Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament), 12 June 2024

313 contributions from 37 members. The official report.

1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Local Government and Planning

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Good afternoon and welcome to this Plenary meeting. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Housing, Local Government and Planning are first this afternoon, and the first question is from Joyce Watson.

Joyce Watson (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

1. What is the Welsh Government doing to support town centres in Mid and West Wales? OQ61236

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you for the question, Joyce. The focus of our Transforming Towns programme is the regeneration of our town centres, making them better places in which to live and work. Since 2020, we have awarded more than £49 million of grant and loan funding to town-centre regeneration projects across Mid and West Wales.

Joyce Watson (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

I thank you for that answer. I was particularly pleased to see the Transforming Towns grant being used to renovate two important historic market halls in my constituency of Mid and West Wales. Work with funds from this Welsh Government grant and European capital funding, and capital investment from Ceredigion County Council in the case of Cardigan market hall, have recently enabled the completion of restoration work in both Cardigan market hall and the Hen Farchnad, or the old market hall, in Llandeilo. Both these historic buildings were hugely important buildings in those particular town centres, and it's just fantastic to see them brought back into a good state of repair so that they can be utilised by businesses and communities alike. So, Cabinet Secretary, do you agree that the Transforming Towns grant demonstrates the Welsh Government's commitment to helping small businesses to thrive in our towns, but also to provide vital funds to regenerate those town centres?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Yes, thank you, Joyce, I very much agree with that. I've recently had the benefit of visiting both of those projects and they were absolutely great. The Llandeilo one is open. It's transformed what was the historic fire and rescue service, fire engine place—I don't know what you call that—garage—

Samuel Kurtz (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)

Depot.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Depot—thank you; very good. And it's really clever the way they've done it and the whole development is absolutely buzzing. I don't know if you've been, but I had an extremely pleasant coffee in the coffee shop there while we talked it through with some of the people who'd just visited. And they were saying how much the footfall for that is pouring into the town centre as well and really helping to bring the footfall up more generally. And the businesses were great there. And while we were there, there was a community event going on as well, which was great.

And then I was able to go and see the one in Cardigan. They were just on the cusp of opening, so I'm really hoping to go back this summer and see it open. And they were saying that they have a long list of people who are waiting to come back into Cardigan market who were there before, but who were looking forward to the refurbishment. They also have a long list of people looking to get in for the first time, and they've also been able to bring into active use some other disused and derelict shops in Cardigan, and so there's a bridal shop that's come there that is very up-market indeed. And they've all started as start-ups in the market.

And I thought the most impressive thing was the fact that they were using it as incubator space, so you could try out whether your project or idea worked, and if it did work, then you could move on into the town centre and take up a bigger space and leave the incubator space behind. It just had an absolute buzz. The one in Cardigan has the most beautiful stone arches as you go through—it's absolutely the most beautiful building. I don't know if the Llywydd knows it, but I was really impressed by the beauty of the building. And what was also nice is that it formed an accessible route—because it's quite steep, isn't it, Cardigan—so, you could park at the back there and you could go through, up disabled access and toilets and everything, into the town centre through the building, making a really lovely through-route past all of the new shops and buildings. So, it's very, very impressive. And it's a really good example of partnership working. So, the Welsh Government has worked really hard with both local authorities to have the match funding in place and to work with them to get the expertise to match up and so on, and in both places we also had community volunteers. I've forgotten the chap's name in Cardigan—he was so enthusiastic; he told me about the history of the building and everything. And it just shows how beloved these buildings are in their towns and the really galvanising effect it can have to renew them.

Samuel Kurtz (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for you answer to my colleague. Now, Pembroke in my constituency is one of the finest examples of a medieval town—a fantastic castle, which is the birth place of Henry Tudor. And it's got the South Quay development happening there, which has had Welsh Government funding. And while the community are really excited to see once derelict buildings coming back to life—and I've raised this before in the Chamber—there is a little bit of concern as to what the end product of the South Quay development will become. I know that the town council have put forward a bit of a business case, which was shot down, and so there's a little bit of a frustration in the community as to what the South Quay development will become. So, when funding projects, can I ask what caveats does the Welsh Government have on that? What community engagement do they do to ensure that a project brought forward does have community buy-in and that the end product, a development such as the South Quay, is something that's needed within the locality, to revitalise our town centres?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

So, these are very much partnerships between the local authority and the Welsh Government, and it's the local authority that brings forward the ideas. So, we provide the placemaking grants. We provide them both regionally and to individual councils. For the regional ones, which are smaller grants, we have a lead authority, but each authority has a say in what the regional spend looks like. One of the things that we've been trying to do—I'm not trying to make a political point here, actually—is we've been trying to make sure that the shared prosperity levelling-up funds jigsaw in, if you like, to that, so that we can have complementary investment. So, we've got quite good arrangements in place to make sure that they do jigsaw in, rather than stand alone. And so, the local authority puts forward the business case, and the Welsh Government completely relies on the local authority to do that. I don't have the details of that one, so I don't know what it's got in mind for it, and I haven't visited that one—it's probably the only one that I haven't visited, so I do plan to. So, the local authority will have done the business case, if you like, for it, and it will have come partly to the Welsh Government and partly to the regional forum to have a discussion about it. And as part of the business case, they will have consulted. I'm afraid I don't know the details of that specific one, but it's very much a process, a kind of team process, to bring them forward.

Obviously, the idea is that, sometimes, a quite big amount of money—it can be millions—and, sometimes, a relatively small amount of money, can bring regeneration and life, really, back to a derelict part of a town. And we're particularly interested in doing heritage projects, because they tend not to be affordable if they're commercially developed, because the land values are too small. And so, the placemaking grant in particular is looking at making affordable projects that bring heritage buildings back to life, where, otherwise, they wouldn't be commercially viable.

Cefin Campbell (Plaid Cymru, Mid and West Wales)

I'd like to thank Joyce Watson for the question. As we all know, our rural towns, towns across Wales, have suffered a great deal as a result of Brexit—

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

If we can just pause for a second, to ensure that the interpretation is working.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Sorry, I was on the wrong channel.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Okay. If you could start again, Cefin Campbell.

Cefin Campbell (Plaid Cymru, Mid and West Wales)

Okay. As we all know, our market towns across the whole of Wales have suffered a great deal as a result of Brexit, COVID, and the cost-of-living crisis recently. Now, one model that's being implemented is one by Carmarthenshire County Council, which is a scheme called Deg Tref, Ten Towns, focusing on 10 market towns, including, as Joyce Watson mentioned, Llandeilo, and places like Llanybydder, Newcastle Emlyn, St Clears, and so on. And Transforming Towns funds have been used to good end, such as the old market in Llandeilo, as we've heard. But it's also gone beyond that by providing funding to small businesses to improve their provision and also to transform buildings, to make these towns more attractive to tourists and visitors. So, could I ask if you are aware of the Carmarthenshire County Council Ten Towns programme, and do you think that this model of targeting towns is something that could be emulated by other local authorities across Wales?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you, Cefin. Sorry for not having that sorted out fast enough and making you repeat yourself. I am aware of it, yes. It very much follows the pattern of 'Future Wales: The National Plan 2040', the spatial plan for Wales, where we've been very keen to make sure that every town in Wales does not think it can do everything, and that we can target specific things at specific towns. So, we have a 'town centre first' policy, which means that we're trying to stop out-of-town spread, but it doesn't mean that every single regional town in Wales is going to be able to have the same offering. And actually, we know that the Ten Towns kind of strategy, where what you're doing is looking to see that you've got a hole in a particular area, and you can have specialisms, if you like, or particular offerings, in particular towns, really works. I don't think any of us like identikit towns, where you turn up and the high street looks exactly the same in every one. That doesn't really work, and it's a model that's really fading now as retail trends change. What really does work is the kinds of towns that you do get in—. I'm very fond of Carmarthen itself, actually, and the way that it's clustered around the market there, and the centre is lovely. But it's because it's unique, isn't it? You go there because it's a unique experience, and you get a completely different set of shops there than if you go to Cardigan, for example. It feels different. It's a nice experience, so it very much does work, and I very much commend the council on its strategy. It is one that we have been pushing through 'Future Wales' as well, and I think it's one where people can take a real pride in the individuality of their particular village or town or city, whichever it may be.

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

2. What plans does the Welsh Government have to use planning law to strengthen the protection of historic buildings? OQ61246

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you for the question, Jenny. The current legislation, including the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023, and planning policy, which includes 'Future Wales: The National Plan 2040', 'Planning Policy Wales' and technical advice note, or TAN 24, on the historic environment, together provide a robust framework to ensure the protection, conservation and enhancement of historic buildings and the broader historic environment.

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

Well, I'm interested to hear that you say that this is a robust planning framework, because several issues have arisen in my constituency that indicate that planning law has yet to be really on the right side of preserving historic buildings. So, the Vulcan pub had to be shipped off to St Fagans museum to be lovingly restored there, and the historic Roath Park pub on City Road—a very fine facade—had been slated for demolition several times over the last decade, even though its three-storey structure would have made it quite suitable for converting into flats. It's taken a monumental effort by local councillors to energise the local community, draw up petitions, force plans to be changed, and, thanks to those efforts, the pub facade, which dates back to 1886, will be saved. I'm not sure if you'd even describe them as success stories, but at least something is being restored. Across Wales, our historic vernacular is falling down in front of our eyes in many cases, because barns that were previously used, or houses for landworkers, are abandoned, and local people find it very difficult to use the planning law to protect these historic buildings—

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I'll need a question now, Jenny.

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

—yes, okay—without the innovation required to adapt them to modern needs. So, how could the planning system become more dynamic to protect our buildings' heritage, whilst also making them fit for the future?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you, Jenny. So, there are some complexities around who has the responsibility to list what. So, the decision to list a building is, obviously, based on the special architectural or historic interest of the building, which is obvious. Where it's not listed, you can request a spot listing, but that does need to draw attention to new evidence that may not have been available previously, or explain why it's been overlooked in the past. But, again, that's not a terribly high hurdle—we all know of spot-listed buildings. And then buildings are added to the list, either as a result of a survey of a particular area or building type, or following a request from local authorities, societies, other bodies or individuals, or, indeed, just community groups, and I'm aware of several of those that have happened.

Cadw does it at the national level, but the identification and protection of locally important buildings at the local level is done by the local authorities in fact, not by the Welsh Government, through Cadw. And, although there are lots of buildings that don't meet the threshold for national importance, exactly as you say, there are lots of buildings that meet the threshold for local importance—they're particularly beloved in the local area or they have a particular historic significance in a very local area, and the local authority can list them on that basis. Cardiff Council, which, obviously, covers the area that you're talking about, does have a list of important buildings. It does maintain that list, and I understand it's currently reviewing the list. Councils also have what's called an 'article 4 direction'. So, that's the ability to make sure that you have to have full planning consent in order to do anything to particular listed buildings that they maintain on the list. So, they do have quite extensive powers. I suspect what you're talking about there is how you would make sure the council exercises those powers, and I think that is a combination of making sure that the local councillors are aware. I do periodically write out to local authorities reminding them that they have these powers. And the Deputy Minister for culture, Dawn Bowden, in her previous job, actually, wrote out to all the councils reminding them that they had the powers to do this. I can't comment on the Roath Park one, because that's an ongoing active planning application, so I can't comment on the specifics of that. But I do know that Cardiff has an active list and it is currently reviewing it. So, perhaps, now is a very good time to make sure that anything you want preserved is actually on that list.

And then, just to say, on the last point, it is in the council's gift not to allow a developer to demolish a building until they have specific planning consent and a contract let for the new build that goes with it. Because I do think you often get the case in local authorities that the demolition happens before the rest of it. So, I'm very happy to remind local authorities that they have the power to phase that in, so that you can give the most protection to facades and so on, because, if they're left standing unsupported for many years, they can become difficult to use. If you want to drop me a line, I'm very happy to write out to councils reminding them that there are powers to be able to do things in that space.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Questions now from the party spokespeople. Conservative spokesperson, Peter Fox.

Peter Fox (Conservative, Monmouth)

Diolch, Llywydd. It's good to be able to ask you questions, Cabinet Secretary. We've worked together in a different role, when I was a leader, and so it's nice to interact on that same subject. Cabinet Secretary, I know you would agree that good local government provided services are absolutely essential in many ways, and certainly key to helping things, such as reducing demand on the NHS, for example. However, due to reducing resources, local authorities have had to make difficult decisions that erode the opportunity for services, such as leisure and social care, to be able to respond to that bigger picture. Cabinet Secretary, can the local government family have confidence that you will make the case for their services to your fellow Cabinet colleagues, recognising that they could play a key role in helping to address issues faced in areas, such as health?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you for that question, Peter. I mean, I completely agree with that, and I know you know that, because we worked very closely, as you say, during the COVID pandemic, when you were leader of Monmouthshire County Council and I was the local government Minister. You'll know that I am deeply committed to local government and its ability to assist with a range of problems, because the solutions often are in the fundamentals. I mean, there's no doubt that councils have faced serious austerity measures. But, even inside that, there are things that can be done. We work very closely with the local authorities to make sure that we understand the specific pressures.

I do think one of the most important things that we have been pushing for for some time, and I want to continue to push for, is the multi-annual settlement, because, for the last few years, we've had single-year settlements, because the Welsh Government has had single-year settlements. And I think one of the problems there is you cannot plan out for the future in a way that means that non-statutory services, which are nevertheless essential, like leisure services—youth services are another one—it's very hard for the council to plan in expenditure on those non-statutory services, where there isn't a multi-annual settlement. So, I have been pushing very hard to have a multi-annual settlement put in place. It's very difficult when we don't have one. But we are very hopeful that we'll be able to persuade whoever the incoming Government is that multi-annual settlements are the way forward, and that allows proper planning and budgeting in the public sector space.

Peter Fox (Conservative, Monmouth)

Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. And I agree with that. I understand what councils are up against. We know, though, that the settlement we've had here in Wales has probably been the largest we've had ever. However, we know that local government did have a real-terms cut this last budget, even though they recognise that they need £600 million of additional revenue. Now, I know that that money isn't available, but comprehension of the implications of underinvestment need to be understood by everyone. Many key services, as you know, are on a knife edge, such as social care, where there is a huge amount of weekly unmet need across the country; education, where schools are struggling to retain the staff they need; and we know that many discretionary services are being hit hard and are facing a cliff edge. Cabinet Secretary, what advice would you give to council leaders who are concerned about the future? Where should they really be focusing their axe?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

So, I've embarked on a sort of traditional tour of a new local government Minister around the local authorities. I met with nearly all of the local authorities in north Wales last week; I wasn't able to manage to set up a meeting with one of them. I also meet—you'll remember this from your time, Peter—with the political groups. So, this morning, I met with the independent group leaders and we discussed a range of issues that they have. I have a regular scheduled meeting with the group leaders, and then I have a fortnightly meeting, exactly as we did with COVID—I've reconstituted it—where the leaders and chief executives will come together and we'll address specific issues that have been raised in the individual and group meetings to see if we can find mutually beneficial solutions to some of the problems.

So, to give you an example, it is very difficult to recruit social care workers at the moment. We have a little bit of a problem of local authorities competing with each other, so each of them offering a supplement in a given area, very great for the individual social care worker because they can move around and increase their salary, but not so great for the service because it brings churn and uncertainty. So, working with them to make sure that we have a unified pay structure, that we have an understanding of what that regional service needs to look like, and how we can make the best use of a scarce resource is just one of the things that we're doing.

There are a number of professions across Wales that are in short supply. With my previous hat on as climate change Minister, I know that there is a real shortage of flood engineers across Wales. I've been talking with regional groupings of local authorities about how we could share out the expertise that's there. And just to give the example—I know you're familiar with this—so, minerals planning, for example, is a speciality, and it's done by two authorities, Flintshire in the north and Carmarthenshire in the south. Everyone gets their advice from there, so that we aren't fishing in the same pool, we're not driving a resource shortage. Because, actually, that is a speciality that everybody needs now and again, but nobody needs all the time. So, there are some solutions that can be put in place. They are about co-operation and teamwork, as you know.

Peter Fox (Conservative, Monmouth)

Thank you for that. I'm carrying on with this theme a bit because it's really important, I think, that local government is seen as a fundamental player in driving lots of things. I sadly feel that, sometimes in this place, local government isn't considered enough and perhaps comes as an afterthought, where it should be fundamental to driving lots of that change.

I'm sure you would agree with me that there needs to be that holistic, joined-up approach to the Welsh public service. The portfolio approach doesn't facilitate a sustainable future for local government, as the sector is often the casualty of Government's pursuit of other priorities.

So, Cabinet Secretary, will you consider facilitating perhaps a local government summit—I know you're meeting with individuals—to lay the foundations for a sustainable future for our councils and the services they provide? Services that we know are so fundamentally important to society as a whole. I know the WLGA have done things like that before, but I think we're at a time when we're under such significant pressure, as we are, recognising that the councils are struggling and they can play such a fundamental part in that bigger, holistic picture, I think it would go some way in laying the foundations and raising the recognition of the service area.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Yes. I'm not sure we'd call it a summit, but we've got something very similar going on. Again, I'm following a pattern that I had when I was last in this seat, really. I think, since you've got elected to this place, Peter, things have slightly changed. The partnership council now has every leader and every chief executive invited to it—I think there was a sub-set when you were leader—and we do that on purpose, so that we can do exactly as you've just said. We also invite partner organisations to those, so we can make sure that we have a conversation that includes health, for example, or includes other partner organisations.

I also have ministerial responsibility for Academi Wales, and we've been pushing the one public service point. That sounds so simple, doesn't it? But, actually, it turns out to be very complicated. Even to move staff between local authorities on secondment is complicated. Moving them between the Welsh Government and local authorities is incredibly complicated because the pension schemes are different and all the rest of it. Nevertheless, we're determined to make it happen. So, one of the themes in the Academi Wales leadership summit this summer is one Welsh public service, with a view to doing exactly that, to make sure that colleagues in health and in Welsh Government and in local government work together as a seamless whole. Because, as you rightly said, local government is the good, solid foundation, if you like, for most of the rest of the services.

And I also have been asking colleagues right across the Welsh Government to make sure that they come through my office, when they're asking things of local government, so that we can keep an eye on the totality of the ask from Welsh Government on local authorities, and not do it, as you say, in portfolio silos, so that we can look to see how that goes across the piece. So, I think the idea that you've put forward is something I'm very interested in. I don't think we've called it a summit, but I think the idea is a good one.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Peredur Owen Griffiths (Plaid Cymru, South Wales East)

Diolch, Llywydd. Well, last week, Labour's general election candidate in Swansea West, Torsten Bell, criticised the Tory Government for allowing unfair council tax to rise faster and faster than inflation for year after year. Now, I appreciate that, as someone with no prior connection to Wales, Mr Bell may not have the most in-depth knowledge of Welsh devolution nor of his party's record here, and the fact that four of Labour's six general election pledges for Wales have been the responsibility for this Welsh Government for some time, means that he probably isn't getting a very accurate picture from his own campaign headquarters either. So, for the benefit of Mr Bell and the rest of his Labour colleagues, who have been parachuted in to Welsh seats for this election, could you remind them, for the record, who has responsibility for local government funding policy, including council tax policy, here in Wales? And could you also remind him how much above inflation it has risen, on average, for band D properties during this financial year?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Well, I'm not going to indulge in that, Cefin; I'm really sorry that you've gone down that road. But what I would say is we really do believe in local government in Wales. We have never imposed a cap on council taxes here, because I think that local authorities are locally elected, democratically elected, and they should be in charge of what they want to do locally, and it's very much a matter for them. Of course we're very interested in looking at the fallout of that.

So, the gearing effect of the council tax, because of the different land values in Wales, is a very interesting one. So, the gearing in Monmouth, for example, is very different to that in Blaenau Gwent, so we've been looking at that. When we were in the co-operation agreement, you'll know we were looking at some of the discrepancies across that, and I'm very keen to pursue that. So, there is a real issue around fairness about where the band D—I don't know what to call it—tranche, I suppose, fits, and how much you pay in different places. And I don't know if you're familiar with the Office for National Statistics data that shows how many houses in each band there are in each local authority, but that really does speak volumes, doesn't it? Because in some local authorities, there are almost no houses over F and G; and in others, they're all in A, B, C, D.

So, I am very keen to make sure that all of the work that was done as part of the co-operation agreement—I know my colleague Rebecca Evans is keen to do this as well—is not lost, and that we make sure that we can come forward with a mutually agreed way of looking at council tax, with our local authorities, to make sure that we understand how best to damp off, if you like, the gearing effect of some of that. And, yes, we pursue a different policy to that in England, because I actually think the Welsh Government believes in local democracy, and we want to make sure that our local councillors have a say in the funding of their local authorities.

Peredur Owen Griffiths (Plaid Cymru, South Wales East)

Thank you very much for that answer, and I'm going to come on to one of those points that you raised there now. Despite Mr Bell's unfortunate oversight, his point about, fundamentally, the regressive nature of the council tax system places a disproportionate burden on lower income households, and that's very valid, and you echoed that in your answer there.

We in Plaid Cymru have been campaigning for reform in this area over many years, and, as you mentioned earlier, that's why, in our co-operation agreement with this Government, we had a commitment to implement a fairer and more progressive system within the current Senedd term. But this new administration's unilateral decision to kick this long-overdue reform into the long grass until 2028, at the earliest, typifies its broader tendency to prioritise the political survival of the First Minister above the interests of the people of Wales. This is one of several reasons why we had no option but to withdraw from the agreement.

Plaid Cymru has introduced an amendment to the upcoming Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill that would place a date of April 2025 on the face of the Bill for implementing those reforms. This would ensure that lower income households could benefit from a fairer council tax system sooner rather than later. Will the Cabinet Secretary call on her colleague the Cabinet Secretary for finance to support this amendment? And if not, does she accept that this will entrench systematic unfairness in how our local government is funded for at least the next four years?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thanks, Cefin. I really appreciated the conversations we all had about what to do about council tax. Council tax is not a tax fit for purpose, I think we all agree. I can't quite remember where some of this fell, so forgive me, it might have been before or after the co-operation agreement ended, but as part of the consultation we had a very wide range of responses from local authorities themselves ranging from a couple that were enthusiastic to some that were dead set against doing this, to pretty much every response in between. I think the view that we took was that given where they are and the amount of things they're wrestling with, this was just a step too far at this point in time.

I think the date that you've just mentioned is now not possible in terms of the set-up and running of it anyway, because we were right up against a decision to be made in order to understand what the implementation date is. It's not my Bill; it's my colleague Rebecca Evans's Bill, but obviously I'm very involved with it. I'm pretty sure that we actually physically can't do it by that date, even if we wanted to. But we took the view, I think, with a bit of a heavy heart, that it was just a step too far for local government given the set of things that they were currently dealing with.

I personally, though, have been pushing in the Government, looking again at the council tax relief scheme, because I think one of the issues we want to have a look at is the effect of not revaluing on A and B-banded households. That isn't help to the local authority itself. I'd be very interested to see what we can do to help the individual families that perhaps would have seen a fall in their bills in this cost-of-living crisis and who now won't because of this. So, I'm very keen and I'm happy to discuss with you whether there would be anything we could do about those individuals.

In the meantime, of course, we support the local authorities with the revenue support grant. We're up against falling budgets, as you know, and I'm in the depths of long discussions with local authorities about how that formula works. But it's the size of the pie, in the end, isn't it, that's the problem; it's not really how big the slices are. Because if the pie is this size and you reslice it, somebody loses while somebody else might gain a bit. So, the real issue is the pie is not big enough, and we can't solve that unless we have a different government in Westminster, so obviously I'm very much hoping that Torsten and others will be elected so that we can have a Labour government after 4 July.

Peredur Owen Griffiths (Plaid Cymru, South Wales East)

Thank you for that answer. I will take you up on the conversations certainly on council tax reform, because it's something that's very close to my heart.

It isn't just Welsh Labour that's displaying a lack of seriousness about the major challenges during this election campaign. The likes of the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have rightly called out both the Tory and the Labour leadership for being in complete denial about the state of UK public finances. The reality has been spelled out in the starkest terms by the International Monetary Fund: for both parties to achieve their stated aim of reducing debt as a proportion of gross domestic product within five years, they will have to contend with a black hole of approximately £30 billion in the public purse, and with neither party making the case for progressive tax-raising initiatives such as aligning capital gains tax with income tax, this means a fresh round of austerity measures is coming, regardless of who wins on 4 July.

The implications of these stretched resources are being seen by the fact that Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent county borough councils have announced that they will be sharing a chief executive over the foreseeable future. Can I ask the Cabinet Secretary, therefore, whether this trend towards the pooling of resources across councils is the direction of travel we should expect for local government over the next few years, and is she supportive of this move?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you, Cefin. The short answer is yes, I am supportive of it—

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I think that might have been the second time that you've called Peredur Cefin.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

I'm so sorry. Shall I put my glasses on, would that help?

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I know they're sitting next to each other.

Peredur Owen Griffiths (Plaid Cymru, South Wales East)

I have a longer beard. [Laughter.]

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

I'm really sorry. I'll put my glasses on. Huge apologies. My problem is that I've arrived at that point in my life where I need two pairs of glasses, and I'm only carrying my reading glasses with me, so I'm afraid you're a bit of a blur in the distance, so huge apologies.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Varifocals work very well for me.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

I have tried, Llywydd, many times, and I'm afraid they make me feel really ill.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Yes, I know they do for some.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

So, I end up doing this kind of thing, which is not good. So, huge apologies. I've lost my thread completely now. Oh yes, I know, the shared resources point. The answer to that is 'yes’. I think there are some resources that should be shared and could be shared, and they would be of great effect across the public sector in Wales. I mentioned in an answer to Peter Fox earlier that there are a number of professions that are really difficult to recruit or to retain—hard to train, long training, et cetera. I've got a list of eight or 10 in my head that I've shared with local authority leaders across Wales and they all nod sagely at me.

It seems obvious to me that, in order to retain people like planners and flood engineers and specialist staff of one sort or another—building control officers; there's a whole range of them across an enormous number of professions—what we need to be able to do is provide a career structure inside local government that retains people in the public sector and doesn't have the attrition that we get into the private sector at around five or six years qualified, where people are faced with a situation where, if their boss doesn't leave in the next five years, there's no promotion for them, and so they look elsewhere. We've got to find professional career structures inside local authorities to be able to retain people. I think chief executives are in that category, actually. It's a very difficult job to be a chief executive of a local authority. You have to span an enormous range of different services and different pressures, and actually they're pretty hard to find and pretty unsung, it seems to me. And so I'm actively pleased to see that.

There are other services that really need a very local flavour. You want development control to be local, because, as I said in an earlier question, I don't want identikit towns all around Wales—I want individual planning authorities to have very specific planning for their individual towns, so you retain the independent flavour of that town. I think the example I gave was Cardigan: if you go to Cardigan, you get a different experience than if you go to somewhere else.

It is about what you mean exactly and what you're sharing. In general, we are encouraging local authorities to come together to provide career structures for hard-to-recruit professionals and to share expertise. The minerals example I used earlier is a classic example of that. No authority has a need for a 37.5-hours-a-week mineral specialist, but all of the authorities together have a need for two of them, and so we've come to an arrangement where it's provided by one authority in the north and one in the south. There are many other services where that would work very well. We have lots of examples of local authorities all asking for legal advice about the same issue independently, for example, where it would be a great deal easier to pool that. Co-operation is key, but I'm not trying to stealthily combine them, if that's what you mean, because I think there are many things that we could discuss where it's important they are done locally.

Mabon ap Gwynfor (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

3. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the number of houses in public and co-operative ownership being built in Wales? OQ61235

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you, Mabon. We remain committed to supporting the development of co-operative and community-led housing and to enabling people to take more control of their housing. For example, almost £900,000 has been awarded to Gŵyr Community Land Trust from the land and building development fund for the development of 14 carbon-zero affordable homes.

Mabon ap Gwynfor (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response. You and everyone here this afternoon has recognised and accepted that we have a housing crisis and, of course, the solution, possibly, to that is to build more homes under public ownership. 'Social housing' is the term commonly used for it. But there's a shortage of funds for this, and the funding that is allocated has to be shared between house building or retrofiting the current stock. Unfortunately, we don't see the budget increasing for building more homes either, under the current Government or the new Government that will be elected, so we do have to look at new ways of bringing funding into house building here in Wales.

The Welsh Government has the ability to borrow £150 million per annum for purposes of its choosing, but, so far, from what I see, the Government hasn't used those powers. So what discussions are you having, Cabinet Secretary, with the Cabinet Secretary for finance, in order to see what use could be made of those funds, and will you borrow money in order to build more social housing and publicly owned housing here in Wales?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Diolch, Mabon. That's a very interesting idea. I think, actually, we very much hope that an incoming Labour Government will review the fiscal framework for Wales and actually put us onto a far better footing in terms of prudential borrowing than we are on at the moment. That would clearly make a lot of sense. There are a number of things that it would be sensible to borrow for, and the kind of infrastructure you're talking about is certainly one of them, so I'm certainly interested in that. We haven't done that for the moment because we have a number of other calls on the Welsh Government's budget, and of course once you've borrowed you've got to service the borrowing. In fact, we have asked on our behalf local authorities to borrow to do particular things, and we support them with revenue for that. In my budget there is a line that has revenue support to local authorities for borrowing. So, we have figured out a way around it, if you like.

In fact, whilst more money is always welcome—and I want to say that very loudly in case my Cabinet colleague for finance is listening—much of the issues we have with building social housing in Wales are not finance based, really. They're around a whole range of other things. So, we're working at a very granular level now with local authorities to make sure that, for every single piece of housing land in the local development plan, we understand where that is in the planning system: is planning coming forward for it? What are the houses on there? How many houses are those? Are they building the social houses first? Et cetera. In my previous role, I was chairing the water summits, and my colleague Huw is now doing it. We've managed to unlock several of the sites that had phosphate problems, but we have many more to go. We're working at an extremely detailed level on how to do that. One of the special advisers who was with us as part of the co-operation agreement was doing a sterling piece of work on that, and I've recently asked Jack Sargeant to pick up some of that for me.

We know we have enough in the planning system to be able to get to our target. What we don't know yet is whether we can build them fast enough. I want to make the Welsh Government's target for 20,000 social homes for rent, but I'm much more concerned with actually having enough in the pipeline, because we need more than that. What we want to do is make sure that the planning system has all the capability inside it to allocate those houses out and that we've got planning consents coming forward that are able to be built out that will produce the housing we want.

Just to be really clear, we're not looking at single-purpose estates here. I do not want a single-tenure estate to be built. As it happens, I was in a meeting this morning where I was ranting on about the housing development in St David's, which was built with the social housing grant, but before the current checks and balances. I don't know if you're familiar with it—the one behind the Premier Inn in St David's. I am very cross about that development, because they have put all the social housing on one side and all the private housing on the other and they don't look the same, and that is not what we want. So, just to be really clear, the current planning guidelines are that social housing built as part of a mixed-tenure development should be pepper-potted through that development and the houses should all be built to the same standard, and that's the social house standard. So, I just want to be really clear: we want the numbers, but we also want the right houses, and we want good-quality low-carbon houses that are built so that they don't require retrofitting in 10 years' time, and that they are houses for life, fit for the future.

And then, just to say, as part of that mixed-tenure piece, I am very keen indeed to have other tenures—so, shared equity tenures, co-operative housing tenures. I had a meeting with the Solva Community Land Trust—my days seamlessly blend into each other; I don't think it was this morning—yesterday, I think it was, and we talked about how we can accelerate the build for that. There's the Gŵyr community trust going on in my colleague Rebecca Evans's constituency, and we're working with Cwmpas very hard to make sure we bring forward co-operative and CLT housing. So, I hope that I am painting a picture of being very open to any kind of housing built to the right standard that comes forward that assists us to get people out of temporary accommodation and into their home for life.

Mark Isherwood (Conservative, North Wales)

Wales has a housing crisis, and although the last UK Labour Government oversaw the lowest level of house building since the 1920s, it was the Welsh Government that by 2010 had by far the lowest proportional level of housing expenditure of any of the four UK nations. Subsequent successive independent reports found that Wales needs between 12,000 and 15,000 new homes a year, including 5,000 social homes, incorporating those in public and co-operative ownership. Even more modest forecasts for the Welsh Government identified a need for up to 8,300 new homes a year, but only 5,720 were delivered on average annually in Wales between 2010 and last December. Why, given that Welsh housing sector research shows a £2.30 public sector saving for every £1 spent on housing, were only 2,825 new homes for social rent completed in Wales in the first three years of this Senedd term to last December, against the Welsh Government's 20,000 target for the five-year term, and why do the latest National House Building Council figures show a 43 per cent drop in new homes registered in Wales, equal bottom out of 12 UK nations and regions?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Well, Mark, I know you love a series of statistics, so let me give you some statistics as well, then. So, Lee Rowley made some remarks when he was housing Minister on a Radio 4 programme, and he was the sixteenth housing Minister since 2010, so it's always nice to see continuity in the sector. In England, during the tenure of the 16 housing Ministers, social housing has declined. So, a combination of selling off, demolition and very low build-out rates has meant that there are fewer houses for social rent at the end of a 14-year tenure of Conservative Government than there were in the first place. So, if you want to talk about what is disgraceful, that is disgraceful. Those statistics are easy to find and very transparent.

What the coalition Government did in 2010 was it changed the criteria and it introduced the so-called affordable rent category, and then it slashed the housing grant by 60 per cent, which meant that registered social landlords in England were forced either to build far fewer houses for social rent or very many more houses for affordable rent, and that has meant the decimation of the social rent sector.

Here in Wales we've taken a very different approach to that. We are building houses for social rent—that's rent between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of market rent, not 80 per cent of market rent—and we are on track to deliver our programme. It's not linear; we weren't expecting to build 4,000 in every year and it added to 20,000. As I said, you've got to do a whole series of things to start that programme up. You have to bear in mind as well, Mark, that up until really quite recently, local authorities with housing revenue accounts were not allowed to build social housing unless they repaid the whole of their debt package. I mean, after 40 years of nonsense from the Conservatives on that, you did finally change your mind, but, my gosh, it took a long time. The destruction of social rent by the Thatcher Government has reverberated through the years, so if you want to trade that kind of statistic, I’m very happy to do so.

Natasha Asghar (Conservative, South Wales East)

4. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on the number of houses being built in South Wales East? OQ61232

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Yes. We are committed to increasing housing supply, ensuring people have homes that meet their needs now and in the future. In 2022-23, 5,785 new homes were completed in Wales, up 10 per cent on the previous year; 1,450 of those were in Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Merthyr Tydfil, Monmouthshire, Newport or Torfaen.

Natasha Asghar (Conservative, South Wales East)

Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. A planning application to build 300 homes on a greenfield site in Blackwood was actually lodged in 2018. It was rejected by the local authority’s planning committee, and following the developer's decision to appeal the application, it seems to have ping-ponged between the Welsh Government, the High Court and Planning and Environment Decisions Wales. Now, nearly six years have passed and still no decision has sadly been made, leaving the community in limbo, waiting for answers. I’ve raised this issue with you via written questions several times now, Cabinet Secretary, yet I'm still waiting for some clarity. I believe local councils in the area have also raised this matter with you, and have requested meetings, but, unfortunately, they're feeling a little bit fobbed off. So, Cabinet Secretary, it is unacceptable that residents and elected Members are being totally ignored by the Welsh Government and left waiting. They just simply want an answer, Cabinet Secretary, and to be fair to them, they have been waiting patiently for years. So, is there any way we’ll be able to find out today when a decision on this planning application will finally be made? Thank you.

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

I can't comment on ongoing planning applications, obviously, but on the planning application you're talking about, it's actually a redetermined, recovered appeal, and it's being actively considered by officials. The decision will be made when it's right to do so. I place much more importance on getting the decision right than getting it speedily. It has taken a very long time; it’s a very complicated matter. Of course, as soon the decision is made, we’ll communicate with all of the Members who’ve written in about it.

Paul Davies (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire)

5. What is the Welsh Government doing to help regenerate town centres in Pembrokeshire? OQ61223

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Diolch, Paul. Since January 2020 we have awarded almost £16 million of funding through our Transforming Towns programme to support regeneration projects in town centres across Pembrokeshire. This support is being driven by placemaking plans for each settlement.

Paul Davies (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire)

Cabinet Secretary, I listened very carefully to your earlier responses regarding towns and town centres, and I'm sure we are all concerned about the decreasing number of shops in town centres like Haverfordwest, which, coupled with bank closures, is having a real impact on the vibrancy of towns like Haverfordwest. Now, I appreciate that the way in which we shop and bank has changed over the years, but it's vital that efforts are made to regenerate our town centres so that they can actually play a role in developing cohesive communities in the future. Therefore, can you tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to make high streets an attractive prospect for businesses and can you also tell us what discussions you're having with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Welsh Language about the regeneration of town centres in Pembrokeshire?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Yes, certainly, Paul. So, in Pembrokeshire itself, we're helping Pembrokeshire put together something called placemaking plans. They're bringing forward placemaking plans for specific settlements across Pembrokeshire, and that includes Haverfordwest, Milford Haven, Fishguard, Goodick, for example. So, they have very specific plans for each one, and in response to a number of questions today, I've talked about the need to have those specific plans, because we want individual towns with individual plans and individual characters. We know that that's what attracts people to them, and it's very important to have the right fit for that town and to help that town come to terms with the new reality of how people shop, bank and so on, and to make sure that there are destination places where people want to come together and have coffee or whatever it is they want to do, but then they can have the opportunity to take in a local retail experience and other things.

So, we do provide small grants of up to £250,000 for small-scale regeneration projects, specifically for smaller town centres and regional or sub-city town centres as well. We are trying very hard to work with the local authority to make sure that we don't have a one-size-fits-all approach and we do have a very local flavour to what those placemaking plans look like. So, I'd very much hope that you're involved in that. If you're not, do let me know and I'll make sure that you are involved in that. I think it is very important that local democratic representatives do have a say in that and are able to represent their constituencies in making those plans, because I think it's in all of our interests to make sure that we have the best offer in those small town centres to make sure that we can attract the footfall back.

Peter Fox (Conservative, Monmouth)

6. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the challenges facing local authority budgets? OQ61244

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Diolch, Peter. Service demand and cost inflation have meant that authorities have made difficult decisions on services and council tax in setting their budgets. Our own budget position has meant we have not been able to meet all the pressures local authorities face, but I am meeting regularly with the leaders of local authorities to agree an agenda for discussing the particular challenges.

Peter Fox (Conservative, Monmouth)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Times are certainly difficult for local government. Not only is money tight, as we've both said, public expectation and demographic need continue to grow. We can't ignore the election discourse, and whilst individual Cabinet Secretaries will need to address their portfolio areas, you will have an overview of the finance resource needed across local government. With that in mind, Cabinet Secretary, what forward planning are you doing with the Cabinet Secretaries for both finance and education on preparing for any influx of children from the private education sector seeking state school education due to value added tax on school fees, should we see a Labour UK Government following the general election?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

I discuss various matters with my Cabinet Secretary colleagues all the time, Peter. I'm very addicted to listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 in the morning; it's perhaps an overshare, but I'm not a morning person at all, I do not like waking up early and I put it on because it irritates me so badly it wakes me up nicely. [Laughter.] This morning, it was followed immediately by a programme called You and Yours, which goes through a fact-finding issue, debunking various claims made by various candidates. As it happens, that was the one they were debunking this morning, where they said there was very little evidence indeed that there would be any such effect of such a policy, and, in fact, they thought the policy would have almost no effect on school sizes. So, I'm just quoting it back to you.

Of course, in discussing things with my Cabinet Secretary colleague, we always take into account trends that we think will have an effect on demographics and school class sizes, for example. Actually, of course, in many parts of Wales, it would be very welcome to have increasing numbers, because we really struggle to keep some of our schools open, schools that are quite beloved to the local population. It's just a coincidence that just this morning that came up as part of one of the election fact-finding things.

Llyr Gruffydd (Plaid Cymru, North Wales)

7. Will the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on progress in terms of reaching the Government’s target of delivering 20,000 homes for social rent by the end of this Senedd? OQ61245

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Diolch, Llyr. The target to deliver 20,000 homes for rent in the social sector is extremely challenging. Nevertheless, we are committed to delivering more homes to meet people’s needs now and in the future. We have got record levels of investment already committed to the social housing grant in this Senedd term, with a view to ensuring that we do make the target, if at all possible.

Llyr Gruffydd (Plaid Cymru, North Wales)

Well, you say it's extremely challenging this month. In April you said, I think, to the Senedd that you were hanging on by the skin of your teeth to the target. Now, let's be honest, I think by now it's maybe unlikely that you will meet that target. Indeed, according to the latest update provided, you've delivered an average of just under 2,900 units per year during this term. And on that trajectory, you will fall significantly short—about 25 per cent short—of your target. Now, we know that there are 90,000 households on housing waiting lists in Wales, and it seems, maybe, that they will now be the subject of another missed target by this Government.

Now, your party also says that, on a UK level, you aim to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years, 40 per cent of which will be affordable housing. Why should people believe such a promise when your record in Wales tells a very different story?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Well, I don't think that's quite fair, to be honest. And as I said in answer to an earlier question, we never expected to build 4,000 each year; we always knew that we had to put interventions in in the first place that would accelerate the build, so we do expect to deliver far more in the last two years of this Senedd term than we were able to in the first. I've also said many times in this Senedd that, you know, it's a bit like nobody expects the Spanish inquisition, isn't it? We weren't expecting COVID followed by an inflationary Liz Truss Government and a cost-of-living crisis and all the rest of it. And in all honesty, I did think we would deliver the 20,000 units relatively easily—it wasn't ever easy, but relatively easy—when we set the target back in 2021, and life has very much changed since then.

Nevertheless, we are—no matter which phrase you use—hanging on by the skin of our teeth. It's not impossible to make the target now, it is stretching in the extreme. But I think it's actually very important to have those stretching targets. I don't want to relax that target, I want to push people as hard as possible towards that target. And as I said, we are working now at a really detailed level with local authorities across Wales, right down to, 'What does this site have on it in planning?', 'Where is it in the planning system?', 'What are you doing about bringing it forward?', 'Where's the social housing grant going?', et cetera, just trying to make sure. So, if the units in the planning system are built, we will make the target, but, actually, I think it's just much more important to make sure that we have an ongoing pipeline, because at the end of this Senedd term, we won't suddenly have enough houses. So, whoever is the Government after the next Senedd election will also have to keep up a steady stream of good social houses for rent. So, I think it's important to make sure that we've got that pipeline. And, yes, absolutely, it took us a little while to run up to it; we were coming out of COVID and then we had a whole series of things, not least, for example, I don't know if you'll remember, but the cost of timber worldwide went up astronomically, and we had real problems getting supply for that, and all the rest of it.

So, I take the point you're making, but I'm not prepared to go back on the target yet. I think it's really important to continue to push people to make sure that we get as many of those houses up as possible. And we owe it to the people who are in temporary accommodation across Wales to get those houses up and functional as fast as possible.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Finally, question 8, Heledd Fychan.

Heledd Fychan (Plaid Cymru, South Wales Central)

8. What steps is the Welsh Government taking to ensure access to public libraries across South Wales Central? OQ61250

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Diolch. Local authorities have a statutory responsibility to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. The Welsh Government provides funding to support the development of public libraries, including recent investment of over £900,000 for a shared digital library platform, and a capital fund to improve library buildings and facilities. Sorry, I nearly did the same thing to you then, Heledd, because I had the wrong glasses on. [Laughter.]

Heledd Fychan (Plaid Cymru, South Wales Central)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. You will be aware that library services have shrunk because of the pressure on local government budgets, but the need for libraries is as apparent as ever, as they evolve and extend provision as community hubs. Under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, you have a duty, personally, to inspect and promote the improvement of the public library service provided by local authorities. Since 2002 Welsh Ministers have fulfilled this duty through the Welsh public libraries standards framework. The sixth framework associated with this ended in 2020 and it was extended for two years due to the pandemic. Can you outline how the work on the seventh framework is progressing and when it will be published?

Julie James (Labour, Swansea West)

Thank you, Heledd. I don't have that specific detail, but I'm quite happy to write to you with it. But it is the responsibility of local authorities to provide, exactly as you say, a comprehensive service under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. We've provided a 3.3 per cent increase to the local authority settlement in the last year to try and make sure that they have enough money for these very vital services. I completely agree with you: these are vital, not just for the library service, if you like, but, actually, they're often a community hub, a meeting place, a place for story-telling for children, and all the rest of it.

I think the shared digital platform will be very, very useful, so that all libraries across Wales can have access to that and can order books from elsewhere and so on. That will assist local libraries to be of very much more help to their local populations. And we've just provided £41,000 to support two regional inter-library loan schemes in 2024-25, including one that covers South Wales Central. So, I hope that we are doing our bit to try and shore them up. But the bottom line is that there isn't enough money in public services and we need to make sure that we get better funding for public services.

Libraries are one of those support services that shore up the education system, they shore up the public health system; they are fundamental building blocks to civilised society, aren't they? I certainly grew up going, every week, to the library with my mum and I remember those days with great pleasure. So, it's really important that we make sure that that experience is there for others. I don't have on me the specific answer to your question, but I'll make sure that you get the answer to that. But I just want to reassure you that we are very keen to make sure that all the citizens of Wales can access a library service in one form or another and to make sure that that's as accessible as possible.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

We'll move now to questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education, and the first question is from Siân Gwenllian.

Siân Gwenllian (Plaid Cymru, Arfon)

1. How is the Cabinet Secretary working with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to realise the aspects of the Dental Strategic Workforce Plan recently published by Health Education and Improvement Wales that relate to higher education? OQ61238

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

I welcome the commitments within the dental strategic workforce plan relating to higher education, such as increasing BSc dental therapy placements and commissioning a level 5 to 6 conversion programme. These will be led by HEIW and I will seek updates on progress against the commitments.

Siân Gwenllian (Plaid Cymru, Arfon)

We know that more students from Wales are going outside Wales to study undergraduate dentistry courses at university than those who stay here—20 stay in Wales and 40 go outside Wales, according to the latest figures. Do you accept that this is neither sensible nor sustainable after investing in our young people through the education system, especially when there is such a need for dental workforce in Wales? There is not much clarity in the new plan regarding how many additional university places leading to qualification as a dentist will be created. You are capping the current numbers at around 75, according to data from the Office for Students. Could you give us some clarity regarding how many more places there will be as a result of the publication of the strategic plan for the dental workforce?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Can I thank Siân Gwenllian for that supplementary and assure her that Welsh Ministers are fully committed to increasing training places for all members of the dental team, but this is of course very difficult to achieve in the current financial climate? Nevertheless, we are talking to existing and potential new dental training providers to identify all potential options, and I know that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care is going to be providing an update to the Health and Social Care Committee before summer recess.

I can also confirm that conversations have taken place, at both ministerial and official levels, with Bangor University regarding the ambition to establish a dental school in north Wales. And officials are talking to other interested parties as well to identify the best option for increasing dental training capacity. The Welsh Government is also exploring options to create outreach placements in the north Wales area for fifth-year dental students studying at Cardiff dental school.

Russell George (Conservative, Montgomeryshire)

Cabinet Secretary, you may have heard me raise issues around the difficulties of attracting dentists to come and work in mid Wales with some of your Cabinet colleagues. Now, I read with interest a HEIW report that alluded to the fact that, when graduates and students have been exposed to working in rural areas, or where they've lived in rural areas, and they've been raised and brought up in that area, or where they've been exposed to working in rural areas through the course of their training, there's a fourfold more chance that they'll then be willing and happy to come and work in a rural area following their training. So, with that in mind, Cabinet Secretary, what work has the Welsh Government done, and is doing, to actively encourage younger people from rural areas to see dentistry as a positive choice option for them, and encourage them to pursue that career?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you very much, Russell. I want all our young people, from wherever they live in Wales, to have the opportunity to pursue the courses that they're interested in. You will be aware that, at the moment, we have the one dental school, which can mean that the people who train there are more likely to work there. So, I take on board what you've said about the challenges of getting people into rural areas. You heard my answer to Siân Gwenllian just now about the work that's going on for placements in north Wales. I know that Aberystwyth University also has an interest in this area. So, I will pick up what you've raised about dentists in rural areas. I know that dentistry has been a constant issue that you've raised, both with my officials and with the Minister for Health and Social Care.

Janet Finch-Saunders (Conservative, Aberconwy)

2. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on funding for school refurbishment in Aberconwy? OQ61227

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Our sustainable communities for learning programme is currently transitioning to our new rolling programme. Conwy County Borough Council has submitted their nine-year investment plan, which is currently being reviewed by officials, and I'm expecting to receive advice in July.

Janet Finch-Saunders (Conservative, Aberconwy)

Thank you, Minister. The reason I raise this is, at the start of the twenty-first century schools model, it's fair to say, under Kirsty Williams, that we managed to get a brand-new school. And it's fantastic to have one in your own constituency—a brand-new primary school. Sadly, though, we have a number of primary schools where they're in such disrepair I'm now starting to feel sorry for the pupils attending there. Issues have been raised with me by schools themselves in terms of procurement. When they want to pay some money towards having some refurbishment done, I've been told it's over-bureaucratic, more expensive than if they were to actually just get somebody in to do the works. Is there a chance, Minister, that you could have a look at how school refurbishments are funded, and how then the works are procured? And the final part to my question is that I've been asked by numerous primary school headteachers in my constituency—they've got lots of roofs that are fine, that they want solar panels on, and they've tried and tried and tried to engage with having solar panels, providing energy for their schools, and they just come to a stalemate situation. Could you look into those aspects, please?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you, Janet, for that supplementary, and thank you for your recognition of the fact that you have benefited in your constituency from our very significant investment in capital in Wales. Conwy has actually benefited from £41.8 million of investment in schools since the sustainable communities for learning programme began in 2014, and that's through not just the sustainable communities investment, but also associated grant streams, such as repairs and maintenance, universal free school meals capital grant and community-focused schools. In terms of repairs, since 2017, the local authority has received £8.87 million specifically for capital repair and maintenance of the school estate. So, I'm sure that you would agree with me that those are substantial sums of money. You'll be aware that, if local authorities are applying for funding from Welsh Government, there is a process to be gone through to make sure there is due diligence around the allocation of the funding.

I'm not sure why individual schools would have difficulties procuring refurbishments and things like that, but if you would like to write to me about that—. Obviously, taking forward how the money is spent is a matter for local authorities and schools, but if you would like to write to me about those concerns I'd be very happy to look at them.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Questions now from the party spokespeople. Tom Giffard.

Tom Giffard (Conservative, South Wales West)

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. With a UK general election on the horizon, I thought I'd look up some UK Labour policies and see the impact that they would have on our education sector in Wales. And despite Keir Starmer's best efforts to go through an entire campaign without announcing anything, I did manage to find one. A UK Labour Government would apply VAT to private schools on both sides of the border. Last month, I wrote to you asking what impact this policy would have on Welsh schools. Astonishingly, you told me that, quote:

'The Welsh Government has not commissioned any research in this area.'

End quote. But Keir Starmer says that this policy would be implemented as soon as it can be done, if Labour wins the general election.

Can you provide clarity for parents and schools as to whether it would apply from this coming September? And a month on from me first asking, what impact do you think that this policy would have, and do you accept it would mean some pupils leaving the private school sector and entering state schools?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Well, it's good to see you paying this much attention to the UK Labour Party manifesto. I'm really pleased that we have a party that is committed to campaigning for and investing in education. You will be aware that the plans for VAT are not devolved. They will, of course, impact on us in Wales. You did table the question asking whether we had done any research. Given that we don't actually yet have a Labour Government—although aren't we all just desperate for that Labour Government—I think it would be a little presumptive to commission research on that.

What I can say to you is that officials have been working on it, so we're aware, for example, that there might be particular issues for children who are in additional learning needs placements in primary schools. And we are very mindful of that. That's something I've already discussed with my counterpart, Bridget Phillipson, and, in the happy event that a Labour Government does come to power in the next few weeks, I will, of course, be having discussions with my opposite number on not just how that funding will benefit Wales, but also the actual practical implementation of that policy.

Tom Giffard (Conservative, South Wales West)

Well, looking at the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment rankings after 25 years of a Labour Government, I think the worst thing that could happen to an English education system is a Labour Government in Westminster.

Now, as you mentioned, Cabinet Secretary, the worst part of all of this is VAT is not a devolved tax; it's a tax collected by the Treasury rather than one kept by the Welsh Government. And, as you say, the Welsh Government hasn't impact assessed its own policy, which could be coming into place as soon as September if Labour wins that general election. But, never mind, Cabinet Secretary, let me do that impact assessment for you. Let me do the maths. A 2018 report by Baines Cutler Solutions Ltd projected that around 25 per cent of pupils would leave private schools if VAT was applied to them. So, in Wales, the cost per child, per year, in state education is £7,327, and 25 per cent of the number of private school pupils dropping out means 2,460 more pupils being educated in the state sector. Therefore, the total—[Interruption.] People in Blaenau Gwent and across Wales should be incredibly worried about this one, Alun. Therefore, the total cost to Welsh schools, Cabinet Secretary, could mean an £18 million black hole in Welsh school budgets—£18 million.

Cabinet Secretary, does the Welsh Government have an extra £18 million to spend to fill that black hole?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Well, you clearly haven't been paying attention, Tom, because the purpose of this policy is to release much-needed funding to invest in our schools. And we have a pledge in this general election to use that funding to increase recruitment and retention of our teachers. So, I'm not worried about this policy. We will work with an incoming Labour Government on it to make sure that we get the best possible outcomes for children in Wales.

Tom Giffard (Conservative, South Wales West)

Well, I'm surprised to see the Cabinet Secretary so relaxed and supporting a policy that could leave Welsh schools £18 million in the red. Now, we know schools are making difficult decisions at the moment with their budgets, with many letting staff go as we speak, and this policy would only make that worse. But what else would be the impact of the policy, Llywydd? It's fewer teachers and larger class sizes in our schools. Labour shadow Minister, Emily Thornberry, said earlier this week, 'It's fine—if we have to have larger class sizes, we have to larger class sizes.' That's what she said. But it's not fine, Cabinet Secertary, is it? This policy will have a real negative impact on our young people and our schools in Wales, and both you and the UK Labour Party seem relaxed about it, because it fills some ideological dogma for you lot. So, we know all too well what a UK Labour Government would mean for Welsh schools: smaller class sizes and an £18 million black hole. Isn't it the case that a UK Labour Government would be an absolute disaster for Wales?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Well, Tom, you should know all about black holes, given that we have a black hole in our budget of £700 million as a result of being short-changed by the UK Conservative Government. So, those are the kinds of figures we are grappling with, not the £18 million that you've done on the back of a fag packet. This is a policy that will release funding for schools. It will be implemented sensibly by an incoming Labour Government. And, in relation to class sizes, I'm sure you will have heard Bridget Phillipson say very clearly that Emily Thornberry was mistaken in what she said.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Questions now from the Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Cefin Campbell.

Cefin Campbell (Plaid Cymru, Mid and West Wales)

Thank you, Llywydd. As this is my first opportunity as my party's new spokesperson on education, may I say that I'm looking forward very much to working with you and, of course, to scrutinising the work of the Government in this particular sector too.

My first question is this: last month, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, visited Wales, as part of the election campaign. Now, during the visit, he made six pledges for Wales, to be implemented were he to win the general election. Now, one of those was to recruit more teachers in key subjects. Now, I'm not sure if Starmer is aware that education is devolved and that Labour has been responsible for education in Wales for over 25 years. But, for his information, here is your record: the annual NASUWT survey for 2023 shows that almost three quarters of teachers in Wales over the past 12 months had considered leaving the profession; recent statistics on initial teacher training show that the numbers registering for secondary courses is 34 per cent lower than the target set by the Education Workforce Council for Wales; in the most recent PISA results, Wales scored 473 for science, 466 for maths and 466 for reading, which are significant reductions in points, and which, in that order, are 12, six and 10 points below the OECD average for the nations participating in the programme. In the PISA results—

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

I have been very patient indeed, as it is your first question as education spokesperson, so if you could come to a question now.

Cefin Campbell (Plaid Cymru, Mid and West Wales)

I will come to my question. Therefore, what I would like to know is how Starmer is going to deliver something that Welsh Labour has failed to deliver, namely to transform our education sector and to make it an attractive sector to teachers once again.

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you very much, Cefin, and can I welcome you to your post and say that I hope that we can work together in a constructive way, and thank Heledd Fychan for the work that she did as the frontbench post holder in this area? I can assure you that Keir Starmer is very well aware that education is devolved. We, as I've said to Tom Giffard, will have a consequential arising from the commitments that have been made around the recruitment and retention of teachers, and we will be able to introduce that work in our own way, being respectful of devolution, because the kind of shortage subjects that we would have in Wales—. As you know very well, we've got a particular priority on getting more Welsh language teachers, as well as other subjects, and it's important that we're able to use that money in a way that respects the needs that we have in Wales.

I do recognise the challenges that we have with the recruitment of teachers. That's why we're working very proactively on an ongoing basis around teacher recruitment. That's why we have put so much support in for workforce well-being through things like education support, and I'm continuing that dialogue with front-line practitioners about what more we can do to make schools attractive, welcoming places for people to work in Wales.

Cefin Campbell (Plaid Cymru, Mid and West Wales)

Diolch yn fawr iawn. I look forward to those consequentials coming and changing the poor record over the last 25 years. You mentioned teacher recruitment, and we know that there are huge problems in terms of recruitment and the retention of teachers across the whole of Wales. There's been no shortage of announcements by the Welsh Government to encourage young people to think about a career as teachers and classroom assistants, but do we know whether these campaigns have been successful? The initial teacher education incentive scheme for priority subjects is one such example. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered last week in a question to the First Minister that the Welsh Government has no idea whether the scheme is working or not because you haven't got the evidence. You have no data to determine if the recipients of the incentive before 2022-23 are still teaching in Wales, are teaching somewhere else, or not teaching at all. Now, this is a scheme that's been running for about a decade, with millions of pounds already spent on it. So, Cabinet Secretary, how do you respond to this obvious failure in monitoring and evaluation, and do you agree with me that, without this data, we can't measure the success of this extremely important scheme?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you. Data is really important, and I've been very, very clear about that with officials. You can't change policy without having effective data. Obviously, I was in the Chamber for your exchange with the First Minister, and you tabled a similar question to me. The answer that I gave explained that, over the last couple of years, the teachers are still going through that process. So, we've changed it so that it's not just going on a training course to learn to be a teacher; it's about going through the qualified teacher status, the induction status. So, that first tranche of people will be completing their studies now at the end of this year, and part-time students will be next year. I did acknowledge in the answer that I gave you that there was a lack of data before that time and informed you that we were working with the Education Workforce Council on a data-sharing agreement to try and obtain that data. So, what I'm very happy to do is, when we've completed that work, to provide the data for you.

Cefin Campbell (Plaid Cymru, Mid and West Wales)

Thank you very much. I look forward to receiving that data.

Sticking to the theme of attracting more people to the profession, I now intend to turn to PGCE courses. As we know, our universities provide these courses. We've seen an example recently of the threat to these courses, with Aberystwyth University announcing that teacher training courses there are to cease from September onwards. This, of course, raises a number of concerns in the sector and beyond. Not only is it causing problems to many people in mid Wales who would have gone to Aberystwyth University to study a PGCE, but it also reduces the opportunities for those who would have trained to be Welsh-medium teachers too. So, given all of this, what is your response to the news that the PGCE course at Aberystwyth University is to cease? What does the Welsh Government intend to do about this fact? Will we see further cuts in the sector? And finally, what assessment does the Minister intend to make in terms of reaching the target of a million Welsh speakers, given the possible reduction in the numbers training to be teachers? Thank you.

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you. Can I say, in relation to the situation in Aberystwyth, Cefin Campbell will be very well aware that we have an independent system to accredit initial teacher education in Wales? I think that's very important—that we have a system that sets the highest possible standards to make sure that, if someone is going to do that course, they're going to get a really good experience. Aberystwyth was not successful in being re-accredited and chose not to appeal. That was a process that was independent of Government. It's my understanding that there were around 21 students registered to undertake the course in Aberystwyth in the coming year, and we have worked with the university to make sure that there are appropriate places elsewhere for those students. It is important to say as well that all teacher training universities in Wales offer provision through the medium of English and Welsh, so I can give you that assurance that, although we have lost the Aberystwyth places, people can learn through the medium of Welsh elsewhere.

Gareth Davies (Conservative, Vale of Clwyd)

3. Will the Cabinet Secretary outline the Welsh Government's plans to curb the use of mobile phones in schools? OQ61230

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

We are aware of the impacts of the use of mobile phones on behaviour in schools, and I will be working with schools to ensure they have policies in place that reduce these impacts and promote learning.

Gareth Davies (Conservative, Vale of Clwyd)

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. Mobile phones are currently one of the biggest impediments to successful education, and this is something that teachers are grappling with worldwide, not just in Wales. We should bear in mind that social media apps are designed to be addictive to children and young people, and, with close to 100 per cent of children owning a mobile phone by the age of 12, they are proving to be a huge distraction in the classroom, and we hear this regularly from educators.

A report by Policy Exchange last month found that schools that ban mobile phones are twice as likely to be rated as outstanding by Estyn or Ofsted, and this was despite the fact that schools with complete bans had a higher proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals than schools with less restrictive policies. The evidence that mobile phone distraction is hugely detrimental to academic performance is sound, but also there is a huge wealth of evidence to indicate that high social media use has a detrimental effect on the mental health of young people. The UK Government's guidance introduced in February intends to stop the use of mobile phones during the school day. So, what action is the Welsh Government taking to stop the use of phones during school days, to minimise disruption, improve behaviour and improve the mental health of young people?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you, Gareth. Almost all schools in Wales have mobile phone policies that prohibit the use of mobile phones during lessons, and guidelines should be enforced consistently by all school staff and supported by the school leadership team. But we do believe that it is important there is an element of discretion for schools in this regard, because, where managed properly, teachers are finding innovative ways of integrating mobile technology into classroom teaching, and we would not want to see overly restrictive policies that would limit the use of creative ways of teaching. Governing bodies are also required by law to ensure that its schools pursue policies designed to promote positive behaviour, and that policy needs to reflect its own circumstances, and this could well include the use of mobile phones on school premises.

You mentioned social media and the mental health impacts of it. Similarly to mobile phone use, there are pros and cons with social media. There can also be benefits, and that's been very well documented by academics, but it does need to be used in a cautious way. That's why one of the things that we are doing through our curriculum is enabling children and young people to become discerning users of digital resources, and we also have an absolute plethora of information on Hwb's 'Keeping safe online' area, where we've got advice for schools, learners and their families on a range of digital issues, including mental health and well-being, the internet, balancing screen time and social media. We're also taking forward the national digital resilience action plan, which is designed to enhance online safety and the digital resilience of our children and young people here in Wales.

Laura Anne Jones (Conservative, South Wales East)

4. What guidance has the Welsh Government provided to schools following the Cass review? OQ61234

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

The focus of the Cass review is not education, although I acknowledge principles and evidence from the review will be important for schools. We are continuing our analysis of the Cass review and any implications for education services in Wales.

Laura Anne Jones (Conservative, South Wales East)

Diolch. Cabinet Secretary, we all have a duty to protect the health and well-being of children and young people in Wales, particularly you in your new role, and I know that you take that seriously. It is clear from the Cass review’s concerning findings that children who are confused about their gender have been let down by a lack of evidence and research. The Cass review, whose findings are significant for people here in Wales as well as England, warns against teachers making premature and what amount to be clinical decisions about the children whom they are supposed to be safeguarding. It is clear from the report’s findings that social transitioning in schools is often a precursor to going down a road to irreversible medical intervention, often, worryingly, without parental knowledge.

Yet here in Wales we seem to have a blind-sighted approach to gender ideology and dysphoria, which is woven throughout the Welsh Government's own compulsory relationships and education code and guidance, and it needs to be reviewed urgently and take in the findings of this landmark review. The UK Government have seen this as important enough to issue new guidance to schools, Cabinet Secretary, yet here in Wales we have a deafening silence and no action on this. Our children deserve far better, Cabinet Secretary, and need to be safeguarded properly in light of those findings of the Cass review, which are hugely significant. So, when can we expect that new or revised guidance to go out to schools across Wales? Because it shouldn't be a matter of if you do it, it should be a matter of when. Thank you.

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you for that supplementary. Can I say that I want our schools to be inclusive, welcoming places for all children and young people? I think that should be the starting point of everyone in this Chamber, including you, Laura. We have been working on draft guidance on trans issues. We've worked in a co-productive way with a range of stakeholders and also with children and young people themselves. However, mindful of the findings of the Cass review, which did have some findings to make around education, we wanted to take some more time to consider the Cass review more fully before going out to consult on that. So, that's what we are doing at the moment. So, rather than there being a deafening silence on this issue, we are seeking to make sure that what we do in this area is absolutely evidence based.

And if I could just remind the Member that, while there's been a lot of focus by some in her party, and her in particular, on the Cass review, one of the most important findings as far as I was concerned in the review was when Dr Hilary Cass said:

'The surrounding noise and increasingly toxic, ideological and polarised public debate has made the work of the Review significantly harder and does nothing to serve the children and young people who may already be subject to significant minority stress.'

I know you probably don't want to hear it, but it's important for you to hear it. A compassionate and kind society remembers that there are real children, young people, families, carers and clinicians behind the headlines, and we would all of us do well to remember that.

Joyce Watson (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

5. What is the Welsh Government doing to improve educational attainment? OQ61237

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

We are focused on delivering sustained improvement in educational attainment so that every learner can fulfil their potential. We will deliver this through reform and improvement aimed at creating a whole system that works for all learners, and closing the attainment gap faced by our most disadvantaged learners.

Joyce Watson (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

Diolch, Cabinet Secretary. I was really pleased to hear that the attainment champion pilot is to be extended into a second phase this September, and the pilot, which was designed to help tackle the impact of poverty on pupils' educational attainment and to boost standards in schools, has shown some positive results. So, I'm delighted to see that it is to continue. Cabinet Secretary, do you agree that projects like that, that help—? Sorry, I'll start again. Do you agree that projects like the attainment champions pilot, which is hard to say, clearly demonstrate the Welsh Government's commitment to improving the educational experience for disadvantaged children?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you very much, Joyce, and thank you for highlighting the attainment champions pilot. I was lucky a few weeks ago to be able to meet some of the school leaders involved in that pilot, and it has been really successful. I'm pleased to say that we have announced the second phase of the scheme now, so there'll be more schools that will be able to benefit from that. And you are absolutely right to highlight the vital nature of closing the attainment gap for our most disadvantaged children, and the attainment champions is just one aspect of the work that we're doing in this space.

We've also developed a partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation, which is providing all schools with bilingual materials, so that they can access the best international evidence on the most effective teaching and learning strategies. We're also looking at incentivising teachers to work in the most challenging schools, and you'll be well aware of our long-standing track record with the pupil development grant, which we've issued new guidance on, and which we are continuing to invest in.

Samuel Kurtz (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)

Educational attainment is of the utmost importance and, Cabinet Secretary, I'm sure you'll join me in paying tribute to Manorbier Church in Wales VC School who, following a fire in October 2022, had to decant to Jameston Community Hall, and under the fantastic leadership of headteacher Sharon Davies delivered a fantastic Estyn report that said:

'The school's highly committed staff work tirelessly to ensure that pupils' lives and learning continue without disruption or distress.'

An absolutely fantastic testament to the hard work and dedication of Sharon and her team, and the wider school community of Manorbier. But ensuring that we have good-quality staff across the board in Wales to deliver on that attainment is really important, so how are we delivering the very best skilled teachers in the workforce here in Wales?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Can I take this opportunity to thank you for raising that and to recognise what sounds like a fantastic achievement by Manorbier school, and to thank Sharon Davies? It's a huge achievement to do that when you're dealing with the aftermath of a fire, and I'd be really grateful if you would pass on my thanks to the school.

We've got some brilliant school leaders in Wales, and one of the things that we're looking at with our school improvement partnership programme is that we've had a really clear message from school leaders that they see school-to-school working as being absolutely key to getting the improvements that we want to see in Wales. We've now gone into the second phase of our school improvement partnership. We're expecting all local authorities to be partners in that as well, but there'll also be a strong focus on national leadership, and I'll be providing a further update to the Senedd on this in due course.

Llyr Gruffydd (Plaid Cymru, North Wales)

6. What assessment has the Cabinet Secretary made of the social value provided by the further education sector? OQ61249

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

The Welsh Government funded the recent report by ColegauCymru, 'Demonstrating the Social Value of Further Education Colleges in Wales'. The report recognises the significant economic impact and social value of the further education sector in Wales, and shows how it contributes to societal well-being beyond its traditional educational roles.

Llyr Gruffydd (Plaid Cymru, North Wales)

It does indeed, and I was going to refer to that report in my answer, as you pre-empted. Well, in my question, I should say—my supplementary question. We know that cultivating a skilled workforce helps create a prosperous, resilient Wales, which are, of course, some of our well-being goals, but also providing robust support systems integrated into educational settings can help with mental and physical health as well, and, of course, a healthier Wales is another one of those goals.

So, my question therefore is: how did the Government consider those wider societal impacts when you introduced the recent cuts to budgets for post-16 education funding? When you cut nearly £13 million from post-16 education provision and over £7 million from personal learning accounts, did you assess, did you consider, did you even realise the effect that would have, not only on the further education institutions in question, but, of course, on Welsh society and the well-being goals more broadly, as you've mentioned have been highlighted in the ColegauCymru report?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Well, thank you for highlighting the report as well, Llyr, and I was able to speak at the launch, which was a really positive experience, and we believe that social value is implicit in all the activities of FE colleges and that, through their work, they're bringing the well-being of future generations goals to life. And you're absolutely right to highlight mental health, and there's been particularly good work around support for learners in FE in particular, and I'm really keen to see that continue.

As you're aware, our budget is worth £700 million less than at the time of the last spending review, so it was a very difficult budget round for us. Reductions to the post-16 provision budget expenditure line have, wherever possible, been directed so as not to impact learners. A change management fund has been created to ensure that no FE college has seen more than a 1 per cent reduction in funding in 2024-25, when compared to 2023-24. And the 2024-25 mainstream further education and sixth-form budgets reflect a 3.5 per cent increase provided to the unit rate of funding, and this is in line with recommendations from the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body.

Alun Davies (Labour, Blaenau Gwent)

7. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on her priorities for schools in Blaenau Gwent? OQ61257

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

My priorities for schools in Blaenau Gwent include raising levels of attainment and closing the gap for our poorest learners.

Alun Davies (Labour, Blaenau Gwent)

I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for that. I hope one of her priorities is also supporting learners with additional learning needs. Members may remember, in a previous life, it was the Cabinet Secretary who chaired the committee on that legislation, and I was a Minister, and one of the things that we both agreed on, Cabinet Secretary, on that legislation, was that it had to deliver a sea change in the experience of learning for people with additional learning needs. And what I also think we would both agree on today is that the legislation has not delivered on some of those ambitions.

I'd be grateful if the Cabinet Secretary this afternoon would confirm one of the guiding principles, if you like, of that legislation, in that people do not require a diagnosis to receive support for their needs. But also, will the Cabinet Secretary ensure that schools do have the resources that they require to deliver on the ambition, which I think is shared across the whole of the Chamber, on all sides of the Chamber? Because all too often, I'm speaking to parents who have children with very real needs, and those needs are not being met, because the resources are simply not available. It breaks my heart sometimes to listen to the stories of parents, who are fighting hard for their children and who deserve the support to flourish, as we'd want to see for all our children, wherever we live in the country.

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Can I thank Alun Davies for that question and confirm that, indeed, ALN is very much a priority for me, which I have already said several times in the Chamber? I don't agree with your rather bleak assessment of how the reforms are going. I think I've been very honest in the Chamber and with the committee, that there are challenges, and those challenges are twofold: the president of the tribunal has been clear that she believes that the legislation itself is intellectually challenging, so we are working on how we address any inconsistencies arising from the legislation, but there are also undoubtedly challenges with consistent implementation, and I'm also very much prioritising that.

You are absolutely right that a diagnosis is not required for a child to receive additional learning provision, and we've been very clear about that for some time. It's also not required for them to receive an individual development plan. In terms of funding, I'm sure you're well aware that we've prioritised funding for ALN implementation. Since 2020, we've invested over £60 million in revenue to support implementation, and this year alone there's been around £54 million budgeted for ALN provision. But I do acknowledge we've got more work to do in terms of making sure that these much-needed reforms are implemented consistently and effectively across Wales.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Finally, question 8, Paul Davies.

Paul Davies (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire)

8. What is the Welsh Government doing to improve the education system in Preseli Pembrokeshire? OQ61226

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Last month, I set out my priorities for Wales's education system. At its heart is a continued commitment to our education reforms, with a focus on improving educational standards across Wales, putting equity, inclusion and well-being at the centre.

Paul Davies (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire)

Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. As you'll be aware, this week is Carers Week, and in an effort to raise awareness and provide vital support for young carers, Milford Haven School in my constituency has launched the Young Carers project. The project began in 2021 and now supports over 80 young carers who attend secondary school. It's thought that around 40 per cent of young and young adult carers don't get the help they need to balance caring with their studies, and as a result one in three young and young adult carers struggle to balance caring responsibilities with their education. So, Cabinet Secretary, what steps is the Welsh Government taking to improve the education system for young and young adult carers so that they can actually receive the support they need throughout their educational journey?

Lynne Neagle (Labour, Torfaen)

Thank you, Paul. Congratulations to the school in Milford Haven for the work that they're doing in this area; it is a really important area to work in. Young carers face very many challenges, and there is a real need to raise awareness. Supporting young carers has been a priority for the Government. You'll be aware that there is a young carer ID card that is in operation, and we recently considered additional funding to support the implementation of that in schools. We're also looking at what more we can do to raise awareness of the needs of young carers, because it's not just identifying who are young carers; it's about understanding the full complexity of their needs. One of the things that I'm also really keen to do in the work that I'm taking forward on the whole-school approach to mental health is to make sure that the work for young carers is fully joined up with that, as well as care-experienced young people.

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

3. Topical Questions

Elin Jones (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion)

The next item will be the topical question. It's to be answered by the Cabinet Secretary for health and to be asked by Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Mabon ap Gwynfor (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the Welsh Government's revised pay offer to BMA Cymru? TQ1107

Mair Eluned (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

Following robust negotiations with the BMA, I'm pleased to report that the Welsh Government has made substantial offers in terms of salaries to junior doctors, SAS doctors and consultants, with a view to bringing strikes to an end and improving services to patients. The offers ensure that the additional salary is weighed against commitments on reform, which will aim to get improvements in terms of productivity and efficiency and to secure reforms to the contract in the future. I am delighted that the BMA Cymru committees have agreed to recommend this to their members in the vote that will open today, and we will receive the result of that vote on 27 June.

Mabon ap Gwynfor (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that answer. I welcome the fact that the Government has reached an agreement with the BMA over pay for junior doctors, consultants and SAS doctors. It's been a long battle for the doctors here, and it's regrettable that they've had to fight against a Labour Government in order to secure better pay and conditions. But there we are, this is not the same Labour Party as the one that was formed to fight for the rights of the workforce a century and a quarter ago. Once again, we've had to wait for this Labour Government to pull a rabbit out of a hat, after having insisted for many months that there was no additional money available. All they did was waste time, delay, put unnecessary stress on the doctors and their colleagues and the health service, and pay out more in the end than what the cost would have been if they had agreed to better terms at the outset.

So, even though you said that there was no money available originally, it's clear that you've found a new sofa to look down the back of. You need to be clear with the public regarding where this money has come from, and you need to explain why it has taken so long to find the money. Is it a cynical move that we have here to create good headlines for the First Minister, or even to influence the general election? Transparency and honesty on this point is vital, because this choice has clear implications regarding the status of pay negotiations in other areas of the workforce.

Time and time again representatives of the workforce, such as those from the RCN, have been told by the Government that there was no additional money to bring in a fair contract for nurses, for example, and the RCN, in this case, took your word in good faith. But this assertion made to other bodies now clearly runs counter to what the Government has managed to do now with the BMA. Let's be clear about this, this is not about pitting one group of the workforce against another. Instead, it's about trying to get to the truth and ensure honesty, transparency and consistency. So what is different about your negotiations with the RCN and other representative bodies compared to the BMA that has meant that there is no extra money avaiable for nurses in Wales?

Mair Eluned (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

Thank you very much. I'm sure, if the Member was paying attention, he would have recognised that, actually, some money came in in the form of—[Interruption.]

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

That was me, I'm sorry.

Mair Eluned (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

Oh, I see. I shall carry on. You'll recognise that, actually, the money came in in the form of consequentials right at the end of the financial year. What had happened is that money had been put into reserves, and we've taken some money now out of reserves in order to settle the pay. And let's not forget that this is about last year's pay award.

We entered the negotiations before there was any suggestion that there was going to be a general election. We entered because, obviously, we work in close social partnership with the unions, unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom. It demonstrates that, actually, when you sit down and you negotiate—. And I hope that the Conservatives are watching, because in the UK, they have called and said that they will be taking industrial action, the junior doctors. It demonstrates that when you sit down, you listen and you negotiate, you can come to a conclusion.

Of course, we were pleased that we were able to settle with the RCN earlier on in the year. I'm sure you recognise, and I hope you recognise—and I think it is important that there should be a recognition—that, actually, the junior doctors absolutely deserved a pay increase. And it's probably just worth reflecting on the fact that a junior doctor, after five years in medical school, was earning £28,471, which was less than a nurse at band 5 level, that earned £28,834. So, I'm sure that there will be people who are actually really happy that we have come to this offer.

Let me be absolutely clear that this is not an unconditional offer, that we have ensured that there will be operational reforms to address issues like productivity and efficiency. And, of course, we have had a commitment to achieving future contract reform. The key thing here is to remember that this isn't all about the doctors—it's actually about the patients. We're interested in getting the very best deal for the patients, and that is what I hope we've got as a result of this offer.

Altaf Hussain (Conservative, South Wales West)

It's great news you've come to the agreement with the BMA. Cabinet Secretary, I note your response to Mabon, but the fact that you were able to find funding for this enhanced pay offer now begs the question as to why was this not possible earlier. The people of Wales, our constituents, are facing the most inhumane waits for treatment, and while the Welsh Government was considering its options, those people have been forced to live in pain and discomfort. Welsh Labour has been at the helm of the Welsh NHS for a quarter of a century. Rather than blaming everyone else, will you now admit your failings on health and care? Cabinet Secretary, will you now agree to spend the full Barnett uplift received for health on health, and put an end to inhumane two-year waits in Wales?

Mair Eluned (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

Thanks very much. I'm afraid, Altaf, I'll have to repeat what I said to Mabon, which is that it was your Conservative Government that didn't give us the money until the last few weeks of the financial year. We can't plan on that basis, and so we had to put that money into reserve. We've taken that money now out of reserve in order to fulfil our commitment in order to put this money on the table. Let me remind you, Altaf, that it's your Conservative Government that is facing industrial action in England in the days before a general election. If you think that is a good idea, good luck to you. But I think it is important, also, that there is an understanding that that negotiation was a really tough one. It hasn't been easy. I'd like to thank the negotiators on both sides for the strenuous efforts that they have made, and I think that what we're getting is not just—. They're not getting just an increase in pay; we are getting a huge amount in return as well for the patients in Wales, and that commitment to contract reform is absolutely important. You will know, as a former consultant yourself, that the BMA rate card is pretty expensive. And one of the things that they've agreed with us is that they will withdraw the BMA rate cards as a result of this negotiation. That is good for the taxpayers of Wales, it is good for the patients of Wales, and more operations will be done as a result of that.

Gareth Davies (Conservative, Vale of Clwyd)

I wanted to focus on some of the periphery issues around this as well in terms of recruitment and retention of medical professionals. Because often, when I'm approached in the constituency and nationally—I've taken a lot of responsibility for health services—it's actually the periphery issues around this sometimes, in terms of IT systems and migration, and attracting staff into Wales from other parts of the UK. Often, a barrier to that is sometimes the difference in some IT systems and periphery issues that put staff off in terms of being attracted into Wales. So, are there any discussions going on between the Welsh Government and external stakeholders and partners to ensure we do have some fluidity within the system so people can indeed feel attracted to Wales and not be put off by periphery issues that can sometimes be a barrier to recruitment and retention within the medical profession across the NHS and other sectors as well?

Mair Eluned (Labour, Mid and West Wales)

Thanks very much, Gareth. You're quite right. Doctors want to work in a modernised system, and that is certainly something that I'm very keen to do. We've got to remember that there is one pot of money here, so if I'm giving it to the doctors, it's very difficult for me to modernise and to do the digital upgrades that I would like to do as well. So, there is a payoff here. Every time we give money to one section, there's another section that is going to have to do without. That is the difficulty in terms of the situation we're in, where we have a restricted budget. Obviously, that's what we're keen to do. I'm really keen to do digital transformation. That's how we're going to get some of the productivity gains that we're very anxious to get. But the fact is that we have agreed with, for example, the BMA Welsh consultants committee, that now is the time to reform the current pay structure, which is more than 20 years old. The good thing about that, and you asked about retention, is that a modern pay structure is going to be better in terms of support and recruitment, but also to address the gender pay gap, which has been evident. So, we're hoping that this will address that. And, another issue in relation to what happens in the future is that we're going to be looking at a contract that can be used across the whole of Wales, and I think that might be quite interesting in terms of consultants being able to move from health board to health board. So, there is some real progress being done, I think, in relation to this. Thank you.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

4. 90-second Statements

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Item 4 this afternoon is the 90-second statements, and the first statement is from Altaf Hussain.

Altaf Hussain (Conservative, South Wales West)

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. This week we mark Carers Week 2024. Carers Week is aimed at raising awareness of the challenges faced by unpaid carers across the nation and recognises the enormous contribution they make. But, more importantly, it is about ensuring that the voices of unpaid carers are heard. The theme of this year's Carers Week is 'putting carers on the map', which aims to ensure that everyone, from the policy makers to employers and service providers, recognise and support our unpaid carers. They don't have a choice but to care, but we have a choice to support them. Research shows that there are over a third of a million unpaid carers in Wales and they collectively save the public purse over £10.5 billion a year. So, let's all say a huge 'thank you' to our unpaid carers and offer to better support them in the future. Diolch yn fawr.

Carolyn Thomas (Labour, North Wales)

This year marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Having been founded on 16 June 1824 by a small group of pioneers in a London coffee shop, the RSPCA has grown to become the UK's largest animal welfare charity and the oldest organisation of its kind in the world. For two centuries, the RSPCA has existed to inspire a better world for every kind of animal, while rescuing the most vulnerable animals in our society from all forms of unimaginable cruelty and neglect.

Last week I joined John Littlewood, one of the RSPCA's animal rescue officers, for the afternoon to find out more of the important work of those at the very forefront of the charity's work in Wales. And John was able to offer constructive advice and assistance after inspecting the animals, with follow-up visits arranged.

And this is a big week for those of us in the Senedd focused on improving animal welfare, as we also celebrate 100 years of the League Against Cruel Sports. Since 1924 the league has been fighting to give a voice to animals that suffer in silence in the name of so-called sport. Along their journey, the league has successfully campaigned for legal protections for otters and badgers, while also exposing the cruelty of hunting.

Thank you to all the staff and volunteers over generations from both charities, who have dedicated themselves to improving the lives of animals right across the UK.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Thank you.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Next we have motions to elect Members to committees. In accordance with Standing Orders 12.24 and 12.40, unless there are any objections, I propose that the motions to elect Members to committees are grouped for debate and for voting. Does any Member object? [Interruption.]

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

No, you don't object, do you?

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I see that there are no objections.

Motions to elect Members to committees

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Therefore I call on a member of the Business Committee to move formally the motions—Jane Hutt.

Jane Hutt (Labour, Vale of Glamorgan)

Formally.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

The proposal is to agree the motions. Does any Member object? No. The motions are therefore agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

5. Motion under Standing Order 10.5 to appoint the Chair of the Wales Audit Office Board

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Item 5 this afternoon is the motion under Standing Order 10.5 to appoint the chair of the Wales Audit Office board, and I call on the Chair of the Finance Committee to move the motion—Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Peredur Owen Griffiths (Plaid Cymru, South Wales East)

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I move this motion today on behalf of the Finance Committee, asking the Senedd to agree to appoint Dr Ian Rees as chair of the Wales Audit Office board in accordance with the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2013.

Dr Ian Rees has significant experience of senior leadership in the public sector, along with vast experience of working at board level in a senior executive and non-executive capacity. Having already served four years as a non-executive member at the Wales Audit Office, he has in-depth understanding of the organisation and has worked constructively with both the board and the auditor general during that time.

Members will be aware that the Senedd appointed the previous chair, Dr Kathryn Chamberlain, in March 2023. The details of Dr Chamberlain’s departure is outlined in our report and I do not wish to repeat those during this debate. Although we are disappointed that her tenure on the board has come to an end prematurely, the committee is grateful to Dr Chamberlain for the positive and constructive way she has engaged with us and for delivering the Wales Audit Office’s statutory and strategic priorities during her period as chair. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank her for her service.

Members may also wish to note that the committee’s report confirms the appointments of both Richard Thurston and Mike Norman for their first terms as non-executive members of the board, and the appointment of Dr Ian Rees for his second term of office. We look forward to working with them all. I ask the Senedd to agree the motion. Thank you very much.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Peredur, I have no other speakers. Do you have anything else to add?

Peredur Owen Griffiths (Plaid Cymru, South Wales East)

No, thank you.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

No, right. The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed, in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

6. Debate on the Equality and Social Justice Committee Report, 'Actions, not words: towards an anti-racist Wales by 2030'

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Item 6 today is a debate on the Equality and Social Justice Committee report, 'Actions, not words: towards an anti-racist Wales by 2030'. I call on the committee Chair to move the motion—Jenny Rathbone.

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The committee kicked off this inquiry just over a year ago, by consulting community champions from across Wales. We met both online and in person, in the Pierhead building, appropriately in the heart of what used to be called Tiger Bay, one of the oldest multicultural communities in the UK and the world. Many stakeholders spoke of consultation fatigue. They didn't want to go on repeating their lived experience, they now wanted to see what was changing and what impact their advice to public bodies was having. They were clear: they wanted our inquiry to focus on action and delivery.

Today virtually every community in Wales is enriched by people from different parts of the world, a fact that we should all celebrate. However, racism is an all-too-familiar part of the day-to-day lived experience of far too many of our citizens. All the evidence we took confirms there is widespread support for the ambitious aim of an anti-racist Wales by 2030. We agree wholeheartedly with the closing sentences of the Welsh Government's guide to the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan':

'Without action nothing changes. Indeed, now we need action, not words.'

This requires the Welsh Government to lead efforts to resist rather than resign us to racial discrimination: a time for action not words—the title of our report. We are anxious this compilation of good intentions will struggle to make meaningful progress unless the complexity of the governance arrangements are simplified and the role of partner organisations are better explained.

So, the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' rightly touches on all the activities of Government, as racism can impact every aspect of people’s lives. Our report confines itself to three strategic areas—leadership, collaboration and monitoring—and three specific operational challenges, in health, education and criminal justice. It doesn't include other policy areas, like housing; that does not mean that everything is rosy in the garden, and we may wish to come back to those issues at a later stage.

On leadership, the action plan articulates the Welsh Government’s vision for an anti-racist society. Yet too many organisations told us they did not understand how the plan would be implemented, and were unclear about who was responsible for what actions under the plan. ColegauCymru’s Yusuf Ibrahim said

'leaders need to be held...accountable for, "What are they going to do?", "How are they going to measure it?", and, "How will we know that they are successful?"...what are we doing about it if they're not getting it right?'

He said

'it's a privilege to be working in the public sector...it is not a right and it's not an entitlement, and, frankly, if people are not going to lead this well, then I think that we need to look at who's leading it across all sectors.'

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

Recommendations 1 and 2 set out how we would like to see the Welsh Government fine-tune its enhanced leadership role. This includes narrowing and then eliminating its own ethnicity pay gap by 2025-26 and conducting a rapid review of structures to support the plan. In the committee’s view, the structures and governance arrangements set up under the plan are far too complicated and risk being overengineered. Yes, the Welsh Government has sought to clarify this, and we're grateful for that. However, in the evidence we received was the need for clarity about who is responsible for doing what. It remains to be seen whether this message has been understood.

Health and access to language interpretation is a key issue. It remains the case that family members are still being relied upon as translators due to lack of access to interpretation in medical settings. This is completely unacceptable. We heard a very powerful example from Shanti Karupiah, appearing on behalf of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and poor communication through a family member indicates how much this is a breach of a person's human rights. We cannot be expecting a child to be interpreting on intimate female history, which was probably neither clearly communicated by the woman in question in front of her child, nor was it possible for that child to be interpreting it. And it was only her prompt action to examine this person that enabled her to send this woman in the right direction. Now, it really is a breach of a person's human rights not to have that proper interpretation, and despite raising concerns in a previous report, it is clear that insufficient progress has been made.

With modern technologies, it must be possible for the Welsh Government to ensure equitable access to language interpretation for all. The Government's accepted in full recommendation 6, but it's unclear what the timeline is for implementing the HEAR 2 report, and nor does it mention the key people, the key gatekeepers in this, in health, who are the receptionists who book the appointment and should be able to ask somebody whether they wish for an interpreter if they think that is something that the patient might need.

Just going on to monitoring the reporting of racist incidents, it is extraordinary that—. With over half our doctors and nurses being born in another country, it really is unacceptable that racism is far too often manifested in the day-to-day operations of public services. The Royal College of Nursing referred to its 2019 employment survey, where nearly half of Asian respondents, and roughly the same number of black respondents, had experienced bullying from colleagues, in comparison to only 38 per cent of white respondents, which I think is a significant figure. And Race Council Cymru told us that many people from ethnic minority backgrounds don’t have confidence that education settings have effective policies to prevent racist bullying or micro-aggressions, and that these are dealt with effectively when they do occur. Many education institutions in Wales do not have anti-racism policies or escalation mechanisms. So, recommendations 7 and 9 call on the Welsh Government to improve the system for reporting and monitoring of racism and racist incidents in healthcare and education settings. The Welsh Government has accepted in full the one regarding health, but only in part with regard to education.

In healthcare, all racist incidents are reported to Datix Cymru and there is a consistent, pan-Wales approach. For schools and colleges, however, the Welsh Government is committed only to exploring mechanisms needed to produce a consistent reporting format of racist incidents and harassment. If it is possible to have an all-Wales approach to healthcare, then we would like to see the same for schools and colleges in Wales and urge the Welsh Government to implement this, whilst appreciating that school governing bodies are independent operators and are responsible for individual school practices. Nevertheless, we really do feel that there ought to be an all-Wales approach to racism throughout our education system.

I look forward to hearing other people's comments and the Minister's response.

Altaf Hussain (Conservative, South Wales West)

I would like to place on record my thanks to the Chair of my former committee, the excellent clerking team and all the witnesses who made this inquiry possible. When the Welsh Government introduced this anti-racist action plan, I made it clear that, while I supported the vision of an anti-racist Wales, the plan was not going to deliver it. It appears that I was not alone in my concerns.

I want to make it clear at the outset that I don’t believe that Wales is a racist nation. We are one of the most tolerant nations on the planet, but racism does, sadly, still exist. It is not the overt kind that is prevalent in our nation; it is the more covert structural racism. I say 'structural racism' because I agree with Reni Eddo-Lodge. She chooses the term 'structural' rather than 'institutional' racism, because she thinks it is built into a space much broader than in our more traditional institutions. Structural racism is impenetrable and goes unnoticed. It is not just about personal prejudice, but collectively affects our bias. It is the kind of racism that has the power to drastically impact people's life chances. We are the most racially tolerant country in the English-speaking world and only slightly behind Sweden and Brazil in terms of tolerance. But when we think that true racism only exists in the hearts of evil people, when we think that racism is about moral values, we ignore the fact that it is really about the survival of the systems of power. The hidden nature of structural racism means it is often difficult to tackle.

The Welsh Government’s anti-racist action plan has made it mandatory to teach black, Asian and minority ethnic histories and experiences as part of Welsh history lessons. Yet only a tiny percentage of teachers are from BAME backgrounds. Last year, only 0.2 per cent of the newly-qualified teachers were black. Just 44 out of the nearly 1,500 newly-qualified teachers had a BAME background. How can we possibly hope to put an end to racism, discrimination and, ultimately, hate crime via education and celebrations of diversity if our teachers are not representative? But it goes deeper than that. Witnesses told the Equality and Social Justice Committee that schools and educators appear oblivious to their obligations to work towards an anti-racist Wales. Just over a quarter of teachers were aware of the work undertaken by Professor Charlotte Williams in this field, and fewer—one in five teachers—were confident they understood how anti-racism will fit into the curriculum. It’s not good enough.

Welsh Government are great at planning, but abysmal at delivering upon those plans. I urge the Welsh Government to accept all the recommendations of this report in full, not just in principle. Without tangible data, targets and deliverables, the anti-racist action plan will do nothing to address structural racism in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.

Sioned Williams (Plaid Cymru, South Wales West)

Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in Wales face serious and unacceptable challenges and disadvantage. And for too long, they have been hearing that there will be a change in this regard, through action plans and statements from the Welsh Government. But they told us very clearly that they don't feel or see that change is happening. This was clear from the evidence that we heard as a committee. Although we agreed with the aspirations and aims of the anti-racist action plan, it was absolutely clear that there was an action gap, and that progress was too slow to ensure that people in Wales do not experience racism and the impact of race-based prejudice and inequality in their everyday lives.

While change is needed at all levels and in all parts of society to achieve this, one of the main messages of our report was that we need better leadership, dedicated funding and better evaluation of progress by the Welsh Government if we really want to see a difference. I'm therefore disappointed that the Government, although accepting our recommendation to try to ensure that its own workforce is, for example, more diverse, says that restrictions on the available budget are having an impact on opportunities to recruit. The Government must do more to start at its own feet in leading by example.

A lack of funding is also seen by organisations that are absolutely fundamental to ensuring action, such as the local government association and health boards, as a barrier, and it's frustrating that the Government cannot provide an analysis of the resources available to support the plan, in line with our first recommendation.

I think it's worth quoting Ceri Harris from Betsi Cadwaladr health board, and this is what she told us about the need for additional resources to support an action plan:

Sioned Williams (Plaid Cymru, South Wales West)

'We are expecting a lot from people for nothing, and so we need to value that time. If we want to take this seriously, then you do need to put your money where your mouth is on this one. And so if we want to achieve an anti-racist Wales by 2030, then we need to have those resources.... I've been working in equality for 20 years. I literally have to beg, steal and borrow money to do different initiatives. I pay for initiatives out of my own pocket because it's important to me.'

Sioned Williams (Plaid Cymru, South Wales West)

As a committee, we saw in particular the need to focus firmly on and drive robust change in the areas of education, health and criminal justice. I would now like to focus for the rest of my time on the final recommendation, which is that the Welsh Government should establish a criminal justice observatory for Wales and seek further opportunities to collaborate with the academic world in the context of the action plan.

The reason behind this recommendation is one of the clearest signs of systemic inequality based on race and racism, namely the fact that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are over-represented at all levels of the criminal justice system in Wales. Based on the most recent statistics that we have, in 2021, 51 out of every 10,000 black people in Wales were in prison, compared to 14 white people, and more black people were also under the care of the probation services. The length of sentences is also longer for black people than white defendants. In the same way, the limited data available confirm high levels of disproportionality in the use of stop and search by Welsh police forces.

Thanks to the innovative and vital research of Dr Robert Jones from the Wales Governance Centre, a clearer picture of the disproportionality in terms of race in the criminal justice system has been highlighted, and this emphasises the need for the Welsh Government to pursue an anti-racism agenda in this area. Freedom of information requests had to be used to obtain much of this information, and there are difficulties that arise from the fact that the data are not available. Indeed, if you read the special publication The Welsh Criminal Justice System: On the Jagged Edge by Dr Robert Jones and Professor Richard Wyn Jones, you will understand why. It is entirely related to the fact that the criminal justice system is not under our control.

It's a disgrace that Yvette Cooper has today stated clearly that there won't be a change in that regard under a Labour Government in Westminster, running counter to a long list of reports, the stated opinion of the Government and the evidence that we heard as a committee about the injustice and harm that this causes to, for example, black, Asian and minority ethnic groups. I'd like to know whether the Cabinet Secretary condemns those comments.

We have to accept in principle the need to support and develop work in this area in terms of data gathering, and the Government accepts that in principle. But I'd like to ask, to finish, for a specific update on what the Government is doing to promote and support this essential research, and ask for a commitment from the new Cabinet Secretary, with a change in Government more than likely by July, as to the case that she will be making to Keir Starmer on ensuring that policing and justice powers are devolved. Do you agree that the current situation is unsustainable—

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Sioned, you need to conclude now, please.

Sioned Williams (Plaid Cymru, South Wales West)

—yes, this is my final sentence—unjust and inconsistent in terms of the creation of an anti-racist Wales?

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Jane Dodds. No, Jane, you’re still muted at the moment. Now you can go.

Jane Dodds (Liberal Democrat, Mid and West Wales)

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you so much. I’d like to start by expressing my gratitude to members of the committee and also to those individuals and organisations who took part and gave such valuable evidence to me and to us as a committee. I’d like to also acknowledge the harsh reality that racial inequality persists here in Wales. Despite pockets of progress, people from ethnic minority backgrounds continue to face disparities in housing, education, employment, healthcare and, as we’ve heard, in the criminal justice system. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has noted areas of positive change, but we cannot rest on our laurels. The Welsh Government’s anti-racist action plan sets forth an ambitious yet necessary vision of achieving an anti-racist Wales by 2030, one that we all welcome, because it needs to be about dismantling the racist framework that Wales has currently.

Complacency remains the enemy of progress and the committee’s report highlights the formidable challenges that the Welsh Government needs to surmount when it comes to decisive leadership, active collaboration and detailed monitoring. It is therefore disheartening to read the Welsh Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations, which seemingly seeks to downplay its leadership responsibilities in its willingness to accept our recommendations either in part or principle without following through on key actions. For example, the outright rejection of recommendation 3 is a missed opportunity. By stating that the responsibility lies solely with EHRC as the regulator to improve strategic equality plans, the Welsh Government appears to be abdicating its role in proactively driving progress on this front.

Furthermore, regarding recommendation 4, the decision by the Welsh Government to rely solely on the resource collection on gov.wales rather than a dedicated stand-alone microsite will limit the accessibility and visibility of these crucial resources and hinder transparency.

I would like to just focus my brief contribution upon the education sector, which we all heard remains a critical battleground in the fight against racial inequality. As the children’s commissioner highlighted in their report last November, there is an urgent need for clarity on how schools should handle racist incidents, and a concerning lack of consistency across local authorities in logging and reporting incidents. The report further paints a picture of schools as hostile environments where bullying is rife, with many ethnic minorities lacking confidence in the effectiveness of policies to prevent racist bullying and micro-aggressions. This reality is totally unacceptable and it undermines the very principles of an inclusive and equitable education system. It is therefore troubling that the Welsh Government’s response to recommendation 9, which calls for a consistent national system for reporting incidents, lacks the urgency and conviction that this crisis demands.

By rejecting the need for concrete timelines and binding commitments, the Government further undermines confidence and risks allowing this blight to fester. I therefore urge the Cabinet Secretary to provide reassurances that the Welsh Government is serious about tackling this issue and work with the Cabinet Secretary for Education. We need also to look at data, and, as you’ve heard from my former colleague Altaf Hussain from the committee, and from Sioned Williams, I’d like to hear more from the Cabinet Secretary about what consideration the Welsh Government makes towards the creation of comprehensive systems to collect data, particularly around school exclusions, tracking ethnicity to identify patterns of discrimination, and review schools with high exclusion rates.

I would like to finish by quoting the late Nelson Mandela, which I believe has a particular resonance when it comes to the role education plays in anti-racism: no-one is born hating another person because of the colour of his or her skin, or his or her background, or his or her religion. People learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes naturally to the human heart rather than its opposite.

I hope that the Welsh Government will demonstrate the leadership that we need to take action to root out this hate. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

John Griffiths (Labour, Newport East)

I would like to begin by congratulating the Equality and Social Justice Committee on its report and those who engaged with the committee in this work, and, obviously, those who gave evidence. I would like to highlight the Gypsy, Traveller, Roma community, Dirprwy Lywydd, because I think their voices are often unheard when we discuss prejudice and discrimination. If we are to move forward to an anti-racist Wales, we need to combat discrimination against all sections of our society here in Wales, very much including the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma community. It still seems to be the case, unfortunately, that some people feel able to discriminate against those communities, whereas they wouldn't do so with regard to other minorities. We need to tackle the underlying issues that make that reality possible.

Education, as ever, I think is absolutely clear, and the Children's Commissioner for Wales has found that there's an unacceptable level of bullying with regard to Gypsy and Traveller children, and the level of exclusions is way beyond what we see for the rest of the population. That community is not represented amongst teaching staff, or, indeed, resources, largely, that are used in school. There's a real job to be done to educate children generally in our schools, so that they are not prey to these attitudes and this discrimination. So, there is much to be done in the field of education if we are to tackle the cultural situation that faces our Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities.

I very much welcome the fact that I know Welsh Government did provide extra funding recently to local authorities to combat some of these issues, but, clearly, an awful lot more remains to be done. Another aspect of the problems faced is around housing. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 provides a legal duty on local authorities to assess the accommodation needs of the Gypsy, Traveller communities, but, recently, the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales found very worrying failures in Welsh Government to properly discharge its own duties and to ensure that local authorities are discharging theirs. In the last financial year, we saw nil expenditure from the Welsh Government pot of money that is there for local authorities to provide sites for the Gypsy, Traveller community. It's another clear example, I think, of how we are letting down these people—

Gareth Davies (Conservative, Vale of Clwyd)

Will you take an intervention?

John Griffiths (Labour, Newport East)

Yes, indeed, Gareth.

Gareth Davies (Conservative, Vale of Clwyd)

Obviously, in north Wales, and I've raised it particularly in the past, in Denbighshire, for example, the Welsh Government rules stipulate that it's got to be within a certain radius of major road routes, so, in Denbighshire, the issue has been because Denbighshire is the only local authority in north Wales that doesn't have a Gypsy and Traveller site within the county, because in Denbighshire you've got a 6 mile belt to choose from, which, actually, in geographical terms, doesn't encapsulate the whole county. So, because the A55 basically runs through the middle of the county, or more in the north of the county, it doesn't bring that level of fairness that would have been maybe the case in other counties, because the A55 only runs through a very small part of that county. So, in those terms, would you accept that, sometimes, maybe a more regional approach could be adopted to encapsulate some of those geographical realities around that, on a sort of logistical level?

John Griffiths (Labour, Newport East)

No, I do not think I would, actually, Gareth, because it's a responsibility and, indeed, as I say, a legal duty on all local authorities in Wales—all local authorities—not on a regional basis, but all individual local authorities to properly assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers and to provide for them. What we see all too often, I'm afraid, is stigma, discrimination and prejudice coming into play and, obviously, we do not want to see that in any part of Wales.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I hope you'll give me—

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I'm going to give you an extra two minutes, because it took two minutes.

John Griffiths (Labour, Newport East)

Thank you very much. A further example, I think—and again, it's allied to housing—is the way that the planning system operates. There is real prejudice, again, and discrimination, unfortunately, in the way our planning system works. And that's the case with regard to larger sites and the responsibilities of local authorities, but also smaller sites. And many members of the Gypsy, Traveller community own land, which they would like to develop for their own housing needs, and they're small sites. Very often, they do pose fewer challenges than the larger sites, which are often not ideal for the Gypsy, Traveller community, nor indeed for the local authority and neighbours, because of the nature of the sites. And very often, I must say, those sites—and there's an example here in Cardiff, isn't there, on Rover Way—are sited in the most inappropriate places, where I don't think any of us would like to live, but nonetheless, the Gypsy, Traveller communities are expected to reside there.

So, with regard to the planning system and those smaller sites, I think one very important way forward would be to look at how the planning system works, to make sure that there's no prejudice, no discrimination, no stigma at all involved in the operation of that planning system, and to look at these smaller sites particularly, because I know from my own engagement with the Gypsy, Traveller community, through the cross-party group on race equality, which I chair, and also from chairing committees here in the Senedd, very often it's those smaller sites that the community would really like to see being developed and being allowed right across Wales. Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and Social Justice, Lesley Griffiths.

Lesley Griffiths (Labour, Wrexham)

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Welsh Government regarding the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' inquiry, and I very much welcome the Equality and Social Justice Committee's report, 'Action, not words: towards an anti-racist Wales by 2030', and I very carefully have considered the recommendations. I really want to thank my predecessor, Jane Hutt, who's in the Siambr listening to this debate, for her unwavering commitment to the action plan and I look forward to continuing her work with equal passion to ensure a truly anti-racist Wales.

Our 2022-23 action plan annual report shows that, whilst the impact of the plan may not yet be as apparent in the lived experiences of black, Asian and minority ethnic people as we would want, significant structural foundations have been laid for long-term change, and tangible progress has been achieved. The action plan is significantly different from previous ones, both in its development and its implementation. It was co-produced with black, Asian and minority ethnic people and right at the heart of it is the governance structure that is going to be the external accountability group. That's co-chaired by the Permanent Secretary and by Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna, and comprises 11 black and minority ethnic diversity representatives and eight race experts. This focus on lived experience makes the plan stronger, I think, than any previous plans to tackle racial inequality.

The group holds Welsh Government directly to account through external accountability group meetings and active roles in policy sub-groups. Our regional forums will add a further layer of monitoring and accountability, as they will directly link Welsh Government to grass-roots ethnic minority communities and individuals impacted by policy changes.

A refreshed reiteration of the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' is under way, covering 2024-26. It will refine existing goals and actions to strengthen implementation and measure impact, and it signals the bold vision of achieving an anti-racist Wales by 2030, with goals and actions spanning the whole of Government. The race disparity evidence unit was established in January 2022. It's developing a framework to measure and evaluate the impact of the action plan across the Welsh Government and the wider public sector meaningfully, and I think the point that Jane Dodds made around—it really does need to be a collective endeavour, and I don't think that that just means across Government; absolutely, it is with every Minister and Cabinet Secretary in the Welsh Government, but also in collaboration with our public bodies.

The unit I've just referred to does represent the Welsh Government on the criminal justice in Wales anti-racism plan's data collection and performance work stream. Promoting access to disaggregated justice data does remain a priority for the Welsh Government, and that work complements and builds on the work that Sioned Williams referred to, delivered by Richard Wyn Jones and Rob Jones, who've highlighted the value of transparent and accessible data on the justice system in Wales. Moreover, the Welsh Government has developed interactive data dashboards to compile and disseminate Welsh justice data, and a youth justice dashboard has been published with more to follow. These dashboards present publicly available data from the Ministry of Justice in a very accessible and impactful way.

In health and social care, the establishment of an implementation and challenge board, chaired by Judith Paget, the chief executive of NHS Wales and director general of the health and social services group here in Welsh Government, has provided strong and robust governance and accountability to accelerate the action plan's implementation. I think what this demonstration of leadership at the highest level has ensured is that anti-racist actions retain a very high profile. The board has invited external partners and stakeholders to present the barriers and challenges that they face with the action plan's implementation, and to act as a critical friend. The Welsh Government is also working closely with Social Care Wales to ensure diversity in their public appointments through their current board recruitment exercise, and the Welsh Government's social services directorate is reviewing the membership of all stakeholder groups to set high expectations of representation from ethnic minority communities.

Wales is the first country in the UK to make the teaching of black, Asian and minority ethnic histories mandatory in the Curriculum for Wales. It's important for our educational practitioners and young people to understand that these histories belong to us all. The Welsh Government is also fully considering the Children's Commissioner for Wales's recommendations in her spotlight report on children's experiences of racism in secondary schools. For example, we are strengthening our existing 'Rights, respect, equality' statutory anti-bullying guidance for schools, and this will be done by updating the current guidance to advise education settings on effectively addressing prejudice-related bullying and harassment, and that includes racist incidents. Schools and educational settings have a vital role in actively creating anti-racist conditions to ensure that the experiences and opportunities of today are not marred by the inequalities and racism of the past.

I have already responded to the committee's recommendations, and I want to emphasise our ongoing work to refresh the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan'. We are fully committed to enhancing future iterations and addressing the gaps that Sioned Williams referred to, and that have been identified by the committee. My immediate focus is on publishing the refreshed plan this year. Our next annual report will look at the impact made across various policy areas within the Welsh Government. Strengthening collaboration with partners across the wider public and third sectors in Wales is also a key priority.

Our purpose is clear: to make meaningful and measurable changes to the lives of black, Asian and minority ethnic people by tackling racism; in fact, to all communities that experience racism and prejudice, and John Griffiths very eloquently identified Gypsy, Traveller—

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Will you take an intervention from Sioned Williams?

Lesley Griffiths (Labour, Wrexham)

Sorry?

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Will you take an intervention from Sioned Williams?

Lesley Griffiths (Labour, Wrexham)

Can I just finish this? John Griffiths very eloquently identified Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, which absolutely do face that. Yes, I'll take an intervention.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Sioned.

Sioned Williams (Plaid Cymru, South Wales West)

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. I just wanted to go back to the point, you mentioned the work and the efforts of the Welsh Government, and your officials, as well as your partners, within the justice blueprints, for example, to tackle what the report describes, but do you accept that the current constitutional arrangements, in the words of Dr Robert Jones, are a significant threat to the vision of the anti-racist action plan?

Lesley Griffiths (Labour, Wrexham)

I think it's really important that we work collaboratively. I'm not aware of the specific words that you referred to, but I think it is really important that we work together. You can say this about many aspects of policy development: the Welsh Government can't do this on their own. And I hope I've described and explained the work that we're doing is not just across Government, it's with all our public bodies. Everyone has a part to play in relation to this. I'm committed to tackling systemic and cultural racism in all forms as a priority. What we need to do is absolutely use every lever available. We all need to take a leading role in eradicating racism here in Wales.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I now call on Jenny Rathbone to reply to the debate.

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

Thank you very much. First, I just want to thank the clerks and the research service for the excellent support they gave to the committee. I also want to thank all members of the committee for their commitment to social justice, including the three Members who have left the committee since we published this report, and they are Ken Skates and Sarah Murphy, who obviously are not in a position to contribute to this debate today, and Altaf Hussain, who is a wonderful advocate of anti-racism. We've been very grateful for Altaf Hussain and hope to work with him as an ongoing thing. I also want to pay tribute to Jane Hutt, who's been a tireless advocate of equality and social justice, and who has been leading on this until very recently.

Altaf Hussain talks about structural racism, which is impenetrable and goes unnoticed. Yes, we're one of the most tolerant countries in the western world, and only marginally behind Sweden, but that doesn't mean to say we haven't got to work even harder to achieve the anti-racist Wales that the plan foresees, because not to do so is to not have the full support of all the talent that is in Wales. It impacts on our economy, on our education and every other aspect of our cohesion in our communities, so this is a really significant issue for all of us.

I think Altaf highlights a really serious issue, which is the fact that only 0.2 per cent of our teachers are black, because, realistically, how can we address racism that children have brought into the schools, learnt from the adults in their lives? No child is born racist. In fact, they are completely blind to difference of any sort when they're two, three, four or five, but, later on, they start to hear and adopt the attitudes of other people in their lives, and it's only in school that we can really address this. So, it's absolutely vital, particularly when so many teachers as a profession lack the confidence to call out racism in the classroom, which is, obviously, where it occurs.

This is something that absolutely has to change, and can change, because we used to have a huge amount of misogyny and gender-based violence in the language that people were using in schools. There's a lot less misogyny going on now, because everybody's recognised that that is something we need to tackle. But we obviously have to change the whole culture of our teaching and learning if we're going to reap the benefits of the new curriculum, particularly around relationships, values and ethics, which we must embrace if we're going to achieve an anti-racist Wales.

Jane Dodds also spoke about the importance of tackling the suffering by children and cites the evidence marshalled in the children's commissioner's report around bullying and microaggression. Clearly, it is urgent for the Cabinet Secretary for social justice, I think, to discuss with the education Cabinet Secretary how we're going to address this. Complacency is the enemy of progress, and we really have to address it.

I'm so delighted that John Griffiths stood up and spoke about the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma community. What a champion you are for action on discrimination against the community that has the worst outcomes on educational attainment and the highest numbers of exclusions, as also indicated by the children's commissioner. We really do have to act on this. No child should be excluded from school, because that is an absolute guaranteed pathway into the criminal justice system at secondary school level, or into the mental health pathway. So we cannot go on like this.

On housing, we have to come back to this. I note Gareth Davies's report, and I'm sure we'll want to look carefully and forensically at why it is that Denbighshire does not have a Traveller site. It can't just be to do with the A55 only being in—[Interruption.] I'm not sure I've got time.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I'll give you time, don't worry.

Gareth Davies (Conservative, Vale of Clwyd)

The issue I was highlighting was a constituency issue that was in St Asaph in 2018. They tried to make progress in terms of trying to get that, and I would urge you to do some research on some of the local activity. As that constituency Member for St Asaph, whose job it is to be here and represent the views of my constituents, that was the issue I'm trying to highlight, in that the geographical reality of Denbighshire makes that a challenge. It’s nothing about the issue. It's more of a practical and logistical argument I'm trying to make.

Jenny Rathbone (Labour, Cardiff Central)

We need to take a forensic look at this, either in the Equality and Social Justice Committee or in the Local Government and Housing Committee, because we cannot go on like this, not spending the money that has been allocated for addressing the housing needs of this particular community.

I applaud Sioned for her equality campaigning for 20 years. We definitely have to put our money where our mouth is, particularly around housing. But I'm very grateful to Sioned for raising another important issue I didn't have time for in my earlier remarks, which is around the systematic discrimination and over-representation of ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system, at all levels of the criminal justice system, which is truly shocking and is not unrelated to the levels of exclusions that I mentioned earlier. Exclusion is most definitely a guaranteed passport to either mental illness or the criminal justice system, because you are basically turfing kids out of school and saying, ‘There is no future for you’. And Dr Robert Jones's evidence and statistics are there in plain sight, so nobody can say we didn't know.

I just want to highlight recommendation 10, which is around the need to establish an observatory to pull together all the research of all nine universities, because in all of them there are people doing work related to criminal justice, and it seems to me that we need to have a dashboard where we can refer to the best available evidence on this really important subject.

Lesley Griffiths, you were very clear, and you gave good evidence, that there are very high-level people leading on the on the task and finish group, leading on the health services, and that you are paying special attention to the children's commissioner’s points, and how we are going to address and respect the rights of all groups in our society. We are delighted, I'm sure, to hear that your next annual report will look at impact, because that is absolutely what we want to see, and that is what our stakeholders told us they want to see. So, we really look forward to that, and sharing it and discussing some of the challenges that no doubt that will throw up.

In closing, I want to emphasise the title of our report, which is ‘Action, not words’. There's nothing inevitable about progress. It requires hard work, bravery and determination. We all support the aim. We absolutely all support the aim, across all parties. But we need the Welsh Government to plot the route we are due to travel. If we are to achieve this by 2030, which is only less than six years away, then each of us will need to be active, not passive, in this endeavour.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

7. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Economic policy

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Today's item 7 is the Welsh Conservative debate on economic policy, and I call on Sam Kurtz to move the motion.

Samuel Kurtz (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I welcome the opportunity to open this debate and move the motion in the name of Darren Millar. It's a pleasure to talk about the Welsh economy this afternoon. Wales is a nation of enterprise, and home to so much innovation in so many sectors. From agriculture to healthcare innovation, there are entrepreneurs and businesses everywhere putting Wales on the map. From Valero and RWE to Velfrey Vineyard and Liz's Bakery in Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Wales alike has a breadth of fantastic, diverse and brilliant businesses in every one of our constituencies.

Samuel Kurtz (Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire)

But life hasn't always been easy for our innovators. The COVID-19 pandemic made life difficult for all of us and our businesses were hit hard by the restrictions that were put in place. Thankfully, the actions taken by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, on behalf of the country saved and supported over 11 million jobs—that's 11 million jobs. It is a fact that the UK Government's furlough scheme saved jobs and protected livelihoods during this difficult period. However, this came with a price tag. Combined with the war in Ukraine, which pushed food and fuel prices higher globally, the UK needed a secure plan to stabilise our finances and lower inflation, and I believe that the UK Government has delivered on that.

Of course, high inflation has been a global issue for the past few years, with countries such as Germany, Canada and Italy all experiencing high inflation. And we know that inflation hits working families the hardest, which is why the work done by the UK Government to see inflation fall from 11.1 per cent down to 2.3 per cent has been so important. This is good news. The plan is working. Lower inflation meant wages could catch up and eventually interest rates can come down, putting more money in the pockets of hard-working people the length and breadth of Wales.

UK wage growth has consistently outstripped inflation since mid 2023. Specifically, pay excluding bonuses grew by 6.2 per cent in the last quarter of 2023, compared to the same period in 2022. This trend continued into early 2024, with wage growth remaining strong. We also welcome that the UK is now the fastest-growing economy in the G7. This again shows that the plan is working, and Wales is directly benefiting.

Members will all welcome the regional growth deals that have taken place. Indeed, Wales is the only nation in the UK that can be classed as a growth deal nation, with growth deals reaching every corner of our country. In 2023, two new £160 million investment zones were announced in north-east and south-east Wales, and of course there was the announcement of the Celtic and Anglesey free ports. A further £319 million was allocated in levelling-up funding for projects across Wales, working directly with local authorities to deliver projects, putting the power and decision making closer to the people who benefit—positive economic measures that will deliver positive outcomes the length and breadth of Wales.

And yet, for all the positive work that has been done by the UK Government, Wales has not been able to reach its potential because we've had for 25 years economic mismanagement by successive Welsh Labour administrations here in Cardiff Bay. We only have to look at the Welsh Government's own statistics to see data showing the underperformance of the Welsh economy compared to the UK as a whole. Of the 12 economic areas of the UK, Wales comes in at eleventh.

But what do these statistics mean for the people of Wales? These aren't just abstract numbers—they have real-world consequences for workers and their families. For instance, Wales has the lowest employment rate in the UK. Furthermore, if someone is employed, they can expect to earn less than their UK counterparts. Why is this Welsh Government so content and accepting of Wales being at the bottom of every league table once again? This surely must anger us all.

But this doesn't have to be the case. Wales can be and can do better. This is why the motion calls on the Welsh Government to create an environment for businesses to invest and create jobs, help businesses do what they do best—create jobs, create wealth and create growth. Governments can't create jobs, but they can create the right environment for jobs to be created. This is why we are calling on the Welsh Government to reinstate business rate relief to 75 per cent, to abolish business rates for small businesses and to adopt our jump start scheme for microbusinesses, paying the employer national insurance for two employees for two years.

While these measures will greatly benefit companies in the short term, we must think long term to fully capitalise on the fantastic opportunities in nuclear, wind, floating offshore wind and other infrastructure projects. This is why we are also calling for the Welsh Government to support 150,000 new apprenticeships over the next Senedd term. These will be jobs of the future, securing careers for our young people and giving us the ability to deliver projects that will benefit Wales, and the rest of the UK, for decades to come.

Dirprwy Lywydd, Wales is a nation of great innovators. Our people are full of passion, hard work and commitment, and so the Welsh Government must do more to provide conditions for growth for the future. We must look at technological innovation across the world, seize opportunities on our doorstep, and develop a landscape that encourages entrepreneurship across the country. We can and we must create the conditions for entrepreneurs to thrive. And on that note, I urge Members to support the motion this afternoon. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I have selected the five amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendments 2, 3 and 4 will be deselected. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Welsh Language to move formally amendment 1.

Jeremy Miles (Labour, Neath)

Formally.

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

I call on Luke Fletcher to move amendments 2, 3, 4 and 5, tabled in the name of Heledd Fychan.

Luke Fletcher (Plaid Cymru, South Wales West)

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Whatever was left of the Tories' self-proclaimed reputation on economic competence lies in tatters after 14 years of austerity that's widened societal inequalities, after a hard Brexit that's contracted trade in goods by over 13 per cent, and, of course, after the catastrophic Truss mini-budget that sent mortgage rates soaring and wiped £30 billion from the public purse.

And here in Wales we've borne the brunt of that recklessness. We've been denied the £4 billion that is rightly owed to us from HS2, while the so-called levelling-up agenda has short-changed us to the tune of £1.3 billion. Even the achievements the Conservatives are crowing about in this motion collapse under scrutiny. I mean, yes, inflation has come down from its eye-watering peak, but it's difficult to see what, if any, credit the UK Government can claim, given that managing inflation is the responsibility of the Bank of England. And whilst inflation comes down, prices don't follow. [Interruption.] And most damningly of all—no, I won't be taking an intervention—and most damningly of all, the most recent UK Parliament will hold the distinction of being the first in modern history to have overseen a fall in household disposable income and living standards. I mean, the Tories have created a wasteland of the economy, and they have the gall to call it prosperity. What an insult to the millions of people who have struggled under their watch.

But what are we seeing from the Labour Party? You know, a party that's terrified of its own shadow, that's more interested in purging the left rather than presenting a progressive vision for economic renewal. It also appears that the Welsh branch has borrowed from the Tory playbook when it comes to taking voters for a ride. Their election pledges for Wales include a commitment to deliver economic stability and growth. That conveniently overlooks the fact that the economic development has been the responsibility of the Welsh Labour Government since 1999, during which time Wales has consistently ranked amongst the worst performing of the UK nations and regions for GVA. And Wales has the only economy in the UK that remains smaller than its pre-pandemic level, with GDP per capita also predicted to be £1,100 lower in 2024, compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Now, Dirprwy Lywydd, fixing our broken economic system won't be easy and it will be complex, but in Plaid Cymru, we believe this process must be guided by the fundamental principle of fairness. It means rejoining the EU single market to enable our domestic businesses to flourish on the international stage. It means demanding, for our exporters, a far higher share of UK export finance than the 1 per cent they receive. Most importantly of all, it means replacing the outdated Barnett formula with a funding model that appropriately caters for our societal needs. And in this sense of fairness, it also needs, then, to be married, in turn, with proactive ambition on the part of the Welsh Government. This means setting and sticking to tangible targets to narrow the productivity gap between Wales and the rest of the UK. It means reforming the blunt policy instrument that is non-domestic rates. It means providing improved succession planning to retain the benefits of entrepreneurialism here in Wales. And it means also a mission-led approach to economic development.

Dirprwy Lywydd, it is abundantly clear in this election that neither the Tories nor Labour have the slightest interest in leading an adult conversation about the state of our economy. Well, Plaid Cymru will never shy away from presenting the bold solutions to create a nation that is ambitious, fairer and prosperous.

Mark Isherwood (Conservative, North Wales)

Devolution was supposed to reinvigorate the economy and liberate the life chances of people in Wales. However, although Wales can be an agile nation with a thriving high-wage economy, its entrepreneurial spirit has been kept on a leash, and this has sadly not been the case.

A quarter of a century of a Labour Welsh Government has left our economy underperforming and the people of Wales losing out as a result. Rather than succumbing to the siren calls from Labour and Plaid Cymru to take actions that would have boosted inflation and generated bigger future cuts, making everyone worse off, the UK Conservative Government has taken the action necessary to cut inflation from over 11 per cent to near 2 per cent above the interest rates independently set by the Bank of England, with real wages growing for the eleventh month in a row, nearly 4 million more people in work, and youth unemployment down 370,000 since 2010, and economic inactivity lower than at any point under the last UK Labour Government. However, the deadweight of Labour Welsh Government has left Wales the lowest employment rate, lowest pay packets, lowest total GDP output per head, and highest economic inactivity rates in the UK—this despite Labour Welsh Government having received billions in temporary funding intended to close the prosperity gap both within Wales and between Wales and the rest of the UK.

In claiming that they've been short-changed since, the poor darlings struggle to understand that Wales and the Welsh Labour Government are not the same thing. They would, of course, be correct had Wales not received over £2.5 billion of UK levelling-up funding via a number of different schemes aimed at spreading prosperity and giving communities more of a say in how the money is spent, including over £440 million through three rounds of levelling-up funding and around £585 million in UK shared prosperity funding. They would also be correct had the UK Government not invested £2 billion for Network Rail and £340 million for enhancements in Welsh rail from 2019 to 2024, had Network Rail not published its £5.2 billion five-year plan for the railway in Wales and western that sees a £1.9 billion investment in the Wales and borders route, and had the UK Government not also announced plans for rail upgrades in Wales, including £1 billion into electrification of the north Wales main line and £700,000 for Transport for Wales to explore upgrades for Shotton and Chester stations, and increase north Wales main line capacity.

In order to deflect attention from their own gross failings, they present austerity as a policy chosen by the UK Conservative Government, although Blair and Brown were the architects of austerity. When Gordon Brown opened US investment bank Lehman Brothers's London headquarters in 2004, he told them:

'I would like to pay tribute to the contribution you and your company make to the prosperity of Britain.'

On 15 September 2008 Lehman Brothers went bust: the moment when global financial stress turned into a full-blown international emergency.

Years before, the IMF said that the UK banking system was more exposed to sub-prime debt than anywhere else in the world.

The National Audit Office reported that Mr Brown's Treasury was warned three years before Northern Rock nearly went bust that it needed to set up emergency plans to handle a banking crisis, but did nothing about it. Following the crash, the financial services authority reported that there had been instead sustained political emphasis by the Labour Government on the need for them to be light-touch in their regulatory approach. Well, the people paid the price. By 2010 the UK budget deficit was the worst in the G20, behind only Ireland and Greece in the EU.

If you have a big deficit, someone owns you and sets the terms, and would have imposed greater cuts had we followed the economic policies advocated by Labour and Plaid Cymru, as happened in Ireland and Greece, and as happened when the UK Labour Government was forced to borrow from the IMF in 1976. I'm old enough to remember that; my father lost his job a couple of years later. They seek to deflect blame onto Liz Truss's temporary tenure, dodging the reality that the pound, the cost of borrowing and markets rebounded as soon as Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt restored stability. Only a very silly-billy would claim that the current cost-of-living crisis was made in Westminster—as they do—and 33 European countries, the euro area—

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Mark, you will need to conclude, please.

Mark Isherwood (Conservative, North Wales)

—and 17 G20 countries currently have higher inflation rates than the UK in consequence of the global cost-of-living crisis. I conclude, there is a hope for the future, provided that a UK Labour Government is not elected to wreck the economy once again.

Rhianon Passmore (Labour, Islwyn)

It is actually time to end the chaos. The United Kingdom's economy has been trapped by the Tories. Fourteen long years of austerity, presided over by five Tory Prime Ministers and seven Tory Chancellors. But the one thing they all have in common is that they've all seen the majority become worse off. That's a fact. According to the Office for National Statistics, the UK failed to grow at all in April, and we are at the bottom of G8 for growth. That is a fact. Today we learn from a political interview on ITV, the one that Rishi Sunak abandoned D-day events for, that the Prime Minister, alone worth £651 million, does feel the financial pain of ordinary families because, although he has never used a cash machine, he did once go without Sky TV as a child, and that is beyond satire. And as Victorian diseases associated with poverty—rickets and malnutrition—are now appallingly presenting back in our surgeries and our hospitals—. What a legacy—this sad, Tory Prime Minister is doing all he can to make his predecessor, Liz Truss, look like politically competent.

So, I want to look at some more facts. Wages have risen faster in Wales than England since 2011. The Welsh Government has invested more than £143 million. And despite these measures, now in 2024, the Welsh Government has a budget that is £3 billion lower than if it had grown in line with GDP since 2010. Indeed, Wales has almost £1.3 billion less funding in real terms due to the UK Government's failure to honour its commitments and replace EU funds in full. It has not done that, and it has since broken the trust of its citizenry.

With the further economic harm caused by hard Brexit and Liz Truss's so-called mini-budget, it is a sad fact that Wales just does not receive fair funding from Westminster. The Barnett formula does not deliver a funding settlement that reflects Wales’s economic, financial or social needs.

Conservative UK Governments have conspicuously—

David Rees (Labour, Aberavon)

Rhianon, will you take an intervention?

Rhianon Passmore (Labour, Islwyn)

I'm sorry, I've got just too much to go through, and I'm sure I'll answer any intervention in what I've got to say.

The UK Government's purposeful destruction of the UK welfare net, which should address the needs of the most vulnerable, and which ended the cruel reign of the punitive workhouse—