Plenary

The next item will be questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services, and the first question is from Luke Fletcher.

In collaboration with Public Health Wales and the World Health Organization's regional office for Europe, Welsh Government launched the Welsh health equity solutions platform on 22 June, to monitor the management of health inequalities across Wales, and it's leading the way with its complex interdisciplinary technique.

Diolch am yr ateb, Gweinidog. The cross-party group on cancer's inquiry into cancer inequalities in Wales really brings to life the brutal realities of getting a cancer diagnosis in Wales and living with the fall-out. Cancer death rates are 55 per cent higher among the most deprived Welsh populations. Swansea bay health board in my region contains the joint highest proportion of areas in the most deprived quintile. Today, Minister, I'd like to ask what the Welsh Government is doing to help people who directly suffer from these inequalities whilst navigating a difficult stage 4 cancer diagnosis.

I have been told by those managing stage 4 cancers that short staffing has meant being placed on waiting lists for treatment, while only some health boards have a key worker or a point of contact to support people with stage 4 cancer. How does the Welsh Government plan to measure progress in the treatment and support of stage 4 patients, as they deal with the inequalities outlined in the cross-party group's report?

Thanks very much. I've looked at that report and I think there are a lot of things for us to consider and to act upon. Before we get to stage 4, I think we've got to get to the prevention bit of it, and you heard the announcement yesterday by my colleague. The obesity crisis in Wales—and I'm going to call it a crisis—when you've got 60 per cent of your population who are overweight or obese, you're heading for a very difficult place, and what we know is that that issue is more prevalent in poorer communities, which is why we do have to intervene in order to avoid the kind of situation that you're talking about, in which, then, you see very clearly the disparities between those richer areas and poorer areas in terms of numbers suffering from cancer.

When it comes to the diagnosis, what is clear is that there are parts of Wales that are performing much better than others. It was quite interesting—. If you look at Betsi, Betsi is consistently actually quite good in terms of cancer treatment compared to others. I'm very concerned at the moment, for example, with the performance in Cwm Taf Morgannwg. That's probably one of my biggest headaches at the moment. And we're putting a lot of support into that. We've put them into a special intervention framework to make sure that we're monitoring what they should do, and we're working with communities to see if we can chase down people who perhaps might not have been taking part in screenings, for example. I know that in relation to colon cancer and things, for example, it's trying to get people to take up that screening facility and working with communities, engaging with them, learning the lessons that we know, and we've learnt a lot of lessons during the pandemic: how do you communicate with people? How do you get into those hard-to-reach places? And I think some of that learning, we've got to now take into all those other areas.

But cancer is absolutely—. I've got six priorities, but now, with the very difficult financial pressures we're under, I have asked the health boards very much to focus on the top three, which are to avoid people going into hospital in the first place, shifting resources into the community, and working with local authorities to avoid delayed transfers of care; secondly, to bring those waiting lists down; and, thirdly, to focus on cancer.

Minister, sadly the simple fact is that our black and minority ethnic communities are not getting the same healthcare as the rest of the Welsh population, whether that is in cancer care, as recently highlighted by the CPG report; or in maternity care, as shown by the shocking report into maternity care at the University Hospital of Wales; or the whole host of other ways that BAME patients are being let down by the system. Population-level assumptions do not work. Treatment has to be tailored to the individual, taking account of their sex and ethnicity, as well as the usual things such as lifestyle and genetic make-up.

Minister, when I raised this issue with the First Minister yesterday, he said that the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' would improve the situation. Can you expand on what specific actions within the plan will improve health outcomes for our BAME communities?

Thanks very much, Altaf. Part of what will happen next is that we have this new constituted organisation, this group, the NHS health inequalities group, and what they're going to do is to focus on a small number of areas, which aim to maximise the contribution of the NHS and make sure that the NHS now becomes an exemplar when it comes to tackling inequalities. The thing you've got to start with is data, data, data. So, let's find out what's actually going on, let's make sure that we've got that analysis, and then you can target and you can respond to the gaps. So, that's what we're doing in relation to that.

We do, of course, have the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan'. There's a very specific—. I had a meeting with my colleague who's responsible for this, the other day. She's really holding us all to account, making sure that we're delivering on our responsibilities within the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan'. I'm really pleased I was able to report to her that the actions that we have as an NHS are being taken very, very seriously in relation to the 'Anti-racist Wales Action Plan' and, obviously, all of that will feed into the planned-care challenges that we're facing.

Minister, building on your statement yesterday regarding the national immunisation programme for Wales, Public Health Wales published data last year on the take-up of childhood immunisation vaccinations, and that data showed that clear inequality gaps had increased in the majority of age groups and in the majority of health boards, with children from the most deprived quintile being less likely to be up to date with routine immunisations than those from the least developed quintile. So, Minister, what is Welsh Government doing to monitor this clear inequality, and how is it working with health boards and other partners to put this right and eliminate the gap?

Well, thanks very much, and you're quite right to highlight the fact that, actually, in terms of childhood vaccinations, we don't have a bad level, but, actually, the pandemic pushed things back a bit. So, we do have about 20 per cent of the child population who are perhaps not taking up that opportunity.

So, what are we going to do about it? Well, we're taking that national immunisation framework and making sure that we take those lessons that we learned during the pandemic, making sure that we look at the evidence. What worked during that roll-out? What was best practice? And how do we avoid that unnecessary variation across Wales? What we're trying to do is to make sure that this is being led by local teams, who are engaging and empowering their own communities to understand the advantages of taking up the offer of vaccination. I think it's really important that we make this easy to understand, that we communicate well, that people understand the risks of not having vaccinations. So, each health board now is being asked to develop a vaccine equity strategy and a programme of work with dedicated public health input. So, that's how we're going to address the issue that you put forward.

I made an oral statement to the Senedd on 13 June, describing our approach to improving diabetes services, as set out in the quality statement for diabetes. My officials discussed the implications of the quality statement for local delivery with NHS chief executives on 21 June.

I very much welcome that. I welcome the statement that you made on diabetes treatment in Wales. There are 5,400 people in Blaenau Gwent who are living with diabetes, and that's not much less than 10 per cent of the population. It's an epidemic in the borough. And that requires, I think, Minister, a significant intervention from Government.

I welcome the statement made by the Minister yesterday on our relationship with food, if you like, in its wider sense. But we do need a more holistic approach to ensure that we have prevention of diabetes rather than simply the treatment of diabetes. I'm glad the Deputy Minister for sport is in the Chamber this afternoon, because that also involves investment in physical activity, investment in sports opportunities, as well as other sorts of physical activity, and it involves an investment across the whole of Government to deal with diabetes, rather than simply treating the impact of diabetes. I hope, Minister, you'll be able to put a focus on that in somewhere like Blaenau Gwent, and I'd like to invite you to the borough so that we can debate and discuss how we can help people avoid diabetes in Blaenau Gwent.

Thanks very much, Alun. What you know is we've got this quality statement, so people know what 'good' looks like, so they should be working to that. And now we have the NHS exec holding health boards to account for delivering on what 'good' looks like. What I think we have got to do is to recognise that the problem is more acute in some areas than others. I know that the Minister responsible for the public health aspect of this is absolutely clear that, actually, you do need to target some areas more than others. The same thing everywhere is not what we're looking for here; you do have to put those additional resources in some places. What we've got is, for example, a pre-diabetes prevention programme, to help people avoid getting type 2 diabetes. Let's not forget that a huge, huge proportion of type 2 diabetes is avoidable, and, actually, if you can catch it before it really becomes full-blown diabetes, then you're really saving a lot of health issues for that member of the public, but also you're saving a lot of resources for the NHS.

On that early intervention, we've got pilots across Wales, including one in Aneurin Bevan. It's important that we look at the outcomes of that pilot. We know they work; we've put £1 million into rolling out what we know has worked in Port Talbot, for example. We need to now make sure that people understand their responsibilities as well. It's not a one-way street, this; we've got to be there, holding their hands through what is a very difficult journey for them. We've got to make sure that the environment is right, and that was part of what the Deputy Minister was speaking about yesterday. But we cannot continue with a situation where the trajectory—. If we carry on as we are now, we won't be spending 10 per cent of our budget on diabetes, we'll be spending 17 per cent of our budget. We don't have any more money, so it's got to come from somewhere. So, this is not sustainable in its current form. Something has to change. But the people of Wales have to come with us on this journey. We can't do it all for them, but we will be there with them on the journey.

Minister, it's no secret that Wales has the highest prevalence of diabetes in the UK, with more than 200,000 people living with the condition. There are a whole host of organisations and initiatives out there, which I know you work with as well, helping people with diabetes, and pushing to improve care and support. However, there are some serious concerns about the lack of funding on several programmes—whilst I appreciate the answer that you just gave—something the Welsh Government did say would be addressed in the quality statement last week. From the feedback that I received, it wasn't discussed in as much detail as was perhaps needed. Services such as the all-Wales diabetes remission service, as well as the SEREN programme, which I know my colleague Joel James has raised before in the Chamber, are at serious risk, going forward. It's not clear whether these services, which are delivering life-changing results, will indeed continue to receive funding. Dedicated NHS clinicians are behind these schemes and have been left in limbo as they have no idea about future funding. Earlier today, the British Medical Association held an event, which I, alongside many colleagues in this Chamber, did attend. I met some of the fantastic GPs there, including Gareth and Natasha, who are both from south-east Wales, and they wanted answers. So, Minister, my question is: can you please give them some much-needed clarity this afternoon about what's the case, going forward? Thank you.

Thanks very much. We have got a ring-fenced amount of money for the pre-diabetes programme I was talking about. We've got £1 million for that programme, and that's being rolled out. Every health board in Wales really understands this. The secret is to get ahead of the problem; that's the real issue here—we've got to get ahead of the problem, not wait for the problem to develop. When you've got 60 per cent of your population who are overweight, you've got to target that lot there, because they're the next generation of people who are going to have diabetes type 2. That's what part of yesterday was about—it's about acknowledging that we can't go on like this, that, actually, you do need to intervene, we do need to create the right environment for them.

And just in terms of finance, the financial situation is really, really challenging at the moment. It's challenging for everyone; it's challenging for people in our communities—the cost-of-living crisis is really difficult—but it's also difficult for the NHS. All of the inflationary pressures that everybody else is feeling, the NHS is feeling. We haven't had additional money to cover it, and we've got the COVID costs and everything else that's going on. So, the pressures are real, but that's why, actually, it makes sense for us to go as far as we can in the prevention space, because if we don't, the costs going forward are going to be very, very difficult.

Questions now from party spokespeople. Conservative spokesperson, Russell George.

Diolch, Llywydd. Minister, yesterday, Andrew R.T. Davies, on three occasions, tried to extract an answer from the First Minister, and the First Minister failed to answer on three occasions. You're the health Minister, so I will ask you, Minister: when is the Welsh Government going to eliminate two-year waits in the Welsh NHS, and when can we expect you to issue your revised target?

Thanks very much. I'm more than happy to send you the revised target that I've sent out to the NHS. I've made it clear to them that we have got to stick to a plan. We've discussed this with them, in terms of what the targets are, and whether they think they've got the ability to hit the targets. We're going to be doing this in the context of a very, very tight financial situation, so I think we've got to understand that. But, as health Minister, I've got to acknowledge that having people wait for longer than two years is not acceptable, and so we are expecting them to speed up their processes. We are putting more money into things like diagnostics, and more into surgical hubs. I was very pleased to go and open officially the surgical hub in Neath Port Talbot recently. So, there are lots of good, positive things going on, but obviously we're very keen to make sure that they speed up the process, and I've made it very clear to them that, this time, there will be no excuses for missing those deadlines.

Thank you, Minister. It would be very helpful for you to write to me, but, of course, if you could verbally give the answer in the Chamber this afternoon in terms of what the date is for the revised target for two-year waits, that, of course, would be appreciated, because, of course, we are not seeing the progress—and you've alluded to it yourself, and I appreciate that—that's needed. We saw the last set of data with only 245 people coming off that two-year waiting list. We've still got tens of thousands of people waiting for treatment in Wales, when you know, of course, the target's been virtually eliminated in Scotland and in England. Often, we talk about numbers, don't we—tens of thousands of people; these are individual people, and often many of them are waiting in pain, which impacts their lives and their wider families' lives as well.

Minister, you committed to ensuring that 80 per cent of cancer patients will start treatment within two months by 2026. That's a laudable aim, and if that is reached, I will be the first in this Chamber to congratulate you on the efforts of the Welsh Government. But cancer waiting times have actually gotten worse—they've fallen from 59 per cent in April last year to 55 per cent this April. So, can you commit, Minister, to setting out annual milestones for the delivery of the target that 80 per cent of people with cancer will start treatment within two months, and provide an update on actions being taken to improve cancer waiting times, specifically for the cancers with the longest waits—gynaecological, head and neck and urology? But, ultimately, Minister, please do give us that target this afternoon. Tell us when the two-year wait target is set for; that would be appreciated. Thank you, Minister.

On two-year waits, we're expecting 99 per cent of people to be seen by the end of this financial year. We're expecting, by September, anybody waiting over three years to have an appointment, so that they know exactly when they're going to get their treatment. And we have made it clear that we want to see significant improvement when it comes to cancer.

Cancer is quite interesting, because some areas of cancer are doing much, much better than others, so it depends on the specialist area, and the same thing is true also for the number of longest waiters. There are, amongst the 40 or so specialist areas, about 24 where, actually, we're down to zero. The real issue is with about seven specialist areas, and that's where I've asked them to concentrate now: 'Go for those areas.' We've got GIRFT in, Getting It Right First Time, making sure that they're getting the pathways right, putting pressure on them, looking at what's happening in terms of use of theatres in Wales, maximising that use of capacity that is available, because there's no point in having new hubs if people are not working efficiently. We've got to make sure, first of all, that we get the efficiency right wherever they're working. There's no point in investing in brand-new centres if they're still not working to top capacity.

So, that's what we're looking at now; we're driving it. The NHS executive is up and running. They're putting a lot of pressure on these people just to make sure that we see that productivity improvement that we expect to see. And, of course, you've also seen, in particular, when it comes to cancer, that diagnostics is absolutely key. The difference between us and England is that we count diagnostics and we count it from the beginning, because, if you've got cancer, you've got to start from the time when you suspect it, not from the time when you're actually put on a treatment path. So, the way we count is different, and that's why we're putting a lot of money into diagnostics. We've got to speed up the diagnostic centres and you will have seen that we're in the process of putting significant investment in that space.

Thank you for your answer, Minister. I'm just going to pick up on the seven specialist areas that you referred to, because, as I understand it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, in your previous target, those seven specialist areas weren't included. [Interruption.] You say it's not true. I look forward to your answer, because, as I've understood it, Minister, because you said it yourself, the recovery target was most specialties by 2023. So, if it says 'most specialties' it means some aren't included. I suppose I'm asking you, therefore, what are those specialist areas that weren't included, because, as I understand it, there are seven areas that weren't included in the target, and one of them was general surgery. So, it would be good to understand the areas that weren't included in your original target that you were due to meet by March 2023. You said in answer to Altaf Hussain earlier on today that data is important. You said that at an event we were at this morning. I agree with you entirely. So, surely it would be right to have a target that includes all 17 specialist areas and to break that down by speciality as well. I hope, Minister, that you will be able to commit to doing that, because data is king if we're going to get on top of some of these issues.

You're singing from the same hymn sheet as I am on this. Just to give you reassurance, those 30,000 that are on the two-year waiting list include all specialities, including the seven that we know are challenging. So, they're not excluded from the numbers. I think that's really important. It's not 30,000 plus a whole load more in the seven specialist services.

I think what's important is for us to acknowledge that there is a huge amount of work being done in those areas. You'll have seen that already there is a breakdown now on the basis of health boards. I've asked now for more transparency, all the time—let's just get some transparency on this, let's have a look. I think the public need to know where are they on the lists—where are they, around where. We may not be able to give a definite number. And, of course, the other thing you've got to remember the whole time with this is that, actually, clinicians make calls on this. If there's an urgent case, they're going to take priority. And that's the challenge.

Actually, if you look at the numbers on waiting lists, they are coming down in Wales compared to England, and that's because we're seeing more urgent cases. That's the situation. I have been asking them, 'Listen, I know that in England they've been very focused on just doing the longest waits', and actually, it means that some of the more urgent cases perhaps haven't been seen. And if you speak to the BMA, it's quite an interesting conversation with clinicians, who sometimes say, 'Hang on a minute, you've got to see the urgent cases.' So, there is a little bit of a dialogue that we have. What I'm saying is the balance is in the wrong place at the moment. We need to get the longest waits seen, because enough is enough.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. Today, the BMA launches it's Save our Surgeries campaign. There was an event today here in the Senedd, and it was good to see the Minister attending that event. This crucial part of our health service has suffered a decade of decline and they are now reaching a critical point. This isn't a new crisis. The sector has been warning us of this for over 10 years.

The proportion of the NHS budget committed to GP services has fallen to historic lows in recent years, compared to the 8.7 per cent level in 2005-06, which has not only led to swingeing cuts in provision, but also an increase in the number of practices handing back their general medical services contracts. So, can I ask the Minister, therefore, whether she will commit to restoring the proportion of the NHS Wales budget spent in general practice to its historic level of 8.7 per cent by the end of this Senedd, as has been recommended by the BMA?

Thanks very much. Well, I had the very same conversation as you, and, before I go any further, I’d like to welcome you to your new position.

Best of luck to you in your new role. You'll have a lot of work to do.

So, just in terms of the BMA, and I was very happy to attend that event earlier, I think there are a few things that we need to bear in mind. First of all, actually, 'A Healthier Wales' is very clear about the direction of travel here—it is about the need to move resources from secondary care into the community. And rather than talk about that, you’ll have seen very recently that I’ve just done it—I have just ring-fenced £30 million and said, ‘Enough. This actually needs to happen. I’m not waiting for the health boards to do this anymore, I’m moving that money.' So, that’s happened, and I think the key thing for us to remember in relation to primary care is that, with primary care, it’s not just about GPs; it’s got to be about the wider group that supports the GPs. And if you look at the number of GPs in Wales, there are more fully qualified GPs per head of the population in Wales than there are in England. The number of GPs have gone up from 1,926 in 2017 to 1,974 in 2022. So, we’ve got more GPs. The real issue is that the demand, demand, demand just keeps coming. And the demand is absolutely unstoppable. We had the case of a week in December when there were 400,000 contacts with GPs in a week—in a week. Can you think about the pressure on those 1,900 workers? That is a lot of people to get through. So, everybody acknowledges this, which is why what we’re trying to do is to do things slightly differently and not put all the pressure on GPs.

Thank you for that response. Of course, it's not just money that's important, as you've emphasised; it's the GPs who are important—that workforce. But as you've noted yourself, whilst the registered patients on GPs' books have increased hugely—over 100,000 in 10 years—the number of practices has declined from 470 to 386. And despite the fact that you say that the number of GPs has increased, this has led to a fall of almost 22 per cent in the workforce.

Wales is now 664 GPs short of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. It's a damning indictment of the extent to which the vitality of our health service has been sapped in recent years. It's no surprise that GPs are complaining of heavy workloads and that many of the younger GPs are finding employment in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere where they are better appreciated. Eighty per cent of respondents in the BMA survey have claimed that their high workload is compromising their ability to provide quality and safe care to patients. And with almost 27 per cent of respondents seriously considering leaving the profession in the near future, it's inevitable that these pressures will soon intensify. So, will the Minister agree to develop a workforce plan to specifically address the glaring shortfall in the GP profession, with the aim of reaching the OECD average within three years?

Diolch yn fawr. Well, you'll be aware that there is a worldwide shortage of healthcare workers, so we're in a very competitive market here. And we did have a target for the number of GPs we wanted to train and we exceeded that target last year by 90, and that's not for the first time. So, the question then is: with this incessant demand, what does the workforce of the future need to look like? Well, Health Education and Improvement Wales is working on that already, looking not just at GPs, but at the broader need within communities. And I think that is where we need to go now, not just to focus on GPs. And I think it's probably worth thinking also about not the numbers of surgeries, because, actually, what's happened is a lot of amalgamation. So, lots of surgeries have joined up together and it makes the system more robust. So, on the number of single-handed practices, for example, there is definitely a weakening of the appetite of people to do a single-handed practice; they do want to work together. So, you will get a reduction in the number, but I think you'll get a more robust system where people can, for example, at least go on holiday if they're in a bigger group of workers and they can get a bit more relief.

Thank you. I am aware that a fairly large contract in Ammanford was handed back to the health board last July. The health board have retendered the contract successfully and the new practice will be opening later this year.

Thank you for that response, Minister. It's to be welcomed, of course, that the new contract will commence at some point over the next few months because of the huge demand in the town after the service came to an end. During the last year, the contract for the Llandeilo Road Dental Surgery in Cross Hands came to an end in August last year. So, the same thing happened in Llandeilo and there is huge demand now in the surrounding area too. So, what assurance can we give to the residents of Ammanford in the first instance, who were former patients of the old service, that they'll be prioritised, and are there plans in place to meet the demand in neighbouring areas and to generate new capacity there too?

Thank you very much. Well, as I said, what's happening is, where people hand contracts back, you have to retender, and what's interesting is that they have been able to get somebody else to take on that contract in Ammanford. They are now redoing the surgery so that it's ready to accept patients—in September, I think, we hope that that will reopen in Ammanford. In the meantime, if there are urgent problems, then people can use the capacity available in terms of the urgent pathway.

What we do know is that there are some areas where the problem is worse than in others. In order to try and get more people to go to those areas, one of the things that we've done is to give that additional £5,000 for people to train in those areas, particularly in rural areas, where we are seeing a problem.

So, what you will now see is the contract going out in Llandeilo and Cross Hands to try and get more people to take the contract on. I understand that the contract in Llandeilo is quite a big one in terms of the numbers being affected, so maybe that will take a little longer.

Can I thank Adam Price for tabling this question? Adam Price spoke about the pressure that is put on dental services in Ammanford, from Carmarthenshire, but obviously, as you know, the Amman valley crosses into Neath Port Talbot as well, in my region. I just wonder, in terms of your answer there to Adam Price in terms of the availability of NHS dental services to other parts of Carmarthenshire, can you also confirm that you will prioritise as well people who, perhaps, live in a different health board or indeed a different county, but would perhaps look to somewhere like Ammanford for their dental needs on the NHS, and that they're also prioritised, not punished for having that border, if you like, put up between them and the most convenient location?

Thanks very much. Well, dentistry is quite different from the way that people deal with GPs. So, quite a lot of people want to go to a dentist near, for example, where they work. So, the patterns of where people go are not necessarily close to where they live. So, that is something that I think is acknowledged within the system. But, one of the things that we've asked health boards to do now is to make sure that they are keeping lists of people who are looking for new dental appointments. Some are further ahead than others. So, Powys, for example, have a centralised system; everybody knows exactly where they are on the list. So, that's a system that is developed. In Hywel Dda, parts of it are developed and parts of it are not. But, by the end of this year, we're hoping to have one national system so that we can get a much better picture of what the demand is, because part of the problem at the moment is that we're not clear what the demand is, despite the fact that, obviously, the new contract has meant that we have been able to provide an extra 178,000 new dental appointments.

Thanks very much. Waiting times for both elective and emergency care have shown improvements over the last year. There's obviously still work to be done, and, as part of the special measures escalation, I've set clear targets for the next 90 days to improve waiting times. I expect to see continued improvements.

Thank you for your response, Minister. The reason I want to raise this question this afternoon is that I was contacted recently by a very concerned Vale of Clwyd resident, who informed me of a 55-hour waiting time at the A&E department at Glan Clwyd Hospital recently. And just to repeat that: 55 hours. That's over two days, Minister, and, quite frankly, it's an obscene amount of time for my constituents to wait for treatment, from arriving at ED to being seen and treated by the relevant health professionals. And this is further evidence to my constituents that the Welsh Labour Government is failing the people of the Vale of Clwyd and failing patients in managing the perennial issues at Betsi Cadwaladr health board. So, do you think that a 55-hour waiting time is acceptable, Minister—and I sincerely hope that you think they are not—and what specific arm of these special measures of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is laser focused on tackling waiting times at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, as my constituents have had enough and need leadership, actions and answers?

So, look, 55 hours is utterly unacceptable. It's utterly unacceptable. We had some issues earlier this week with some very long waits in Wrexham, and immediately we got on to it and tried to clear the system. But, actually, if you look at the overall picture, and so you are going to get individuals, which is still unacceptable, but the overall picture is improving. Now, it might not feel like that to many people, but, just to give you some information, over the last 12 months, the performance in terms of the four-hour emergency department has increased from 42 per cent to 56 per cent. It's not great, but it's definitely going in the right direction. And in terms of the 12-hour waits, that was reduced from May 2022 to May 2023—we've seen a 14 per cent improvement there. So, we're definitely heading in the right direction.

But I just want to give a shout-out to Betsi for some of the improvements they are making—and they are genuinely are. And, do you know what, it's really important that we all celebrate together when that happens, because the last thing this board needs is more people talking it down. So, the improvement in relation to out-patients in Betsi has been quite, quite astounding. So, since January, we've seen a 43 per cent improvement in terms of the number of out-patients waiting for a year. That's an incredible—an incredible—effort by the people in that health board, and I'd like to thank them for that incredible effort.

Officials, through regular meetings with representatives of EASC, are assured the emergency medical and transfer service's service review engagement process has been comprehensive and transparent. Phase 1 is complete and enabled the public to contribute via meetings across mid and north Wales through online feedback and a dedicated phone line.

Thank you, Minister. Of course, this time last year, there were no proposals on the table, at least not publicly known about, and people across Wales were very grateful, as they still are now, for the amazing air ambulance service. So, it was a huge surprise when proposals came forward last August to close bases in Welshpool and Caernarfon, and the proposals were based on dubious data, I think it's now fair to say, that have now been removed off the table. But the basis for change seems to be not about cost saving, but about improving the service, and we're told that the service could be changed, leading to better results, without changing that financial envelope that's available. But, Minister, I agree with you, by the way, that the consultations that have taken place have been transparent. I've been very pleased to meet with Stephen Harrhy on a number of occasions, and I appreciate the time he's taken to listen to views across mid and north Wales. He's now taken time to consider those comments and come forward with further proposals. But can I ask you, Minister, if a proposal came forward that retained the current bases with suggestions of further bases that were appropriate in other areas of Wales that would need a greater financial resource, would that be something that you'd be willing to consider? Of course, I appreciate that the air ambulance charity themselves do not have any financial resource from the Welsh Government; the Welsh Government support is in terms of paramedics and equipment for the air ambulance service. But, ultimately, to give the air ambulance commissioner that steer in terms of his proposal for the next steps, would you be prepared, given the value of the air ambulance service, Minister, to financially contribute a greater sum through the Welsh NHS to support this very valuable air ambulance service?

I think the first thing to say is that I don't want to pre-empt anything that's going to come from this consultation, and this is only the first phase. The commissioner will consider the outcome of that engagement process. We'll come up with some options for future configuration, and then we'll go back out to consultation. So, there's a second phase to go out to the public. So, I don't want to pre-empt that, but I really need to underline how serious our financial situation is. We are not in a position to start committing to resources that are already difficult to find in the system. So, it will be difficult for me to do that. Obviously, I'll wait until I see what comes forward. If there's a good clinical case for it, then we'll have to obviously consider that.

As I set out in my response to the Petitions Committee debate in October, we are focused on NHS planning of services, improving data capture in the new cancer information system and new breast cancer audit, and setting out what should happen for patients in nationally agreed pathways of care.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Weinidog. You'll be aware of the campaigning work from the petitioner who secured the debate here in the Senedd, Tassia Haines, and her calls for improved services for metastatic breast cancer patients. You're right, Minister, that we had that debate a few months ago now, but Tassia continues her campaign for specialist nurse provision and improved quality of care, even though she is very ill herself. She was hoping to be here today; she's not, but she is watching online, I'm told. Minister, I've had the honour of meeting Tassia on a number of occasions in my role as committee Chair, and her knowledge of what needs to be done is evident. Tassia has shared the experience that she has been through and other patients that she knows have been through in Wales at a recent conference in Manchester as well. I wonder, Minister, if you would commit today to meeting with Tassia at the earliest possible opportunity to discuss with her her campaign further, and hopefully, Tassia can aid you in helping to develop that strategy going forward.

Thanks very much. Listen, I want to pay tribute to Tassia, because I hear that she's done an incredible job of campaigning on this issue. I don't usually and I'm not going to start committing generally to meeting people, but I am on this occasion willing to meet with Tassia, because of the incredible work that she's done. I acknowledge that there is work to be done here. I think things have already improved, so all health boards now have specialist nurse provision for people with metastatic breast cancer in Wales. That's already moved from when she started this campaign, but that's partly thanks to her and you, the Petitions Committee and everybody who keeps on making sure that we respond when necessary to these requests. Certainly, if I can't meet her in person, then certainly, we will arrange to meet remotely.

The big C is something that, unfortunately, will touch everyone in Wales somehow, whether it be through a family member, friend or someone who we know, who we live by. We all have a story of how cancer has affected us or someone we love in one way or another. My own family's been affected by breast cancer, and statistics from Cancer UK highlight that every day in Wales, 55 people are diagnosed and 24 people pass away from cancer. By 2040, it's predicted that the number of cases is set to rise by more than 25 per cent. As you know, Minister, metastatic breast cancer is late-stage cancer, and we need to do all that we can to avoid cancer getting to that stage. Early diagnosis saves lives, and makes metastatic breast cancer far less likely.

I welcome the new unified breast cancer unit at Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr and the effect that this will have on my region of South Wales East. What practical steps, Minister, are you taking to increase the chances of early diagnosis of breast cancer in my region of South Wales East? Thank you.

Thanks. Well, I think the stats that you quoted are important. We're expecting one in two of us to develop cancer at some point in our lives, so making sure that we are clear, first of all, about prevention where possible—and let’s be clear, it’s not possible on all occasions. People develop cancer, and what we need to do is to be there with them on that journey. What we also know about cancer is that you have to treat it early; if you can treat it early, you’re in a much better position.

In relation to metastatic cancer, I lost my sister-in-law to metastatic breast cancer about three years ago, so this is something that does chime with me, something that I know there are thousands of women in Wales who have been affected by this. So the fact that we have these new resources where people can go that are expert centres I hope will change the dynamic, and give people more confidence in the system. What we do have is the NHS executive now, and they’ve started development of the national pathway for metastatic breast cancer, and that’s due to be completed this year. So, we also have a new cancer information system, which is rolling out this year, and that means we can collect data and we’ll know what to do where.

Before I call Buffy Williams, can I just remind Members that if you expect to be called in an oral question session to the Minister, you do need to be present for the question session, whether here in the Chamber or on Zoom? That's to show respect to the Minister's answers and to the Senedd. But I will make an exception this time. Buffy Williams to ask question 7.

Diolch yn fawr, Buffy. The health board have been placed in targeted intervention for quality issues relating to performance, and this includes cancer. The NHS executive is providing peer support and undertaking a number of interventions. Officials hold monthly meetings with health boards to oversee their cancer performance recovery.

Diolch, Minister. One in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer in our lifetimes. Earlier this year, as part of my Rhondda Against Cancer campaign, I set out to raise awareness of the symptoms to look out for and the importance of early diagnosis. The sooner we receive our diagnosis, the sooner treatment can begin. But we know that the treatment for some cancers can be extremely invasive and difficult, and although it saves lives, it can leave those on the receiving end with a worse quality of life. For example, men with prostate cancer can be left with incontinence, leading to isolation and loneliness. I’m currently running a survey for Rhondda residents to share their experience of life after cancer. Will you please meet with me to discuss the responses and provide an update on how the Welsh Government are supporting residents in Wales, following their cancer treatment?

Thank you very much, Buffy. It's traumatic, going through cancer, and for people who survive cancer, it's not something that ends, you then have to process it all and there are mental health issues you need to deal with. So, I really commend you on that work that you're doing in your constituency.

The diagnosis part that you mentioned I think is really crucial; we've got to catch this early. What's really interesting for me is getting into, 'What does the future look like?' So, we have things like liquid biopsies, which mean that you don't have quite such invasive diagnostic approaches. It's quite early days on some of this, but actually, Wales is world leading on some of this new genetic formulation. I'm really pleased to be able to speak to organisations that are very much at the forefront of this, and I think there are real opportunities. One of the things that I don't want to do is to be in a situation where the digital and the genetic developments move faster than we're able to move. So, it's a real challenge for us, because we don't have as much money as I'd like, but, certainly, the other thing I'm trying to avoid is to invest in kit that might be out of date by the time we start to use it. So, we just need to make sure that we get the balance right of treating today and thinking about tomorrow as well.

Thank you.

Finally, question 8, Peter Fox.

Access to healthcare at the Grange University Hospital has been below where I expect it to be for some time. I have been clear with the health board that this is not good enough and I've set clear expectations of the improvement required.

Thank you, Minister. In November, as you are quite aware, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales issued a report highlighting the need for urgent improvement in the emergency department at the Grange hospital. The inspection identified that Aneurin Bevan University Health Board did not have adequate arrangements in place within the department to support the delivery of safe healthcare. This is not the fault of any hard-working NHS staff; rather, it's the fault of increasing pressures and demands on the department. Indeed, I've had really positive feedback from people who've entered, once they're in the care system. We know that these changes aren't going to happen overnight, but what more can the Welsh Government do to help the health board accelerate the changes that the people of my constituency so desperately need? Are you confident about the progress being made there?

Thanks very much. I think there is improvement. The fact that performance has improved since December 2022 by 3.4 percentage points and that the 12-hour waits have decreased by 33 per cent means that we're heading in the right direction. Some of the things that we've done to support the health board are the £3.5 million capital funding that we've given to help them to establish the new SDECC, or same-day emergency care centre, which I think will transform the surgical urgent pathway and ensure that patients are seen and treated much faster. We also have seen that the health board have expanded the children's emergency assessment unit and the health board have introduced a flow centre in addition to a rapid diagnostic clinic, which has been established in the Grange hospital for patients with vague symptoms of cancer.

Thank you, Minister.

We'll move now to the topical questions, and the first is from Cefin Campbell.

Thank you for your question.

I understand that up to 100 jobs are at risk as a result of the Home Office's decision to use the Stradey Park Hotel. I've been informed that the Home Office accommodation provider Clearsprings is exploring opportunities to offer existing employees alternative employment, and we are monitoring this concerning situation closely.

Thank you for your response, Minister. I've been alarmed, as you have been as well, by recent reports that around 100 jobs at the hotel will be lost as a direct result of the Tory UK Government's decision to take over the hotel for the purpose of housing asylum seekers. Now, I'm extremely proud of the fact that Wales is a nation of sanctuary and that we are committed to offering support and a home to those who have faced unimaginable hardship, be it as a result of war, torture or persecution.

Plaid Cymru has been absolutely clear that the UK Government's hotels policy does not serve the needs of asylum seekers. The Tory Government's approach to the whole situation has been disgraceful. Carmarthenshire County Council has raised concerns that no additional resources have been allocated to address increased demands on local government services, already stripped to the bone due to a decade of Tory-imposed austerity measures. There are many important questions to be asked about placing hundreds of people in the Stradey Park Hotel, rather than pursuing a more sustainable model of dispersal, which would allow asylum seekers to better integrate into our communities. In addition, this would allow the Stradey Park Hotel to continue providing key events, such as weddings, and protect the jobs of current employees.

We now know that about 95 staff members may face redundancy, and this in a town where unemployment and poverty figures remain stubbornly high. So, could I therefore encourage the Welsh Government to intervene with urgency? I would also ask what support might be made available to support those who will lose their jobs as a result of this decision.

Diolch yn fawr, Cefin Campbell. Can I say we are extremely—extremely—disappointed, not only about the situation that those valuable workers for that hotel with long service are facing, but also the proposed new use of the Stradey Park Hotel, the way it's been handled by the hotel owners—who we know are Essex based, they're not the people on the ground, we know, in the hotel—and, of course, by the Home Office? As you say, staff have only recently been made aware that they are being made redundant and have little clarity on their position and alternative employment offers. I've made the point about the Home Office provider Clearsprings, but we have no clarity about what that actually means in terms of offers.

I do want to say that the Minister for Economy, Vaughan Gething, will be writing to the Department for Business and Trade, the Secretary of State, to convey his deep unhappiness about this matter. But I've also been raising this, the whole picture of the way in which the Home Office are treating people who are in need of sanctuary, as you acknowledge in the support that you give to the nation of sanctuary. I have raised this with the Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick, and I just heard this week that he is prepared to meet me. I've raised a number of issues with him, including, of course, our rejection of the Illegal Migration Bill, and raised with him the fact that this is because they are not processing asylum applications appropriately and speedily so that people wouldn't be put in this situation. So, I just want to say that we've made it clear to the Home Office the negative impact of the hotel owner—Essex based, we recognise—making redundancies, not only on the employees themselves, but also on the wider community.

We know the tensions that are present, and we've raised these concerns on a number of occasions, and I have to say with the local Member and also the MPs. I've met with the leader of Carmarthenshire council on two occasions. What's very important is that the Welsh Government is participating in multi-agency meetings, of course, as well as the work that's being done, multi-agency, with the police and the police and crime commissioner. I will be meeting again with the leader.

Of course, we're not responsible—the Welsh Government is not responsible—for the procurement and operation of asylum accommodation in Wales, but we do believe that the sustainable model of dispersal is the right way forward across the whole of Wales, and we work with our local authorities and leaders to address this.

Just finally from me, of course, we will work with Carmarthenshire County Council in terms of offering support to employees if it does transpire they lose their jobs. We have the ReAct programme, of course, Welsh Government working very closely with Jobcentre Plus, Working Wales, and also intensive support for alternative employment as well. Actually, Working Wales, Communities for Work Plus and the Department for Work and Pensions are meeting employees on site next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thank you, Minister.

The second topical question is to be asked by Tom Giffard.

Can I thank Tom Giffard for that question? Funding will support a dedicated full-time journalist to cover Senedd business, providing free content to all news outlets in a similar way to the BBC local democracy reporting service. There is currently no full-time local media journalistic coverage of the Senedd, an issue that has been raised by the industry and sector representatives.

I thank the Minister for the answer. Now, the idea of a Government paying journalists to cover itself is not something from the cold war Soviet Union, it is Wales in 2023 and our Government here is spending £200,000 of taxpayers' money on journalism projects, including £36,500 on salary and expenses for this particular journalist. That is, of course, as you know, Minister, significantly higher than the average salary here in Wales. Obviously, it's important that we have more democratic scrutiny of the decisions made in Cardiff Bay, something we’ve long advocated, and, from my perspective, the more people that know that this is a Welsh Government that’s failing on health, failing on the economy and failing on education, the better. But, given those failures, is this the most appropriate way to do that, really, to directly spend public funds on creating a new job for a journalist? Now the Caerphilly Observer, who’d be running the pilot, said there’d be no editorial interference in the content that this journalist produces. Editor Richard Gurner has even said that, quote,

'If there was any sort of suggestion that there would be editorial interference, I wouldn't be involved in the project.'

End quote. And I’ve no doubt that his comments are genuine and they’re well-meaning, but, on a day-to-day basis, that’s going to be difficult to maintain. The idea that, despite the fact that this journalist’s job—

The Member needs to come to ask his question.

—depends solely on funding from the Welsh Government, there would be no indirect influence on news stories being produced, doesn’t seem sustainable, so that could place any young journalist hoping to do this job in an extremely awkward position, especially when it comes to publishing critical stories.

So, Minister, do you accept that a press that is bought and paid for by Government is bad news for democracy and democratic accountability, and raises serious concerns about their independence and their preparedness to scrutinise the Government in a way that a more independent journalist would?

Well, it’s kind of where to start, isn’t it, with that ill-informed nonsense, Tom, frankly. I mean, you will have heard my colleague Lee Waters say—and I was going to mention this myself—that it was the UK Government, your Government in the UK, that set up the BBC democracy service to do exactly—exactly—what we are proposing to do with this local democracy reporter in Wales. And I think you also need to understand the process that we’ve been through to get to this. You’re a member of the culture committee, Tom, and this was a process that started when the Deputy Minister for Climate Change and I were members of the culture committee in the last term, when we had an inquiry into the democratic deficit that we’ve got in Wales and how we deliver reporting on news in this Senedd. We’ve seen, over the years, historical and recent budgetary constraints within the journalism industry that have led to a reduction in the coverage of Senedd business, and an issue that’s been raised, as I said in my initial answer, by the wider sector representatives and the industry itself. So, this is something that we’ve done that has been informed by the industry.

And as a result of all of that work, we came into this period of Government, I was appointed Minister, and, as a result of discussions with the National Union of Journalists, we set up something called the public interest journalism working group, and it was that group that came up with the proposals to take forward this pilot project. And be clear about that: it is a pilot project; it’s a pilot project to see how this works. And the approach and the idea behind this is that it will increase the coverage of Senedd business on an engaged level, a local level, across Wales, helping media plurality and providing an elevated political news service to residents in Wales. The cost of this is around £36,000. The post is going to be based in Cardiff Bay.

But I noticed the comments that you made on this on social media last night, Tom, and you went into the usual kind of Welsh Tory vanity project stuff. You’ve already had all that debunked by a Welsh journalist, your whole list of Welsh Government vanity projects, by a local political journalist on WalesOnline. So, I don’t think we need to go down the road of talking about vanity projects; it is a vital gap that we’re looking to fill in terms of reporting the work of this Welsh Parliament. It’s a vital part of any democracy that we have independent and accurate reporting on our democratic processes. And contrary to what you say, Tom, I can understand why the Tories want to resist this, because I can understand that you don’t want to see scrutiny of the nonsense that you often spout in this Chamber, but let’s be clear: Welsh Government welcomes any additional scrutiny, and we have nothing to fear—

I will ask all Members on all sides, please, to remain quiet, so we can all hear the answer from the Deputy Minister.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. So, we have nothing to fear from additional scrutiny, and we welcome this kind of democracy reporting, which will do far more for our democracy than we’ve seen up to now.

It's really weird to hear the Conservatives attacking the much-loved institution that is the Caerphilly Observer, which is run from my constituency. Richard Gurner, the editor, is held in huge respect by the population of Caerphilly, and the only people who accuse him of any kind of bias are the people who are held to account by his newspaper, which includes Plaid Cymru, the Labour Party, the Conservatives and every other political party, when in fact what he is offering is impartial, unbiased journalism. It's really unfortunate that the Conservatives are attacking that kind of journalism in this way, and I will not stand for it. I'm absolutely confident that the journalist that will be employed by the Caerphilly Observer through this scheme will be absolutely impartial and will do their job with professionalism and diligence. I want the Minister to confirm that's the case, and also recognise that the Conservatives have removed a tweet from their misleading account that suggested some untruths about this programme.

Thank you, Hefin David, for that comment. And yes, of course, the Caerphilly Observer also covers journalism in part of my constituency as well, and I do know the journalist that you're taking about, Richard Gurner. He holds you and I to account all the time, Hefin, as you well know, and I've got the greatest deal of respect for him. This is not a journalist that would be bought out by a £36,000 grant, and I think it's absolutely outrageous for anybody to be suggesting and attacking that journalist's integrity in the way that you've done today, Tom Giffard. I don't think it does you or your party any—[Interruption.]—credit at all.

The pilot—[Interruption.]—the pilot, as I've said, will be free from editorial interference by Welsh Government. The content will be made available to all news publishing outlets right across Wales, with responsibility for translation sitting with the recipient publication. It's going to be expected to deliver articles—25 to 40 news pieces—every month. That is something that is not being reached at the moment, and this pilot project, as I've said—I will repeat it again—is about trying to spread the local democracy reporting across Wales, so that more people—not less, more people—can access independent reporting of the operations and the work that goes on in our Welsh Parliament.

Plaid Cymru warmly welcomes this additional investment in our democratic infrastructure. Of course, as you are aware, providing support to the media is a commitment in the co-operation agreement, and specifically we committed to provide additional investment to develop initiatives that are already in existence and new initiatives. It's important that we tackle the information deficit that exists, and we do see that this is a positive step, but it's not a new development either. The independent taskforce for the Llywydd in the last Senedd suggested establishing a small team of journalists, so, in reality, the question should be, 'Why one?' rather than that small team.

I do think that we also have to look at this small contribution as being important in ensuring that the citizens of Wales understand what this Senedd does and what party is in power, and that they understand that they too have a role in holding representatives to account. After all, a survey undertaken by our group showed that 35 per cent of respondents to that survey believed that the Conservatives have had Ministers in the Welsh Government since the May election in 2021; 44 per cent believed Plaid Cymru had Ministers in Government; but 78 per cent of respondents couldn't name a single policy introduced in Wales over the past year when they considered the Senedd and the Welsh Government. If we think that there is no problem, then I think we have to raise some very serious questions indeed, and that's why we welcome this.

But we need to do more, of course. One journalist isn't going to close this democratic deficit. The whole broadcasting framework is inadequate. That's why we need to devolve broadcasting and communications in full, so that we can invest strategically through a broadcasting and communications authority that would be at arm's length and ensure that broadcasters such as the BBC do serve Wales properly with the funding provided by the people of Wales through the licence fee. So, may I ask, Deputy Minister, do you agree that the most effective way of investing and closing that democratic deficit is by establishing a communications and broadcasting authority and securing full powers over these areas for this Senedd?

Diolch, Heledd, for those comments and questions. I agree with everything you were saying. Under the Welsh Government's co-operation agreement with Plaid, we've had £300,000 allocated over three years, which will help to provide and develop new and existing enterprises, in seeking to improve journalism and tackle that information deficit that you've referred to. And, yes, would I like to see more journalists doing this? Of course, we would, but this is a pilot, specifically within that funding pot, to run for a year, see how it goes, does it make a difference—I think it will make a difference. And if it makes a difference, as with all pilots, you can build on that. So, that's very much where I hope that we're going.

As you know, again, as part of our co-operation agreement, we are moving towards building the case for the devolution of broadcasting, and I've been working very closely with your colleague Cefin Campbell on that one. We've been making good progress on that; we've had the first report from the expert panel on the devolution of broadcasting. And quite interestingly, actually, the work of the Wales public interest journalism working group that they've just produced, talking about how they feel we need to move forward in terms of identifying or talking about public service journalism as a public service—as something that we should identify as a public service—links very much into the work that we're doing on the devolution of broadcasting. And one of the recommendations from the expert panel is that, if we progress the work on public interest journalism, we maybe need to combine the work of the public interest journalism working group and the work that's proceeding on the establishment of a shadow broadcasting authority.

So, we've still got a lot of work to do on that. I've been very clear, as has Cefin Campbell, to be fair, on the work around the devolution of broadcasting: we want it to be evidence based, we want it to be factual, we want it to be watertight. So, I'm not going to stand here today and say that this is absolutely what is being delivered, but this is something that we are working towards, and we know what our intended objectives and outcomes are. But we want to make sure that, when we get to that point, we have a case that we can all sign up to.

I very much welcome the funding of a reporter to cover the Senedd. The written media, both online and on paper, generally provides very poor coverage of Senedd proceedings. The big improvement recently has been the expansion of Nation.Cymru, which now provides the best all-Wales coverage. On local news, the South Wales Evening Post in Swansea bay is very good, but with limited Senedd coverage due to a shortage of journalists. Will the appointed reporter be providing copy to regional and Welsh language newspapers, and to Nation.Cymru?

Again, Mike Hedges, I agree with the comments that you've made, and Nation.Cymru is a classic case in point. And actually, we do help support and fund Nation.Cymru. I don't think anybody would suggest that Nation.Cymru is a big friend, necessarily, of Welsh Government—they are very critical of us when they feel they need to be, and quite rightly so. So, I think they are a classic example, and a case in point, of an independent news outlet that we have helped to support to keep on the road, that is very much holding us as a Welsh Government to account. And I think that, where we can do that, where we can help to support and nurture independent journalism, that is exactly what we should be doing.

We're out of time and I have two more people wishing to raise questions, so, please be succinct in your questions. Alun Davies.

People up and down Wales will have different views on the decisions of the Welsh Government, but one thing that unites people, from Anglesey through to Monmouthshire, is that we have the world's worst opposition. And if you want an example of poor opposition, look at this question today. Most opposition parties would want more scrutiny of Government. Most opposition parties would want the people of Wales to know what the Government is doing, because you are supposed to believe that the Government is doing it wrong. And yet, what we have here is people who are very happy to appear on things like GB News, which is funded by right-wingers in Dubai, and other sources of news from people who don't even pay UK taxes, but object to Welsh media covering Welsh politics. And the reason for that is, of course, that they don't have the confidence in their arguments, and they don't have the confidence in what they're saying. They should be ashamed of putting forward this question this afternoon.

Minister, will you ensure that this is the beginning and not the end of the programme, to ensure that the work of this place, both the Senedd and the Government, has the prominence that it requires, and that the materials produced through this scheme are entirely independent of Government, independent of the Senedd, but inform the people of Wales of the work that is being done in this place, and what a shambles of an opposition we have to face?

Yes, absolutely, Alun Davies, and I don't think I need to say what an awful opposition we have in this Senedd; it's been widely reported in the Welsh media. And again, the same journalist that tore apart your vanity projects list has also questioned the validity of your opposition, basically saying that the Welsh Government has no opposition in Wales. And I think that that's the point that you were making. And for any opposition party to want to support a position where the Welsh Government is scrutinised less rather than more is really, really quite bizarre—absolutely bizarre.

So, yes, absolutely, Alun Davies, I will want to ensure that this is the beginning of a programme that ensures that that prominence, and ensures that that reporting remains independent of Government, informs the people of Wales, and continues to rightly scrutinise the Welsh Government.

And just to inform the Member for Blaenau Gwent, that was not succinct. [Laughter.] Rhianon Passmore.

Oh, what can I say? The Welsh Senedd funding, Deputy Minister—the financial costs of a reporter to cover the proceedings of this Senedd—is to be very much welcomed. How often does this Chamber, cross-party, and in committee, decry the paucity of coverage of this place, and the need for greater participation, and to rectify a democratic deficit? So, this pilot—and it is a pilot—will be conducted by the Caerphilly Observer. They already hold, as has been stated, the contract for the local democracy reporting service, funded by the BBC at a local level.

So, Deputy Minister, would the Welsh Government echo with me, and guarantee, in the words of the Caerphilly Observer editor, Richard Gurner, that the pilot will mean impartial reporting and an adherence to all the usual high standards? And Minister, will the Welsh Government continue to champion the emergence of a truly free Welsh press, epitomised by the qualitative rise of the Caerphilly Observer from very humble origins as a website on a laptop to a highly respected, objective, award-winning news service now? Thank you.

Well, again, can I thank Rhianon Passmore for those comments and her question on that? And, yes, again, I absolutely agree with her, and when I look around at what we refer to in the United Kingdom as our free press—the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, The Sun—these free media outlets that apparently—. Well, they're clearly not impartial. And they're not funded by Government, but they are funded by interests within the Tory Party—let's be under no doubt about that—and that's what they report on. But I have to say, even the Daily Express now are writing your obituary, so just be careful what you wish for in paying your masters, because even they know about the extinction-level, whatever it is—extinction-level event—that they called it. So, that's what you're facing next year in the general election.

But, absolutely, Rhianon Passmore, we want to champion a free Welsh press, and the fact that we are supporting a pilot to deliver that is not in any way an indication that that would not be impartial. If it were to be in any way deemed to not be impartial, if there was any indication that there would be any political interference at all, then Richard Gurner and the Caerphilly Observer would immediately withdraw, I have no doubt, because that is the integrity that people like that have. But as I said in response to Heledd Fychan, I see this very much as the start of a process, and not the end of it. I hope that it will be a successful pilot project, and that we can build on that going forward.

Diolch i'r Dirprwy Weinidog. I have received a point of order from Tom Giffard. Tom Giffard.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. There was obviously a lot I disagreed with in that debate, but there were some things that were just patently untrue, I'm afraid to say. And Hefin David and the Deputy Minister, Dawn Bowden, both alleged that I'd called into question the impartiality and the neutrality of the Caerphilly Observer and its staff. Can I encourage you to check the Record, and check whether I actually said that, because I can tell you I didn't?

I will check the Record. I didn't hear any criticism of the journalist or the paper, but I will double-check the Record and I will come back to this Chamber with a view on that. I'm sure the Deputy Minister will also reflect on the Record as well to make sure that her comments were accurate.

Thank you.

Item 4 this afternoon is the 90-second statements. First of all, Carolyn Thomas.

Diolch. On Saturday, 1 July, we celebrate National Meadows Day and the vital role they play in our ecosystem, supporting biodiversity. This is an important opportunity to take part in local events, such as helping with the wildflower survey count or learn why councils are allowing our grass verges and amenity land to be grown and encouraged to be maintained to allow wildflowers to thrive, which has been happening under our local nature partnerships' 'It's for Them' campaign.

Last Saturday, as the butterfly orchid species champion, I took part in a butterfly orchid count at a wildflower meadow, owned by Plantlife Cymru and managed by the North Wales Wildlife Trust. The meadow was rich in diverse species, which has created habitat in return for many animals and insects, such as butterflies, ladybirds, damselflies, crickets, spiders and tiny frogs. The place was alive and very beautiful.

We currently focus on tree planting for carbon storage, yet three to five times more carbon is stored within our grasslands than in our forests, and, unfortunately, 90 per cent of meadows have been lost. Wildlife is declining at an unprecedented rate in human history, and one in six species in Wales are at risk of extinction, which is why we need to look at putting protections in place urgently and manage wildflower meadows, verges, amenity grass and even our own gardens in a different way.

I also want to pay tribute to landowners who manage land for nature, and hope that the incoming sustainable farming scheme will offer the right incentives to encourage others to do the same. If we are to cultivate a fertile future, one in which our biodiversity is allowed to bloom, much more needs to be done to protect our natural environment, and I know the Welsh Government is working really hard with partners to do just that. Thank you.

Last Saturday, the 2024 Eisteddfod proclamation came to Aberdare, and it was a real honour to be able to join the procession, as we welcome the Eisteddfod to Rhondda Cynon Taf and Rhondda Cynon Taf to the Eisteddfod, and what a welcome it was. As Members will know, the proclamation is an important milestone in the preparations for next year's festival. This will see the Eisteddfod being held in RCT, returning to the area for the first time in almost 70 years. Indeed, this follows on from the proclamation revisiting in Aberdare, the town where the first modern Eisteddfod was held back in 1861.

It was good to see so many local people and so many children coming together to welcome the Gorsedd and celebrate our shared culture and heritage. In fact, members of the Gorsedd said to me that the reception they received from the residents of Aberdare was the best they'd experienced in many years.

Saturday's celebration built on the grass-roots project that the Eisteddfod has already carried out in RCT, funded by the Lottery Heritage Fund. These include a historical walking tour for Welsh learners in Aberdare and the marchnad haf in Aberdare Park, involving local schools and Scout groups. I'd like to express my thanks to everyone who was involved in putting this magical day together, with special mention for RCT council and all at Our Aberdare business improvement district. Diolch.

Last weekend, at the Royal Highland Show, the Golden Shears wool-shearing and wool-handling championships took place. The wool-shearing and wool-handling championships is an international competition, held to determine the best and fastest sheep shearers and wool handlers in the world. It showcases the art and the skill and techniques it takes to be a world champion. The event brings together skilled shearers and wool handlers from 30 countries to compete in various shearing disciplines.

It's fabulous to say that team Wales came away with winning the team wool-handling championship, the team shearing championship and the individual machine-shearing championship. I'm sure I and the whole Chamber want to pass on our huge congratulations to Gwion Evans, Richard Jones, Elfed Jackson, Gareth Owen, Ffion Jones and Sarah-Jane Rees on all their success at the Royal Highland Show. And I wish all our shearers across Wales, young and old, all the very best for the sheep-shearing competitions at the Royal Welsh agricultural show in the next couple of weeks. Diolch.

And, finally, Altaf Hussain.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Eid al-Adha or 'Festival of Sacrifice' is one of the most important festivals in the Muslim calendar. Today marks the start of Eid al-Adha and the festival ends on Sunday evening.

It is the second and the largest of the two main holidays celebrated in Islam. It honours the willingness of Ibrahim, or as many of you know him, Abraham, to sacrifice one of his sons, Ismail or Ishmael, as an act of obedience to God's command. The devil tempted Ibrahim by saying he should disobey Allah and spare his son. Ibrahim ignored temptation and prepared to sacrifice his child. As he was about to kill his son, Allah stopped him and gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this intervention, we celebrate Ibrahim’s sacrifice.

Eid al-Adha takes place on the last day of Hajj. Hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam, which states that each Muslim, once in their lifetime, should stand before the Ka’bah—a shrine built by Ibrahim in Mecca. This occasion of Eid is a time when community, sacrifice and sharing are at the forefront of people's minds, with a particular focus on showing compassion for those less fortunate. It is also a moment for gratitude. So, in that spirit, I wish you all Eid al-Adha Mubarak. May your life be always filled with light, love, happiness and good health. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you to all four Members.

We now move to a motion to elect a Member to a committee, and I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion. Darren Millar.

I move.

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

Item 5 this afternoon is a debate on a Member's legislative proposal—a civic duty to vote Bill. I call on Adam Price to move the motion.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. It's an honour to propose this motion on universal civic duty voting. It's not the first Senedd motion on this proposal. Six years ago, a motion advocating universal voting was tabled by Dawn Bowden, Jeremy Miles and the late Steffan Lewis, but was not selected. So, this is the first time we've had the opportunity as a Senedd to debate the proposition that every citizen, as part of their basic civic duties, should be required to participate in the nation's democratic life.

A Senedd of 96 Members, at least half of them women, elected by more than 90 per cent of the electorate, would be more representative than any other Parliament in these islands. It is a massively transformational idea, but it's not a new or unusual one. It exists in 26 countries across the world: countries as diverse as Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Ecuador, Greece, Singapore, Switzerland and Uruguay. In Australia, participation in elections has been mandatory since 1924. And the idea that citizenship involves not just rights but duties is a familiar one here in Wales too, as we accept our duty to pay taxes, to serve on a jury, to fill out the census, and, yes, also to register to vote.

So, why extend that principle to the act of voting itself? Well, there is one central premise behind this proposal: that the health of any democracy is only as good as the extent to which the people participate in it. This Parliament, though created by a majority of Welsh electors in 1997, has not been elected by a majority in any of the elections since then, and the same goes for local government elections in Wales over that period as well.

The first reason to introduce universal civic duty voting is that it would dramatically increase turnout to the 90 per cent plus that we typically see in elections in those countries like Belgium, Australia and Uruguay, where it is the norm. There can be no doubt that higher turnout would give the Senedd and the Welsh Government far greater legitimacy. But higher turnout would also make this Senedd more genuinely representative. The just under half of the electorate that vote at the moment is heavily skewed towards the older and more affluent voter, so the views of many of the young and the working class, especially those who feel that mainstream politics has the least to offer them, will go unheeded. Universal civic duty voting would give us instead a system in which everyone would count, not just those likely to vote. And if everyone is voting, every voice is heard.

Introducing a civic duty to vote would also likely mean that, instead of making it more difficult for people to vote, as is happening for the Westminster Government at the moment, we would try to make it as easy as possible, through, for example, moving voting to a Saturday, introducing digital voting, and allowing people to vote at any polling station. And if every young person were required to vote, schools would have an even more powerful reason to provide political education as part of the mandatory curriculum.

Universal civic duty voting will transform our democracy's legitimacy, its representativeness and its culture. No citizen would be forced to vote for anyone against their will, and each of us will have the option of voting for a 'none of the above' option or simply returning a blank or spoilt ballot if that’s our wish. There would be reasonable grounds for exemption. Enforcement should be light touch, as it is in all jurisdictions that have introduced civic duty voting. Fines should be small and more symbolic in nature, with community service requirements as alternatives to fines for those on low incomes and the young, and we should consider the possible use of incentives as opposed to penalties, to minimise any possible adverse consequences.

For us to assess the different models for implementation, then it does make sense, I think, to have a graduated plan of implementation involving the use of pilots. I can think of two different ways we may want to do that—one area specific, the other age related. We could trial a civic duty to vote in a given local authority area during the next 2027 round of elections, and maybe use that as a basis for designing a national roll-out. We could decide, as a first step, to introduce a civic duty vote for first-time voters at the Senedd election in 2026. There's strong evidence that getting young voters into the habit of voting leads to a stronger propensity to vote in later life.

If there's broad agreement that this is a useful discussion for us to be having, then I have two practical suggestions—one for the Government, and one for us as a Senedd. For the Government, as I said yesterday, commissioning some independent research from the Wales Centre for Public Policy on how a civic duty to vote might impact the indicators of a healthy democracy would furnish us with a good evidential basis for an informed debate. For the Senedd, I think it would be useful if we held what would be the first ever committee inquiry specifically on universal civic duty voting in these islands. I'm thinking particularly of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee.

I look forward to hearing Members' contributions and the ministerial response to this historic first debate.

I'd like to thank Adam Price for bringing this important motion. I'd like to speak in favour of it and see it as a beginning of a very important discussion.

According to the research from the US think tank the Brookings Institution, the evidence shows what we already know, that a civic duty to vote can iron out disparities in turnout along class, ethnic and racial lines. We know these exist. We see them. We see huge differences in wards within our areas. For example, in last year's local elections, the turnout in the affluent ward of Rhiwbina was 57.5 per cent. In contrast, the turnout in Ely was 23 per cent. We have recently seen what happens when a community feels they are forgotten and ignored. And bear in mind that this is the percentage of registered voters, not of all those eligible to vote. I'm sure we've all canvassed in some wards, such as Ely, when we pass house after house who have not registered. I dread to think what the real turnout in Ely is. I can assure you it's far less than 23 per cent.

In Australia, registration became compulsory before the civic duty to vote, back in 1911, and turnout in Australian elections is always in the high 80s of those eligible to enrol. I was pleased to hear yesterday of the Welsh Government's commitment to bring forward a Bill that will take steps to ensure that every eligible voter in Wales is on the electoral register. Closer to home, all Belgian citizens are automatically registered to vote. Why are we creating additional barriers for people to express their democratic voice? It should be as straightforward as possible, and that is seen in Belgium, with voter turnout on average over 90 per cent over the last 10 elections.

I can imagine that some of my friends on the Conservative benches may feel uneasy about the civic duty to vote, but bear this in mind: you might fear losing out in elections, you might fear losing votes, but just remember, at every Senedd election, your leader Andrew R.T. Davies talks about the need for your voters in Westminster elections to turn out and vote in Senedd elections. That doesn't happen for you at the moment; you don't inspire your Westminster voters to turn out in their droves to vote in Senedd elections. Who knows, a civic duty to vote may be one way to boost your support in Senedd elections. I made a quick calculation before this debate, and if your Westminster support was reflected in the Senedd elections, well, the Cwnsler Cyffredinol, who responds to this debate, would only have a slim majority of 17 votes. So, bear that in mind when you vote this afternoon.

In proposing the introduction of a civic duty to vote—

You need to conclude now, Rhys.

—it would be a continuation of our innovative work in Wales in expanding the electorate, with votes at 16 and votes being more representative. Many will ask, 'Why divert from Westminster?', but we've had divergence in elections in Wales since 1999. As we heard earlier, we do have a democratic deficit in Wales; this Bill will be one step to address that. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you, Adam Price, for introducing this Bill. I think it's really important. I really worry about the fact that we only had a 46.6 per cent turnout in the last Senedd elections, in 2021. Granted, it was the highest it's ever been, but let's compare that with a slightly larger but not dissimilar-sized electorate in Queensland, Australia, where the turnout in the 2020 Queensland state elections was 87.9 per cent. Queensland has had compulsory voting of one sort or another since 1915, and the effect of the civic duty to vote can be clearly seen. Whilst there is a fine for those who don't vote, a first-time offence can be discharged for as little as AU$20 and the maximum penalty is AU$180. I'm afraid I don't know how these amounts equate into pounds, but we're talking really moderate sums of money. And these fines are regularly enforced.

On top of that, there are several opt-outs built into the system that allow leniency. If someone is travelling, if they're ill, they can have an opt-out. In addition, there are exemptions for religious objection, seasonal workers, and those with no fixed address. If someone is not registered to vote, they can also be included as an opt-out. However, it must be noted that Queensland's electoral enrolment rate is apparently 96 per cent. I'm not quite sure how they equate that, but they don't have the same problem that Rhys ab Owen has just described, where they pass, endlessly, houses where no-one is registered to vote when they go around canvassing. This is in contrast to the situation that we have today with the UK Government's determined intention to suppress the vote amongst young people, linguistically marginalised communities and people who are poor.

Queensland state encourages people to vote, not just enshrining it in law. They also have the phenomenon of the democracy sausage, where community organisations organise barbecues outside polling stations so that those queuing up to vote can pay a small fee to have a hot dog or another snack while they queue. Presumably that creates a sort of festive environment where everybody thinks this is something that we do together and something we should celebrate. And for many community groups, election day is their biggest fundraising day of the year. So, there's a win-win on all sides.

As Adam Price has already said, they vote on a Saturday, which means most people don't have to take time off work and it has a minimal effect on schools, and it means schools are available as one of the centres of polling because they're not being used for children's education. It's also to be noted that Australians can also vote near the beach. If it's in the summer, you get people turning up to vote in their beach gear with surfboards. And we have to really understand that if voting were compulsory—I completely agree with Adam Price—schools would have to provide political education. And I was really disappointed to hear from the discussions with ethnic minority young women last night in the Neuadd, that the schools they attend are still not providing young people with the information they need to appreciate the importance of voting, and that we have to change immediately.

It's certainly the case, isn't it, that in the UK and in Wales, we do not have the thriving democracy that we would wish to see, and I very much welcome ideas to improve on that situation, and I'm very pleased that Adam Price has brought this proposal forward for discussion and debate today. We do know that, as well as the lack of democratic legitimacy and the lack of the healthy democracy that we want in Wales, due to the low turnout and never having reached 50 per cent in Senedd elections, for example, there is also the question of equality and social justice in participation, as Adam Price said, and trying to ensure that more voices are heard and indeed that virtually every voice is heard.

I note that, in 2014, the European Social Survey found that over-55s in Britain were twice as likely to vote as under-35s, and those in the top income quintile were twice as likely to vote as those in the bottom quintile. So, there are real issues here that we need to get to grips with. And it's not just about coercion, is it; it's about sending a clear message and having an educative effort around a new civic duty to vote that I'm sure we would all be enthusiastic to help and take part in. And I think pilots are a very good idea in terms of the way forward, and we could test it in the ways that Adam Price has mentioned.

Sometimes, when I knock doors, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm met with a response that 'I'm not interested in politics', I sometimes say, 'Well, maybe, but politics is interested in you'. And that's the point, really, isn't it—that political parties are not going to concentrate on younger people and people in relative poverty, as much as they would otherwise, if they think those sections of society are less likely to vote, and their policies are then tailored accordingly, including if they get into Government, what they actually do. And I note that there is research, actually, that shows that those marginalised groups in terms of not voting at elections tend to suffer the greatest cuts to their household income from elected Governments in the UK. You know, these are real nitty-gritty, substantive issues that we need to try and address to a much greater extent than we have up to now.

And I do believe, Dirprwy Lywydd, that we could get to the stage of having a virtuous circle, where, if more people turn out to vote, including those marginalised categories, then political parties pay more attention to them, Government policies address their issues to a greater extent, and in turn, they become more interested in politics and they are more likely to vote. All of this I think sits very well with our new Senedd proposals—again, as Adam Price has mentioned—and, perhaps, an automatic registration system, which I also think is badly needed. So, a very timely debate. I very much welcome it, and I hope that this is just the start of something that will lead to concrete proposals implemented here in Wales.

I speak also in support of the proposals being presented by Adam Price and welcome the opportunity to debate this hugely important issue. The right to vote, the power of the ballot box and the contract between people and politicians must be protected and, indeed, enhanced. My view has always been that we need to be truly radical and creative in reforming how, when and where people vote and, indeed, who can vote. Evidence from around the world shows that the strongest democracies are those where there is mass participation in elections and also robust accountability of elected servants, yet, here in Wales, in most elections, we struggle to achieve turnouts of just 50 per cent. As Adam Price and John Griffiths have identified, the young are far less likely to vote than older people, people in our least affluent communities are less likely to use their power at the ballot box than people living in relative comfort. So, we have a massively unequal degree of democratic participation. I don't need to rehearse the terrible risks to policy making and service delivery of such inequality of representation. It's something that the Constitution Society has raised with great clarity in its support for compulsory participation.

In terms of the public view of this issue, my understanding is that more than 70 per cent of British citizens agree that it is a civic duty to vote, that the contract between people and political servants works both ways, and that more people support the introduction of compulsory participation than oppose it. So, in supporting the proposals, I'd certainly urge colleagues to vote for the legislative proposal. At the very least, we should pilot compulsory participation to determine whether our democracy, whether the service delivery that we see at a national level and at a local level and whether our accountability to the people we serve can be enhanced through such reforms. And I certainly support the suggestion of piloting this with first-time voters in the initial phase, not least because such a measure could instil at an early age the importance of the civic duty that older people currently feel far more strongly about than the young.

I call on the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, Mick Antoniw.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I thank Adam Price for introducing this thoughtful and important legislative proposal? As Members will know, I have often referred to the importance of our nation's democratic health in Senedd debates, and I believe that, alongside all the other well-beings that we're concerned with, the democratic health of our society is a vital component. A society where so many people are disengaged from our democratic process cannot be confident of its future stability and security. For Government to be stable, effective and confident, it needs to have the public legitimacy that only the electoral system can give. So, legitimacy of Government is not determined solely by winning elections and being in power, but also by commanding the common support of the people.

To achieve democratic legitimacy also requires the exercise of democratic responsibility of civic society by participating in those elections. In my view, your motion correctly focuses on and highlights the importance of what I would describe as a democratic covenant between Parliaments, Governments and the people. I've no doubt in my mind that there is indeed a civic responsibility to participate in elections and a duty to vote, and we should perhaps remind ourselves that even in the UK Parliament, the full inclusive democratic franchise is barely 90 years old. In that respect, it could be said that the UK and ourselves are relatively new democracies.

Perhaps it was the interwar and post-war generation that fought fascism and then had to rebuild the country, create the welfare state, the NHS, reconstruct our democracy and establish basic civil and human rights that regularly participated and understood the importance of elections, and established a baseline of well over 70 per cent participation in elections, in fact, many regarding voting as a civic duty. Or maybe it was the civic legacy of those who fought for civil rights, trade union rights, the Suffragettes, the Chartists and the early political pioneers who had to fight to establish our basic rights, including the right to vote.

However, in recent decades, the commitment to participation has diminished year on year. How regularly we hear people on the doorstep, as John Griffiths has said, say that they don't bother voting, they don't know anything about it, or it doesn't make any difference so they can't be bothered. I'm certain that many of us have looked at other countries that have translated that civic duty into a formal legal obligation, and wondered why we have not done something similar. Our starting point as a Government at this stage, however, is to modernise the electoral system, to remove obstacles to improve inclusion, and to ensure that everyone who's entitled to be on the electoral register is on the register, and therefore at least able to vote. And we intend to achieve this through automatic registration.

I call on Adam Price to reply to the debate.

I’m grateful to all those Members who have contributed to this important debate. Rhys ab Owen focused us very early on on the question that is never too far, maybe, from the minds of politicians in thinking about this question, which is: who's going to gain electorally? I would say to that, it's impossible to predict accurately. That will be up to those voters who don't currently participate to decide. I would say, furthermore, that we all will gain. Whoever they end up voting for, we will all gain in creating a more fully representative democracy.

Jenny Rathbone was right to point out, I think, that the civic duty to vote exists not just in federal elections in Australia, but at a regional, provincial level as well. Indeed, it works at local elections, so let's not forget that as well, in many, many of those nations that have introduced it. And she referred to the fact that, because basically the civic duty to vote has created a norm whereby people feel in Australia that democracy belongs to them, there is a celebratory atmosphere at election time as a result of that. So political culture has changed because of creating a statutory duty to vote, and that's the virtuous circle, I think, that John Griffiths referred to in his comments.

At the moment, the priorities of our political discourse and our culture are skewed, aren't they, because of the inequality in turnout? And so it tends to skew against younger generations and against those on lower incomes. Well, that cannot be right. That cannot be acceptable. We have the opportunity to put that right.

And Ken Skates is right to point out that there is overwhelming support for the idea of the ethical civic duty to vote, and there is growing support for putting that ethical civic duty on a legal, statutory basis.

I really welcome the response of the Counsel General. This is a movement in the Welsh Government's position. In the last Senedd, the Welsh Government said that it was against the idea of compulsory voting, as it's sometimes called. So an abstention is a positive movement in our direction and a willingness to engage, Dirprwy Lywydd, on the positive proposals in terms of research and a pilot are very welcome, and we look forward to continuing those discussions.

The proposal is to note the proposal. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, I will defer voting under this item until voting time.

Item 6 today is a debate on the Equality and Social Justice Committee Report, '60%—Giving them a voice: Speech, language and communication needs in the youth justice system'. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you very much. Too many people with speech, language and communication needs, whether diagnosed or not, end up in the criminal justice system, where the support they receive is patchy and inadequate. This report aims to give a voice to those young people.

The '60%' in the title, or three in five or six in 10 young people involved in youth justice is actually an underestimate. Using the figures provided by Neath Port Talbot youth offending team, acknowledged to be broadly consistent with the numbers across all youth offending teams, at least 80 per cent of young people involved with the criminal justice system at the youth level today have speech, language or communication needs, otherwise known as SLCN. That compares with an estimated 10 per cent of children and young people in the population as a whole, so this is a devastating difference.

The cornerstone of fairness has to be equitable access to justice, and that relies on a person's ability to listen, to understand and to communicate thoughts and experiences in words. Young people with these communication barriers face additional hurdles, challenges and difficulties at every stage of the criminal justice process. The problem is recognised, but progress is far too slow and there are far too few organisations in Wales advocating for this particular marginalised group of young people, who have, for obvious reasons, great difficulty articulating those needs themselves. That needs to change, and I know that all committee members are united in ensuring that it does.

So, action is needed in two key areas. One is prevention, stopping such high numbers of people with speech, language and communication needs entering the justice system at all. We have to improve awareness and early identification of this by people who are working in front-line services, particularly schools. And then there's the support that children and young people who have these communication needs and who are struggling on entry into, and at every stage of, the youth justice system—. We must ensure that staff and services have the skills, knowledge and resources to appropriately respond to those presenting with these difficulties.

The former—prevention—is firmly in the devolved area of responsibility. This is not sitting on the jagged edge of the criminal justice system. Any child can experience language delay, but the killer fact is that 50 per cent of children in socially deprived areas start school with language delay. If a child aged three arrives in school with no more than three words, and that's not unusual, any and all members of staff should be able to spot a mile off that this child needs intensive language support to help them catch up with their peers, before the child is even aware that they're different.

The Welsh Government's 'Talk With Me' strategy appears to be having a positive impact in raising awareness of these issues in schools, particularly in the early years, but we want to know how interventions will be tailored to each age and stage of a child's development, with particular attention to the transition from primary to secondary school.

The evidence from the Welsh Youth Justice Board is devastating:

'The majority of children with speech, language, communication needs, they are not identified by mainstream services. They come to awareness as a result of coming into the youth justice system...while it's laudable that the professionals within the youth justice system have those skills, for me, that feels like it's the wrong way round.'

I'm sure that all of the Members of the Senedd would agree with that. So, no wonder the statistics on permanent exclusions of pupils with statements of speech and language difficulty needs are so low, because we are simply not measuring the right things.

This wicked issue, and its link into progression into youth offending, was identified by our predecessors back in 2010, during the third Parliament. So, 13 years later, it is unacceptable that we're still having this conversation.

Would you give way?

Yes.

Could you also acknowledge that this was covered in a report published by your predecessor committee during the second Senedd term between 2003 and 2007, which I was party to?

Thank you very much, Mark Isherwood, and thank you for your historic memory.

We need to continue to have this conversation, and we have suggested that there is a need to convene a summit before the end of this calendar year. It has to be a summit or some other action to demonstrate that the Welsh Government has really shifted the dial and will assist in making this really a top priority for everybody involved. That will also assist the credibility of the Welsh Government response to recommendation 2, which is around working with health and education.

There's a word of warning also that the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 should mean that every pupil with additional learning needs will have a statutory individualised development plan by 2024. However, we heard evidence that those with the lowest level of special educational need additional learning needs are being moved off the system and into mainstream classroom provision, the so-called 'raising the bar' effect. So, we really do need to understand how the additional learning needs Act will spearhead the sea change needed to this issue, given the priority given to language skills in the new curriculum, and not bury those not deemed worthy of individual development plans.

That's enough on prevention. I now want to move us to the support required for the eight in 10 young people with speech, language and communication needs who come into contact with the youth justice system. The latter obviously sits firmly on the jagged edge of devolution, where we have a complicated picture of responsibility, blurred lines of accountability and the moral hazard territory that the First Minister spoke about in December, where the Welsh Government is asked to pay for services that, in England, would be paid for by the Ministry of Justice.

So, the Welsh Government has rejected recommendations 3 and 6, which relate to how we strengthen the provision for these young people. We are, therefore, unclear how the Welsh Government is going to deliver on its ambition to improve outcomes for young people with speech, language and communication needs in the youth justice system.

Clearly, to move this agenda forward at the pace that is needed, there needs to be better collaboration between all the key stakeholders. If not a summit, then how will the prevention framework of the youth justice blueprint mainstream the good practice going on in two youth justice teams?

In our third recommendation, we want to assess the feasibility of having dedicated NHS speech and language therapists in police custody suites across Wales. This has been rejected on the grounds that there are currently

'insufficient NHS employed SLTs to meet this additional workload.'

I would like to thank the Chair, the clerks, and everyone who contributed to our inquiry. It was truly shocking to hear from the youth offending teams in my region that four fifths of the young people who come into contact with the criminal justice system had some level of speech, language and communication needs. We knew, going into our one-day inquiry, that there was a high level of SLCN within young people coming into contact with youth offending teams, but I was surprised at how high the level actually was. Sixty per cent was the bare minimum; in some areas it was as high as nine in every 10 young people had some form of speech and language need.

Evidence provided by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists shows that nearly two thirds of children sentenced in England in Wales had SLCN, despite children and young people with SLCN only accounting for 10 per cent of the general population. Only 5 per cent of young people with communication needs had their needs identified prior to their entry into the youth justice system. As many as four in 10 young people in contact with the justice system find it difficult to access and benefit from verbal interventions and programmes. Not only does having an SLCN make it more likely that young people will come into contact with the criminal justice system, but it also makes it more likely that they will face harsher sentencing.

Four fifths of magistrates have said that the attitude and demeanour of a young person influences their sentencing decision to some or a great extent. There is a clear and desperate need for better access to speech and language therapy across Wales, not just within the youth justice system, but more generally.

How much youth offending could be prevented if speech, language and communication needs were addressed at a young age? Despite the clear need for speech and language therapy, there are fewer speech and language therapists per head of the population in Wales than in any other part of the UK. We are failing future generations. HEIW have kept commissioning figures for speech and language therapy at 49 in their education and training plan, yet the courses are way oversubscribed. Cardiff Metropolitan University received 250 applications for 39 places. Wrexham Glyndŵr University received 70 applications for 10 places. Why are the Welsh Government restricting places when there is both the need for therapists and demand for places?

Our committee made a number of recommendations to assist the Welsh Government to address the crisis of SLCN in youth offending, so it's surprising that they only fully accepted three and rejected two of our recommendations outright. Of those that they did accept, it is unclear from their response how they will actually deliver upon our recommendations. For example, in response to recommendation 2, how will the 'Talk With Me' programme support children as they progress from primary to secondary school, given its current focus on the zero to five age group, and with the programme set to end next year?

Sixty per cent, and as we've just heard, that's just a minimum. A minimum of 60 per cent of the children and young people in the criminal justice system have speech, language and communication needs, and it could be as much as 90 per cent. This statistic is central to our report and, in truth, this is what prompted us to explore this issue. It's extremely striking and an extremely worrying statistic.

We, as members of the Equality and Social Justice Committee, were shocked by this statistic. We promised, as the title of our report suggests, that we would recommend to the Government that there is a fundamental issue of implicit inequality in this statistic, and that we must ensure that there is action to give a voice to these young people, because our inquiry clearly showed that these young people had no voice, and there has not been nearly enough focus from the Government on trying to ensure that their voices are heard.

In our report, we included local data from 2022 for the Neath Port Talbot youth offending team, which shows that 79 per cent of the young people who came into contact with the service have needs in terms of speech and language, and according to representatives of the Wales youth offending team managers, this figure is consistent across all the youth offending teams in Wales.

It is clearly a very serious matter, for a Government that claims to put the rights of children and young people at the heart of all policies, that there is such a disproportionate number of young people who have speech, language an communication needs—a minimum of 60 per cent, compared with the 10 per cent in the general population—who are finding themselves within the justice system. And in examining the reasons behind this difference, our main conclusion was that the support available for these young people is insufficient and inconsistent across Wales. So, those are the facts, the bare statistics.

Now, imagine yourself as a young person, trying to cope with the processes and events that will change the course of your life; legal processes that are complicated, strange and difficult for all of us, even for those of us with experience of education, life and work, never mind young people. Now, imagine that you have a hearing impairment, or dyslexia, or autism that affects your ability to listen or concentrate, or follow these difficult processes, never mind express your views or your concerns, or your evidence, or your feelings.

As we heard from Jenny Rathbone, it's extremely disappointing that we are in this situation, that the Government has not done enough to prevent this excessive proportion of young people from finding themselves in this situation, and that those who work within the system do not have a complete understanding of the situation. And it was very disappointing to see the response of the Welsh Government to a number of our recommendations, which were related to making real change to this completely unacceptable situation, which means that there is no fair access to justice.

May I thank committee members and the Chair too? And may I also express my thanks to the Minister for health for being here today for this debate? It's very important that you are here. Thank you very much for coming.

You will all know that I spent many years being a child protection social worker. Part of my role was to work with children who interfaced with the youth justice service, and I'm calling them 'children'. I'm not calling them 'young people', because they are children. I spent time in a secure unit—working in a secure unit, I must say; I was an 'appropriate adult' with children at police stations; and, sadly, had to visit children in youth offending institutions—some of those the most Victorian and most backward places I've ever worked in.

In working with these young people, many of whom I came across with speech and language difficulties, I just felt they had no chance in life. They really had no hope. They had never been able to express themselves as children and young people throughout their lives. And then they encounter this complex system, which many of us would find totally confusing and difficult, and they are really not able to express themselves, to say what has happened to them, to tell this story of what's behind their situation. That could be down to trauma, adverse childhood experiences. These all cause communication difficulties. And then on top of that, we have not given them access to those speech and language therapists throughout their lives. These children need our help and, for 20 years it seems, we have not resolved this issue.

But now is the time because we have heard about an option that will help those children, and you will notice that all members of the committee have focused on recommendations 3 and 6. We've decided to do this because we were so shocked, disturbed, confused, disappointed that these had been rejected by the Welsh Government. We heard good practice. We heard what can stop those children who are in county youth justice services going into prison. But it's only happening in very few local authorities. It's a postcode lottery. We have to do better.

The alarming variation of access to speech and language therapists amongst our youth offending teams requires urgent attention and action now. We must do more to ensure that those children don't go into our criminal justice system, don't end up in secure units, don't end up in youth offending institutions. Whilst I do recognise that the Welsh Government's rejection rests upon the fact that there are fewer speech and language therapists per head of population in Wales than in any other part of the United Kingdom, that's not good enough; we cannot hamstring ourselves by simply considering long-term workforce planning.

I do encourage the Welsh Government to explore what ring-fenced grants could be made available to local authorities and health boards to ensure that we set aside the money for speech and language therapists within the youth justice systems. We can do it. Whilst there would, no doubt, be administrative and monitoring challenges, this would represent a direct, positive step towards meeting those children's needs. We need ambitious and courageous thinking from the Welsh Government, which I know has happened and continues to happen. Please, let's listen to those children and their voices and make sure that we reach out to them and give them a chance, and give them hope. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to contribute in this debate. This was, I think it's fair to say, an incredibly challenging inquiry at times; it raised issues that I fear have not been given thorough consideration by policy makers for far too long. I'd like to thank the committee clerking team, the committee Chair, and my colleagues on the Equality and Social Justice Committee for their deep interest and forensic examination of the subject matter.

Minister, I'm also thankful that you're responding on behalf of the Welsh Government; I know that you are deeply committed to delivering social justice for the children who are clearly being let down by the system, but this requires cross-Government attention, and I'd very much welcome assurance that Ministers across portfolios will progress the recommendations of the committee. I'd also welcome a clear indication of the Welsh Government's position in regard to the youth justice system and how a disjointed system can be rectified in the interests of some of our most marginalised children.

Finally, Minister, what the committee uncovered simply can't be allowed to drift away from our attention in the months and years to come. Could we, therefore, perhaps have assurance that the Welsh Government will provide very regular updates on progress against the implementation of the committee recommendations, and also host a summit, as suggested by Jenny Rathbone? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

One of the first e-mails that I received as a Member of the Senedd was from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, raising this important issue with me.

As someone who has seen a family member lose his ability to speak and express his feelings, I have seen the frustration that this creates—frustration that is so easy to misinterpret by people beyond the immediate family. I've also seen the great difference that the excellent work that the language therapists are doing is making to the lives and self-respect of individuals.

As Sioned Williams and Jane Dodds said very powerfully, any involvement with the justice system is a very challenging and difficult process. Imagine how much more difficult it is if you're in your teens and you've had a very challenging life, beyond our imagination, and in addition to that you find it difficult to express yourself.

I saw too often as a barrister the needs of young people being described as bad behaviour, magistrates and judges losing their tempers in response to alleged bad behaviour, and that then leading to those young people being treated inappropriately, as criminals, and no support being provided to them to leave the justice system.

No equitable access to justice, as Jenny Rathbone correctly highlighted, which is the cornerstone to a fair justice system. We've been moving in the right direction when it comes to youth justice in Wales for nearly 20 years, but there's more to be done. Simply, we should not be criminalising children—and that's what they are. As stated by Jane Dodds, they are children. We need to stop focusing on the deeds of these children, what they have done to get into trouble, and start addressing why they have done these things and what their needs as individuals are as members of society.

Finally—and I diverge slightly—I hope a devolved justice system in Wales would raise the age of criminal responsibility. That's the only real answer. The fact that it's currently at the age of 10 is scandalous. It's illogical. It goes against international good practice. It simply does not comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that is despite the fact that it's been partly incorporated into Welsh law under the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011. The criminal age of responsibility should be raised to a level consistent with our commonly held notions of when someone becomes a responsible adult. This would imply raising it to at least 16; I would argue even further to the age of 18.

I thank the royal college and the committee for their important work in this area, an area that's often forgotten because of the jagged edge. Thank you very much.

I call on the Minister for Social Justice, Jane Hutt.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. I would like to thank the Equality and Social Justice Committee for this important and timely report.

The committee's work, I would say, has brought genuine and important focus to the needs of children that has been so eloquently expressed today by those who've contributed to the debate. It is the response of the Welsh Government, which interfaces with a number of portfolios—mine, but also, clearly, that of the Minister for Health and Social Services in terms of speech and language communication services, but also that of the Minister for Education and Welsh Language. But I do think this is an issue of social justice, and I'm very happy to respond on behalf of the Welsh Government in order to make sure that we work together, across Government, to fully address and deliver on your recommendations.

We recognise the vital importance of ensuring access to speech and language therapists for young people, and I want to outline the range of work being undertaken to address the substantive findings and specific recommendations from the report. In particular, we are making a wider investment in early intervention and prevention on speech and language communication across Wales, and I think this early intervention and prevention is so important—it features clearly in your inquiry, in your report. When I wrote to the Chair of the Equality and Social Justice Committee about my responsibilities, and updating on the youth justice blueprint, I did acknowledge the close ties to speech and language communication needs. I talked about enhancing prevention activity, particularly in view of the potential impact, at the time, of the ongoing COVID pandemic on children's health and well-being, and the importance of a development of a trauma-informed approach across youth justice services. Those were key points that I made in my response to the committee.

I think it is important in terms of that wider intervention and early intervention that we are already funding speech and language therapists in every Flying Start service in Wales, and that is consistent in every Flying Start service. With the expansion of Flying Start as a result of our co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru, we've started to increase access to SLC support for those children, young people and families. We aim to identify and support children and young people earlier and more effectively, because early identification of those speech and language communication needs can reduce the risk. That's what we all want and what you're calling for in this report. We want to reduce the risk of these children becoming excluded from education, potentially entering the criminal justice system. By investing in identification and intervention at the earliest stage, we can support children ahead of any potential contact with criminal justice agencies and help them live the best lives possible.

The health and social services 'Talk With Me' delivery plan prioritises universal and targeted SLC support across the whole of the early years in Wales, and evidence-based identification and intervention will ensure that children are seen and supported by the right person in the right place at the right time. We're investing £1.5 million in the development of a bespoke bilingual SLC surveillance approach in Wales.

Will the Minister take an intervention?

Absolutely, Jane.

It's a quick one. You mentioned recommendations 3 and 6—thank you so much for referring to that. But we heard from a local authority where the youth justice team had managed to find the funding to employ speech and language therapists in their youth justice teams. So, they have succeeded to actually deliver what we would like to see across Wales. It is a postcode lottery. So, I wonder, would you be willing to consider, perhaps with the health Minister, how that local authority has managed to ring-fence that funding in order to deliver those services, and look at whether there is an option to roll that out across other local authorities in Wales? Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I certainly will follow that up, Jane Dodds, and thank you for drawing attention again to the lack of consistency across local authorities. This is the responsibility of the youth justice board for Wales, and recommendation 7—I was just going to come on to that—is important because it is, actually, an action in the national workforce implementation plan that Health Inspectorate Wales will review allied health professions across the board.

If you just give me a final moment because I responded to that intervention. I do think it is important that we look at the longer term as far as youth justice is concerned, so we can get that kind of consistency. It's only through devolution of youth justice that we can truly ensure children in contact with the justice system in Wales are properly supported. Until this happens, we will continue to use all the levers at our disposal and through our teamwork and engagement with partnerships to support Welsh children to help them live fulfilling, crime-free lives. We will look to the summit to help provide the opportunity to ensure that we are addressing the jagged edge, but that we move forward, as I said, in the longer term on those points in terms of devolving youth justice so we can be fully responsible and respond to this really important inquiry today. Diolch.

I call on Jenny Rathbone to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much. I think all the speakers emphasised the social justice issues around this particular issue, starting with Altaf Hussain, Sioned Williams and Jane Dodds in particular really emphasising the difficulties that young people have. If they can't communicate their emotions in any shape or form, how on earth are they going to be able to explain why they might have behaved badly in a way that brings them to the attention of the youth justice system? As Sioned Williams has said, these young people have no voice, and may have no idea what is being said about them when they appear before a magistrate, and little understanding of any sanctions the court may impose.

The opportunities for miscarriage of justice are legion. It is a postcode lottery, and as Sioned Williams explained, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists have been champions of addressing this issue for many years. In fact, they were the reason why we decided to undertake this inquiry.

I think Jane Dodds was obviously very powerful in explaining that these are children who’ve been given no chance of life and are unable to express themselves or explain what has happened to them, without any access to speech and language therapists, when they should have been picked up much, much earlier in their school journey. I have to give credit to the Welsh Government in that we hardly send anybody to youth offending institutions now, as a result of the youth justice blueprint. It is tiny, and that has been a huge reduction on the numbers that used to be locked up in the past. That is obviously something that we should acknowledge.

But we have to ensure that all young people are given the education that they need, and tailored support to get a job that goes with whatever communication difficulties they may have. I would echo what Ken Skates has said about the Minister for Social Justice’s commitment to this issue, but this really is something that straddles three different ministerial responsibilities. It’s great to see Eluned Morgan here to hear how important we feel it is that more speech and language therapists are required, not just for delivering on 'Talk With Me', but for improving the journey for all young people with speech and language difficulties—intervening at the very beginning, but also then tracking them through their education service. We cannot do it unless we have the trained professionals to train up the people who work in our schools to understand what they’ve got to do.

Rhys ab Owen, thank you very much for describing what it means when a child cannot express themselves. We all see this with very young children—they have a meltdown. But this will happen with much older children as well if they simply haven’t acquired the language skills to express themselves. And you reminded us that bad behaviour ends up in court for young people who simply can’t say, ‘I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just that I’m completely frustrated because something appalling has happened to me, and somebody’s done bad things to me’. We shouldn’t be criminalising children, of course not, and we need to raise the age of responsibility.

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

Item 7 this afternoon is a debate on petition P-06-1340, 'Stop the change of speed limits to 20mph on 17th September'. I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion—Jack Sargeant.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I thank the Senedd's Business Committee for allowing us to schedule this debate? Today, we are debating the petition titled 'Stop the change of speed limits to 20mph on 17th September', submitted by Benjamin James Watkins. The petition was signed by more than 20,000 people, before the petitioner agreed, at my request, to close it early. I did this to allow the debate to take place before the change.

It's worth noting from the outset that the change to the default 20 mph limit has become one of the leading issues for petitions since I became Chair of the committee. Twenty-three petitions have been created with '20 mph' in the title during this Senedd term; 17 of those have received the three names they need to progress to collecting signatures. Some have been local petitions, objecting in a specific location. One petitioner in particular wanted a national referendum, and others wanted the change to be stopped altogether, just like this one. The clerking team rejected 11 petitions, unusually, and this was because they replicated a petition that was already collecting signatures.

Now, while this Senedd has debated this issue many times before, and considered it in different committees, it is clear that there remains a large and vocal section of the people of Wales who remain to be convinced by the arguments in favour of this policy change. The text of the petition we are debating today reads:

'Stop the change of speed limits to 20mph on 17th September. This decision is not representative of the broader public opinion and as such, it is not democratic to implement the changes. An alteration to road laws on this scale should be subject to much more extensive polling or possibly as part of a Welsh referendum on the matter'.

The petitioner warns that, whilst 20 mph zones have become generally accepted around schools, the change in September risks increasing road rage. He also questions whether this is a way to raise money by fining people going over the new limit. The petitioner also argues that the new speed limits will disproportionately affect the commute times of people travelling by road for work, particularly when there is no alternative route.

Deputy Presiding Officer, this Senedd has already voted on 20 mph speed limits, and today's debate is to note the petition. But, what it does do, and what it will do, is give the Deputy Minister responding a further opportunity to explain why this measure is so important, to tell people how to campaign for exemptions in their local communities, and to respond to some of the concerns voiced by thousands of people in Wales who remain sceptical about this change.

As you all will be aware, one of the pilot areas in this trial was Buckley in my own constituency, and in the Deputy Minister's own words, mistakes were made in that pilot. If you speak to residents in Buckley, this was largely due to the need to listen to locals and local residents on the need for exemptions. Some roads do not need to be 20 mph. It is absolutely vital that we get this exemptions process right and that local people can identify roads that will remain at 30 mph. Deputy Llywydd, I've recently been contacted by residents in Buckley making very reasonable requests about roads B5125 and A549 in particular. We need a process that allows local authorities to be responsive to such requests from local communities. I would encourage the Deputy Minister, between now and the introduction of this policy on 17 September, to work further with local authorities to ensure that they are confident with the exceptions process in place. And that he be willing to strengthen guidance if local government colleagues identify the need for further clarity to make sure that they have the confidence they require.

Deputy Llywydd, another suggestion, which has come from a constituent of mine, Martin Bailey, is to ensure that the term 'residentials', means just that and not main roads or thoroughfares. In Martin’s own words, I quote, 'this way, 95% of roads can switch to 20 mph as per nearly every other country that has adopted such a scheme'.

Deputy Presiding Officer, in closing my opening contribution, what today should teach us is the need to work together and the need to bring about change in a consensual and reasonable way. I am grateful to the petitioner for their work to enable this debate. As I said at the start, I am grateful to the Business Committee and the Llywydd for allowing the debate to take place before the change takes place in September. I look forward to hearing Members' contributions and the Minister's response in particular to the points about giving local authorities those assurances and that confidence they require to make the exceptions that local people and local residents want. Diolch.

I'd like to start by thanking my committee Chair, Jack Sargeant for opening this important debate. In the first instance, I want to emphasise that 21,920 signatures on this petition shows the enormity of opposition to the blanket reduction in speed to 20 mph on all urban roads in Wales. It highlights in my mind how out of touch the Welsh Government really is in understanding the needs of communities across Wales.

I think I speak for the majority of this country when I recognise the benefits of having 20 mph speed limits in certain areas, such as around schools and in densely populated areas. I can fully appreciate that reduced speeds can have positive impacts in reducing the extent of casualties and improving air quality in localised areas, but I find myself at a loss to understand the overall point of introducing 20 mph limits on so many other urban roads, most notably because it's completely unenforceable.

Indeed, official UK Government statistics have shown that 87 per cent of drivers break the 20 mph speed limits when they're imposed. Evidence also shows that 20 mph speed limits do not significantly reduce speed. In Islington, one of the first places to introduce a borough-wide 20 mph speed limit, average speeds were reduced by only 1 mph, rather than the intended 10. A Department for Transport study in 2018 described at the time as the largest, most comprehensive and sophisticated study into the effects of 20 mph speed limits to be undertaken in the UK found that drivers' median speed fell by just 0.7 mph in residential areas and 0.9 mph in city centre areas, where limits had been dropped from 30 to 20. The same study also found that the introduction of 20 mph limits increased journey times by 3 per cent in residential areas, and 5 per cent in city centres. Whilst 3 and 5 per cent increases seem insignificant, I would argue that a 5 per cent increase in travel time is going to have many unintended consequences that are going to be more damaging in the longer term. Drivers will likely drive faster on the roads to make up perceived loss of time and this will undoubtedly increase the likelihood of collisions. I’d also argue that there would be a potential for a driver in frustration to increase incidences of road rage.

Moreover, councils across Wales will now have to spend huge sums of money re-marking roads, installing new signage, changing legal notices and have no actual way whatsoever of ensuring this new speed limit is adhered to. My home council of Rhondda Cynon Taff, for example, has ceased all traffic management programmes in order to divert funding to this roll-out, which means that newer much-needed and called-for safety improvements such as pedestrian crossings, speed indicator devices, safer walkways, or tactile crossings will just no longer be installed, and I’m sure that the Deputy Minister didn’t envisage this when these proposals were first put forward.

Natasha Asghar. No, I'm sorry, Natasha.

I was going to say; I've got a—

Sorry. I need to call others, other than just from your group—sorry. I must remember that. Llyr Gruffydd.

Diolch, Llywydd. Apologies, Natasha, for gazumping you, but there we are.

Can I first of all thank the petitioners for signing and introducing this petition? I think it does show the value, actually, of the petitions process here in the Senedd, that we can have these debates as a result of public demand, and I'd like to reiterate the Chair's point, actually, just to be clear that the motion before us isn't to rescind the proposals, or indeed to endorse the proposals; it’s to note the petition, but obviously, it is an opportunity for many of us to debate the issue further. But in reality, I don't expect it to lead to particular change in relation to what's being proposed, because that legislation has been passed, but certainly, I think there's an element of Government hearing some of the important messages that need to be heard in this debate. And I constantly, and consistently, supported the 20 mph default, on the basis, of course, that it will save lives, that it will reduce casualties, bringing not only less suffering, but obviously, savings to the public purse as a consequence. I've supported it on the basis that it will improve communities, it'll create a safer environment for elderly people, children, those who may wish to walk or cycle, where that's an option for them to do so. It'll improve air quality, it'll reduce noise pollution, et cetera, et cetera. We've rehearsed many of those arguments.

But I’ve also supported this legislation on the understanding, of course, that those roads that really don’t need to be 20 mph will revert to 30 mph, and my concern is that as we see the maps emerging from local authorities of which roads will revert to 30 mph hour, I’m slightly concerned that we will end up with roads—for example on the edge of towns, around villages—where, really, 20 mph isn’t necessary, and maybe isn’t necessarily the most sensible option either. Now I’ve driven some of the roads in the Buckley area, which, of course, has been an area that has piloted much of this, and some of the roads are absolutely justified in having 20 mph, there’s no question at all, but there are other roads away from built-up areas, fields on both sides of the road, touching again on the point made by the Chair of the committee, where I do question whether a 30 mph limit would be much more appropriate than a 20 mph zone.

So, clearly, my challenge, therefore, is to the Deputy Minister. It isn’t 'Scrap the proposals, it isn’t 'Let’s go back to the drawing board and let’s leave everything as it is and just accept the fatalities as a price we have to pay.' No. My challenge to the Deputy Minister is what is he and the Government doing to make sure that local authorities don’t just conclude that it’s easier just to make everything 20 mph, regardless of the reality on the ground. We know that resource and capacity is challenging for local councils at the moment, and for some local authorities to revert or to propose to revert to 30 mph in literally just a handful of roads throughout the whole local authority really isn't what I had expected or envisaged when I supported this legislation. Now, the Deputy Minister said on the radio this morning, in what I thought was an excellent interview and making a really strong case for the changes, he said that councils won't get it 100 per cent right on day one. And that's true, isn't it? But what is the Government doing to make sure that local councils get it 90 per cent right on day one, or 95 per cent right on day one? Because, as far as I can see, the numbers of roads that are actually reverting to 30 mph in the areas that I represent are much, much lower than I, and probably most other people, expected.

I'm speaking today because I drive at 20 mph or less on residential roads. I say that, because twice in the last month I would have been in a serious accident if I had driven at 30 mph. The first was on Pleasant Street, where my office is situated. Pleasant Street, like lots of roads, is made up of terraced houses, with most properties having no off-street parking. It is essentially a one-lane road with passing places in between the parked cars. A car drove up at 30 mph, which was inside the current legal limit. I was travelling down at 15 mph, and we stopped about a metre apart. If we had both been doing 30 mph, a head-on collision would have been inevitable.

The second incident was when a car pulled out from a parking area near the Guildhall. Again travelling at less than 20 mph, I stopped without a collision. At 30 mph, I would have had a collision and probably another serious one. I think the general consensus is that 20 mph is a suitable speed limit on estate roads. I travel to my office in Morriston, which is almost exactly 1 mile, but the sat nav tells me it will take me five minutes, which is an average speed of 12 mph. There are motorways where the speed limit is either 50 mph or 70 mph, and these will not be altered. The problem with motorways in Wales is that they have too many junctions close together. The M4 has more junctions in Wales than there are in England, despite the English section being much longer.

The road system consists of A roads, which are major roads intended to provide large-scale transport links within or between areas; B roads, intended to connect different areas and to feed traffic between A roads and smaller roads; and unclassified or unnumbered smaller roads to connect together unclassified roads with A and B roads. And unclassified roads, which are the main ones, over 60 per cent of roads, are the roads we travel along in estates. These are the roads that desperately need 20 mph, and even those that are relatively wide need 20 mph, because you have parking on there.

I regularly drive around Swansea and find that you need to drive at no more than 20 mph on estate roads, where most are, effectively, single lane, with passing points in between parked cars due to cars parked on both sides of the road. Areas of older terraced housing and council estates where houses do not have drives mean that people cannot drive safely at 30 mph; there is parking at both sides of the road, as people seek to park near their home. Even on newer estates where there are drives, cars still park on the road, especially where drives are very steep and have a significant slope going up or down. Roads that are main roads, unless they pass directly in front of an entrance to a school or to a shopping area, I would want and expect to keep the current 30 mph speed limit. While individual councils will decide the speed limit of each road, I would expect the change to mainly affect unclassified roads.

Firstly, can I thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee, Jack Sargeant, alongside all the other members, for bringing this debate forward, as well as all those who've made it possible? Because, in a matter of months, this hugely damaging blanket 20 mph plan is set to come into force. Now, today marks Eid, as my colleague Altaf Hussain made a 90-second statement on earlier. For many people, it's a day of celebration, joy, colour, and, as I left home today, my own mother asked me, 'Why on earth are you wearing black?' To which I had to respond to say to her, 'Mum, today's the day that I'm more likely to be seeing the death of the 30 mph default speed limit here in Wales.'

Now, nearly 100,000 people have signed various petitions calling for the blanket roll-out of 20 mph speed limits to be scrapped. Let that resonate: 100,000 people, including 21,920 people who backed the petition, are those people we are talking about today. Based on the momentum these petitions have gained in such a short period of time, it's clear that there is no appetite for 20 mph limits being placed across the country. Businesses don't want them. Residents don't want them. We don't want them. But, of course, don't worry what people think, because the Deputy Minister here knows best. As I've said on countless occasions, there is absolutely a 100 per cent need for targeted action, such as outside schools, such as outside play areas, such as along high streets, but a blanket move of 20 mph covering all streets is just not the way forward.

Fewer than 6,000 individuals responded to the Welsh Government public consultation, which is just a drop in the ocean when you compare it to the vast numbers of people vocally opposing the plans. Even so, most people—53 per cent who took part in the consultation—were against the backwards plan, with 47 per cent of them being strongly against. I even took part and, frankly, the questions were phrased in such a way that, if you did not agree with the Welsh Government agenda, you'd feel like a psychopath if you opposed or were even against the 20 mph plans.

There is a series of reasons, and I totally accept what's been said, why people are against these plans, but the main two are the costs involved and the fact that many see this as nothing more than a money-making exercise. The costs involved, let me tell you all now, in this ridiculous scheme, are colossal, with £32.5 million being spent on just implementing it. And according to the Welsh Government's own figures, it will have a disbenefit of £6.4 billion due to the impact of journey times on businesses and households. Earlier today I asked the health Minister about funding for vital services. I totally accepted her answer, but, Presiding Officer, please tell me, for a Government that claims to be cash strapped, wasting this amount of money on yet another vanity project, while the people of Wales are facing cost-of-living pressures, will be a very bitter pill to swallow.

I'd like Natasha Asghar to head to Rudry, Machen, St Martin's Road and Gilfach in my constituency and in her region and make a version of that speech on the doorstep, because I guarantee that people who hear it will not be happy. There have been tragic accidents in those areas, and those areas are not high streets, they're not outside schools, they are people's residential areas, and they are having a huge welcome for the 20 mph limits there. So, on the whole, this is the right policy for those areas, and I would be doing a disservice to those people who live in this community if I were to oppose the principles of the rules that the Deputy Minister is introducing today.

The concern I have stems from, as Jack Sargeant has mentioned and Llyr has mentioned, the exemptions. The issue is with the power of the current exemption programme and the ability to manoeuvre around the Welsh Government rules to allow them. Now, I've spoken to councillors in Caerphilly, who've reported to me the views of officers in Caerphilly council, who've told me that, as far as they're concerned, the current exemptions, that's the end of it; they won't be revisiting further after the introduction. Now, that would be unfortunate, because there are a number of roads in my constituency that I can see that I travel every day that would not be appropriate for a 20 mph zone. Now, I can say that it's not appropriate for me to build that campaign now; I think it is right to wait for that to come in. But the problem will be, when people are raising concerns with me, and I'm raising with the council, I'll be coming up against a brick wall, because the exemptions will not be able to be applied because of Welsh Government rules. I think that is where this policy is in danger of becoming difficult to introduce and difficult to enforce, because you have to do this by consent and carry people with you.

I agree with Llyr Gruffydd that the Minister gave a good interview today, although I do disagree with the final—or have concerns about the final—line in what he said.

'I think in a year's time',

he said,

'we will look back at this and think it was a lot of fuss about nothing.'

I think that does a disservice to this petition, and I think it does a disservice to those of us who have concerns, and I feel that the Minister must answer that question, raised by Jack, raised by Llyr, that the exemptions process is currently not going to allow the exemptions to be applied post introduction, as we want them to. I don't want to be coming back to Welsh Government, standing up in this Chamber and saying that the Welsh Government has got this wrong; what I want is for them to get it right now. This is the Deputy Minister's opportunity to do so.

I'd also like to put on record my thanks to the over 20,000 people who signed the petition, making their voices heard and making sure this Senedd seeks to debate their concerns today, and I share Hefin David's frustration with the Minister's comments, describing the fact that it's a fuss over nothing. It's a fuss over something, and it's something that concerns, clearly, tens of thousands of people in Wales. Because, as we know, this default change to 20 mph will be one of the most significant visual changes that has happened in the period of devolution. It will impact people across the whole of Wales on a daily basis, and, as the Chairman of the Petitions Committee pointed out, my region of North Wales has a particular interest, as Buckley was one of the guinea pigs for the Welsh Government trials. To get an idea of the public feeling on the matter, I conducted a survey amongst residents in Buckley, where 97 per cent of the respondents—so, 97 per cent of people who'd had this experience of this 20 mph across the whole area—said that the trial had been a failure and they wanted it ditched. Residents cited all sorts of reasons as to why that was the case, and I haven't got the time to go into all that this afternoon.

But it's not, of course, only residents that thought the trial was a complete flop. As we've heard already today, the Minister forcing those changes through seems to agree with them. And Minister, I have to say, you are getting quite a reputation for being one of the most honest men in the Welsh Labour Party, because you did say that you did get it wrong—got it completely wrong—when it come to the Buckley trial, and I couldn't agree more. I'd like to also add that the policy itself is wrong as well, not just the cackhanded nature of the trial that took place in Buckley.

Additionally, Llywydd, I think it's also important to consider the unintended consequences of this measure, the knock-on effects being taken into consideration, and I'd be grateful to hear from the Deputy Minister as to what consideration, again, has been taken. For example, domiciliary care workers who need to use vehicles in order to see vulnerable patients, from one home to the next, often travelling within villages or between small towns, either they're going to have to see fewer of those vulnerable people to be supported, or they're going to have to work longer hours to satisfy this requirement. Another group of people, I think, who'll be impacted of course are delivery drivers, often on perhaps minimum wage, taking those packages across towns and villages, who have to meet strict time deadlines in order to make a living. They're going to be significantly impacted by this change. Another group of people, I think, who'll be significantly impacted are retained firefighters. We know retained firefighters have to travel to a fire station within a few minutes. The amount of space in which they can recruit retained firefighters is clearly going to be reduced. [Interruption.] Is that an intervention there, Llywydd?

Yes. Are you taking an intervention? Yes.

Choosing the firefighters as an example is really undermining your case, because, if somebody is having to attend to a fire, it's a 999 call; clearly, they are going to be travelling at a lot more than 30 mph. And as for the timed visits between delivery drivers, it's the company that needs to change, because we cannot have people saying, 'Well, I've got to deliver this parcel quicker or I'm going to lose my job', when they might actually be running down a child. This is the cart before the horse.

Talk about scaremongering; accusing delivery drivers of running down children, I think, is the epitome of scaremongering. And we talk about retained firefighters—very careful to talk about retained firefighters; they're a group of people who have to travel to a fire station, not when they're undertaking the 999 call itself. They're only allowed to choose people from a certain proximity, and that proximity will be reduced. It will be harder for retained firefighters to satisfy the needs of the fire service.

So, if you've got people working hard, day in and day out, the policy—which is going to be implemented, let's face it—will make their lives more difficult, and, ultimately, slows Wales down. Being put bluntly, this blanket 20 mph is anti-growth, anti-jobs, and makes the lives of people in Wales even harder. It should be ditched. Thank you very much.

Accidents don't have to happen. I support the 20 mph adoption, of course, but I do want to thank the petitioners. It's really, really important that we have this process, and it's important that this is transparent and that we address some of the issues, if we can, that they've raised. So, I just wanted to look at two or three of the issues that have been raised by the petitioners.

Firstly, there is a little bit of concern around the research and the evaluation of 20 mph zones and limits and what they actually do produce. Well, I did a very quick search myself. The first widespread evaluation of the 20 mph zone was carried out in 1996, and it found that injuries and accidents were reduced by 60 per cent for adults, and for children, were reduced by 67 per cent. So, that's 1996. And then, in 2007, a review of 20 mph zones implemented in London found that they reduced injuries by 42 per cent, and fatal or serious accidents by 53 per cent. So, the research has been done; it is unequivocal. It saves lives, and it actually—to go to Natasha's point—helps our health services, because our health services then don't have to respond to these tragic situations.

I wanted to address a second issue, which is why are we looking at this without a referendum. Well, it's because we have to focus in on safety. Let's look at the change in seatbelt laws. That wasn't introduced via a referendum. That was introduced in 1983—can you believe it—in 1989, and 1991; gradually, it increased the use of seatbelts in cars, for drivers, front-seat drivers, and then back-seat drivers, and it actually saves lives. We know that the Road Safety Observatory said that seatbelts are 50 per cent effective at preventing fatal injuries for drivers. So, that is an absolute safety—[Interruption.] Of course I'll take an intervention.

Thank you, Jane Dodds, for taking an intervention. And of course, we all want to see lives being saved. If that's the complete goal of what you're looking to achieve, do you not think that cars should drive at 1 mph then? Because, therefore, all lives would be saved completely there.

I'm going to carry on and not address that, because I really feel it's important that we look at the evidence that's produced by people who are experts in this. And that's what I've been reading, and it shows that lives are saved. So, really, we have to acknowledge that slower speeds actually save lives. Collisions involving vulnerable road users have a 97 per cent chance of survival at 20 mph. At 30 mph, that drops by 5 per cent. That is actual lives. It is so important that we look at this. Public Health Wales, they say the lowering of the speed limit to 20 mph will save an estimated six to 10 lives and between 1,200 and 2,000 casualties every year, at a cost to the health service of between £58 million and £94 million. Now, that is going to mean more nurses, more doctors.

I just want to pay tribute to the Deputy Minister. About six months ago, I listened in to a 90-minute phone-in to Radio Wales. I don't know if you remember it, but you were on it, I was going somewhere, there was a whole 90 minutes around your portfolio. Around 70 per cent of those calls, if I remember correctly, were about people wanting to complain about the 20 mph proposal, and, I have to say, you answered each one really clearly. You had the evidence to hand, and almost all of them left the call understanding the situation better. They may not have agreed, but they understood the reasons why the Welsh Government were actually introducing this.

So, maybe there is something around communication that needs to happen; that we need to be clearer, perhaps, with the public why this is being introduced and to ensure that people know the exemptions, and make sure that people know that this is about having a safer, healthier and a more livable Wales that actually means that we save lives and reduce injuries. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

When I was a cabinet member for Flintshire County Council up to May 2021, areas lobbied for 20 mph zones after seeing them being introduced across the border in Chester, including Saltney following a terrible accident involving a young person, and Mynydd Isa, which has large residential estates. It was suggested that Buckley be a pilot area and I asked for it to be extended to include Mynydd Isa, and also suggested Saltney as a pilot area following the lobbying. I was told that Saltney was rejected but Buckley was agreed by Welsh Government, including neighbouring Mynydd Isa. When Buckley agreed to be a pilot, it was believed that certain arterial routes could be exempt. It would be introduced outside schools, dense residential areas such as housing estates, but not along the main arterial routes. However, Welsh Government officials were strict about the exceptions criteria, and that meant that all the arterial roads had to be included, and that's how it's interpreted. There was more or less a blanket reduction to 20 mph.

Local authority officers were told it was for consistency, which they understood because local authority officers like everything to be black and white, so they understand how criteria can be applied. There has been a shift now following the pilots, so there will not be a blanket 20 mph for all current 30 mph roads, and there is more flexibility for local authorities to make roads back up to 30 mph under a single traffic restriction Order if they can prove they are not used by pedestrians and cyclists. However, I'm told that the criteria are still too strict to permit flexibility, and many of the arterial routes have pavements and street lighting, so perhaps the criteria need to be changed. I think the issue also is that local authorities are worried about the liability falling to them as well if they increase a road back up to 30 mph against the criteria, and there's an accident. So, that needs to be dealt with.

I believe that we should have had better partnership working between Welsh Government and local government, as there has recently been during the current public bus transport emergency, which I do commend. Statutory consultations with the public do take a lot of resources and time, and when Flintshire did a county-wide speed limit review when I was a cabinet member, years ago, it took approximately two years just to consult, advertise and address all the objections, because some people wanted a 40 mph, where they didn't, et cetera, et cetera. And then they had to do some minor adjustments later, so it does take a lot of time to do.

I'm told that putting the signs up just for Buckley, the pilot area, took six weeks and a lot of overtime. Some roadworks and road markings may need to take place as well. Resources are so scarce in councils there's a lack of highway technical officers, experts who can draw up traffic regulation orders, do community consultations and respond to objections. There’s a lack of operatives, as many operate on a skeletal staff now following a decade of austerity and inflationary pressures, so agency staff have to be brought in. I believe that there is some funding to help with that, but I’m just not sure at the moment. But to do all the changes within the deadline of September across counties may be very difficult. The same technical teams delivering this are trying to apply for active travel funding, which is arduous, as well as deliver the schemes, so resource is stretched. I’ve noticed that the only exemptions already showing on the map in Flintshire are the Buckley ones, and Flintshire has got a lot more roads to look at before September.

A number of us—I'm sure all of us—will have had quite a lot of correspondence from constituents, and people who are not our constituents in Wales, about the prospect of a default 20 mph speed limit, and in those e-mails will be thousands of reasons as to why this shouldn’t proceed, but I will condense it down in the short amount of time that I will take, Llywydd, down to 20—20 mph, 20 reasons.

First of all, the public don’t want it. As we heard from the Chair of the Petitions Committee, Jack Sargeant, more than 20,000 people signed this petition before it was agreed to be stopped, and we know that other—[Interruption.] Sorry, Jenny, let me make progress. And the second point I’d say is that we know that more than 58,000 people signed a change.org petition, and we know from Natasha Asghar there are other petitions as well. Thirdly, the Welsh Government’s own consultation on this showed that 53 per cent of people opposed these changes. And fourth: why? Why? Because we know one of the reasons is that people are worried about increased journey times, frustrating for road users, potentially dangerous, and damaging for our economy.

But we come back to cost. Fifth: £32 million will be spent on a scheme when the Government is failing to fund public transport and other areas. Six: we’ve seen the reduction in average speed could result in that positive financial return over 30 years of around £25 million, but that’s £7 million less than the £32 million being spent on the scheme in the first place. Jenny, did you want to come in.

Yes, I would just say, on the public not supporting this, certainly I can only represent my own constituents, but I can say there's overwhelming support in an urban place like Cardiff for increasing road safety by having a default 20 mph on most residential roads. Frankly, not many people are travelling more than 20 mph because that's the number of people who are congesting our roads. Therefore, you have to recognise that, in residential areas, there is a huge amount of support for making our roads safer.

I understand your point, Jenny, and thank you for the intervention, but I would remind you, representing Cardiff Central, that your constituents may not represent the country as a whole. This is a Welsh Government with a one-size-fits-all approach of a default 20 mph scheme for the whole country, and that's why it's inappropriate.

We've heard from a number of Members about Buckley, and I had correspondence coming in from Buckley even though I obviously do not represent that area. I know that 46,000 signatures alone were collected in the separate petition in Buckley. And, eight: the Deputy Minister acknowledged that he made a mistake in Buckley. And, nine: there's a story in Buckley saying that 20 mph could lead to increased road rage incidents.

Point 10: somewhere else this was being trialled was in Belfast, and the Queen's University Belfast report suggested that there was no significant statistical difference one year on from the implementation of those 20 mph schemes. The Department for Transport—point 11—in 2011, said that there was an increase in road traffic accidents on 20 mph roads over time. Point 12: the UK Government public health summary of evidence said that

'Blanket 20 mph limits may contribute to dangerous driving on certain roads'.

We know, 13, a report from Cambridgeshire County Council said that a lower speed limit

'can lead to an increase in poorly judged overtaking',

which puts road users like cyclists at risk. Fourteen: 84 per cent of people in Welsh Government's summary of responses on the matter reported they feel safe in residential areas in terms of travelling under the status quo, so the change is not needed. Fifteen: in Islington council, as we've heard already, in places where it has been piloted, the average speed drops by just 1 mph. Sixteen: installing speed limit signs without traffic-calming features is likely to have a minimal impact, unless they are enforced; that, again, is from the public health summary of evidence by the UK Government. Seventeen: there's good evidence that 20 mph zones with traffic-calming measures reduce speed to an average above 20 mph.

And if we're worried about the environment, because that is what this is dressed up in, I'd direct you to point 18: there's no guarantee that speed reduction will reduce air pollution; that's the Department for Transport saying that. In point 19, the UK Government also say that particulate emission is likely to be reduced, while it's unlikely that nitrous oxide or carbon dioxide levels are affected either way by speed reduction. And finally, point 20: if the Welsh Government were serious about the environmental benefits of transport, they would've invested in electric vehicle charging points, but they've completely failed to do that. So, we know that Labour's one-size-fits-all policy is anti-car, anti-commuter and anti-economy.

As others have, I welcome our petitions system, Llywydd, and this debate today, which is important and should be happening, because, obviously, this is a very significant change. It is a change that I very much welcome and have long supported. I believe that the case for that change is very well made over a period of time, and this isn't something that's had a brief gestation period; it's something that's been worked up over quite an extended length of time, and rightly so.

Many have talked about the road safety benefits, and I do believe that they're beyond question, despite what others have said. The experience in Spain, for example, shows a 20 per cent reduction in deaths on urban roads since they've had their reduction in speeds similar, although a lower speed, to what we propose here in Wales. In London, there was 25 per cent reduction in deaths and serious injuries, as detailed by Transport for London. There are many other examples, which other Members have touched upon.

As other Members have mentioned, I've had experience of constituents who have lost children on urban roads supporting this policy with great passion and feeling, as you would expect given those family tragedies. We do not want to see any more of those deaths—preventable deaths—on our inner-urban roads. So, the road safety aspect is hugely important in driving this policy, but there are very many other benefits, Llywydd. It will allow our communities to reclaim our streets for active travel, for example, to allow elderly people, primary school-aged children and people with disabilities to get out and about more and make those communities much more living communities, with all of the benefits that that brings.

I think it is very disingenuous, Llywydd, to hear Natasha Asghar bandying about the term 'blanket ban', when we all know that that is not what is happening or what is proposed. [Interruption.] No, it's not. It's a default policy that's proposed, Llywydd, so that whereas previously there would be a default 30 mph speed limit and traffic orders could be taken forward to make it 20 mph, that will now be reversed. I'm sorry if Natasha Asghar can't accept that, because that is factual—that is factual.

In the Monmouthshire County Council area, within the area that Natasha Asghar represents, we've seen an example of the fact that it's not a blanket ban, because there was a pilot scheme and that pilot scheme was tweaked. There was local concern on a stretch of the B4245 in Caldicot, and in response to that the pilot was changed so that a length of that road was taken out of the pilot. Now, Monmouthshire County Council is proposing a further tweak, which they will take forward on that stretch of road. So, you know, I'm sorry if Natasha Asghar isn't up to speed with what's happening in her own area, but she is being very disingenuous, at the very least, Llywydd.

This petition, as we've heard, was closed early. Its 21,920 signatures would otherwise have risen far higher. A better indication is provided by the petition to 'Stop the Welsh Govt imposing blanket 20mph speed limits', launched in Buckley, Flintshire, selected by the Welsh Government as one of eight pilot areas to trial a default 20 mph speed limit, which had reached 58,546 signatures by lunchtime today, including 84 added just this morning. This reflects the real lived experience of people living in the north Wales pilot area feeling sidestepped by the Deputy Minister who selected it.

The 60 per cent support claimed by the Deputy Minister, we understand, was polled before the pilots went live, and his fig leaf of an exceptions policy leaves councils with extremely limited discretion. Labour councillors have told me that. He ignored all research challenging his claim the default 20 mph speed limit will reduce casualties. In pursuit, as we've heard, of evidence-based road safety policies, the UK Department for Transport published an authoritative independent 20 mph research study in November 2018 that found no significant safety outcome in terms of collisions and casualties in residential areas. Following this, as we've heard, a 2022 study from Queen's University Belfast, Edinburgh university and the University of Cambridge found that reducing speed limits from 30 mph to 20 mph has had 'little impact' on road safety.

The Minister has previously quoted police records of road accidents for 2021 that showed that 53 per cent of all road accidents happened on 30 mph roads. The same figures show that 3 per cent of all road accidents occur on 20 mph roads. Transport for Wales data estimates that the change will increase 20 mph speed limits from 2.5 per cent to 36.9 per cent of roads in Wales, whilst reducing 30 mph speed limits from 37.4 per cent to 3 per cent. This would mean that the accident rate on 20 mph roads would approach 50 per cent whilst falling to 4.2 per cent on 30 mph roads.

The flood of e-mails I've received from residents of pilot town Buckley up to this morning has included, 'Many of these roads are busy access roads on steep hills. The lorries are struggling to get up the hills in such a low gear, and sticking to such a low speed downhill is hard on the brakes.' A cyclist wrote—one of many, actually—'Instead of overtaking and getting out of the way, these cars, vans and lorries will be driving close behind, in front or alongside me. This has not been thought through.' Another resident said, 'It's doing the opposite of what it's supposedly set out to do. There's more pollution with cars chugging around in lower gears, people pay less attention to the road, and more on the speedometer, leading to incidents on roads that previously had none.' And, as another said this weekend, 'The so-called default scheme is a mistake, resulting in bad driving, near misses and increased pollution.'

The Deputy Minister to contribute to the debate. Lee Waters.

Thank you to everybody who has contributed to the debate, and to the petitioners. I agree with the comments that it is very healthy that there is a mechanism where there is strong feeling for that to be brought to the Senedd for us to debate.

Let me just begin by addressing the petition head on. It said that this has not followed a democratic process. That is palpably not the case. There have been two votes in this Welsh Parliament on this matter, both passed with two-thirds majorities on a cross-party basis, as well as this featuring in the manifesto of the party that won the Senedd elections and formed the Government. By the tests of our democracy and our parliamentary system, that is the way that we seek consent for policies, and this policy has had that consent.

I would remind the Conservatives that when it was initially voted on in this Senedd, most of their group at the time voted in favour of it. In fact, Janet Finch-Saunders made a very strong speech in which she said:

'there is support on these benches for introducing 20 mph speed limits....It's a common sense and it's a safe move.'

Janet's saying from a sedentary position, 'In certain areas'. That’s not the case. If you read your own speech, Janet, which I did last night, you made clear you supported the report by our expert panel on a default approach. So, that was your position back then, and it was the—[Interruption.] Well, Janet, I encourage you to read what you said three years ago. [Interruption.]

If you want to clarify what you said, then you're perfectly entitled to try and intervene on the Deputy Minister.

Of course you can.

Thank you. If you actually read clearly, I actually showed examples of where in my constituency it had really been very helpful, the 20 mph, but not as a blanket approach at all.

Okay, well, I'd encourage you—

It's that default position that needs clarification.

Thank you. The Minister can respond.

I'd encourage you to actually go back and read what you said, Janet, three years ago, because you did explicitly endorse the default recommendation of the Phil Jones report.

In fact, I've heard the claims of some of the benches that this is an anti-car, anti-growth policy, when Conservative-controlled Cornwall Council are bringing in a standard 20 mph for rural and urban areas where they are built up, in residential areas. That is a Conservative council in England pursuing this policy. So, this claim that this is an agenda different to theirs, again, is also false.

So, I can only conclude the Conservatives are being deeply opportunistic once again and deeply disingenuous. We all have seen the picture of Andrew R.T. Davies with Rod King, the lead campaigner of the 20’s Plenty campaign. [Interruption.] No, I won't give way. [Interruption.] So, we see them popping up in their constituencies—

Allow the Deputy Minister to carry on with his contribution.

—when it suits them to support local campaigns, we see them in this Chamber supporting the principle of the measure, we see Conservative councils supporting this, and now they're coming out with a party line today where everybody is saying this is a blanket ban. It is not a blanket ban. That is palpably untrue. It is a false statement, it's a misleading statement, and it is deliberately so.

There are a number of concerns that have been expressed, and I completely understand them, on the exemptions process. Jack Sargeant, Hefin David and Llyr Gruffydd all expressed their concerns about the way the exemptions process was being applied in practice, and I completely understand those concerns. Carolyn Thomas talked us through the history of the Buckley pilot. The purpose of the Buckley pilot, as with the other pilots, was to trial different elements of this approach. So, some pilots trialled monitoring, some trialled community consultation, some trialled enforcement. We chose Buckley to trial the exceptions process.

Buckley—Liverpool Road for those of you who know it, and I, like many of you, have driven it—is a very difficult example to look at, because some sections clearly should be 20 mph, and some sections clearly should be 30 mph. We took an approach, as Carolyn said, for the purposes of testing the approach in a pilot, to take an area-wide approach and not to allow exemptions, and that clearly showed the case that exemptions were in fact the right way to go. We learnt enormous lessons from that; that's the point of a pilot. In fact, the exemptions criteria were amended in the light of that pilot. So, let me just read from the exemptions criteria:

'highway authorities continue to have the flexibility to set local speed limits that are right for individual roads, reflecting local needs and considerations.

'Where their decision deviates from this guidance highway authorities should have a clear and reasoned case.'

So, highway authorities can make exceptions if they have a clear and reasoned case. The guidance sets a set of criteria where we think 20 mph should apply. Because this is a national scheme, we need consistency. And that is based on the expert—[Interruption.] Can I just finish my point, please, Joyce? That is based on the expert advice we had, and we set out, as many of you will know, an expert task force four years ago—we’ve not rushed this—which was led by the highly respected Phil Jones, which included representation from the Federation of Small Businesses, the Road Haulage Association, the police and the WLGA. And we have worked on their 21 recommendations. This is an evidence-based approach, unlike the contributions from the Conservative benches this afternoon.

And we’ve decided to give local authorities that discretion. They came up with guidelines of 100m within a school, a community centre, a hospital, houses and shops. And the example that was given, I think by Llyr Gruffydd, of a stretch of road with fields either side, well, that clearly—I don’t know the circumstances he’s talking about—under the guidance would not be a 20 mph stretch of road. So, common sense needs to be applied, and I have written to local authorities on more than one occasion to urge them to apply common sense.

I want to give an example. I've campaigned for many, many years on 20's Plenty, and it is. And the reason that I first came into it, if you want any evidence, was talking to a bereaved family when a child had been killed in my area in a road traffic accident just after I was elected. If you want any evidence at all, I hope that you'll never have to face it in the way that I had to face it and in the way that that family had to face it. They also had to move because they lived right by the road. It was devastating, and I mean truly devastating. So, this is what we're really talking about. Let's bring it right back to the reasons that we are here today and the debate that's taking place, because it does and will save lives.

Thank you very much, Joyce. I do acknowledge the leadership that you have shown and that John Griffiths has shown over many years on this issue.

But let me just quote one statistic to this Senedd: in the distance it takes for a car travelling at 20 mph to stop, a car travelling at 30 mph will still be moving at 24 mph in the same distance. And we know that someone is five times more likely to be killed if they're hit at 30 mph than they are at 20 mph. The evidence on road safety is unarguable. There's been a mix of cherry-picked reports quoted by various Members on the Conservative benches this afternoon, and I'm inclined to quote Alexander Pope, to say,

'A little learning is a dangerous thing.'

This has been combed over by multiple expert groups. This has been looked at by Public Health Wales. There are evidence studies published on the Welsh Government website. The evidence of experience in Edinburgh where, for four years, they've had properly evaluated studies, is showing a 25 per cent drop in casualties. In Spain, where there's a national default speed limit, there is a 20 per cent fall in deaths. In central London, we are seeing now—and right across England where they're trialling this—consistent falls in casualty numbers. And, as Jane Dodds pointed out, the saving that presents to the NHS over 10 years is £1 billion. It's going to cost £30 million to introduce. It'll pay that back in its first year alone three times over. So, let us not have crocodile tears from the party that's starving the NHS of money for the NHS. The NHS welcomes this—[Interruption.]

The Minister is well out of time. I don't think he has time to give way, but if you have any concluding comments, then, Minister, please.

This will be a difficult policy, there's no doubt about it. This is the biggest change in road safety and in public health in the history of the time the Senedd has been sitting. It's a major change in behaviour for people who have been trained and spent all their lives driving at 30 mph. Just as it took time to get used to seatbelts and smoking in public places, and paying for carrier bags, and breathalysers, it will take time. And I'm sure that councils and we haven't got it 100 per cent right the first time, and that's the joy of the default—it can be changed. And we will make funding available next financial year to assist with those changes. I expect them to be exceptions, not the rule. I think we will look back at this, Llywydd, in years to come and we'll be proud of the decision we've made, as the statistics will do in Wales what they've done everywhere else: save lives, cut noise, improve levels of active travel and strengthen our communities. Diolch.

Jack Sargeant to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Llywydd. Can I thank all those who contributed today and the Minister for his response? Llywydd, you will be pleased that I'm not going to be able to go through all Members' contributions today. There was a significant number of people who spoke in the debate, and also, I know, a significant number of people who were unable to be called during today's debate. But I just will run through some things.

A number of Members referenced the importance of today's debate and the importance of the petitions process in hearing the concerns of the people of Wales, and I hope we have been able to do that today and amplify some of the voices. Mark Isherwood in his comments suggested, and was right to suggest, that this particular petition closed early in collecting signatures. What he failed to suggest in his contribution was that the reason it was closed early was to have this very debate, and you were able to voice the concerns of your residents because of that decision that was taken.

Llywydd, to run through a number of concerns from Members, Joel James, my colleague on the committee, talked about striking the right balance, which I think was a common theme. He also mentioned some of the unintended consequences, perhaps, that residents have raised as concerns, and I know a number of other people, Members of the Senedd, today have raised that particular point there.

Mike Hedges—general consensus, but there obviously needs to be exemptions within that. I, Hefin and Llyr—. Hefin David spoke very eloquently about the tragic accidents and the concerns he had and residents had in general about 30 mph speed limits. I think it's a credit to Hefin to speak in such a way while still raising the concerns about the exemptions process that local authorities have to go through.

Carolyn Thomas—the experience of her in cabinet as a local authority deputy leader at the time, and the criteria possibly is still too strict, but working in partnership I think was the key point there. I know John Griffiths and Jane Dodds have been supportive of this model.

Llywydd, I hope that the voices of the people of Wales were heard in their Senedd today. I do want to be clear, though, that there will be some opposition that remains to this policy, and I'm sure the petitioner will be doubtful of today's outcome. I know the Minister tried to address some of the key points in the petition, as did Jane Dodds. So, the challenge—and Llyr spoke about the challenge to the Deputy Minister—is to hear those voices from the people of Wales, to work with people and their concerns, in that partnership approach, as Carolyn Thomas said.

Communication will be key, I think, as Jane Dodds has said. I also hope we have pushed that message further forward where there is an exemptions process. So, if 30 mph would be more suitable for specific roads, then there is a way to make that happen. The Minister said he understood the concerns about the exemptions process from, particularly, Llyr, Hefin and I, and Carolyn as well. He went on to read the latest exemptions guidance that local authorities have in front of them, and urged local authorities to take a commonsense approach, perhaps, rather than being risk averse, which is their natural position.

The proposal is to note the petition. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed and the petition is noted.

The next item is the Welsh Conservatives debate on rural communities. I call on Paul Davies to move the motion.

Diolch, Llywydd, and it gives me great pleasure to lead this debate on the importance of the rural economy in Wales, and I move the motion tabled in the name of my colleague Darren Millar. One third of the Welsh population live in a rural area, and, according to the Country Land and Business Association in Wales, the rural economy supports around 459,000 people, and we on this side of the Chamber believe that more needs to be done to recognise the value and importance of the rural economy.

Now, earlier today, Members gathered in the Neuadd for the official launch of the Royal Welsh Show this year, and, in a few weeks' time, many Members will be visiting the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells—the pinnacle in the Welsh agricultural calendar—where we'll hear from those representing and working in the rural economy. And whilst there is a huge amount to celebrate in terms of our rural businesses, they are facing some enormous challenges too. In constituencies like my own, businesses are struggling with the increasing cost of doing business, connectivity challenges and poor transport links. Therefore, the Welsh Government needs to do more to recognise and respond to the challenges that rural businesses are facing.

Now, there has been some progress, and in this Senedd, the Welsh Government has moved to a much more regionally focused economic policy by introducing regional economic frameworks for each region of the country. That move is welcome, as it should provide an opportunity for local stakeholders to have a greater buy-in into economic development in each region. However, I remain concerned that there simply isn't enough feed-in from those at the front line of the rural economy.

Now, today's motion recognises the valuable contribution of Welsh farming to the rural economy, and I believe that the farming industry must have a voice in these regional economic frameworks, to ensure that decision makers can understand the economic needs of the industry, and create policy that better addresses the challenges the sector is facing. It's believed that 90 per cent of Wales's total land area is used for agriculture. Its contribution to Welsh gross value added is greater than the UK average, and yet the average farm income in Wales for 2020-21 was £34,300—the lowest of the four UK nations. So, it's crucial that the Welsh Government recognises the value of the sector and works with it to ensure its viability for the future.

Now, last week was Welsh Farming Week, and National Farmers Union Cymru launched their 'Framing the future for the next generation' report, which called on the Welsh Government to ensure that the sustainable farming scheme works for all types of farms, and is designed so all farm types can access it, including new and young entrants. That report also called on the Welsh Government to review the Farming Connect programme in conjunction with farming organisations, to ensure it's fit for future generations of farmers. Therefore, perhaps in responding to this afternoon's debate, the Minister will give a commitment to address the recommendations of that report, and tell us more about how it will ensure the farming sector can have a voice on Welsh Government economic policy development in the future.

Now, our motion also highlights the role that small businesses play in rural communities across Wales. The Federation of Small Businesses tell us that 80 per cent of small businesses contributed to the local community or charity in the past three years, with 38 per cent donating time and 32 per cent contributing skills. And of course, we know that for every £1 spent with small and medium-sized enterprises in the local community, 63p is re-spent in that local area, and so doing businesses locally often provides better value for money. Now, businesses have made it very clear that they are under pressure, and it's critical that governments at all levels work together to create conditions for growth and help small businesses to continue to stay afloat. The Welsh Government must ensure that business support is accessible to all small businesses that need it, not just high-growth, high-potential firms, and it must set out its long-term plans for business rates following last year's consultation. In the discussions that I have with businesses, business rates continue to be one of the most pressing issues facing them, and so it's important that we understand the Welsh Government's plans to reform the system ahead of the proposed local government finance Bill.

Businesses in rural areas continue to tell us that poor infrastructure is also holding back growth. It's a point that the regional economic frameworks all recognise, and given that these challenges are found in rural communities across Wales, we believe the Welsh Government should develop a specific infrastructure strategy for rural communities and businesses. The mid Wales regional economic framework accepts that poor ICT, transport connectivity and a lack of modern business infrastructure are particular weaknesses that need to be addressed. Similarly, the south-west Wales regional economic framework highlights poor digital and transport connectivity in parts of the region. Connecting rural businesses and communities is vital in terms of unlocking their economic potential. According to the Federation of Small Businesses, 32 per cent of rural small businesses reported issues with the reliability of their broadband, compared to 17 per cent of urban businesses, and only 58 per cent of rural small businesses state that the speed of their broadband is sufficient for their current and future business needs. And, given the infrastructure challenges facing rural businesses in all parts of the country, we believe that the Welsh Government should prioritise this issue by developing a specific strategy to support rural businesses.

Of course, infrastructure concerns are not solely about broadband and mobile connectivity, as highlighted in our motion; transport connectivity remains a huge problem area for businesses in rural areas. Wales's public transport system is woefully lacking and it requires urgent attention. Many communities are far less connected to towns and cities than they were 10 or 20 years ago, and that is not good enough. Indeed, the north Wales regional economic framework actually tells us that many parts of north Wales suffer from poor public transport connections, which impacts on residents' access to jobs, education and training. And I know that businesses in west Wales continue to be frustrated by the lack of public transport options for people in their surrounding communities. Therefore, there needs to be a concerted effort to work with local authorities, to develop sustainable transport solutions in these communities, so that people can access work, education and training.

Now, the Minister will know that we do not support the Welsh Government's freeze on building new roads. Businesses in rural areas often rely on the road network, and poorly maintained roads are a barrier to economic growth in rural areas. And we also reiterate the FSB's calls for Governments across the UK to publish a coherent set of target-based infrastructure strategies to deliver the necessary charging and rapid charging infrastructure for electric vehicles by 2030 for rural areas.

Finally, I want to take a moment to reflect on the economic benefits of summer shows and events here in Wales. I mentioned the importance of the Royal Welsh Show in my opening remarks, but the Royal Welsh is one of over 100 shows that showcase the very best of rural Wales and Welsh innovation and enterprise. Sadly, many of those shows are under threat, as organisers struggle with rising costs and fewer competitors, and yet, these shows have so much economic potential. They offer an opportunity for rural businesses to network and explore developing partnerships, as well as giving those businesses the opportunity to engage with local and national policy makers, in order to influence policy development. I, of course, will be at the Pembrokeshire County Show, where I will meet with businesses and business organisations from across the county to hear more about some of the acute challenges that they are facing. And, as well as providing economic benefits, they are strategically important in showcasing and promoting Welsh food and drink and also promoting Welsh culture. They are events that bind and connect our rural communities. Mared Rand Jones of the Association of Show and Agricultural Organisations is absolutely right to call them the 'heart of our communities', and so it's vital that, where it can, the Welsh Government supports these important shows and helps them stay on their feet to enable them to continue to provide opportunities for community cohesion and business.

So, Llywydd, our motion today seeks to recognise the importance of rural communities, our rural businesses and entrepreneurs, and calls on the Welsh Government to think more innovatively about how it can support and nurture the rural economy in the future. And I urge Members to support our motion. Let us discuss the challenges facing rural businesses and industries, and develop policies that work for them, not against them. Diolch.

I have selected the amendment to the motion. I call on the Minister for rural affairs to formally move the amendment.

Formally.

The amendment is moved. Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and could I thank those who have tabled this motion this afternoon? Evidently, we agree with the content of the motion; we will also be supporting the amendment of the Government. It was good to be reminded that there is a third of the people of Wales living in rural areas, because even though there isn't a density of population, when you do quote a stat like that, it does remind us how significant a contribution is made by rural Wales, and it shouldn't be marginalised in any discussions.

And, of course, as with everyone else, one of the biggest challenges facing rural communities today is the cost-of-living crisis. But that crisis does come on top of the premium, if you like, that often comes with living in the countryside, because if you live in the countryside, you have to accept that services are very often further away and that you need to travel further to get access to some services that other people take for granted. And there are costs associated with that as well.

And from an agricultural point of view, these challenges have been compounded by a hard Brexit, which has seen the UK economy shrink, and has led to trade agreements that undermine the interests of Welsh farmers. The UK Government's own impact assessment on the trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand estimates a loss on gross output in the beef and sheep sectors in Wales of about £29 million. It is no wonder that even the former Secretary for the environment in the Westminster Government has admitted that the agreement is not really a very good deal. And when it comes to the value of that agreement, a measly 0.08 per cent increase in UK GDP is the Government's own pitiful assessment, compared to a 5.5 per cent hit to UK GDP, and a 15 per cent reduction in UK trade intensity levels, as a result of Brexit.

But the first priority for me, and the first priority for Plaid Cymru, when it comes to the rural economy is to protect the family farm—that's the priority every time. The family farm is the economic, environmental, social and cultural backbone of the countryside. Now, we have just, in recent days of course, been discussing the Agriculture Bill, and I am very proud of the role that Plaid Cymru has played in strengthening that Bill, and to ensure that there is a better appreciation of the role of farmers, not only as food producers in Wales, but as important employers in some of our most marginalised economies in rural areas—those difficult areas to reach when it comes to creating and maintaining jobs. But also, there is the role of farmers as providers of one of the strongholds of the Welsh language, also as stewards of our environment and natural landscapes in Wales, and so much more. And being able to secure a five-year multi-year support plan in the Agriculture Bill went at least some of the way to restoring what was lost as a result of Brexit, and the seven-year funding security that came within the EU.

I would like to begin by declaring the fact that I am myself a farmer. And as we've heard from Paul, who opened the debate so well, last week was NFU Cymru's celebration of Welsh Food and Farming Week, a time when we came together to raise awareness and show our appreciation for all the hard work that our farmers and producers bring to Welsh society. Not only does the agricultural community provide economic, cultural and health benefits to Wales, but it also plays an important role in tackling climate change by reducing our carbon emissions, by ensuring that we as consumers have the option to buy locally sourced and climate-friendly food. The celebration of Welsh Food and Farming Week may have ended, but the hard work that the agriculture community does has not, and neither should our support.

As we've heard, major events in our rural communities are crucial as they bring significant economic benefit, including both immediate and secondary benefits to the rural economy and rural businesses. As we've heard, the Royal Welsh Show alone we know attracts almost a quarter of a million visitors each year. These visitors spend almost £10 million in those four days, with secondary sales being estimated to be over £6 million. On top of this, there is a further benefit of £3 million to the local economy as sales move down the supply chain. An estimated 3,000 businesses and organisations have trade stands at the Royal Welsh Show, of which 96 per cent of them would recommend the Royal Welsh Show to other businesses.

Whilst the Royal Welsh Show is the biggest event in the Welsh agricultural calendar, many of us in rural communities have our own shows that provide equally important benefits to the local rural and agricultural communities, as a result, to the economy. In the Monmouth constituency, we can boast some of the best agricultural shows in Wales. I'm pleased that the Monmouth show is back this year, after a couple of years out, on Sunday 20 August. It was the biggest one-day show in Wales. It attracted thousands and will attract thousands of visitors, both young and old, to the wonderful Wye Valley, as will the Chepstow show on Saturday 12 August, and we'll finish on 9 September with the fantastic Usk show—another brilliant opportunity to experience much of what the wonderful county of Monmouthshire and the wider region has to offer.

All of these important events provide a crucial shop window for our small and medium-sized enterprises, communities, group charities, clubs and associations. As we all know, SMEs are the beating heart of the Welsh economy, representing 99.4 per cent of businesses in Wales, which, in turn, accounts for 62.6 per cent of employment in Wales and 39.4 per cent of turnover. It must be noted that the overwhelming majority of businesses in rural communities are microbusinesses. SMEs in rural communities have been under immense pressure and continue to face barriers such as the lack of connectivity, as we've heard also, throughout Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom.

In this rural communities debate, I'd like to say that north Wales is largely rural and the economy is dominated by sectors such as agriculture, forestry and tourism. There are no large conurbations, which makes it an area of small and medium-sized enterprises that are found within the foundational economy. However, there is one important sector that's missed out from this debate, public services, which have been totally underfunded now for over a decade. You go to a rural community and you see, yes, family farms, but also teachers, carers, council operators, nurses and pensioners living there. You cannot have thriving local communities without public services employing Welsh-speaking local people, who spend in local communities and keep everyone safe, healthy, housed and protected.

Just one north Wales further education group, Grŵp Llandrillo Menai, employs around 2,000 staff supporting 20,000 students. The council is the largest employer in Anglesey; in Flintshire, the second-largest employer after Airbus, employing 5,500 people. Then there are those employed in the health service and social care. Public services are integral to the well-being of rural communities. If we invested in care, we could grow back the rural economy through people.

The motion’s called for a redoubling of the effort to tackle poor public transport in rural areas, and I agree the situation is dire. We are in a bus transport emergency, and just to keep existing routes open has meant intensive talks between councils, operators, the unions, Transport for Wales and Welsh Government over recent weeks. We need a reality check and a campaign as soon as possible to bring back our bus routes before they disappear. It's because passenger numbers have decreased over the last two decades. Those with concessionary passes have decreased the most in recent years, and not returned since COVID, and cuts to public service funding from the UK Conservative Government have meant cuts to bus subsidies. Add to that inflationary pressures and you will see bus transport procurement and the cost of running services has increased by 40 per cent, and that’s on top of driver shortages.

For almost 20 years I’ve represented rural areas as a community and county councillor and volunteer sitting on partnership organisations. I saw the amount of European funding that came into our rural communities, through the rural development plan, to fund projects that helped with diversification for farmers, bursaries for people looking to innovate and start up rural businesses, and funding for community events that showcased local produce, such as the Mold and Llangollen food festivals and the Clwydian range tourism and food groups. There was also funding for rural transport, including procurement of buses and trials of tourism services, funding for village halls, community centres and places of worship at the heart of rural communities.

The rural and agricultural businesses in Wales are the lifeblood of our economy. As point 1 in our motion makes clear, the role of rural small businesses should not ever be underestimated. Each farm in Wales is estimated to be economically linked to around 40 to 80 other businesses. Farming is truly a foundation upon which the £6 billion Welsh food and drink supply chain is built. It employs 17 per cent of the Welsh workforce whilst managing 90 per cent of the Welsh land. The latest data from my own region shows that around 15,600 people from South Wales East are employed within the agricultural, forestry and fishing industry. South-east Wales has a rich history of successful rural enterprise, from the invention of Caerphilly cheese, thanks to a handful of local farmers dating back to 1830, to many different rural small businesses who support local farmers’ markets and food events. We in the Welsh Conservatives recognise the valuable contribution of Welsh farming to the rural economy, as point 2 of our motion notes.

This year’s Countryside Alliance Awards for Wales highlighted many incredible small businesses in my region, with three businesses making it to the final: the Queen Bee Honey Company in Torfaen, Nash and Sons butchers in Blackwood, and James Morris from Tŷ Poeth farm in Pontypool, who has diversified his 200-year family trade by planting sunflowers and pumpkins, alongside traditional meat and dairy farming.

However, we seem to have a Government that fails to understand the rural community and the value that it adds to Wales. They’re intent on harming the rural communities, whether it be forcing farms to plant trees on prime agricultural land, or still failing to use local produce in schools, which would truly enhance and benefit the rural community and the surrounding areas of those schools, or, like we see now with the new anti-shooting agenda, by wanting to change the regulations on the release of game birds. This divisive agenda is another example of large-scale state intervention, with increasing red tape around licensing. The Welsh Government is intent on using taxpayers’ money to restrict freedoms instead of using the legal framework that is already in place successfully across the UK. Because of this, licences—[Interruption.] Of course.

Thank you, Laura Anne Jones. You've listed off a number of areas where Welsh Government aren't seemingly supporting our rural communities. Would you agree with me that another such measure is what we debated just a moment ago, which is forcing our rural communities to drive at 20 mph through villages and small towns and market towns, to follow the example of the city centre of Cardiff?

Absolutely, I do agree with you. It is a shame. The Minister was listening, anyway, so maybe your point will be heard. [Interruption.] What did you say, sorry, Minister? What did you say? I think she wants to make an intervention. No. Oh, right, okay.

The Welsh Ministers are intent on using taxpayers' money to restrict freedoms, as I said, instead of using the legal framework that is being used successfully across the UK. Because of this, licences run the risk of being open to challenge by those who oppose shooting. All this will do is hurt the rural economy in Wales, showing once more that if you don't live in a city then this Government shows an unwillingness to understand your way of life.

This Government needs to do what our motion calls for and create a proper infrastructure strategy to address the real challenges facing rural communities, and redouble efforts on connectivity and tackle poor public transport across Wales. Wales cannot survive without our rural communities, but, if we carry on like this, our rural communities won't be able to survive in Wales.

Thank you to the Conservatives for bringing this important debate forward this afternoon. And thank you to Paul Davies for outlining the fact that small businesses are the backbone of the rural economy, and that, of course, includes family farms, and also the fact that the shows—the Royal Welsh and smaller shows—make a very important economic contribution.

In terms of social life in rural areas, I'd also like to note the contribution of the young farmers' clubs, in terms of the activities that they stage throughout of the year. One of the greatest privileges of my role as a Member of the Senedd is to travel the length and breadth of the region and see the wealth of talent and innovation that defines our rural areas and our agricultural communities. These communities are incredibly self-reliant. This is reflected, for example, in the large number of businesses that are owned by communities or are social enterprises in Mid and West Wales.

But, often, this culture of self-reliance can mask numerous challenges that these communities face, challenges that are created or intensified by more than a decade of austerity—that is, cuts in public spending—in addition to Brexit and the appallingly damaging trade deals, as Llyr mentioned earlier, for the agricultural sector, and the current cost-of-living crisis too.

There's a certain irony in the Conservatives bringing forward their motion this evening, given that so many of these current barriers to economic development in our rural communities are a direct product of Tory policies. Just to give you one example, the challenge of poor public transport, which many of you have mentioned already, and connectivity in rural areas, which, ironically, the Tories in this motion are calling to be improved, is exacerbated by their Government's denial of the £5 billion in Barnett consequentials owed to Wales from HS2.

This important caveat notwithstanding, I'd like to add my voice to calls for the Welsh Government to develop a strategy to address the challenges facing our rural communities. Indeed, I've called for such a strategy in this place before now. It needs to go beyond the issue of infrastructure, important as this is, and deal explicitly and holistically with the issue of rural poverty, which is both a cause and product of economic underdevelopment in our rural communities.

Masked by the outward appearance of affluence, poverty often lurks below the surface in rural areas. Let me give you one example. Ceredigion has amongst the highest average house prices in Wales, almost £40,000 higher than the Welsh average. But, at 30 per cent, according to the latest Bevan Foundation data, it also has the second highest rate of child poverty of any local authority area in Wales. And as research shows, rural poverty is a distinct phenomenon, with different causes and consequences to those of urban areas and urban poverty.

There is often a rural premium on key goods in rural areas, a cost of remoteness that can add about 15 per cent to 30 per cent more to the cost of basic goods and services. While costs are higher in rural areas, wages are lower. Median earnings in Wales are lowest in Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Conwy, Gwynedd and Powys. A typical worker in Pembrokeshire, for example, is £346 a month worse off than the typical UK worker. Accessing health, welfare, financial and childcare services is often more difficult in rural communities. According to research by the Bevan Foundation, poor rural households in Wales have faced a triple squeeze during the present cost-of-living crisis from high costs, low incomes and limited state support.

I conclude with this: as I've suggested many times, the roots of rural poverty in Wales stem from policies emerging from Westminster, but many others are closer to home. So, I've called more than once for a Welsh Government strategy to tackle and to target those issues that concern rural areas. So, this evening, I'm going to repeat that demand, in the hope that we can move on and tackle rural regeneration in a holistic manner and do so as a matter of urgency, because those areas certainly deserve that. Thank you.

From north to south, east to west, a patchwork of farms characterise the constituency of Aberconwy that I have the honour to represent. Over my many years, I have been a solid supporter of our agricultural sector, and, whilst I've been in this place, I've led the opposition to the Wales-wide nitrate vulnerable zones, I've called out the unjustifiable difference between the TB testing charts used in Wales and those in England and Scotland, and I'm still awaiting a letter from the Minister on that. I've held you to account for stripping farmers of hydropower station business rates support, challenged your decision to allow farmers to be charged second home council tax on holiday lets on their farms, and I even launched the Welsh wool pledge.

In fact, this is a timely opportunity for me to remind you all of the scandal that is the price paid for wool, and I'm really pleased that Sam Kurtz my colleague is actually carrying on with this campaign. It's so important. British Wool has confirmed it will pay farmers just 30p a kilo for its core grade of 2022 wool. In fact, Welsh mountain will only be paid at 10p a kilo. Based on a 2.5 kg fleece, farmers would receive just 75p a fleece for core grade. Unsurprisingly, current wool prices are not even covering the cost of shearing. The National Association of Agricultural Contractors have put shearing prices at £1.65 a ewe. How ridiculous that a material that can be used in clothing, carpets and buildings is receiving such little support from our consumers. So, I would be pleased if the Minister would provide an update today on what steps you're taking to promote the use of Welsh wool.

Recently, I visited Trefriw woollen mill. It is run by the brother and sister duo Morgan and Elaine. Their great-grandfather took over the mill in 1859, and the family have now been producing high-quality wool products for over 150 years. We could learn from their example and make the public realise that it is environmentally responsible to be backing such businesses, to be backing Welsh agricultural businesses.

I know that there was a missed opportunity in the Agriculture (Wales) Bill—I would congratulate you, though, Minister, on the fact that we've now got that Bill—amendments that were tabled to explicitly include support for new and young entrants were unsuccessful, and economic viability of agricultural businesses has been omitted as a sustainable land management objective. My record and that of my Welsh Conservative colleagues prove beyond doubt that we want prosperous rural communities with active farming remaining firmly at their heart. We have not short-changed them. The Welsh Government's assertion that the UK Government is failing to keep its promise is simply not true. The UK SPF is, at a minimum, matching the size of the European regional development fund and the European social funding in Wales and will ramp up to £340 million in Wales by 2024-25. That, of course, is in addition to other UK Government funding, such as the levelling-up fund and the city and growth deals. Wales will also continue to benefit from a tail of EU funding over the coming years.

I just wanted to ask you what the level of capital investment was to Wales.

Put it this way: with all the investment that is now coming in, all this crying about, 'There's not enough money coming from the UK Government', is absolute crocodile tears.

DEFRA is part funding a £1 million project run by grass and forage seed specialists and breeders, Germinal, in collaboration with the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University. Part of this research will involve developing flavourless pea varieties in order for pea protein to be used to replace soya—you know, that awful thing that's imported far too often.

I will finish by highlighting another matter that I have long campaigned to see addressed: New Zealand lamb, having set the standard boasting 60 or more days of shelf life for vacuum-packed chilled lamb, and up to 110 days for carbon dioxide gas-flushed lamb. Welsh lamb has a shelf life of just up to 21 days. By boosting the competitiveness of Welsh produce, agricultural productivity, local demand for local products, and backing for diversification, we could all be supporting a sector that directly supports an agricultural workforce of 49,876. Support for that group has to be perfected if our rural communities are to have any real chance to thrive.

So, stop moaning about the UK Government; use the levers at your disposal to start making a positive difference. And I'll just add quickly—

No. Oh, you were doing so well, Janet. You were doing so well. End on a high note for yourself. [Laughter.] Jane Dodds.

I just really want to concentrate on one part of this motion. I think we've heard lots about how important our rural economy is, and I don't think that's in dispute. I just want to look at part 4 of this particular motion, and to hear from the proposer as well, because it talks about connectivity and infrastructure, and of course, we know that digital connectivity, job opportunity, housing costs, health, transport, are especially challenging for us in rural areas, and for young people, who want to know what their future is, going forward.

So, I want to look at whether we can couple infrastructure, roads, homes, and those digital issues with what I take the motion, perhaps, to mean, with social infrastructure in our rural areas—childcare, community networks, good public services, which we've heard about, including our schools and our health and social care—and how this motion can address that as well. We need, as we've all heard, vibrant rural communities that create places where people can live and work, from cradle to grave.

Many people have spoken about a rural strategy, a rural economic development Bill, and there is something that we do need in order to bring all these issues together, focusing on the needs of our rural areas. For example, the proportion of micro-enterprises in mid Wales was the highest of the four regions. It also has a higher number of active businesses as a proportion of the population than anywhere else in Wales, and that's a good news story. But there isn't the digital connectivity. It's not just the transport connectivity to support growth, to support innovation and to support flexible rural working in mid Wales; we need that digital connectivity as well.

And we've heard that public transport is again a frustration. I met recently with residents in Borth in Ceredigion around bus services. And I think it's important that we remember that with the roads review, now that we're not committed to building new roads, which I totally support, surely the money from that, we need to think now about how that goes into public transport, particularly in our rural areas.

Finally, I have to be in agreement with many of our speakers, because the Conservatives in our Senedd need to take responsibility for what the Conservative Government has done in London. The UK Government stated that the levelling-up fund was specifically tilted towards the north, the midlands, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and yet, in 2022, Powys did not receive a single penny of levelling-up money. Instead—[Interruption.] No, I’m not taking an intervention. Instead, we saw some very wealthy parts of the UK receiving large amounts of money, including the Prime Minister’s own constituency, which received £19 million.

And Brexit, which everyone warned would affect our economy, particularly our rural economies, but don’t take my word for it, take the word of Ian Rickman, a farmer in Llandeilo, who talks about the trade deal. I quote:

I welcome this debate this afternoon. And I will just say, Jane Dodds wouldn't let me make an intervention, but I'd just like to say that the Lib Dems did throw farmers under the bus with the nitrate vulnerable zones vote in the last Senedd, so I'll take no lectures from Jane Dodds about taking responsibility.

Having lived in a rural community my whole life, I feel extremely privileged to have grown up in that environment, having the world on your doorstep, and it’s a fantastic part of the world. And now, I’m very lucky that I represent my home in the Senedd. The communities across the greatest constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire are unique. They’re not all the same, and in some corners, we have a vibrant Welsh language culture down in Sennybridge and different parts of the constituency; in others, we have thriving market towns in Hay-on-Wye, Builth Wells and others. And our communities in rural areas are all brought together by that sense of community and that everybody is there to support their neighbour, and that is something that we should all be very proud of in our rural communities—that everyone can come together and support each other.

The backbone of my constituency and many rural constituencies is agriculture and our small businesses. Agriculture provides jobs and opportunities, and more importantly, the food that we all need to survive. And that is why it’s vitally important that, when the Government comes forward with a new sustainable farming scheme, food production is put at the heart of that to make sure that all our farmers are producing food for our nation and to make sure they have a very profitable future.

One thing that is also very close to my heart, and it was raised by Cefin Campbell, is our young farmers movement. As a proud member of Rhosgoch Young Farmers Club and Radnor YFC, I do say that it is the best youth movement that we have in the entire world. It pulls so many young people together, pulls everyone together from different communities, and actually teaches those skills that many people in rural areas need. And it also helps tackle that rural isolation that many people face and is a great way of actually addressing the mental health concerns of young people in rural areas.

Others have mentioned it in the Chamber, but I feel very proud that my constituency is the home of many agricultural shows: Brecon, Sennybridge, but more importantly, the jewel in the crown, as I call it, the Royal Welsh Show. And I personally have had many good days there and have also had some very good nights, mostly in the National Sheep Association bar, or in the young members' pavilion. It's a very, very good place to be, and I encourage everybody to go to the NSA bar if you get a chance. The Royal Welsh Show attracts so many visitors to our rural communities, and those people who come there spend over £10 million in our local economy, and that's huge to my constituency and it's huge to Wales. As others have said, with over 200,000 people descending on Llanelwedd, it's really something that I think the Government should be investing in further, and I'm very pleased that at the launch of the Royal Welsh Show today, the Minister gave her commitment to actually supporting the Royal Welsh Show going forward.

I'm going to remind us about the rural communities and the investment that the EU funds have contributed to that rural economy. In mid Wales, the current round has created more than 2,750 jobs and 655 new businesses. More than 1,900 businesses received funding or business support. Almost 1,300 people have been helped into employment and nearly 7,000 qualifications have been achieved. Aberystwyth University has benefited from more than £45 million to develop new facilities like VetHub1 and AberInnovation.

Brexit means, of course, that we've lost access to new EU funds, and because of decisions taken by the UK Government, your Government, Wales is losing £1.1 billion compared to the EU structural and rural funds, despite promises—Janet Finch-Saunders, perhaps you weren't listening—that we wouldn't lose a single penny. Now, let's look at that £1.1 billion loss and that wishing list and shopping list that you bring here every single week, and you can start to tick off and cost some of those things that might have happened, but won't happen, because your Government made a promise that they knew was no promise at all. They never ever intended to keep it.

So, I'm giving you an opportunity today, and I hope that you will take it. It's an opportunity to apologise to the rural communities for the broken promises about Brexit, to apologise to the farmers too, for their lack of long-term funding certainty since we've left the European Union. And I have no doubt that you want to stand up and say 'sorry'. That's what you're going to say.

Would you take an intervention, Joyce? Actually, when it comes to Brexit, I voted 'remain', of course, but I'm democratic, so I want to respect the result of people in Powys, and people across Wales. But when it comes to Brexit, I heard Jane Dodds earlier talking about how Powys had done so badly. Powys did badly under EU structural funds; they did much better when it came to the UK Government shared prosperity fund: £15 million that Jane Dodds has forgotten about for the Montgomery canal, and a whole raft of other projects that I could also name, Joyce Watson.

Well, I don't know how you were taught maths in school, but I do know how I was taught maths in school, and what I know about maths is that £1 billion less can't possibly be more. A minus is a minus; a minus doesn't become a plus just because you get up and say it. That's how I was taught maths, anyway. So, after you failing to apologise for that deficit, I shall move on.

Just to let you know what the Welsh Government has done investing in rural Wales, we've secured 100 good manufacturing jobs in Llanfyllin, a new HQ and IT infrastructure for LEB Construction in Aberystwyth, growth and new markets for Atherton Bikes in Machynlleth and Airflo Fishing Products in Brecon—didn't hear those mentioned. Pembrokeshire Food Park in Withybush has been a big success story, attracting Pembrokeshire Creamery's £17 million investment and the creation of 80 new jobs—didn't hear about those. More than £7.8 million has been invested in the mid Wales food sector, helping companies like Hilltop Honey and Radnor Hills to partner with leading UK retailers, and the Dyfi bridge scheme, the Bow Street railway station and the Newtown bypass have all helped connect communities—didn't hear anything about those. The mid Wales growth deal is making great progress, and the £110 million committed by the Welsh Government, and the UK Government, will lever in investment of up to £400 million. But it still won't make up for the £1.1 billion loss.

Our rural communities offer exceptional quality of life. There are new opportunities with more people working from home. But as someone who grew up in Mid and West Wales, went to school, worked in hospitality and retail jobs, raised my family, I don't have a sentimental view about rural communities; they have to thrive, they must be places where young people feel confident and excited about planning their futures. Farming and tourism are important, but I wanted to highlight the manufacturing and the green technology, and that is why the Welsh Government is focused on delivering better jobs, better skills and better connected communities, as I demonstrated.

The Minister for rural affairs to contribute—Lesley Griffiths.

Diolch, Llywydd. I welcome the opportunity to reply to this debate. I endorse the points made in the motion about the fantastic businesses that exist across rural Wales and the importance of summer shows in promoting those businesses and the wider well-being of rural communities. I also agree we need to continue to improve the transport and other critical infrastructure on which people and businesses in rural areas rely. Many businesses in rural Wales already show what the rural economy of the future can look like—businesses giving back to the environment, more than they take out in natural resources; employers who see social partnership and fair work as core to their corporate values; innovative businesses applying cutting-edge science to global challenges; and cultural businesses bringing the Welsh language and our heritage into more people's lives. Indeed, some businesses represent many of these characteristics all at once.

Our role as the Welsh Government is to work with these businesses alongside other public bodies to proactively promote an economy focused on well-being. We do not believe the best economic outcomes are delivered simply by letting the free market decide. We believe Government intervention whereby public support for economic activity comes in exchange for securing wider public benefits represents a better future not just for our rural economy but for the whole of Wales. We want more Welsh businesses to deliver the wider benefits so many already do.

Our infrastructure policies are set out in our strategic plans, including 'Llwybr Newydd' and the Wales infrastructure investment strategy. Our approach to rural connectivity has been shaped by a series of round-tables conducted by the Deputy Minister for Climate Change with local authority leaders and transport experts from across Wales. Our rural pathway takes a hub-and-spoke approach, helping those in the most isolated communities better access their local village or town, and from there, a wider range of onward transport choices.

The North Wales Transport Commission identified the need to prioritise schemes that enable better rural-to-rural connections, and proposed car clubs, car sharing and e-cycles, as well as highlighting the role of workplace travel planning to support people to access the options available to them. Projects like the Sustrans E-Move pilot and the Sherpa service in Snowdonia are just two examples of transport policies that have demonstrated success in improving rural connectivity and that provide models that can be adopted more widely.

But I cannot emphasise enough that Welsh Government support for our rural communities takes place in the context of severe economic headwinds, amplified by a whole series of damaging policy decisions taken by the UK Government, out of a uniquely Conservative blend of ideology and incompetence that the Welsh Conservatives choose to conveniently ignore. In the time I've got available, it's a challenge to actually summarise the very long list of appalling decisions, but decisions that have had particularly detrimental impacts on the rural economy of Wales include their total lack of preparation for securing a deal with the EU, where the shambolic and, as yet, unresolved approach—I've had a meeting this afternoon about this—to facilitating the movement of goods across our borders is only the most visible manifestation. They have created chronic—[Interruption.] No—labour shortages and supply chain disruption with their chaotic immigration and labour market policies in the wake of EU exit.

I'm grateful to you for taking the intervention. Going back to your point about the so-called collapse in produce from Welsh farms, can you name me a better time to be selling lamb and beef over the last six years, where beef has been £5 a kilo, lamb is £7 a kilo dead weight? I actually practise every day in the agricultural world; I know what's going on. We haven't seen the collapse of the agricultural industry, like you prophesied, from leaving the European Union—

I'd like you to stop pointing, please.

We've seen a better place for us—

Llywydd—

—to trade our commodities.

Okay. Fine. Yes, pointing is not becoming of any Member. The Minister to respond.

I also want to remind the Tories that no section of the Welsh economy has felt the brunt of Conservative management more than our farmers and fishers, so that addresses your point. We heard from Jane Dodds quoting Ian Rickman, the vice-president of the farming union—you ask the farming unions what they think about the UK Government's policies.

We've also seen the UK Government barter away farmers' interests in pursuit of trade deals that add to the bureaucracy of doing business, increase trade friction and threaten to undermine standards, and not just for farmers. Just last week, one of the leading lights in Welsh fisheries was quoted in the press describing the Tory handling of Brexit as absolutely, fundamentally, profoundly devastating. The same could be said of the betrayal of rural Wales in the failure to honour the commitment made by UK Ministers, which other speakers have referred to, to ensure that not a penny less—not a penny less—would be provided in replacement EU funding.

I would like to give credit to the leader of the Welsh Conservatives for rightly pointing out the gross iniquity of the decision to class HS2 as an England-and-Wales project. It does serve, I think—and I'm being positive now—as a very powerful message that this Senedd can speak with one voice, across party lines, to point out that this denies Wales the ability to improve rural connectivity at the scale and pace we all agree is needed. The leader of the Welsh Conservatives has said that his party should stand strong and tall in the Welsh wheat field and not be bending in the wind to the whim of Westminster. So, for the sake of rural Wales, I would call on the Welsh Conservatives to really heed their advice and lend their voice to the calls for full replacement of EU funding for rural development, along with a commitment to a long-term planning horizon that we know is needed for economic development generally and land-based enterprises like farming especially.

I do hope the Welsh Conservatives will decide to put country before party today and urge their UK counterparts to reverse their decision to remove hundreds of millions of pounds in funding from not only transport infrastructure investment in Wales but also from the rural economy too, by supporting the Government amendment to the motion. Diolch.

Samuel Kurtz now to respond to the debate.

Diolch, Llywydd. It's a pleasure, it really is, to close today's debate. I've listened to it intently, because it's something that's incredibly important to me, the rural economy, as the shadow rural affairs Minister. It's incredibly important that we do note the importance of the rural economy, that we do note the role that small businesses play in our rural communities, and recognise the valuable contributions from our agricultural community, from agricultural shows and events such as the National Eisteddfod as well. I think that's incredibly important.

Paul Davies opened the debate, talking about the nearly 0.5 million people supported in the rural economy and the importance around the Royal Welsh Show and the event that was there to launch that today, and the importance that we'll need to see in the sustainable farming scheme. I'm keen to listen to the Minister's statement on the sustainable farming scheme in only two weeks' time; I think that will be an incredibly interesting period for the agricultural community. Paul also mentioned business rates reform. I think that is something that we really do need to take heed of, and the Welsh Government really do need to have a look at that as a matter of urgency. And at this point, I'd just like to say that my cross-party group on rural growth is doing an inquiry into the rural economy and rural productivity at this time, taking evidence from those in the sectors, right across the rural economy, to try and give some tangible policies—not party political policies, tangible policies—to the Government, to try and lever some investment into our rural economies. Because the clue's in the name—it's a cross-party group.

Llyr Gruffydd mentioned the importance of rural contributions, but actually mentioned the rural premiums as well—that's something that really needs to be understood, having to travel further for services—and the family farms being the backbone of the rural economy. And the agri Bill amendments, which were first tabled by Mr S. Kurtz from the Welsh Conservatives, picked up by Plaid Cymru and the Government—I'm pleased that those have come forward. But he also mentioned that shop window that the Royal Welsh Show gives, and all shows and eisteddfodau give, for our rural communities, especially those who don't come from a rural background—going to those events, potentially for the first time, being able to have a taste and visualisation of what rural Wales really is about.

Peter Fox, I have to give you credit for putting food on the agenda, really, with your food Bill, and that's something that you've played an integral part in. I know the Minister is very keen on Wales's food and drink sector. I think that's an important part, where we have potential exponential growth in it. Because let's not forget, for the first time in 20 years, we've had Welsh lamb, Welsh sheep meat, going across to America—the fifth largest importers of sheep meat, a fantastic new market that we're able to access. That's the positivity that we want to be seeing.

Thanks, Sam. I think there's one thing I would like to clear up, and I'd also like to give Jane Dodds the opportunity to correct the record. Jane in her contribution said that Powys had not received a single penny of levelling-up money in 2022. The truth is that Powys received £27 million of UK levelling-up funding in 2022. So, I wonder if Jane Dodds would be willing to correct the record in that regard and perhaps make an intervention in your closing-up contribution, Sam.

Thank you, Russell. I'll give way to Jane, should she so wish, but—

I'm happy to correct the record, Llywydd.

I'm also pleased that the people of Powys—

Can I thank Jane Dodds for correcting the Record?

Yes, I thank Jane Dodds for that contribution. I'm pleased that the residents of Powys have advocates such as Russell George and James Evans as well.

Going back to Carolyn Thomas's point around the public sector being the largest employer, who pays those taxes? We need a big strong private sector to pay the taxes to pay for those public services. That's really important. The point that Carolyn made around the bidding process for EU funds as well, I take Carolyn back to the evidence we took at the Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee from a host of applicants to both EU funding and new shared prosperity funding, who have complimented the simplicity of the shared prosperity funding application process. There in black and white is evidence. You shake your head, Carolyn—that is the evidence we've gathered from independent organisations, third-party sectors, who have absolutely welcomed the simplicity of the shared prosperity funding.

One thing—I'm conscious of the time, and I hope the Llywydd is kind given that I've taken an intervention—I want to compliment Cefin Campbell on mentioning the YFC, as James Evans has as well, and others. It's a cause very close to my heart as a former chair of Pembrokeshire YFC. I think if you could bottle up what the YFC is and sell that, you'd be a very wealthy person because of the skills it gives to individuals. But in the five minutes and 42 seconds that Cefin contributed, I think four minutes were spent on criticising the Westminster Government, so maybe—[Interruption.] Potentially, it's a bid for the general election's Carmarthen new seat. So, maybe there's a candidacy from Cefin Campbell there for the general election, and maybe I've broken a news embargo there. Apologies if I have.

Llywydd, I'm conscious of the time and I really have paid attention to everybody that's debated today. All I can say is it's really important that we have these debates and flesh it out, but let's remember where we are and why we're here. We're here to ensure that we get the best for the people of Wales, and that means scrutinising the Welsh Government as well. We are willing to look at ourselves and say, yes, Barnett consequentials, which the Minister raised—we are willing to say, 'Yes, Wales deserves those Barnett consequentials.' It's about time that backbenchers on the Labour benches and the co-operation agreement partners in Plaid Cymru put as much pressure on the Labour Government here in Wales as they seem to spend as much time focusing on the Westminster Government. I urge everybody to vote for the motion today.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there are objections, so I will defer voting on this item until voting time.

That now brings us to voting time and, unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will move directly to the first vote. The first vote this afternoon is on item 5, and that was the debate on the Member's legislative proposal on a civic duty to vote Bill. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Adam Price. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour of the motion 20, 20 abstentions and 12 against, and therefore the motion is agreed.

The next vote is on the Welsh Conservatives debate on rural communities, and I call for a vote first on the motion without amendment, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 14, no abstentions, 38 against, and therefore the motion is not agreed.

The next vote is on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 38, no abstentions, 14 against. The amendment is agreed.

The final vote is on the motion as amended.

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 38, no abstentions, 14 against. Therefore, the motion as amended is also agreed.

That's the end of voting time for today.

We'll move on to the short debate. The short debate this afternoon is being presented by Mabon ap Gwynfor.

And if Members can leave the Chamber quietly—quietly—we've still got one short debate to conduct.

So, Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Thank you very much, Llywydd, and thank you for providing time for this short debate this evening. I want to give a minute of my time to Peredur Owen Griffiths, Huw Irranca-Davies, Mike Hedges, Jane Dodds and Mark Isherwood.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon on the experiences of older Welsh home owners living in homes unfit for human habitation. As chair of the cross-party group for housing, we invited Care & Repair to give a presentation on their report, 'The State of Older People's Housing in Wales', in March. The report sheds light on the thousands of low-income vulnerable older home owners in Wales who are living in homes that are hazardous to their health, with no way of improving their situation. I look forward to hearing the views of the Minister and Members throughout the Senedd on this very important topic, and it’s good to see so many people having put their names forward to contribute, showing cross-party support.

Over 62,000 people turned to Care & Repair for help last year, an increase of 6,000 on the previous year, and with increasingly complex housing and support needs. Supporting older people to stay in their own homes, to live safely and independently, is in the best interests of all of us—for the individual, for the health service, for the social care service, for the housing sector. But, to do that, we must be proactive and we must support older people to live in good-quality homes. Social isolation over the past several years thanks to COVID-19 lockdowns meant that informal support from friends or family or neighbours ceased almost overnight. During this time, deteriorating housing conditions went unnoticed, unchecked and unresolved. Take a service request in north Wales, for an enquiry about a front door from a client with a terminal cancer. When Care & Repair got to the property, they found several other urgent problems, including a leaking toilet directly above the kitchen, which had, in turn, left the suspended wooden floor in the kitchen springy, rotten and structurally unsafe. With the floor at risk of collapse into the cellar below, the agency moved essential items out of the kitchen. No help was available from the insurance or the local council. Unable to leave a client with an unsafe home, Care & Repair arranged temporary props to support the timber beams and make the property safe from collapse. The floor structure repair cost was estimated at around £1,000, raised from hours of applications by Care & Repair to small funding pots to make up the money, leaving none left over for the original service request.

Many older people simply don’t have enough money to repair their home. We must dispel the myth that older people who live in their own homes are all well-off, are able to afford extensions or garden renovations or anything else. An older person on the basic state pension will receive just £156.20 a week to live on. To reach the minimum income standard researched by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2022, a single pensioner would need to have an income of £17,900 per year. The full state pension provides £9,627 per year, leaving a shortfall of over £8,000; the basic state pension, an even bigger shortfall.

Thank you to Mabon for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.

I'm grateful to be speaking about this and to bring to light a hidden issue. As Mabon rightly said, this is an issue where people in need to seem to be falling through the cracks, affecting their health and adding to increasing demand and pressure on our NHS. The impact of poor housing on health and physical health is one thing, but it's on the well-being, the confidence, the mental health of an older person that makes it so tragic. Imagine living with cancer and having to wash in the sink because your stairs are in such a poor condition that you're frightened of going upstairs, or using battery-powered fairy lights to light the room because your electrics are faulty and are an electrical hazard, or your floor threatening to cave in but the insurance company won't help you. These are examples from older people in Wales, and it can't be right that anyone is forced to live in that way in 2023. Minister, what solutions can the Welsh Government put in place to support those that have no other recourse? Diolch.

Thank you very much, Mabon, for giving me a minute of your time here today. I've spoken about the work of Care & Repair in this Chamber many times before, and I'm glad to do so again today in relation to Bridgend County care and repair. They received over 9,000 service requests last year, Minister. They completed over 8,000 works in people's homes to improve their condition and accessibility, and the value of that work came in at just over £2.3 million. In my constituency, as I've said here before, Bridgend care and repair is so effective in supporting the Princess of Wales Hospital with patient flow. It saved over 7,300 bed days last year, tackling housing and environmental issues that were preventing hospital discharge. But this serious issue of disrepair of older people's homes on low incomes doesn't seem to be going away, and, if anything, we can see it's getting worse. So, Minister, what support can we give to individuals, but also to organisations like Care & Repair, to fill those gaps in provision that are so evident at the moment? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Thank you, again, Mabon, for giving me a minute in this debate. There are one-point-two million pensioners living in poverty. When the choice is between eating, heating or house repairs, is there any wonder house repairs lose out? Many older house owners live in older properties, which, as we know, cost more to repair and maintain. As the value of personal pensions fail to keep up with inflation, the repairs get postponed. We also know that cold and damp houses make health conditions worse. We also know that people in houses in poor repair are more likely to have accidents, and older people are more prone to hypothermia. Like Mabon ap Gwynfor, I would like to compliment Care & Repair for the work they do helping vulnerable older householders keep their property in good repair. No-one should have to live in a property unfit for human habitation. It's up to us to stop this happening.

Thank you to Mabon.

A number of people in my region, particularly, live in older properties, and rural areas have far more older properties that are poorly insulated, and have poor repair. Wales has the oldest housing stock in western Europe, which is more susceptible to the effects of the climate crisis and poverty, both of which I see in my region.

Not only that, but for older home owners, getting the support they need locally is a huge challenge, not only in terms of the location, because of the rurality, but the effects of a skills gap as well. Older people usually have a fixed income, which is unlikely to increase, so they have diminishing financial resources in order to make those repairs. Just finishing, older people in rural communities feel that they have been left. We need to make sure that they feel safe, supported and able to continue living in the place they call home, wherever in Wales they are and for however long they choose. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Diolch, Mabon, for the opportunity to speak on this again. The report published by Care & Repair tells us that four in five of their clients identify as disabled. North-east Wales care and repair have shared a case study of a Wrexham client living with Korsakoff dementia and other complex health conditions, who contacted them about a roof leak. However, the roof needed full replacement. Mr Jones's wife is a full-time carer; neither are able to work. There are no current or planned home repair grants available in Wrexham or nationally. Although the care and repair caseworker is applying for small funding pots, this would not be enough. The mould is increasing, affecting the breathing of both Mrs Jones and Mr Jones, who has fits that reduce his breathing.

The effects of disrepair are having a disproportionate impact on disabled people and those with health conditions less able to pay for their necessary repairs, or identify them as a hazard. We must ensure that disabled people are living in homes fit for both human habitation and individual needs.

I call on the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I thank all Members who have contributed, and Mabon ap Gwynfor for bringing this forward to the Senedd to debate this important topic, because the safety, the dignity, and independence of old people in their own homes is a matter of huge importance to all of us here, as we've just heard. And I'd like to take this opportunity to join others in thanking and highlighting the work of Care & Repair and for their report on the state of older people's housing in Wales, and their exceptional work across the country. They completed over 30,000 adaptations in the year 2021-22, with funding from the Welsh Government, and as home improvement agencies, they also do healthy-home checks which give housing advice and maximise older people's benefits, crucially.

We've increased the core revenue grant for Care & Repair by 18 per cent over the last two years, recognising their vital work, and it now stands at just over £5 million, and their capital grant increased by 83 per cent to £3 million. We also provide capital funding for adaptations to local authorities through the local government settlement, and our £6 million ENABLE grant scheme, and of course, we are funding housing associations to provide physical adaptations grants of £12 million a year.

Now, last week, my colleague, the Minister for Climate Change, set out our plans for the next phase of the Warm Homes programme. And that will balance the two objectives of tackling fuel poverty and reducing the climate impacts of our housing stock. All households in Wales will have access to the Warm Homes programme for advice and support. And in relation to practical measures, we are focused on households that are least able to pay for improvements in the owner-occupier, private rented and housing co-operative sectors. And, addressing a point that Mabon ap Gwynfor made, we will set a low-income threshold, rather than basing eligibility solely on means-tested benefits. This will makes sure that we target the poorest in society.

In terms of eligible homes, we will treat dwellings with an energy performance certificate rating of E and below. This will be extended to EPC D for households where there are people with a recognised health condition, such as chronic respiratory, circulatory or mental health conditions. This means that our help will target older people on low incomes who live in housing that is in poor condition—the very same people identified in the Care & Repair report.

We are taking other measures as well, for example, the optimised retrofit programme and the Welsh housing quality standard, both referenced already, to drive up energy efficiency in social housing. And in relation to the private rented sector, Part 4 of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, which came into force in December, sets out the obligations on a landlord to ensure that rented properties are in good repair and fit for human habitation.

Thank you, all. Before I conclude business for today—

I did take a point of order earlier today. I have reviewed the transcript. I have had a discussion with the Member who raised the point of order. I haven't yet had a discussion with the two other Members identified in the point of order, so, I do not intend to make any further comments today, but I will write to both of them so that it's clear on the record.

And that brings today's proceedings to a close.