this plan?

The Welsh Government has committed to an increase in the quality and the amount of Welsh language support for schools for coding. Can the Cabinet Secretary confirm whether or not it has created a dedicated zone of Hwb to bring partners together with schools to create a repository of projects and resources? We need a coherent and a long-term commitment from the Welsh Government for digital Wales, from skills to infrastructure. Estyn has raised concerns that pupil progress in digital skills has not kept pace with technology in Wales. They report that opportunities to develop ICT skills across subjects are limited in many secondary schools and in a third of primary schools. In just under two thirds of primary schools, there are important shortcomings in standards of ICT. Though most pupils are confident using programmes such as Word processing and creating presentations, their skills are often limited to a narrow range of applications. How will the Cabinet Secretary address this issue and deal with the fact that the number of students studying ICT in Wales has decreased? There is also a huge gender disparity in the number of students studying computing at A-level. Three hundred and thirty nine students sat A-level computing last year; only 32 of these were women. Will the Cabinet Secretary commit to tackling this shocking gender gap?

One major issue is that our digital lives are changing so fast that educators are struggling to keep up with this. Digital skills are changing faster than formal education providers. Industry is developing at such a rate that by the time a curriculum is crafted and approved by the various bodies, and students finally graduate, you can be talking almost a decade from start to finish. How will the Welsh Government ensure that our educators keep up with the pace of change?

Cabinet Secretary, a person's level of digital ability is fast becoming a key determinant of their earning power, yet Wales is a patchwork of digital skills. The Barclays digital development index 2017, which analysed 88,000 UK job adverts and 6,000 adults, claims that Welsh employees score amongst the lowest of all UK regions for their digital skills. I hope we will receive regular statements from you on progress in putting Wales at the top of the league of digital skills in the United Kingdom. Thank you.

Could I thank the Member for his questions? Firstly, I think it is really important that Wales plays its part in the development of UK-wide organisations. We should not cut ourselves off from participating in these initiatives, and I'm delighted that we've been able to successfully fund, via HEFCW, projects from Cardiff and Swansea universities. It builds on their strong tradition, strong presence in these subjects, and will allow them to participate fully in the development of the Institute of Coding. So, I'm delighted that we've been able to work via HEFCW to provide those resources.

The Member asked about the expansion of code clubs. We are seeing significant expansion of code clubs, but of course there is always more that we would like to do, and we've put resources into that. It's important to me, as well as, I know, to other Ministers, that those code clubs are a mixture of provision within school for schoolchildren and that we also look at community code clubs that are open to the more general population. We do recognise that there are benefits for adult learners, for instance, in being able to acquire these skills in terms of improving their employability.

With regard to specialist zones on Hwb, you don't need to take my word for it, Oscar, you just need to log on to Hwb. You can Google Hwb today, you can click on the zones and you will be able to see that we are continually populating the Hwb platform with new and innovative content, including work that is supporting our network of excellence in mathematics and our network of excellence in science and technology, and also, most recently, our new zone on Hwb, which is to support the spread of good practice regarding the foundation phase.

I absolutely recognise what the Estyn inspector's annual report says about the quality of ICT teaching in schools, but we should always make the distinction between ICT and computing. Taking exams in ICT and taking exams in computing are not the same thing, and that's one of the reasons why the digital competence framework—the very first part of our national curriculum—needed to be put out there first to address what the Estyn inspection report has to say.

There are two crucial things that schools need to do in this regard. They need to be able to look creatively at how they can use digital technology not in a stand-alone class, Oscar, but actually coherently through the entire curriculum. The school I went to this morning does not have a computer suite where children go off for a 15-minute period. Computers and digital technology are a fundamental part of how the entire curriculum is delivered, in every lesson and every single part of the school day, and we need to ensure that what I saw this morning at St Philip Evans is replicated across Wales.

One of the key reasons why sometimes that doesn't happen, especially in subjects outside computing and ICT, is the competence of the teachers themselves and the confidence of the teachers, especially if those teachers have done their initial teacher training and their professional practice before these technologies were readily available. That's why I spent a great deal of time in my statement talking about the development of national professional standards and a professional learning package to support those teachers, because they need to have the confidence, the skills and the knowledge. And I would say to all schools that there is a tool available on Hwb where you can test the capability in your school, as it currently stands, and begin to plan what you will need to do to improve your provision.

You also talked about women in these issues. You will be aware that the leader of the house, in part of her work on equality, alongside myself and the Cabinet Secretary for the economy, works closely with a group that is overlooking the implementation of the women in STEM report. We recognise that there is more to do to ensure that girls and women see a space for themselves taking these subjects at school and, crucially, pursuing careers with those skills that they have acquired within the classroom. We will continue to work with outside agencies and individuals to address those issues with regard to making sure that more girls see themselves as taking advantage of these opportunities and the career opportunities that studying these subjects brings.

May I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement and welcome what she had to say? Plaid Cymru, for some time, has supported doing more to teach pupils to create as well as use digital resources such as this, so we are certainly moving in the right direction in that regard. As important as it is to have a digital competence framework, as the Cabinet Secretary has recognised, that, in and of itself, won’t be sufficient. The greatest challenge here is to empower teachers on the front line in order for them to implement that framework effectively, and, therefore, CPD and the role of initial teacher training in this area are crucially important.

We’ve heard reference already to the comments made by Estyn. The Children, Young People and Education Committee have also stated in their inquiry into professional education for teachers that the education workforce isn’t currently prepared for implementing the new curriculum. In terms of the digital competence framework specifically, the committee has stated that it’s a great concern, because the results of a survey by the committee highlighted the lack of information or understanding among teachers related to the changes that are in the pipeline in this context. You’ve already referred to Estyn mentioning that the teachers don’t have the information and the confidence needed to deliver this to its full potential, and very few schools, as far as I can see, have carried out an audit of the digital competence of their staff, and that is certainly something that Estyn highlighted.

You mention a phased approach to the digital professional learning framework, and you’ve mentioned standards and so on. Can you give us a more specific timetable? If there is to be a phased approach, when do you expect everyone to be up to speed in terms of being able to deliver this effectively?

You’ve announced additional resources today, and that’s to be welcomed, of course, particularly given the criticism of a statement that you made some months ago from backbench Labour Members. That may still be ringing in your ears, because you turned to the Member who criticised you when you were answering earlier questions. In the context of a previous statement, one criticism was in relation to Minecraft for education as only 10 schools, out of 1,600, were involved in that work, and it was stated that that wasn’t good enough. Well, it’s good to see, in this statement at least, that more schools are to be involved with Code Club UK. I think that’s very positive. The figure that you’ve given tells us one story, of course. I don’t know if you have any information about the geographical spread of some of those schools. I don’t expect you to answer in the Chamber, perhaps, but having that sort of information would be beneficial, because very often it depends on an individual within a consortium or a particular council to be driving this agenda. It would be comforting to know that that growth is happening across Wales rather than being centralised in certain areas.

The additional £1.2 million that you referred to in your statement is to be welcomed, as I’ve already said. It’s not clear to me if that is for this year or for now until the end of this Assembly. Is it an annual commitment or is there a long-term commitment beyond that? Because we do need a long-term financial assurance in order to embed this new culture in the regime. So, more clarity would be something that I would welcome. And whilst that of course is positive in terms of Swansea and Cardiff universities, is it the intention to look to develop this in other institutions? I’m looking at Bangor and Glyndŵr in my region, of course, because we are eager to develop these areas of expertise and this training in all parts of Wales, I would have thought, in order to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity.

I can’t let any statement referring to Hwb pass without referring to your decision not to continue with Hwb+. We’ve had a number of exchanges on that in the past, and I accept that the decision has been taken, but I would point to the fact that Larry Nelson, the managing director of Microsoft Corporation education partners, has described the Hwb+ platform as world leading and a

'global showcase and an example of how technology can support change in educational practice.'

And the Welsh Government’s own evaluation came to the conclusion, and I quote again:

'abandoning the project would severely disappoint and alienate teachers who are enthusiastic about further take-up of digital learning and have invested their considerable time and effort setting up Hwb+ school sites and promoting it to colleagues at their school.'

Therefore, I’m not going to ask a question about the decision. What I am going to ask is: how can we have confidence that the enthusiasm that the Government’s evaluation refers to won’t be undermined by the decision not to continue with Hwb+?

You didn’t respond to an earlier question on the provision of Welsh-medium resources, because one of the frustrations noted in ‘Cracking the code’ is the lack in the levels of Welsh language resources and facilitators in this area. It is a problem in other areas, and it’s something that the education committee is looking at tomorrow in a particular scrutiny session. I would be pleased to hear, and to have an assurance from you, that schools will have access to the necessary resources to provide digital skills and coding through the medium of Welsh.

Finally, you were saying, if I understood you correctly, because you did add something orally that wasn’t included in the written statement, that every school bar one has problems in accessing broadband or is in the process of finding a solution to be put in place. I would be interested to know which one school is left. Thank you.

Thank you, Llyr. With regard to Cardiff and Swansea universities' successful grant application, it is for HEFCW to make the decision on which universities will be funded. Those two universities sent forward a bid that was regarded as worthy of that funding and I'm sure HEFCW and individual institutions that want to participate in this work will continue to have those conversations. What I'm really pleased about is that Welsh institutions will form part of this new body. We should not cut ourselves off from UK development, and Welsh universities need to be at the table, especially when they have such strengths in these areas and an outstanding department, for instance, like Swansea has. It would be awful to think that we were not part of the table because of a lack of resources. I'm glad that we've been able to do something about that. 

I would offer you the same advice as I offered to—. Llyr, you don't need to take my word for the expansion in code clubs—if you Google Code Club UK's website, they have a map that will show you exactly where every code club that is registered with them is currently located. The clubs are being developed all the time, and therefore sometimes those things take a little bit of time—there's a lag—but I've just been looking at my most recent club, which is hosted in Brecon library on a Saturday morning, and I'm glad to see that that's on there. So, by all means have a look. What you will see is that there are code clubs the length and breadth of Wales—in urban areas, rural areas—but, of course, there is always more we can do because our young people are everywhere, and we should be looking to do what we can to encourage volunteers to be able to provide those opportunities for young people.

The reason I looked at Lee Waters was because Lee and I continue to have these discussions because he doesn't just let it drop—he doesn't do his five minutes of glory in the Chamber and then forget about an issue. I'm sure nobody does that, actually; I'm sure no Member ever gets up and says something in the Chamber and then forgets all about it once they've left and they've had their two minutes for their press release. Lee, actually, continues to bother me on a regular basis about this issue outside the limelight of the Chamber, and I'm grateful for his insights.

It's clear to me that we have a way to go in ensuring the true spirit of the DCF is embedded throughout our curriculum. There are a number of things we need to do about that. We need to ensure that schools know where they are at the moment, and that's why I would urge all schools to use the DCF mapping tool that is available on Hwb, and the professional learning needs tool, which will help schools plan their provision and develop a digital vision.

I continue to liaise with the National Digital Learning Council to give me advice on what more we can do to ensure that schools are using these resources and that schools are really thinking about, and planning, for the needs of the DCF. But crucially, professional learning is a key part of that, and that's why, for instance, we continue at the moment to use our LiDW continuing professional development grant, which is in phase 2. That money continues to be available via the regional consortia. It provides a focus on a range of activities, including support for practitioners in school to develop their confidence and competence in using a range of digital resources and tools through the LiDW programme. It's providing capacity for expert digital leader support, which co-ordinates work in schools with the regional consortia. It's actively promoting digital citizenship in relation to safe and responsible use of technology—that's something that hasn't been discussed so far in the Chamber, but it's actually an important part of the digital competence framework: it's not only giving young people the skills but knowing how to use those responsibly and to keep themselves safe while they're online. So, that grant is available to consortia, and its primary focus is to develop skills, competence and confidence.

With regard to Hwb+, this decision has been welcomed by those outside of Government who are knowledgeable in this field, who provide advice in this field, and it's based on an ever-developing understanding of what resources work best in schools, and it reflects feedback. That's not to say that everything in Hwb+ was bad—I'm not saying that—but the contract has come to an end, and that's when the contract was due to come to an end. It gives Government and Ministers an opportunity to reflect on the best way forward. We have taken a decision that that platform is not the optimum platform that we need, going forward, to support teachers. We've been very clear about what schools need to do to migrate their data, and we have provided support for that to schools.

I have to say, Llyr, the feedback that my officials have had is that schools themselves have not raised any questions with us, or complained to us, about the removal of Hwb+. What we're giving them is a greater choice, and hopefully a greater level of easy interaction with the platform that will help them embed these facilities into their everyday practice. As I said, we've provided remote support to help schools transfer their data, and where schools have requested it, we have provided individual on-site support for those schools that have needed that level of support.

The issue of the schools—as with all of these things, you think you've cracked it, and everything is done. There is one school—and I have the name somewhere, but I will write to the Member with it—where an order has not been placed, so for all the other schools, orders have been placed with the suppliers, and that work is programmed to be done. But there is one outlying school, and we are working to look to see how we can address those needs.

Increasingly what is coming to the fore with schools is not the infrastructure outside the school, it is now infrastructure inside the school. And we do continue to receive complaints from schools who are struggling, but often on examination of that, it's problems within the school. That's why we're working with 180 schools at the moment to get a feel for what the constraints are and what the issues are that we need to tackle, so that we can look, once we've addressed speeds outside, at what we can do then to address infrastructure within schools to ensure that it is what it needs to be.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement. Can I say it receives a broad welcome from both me and my party? We were particularly pleased to hear about the involvement of businesses and the funding for Welsh universities in your proposals, as well as your emphasis on prioritising superfast broadband provision in Welsh schools. I also welcome the fact that the scheme 'Cracking the code' has raised awareness of coding in schools and, in particular, I note there are now 473, maybe even more, active clubs registered with Code Club UK, which obviously shows a significant increase in engaging children in coding. Can we congratulate you on that success?

There are some points about the finer details of the statement that I would like to briefly comment on. Firstly, and I think Mohammad Asghar touched on this in his comments, there will always be educators, companies and universities who will want to sell or receive Government funding to teach coding and computer skills. After all, that has been the case for the past 30 or 40 years. However, the nature of computers, software and code rapidly changes as technology and the pace at which such technology progresses are likely to quicken in the coming years. So, it is important that the education programmes that the Cabinet Secretary is proposing will not just be programmes that are at the cutting edge of technology now, but are long-lasting education programmes that develop transferable computing and coding skills that students can use for many years into the future. I must say that signs look promising in this regard, given the Cabinet Secretary's quite detailed outline of the involvement of stakeholders such as Sony and the involvement of Cardiff and Swansea universities.

Can I just briefly discuss the topic of what lies behind a piece of computer code, software or technology? Why does the software produce the outputs that we see? Why does it do what it does? What makes it do what it does? There will be some intellectually curious learners on the programmes that the Cabinet Secretary is proposing who will be asking just these kinds of questions. There is an immense amount of academic theory underpinning code of software, as you will obviously know. Some of that theory lies in the sphere of mathematics, often pure mathematics, and, of course, various systems of logic. Unfortunately, I have to point out that the teaching of logic tends to be categorised somewhat nebulously in our universities. Sometimes, it goes to the mathematics department, but, much of the time, it goes to the philosophy department. Figures for philosophy in Welsh universities are not as positive as they might be. The philosophy department that was at Aberystwyth in the 1980s and 1990s was actually shut down at the end of that decade. So, Cardiff University's department is not amongst the biggest department of this sort in the UK, even though it is one of the larger ones in Wales.

So, can I conclude by asking the Cabinet Secretary does she not see a massive opportunity to use her coding programmes as a springboard to develop the intellectual curiosity of Welsh students to consider more traditional university courses such as logic, philosophy and pure mathematics? Can she further see an opportunity for these more traditional subjects to be expanded in Welsh universities, using the programmes she details as a springboard?

I'd like to thank the Member for his welcome to the statement and the work that the Welsh Government is doing in this area. He raises an interesting proposition about the curriculum at Wales's universities. What I should tell him is that any even sniff of Government interference in the autonomy of our academic institutions is something that I would wish to avoid. The curriculum and offer of each individual university is really a matter for them, but, like you, I'm glad that, in Wales's universities, we have a strong tradition in many of the subjects, including maths. Computer science, as I said, is particularly strong in Swansea. There is a table that comes out about what happens to people when they've done a certain degree, and what their destination is. Swansea computing does particularly well in finding its graduates some very well-paid jobs only a matter of months after their graduation. So, it's certainly something that the students who take that course do very well. But it really is a matter for the universities. What I'm keen to do is harness, in the universities, the expertise that they have within their departments, across their curriculum, and to be able to use their expertise to help us build up capacity in our schools system, which was one of the reasons why we are investing, as we are, via the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, in these universities, and we have done previously with Technocamps, because we recognise that this is a collective endeavour—individual schools, the private sector and enterprise, as well as our universities. By working together, we can provide a really fantastic offer for our children.

Cabinet Secretary, maybe I could bother you a little more. I wish you'd said in your statement what you said in the questions, because I do think you genuinely get the problem. I was slightly depressed that the statement puts a gloss on where we're at, and it seems to me that if we've got any chance of addressing the scale of change we need to carry out, it needs to start with an honest analysis of where things are at. You quoted the Estyn report, which said that, in two thirds of primary schools, there are important shortcomings in standards of ICT that should be a wake-up call to all of us. My frustration goes across all departments in the way that we are embracing digital. But in terms of education, I don't think that listing a litany of useful initiatives we are undertaking really does cut it, given the scale of the challenge that does face us. I genuinely am alarmed that we are way behind where we should be.

You mentioned that there are 473 code clubs. I'd be interested to know how many pupils are going through those code clubs. I would be particularly interested to know how many pupils on free school meals are going through those code clubs. Let's not kid ourselves: the amount of people we're engaging with is trivial, given the challenges that we are facing as a society, and I'd much rather the Welsh Government started its statement by saying that, and be honest about where we're at, rather than trying to pretend all was well.

The other findings in the Estyn report are that teachers lack knowledge and confidence. You mentioned that Hwb is a tool on it—a DCF mapping tool—but given the fact that schools are not auditing their digital competence already, they're hardly likely to start using a mapping tool on Hwb. It was also said in the Estyn report that schools lack a clear vision about ICT from senior leaders. That is a profound and damning indictment of the state of our school leadership. If they haven't got the skills and the knowledge and the confidence, they're not about to suddenly start doing this. The items you addressed are some way in the future, and they are going to take a long time to trickle down through all of our schools. That's what we should all be confronting. As it happens, I agree with you on Hwb+. I think Llyr Gruffydd is wrong on that. I think the feedback I'm getting from the profession was that that had lost its way and a new approach needs to be taken.

But I do implore you, Cabinet Secretary, to be honest with us all about where we're really at, and what really needs to change, and the pace and scale at which it needs to do so.

Thank you, Lee. I don't shy away from the fact and the findings of the Estyn report about what needs to happen in day-to-day practice in our schools. That's what's absolutely key: what can we do that is impactful on practice, because we need to see a step change within classrooms? How we can get that leadership from the very top of the school to recognise the importance of this and then to plan appropriately is key. I continue to discuss with the learning council who advise on these issues what more we can do and what more I can do to ensure that each school is addressing that seriously, strategically and consistently, rather than individuals getting ahead.

Our pioneer school network is also absolutely key in this in ensuring that they are out working with schools that are not part of the pioneer network to see change and practice. I think it's really important that we do that because, sometimes, some of the resistance to change is, 'It can't possibly work in my school. It's all very good for you, the sage on the stage, to tell me that, but you come to my classroom—', and actually by using the pioneer network we are demonstrating that these are approaches that have been trialled and tested in schools and that have worked and therefore, 'There is nothing to stop this being transferred into your own school.' So, the pioneers are a crucial part of that. We will continue via Estyn inspections of individual settings to keep a very close eye on how those schools are addressing these particular needs.

To hand, I don't have figures on free school meal children accessing coding club. I will go back to officials to see if it's possible to ascertain that data. We don't want this to become yet another divide between those children who can and those children who cannot. What was really interesting with the approach taken at the primary school in Llanedeyrn this morning is that that headteacher pays the teaching assistants to stay after school for an extra hour so that all children, whether they've got access to computers or technology at home, get to have that time to use that technology for their homework or to attend the coding club. That's just really interesting. That's in a school with over 20 per cent of children on free school meals, in an area of very mixed economic status for the families attending the school.

This will continue to form part of my work that I'm doing, following on from the debate that we had last week, about the true cost of secondary education and what the financial barriers are for all children being able to experience all that our education system has to offer. I'm determined to keep my officials' feet to the fire on this; also there is the digital council's willingness to keep my feet to the fire on how we can develop this to create that step change that you talked about, and it is my intention to continue to come back to the Assembly so we can monitor and you can monitor developments in this case.

But I don't underestimate the challenge of incorporating the DCF into the literacy and numeracy framework. When we think about how long it took the literacy and numeracy framework to be embedded into practice, and we were talking about concepts that all schools would have been familiar with—the teaching of literacy and numeracy—that gives us a picture of the challenge of introducing something consistently in our classrooms where perhaps there hasn't been that experience and that track record. And we should be mindful of that, and we are learning the lessons of the implementation of the literacy and numeracy frameworks in how we approach this.

Finally, David Rees. 

Diolch Llywydd. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for her statement today, because, clearly, the important role of computing and digital competency within our future operations is critical? I won't repeat some of the points on Estyn. You've made those answers quite clear so far, but I want to remind you, perhaps—and remind everybody—that digital competency and coding are not the same things. In fact, coding is perhaps a more advanced skill within digital competency, and we have two different tasks there to achieve. It is important that we assess the skills and coding skills of staff, and I think that Llyr is right that we do need an audit of those competencies: can someone use digital technology to actually deliver the work, but also can someone code? Because that's also different. 

I also welcome the work of Professor Faron Moller and Technocamps, originally set up I think by Beti Williams. I have to admit that I was involved with—. I knew of Beti Williams' role in the early days as part of the team that helped Beti set those things up. But my concerns are, again, the skills and coding, because back in the early part of the last Assembly we had Tom Crick who led the working group initiated by the then Minister, Leighton Andrews, and he set up the need to look at the differences, including science to ICT, as you've already highlighted in one of your answers, and he indicated the work we would need to do because we were already then behind the work in England. I still think our skills in coding among teachers, and the competence and confidence of teachers in that coding, is short, and we need to actually get something under way.

So, how is the Welsh Government taking this forward, not just in Technocamps, because that's limited, but how are you going to push so that every teacher in every school who is delivering the curriculum in computer science has the skill to actually deliver coding, and make sure it's coding in a particular language that is applicable across all of Wales, so you don't get different languages across different schools, which can confuse pupils and confuse teaching mechanisms? In my days, I was teaching Assembly language, CESIL and BASIC, but those days have gone, and we are now into C# and Java and other things, but there we go.

But, again, it's important about that development, because if we want to get young people who are developing apps and who are developing and modding games, they need to have those skills. The staff need to have those skills. Very often, we find that young people actually have better skills than the staff, and the staff learn off them, but we should not be frightened of that. And the staff should not be frightened of that, because staff tend to find they have a lot of other things to do. Pupils and young people tend to find they have a lot of time to spend on games and coding, but that's important and we need to develop that. 

And can you also look at what industrial partners are involved in developing those skills, and the girls? To give you an example, Microsoft have been running this DigiGirlz scheme, and I hope that you would agree with me that we want to praise the young pupils in Ysgol Bae Baglan who went up to Microsoft last week, and came back with a social impact award from that event. These are young girls going into a competition and developing code at Microsoft. That's the type of scheme we want, to ensure that pupils can see a future and can see a career, and they can take it further, because there's a difference between using ICT and developing applications that actually produce those applications by writing the software code for them. That is hugely important. So, can you look at where we're going with that, so that we can where industrial partners will direct girls on and will give role models as well, because there are many female role models required? I can give you the names of several, but we need to ensure that that is there as well. 

Can you also look at schemes that allow teachers to go and work in software development, because being given training and development in a classroom environment to develop those skills is different from actually going in to the workplace and actually applying those skills to software development itself? And you learn an awful lot more by ensuring that the short cuts and techniques you gain are passed on to your young people.  

Thank you very much, David, for those series of observations and questions. Just to reassure you, Tom Crick remains an integral part of support for Government on these areas. He chairs one of the networks of excellence, and I notice from his Twitter feed today that he has very much welcomed the announcement and thinks that it's a really important thing that we've done today in terms of the investment in Swansea and Cardiff. 

With regard to coding, gosh, I'm so old that even I remember doing BASIC, and I'm so old I did O-levels. When I did an O-level in computer science, in fact, Beverley Thomas and I were the only two girls in the class. It was either computer science or scripture, so Beverley Thomas and I went to do computer science, the only two girls in the class, and we learnt BASIC. 

I think the issue about coding, I wouldn't want us to be in a position where we said to schools, 'That's the only coding programme that you should use', because first of all, there's a developmental issue there. So, for instance, you wouldn't want to start your very youngest children on Python, for instance—it's probably too advanced for them—but you probably would want to start your youngest children on Blockly, which gives them the basic understanding of instructions, and then you would build them up to something like Python. So, you don't want to just say to schools, 'That's the only one—' [Interruption.] Like you know anything about it. [Laughter.] Nice try. But you wouldn't want to say that's the only language that we would use in school. But what we do need is to develop the skills of those teachers within our schools. You're quite right; many of the teachers are being taught by the young people themselves, and trying to keep pace with them is a real challenge for the staff, and that's why we need to develop our national learning programme for all staff, so, no matter where they are in Wales, they can have access to a professional development programme that is going to assist them in many, many different ways. Thank you.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary, and that brings today's proceedings to a close.