Good afternoon and welcome to this Plenary meeting. The first item on our agenda this afternoon is questions to the First Minister, and the first question this afternoon is from Alun Davies.
Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that question. As a nation of sanctuary, we have welcomed just under 6,900 Ukrainians to Wales, with 3,200 arriving under the Welsh Government's sponsorship scheme. We continue to support guests, helping them to move on to longer term accommodation, where they can live more settled lives and be supported within local communities.
I'm grateful to the First Minister for that. This afternoon, I think we should also pay tribute to the work of Mick Antoniw, who has united Members across the Chamber in his support for the people of Ukraine over the last period. And the Welsh Government has also, I think, First Minister, demonstrated a real commitment to the people of that country. It has both condemned Putin's illegal invasion, the barbaric war crimes that have been committed against the Ukrainian people, and it has also reached out its hand of friendship to those Ukrainians who are seeking to escape the consequences of Putin's war.
In Blaenau Gwent, First Minister, over 130 people have initially been resettled in the county borough. We're also looking at how we can ensure that there is additional support for those people who are seeking to make their homes again in Blaenau Gwent. The local authority in Blaenau Gwent, as you know, has been proactive in reaching out to people from Ukraine, and has provided additional resources, on top of those provided by the UK Government, and the Welsh Government, to ensure that people who are supporting and hosting people from Ukraine are able to do so, but also to ensure that those Ukrainians who are seeking to move on with their lives have the support to do that. First Minister, the people of Blaenau Gwent and the local authority of Blaenau Gwent are doing everything they can to support the people of Ukraine. Will the First Minister assure me this afternoon that the Welsh Government will continue this support for the people of Ukraine, as we continue to support the people of Ukraine in their struggle against Putin's invasion?
Well, Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for what he has said about the success of the programme here in Wales. I'm sure Members would want me to recognise as well the part that he has played in making sure that goods from Wales reach families in Ukraine, where war crimes continue to be committed right up to today. I thank the local Member for Blaenau Gwent for what he has said about the success of the scheme in that county borough. It has been a genuinely outstanding success. Workers in Blaenau Gwent local authority's support team have done an outstanding job in helping people from Ukraine, who came first of all to the welcome centre, to be able to move on to longer term accommodation, whether that is within Blaenau Gwent itself, which has welcomed many Ukrainian citizens into that move-on accommodation, or whether it's work with neighbouring local authorities. Indeed, Llywydd, so successful has the Blaenau Gwent team become that we have asked them to take a national lead in assisting other local authorities in that move-on effort, bringing the expertise that they have developed, the operational skills that they have, to support others to do a similar job. And, of course, the Welsh Government, with the £40 million that we have set aside in our budget for the current financial year to continue to welcome people from Ukraine, forced to flee from their own country, looking for an opportunity to re-establish their lives, will go on working with all our partners to make sure that we offer that hand of friendship, live up to our reputation for being a nation of sanctuary, and do everything we can to help people to re-establish their lives here in Wales.
In February, Welsh media reported, and I quote, that,
'Hundreds of Ukrainians who arrived in Wales via the Welsh Government’s super sponsor scheme face an uncertain future as welcome centres close and sponsors remain reluctant to come forward.'
And although the Welsh Government stated it was working closely with local councils to get Ukrainian refugees into longer term accommodation, refugees claimed only one in 100 landlords will take a Ukrainian. And, in March, the British Red Cross warned that better infrastructure is needed to support Ukrainians to rebuild their lives in Wales, and that the Welsh Government should work with the UK Government and the Welsh Local Government Association to establish schemes to help Ukrainians into private rented properties by meeting the upfront costs and acting as guarantors where needed. I know the Welsh Government's still awaiting clarification on the £150 million resettlement funding from UK Government, but what specific action has your Government taken since then to address these findings? And what figures does the Welsh Government have regarding the number of Ukrainians affected and what has happened to them since?
Well, Llywydd, the first point to make, and it's an important one, is that in closing welcome centres—because the inflow of new people coming from Ukraine has slowed down—not a single person has been left without accommodation. Despite the anxieties that were expressed, indeed, over 1,700 Ukrainian guests have already been moved in Wales on to longer term accommodation. And, in terms of the specific actions that have been taken, of the £40 million that I mentioned a moment ago, Llywydd, £4 million of that is specifically to assist our local authority partners in securing additional move-on accommodation, and that does, indeed, cover some of the points that Mark Isherwood made about assisting people who are able to secure somewhere in private accommodation with some of the upfront costs that you face when you're trying to secure places in the private rented sector. At the same time, we have a major transitional accommodation capital programme mobilised through the Welsh Government: over £76 million used last year to assist local authorities and social landlords to deliver more homes to support all those people who are in housing need. That funding has already delivered nearly 1,000 additional homes, and many people from Ukraine have been able to take advantage of that programme. So, we continue to work closely with our partners, Llywydd. Nobody is suggesting that it is easy to find move-on accommodation in what is already a competitive accommodation market, but I think the success story here in Wales is one that would bear up to scrutiny from anyone.
I thank the Member for that question, Llywydd. Careers and work-related experiences are mandatory within the new Curriculum for Wales, and Careers Wales provides support for all schools across Wales to build relationships with employers. Qualifications reform and our employability programmes will prepare young people for the jobs of the future.
I'm grateful to you, First Minister, for the answer. I ask the question today in the context of equipping our young people with the skills they need to compete in an increasingly globalised world. And, to that end, it's no coincidence that the countries that produce the best outcomes in terms of maths attainment are often also the countries that have emerging and innovative global economies. And in the UK, I think, sometimes, some of us have a tendency to write off the importance of mathematics. People often joke about not being able to do maths, but that's something we'd never say about reading, for example, so that's something I'm glad that the Prime Minister has correctly identified as a problem that makes us less competitive internationally. And he suggested that further maths learning may be required later on in a young person's education to address the problem. Obviously, there are no one-size-fits-all answers here, First Minister, but, given education is devolved in Wales, and, according to the latest Programme for International Student Assessment results, maths attainment in Wales was the worst of the UK nations, what consideration have you given to what the Welsh Government can do to help turn this situation around and to ensure that school leavers have the maths skills that they need so they can reach their full potential?
Well, Llywydd, I agree with Tom Giffard about the importance of mathematics. Much of what we do in Wales is to equip young people for the digital skills that they will need for the future in which that aspect of the employment market will become more and more important. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister's actions don't match the rhetoric that we hear from him. He was responsible for the catastrophic Multiply programme when he was the Chancellor of the Exchequer—£100 million top-sliced out of money that was meant to come to Wales for a national programme that, I'm afraid, has been a huge failure on the ground. Certainly it has not delivered what was promised here in Wales. I'm afraid the Multiply programme just demonstrates the difficulties when Ministers in Whitehall believe that they are able to design things on the ground in parts of the United Kingdom where they have no reach at all. They designed their Multiply programme without a single word of discussion with the Welsh Government or with the local authorities that are expected to deliver it. As a result, it has not been possible to spend the money that was allocated to Wales. That money is yet to be released to local authorities so that they can do useful things with it, including—and I agree with the importance of the point—to improve numeracy amongst people who are leaving school and people in the workplace who are looking to improve their numeracy skills. So, while I agree on the basic proposition, I cannot agree that the way the UK Government has gone about this has demonstrated a success. In fact, I'm afraid, it is exactly the opposite.
Prif Weinidog, Welsh pupils and young people have such a vast array of skills and talents. In terms of future employment, it benefits everyone for there to be a system in place that allows them to access educational opportunities that actually utilise and play to their own strengths, while ensuring they have the skills for jobs. I know the Welsh Government understands this, so, on that note, what assessment has the Welsh Government made of the junior apprenticeship programme pilot, and will we see more pupils across Wales be enabled to access such positive opportunities?
I thank Jayne Bryant for that. She points to a very important change in the labour market, Llywydd, which we've discussed on the floor of the Senedd previously. For most of my political life, we believed that the biggest challenge we faced economically was to provide employment opportunities for young people where those employment opportunities would be in short supply. We thought we had too many young people and too few jobs for them to do. In fact, the problem we face today is the opposite; we have jobs to do and not enough people to do them. When I speak to employers, particularly progressive employers, what they talk to me about is the efforts they know they have to make to be in schools from an early age to attract young people into the opportunities that will be there for them. Those talented young people, I think, will find themselves sought after by employers. What this means is that we cannot afford to waste the talents of any single individual in Wales.
The junior apprenticeship programme, a two-year programme aimed at students in years 10 and 11, in other words pupils aged between 14 and 16, has been specifically designed to provide a different sort of opportunity for young people who look as though conventional schooling is not succeeding in finding a pathway for them into the future. If you go on the junior apprenticeship programme, you study for 25 hours a week at a local further education college, you will take a GCSE in maths and English or Welsh, but at the same time you will study for a level 2 qualification in a range of vocational pathways. So, this is to recapture the interest of young people who otherwise might find themselves not succeeding within the system.
The best evidence we have, Llywydd, is from an inspection that Estyn carried out at Bridgend College last year. They reported that, in the five years that the programme has been running at the college, the successful completion rates of vocational qualifications amongst those young people on the programme exceeded 95 per cent; that GCSE results were in line with or exceeded learners' predicted grades; and that over 80 per cent of the young people who successfully completed that junior apprenticeship programme went on to further post-16 qualifications at the college, or apprenticeships, or directly into employment. I think it absolutely demonstrates that it is possible to create pathways for young people who are on the edge of the system that can capture their interest, give them the experiences they need and lead them on to successful futures.
Turning to school leavers who take up apprentice construction opportunities, First Minister, I've been made aware by FE providers in Cynon Valley that the green economy skills that we would want to grow and nurture aren't necessarily embedded within those courses—for example, around installing heat pumps or retrofitting our current housing stock. So, First Minister, could Welsh Government investigate this as a priority, to ensure that these apprentices have the skills they need to succeed in the employment market, to grow the green economy and to help us as a nation to reach net zero?
Llywydd, I referred in my original answer to curriculum reform, and Qualifications Wales is actively engaged in making sure that the qualifications that are offered in our further education colleges do equip young people with the skills that will be needed for the future. That is already happening. I visited a further education college in north Wales recently and I spent my time there talking to a group of apprentices who were focusing on motor qualifications, and those were electric vehicles; they weren't the vehicles of the past. They were being equipped with the skills for the future in that green economy. Our net-zero skills action plan, published at the end of February, sets out the actions we will take, alongside the education sector and employers, to build confidence and knowledge in this area. The Minister for Economy announced a £2 million investment in personal learning accounts specifically to allow people to obtain the skills, knowledge and qualifications they will need to be part of that green economy. The courses are free, Llywydd, they are flexible, they are available to young people, but, importantly, they are available to people who are already in the employment market. When I was in the north Wales college, as well as meeting young people, I also met people well into their careers, working in garages in north Wales and who are coming in one day a week to make sure that they could also refresh their skills and make sure that they too would be available to do the jobs that will be needed in the future.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. First Minister, I agree with the sentiments that you've just expressed in responding to questioners in the last question, that no young person should be left behind and that we should be trying to unlock everyone's talent. Regrettably, the additional learning needs numbers that have come out from Welsh Government indicate that there's been a drop of 18,000 in the young people identified as having additional learning needs in Welsh schools over the last 12 months. That is a significant drop and, if it was a drop for all the right reasons, then, obviously, we would be celebrating that. But we know, with COVID, many young people, obviously, had their education blighted. How confident are you, First Minister, that those numbers, down from 92,000 to 76,000, are a true reflection of the help and support that might be required for young people, because unless they get that additional learning needs assessment undertaken, obviously, that support cannot be put in place?
Well, Llywydd, it's an important point that the leader of the opposition makes. We have a new system here in Wales, as he knows, put on the statute book by the Senedd and which is in its early stages of full implementation. I think it is very important that we interrogate those figures carefully. We want to see a system in which it is easier for young people to get the help that they need. Sometimes that will mean that that help is available to them within the broader school without needing a specific special educational needs designation. But the important thing is to make sure that those figures genuinely reflect the position on the ground and that the young people we are concerned about are getting the help that they need. As I say, it is the earliest stages of the new system. We shouldn't read too much into the preliminary figures. The important thing is to be aware of the issue and make sure, in the work that we do with Estyn and through the improvement agencies, that we are confident that the new system is making sure that our young people who have additional needs get the help that they need and get it in a way that is easy to access, properly calibrated to the individual circumstances and then effectively delivered on the ground.
The individual development plans that you allude to, which are supported on this side of the Chamber, because, obviously, they tailor it to the individual learner—. We all, as MSs and before that, AMs, appreciate the postbag that comes in around statementing in schools, and the individual development plans, obviously, will take the place of those statements come the new date of 2025. But with that decline in students being identified, from 92,000 down to 76,000, we have to have confidence that schools are making the right assessments, and in particular, that the Welsh Government are assisting those schools to make sure that that new introduction of individual development plans is happening and that pupils who require that support can get it. So, can you give us an assurance today, First Minister, that the budgets are in place to support the roll-out of individual development plans, and in particular, that the workload constraints that have been highlighted by teaching professionals are being addressed so that, with the new date of 2025, we can have confidence that children can reach their full potential and that, ultimately, the numbers that I've quoted you today aren't some abbreviation and will indicate the support being readily available for students who require it?
Well, I agree with all those points, Llywydd. That's exactly what the Government wishes to see and that's exactly why this Senedd took the time that we did to make sure that we have a reformed system here in Wales. I can give the leader of the opposition an assurance that there is money there in the system. The money that's been invested comes in two sorts. There is money invested in making sure that those people who are responsible, now, for running the new system are properly trained, properly equipped and that we're getting the system in place, and then, there is additional money over and above that to make sure that the system of the future has the resources that it needs.
I understand the point that teacher colleagues make about workload constraints, and this was very much part of the discussions that the education Minister had with teaching unions over settling the pay issue here in Wales. And I'm very pleased that we were able to do that and we've made a series of commitments about dealing with workload issues in the classroom. What we're not willing to do is to concede to the call from one teaching union to extend the implementation timetable even further. We've done that once already in response to the representations that were made from front-line staff in the COVID context. We want to make sure that this new system is there, working and delivering the advantages that we believe it will have for young people, and a further delay in the implementation timetable, I think, is not the best way to obtain those advantages.
It's always helpful when you give such full answers, First Minister, because you just took my third question—[Laughter.]—which was about the extension of the timetable, on a serious point, because obviously, that timetable has been extended once. It's pleasing to hear that that is not now going to be extended, because it is really important that the teaching profession do have a framework to work to, but importantly, that parents and students do know that the system they will be supported under will come into effect by 2025.
But, do you identify with the other comments that have been made around additional learning needs, and in particular, the journey onto the individual development plans—that the issue for new students being identified with additional learning needs and being able to access those individual plans is proving more problematic? And there is a real, or certainly a perception among parents that the bar is being lifted so that there are fewer people getting the support that they require in schools, and that an assessment from the Welsh Government as to exactly the criteria that have been used in the education system would be welcome so that there would be continuity in that support being delivered across all education facilities in Wales, whether that be primary or secondary.
Well, Llywydd, the purpose of the new system was to move away from what had become, or was certainly perceived, in many places, to be an adversarial set of relationships, in which parents felt that they had to fight and fight to get the additional help that they needed, and we've debated that many times here: how could we design a system in which parents felt that the education service was on their side, rather than something that they would have to battle with in order to get the help that they needed. Part of that was to move away from the idea that the only way you could get help was by having a label attached to the child, that there were many other and broader ways in which the system could mobilise additional assistance for those young people at the point in their lives where that would be necessary for them to succeed in their education. That was one of the driving purposes of the system and, as the leader of the opposition said, I don't think there can be anybody here who represents a constituency or wider community who has not dealt with a family who has felt that they've had to battle to get what they need. The purpose of the system is to move away from that, to make it properly collaborative. As I said in my original answer, these are very early stages still for the implementation of the system on the ground and I think it will be a test—it will be a test for our local education authorities and for our school leaders to make sure that the system of the future does not fall back into some of those characteristics that made families feel that they were not getting a fair deal.
Last week, at the Public Accounts and Public Administration Committee, two former independent members of the Betsi Cadwaladr board raised their concerns at the news that NHS Counter Fraud Service Wales had discontinued their investigation into financial irregularities at the board, deciding that no further action would be taken. The original Ernst & Young report that triggered this investigation concluded that BCUHB financial accounts were deliberately falsified, with millions of pounds of expenditure posted wrongly in 2021-22 in order to avoid losing those funds at year end. Now, the report says, 'We have found that costs were posted to the incorrect financial year, and that the statements were deliberate and the misstatements were not limited to a single individual or team.' Since this, by definition almost, seems to suggest corporate financial misreporting fraud, why is the NHS's own fraud investigation team concluding that no further action should be taken?
Well, Llywydd, the leader of Plaid Cymru has the advantage over me, because I've not seen the report. I'm very surprised indeed that he is able to quote from it this afternoon, given that the board has not published the report either. So, any insights that he has had into the text of the report must have come to him in ways that have certainly not been available to me or to any other Member. It's not for me to explain why NHS counter-fraud have come to the conclusions that they have; they're an entirely independent organisation. The report was sent to them. My understanding is that they investigated it. Their conclusion is that there were no criminal charges that needed to be brought. That's the extent of their involvement. The threshold they have to set is whether criminal behaviour has taken place. That does not mean that there are not things arising from the report that the board itself will need to pursue, and my understanding is that disciplinary procedures have been instigated by the health board and that actions flowing from the report are still very possible.
The report was sent to the Government; you have a copy of the report from 25 January this year. Are you saying that Ministers have not seen that report? [Interruption.] Well, maybe the First Minister could respond as to whether Ministers have seen that report, because it raises some serious matters. The report does document financial misreporting fraud in relation to a named service provider, involving a seven-figure sum, being deliberately attributed to the wrong financial year. The report says, according to the information that I have, 'in order to recognise the company entry in the wrong financial year, a purchase order was produced on 31 March 2022 with incorrect details, which were intentionally designed so that it would not be sent to the company. The purchase order was drafted by a member of the separate NHS procurement services team, which is outside of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board.' Now, the NHS procurement services team and NHS Counter Fraud Service Wales are both divisions of NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership. So, can the First Minister say how this conflict of interest would have been managed? And isn't the suggestion of direct involvement by the NHS's central procurement team in false representation a source of serious concern?
Well, Llywydd, let me deal with the first point first. I have not seen the report and there is a good reason for that. When the report was submitted to the Welsh Government, there were already accusations in circulation—they were repeated again at the PAPAC meeting last week—that the report would implicate Welsh Government Ministers or civil servants in the improprieties that it had discovered. For that reason, the report was not shared with anybody who could potentially have been named in that report. Instead, it went directly to the head of the ethics and propriety section of the Welsh Government, who could not possibly have been implicated in anything that the report said.
Now, I am very pleased to be able to tell Members, and to correct any misapprehensions that may have existed as a result of last week's PAPAC hearings, that the report is not, in fact, critical in any way of Welsh Government Ministers or civil servants. The report specifically confirms that it did not find any evidence or suggestion of such complicity. That established, the report has now been seen by the Minister concerned.
I say this very seriously to the leader of Plaid Cymru, the reason that the report cannot be published at this time is that it would inevitably, given the small number of people involved, lead to identification of individuals who, as I've already described, are now potentially subject to disciplinary procedures. It would be utterly unfair to them, in any response that they would wish to make, to have that report circulated. I do hope that nothing that the leader of Plaid Cymru has said this afternoon, quoting from a report that he should not have had access to see, will now prejudice actions that the board might wish to take against any individuals.
I've been very careful not to name any individuals in anything that I have said. I am asking legitimate questions. I've not made any allegations in relation to the Welsh Government Ministers or civil servants. I am simply raising legitimate questions that have been raised as well in the PAPAC committee. The way, of course, that we can get some clarity about this is we can have some understanding about the difference between what is in the EY report and the decision that NHS Counter Fraud Service Wales has come to.
Can I ask, finally, there are some named companies—? There is a named company in the EY report, which I won't give the details of, but the suggestion in the report is that they—that company—altered a proposal document and therefore misled Audit Wales in the process. Can we have an assurance that that company, as a result of those suggestions, if those suggestions have been found to be correct, that they are no longer an approved supplier across the NHS?
Well, first of all, Llywydd, to repeat what I said: if the Member has concerns about the decision reached by NHS Counter Fraud Service Wales, he must take up those concerns with them. I am not responsible for them, nor should I be, and I cannot be expected to answer questions about how or why they came to their conclusion. They do that entirely independently and entirely of their own volition.
As to a company that may or may not be involved in the report, the difficulty with the line of questioning that the leader of Plaid Cymru has pursued this afternoon is that, while he says he has not named individuals and will not name the company, I'm afraid, because there is a limited number of individuals and companies who could be in that position, it runs the risk of casting a doubt on those individuals, or those companies before they themselves have had a chance to respond to any of the content of that report. I hope that, once those disciplinary procedures and any other matters in the report have been properly investigated, the report will be available to Members to read. But it shouldn't be available before people who may have things to answer have had their opportunity to do that properly.
The action plan follows terminology consistently adopted in Welsh Government publications and those used in the Office for National Statistics census dictionary. The plan acknowledges the importance of understanding how people refer to themselves and does not offer definitions of orientations and identities beyond the purpose of the plan itself.
Thank you. First Minister, it pains me to have to keep asking you something that is clearly a priority of yours and your Government's, but it is not a priority of the people of Wales when we have a failing NHS, educational outcomes that you cannot be proud of and a housing crisis. But what you're focusing on has such a significant impact on half the population of Wales, I have to ask you, First Minister, I know it's hard to keep up with the amount of flip-flopping Sir Keir Starmer does, but which statement from your UK Labour leader do you agree with? Do you agree that biological men can be women and, therefore, enter vulnerable women-only spaces, changing rooms, and participate in women-only sports, or do you agree with his statement that biological women and girls' rights should not be rolled back, and, therefore, you'll be rewriting your LGBTQ action plan, dropping your gender recognition reform plans and constructing fact-based sex education in our schools to reflect that?
Llywydd, I'm simply not going to get drawn into the shrill and deliberately divisive debate that the Member continuously attempts to raise on the floor of this Senedd. Did she not see that her party lost over 1,000 seats in the elections in England last week? I don't think it's wise of her to come here telling me that my party doesn't understand the priorities of people in Wales. Your party absolutely has lost any credibility it may ever have had on that basis. The Member and people like her spent the whole of April trying to raise these dog-whistle concerns and found, as I would have been confident of all along, that people out there have a much greater sense of decency than the Conservative Party ever attributes to them. They are not interested in attacks on trans people, they are not interested in attacks on black people, they are not interested in attacks on asylum seekers—exactly the sort of agenda that the Member herself pursues and her party pursues. Don't come here and tell me that I don't understand people's priorities when you pursue an agenda that is designed exclusively to divide people, when our job should be to try and unite people in pursuit of basic decencies.
Our programme for government includes a commitment to reforming local elections to reduce the democratic deficit. In addition to our recent White Paper on modernising electoral administration, we are sponsoring innovative projects to remove barriers and increase participation.
Diolch, First Minister. Last week, we saw the local elections take place just across the border in England, and whilst I'm sure that the whole Chamber is pleased to see democracy in action, it has been described by Unlock Democracy as a 'dark day for British democracy'. Reports from all over the country confirm our very worst fears of the impact of this disastrous policy that has been made worse by the shambolic way it's been introduced. Of course, what they are talking about is that, alarmingly, people were turned away at polling stations or just did not go out to vote because they did not have the appropriate form of identification. Not only that, First Minister, but research conducted by the UK Government's own Cabinet Office found that, those with severely limiting disabilities, the unemployed, people without qualifications, and those who haven't voted before, were all less likely to hold any form of photo ID, and as such, this recent legislation limiting the speech and right to self-determination of those who are often not heard was put through, regardless of what they already knew.
In contrast, I am proud that, here in Wales, during our local elections, we trialled flexible voting, and in my own constituency, we had a polling station in Cynffig comprehensive so that pupils aged 16-plus could vote in an environment that they were comfortable with. So, First Minister, what efforts are being made by Welsh Government to ensure that we do not have the voter suppression chaos that we saw across the border, and continue to bring the ballot box closer to the people of Wales in their day-to-day lives? Diolch.
I thank Sarah Murphy for that very important supplementary question, Llywydd. There is no doubt at all that people in local elections in England last week who turned up to cast their votes at a polling station were unable to vote. The chair of the Electoral Commission himself witnessed people being turned away from polling stations, and very concerningly, he witnessed those people we rely on to conduct elections suffering abuse from people who felt that they had been unfairly denied their democratic rights.
We know that fewer than half the people who were asked said that they would have applied for some form of identification when they didn't have access to the forms of identification that were recognised in the law passed at Westminster. And Llywydd, I have no doubt at all that that Act is part of a deliberate voter suppression agenda pursued by the Conservative Government. The way they think they can win elections is to learn the lessons from the far right in the United States, and that is to make it more difficult for people who might not support them to turn up and cast their votes.
Let me give the Member for Bridgend a categorical assurance that we will not be pursuing that course of action here in Wales. Our policies are designed to make it easier for people to cast their vote, not more difficult. Now that we have the conduct of elections in Wales—local authority elections and Senedd elections—in our own hands, we will not be bringing forward proposals to make it more difficult for people to vote. There wasn't a single prosecution across the whole of the United Kingdom last year for voter fraud. This is a solution in search of a problem, a problem that doesn't exist. The problem that is being created is that people who wish to participate in the democratic process are being denied that right, and we will not collude in that in Wales.
Thank you, Llywydd. I'm baffled by the Welsh Government's position on this matter. This is about the security and integrity of our elections. We know that, across the whole of western Europe, voter ID is the norm, and in most western democracies, it is the norm. But it seems that you have an issue with it, perhaps because of your own party's record on fraud cases, which have happened in Labour areas, such as the Tower Hamlets frauds, the Birmingham frauds as well, back in 2004.
Now, you say that we don't have a problem; there were 1,386 cases reported to the police of electoral fraud between 2018 and 2022. That is the reality. That is what we need to deal with, and that is why the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said that the absence of photographic voter ID was a security risk to our electoral system. You're the party that introduced it in Northern Ireland, where it's working fantastically well, and they have the highest ever turnout in most general elections compared to the rest of the United Kingdom. For goodness' sake, you introduced ID requirements so that people could watch Spider-Man during the COVID pandemic; why isn't it appropriate that people should have photographic identification that is free of charge for people to be able to access in order to do their democratic duty and turn up to elections? We need to make sure that our elections—
We need to make sure that our elections are secure and that there is integrity around them. Why is it that Wales will be an outlier within the UK as a result of your decision?
Well, Llywydd, I have confidence in the system we have and in the people who run it, that the system is already secure. There was not a single prosecution for voter impersonation last year. [Interruption.] I think it does—. The Member tells me that it doesn't matter that there were no prosecutions. Well, I tell him that it does matter, because that is the evidence on which you have to rely, not on complaints—not on complaints, but on actual prosecutions. The evidence is as thin as it possibly can be. It certainly does not justify—[Interruption.]
—people being refused their democratic right to participate in an election. That is what we saw happening in England last week, and we will not collude in that happening here in Wales.
Good afternoon, First Minister. It is quite shameful, isn't it, that the Conservatives keep parroting on about this issue. There is no evidence at all. The Electoral Commission have been really, really clear: voter ID has disenfranchised huge swathes of our population, and I really do hope, turning to Labour, if I may, that, if there is a Labour Government, you will reverse that particular law in Parliament, because it is really part of our democracy that everybody should be entitled to vote.
But I just want to move to Wales, if I may ask you, First Minister. One of the other issues around having a really healthy democracy is that every vote will result in a seat, and I do hope to hear from you that you will give a categorical assurance, just as you did to Sarah Murphy, that you would be able to work across the Siambr to look into the best form of proportional representation in our hopeful Senedd reforms, and that is the single transferable vote. So, I do ask you: would you be able to entertain the idea of looking into that and potentially amendments to the Bills that may be coming forward? Diolch yn fawr iawn.
Well, Llywydd, first of all, on the point that the Member made about the shameful denial of democratic rights to people, what is really shameful about this is that it is mounted entirely in the self-interest of one political party. It's nothing to do with what we've heard from the Conservatives here in the Chamber this afternoon. It is simply, as is absolutely demonstrable from the way in which the Republican Party in the United States has used voter suppression measures that it is all about making it more difficult for people who may not support a particular party to have their voices heard. And it's as transparent as it can be, and it's understood by people for that very reason.
As the Member will know, I have myself, in many decades when it has not been fashionable within my own party, been a believer in proportional representation. We are committed to bringing forward a Bill to the floor of the Senedd that is at least as proportional as the system we currently have. I remember a discussion across the floor here with a previous leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in Wales, in which we discussed the primary duty on progressive parties being to demonstrate that you can make progress. That doesn't always mean that you're able to get the solution you might individually ideally prefer. You have to be able to bring a coalition together around a proposition that moves you in the direction that you would want to go. That will be the debate that we will have when the Senedd reform Bill makes its way to the floor of the Chamber, and I look forward to that debate and her participation in it.
I thank Joel James for that question, Llywydd. SEREN is the all-Wales NHS educational programme for children and young people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. This all-Wales collaboration has been an enormous success, with the programme achieving official accreditation and winning a UK-wide award for empowering people with diabetes.
Thank you, First Minister. I think everyone here will agree that the SEREN education programme in Wales has been an enormous success in helping to support children with type 1 diabetes and their families during their move from primary into secondary education, and it's a fantastic success story for the Welsh NHS. The benefits of this programme are truly amazing. Structured education at this level has been shown to deliver an average reduction in HbA1c levels of 1 per cent, which, if the programme ran for 25 years, would translate into an estimated saving to NHS Wales of a staggering £60 million per year, due to the reduction in costs of related conditions. The cost of running this programme equates to only £5.50 a month for each child suffering from type 1 diabetes, and, with fewer than 1,500 children suffering in Wales, the total cost would be less than £100,000 per year. But, tragically, the situation now in Wales is that funding for this programme ceased around two months ago, which means that many children going from primary to secondary school this year will now not receive this education programme. First Minister, do you agree with me that stopping the funding of this internationally recognised programme, which has been adopted by several countries around the world and is the only one of its kind to be delivered in the Welsh language, is not only short sighted, but should be funded by NHS Wales? And will you make a commitment to ensure that permanent funding of this education programme is put into place? Thank you.
Well, Llywydd, first of all, I thank Joel James for highlighting the success of the programme. If I can explain the current situation, I think he will find that he does not need to be as pessimistic about its future as he may have implied. This was, indeed, a national programme funded through the diabetes delivery plan for Wales. The delivery plan was always time limited, and its responsibilities are now being taken up by a new national clinical network operating within the new NHS Executive. That NHS Executive has been asked to look at how best to sustain the programme and the excellent work that it is has undertaken, including keeping its materials up to date, and the Minister will be making an oral statement on the future of diabetes services and these new arrangements in front of the Senedd in June.
I thank Siân Gwenllian. Llywydd, independent advice secured by the Welsh Government has confirmed that the system placed in some properties in Arfon is inappropriate, and has noted some cases of poor work. Officials have had discussions with contractors, and the Minister will make a decision on the next steps soon.
Your Government is continuing to refuse to provide a scheme for those in Arfon who can't make a claim to a contractor or a guarantor, and this despite the fact that their homes have been left in a poorer state after taking part in the Arbed scheme of the Government than they were previously. We're also waiting an update on the cases related to two companies that continue to trade. The Government's response to date has been very disappointing. Even when the contractor is known and is still trading and residents have followed the process the Welsh Government has suggested, people are still waiting for the issues to be rectified. I understand what you say now, that the Minister will be making a decision on this, but the Government has dragged its feet on this. Why is it taking so long to achieve these solutions, which are obvious?
Well, Llywydd, I can tell Siân Gwenllian, I had an opportunity yesterday to discuss this issue with the Minister, and I know that the Minister wants to find solutions to these problems. As Siân Gwenllian has said, there are contractors on the ground who are responsible for the quality of the work that's been done. It's true that we are trying to find responsible contractors, but, after yesterday's conversation, I know that the Minister has asked officials to find solutions that can bring the difficulties experienced by affected people to an end.
I thank Paul Davies, Llywydd. Our third sector support grant provides core funding to the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and county voluntary councils across Wales to provide an infrastructure for small, community-based charities. In 2023-24, we are providing a baseline grant of £6.98 million, an increase of 10 per cent on pre-pandemic levels.
Thank you for that response, First Minister. Now, I recently visited Megan's Starr Foundation in Milford Haven, in my constituency, which was established by Nicola Harteveld in memory of her 14-year-old daughter, Megan Evans. Now, Megan's Starr Foundation provides help, advice and support to young people who are struggling with their mental health and well-being, and, thanks to National Lottery funding, it has recently invested in a mobile coffee and shake van to engage with young people in the community. So, First Minister, will you join with me in congratulating Nicola Harteveld in establishing this community-based charity, and, given the importance of its work, what additional support can the Welsh Government offer to charities like Megan's Starr Foundation to help them to expand to support as many young people as possible?
Well, Llywydd, I certainly do join with Paul Davies in congratulating all of those who have been involved in establishing Megan's Starr Foundation, and I congratulate them because they've obtained nearly £100,000 from the National Lottery community fund. I'm sure that having a mobile coffee van will allow them to take their services to a wider range of communities in that part of west Wales.
For small charities, community-based charities, Llywydd, the Welsh Government last month donated £1 million to the cost-of-living fund, run by the Community Foundation Wales. One of the reasons for doing that is a recognition by the Welsh Government that while large and relatively well-resourced third sector organisations are able to mobilise successful bids for the third sector support Wales grant or for the community facilities programme, we needed something that would offer smaller amounts of money to organisations not in the same part of the spectrum—the small, community-based charities, as Paul Davies said in his original question. So, from that £1 million, Community Foundation Wales will be able to offer grants of between £2,000 and £5,000 to support the work of those community-based charities, and, should Megan's Starr Foundation in Milford Haven wish to apply for it, then I'm sure their record of success to date will speak for itself.
Llywydd, our school essentials grant has made a real difference to many lower income families across Wales, helping to reduce the worry surrounding the purchase of school uniform and equipment. Funding of £13.6 million has been made available for this grant in the current financial year.
Thank you, First Minister, for that information. I'm sure it is indeed very welcome for families who are struggling to heat and eat. St Teilo's Church in Wales High School has given a lot of thought to how we make school uniforms affordable, and, having researched the issue, St Teilo's has decided to take the decision to buy school uniforms in bulk in order to sell them at cost to their pupils and eliminate any profiteering that may be going on. That, of course, involves an element of financial risk for the school, but one that governors were prepared to take in the interests of social justice. So, what thought has the Welsh Government given to preventing intermediaries from making excessive profits from pupils whose families often have to buy from a sole supplier?
Well, I thank Jenny Rathbone for that, and congratulate St Teilo's on the decision that they have made. I wonder if I could just make this one point before replying to the substance of the supplementary question: my belief is that those schools that make genuine efforts to make sure that school uniforms are recycled as well as bought new are putting themselves at the right part in that spectrum. I visited a school recently and was very cheered up to hear that this was being driven by students themselves, believing that, in recycling school uniforms, they are playing their part in tackling climate change and other great challenges of our time.
When new uniforms are necessary—and, of course, they will be—the consultation that the Minister led recently found 90 per cent of all respondents agreeing that schools should avoid single-supplier agreements. And, as a result of that, the statutory guidance—and it is statutory guidance that we provide to schools—has been amended to say that exclusive, single-supplier contracts should be avoided; where they are in place, they must be subject to regular tendering competitions; and that those competitions must be run at least every five years, so that more than one supplier can compete for the contract. And that is one of the ways in which we can make sure that excessive profits from sole suppliers can be eliminated in the system that we have here in Wales.
Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Diolch, Llywydd. There is one change to this week's business. Later this afternoon, the Deputy Minister for Social Services will make a statement on the delivery plan for 'Age friendly Wales: our strategy for an ageing society'. Draft business for the next three weeks is set out on the business statement and announcement, which can be found amongst the meeting papers available to Members electronically.
Trefnydd, can I call for a statement from the Minister with responsibility for the trunk road network in Wales, in particular around the unscheduled maintenance of trunk road assets? So, there are two bridges in the Abergele area of my constituency, which traverse the A55. Both of them currently have temporary traffic regulations in order, and have traffic lights in place. One set has been there for 13 years, which restricts the use of that bridge to just one lane at a time, and the other has been there for some time too. Over the course of those temporary measures being in place, over £230,000 of taxpayers' money has been expended. I appreciate that work needs to be undertaken on those bridges in order to make them safe for motor vehicles to pass, but I would like to see that work done swiftly, because of the inconvenience that motorists face in my constituency as a result of these two problems. So, can I ask for a statement on how unscheduled maintenance is addressed in the trunk road network, in order that we can move this forward, because I don't think that taxpayers will appreciate that around £250,000 is a very good investment, given that these are only temporary measures to date?
Thank you. Well, my understanding is that the Deputy Minister for Climate Change has answered this in a written question. I'm not sure if it was to you, but if not, I will make sure that you have that information.
Trefnydd, Rishi Sunak has recently said that now is not the time for further devolution. I'd like a statement, please, responding to that, because apparently now is not the time, when an energy crisis engulfs us, and Wales could have greater powers over natural resources and the Crown Estate; while billions are being denied to Wales through the compensation that we should be having for high speed 2 line and Northern Powerhouse Rail, which are insultingly called 'England and Wales' projects; when our water could again be diverted to England, because it's cheaper to do that than to fix leaky pipes. Now apparently is not the time to give Wales greater powers, because he thinks that Westminster is doing just fine with them.
So, can the Government make a statement, please, responding to this arrogance shown by Rishi Sunak, who, like all Tories in Westminster, seem so desperate to stifle Wales's potential, and our inevitable growth as a nation? Because as the saying goes, 'There never lived a nation yet which ruled another well.'
Thank you. Well, I don't think we will be making an oral statement in response to something that the Prime Minister has said, but what I think is really important is that Ministers continue to have conversations with their counterparts in the UK Government. So, for instance, I know that the Minister for Climate Change is having discussions around the Crown Estate, and whether there would be devolution in relation to that, as well as other aspects, obviously. And, hopefully, after the general election, we'll have a Labour Government in No. 10 that we can work with around further devolution.
Minister, today is Europe Day, where we're able to mark the seventy-eighth anniversary of Victory in Europe Day and the defeat of Nazism. It's a day when we can remember the sacrifices that people have made to bring others together, and, of course, the greatest peace project in history and in the world is the European Union. We know the benefits that Wales has accrued from the European Union. Minister, can we ensure that there is a debate held here every year on Europe Day to mark Europe Day and to ensure that we continue to develop our relationship with the European Union?
And will the Welsh Government publish information on a regular basis to demonstrate the disaster that is Brexit and the damage that is being done to the people of Wales, the community of Wales, the finances of Wales, the economy of Wales and the opportunities of Welsh people, to ensure that people across the whole of Wales know the lies that were told some years ago and are able to access information that they can rely upon in order to take decisions about our future where necessary? So, it's important to have a debate to mark Europe Day and to ensure that people are informed about the damage that Brexit is doing to this country.
Thank you. Well, as the Member says, today is indeed Europe Day, so I don't think we're able to have a Government statement today, but I certainly take your point about publishing information on the disaster Brexit certainly is to our country. We see it in so many different ways. As you say, it is held every year, and it does celebrate peace and unity in Europe. And the first tweet I saw this morning, when I looked at Twitter, was from President Macron celebrating Europe Day. And I think it is very important that we do remember, and it's very important to also show the commitment that Welsh Government has to continued engagement with Europe through many European institutions, through our networks and through priority national and regional relationships. I think it's a good opportunity also—and you indeed did it in your question today to the First Minister—to say that we continue to stand in support of the Ukrainian people who are bravely resisting the assault on their sovereignty, independence and the right to self-determination.
I would like an oral or a written statement from the Deputy Minister for transport to explain the exact circumstances around recommendations that were made over 30 years ago to reset the hangers that hold the Menai road bridge in place. We know now that there were 40 new hangers placed in 1991, and that an engineers' report last year highlighted the fact that a recommendation had been made in 1991 to change all of the hangers over a period of time. I want to know what happened to that recommendation. Why wasn't action taken on that? Because, if that had happened, we wouldn't have faced the situation where the bridge was closed without notice in the autumn of last year.
I'll take this opportunity to highlight the fact that we still need to strengthen the resilience of the Menai crossing. The Britannia bridge was closed by an accident last week. What we saw crossing the Menai bridge was lorries of up to 40 tonnes with a maximum weight of 7.5 tonnes. We must make progress to dual the Britannia road bridge to ensure that resilience, but whilst we continue to make that case, we need answers as to why we find ourselves in this critical situation with the Menai bridge.
Thank you. Well, the initial report you referred to recommended that the hangers should be inspected, rather than automatically replaced, and that was as part of a rolling inspection programme. And those inspections have been undertaken, and then the 40 hangers were replaced, as you referred to, and the inspections did not recommend replacing any further hangers on the Menai suspension bridge. With regard to the current works, engineers have completed the initial investigation to test replacing hangers to help inform the next phase of the works, and, of course, there does need to be regular inspections of the temporary works, while the hanger replacement works are designed. The latest inspection took place on 26-28 April, and to allow that to take place safely obviously a lane had to be closed, but it is important those inspections take place. I understand there will be further inspections every six weeks to check the temporary works.
I'd like to seek an opportunity for the Counsel General to answer questions on the floor of this Siambr in respect of the implications for Wales of the misuse or even abuse of the controversial new Public Order Act 2023. The Metropolitan Police have today expressed regret over the arrests of six people in London on the weekend, after a review found there was no evidence that the people involved were planning to use lock-on devices along the coronation processional route. Former Greater Manchester Police chief Sir Peter Fahy has said that police officers were put in the invidious position of having to interpret a law passed through in a rush, only a few days before the coronation. And Conservative MP and former Cabinet Minister David Davis has described the legislation as 'too broad' and 'too crude'. Yet, the Home Secretary is standing by this crude, rushed, over-reaching, overbearing piece of law, and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak maintains the law is 'the right thing to do', I quote.
Political interference in policing is very hard to resist under this draconian law, when the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Lee Anderson, publicly berated the Met police commissioner in advance, saying,
'Do you think it's time that you left the ivory tower and got out there on Whitehall and sorted these people out?'
It's chilling: 'sort these people out'. Minister, many of us will have long memories of the abuse of state power using police as an extension of the Government's diktat in previous industrial conflict in our living memory.
On 27 April, Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the UK Government to reverse this deeply troubling Public Order Bill. This weekend, 64 people were arrested in England under this legislation. So, could we find time for an opportunity, through yourself or the Business Committee or the Llywydd, to question the Counsel General on the implications for Wales, so that, at least, even if this iniquitous law is not reversed by the UK Conservative Government, it will not be misused or abused here in Wales and we'll ensure that our chief constables, our police commissioners here in Wales interpret this lousy law in a way that the fundamental right to protest—a crucial part of our democracy—is robustly defended here in Wales, even if it is undermined and demolished in England?
Thank you. And the Member raises a very important point, and I'm sure many of us were extremely concerned to hear about the arrest of apparently peaceful demonstrators in London ahead of the King's coronation at the weekend. As you made very clear, enforcement and policing are reserved matters, and the police are operationally independent of Government. But, obviously, a central principle of our democracy is the right to peaceful protest. I saw the Prime Minister being interviewed last night on the news, and I thought what he was saying about it was that this was an operational matter. At this point it is unclear whether the problem is with the Public Order Act—as you say, that recently came into force—or whether the problem is more operational. I think it's really important that we understand the full circumstances of the case, to ensure that, if there are any issues with the legislation, that they're identified and that they are rectified. We didn't have any arrests over the bank holiday weekend here in Wales, which is very reassuring, and I think the Counsel General will be happy to make an oral statement to this Chamber.
The next item, therefore, is item 3, which is a statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services on the launch of the NHS Wales app, and I call on the Minister to make her statement. Eluned Morgan.
Diolch yn fawr. Today, I am pleased to provide an update on the NHS Wales app and how it will contribute to the transformation of health and social care services in Wales.
On 17 April, I announced that the NHS Wales app was being made available to the public as part of the next phase of its testing. This allowed us to gather wider feedback from people across Wales to help shape the future development of the app. This means that the app is available to Welsh citizens to download now, with additional functionality being made available in a managed way over time. The app, created by the digital services for patients and the public programme in Digital Health and Care Wales, is one part of a wider set of digital transformation activities that the Welsh Government is funding within health and social care. We are determined to digitally transform the way our health and social care services work.
The app and its accompanying website represent the single, patient-facing entry point for digital health and social care services in Wales, and will provide a platform for future digital services. Feedback from the increasing number of people using the app will be invaluable as we develop the app further and produce additional services. From the beginning, people have been at the heart of developing the app.
The approach being taken in developing the app is deliberately steady, managing user and stakeholder expectations as we roll out to GP practices and integrate the functionality that patients and the public want. GPs are being incrementally supported onto the platform and, as each of the practices come online, tens of thousands more people across Wales are able to use the additional functionality within the app. This approach proved successful during an earlier testing phase when 700 people used an early version of the app, providing feedback to shape its development and demonstrate strong evidence of the importance of user-centred design of services.
As of today, around 97,000 patients who are registered at the GP practices who have turned on the app so far can access their summary health record, providing them with a view of their health history, order repeat prescriptions and view past GP prescriptions, and book, view and cancel certain appointments with practice staff. The DSPP team is working with practices across Wales to support them to enable these features, but, in the interim, those patients who aren’t registered with one of those practices can still search for medical advice from NHS Wales 111 online services, and can review, update or register for organ donation and register to give blood.
We want to make it easy for the people of Wales to access services in the most convenient way for them. The app does not replace any of the existing ways that people can access health and social care services, other than My Health Online, which will be retired soon. And while it has started with GP digital services, such as simplifying appointment booking, accessing GP records and repeat prescription ordering, it will go much wider than primary care in future. That will include improved transparency for patients who are on a waiting list, so they can see how long they would typically need to wait for their specific consultation or operation in their health board area, and providing them with information on how to best manage their condition. It can integrate patient recorded outcome measures services into the app to allow patients to engage with secondary care clinicians before and after planned operations, avoiding the need for repeat follow-up visits to hospital for check-ups whilst ensuring issues are identified early on, and also a hybrid mail solution to digitise all letters and communications where a person wants to receive them as a message in the app.
There is work under way across all areas of the NHS so that they use the app as their digital front door to health services. We are beginning discussions with colleagues in social care to see what's possible in terms of extending the app so that those people who receive social care services can benefit from it, too. And we will be seeking the feedback of those who use the app so that we can continue to improve it.
Through providing easier access to digitally delivered services we can reduce the administrative burden on our NHS, which in turn frees up more time for more patients to be seen. But we acknowledge that not everyone can or wants to access services digitally. Therefore, the team behind the app have ensured that they have taken an inclusive and accessible approach from the very outset. The app is accessible and works with existing phone accessibility software. I want to thank Digital Communities Wales, which is providing support within communities across Wales through their 880 digital hubs. These hubs increase the digital literacy of the Welsh public, and not just with regard to health. Digital Communities Wales have agreed to help people to feel confident to use the NHS Wales app.
The wider availability of the app is an exciting development for us in Wales, and, for it to be truly transformational, we need services to change and we need to adopt pathways across health and social care in Wales. There is still much to do to fully capitalise on the opportunities afforded by the app, but we are committed to ensuring that it provides people with digital access to the health and social care services that they need, whenever and wherever they need them.
Can I thank the Minister for her statement today? I’m delighted that I saw this statement on the agenda. The Minister will know that I have been banging on about the Wales app for a while now and, of course, the app is featured in the Welsh Conservatives’ proposed NHS tech bundle as well. I can’t really stress enough how important it is that this app is rolled out as quickly as possible. We have all got smartphones. I say we all have them; most of us have them, and our lives are run on our smartphones as well. So, I suppose that, for me, I am astonished that it has taken so long to get to this point. I can see the Minister perhaps agreeing with that slightly. I was going to say something quite basic; it’s not basic, I know, but up to a point it’s basic. Lots of things and technology were developed very quickly during the lockdown. I appreciate, of course, that the NHS is vast, and that we have got to link GP practices with health boards and other records as well. On the other hand, this wasn’t revolutionary. We are behind England. We are behind other parts of Europe. England rolled this out, of course, four years ago. We've spent £50 million of taxpayers’ money and we are still at the testing phase. So, the UK Government made much more progress early on than the Welsh Government in getting its act together on this. But, I suppose, for me, just to understand—because there are frustrations, when people can see what’s going on elsewhere, across the UK and across Europe—why did this happen? Why is Wales further behind other nations? Did the Welsh Government seek to be part of a UK app? If not, why not? And yes, as I understand, it uses the same code as the NHS England app. So, why the need for a separate app? And are we guaranteed that the functions will be the same in the Welsh app as the English app? To me, I suppose the frustration is how much time could have been saved, among clerical staff and GPs. Their time would have been freed up had this app been made available earlier, without the need for answering queries from patients, who would have been able to get the information that they needed on the app.
So, from me some questions. What age will adults or children, really, I suppose, be able to use the app from? Is this something that was considered as part of the trials? Will all GP practices, as in England, be connected to the app? I suppose the answer is 'yes', but when is that likely to happen?
You told us that 97,000 patients in Wales are able now to order repeat prescriptions, view GP records and book appointments, et cetera. But the big question that everyone will want to know is: what about everybody else in Wales outside the 97,000? That’s the big question. So, give us some sense, if you could, of a timeline going forward.
Thanks very much, Russell. I understand your frustration. The one thing that I have learned in this job is that anything to do with digital takes much longer than I hope for, and it's always very expensive. I think that it is very challenging, partly because, actually, it's really difficult to find the people who can build these apps because everybody is after these technicians. What I will say is that, yes, it's cost £15 in million, when, in the first year, the English app cost £76 million and it’s costing £13 million per year after that. So, what we’re doing is we’ve front-loaded a huge amount of the development, and the key thing to remember is that our app is going to do everything, in time. So, it’s one platform, and that’s very different from the English app, where there are multiple apps going on, and so we’ve built an app that is going to be the front door for patients to access the NHS. And so, in time not only will you be able to get your GP appointment, but it’ll link to the hospitals and it’ll link to all of these other things. So, you’ve got to get the infrastructure and the architecture, the technical architecture, which is quite complex, right from the very beginning, and that, apparently, is very expensive. So, I think that is important.
Just in terms of who will switch it on, what we’ve found, and that’s why we—. Actually, I don’t apologise for being so far behind England, because, actually, we’ve had the opportunity to learn from England and there are lessons to be learned, and, to be fair, we’ve co-operated with England quite closely on this and they’ve been quite useful to us, but they're actually helping us in the sense that they’re saying, 'Well, don’t do this' and 'This didn’t work.' And one of the things that happened in England when they launched the app is that almost all the GP services just switched off the interaction with the GP surgeries. So, we’re trying to do it slowly, to on-board GP surgeries one at a time, making sure that they understand what’s going on, how does it work, building the confidence, and I’ve been really pleased this morning to speak to a GP in Ebbw Vale, Dr Helen Thomas, who could not sing the praises of this app enough, just saying, actually, it’s going to be transformational, it’s going to really take a huge amount of time away from the 8 a.m. bottleneck, the number of people calling the surgery. So, she really sees the potential, and of course what we want now is for other GPs to stick their hands up and say, 'Yes, we're in; we want to use this as well.' So, I think taking it slowly means that we can build up the confidence and we won’t have that approach that they’ve seen in England where it’s actually taken them a huge amount of time to rebuild the confidence. Even today, only about 1 per cent of the population are actually booking their appointments through the app, after several years. So, there are things we can learn, and we’re very pleased to learn that.
I’m truly grateful to the Minister for this statement today. I know this is an area that is important to her. She said very soon after her appointment that she was surprised at how little work had been done in digital in recent years and that she was eager to change that, and I very much hope that this is an area on which I can work with her. I wear another hat as chair of the cross-party group on digital here in the Senedd, and there’s a real appetite in the Senedd to see us making up that ground that’s been lost. We’ve been a little slow in making progress in this area, so this is good news.
Many of the questions have already been asked by the Conservative spokesperson—many of the questions that I wanted to pursue. But there is one that hasn’t been asked, and that is: what kind of marketing will be done around this? I was one who tried to register very early on. My surgery, as it happened, hadn't been registered at that point. So, we need to remind people like me to go back and to try again. So, what work will be done by the Welsh Government to try and ensure that people are drawn in to using this platform as much as possible?
I would also like to, if not get answers today, encourage the Minister to provide as clear a timetable as possible, as soon as possible, as to when we can expect to see some of these additional features being introduced to the app. There are some very exciting elements to what's being prepared. It would be good to know what kind of timetable the Minister anticipates so that we can hold her to account on the delivery of that.
Finally, perhaps, the Minister is quite right in referring to those who won't want to use the app—people who feel that the technology is beyond them—and I very much hope that Digital Communities Wales will be able to persuade many of them to use this technology and to adopt it. But, for those who choose not to, to what extent will this release time that can then be invested in the people who truly have difficulty in engaging with digital technology in this way?
So, I welcome this. It feels like an important step forward. And I urge the Minister to take the agenda forward as swiftly as possible for the benefit of everyone—those who can use the technology and those who would perhaps benefit from the fact that this releases time within the NHS.
Thank you very much and thank you for your enthusiasm, because I know that this is an area in which we share that enthusiasm to move forward and make progress, because I do think we need to catch up. I do spend a great deal of time urging the civil service in this digital arena, and I have monthly meetings to ensure that the agenda is making progress. And there is a great deal happening digitally now. But I do think that this is a front door, so it's important that we get it right.
With regard to the marketing, I think we have to be very careful. That's why taking one step at a time is very important here. What we don't want to do is raise people's hopes and then fail to deliver. That's why, for me, what's important now is that we get the GPs to become involved in this app, and the best way to do that is to get the GPs who are already using the app to talk about how good it is, as Dr Helen Thomas was telling me this morning. They have to do this job of work for us, in a way, so that they share this message, but of course we will be urging GPs now to become involved in this project, because it will help them, and it's important that we do make progress on that.
Just with regard to the timetable for the additional features, the list of what is possible is a very long one, so it's a question for me now with regard to what we're going to prioritise. One of the things that we will be introducing, hopefully this summer, is these e-prescriptions and ensuring that GPs don't have to sit there for hours signing these prescriptions. If we do that and if we link that up with the app, that too will help with the workload. One of the things that I think will be a major help and is already working here is the repeat prescriptions. So, in time, I just want people to be able to go on the app and that they even then receive a message from the pharmacy to say, 'Your medicines are ready.' So, I think that there is genuine hope there. What's important now is that we get these surgeries—. That's the first step and then we'll look at what the features are. Technical work can continue in the background in the meantime, of course, so there will be prioritisation taking place soon.
Regarding those people who can't engage with the technology, this is a question I asked the doctor this morning. I asked whether older people are engaging. She said that, actually, the older people are those who are most enthusiastic in this field. Sometimes, they've come into surgery and have asked for some help to go on to the app in the first instance, but then they're very happy to use it. So I think we have to be quite careful here, because, very often, we say that older people have difficulties. Actually, a lot of older people now spend a great deal of their time on these apps. And, as I said in my opening statement, what's important is that that assistance is available for those people who need it in this area. And, of course, there will always be a way for people to access to their GP surgeries in other ways too. So, I think it will be useful in future, but we'll be keeping the pressure on, and we'll ensure that we prioritise what's important for the public.
A constituent of mine yesterday told me about the distressing circumstances where he received the letter for an important hospital appointment four days after the appointment was due to have been offered. I hope that this will make our services much more efficient in avoiding such distressing circumstances, which obviously leads to a 'did not attend', but also so that we can see more people.
I just want to address what you mention in passing. Reducing the administrative burden frees up more time for more patients, but not everyone can or wants to access services digitally. Better-off elderly people are able to afford a laptop, but trying to navigate the system through a phone is much more difficult because the keyboard is so small, and if you're elderly or you have a language difficulty, at the moment it's really, really difficult to compete with the 8-o'clock-in-the-morning rush to get a GP appointment. So, I wondered if you can give us some reassurances that, once we've got most people happily using a digital system, we can then free up time for enabling those who are more vulnerable or who have language difficulties to ensure that they are getting an equitable service.
Thanks very much, Jenny. I absolutely understand the distress that your constituent must have felt. I still find it quite surprising that we're still sending out letters on paper in the NHS today. So, it's not going to happen overnight. This is part of the transformation that needs to happen. It's coming, but we're not there yet.
I was speaking to somebody last night who I knew had been one of the people involved in the pilot relating to this app, and his surgery was involved. In fact, I'm hoping to visit that surgery next Friday, just to speak face to face with the GPs, in terms of what's working well, what's not working well. But, one of the things he said was that he was an asthma sufferer, and he was telling me how his GPs had been sending information proactively to him to give him advice on what he could be doing to help with his asthma. He'd actually changed the kind of asthma pump that he used so that it didn't emit greenhouse gases and things. So, he was really, really thrilled with the way that it had a push facility. It wasn't just about him contacting the surgery—it was about the surgery contacting him. So, I think that's going to be an important feature.
You talked about the 8 a.m. rush. Well, that's one of the things we hope this will help with, particularly in terms of planned appointments—so, not urgent appointments, but planned appointments, repeat appointments. I think that will free up the time for GPs then to be able to—. All of that stuff should go to a different place, it will all go online, and then the really urgent cases will come through. And, of course, there shouldn't be an 8 a.m. bottleneck now because we've changed the contract.
The key thing is that the whole way through this process, this has been a user-centred design. It's been specifically developed to be agile and to be iterative, so that we can learn and so that people who are challenged actually can tell us, 'That doesn't work for me.' And we've adapted it constantly as we've gone along. So, we haven't done a 'big bang' on this—we have been doing it very, very gradually so that we get it right and that we can roll it out. I do think this, genuinely, is absolutely transformational, but it's not going to happen overnight.
Item 4 this afternoon is a statement by the Minister for Social Justice, an update on Wales as a nation of sanctuary. I call on the Minister, Jane Hutt.
Diolch yn fawr, Ddirprwy Lywydd, and thank you for the opportunity to update Members on our ongoing work to support people from Ukraine and our wider nation of sanctuary responsibilities in Wales.
Wales has welcomed just under 6,900 Ukrainians under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, including more than 3,200 under our supersponsor route. The pace of arrivals has slowed down, but we do not stand still. Securing longer term accommodation is key to support those displaced by the war in Ukraine. This involves a mixture of accommodation, including hosting, private rented sector, and other forms of good-quality transitional accommodation. I can report that around 1,700 supersponsor arrivals have now moved on to longer term accommodation. Of these, around 1,100 have settled in Wales, reflecting our role as a nation of sanctuary.
Our response has been made possible through our team Wales approach, and I'm grateful to our key partners for making this happen. The First Minister talked earlier about some of the fantastic work under way in Blaenau Gwent, for example, where the local authority team has been very successful in sourcing longer term accommodation for those in their welcome centre. I'm pleased that this team will form part of a national taskforce to support move-on from initial accommodation across Wales, providing operational skills and experience as well as additional capacity for other local authorities. Our campaign to increase the number of people hosting Ukrainian guests in Wales is under way. All key stakeholders, including local authority and third sector partners, have been issued with a campaign toolkit. There has been positive engagement to date, and I am pleased that we're already seeing a steady rise in host expression of interest applications.
On 19 April, I attended a trilateral meeting with Felicity Buchan, UK Government Minister for housing and homelessness; Shirley-Anne Somerville, Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice; and Emma Roddick, Scottish Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees. We discussed the UK Government’s homelessness prevention fund, which aims to provide new UK-wide funding in the 2023-24 financial year to help local authorities support Ukrainian guests move into longer term accommodation and reduce the risk of homelessness. Despite approving the proposed methodology for apportioning the £150 million fund, we are still yet to receive formal clarification from the UK Government on the final allocation for Wales and associated conditions. I continue to press for this as a matter of urgency.
We also discussed the UK Government’s new intensive online English for speakers of other languages and employability proposal, which aims to improve the English language acquisition of 10,000 Ukrainians. I'm pleased that we have been able to agree, along with the Scottish Government, to work collectively with the UK Government on this proof of concept ESOL project for delivery in Wales. We will evaluate the success of this project to consider whether similar schemes should be developed in Wales for a wider range of sanctuary seekers. We have taken the decision to take part in this short-term UK Government scheme, and Welsh Government officials will be involved in its governance to minimise any potential duplication or displacement in Wales. This will be with the clear understanding by UK Ministers that responsibility for ESOL and employability is devolved.
Our Ukraine response work has been a significant and groundbreaking for us. However, the UK Government operates other resettlement and dispersal schemes, and we continue to engage in planning and responding to the needs of the sanctuary seekers affected. In recent weeks, the UK Government has made announcements to close all Afghan bridging hotels, to close asylum contingency hotels and to open large-scale asylum accommodation sites. Additionally, the Home Office already has a plan in place to almost double the number of asylum seekers dispersed to Wales whilst awaiting a decision on their asylum application. Although these systems are led by the UK Government, we continue to adopt our team Wales approach with our public and third sector partners to deliver the best approach that we can.
In relation to Afghanistan, I met with the UK Minister for veterans’ affairs, Johnny Mercer, on 19 April to discuss the hotel closures. We expect closures to happen in late summer. We're seeking urgent clarification on funding available for local government to meet this housing need and we will work closely with all local authorities to seek a pan-Wales solution. We do not want to see anyone in hotels any longer than necessary, and some of these families have now spent over 18 months waiting for long-term accommodation. However, we are concerned that the UK Government has imposed an arbitrary deadline for hotel closures for those who supported our armed forces in Afghanistan. I restated a point to Johnny Mercer that I have made to several UK Ministers that the most helpful action they could take would be to increase the local housing allowance rates and consider changes to the benefit cap to make rented accommodation more affordable.
In relation to asylum, I met with the UK Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick, on 30 March. I made it clear that the Welsh Government is opposed to the use of ships or military bases to accommodate asylum seekers in Wales. However, we are committed to finding solutions in the very challenging housing market that we currently have. We want to see the widening of asylum dispersal across Wales, but we have a duty of care for how this is achieved. The accommodation challenges we are seeing are being exacerbated by the UK Government's anti-asylum legislative agenda. Since the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 was given Royal Assent, asylum application processing times have slowed considerably, leaving many in limbo in our communities. The Illegal Migration Bill is already making this even worse by including a retrospective date of 7 March, by which almost all applications will be considered inadmissible. The effect of this is that almost all of those arriving in the UK in the last 12 months are yet to have claims looked at by the Home Office, and each of those individuals are living in accommodation, unable to work, unable to deal with the trauma they have experienced, and unable to fully integrate with their communities.
Members will be aware that I have laid a legislative consent memorandum in relation to a specific element of the Illegal Migration Bill. That is, the clauses that relate to the transfer of unaccompanied children at the Home Secretary's direction. We fundamentally believe our local authority social work professionals are the experts in deciding what is in the best interests of these children, and Senedd Cymru is the appropriate place to legislate on matters of children's social care, and I hope Members will support our recommendation of withholding consent for the UK Parliament to legislate on these matters.
Deputy Llywydd, in updating the Senedd, I can report that we're revising our governance structures to establish an internal nation of sanctuary ministerial board whilst broadening the scope of our existing refugee taskforce, to create the external nation of sanctuary taskforce. Our internal work will align far more closely across these schemes to try to identify mutually reinforcing approaches. We will continue to engage closely with UK Ministers and departments to look for opportunities to address these challenges collaboratively, but we will not hesitate to oppose inappropriate plans, if they're developed.
I also want to briefly touch on the concerning situation in Sudan. Our sympathies and support go out to our Sudanese community members. As we understand it, the Home Secretary has ruled out a refugee resettlement route, but, at the end of 2022, there were almost 5,000 Sudanese sanctuary seekers receiving support in the UK, including around 100 living in Wales. The majority of applications from Sudan were already granted prior to this outbreak of fighting, so we do urge UK Ministers to add Sudan as a country of origin eligible for the streamlined asylum process for those in the UK system.
Deputy Llywydd, today is Europe Day. The Welsh Government continues to support EU citizens to achieve settled status and have equality of opportunity. We've invested £2.7 million in our EU citizens rights advice services in recent years, and we want citizens to know that they continue to be welcome and appreciated for their contributions to Welsh life.
I will end by mentioning the inspirational evening I attended for the Nation of Sanctuary Awards on 29 March, and I know others in this Siambr also had the pleasure of attending. I thank the Welsh Refugee Council for organising such a wonderful event. The awards demonstrate that migration is a benefit to our nation and show both the warm welcome that Wales gives and the potential waiting to be unlocked. It remains our privilege to be able to provide sanctuary in Wales. Diolch yn fawr.
Well, as I said when I sponsored and hosted the Sanctuary in the Senedd event in 2016, we've long provided a safe haven for victims of persecution, violence, ethnic cleansing and genocide from across the world, and long may that remain the case, because if we ever lose that, we'll have lost our humanity and true identity.
As with everything, however, and as you've indicated in your statement, the devil is in the detail. As I asked the First Minister earlier, with welcoming centres closing and refugees stating they face an uncertain future, what specific action have you taken to address the warnings by the British Red Cross, in March, that,
'better infrastructure is needed to support Ukrainians to rebuild their lives in Wales'
and that the Welsh Government
'should work with the UK Government and the WLGA to establish schemes to help Ukrainians into private rented properties by meeting the upfront costs and acting as guarantors when needed'?
And given your statement that around 1,700 supersponsor arrivals have moved on to longer term accommodation, how many have not, and what is happening to them?
The BBC reported today that villagers in Northop Hall, Flintshire, will fight plans to house 400 single male asylum seekers in the former Northop Hall country house hotel, which is at pre-application consultation at stage. They state that it was the wrong plan in the wrong place. The chair of Northop Hall community council stated:
‘400 single males will increase the total population of the village by 25 per cent. I can't believe there will not be a drain on community facilities which are already over extended.’
With only three bus services in the village each day, people would have nowhere to go. And another resident stated:
‘They could be from the local town, they could be from Mold, it doesn't matter.’
She was concerned about the impact on the mental health of hundreds of men living in close proximity with each other, unable to work and in an area where, quote, ‘there’s nothing here’.
When my colleague Sam Rowlands and I wrote to the Home Office about this, the reply from the Minister of State for Immigration, Robert Jenrick, included that the Home Office instructs accommodation providers to ensure that all sites that are used to accommodate destitute asylum seekers must have appropriate planning in place before mobilisation; that the asylum accommodation and support services contract provider would also consider the location of the site in terms of access to local services, and if appropriate seek to implement a transport solution. And finally, in relation to the provision for healthcare, that, for those at the proposed site, the Home Office will continue to discuss how best to support the Welsh Government on their commitment within the nation of sanctuary plan to ensure that asylum seekers can access health services throughout the asylum process.
What assessment have you made of the likely number of Sudanese refugees expected to arrive in Wales? And finally, what consideration have you given to the document recently published by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales entitled 'Love the Stranger', which provides a perspective on creating a nation of sanctuary in Wales and worldwide?
Thank you, Mark Isherwood. I'd like to start by thanking you for your support for the nation of sanctuary, and I recall that support that you gave when I launched the plan back in 2019. What's critical, of course, is the implementation of a nation of sanctuary, which of course crosses all of the policy areas and responsibilities of this Welsh Government—but very much in partnership with our local authorities, the NHS, and the third sector.
It is important that we move forward in terms of not just welcoming our Ukrainian guests to Wales—and, indeed, in terms of the numbers that I have already given today—that we welcome them into our initial accommodation welcome centres, but that we then work with them, on a team Wales basis, with our local authorities, particularly, and our third sector, to ensure that they can move on into longer term accommodation. Some of that will be transitional capital accommodation, which, of course, is the modular accommodation that is now being developed across Wales, with local authorities applying for that funding—that £76 million that the First Minister mentioned earlier on. But also, it is about recognising that many will be wanting to return to Ukraine, but at this point in time, with Putin’s invasion and the ongoing scourge of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, we know that we have to support our Ukrainian guests for as long as they want and need to be with us. Some, of course, will remain in Wales, and they are also playing their part in terms of education and access to education—all of our local services—but are also working and making a huge contribution.
I meet regularly with not only the leaders of local authorities, but also the third sector—with the British Red Cross, the Welsh Refugee Council and Housing Justice Wales. We are funding them to help us, with the £40 million that has been made available in this year’s budget. Of that, £2 million is being put into longer term accommodation. You know that we are also awaiting the outcome of the £150 million transitional allocation that has been made to the UK. We need to have our proportion here from the UK Government, and I hope that you will make representations, Mark Isherwood, to the UK Government in support of the Welsh Government to make sure that we get that funding that is due to us.
Also, I know that you will recognise that, actually, local authorities are in a very difficult situation, as the UK Government has reduced the tariff for those who arrive in this financial year. That’s a very short-sighted decision. You know that the Welsh Government has actually increased the ‘thank you’ payment for hosts to £500. Unfortunately, we know that that has not been followed through by the UK Government.
We are doing everything that we can to support our Ukrainian guests to move on into that longer term accommodation. But you are making representations today in terms of the situation with the Northop Hall proposal. You know, Mark, that matters relating to asylum and immigration remain the responsibility of the UK Government. We are not responsible, as the Welsh Government, for the procurement and provision of accommodation for those who are dispersed to Wales. This includes hotel and contingency accommodation.
Thank you for the statement, Minister. It is tragic to note that Europe Day, which is meant to celebrate peace and unity, is a day when we are continuing to have to discuss what oppression and war create—the destruction and the pain in people's lives who have to flee from violence and persecution on the continent of Europe and beyond. There is a great deal of need for support for these people from Ukraine and other nations—safe pathways, purpose-built accommodation, sisterhood, brotherhood, not rhetoric from politicians that raises ill-feeling and division. Plaid Cymru puts on record its condemnation of the recent allegations with regard to the Conservatives here, and in Westminster, about asylum seekers and refugees, and the way that their human rights are being impacted by legislation. And we agree with you, Minister, that the Senedd should not consent to the Illegal Migration Bill, this merciless Bill that they want to see being implemented.
Without having the powers to ensure that devolved to Wales, do you agree, Minister, that our aspiration to be a nation of sanctuary won't be one that can be achieved fully? The support for local authorities to ensure that these vulnerable people don't find themselves homeless, emanating from Westminster, continues to be unclear and insufficient. And the well-being of the hundreds of refugees from Afghanistan that you mentioned, who face uncertainty and a very rapid change in their conditions as a result of Westminster's plans to close these hotels, is a cause of great concern.
But placing hundreds of people in a hotel, as in the proposed scheme in Flintshire, without considering their needs or their dignity, isn't acceptable either. The scheme, as you mentioned, according to the Refugee Council for Wales, isn't appropriate in this case, and poses a danger to the health and mental well-being of people, as well as barriers for people being able to rebuild their lives and be part of a community again. What is the Welsh Government's view on this plan? The Westminster Government has powers over these plans, but, as you've mentioned, you have a duty of care in terms of the welfare of the people who come to live in Wales. Could you outline how you will fulfil that duty? Has the Government urged for full engagement, and appropriate engagement, with the refugees and asylum seekers, and with local authorities that are part of this plan? You mentioned that you are committed as a Government to finding solutions to the challenges that the housing market pose. But can you provide additional details of what is being considered in that regard?
To turn to the English for Speakers of other Languages scheme, does this scheme incorporate the bilingualism of Wales? Is the Welsh Government going to ensure that learning Welsh is part of this scheme? And will any funding that comes with this scheme from the Westminster Government support the work of the centre for learning Welsh, which provides some free opportunities to learn Welsh to refugees and asylum seekers?
Diolch yn fawr, Sioned Williams. It is really important that we share so much in terms of our aspirations, our goals, our principles, in terms of what it means to be a nation of sanctuary. I think that has come over so strongly from your contribution and from your questions and comments today. I think it's very important to focus on Europe Day today, because, as you say, this is about acknowledging the human rights, our peace and unity, that we have been so part of and we have tried to retain that in terms of exiting the European Union. But what we have tried to do, I think, particularly with our EU settlement scheme, is to welcome, is to put that funding in to welcome those EU citizens to have that settled status. And just to give the Senedd the latest figures, the most recent statistics show that 111,960 applications have been made by EU citizens resident in Wales. Of those, 61,270 have got settled status, and 38,940 have received pre-settled status, and approximately 2,270 are still awaiting a decision. It is really important that we recognise their contribution. They are our citizens, the citizens of Wales, the citizens of Europe, which we feel very much part of. So, thank you for the nation of sanctuary.
We will do everything that we can to address and take forward our responsibilities, even though immigration isn't devolved. So, over many years, Welsh local authorities provided critical support to the Home Office, as we have, on a range of asylum contingency accommodation, placements for young people, stepping up at short notice, and UK Government should recognise its dependency and its relationship with Wales as a devolved Government and local authorities to deliver and acknowledge that longstanding support. And we do support well-managed asylum dispersal into good quality accommodation, but also we have to make sure that that is appropriate accommodation. We also support migrant integration from day one of arrival in Wales. What we've seen from the asylum system over the last few years is a chaotic, unpredictable system that causes a lot of waste effort and resource. It's emboldened the far right, and I think that is the worst aspect. It has spread misinformation, it has put fear into people's lives and communities when we are trying to meet all housing need as part of a caring and compassionate Wales. So, I'm very grateful for the support you give to that approach.
As far as the ESOL scheme that we're developing with the UK Government, I will take this back in terms of issues around the procurement of that in terms of a bilingual approach and opportunities that we will have for that. And also we're just understanding how we can support those who are affected by the conflict in Sudan and for those Sudanese refugees and those who are living here in Wales. I will certainly be reporting back to the Senedd on those developments.
I welcome this statement today, Minister; thank you very much for it. Newport, of course, has been a city that's seen significant immigration and dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers. Recently, the city council took forward a motion stating its ambitions to be a city of sanctuary and talking about the very positive difference that this multicultural reality in Newport has brought to the area, making it more interesting, diverse and tolerant, as the motion read.
As part of this, in Newport, Maindee Primary School has been named as Newport's first school of sanctuary. They have over 40 languages in the school, Minister. It's received a great deal of well-deserved recognition in terms of how inclusive it is for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as the general multicultural catchment. They have a system where children translate messages to parents, they have a young interpreters buddy system to welcome new pupils in their home language, demonstrate school routines and create multilingual resources. The headteacher, Minister, Joanne Cueto, has said—
'We are delighted to be recognised as a School of Sanctuary,'
and
'committed to ensuring that everyone is welcome'.
Our whole school attitude
'of love, care and belonging is central to our work.'
Minister, would you recognise those examples as what we want to see right across Wales in terms of making Wales's status as a nation of sanctuary a reality in our communities?
Diolch yn fawr, John Griffiths. Perhaps I could come and visit Maindee Primary School. I look forward to an invitation. Congratulations to Newport for also moving a motion to become a city of sanctuary. That joins 13 other counties, cities, villages, town councils, county councils across Wales who are also seeking city or county of sanctuary status, including, I'm glad to say, my own county of the Vale of Glamorgan. But I think it's actually what you do once you've made that commitment, and the schools, the education—what we're doing and what Maindee is doing is such a prime example of what a school of sanctuary could mean. That will have a huge impact on those children growing up in that school, and we've seen that in the community, in work, so Wales can be the inclusive country that, of course, the headteacher was so delighted to recognise.
I also welcome the statement that you've made today, and I support fully your approach. I was also very honoured to be at the dinner run by the Welsh Refugee Council and met many people there from many countries, and it was a wonderful occasion. I guess, just on that note, I'd like to reach out to the Conservatives, to Mark Isherwood, just to say: is there on opportunity for you to meet people who've come over on those boats? Because these are people, really, who have a story to tell. They are from countries that are still at war, so your Government's approach, certainly in London, which absolutely vilifies them and condemns them as people who are sponging off the state, who are to be placed in terrible accommodation—we've heard of barges, we've heard of—[Interruption.]
Yes, thank you, John. I was going to remind all Members that this is a question to the Minister on her statement, and she may wish to give context to that question, but it's time to come to the question now.
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. But I think it's important that I make these points as well, which I know others have as well. We're hearing of barges, we're hearing of terrible places for our refugees to go, and I've met with refugees in Mid and West Wales, and that is a real, clear concern that they have. They are concerned about the accommodation moving ahead for them, and I wondered if you could give us a reassurance that nothing of that sort will be seen here in Wales, where, actually, we're seeing that accommodation being developed in the UK, and, actually, also what long-term plans the Welsh Government has to support our refugees here in Wales. We know that, for example, if the war in Ukraine finishes tomorrow, those people will not be able to go back for a couple of years, so it's really important we have a long-term view, and I'd like to hear reassurance that we won't be entertaining the sort of accommodation that is being proposed in England. Diolch.
Diolch yn fawr, Jane Dodds. Well, I have every sympathy with what you have said in your opening remarks. I feel, and as has been said, that it is the UK Government that is at odds with the people and the populations that we serve in terms of the commitment and compassion that we see for our nation of sanctuary here in Wales, and the integration in the cities and towns and villages who are also signing up to being schools and cities of sanctuary, and showing what that means in terms of richness of culture, diversity, as we saw at the Welsh refugee awards ceremony.
And it must be the UK Government that must relook at its asylum system, and it must, as I've said, clear and address the backlog of cases immediately, and also recognise that this is completely at odds with the refugee convention, to which the UK Government is a signatory. And there are so many other points that we could make, but I will come back to your question: we are demonstrating, I think, a team Wales approach with our local authorities, with our third sector, how we can welcome our Ukrainian refugees, our Afghan refugees, and also all of those who are coming to live with us via the Home Office dispersal scheme. We welcome them and we will do everything that we can to support them.
Just in terms of the Afghan resettlement earlier on, I just have to say, and put on the record, Wales has now welcomed approximately 800 people from Afghanistan and work continues to increase this further. And we know, actually, and I'm very pleased that there is support, particularly in relation to the Afghans, those who worked with our armed forces, the Afghan relocation and assistance policy, the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and also all the work that was done with the Syrian resettlement as well.
But on our Ukrainian refugees, can I just again please call on the Welsh Conservatives to call on the UK Government to uplift those housing allowances? We've called for this day after day, and actually, I got some sympathy from some of the UK Government Ministers—I won't mention them—who said, 'Yes, well, we would like that as well, Jane.' So, you know, there is some common cause here across this Chamber, but let's also recognise what we can achieve together, and what Wales will be, and is, aiming to be, as a nation of sanctuary.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. First, I want to put on record my disgust at the misuse and abuse of the basic income pilot that has been put together for care leavers, and this is people who are leaving care, who need the sanctuary and compassion and the response, because there is no other support mechanism available to them, in some cases. So, I think the Tories need to look at themselves, look in the mirror, and see how badly they've done.
But I support—and thank you for your statement today—and echo everything that's been said so far. It has to be said that the Tory Government has made a complete mess of the immigration system. The Illegal Migration Bill is unworkable. It's not going to clear the backlog of 160,000 asylum cases and the thousands of people who can't claim asylum and can't be returned. Where are those people going to go? Are they going to end up in the asylum system, or indefinitely be detained or left stranded in a hotel? There are no answers, and the British public have lost patience, and the local election results have demonstrated that quite clearly. We are a warm and generous people—
I will, thank you. And we're ready to help those people in need, and thankfully, we have a Government here that supports that view.
But I would like to ask you for an update, Minister. You did update in February on the Ukraine humanitarian response, and you talked about the appeals that you'd made as Welsh and Scottish Ministers to raise the local housing allowance, and what proportion of the £150 million fund for Ukraine housing support will come to Wales. Are you able to give any updates now, because this is a crucial element when we talk about moving people forward, in terms of them being able to afford the rents of the places they might be moving into?
Thank you very much, Joyce Watson. Thank you for your support for the basic income pilot for all those young people who are benefiting—our young people in Wales. They're all our young people. And also, thank you for acknowledging again, as I have, the need for our nation of sanctuary to work to support all of those refugees who come, sanctuary seekers who come here to Wales. We've developed accommodation options for our sanctuary seekers and refugees. We've done that extensively with the Ukraine supersponsor route, and we've engaged all our partners.
It's interesting also to put on record that we've opened and managed over 40 temporary accommodation sites over the last year in relation to the Ukraine scheme, and that was done with the co-operation and collaboration of all of those engaged—we earlier on acknowledged the role that the Counsel General, Mick Antoniw, has played in that—and investing in community cohesion and engaging with the third sector. But we cannot move—.
We need to have support from the UK Government, and I do also call upon the Welsh Conservatives to join with us to call for those extended housing allowances. The Minister for Climate Change has called for them, because it is very difficult to access the private rented sector. We have put money in to help, and indeed the £40 million and the money that we're going to get, when we get it, from the £150 million to help with the bonds, the guarantors, in terms of access to the private rented sector, but also the modular housing and the £76 million that will be dispersed around Wales will provide that accommodation, because we are prepared to stand up and take our responsibilities, but the UK Government is failing on every level to take their responsibilities.
And also, again we have to recognise that they are instilling this fear and the dog-whistle politics and that endless comment on 'small boats', which I find abhorrent. And actually, I think that really stood out in terms of what happened on Thursday, when actually Labour took control of Dover council.
Item 5 is next, and it's a statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Services: an update on the delivery plan for 'Age friendly Wales: our strategy for an ageing society'. I call on the Deputy Minister, Julie Morgan.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Today I am publishing the annual progress update and a statistical analysis detailing how we are achieving the ambition set out in the strategy for an ageing society. Our vision is to create an age-friendly Wales where everyone looks forward to growing older and age is celebrated. The national census has confirmed that people are living longer, and that Wales is an ageing society. It is therefore vital that we plan for the future we all want, today.
The census and other population projections suggest that we will see a very sizeable increase in those over 80 in the next few decades and we must, in a co-productive way, design and build the services that will help promote active, happy and purposeful ageing. By working collaboratively with our colleagues across Government, much has been achieved since the strategy for an ageing society was published in October 2021. This first annual update report sets out progress realised against the many cross-portfolio actions contained in the strategy's delivery plan.
In April 2020, I announced funding of £1.1 million to local authorities across Wales to support their work to become age friendly. Building on this, I am pleased that this funding is continuing in 2023-24, and I want to ensure that older people remain involved in the design and planning of their local services.
The funding is also intended to help local authorities to work towards membership of the World Health Organization's global network of age-friendly cities and communities. Cardiff was the first local authority in Wales to join the network in March 2022. Flintshire and Anglesey have now also submitted their applications, with many others due to apply over the next two years as we gain momentum.
Local authority age-friendly officers are working with partners and older people in their communities, ensuring that engagement is being facilitated and that every individual is able to have their voice heard. Our intention is to ensure that the voices of harder-to-reach individuals who do not engage in more formal structures are also acknowledged.
Each local authority also has a local councillor who has volunteered as their local age-friendly champion, ensuring that local issues affecting older people can be heard in the council chamber. Creating an age-friendly Wales is also a strategic priority for the Older People's Commissioner for Wales, and we continue to work very closely together to achieve this ambition. Through this work, we are supporting older people, communities and service providers to collectively shape how the places they live can become more age friendly.
Teams from across Welsh Government are also working with members of my ministerial advisory forum on ageing, Age Cymru and the national older people's organisations, to: tackle the cost-of-living crisis; increase the take-up of pension credit; improve our transport links; and adapt our homes. I believe that we are moving together, in the right direction, to address some of the key issues in our ageing society.
Also, I want to reframe the way people in Wales think and feel about ageing. Older people are not a problem to be solved; they are taxpayers, volunteers, care givers, and provide a vital contribution to life as we all know it today. Through our work to create age-friendly cities and communities, I am encouraging everyone to remain engaged in their local communities and to work with us to challenge the ageist stereotypes that frame older people as a drain on society.
The challenges and the opportunities of an ageing society will of course be with us for many years, and we as a country are not alone in this regard. Other societies face similar demographic trends, and there's much we can share with and learn from our neighbours in the UK, Europe and beyond in the way that older people can play their full part as citizens.
We all—young, middle aged, older citizens—to varying degrees, live in an inter-dependent social world, relying on family, friends, community and our networks of interest to make our lives meaningful. Supporting and promoting that notion of caring inter-dependency across the generations must be our ambition. Valued reciprocity and mutual regard between the generations must be our core underpinning value, around which I am sure we can all gather and jointly advance the cause of positive ageing.
So, I commend the report to the Senedd, and very much hope I can count on your continued support, your ideas and advice, and of course constructive criticism, in delivering on the many elements of our strategy for an ageing society in Wales. Diolch.
Could I thank you for bringing forward today's statement on the Welsh Government's strategy for an ageing society, the annual progress update this afternoon? And could I firstly begin by outlining that, when you brought forward your strategy for an ageing society back in October 2021, on this side of the benches, you had our support and still do? We fully share your vision to create an age-friendly Wales where everyone looks forward to growing older.
As you state in your statement, Deputy Minister, older people are not a problem to be solved; they are taxpayers, volunteers, care givers, and the list to that is endless. Older people have played a vital role in society as we know it, and we still see the important contribution they make to life today. However, regretfully, Deputy Minister, older people are at the forefront of many pressing issues that we currently see today. I'd like to focus my sets of questions on this matter this afternoon.
So, firstly, Deputy Minister, it's welcome that you are working with local authorities across Wales to support their work to become more age friendly. Our local authorities have a crucial role in making this happen. And in your statement, Deputy Minister, you outlined that Cardiff Council is currently the only council to have joined the World Health Organization's global network of age-friendly cities and communities, with Flintshire and Anglesey councils having submitted to join. In light of this, Minister, what work are you carrying out with our local authorities to encourage them to join? And when do you anticipate that we'll see more councils submitting applications?
Secondly, it's welcoming that the Welsh Government's intention is to ensure that the voices of older people are reached. Nevertheless, and regretfully, we often see that it's older people who are more vulnerable to scams and age discrimination. In light of this, Minister, and something that my colleague Altaf Hussain has raised with you, what further consideration have you given to running further campaigns against elder abuse, age discrimination and scams, to help inform and arm our older population?
Thirdly, a key role in ensuring we make this strategy a success is the role of the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales and his team. Therefore, Minister, what work are you carrying out with the older people's commissioner to ensure that this strategy is a success, along with seeing more local age-friendly champions?
Finally, at the end of your statement, you state that you welcome the Senedd's continued support, ideas and advice, and, of course, constructive criticism in delivering the strategy for an ageing society in Wales. As you'll be fully aware, on this side of the benches, we've consistently called for the rights of older people to be enshrined into law. In light of your statement and the clear need for securing the rights of older people, have you given any further consideration to this matter? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Gareth Davies, for that contribution, and once again, thank you very much for your support. I'm very pleased that we can agree to work together on these policies. I absolutely agree with the points that you've made about older people not being a problem, and that they play a vital role and make such an important contribution.
Local authorities across Wales are absolutely crucial to delivering these policies, and as you said, Cardiff Council is the only council that has totally completed the process of becoming part of the organisation. I did go to the launch of Cardiff Council finally joining the organisation with the older people's commissioner, who was beamed in because she was away somewhere else, and it was really quite inspiring to meet the people there, particularly the older people who had come themselves. I think this is a huge opportunity. It's not easy to become part of the network, because each council has to show that it is contributing to the eight domains that are there and have to give examples of what they're actively doing to show that they're taking account in their transport policies of older people, that they're listening to older people. So, it's not an easy thing to do.
Two other councils, as you say, Flintshire and Anglesey, have applied and their applications have been successful, and we really do expect a lot more to join. I've worked very closely with the Older People's Commissioner for Wales with this, because it was her original idea about how we could reach everybody in Wales, every local authority. We very recently did an event together in the national botanic garden in Carmarthenshire, and I meet her regularly to discuss this, but we have worked on this together in order to try to reach throughout Wales and encourage more age-friendly communities, towns and cities.
On the issue of how I'm encouraging and working with the local authorities, each local authority has got someone dedicated who is working as the lead in the local authority, and we also have a councillor who is a champion. We're setting up networks across Wales for people to meet together and to share good practice, which I'm very interested in, and I'm actually going to attend their meeting—I think it is in June—when they all come together and discuss these issues.
So, I think that we are making progress, and I think we are making Wales a more age-friendly country. We don't have any plans at the moment for the rights of older people to be enshrined into law, but we have done campaigns on the rights of older people, which I'm sure the Member is aware of, and my ministerial advisory group for ageing people has pioneered some really quite radical approaches in what the rights of older people are. So, thank you for your support.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on this matter today. The Welsh Government's strategy for an ageing society rightly emphasises the particular demographic trajectory of Wales, where we have the oldest median age of all UK nations. This requires a tailored approach to supporting and valuing our older citizens.
I'd like to focus on a particular aspect of the strategy today, namely the measures to support unpaid carers. Based on the most recent census data, there are approximately 310,000 unpaid carers in Wales, which represents over 10 per cent of the entire population. This is a higher proportion compared to England. Due to the real-terms squeeze to social care funding over the past decade, the value of unpaid care has never been more prominent in our society. Recent research by Carers UK and the University of Sheffield shows that unpaid carers in Wales and England contribute £445 million to the economy every day. This equates to a staggering £162 billion per year. This represents a 29 per cent increase in the value of unpaid care compared to 2011. This should be contextualised against the decrease in the total number of carers in the sector over the same period, which means that unpaid carers are having to work longer hours than ever before. It's no exaggeration, therefore, to say that unpaid carers are a vital pillar of the health and social care sector, and the reliance on them has never been greater.
It's also worth noting that unpaid carers in Wales are statistically more likely to be female, living in more deprived areas and in older age groups. Furthermore, older age groups are providing the highest hours of unpaid care in Wales, with women aged between 75 and 79 and men between 85 and 89 years providing the highest percentage of 50 or more hours of unpaid care compared with other age groups. Whilst a strategy for an ageing society has a commendable ambition of creating a society where everyone can look forward to growing old in comfort and security, the reality is that, at present, a very high number of our older citizens are having to devote long hours to care for their loved ones. This is especially concerning given the mental and physical toll that comes with caring responsibilities.
A recent Public Health Wales study concluded that carers experience significantly higher rates of long-term health conditions compared to people without caring responsibilities. It also notes that carers faced disproportionate barriers to undertaking physical activity on a regular basis. As such, I'd like to pick up on some of the key aims of the Welsh Government's 2021 delivery plan for unpaid carers. How is the plan accounting for the fact that the highest burden for providing unpaid care is inevitably falling on age groups who are highly likely to need care themselves? Could you also explain what measures are being undertaken by the Welsh Government to promote the mental and physical well-being of unpaid carers? In particular, I'd be interested to learn whether you could update the Senedd on the uptake of the national short breaks scheme for carers. And finally, has the Welsh Government engaged with local authorities to provide further incentives for unpaid carers to help improve their mental and physical well-being? Diolch yn fawr.
Diolch very much for that contribution and for your general support for the strategy. I'm very pleased that you have highlighted the role of unpaid carers and the fact that many unpaid carers are older themselves and are greatly in need of support. Of course, during the pandemic, we were so aware of this. And he's absolutely right in the points that he makes about the huge contribution to the economy and how they're the glue that's holding everything together. And there are so many of them, as he said. And, of course, the important thing to say is that, of course, they are doing this because they love the people they're caring for. All the unpaid carers I've met—and I meet them very frequently—are never complaining about what they're doing; they want to do it and it's up to us to give them as much support as we can to do it. As you said, they are of vital pillar of society and there are certainly more women than men, so it is an issue that is very important for women, and they also spend long hours caring.
We have had a series of initiatives to try to tackle the issues that unpaid carers face. We've tried to help financially, as I think you know. Last year, we gave £500 to all those in receipt of carers allowance in order to try to help them with the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. And we've also got a fund of £4.5 million, which is there, available for anybody who cares to apply, and we've had thousands of people apply to that fund. But the £9 million that you refer to in terms of the short breaks scheme, which is being run by the voluntary sector, we want that scheme to answer directly to the needs of those people who are caring, so there’s no fixed model—it’s what they want. I think you talked about people’s mental and physical needs, and those are the sort of things that we can actually fulfil through the short break scheme, because we can arrange for support for unpaid carers to be able to take part in physical activities, which are always a big boost, I think, to your mental health, and we have worked closely with the local authorities in order for the recognition to be there for the work that unpaid carers are doing.
And of course, we have the regional integration fund, which is made up of the local authorities and the health bodies and other important organisations, where there is a particular emphasis on carers and a certain percentage of that money has to be spent on unpaid carers. There is every year £1 million going to the health boards to help when unpaid carers are receiving the person they care for home from the hospital, because I’ve had a lot of people saying that they felt that the communication with that was not always as good as it could be. So, this £1 million per year is specifically for the health boards to do that.
I very much welcome the statement by the Deputy Minister for Social Services. We have a world that is ageing—but not everywhere. In the industrial countries of Europe, North America and Asia we have a rapidly expanding population of over 80 and 90-year-olds. In Niger, the median age is 15. In another 11 African countries it’s under 18.
I agree with the Minister that much has been achieved since the strategy for an ageing society was published in October 2021. Creating an age-friendly Wales is also a strategic priority for the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, and I welcome the Minister working with the commissioner to achieve this ambition. Through the work, older people’s communities and service providers are collectively shaping how the place they live can become more age friendly. I welcome the support of local authorities and the appointment of older people champions.
Can I just raise loneliness? It’s a big problem for very many older people, and this was made worse by COVID. What is the Welsh Government doing to increase the opportunities for older people to overcome their loneliness? For some people, their only contact is television, radio or a pet—that’s the only thing they have contact with. I have been told about people not speaking face to face with somebody for days. This is a serious problem. It affects mental health, but it also affects physical health.
I thank Mike Hedges for those very important points. I think it’s very interesting what he said at the beginning of his contribution about the huge difference in countries in terms of the ages—that there are some African countries in particular that are so young, and yet the European countries and our country have so many people now in their eighties and nineties. What we want to do, I think, is to absolutely ensure that—. Although people are living so much longer, their healthy lifespan is much shorter, and many people have years of living with less good health. That’s what we really want to tackle, I think, to make sure that people’s healthy lifespan, which is where their well-being is paramount—. We want to make that period as long as we possibly can.
He did raise the issue about loneliness, and I think loneliness, as he said, has a direct contribution to mental health and physical problems. And it’s interesting—if you do look throughout the map of Wales, you see that there is quite a big variation in life expectancy, which is, I think, really linked to that point that he’s making, because I think Gwynedd has got the highest life expectancy and Torfaen the lowest. I think there’s about a 13 per cent gap. That, I think, is to do with the mental and physical problems that are being endured.
In terms of trying to encourage people to come out, people who are lonely, there has been a significant drop in the number of people who go out for activities, and we have got those statistics in the analysis that we’ve made. This is a great matter of concern and we are working particularly with the voluntary sector to try to encourage people to come out. I think what's also very interesting is the fact that the bus pass was a boon to older people, but now they are not fully taking up the bus pass. So, again, that is a great deal of concern. But we do see the role of the lead officers in the local authorities and the champions in the local authorities to make sure that all of the facilities that they have in the local authorities are being used to try to encourage people to get out and about again. And, of course, the older people's commissioner—we are working hand in glove with her.
Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, one thing that I think was missing from the statement was actually an update on the work that you are doing with the Deputy Minister for sport around keeping older people a lot more active. We are well aware that, if older people keep more active, it lets them live healthier lifestyles, keeps them out of hospital and actually helps recovery for those people as well, if they do have to go into hospital for any type of treatment. So, any update that you can give around any schemes or initiatives that the Welsh Government is doing to help older people keep active, I would be very grateful to know what they are doing. Thank you.
Thank you very much, James Evans, for that important point. Yes, we are specifically thinking of the £9 million that we are putting in for the short breaks. We are talking about short breaks, but that can be to take part in a sport, or other people may want to go to art classes. I visited an art class where people were painting, and that was funded by one of our strategies. So, we do see short breaks as being something that can actually be used to get active. And you are absolutely right that the more active you can be, the less likely it is that you are going to go into hospital, and the less likely it is that you are going to have complications. So, on the health side of it, we are very keen to promote and use more reablement officers to keep older people active. Obviously, if they do have to go in for an operation, if they are as active and as strong as they possibly can be, that means that there is a much better chance for them to have successful outcomes. So, yes, I think that that's very important, and that is part of this short breaks issue.
Item 6 is the motion to vary the order of consideration of Stage 3 amendments to the Agriculture (Wales) Bill. I call on the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd to move the motion—Lesley Griffiths.
Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd
Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the motion. As Members will be aware, the usual practice followed is to dispose of amendments to Bills in the order in which the sections and schedules to which they relate arise in the Bill. So, this could mean, in this case, that amendments debated as part of an earlier group might not be disposed of until later in proceedings.
At the Stage 2 proceedings for the Agriculture (Wales) Bill, the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee took the decision to vary the order of consideration, and the order proposed by this motion follows the approach taken at Stage 2. I ask Members to support the motion.
We will move on. In accordance with Standing Order 12.24, unless a Member objects, the two motions under 7 and 8—namely the general principles and financial resolution of the Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill—will be grouped for debate but with separate votes. I see that there are no objections.
7. & 8. The general principles of the Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill and the financial resolution in respect of the Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill
To propose that the Senedd in accordance with Standing Order 26.11:
Agrees to the general principles of the Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill.
Motion NDM8254 Lesley Griffiths
To propose that the Senedd, for the purposes of any provisions resulting from the Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill, agrees to any increase in expenditure of a kind referred to in Standing Order 26.69, arising in consequence of the Bill.
Thank you, Llywydd. I'm pleased to open this debate on the general principles of the Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill, and to move the motion on the financial determination. I would like to start by thanking the Senedd committees, the Members and their staff for their careful work in scrutinising the Bill to date. Before I respond to the committee recommendations, I would like to summarise the reasons for introducing this Bill to the Senedd.
This Bill is partly in response to proposed changes to public procurement in the United Kingdom being brought about by the UK Government. On leaving the EU, the UK Government decided that it wanted to use the presumed new freedoms relating to procurement to bring forward a UK procurement Bill for the procurement of goods and services. In a separate move, the UK Government introduced plans to take forward a new approach for the procurement of health services in England, known as the provider selection regime. I want to underline here that the Bill relates almost entirely to health services and not to health goods.
We obviously live shoulder to shoulder with the English NHS, so to have procurement platforms that are different between England and Wales creates potential implications for health service procurement for us. So, the aim of this Bill is to ensure that health service procurement in Wales is not disadvantaged as a result of introducing a provider selection regime in England, enabling the Welsh Ministers to create a new regime for NHS health service procurement and allowing us the opportunity—should we wish—to align ourselves to the provider selection regime in England, or to go our own way if we're uncomfortable with the direction of travel in England. The procurement Bill has not yet finished its passage through the Commons, and the regulations relating to the provider selection regime have not yet been issued. So, our working assumption is that we would like to align our health procurement regime with that of England, unless and until we find that we are uncomfortable with what they've set out in their regulations. What we're keen to do, however, is to ensure that the minimum possible time gap exists between the introduction of the English regulations and ours, so as to provide some assurance to those organisations procuring and providing services.
Turning now to the recommendations made by the Health and Social Care Committee, I'm pleased that, in their first recommendation, the committee has recognised the need for this Bill and has recommended that the Senedd agrees the general principles of the Bill here today.
The first part of recommendation 2 asks for assurance relating to transparency in the new procurement regime. I want to ensure Members that the new regime will operate in line with the core principles of transparency, as well as fairness, compliance and managing conflicts of interest. These principles are set out on the face of the Bill and the regulations that will be developed after this Bill is approved will provide the detail of those provisions. This will detail how relevant authorities are to act according to these important principles, including transparency, and this will be supported by guidance that the Welsh Ministers will be obliged to make about compliance with the regulations.
Recommendation 3 deals with the scope of what may be included within the regulations, under what would be the new paragraph 10A(1)(b) of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006, and therefore, what may be covered by the procurement regime, in particular, where goods or other services may be procured alongside a clinical healthcare service. There will be some examples where it's almost impossible to provide a service without also providing a good. The provision of a blood transfusion service might be an example of that, where an organisation could be contracted to offer a service, but they would need vials and test tubes to transport and hold the blood. This is called mixed procurement. I understand the committee's concerns that mixed procurement under the proposed regime will need to be clearly defined, and having considered the options, we feel the best place is within the regulations, rather than on the face of the Bill. This is the same approach being taken by the Department of Health and Social Care for their provider selection regime. I'm aware that DHSC's regime will only allow in-scope healthcare services to be mixed with goods or other services that would normally be procured outside of the provider selection regime, when these cannot reasonably be supplied under a separate contract, and where the healthcare service element is the higher value within the contract. Now, because of our desire to maintain the option to align our regime with England, we do not accept this recommendation.
Recommendation 4 relates to considering similar reforms for the procurement of social care services. I mentioned during committee sessions that the position in terms of procurement for social care is complex, and DHSC have not included social care in their provider selection regime for several reasons. Therefore, we're not considering widening the scope to include social care right now, but it is something we're happy to keep open for a future review as requested, and therefore we accept this recommendation.
Recommendation 9 deals with ensuring that people with protected characteristics are engaged and consulted during the development of the regulations. My officials are going to explore this further; they're going to consider the role of Llais and engage with groups and representative organisations as part of the consultation on the operational principles for the new regime. So, we're happy to accept recommendation 9 from the HSC committee.
Recommendation 5 from the HSC committee and recommendation 4 from the LJC committee recommend slightly different things on the same matter: consultation in respect of the regulations. Now, it's good practice to consult, and this is something I've already committed to, but I do understand the points made by Members. So, whilst I can't fully accept the suggested wording in both recommendations, I am happy to accept in principle to bring forward an amendment at stage 2 that places consultation on the face of the Bill in respect of the regulations. So, I can confirm that we accept in principle recommendation 5 from the Health and Social Care Committee and recommendation 4 from the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee.
I'll now respond to the consultation element of the Health and Social Care Committee's recommendation 2. As I mentioned a bit earlier, this differs from the other recommendations about consultation, in that it's about relevant authorities consulting with patients and service users when making procurement decisions. Considering patients and service users is really important, but we also need to consider how we balance this with the practicalities of delivering contracts, particularly when one of the aims of these changes is to streamline the procurement system for certain types of contracts. As a whole, therefore, we accept in principle recommendation 2 from the Health and Social Care Committee.
Keeping with the theme of consultation, recommendation 5 of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee relates to consultation, but in respect of the statutory guidance that will underpin the regulations. Now, I've already committed to undertaking consultation on the operational principles that will inform the development of the regulations and guidance to be made under the Bill, and I've also just committed to bringing forward an amendment relating to consultation in respect of the regulations. Guidance will be developed with relevant authorities, and this, together with the need to remain agile and responsive and the need to allow the guidance to be updated to reflect best practice and user feedback at the most appropriate time, I'm afraid means that we don't feel that placing a consultation requirement in respect of the guidance on the face of the Bill is necessary, so we can't accept this recommendation.
I now want to move on to the other recommendations made by the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee. Recommendation 1 suggests an amendment to the heading of the new clause 116A of the UK Procurement Bill, which is inserted under section 2 of this Bill, to make it clear that disapplying would also be applicable to local authorities. Now, I understand the rationale behind this recommendation, but, in drawing up the wording, we were careful to ensure that we reflected the approach of the UK Government, making it clear that the power was exactly the same as the power for the UK Government in the previous clause. Changing the wording could cause confusion and suggest that the disapplication would apply to all services procured by local authorities. The Bill also makes it clear that local authorities are included, as they are named in the definition of a relevant authority under section 10A, as is noted under section 3 of the Bill. For these reasons, we cannot accept this recommendation.
Recommendations 2 and 3 relate to procedure for making regulations under the new section 10A. I've already made a number of commitments here today in terms of consultation and engagement. Regulations and guidance will be developed with the health service and relevant authorities and will be steered by the consultation on the operational principles, so I don't feel that we need additional processes on top of those commitments and the usual affirmative procedure.
Likewise, the reason for the pace of this Bill is to comply as much as possible with the timetable for introducing the provider selection regime, the PSR, in England. This will reduce the risk of having different procurement regimes in England and in Wales in terms of health. The new procedures would increase that risk without much benefit. We therefore do not accept these recommendations.
Finally, in relation to the recommendations made by the Finance Committee, I'm pleased to inform Members that I've written to the Chair of the Finance Committee with a response to the recommendations. I can confirm that I've accepted recommendations 2 and 4, and accepted recommendations 1 and 3 in principle.
Thank you, Presiding Officer. The backdrop to the Health and Social Care Committee's scrutiny of the health service procurement Bill has been a complex one. As the Minister's pointed out, public sector procurement in Wales will be affected by changes from the UK Government's Procurement Bill and the Welsh Government’s social partnership and public procurement Bill. In addition, there are key dependencies between those reforms, the anticipated introduction of the provider selection regime in England under the Health and Care Act 2022 and the reforms envisaged by the health service procurement Bill before us today.
The Bill that we are looking at, of course, is a framework Bill, rather than containing any substantive law itself, and it gives Welsh Ministers the power to make regulations to disapply provisions within the Procurement Bill and to introduce a new, separate, health service procurement regime in Wales.
I think the Minister's been clear that the Bill's introduction—that, while her objective is to maintain a broadly level playing field in health service procurement for the relevant authorities in Wales, she will not take decisions on how she might use the powers in the Bill until she has seen the final form of the UK Government's provider selection regime in England. While we as a committee understand the circumstances of this Bill, we as a committee do not consider it to be good legislative practice to bring forward primary legislation to delegate broad and significant powers without clarity about the purpose to which those powers will be put.
So, we do believe it would have been preferable for the Minister to have been able to provide more information about her intentions and preferences for the scope and operation of any new health service procurement regime for Wales. For example, as a committee, we are not yet assured that any new regime that will be established using these powers could not potentially be used to facilitate a greater role for the private sector in the delivery of core NHS services in Wales than we would like to see.
However, we do believe it is appropriate for decisions about the health service procurement regime for Wales to be made in Wales. On balance, therefore, we have recommended that the Senedd should agree the principles of the Bill.
The Minister talked about some of the—. It was quite difficult, because we're talking about three different committees making recommendations, so I was making notes as I could, because we haven't had a written response yet to the committee's recommendations. But the Minister did provide some further assurances today how—. In regard to our recommendation 2, we were concerned as a committee that there's openness and transparency, and we wanted some confidence in our recommendation 2 in terms of confidence for providers and patients and service users, and I think the Minister gave an acceptance to that recommendation.
Any new regime that is put in place could provide opportunities to address existing barriers, but a new regime will only be effective if it is properly communicated and implemented. Our recommendation 6 sought further information about how the Welsh Government will communicate with all the relevant stakeholders, including providers and potential providers, and our recommendation 7 asked for information about how the Welsh Government will monitor and evaluate the impact and effectiveness of any new regime. I thank the Minister for clarifying some of these matters today in her opening remarks.
During our scrutiny session, we heard strong support from stakeholders for the Welsh Government’s aim for closer integration between health and social care. We were reassured by the Minister’s indication that she intends that social care services that are connected to health services may be procured within the new health service regime as part of mixed procurement, and I note the Minister's further comments in this regard today.
I thank the Minister for accepting recommendation 4; I think the Minister accepted that today. We had heard some suggestions that reforms to social care procurement—. And in our report, we wanted some assurances there in terms of that, which were outlined in recommendation 4.
Before closing, I wanted to comment briefly on the way that this Bill was introduced. It is unfortunate that the Welsh Government wasn’t able to give the Senedd more notice that it intended to bring forward the Bill, especially as the UK Government’s consultation on proposed reforms was published in February 2022, and the Health and Care Act received Royal Assent in April 2022, and the Welsh Government consulted some stakeholders informally last summer and autumn.
Thank you, Llywydd. I welcome the opportunity to participate in and contribute to this debate on the general principles of the Welsh Government's seventh Bill during this sixth Senedd. Although this Bill is a short one, including only five sections, it gives rise to some key questions about the Welsh Government's approach to legislating in Wales.
Now, the Senedd will know that my committee has been taking a close eye on legislation that will reform procurement law in Wales, namely the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, the UK Government's Procurement Bill, and now this Bill.
Now, as the Minister has already said, the first purpose of this Bill is to allow the Welsh Ministers to disapply the UK Government's Procurement Bill's provisions in set circumstances. The Procurement Bill has still not received Royal Assent, and the Minister told us, indeed, it was 'not ideal' that the Bill before us today, unusually, amends provision that is not yet on the statute book.
The second purpose of the Bill is to amend the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006 to allow the Welsh Ministers to introduce their own procurement regime for health services in Wales through regulations, and to provide that they should also issue guidance on how to comply with those regulations. So, the Minister suggested to us that including those provisions in this Bill will provide for an accessible statute book—and we like accessible statute books on our committee—and those with an interest in the legislation will, in quotes, 'know where to go'. But the Minister will know that there are actually many thousands of outstanding amendments to legislation on the National Archives' legislation site, and so we have again questioned whether the Welsh Government's approach to legislating on procurement law in this way will indeed lead to accessible law for all.
As I've said before many times in this Chamber, my committee believes that the Welsh Government should have introduced its own legislation covering all the reform of procurement law in Wales, instead of agreeing to include extensive provisions within the UK Government's Procurement Bill and then having to do remedial work through Senedd legislation. There was a different way to do it. But—but—we are where we are, and in our report we do acknowledge the need for this Bill.
So, I'll now turn briefly to the recommendations we made in our report, and, in doing so, I'd just note that we haven't yet had a formal response to our recommendations to help inform this debate on the Bill's general principles, so I've made a note of some of the remarks that the Minister has made.
Our first recommendation calls on the Minister to seek to amend the Bill to alter a heading of a new section in the NHS Wales Act to be inserted by the Bill to clarify that the provisions of the Procurement Bill, once enacted, may be disapplied in respect of health services procurement undertaken by NHS organisations and local authorities in Wales. To us, the heading as drafted, which only refers to procurement by NHS in Wales, does not provide the necessary clarity on this provision, we believe. Now, some may say it's a moot point, but we believe it's a useful way to clarify the scope of this Bill.
Thank you, Llywydd. I welcome the opportunity to participate in today’s debate. In our report, we came to three conclusions and we made four recommendations. I am very grateful to the Minister for her response to the committee's report.
As we have heard, the Bill’s key driver is to mitigate the risks associated with health service procurement in Wales operating under a different regime to England. This is also the Minister’s justification for pursuing an expedited timetable. However, the committee did not find this argument persuasive. In particular, we believe that the Minister could have brought forward legislative proposals addressing this issue sooner.
Furthermore, despite requiring a fast-tracked legislative process in order to maintain a level playing field between England and Wales, the Minister is still anticipating a gap in alignment. The extent to which this will impact stakeholders in Wales remains unclear, so we recommended that the Welsh Government provides an assessment of the risks and the financial impact of temporarily having two different health service procurement regimes operating in England and Wales.
Whilst this recommendation has been accepted in principle, the Minister’s commitment is limited to exploring whether the impact of two different regimes can be meaningfully quantified. The lack of information around this issue is particularly disappointing, given the premise for requiring a curtailed timetable.
Sadly, due to the lack of information contained in the regulatory impact assessment, we have been unable to draw a conclusion as to whether the resources required to deliver the ambitions of the Senedd are adequate and reasonable. This has become a regular theme in our scrutiny during this Senedd, given the number of framework Bills introduced by the Welsh Government. It is therefore disappointing to be making the same point once again during this debate.
As the Bill provides Welsh Ministers with regulation-making powers to establish a new health service procurement regime, the full financial implications of the new regime will not be known until the policy details are developed and brought forward in regulations. We expect the RIAs to include a best estimate of the costs and benefits associated with subordinate legislation alongside the relevant primary legislation, as we need to understand the financial impact of the Bill as a whole. It is disappointing that the information provided did not allow us to do so on this occasion.
We called on the Minister to provide a full and robust RIA for any future regulations and to afford the Senedd sufficient time to consider any related financial implications. The Minister has committed to publishing the RIA alongside any future regulations made under this Bill, using the best available evidence. However, the timescales for scrutiny will be constrained by the affirmative procedure and will not be subject to the same degree of scrutiny as those included alongside the Bill itself.
The RIA does not assess the ongoing financial implications of a new regime, though it does set out the Minister’s best estimate for the cost of developing the regime and its initial implementation. This consists of £3.4 million in transitional costs to the Welsh Government and NHS Wales over a three-year appraisal period. The RIA suggests that familiarisation and implementation costs will be incurred by local authorities in situations where they are the lead procuring authority. However, regrettably, the costs to local authorities have not been estimated. The RIA also identifies costs associated with the potential impact of changes on health service providers, but these are described as unquantifiable. The Bill is expected to find efficiencies and lead to savings, but no attempt has been made to estimate these benefits.
These ambiguities are disappointing and fall some way short of our expectations as a committee. As a result, our third recommendation called on the Minister to set out how she will explore with stakeholders the familiarisation and implementation costs to local authorities and service providers; secondly, cost savings; and thirdly, the ongoing costs of the regime. Although this recommendation has been accepted in principle, the Minister's response simply refers to undertaking further analysis of costs as part of the detailed development of future regulations. We expect the Minister to engage with stakeholders in establishing these costs and savings.
Llywydd, we have consistently called for all Bills to include a robust post-implementation review. So, we welcome the Minister’s commitment to undertaking such a review, so that the Senedd can continue to assess the Bill’s impact once enacted.
Our final recommendation sought clarification on the timing and approach to monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the Bill. While the Minister has accepted this recommendation, I am afraid to say that the approach and timescales remain unclear. Thank you very much.
As a Member of the Health and Social Care Committee, it's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon. We took evidence quite extensively from stakeholders and those involved with the Bill, both in public and private session. I think that the common theme that we have all picked up on during this debate and during health committee evidence is the complexity around some of the things that we are talking about and the subjectivity as well.
I would like to thank the committee clerks, the research team, all of the staff and all of the stakeholders who engaged with us because it is a complex Bill. We have had to take a lot of evidence and guidance from the professionals in order to make sense of the Bill properly, and I am glad that we are discussing it on the floor of the Senedd here this afternoon, to open the debate and open the discussion and learn more as it makes its passage through the Senedd, which I am pleased to take part in. And again, I would just like to thank everybody who has contributed to this Bill so far.
Since the introduction of this Bill, the Minister has made it clear that her intention is to ensure a level playing field in health procurement for relevant authorities. Additionally, she will not take decisions on how she will use the powers in the Bill until the final UK Government provider selection regime in England is published. As the Bill provides flexibility for changing circumstances, I am glad that the Welsh Government is waiting for the decisions made in England before proceeding here in Wales.
I do not criticise the context or circumstance in which the Bill is being introduced. However, I do not believe it to be good practice to introduce primary legislation to delegate powers without certainty about how such powers will be used. I believe that the Minister should have been able to provide more information about her plans and thoughts on the scope and operation of any new health service procurement regime for Wales, and I’m not yet convinced that this Bill will ensure that powers given by the Welsh Government will not allow greater private sector influence in the delivery of core NHS services.
Albeit, I am in agreement that this Bill ensures that decisions about health service procurement in Wales are being made in Wales. Therefore, the Welsh Conservatives’ decision is that the Senedd should agree to the general principles of the Bill. However, I would urge the Minister to use her time here today to update the Senedd with further clarity—which you have done to a degree so far, but in responding to the debate later on—to ensure that there are sufficient arrangements in new health procurement to ensure that that it works in an open and transparent manner, and in a way that best protects our NHS. This is because it is my priority to ensure that this Bill is able to serve both patients and providers in a fair way. And I would just like to end by thanking everybody again this afternoon. Thank you.
I am also pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon. I, like many others in this Chamber, am facing something of a quandary over this Bill. We're talking about a Welsh Bill that is a direct response to new legislation in England. That legislation in England is being driven by a political agenda to outsource more and more NHS services, to introduce more and more privatisation into the NHS. The Bill that we're discussing, according to the Government, is supposed to protect us from that, but the reality is that the Bill itself also opens the door to the possibility of more privatisation within the NHS in Wales. It's a complex issue and one that we should be guarded about. We as a committee have heard evidence that raised these very concerns, but of course we've also heard very real concerns, including from the Government and many other organisations within the NHS in Wales, real concerns that a different procurement system on both sides of Offa's Dyke could place the Welsh NHS at a disadvantage. And we have to take those concerns seriously, of course.
We heard concerns that some service providers who are already coming from the private sector—. Because, of course, the private sector does provide services within the NHS, and very specialist services, some of them. There is a concern that they may decide not to apply for contracts in Wales if they see the regime here being more complex or cumbersome, and that that could be a disadvantage to us as we seek to provide those services. I have to say, having asked for evidence, for examples of where that risk exists and what services we could lose, that evidence wasn't provided very strongly, and the Finance Committee has made the same point, asking for a real assessment of where exactly the risks lie.
Of course, we don't have as much time as we should have to consider these issues. If the Government has really identified a risk here, why didn't they, as the committee Chair said, introduce legislation in good time and provide adequate time to get to the root of some of these issues and to come to measured conclusions as to the implications of new legislation in England for us here in Wales? We, as a committee, note our disappointment that we have to go through a fast-track process without need. Our work is scrutiny, and here we are again being forced to cut corners.
Concern about scrutiny is another of those elements of quandary that we face today. This is framework legislation, and the Government would introduce the new procurement process by regulation here in Wales. Yes, the Minister has pledged a full period of scrutiny and a full consultation on the process of introducing any regulations, but that process doesn't allow the same level of scrutiny as a full legislative process, and there will be no opportunity to propose amendments and so on. This should concern us all, and I certainly echo the comments made by the Chair of the legislation committee on the need to extend as far as possible the kind of consultation that could happen, including the introduction of draft regulations and so on. We do have to be guarded on every step of the way.
We on these benches will agree to the legislation moving on to Stage 2 today, and that's for two main reasons: ultimately, we do believe that any legislation that impacts Wales should be made in Wales—it's quite a clear principle of ours—but also because of the weight of evidence supporting introducing this as a kind of insurance policy, just in case. But there will be significant work to be done in future stages to seek assurances from Government in relation to many elements of the Bill. The Chair of the Finance Committee has drawn attention to the fact that we are in the dark to a great extent as to the cost of introducing the legislation. I will be seeking further information on the likely costs and I will be looking for more evidence of the risk, as I've mentioned. I will be seeking assurances on clear governance processes that are transparent in relation to the final legislation, in order to safeguard and guard against allowing, or even promoting, the privatisation agenda. I will want to see whether we can encourage more collaboration with the voluntary sector, or with the third sector, in a constructive manner, without opening the door to allowing more profit in the private sector. This is legislation that has warning signs written all over it.
As a temporary member of the health committee when the Minister was giving evidence, I have taken some interest in this issue, and I rather agree with Rhun ap Iorwerth, apart from his comments on independence. I do think that there are a lot of unanswered questions, and that's partly because we don't yet know what's in this procurement selection regime that the UK Government is promising us. And given some of the poor legislation it's introduced in a hurry on other matters, we are right to be prudent. As Dr Mary Guy has pointed out—a Liverpool John Moores University public law expert—it's prudent to recognise the potential for negative effects on procurement in the Welsh NHS and to act accordingly. So, it does feel a little bit like a dog's dinner, and that we're doing things cart before the horse, but I understand the Minister's anxieties.
I think the thing that I want to understand is how will this reduce complexity. The pharmacy industry said they were concerned about that, and we have to remember that the English NHS is playing catch-up today in terms of using pharmacies more effectively as ways of getting care to people. If we have separate contracts, how are they going to interact with the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, which we're awaiting Royal Assent on? How is it going to impact, potentially, on prudent healthcare, which we have to have at the forefront of everything we do in terms of prevention and early intervention? How will it impact on collaboration, innovation and all the other requirements of the Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) 2015?
Personally, I want to ensure that we have a regime that makes it empowering for GP clusters to be able to procure micro partnerships of services that suit the needs of a particular area. We need to ensure that this procurement selection regime isn't a sledgehammer to prevent us doing that. And eventually, we obviously need health and social care to become seamless. That is one of the better arguments of the UK Government—that it would be pointless to have two contracts for a particular individual that neither serves the patient nor the taxpayer. But I think there's a lot of unanswered questions here, and, therefore, we need to pay particular attention going forward that this really does benefit Wales, and we're not doing something just for the sake of it.
I will be writing, obviously, a formal response to committees in terms of written evidence after this presentation today. Thank you for your support in terms of the principles. It is a framework Bill, so the interesting work on this will be done at the regulation stage.
I am sorry that we weren't able, Russell, to give more notice, but as we've tried to explain, this is a Bill that is responding to what happened in Westminster, and what is happening in Westminster, and we're still not over. What we're trying to do is make sure that there's no gap. So, I don't want to apologise for the fact that we're actually getting to a place where, whatever they come up with, we will be able to respond in one way or another. Without this framework agreement, we may be stuck in a system that will not work for us. So, thank you for understanding the unusual context and, obviously, we will have the normal consultation period for the regulations.
Huw, in terms of the constitution committee, the approach to this is not ideal. [Interruption.] And you're never satisfied, either. But as I say, this is a timetable that we've almost been bounced into. I thank the Senedd for finding us this little gap in the legislative programme for us to sit in, but we want to make sure that there's as short a gap as possible between whatever's introduced in England and whatever we want to introduce in Wales.
Peredur, one of the reasons why we are concerned about the risk is because of that gap. If that gap is a wide one, the risk expands too, and it will be harder for us to fill that gap. So I do think that it is important that the organisations involved in procurement in the health service have made it clear that there is a risk here, and that's why they are clear that they want to see this Bill.
It is difficult to give a wholly accurate RIA without knowing where the regulations are going to fall. That's the dilemma we're in today, and until we see what comes out in the regulations in England, it is difficult to do a very detailed RIA. But whilst the WLGA told us they couldn't estimate the cost of implementation, the NHS has given us an estimate, a ball-park figure of what they think it could be. But even that, I would argue, is quite difficult for them.
Rhun, if the regulations on a UK level will drive us in the direction of privatisation, well, clearly, we'll have to consider whether we want pursue that same path. But, on the other hand, I do think that there are advantages that we could see in terms of procurement for the third sector or the voluntary sector in setting out long-term or longer contracts. We could provide those longer contracts where the ones at present are done on an annual basis. So I think that there is more hope perhaps for those people we would want to be seeing engaged in these services.
Jenny, just in terms of the potential negative effect if we don't have the facility to respond, I think the real problems will come if we didn't have a framework. If there were a gap, that's where the real issues would be. We've got to remember that we've got a really serious border issue in Wales. We do procure things on an England-and-Wales basis along the border, so that is a genuine issue, and also specialist services—there are a lot of specialist services that are not available in Wales and we have to procure in England. And because we're talking about very specialised, very few people getting those services, you have to ask would services in England want to go through a different procurement selection regime, or would they just say, 'Look, we can't be bothered, that's too complicated, it's a bridge too far, let's just not bother with that' and we would finish up with no provision for some very ill people. So, I think that is really important.
So, in conclusion, I want to thank all of the committees that have scrutinised this Bill, the people and the bodies who gave of their time to share their views with the Health and Social Care Committee during Stage 1, and all Senedd Members and Commission staff who've contributed in such a constructive manner. I encourage Members to support this Bill and the financial resolution today. Thank you very much.
That allows us to move on to consider the motion under item 8. The proposal in this regard is to agree the motion under item 8. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, that motion is also agreed.
You talked about additional functionality being made available over time. Now, I don’t expect you to say, 'We’re going to do this by this date' and cover every aspect of what the app will do in the future. But can you give us a little bit more information about the basics? When do you think that everyone in Wales will be able to order that repeat prescription? When will everyone in Wales be able to access their GP records? Give us some information in terms of the timeline.
Also, I was pleased that you mentioned that not everybody wants to, or can, access digitally. I think that we have got a higher degree of people in Wales who are not familiar with digital applications, and, of course, there are many people in Wales who can’t access them due to poor broadband or mobile connectivity. So, perhaps you can tell us a little bit more about the support that digital hubs will be providing, by supporting people to use the app when it does become available.
And you asked will it be able to do what the English app does. In time, it’ll be able to do a heck of a lot more than the English app does, and that’s why this architecture from the beginning was so key, and making sure that we will be able to link it to hospitals and things, which we can do in NHS Wales probably easier than they can in England. There isn’t a defined age, so anybody can use it. So, I think there are real opportunities here.
Some of the other things that we’re hoping to do, for example, are to make sure that you could, for example, view medical information for care and make sure that there is an ability, perhaps, to connect with third parties. So, there’s a huge number of things on the road map. Just in terms of the process for the road map, work packages are going to be commissioned approximately every three months and then it will take about three months for those to complete. So, there’ll be a rolling programme now going forward. What we’ll have to do in the next few weeks and months is to work out which bits we’re going to prioritise.FootnoteLink
And when we wrote to you about this, your reply included that you met Robert Jenrick on 30 March and then local authority leaders the next day to discuss asylum accommodation and the impact of asylum dispersal in Wales, and that you would ensure that the Welsh Government would help to facilitate engagement with local authorities. So, what specific engagement have you since had regarding proposals for asylum accommodation in locations such as Northop Hall country house hotel? What alternative accommodation do you propose, and what action, if any, have you taken regarding previous proposals for new modular housing?
You referred to Europe Day today, and to resettled EU citizens. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is in Ukraine today on her fifth visit since Putin launched his illegal full-scale war. Like the EU, Ukraine celebrated 8 May as the anniversary of the end of world war two in Europe and victory over Nazism, while 9 May, today, is now the Day of Europe in Ukraine too. Would you therefore agree with my statement during the debates on Brexit seven years ago that, whatever people’s views on leaving the EU, the UK was not leaving Europe, and with the reality that the Ukraine war has shown how the UK and its European partners can continue to work together in constructive partnership?
Following the Welsh Government’s announcement of £20 million funding to provide young asylum seekers with £1,600 a month when they reach 18, how do you respond to the Anglesey constituent who e-mailed that the criminal gangs operating the channel boat business will have warned the immigrants to destroy their documents, and to the Flintshire constituent who e-mailed that, quote, he and his wife are of pensionable age and receive less than £1,100 a month between them in state benefits, also known as pensions—so much for paying into the system over their working lives? End of quote. But further, given that we’re talking about children often traumatised and needing to feel safe and cared for, what specific provision is the Welsh Government making to meet these needs when they arrive in Wales? [Interruption.]
I think I hear noises. I’m quoting constituents, for example, from both ends of north Wales with their questions. I’m putting their questions.
Obviously, now, the proposal is at a pre-application planning stage, and this, indeed, has to go through the planning process. But I do take account of the views of the Welsh Refugee Council, particularly, and colleagues and Members around the Chamber will recognise the words that asylum seekers fleeing war and persecution must be treated with dignity and respect while their asylum claims are processed.
I think that it is important that views are expressed today about the dignity and respect that we feel that the UK Government should accord to people in those desperate situations, and that’s why we believe that there should be a recognition of the nation of sanctuary goals here in Wales, and the team Wales approach. And of course, I did discuss this with the UK Government Minister.
But I think that, what is crucially important, and I hope that you would back me on this, is that we actually do ask the UK Government to speed up the asylum applications. The situation is, in terms of asylum applications, that we have thousands who are waiting for applications to be considered. We have—. It's unacceptable. There are over 160,000 cases pending a decision on their case, of which 109,000 have waited more than six months. And I think the lack of decision making made by the Home Office reflects the dire situation of the asylum system. The Home Secretary herself has said the asylum system is broken, but it's now the hostile environment strategy by the UK Government that, of course, has to be challenged. We need safe and legal routes for asylum seekers to claim asylum from outside the UK, and also recognise that the UK Government has withdrawn from the Dubs scheme, which was one safe route prior to the UK leaving the EU.
So, I hope you will, again, join us in calling on the UK Government to address this, and also to recognise, on the Illegal Migration Bill—not just in terms of the fact that we don't give consent, particularly on the impact of children we're responsible for—that the UK Government has failed to confirm that the Bill is compatible with convention rights. And many leading international organisations are concerned it is incompatible.
So, there are many things I hope you would also draw to the attention of the UK Government. We are responsible for those who seek support and refuge and sanctuary here in Wales, and that includes all our young people who come here, many of whom have been in the care of our local authorities and we've taken responsibility for; I'm very proud that we are also offering every young person in Wales an opportunity for participation in our basic income pilot.
And turning to Sudan, finally, the number of refugees from the appalling situation there is expected to increase, but the Westminster Government has refused to extend a helping hand to everyone trying to flee from there, even though we know that thousands of people in Britain have connections with Sudan—over 2,000 living in Wales were born in Sudan and South Sudan according to the latest census. So, what assessment has the Welsh Government made of the impact of the conflict on Welsh citizens who perhaps have family members there, and what support is being offered to them?
To conclude, I'd like to echo your congratulations to everyone related to the Nation of Sanctuary Awards in March. My fellow Member Heledd Fychan and I had the privilege of attending the evening's event and we were inspired by hearing how some of Wales's new citizens enrich our communities and our nation.
Recommendations 5 and 9 from the Health and Social Care Committee, together with recommendation 4 from the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, all deal with consultation in respect of the regulations to be made under the new section 10A of the NHS Wales Act 2006, as it is to be inserted by section 3 of the Bill. There is also a consultation element to recommendation 2 from the HSC committee, which relates specifically to consultation with service users by the relevant authorities.
The Health and Social Care Committee's recommendation 6 relates to ensuring that the requirements of the new regime will be communicated effectively to all relevant parties. I note the committee's comments on this, and I'm happy to accept this recommendation. I'll write to the committee to set out the detail as to how we'll achieve this aim as part of the development and implementation of the regulations and guidance.
The Health and Social Care Committee's recommendation 7, together with recommendation 4 from the Finance Committee, both relate to monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the Bill and the new procurement regime. Ensuring the efficacy of any new procurement regime is paramount to its success. I note the committee's comments and I'll seek to ensure that parameters are built into statutory guidance for the new regime that will monitor its use and effectiveness.
As part of the development of the regulations and statutory guidance, we'll also consider the most appropriate route for engagement to determine how the regime is working and any improvements that may be required. I am, however, cognisant that any review period needs to provide flexibility to adapt and respond to future changes instigated by ourselves or DHSC under their proposed provider selection regime. We are, however, happy to accept these recommendations and I'll write to both committees to set out our proposed approach.
The Health and Social Care Committee's recommendations 8 and 10 request changes to the explanatory memorandum following Stage 2 to clarify that local authorities are subject to the public sector equality duty and how the Bill and subordinate legislation needs to be consistent with or contribute to a number of matters, including other pieces of legislation, NHS waiting lists, and biodiversity targets, amongst others. So, we're happy to accept these recommendations, and will amend the explanatory memorandum accordingly.
Recommendation 11 relates to including within the explanatory memorandum for the regulations an assessment of whether the regulations made under the Bill engage the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, and we're happy to accept this recommendation.
So, the lack of notice has caused disruption to our planned work programme, and meant that we and stakeholders had little time to prepare. In addition, the expedited scrutiny timetable has constrained our approach to scrutinising the technical and complex issues related to this Bill, and has put some pressure on us and stakeholders in the already obviously stretched health and social care sectors.
Under these circumstances, we are particularly grateful to everyone who has been able to contribute to our work. It was clear from the discussions that we had with stakeholders that the levels of Welsh Government engagement with them to date had varied considerably. We do understand that the unusual context for the Bill, its framework nature, and the technicality of some of the issues it addresses, all present, of course, challenges to consultation and engagement. However, it is vital that there is dialogue between the Welsh Government and stakeholders, and that proposals are developed and preparations are made for the formal 12-week consultation period the Minister has committed to, and which we made recommendation 5. I'm disappointed that this recommendation wasn't accepted fully, but it was accepted in principle. I'll reflect on the record, in terms of what the Minister said today, and of course wait for the Minister's formal response before perhaps commenting further on that.
But, finally, I would like to thank the Minister for making her officials available to provide the committee with a technical briefing on this Bill and for responding promptly to our response for written information. And should the Senedd agree the general principles today, the committee of course looks forward to continuing to work positively with the Minister, as the Bill continues its passage through the Senedd today. I also acknowledge that you accepted our recommendation 9 as well. So, I look forward, Minister—the committee looks forward—to receiving your formal written response, so we can analyse that further and take a view as a committee. Diolch yn fawr.
The second and third recommendations reflect our view that the Welsh Government should consult fully and widely on the detail of its new procurement regime for health services. The Minister touched on this in her remarks. Any regulations that govern how expenditure on services provided on behalf of the Welsh public sector is undertaken should be noteworthy and should be subject to enhanced scrutiny, and so we recommend that the Minister should share the draft versions of these regulations for consultation before laying them in the Senedd. Once they have been laid, we as Members of the Senedd should be afforded enough time to scrutinise them in detail, and so we also recommend the Bill should provide for 60 days of scrutiny of the regulations.
And finally, we believe that the Bill should also include a duty on Welsh Ministers to consult on the regulations and the guidance that will accompany them. Again, the Minister referred to this in her opening remarks. This belief of ours is reflected in the final two recommendations we make in our report. Now, the Minister did indeed tell us that it is usual practice for this to be done, but including these duties within legislation will simply ensure that stakeholders are consulted, and will also align with other similar duties in the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill.
So, we welcome the constructive comments of the Minister in respect of some elements of consultation, for example, and other matters that she referred to in her opening remarks, both in respect of our committee's report and the Health and Social Care Committee's report. We'll need to reflect on the detail of the Minister's remarks today, and we look forward to receiving the written response very soon too. But we welcome the constructive engagement on some of those recommendations, even if not all have been accepted.
My thanks as always, in closing, to our committee members, clerks, and our legal and research team for their diligent scrutiny once again. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd.
In my final seconds, perhaps what we have here is another sign of the benefit of independence to Wales, where we wouldn't be so open to harms by being engaged with a state system that favours the larger neighbour at the expense of its smaller neighbour. But I'll leave that for the time being.
Whatever the broader questions, let us bear in mind the practicalities here. Why do we need this? What problem are we trying to solve? In allowing it to proceed to Stage 2 today, let's be clear that there are very many questions that still need to be answered.