National Assembly for Wales

És un plaer donar la benvinguda al president del Parlament de Catalunya i als membres de la Mesa que l'acompanyen. Per nosaltres és un orgull mantenir aquesta relació de solidaritat entre el Parlament de Gal·les i el Parlament de Catalunya. [Applause.]

The Welsh Government supports tenants in the private rented sector through a range of measures. This includes offering grants for tenants experiencing hardship, delivering legislative changes to improve standards and tenants' rights, and offering increased security and affordability through Leasing Scheme Wales.

Clause 2 of the Renters' Rights Bill, currently before the UK Parliament, abolishes shorthold tenancies and ends no-fault evictions in England. Information from Shelter Cymru shows that no-fault evictions are still frequently happening in Wales, albeit with a six-month notice needed and the landlord having to ensure that certain conditions are in place. When no-fault evictions were being originally discussed in Wales, there was concern that if they were scrapped here, landlords would migrate to England. Has the Minister been able to make any analysis of the interaction between the law as it will be in England and as it is now in Wales?

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you for the question, Julie. As the provisions in the Renters' Rights Bill are subject to amendments as the Bill passes through the UK Parliament, it would be premature to undertake an analysis of the interaction of the law between England and Wales until those final stages have concluded. However, at present, the Bill sets out certain grounds available to a landlord who wishes to regain possession of a property. The period of notice will vary dependent on the grounds used—from four months to as little as two weeks. 

As I previously said, I think we've got the right approach here in Wales, as, in all systems, landlords will still be able to serve notice in circumstances where the tenant is not at fault. We've focused on extended notice periods to enable more time for tenants to plan. And I think, within that, that is what we know that tenants want in terms of what matters to them, which is having the time to plan, and I think we've got that right here in Wales.

I'm grateful to the Member for raising this important question in the Chamber today, because, of course, that security of tenancy is really important for tenants up and down Wales. But time and time again, surveys show that the greatest security that people desire is the ability to own their own home. That's the way we can ensure that people have the security of calling a place their home—by having their own home that they can own. So, I wonder, Cabinet Secretary, whether you could outline your plans to ensure that more people in Wales are able to own their own home, seeing houses being built so that people have the ability to do that sooner rather than later.

Thank you for the question, Sam. I think we have a strong focus on social housing here in Wales, and we're obviously working hard towards that. And we also have—I know that it often comes up in the Chamber—co-operative housing, and issues such as that. But, absolutely, it's important that we're also building houses here in Wales. We know that that's an option and that that's what lots of people do want to have. And we've also tried to encourage that through schemes such as Help to Buy, and, indeed, our other scheme, which is Help to Stay, when people have difficulties with their mortgage payments. So, we've got two schemes there to encourage that. But, certainly, it's something that I'm looking at, and I look forward to meeting developers here in Wales as well in due course.

Diolch, Siân. Thank you for that question. As you mentioned, we have our White Paper. And I just want to put on record once again that I'm fully supportive of the general principle that everyone should be able to access adequate housing; it's a fundamental human necessity that people are adequately housed. The issue we're dealing with is how we deliver that adequate housing for all, and we need to put those practical steps in place that get us to that goal, which is adequate housing for everyone, and that's something I'm sure we all share here. We need to develop that housing system so that we're in a position where we can ensure that everyone has that access to adequate housing, and that will take time.

In terms of rent control, available evidence on rent control in the private rented sector indicates that such measures would likely be ineffective or may even have negative impacts on affordability. But, as such, and as set out in our White Paper published, we're not currently proposing to take forward national rent control measures.

Cabinet Secretary, earlier this year, I asked your predecessor about the issue of pet-friendly rental properties. Half of households have pets, yet just 7 per cent of rentals are advertised as pet friendly, so it's no surprise that it's one of the most common reasons people in Wales are forced to hand their pets over to rescue centres, which are full to, and over, capacity. The emotional toll that this takes on both the owners and the pets is huge, and yet another example of how those who cannot afford to buy their own home are put at a significant disadvantage in life. So, is the Cabinet Secretary willing to work with organisations such as RSPCA Cymru, Dogs Trust, Cats Protection to ensure that the right legislation is in place to support current and prospective pet owners?

Diolch yn fawr, Carolyn. I know this is something that you've raised over many months, and probably years now, around this issue. I know how passionately you feel about this. We've set out our proposals in the White Paper on adequate housing to improve accessibility to the private rented sector for those wishing to rent with a pet. I recently was very pleased to meet with Cats Protection, Dogs Trust and the RSPCA to discuss both the proposals in our White Paper and the provisions in the Renters' Rights Bill regarding pet insurance. I was really pleased to hear from them directly. They've welcomed our proposals in our White Paper, and I've encouraged them to respond to the White Paper consultation, and that will inform our next steps.

Diolch, Mike. We are committed to supporting the development of co-operative and community-led development and housing in Wales. Our programme of support, delivered by Cwmpas, is working with community-led housing groups across Wales, including Dream Home Swansea, Swansea Co-Housing and Gŵyr Community Land Trust.

I want to talk about Swansea Co-Housing, whose mission is to provide multigenerational, sustainable and inclusive co-housing. They recognise that people are happier and healthier when they feel a sense of belonging. This, in turn, promotes care for neighbourhoods and active participation by communities in their local environment. They have a community benefit society and a community land trust, with a multiskilled team, whose varied experience encompasses housing projects and businesses, including other co-housing schemes, building design, renovation and project management. This is something I feel very strongly about and am very supportive of. Can the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on further support for projects like this, and will the Cabinet Secretary welcome this project?

Diolch yn fawr, Mike, and, again, thank you for raising this issue, which I know is something very close to your heart. Social housing must be our main priority for housing provision in Wales, but we have always been clear that co-operative and community-led housing really does have its part to play in the housing solution in Wales. One of the most effective way to grow community-led housing and co-operative-led housing is to provide support to those who are interested in starting those up. And our support is through Cwmpas, designed to do just that. And I’m pleased that the Communities Creating Homes programme is currently supporting 49 active groups across Wales, with a pipeline to deliver 314 affordable community-led homes. In my initial answer, I touched on some of those projects that are happening in Swansea, Mike, and I’d just like to take the opportunity to wish them every success within that as well.

We continue to support co-operative and community-led housing groups wishing to develop new homes to access our social housing grant programme, where they partner with a registered social landlord. Currently, four groups are working with RSLs to access social housing grants. Community-led housing groups can also access the empty homes grant programme.

Can I join with Mike Hedges in praising some of the co-operative housing projects going on in Swansea at the moment? Mike and I, this afternoon, talked about some of them, which are very exciting, including Bon-y-maen in Swansea East, in Mike’s patch. I think co-operative housing is an important part of the housing mix that we need here in Wales, and we should be doing all we can to promote that. I’m curious what you think of this. You mentioned the benefits in your answer to Mike of co-operative housing, but what you didn’t mention was how you to intend to grow this particular sector. You mentioned 49 ongoing projects across Wales, but what we didn’t hear—on the scale, if you like, of the projects going on in Wales, it’s a fairly small proportion—was the plan for growth in this area, so that more community-led projects can take place in different areas across Wales. So, I’d be keen to know how you intend to grow this sector.

Diolch, Tom, and thank you for that. And, as I said, there are some really exciting projects that are happening within Swansea and across Wales. We’ve had a long history as the Welsh Government of supporting co-operative housing in Wales—and not just us, as the Government, actually, but the Senedd as a whole. And that support stems back to 2010, with the successful community project that is near my own constituency—it’s in John Griffiths’s constituency—of Loftus Garden, and it’s been really interesting to see how that’s developed over those years.

As I say, one of the best ways and, I think, the strongest ways that we can create that, and encourage that growth, is by developing and supporting those community-led projects to come to fruition. So, that’s why we invest and support Cwmpas in that role, and we encourage people who are interested to contact Cwmpas, because they have been supporting those projects—the ones that I’ve mentioned. For example, I know that they’ve been supporting Dream Home Swansea, which is a really interesting project, and they are in discussion with the local authority, and a potential RSL partner, with young people, and I think they are holding their launch event on 10 December. So, lots of things are happening, and, I think, when we can shine a light on those really successful projects that we see, that will encourage more of that development. But we invest through Cwmpas to support community-led housing.

Diolch, Llywydd. Cabinet Secretary, one of the challenges faced by local government has been the appallingly poor settlements, frankly, that the Welsh Government has given local councils in recent years. And that’s led, of course, to massive, inflation-busting increases in council tax for many ratepayers. What action are you taking, with your Cabinet colleague the Cabinet Minister for finance, to keep council tax down next year?

Diolch, Darren. Thank you for that question. I think this is obviously a timely question, when we’re all talking and looking at budgets, not just here in the Senedd, but also, obviously, local government are very firmly focused on that. One of the things that I would say is, since coming in to this post, I’ve been really keen to meet regularly with local government cabinet members, but also leaders and chief executives to local authorities—that’s one-on-one and within groups. I think hearing from them directly is really important. I hear about the difficulties over 14 years of austerity.

I know you like to blame these things on austerity, but you're responsible for the Welsh Government budget, nobody else. It's up to you how you carve that pie up in terms of the funding that comes to you. And I would remind you that, this year, your settlement was still at record levels. I know you don't like to admit that or say that, but it is the truth. We know that the Welsh Government's budget will increase quite significantly from next year. I'm sure we'd all welcome some additional finance, but what assessment have you made of the impact of the employer national insurance increases on local authority budgets, and what proportion of that will you be able to offset with increases, because you can't give with one hand and take with the other?

Thank you. Obviously, we would say that we have had a good settlement from UK Government, with the £1.7 billion over two years, but involved in that are obviously pay issues as well. So, one budget is not going to change everything; we’ve heard the finance Cabinet Secretary say that. But, obviously, I think that our message to local authorities is very much that we hope this is the start of a direction, because we know that, after 14 years of austerity—and I think local authorities know well that, in Wales, we’ve done as much as we can to protect them over that time of austerity—they’ve had to make really difficult decisions because of that. And like I say, I hear—because I talk to them regularly, because here we work in partnership with local government—very much the challenges there.

In terms of national insurance, this is something that is raised with me in my meetings with local authorities, and I can assure you, as I’ve assured the council leaders and chief executives, that the Cabinet Secretary for finance is having close discussions with Treasury officials as well, and officials in Welsh Government, around the national insurance issue, because, obviously, you’ll know it’s a non-devolved tax.

Look, Cabinet Secretary, ratepayers across Wales have seen double-digit increases in their council tax in recent years, and yet they’ve seen bin services cut—I mean, the situation in Denbighshire is they’ve seen rubbish piling up like the 1970s winter of discontent, frankly—we’ve seen libraries closing and hours being cut, we’ve seen public conveniences closing their doors, we’ve seen car parking charges increase, we’ve seen local authorities not able to invest in the infrastructure to protect their communities from flooding either. So, something needs to change.

You clearly have no idea how much it’s going to cost local authorities in terms of the increases in employers’ national insurance and haven’t got a solution to be able to put before the Senedd on that. But one mechanism that people in England have to be able to ensure that their local authorities are held to account for the council tax that they pay is that there’s a requirement for local referendums to take place when excessive council tax increases are proposed. Is that something that you will give Welsh voters the opportunity to have when excessive council tax increases are proposed here in Wales in the future? Because, frankly, the public feel cheated at the moment, and it isn’t good enough.

Thank you for that. Each local authority in Wales, as you know, has the freedom to set its own council tax to meet local needs and its priorities, and it’s accountable to the local electorate for the decision it makes. It’s one part of the budget-setting process for each local authority. Council tax referenda don’t apply in Wales. Such arrangements do not allow the degree of discretion that exists in the current system for Wales, which provides local authorities with the maximum flexibility to plan and manage their budgets more effectively. The complexity and cost of holding a referendum places an additional burden on local authority resources, which I believe would further exacerbate the final pressures that are faced by them. I do understand that any increase in council tax is unwelcome for local communities. It's an important source of funding for local authorities to enable them to deliver those services that we absolutely rely on them to do. So, I continue to urge local authorities to consider hard-pressed households when making those decisions.

Diolch, Siân, for that question. As I said in my response to Darren Millar, I do understand the concerns, the genuine concerns, of people within the sector around this at the moment. As I said, I can assure you that the Cabinet Secretary for finance and his officials are in discussions with UK colleagues, because, as you'll know, this is something that is very much within their gift. I think one of the things that—. I've been aware of the letter that has come, obviously, informing us of the pressures in terms of housing that you've mentioned. I've seen that myself, and I know the Cabinet Secretary for finance has as well. All I can do is assure you that those discussions are ongoing.

Diolch, Siân. I'd like to put on record my thanks for the work the committee has done in this area, and I know that the committee has a long-standing interest as well in it. So, thank you for the work that's gone into that report. Obviously, I'll be taking very careful consideration of the recommendations through that, and I can assure you of that, and I will, obviously, be responding accordingly.

Diolch, Altaf. We continue to prioritise front-line public services in our budget decisions. We are committed to continuing to use and maintain a fair and transparent funding formula for the local government settlement, which is agreed with local government.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The pressures that local authority budgets will now face as a result of an increase in national insurance contributions, an increase in the national minimum wage, and to say nothing on the impact of an increased demand for social care, will leave councils across my region little choice but to make cuts to other essential services. Unless you can pull a rabbit out of the hat and properly fund local authorities in next week's budget, the reality is that councils will have to make tough choices on top of the decisions they have already taken, such as cuts to teaching staff, the axing of school transport and the closure of a range of public services. Cabinet Secretary, what steps are you taking to ensure that more funding gets to front-line services and that increased salary costs do not impact the essential services of our constituents?

Diolch, Altaf. I very much understand that local authorities have been making difficult choices over the last 14 years in particular through those difficult times of austerity, and so I think this budget will be an opportunity to hopefully reset some of those difficulties that have happened over the last few years. Again, you've raised the issue of national insurance and I do hear that. As I said, Welsh Government officials are not currently in a position to be able to provide a full analysis of the impact of these changes until we're clear on that financial position. But, as I said, I can assure you that I speak with local authority leaders regularly. I've visited nearly all of them since I've come into post and I know that they are having to make those, and have been making, difficult decisions, and I think that they'll be looking very closely at the draft budget that will be coming on 10 December.

Diolch, Sioned. I met with the leader of Neath Port Talbot local authority about a month ago, actually, and he raised some of the challenges and the issues that they're facing there. Just to say as well that local government leaders have discussed their pressures with the Cabinet Secretary for finance, as well as myself, at the finance sub-group last month and at the leaders’ meeting on 11 November. So, there are opportunities to raise some of those issues there. One of the other things that has come up—you've talked about a specific pressure within Neath Port Talbot, but there are also general pressures in terms of social care and education, which I know local authorities have been facing. In terms of the specifics of Neath Port Talbot, I'd be happy to write to you further on that.

Diolch, Mabon. Welsh Government provides significant financial support to registered social landlords through grant and low-cost loans. This funding supports delivery of policy objectives, including increasing housing supply, maintenance and improvement of existing stock, decarbonisation and building safety. This year we will support the sector with estimated funding in excess of £450 million.

Diolch, Mabon, and obviously I know there's a keen interest in budgets and everybody's, obviously, looking closely at it. Obviously, you know the draft budget will be published on 10 December. This year alone, we're investing £330 million in the social housing grant programme and over £100 million in our transitional accommodation programme. Across 2023-24 and 2024-25, over £79 million of loan funding has been invested through the registered social landlord development loan scheme. The scheme increases long-term funding options available to RSLs to bring forward those much-needed homes for social rent, to unblock those existing sites and to also fund decarbonisation works.

Our land for housing scheme provides loan funding to RSLs to support housing delivery through securing land supply, and we've invested about £90 million across Wales in loan funding for land acquisition through the scheme. To date, including recycled funding, over £287 million of loans have been made. So, there are lots of things going on in this area and, obviously, we've got a real focus on making sure that we're going towards our target of 20,000 homes.

Diolch, Mark. There is a robust framework for financial decision making and accountability for local government, including internal and external audit and local scrutiny.

Well, for more than two decades I've been highlighting the unfair financial impact of the Labour Welsh Government's local government funding formula on local authorities always left near the bottom, including Flintshire. Speaking here nearly five years ago, I noted that Flintshire was again amongst the councils facing the largest cuts, despite Flintshire councillors' Back the Ask campaign, calling for a fair share of funds. Speaking here in March, I raised concern that four north Wales councils were again amongst the six receiving the lowest settlements in Wales. In September, an Audit Wales report concluded that Flintshire council's external financial sustainability was at serious risk. How, therefore, would you respond to the statement last week by Flintshire's cabinet member for transformation and assets that:

'It's a very odd situation when Audit Wales are asking us to look into the medium to long-term when Welsh Government can't even provide us with a three-year estimate of what we are supposed to receive',

and to the statement by the council's chief executive that:

'In Flintshire a consistently low-funded council is a contributory factor in relation to where we are today'?

Diolch, Mark, and I had the pleasure of meeting the leader and chief executive of Flintshire council last week as well to discuss specific issues around budgets, but also more generally around what's happening in Flintshire. In terms of the funding formula, over three quarters of the funding formula distributed through the local government settlement formula relies on data that is updated annually. I've discussed the formula with a number of local authority leaders over recent weeks, and I'm committed to working with local government in partnership with them on this. 

Each year, some authorities experience smaller increases than others due to relative changes in, for example, population and pupil numbers, but it's important to remember that the formula operates on relative change. An authority may be showing reduced population but the important factor for the formula is how those changes compare with other local authorities. But, as I said, this is something that we do with local government, rather than to local government.

Good afternoon, Cabinet Secretary. I just wanted to draw the question out to look at support for unpaid carers specifically, and the connection with the local government funding as well. I had the privilege of sponsoring an event here in the Senedd held by the Carers Trust, who do incredible work to improve support and services for unpaid carers. Their payments, their support financially, is completely reliant on local authority support. The event there highlighted the important work that so many organisations do to ensure that unpaid carers get the help that they really need. Through direct grants and local support services, the carers support fund has reached over 22,000 unpaid carers since 2022.

So, I just really wanted to ask you, if I may—. There is concern, from the Carers Trust, about the consistency of local authority funding across all of our local authorities—it really is very inconsistent. So, may I ask you what discussions you've had with the Carers Trust, and other organisations, to help local authorities consistently fund support to the Carers Trust and those organisations supporting unpaid carers? Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Diolch, Jane, and thank you for raising that important question, because we all know how important unpaid carers are. We all know many unpaid carers, some of us may be unpaid carers, and I think that we hold them in such a high regard, and I think we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for what they do.

I'm very happy to say—. I've been going around all local authorities recently, and one of the issues that comes up regularly is around social care more generally, but I'm very happy to have more discussions specifically on the issue that you raise, and perhaps you could write to me on the points that you've had those discussions with Carers Trust on.

Diolch, Jenny. I am aware of the current Senedd petition and recognise the seriousness of the issue. I've been pleased to see for myself new social housing developments incorporating biodiversity innovation into their design and build, including a great example last week on a visit to Glasdir in Denbighshire.

Well, excellent to hear that some benefit has arisen from the promise by your predecessor, Julie James, to incorporate swift bricks into innovative housing. It would be useful to know how many swift bricks have been installed as a result of that initiative in the last three years. In any case, this will not be sufficient to tackle the disappearance of the iconic swifts from our summer skies. Of all the species in decline, almost none has been as steep as that for the noble swift and, to date, no recovery on the two-thirds reduction in their numbers in less than 30 years. It's really quite frightening and it means our children and grandchildren will never get to hear their iconic cries. So, what progress can be made on mandating the installation of swift bricks in every new tall building constructed in future, and incentivising the owners of existing tall buildings, e.g. the all-purpose built student accommodation that's mushroomed across Cardiff, to provide house room for swifts to nest to help reverse this terrifying decline?

Diolch, Jenny, and I recognise the worrying decline in the swift population over the last few decades. I'd just like to take the opportunity to put on record my thanks to Jenny for the work she does as a swift species champion, so thank you for that. I can confirm that swift bricks were included in the developments funded under the innovative housing programme, from the date the previous Minister agreed to do so until that programme came to an end. The Glasdir development in Denbighshire that I visited last week does use swift bricks, bat boxes and hedgehog tunnels. It's a great example of how social landlords are supporting nature. Our social housing new-build standard, the Welsh development quality requirement, requires developments to consider biodiversity, which has meant swift bricks are being used by many social landlords in their new developments. The Welsh development quality requirement is due for review in 2025, and we will consider the mandated use of swift bricks as part of this review.

Diolch, Janet. Increasing the number of homes across the whole of Wales continues to be a priority for this Government. Through our funding programmes, we are working with local authorities to reduce the number of empty properties, including empty homes, across Wales.

Okay, thank you. Well, currently, there are 918 chargeable empty properties in Conwy. This is up from 828 in 2023-24, and up from 686 in 2022-23. They're just not going anywhere, these properties, and my biggest concern is that we have a number of dilapidated empty properties, and some of these are actually in need of enforcement and section 215s to be served, because not only are they empty and not being turned into homes, they're actually causing problems for residents living nearby and businesses. I've got some shocking examples where the local authority will not take any enforcement action. How will you now go forward, working with the local authorities in the new year, to ensure that (a) all empty properties are recorded adequately, and (b) that probate matters, that you work with the UK Government about trying to speed up the probate process, because too often that excuse is used, and also that enforcement is carried out regularly? These could be good homes for all those people who are languishing and lingering on our homeless lists. So, please, Minister, this is long overdue to be done. Thank you.

Diolch, Janet. I absolutely agree with you in terms of how people feel about seeing empty properties and empty land around that people have to walk past when these could be, actually, homes for people. So, I understand the frustration there. But there are things that we are doing here in the Welsh Government. Conwy were awarded £200,000 of placemaking grant in 2024-25 to help secure the acquisition of the land and buildings on the Plas yn Dre site in Llanrwst, which was to unlock the potential of the full site for future commercial use or housing use. We've also got programmes through our social housing grant programme and our transitional accommodation capital funding programme. We've provided over £500 million to support the purchase and refurbishment of 35 empty properties. And from April 2023, local authorities have been able to apply for a council tax premium, as you know, of up to 300 per cent on either or both second homes or long-term empty properties. So, we also have an empty homes grant, which will accelerate our work to bring those empty properties back into use and complement our existing schemes. There have been 942 valid applications for the scheme to date, as well as 143 properties completed. But there is more to do, and I can assure you that this is something that I've raised on those visits that I've had with local authorities across Wales, and I'll continue to do so.

Diolch, Sam. We continue to prioritise front-line public services in our budget decisions. We are committed to continuing to use and maintain a fair and transparent funding formula for the local government settlement, which is agreed with local government.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. We know that local authorities deliver key services in our communities, but this Government continues to ask local authorities to do more and more. The registration of holiday lets, the collection of the tourism tax, and the inclusion of local authorities in the new 50-day rule, given the influence of social care on our NHS, is asking our local authorities to do more, and those three things will impact rural local authorities more so than urban local authorities. So, what conversations are you having with your Cabinet colleague the Cabinet Secretary for finance to ensure, as you mentioned in your opening reply, that fair funding is being delivered across the 22 local authorities in Wales, and those rural authorities, that I represent in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, are reimbursed accordingly for the services that this Government is asking them to deliver?

Diolch, Sam. Thank you for that. As I say, I've been going across Wales, speaking to all local authorities, rural and urban, so I do understand the differences that local authorities face. We know that local authorities are managing in-year pressures from inflation and service demand increases and they're also reporting future year pressures. So, we're working closely with the sector to understand these pressures as we prepare for our draft budget. Obviously, I've had many discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for finance, as I'm sure my colleagues have, in the build up to the draft budget, and that draft budget will be published on 10 December.

Medr collaborates with further education through a range of initiatives aimed at enhancing the skill sets in Wales. This partnership focuses on developing tailored skills programmes that align with the needs of the local economy, ensuring that our learners are equipped with the relevant skills required by employers.

Last week’s ColegauCymru CollegesWales report, 'The Impact of Apprenticeship Funding Cuts in Wales', found nearly 6,000 fewer apprenticeship starts in Wales this year, with the cost to the economy of £50.3 million impacting the health, social care and construction sectors the most, and disproportionately affecting the most deprived. CollegesWales have also highlighted concern that, although an independent study has found that junior apprenticeship programmes will save the economy £0.75 million per person in preventative spend, in addition to providing numerous additional benefits to learners, roll-out of junior apprenticeships is patchy across Wales, demand is exceeding supply, and their future funding is uncertain. How, therefore, do you respond to the statement made during my recent visit to a further education college group in north Wales that they had to cut 300 apprenticeship starts and 23 out of 35 planned degree apprenticeship starts this year, and the statement by CollegesWales that we need a national strategy for vocational education and training, and dedicated funding for junior apprenticeships?

Thank you, Mark, for your supplementary question and for your continued passion in this area. It's an area that is cross-cutting between myself and the Minister for skills, and also the Cabinet Secretary for Education. So, some of the themes that you questioned me about there would sit under the Minister for skills. But if I start by talking broadly about apprenticeships in Wales, since 2020-21, annual funding for apprenticeships in Wales has increased from £128 million to over £143 million this year. So, I hope that that shows that we are fully committed to the role that apprenticeships play within the mix of learning that's offered within the tertiary system, and we are on target to meet that goal of 100,000 apprenticeships during this Senedd term.

I'm particularly interested in the point you raised about junior apprenticeships, because I agree with you that they have got huge value for many of our learners, aged 14 to 16. This is something that I am working closely with the Cabinet Secretary for Education on, and we hope to have something to announce in the not-too-distant future.

Citizenship and supporting learners to exercise their democratic rights is a mandatory part of the Curriculum for Wales. We've worked with a range of partners to provide resources and support to schools for learning about citizenship and political education.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. A report out last week by the Open University said that the Curriculum for Wales would benefit from a more specific focus on political education and active citizenship, and this is not the first report to conclude that giving people the right to vote is not enough to increase engagement in the political process.

It's been some three years now since the excellent Democracy Box project report spelt out quite starkly how little basic understanding there is. Yvonne Murphy’s work with young people between the ages of 16 and 26 found that 62 per cent either do not understand or need more information on the basics of our UK democracy. As one of the participants put it, 'We can only challenge the current status quo if we understand it.' And the report made the critical point that focusing our political education on the mechanics of how to vote is 

'at best ineffective and, at worst, and rather ironically, may actually be contributing to our record low levels of voter turn-out.'

People want simple information about what political parties stand for, and they want to know about issues, not about processes. And the research concluded that all citizens need year-round information and education. So, Cabinet Secretary, would you take action on their recommendation by raising with the BBC and the Electoral Commission that they have a role to work together to give citizens more confidence to take part in the democratic process?

Can I thank Lee Waters for that supplementary question, which raises some very important issues? And I agree, it shouldn't just be about the mechanics of voting, and we do have a purpose-led curriculum in Wales, and for me that should be about young people understanding why it is important that they exercise their vote at the ballot box. The Curriculum for Wales already includes learning and teaching about politics and citizenship, and that's reflected in statutory guidance, with an expectation that learners up to 16 develop an understanding of how systems of Government in Wales operate and affect people's lives, and how they compare with other systems. We're also currently funding democracy-themed projects in schools and at higher education level, providing learners with an opportunity to create a participatory culture.

There are great examples of this work in action, including in your own constituency, and I'm sure you're aware of the work that Llanelli Town Council has been doing, to produce materials and to run sessions with schools focusing on good citizenship, the role of the mayor in Llanelli, why we vote, and the history of voting. And Aberystwyth students union are also engaging with the UK and foreign national students on the importance of engaging with democratic processes.

I'm aware of the Democracy Box report, and we have done some work with Democracy Box and their materials are used in schools. I haven't seen the Open University report, but I will take a look at it, and although obviously the Electoral Commission has an independent role, we do ask that they do work for us in promoting democracy in schools, and I'm very happy to pick up a discussion with officials about what more could be done in this space.

Cabinet Secretary, many Members of this Senedd will have engaged with schools through the Politics Project and the digital dialogue programme. I recently enjoyed a fantastic session with pupils in Ysgol Cynfran in Llysfaen in my constituency. I was interrupted by my dog, by the way, Blue the rescue whippet, who is 15 years old today. It's his very happy birthday. But of course, those sessions give the opportunity for those young people to understand better the Senedd, understand what we do in this place and the decisions that we make that impact them, and I was really impressed at the way that they engaged. They asked very sensible questions—some light-hearted questions as well, of course, but sensible questions—on education funding, on climate change, and a whole host of other subjects. What funding is the Welsh Government making available to support those projects on an ongoing basis? These were primary school children, so some time to go before they get to voting age, but clearly the sooner we can engage people, the better.

Thank you, Darren, and I agree with you that the sooner we can engage people the better, and thank you for your positive words about the Politics Project and the digital dialogue programme. I too have taken part in that, in both the constituency, and I'm going to be discussing with learners in north Wales as part of my Cabinet Secretary role. We do support the organisation with £20,000-worth of funding at the moment. You'll be aware that budget discussions are ongoing and so we can't make any commitments today, but I do recognise the importance of this, of engaging young people early. I have to say that whenever I have gone to talk to a school group, I'm just really inspired by how fantastic the young people are, what great values they've got, and it gives me great hope for the future, and we definitely need to do more to channel those opportunities for young people.

Good afternoon, Minister. How much will the UK Government's decision to increase employers' national insurance contributions cost Welsh universities?

I thank Tom Giffard for that opening question. We are still working through the cost of that, but we estimate it to be in the region of £21 million. The announcement that I've made today to raise the tuition fee cap in Wales to £9,535 per student is estimated to just about cover those costs to universities, so I am pleased that I've been able to help out with the financial situation in that regard.

Thank you. Well, what you've done, Minister, is offset the cost of a Labour UK policy by increasing tuition fees for students to pay for it. You're right, that cost was £20 million. Now, before that announcement about employer national insurance, universities estimated that they were running a deficit cumulatively of about £100 million, and yet nothing that has happened so far will address that black hole, that shortfall. You promised not so long ago in this Chamber to look at the UK Government model of, quote, an emergency fund that they're bringing into play, and that Medr would have its own fund to support our institutions here in Wales. You obviously later clarified that that was at a very exploratory stage and that you're still working through what, if any, a potential support mechanism may look like in partnership with Medr and institutions. Has that work developed at all? 

Thank you, Tom, for your follow-up question there. I'd just like to pick up on the first part of what you said there, when you looked at my motivations for raising the tuition fee cap. It really is quite a complicated area, and it's an area where I need to balance the needs of our students in Wales with the needs of our universities as well. And obviously, we operate within a UK model, a UK market, and if the tuition fee cap was not raised in Wales, then it would definitely put our Welsh universities at a disadvantage. But the decision that I've taken will not affect the amount of money available to students while they study, nor will it result in graduates repaying more each month. Only those who go on to be the higher earning graduates will likely pay back this increased fee, because we've retained the more progressive plan 2 repayment system for student loans here in Wales. So, I am absolutely committed to supporting a sustainable higher education sector. We want strong institutions here in Wales that are able to deliver on our ambitions for students and research, and for driving economic growth in Wales. 

Then you went on to ask a broader question about the financial sustainability of the higher education sector as a whole. As you know, I am continuing to visit each higher education institution in Wales, and that brings with it many benefits for me in the conversations that I'm able to have with vice-chancellors, with staff and with students about the particular circumstances of those universities. And it is really important that we remember that those universities are autonomous institutions and that 90 per cent of their funding streams come from outside of Welsh Government. Therefore, there is a role for myself and for Medr to assist them in exploring those other funding opportunities, so that they can partake of lots of different opportunities to increase their financial resilience. And the £10 million that I've announced to go to higher education via Medr today is designed to do just that.

Thank you. Just to pick you up on the first point, I think that it was in answer to my first question that you said that your decision today would only offset the cost increase in national insurance contributions. Therefore, taking those two policies in combination, it's a zero-sum game. It's one tool, if you like, taken off the table that can be used to address that wider black hole. And I think the thing that students and universities have in common is that they were promised greater support from you, as Minister, from this Welsh Government, from the Labour Party at a UK-wide level, and they've only received greater bills, whether that be through their employer national insurance contributions or the increase that we've seen in fees today. And clearly, that is not what both those groups thought they were voting for in the general election. 

On the wider point you made about university funding, we've heard about that £100 million black hole that Universities Wales said—. Actually, I've got the press release that they sent out in response to the announcement that you made today, where they say pretty clearly that the current financial position for universities is not sustainable—they’re very clear about that. They put it down to a third successive year of reductions in HE funding grants, including an additional £20 million for 2024-25, which continues to mean significantly lower funding for universities in Wales than in other parts of the UK.

When is this Government going to get a grip on this? Because we've heard from you now that you're speaking to universities, we've heard previously that there was a support package, which was rowed back. This crisis is real. The university funding crisis is very real and it's immediate. So, what are you going to do about it?

Thanks, Tom. I'm picking up three themes there. Firstly, around the support for students, I am really proud that we do have here in Wales the most generous offer of support to our higher education students. And you don't need to just take my word for that, because an examination of higher education fees and funding across the UK by the London Economics Nuffield Foundation found that Wales does offer the most generous student maintenance support available to Welsh domiciled students irrespective of household income, compared to the rest of the UK.

I'm particularly proud that we have a maintenance grant here that is available to ensure that those who come from the least advantaged backgrounds when entering HE leave with the least amount of debt. That is diametrically opposed to the system that was put in place by the Tory Government in England, where it is those who come from the least advantaged backgrounds who leave university with the most amount of debt.

In terms of your question around support for universities themselves, we do have that additional £10 million that I have announced today. That takes the grant funding for the higher education sector in this last financial year to over £200 million. In all of my conversations with vice-chancellors, they are looking at how they can tweak and change their own models of balancing the books. They are autonomous institutions and we have only a small role to play within that.

I think probably the most important point you raised there is about the sustainability of the funding model for HE overall, and that is definitely something that does need to be looked at again, not just here in Wales, but across the UK. I can tell you two things that we are doing there. Firstly, I had a meeting this week to look at how we will begin our evaluation of the Diamond reforms. It is absolutely essential that we look at how that is able to be maintained and enhanced in the current climate and how it will be able to be implemented in the future. But also, as I've said, this is a UK market that we're operating in, and also, the Welsh Government are, to an extent, in the hands of the UK Treasury in terms of the funding model that we have. So, it's really important that we do work together with the Westminster Government to look at a more sustainable long-term funding model for HE.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. Minister, following your statement this morning, increasing tuition fees in Wales will undoubtedly burden students with even greater debt, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds—and I'm not talking here about maintenance costs, just the tuition fees. But this decision today from the Welsh Government became inevitable, of course, once fees were increased by Labour in England. Welsh universities, of course, must not be disadvantaged. On these benches, Plaid Cymru believe in the principle of universal access to higher education, but to do this, we must secure the financial sustainability of our higher education institutions.

The Minister has already mentioned £20 million in her statement of support via Medr for this financial year, which could simply be swallowed up straight away by next year's rises to national insurance contributions. It doesn't even touch the sides, as we heard from Tom, of the collective £100 million deficit facing our universities. So, the current funding model for higher education is unsustainable. As it stands, £2 out of every £5 the Welsh Government spends in student fees goes to subsidise universities in England. So, as a result of today's announcement, even more Welsh taxpayers' money will flow over the border to universities outside of Wales. Does that worry you, Minister?

Thank you, Cefin, for your questions there. I'll start with your first point, where you say that we will, apparently, burden students with more debt. I'd just like to repeat some of the points that I made there to Tom, because I think it's really important that, here in this Chamber, we all unite around the shared goal—because I believe it is your goal as much as mine—of increasing participation in post-16 education. It is really crucial that we get the facts out here—that our Welsh students still benefit from the most generous funding model in the UK, and a model that is geared towards supporting those from the least advantaged backgrounds to have the least amount of debt when they leave university, so that they can go on to have prosperous lives and contribute to our economy.

In terms of your view there that we are merely subsidising universities in England, I would refute that. I would say speak to young people in Wales, speak to people who wish to embark upon a degree, and ask them whether they would like to be constrained by a financial system that only supported them to go to universities in Wales. Our goal, of course, is to bring those graduates back to Wales, but it's really important that they have equity of access wherever they wish to study—we shouldn't be limiting their horizons. Many of our young people do choose to study in Wales, at our excellent institutions here, but others, for a variety of reasons, might choose to study elsewhere, and I and my Welsh Labour Government certainly would not support a system that constrained the ambitions of those young people in Wales.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this is not sustainable. Can the Minister name any other country in the world that pays so much of its own taxpayers' money to export so many of their best and brightest students to universities beyond its own border?

I have to say, Cefin, I think that the arguments you've put forward there are really reductionist. I go back to what I said to you in answer to my earlier question: it is absolutely imperative that we support our young people to study wherever they wish to. We need to empower our young people to make the best decisions that they can. I'm proud that we have a regime here in Wales that encourages our FE and our HE students to participate in study abroad, through Taith; I think that is a huge advantage, which broadens their outlook and provides them with a range of skills that they can bring back here to their home country, to Wales. And also, we've heard these accusations about the Seren Academy from you before. They are without any foundation. The Seren project works really hard for our most able and talented students, to enable them to have the ambition and the knowledge to access courses, wherever they may be, that will allow them to pursue those particular skills and talents. It might be a fine art degree at Cardiff Metropolitan University, which I visited recently, and has outstanding facilities there. It might be the veterinary school in Aberystwyth, which is world leading. Or it just might be that it is a leading course in a university somewhere else in the UK, or somewhere else in the world. I certainly don’t think that we should be restricting our young people from those opportunities. 

I can’t believe that you’re showing so little confidence in the universities that we have here in Wales. Those universities would love to have a tranche of that 40 per cent that are leaving Wales at the moment. And I note that you couldn’t name any other country that was transporting its young people away from its borders. But it is unbelievable—we are encouraging the exodus of skills and talent from Wales, whilst we’re trying to build the future economy of this country.

Our own universities here in Wales support thousands of jobs in the regions in which they are based, as well as contributing over £10 billion in economic impact. We need to retain this young talent, which will help us grow the economy of the future. Sadly, from my own conversations recently with vice-chancellors, it’s clear to me that these positive contributions are at risk if the Welsh Government can’t get to grips with the problems facing the sector.

So, could you tell me, Minister, which of these most pressing issues is the most important? Is it the unbudgeted £20 million hike to national insurance contributions, the £100 million collective deficit facing Welsh universities, the fact that over £0.5 billion is spent each year on student fees for students in universities outside of Wales, or a Welsh Labour Government that has taken its eye of the ball over the past 25 years and compounded all of these issues, and more, with no coherent strategy for the sector, a lack of funding, investment and support, and cuts to research and innovation?

I’ll try and pick the questions out of that, Cefin. Firstly, I noticed that even though I’d just given two really good examples of excellent higher education institutions and courses here in Wales, you started by claiming that I didn’t have confidence in our institutions and the courses that they deliver. I could stand here all afternoon citing the different courses in institutions across Wales that are absolutely excellent. But I think that that would be a waste of this Senedd’s time, when I’ve already given you two examples. It would be really good to see if you also had that kind of depth of knowledge that I have gained since taking on this role.

Just some basic numerical points there. Sixty per cent of the students that study at our Welsh universities come from outside Wales. So, by running down the fact that we’ve got 40 per cent of those students from Wales, and you wish to increase that number, that’s suggesting you wish to remove the 60 per cent that come from outside, who, of course, bring with them many skills—international students in very highly skilled degrees, people from across the rest of the UK. It’s really important that we have those people come to study in Wales, to contribute to our research, to contribute to the innovation, and, hopefully, to stay here as well, and they then become Welsh citizens. So, I don’t think that you can say that it’s a diametric argument in the way that you’ve put forward there.

Our school essentials grant has made a huge difference to lower-income families, reducing worries about uniform and equipment. Funding of £13.1 million is available for the grant this year. We also make available resources for schools to address the cost of the school day and remove barriers caused by poverty.

The school essentials grant has provided, as you say, invaluable help with school costs to many families, particularly those on low incomes. Up to £200 is available to eligible families to help with things like school uniforms. But as well as that, I’m aware of a number of schools who’ve set up initiatives that aim to keep the cost of uniforms down and prevent uniforms ending up in landfill. In these schemes, uniforms are donated and then given to families who want them for free. I was lucky to see a real excellent example of this for myself in Priory Church in Wales Primary School in Brecon, and the swap shop was set up by Councillor Matthew Dorrance and Town Councillor Michaela Davies, working with the Labour action team. But, thanks to funding from the Green Man Trust, they now have a permanent site at that school, instead of trying to access the use of halls, et cetera. Cabinet Secretary, could you join me in urging families to check their eligibility for the school essentials grant and in thanking schools and individuals for setting up initiatives that help families with reducing the cost of school uniforms?

Thank you very much, Joyce, and can I commend Councillor Matthew Dorrance and Councillor Michaela Davies for the work that they’ve done on the swap shop in Brecon? These are really important initiatives. Obviously, the school essentials grant is a big help to families, but we also encourage schools to encourage recycling schemes as well. You'll probably be aware that we revised our statutory guidance for governing bodies on school uniform and appearance policies back in May 2023, and changes to the guidance, as well as including covering things about not having compulsory branded school uniform, also covers the issue of encouraging uniform recycling schemes to be established and avoiding single-supplier arrangements, which can also reduce costs for families. It is absolutely vital that we reduce the cost of the school day because we know that stigma of poverty doesn't just have an impact on attainment, but it can affect things like attendance, and it's something that we all need to work together on to tackle. So, I'm very happy to thank the organisations that are doing the good work that you've highlighted.

Knowing that Luke Fletcher and Jack Sargeant aren’t in their places, I can safely say that I’m the youngest Member in this Chamber, and I can remember my time in school very well. What I noticed was that there was a great number of organisations helping students going overseas for additional learning. The Holocaust Educational Trust, which I’ve mentioned in the Chamber before, arranged visits to Auschwitz that I undertook as a student, and going to Mametz Wood with the Urdd when I was a student as well. So, how is the Welsh Government working with organisations such as the Urdd and the Holocaust Educational Trust, and others that are out there, supporting students to be able to go overseas for additional learning, broadening their horizons and learning more about what this world has to offer?

Thank you very much for that important question. It is really vital for young people to have those opportunities in different places overseas. My colleague Vikki Howells has just referred to the Taith programme, which we’re providing around £65 million-worth of funding to, which is benefiting not just older learners, but primary school children as well. You’ll be aware that the Government made this commitment to this programme when the decision was taken entirely unnecessarily to leave the Erasmus programme after we left the EU. So, this Government has invested in continuing to support young people going overseas. I’m not aware whether we fund the Holocaust Educational Trust. I do think those visits are important and I will follow that up and check. Darren tells me that we do, so that’s very good news. [Laughter.]

The Auschwitz programme, you do.

The Welsh Government continues to support local authorities to deliver ALN reform and, since 2020, has invested extra funding of over £170 million to local authorities and schools. There is regular engagement with local authorities, including through our ALN reform steering group and a series of effective practice events.

Can I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for that very important question? He'll be aware, I'm sure, that I'd only been in the post several weeks when I identified this as an area of priority and one where we needed to make more progress. I announced a legal review of the ALN code and Act, and that is running parallel with our own efforts to work in partnership with local authorities to deliver implementation on the ground. I should say as well that that is against a really challenging backdrop of rising numbers of learners that are presenting with really complex needs, and that's something that we've discussed in the Chamber before.

You referred to the interface with health. You will have heard me say in the Chamber before that neurodevelopmental waiting times are too long, and my colleague, Sarah Murphy, has announced additional funding to tackle ND waiting times, and there's a whole piece of work underpinning how we tackle that issue generally. There's also work around allied health professionals. But you are right to highlight the need for there to be a strong partnership. We are working with our health colleagues to make sure that there is that seamless support for children and young people. We have a multi-agency collaboration group that is tackling some of the issues around referrals to health. That's developing new performance indicators to make sure that we can track whether children are getting timely support. But the legal review will also look at that. 

In terms of local authorities, we've got a really close partnership with local authorities in terms of implementing the ALN legislation. And I want to thank local authorities and schools for all the work that they're doing to implement what is a major reform. You'll be aware as well that we have announced considerable sums of funding to support our ALN reforms. That has included lots of capital funding not just to support units attached to schools, but also to fund new special schools in Wales, and there is, I think, £750 million set aside in the next nine-year rolling programme to support that work on ALN capital. But we continue to work in partnership with local authorities. Officials meet with individual local authorities now monthly, and we're all committed to driving forward that work, which has been underpinned by very significant funding against a backdrop of very significant rising need.

Cabinet Secretary, I also share the concerns of the leader of Plaid Cymru. But I also want to ask you how you're working with Cabinet colleagues and local authorities in terms of training drivers of taxis, minibuses and cars that take learners with ALN to and from school, so that they are fully equipped and able to deal with the specific needs that those learners with ALN have and to prevent anything negative happening on that important school journey, to ensure that they have the very best start to the day as possible. I'd just like to say that I'd go as far as making that training compulsory for them. Of course, I know the difficulties around that, but can you assure me that that training is there and it will be adequate to equip those drivers with those skills? Thank you.

Well, of course, we want all learners to have a good, positive journey to school. Local authorities are responsible for that home-to-school transport provision and they put the contracts in place that transport learners, and they will have mechanisms in place to make sure that learners have a satisfactory experience. We’re also acutely aware of the rising costs of that transport, which is adding to our ALN funding pressures.

We have a clear strategy to support international language learning, set out in our Global Futures 2022-25 plan. The plan outlines how we and our Global Futures partners will continue to support our schools. I have recently agreed to extend this plan for a further year.

Thank you very much, Heledd, and I know you’re sponsoring the event this evening, which I’m attending, and very happy to do so. Obviously, the decline in modern foreign languages is part of a general picture across the UK. It’s not unique to Wales, and the aims and actions within the Global Futures plans are designed to address the challenges to international languages. I’m very keen for schools to all engage with our Global Futures partners, as the support they offer is for the benefit of all schools in Wales. I think the introduction of international languages at primary school as part of the Curriculum for Wales, which is obviously very early on, will make a difference. It means more learners than ever in Wales are learning to speak a modern foreign language, and I believe it’s best that they do start that journey in primary school rather than leaving it to secondary school.

We have seen some encouraging signs as well, with things like the increase of 27.6 per cent in the number of German entries in 2024, compared to 2023, which is a positive sign. But we do have more work to do, and you’ve highlighted some of the issues around timetabling. I think you were in the Chamber when I talked about how I had launched the e-sgol partnership in Monmouthshire, where they were bringing schools together to offer virtual Spanish lessons. I think initiatives like that are very important. Obviously, it is for schools to plan their curriculum and to decide what subjects they offer, but I’m really keen that there is a strong focus on modern foreign languages. It’s what I did at university myself; I’m very keen on it.

I’ve looked at the British Council report with interest, and, as you know, we’re supporting things like the modern foreign languages mentoring scheme from Cardiff University, which will be celebrated this evening. I was able to go and see that in action, and that was absolutely brilliant, because what that does is work with year 9 learners who are unsure whether they want to take a modern foreign language, because there are confidence issues often with modern foreign languages, and it’s having a really good impact.

So, there is lots that is going on, but more work to do. We’ve had the year-long extension of the Global Futures programme, and I’ll be working with officials and partners to consider how we take this work further in future. But I’m also hopeful that the fact that we are teaching this now in the curriculum in primary schools will be a big help in terms of the enthusiasm and participation in modern foreign languages in schools.

Coming to mentoring, MFL Mentoring estimates that only around one in 10 learners choose to study a language at GCSE. Of those that do, they predominantly pick French, though this number has halved in the past decade. However, decades-high levels of exam entries into non-traditional languages, those other than German, French and Spanish, which, while remaining relatively small, suggests trends towards preferring greater diversity. Wales's Global Futures strategic plan mentions supporting schools in setting and planning their international language provision. Cabinet Secretary, with this in mind, how is Welsh Government ensuring a broader-based selection and supporting students to take languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Arabic? 

Thanks, Altaf. I think those are very important points. We have discussed the challenges that we've got in delivering modern foreign languages generally, and I should have said in response to Heledd that, obviously, we've got incentives to encourage people to come into the profession to teach modern foreign languages. But, as you highlight, the offer is on those traditional subjects like French, Spanish and German. We've got a lot of work to do; it's not something that's going to be done overnight. The Curriculum for Wales having international languages at primary school will help. There are examples of where we've supported a scheme for students from China to come and teach Mandarin in schools in Wales. I'm really keen on initiatives like that.

Obviously, things like that do cost money, but I'm very keen to look at how we can promote them, because I'm conscious that, in the public school sector, they do get this opportunity to learn those more unusual languages. So, we are grappling with some challenges in terms of the traditional subjects, which I hope that we'll be able to progress, but I'm also keen to look at how we build on things like the work that we've done with the teaching of Mandarin to teach more unusual languages. The more languages that young people can have access to, the better.

The Welsh Government continues to invest substantial funds into the higher education sector in Wales, and today I have announced that we will increase the full-time undergraduate tuition fee limit by inflation to £9,535. We are also allocating an additional £10 million to Medr to support HE in the current financial year.

Can I thank you, Sioned, for that supplementary question? It was very long, but you got lots of very important points into it, so I'm happy with that. Firstly, I need to start off by saying that I'm absolutely committed to supporting a sustainable higher education sector, and to have strong institutions here in Wales that are able to deliver on our ambitions for students and research, and to drive economic growth in Wales. I recognise the financial pressure that our HE institutions in Wales, and across the UK and even wider afield, are under. It is a significant period of painful adjustment, following the recent sudden decrease in international student enrolments, and I absolutely agree with the weight that you attributed to that in your question to me. Some of those universities are undertaking a fundamental re-examination of their institutional business models and seeking greater efficiencies and opportunities for collaboration between institutions. And, as you know, I'm meeting regularly with university and college leaders, as well as Universities Wales, to understand the pressures they are facing. You're absolutely right to identify the need for us to work closely with the UK Government on that international student issue, and also, as I've alluded to already this afternoon in the Chamber, to look at a more sustainable funding model for higher education in the long term.

Finally, you talked there about participation rates. That is something that is of great concern to myself and the Cabinet Secretary for Education, and it is where we are funnelling both our economic resources and the wider resources of Government, to really focus in on that. Yes, it would be really important to see more learners undertaking A-levels, but let's not forget as well the role that BTECs can play in accessing universities, and we need to make sure that everyone is aware of that—it's not a tiered model; BTECs are widely accepted by universities across Wales and further afield.

The point you mentioned there about the Seren programme is one that we are looking at and I hope to have some news on that soon. And finally, just to say that that £10 million that I've announced today for Medr—there will be a big focus within that on widening participation.

I think if we look at higher education in Wales—and Cefin and I have talked about this at length with you today—we see a dashboard with many of the lights going off, and one of the biggest lights going off, I think, on the dashboard of Welsh universities is, in fact, the participation rates of younger people. So, in Wales we've seen 33 per cent of 18-year-olds go on to university, compared to 42 per cent in the UK as a whole. That's the biggest, most stark gap in modern times, and that is a hugely concerning statistic, not only for our universities, but for the life chances of those young people as well. So, can you tell me what work both you and the education Minister will have commissioned to understand the underlying reasons as to why that is happening in Wales, and whether it is to do with the overall educational performance in Wales, which is obviously much worse than the rest of the United Kingdom, or whether there are other factors at play here as well?

Thank you, Tom, for that follow-up question. I certainly agree with you that we do need to increase the participation rate of our young people in university here in Wales. In fact, one really startling statistic is that, by 2035, 95 per cent of new jobs here in Wales will be graduate positions. So, it really is imperative that we equip our young people with the skills that they need for the future. But as well as that, let's also recognise the role of apprenticeships, which can be undertaken outside of the higher education sphere as well, and also bring important skills that we need for our economy.

I'm just trying to remember the last part of your question now, because—

What are you doing about it? [Laughter.]

Yes. That's very important, isn’t it? [Laughter.] So, yes, my officials are very busy working on this area, and they will be reporting back to me in the coming months about the research that they have undertaken. Having data to support our work is really important to myself and the Cabinet Secretary, so that is one of the changes in focus that we've both brought into the education department. And I look forward, within the new year, to being able to update the Senedd on the work and the data that we have collected there.

Good afternoon, Minister. The University of Wales Trinity Saint David is Wales's oldest degree-awarding institution, and there is growing concern around the campus at Lampeter, a place that many of us have visited and really regard as such a beating heart of mid Wales. Residents, students and businesses, both from Lampeter and further afield in Ceredigion, are really seriously concerned about the future of their communities. I recognise that you have said—the Government has said—that this is a matter for the university, but the consequences of the devastating blow of the closure of that campus extend far beyond those individuals to the local community and beyond. So, I wondered if I could ask you, in the light of these concerns, what assurances the Welsh Government can give to the residents, staff members and the wider community during this period of real, deep uncertainty. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Thank you, Jane, for that question. I'd like to begin by saying that I absolutely understand the historic and cultural significance of that university there at Lampeter. I've got a number of friends who actually went to university there, and I know that it has a really special place in people's hearts, especially that iconic, historic building there as well. But it won't come as a surprise to you to hear me say that universities in Wales are autonomous institutions, and it wouldn't be appropriate for Welsh Ministers to intervene in their academic matters, such as course delivery and campus location. I recognise the concern that this announcement may have a negative impact on the local economy, particularly the town centre of Lampeter, and Welsh Ministers, including myself, will remain in regular contact with the university as plans progress.

Whereas across the UK we see humanities courses under threat, I'd just like to say that that is not the case with the proposal by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. This is a proposal about the university responding strategically to challenges to safeguard the study of humanities at their institution by enabling humanities to be co-located with other disciplines and offering a more vibrant student experience. I'm sure you'll be aware that the number of full-time undergraduates at Lampeter now stands at 92, which is smaller than most primary schools in Wales, so we need to be realistic, really, about the situation facing the university. I want to ensure that staff and students are supported, and I would expect to see the principles of social partnership applied as well in providing support for students currently based at Lampeter to continue their studies with the minimum of disruption, should these proposals be enacted.

Fifty-two million pounds of Welsh Government capital funding has been invested in schools in the Pontypridd area through the sustainable communities for learning programme and associated capital funding grants since 2014. Rhondda Cynon Taf's nine-year investment plan identifies a further £84 million investment in years 1-6, subject to business case approval and future budget availability.

Can I thank you for that answer? I'd like to ask a little bit more about the twenty-first century schools programme. Certainly, in my constituency, in the Pontypridd constituency, we've had Y Pant and Hawthorn schools—£100 million; Bryn Celynnog's sixth form, £21 million; Ffynnon Taf, Ysgol Gynradd Gymunedol Gymraeg Llantrisant, Llwyncrwn and Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Tonyrefail, £7.2 million; Pontyclun, Penygawsi and Llanilltud Faerdref, £53 million—you attended the recent openings—and Tonyrefail comprehensive, £43 million. There's more than this, but I estimate it at around £0.25 billion that has been invested over the past decade. It's an absolutely transformative programme for education, unlike anything else in the United Kingdom. What guarantees can you give us that there will be a continuation of this programme so that we really do have, throughout the whole of Wales, twenty-first century schools that our children deserve?

Thank you very much, Mick. I think you're very right to highlight the phenomenal amounts of funding that we are investing in school capital, which, of course, is very different to the approach taken over the border. RCT has benefited from £184 million of Welsh Government investment in schools and colleges since the current sustainable communities for learning programme began in 2014. As you’ve highlighted, I came to the opening of the Llanilltud Faerdref Primary School and of Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School’s sixth-form block quite recently, and I’ve also visited Tonyrefail school, which is also a fantastic building. We are committed as a Government to investing in school capital. We want our young people to be educated in twenty-first century buildings. You heard, when we were in Bryn Celynnog, the young people talking with such positivity about their fantastic facilities, and how valued that makes them feel as learners.

You’ll be aware that the budget will be announced next week. There was £20 million of additional in-year capital funding announced yesterday by the First Minister for school repairs, and we do have the nine-year rolling programme of the sustainable communities for learning programme, which I’ve signed off, and local authorities are submitting the bids on that. So, more positive capital expenditure is planned, and, obviously, we await the budget next week as well. Thank you.

Colleges are responsible for the strategic management of their estate, and decisions around any campus or facilities are taken locally. Coleg Sir Gâr has undertaken an extensive review of its overall estate to ensure it meets the needs of learners across the area it serves.

Thank you, Adam. I was pleased to have the opportunity to meet with yourself and Cefin Campbell and Joyce Watson last month to discuss this issue, and I appreciate the passion that all three of you have on this matter too. You know that the decision to close Ammanford campus is one for the college, not for Welsh Ministers. Coleg Sir Gâr's leadership team and governors agreed that rationalising the existing estate to relocate provision from Ammanford and its Job's Well campus to the Pibwrlwyd campus with a £90 million state-of-the-art facility to serve the whole area would be the best option for the college and the learners across the region. 

The review that Coleg Sir Gâr has undertaken of its estate identified that rationalisation of the estate would be required to improve its financial stability also, and to allow the college to invest in those state-of-the-art facilities to enhance the curriculum offer and learner experience. And I know that you are aware, as I am, that the facilities at the Ammanford campus are, unfortunately, either in a poor or very poor condition, which means that they are costly to maintain and inefficient. The college has informed us that significant support will be in place for learners and staff throughout the transition, and that transport will be provided for learners from Ammanford to the campus.

And in terms of your final question, I'm always willing to keep up dialogue with Members with such passion in these areas, but I would also urge you, as I did in that meeting, to have that dialogue direct with the college, because that is where the decision itself is being taken.

If I was marking my own scorecard on that question session I'd have given myself zero out of 10. I allowed some questions to go on for far too long, I called two spokespeople for supplementaries, which I never do, and I cut Plaid Cymru's spokespeople questions down to two from three, so I did particularly badly. No precedents were set in that session and I will revert to my usual practice next week. 

Diolch, Delyth. The emergency financial assistance scheme, EFAS, is available to local authorities facing excessive costs when responding to emergencies. So, my officials are working with Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council to establish the costs associated with storm Bert, and support will be available for response costs to landslips, coal tip slips and sinkholes.

In case anyone isn't aware of what had happened, over the weekend a sinkhole opened in the Nant Morlais area of Pant in Merthyr Tydfil, and it resulted in over 30 homes being evacuated. It's a deeply unsettling situation for residents. Many of them are now in temporary accommodation just weeks before Christmas, and there is no certainty about when they'll be able to return to their homes. And the sinkhole is growing—cracks are spreading into roads, gardens and nearby properties.

Now, early investigations suggest it was probably caused by heavy rain damaging a culvert, which was compounded by two landslides. Now, it is worrying for residents of that street, but it also raises serious concerns about the resilience of our infrastructure in communities like Merthyr, where ageing drainage systems are struggling to cope with increasingly severe storms. The council has said the damage could take months to repair, and that would leave families in this prolonged state of uncertainty. I'm worried about the financial effects. I'm also worried about the emotional effects that could have on residents. I'd be grateful to know what longer term support can be made available to them in the run-up to Christmas, as well as after it, please.

But this sinkhole has appeared, as you've alluded to, Dirprwy Brif Weinidog, alongside landslips in villages across the Valleys and a coal tip landslide in Cwmtillery. Surely these underscore how vulnerable our ageing infrastructure is to these fierce storms. For communities across Wales the risk isn't just hypothetical, it's a reality. It threatens homes, livelihoods and public safety as well. Now, I welcome what you've said, because surely the Welsh Government does have a vital role in supporting local authorities in tackling these vulnerabilities. We do need that adequate resource for emergency response, for comprehensive reviews of drainage and land stability systems and improved risk mapping to make sure, when these incidents could happen again, that we are prepared for them.

Diolch yn fawr, Delyth, and thank you for the way you've raised this question. Our thoughts do go out to those that have been affected by this just before Christmas, having to move out of their homes, 30 families. We do understand, by the way, that, as of the council's update of 3 December—so, their most recent update—they are hopeful that some residents—we have to go with caution on this, because it needs to be fully safe, properly assessed—will be able to move back into their homes before the end of the week. But we've got to make sure that things for everybody are right as well. I suspect that that won't be the case for all of the residents affected and displaced at the moment.

So, of those near 30 homes that have been evacuated, those who need it are being supported by the council's housing team as well, so there's a real joined-up piece here. I'm glad to see the Cabinet Secretary colleague next to us, because, in all of the after effects of storm Bert, there's been really close engagement and support from Welsh Government as well, and that ask to councils to say, 'Tell us what the impacts are, tell us what the scale of it is', both in terms of infrastructure costs but also in terms of residents, and, in other contexts, businesses as well. So, we're keeping that live engagement going. I actually met this morning, by the way, in the aftermath of storm Bert, for an initial overview, with all of the resilience partners—so, local authorities, emergency responders, Natural Resources Wales, Met Office, everybody—to get an initial feel for what the scale of the impact was and how we could also learn those lessons going forward to mitigate against.

But, specifically on this, what we understand is that, indeed, it is thought that this is a culvert that has given way because of the sheer force of the water going through it. There are some things that have been done already. So, emergency works on Monday and Tuesday—just to reassure the residents—because of the work with Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, engineers onsite and others, they formed a dam on Nant Morlais stream so they can install pumps to overpump the water, stop it flowing through the culvert, to take it away. They're continuing with a drone inspection of the culvert, but they're also doing deep-ground penetration radar surveys to identify if there are any other further voids, because what we don't want is people moving back if we suspect there's something else. So, they're applying all the technological solutions to see what the extent of the problem is.

What they're trying to do is stop the flow of water going into the culvert, and then getting on with stabilisation works to stop it expanding further, for those residents who can to be able then to move back in, but with caution, I have to say—it has to be absolutely safe. But they will be doing a full inspection then once they've reduced the water flow through there so that they can do permanent repairs, and then people can get back into their homes.

You mentioned, quite rightly, the issue of what we are doing in terms of the wider infrastructure assets throughout Wales. I'm pleased to say we're slightly ahead of the game. It looks like it is likely to be a collapsed culvert probably linked to the sheer pressure of the storm water coming through and so on. But, back in 2020, when we took through proposals about a national strategy on our asset database, that led us to introducing a national asset database in Wales. We worked with Natural Resources Wales, the Welsh Local Government Association, local authorities, to produce this. It's available on NRW's website. It's a live document, because it isn't only a database of those underground assets and coastal flood assets and so on—it's the whole list of them—but it's also the condition of them as well. So, it's not good enough simply to say, 'We know where this stuff is.' We want an assessment of what the condition of them is as well. So, I think we can give that reassurance in that way as well.

Now, in terms of further support for residents and also for the local authority, as I say, we have the EFAS scheme in place. I think we've tried as Welsh Government as well, when we've seen there is a real impact on other residents and businesses that have been affected by things related to the recent storm Bert, to step in where we can to help, in addition to the support being given by local authorities themselves. So, we stand ready. We need an assessment of the impact but, most importantly, there are people on the ground now who are making it safe, trying to do the right inspections and, hopefully, then making it safe so people can move back into their homes. I understand how frustrating this is for residents, but the right people are on the ground doing the right stuff.

Deputy First Minister, first and foremost I would like to express my sympathies to the residents of Nant Morlais and Pant following the sudden appearance of a sinkhole near their properties. From my understanding, and having spoken to some of the residents, they actually stated that it began as the size of a pillow and it's still increasing in size. It's due to go up to 50 ft in depth and 16 ft in width. I'd like to also express my thanks to the staff of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council and, as you mentioned, the housing team for their swift action in evacuating and rehousing the residents from 30 properties across the area.

As my colleague Delyth Jewell mentioned, we all are aware that Christmas is upon us, 2025 is literally around the corner, and therefore it's crucial that the affected residents are indeed able to return to their homes before the festive season. So, I'd be grateful to know, and I know my colleague mentioned this, but is there going to be any additional financial support that you will be able to provide to the residents via the council for this?

I understand that the sinkhole, as you mentioned previously as well, was caused by the collapse of the culvert, which the council had indeed been aware of and had been monitoring on a bi-annual basis due to concerns raised. So, you mentioned that there will be an assessment and that's absolutely fine, but in relation to regular monitoring, what's the plan? Given the fact that the estate is 35 years of age, what assessments have the authorities made, or are they going to be making, of similar issues in the area? As I say, I'm sure we can all accept that it's a relatively new estate and we have many like this and particularly of that age group across Wales, so I'd be interested to know what the plans are. And I'd finally like to know what remedial action is going to be taken to prevent further sinkholes from emerging, potentially causing more disruption and posing a risk to public safety in the future. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Natasha, and just to say, in terms of funding, there is funding already available for things like culvert repair and so on, through the flood and coastal erosion risk management programme, so that can be used to fix failed assets such as culverts. But if there is call, because of the scale of the impact, either in Merthyr or in other local authorities dealing with the aftermath of storm Bert, we have demonstrated already that we stand ready to help. What we need then, and they're doing it, is the information from those local authorities; they won't have it immediately, although we've got some working idea already. But we need the detail on the impact, authority by authority by authority, to see whether we can offer any additional support. 

And as I say, in terms of residents and businesses, not businesses in terms of this particular instance, but wider impacts from storm Bert, we've already shown that where we can, we've been willing to step up with additional support, including, for example, for homes that didn't have insurance. But fair play to both Merthyr council and Rhondda Cynon Taf council as well, they've also stepped up with their own support by going to their own reserves as well.

You mentioned there in terms of the asset, can I refer you back to the answer I gave earlier on the asset register? We were ahead of the game here in Wales. We can't prevent every incidence like this, particularly where we have weather like this that may impact. Now we don't know for certain yet that this is a result of storm Bert, but there is a working assumption that the collapse of this culvert and the widening of this hole is related to the sheer weight of discharge through that culvert. The good thing is that we have the database—we're ahead of the game here—but that database, again to reflect on my previous answer, is not simply there to map where the assets are, it's actually the condition of them as well.

In terms of whether there are any wider problems within this locality, one of the things that the engineers are doing is using deep-penetration radar, which can identify any other problems that there might be, such as voids or sinkholes as well. So, I'm sure that they will not be wanting to allow anybody back into homes that may be in jeopardy, but they'll also want to make sure that the wider locality is safe as well. So, we need to let them get on with their work and come up with the right decisions to reassure, then, the residents.

Thank you for the answers that you've given so far and thanks to Delyth for raising this question. And I echo what Natasha was saying about the work that's been done by officials to try and alleviate what's happened. But what’s happened in Pant has been horrendous, and my heart goes out to every family that's affected. Safety must come first, but I hope that there is a way for the residents to have—. As you intimated, some of them might be back in before Christmas, so I'm hopeful for that. 

But this isn't just a Merthyr issue; there are other sinkholes opening up in other parts of Wales as a result of storm Bert. And the coal tip in Cwmtillery, I know you went up there, but did you also see the sinkhole near the cafe there—the Pentref Tyleri cafe? That, again, is causing concern. It's not as close to houses, but is still a real concern, and I'm aware of other smaller sinkholes in my region that are causing concern for people. The overriding message to take, I think, from these events is that it's happening in several areas that were once safe, but don't seem to be so any longer.

So, the question then is that we desperately need this futureproofing of the infrastructure against the more frequent freak weather events that we are experiencing. So, do you agree that more needs to be done—and you seem to be saying that—and how are you planning for that futureproofing? So, how are you planning to look at the drainage network and the infrastructure, to cope better with these sheer weights of water? The question would be: if this culvert was inspected, would it have been picked up? That's one of the questions. If it should have been picked up, why wasn't it? If it wasn't picked up, how could it be? And how do you use that technology, that deep-radar technology, to actually look through this? Is that a one-off because it's happened, or is that happening across our coalfields and across the area? So, basically, how often is that happening, and how are we getting to grips with what's underground, and how are we making sure that this isn't happening to other families?

Thank you, Peredur. Local authorities, now that we have the national database, so we know where the assets are—. And these assets can vary, by the way, between culverts and things that actually protect our coastline. There is a range of assets to do with flood and the movement of water, the increasing movement of volumes of water that we see throughout Wales. So, the purpose of that database is, as I mentioned before, not only to map them, but to monitor them. So, local authorities need to be getting on doing that, and they are.

The challenge will be when we're faced with weather incidents like we've just had. If it does turn out, the working assumption, that this was related to those discharges flowing through, the volumes flowing through that culvert, then it could well be that this or other culverts would not show a problem in advance of that, but they've been overwhelmed. But that is exactly why we need to keep on with the regular monitoring of the condition of these assets, not simply knowing where they are.

Just to say as well, Peredur, this is a piece across Government as well, in terms of the way that we respond. It's not only the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language, sitting next to me, but my colleague Jayne Bryant—housing and local government—met with the leader, discussed this amongst other things, and the impact of storm Bert, on Monday, I think it was. I've discussed it with him briefly today as part of a bigger meeting with local authority leaders, and others as well. And I'm hopeful that, on the back of an invitation he extended to me, I'll go up and have a look at this myself as well, and learn more, because I always find I learn more by being actually out there looking at it directly, and speaking with residents affected, and so on.

So, what I would say is, though, I think that the piece that we did on the back of the—kicking this off with the national strategy in 2020, to say, 'We must have this database, we need to know where these things are, and we need to know the condition that they're in', has put us on the right footing now. But that doesn't mean we're not going to have eventualities like this again.

Diolch, Llywydd. Not to detract from what happened in Pant, but I recall a sinkhole appearing by a school field in north Wales. And when we were doing some highway maintenance work, we lifted a concrete plinth up and there was a void underneath it. So, if it had cracked, it would have been really dangerous for drivers. We need landowners and utility companies to take responsibility, with a programme of maintenance of culverts, pipes and ditches—I've asked for this before—and we need to retain upstream. I know the local authority have been asking Natural Resources Wales to also maintain their culverts and ditches, and they've not been responding to that ask. So, we need to make sure that that does happen.

I wanted to ask you as well about the national underground asset register, which is being proposed by UK Government, and Welsh Government have been in talks about it, which we definitely need. I know it's going to be a massive undertaking, but we need this, more than ever. So, I wanted to ask about an update on that. But I also propose—I don't think I can do it from this—that we take it to our Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee—I know the Chair's just gone—regarding what happened with storm Bert, and any other flooding eventualities, and what we can do more of, and then bring that to you as well in the future. I think it's something that we need to really look into.

Carolyn, thank you very much. I'm loath, Llywydd, to trespass into the work programme of the committee, which I used to be a member of, proudly, but it may well be of interest to look at this issue of assets, where they are, and so on. And you are right: earlier on, I was referring to the database that we’ve put in place already in Wales, that maps those flood and coastal inundation assets, but there’s a separate piece of work, and that separate piece of work is a UK-wide piece of work on an asset register, which really focuses on the utility companies and their underground assets as well, which is part of this picture. Now, the latest we understand—and we are closely engaged with the UK Government on this—is that the intention is that that will be up and running by the end of 2025. So, that’s another piece of the jigsaw—it's starting to come together. So, I hope that’s useful for you, but if the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee want to look at this, then I think that might be a good piece of work.

Llywydd, after addressing the additional funding provided to Wales by the UK Government in its autumn budget, £157 million has been allocated to support the First Minister’s priorities in this financial year.  

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, and, yes, it would be helpful to get some more clarity around the £157 million. It was announced as if it was a new lump of money yesterday, but, clearly, this is £150 million over the course of several months. And I understand that about £122.5 million of that is allocated, and another £34.5 million to be spent. However, I stand corrected if that has been updated.

I note there was no additional funding for social care, a major factor contributing to growing NHS waiting lists, which we know are spiralling out of control. I do welcome the £21 million for diagnostic equipment, which certainly will be helpful, but we can’t get away from the fact that when we're putting money continually into the NHS, the problems don’t seem to be getting much less. I’ve maintained that we need a root-and-branch assessment of NHS funding, because, whilst we see increasing moneys allocated, little seems to be improving, certainly from the public perspective.

So, Cabinet Secretary, can you outline again how the Government assesses the effectiveness of the increased funding that you are putting into certainly things like health? And how did you determine the levels of funding needed for the recent allocations? And would this be the same process you’ll be using for the budget next week?

Dirprwy Lywydd, the £157 million is the first tranche of expenditure that I’m able to allocate from the additional funding that came to Wales for the current financial year in the Chancellor’s budget on 30 October. There will be further allocations to be made, and the relevant portfolio Ministers will make those announcements.

This is money that needs to be spent in the current financial year, so part of my assessment is the extent to which different expenditure headings are able to absorb money in the remaining months of this financial year, and I paid particular priority to those examples of expenditure that did not require recurrent funding in the following financial year. So, the way in which these priority allocations have been made is shaped by the point in the year in which the money has become available, the capacity of services to make good use of it, and those considerations will be part of the plan that will be announced on the floor of the Senedd next week. Next year’s budget will be shaped by a wider set of considerations.

Once I had made provision for the pay uplifts announced by the UK Government and the consequentials for us here in Wales in this financial year, the money that was left to allocate was capable of being allocated as either revenue of capital. There were no constraints in the way the money came to Wales. That allowed us to have a free hand in that, and the announcements that the First Minister made yesterday are a mixture of those. The extra £1 million for the arts is essentially revenue. The £20 million for school and college repairs is primarily capital. So, there is a mixture in that.

As far as NHS waiting lists are concerned, £50 million has already been made available and announced for the current financial year to bring down those lists. All the funding that has been announced has particular outcomes associated with it. The extra £1 million for the arts, for example, means that 60 organisations will be funded through the additional funding—not just the £1 million but the £1.5 million already announced for the arts council in the current financial year. The same will be true for the £21 million for diagnostic equipment. There will be specific figures on the additional amount of activity in diagnostics that can be generated by that investment. But those are all for the spending Ministers to account for here, rather than me. All I do is try and make sure they have the resources that can be supplied to them.

In terms of the trosolwg, the oversight of it all, my intention will be to report the entire package of in-year investments in the second supplementary budget so that Members will have a view right across all the different allocations that have been able to be made.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, I too was going to ask you whether this money had to be spent in the next three months, or whether in fact public sector bodies will be able to keep back some of that money to plug some of the significant gaps that obviously will be formed by the huge increases in national insurance contributions that are happening next April. Or will they have to wait for that next tranche that you talk about?

The answer is it’s a mixture of both. The money must leave the Welsh Government account in this financial year. Sometimes, that goes to organisations who also are under restrictions in the way their finances are organised, so they must spend it in the current financial year. Some organisations will have an ability to use the money we provide to them this year over a longer period of time. I’m sorry to be making it sound complicated, but the truth is it depends upon the financial governance arrangements of the organisations who are being funded. But all the money must be spent by the Welsh Government in the current financial year.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thirty-five years ago, in 1989, a group of parents had a dream of opening a centre in Cardiff for children with cerebral palsy. At the time, children and their families would have to travel to London to specialty therapy services, often having to stay for weeks at a time. A centre in Cardiff would allow children to access this therapy closer to home. After securing agreement with the local health board and the Bobath centre in London, premises were secured in Whitchurch in north Cardiff. This became the home of Bobath in Cardiff from 1992 until 2020, when they moved into a purpose-built centre in Llanishen under the new name of Cerebral Palsy Cymru. 

One of the founding parents was Glenys Evans. Glenys wanted the best possible therapy for her son, Thomas, as well as other children with cerebral palsy in a similar situation. Glenys even paid the first rent on the building with £30 from her own money before any of the fundraising started. Glenys has continued to work and to be involved with Bobath—now Cerebral Palsy Cymru—in various roles, but she is now retiring after 35 years. Thanks to Glenys, thousands of children with cerebral palsy across south Wales have accessed specialist therapy, the majority referred to them now by local health boards. The Better Start, Better Future programme allows for vital early intervention to give the best possible start for children aged nought to two and a half. 

It was with great sadness that we heard the news over the weekend that Terry Griffiths, one of Wales's sporting greats, had passed at the age of 77 after suffering from dementia. For those of us who watched that epic final of the World Snooker Championship in 1979, it was the stuff of dreams. Here was a Llanelli lad, who had previously worked as a miner, a postman and an insurance salesman, who'd only turned professional the year before, now beating some of the world's elite players and winning the biggest prize in the sport at his first attempt. As a result of this incredible success, he was, that year, named BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year. 

In the early 1980s, he would go on to win snooker's triple crown, by also winning the UK and Masters titles. He would consistently feature in the closing stages of most high-profile competitions until the mid 1990s, reaching a world ranking of number three. In 1997, he was part of the Welsh team who won the inaugural World Cup of Snooker, playing alongside other legends like Ray Reardon and Doug Mountjoy. Griffiths retired as a tour competitor in 1997 to become the director of coaching for the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. In addition to his snooker success, he will also fondly be remembered as a modest, popular and genial character, well liked by everyone, and for his dry wit. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to start by saying a heartfelt 'thank you' to Sioned Williams and Mark Isherwood for the advocacy that they do on behalf of learning disabled and autistic people across this Chamber, and the work that they've done in the past. We have worked together on this debate today and we've met with the Stolen Lives group to develop our ask of the Welsh Government. I'd also like to thank the Minister for ensuring that the Welsh Government will support our debate in this motion today. The subject matter is, as set out in the motion, the inappropriate detention of some autistic people and/or people with a learning disability in secure hospital settings.

Anyone with an autistic family member, particularly with an autistic child, will be looking at the pathway that some of the people we'll be talking about today have trodden, and saying, 'There but for the grace of God go us'. I'm also drawn to the story of Kirsty Davies-Warner, who is the chief executive of the advocacy charity Mirus, who herself was sectioned twice when misdiagnosed with postnatal depression. When her son was diagnosed with autism, it was a lightbulb moment for her, and she discovered that she herself was autistic and with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She was sectioned because that was not recognised. Those of us who have autistic family members, or are parents of autistic children, look to ourselves and sometimes recognise that those traits exist and explain some of our historic behaviours when we were growing up, and some of the things that we found difficult relating to the world.

I want to talk about Dawn Cavanagh, who is leading the Stolen Lives campaign. I want to also mention Professor David Abbott and Janis Griffiths who've been instrumental in bringing this to the Senedd. There was a protest earlier this year that 200 people attended, which demonstrates this is a very real problem that exists across Wales and has also been identified in England and in Scotland. Dawn gave me permission to tell the story of her son Jack, and I'm going to do that now. Jack has a learning disability, autism, epilepsy and ADHD. He left the family home in 2019, after the school could no longer meet his needs at the age of 16. The local authority stated there was no suitable local provision for him and he was moved to a secure residential unit over 100 miles away. The provision was totally unsuitable for his needs. It was a noisy institution, and his living space was a corridor for staff and other residents to get to other parts of the facility, which caused much distress. We know that people who have autism—sorry, I should not say that; it's autistic people—have strong reactions to their environments, and Jack had what is common to autistic people, which is a meltdown in reaction to what happened. That was misunderstood as harming himself or maybe ending up harming others. That was a wrong understanding of his condition.

In the weeks then that led up to his sectioning from the residential unit, trips outside had stopped and he was stuck in a small flat during the hottest period of the year. Three days after the decision to section him, he was woken in the night and taken to an assessment treatment unit in Wales. The unit was entirely unsuitable for Jack, and having been taken off section for a short period, the local health board had no alternative provision, and his parents then had to look after him 24/7 for some time until he was resectioned as a result of the continued lack of access to any appropriate provision. Jack was then sent to live in a high dependency unit within a psychiatric intensive care unit in Wales, despite not having a mental health condition.

This is very similar to Kirsty Davies-Warner's experience. The environment and approach were completely unsuited, and after some months, he was moved to the step-down part of the PICU, which was slightly better, but still amounted to little more than containment. Imagine you, as the mother or father of that young man, seeing him experience what is effectively a prison experience, simply because he's autistic. Jack lived there for over two years. The health board ultimately decided to move Jack to a more distant hospital, still under sectioning, and following a challenge by his parents, the decision to section him was overturned, and he had transitioned to a more appropriate environment. He's now thriving in his new home and doing things many professionals thought he could never do. He's baking cakes, planting bulbs, going for walks, and having a life, but his parents still have to travel a five-hour trip, each way, to see him. Here are some of the things that he said to his mother following this change in his life: 'I can see the moon and the stars', 'I have grass', 'I can hear birds', 'Thank you for my new home', 'Mummy, I'm a free man.' But there are still many others who exist in this condition.

Some local health boards have closed specialist in-patient provision so that people who are autistic and/or learning disabled are now placed within mainstream mental health services, which is not appropriate. We've got further case studies that are to follow in this debate. But I'd also say, I met with a constituent of mine who had spent time in a mental health unit in a local hospital, but in 2023-24, he ended up in prison, where staff and psychologists remarked on how well he reacted to the structure and routine of prison life. He actually said to his parents, 'This is the place I want to be, in prison, because there's routine and there's structure.' How can we live in a society where this is something an autistic person says is acceptable? He needs appropriate care.

Since meeting Dawn, David, Janice, and working with Sioned and Mark, we've been able to open doors with the Minister and we've been able to have those conversations about how we can resolve this, though there is still a long way to go.

The UK Government's Mental Health Bill was introduced to the House of Lords on 6 November 2024, and aspects of that Bill will have implications for Wales. However, where powers are devolved, the Welsh Government can and should act, and the Minister has told me that it is her policy to get people out of secure hospitals and into local communities, but in too many instances, this is still not happening in practice.

So, let me be clear about what the Stolen Lives campaign are asking for: detailed, unscrupulous data as a tool of ensuring laws are followed—we need to know who is being held, where they are being held, why they are being held there; increased accountability for failures of care and supervision, which will prevent sectioning; and that those who commission mental health services are active in overseeing the quality of those services; and that existing laws protecting people with autism and/or learning disabilities are applied scrupulously, so that failure to do so results in censure for those who do not follow laws. But let's be clear: this, at its heart, is a human rights issue. We cannot risk in Wales being in continual breach of the Human Rights Act 1998: the right to be safe from harm, the right to liberty, and the respect for private and family life. The inappropriate use of deprivation of liberty orders must stop.

The debate today gives us a chance to ask the Welsh Government for action and see how they will act. As I've said, it's encouraging that the Welsh Government is supporting our motion, and that the Minister is so willing to engage. Since we first drafted and submitted this motion, the Stolen Lives representatives have joined a dedicated task and finish group with other stakeholders to look at the issues we've discussed in this debate. I've raised with the Minister the fact that the task and finish group must not be the end of the journey, but a continuation of dialogue, but also those members from Stolen Lives need to understand their role within that group. They need to stop being told that things are already happening in the areas they're suggesting, and they need that dialogue ongoing with the Minister alongside it to ensure that she has oversight of what that task and finish group is achieving.

The purpose of the task and finish group can't just be to rubber-stamp what the Welsh Government's already doing, it must be there to challenge and interrogate it. It must produce a report that is robust, evidence based, and also work at pace, but at the same time allow enough time for sufficient evidence to be gathered so that we can see change. We come back to the 'no wrong door' approach advocated by the Children's Commissioner for Wales that services should wrap themselves around individuals and families, rather than having to fit what is already out there, and help should be provided as early as possible to prevent more serious problems developing.

Just in closing my introduction to this debate, I found, at Caerphilly County Borough Council, the head of inclusion, Dr Sarah Ellis, as an incredible first point of contact when it comes to matters relating to autism and young people with a learning disability at school age or under school age. It's that early intervention that matters, and I think that model could be rolled out across Wales to ensure that elected members and members of the public have a single point of contact where they feel that their children and young people are in that grey area where they may not have a solid diagnosis, but at the same time have a very clear developmental need through the behaviours they're presenting. I think that's a further action that can add to mitigation of this Stolen Lives issue.

And as the father of an autistic daughter, I have, of course, got an interest in this. I feel passionately that we can make things better in Wales, and I know that the speakers in this debate will outline, through the course of their contributions, how that can happen.

I'm very glad to have co-submitted this motion with you, Hefin David, and Mark Isherwood, and to be working with you, cross party, to get answers and to get action for people who often have no voice, and for their loved ones who are hoarse from being made to repeatedly raise theirs.

I don't have many posters up in my Senedd office, but there is one that reads 'Homes not hospitals', and it's the poster I held up during one of the most powerful protests I have witnessed outside this Senedd. That protest in April this year was organised by the Stolen Lives campaign, and brought together hundreds of people calling for the release of people with a learning disability and/or autistic people from secure hospital settings in Wales.

As chair of the cross-party group on learning disabilities, I'd already heard from Dr Dawn Cavanagh and the Stolen Lives campaign about the harrowing and completely unacceptable treatment of people with learning disabilities and autistic people, who are inappropriately detained in secure mental health settings because they are disabled. The sheer number of people who had travelled from all over Wales and beyond to support the protest was so powerful, as, of course, was the testimony we heard from speakers. One case we heard about was Will's. I want you to hear about his treatment, because it demonstrates, I think, how people with a learning disability or autism can be denied their voice, their liberty and given no redress, how they can be denied their human rights.

Will is autistic and has learning disabilities. He has difficulty in processing information, especially speech, but otherwise is intelligent and literate. If his care plan is followed, he is relatively easy to manage. In 2018 he was living in supported living. His family became increasingly aware of mismanagement and mistreatment by care workers and began trying to raise concerns. They were told all was well by the care company and the social worker, despite them having evidence of mistreatment. They were so concerned they initiated a legal process so they could care for Will at home. But then their son was sectioned, without their foreknowledge, over an Easter holiday when they couldn't challenge what was happening. And the sectioning was traumatic. Will was told he was going on holiday and then admitted to a mental health unit, although it was determined later the issue leading to the section was not related to his mental health.

Will's family said:

'The unit had nothing that our son could use for self-regulation and noise levels were high',

and there were other distressed residents causing him anxiety.

'He was frightened constantly by the unit and confused as to why he was there.

'We took our son out from the horribly inappropriate unit daily and in July, against the wishes of the Social Worker...refused to return him after a trip out. He stayed with us in our home and we nursed him. He was in poor physical health and unable to eat properly...all were identified as reactions to stress and anxiety.

'He was constantly worried he would be sectioned again.

'We believe that we and our son have been the victims of a grave injustice. Will has been...harmed and it still impacts on his behaviours today. Equally, we as his loving...family have experienced health issues and stress'.

They've been campaigning for the injustice their son has suffered to be acknowledged and addressed. But there is, of course, a broader issue of inequality. There's a human rights scandal here, because this isn't an isolated case, and lives like those of Will are being stolen. It's a fact that the human rights of people with a learning disability and/or autism are being breached by them being wrongly placed in these units because the services are not there for them in their communities. So, it really saddens me today that we’re having this debate, because what the motion asks for should already be happening. It saddens me that letter after letter has to be written, meeting after meeting has to be arranged, with no change to the situation of some of our most vulnerable citizens. And families just find themselves in what feels like a maddening, frustrating, baffling nightmare of process, bureaucracy and, crucially, unaccountability.

I've no doubt the Minister will list well-meaning actions in her response, and we appreciate your engagement with this issue, such as setting up the task and finish group as part of the learning disability ministerial advisory group. What we really need also is a recognition that there is a problem, no defensiveness, and a recognition that there's a solution also with the right political will, a commitment to listen and act, and ensure that the rights-based approach is taken here, and not allow the stated policy aims of the Government to be undermined. We must have a system in place to gather accurate data on the number of people with a learning disability living in Wales, and the number placed in hospital settings, so support can be properly planned. We really need to know—[Interruption.] Yes, I'm coming to the end—a couple of sentences left.

We need to know that urgent action is going to be taken, and direction given, so that the task and finish group can be bold in their suggestions about what that response looks like. It saddens me that people had to come to the Senedd steps to get the Government's attention. So, that poster will remain on my wall, because for as long as I am here, I'm not going to let this rest. People who are currently in terribly unsuitable and distressing settings can live happy lives with the right support, because if we continue to allow this injustice to happen, we are not living in a civilised country.

Speaking here in April, ahead of the Stolen Lives 'homes not hospitals' protest outside the Senedd, I highlighted the lack of progress made in reducing the numbers of autistic people or people with a learning disability still locked up in assessment and treatment centres in Wales and England. The protest was supported by Learning Disability Wales and 13 other organisations, including Mencap Cymru, to raise awareness of the lack of movement by the Welsh Government on this issue.

After I wrote to the former Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Well-being, as chair of the cross-party autism group, jointly with Hefin David as a group member, regarding the sectioning and detention of autistic people due to placements breaking down rather than any specific mental health issue, her reply confirmed that data on this is not centrally held by the Welsh Government, which questions how they can make informed decisions about service delivery.

There's been a learning disability strategy in place in Wales since 2018, I said, which seeks to ensure that autistic people or people with a learning disability who are in long-term placements are discharged and able to live their lives in the community. However, Learning Disability Wales states that approximately 150 autistic people or people with a learning disability are known to be in a hospital setting, over two thirds for over 10 years, although numbers do not include all people and all settings. We therefore need to know, they said, why such a high number are still in long-term hospital placements.

As Learning Disability Wales said, over 40 years ago Wales was one of the first countries in the world to launch a strategy to get people with a learning disability out of long-stay hospitals and back into the community. Yet we seem to be going backwards and slipping towards re-institutionalisation.

After the Minister for Mental Health and Early Years wrote to the Stolen Lives campaigners in August, they expressed concern that a letter they had sent to the previous Minister in May, which was detailed and asked some important questions, had still not received a reply, and that they had not had an opportunity to meet with the new Minister to put their case forward. The Minister's letter also stated that everyone has a care and support plan in place, which is regularly reviewed to ensure that ongoing care is appropriate. However, I am regularly battling with local authorities on behalf of constituents, where their care and support plan reviews have been drafted in breach of both the timescale specified by the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, and of the Act's requirement for the individual and/or their carer, family member or advocate, to be an active participant in the review.

All Wales People First is the united voice of self-advocacy groups and people with learning disabilities in Wales, for and led by people with a learning disability. On Monday, I opened their first Through Our Eyes touring exhibition at Pontio at Bangor University, at which their chief executive stated that the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act is not being complied with. Without robust Welsh Government monitoring and evaluation, its legislation is effectively redundant.

At the cross-party autism group meeting in September, the Stolen Lives campaign told us that they feel sidelined as being too difficult and that existing legislation is ignored by local authorities and care companies. They also noted that the Welsh Government did not contact them about the statement issued in August regarding in-patient provision for learning disability, which ignored autism. As one parent of an autistic son with severe learning disabilities told Hefin, Sioned and me, they had a phone call from a senior member of staff at the health board telling them that their only option now was to put their son in hospital. Another stated, 'My child was stolen and put into emergency support care because carers could not be found.' Another stated, 'A best-interest meeting stated it was not in my son's best interests to be in the assessment and treatment unit, but, as there was nothing else available, he'd have to stay there.'

Autism is not a mental health condition; it is a lifelong developmental condition that shapes how people see the world and how they connect with others. Many autistic people have meltdowns. This is not the same as a temper tantrum. You tell that to those local authority officers who are torturing my constituents. It is not bad or naughty behaviour. When a person is completely overwhelmed and their condition means it's difficult to express that in another way, it is understandable that the result is a meltdown. It does not justify mental health sectioning. Locking these people up should not be happening. Transformative change is needed to remedy these human rights abuses. Diolch yn fawr.

I didn't meet any of these people, so I'm very interested to hear what you have to say, but I just wanted to add a positive to this debate in that, clearly, what needs to happen is that we need better provision to enable people to not end up in locked wards—that seems to me like really nineteenth- and, indeed, twentieth-century services. So, when I attended the real food and farming conference last week, I heard about an absolutely wonderful service run in north Pembrokeshire, called Clynfyw Care Farm. It's a family farm that started with the parents having adapted a cottage to make it disabled accessible, but, from that, it's really mushroomed into something that's really, really amazing. They now have four houses, with up to 10 people who can live there, with supported accommodation if they need people to live there with them. It's 9 acres—the care farm—employing 42 people, part of a 400 acre farm, so you can see that there's some synergy there. They have 40 people attending every day, and they do really important, practical things like apple juicing; they've got a commercial kitchen, so they're providing food for elsewhere; they're doing composting; they rescue battery hens; and they have a repair shop and a food mixer on the back of a bike that turns cream into butter—what's not to like?

Now, they've found that it's really, really fantastic for recovering mental health patients, but also people with learning disabilities, because they really enjoy being outdoors. We all know about the calming effect of being outdoors—we all find that—but it's particularly true, isn't it, of people who are neurodivergent, who may find noise very difficult to cope with. As I said, 40 people attend every week, and only one person with a mental illness has had to be admitted to hospital. It's one of only six care farms in Wales, compared with 240 in England, so there are clearly not enough care farms, and we have an abundance of wonderful scenery and farming businesses that may wish to have a subsidiary as a care farm, because it employs lots of people, makes very good use of the land and you can see the synergy with the animals that are on the farm. So, I just wanted to put this on the record. I was really, really impressed with the guy who spoke, Jim Bowen, with such passion and such clarity about the benefits of this. This is definitely the sort of thing that we must be thinking of as places for people who are unlikely to be able to hold down a job in the normal market environment.

As Chair of the Petitions Committee, I would like to draw Members' attention to a petition that was considered on Monday from the Stolen Lives campaign, P-06-1479, 'Stop the detention of learning disabled and autistic children, young people and adults in hospitals'. The petition is clear: hospitals are not a home. Many hospitals are far from people's families and cases of abuse and neglect are all too common. The petitioners are calling on Welsh Government to

'tell us how they plan to stop sectioning under the Mental Health Act and how they plan to bring children, young people and adults who have been sectioned closer to home and out of hospitals, and tell us exactly how many children, young people and adults with learning disabilities and/or autism are currently away from home in mental health hospitals and so-called assessment and treatment units.'

They say that the Minister's engagement with them has been positive, but they are still a little bit concerned about the lack of a full understanding of it being a human rights issue, as opposed to an access to services issue. The Minister has provided the Petitions Committee with a response to the petition, but the Stolen Lives campaigners still have concerns about their role in the task and finish group set up to pursue this issue. They told us that it doesn't yet feel like a collective attempt to address the urgent policy issues at hand and doesn't yet have the specialism to do this. The petitioners also shared a paper on data that they were asked to provide to the ministerial advisory group, which sets out the limitations of the data available in Wales and lists 31 ways in which the quality of that data should be improved. 

The petitioners say that they've also raised concerns about the closure of specialist in-patient services, resulting in people with learning disabilities being detained in mainstream mental health provision. They say that this has happened in Hywel Dda, for example, and they say that this has led to people being looked after by staff who are not trained in learning disability and/or autism; people being placed in even more unsuitable environments and being subjected to restrictive practices, such as long-term segregation, seclusion and physical and chemical restraint; people being viewed under a mental health lens and even subjected to inappropriate forensic gateway assessments. They feel that their concerns on this issue have not yet been addressed. 

The petitioners have also raised concerns about what Welsh Government is doing to prepare for Mental Health Act reform, saying that, without the funding for good community support and provision,

'changes to the act, could have unintended negative consequences for people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people, such as more people being detained...or being criminalised.'

Following Monday's meeting, I was asked again to write to the Minister for Mental Health and Well-being to highlight all of the petitioners' concerns, and we will keep the Senedd's Health and Social Care Committee and the cross-party group on learning disability sighted on the correspondence. I was also asked to raise this important issue on behalf of the petitioners today in the Chamber. 

I would also like to raise a wonderful charity based in Llay in my region of north Wales, called Your Space, which offers support for hundreds of families with autism. But they're at risk of possible closure and being made homeless, because the local authority have increased their rent to an exorbitant amount. And I just think that if we can help to support these sorts of establishments and organisations who do so much to ensure that people can remain in their homes that would be really, really helpful. 

I also visited Theatr Clwyd, who are making sure that they've got a separate viewing gallery to watch productions for people with sensory issues, which is wonderful to think about. And I support what Jenny Rathbone said about a connection to the outdoors for many people and a calm environment. And I know many people who've been working with our countryside services in Flintshire, at Wepre Park, doing some really lovely work connecting with the outdoors, which has really helped them to feel much better. So, I also wanted to end on a positive note, but, as Chair of the Petitions Committee, I wanted to speak on behalf of the petitioners. Thank you.

Thanks very much to Hefin, Mark and Sioned for bringing forward this very important debate today and for their very powerful contributions. The motion notes that it's over 40 years since the publication of the all-Wales strategy, which aimed to remove autistic people and people with a learning disability from long-term placements and support them to live in their local communities. And, of course, the trigger for the all-Wales strategy was the inquiry into Ely Hospital, which was a significant milestone towards developing care in the community and meant to be an end to institutionalised living for the majority of people. And I was involved with Ely Hospital, very involved with Ely Hospital, and, looking back 40 years and listening to this debate, I can still feel the sadness of some of those children who lived in Ely. And I particularly remember one little boy who had had hydrocephalus, and he sat in the window all day, every day, waiting for his mother to come to pick him up, and that went on for years. And there was another young man with a learning disability, and he was in Ely because it was alleged that his father, who was a rag and bone man, was driving his cart along Cathedral Road and was allegedly heard to say, 'I'm going to kill you when we get home.' And he was put into Ely, never saw his family again, and he was waiting to see them again all the time.

So, in this debate today, I can't help remembering those young people, and I don't feel that there's anyone else to remember them now, and I want to mark that they were there and they had feelings and emotions, and that's the sort of situation that we do not ever want to return to, and it's very distressing to hear of the individual situations of Jack and Will that have been mentioned today. And in fact, our Minister for finance has now left the Chamber, but he actually wrote a book on Ely Hospital, which I think is very important for us to read, along with Ian Butler, who was a special adviser to the Government.

And also the move into the community in Cardiff from Ely Hospital was very vividly illustrated in a play at the Sherman in 2023. I don't know if anybody actually saw that, but it was called Housemates, and it told the story of a young man with Down's syndrome who'd lived in Ely since childhood. He linked up with the Cardiff University student gym, they had a house in the community; it transformed the concept of community care, it became known all over the world, and that was the beginning of supported living and care in the community.

So, so many good things have happened in Wales; we have achieved such a lot in Wales and there has been a transformation of care, as has been known throughout the world, and so I think it's important to acknowledge that, and I have visited many settings that are absolutely excellent and where children and people with learning disabilities and autism are thriving. But there is so much more to do, and I think that's what the debate today is telling us. I certainly support this motion and I support the manifesto of Stolen Lives, because I know the people involved have lived experience. They are speaking from what they have seen and what they are experiencing. So, that's why it's so good and important that we must listen to them, and we must try and take things further, because I believe very strongly that the all-Wales strategy was transforming. I think we should be proud of it. I think we've made progress, I think the Government has made progress, but there is so much more to do, and everybody needs a home. So, I support the motion.

Dirprwy Lywydd, like to thank my colleague Hefin David for tabling this debate this afternoon, and for the contributions from Members, particularly Sioned Williams and Mark Isherwood, who have been so involved with this campaign. I'm grateful for the opportunity to provide a further update about the work that we are leading in relation to adult learning disability in-patient services, and our response to the concerns raised by the Stolen Lives campaign.

I want to start by saying that we agree that a hospital bed is not a home. We believe that people with learning disabilities and autism should be cared for in their local community, at home, or as close to home as possible wherever practical. No-one wants to see a return to the dark days where people with learning disabilities were institutionalised. We never want to return to those days that Julie Morgan just referenced. And absolutely, of course there is more that we can and are doing to ensure people with learning disabilities have a home that they can call their own.

The latest data that we have shows that, in October, there were 140 adults with a learning disability who were receiving ongoing care in an in-patient setting; 22 were in England. This is not good enough. We are working to reduce the number of people who are living away like this. This is a priority in our learning disability strategic action plan, and I want to thank the Stolen Lives campaign for the increased focus it has brought to this. I am acutely aware that there are no quick fixes. We need to make systemic, sustainable, affordable changes to services, to make sure that they are able to flex and adapt to meet the varied needs of different people, that wraparound that Hefin David talked about, not people having to fit in to a system that isn't working for them.

Many of the concerns about learning disability in-patient services were highlighted in the 2020 review 'Improving Care, Improving Lives', which the Welsh Government commissioned. It made 70 recommendations for the Welsh Government, health boards, local authorities, care providers and the third sector about how services can be improved. In early 2022, as we emerged from the pandemic, we set up the learning disability national implementation and assurance group to deliver on those recommendations. A significant amount of progress has been made, thanks to a huge amount of co-production with professionals and people with lived experience, who were at the heart of this work. I received an interim progress report from the learning disability national implementation and assurance group, and I expect a full update about progress against all 70 of the report's recommendations by April 2025. I will ensure that this is published and, of course, shared with Members of the Senedd.

This group has been instrumental in reviewing some of the key issues that impact in-patient services, including timely transition, crisis care and early intervention, and improving non-pharmaceutical intervention. Its advice—

Will you take an intervention?

Of course. Absolutely.

Can I just ask to what extent is that information being shared with the Stolen Lives group, and are they fully involved in those discussions and development of the recommendations?

So, the recommendations were the ones that have already been developed, and then, in terms of them being reported back on by April 2025, they should absolutely then be part of ensuring that there is progress made against all 70 of those recommendations.

As I said, the group has been instrumental in reviewing a number of other key issues. Its advice in all these areas will help shape the development of future policy.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I now turn to some of the specific points raised in the debate. Our guiding principles for the operation of the Mental Health Act include ensuring dignity and respect, using the least restrictive options and maximising independence. These are the services that must be committed to across Wales. There are a range of safeguards to ensure the safe and effective operation of the Mental Health Act in Wales, and these include our Mental Health Act administrators, who ensure compliance with the law, and the independent mental health tribunal service.

On the occasions where people may be admitted to a mental health unit for assessment and do not have a co-occurring mental health mental disorder, I accept that there are delays in finding alternative accommodation, including learning disability facilities. We are committed to ensuring that suitable accommodation is found at the earliest opportunity. I am absolutely clear that, irrespective of the classification of any accommodation, the care provided must be person centred, appropriate and suitable, so it fully meets the needs of the individual.

Last month, I met Baroness Merron, just before the UK Mental Health Bill was introduced to Parliament, and we have agreed to work closely to ensure the legislation works for Wales. Importantly, this Bill introduces changes so that it will no longer be possible to detain a person with a learning disability or autism for longer than is needed for assessment, unless they have a co-occurring mental health disorder.

I wrote to Members in August, setting out details of the work in Wales in relation to adult learning disability services. We have set up a learning disability ministerial advisory task and finish group, which is working with Stolen Lives, and to address the specific concerns. It is mostly people made up from the Stolen Lives campaign, as it should be. The group's last meeting was this Monday, and, at its request, sufficient time will be given to fully explore all of the issues raised, and I do now expect to receive its recommendations in the summer. However, I want to ensure that people from the Stolen Lives campaign are aware that I have taken on board today the concerns raised by Hefin David and also Carolyn Thomas, and I will work on this. It is not performative. I want to hear from you, and I want to hear about your loved ones. I wish that you did not have this lived experience, but it will not be in vain. I am taking this very seriously. I am very concerned, and I am going to ensure that we do take action.

And then, finally, having accurate, up-to-date and robust data that helps to drive change and inform our policy priorities and activity is really important, as has been said many times today. Two years ago, we did start work with the NHS executive to capture and understand learning disability in-patient data through a series of audits of health board in-patient provision. While this information is not yet suitable for publication, we're exploring how we can share it in a format that meets national information governance standards, which is a key ask of the Stolen Lives campaign.

Dirprwy Lywydd, there is a lot of work and progress towards achieving the best outcomes for people with a learning disability in Wales. I am very happy that we will be supporting this motion today. I also want to end by saying that I really do appreciate the passion of everybody who has spoken today, the passion from the Stolen Lives campaign. I agree: this is a human rights issue. So, let me reiterate: one person in a bed and not in a home is one too many. Diolch.

I think we'll start with Sioned's contribution and what she said about misdiagnosis and the fact that a lot of these problems stem from the fact that people are being misdiagnosed with mental health issues. Now, in your contribution, Minister, you said that the Mental Health Bill will ensure that autistic people should not be detained unless they have co-occurring mental health issues. We have this pathway now in Wales to make sure that we are able to end this misdiagnosis. The misdiagnosis is so easy. Mark Isherwood talked about meltdowns. I was with my little Caitlin in the Red Kite, she's nine years old—the Red Kite pub in Caerphilly—and she pushed a table over. She smashed a beer glass on the floor and threw her food on the floor. You know, with a nine-year-old you can just about manage it; for a three-year-old, it's like naughty behaviour; a nine-year-old, you can just about manage it, and people see that there's a disability there. When you're 16 and that's happening, when you're 17 and that's happening, then people start to make associations with mental health disorders, which it is not. It is not. And it's important to remember that, unless you have that understanding as a professional, unless you have that ability to diagnose some of those behaviours, then those misconceptions can easily happen, which is why we're asking for data.

Hefin, would you agree, also—? We've heard evidence that placing people in inappropriate settings to begin with triggers this behaviour and intensifies what are then deemed to be mental health problems. It's a vicious circle then, and people find themselves on this pathway, and they've almost been pushed onto this pathway.

And that's Will's story, isn't it? That was Will's story that you read out. That was exactly what happened. It was very similar with Jack. They end up in these circumstances where meltdowns are almost encouraged to happen, because of bright lights, because of noises, because of confinement. So, it's almost a self-perpetuating problem. And that lack of progress, I think Sioned raised, but also the issue that Mark raised of data, and the fact that we don't know where these people are, and there may be people hidden away that we're just not aware of today. Mark said that someone told him, 'My child was stolen.' That's incredible. That's incredible. And sometimes, I think we don't know where they are, right now, and I'm glad that the Minister's committed to gathering that data.

Jenny Rathbone mentioned some positive things in the community. One thing I would say, yes, it's great to have these services, but we need to remember that not all autistic people have a learning disability, not all autistic people will have a mental health condition, and also autistic people may end up with depression, may end up with dreadful thoughts, but that's as a result of the circumstances they find themselves in, not because of an intrinsic link with autism.

And Carolyn, the Petitions Committee, I can see Dawn up in the gallery—you've put into the Petitions Committee as well, then? I think that's really good. It's a belt-and-braces approach, so we could have another debate, which would be really good. I think it's really the right thing to do. You can see that what Dawn Cavanagh is doing is getting her story out across this Chamber, using every single mechanism that is available to her. These are people in desperate circumstances. I don't think that they'll be satisfied or content with the Minister's words, because when you've seen your family treated in this way, you cannot be content, you cannot be satisfied, you will never be satisfied, but you will, eventually, hopefully, see progress and a path to helping people much like your own family.

Julie Morgan reminds us how far we've come. I almost put that in my speech, actually, because there were people in the 1970s, like my daughter, who would be in hospital permanently in those years. There's still—I've mentioned it before—there's a programme, That's Life, on YouTube, and the first ever episode highlighted exactly that: those young people who were held in hospital today would be recognised as autistic and would be living in their communities. So, yes, we've come a long way, but at the same time, we don't have the data on those young people who are still being held in those very similar circumstances against their will. So, we still need to make progress on that.

I also come back to the task and finish group, that we have, I think, as the Minister said, a clear overview of what we want to achieve, but also I think you need to recognise that the Stolen Lives campaigners are not politicians. Many of them are not used to working with civil servants, so they won't know quite whether what they're being told is the right answer. And sometimes they hear things like, 'Well, we're already doing that, we're already doing that', well, that's not good enough, and I would say to you as Minister to please keep an overview of what your officials are telling the group, because they need to understand that this isn't just them being fobbed off. And I know you get that, because we had that conversation outside the Chamber yesterday.

I'd like to massively thank everybody who's made a contribution to this debate today. We are pushing progress forward here, and I know, Sioned, you feel it should be faster—I agree. But it is progress, and I want to see the Stolen Lives team involved in that progress and driving it every step of the way. And I'd just like to say a massive thank you to them for being here today.

Thank you. This year, the Equality and Social Justice Committee decided to revisit the report we published nearly three years ago, called ‘Minding the future: the childcare barrier facing working parents’, to see what progress had been made. It was a timely piece of work, as a number of important issues required the Government’s urgent attention.

I want to thank all the experts in Wales, across Britain, and in Estonia and Canada, who gave evidence to us, as well as all the early years workers who dedicate their working lives to the well-being of young children, particularly those who allowed us to visit their premises and see the good work that’s going on, as well as the committee staff and our researcher Gareth Thomas, all of whom made significant contributions to the committee’s inquiry. Given the cross-over remit with the Children, Young People and Education Committee, we were very pleased to be joined by Jayne Bryant in her role as Chair, before she joined the Government, and her successor as Chair, Buffy Williams, on this inquiry.

Child-centred, high-quality early childhood education and care is arguably the most transformative intervention that any Government can make to close the attainment gap caused by deprivation. The Education Policy Institute evidence published in the early 1990s emphasised that the die is cast by the time the child is two, unless you have comprehensive high-quality childcare to reverse the disadvantage that will otherwise remain with children for the rest of their lives. That is why Sure Start was set up by the last UK Labour Government. Here in Wales, the Flying Start programme survived the dismantling of Sure Start and the closure of huge numbers of children’s centres by the last UK Government, but there remains a lot to do to deliver the consistency and equity of provision we want to see for our Welsh children. The benefits of Flying Start, it’s very good to see, are starting to be spread out from super-output concentrations of disadvantage, and we very much welcome the announcement on 9 October by the Minster that you are now commissioning local authorities to prepare for the phase 3 expansion of Flying Start for all two-year-olds in Wales, wherever they live, in order to ensure that every child can benefit from at least 2.5 hours of free nursery education five days a week.

For now though, the childcare offer is fragmented into three separate programmes, so that many families do not understand what they’re entitled to. Indeed, the Bevan Foundation told us that this is the reason why about half the families who are entitled to it do not take up the offer of 48 weeks a year of childcare. The parents of disabled children encounter particular obstacles to identifying a local early years provider able to meet their child's needs.

High-quality, comprehensive, child-centred early education and care transforms lives and delivers a more equal society. We need to look no further than Estonia, whose investment in the early years has made this country of just over 1 million people the highest-performing country in Europe as measured by the PISA test. That is some achievement. We heard compelling evidence that this child-centred approach to early years care and education is still a work in progress across the UK. Unlike in Scandinavia and Estonia, the needs of the child still take second place to the emphasis on making childcare affordable for parents to return to paid work or attend work-related education and training.

We saw excellent child-centred provision on our committee visits across Wales, like The Venture in Wrexham, situated on a housing estate where most children attending are living in flats with no safe access to outdoor play, which is so important for children's well-being whatever their age, not least the positive impact on their sleeping patterns. Carolyn Thomas, who may speak later, observed The Venture's strength in its holistic support for families, its active promotion of the wonders of nature and respect for the environment.

Enfys Fach, similarly, in Brecon, offers seamless child-led indoor and outdoor learning opportunities. Its co-location with the primary school enables children to use the school's forest school and to feel part of a wider community when they have celebrations of key moments in the year. Dylan's Den, set up by parents in Treorchy, was more of a concrete jungle, but its co-location with the primary school enabled Dylan's Den to spread their wings to the whole of the school playground for their expanded holiday provision, particularly welcome in an area where holiday care is hard to come by. It was very impressive to see how staff in this social enterprise had developed such expertise to meet the needs of children with a range of disabilities.

I saw similar dedication to the needs of a profoundly disabled child at Aberavon integrated children's centre, where staff nevertheless reported a serious shortage of places for children with additional needs. Coram Family and Childcare, which pioneered child-centred provision back in the nineteenth century, surveys all local authorities annually on their childcare sufficiency, and highlighted that the 2024 data shows that only 5 per cent of Welsh local authorities have sufficient places for children with disabilities, and this is a major cause for concern.

Turning now to our recommendations, particularly those that have financial implications in the week before the finance Cabinet Secretary reveals the Welsh Government draft budget, we welcome very much the attention that Dawn Bowden has paid to our recommendations. As the fourth Minister with responsibility for early years this year, it is good that she has spent her time in post to look at the granular detail of what we are recommending.

We acknowledge that the development of a single system for all Welsh Government-funded childcare requires a significant programme of change, which needs to be co-produced with all stakeholders, i.e. parents, providers and the local authorities, who have a responsibility to deliver sufficient provision to meet the needs of their population, and that this work needs to be aligned with the streamlining of the Welsh benefits system, so that low-income households in particular are fully aware of the support available. So, we look forward to hearing how kindly the rest of the Cabinet, particularly the Cabinet Secretary for finance, have responded to her pitch for money in next year's budget.

We very much welcome the development of Teulu Cymru as a one-stop shop for information on childcare support for families, which hopefully will prove an accessible platform for simplifying and bringing together the three separate strands of Welsh Government current provision as it evolves. We have to note that the UK has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, as confirmed by the OECD, and a Wales-wide survey by Oxfam Cymru found that nine out of 10 respondents struggled to meet childcare costs from their disposable income. So, once again, we hope that the Cabinet Secretary will look kindly on the potential capital as well as revenue required to start extending Flying Start to all two-year-olds during this coming financial year. But we must also address the inequity of denying families with disabled children what they, above all, should be getting. That is what high quality, comprehensive, inclusive provision looks like, and we need to ensure it's available where children are living. 

Lastly, we warmly welcome the seriousness with which the Minister has considered the stark evidence we heard on the challenges providers now face, having had no increase in the Welsh Government contribution to their costs since April 2022. This, during three years of a cost-of-living crisis, ballooning energy and food costs, has rocked the viability of the sector. I refer you to figure 6 of our report, which tells it all. We cannot expect providers to live off fresh air and their abundant enthusiasm and dedication for the children they serve. They must have enough to cover the costs as well as paying themselves, and they are simply unable to recruit quality staff if those people can earn more stacking shelves in a supermarket. 

We hope there will be something about an uprating of the hourly rate of the Welsh Government childcare offer in place in the last three years, because a survey that was made of all providers tells you that seven out of 10 childcare providers could sustain the current model for one year, but only 20 per cent were confident they could survive for two years. So, unless we do something pretty serious and quickly, we have to hope that next week we will give some certainty to providers that the increase in the childcare hourly rate is on the way from April 2025. I now look forward to hearing the contributions from others, including, of course, the Minister. 

Can I also thank the committee and Chair for producing this report? One of the most striking features of this report was the uncovering of how complicated and disjointed the childcare funding system is. We all know how important early years learning and support is to the long-term educational and job prospects of a child, and yet it feels like the very system designed to help them is actually stopping some of those most in need from accessing it. 

The sad truth is that it appears that the Welsh Government has known of this for some time, and that after the initial inquiry two years ago very little has been done. I think this speaks volumes to the due regard the Welsh Government gives to childcare provision. This lack of action falls squarely on the shoulders of the Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries responsible, who have failed to prioritise reorganising childcare provision. I believe we need more accountability. 

I recognise that the Government has only accepted in principle to making a commitment to consolidating funding streams, based on the view that it is costly and complex to simplify. However, I do not accept this argument. This Government has spent 25 years systematically complicating this funding stream. You have at your disposal all the information you need and it would not be too onerous a task to redesign this funding system. I'm fearful these words are no more than an empty gesture to appease the committee and will, yet again, be followed up with a failure to act. 

This report emphasises the need for more funding into the childcare sector. I was particularly troubled that almost 80 per cent of childcare suppliers expect to close within two years if they do not receive an uplift in the hourly rate per child of between 20 per cent and 60 per cent of the current level. On top of this, 92 per cent of parents feel that childcare costs are disproportionately high compared to their salaries. The fact that the report also highlights the speed of the Welsh Government response is of great concern. 

It has been noted that early years funding was transferred in the previous budget to fund other priorities, instead of using it to support the struggling childcare sector. So, let's put this picture together. What we have is a scenario whereby childcare providers simply do not have enough money to keep going, alongside a majority of parents who are struggling to already pay childcare costs, and then a Welsh Government who has no sense of urgency in addressing this and is happy to divert funding away from early years provision. This is telling families that the Welsh Government simply doesn't care.

We know that child poverty is at a record high in Wales and that Wales has the highest levels out of all nations in the UK. In this Chamber, we talk about how to get the Welsh economy moving, to create jobs to lift families out of poverty, we talk about improving transport links, and all these other schemes to get people into work. However, it is clear that the Welsh Government doesn't recognise that people still need to look after their children, and if the costs of childcare are too high, it doesn't pay to go to work, when all they're doing is working to pay for someone else to look after their children.

Finally, I want to mention disabled children and those with additional learning needs. We have to acknowledge that provision is wholly inadequate. I'm not surprised to hear evidence that there is a culture of a fear of getting it wrong, unsuitable settings, staff shortages with skills needed, and difficulties during school holidays and providing wraparound care. I appreciate that there is likely to always be difficulty in providing care for a child, especially those with complex needs. What we need is a system that consistently builds in capacity for disabled children and those with learning needs, rather than a system that has to react. This can be done. The Welsh Government should set out a long-term funding plan, which will give confidence to the sector to train and make provision for those specific needs. We believe Wales to be a nation of sanctuary for refugees; why can it not be a nation of sanctuary for those with disabilities as well? Thank you.

Access to childcare funding could do with simplifying, with a one-stop shop, and I'm pleased the Minister has committed to a simplified funding stream and system following engagement with stakeholders to make sure it really works for parents and those involved in the sector. It would be fantastic to offer universal childcare for all families under extended paid maternity leave, as we heard from Estonia, where they have kindergartens and the offer is very generous, but it would take years of investment and rebuilding of public service funding, which has been severely cut over the last 14 years, and we're only just seeing the change now under the UK Labour Government, and I hope there will be some positive news for you in the budget next week.

The childcare offer hourly rate increased by 11 per cent in 2022, and we've had massive inflationary pressures that were impacting, but I'm pleased that the rate the Welsh Government will pay for the childcare offer and Flying Start will now be reviewed annually rather than every three years, which will better reflect inflation. And I welcome the business rate relief as well, which is now permanent. That will help.

It does concern me that parents believe that if they live in England they will be able to access childcare for their children from nine months of age, however I know it's not the case because it takes years to build the infrastructure for the facilities and the staff, and the childcare offer in Wales and England is like comparing apples and pears, our offer places. The children and child development are at the heart of everything we do. Our plan has been developed around three themes: quality of provision, access to provision, and supporting and developing the workforce, which is different to the current English offer, which is currently very much focused just on childcare.

In 2021 £5 million was awarded to Flintshire County Council for investment in improved childcare facilities to locate the foundation phase and childcare, wherever possible, at schools, to provide wraparound care through play, and I think that's been a really good model. Ten primary schools benefited from that funding pot, and recently, St Winefride's preschool playgroup demolished an old gazebo and replaced it with a new outdoor classroom, with fitted benches. The new classroom is big enough for all children and their additional learning needs equipment to fit inside. It will also store wellies and waterproof clothing for the children to freely access the outdoors. All preschool children can now gather in one area for circle time, snacks or general play, and we see this investment repeated across our communities. Outdoor learning and playing space are also important so that children can connect with nature, and many families do not have gardens. And I know Welsh Government funding has supported the creation of those facilities under the foundation phase over many years. I believe that investing in poorer areas first, through Flying Start, is the right way, even though it would be nice to have universal free childcare, because when we have hungry children, they cannot play, they haven't got that energy to play. So, that wraparound care is really important.

Access to online training, skills and qualification is really important as well, and we need to follow that up, because that seems to be an issue.

I would like to end with a quote from Malcolm King of The Venture in Wrexham, which offers the Flying Start programme to two to three-year-old children in Caia Park, the largest housing estate in Wales. Three of the five wards have the highest rate of child poverty in Wales. Seventy per cent of the children attending The Venture live within 500 yd. The Venture’s emphasis is to provide a safe, calm and happy space for the children to play and interact with others, and Malcolm summed this up with saying, 'Creating a sense of happiness inoculates against all the challenges of life.' Thank you. Diolch.

It's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon, and I think we can all agree that childcare, across the UK, is not working for parents or providers, and this report lays out some of the problems with childcare in Wales and gives the Welsh Government a basis for finding remedies for the problems.

Eighty-four per cent of Early Years Wales members disagree that the uplift in minimum wage is affordable, based on current funding models and other cost pressures. Ninety-one per cent are now considering or will increase parental fees, which is deeply concerning given the outrageous cost of childcare, which is already completely unaffordable for most parents. And just to drive that point home, in Wales the cost of nursery for a child under two-years-old is 63 per cent of one parent's weekly take-home pay—63 per cent. For a single parent, that makes childcare quite literally an impossibility, which means they are unable to work. The average household in the United Kingdom loses 25 per cent of its average monthly income to childcare, which is higher than the average mortgage or rent. For most parents, this is the single biggest expense. The United Kingdom also has the fifth highest childcare costs in the world, behind Czechia, Cyprus, New Zealand and the United States. We should also recognise that this intolerably high level of childcare inhibits productivity and consolidates gender inequalities. Research has found a strong link between unaffordable childcare and single-mother employment, with a 1 per cent increase in childcare costs being associated with a 0.3 per cent to 1 per cent rise in the rate of single-mother unemployment. Given almost all childcare providers are considering raising parental fees, the data shows that this will lead to a rise in single-mother unemployment, which is completely disheartening and wrong.

This report also highlights the struggle of childcare providers in the current climate, and if the cost for consumers is unacceptably high, the providers are also on their knees. That should tell us something about how the entire model is broken. Solutions are needed that go way beyond allocating a bit more money here and there, and I would like to hear from the Welsh Government an acknowledgement of just how big this problem is, and how they plan to fix it.

The report also calls for a simplification of the overly complex and poorly understood system. The National Day Nurseries Association Cymru said that the main concern was just how complex it is at the moment for parents and providers. The Bevan Foundation also suggested that, shockingly, half of eligible parents do not access the childcare offer, saying that, with three different schemes on offer, it is perhaps not surprising that parents are not aware of what they are entitled to. This issue is compounded by the fact that parents must submit multiple applications to access their entitlement. I think this is a huge problem, that the system is overcomplicated, and so many parents who desperately need help are not getting it, as they are struggling to navigate the system.

The disparity with England and the Flying Start scheme adds more complexity. I think the Welsh Government needs to consider reforming the Flying Start scheme, which I don't believe is working currently. The Flying Start offer is two and a half hours in the morning, which I would argue is not going to help a parent get back into work. Their child may be in a Flying Start setting in the morning and then a private setting in the afternoon. So, it's important that the Welsh Government doesn't neglect non-Flying Start childcare providers, and many working parents outside the Flying Start area, who are also really struggling to make ends meet and pay for childcare. Also, according to Barnardo's, 48 per cent of children living in disadvantaged areas are outside the Flying Start area, which is a big issue and shows that the Flying Start scheme, which was drawn up in 2007, needs urgently to be brought up to date as the economic and societal picture has changed dramatically since then. Thank you very much.

As you've heard, this is our second report, because we can see how important childcare is to the children of Wales, but it's not just about childcare being important to the children of Wales, it is to those parents and to a healthy economy. It really doesn't make sense that we only have 161,000 children aged under four here in Wales and that we are not able to meet their needs for affordable, accessible and high-quality childcare. Because, actually, if we provide that childcare, we then give the parents the ability to spend the money, to work, to have a high self-esteem, and all of those other issues around mental health et cetera can be addressed. So, this is actually a massive invest-to-save opportunity by the Welsh Government.

It is very disappointing that the Welsh Government's response to our report—. We can see that their commitments are really not driving home their commitment to ensuring that children have that high-quality, accessible and affordable childcare. The report makes it clear that this is a fragmented system that's failing both children and parents. For example, the Bevan Foundation, as you've heard, found that nearly half of eligible parents are unable to access the childcare offer, directly tied to inconsistent availability and poor information. In fact, as a member of the committee, trying to navigate and understand the childcare available was a bit like needing an A-level in astrophysics. So, imagine how that feels to a parent that's on their own, trying to find a way of finding the adequate and local childcare. It really is such a complex system, and I'd welcome the Government's view on how this is going to be simplified.

Sadly, another critically missed opportunity is the Welsh Government's decision to reject, in the report, the universal childcare provision for three and four-year-olds. By excluding children from non-working households and maintaining restrictive eligibility thresholds, the Government is systematically disadvantaging the most vulnerable families. Evidence cited in the report overwhelmingly supports universal provision. We can't get away from this. It is necessary for us to work towards that, and for the Government to demonstrate the steps it's going to take in order to ensure that that is in place. Scotland have successfully implemented their childcare provision, and as you've heard, other countries around the world have as well. We must make sure that we are ambitious in relation to childcare and our economy here in Wales. So, I'd welcome a commitment from the Government to providing the necessary funding and resources to ensure that we have that provision in place.

But just to finish, and you've heard this time and time again, this is all part of a fundamental position here in Wales, which is that this could mean that we address child poverty. As Professor Mari Rege highlighted in the 'Calling time on child poverty' report last year, few tools are as effective as providing early childcare. The scale of child poverty, as we hear time after time, and as highlighted by my colleague Sioned, just remains so high here in Wales. According to the Bevan Foundation, in all but two of Wales's local authority areas, more than one in four children lives in poverty. Even more concerning, more than half of children living in poverty are in families where the youngest child is between nought and four. We should be absolutely shocked and horrified and ashamed that that's the country that we live in. Whilst I welcome your commitment, Minister, to the first 1,000 days and the opportunities that that brings in terms of moving things forward, we still have a massive gap here in order to ensure that those first 1,000 days are absolutely critical to families. 

So, I finish with a little note of despair, I'm afraid. I despair that I'm bookending both the beginning and the end of the year asking for more to be done on child poverty and childcare. Universal affordable childcare is not just a policy option, it is a moral imperative. It is an investment in our children, our families and the future of Wales. Diolch yn fawr iawn. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Can I say, it's been a very interesting debate this afternoon, and I've very much welcomed the contributions from all Members? Can I start by thanking all the members of the Equality and Social Justice Committee for their work on this very important inquiry? And I know, Jenny, that this is a follow-up inquiry, and that in itself tells us a story, that we still have so much more still to do. But I want to put on record my gratitude for all of those stakeholders who met with the committee and provided such rich evidence of their experiences, because that's very important in helping us to shape our future policy direction.

Now, the committee has already received a detailed response from Welsh Government to the report recommendations and a follow-up response from me when I took over this ministerial responsibility on a number of the recommendations. So, I won't be going over all of those in my contributions today, but I do hope that I cover most of the points that have been raised in the debate this afternoon.

I want to start, however, by reassuring you that childcare is and remains a key commitment and priority of this Welsh Government. We know from the evidence that investing in early years can have a significant positive impact on the physical and mental health and well-being of children, both now and in the future. Several contributors to this afternoon's debate have made that point, and I absolutely agree with them. Children's rights in Wales are not optional, they are entitlements. That's why giving every child in Wales the best start in life is of paramount importance.

Would you take an intervention on that?

Please.

Talking about the rights-based approach, one of the things we saw in our evidence—terrible, heartbreaking evidence, actually, and totally unacceptable—was that, of all the local authorities, the data that they provided, only 5 per cent of local authorities in Wales have enough childcare provision for children who are disabled.

Yes, and that is something that I will come on to in my response. I'm very, very well aware of the lack of universal provision and the consistency of provision, and I'll say a bit more about that in a moment.

But, since taking up my current ministerial responsibilities, I have been keen to meet with those delivering childcare, because I want to understand what issues the sector are experiencing and how we can work together to overcome these. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Cwlwm and have seen first-hand the hard work and commitment of the childcare sector. And I most recently visited the Daisy Day Nursery, and met with Munchkinos Childminding team.

Now, coming through strongly from the committee's report, from the sector, from local authorities and from parents, and during the course of this debate today, there are three themes that I've identifed. Those are sustainability, complexity and accessibility. So, I'd like to take this opportunity to say a bit more about the action that we have taken and will be taking in those three areas.

Clearly, the sustainability of the sector is absolutely vital. And firstly, I want to put on record my sincere gratitude to all those who work in childcare and play, enabling so many parents to be able to work and also providing vital support to children's development. We recognise the dedication and the commitment of childcare staff, providing a high-quality service supporting children's earliest experiences. And it's crucial that we, as a Government, recognise that childcare work and the challenges that the staff face. The development of the childcare and playwork social partnership fair work forum will provide a platform for the future consideration of issues relating to fair work practices across the centre, and we will continue our work in developing support for workers in the play sector to make a career, a positive career.

Sioned Williams, I absolutely do acknowledge, of course, the challenging financial situation facing childcare settings, which is why we took the decision to make small business rate relief a permanent feature for registered childcare premises in Wales. I absolutely hope that that will go some way to mitigating some of the additional costs that these settings will be facing with the increase in national insurance. But what I would say is that there are also mitigations within that national insurance increase provision as well. So, we know that there was a measure to reduce the impact of those changes on small businesses, which involved increasing the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,000 and removing the £100,000 threshold. I hope, with our decision to offer permanent business rate relief as well, that will help.

I have also accepted the committee's recommendation to move to annual childcare offer rate reviews, which others have already mentioned. I hope that that will help improve the sustainability of the sector, and I will say more on the outcome of the current rate review following the publication of the draft budget. I can say that I share the committee's concerns and those of stakeholders regarding the complexity of the current system, which is why I am absolutely committed to simplifying our funding streams and systems for funding childcare. I've tasked my officials with looking at what we can do immediately and what we can do in the longer term.

Of course, key to making meaningful progress in this area is engagement with partners and stakeholders. By understanding the issues through the eyes of the sector and through parents, we'll be better placed to identify and to put in place workable solutions. But we could also learn from the work that we've done through various early years integration transformation projects, where we've already invested significantly in simplifying and streamlining access to the childcare offer for Wales, bringing a more consistent experience for parents and childcare providers across Wales.

Llywydd, my ambition is to develop a single system for all Welsh Government-funded childcare, and this will require a significant programme of change, wide engagement and initial investment. While it's still early days, initial scoping has started and we will look to progress this work as quickly as possible.

Sorry, I wonder if you'd just take a very brief intervention.

Of course.

Thank you so much. It's both around the offer and the funding. We have the lowest level of hourly funding, which is £5 an hour, here in Wales. The industry has asked for more, around £7 or £8 an hour. I just wonder if that particular issue is going to be within your planning, hopefully, within the short to medium term. Thank you, Minister.

I will be coming on to that, Jane. Thank you very much.

So, if I can now turn to the third theme from the report and the debate, which is accessibility, it's hugely important that parents can access information to make informed choices. I hear what Sioned has said about the digital platform, but that new platform does provide sources of practical and financial information, which builds on each local authority's family information service. We've seen access to that platform increase month on month, and we've got almost 20,000 users of that platform at the moment, which is increasing accessibility to the support needed, as it directs them to the appropriate places to get the specific information that they need.

In listening to the sector and stakeholders, we have already invested significantly, as I've said, in streamlining access to the childcare offer for Wales. This programme of funded childcare is now delivered through a single national digital service, which replaced the various local childcare offer systems in November 2022. This fully bilingual service has brought a more consistent experience for parents and childcare providers, and officials recently met with Department for Education colleagues in England, who were keen to learn from our experience of developing and delivering a national digital childcare offer for Wales.

I'm also really pleased to be leading our approach to early childhood play, learning and care, jointly with the Cabinet Secretary for Education. Our approach focuses on promoting partnerships, consistency and join-up between schools and settings, as well as parents and carers, for the benefit of the child and their families. This work helps to support the tackling poverty agenda, which I could say so much more about, but I'm very conscious of my time.

Now, colleagues will recall that earlier this month we debated the children and young people committee's report on disabled children and young people's access to education and childcare, and, to be clear, we do know that we have much, much more to do in this area. But we also know that the early years local authority additional learning needs officers have important roles to play in improving the early identification of lower level needs in establishing referral routes and raising awareness among multi-agency partners. And through—

You need to conclude now, please.

And through our capital programme, we have examples such as Flintshire County Council building a replacement outdoor classroom suitable for all children and their ALN equipment.

I'm just wondering if I can just—. Because I've got so much more to say and I'm not going to get through it all—

No. You've gone well past your time; I've given you time for the interventions.

Well, I will be criticised for not responding to all the points as well, so I'm conscious of the time—

But you have your time limit, Minister.

I've got to try and—. Moving forward, local authorities across Wales have been asked to start preparing their expansion plans for the next phase of the roll-out of childcare provision to two-year-olds, and that will involve extending Flying Start provision to all two-year-olds, so that will be a universal childcare offer for all two-year-olds. I am also committed to the rate review of childcare rates and moving that to an annual rate review. Of course, again, I can't say any more about that until that review has been completed and until we know more about the budget next year. Dirprwy Lywydd, I've so much more to say, but I'll leave it there, because I know that your patience has now expired.

Yes. Ministers, as much as anyone else, need to make sure that they plan and time their contributions.

Thank you. Well, it's been an interesting debate, because there's quite a lot of tension across the Chamber as to what the importance of childcare is all about. Many of us would like to focus more on the child's needs, rather than the parents' need to obtain work, although both are important, because the family with somebody in employment is also going to benefit the child.

I think we should hear clearly the commitment by the Minister to simplify the system, but we can't rush into it, because we've got to have something that's going to be useful for all 22 local authorities, so that people can go onto this single national bilingual platform in order to then go to the Wrexham site, or wherever it might be. And I'm hoping that this will still enable people who find digital platforms difficult to still be able to go to their local community hub, or their Citizens Advice, to get help with filling in the form.

I think it's important that we remain focused on the importance of the needs of the child, as well as the family. And Gareth Davies is absolutely right that it can be very disruptive for a child to go to one Sure Start provision in the morning and then another provision in the afternoon. But it isn't always the case, to be honest; some children like the collective provision for two and a half hours and then they prefer to go home with a childminder or another member of the family. There isn't a one-size-fits-all here, but, clearly, if parents are going to be working, they're definitely going to need more than two and a half hours. But I think Naomi Eisenstadt had a very important thing to say, because the importance of open access is that we need to be sure that this is a service that people want to use. Parents would certainly prefer not to have to go from A to B, because they've got to make more complicated arrangements, and, clearly, in the future, we hope that we will be able to have more integrated children's centres that will be able to provide the full package of care, just as in The Venture, which Carolyn spoke about.

I think we are a very long way from where they are in Estonia, and that is going to take a change of attitude of the UK Government, as well as the Welsh Government. Because, in Estonia, they have legislated so that no parent is paying more than 20 per cent of their wages on childcare, and that is obviously something we'd all like to see, but we definitely don't need it all to be free. There's no particular reason why people can't pay according to their means; if they earn a lot of money, they can pay a bit more than those who are earning less or not at all, and that's all down to each local authority as to how they set that up. That exists now, but there's nothing stopping them cross-subsidising in an area where that would work. It won't work in an area like where The Venture is, where clearly most of the people will not be on high wages. But I think it is important that we get this digital platform right, that the application form fits in with the streamlining of the benefits system, because that enables parents who are worried about taking work that might make them worse off, and they need to be able to see that the help that's available will make it worth their while to go back to work sooner than they otherwise might, and that in itself is a good thing. I think this is a work in progress, and clearly there'll be a lot more to say once we see what the shape of the budget looks like. I thank all of you for taking part in this debate.

[Inaudible.]—completely agree that early public health messaging is needed also, when we know, for example, that hearing loss and lifestyle choices contribute to the increased risk of having dementia later in your life, that we need to be intervening early with the public to help them make the right decisions sooner.

I would agree with those comments, and I will get on to the role that GPs can also play in ensuring that people understand around dementia, and people who might suffer from dementia. So, I thank you for those comments, Mark.

I'm so sorry, I couldn't hear through my—

Formally move.

Yes.

Thank you very much, and it's vitally important for us to be discussing dementia which is Britain's biggest killer, and has affected many of us, either loved ones or people we know. Both my grandfathers had dementia, unfortunately, and it costs Wales over £2 billion a year and is expected to more than double to £4.5 billion a year. 

The glimmer of hope, however, with this monumentally cruel disease is that the strides that have been taken in medical research have truly been remarkable. Over 50,000 people in Wales are known to be living with the condition. However, an estimated one in two people with dementia in Wales have not received a diagnosis, yet spending on diagnosis makes up less than 1.4 per cent of the total healthcare expenditure in the UK, which seems like a staggering oversight. This also highlights the importance of education, with many people ignorant to the early signs of dementia; people fail to recognise the onset of the disease in their partner or relative. So, I'm hoping that the dementia action plan will include education and, hopefully, the Cabinet Secretary can speak to this in response to the debate.  

The Alzheimer's Society has raised the damage that early diagnosis is doing to families and the economy, with 63 per cent of all dementia costs believed to be shouldered by families and costs growing as the disease progresses. The average cost of caring for someone with dementia stands at £29,000, but the total having the potential to rise to £80,000 for those with severe cases of dementia. We should also recognise that dementia is a disease that disproportionately affects the elderly, and therefore the burden of care largely falls on the elderly spouse or the partner. This is why the Welsh Conservatives are calling for a new dementia action plan to put patients and their loved ones first. 

The Welsh Language Commissioner also called for more action be taken in dementia care for Welsh speakers, noting that little progress has been made since the initial recommendations were made in 2018. And it's vital to ensure that no-one is left behind or put at a disadvantage, so that care is accessible to all. So, it's disappointing that there is a shortfall when it comes to Welsh language support and I hope the Welsh Government will address this in the action plan, given the lack of progress following the publication of the last dementia action plan, as we anecdotally know that native Welsh speakers do tend to go back to their mother tongue by default when suffering from dementia, and there's good evidence to support that notion.  

We're also calling for the Welsh Government to promote more research into the disease. Cardiff University play a major role in dementia research with millions invested in their dementia research centre. It's one of six centres across the UK in putting Wales at the forefront of global science.

So, to conclude, can the Welsh Government outline how the new dementia action plan will properly address the unacceptably low rates of diagnosis, improve education on the disease, and work wioth researchers in Wales to keep NHS dementia care up to date with the most recent techniques and technology? Thank you very much, Deputy Llywydd. 

As people get older they worry more about their health, especially when contemporaries have serious or terminal health problems. Dementia is a general terms for loss of memory, language problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enought to interfere with daily life. Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia. Dementia is not a single disease. It's an overall term to describe a collection of symptoms one may experience if they are living with a vartiety of diseases, including Alzheimer's. 

Diseases grouped under this general term 'dementia' are caused by abnormal brain changes. Dementia symptoms trigger a decline in thinking skills known as cognitive abilities, severe enough to impair daily life and independent functions. It also affects behaviour, feelings and relationships. An early stage of memory loss or other cognitive ability loss is called 'mild cognitive impairment'. Signs of the progress of dementia can vary greatly. They include short-term memory loss and something that most people have come across—keeping track of a phone, purse, keys, glasses or wallets. I think there's very few people in this room who haven't lost one of those at some time, and possibly some time in the last week. So, it is really difficult: 'I've lost my phone—have I got Alzheimer's?' Well, almost certainly not, but when you put it with forgetting to pay bills, planning and preparing meals, remembering appoitments, travelling out of the neighbourhood, and with planning and preparing meals, started cooking and forgetting that the cooker is on. 

forgetting the cooker is on. All these things have become much more serious. Dementia symptoms are progressive, which means the signs of cognitive impairment start off slowly and gradually get worse over time, leading to dementia.

I was fortunate enough to attend a dementia training session given by First Cymru, who wanted their drivers to be able to identify people with dementia. I very much thank them for inviting me to this training; I would urge any other Member here, who gets an opportunity by some organisation to attend dementia training, to attend it. It was described as like a bookcase: when a bookcase gets shaken, the books at the top fall off while those at the bottom remain. This explains why old memories remain and why newer events are forgotten, and why people often move back to their first language. That's why it's incredibly important for people who were brought up and their first language was Welsh to be able to talk to people in Welsh, because although they can still remember how to speak English, their first thoughts are back to their earliest language.

We know dementia is the leading cause of death in England and Wales, with 1 in 3 of us born today due to develop the condition in our lifetime. Put in context, 20 people who are Members here. Dementia is not a normal part of ageing and its impacts can be devastating. Dementia prevalence is predicted to increase rapidly over the next 15 years. New research commissioned by the Alzheimer's Society predict the number of people living with dementia in Wales will rise by 37 per cent by 2040. But this major health issue is not being made the priority it needs to be. Across the UK, less than 2 per cent of dementia health costs are spent on diagnosis and treatment, while around a third of these costs are being spent on expensive and distressing unplanned hospital admissions.

I want to talk about a member of the Thursday night quiz team I used to be a member of. He started off by being forgetful, not sure if he had taken his tablets, and not remembering things from earlier in the evening. He was still our best member for identifying people or brands from photographs. He eventually, after much persuasion from friends and family, visited his GP. Getting a diagnosis enabled him to plan for the future and get access to care, support and treatment, which has helped him stay well for longer. Following treatment, he is now capable of going about his normal daily life and is going to Benidorm for Christmas with friends. In a recent survey commissioned by the Alzheimer's Society, only 1 per cent of people saw no benefit of a diagnosis. The system is complex and once diagnosed, people need holistic support to understand the condition and navigate the system. Increasing diagnosis rates across Wales is vital to enable people who are living with dementia take control of their condition and live independently for longer. This supports people to stay out of hospital and in their own homes, relieving pressure on our health and care system.

Dementia is the last taboo. I remember, as you may, Deputy Presiding Officer, when cancer was discussed in hushed tones, with early death certain. We have thankfully gone a long way from that, with increasing survival rates. We know with dementia and NICE-approved treatments, together with appropriate care, can slow the worsening of the symptoms and allow people to live better and more independently in their own homes for longer, which I think is what everybody wants, isn't it. The earlier the diagnosis, the better, and I think almost anything we were talking about in health, we'd say exactly the same thing: we need to get more early diagnosis. Dementia is just one of them, but I can't think of any health issue where early diagnosis is not the most important.

I thank Plaid Cymru for tabling this very important debate. There are around 42,000 people living with dementia in Wales, although we don't have an accurate picture, as up-to-date dementia diagnosis rates are not currently available. We do know that Wales has consistently had a lower level of diagnosis, as was just said by Sioned, than England, Scotland and Ireland.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia, and there are currently great strides being made in early diagnosis, with a pin-prick blood test being developed, as well as promising new treatments. We need to continue this research at pace, hence the Welsh Conservatives' amendment, which I hope Members will support.

However, I want to focus the remainder of my contribution upon alcohol-related dementia. At this point, I must declare an interest as a patron of Brynawel Rehab, the only rehab facility in Wales to offer specific interventions to support people with alcohol-related brain damage. Alcohol-related dementia

Alcohol-related dementia is a type of alcohol-related brain damage. If a person has alcohol-related dementia, they will struggle with day-to-day tasks. This is because of the damage to their brain, caused by regularly drinking too much alcohol. Symptoms include memory loss and difficulty thinking things through, and problems with more complex tasks, such as managing their finances. The symptoms may cause problems with daily life, such as not being able to cook a meal.

Alcohol-related dementia symptoms can vary from person to person. Someone with the condition undergoing a brain scan will show that some areas of the brain have shrunk much more than others. Alcohol, particularly, effects the frontal lobes of the brain. Unlike Alzheimer's disease, or vascular dementia, alcohol-related dementia is not certain to get worse over time. With the right treatment and support, there is often a good chance that it will stop getting worse and will improve. Roughly 75 per cent of these cases will get better. Abstaining from alcohol, taking high doses of thiamine supplement, and eating a balanced diet can lead to an improvement in symptoms.

However, if the person keeps drinking alcohol and does not eat well, alcohol-related dementia is very likely to get worse. It is not easy to help a person with alcohol addiction to stop drinking. However, it can be even more challenging when the person has dementia. Problems with their thinking and reasoning caused by dementia can prevent a person from understanding that they need to stop drinking. They may also find it very difficult to stay motivated if they do stop drinking, because losing motivation is a symptom of dementia.

Sadly, diagnosis of alcohol-related dementia is really difficult. If a GP is unaware of their patient's history of excessive alcohol consumption, they may not consider alcohol-related dementia as a possible diagnosis. It can also be difficult for patients to get an assessment, as some GPs will insist that they stop drinking for several weeks before they can be assessed with their memory. However, some experts believe that a person can be assessed for alcohol-related dementia while they are still drinking, as long as they are not intoxicated at the time of the assessment. I, therefore, call on the Welsh Government to include alcohol-related dementia and brain damage in the action plan, and provide guidance to primary care about assessments of the condition. Diolch yn fawr.

Dementia is such a cruel disease. It robs people of memories, but crueller still, it can isolate a person from the ones who love them most in the world. It doesn’t so much ensnare a sufferer as estranger them, taking away that person’s sense of feeling safe with the people they've been surrounded by their entire life. And as such, dementia is so desperately difficult for the families of a person who’s going through it, because they sometimes have to grieve for someone who is still sitting in front of them, to mourn the loss of someone they see or speak to every day.

My grandma Doreen had dementia. She lived to be 100 years old, but in her final years we watched her slip away, piece by piece. First it was the recipes she'd known like the back of her hand. She'd suddenly start to leave things out. She'd make Welsh cakes, which had been her triumph—they were the best of any Welsh cakes I'd ever tasted. But all of a sudden, she’d forget to add the sugar, or she'd leave them on the baking stone

leave them on the baking stone a moment too long until they caught. That was one of the first signs.

And my grandma loved to walk. When my sister and I were little, we'd go for long walks over Nelson mountain or to Llanfabon to pick blackberries or to have picnics with my grandma and gransha. But towards the end, she'd go walking on uneven paths on her own, without any sense of danger that she might fall. When we'd find her, she'd tell us she couldn't say why she'd been out or where she'd been going.

The cruellest thing about dementia is how bewildering it is for the person going through it. My parents would visit my grandma. They'd call her multiple times each day. But she'd forget that they'd been. She'd think that they'd forgotten her. I remember her calling my parents' house one day, and I'd answered the phone, and she'd asked me, 'Why is it that I can't do all the things I used to do?' and she wished that she could walk and walk. She'd get frustrated and she'd be lonely, and she couldn't understand why it was happening.

Now, this story of this, version of this story, Dirprwy Lywydd, they will be affecting thousands of families this winter. People at different stages of this terrible journey, this brutal way of seeing someone you love leave you behind. The diagnosis rates for dementia, we've heard, are still stubbornly low. In Aneurin Bevan, the diagnosis rate is 60.4 per cent, and there is still no dementia plan for Gwent. That has to change. Research has to be improved into this cruel captor, this condition that causes the people we know most dearly to be strangers to us, to feel we've lost someone who is still there.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm aware that I've spoken about some of the saddest parts of my grandma's life, but I want to tell you as well how good your life was, how much her life, the lives of all those thousands of people who have dementia—they are worth celebrating. Their lives—they matter.

But even though my grandma was robbed so cruelly of so many things by dementia, even at the end, she loved to sing. She sang on her one-hundredth birthday. She sang both of her favourite song: 'Danny Boy' and 'Mother Machree'. Now, when we last had this debate about dementia in the Senedd, I quoted a verse of 'Mother Machree' because the lyrics remind me so much of her, and I hope, Dirprwy Lywydd, you'll allow me to quote them again, because I never get to hear the song anymore:

'There's a place in my mem'ry, / My life, that you fill, / No other can take it, / No one ever will. / Sure, I love the dear silver / That shines in your hair, / And the brow that's all furrowed, / And wrinkled with care. / I kiss the dear fingers, / So toil-worn for me, / Oh, God bless you and keep you, / Mother Machree.'

I'm very pleased to take part in this important debate today, affecting so many people. As we've heard, around one in three people are now developing dementia during their lifetime, with significant increases predicted in years to come, and with that low diagnosis rate meaning that so many people who are affected and their families are not getting access to the help and support they need making it crystal clear why we need an awareness campaign that would help address those issues, and also of course help with the continuing problems around stigma. And data, of course, is also an issue with regard to dementia, just as it is for many other health conditions.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I recently attended a Newport dementia local voice forum and heard some very powerful first-hand testaments to the problems and the issues that exist, and indeed some of the potential solutions. Prominent amongst those experiences was older people caring for partners or other family members with dementia, and just how difficult it was for those carers and the impact it had on their own health. It took a huge toll on their health and well-being.

on their health and well-being. And the forum felt that there needs to be a statutory community care system in place for people and families who are in that particular situation. And they also felt that the lack of information and accessible information is such a problem for families who are supporting loved ones with the condition. And there was interest in the Dementia Connector scheme, but a lack of awareness, really, in terms of exactly how that works, what happens if a family is unable to contact a connector in their own particular area, and what alternative pathways are in place, and a need for clarity around that. And also concern that, even where training is in place for professional care workers with regard to dementia, it's not always followed up through refresher courses so that skills and knowledge are kept absolutely up to date. 

But there was some appreciation, Dirprwy Lywydd, of a scheme by Gwent Police, called the Herbert Protocol, where carers, families, friends of people with dementia can complete online forms so that police have details and descriptions of people living with the condition in the locality. And then of course, if people do go missing or are seen in an environment where they are potentially at risk, police and other services are better positioned and able to help them. So, there was interest in whether other police forces across Wales might look at the Gwent example and perhaps replicate it. 

Dirprwy Lywydd, it's very important that we have this debate today because it is so cruel, as we've heard, and it does affect so many people. I know that Welsh Government and the relevant Ministers understand this, and I look forward to hearing what new steps might be taken to deal with the issues that are common, I think, in many of the contributions that we've heard today.

This evening, we've heard from a number of Members and have been reminded by a number of Members that dementia is the leading cause of death in the UK and one of the most pressing health and social care challenges facing Wales. Now, it's a condition that many people fear and, as chair of the cross-party group on dementia, we've heard a lot of evidence around the profound impact on mental health that this disease can have, not just on those disagnosed but on their families and carers. It's a condition with escalating costs and few treatment options, which makes timely and accurate diagnosis absolutely essential. Early diagnosis not only helps to identify those at greatest risk, but also ensures that they and their families can access the care and support they need to face this journey with dignity and hope. 

Each case and each type, whether that's Alzheimer's or Lewy body dementia, presents different care needs. And so the benefits of an early diagnosis are significant. For the person living with dementia, it can provide clarity, explaining the symptoms and changes they are experiencing, and an opportunity to make sense of what is happening. It ends the uncertainty and allows them to take proactive steps to manage their condition. With the right support in place following a diagnosis, people can maintain their independence and enjoy a good quality of life for longer. A diagnosis is not the end of the road. You can still have a fulfilling life.

Early diagnosis also supports families and carers. It gives them time to adjust to the changes that dementia can bring, both in terms of the condition itself and their evolving role as care givers. However, we cannot overlook the challenges in ensuring that everyone benefits from early diagnosis and support. One key issue is the lack of regularly collected and published dementia diagnosis data. Wales remains the only UK nation where this data is not routinely available. This is a significant gap. Data is critical for understanding the true scale of dementia for planning services effectively and for providing targeted support in areas where it is most needed.

Now, the Welsh Government has previously made commitments in this area, but has missed critical deadlines. For example, let me take you back to September 2021. I tabled a motion, supported by the Senedd, calling on the Welsh Government to establish a data observatory. Progress has been slow. In response to a written question I tabled in September 2023,

September 2023, the Government promised to provide a timeline for the publication of national dementia diagnosis data through an oral statement in November 2023. Unfortunately, this timeline has not been kept to. A written statement on the implementation of the dementia action plan promised in January 2024 was due in May, but that never materialised. These missed commitments are concerning. They raise questions about the seriousness given to dementia within the Government's broader health and care agenda. Families living with dementia cannot afford delays, they need clarity, support and an assurance that their needs are being addressed.

Dirprwy Lywydd, dementia touches us all, directly or indirectly. A number of Members today have talked above their own experiences with dementia. It has touched many people in this Chamber, myself included. It is vital that we respond with compassion, urgency and a firm commitment to do things better for everyone affected by this life-changing condition.

Many of us here today will have been impacted by Alzheimer's, and I've been listening to many of the contributions so far, and, sadly, many of our constituents as well do go through this condition, with one in three people due to develop it in their lifetime. That's a stark statistic, as we all know dementia is the UK's biggest killer, yet Wales has the lowest diagnosis rate in the United Kingdom itself. It's clear to all that something needs to be done, particularly when it comes to diagnosing dementia and making it a genuine priority here in Wales. Improving dementia diagnosis rates would not only allow those affected to plan for a future, but it would also unlock care and support. Not only that, it would also ease the pressure on our health service too. As it stands, one in six hospital beds are indeed occupied by someone with dementia, but an early diagnosis would help people live independently at home and not just in hospitals.

I had the privilege of meeting with the Alzheimer's Society last week to discuss the condition and look at what can be done to improve it. We also discussed something that I'm particularly interested in, and I know, similarly, my colleague Mike Hedges mentioned it in his contribution. That was actually breaking down the barriers to healthcare for those whose first language is not English. Language has indeed been identified as a significant barrier for people from ethnic minority communities from engaging with care services. A general practice report study from 2023 identified that continuity of care was lower for all ethnic minority groups compared with their white British counterparts. For example, some older people from ethnic minority communities may be less likely to speak English, or use English, as their dementia progresses. Instead, they will indeed resort back to their mother tongue, so it is vital that there is equitable provision for people in their preferred language. Tackling this issue and stigma is also incredibly important, because stigma reduces the likelihood that people living with dementia will indeed get a diagnosis.

In an Alzheimer's Society survey, when asked how people felt living with symptoms of dementia, 43 per cent of respondents said that they actually did feel stigmatised; 25 per cent said that they felt ashamed; and 44 per cent actually said that they were afraid. Not only that, but almost a third of practice nurses cited stigma and denial as a barrier to referral and diagnosis, and one in six GPs were likely to refer patients for diagnosis because of misperceptions about the benefits of a diagnosis, according to another survey.

Deputy Presiding Officer, all of this just reinforces the need for us to tackle the issue of stigma as a matter of urgency, and there are ways to do that. The Alzheimer's Society is calling for a public awareness campaign on the benefits of dementia diagnosis and what it can, indeed, bring to raise awareness of dementia symptoms overall for everyone out there. The charity also wants to see continuing professional development for clinicians and dementia-friendly communities, which I'm proud to say is something Newport in my region of south-east Wales is working towards. Those are simply my three asks and have my full, undivided support, and I can't imagine anyone here in the Chamber today would, indeed, disagree with them. I really, truly hope that the Welsh Government takes them on board and makes them work by making diagnosing dementia a priority. Thank you.

Dirprwy Lywydd, thank you for the chance to respond to this debate and update Members about our work to support people living with dementia in Wales. I truly recognise the impact that a diagnosis of dementia can have on individuals' families and loved ones, and I am committed to improving the care and support available.

The amendment we have tabled to today's motion reflects the work we have undertaken to date and our ambition to further strengthen