Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister

Cadeirydd, diolch yn fawr. Gyda fi y bore yma mae John Howells, cyfarwyddwr newid hinsawdd, ynni a chynllunio, a Claire Germain, dirprwy gyfarwyddwr trechu tlodi a chefnogi teuluoedd.

Thank you. We'll now go into questions straight away and the first question will be from Llyr Gruffydd.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Bore da, Brif Weinidog. Pan fo'n dod at fynd i'r afael â phwysau costau byw, pa effaith, os o gwbl, gafodd datganiad yr hydref gan Lywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig ar eich cynlluniau chi?

Wel, dim lot, Cadeirydd, a dweud y gwir. Roedd rhai pethau, fel dwi wedi'i ddweud yn barod ar lawr y Senedd, rydym ni yn eu croesawu. Rydyn ni yn croesawu'r ffaith bod budd-daliadau wedi mynd lan gyda'r mynegai prisiau manwerthu, a hefyd bod pensiynwyr wedi cael y triple lock unwaith eto. So, mae yna rai pethau rŷn ni wedi eu croesawu, ond ar y cyfan, does dim byd o gwbl i'n helpu ni i fuddsoddi yn y gwasanaethau cyhoeddus lle mae pobl fregus yn dibynnu ar beth rydyn ni'n gallu gwneud gyda'n gilydd. Doedd dim ceiniog yn natganiad yr hydref i'n helpu ni o ran popeth rydyn ni'n trio ei wneud fel Llywodraeth gyda'r gwasanaethau eraill i warchod pobl dros y gaeaf sydd i ddod.

Ble mae hwnna'n eich gadael chi, te? Achos yn amlwg rydych chi'n gweithredu oddi mewn i sefyllfa gyllidebol heriol. Mae argymhellion wedi dod o gyfeiriad y grŵp arbenigol ar yr argyfwng costau byw oedd yn sôn am wneud yn siŵr bod y ddarpariaeth bresennol yn cael yr effaith orau posib ac os oedd yna unrhyw ddarpariaeth ychwanegol ei bod hi'n targedu'r bobl fwyaf ymylol, y rhai sy'n profi'r caledi mwyaf. Pa mor effeithiol ydych chi'n teimlo rydych chi'n mynd i allu gwneud hynny yn yr hinsawdd ariannol bresennol?

Wel, mae'n heriol, fel y mae Llyr Gruffydd yn ei ddweud, Cadeirydd, ond rydyn ni'n lwcus i gael cyngor y grŵp sydd wedi dod at ei gilydd, a dwi'n ddiolchgar iawn iddyn nhw am yr adroddiad maen nhw wedi ei gyhoeddi.

Mae pum peth yn yr adroddiad y maen nhw'n dweud wrthym ni y gallwn ni eu gwneud rhwng mis Medi diwethaf a mis Mawrth nesaf, a dwi'n meddwl ein bod ni wedi gwneud pedwar mas o'r pump yn barod, neu wedi dechrau eu gwneud nhw. Roedd un i Lywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig, nid i ni. Ond pan fo'r adroddiad yn dweud y dylid gwneud mwy i helpu pobl i gymryd y budd-daliadau sydd yna iddyn nhw, rydyn ni yn gwneud pethau. Mae ymdrech dros y gaeaf i wneud mwy i helpu pobl fel yna.

Mae'r trydydd argymhelliad yn gofyn a allwn ni wneud mwy i gydweithio gyda chwmnïau i godi ymwybyddiaeth ac i wneud mwy yn y maes social tariffs. Wel, cawson ni gyfarfod nôl ym mis Tachwedd gyda nhw i gyd, ac mae'r Gweinidog, Jane Hutt, yn cwrdd â nhw yn eithaf aml. Felly, mae pethau y gallwn ni eu gwneud. Beth sydd ddim gyda ni yw mwy o arian i fuddsoddi mewn pethau roedden ni'n gallu eu gwneud gaeaf diwethaf. Heb yr arian yn y flwyddyn ariannol hon, bydd rhai pethau allwn ni ddim eu gwneud dros y misoedd sydd i ddod.

Roedd Llyr Gruffydd, Cadeirydd, yn gofyn pa mor effeithiol ydy'r pethau rydyn ni wedi eu gwneud yn barod, a gwnaf i jest roi un enghraifft, os gallaf i.

I remember saying on the floor of the Senedd that the money that was provided for individuals in the autumn statement went primarily to people in the top half of the income distribution—£46 out of every £100 going to people in the top part of the income distribution. We've had an analysis done of the investments that the Welsh Government has made in this field over the last financial year, and it shows that around 75 per cent of households in Wales benefited from one measure or another taken by the Welsh Government. But, of the money that we provided, twice as much went to people in the bottom half of the income distribution spectrum as in the top half, and when you compare those in the top fifth and the bottom fifth, three times as much of our help went to people in the bottom fifth of the income distribution compared to the top fifth of it. So, I think the figures do show that our money has been spent in that effective way, if by 'effective way' we mean aligning the help we provide with those who need it the most.

Ydy'r dadansoddiad yna wedi cael ei gyhoeddi o gwbl?

Dwi ddim yn siŵr, a dweud y gwir. Os dydy e ddim, dwi'n hapus i'w rannu, wrth gwrs.

Byddai'n ddifyr iawn gweld hwnna, yn amlwg, ond mae hwnna'n galonogol iawn o safbwynt y patrwm, beth bynnag.

It has been published.

Gwych. Diolch yn fawr iawn. Ym mis Mehefin hefyd, pasiodd y Senedd gynnig yn ymwneud â'r ymgyrch Cynnes y Gaeaf Hwn, neu Warm This Winter. Gaf i ofyn pa gamau, felly, mae'r Llywodraeth wedi eu cymryd yn sgil y bleidlais yna i drio rhoi ychydig o hynny ar waith?

Mae nifer o bethau rydyn ni wedi eu gwneud ar ôl beth oedd yn y mosiwn o flaen y Senedd nôl ym mis Mehefin, Dirprwy Lywydd. Un o'r pethau roedd y Senedd yn galw amdano oedd inni godi pethau gyda Llywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig ac i ofyn iddyn nhw i wneud mwy, ac rŷm ni yn gwneud hynny. Rŷm ni'n ei wneud e bob tro mae cyfleon gyda ni. Roedd cyfarfod rhwng y Gweinidog Cyfiawnder Cymdeithasol a'r person yn Llywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig sy'n gyfrifol am gymorth i bobl dros y gaeaf, nôl ym mis Tachwedd. Dwi wedi cael cyfleon fy hunan. Bob tro mae hynny'n digwydd, rŷm ni'n codi'r pryderon sydd gyda ni i gyd am bobl fregus yma yng Nghymru.

Roedd y mosiwn hefyd yn galw am bethau allwn ni eu gwneud i wneud mwy yn y maes ynni cynaliadwy ac ynni cynaliadwy yn y gymuned. Mae hynny'n anodd gwneud yn gyflym, a dweud y gwir, achos mai rhywbeth hirdymor yw e, ond mae nifer o bethau diddorol wedi digwydd dros yr wythnosau diwethaf sydd yn help inni i wneud mwy yn y maes yna. A thrwy Ynni Cymru, a rhai syniadau newydd sydd gyda ni, rŷm ni yn buddsoddi. Mae £1 miliwn wedi cael ei fuddsoddi mewn prosiectau ledled Cymru i drio cyflymu beth allwn ni ei wneud i adeiladu mwy o brosiectau ynni cymunedol. So, dwi'n meddwl rŷm ni wedi ymateb i beth oedd y Senedd eisiau ei weld. Mae'r cyd-destun yn dal i fod yn un anodd. Does dim digon o arian gyda ni i wneud popeth rŷm ni eisiau ei wneud.

Jest i gloi'r darn bach yma, te, os caf i, roeddech chi'n sôn bod yna anogaeth wedi bod ichi gael trafodaethau gyda Llywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig. Sut mae'r berthynas bellach gyda Llywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig, yn cymharu, efallai, gydag iterations blaenorol o Weinidogion a Phrif Weinidogion yn San Steffan? Ydych chi'n teimlo bod Gweinidogion gyda'i gilydd yn cael mwy o traction, a chi a'r Prif Weinidog efallai yn cael gwell perthynas nag efallai beth sydd wedi bod yn y gorffennol?

The picture is a mixed one, Chair. Dealing with the current Prime Minister is easier in some ways than dealing with his immediate predecessors, because he at least observes the basic courtesies of inter-governmental relations. But my experience of dealing with the UK Government is that it is a Government that knows it's in its dying days. Ministers come and go with an astonishing rapidity. No sooner do you feel you've got to know somebody and that they've begun to understand their brief than they are replaced by somebody where you have to start all over again. I'm trying not to make this point in a partisan sort of way. Even on the best terms, this is a Government entering its final year of its mandate, and the impression I have with Ministers is that there is not a great deal of fresh energy being invested in any governmental agenda. It's a Government running out of time and out of steam.

John, a short supplementary.

I hope so, Chair. I'm just looking at what the expert group said, Prif Weinidog, about maximising the benefit from expenditure, because there's so little resource around, as we know. In Newport, there was an event the other week where a supermarket was hosting a donation day for the foodbank, and the Trussell Trust were there. They mentioned a pilot where, as well as providing badly needed food, they also commissioned Citizens Advice to provide sessions of advice for people, and also some debt advice, which has resulted in some voluntary insolvency arrangements, which have been very important for people who felt overwhelmed by the debt that they had. I just wonder, is it that sort of joining up, really, that will deliver that maximum benefit from expenditure, where we think outside the box a little bit, and outside silos, and joining up organisations and services?

I certainly think all of that is very important. Nobody wants to have organisations that are competing with one another by doing the same thing, where by working together they could maximise their impact. I think we are incredibly lucky in Wales with the amount of voluntary third sector effort that goes into trying to find ways of helping people through these difficult times. Nevertheless, it is desperate, it seems to me, that we think foodbanks, and doing more through foodbanks, and improving the way that foodbanks operate, is the answer to finding just a basic decency in the lives of our fellow citizens. So, whenever I visit a foodbank—and, I'm sure, like all members of the committee, we've all done it—I'm always hugely impressed by the commitment that is shown, by the imagination that is shown by people wanting to do more. And I've never been to a foodbank where people don't tell you, 'We wish we weren't here. We wish we weren't needed.' And it seems to me that is where the long-term solution has to lie.

I'll move on to some questions on energy, since we've already started talking about it. Jack.

Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. Bore da, pawb.

First Minister, residents in north Wales pay the highest standing charge rates in the UK. So, if we put that into the context of where it is, residents in my constituency in Alyn and Deeside pay more than Russian billionaires in the middle of London. I've called for standing charges to be scrapped; I think they're unfair, I think they're arbitrary. The Welsh Government has had positions on the fairness of standing charges in the past. I wonder, in light of the Ofgem consultation of their review into standing charges, will the Welsh Government be setting out its position, either responding to that consultation, or formally in other forums with Ofgem, and what is that view?

Well, Chair, we will be making a formal response to the Ofgem review. As a result of the campaigns that have been waged—and Jack Sargeant has been a leading voice in that here in Wales—some changes have already happened, and prepayment meter customers now have reduced standing charges, compared to what they were paying this time last year. So, I welcome that.

My own view is that standing charges should simply be removed for certain categories of customer. I don't myself believe you can necessarily go to abolishing them altogether for everybody, but Jack and other colleagues will know very well the—. I've seldom seen people more angry than prepayment meter customers who scrape and save to be able to get a sum of money—£10, let's say—to feed their meter, to find that, before a single ounce of energy comes their way, they are being charged for all those days when they couldn't afford to feed the meter at all. So, that's the first thing that happens, that the money they've put in is reduced to pay the standing charge for all those days when they weren't able to use any electricity. And it's an irony, isn't it, that one of the rationales for a standing charge is that some of the money collected through it is meant to go to support the most vulnerable customers. Well, here are the most vulnerable customers paying the money in order to get a fraction of it back in help.

So, my view is that, for the vulnerable customers, standing charges should simply be abolished. Ofgem says to me, 'Well, that means that it'll have to be paid in a different way, and it'll have to be put on bills in a different way.' And I said to them, 'I think it should come out of profits.' That's where I think it should come. I think that these are companies who can well afford—absolutely well afford—to absorb the costs that would be involved in doing so. And rather than thinking that it's every other customer who has to pick up the bill, I think it's time that the companies themselves measured up to some of those obligations.

Can I thank the First Minister for his answer—it brings me nicely on to my next round of questions—and can I also agree with him about his comments around where the standing charges gap, if they were to be removed for some customers, should be paid, and paid through the profits of these companies? We saw, for example, British Gas and Scottish Power make record profits in the last year, the chief executives recording huge bonuses on top of quite nice salaries as well.

First Minister, you mentioned prepayment meters. It brings me on to the report from the Senedd Petitions Committee. We launched an inquiry from a petition submitted by Climate Cymru, and the petition was that this Senedd should scrutinise the prepayment meter scandal in Wales. We've now reported, in the last couple of weeks, on that. It was Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, and the chair of the cross-party group on fuel poverty is with us this morning too. Recommendation 1 in our report calls for the Welsh Government to

'support the creation of a new social tariff for vulnerable people to provide greater support to those in the greatest need'.

How can the Welsh Government support such a creation, if it's minded to?

Well, first of all, Chair, we are absolutely aligned with those campaigns to introduce a social tariff, so we're definitely in favour of that. One of the things that we are doing at the moment is to pursue the announcement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the autumn statement. He made a commitment to develop a new approach to consumer protection, including the option of a social tariff, and, if it can be done, the idea will be that it will be from April of next year. So, I think that's encouraging, and one of the things that we are doing is trying to get some more information from the Treasury as to how much work has been done on that and what the nature of such a social tariff might be, and what the realistic prospects are of it being in place by April of next year.

We've got some good experience to contribute in Wales, particularly in the water industry. Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water has the best social tariffs of any utility company, I think, in the energy or the water field, and there are things that we can contribute from that experience. So, we are both committed to a social tariff, trying to do the things that we can do to pursue ideas that are floated at the UK level, and then to talk to the companies themselves. I said that the Minister for Social Justice meets with the companies; she was with Ofgem on 16 November, and, again, pressing the regulators to do more to see what they can do to encourage both the development of social tariffs and the take-up of social tariffs, because you'll know that, in other parts of this poverty spectrum, there are social tariffs, but very, very few people get to know about them or take them up, so there's a job for the regulator there as well in making sure that what social tariff help is already available is properly known about and properly promoted.

I thank the First Minister. Chair, I have two questions left. The First Minister referenced the water industry, Dŵr Cymru in particular, in his last response, so I'll take one on that first. Again, the Petitions Committee, recommendation 3 in our report says

'Welsh Government should explore with utility providers whether it would be possible—within the limits of data protection rules—to ensure that where one organisation is aware that a customer is vulnerable, they are automatically given greater protection by other suppliers'.

In practical terms, that means that if a customer is presumed vulnerable in the water industry, then they should be presumed vulnerable in the energy sector, whoever the supplier is, as well. Could the Welsh Government seek to support and facilitate such conversations between utility companies to see if that is possible, and, if it is, to take action to make sure it does?

Well, Chair, first of all, I think it's a straightforwardly good idea, isn't it, and I sometimes think that data sharing is made more of a barrier than it needs to be because this is data sharing directly for the advantage of the customer, isn't it? It's to make sure that someone who asks for and gets help in one part of the spectrum, that other parts of the spectrum get to know about that and align the help that they can offer as well. So, I think there is a responsibility on the regulators here, as well as the companies, to help them to make sure that data sharing does not become an unnecessary barrier to doing what Jack Sargeant has said. Members of the committee will know that we have a cost-of-living sub-committee of the Cabinet, and, in our meeting in November, we heard from all the regulators. This was one of the issues that we discussed directly there with them: how can they share more with one another, and how can they help companies to share more with one another, so that the—. This is all about just making sure, as I said in my last answer, Chair, that the help that is already available gets known about and taken up. Because, as well as wanting more help through social tariffs and other mechanisms in the future, the help that's there already often doesn't reach the people that it needs to reach, and there's a job of work for the regulators to assist in that and to make sure that data sharing doesn't become an unnecessary obstacle to doing so.

Thank you, First Minister. Chair, a final question from me. I recognise I can't talk through all of my report; I'm incredibly proud to have chaired this particular inquiry. It comes from the petition from Climate Cymru, who lead the Warm This Winter Wales campaign, mentioned by Llyr Gruffydd earlier. I'm grateful to those who gave evidence as well, particularly National Energy Action Cymru. One of our other recommendations in that report is something the Welsh Government can do positively, and do do positively—we're calling for further action on how Welsh Government can enhance the advice services they already offer this winter, particularly aimed at those vulnerable residents in society. Funding is really difficult at the moment, and we recognise that, but perhaps a more visible advertising campaign, signposting people to that important advice, which is out there, but we need higher take-up.

Well, Chair, I suspect that a number of times during this conversation I'm going to end up making this point, so I'll make it now and maybe won't need to keep making it, but the Welsh Government's budget this year and next year is the most difficult we've ever seen. One of the things we're having to ask ourselves as a Government is: to what extent are we able to go on spending Welsh Government money for purposes that are not our responsibility? Now, we provide £11 million a year to the single advice service, which is the single biggest piece of practical help we offer in that area, but, other than debt advice, which is just a fraction of it, all the rest of it is a responsibility that lies at Westminster and where the Welsh Government has stepped in to fill the many gaps that there are here in Wales. And in the very difficult business of trying to find the budget for this year and next year, one of the questions all my colleagues have had to ask themselves is: to what extent can the Welsh Government go on using money that comes to us for the core things for which we are responsible—how much can we divert any of that money for responsibilities that are not devolved to Wales? And advice services is one of those.

The Conservative Party, at the last election, said that they wouldn't spend any money on non-devolved matters. Well, that's not our position, but the chances that we will find more to do even more, in an area that is not funded—. You know, no money comes to us to provide advice services, because they're not a devolved responsibility. Nevertheless, the point that Jack Sargeant makes is a very important one, and we have done some things to try to make sure that people get the advice that they need. The Nest advice service, which is directly in the home energy area, we increased its budget last year, so they could do more over the winter, and we are keeping its budget at that enhanced level for this winter as well.

There is a campaign at the moment—the 'Here to help with the cost of living' campaign; it's the fourth iteration of that campaign. It does have advertising in tv, I think, as well as radio, to reach people, and the results are always what you'd expect. When people come forward for that help, every £1 we spend generates far more than that in the pockets of people who get benefits to which they were entitled but weren't claiming and so on. Pension credit, as you will all know, is the least well-claimed benefit in the whole of Wales. So, often we are helping people who are vulnerable not simply because of the circumstances they live in, but vulnerable through age as well. This winter, there is an additional source of help for people on the Climate Action website. So, we've been trying to get some attention for that recently, for Climate Action Week, and so on. The website now contains quite a large variety of advice for people as to actions that they are able to take and sources of help that they can pursue in order to keep warm over the winter.

Thank you.

We'll move on now to Mark Isherwood.

Could I start with a supplementary on that, if I may? Advice services are provided formally by a number of organisations—you mentioned Citizens Advice, Shelter Cymru and others. But there are many, many others, particularly through disabled people's organisations, for example, who, amongst the services they provide to their networks and members are advice and support services, applications for benefits—all sorts of things. And yet they're seeing reductions that could prevent those services being provided, and we're talking about cuts in thousands that save public services millions. People in crisis, as you know, will then move on to statutory services, crisis services in local authorities and health boards. What consideration have you given to investing those thousands in order to save those millions for public services?

Well, it's a genuine dilemma, Chair, because when your budget is under the pressure that the Welsh Government’s budget is under, one of the things you find yourself driven to—although you’re conscious of it and so try to avoid it—is reducing those preventative services because you need the money to deal with the here and now. And that example that Mark Isherwood has given is an example of that. I’m afraid the era that we are in is an era in which there will be less for us to be able to do the things we want to do—£1.3 billion-worth less in purchasing power for the Welsh Government next year than this year. And inevitably in that, some of the things we’ve been able to do we will not be able to do. You hope not to do the things that prevent costs later in the system, but it’s not always possible, I’m afraid.

I wasn't referring to more money. I was referring, for example, to replacing a tyre on your car rather than having to replace the whole car after a car crash.

However, Jack Sargeant referred to the cross-party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency, and, obviously, we are also in correspondence with the UK Government regarding the social tariff and consumer protection otherwise, and I think Jack referred to this, that we put the questions you raised to Ofgem last week in relation to the matters you highlighted, and we also encouraged people to make submissions to the evidence calls they've issued on standing charges and social tariffs. But in terms of north Wales, normally—and I'm sure you're aware of this—in most areas there's a trade-off between standing charges and unit prices. So, where unit prices are higher, standing charges tend to be lower, and vice versa. But in north Wales, it appears, that's not working. I'm wondering what specific discussions you have had or will be having with the primary energy companies operating in the region over why that's the case.

Chair, I think it must be absolutely frustrating for residents of north Wales, because, as well as paying the highest standing charges and not seeing the trade-off with the unit cost, north Wales is a huge exporter of energy, isn’t it? The renewable energy that is created in north Wales flows out across the border and is sold more cheaply to people elsewhere than energy is sold to people who live in north Wales itself. So, I can easily see why it is such a cause of concern to local residents. On the differentials, we raised them directly with the regulators in the meeting of the cost-of-living sub-committee. The answer we get back is the answer that I relayed to Jack Sargeant, really—that this is all important money, it has all got to be raised somehow, and if you take it off that part, you’ll have to find it in a different way. But I don’t think that’s an adequate answer, because it doesn't take the system in the round, does it? It doesn't look at all of the other ways in which money is spent within the industry.

May I make one general point here, too? The UK Government did indicate about a year or so ago that it was going to publish some documents on the rebalancing of energy prices, which we are yet to see. I think that's a very important piece of work, because energy prices have gone up hugely, as we know, and we know the reasons why in terms of conflicts in Ukraine and so on, but the cost of renewable energy hasn't gone up. The cost of the sun and the cost of the wind—they are not charging us any more. And yet the costs that consumers are being charged for—that part of energy—have gone up as though it was part of the Ukrainian—. So, the rebalancing suggestion was that the UK was going to look at the way energy pricing is currently carried out, and it really isn't satisfactory at all. It's not fair, either. So, I think that when that piece of work emerges, it might have some helpful things to say for customers in north Wales, because I think that they will be beneficiaries of a rebalancing of energy pricing of that sort.

I'd better get back quickly to the suggested—

Before you go back, one quick question on that. You said that the UK Government was looking to do it, and that you haven't seen it yet. Are you aware that the work has been completed or not, and that it's ready for publication? Or, is it still ongoing?

Well, I think that it's ongoing. The European Union has carried out this exercise as well. This is all very complex stuff and well beyond what I claim to understand thoroughly. But you know that the cost of electricity on a spot price day-by-day basis is the cost of the most expensive therm of gas that was sold at the close of play on the day before. This is not a sensible way of organising energy pricing, particularly in the world that energy prices have inhabited post the invasion of Ukraine. So, that piece of work has been done within the European Union. The UK Government was going to do a piece of work here too. I think that it will be a useful piece of work when it does emerge.

Thank you. Mark.

Moving back to the script, what plans, if any, do you have for funding warm hubs in Wales this winter? And if you are proposing this, how would it be distributed?

There is no plan to replicate what we did last year. Chair, as you know, we provided £1 million last year to support warm hubs. In a way that I think is encouraging, what we are seeing this winter is that that seedcorn money is producing warm hub activity by a whole range of other organisations, particularly local authorities, which I think have done very well, actually, to continue to invest in this area. So, the Swansea local authority, for example, has announced £0.5 million, which is half of what we offered for the whole of Wales last year. Part of that is to sustain a network of warm hubs in its locality. Pembrokeshire council has done something similar, and I am sure that there are local authorities in other parts of Wales doing the same. Then, we know that some of the faith organisations, particularly, which stepped into this space last year, continue to do it this year, and some other organisations.

One of the things that I think we learned from last year that will be different this year is that there will be more of an emphasis on using facilities that are open to the public for all sorts of other reasons. I think that one of the things that we learned last year was that people were more likely to go to somewhere where they didn't think that there was a sign hung on the door that said, 'You must be poor to come in here, because this is a warm hub for people who can't afford to keep warm.' People were more likely to go to places like sports clubs, where you could be there for any reason; libraries, where you could be going to borrow a book, as much as anything else. Those are universal, non-stigmatised places. I think that, last year, the evidence was that they were more successful, in people feeling comfortable to go and use them, than some of the more opened particularly for this purpose places, where people were more anxious about using them. So, there will be, I think, a significant range of places across Wales this winter. There won't be the Welsh Government money, but I think the Welsh Government money has seeded lots of that activity.

I've also seen it, for example, with Building Communities Trust projects I've visited.

Moving on, and I suspect we're going to get a similar answer, but what, if any, support for community-based, energy-intensive provisions, such as swimming pools and leisure facilities, will the Welsh Government provide to help them cope with rising energy bills?

Well, Chair, there will not be a specific additional stream of revenue to support those uses this winter. But there are, in this field, a string of things that will be available, and some of those are the result of Welsh Government investment. Of course, these are primarily responsibilities of local authorities, and this year, at least, local authorities in Wales saw a significant step-up in the level of support from the Welsh Government. So, there will be some things that local authorities can help to do.

The Welsh energy service does provide both advice and budgets for energy-saving measures, and those are available to some of those community organisations and sports organisations. The Welsh funding programme provides interest-free loans to the public sector, so that they can install energy-saving measures and then pay back the loan from the revenue that they save, and some local authorities have used that for the sorts of facilities that Mark Isherwood refers to. This year, and unusually, Sport Wales has used some of the money that it gets from the Welsh Government to provide grants to clubs for the installation of energy-saving measures, such as solar panel installations. Clubs could have up to £25,000 to help them with that, and the idea was that that goes on yielding a benefit to you in the long term. That was a new programme available to clubs this year.

And then, finally, we know that the Our Communities Together cost-of-living fund does work in this sort of area. The Welsh Government provided £1 million to the fund at the end of the last financial year, and it can be used to support grass-roots voluntary activity in the sort of areas that Mark Isherwood referred to. So, it's not that there's no help out there, but the Welsh Government is not in a position to provide a specific revenue stream just designed to help those sorts of organisations with the energy costs that they face. John.

Go on.

Could I just add to what the First Minister said? I think we do face some really difficult choices in relation to what you might describe as energy-intensive community facilities, like swimming pools, where there has been a temptation since what's happened to energy prices to believe that the answer is to turn the gas up, whereas, in the longer run, that's not going to be the solution that delivers net-zero benefits. And so, the work that the Welsh Government energy service is doing in support of local authorities right across Wales to think in different ways about how you might sustain your energy needs in a locality, including the use of solar panels, as the Sport Wales grant provided last year, I think, generates a new way of thinking about how we sustain these facilities and what's the link between the facilities and energy generation in the locality. And the work that we're doing not just through the energy service, but the grants that we're providing through Ynni Cymru and, we hope, the work of Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru, are going to, I think, promote different ways of thinking about how you sustain these crucial local services, not simply by cranking up the gas.

Can I ask an additional question, then? You've highlighted that these are, in a sense, local authority responsibilities in one aspect, but there's a lot of social prescribing now being used by GPs that will use these facilities. So, is there guidance from the Welsh Government to health boards, for example, to make sure that they collaborate with local authorities with funding in this area, so that the social prescribing agenda is also part and parcel of how we support these types of organisations?

Yes, Chair. I remember that the health Minister published a social prescribing framework earlier in the year. It does encourage local health boards to make sure that they are making their contribution to sustaining those facilities, where offering somebody a chance to use a leisure centre or some other community facility is preferable to relying on a straightforward medical intervention.

I'll move on, because I know that time is short. Last year, 2022-23, the take-up of the Welsh Government's fuel voucher scheme supporting households on prepayment meters or off-grid households was unfortunately lower than anticipated. Has take-up improved since and what is being done to maximise take-up over this winter?

Thanks to Mark Isherwood for that question. Take-up was slower in the beginning than what it became, but that is because at the very outset there were only six referral partners to the Fuel Bank Foundation, and a lot of their effort in the very beginning was directed at recruiting more referral partners and training them to be able to make those referrals successfully. We now have 116 referral partners to the scheme in Wales, so uptake, as a result, has accelerated because there are more people able to make the scheme known to people. We budgeted for a full take-up across the whole of the year, which, in a demand-led budget, I think is the sensible way to do it. But over 100,000 people have benefited from that scheme now, 42,000 of those were children, and the rate of referral to the scheme is very different now than it was when there were only six partners involved.

Russell George.

Thank you, Chair. First Minister, has the contract for the new Warm Homes programme been awarded and mobilised as planned?

We're in the very final stages. I'll probably ask John to give you the detail of it. I've seen advice in the last couple of weeks about the very final stages of letting the contract. It is a very big contract, it's somewhere between £225 million and £250 million, so there's an awful lot of public money involved in it. So, as well as making sure that we are getting the maximum value for the public out of the contract, we also have to be very aware of the fact that these contracts are often challenged. So, you've got to make sure that the procurement exercise is watertight against people with very legitimate commercial interests who find that they weren't the successful bidder. And we've had experience of this in Wales in recent times. It is a more litigious area—procurement—than it used to be, where people see large sums of money going elsewhere and feel that something didn't go well for them in the process. So, that's the stage we're at: making sure that those very final things are put in place. Then, the contract will be let. We remain confident that we are able to do that for 1 April and that there will be continued provision to the public without there being a break in it.

Before John comes in, can I just ask—? As I'd understood it, the new programme was due to start, I think, last April, but then, I can see that the Minister, Julie James, had written to the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee in August, stating that the mobilisation of the new programme would start at the end of November 2023. So, just to understand, has there been slippage? It looks like there has. Could you explain why there was that slippage and what the consequences of that are?

I'll give you one sentence and then John will know the detail more. There is slippage; it didn't happen by the end of November. It is because of these final stages of issuing the contract and making sure that everything is as watertight as it needs to be. The scheme will be there for the start of the next financial year, and because we've rolled the current scheme forward, there should be uninterrupted energy efficiency support for low-income households in Wales.

I think the Minister had announced that we had intended that the new scheme should be ready to go by November 2023, but we did not quite hit that target. We are still engaged in the technical assessment that's needed to lead to contract award. I'm part of the team that's had to take tough decisions about the timing of that decision. The really important thing that we're aware of is that we've been able to extend Nest until the end of March next year. We remain confident that the new Warm Homes scheme will be up and running by 1 April next year so that there's continuity of delivery. It will be a different type of scheme, which is one of the reasons why it's really important that we need to get it right. We want this to last for a number of years, and we want it to be technically correct and commercially astute, so we're just going through the fine detail that we need to do to get that sorted.

Jenny wanted to ask a short supplementary.

I just want to add to the complexity by asking how we maximise the take-up of money being offered by the UK Government, as well. We've had a little bit of a mention of ECO4, which is for anybody who has E or F-rated homes, on low incomes, obviously, and also ECO Flex, which actually speeds up the process of reducing the bureaucracy. It's just that companies based in Cardiff tell me that Swansea has approved ECO Flex, but Cardiff, on the other hand, is trying to do a whole Cardiff capital region system, and meanwhile lots of work is going on in Bristol, in London and other places. My fear is that we'll never get it together to even draw down this money available from the UK Government, because all the money will have been spent by the time we have our ducks in a row.

It is complicated, but the work that we're doing to support all Welsh authorities to access the ECO Flex funding is already under way, alongside the existing Nest scheme. Whilst there is a different approach being taken by some of the authorities, we are working with all authorities to maximise the draw-down of the ECO funding under various headings, including new things that have been announced over the last few months. So, the new scheme isn't holding up the challenge of maximising Wales's take. But we're not doing well enough yet.

How long have you known about ECO Flex, and why has it taken so long to get to the point where people actually are going to get some benefit from it?

ECO Flex and its predecessors have been part of the scene for some time, and for at least the last 12 months we've been actively engaged with Welsh local authorities to make sure that, working on a cross-Wales basis, we're maximising drawdown. Whilst I think there's growing awareness of these schemes, the team that's been leading on this work have been engaging with local authorities on that aspect for some time.

There's not a single beneficiary that I know of in Cardiff.

Mark Isherwood.

The Welsh Government's fuel poverty strategy said you would consult on the new programme between June and December 2021, with implementation of findings to start in April 2023. Why was the consultation not then launched until December 2021 and responded to until June 2023?

That whole preparatory phase took longer than we expected. We did not deliver on our commitment to Ministers to do it by last April. We then decided that we'd extend Nest by one more year. We're now engaged in the technical assessment that's required to get us to the point where the new programme can kick in from next April. We weren't able to meet the original April 2023 target.

That's because the consultation and response were later than stated in the strategy.

The whole of the preparatory work took longer than expected, for a whole variety of technical reasons.

We'll go back to Russell.

Thank you. I appreciate the complexities you've talked about with the new programme, but, of course, the concern is that the new programme now will start after the coldest months of the year, and I want to understand the consequences of that. But I suppose the question is how the new Warm Homes programme is going to differ from the Nest programme.

The important thing as far as the winter is concerned is that Nest is up and running and will continue to run until April. So, we're not withdrawing the support that's currently available, including the advice services, which have grown significantly since the increase in energy costs.

So how does the new programme differ?

The new programme is going to be a different type of programme, because the Nest service has traditionally focused on installing new gas boilers, and in an important discussion that we had with the whole of the Cabinet, we provoked a debate about whether it was right to continue to support simply replacing people's gas boilers or to move into the more complicated way of delivering low-carbon heating solutions in all parts of Wales, usually using heat pumps.

What I wanted to get to is what the consequences are of the new scheme being delayed. Because it sounds like you've had a view that replacing gas boilers is the wrong approach, but that's now going to take place for an additional year, other than what was originally anticipated.

The Nest scheme does now include the provision of heat pumps, although it's traditionally been a replacement of gas boilers. That does generate some carbon benefits, but we're anxious that the new scheme should take us into a different type of activity, so there will be a different offer to householders from April onwards.

And how is the new scheme going to support rural communities in particular?

It will support people in all communities around Wales if they qualify for the support.

But people in rural communities have different needs to those in urban areas.

Yes, and so the challenge of replacing oil-based systems in rural Wales will be part of the challenge that the new scheme takes on.

And what about support for households perhaps in private rented or owner-occupied premises? How is the new scheme going to support those people?

The new scheme doesn't support those people in that direct way, because it will be focused on those households that are currently within the ambit of the scheme. I should just be clear, Chair, that the new post-April scheme will continue to offer some help with gas boilers. It isn't a switch 100 per cent out of gas boilers into something else. There will be a period where we will continue to offer some households help with what they've already got, to make it more efficient, and to make it last longer, while we switch the emphasis in favour of more carbon-helpful ways.

For people who are not within the programme, the people that Russell has mentioned, there will be a number of things we will still be able to do for them. They will be entitled to all the advice services that are available in this area. We are working on a new idea; it's not completely there yet. Colleagues will be aware of financial transaction capital, which is not conventional capital and we can only use it for certain purposes, and it has to be on a loan basis. But we are developing the idea of such a package for householders, people who already own their own homes, and who are in the end going to have to use some of the equity that they have in their homes in order to improve their energy efficiency. The public purse is not going to be able to pick up the costs of doing this for everybody, but some homeowners will find that more challenging than others, and a loan scheme using financial transaction capital is being worked up at the moment.

And then finally, there are all the things that Jenny mentioned, all the Flex schemes, the UK-wide schemes, where we do definitely need to do better to persuade local authorities in Wales to maximise their draw-down. Those are available to anybody. They're not—as our schemes are—targeted at the least well-off. Anybody who qualifies for that help is limited by income—

I've got time for one last question. I suppose the concern is that the new scheme is being delayed by a year. I understand the Nest scheme has been extended, so I appreciate that, but there are elements about the new scheme that you would say, 'Look, this is the right approach, and we've moved away from the Nest scheme', so now, the Nest scheme that was effectively, perhaps, outdated is extending for another 12 months. So, as a result of that, have adaptions been made to the current Nest scheme, to reflect what your new ambitions are?

Yes. The current Nest scheme is different to the Nest scheme two years ago, and there'll be another iteration—

How is it different? Just, how is it different?

Because there's provision for heat pumps in the existing Nest scheme in a way that there wasn't two years ago.

Okay.

Can I bring Mark Isherwood in for a short supplementary? And then we'll move on to John.

How will you address the deficiency where the Welsh Government's tackling fuel poverty plan 2021-35 does not meet the Welsh Government's statutory obligations to specific interim objectives to be achieved and target dates for achieving them?

I'm not sure I'm completely following the question. Apologies. If maybe I could hear it one more time and then I'll—.

The Welsh Government's tackling fuel poverty plan 2021-35 has overarching objectives, but it doesn't have interim targets. However, the Welsh Government has statutory obligations to provide specific,

'interim objectives to be achieved and target dates for achieving them.'

I'm quoting. How will you fill that gap?

Well, we debated this on the floor of the Senedd, I think only last week, didn’t we, when there was a motion in this area. The Welsh Government has not turned our back on setting those targets. We’re not in a position yet where we think we’re sensibly able to do so. The context for energy has changed so rapidly over the last 18 months that it is hard to find the right moment, the right landing spot where things are stable enough for you to be able to set those targets in a way that is meaningful and real. So, we’re not saying we’re not going to do it, but we want to do it when things are in a sufficiently steady state that those sorts of targets would actually have some genuine meaning.

John Griffiths.

Diolch yn fawr, Cadeirydd. First Minister, if we could go back to what you were saying earlier about Welsh Government spend and the extent to which it reaches those most in need. Obviously, we're in the context of 13 years of austerity and the effects of inflation, and it's extremely difficult to take forward public spending in a way that we would all like, but, nonetheless, quite a large sum of money gets spent and the question of how it's spent is legitimate. But the Wales expert group on the cost-of-living crisis recommended introducing targeted payments to support low-income households with children, and low-income households including at least one person with a disability. So, as I say, I know the context is very, very difficult, but will the Welsh Government, do you think, be able to take forward that recommendation to support those particular groups?

I don't see any immediate prospect, Chair, of us being able to do that. The expert group said it would cost £28 million more than the schemes we have currently in place, and we do not have more money; we have less money. What I think we are keen to do is to continue to learn the lessons from the schemes they have in Scotland in this area, but, to be clear, Scotland is funded for those schemes. The cut of the devolution responsibility means that money comes to Scotland that they have chosen to use in this way—that is a choice they have made and the Scottish Government often refers to their child payment as one of the big success stories of their anti-poverty strategy. So, we are very keen to continue to learn the lessons of that and to see what they’ve done, but we have neither the powers nor the money to do that in Wales.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, First Minister, and, indeed, the Bevan Foundation here in Wales have done some useful work, I think, in terms of providing a little bit more clarity on the basics of addressing need and helping vulnerable families and people in terms of maximising income and reducing outgoings. So, there is quite a lot that can be done around that. And one area of concern is rising rents and, indeed, eviction rates in the private rented sector and what measures the Welsh Government might take to protect private tenants from potentially ever-rising rents and, indeed, worries about eviction. What would you say about what the Welsh Government might do in those terms?

Well, I think, Chair, we’ve done the big things already here through the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which is now in operation in Wales. So, in terms of evictions, the minimum notice period for no-fault evictions is six months in Wales. Obviously, evictions are a real concern over the winter, but that would mean that for anybody who was served an eviction notice in those circumstances today, it would be the end of May at the earliest before such a notice could be effective. And that's a really big change. It used to be two months and now it's six months. It's a really very considerable step forward in the security that people in the private rented sector have.

And, as far as rents are concerned, now in Wales, if a landlord proposes to increase an existing tenant's rent, they have to give two months' notice of that, rather than one month, as was previously the case, and they can only do that once in any 12-month period. So, rents in the private sector are rising, there's no doubt about that, and that is mostly a supply problem. There are fewer houses to rent and, as a result, the price of what is left is going up. But, in Wales, that can only happen to you once in any 12-month period, and you will have double the notice of that than you used to before the renting homes Act came into force.

Ocê. Diolch yn fawr, Prif Weinidog.

If we move on to advice and the funding of advice, I heard what you said earlier on that matter, but, nonetheless, I wonder what Welsh Government's counter-analysis is in terms of the single advice fund and the sufficiency of funding available, given the tremendous demand that we know about.

Well, first of all, Chair, I think the single advice fund has been a significant success story. You will remember—I know that John Griffiths will remember—that it was controversial at the time because it meant that, instead of spreading the money we had relatively thinly amongst a lot of organisations, many of them, as Mark Isherwood said, doing very important work, the decision was to gather that money into a single pot and let a single contract—and the CAB is the contract holder of that, and I think they're very well able to demonstrate the success they've had with that. Because of that success, the Minister for Social Justice has been able to find some additional funding for the 'Claim what's yours' adviser posts. I think there was an earlier question, wasn't there, about how we maximise the draw-down for Welsh citizens of the help that's available to them, well, the 'Claim what's yours' advisers are on the front line of that, and funding has been found for them to continue in post throughout this coming winter.

What I can't do, John, is promise that there is a lot more money in an area for which the Welsh Government is not funded and for which we hold no responsibility. But, the money that is there is significant. It's £11 million every year, and we are very, very alert to the way that every £1 that we put up turns into a multiple of that in the pockets of people who then get help to claim the help to which they are entitled.

Okay. Thank you, again, for that. Just finally from me, Chair, if we move on to the discretionary advice fund, we saw record demand last winter, and I think we probably all expect to see even greater demand this time around. So, what can you say in terms of the sufficiency of funding available in that particular support and help that's so important to people?

Well, Chair, I do think that the discretionary assistance fund is the most practical demonstration of the commitment that the Welsh Government has to helping those who are the very least well-off. You will remember that this used to be known as the social fund, and it was administered by the UK Government. The responsibility came to the Welsh Government unasked for, and, indeed, we wish it hadn't been devolved. It was a decision by George Osborne when he broke up the national council tax benefit scheme and the national social fund scheme, and provided those responsibilities to the Welsh Government, Scottish Government and local authorities in England, and gave us the budget with a 10 per cent cut in it. When we first had that responsibility, we decided not to devolve it further to local authorities, because we thought it was important to have a national scheme in Wales, with national rules and national standards, and the decision that would be made in Newport would be broadly the same, whether Newport was in Gwent or in Pembrokeshire. When it first came our way, it was a handful of millions of pounds. This year, it will be £38 million, and that's an £18 million uplift in a single year. And that is because of the enormous pressures that the fund is under. It is the welfare state of the last resort. It's where people go when everything else has run out, and because you know that, by definition, that money is going to the hands of those people who have absolutely the least, we have made it a priority, even in these very, very difficult times. This is part of our budget that we have worked really hard to go on protecting and, where we can, to go on investing in it.

Llyr Gruffydd has a supplementary.

Diolch i chi am hynny. Rŷch chi wedi cyfeirio at eich ymateb chi i rai o argymhellion y grŵp arbenigol ar gostau byw. Pryd fydd y Llywodraeth yn cyhoeddi ymateb ffurfiol, achos rŷch chi wedi dweud yn y Siambr, ddiwedd mis diwethaf, dwi'n meddwl, eich bod chi wedi gweld dogfen gydag ymateb y Llywodraeth. Pryd fydd honno'n cael ei chyhoeddi?

Wel, gobeithio, cyn y Nadolig. Os dŷn ni ddim yn gallu ei wneud e cyn y Nadolig, yn syth yn y flwyddyn newydd—rŷn ni ar fin ei wneud e.

Iawn, diolch.

Okay. We'll move on to Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you. First Minister, I want to move on to food in this depressing landscape. So, the Equality and Social Justice Committee did a report on unsustainable debt fuelled by the cost of living back in May. Clearly, the problems have got a lot more difficult during that time. So, one of our recommendations was around trying to make our response to ensuring everybody was well fed done in a more sustainable and preventative way, including improving people's cookery skills, providing healthy meals, rather than what happens to be donated by supermarkets to the foodbanks. So, that was accepted by the Government, and, particularly, the important thing is the mapping exercise that's needed to ensure that everybody has access to something to enable them to help themselves, with the more consistent support that comes through the pantries, the clubs, rather than people who turn up maybe once or twice at a foodbank.

So, Chair, I want to agree with almost everything, and I'm going to put one cautionary note in my answer. So, on the community food strategy, part of the work that's been done on that in this calendar year has been a survey to find out where the gaps are and what provision is already on the ground, together with a set of focus groups that we conducted as part of our commitment to co-production in the way that we find solutions to these challenging issues. And that's been published now, so we have a better understanding, I think, of where there is provision and where there are gaps. There is advice that is with the Minister—so, in this case, that's Lesley Griffiths—and with the designated Member as well, because this is part of the co-operation agreement, and, in this case, that's Cefin Campbell. They've both got that advice at the moment, and I'm expecting to hear from them when they've met and resolved some of the issues that are there. So, I think quite a lot of the work that is going on is very much consistent with the question that Jenny Rathbone asked me, Chair.

I want to just add this small, cautionary note. It's very important that we do provide people with the skills that they need and the practical facilities that they need and so on. But what poor people need most of all is money. Myself, I'm always determined to be very careful not to allow this sort of discussion to topple over into what is sometimes said: 'The reason that poor people are poor is because they don't know how to budget, they don't know how to cook, they don't know how to do this. What we need to do is to give them the skills they need.' I'm not denying the importance of the skills, but what people who are poor need is money; they're the best managers you'll ever meet, because they have to manage every single day and every single week. It's not that they lack skills; it's not that they lack commitment. What they lack is the most basic thing of all to be able to do the things that everybody else are able to take for granted.

Indeed. But going back to the conversation we had earlier about people who are trying to get some electricity in order to be able to cook something, and then finding that they've just got to pay service charges before they can get anything, means that people are not eating properly. So, they're handing back food that requires cooking. So, they're either eating a very random diet of cold food or they're relying on takeaways, which, obviously, are much more expensive and also not very nourishing. So, the Can Cook Well-Fed methodology up in Flintshire is to provide free meals for three weeks, then another three weeks at a subsidised rate, followed by, 'Here are the ingredients for the meals that people like to eat', provided in local shops, and then you have everything you need to make that pot of food for your family. So, how much is the community food strategy looking at that sort of thing, both in the community and also in our schools?

Well, the community food strategy will certainly be looking at those issues. It will be a co-ordinating strategy. It will look at, as a result of the mapping exercise, all the fantastic work that does go on already, but is often not as co-ordinated as it should be. I could give the committee this morning a series of individual strands: the £80,000 that we give FareShare, for example, which has allowed them to purchase portable cooking equipment, which they then take to places where they provide cookery advice and lessons on the spot in communities and so on; the fact that the school holiday enrichment programme during the summer always involves parents as part of the nutrition and the dietary advice that goes alongside it. There's an awful lot that goes on. What the survey shows is that it doesn't come together enough, and that's what the strategy will try to do.

But the point that Jenny Rathbone makes, Chair, is an utterly sobering one, isn't it? We have foodbanks who provide cold-food packages for families because those families aren't able to cook; they can't afford to turn on the electricity. So, in an organised way, foodbanks provide food for families that doesn't need to be cooked, and that is extraordinary, isn't it, that we should be doing that, not on an exceptional basis—how extraordinary that somebody should be in this position—but in a way that is now being organised to meet those sets of circumstances, and the journey from that to doing the things that the committee focused on in its report is a pretty long one.

Okay. And building on your remarks earlier about having warm hubs that are not stigmatising people—and I completely agree with that—how do we ensure that those who most need food are getting it without stigmatising people? For example, the Wales expert group has recommended that children in years 7 to 11 whose parents are on universal credit should be able to get free school meals, and because you don't any longer have tickets for free school mealers, in theory, nobody knows who's in this dreadful situation.

Well, two points, I guess, Chair. First of all, one of the major investments during this Senedd term will be to achieve universal free school meals in primary schools. So, we didn't have that at the start of this term, and as a result of the co-operation agreement, by September of next year we will have implemented that in every school, in every part of Wales, and I think we have already served nearly 20 million more meals in schools in Wales as a result of that policy. It's absolutely extraordinary what has been done. So, in this term, that has been our focus—children of primary age.

We will do the preparatory work to see what it would need in order to extend that further up the age range. The circumstances we're in, I don't see any immediate prospect of that happening. But even if there was money, there would still need to be a huge amount of preparatory work. Almost all primary schools will be offering the full range by April of next year. The few authorities that are left, it will not be because of money, it will be because the facilities, the amount of capital investment that you need in order be able to do it—they've had to do more of that than some other local authorities. And if you're doing that at secondary school, then it would be an even bigger challenge, to make sure that the capacity of the system was sufficient to do what we wanted to do, even if money were available. But a huge amount has happened this year, this term, at that younger age range.

Okay. We're going to come back, in the second section of our discussions around the co-operation agreement, on the take-up of free school meals in the primary sector. I just wanted to ask you about the free school breakfast pilot for year 7 children, which finished at the end of last summer. I've heard from providers that a lot of them were providing free porridge in the morning, which is a very cost-effective way of ensuring people are getting a nourishing start to the day. I just wondered if there's anything you can tell us about the effectiveness of that programme and whether we could get the caterers to engage in it as part of their social justice principles.

Well, it'd be great if we could, Chair. So, for colleagues who don't know, this was a scheme that added £1 to the sum of money that children had, in year 7, to take account of the fact that in primary school they would've been eligible for a free breakfast, and when they moved to secondary school that entitlement ended. I think the scheme was a success. I think it did mean that there were children not having to choose between using the money they had for breakfast or for lunch. At this point, I'm afraid that we're not going to be in a position to extend it. I'm very disappointed with that, because I thought it was both a very good thing to do and I think that the success of it was demonstrable. And it was—. Sorry, this was a point I was going to make, again in terms of things that have changed: when I first used to be involved in things in the Senedd, back at the start of devolution, we worried all the time about the fact that children who had free school meals were the subject of stigma and discrimination, because they were sent to stand in the free-school-meals queue or they had a ticket that was a different colour to every other child. And that's something else—we sometimes just need to remember some of the things that are better now than they were then. And the fact that that doesn't happen now and that those children are better protected from that has been an advance over the devolution period.

Okay.

Go on, Llyr.

Not on this particular subject.

Roeddwn i jest eisiau holi—. Mae'r Senedd Ieuenctid, wrth gwrs, yn ddiweddar, wedi galw am drafnidiaeth bws am ddim i bobl ifanc ac, wrth gwrs, yn yr hinsawdd sydd ohoni o ran costau byw, mi fyddai hynny, efallai, yn fanteisiol iawn. Ydy'r Llywodraeth wedi ystyried hynny? Ydych chi'n meddwl gwneud rhyw cost-benefit analysis neu rywbeth? Oherwydd nid yn unig mae e'n cwrdd ag angen o safbwynt pobl ifanc, ond mae e hefyd yn creu cenhedlaeth newydd, efallai, o ddefnyddwyr bysiau yn y tymor hir.

Wel, Cadeirydd, does dim diffyg syniadau, oes e? Mae lot fawr o bethau rŷn ni'n gwybod amdanyn nhw, ac mae uchelgais gennym ni i'w gwneud nhw. Y diffyg sydd gennym ni yw diffyg arian. Ac fel dwi'n dweud bob wythnos ar lawr y Senedd, does jest dim digon o arian i fwrw ymlaen â phopeth rŷn ni'n ei wneud nawr. Fel roeddwn i'n dweud wrth Jenny Rathbone, y peilot oedd gennym ni ar gyfer plant ym mlwyddyn 7—peilot llwyddiannus, lle rŷn ni'n gallu dangos beth mae hwnna wedi'i greu ym mywydau pobl ifanc—dydyn ni ddim yn gallu bwrw ymlaen â hwnna, so y problemau sydd gennym ni yw sut allwn ni fwrw ymlaen â phopeth rŷn ni'n ei wneud yn barod, heb ffeindio arian i wneud pethau newydd. So, dyna'r broblem; nid gyda'r syniadau, nid gyda'r uchelgais i wneud mwy. Wrth gwrs, rŷn ni'n ystyried posibiliadau newydd pan maen nhw'n dod i mewn, yn enwedig gan gyrff fel y Senedd Ieuenctid, ond y broblem sydd gennym ni yw un ariannol.

Can I close—? Go on, Jenny.

I just wanted to say, however, that we had £11 million that was taken out of the universal free school meals budget in 2022-23 and £11.5 million in 2023-24, because of the shortfall in the uptake of free school meals. Could this not have been redirected to something that you think has been successful in ensuring that people who are struggling are getting to eat, both at breakfast and lunch time?

Well, it's a demand-led budget, as we were discussing earlier, and what the Welsh Government did was to set our budget at the top end of what we thought the take-up would be. We were assuming a take-up rate of about 85 per cent; the actual take-up rate so far has been 70 per cent, but it's rising, as you would expect with a scheme that people become more familiar with. In that first part of the programme, where there was money that we had set aside for it that wasn't needed for that, then of course the discussions are with our co-operation agreement partners as to what we could do with that, and we did exactly what Jenny Rathbone suggested with some of it. That's how we funded free school meals during the school holidays for a period beyond the time we'd had any money for it. Where there is money like that that emerges in the co-operation agreement, the discussions as to how to use it are necessarily with our co-operation agreement partners.

I will now close the first session today with one final question, First Minister. You've often referred today to the challenging times facing the Government with funding, because the spending powers of the Government have been reduced as a consequence, and you've said, for example, just now, that you can't continue the £1 extra for the school breakfast for year 7s. When you consider your budgets, do you take into account the long-term consequences of the inability to continue such programmes? Because clearly this has a major impact upon people's education and their learning, and other aspects of how people live their lives. So, how does your budget thinking work out to ensure that, whilst you take the difficult, tough decisions, you're not creating larger, huger problems the following year or the year after that as a consequence of your actions?

I can tell you that it is a constant dilemma in trying to set the budget. It is the point exactly that Mark Isherwood raised with me earlier, about us not being able to go on providing funding to small voluntary organisations who do things that prevent costs further down the line. When your budget is under the pressure that ours is under, the single greatest pressure is to go on finding money so that services that are currently there go on being funded, and sometimes that does mean that you're not able to invest in those longer term preventative things because it would mean—. There's only one sum of money. It would mean taking money away from services that people actually need in the here and now. Of course we want to, of course we want to invest in those things that will prevent problems from happening, that will save money because those problems are avoided, and that question is asked by all my Cabinet colleagues against every budget line that they look at. But the tension is real. The tension is between taking money out of things that people need today in order to be able to attend to the long run, and that judgment has to be made against every budget line, and it will be made differently against different aspects of the budget.

I will bring this session to a close. Can I thank you for this session? For your colleagues who will not be joining us in the second session, just to let you know, as usual you'll get a copy of the transcript. If you see any factual inaccuracies relating to yourselves in particular, please let the clerking teams know so we can have it corrected. The First Minister will know the situation because he'll have the same message afterwards as well. We'll take a 10-minute break and reconvene at 11:40.