National Assembly for Wales

Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon's Plenary meeting. The first item will be questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, and the first question is from Carolyn Thomas.

Thank you, Carolyn. The Welsh Government has commissioned independent research into refuge provision and the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 to ensure that all voices on this important issue are heard. This sits alongside the wider renting homes evaluation project. These projects are nearing completion, and I will consider their findings in detail when published.

During consultation, Welsh Women's Aid highlighted concerns such as there being a number of women who reside in refuges over six months, mostly due to the lack of appropriate move-on accommodation, and, therefore, who would be provided with the supported standard contract, which exacerbates issues such as bedblocking. This has a knock-on effect on financing, administration and, most importantly, safeguarding. How has research progressed in determining the impact of the changes on emergency refuge provision?

Diolch, Carolyn. I understand the concerns being raised by Welsh Women's Aid, and my officials have already engaged extensively with them. But there is already significant scope to manage a supported standard contract in ways that do not apply to other renting home contracts. It's vital to ensure that the legislation is working to protect the interests of abuse survivors and to recognise the vital role refuges play in that. Independent evaluation of the Act exploring any impact on the refuge sector has been commissioned. This is nearing its final stages and, as I said, it's due to be published before the summer and I'll consider those findings then in detail and assess whether any further action needs to be taken.

Diolch, Vaughan. I am continuing to work closely with the UK Government on leasehold reform. I welcome the recently published White Paper, which sets out the UK Government’s vision for how commonhold could in future provide the viable alternative to leasehold in England and Wales that it always was intended to be.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Following my short debate on leasehold reform, I note that officers are arranging a more detailed follow-up meeting. I do welcome, though, your recent written statement on commencing provisions on the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, relating to enfranchisement and the right to manage. I remain interested in how the Welsh Government is working on proposals for Wales to reform leasehold, especially estate management fees and controls, ground rents and the window of opportunity that does exist to work with the UK Government following the White Paper on commonhold. Cabinet Secretary, can you tell me when you envisage being able to provide a further update on progress towards commonhold as a replacement for the iniquities of the current leasehold system and what you’re able to do to make sure that current leaseholders are aware of their changed rights given the continuing implementation of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024?

Diolch, Vaughan. Our current focus is on implementing the 2024 Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act. This will bring many beneficial changes to leaseholders, including, to name but few, better rights to extend their lease or purchase their freehold, increasing transparency of service charges, scrapping the presumption that leaseholders will always pay their landlord's legal fees when challenging poor practice, and banning the use of leasehold for new houses. The Act also includes important new rights for freeholders on managed estates to challenge the reasonableness of charges and to apply to a tribunal to appoint a suitable manager to oversee the provision of services instead of an estate management company.

Implementation of the Act depends on the passage of a significant programme of subordinate legislation both by Welsh Ministers and the Secretary of State, much of which will require further consultation. As I know the Member will know, this area is complex and highly technical, so we need to ensure that we do get the details right. The UK Government have announced that they will publish a draft leasehold and commonhold reform Bill in the second half of this year. This will implement the changes to commonhold set out in the recently published White Paper, as well as reform the outdated, unfair system of leasehold forfeiture, and address ground rents in existing leases. I can give you a commitment that I am exploring the opportunities open to us to make progress on these issues, where possible, with the UK Government in order to benefit those ambitious reforms here in Wales. I know our offices are arranging that meeting, and I look forward to discussing in more detail your ideas and concerns around this as well.

I've long campaigned against the injustices of leasehold properties, so of course I welcome the move to ending the outdated leasehold system and making commonhold the default tenure for new flats and properties. Thanks to the previous UK Conservative Government for introducing these reforms. These will give homeowners greater control over their properties, as well as putting an end to unfair practices and expensive costs imposed by third party landlords. One of the main challenges with a leasehold property is the escalating ground rent, insurance costs and management costs. Currently in Wales, it is estimated that 160,000 leaseholders pay ground rent. Until this reform is in place, they will continue to be subject to these disproportionate and unreasonable costs. On top of this, people living in leasehold properties have to deal with expensive service charges and other charges that can be put upon them at any time. Will the Cabinet Secretary confirm how you are going to take this forward now in Wales? Really, this was raised before the UK Conservative Government actually brought in the reforms here, so it is vital that you actually really do get ahead of the game. We've too many leaseholders in Wales who are really suffering. Diolch.

Diolch, Janet. As I said in my answer to Vaughan Gething, I'm really keen to explore the potential merit of these further reforms for Wales and have discussed my interest in working together on these important reforms, where appropriate, with the current UK Government Minister, Matthew Pennycook. I'm pleased that both his statement to Parliament in November and his foreword in the White Paper both acknowledge and reinforce the UK Government's appetite for working together to implement the important changes for the 2024 Act and towards future reform. So, I can assure the Member and the Senedd that I'm keen to explore those. You pointed to a number of areas where I think this will really benefit people here in Wales.

I now call on the party spokespeople. Firstly, the Conservative spokesperson, Altaf Hussain.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. On 5 March, the Local Government and Housing Committee, of which I was a member, inquiry into the role, governance and accountability of the community and town councils sector published its report. The committee recommended that the Welsh Government should work with local government to explore mechanisms to enable the town and community council sector to access support from local authority monitoring officers and HR services. What will the Welsh Government do to support struggling clerks to be better protected from bullying and harassment by town and community councillors?

Diolch, Altaf. Thank you for the work that the local government committee has done on that piece of work in terms of town and community councils. It's really important, and it's an important part of the work that's gone, not just—. We've had a report also from other organisations who are looking into this. In that committee, where I gave evidence, one of the lines of questioning was on abuse, which is really, really important. And I think I'll just take the opportunity to say again, as I'm sure you will, Altaf, that there is no space in any of our town and community councils for any elected member or officer to face abuse. There are, obviously, opportunities for people to have training on that, and also to be able to speak out, which is really, really important.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The Welsh Government set an initial target of building 20,000 new homes for social rent by 2026. Evidently, you have utterly failed to deliver enough social housing, building under 9,000 homes, which is less than half your target. As a result of the consistent lack of social housing in Wales to meet demand, homelessness has surged, with the number of households in temporary accommodation having increased by 75 per cent, from 3,729 to 6,447 households between 2021 and 2024. How does the Cabinet Secretary propose solving this national social housing crisis?

Diolch, Altaf. I think you highlighted some of the numbers there in terms of affordable homes. We know we need to build more homes. I can assure you that my focus is very much on building more homes here in Wales—more affordable homes. And we have a number of tools to do that with. I think it’s really important to remember that, this Senedd term, we have invested over £1.4 billion, with planned investment expected to take that to over £1.9 billion in social housing across Wales. So, that money is going into the system, and we are seeing that really take hold. We’ve got a record annual budget of £411 million for social housing in the next financial year, and that’s an additional £81 million compared to this year. So, there’s a lot going on. We’ve had some record-breaking years of building houses. We know, though, it costs more now to build a home than it did before the pandemic, when the target was first set. We know we have those challenges, but I can assure you that I, and the sector as a whole as well, are really, really committed to this, because one of the issues around the points you see around housing is the importance of supply. We have too many people in temporary accommodation, and we need to really focus on that, but we’ve got to do that with our supply as well. So, I can assure the Member and the Senedd that we are really, really focused on this.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Almost half of households are currently living in fuel poverty within Wales. According to the Bevan Foundation, it will take 136 years to eradicate fuel poverty at the current rate of delivery from the Warm Homes programme. It took the Welsh Government 20 years to help just 73,000 households. In just one day, their colleagues in Westminster removed vital fuel support from 0.5 million people in Wales by removing the winter fuel payment, undoing years of work by the Welsh Government. That’s nearly 30,000 households just in Swansea. Does the Cabinet Secretary agree with me that the UK Government has destroyed efforts to tackle fuel poverty in Wales? Will she consider restoring a Welsh winter fuel allowance, as proposed by the Welsh Conservatives?

Diolch, Altaf. But I really do think that you’d have to—I think we’re all listening to what the Tories did here—think about what the UK Tory Government did last time, and it’s really, really hard to hear the word ‘destroyed’, because I think many people will have something to say about that and about some of the systems that were in place over 14 years of really, really difficult, challenging times.

I can tell you what we’re doing here. We’ve invested more than £30 million this year in the new Warm Homes Nest scheme to reduce the number of low-income households living in cold and damp homes. This scheme takes a fabric worst and low-carbon first approach to improving long-term energy efficiency in the least thermally efficient low-income households in Wales. It takes a two-pronged approach, through an advice service and through physically improving the homes of the fuel poor. And I think it’s really important that we have that advice service, which is independent as well, so it can be trusted by people in Wales, which I think is really important. But we are investing in this, and we’re trying to do it in a way that is sustainable for the future as well.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Speaking to local authority leaders across Wales, the local government settlement handed down to councils throughout Wales has simply not been sufficient. As a result, we are now seeing some very painful cuts being made or proposed, which will have wide and far-reaching consequences for our communities. The news from Labour in Westminster today confirms that austerity is here to stay.

More locally, Caerphilly County Borough Council’s plans to increase pitch hire fees by 75 per cent is an example of these devastating decisions. Indeed, a petition has been started to oppose this, with over 5,000 people signing it already. This proposal, if enacted, will ravage grass-roots teams at all ages across a wide range of sports. Those fees will have to be passed on by the clubs that use the council pitches, and many players or parents of players will be unable to afford increased subs and will have no choice but to withdraw from sport. With increased council tax bills landing on the doormats of houses this week, it’s a double whammy for those households. Make no mistake, some of the teams will fold as a result of this, sports will become the preserve of those with disposable income. Are you comfortable with that sort of thing happening as a result of Labour’s budgets in Westminster and Wales? And what kinds of conversations are you having with local authorities to alleviate that situation?

Diolch, Peredur. As you’ve heard me say, and my colleagues say as well, whilst we’ve had one of the best settlements under devolution, one budget isn’t going to change what we’ve been through for the last 14 years. I think that all local authorities understand that. They have had to make really, really difficult decisions. I speak to local authority leaders, chief executives and members very regularly. I go out and about to speak to them, to hear from them directly, which I think is really important, and I’m really grateful for all the work they’re doing and the honesty that they give and tell me what they’re experiencing as well. This is something that is a matter for local authorities themselves through their democratic processes, in terms of their consultation and the difficult decisions that they will still have to make. But let’s be clear that, before the settlement that we were able to pass on to local authorities this year, local authorities would have been expecting a flat cash settlement if we hadn’t had a UK Labour Government, and I think that’s a really important message.

Thank you very much for that response.

If that wasn't bad enough, though, we are seeing leisure centre closures proposed across Wales. For example, in my region, two local authority leisure centres in Pontllanfraith and Cefn Fforest are facing closure. Denying our communities access to affordable sports will have grave consequences for the preventative health agenda over the longer term. It is going to exacerbate the growing problems our nation has with obesity and associated health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes. It’ll also have short-term consequences for mental health and well-being, services that are chronically underfunded already, without added strain.

The Government’s priority should be to improve the health-related benefits system over the short term. Punitive cuts will push more people into poverty, especially disabled people. The cruel cuts announced to welfare will be disproportionately felt in Wales, as the nation has higher rates of disabled people of working age than the UK average. Five of the UK’s 10 local authorities with the highest rates of economic inactivity because of long-term illness are here in Wales. Has this Government worked with local authorities to undertake an impact assessment of what the nation’s health will look like with a reduction in community leisure services, and would it be a good idea if it hasn’t done so already?

Diolch, Peredur. I know that leisure centres are important community assets and that people feel very passionately about them, as we all do. I know that in my own area, where we’re seeing one being built—actually a redoing of the old leisure centre—but I do appreciate that local authorities have had to make some really, really difficult decisions, as I’ve said. And you’re quite right that it’s important with the preventative agenda in terms of the health and well-being of our people here in Wales.

I think in terms of the benefits that you raised and the changes that are being put forward at a UK level, we are continuing our dialogue with the UK Government on the nature and scope of the proposed reforms of the sickness and disability benefit system. We have asked for an impact assessment to be done for the people of Wales, and we're continuing our discussions on the role and reform of the benefits system with the UK Government's Department for Work and Pensions at the four nations inter-ministerial meetings.

Diolch yn fawr. Yesterday, we talked about and you had a statement on the fire service, and looking internally at the fire service. I’d like to look at something that is affecting the fire service at the moment. We’re in the midst of the dreaded grass-fire season, when firefighters risk their lives and communities are endangered due to the mindless actions of a minority. Over the recent weekend, firefighters dealt with 70 incidents in places like Rhiwderin, Caerphilly and Pen-rhys. Often, these fires are very difficult to control and if a strong breeze picks up they move faster than an adult can run. How is this Government ensuring that firefighters have the resources to combat grass fires? And also, what efforts are the Government making to ensure that the public are educated about the dangers of grass fires, in a bid to deter the culprits behind them? 

Diolch, Peredur. Absolutely. It’s really worrying when we see these grass fires, and how quickly they take hold, I think, is quite incredible. The fire service do some work with young people in terms of raising awareness. I know that is something that they do, and I can make sure that’s shared with all Members here as well, to make sure they’re aware of all of that. I think it’s important that we do send a message to the public about how dangerous these fires are and how they can, as I say, rip through the land very quickly and become a danger to property and often life. I do have regular meetings with the Fire Brigades Union, the other unions involved, and also the chiefs and chairs of the fire and rescue services across Wales. We have a partnership forum meeting as well, so that is something that I can make sure is raised as well, and perhaps is one of our next agenda items.

Diolch, Mike. Swansea’s three-year social housing grant programme is fully committed with grant funding supporting the delivery of 730 new homes. I am pleased Swansea’s allocation for 2024-25 is over £26 million, which is a £3 million increase when compared to 2023-24, and this is delivering vital homes in the city.

Can I thank you for that answer? But there is a desperate need for social housing in Swansea. People needing social housing is now the largest reason for constituents contacting me, and many of those contacts are very sad; many are desperate. Swansea council is building council houses, but are unable to replicate the numbers built in the 1950s and 1960s. I’m speaking as someone who was a lucky recipient in moving into a 1960s council house. What discussion has the Cabinet Secretary had with the Westminster Government to allow borrowing for council housing developments to not count against the public sector borrowing requirement in the same way as financial transactions capital does not? There is a saleable asset against the borrowing so it balances, and there’s an income stream against it to pay what is effectively a mortgage for the properties. We desperately need to start building houses at the level of the 1950s and 1960s, and that would mean building thousands.

Diolch, Mike. As I said earlier, the Government's providing record levels of investment in social housing across Wales during this Senedd term, with that planned investment of over £1.9 billion. But, as I said, we still need to build more homes; I’m in no doubt about that. I was able to announce an additional £10 million this financial year to help kick-start the development of 16 new affordable housing schemes, which will lead to 238 new homes being built before the end of this Senedd term, and that’s including 30 homes at Brunel Wood in Swansea.

We are providing, as I say, those record levels of investment. There are no direct controls on the amount of borrowing local authorities can undertake. Borrowing decisions are made within the prudential framework for capital finance. However, the UK Government has a target for public sector net financial liabilities to be falling as a percentage of GDP by 2029-30. As this measure of debt covers the whole of the public sector, local authority borrowing does contribute to it. So, those discussions have been had. But, as I said, there’s a lot of progress that we are making in Swansea, but there is still a long way to go as well. 

We've just heard from Altaf Hussain that the Welsh Government obviously has a target of 20,000 social homes to be built across this Senedd term, but isn't even halfway there yet with a year to go until the elections; just 9,000 of those have been built so far. And quite unbelievably, I don't think the Welsh Government appreciates the scale of the challenge that's ahead of it to achieve that target because, unbelievably, I just heard the Minister mention a project for 13 homes in Swansea, which is nowhere near scratching the surface in terms of what's needed in terms of the number of social homes that need to be built across Wales.

Now, what I think is very important here is that we understand exactly the role of the former Minister Lee Waters, who's been drafted in to help you reach this target. I know that the way the Welsh Government is performing at the moment on all fronts needs all the help it can get, but it's not very clear exactly what it is that Lee Waters is doing chairing— 

May I remind the Member that the question is specifically about Swansea? 

Yes, social housing in Swansea, absolutely, and we need to reach those targets across Wales, including in Swansea. So, can we understand exactly what it is that Lee Waters does? Because when my colleague Paul Davies asked yesterday, the Minister for Delivery said that he was not an expert, but a convenor. So, based on you being unable to reach that target so far across Wales, including in Swansea, what exactly is he convening? 

Diolch, Tom, and I'd just like to clarify as well in response to Mike Hedges' first question, as I said, Swansea's three-year social housing grant is fully committed, with grant funding supporting the delivery of 730 new homes and the allocation that they've had is over £26 million, which is a £3 million increase when compared to 2023-24. The project in Brunel Wood was because of an additional £10 million this financial year with 30 homes. That is not the only thing that we are doing in Swansea. I can say that in Swansea East, Riverside Wharf will see another 104 new homes for social rent and Brondeg House will see a development of 13 new homes. There are these things happening.

I'm very clear that we do need to build more homes. That is the focus of this Government; it's part of the First Minister's priorities as well. I've said that I've been able to put that extra money in. I've also been able to announce a £90 million low-interest loan for registered social landlords as well. So, there are lots of things happening in this area. One of those tools is the taskforce. That's not the only thing that's happening in this area; that's one of them. Lee Waters is leading and convening that group of people who are experts in their area. He has brought those together and they will be reporting shortly. A number of those people have expertise in this area, whether it's local government, whether it's from RSLs and others, and I think that is what they've been looking at, really trying to add value. And I look forward to receiving their recommendations next month, which obviously will be published and I'll make sure it's shared with Members.      

Luke Fletcher. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I appreciate you allowing me in at late notice. Of course, we have this target for social housing and going through the process of building houses from scratch can be a very long process. One thing I'm interested in understanding, in the case of Swansea and outside of Swansea, is how the Government is looking at how we may be able to make it easier for local authorities to convert commercial properties into residential properties. For example, there are plenty of spaces out there above shops, multiple floors that would be ideal for one-bed and two-bed flats where we know we have a shortage of those particular residential needs. So, is there any scope from the Government's perspective to use some of this funding available for construction of social housing potentially to convert some of those commercial properties into residential properties for social housing?

Diolch, Luke, and this is something I was actually discussing with a local authority yesterday when we were looking at properties above shops, and I think we've seen it work really well in some areas. There's still a lot more that I think we can do with that. It is very much part of what we're looking at. Just to say in terms of the empty homes grant that we have, Swansea's had 102 valid applications for the empty homes grant; 31 are approved, not yet completed; and 19 have been completed, so that's, again, a grant bringing vital homes back into use. So, we've got a number of ways to do that, and be assured that looking at empty properties above shops is very much part of that.

Diolch, Rhys. Reforming leasehold is a priority for this Government. We're working with the UK Government on these reforms, and our joint approach has already improved leaseholders’ rights. We're now working to implement the 2024 Act, including improvements to service charge transparency, allowing leaseholders to better scrutinise and challenge unfair costs.

Diolch yn fawr, Ysgrifennydd y Cabinet. You'll know that we receive countless e-mails from Victoria Wharf—you and your officials are copied into these e-mails—about the raised costs that Victoria Wharf residents are facing with regard to their service costs. Taylor Wimpey had promised these leaseholders that they would cover the increase in insurance costs due to the remedial work there. That hasn't happened; they've reneged on their promise, and I'm told that leaseholders were made to pay £25,000 with next to no notice at all. The increased financial burden is taking a huge toll on them. People are breaking down in tears in meetings. People feel trapped. People are in despair. This is far more than just a cladding issue. The leasehold system, as has been raised here before, belongs to history and is just fundamentally unfair and unjust. In fairness, residents praise your work and the work of your officials, but they really are at the end of their tether. I am worried that something will happen to one of these residents. Will you and your officials meet with some of the residents in Victoria Wharf, so you can better understand their situation? Diolch yn fawr.

Diolch yn fawr, Rhys. I've seen reports in the news about the high service charges that your constituents have been grappling with, and the problems and distress that this has caused them. Our work to reform leasehold will help in situations such as these, by giving leaseholders access to more information about their charges, making it easier to challenge charges if they are unreasonable. As I said, we're working closely with the UK Government on the programme of work required to commence the 2024 Act, to ensure that the benefits it will bring will be felt here in Wales as soon as possible.

In terms of FirstPort, I met with managing agents, which included FirstPort, back in November, where I did urge them to act with full transparency and in the best interests of residents and leaseholders. I'll be meeting them again in the coming months, quite shortly, to impress upon them the urgency of progressing that work. Perhaps you could write to me in the first instance and we will follow that up in terms of the request.

Question 5, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Which question?

Question 5.

Oh, right. I had a supplementary on question 4.

I called you for question 5.

So, I've missed the supplementary. 

We're on question 5. 

I know, but I had a supplementary—

Janet, question 5, please.

Diolch, Janet. Housing associations allocate housing based on the local allocations policy agreed with Conwy council. All local authorities are required to have a policy setting out how they intend to allocate housing, which should be published to ensure people in housing need are made aware of the services available to them.

Of course, over the years, I've had to raise many times here the amount of spend in my own authority on temporary accommodation—over £4 million a year. We've got nearly 400 individuals currently living in temporary accommodation, and that can be hotels, bedsits, caravans. I've also raised that there are approximately 750 accommodation units over three sites owned by the Betsi Cadwaladr health board, at the Maelor, Ysbyty Gwynedd and Glan Clwyd. Most of these properties are uninhabitable, and I've been trying to work with housing associations to get all of this stock, so it can provide accommodation for nurses, junior doctors, or residents who are stuck in hotel rooms at the moment. It hasn't happened.

Recently, you'll be aware there's been an article where some nurses have been provided now with new homes, rather than locals who have been on temporary housing accommodation lists and the homeless. It just seems madness to me that you've got the chief exec and chair of the health board wanting to go ahead with the scheme, and also the registered social landlords. Will you please intervene in this project so we can get these 750 units back up to a housing quality standard and they can become viable homes for people to live in?

Diolch, Janet. Under the Housing Act 1996, local authorities are required to have an allocation scheme for determining priorities in allocated housing and each local authority should have its own published allocations policy available to local people to access.

In terms of the schemes that you raised, I would be very happy if you wrote to me, in the first instance, around that. I'm really interested in where there is public sector land that we can look at to build and seeing how I can help unlock some of that. So, I'd be really grateful if you could write to me, in the first instance, on that, Janet.

Diolch, Alun. The new Welsh housing quality standard requires social landlords to submit property-level data against each of the criteria on an annual basis. We will be publishing the first headline report on the new standard in autumn 2025.

I'm grateful to the Cabinet Secretary for that response. Visiting constituents over the last few weeks, I've been genuinely shocked at the quality of homes that people are expected to live in in some instances in my constituency. It's clear to me that whatever regulatory environment the Welsh Government has in place, it's not delivering for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people that I represent in Blaenau Gwent. We need to ensure that there is a consistency of quality standard offered by social landlords and the Welsh Government is actively and proactively ensuring that those standards are met.

I will be meeting a group of people tomorrow in my constituency who are living in homes where that quality standard is simply not being met. It is not fair that they, their families and young children are being brought up in homes that are simply not meeting any of our quality standards. I would ask the Cabinet Secretary if she would like to visit Blaenau Gwent—she would be very welcome to do that—but also to ensure that we have a regulatory environment in place that ensures that the standard is met consistently.

Absolutely. Thank you for that, and I hope it goes well with your constituents tomorrow. I would be very happy, as I always am, to come and visit Blaenau Gwent.

In October 2023, we introduced that new standard. It saw the biggest changes to the housing standards for existing social homes in more than 20 years, to better reflect changes in the way people live and work and feel about their home. We've got a reporting of the standard now that addresses the concerns that were raised with the previous terminology of 'acceptable fails'. Homes are now going to be categorised as either passing the standard, receiving a conditional pass for items such as heritage and conservation reasons, a temporary fail, such as a tenant refusal or improvement work programmed in, and finally, a failure to meet the standard. The Welsh Government has committed £192 million of grant funding this financial year to social landlords towards the cost of achieving this standard. We know that there is a lot to do within this area, but it is really important that, as you said, people have the quality accommodation that they should expect here in Wales.

Cabinet Secretary, I'm really grateful for what you've just said. We are all supportive of the need to have minimum standards when it comes to publicly provided housing. The Welsh housing quality standard 2023 updated previous quality standards, but with vague requirements, such as a need for an attractive outdoor space and a property that is comfortable and promotes well-being. Cabinet Secretary, what does that even mean? The Bevan Foundation's report called 'Nowhere to call home: The shortage of social and community homes' highlights that social landlords are making the difficult decision to sell homes due to the cost of meeting the new quality standards. At a time when we can all appreciate that social housing stock can ill afford to be lost, how does the Welsh Government intend to balance the demands of meeting these idealistic quality standards whilst increasing the number of homes available for families to rent?

I don't think it's idealistic at all. If you haven't had chance to see some of those new homes that are being built, I'd really recommend going to have a look at some of them to see how they are being built as homes fit for the future, such as having wider staircases, so that if, in the future, you have to have a stairlift put in, that is acceptable; having storage in your back garden, so having a shed is really important for people to be able to store items outside; and having a decent size garden as well. So, I would really recommend the Member having a look at some of those properties.

We will continue to work with the sector to explore viable funding solutions; it has been raised. We do need to foster across the sector a recognition that Government funding alone is not going to be enough to fully fund the challenge of decarbonisation, while recognising that grant funding must be part of the solution. The first step is to understand what the challenge is, and that's about having a real stock update on what that might mean. So, that's what the sector should be focused on at the moment. But I can assure the Member that we continue to work with the sector to explore those viable funding solutions.

The delivery of the Welsh housing quality standard is having some unintended consequences. I've been campaigning with local councillors in Caerphilly, including Lindsay Whittle, Steve Skivens and Greg Ead, for more flexibility in how long it takes to turn properties around when they're controlled by the council. A freedom of information request revealed it took an average of 218 days to rent out an empty house in the borough, with an average of almost £10,000 spent on renovation works. They also discovered that on 13 December last year, 358 homes were vacant. Obviously, I agree completely, we need housing to be of a high, decent standard. At the same time, we can't leave vulnerable people sofa surfing or staying in unsafe temporary accommodation while they're waiting for houses to be available. Lots of the work that's undertaken is cosmetic in nature; it could be done while people are living in the house. So, could the Government look at introducing more flexibility in that kind of way to stop this from happening, please?

Diolch, Delyth. I think it's really important, as I said in response to Alun Davies, to have good quality homes for people. We're talking about 'fit for human habitation' in terms of the standard, and I think that we really should be clear about that. There is flexibility within the system, and I do speak to RSLs and local authorities who often raise some of these issues, and my plea is to basically tell me what those properties are, because I understand from officials that there is flexibility within the system. If that is not the case, please let me know; I'd be really keen to see some examples. The examples I have seen have actually gone on to become homes, so it is working. Sometimes, it takes a bit longer than I would like, and I'm sure you would like as well, but I just put that to you, Delyth, and to other Members: if there are properties that you think have been turned down, please let me know.

Diolch, Mabon. I have regular discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning on a wide range of housing matters. We have no current plans to amend TAN 6.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for that response. A number of constituents in my constituency, and indeed across rural Wales, have converted agricultural buildings to be holiday accommodation, and because of TAN 6 rules, the conditions on these buildings limit them for business use only. I understand the rationale of the rule originally, in order to promote innovation and economic activity in rural areas, and that is something that I welcome, but when these homes come up for sale, they can't be bought as houses for families. We have a young couple who are trying to move back to their own areas in Eifionydd, and are eager to purchase a house in one of the villages there, but there is a condition on the property that prevents them from purchasing it because it had previously been under agricultural use. Do you think, given the housing crisis that we're facing, that we need some flexibility on this condition, and will you look into this once again in order to increase the housing stock in rural areas?

Diolch, Mabon. Rural communities should have sufficient good-quality housing, including affordable housing for local needs. 'Planning Policy Wales' and TAN 6 already state that planning authorities should seek to maximise the supply of affordable housing and work with delivery partners to achieve this. They set out policies that support a sustainable and vibrant rural community and economy. Welsh Government does recognise the need to increase the supply of affordable homes, as set out in 'Future Wales', and states that local planning authorities should explore all opportunities to achieve this. These policies are aimed at achieving vibrant rural areas with services to meet the needs of people living there. And I think that it is important to have a real focus as well on affordability in rural areas. If you'd like to write to me further on that as well, I'll look forward to perhaps sharing that with the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning.

I'm grateful to Mabon ap Gwynfor for pointing to TAN 6, because, of course, there are whole sections in TAN 6 around residential conversions, holiday conversions and farm diversification, which farms were asked to do to support those rural communities.

Cabinet Secretary, you'll know my views on the disastrous 182-day rule that this Government brought in, with support from Plaid Cymru, having a massive impact on our rural communities, because it's forcing those businesses, legitimate businesses, who don't quite meet that threshold, to pay significant levels of tax and therefore making them unviable businesses. So, whilst Mabon ap Gwynfor raised some important points, I guess one of the concerns might be the level of trust that these property owners may have in future changes from Welsh Government. So, will you commit today, Cabinet Secretary, in light of the guidance within TAN 6 and in light of some of the outcomes that are taking place as a result of the 182-day rule, to work with the Cabinet Secretary for economy, to review whether that 182-day rule is having such a negative impact on our rural communities and having an impact on the sustainability of some of those areas as well?

Diolch for that question, Sam. As I said, we have no current plans to amend TAN 6. I think you've raised some issues that I'm sure that we would be happy to get back to you on, if you want to put them also in writing. But I think that it's really important that we have an effective affordable housing plan for rural areas. 'Planning Policy Wales' requires each local planning authority to assess the need for such housing in their area and to set a target for its delivery in their LDP. Planning authorities are also required to develop housing policies to meet the challenges and particular circumstances evident in their areas, where they have the supporting evidence. I think that we do have a suite available to us at the moment, but I'm happy if you want to follow that up in writing, and I can share that with my Cabinet colleague.

And finally, question 8, Delyth Jewell.

Diolch, Delyth. Our priority is to protect human health and the wider environment from any pollution risks associated with legacy industrial sites. The existing regulatory framework places a duty on local authorities and Natural Resources Wales to identify, investigate and, where necessary, remediate contaminated sites wherever they are found.

I'm grateful for that answer—thank you very much—because we need to get to grips with this. Industry has shaped our landscapes in Wales, sometimes visibly, like with coal tips, but more hidden is that contamination that has seeped into the soil—the toxic sites left by landfill and chemical waste that was dumped by companies, sometimes decades ago. Tŷ Llwyd quarry in Caerphilly is one such site. But tracing those sites isn't always straightforward. A BBC investigation recently found that thousands of sites of suspected contamination have never been checked by local councils. Now, I know that councillors and campaigners near Tŷ Llwyd have long campaigned for increased monitoring, inspection and support. Surely we need a national policy to deal with this sinister legacy that's left by industry, because there is a risk to residents from sites where contamination is found. When it rains, pollution can be carried down the hills, into rivers and near people's homes. Our Valleys topography, the layout of the land, can leave us more exposed here. So, would you agree, please, with your colleagues, to a meeting to discuss this with me and other interested Members, about how we could tackle the situation nationally?

Diolch, Delyth, and thank you for that question. I can see my colleague the Deputy First Minister is here as well. We've both heard that and we can follow that up as well. Just to say that every local authority in Wales already has a duty to identify contaminated land within their areas. They're also required to keep a register of contaminated sites. You referred to Tŷ Llwyd in particular, and obviously in accordance with the legislation and statutory guidance issued by Welsh Ministers, Caerphilly County Borough Council has assessed Tŷ Llwyd to determine its regulatory status. Its preliminary conclusion, based on the outputs of its draft assessment, is that the site does not meet the definition of 'contaminated land', but Natural Resources Wales and Public Health Wales are currently reviewing that draft assessment, and the council will consider their feedback before a conclusion is made on the site's regulatory status. A remediation options appraisal has been produced by the council and some of its recommendations are currently being implemented to reduce the escape of particular chemicals during wet weather. To assist the council with this work, in December, my colleague the Deputy First Minister approved a capital grant of up to £775,000 during the 2024-25 financial year to assist the council with this urgent work to reduce off-site pollution incidents. Alongside this, NRW are also developing an environmental permit relating to those discharges, which will be issued to the council to further improve the site's future management and reduce off-site impacts. But I'm sure that both myself and my colleague would be happy to follow up on this.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary.

The next item will be the questions to the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs. The first question is from Lesley Griffiths. 

The Animal Welfare Act 2006 places a duty of care on owners and keepers of animals to meet their welfare needs. We are in regular contact with our counterparts in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to mitigate negative impacts of the UK Government’s ban and to keep a close eye on developments.

Thank you. It's now over a year since it became a criminal offence to own an XL bully dog without an exemption certificate, and whilst the ban was necessary for public safety after far too many tragic XL bully dog attacks, including fatal attacks, there was some concern about the impact that this would have, especially on the euthanasia of healthy dogs and also the abandonment of dogs. So, Cabinet Secretary, how many XL bully dogs with exemption certificates are there in Wales; how many have been euthanised since the legislation was brought in; how many are believed to be kept illegally; and what discussions have you had with the police regarding enforcement of the legislation?

Thank you very much, Lesley, and for your commitment on this as well. I can give you some of the data that you're seeking. We know that there were almost 3,000 applications for exemptions in Wales, and 16 applications for compensation as well. I don't have the figures on euthanasia, but perhaps I can come back to you. But you and I, and many others, will have visited some of the rescue centres and so on that were standing up their resources ready to actually deal with the implications of these significant figures here. And we also understand that some owners of seized dogs have also raised their concerns over making sure of the welfare of their animals, when they are taken in, that they're actually being looked after properly. But just to give you the confirmation, my officials are working very closely with the police and local authorities to ensure that they're doing the right thing and also that the welfare of the dogs isn't compromised, either, in this way forward. But that is a significant number of exemptions in Wales, and that will be repeated across England and Wales too. And we need to keep on working with the police, with the animal rescue and homing centres and so on, to make sure that we look after the implications of this and the welfare of the animals.

Thank you, Buffy. Our approach to tackling the climate emergency is led by evidence and is embedded right across the whole Cabinet. In every emissions sector, the relevant Cabinet Secretary is driving the actions needed and is ensuring that spending has the greatest impact in delivering our carbon budgets and reaching net zero by 2050.

Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Wales needs to focus on home-grown reliable green energy. I know some residents fear what a shift towards green energy might look like for their communities. Irresponsible calls from the UK Conservative leader that reaching net zero is impossible really doesn't help. But renewables don't have to mean covering fields with solar panels. It means projects like the Cambrian Lakeside hydro run by local resident Gareth Thomas, it means making homes greener with better insulation, heat pumps and rooftop solar—smart, sustainable and good for local communities. Housing association Beacon Cymru Group are already working with local colleges to ensure we have the green skills needed for the jobs these projects will create. How can the Welsh Government build on the leadership it has already shown to create more opportunities for young people and develop the workforce needed for proper green transition and reaching net zero? I'd like to invite you to the Rhondda to visit the Lakeside hydro scheme to see first-hand how projects like this can shape Wales's energy future.

Thank you very much, Buffy. And do you know, it's so right that you focus on the potential here, the opportunities for jobs and skills for young people—and all ages, actually—that arise from committing to that net-zero target, and then driving at it, and then the sort of community initiatives that you're talking about as well, where it's really embedded in the local community and the advantages and the benefits are seen right there. But building on the response I gave to you initially that this is a cross-Government piece of work, I can tell you that Welsh Government is investing £144 million this year in apprenticeships throughout Wales, and one focus on those is the development of net-zero skills, so in things such as infrastructure projects, decarbonisation of housing and regulatory requirements. We've also got really valuable partnerships with social landlords as well, and also with higher and further education facilities, so driving forward expertise in hubs in energy efficiency, small-scale renewable, energy, community energy, offering training to young people, and reskilling others who wish to take advantage of this green transition. And also my colleague the Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership is undertaking a review right now on green skills, alongside the Minister for Further and Higher Education. We want to grow this, including in construction and the built environment, as a sector that exemplifies core green skills.

And just finally, work is being done by the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning with the built environment skills round-table, which included specific items on how to support this culture shift with more people coming into careers in the sector, and also working on workforce diversity as well, as we push towards this green revolution and zero carbon.

But you are right in saying—and by the way, I'll definitely take up your invitation to come and see the Lakeside hydro and the work of the Cambrian Village Trust hydro plant—very pleased to see it. It's a cracking example of locally generated renewable energy. But you're so right in saying that what we need to do here in the Senedd and in Welsh Government is recommit to actually driving towards net zero and seizing those opportunities, not to follow the backwards leadership of the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch who's now said it's impossible to meet, and we should throw it away.

Cabinet Secretary, you're well aware of the issues in my constituency regarding the new wind farm developments and pylon developments across my constituency. Many of the people I speak to are very, very concerned about the industrialisation of mid Wales, our landscape being destroyed, our ecology being destroyed, and the rural way of life being destroyed, which will affect our tourism businesses and associated businesses across the patch. What I don't want to see, Cabinet Secretary, is my constituency put on the altar and sacrificed on the road to net zero to get to these targets. So, I want some cast-iron commitments from you that this Government will not sacrifice our rural communities in favour of your net-zero commitments. So, can you give me that assurance today that you'll stand with rural communities and not ride roughshod over them like other Cabinet Secretaries have done before you?

So, the take-away comment from that, James, is that you don't want to see communities, and I quote,

'sacrificed on the road to net zero'—

echoes directly of your Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, in saying that it is impossible to reach net zero. This is a different position, I have to say, from the frontbench of the Conservatives over many, many years, where there has been cross-party consensus here that we should seize the opportunities of the drive to net zero for all our communities here in Wales.

Now, as you know, there was, actually, an innovation fund put forward—my thanks to the discussions that were had, of course, with the Liberal Democrat leader here in the Senedd—an innovation fund that was put forward in the budget that actually seeks to explore that undergrounding of cables more and to bottom out that. It was, of course—the funding that we put forward for that was—exactly the funding that you voted against on the Conservative benches in the budget.

I now call on the party spokespeople. First of all, the Welsh Conservatives' spokesperson, Janet Finch-Saunders.

Thank you. The Marine Conservation Society’s latest 'State of our beaches' report makes for alarming reading. And it has to be said, Cabinet Secretary, that, since I first came here, I’ve raised concerns about our marine environment. So, despite declaring a climate crisis, despite declaring a nature crisis, and despite Wales being second in the world for recycling rates, there has been a 4 per cent increase in the average amount of litter found on our beaches.

Now, in terms of nature recovery, the kinds of plastics and things found there, ingested by birds and sea mammals and everything, are just not being addressed by you as a Government. England has seen a 2.2 per cent decrease. There were 120 litter items per 100m of beach surveyed, 175 glass bottles collected. Whilst I’m sure you will join with me in praising the 1,073 people who volunteered to survey Welsh beaches and also to thank the Marine Conservation Society for their invaluable work, what steps are you really taking, as the Minister with responsibility for this, to help combat this marine litter, but also, more importantly, to support our marine environment?

Janet, thank you for that question, but I refute entirely the suggestion that Welsh Government is doing nothing on this. In fact, what we are doing is putting funding in place for Keep Wales Tidy to drive forward initiatives, not only on the beaches but in local communities all across Wales.

In the budget, which your benches voted against, we’re also supporting, of course—as I have individually been out there, as many Members in this Senedd Chamber will have been out there as well, from the Siambr, on the beach cleaning and supporting—the work of the Marine Conservation Society. And that’s where I would agree with you absolutely on the work of the MCS and Keep Wales Tidy, funded by Welsh Government, and many other myriad organisations, not only to clean up the local environments and deal with the problems of litter, but also to, by example, demonstrate to others individual responsibility as well, which is something we’ve talked about before. It’s what Government can do, what the third sector can do, sometimes with our support, and what individuals can do.

It's also, by the way, individual policy areas. So, we’re still the only place here within the UK that actually has a collection system for plastic fisheries netting. So, we collect it in Wales and we recycle it. So, we’re doing an enormous amount within this area—and I think we should encourage all those partners out there: statutory agencies, voluntary agencies, and everybody who contributes to this—as well as the money that we put in from Welsh Government, because littering is simply unacceptable and the plastic waste and the microplastics are really polluting our environment.

Thank you. You seemed a bit surprised there that I said that you didn’t take the marine environment seriously, and it’s fair to say that, two years ago, Lord Deben, in the climate change report, actually said that more needed to be done by this Government in terms of the marine environment.

Now one obvious solution is clear when considering that drinks-related litter was found on 99 per cent of beach surveys. Glass bottles were not found on the majority. We know, as of last November, that the Welsh Labour Government has failed yet again. It was the last year of the last Senedd term that I won I think it was a Member's legislative proposal to bring forward a deposit-return scheme, and look, here we are now, and we are no further forward. We know that you’ve failed again to co-operate with the UK Labour Government on a shared concern—on this occasion, the deposit-return scheme. Despite supermarket bosses claiming that your decision will cause cross-border chaos, despite British Glass warning that including glass will increase the use of plastic packaging, you do nothing, and, despite knowing that 91 per cent of beach cleans record plastic bottles and lids, you're still delaying the introduction of the DRS scheme in Wales. Do you agree with the Marine Conservation Society—because I do—that Welsh Government should now bring forward a DRS without fail and without falling behind the October 2027 deadline set for the DRS in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Do you know, yes, I do? We need to bring forward this DRS scheme, which goes beyond recycling, rapidly. Does the frontbench spokesman agree with the MCS that that should include glass reuse? Because you used to believe that. That is not, I understand, the position that some of your frontbench colleagues have been advocating. Now, we say that we are second in the world on recycling, and we now need to go beyond recycling and go into reuse of glass. Is that still the position of the frontbench spokesman? Does she agree with the MCS, and every other environmental—[Interruption.]—and every—[Interruption.]—and every—[Interruption.]—and every—[Interruption.]—and every other environmental organisation that is urging the Welsh Government to proceed with DRS, including glass? Do you?

I believe—

Do you?

Let me finish.

Do you?

I believe—

First of all, it's questions to the Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary should answer the questions, and not necessarily ask questions back. And there'll be no conversations—[Interruption.]—and there'll be no conversation between the two Members. Let's have the questions, please.

Yes, exactly. Move over. Move over, Huw—I'll come and sit there.

So, I believe—[Interruption.] I believe, I honestly do believe, that what makes good policy, what makes good legislation, and, even more, what makes a better politician, is that you listen to the industry, you listen to the science. So, as far as I'm concerned, our position is right on this.

What? What position?

So, anyway—. So, Deputy First Minister, you informed the Senedd's climate change committee that introducing a bespoke scheme in Wales would lead to an increase in costs, and that you have planned for that. You also said that any additional resources needed to implement the scheme will be considered in the budget rounds for future years. So, at a time when the economy is shrinking, your Chancellor is cutting cash to the old and the vulnerable, and you are increasing taxation on family farms, employers and employees, do you not actually think it is wise now, in order to save some money, but also to save our planet—? Will you co-operate with England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to deliver a DRS, instead of trying to go down the more costly route of trying to go it alone? I certainly wouldn't advise that.

Got it. Dirprwy Lywydd, I now understand. It's for a DRS, but not for a DRS with reuse with glass. That's very, very clear. What the frontbench spokesman, Janet, wants us to do is fall in line with the England approach—. Bear in mind that Scotland wants to do what we want to do, and Northern Ireland will follow, and England eventually as well. What she wants us to do is proceed on a recycle DRS and to walk back from the position that was consulted on three years ago, in a four-nation consultation, where DRS with glass was the basis of the consultation. The Conservative Government at that point walked away from it, decided they would go their own way. It was regrettable, I have to say, because, ultimately, you and I know that the cost of heating glass that is broken, shattered into pieces, and making it into a new bottle means heating it up to 1,500 to 1,800 degrees. On that basis, if we're serious about the climate emergency and decarbonisation, we need reuse with glass, not just recycling with glass. So, it's for and against; I think I've understood the position now.

The pertinent question was: when can we actually get on with introducing it? I think that's a valid question. It's of regret that we can't move forward on a four-nation basis, as originally agreed and consulted on four years ago. But we are closely engaged with the UK Government, and are currently, even before the consultation, engaging with key stakeholders—I've spoken at several events myself—actually working with them to show how this can work within a UK context and that Wales can actually show the leadership that we rightly have prided ourselves on previously. So, we will work ahead. We'll do it in a collaborative way, Dirprwy Lywydd and Janet. The consultation will be landing shortly as well, and we will introduce this as soon as practically possible, for the good of the people of Wales, and, actually, to show leadership that I am utterly convinced will be followed by the other nations of the UK in rapid order.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Delyth Jewell. 

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Wales has faced an increasing number of devastating floods, which have had a terrible impact on communities and businesses. Now, while home owners are benefiting from the Flood Re insurance scheme, businesses remain unprotected. Often, they face premiums when trying to obtain cover, and the industry continues to argue that it is not practical to extend such a scheme to businesses. An increasing number of businesses are facing closure.

Now, last week, you acknowledged this pressing issue, and you said that you would meet with insurers to discuss a flood insurance scheme focused on businesses. Now, could you confirm whether you see a realistic way forward to expand flood insurance to businesses, and what specific commitments would you seek to obtain from the industry on behalf of the businesses at risk?

Thank you. I think this is worth raising with insurers, and I will be meeting, in fairly short order—I can’t remember the exact date—with the ABI, the Association of British Insurers, to discuss this and other matters, including the existing Flood Re scheme, but also to look at whether or not there is some scope to explore some way in which we can also provide provision for private businesses, commercial operators as well, because they are not within the current Flood Re scheme.

Now, 'I don’t know' is the answer. I think we have to have those discussions with the insurers, first of all. I know that when the Flood Re scheme was brought in originally—and, crikey, I was there at the time with the late John Prescott when he discussed and argued the case with insurers—they always look to, of course, their own liabilities, and they expect, quite rightly, that, if they’re going to provide something like Flood Re for households, Government will step up and put the requisite investment in on their part as well. So, they’re not going to do it without knowing that we’re going to step up.

So, I genuinely am pleased, and can say to the ABI and their members, that we’re doing our part. We have record investment, and have had that for the last three years, and we’ll keep that momentum going on the scale of investment we will do. And I think that, on that basis—and I’m sure they listen to what we say here within the Siambr as well—when I meet with them, I’ll want to discuss this with them as well. I can’t tell you the parameters yet, but I think we need to explore this with the insurance industry.

Okay, thank you for that. Turning now to the psychological impact left in the wake of a flood, people who have been affected by flooding often suffer from anxiety and trauma, and some people have developed serious health conditions. Research by Public Health England suggests that people who experience flooding inside their homes are up to seven times more likely to develop depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder within a year. If flood waters rise above a metre, the risk of depression increases 15 times, anxiety 10 times, and PTSD 18 times.

Now, in light of the growing evidence around the impact of flooding on mental health, and the stress that this places on individuals and the NHS, what assessment has the Welsh Government undertaken regarding the psychological and emotional impact of flooding on communities, and what specific support is given to people who are dealing with the trauma, particularly children?

Thank you very much for this question. 

We haven’t carried out an assessment, but that’s not to say we’re not very cognisant of the effect this has on mental health and well-being, particularly if you have properties that are regularly flooded, that used to be one in 100 but now are happening three times in 10 years. And we’ve seen it ourselves; we’ve spoken with the residents affected. So, I don’t think we need to do that sort of assessment—a classic desk-based assessment or whatever—to know that it is impacting people. What we do need to make sure is that we’ve got the platforms, the resources, available to actually help people who are worried about the impact of flooding and then it affects their wider mental health and well-being. A couple of ways in which we can do that. One is making sure that we have the broad mental health support available within each community, but the other thing, specifically, is the work of the flood forum here within Wales. We’re pleased that, in some communities that are particularly highly affected, we’ve managed to lever in some additional funding to maintain their presence in specific communities.

There’s a wider question going forward about how the flood forum—. And I know a lot of these people. I’ve known them for years and years, and the good work they do, because they are in there in the communities, they work with the communities and, in some ways, hold the hand and put an arm around the shoulders of people. We’re keen to explore with them what more can be done, going forward, and we’re undertaking that work, because I think that’s a very specific way then, as well, in respect of specifically flooding and the risk of flooding, that they can have somebody to go to and say, ‘I’m really worried about this. How can we help? What can we do?’ Part of that, I have to say, as well, is community resilience. It’s the ability of strong communities to come together and support each other, because that will undoubtedly improve the well-being and resilience of those communities—that an individual doesn’t feel that they’re alone.

Thank you for that. That's exactly what I was going to ask you about in my last question, because, when floods do occur, the people on the ground are often the first to respond. As you’ve mentioned, we’ve seen communities come together to help those in need, but there isn’t always a structured system in place, and there isn’t one across Wales. This often means that well-intentioned people often put themselves at risk, as one of our Members, Heledd Fychan, pointed out last week. During the storms in February, people had to prevent other people from going to help because of the extreme danger. We need a formal system of flood forums in Wales, community-led groups, as you said, where residents and volunteers are trained to understand risk, are equipped with emergency plans and are empowered. So, will you commit to establishing a Welsh flood forum generally, to ensure that all communities affected are better prepared, are trained and are able to develop their own local emergency plans? And finally—I’m sorry, Deputy Presiding Officer—how does the Welsh Government intend to proceed with the recommendations of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales on improving community flood resilience? Thank you.

On the latter point, there are many recommendations in there, and we take that report very seriously, and we will respond in detail to how we’ll take this forward. On the point on the national flood forum and whether there should be a Welsh national flood forum, I think you’re posing the right question and it’s good to air it here within this Siambr, but can I suggest there might be different ways forward? One of the key things that we know from years and years of this situation getting worse, as global warming has affected the climate and we’re seeing more dumps of this weather, is that it’s not necessarily to establish fairly rigid structures imposed on communities but actually to build the resilience in the community. I think the flood forums have a role to play within this. Where we’ve seen them work most successfully is where they not only come in to a community but they then actually build the capacity within that community to also be resilient itself. Now, sometimes, a flood forum presence will need to be maintained. In others, the community actually steps up itself and becomes the flood forum for that area.

So, I think there are different ways of unpacking this. We are quite interested in this because we think, as we have the increasing propensity now to deluges and then droughts, we need to build that capacity within communities. And there is a role for the flood forum as we know it; we’re just trying to explore what would be the best model, as opposed to saying to every community, 'Your solution is, "Here’s a gang of people who will come in and they’ll help do stuff for you."' It’ll be interesting to turn that the other way around and say, 'Here’s how we can actually support you as well to be much more resilient yourself.' And I’ve seen this work, where communities themselves establish their groups of resilience community flood forums as well.

Diolch, Julie. We continue to support initiatives across Wales creating or improving green spaces from allotments to urban parks. The Local Places for Nature programme, now funded for a further two years, has created over 1,700 community gardens, such as and including the nature and food growing spaces at the Tongwynlais housing association sites.

Thank you for the response.

I'm sure the Cabinet Secretary would agree with the huge benefits of community gardens, both for biodiversity and for tackling loneliness and for having a well-being space. There are a number of community gardens right across Cardiff North, and the one I've been particularly involved with is the Whitchurch community garden, which is opposite my consistency office. We saw a bit of blank land, really, that had very short cut grass, where children didn't play, and, working with the community, have managed to create the Whitchurch community garden, with a whole variety of plants, herbs, fruits and trees, and kept going by very dedicated volunteers, including one of my members of staff. Now, this year, the community garden is celebrating its tenth birthday. They’re hosting a celebration event on 26 April in the garden and I’m sure the Cabinet Secretary would be very welcome to attend. And would the Cabinet Secretary agree that community gardens offer endless benefits to communities and provide essential outdoor space for people who don’t have gardens, and boost diversity, and that there should be a continuous drive throughout Wales to have more community gardens?

Yes, Julie. Thank you for that question, and I absolutely agree. The potential of these community gardens, particularly for those who do not have access to open spaces themselves in their own back garden, but also to others in bringing people together, is immense, as it is for biodiversity, as it is for growing food—affordable, nutritious, healthy food as well—and that link with growing food as well. But just the benefits of being in the outdoors as well—. And it’s great to see Whitchurch—you’ve got a thriving community garden sector throughout the constituency there—celebrating its tenth anniversary on 26 April. I’m not sure if I can, but I’d love to be there if I can. But, you know, my diary is a bit chock-a-block, but if I can, I will be there, but if not, listen, my best wishes to them all in celebrating their tenth and many, many more years to come. And that’s why, Julie, I’m really pleased as well, this year, that under the Local Places for Nature community packages scheme, we’ve got—crikey, how many—600 projects now across Wales, and this includes wildlife, orchard, food packages, to create green spaces in gardens, working with local communities, driven by local communities, that bottom-up approach there. And 69 of those that have been delivered or are under way are in Cardiff alone. So, congratulations to Whitchurch and all those others, and a special shout-out, Dirprwy Lywydd, if I may abuse the privilege, to Caerau Growers, who have got an open day coming up shortly in their community garden not far from me.

Thanks, Siân. Inheritance tax is a reserved tax, overseen by the UK Government. I have consistently emphasised to the UK Government the importance of thoroughly considering the ongoing valid concerns of the Welsh farming unions in a collaborative way.

We've heard a number of times in this Chamber about the damaging impact that changes to inheritance tax could have on family farms and rural communities. And, whilst I understand that this is a decision taken by another Government—and there's been no change announced today, by the way—isn't there a responsibility on you not only to convey the arguments, but also to assess the possible impact on Wales—for example, to assess the impact of the change on the ability of Wales to produce food into the future and how that aligns with the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015; for example, to assess the impact of the change on the use of the Welsh language and how the threat to the family farm aligns with the 'Cymraeg 2050' strategy? Having assessed and uncovered the impact, your Government could create a better argument over the need to either reverse the change or for taking steps to mitigate its impact. 

Thank you very much for that supplementary, Siân. 

Look, to be clear, we're not planning to undertake an impact assessment, such as the one that they've done in the Northern Ireland assessment, primarily based on farm valuations, because that's what it is, if they can't provide a robust and accurate assessment of the likely impact—it's a farm valuation assessment. Without crucial information on individual farm circumstances, such as the farm ownership structure, the gifting statements, no accurate assessment of actual impact is possible. Now, the assessments based on value alone may provide a rough assessment of the potential maximum—maximum—numbers of farms that could be above the inheritance tax threshold across an entire generation. But without that data on individual farm circumstances, such a figure is probably inaccurate and could be misleading as well, because it's set at the maximum impact of the possible IHT changes. So, those ownership structures, inheritance plans, applicable reliefs that may apply, they all affect the application of APR. Farm values also fluctuate, so it's difficult to estimate how many are valued over IHT thresholds at any given point. So, for this reason, that is why we use the Treasury data as a starting point, as they're based on probate figures. However, let me say quite clearly, and this is the basis of the representations that I've made, the assessments by people such as the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers, the CAAV, have raised valid concerns that HM Treasury's assessment may be underestimating the impact. Now, these valid concerns, let me be clear, we've made clear, should be fully addressed in a collaborative way with farming unions by the UK Government.

Just to say, the other thing that we can do to make a real difference here in Wales is actually continuing to work as we are with the farming unions and with wider stakeholders to make sure that we have a good footing for the future of farming in Wales through the SFS, and we've sought assurances from the UK Government that any changes will not affect the approach that we're trying to take there of delivering not just the economic value, but the social and cultural value, and the importance of the Welsh language to farming in many, many parts of Wales. So, we'll keep on pushing on those representations, saying it here in the Chamber as well. We want to see meaningful engagement with the analysis, but I come back to that point: the data simply based on farm values alone at any given point in time is likely to be not an accurate estimate, because it's purely based on those; it's not taking into account individual farm circumstances.

The UK Government's inheritance tax changes target our family farms through cuts to the agricultural property relief and business property relief, posing an existential threat to Welsh family farming tradition, and many farming families in my constituency are despondent about these changes, fearing it puts their farms in peril. From April 2026, the average Welsh farm will face a 20 per cent inheritance tax, and it's important to stipulate, Cabinet Secretary, these aren't wealthy tycoons, or moguls even, they are cash-poor farming families, and have been stewards of our land for many generations, and are now forced to sell to survive. The scale is staggering. The National Farmers Union and others warn that 70,000 farms, two thirds of Britain's total, could be affected. This isn't taxation; this is asset stripping. Family farms will be torn from their owners and snapped up by large asset managers like BlackRock, who the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has already started cosying up to. This policy threatens food security, slashes land values—

You need to ask your question now, please.

—and hands our heritage to hedge funds and megabanks, with a former Labour adviser even gloating about crushing farms like Thatcher crushed the mines.

Gareth, you need to ask your question, please.

This is a betrayal of rural Wales. So, can the Cabinet Secretary tell me what the Welsh Government are doing to reassure farmers in north Wales that livelihoods matter, and, more pointedly, can you tell us honestly if Labour is truly on the side of working people, or are they in the pockets of international megabanks who are going to be accruing more and more farms in their property portfolios?

Thank you, Gareth. Dirprwy Lywydd, I don't want to repeat the previous exchange and the explanation that I gave to Siân's question leading on this, and I certainly don't want to respond to a political rant. But what I will do is explain what the Welsh Government is actually doing on the ground to support Welsh farmers in the light of these changes. We're actually holding, right across Wales, in light of the IHT changes, through our organisation Farming Connect, a series of workshops. Right across Wales, there have been 10 workshops. They've been very well received, Dirprwy Lywydd. Close to 1,500 farmers have attended not only to understand the implications of the changes, but to talk through things such as succession planning, gifting and so on. So, away from the political rant that you just did, Gareth, we are doing very practical things with the farming community.

The workshops are just the beginning of the support, Dirprwy Lywydd, that we are making available. Farming Connect is providing access on an individual basis to facilitated family succession meetings. I've been in some of these, where they sit down with families. I've talked to farmers, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I know you and I have met with farmers, as well, who've said, 'Well, we've got somebody who's a 70, 80-year-old, who has never got round to it.' Farming Connect can provide that advice, bespoke, person to person, to those farming families, succession reviews to understand tax implications, and subsidised business and legal advice to develop succession plans. We've also, by the way, Gareth, as you know, supported the retention of the basic payment scheme, the BPS budget, at £238 million for 2025—the same level as the last two years. We've made that decision. It didn't happen, by the way, across the border with the Conservative Government; the Conservative Government slashed it. We've kept it to give that certainty, and this was not an easy decision. More than 98 per cent of claimants have now received their full or partial balance of BPS 2024 since the window opened in December. We've now paid out over £232 million. So, Gareth, you asked what are we doing to help farmers navigate through these changes: everything we possibly can. Not only that, we're putting the money in place to support farmers that the previous Conservative Government never did.

Diolch, John. The Welsh Government is improving river health in south Wales through an integrated catchment approach, focusing on multisector co-operation. This includes strong engagement with Governments, regulators and many others. We have further announced a £1 million joint research fund with the UK Government to address water quality issues in the river Wye.

Thank you for that, Cabinet Secretary. Our rivers in south Wales are sadly not in the sort of condition that any of us would like to see. There's a lot of pollution from farming, there's pollution from Welsh Water and others. Thankfully, there's a very strong campaign in terms of the river Usk, Cabinet Secretary, by Angela of the Usk and others, taking forward citizen science to sample the waters of the Usk and show the very high levels of pollution, notwithstanding that, in theory, the river Usk is a beneficiary of very high protection—despite that, we see very high levels of pollution. So, I just wonder, Cabinet Secretary, would you join me in congratulating the Save the River Usk campaign and Angela, who is a wild swimmer, who takes others wild swimming, who takes others wild camping and generally connects people to nature? So, I think she's certainly playing her part; she's a very strong campaigner. Will you meet, perhaps, with the Save the River Usk campaign and Angela by the side of the river Usk and discuss some of their key concerns, including ideas for a water Bill for Wales?

John, thank you very much for that follow-up. Can I tell you that I congratulate all of those campaigners throughout Wales and elsewhere who are putting the focus on the ecological health of our rivers and also the bathing water quality of our rivers, as well, and the need to do much more? I am really focused on that personally, and have been for many years before I came into Government and continue to be so, as well. I think, over the months ahead, we will see a refreshing and a real focusing of the multifaceted response that we have to this, be it phosphate pollution, be it development controls, be it sewage and water and the antiquated infrastructure that we have, or be it agricultural diffuse or point-source pollution as well. All of these things need to be addressed. Each river is different and we need to work on it.

I'm really pleased to say, by the way, that in terms of the Usk, Welsh Government jointly supports the EU, the former work that we were doing that's still going on under the Four Rivers for LIFE project. It's a £9 million five-year initiative led by Natural Resources Wales and that takes in the Tawe, the Teifi, the Cleddau and the Usk rivers, so that continues. It's 776 km of river that that is focusing on, and since 2022, it has restored about 136 hectares of flood plains, of wetlands and of meadows. But also, we have £16.2 million in capital funding in the budget—and John and other colleagues behind me, thank you for voting for it—to NRW, with support for around 80 water quality improvement projects, including the upper Wye restoration project, which I was at only two weeks ago, up on the upper catchment, looking at what they are doing there to promote biodiversity, to slow down the flows of sediment and denudation of the soil into the rivers below and so on. So, we'll do all of that. Tackling river pollution is a prime priority for this Government and I congratulate Angela of the Usk and all the others for the work they're doing to hold our feet to the fire and saying, 'Get on with it. Do what you're doing and do more as well.'

One thing is for certain, the current approach isn't working, is it, because we heard only this month that the number of river systems in Wales that are failing those phosphate targets has risen from five to seven; that includes, of course, the Teifi in my own constituency. While a multi-agency catchment approach is a step in the right direction, it still, really, doesn't get to grips with the fundamental problem, which is the fact that responsibilities are spread over all of these different silos, whether it's NRW, the Office of Water Services, the water companies themselves or the local authorities.

One of the solutions that is being proposed to that is the idea of creating a single catchment systems operator, bringing all of the regulatory authority together. The originator of the idea, Professor Dieter Helm, also suggests that it would solve river pollution without a need for huge investment, which is, obviously, a very attractive prospect. So, would the Cabinet Secretary ask his officials for some advice to see whether we could build the first pilot of a CSO, building on those catchment demonstrator projects, to see whether this solution can get our rivers to where they need to be?

Thank you, Adam, for that follow up. Interestingly, a fortnight ago Thursday, I was in Manchester at the call-for-evidence launch by Jon Cunliffe, which we're doing with England and Wales together, jointly, on water regulatory structures. But, interestingly, he said in the launch of that that he's also very interested in whether the governance of our rivers needs to be addressed on a catchment basis. I have to say that we're already starting to do some of this here in Wales. So, for example, in the Taff Ely area, we have what's called an urban water catchment model, bringing together all of the stakeholders and then saying, 'Right, what do all of you need to do in your different ways on this unique urban river catchment to actually lift some of the dire pollution levels within parts of that, including the tributaries?' So, we're already piloting, actually, in different parts of Wales, this approach. The question is: can we go grand? Can we find a model?

Now, I have to say that Jon Cunliffe, in addressing this, said that, first of all, we need to define what that catchment is, because for some of our rivers, the catchment stretches from the Pumlumon mountains all the way down to the Severn estuary; in others, it's much more of a rush to the sea down a narrow—. But, I think there is potential within this, and in some of that sharpening of the focus that I talked about on the outcomes—improving the quality, biodiversity and bathing water of our rivers—I think we need to use and look at all tools in the toolbox, and that may mean looking at whether we should be doing something much sharper, much more focused, on a catchment level. That means, then, working with farmers; landowners; former mine remediation work that's going on in the metal mines of central Wales, in Cwm Ystwyth, where I was recently, and so on; and the lowlands, and everybody; and the anglers' societies and everybody else. We know that this can work, because if you look at places—.

Sorry, Dirprwy Lywydd, just to reflect on the report you were talking about, it wasn't all negative. It showed that, actually, some of the improvements that we've made are making a tangible difference. So, the lower reaches of the Wye are in improvement, and there are other areas, but we've got so much more to do. So, that argues for a bigger catchment approach to this, where, from the top to the bottom, everybody lifts.

We still have several questions to go, and you've already used up your time, Cabinet Secretary, so please be succinct in your responses.

I'm sorry.

I will. I will.

On 20 March, I confirmed that in 2025-26, the Welsh Government is providing £34 million for our public partners to undertake works on 130 coal tips across Wales. Alongside the UK Government’s allocation, this means that over £100 million will have been invested in coal tip safety in this Senedd term.

Diolch am hynny. I welcome the legislation that's coming up, and the extra funding that was announced that week. That is welcome, but I fear it still isn't enough. The coal tips in our valleys—we've discussed this so many times—are constant reminders of how we were exploited. Those of us who grew up with them on the hills have become used to their presence. They've been there so long, waiting for another tragedy to strike. After Aberfan, it's shameful that Westminster decided to leave them looming on the hillsides. What happened at Cwmtillery last winter should have sent shockwaves to Whitehall. But £25 million is all that we have, so far, been promised by Westminster; £25 million, when the bill to clear the tips across the coalfields stands at £600 million. Now, I do, as I said, welcome that extra funding that's been announced by the Welsh Government. I welcome the legislation on coal tip safety. But Westminster should be paying far more, far more quickly to clear these tips. They are already decades too late in doing it. So, could you give an update, please, on how much more you expect the UK Government to pay towards this work, and how quickly, because we cannot afford another near miss, like at Cwmtillery?

Thank you, Delyth, and for your support of the trajectory that we're on on this. We need to do more and more and more each year. Just to knock one thing on the head, because this is widely said to me: the range of £500 million to £600 million that you've referred to was a provisional estimate based on the limited information available at that time, years ago, following the impact of storm Dennis on Tylorstown. Now, since then, Welsh Government has done a massive amount of work with our public partners to identify, record, map and categorise the disused coal tips, and this has literally been walking those tips and assessing them for the criteria. So, we now know much more accurately, year by year, what we need—not a big ballpark estimate, but year by year what we need. So, we asked, last year, for a £25 million contribution to add to what Welsh Government had been carrying on our own backs with Welsh Government funding. There's a cost-benefit to that, because it had to be from other areas into what we had prioritised. [Interruption.] Yes, indeed.

[Inaudible.]

Sh.

I agree entirely.

Sorry.

But rest assured that my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Welsh Language is in discussion with the UK Government, seeing that as that first instalment. The First Minister and I have said repeatedly that we need that continuing partnership, and it needs to ramp up, both our contribution, but also the UK Government contribution.

As we've discussed before, the other aspect is building the capacity. So, as I've said in front of the committee, there is a real—. The limitation isn't funds here; the limitation is building those civil engineers, hydrologists, mine engineers and others who can actually prioritise those top tips, first of all, and then work their way through. This is a five, 10, 15-year programme, but we need to ramp it up as the years go by. The figures, by the way, the finance Secretary has put in the public domain of what we're asking for in the next few years. 

Diolch, Natasha. Through our funding to Keep Wales Tidy, we continue to support local authorities and communities across south-east Wales in tackling litter. This includes creating litter hubs, co-ordinating volunteer activity and conducting prevention trials. We're also tackling the problem at source, with bans on products such as single-use vapes.

Thank you so much for that answer. Cabinet Secretary, there are some fantastic community groups across Wales made up from dedicated volunteers who go above and beyond in keeping our towns, villages and cities clean. In Newport, we’re fortunate enough to have the amazing Pride in Pill team, who not only embark on litter picks around the city, but do so much great community work. However, Cabinet Secretary, sadly the group’s equipment, worth around £5,000, was recently stolen after their shed lock-up was broken into. The stolen items include litter-picking equipment, wheelbarrows, garden tools, gloves, safety shoes and first-aid kits. These mindless thieves have sadly set the charity back with the amazing work it does in sprucing up our city and eradicating littering. Cabinet Secretary, Pride in Pill is appealing for donations to help get them up and running. I’m doing what I can to support them, but is there anything the Welsh Government can do to support them at this very difficult time? And will you join me in raising awareness of this appeal and encourage people to donate, if they are indeed in a position to do so? Thank you.

Natasha, thank you so much. Do you know, I pay credit to that group for the work they're doing, and also others across your region? The litter picking that's been done recently by the Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust, the Gwent Wildlife Trust, partnerships in Caerphilly and so on, and, indeed, much of this is supported by the work of Keep Wales Tidy very often, and the hubs they do and the equipment that they provide across south-east Wales, and the support that Welsh Government gives to Keep Wales Tidy to do that.

It is so disappointing that a daft, stupid, petty incident of theft now has meant that that equipment is not available, and I'm sure Keep Wales Tidy will want to help get that up and running again as soon as possible. But, look, if there is an appeal out there for support, I would echo that. People in Wales are very, very generous, particularly when it's to do with tidying up their own communities. So, let's see if we can get that group back on their feet. And let's also support all those other groups who are out, particularly at this time of year, around their communities, cleaning up their river banks, their local paths, and so on. They do such good work. 

And finally, question 8, Carolyn Thomas.

Diolch, Carolyn. We are implementing nature-based solutions as part of our flood risk management programme. This includes £2 million recently made available to risk management authorities for natural flood management. This will enable collaboration with farmers, landowners and third sector organisations to reduce flood risk and to enhance environmental resilience.

Thank you for your response. I recently met with Rewilding Britain, who are putting forward solutions for water capture in our uplands such as creating leaky dams, and also wetland creation. I'm very interested in reintroducing beavers as well as a nature solution. Only a small proportion of money has actually been given towards these nature-based solutions in the UK as a whole and in Wales, compared to other ideas. I was wondering what consideration has been given to working with landowners under riparian law—for example, when ploughing fields, trying to make sure that they're ploughed across rather than down the field, so the water comes down, and just slowing down the flow of rivers and streams upstream as well—as a suggestion going forward. Thank you.

It's a really good suggestion, and key to making the money go further is actually working with landowners. Actually, I mentioned I was in the top of the upper Wye catchment recently, the project up there, and that includes working with landowners to do those projects that are to slow down the water flow and also to retain soil as well—on the soil, not in the rivers, in sediment and muck there. So, it's about reducing run-off, reducing pollution, keeping soil in the land, slowing the flow of overland water, helping with flood mitigation, restoring and reconnecting the floodplains, restoring river corridors, planting buffer zones and working with landowners. That's the key to it. And when landowners see what's going on in the field opposite, they're often the first ones to go, ‘What's going on? Can we be involved?’ So you can make that money go a long way.

But just to say, Dirprwy Lywydd, we have schemes within the national flood management programme at the moment. We have two schemes in the main programme that are finally at the business case stage, in the Gwyrfai and Ogwen catchments. But there are also four schemes in Cardiff, Monmouthshire and Powys. We will, with that £2 million investment—and again, thank you for voting for this in the budget as well—support 23 projects across Wales, and it will reduce flood risk for up to 2,800 properties. It goes a long way.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary.

Item 3 is the motion to suspend Standing Orders temporarily in order to allow the next item of business. I call on the Counsel General and Minister for Delivery to move the motion—Julie James. 

I formally move the motion to suspend Standing Orders, Dirprwy Lywydd.

The proposal is to suspend Standing Orders temporarily. Do any Members object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 4 is the financial resolution in respect of the Legislation (Procedure, Publication and Repeals) (Wales) Bill. I call on the Counsel General and Minister for Delivery to move the motion—Julie James.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm very grateful to Members for agreeing that Standing Orders can be suspended to allow this debate to take place. Although a financial resolution debate is a common occurrence on most Bills, the circumstances that have led to today's debate are a little unusual. I'll just take the opportunity to explain why the Government has tabled this motion and what the Senedd is being asked to agree to.

When a Bill is introduced into the Senedd, the Llywydd must decide if a financial resolution is required, and it is usually the case that the Senedd is asked to agree that motion at the end of Stage 1. Due to the technical nature of the Bill, in the case of the Legislation (Procedure, Publication and Repeals) (Wales) Bill, the Llywydd determined, in accordance with Standing Orders, that a financial resolution was not required. The general principles of the Bill were agreed by the Senedd on 4 March, and the Bill is now in Stage 2. Amendments to the Bill have been tabled, and the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee are due to consider those amendments at their meeting on Monday.

Standing Order 26.72 provides that, where an amendment to a Bill would, if agreed, mean that the Bill would need a financial resolution, no proceedings on the amendment can take place unless the Senedd has agreed a motion for financial resolution. This is the situation that has arisen on the Legislation (Procedure, Publication and Repeals) (Wales) Bill. The Llywydd has determined that amendment 34, which has been tabled by Adam Price, may engage Standing Order 26.72. Therefore, without the Government moving this motion today, and the Senedd agreeing to it, proceedings on amendment 34 cannot take place, and Adam would not have the opportunity to make his case for amending the Bill.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I should make very clear, however, that the Government does not support amendment 34. What is proposed is not something that was recommended by the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee at Stage 1, and the financial implications of the proposal would be not inconsiderable. Members will be aware from information made available with this motion that comparable arrangements in Scotland currently cost the Scottish Government around £100,000 annually, and this is a cost that applies in perpetuity, increasing over time. But this is not the forum to rehearse the merits or otherwise of the amendment, nor is the Senedd being asked to agree the amendment to the Bill. Instead, the Senedd is being asked to agree the financial resolution so that amendment 34 may be debated next week by the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee in order that a democratic process of amending a Bill can take place.

On that basis, I ask the Senedd to agree the financial resolution today, and that will enable those proceedings on the amendment to take place. Diolch.

We're not going to have a debate now about the substance of this amendment, but I just wanted to put on the record that I'm extremely grateful to the Government for facilitating our ability to have that debate in the context of Stage 2 proceedings on the Bill. I'm very grateful to you for that. Perhaps—and we've had a conversation about this, Counsel General—we should take the opportunity at some point to look at the procedures around this. I do think that preventing debate simply for the reasons explained by the Counsel General—because of the technical nature of the Bill that there was no financial report—I don't think it would make sense therefore to prevent discussion on amendments that emerge later. So, perhaps the Business Committee or—and I'm looking to you, Dirprwy Lywydd, here—the seventh Senedd committee—I know that your workload is very great—but perhaps we should look at these procedures for the future. 

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

No topical questions have been accepted today. 

Item 6 is the 90-second statements. First we have Mike Hedges. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. March marks Brain Tumour Awareness Month; 28 March marks Wear a Hat Day—I'm glad it's not 28 March—a vital opportunity to highlight the devastating reality that brain tumour remains the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40, yet research into brain tumours continues to be severely underfunded and underprioritised. Like many others, I've seen the devastating effect of brain tumour, which sadly killed my mother in 2003.

Last week, I sponsored Brain Tumour Research in Y Farchnad in the Senedd. They told me clinical trials are often the only hope for many patients and their families, yet in Wales we are falling behind, while for patients who are eager to take part in trials, there is a worrying lack of opportunities outside of Cardiff. The centralisation means that many patients across Wales, particularly in rural and deprived areas, are missing out on potentially life-saving treatments. Wales currently attracts less than half of its fair share of UK-wide clinical trials funding, and the situation has worsened since the pandemic. Awareness of available trials is also low. Too many patients and clinicians remain unaware of existing options, limiting access to pioneering treatment.  

To compound the problem, cross-border access issues create unacceptable disparity. Welsh patients may find themselves excluded from trials available to their English counterparts simply because of their postcode. This is a matter of life and death. We must do more to raise awareness, address funding imbalances and ensure equal and fair access to clinical trials for all brain tumour patients across Wales.

Last friday marked a historic moment for Wales and the world as 1,327 participants set a new Guinness world record for the largest-ever volunteer river clean-up. This extraordinary achievement stretched along the River Taf, spanning from Brecon to Cardiff Bay with eight dedicated clean-up locations. This record-breaking attempt was part of the Taff Tidy campaign, led by Pontypridd-born world champion triathlete Kate Strong and freshwater expert and Cardiff University academic Dr Masud. Their goal was to raise awareness of pollution in Welsh rivers and inspire collective action to restore these vital ecosystems.

The Taff Tidy campaign was created to unite communities cleaning one river and breaking the previous record of only 329 participants, set in India last February. By surpassing this record, Wales demonstrated the incredible potential of collective effort in tackling urgent environmental challenges. The campaign's success was supported by countless volunteers and key organisations, and these groups contributed dozens of volunteers, helping to make a real difference across the multiple clean-up sites.

The Taff Tidy campaign stands as a powerful reminder that every one of us has a role to play in caring for our natural environment. Looking to the future, the campaign is determined to leave a lasting legacy by educating communities about the importance of water security and protection. So, if you missed out on the world record, it's not too late to get involved. Congratulations to everyone who contributed to this historic achievement.

We move on now to item 7, a debate on a Member's legislative proposal: a Bill on littering and fly-tipping. I call on Mick Antoniw to move the motion.

Diolch yn fawr. Last Friday, along with 1,300 other volunteers, I participated in the world record-breaking river clean-up, organised by Kate Strong from Pontypridd. This fantastic community event highlights the strength of feeling on this important issue. Across Wales every week, a dedicated army of 16,000 volunteers, together with a small band of local authority workers, prevents us from drowning in a sea of discarded fast-food packaging, bottles, cans, food containers, cigarette butts and even used nappies. 250 tonnes of this mess is cleared up by volunteers every year.

Littering in Wales is on the rise. In many areas, it is reaching epidemic levels. Earlier this year, Keep Wales Tidy reported a 285 per cent increase in the number of streets heavily affected by litter and refuse. We should be grateful to every one of our volunteers, but the reality is that they are massively outnumbered by those who just don't care. Littering isn't just laziness, it's a lack of respect for other people. It's a disregard for community, and it shows total disdain for the environment, wildlife and for the planet.

Eighty-three per cent of litter is pedestrian dropped or, increasingly, thrown from car windows. Litter not only reduces people's quality of life, it works against collective community pride, and it creates the conditions for other forms of antisocial behaviour, such as fly-tipping, graffiti and vandalism, to proliferate. So, we should all be concerned about littering, and not just in Wales's abundant beauty spots. Wherever people live, work or play, they deserve to do so in an area unblighted by litter and by its big and uglier counterpart, fly-tipping, which is also on the rise in Wales.

In 2023-24, there were more than 42,000 reported fly-tipping incidents in Wales, up 6 per cent from the previous year, and a 20 per cent increase on pre-pandemic levels. The 102 prosecutions that followed amounted to less than 0.25 per cent of incidents. However, a deep-dive into the data reveals that even this tiny number of prosecutions presents a rose-tinted picture. Just two local authorities accounted for 68 per cent of all prosecutions. Twelve local authorities reported no prosecutions at all, and as the number of prosecutions refers to offences not individuals, on average, local authorities prosecuted just four individuals.

Existing legislation allows for vehicle seizure and unlimited fines. The value of fines imposed is not collated centrally, but we know that less than 70 per cent of prosecutions attracted a fine, and the average is just £516. In the local authority where the most prosecutions have taken place, the largest fine imposed was just £2,000. Vehicle confiscation is likely to be an effective deterrent. The number of vehicle seizures is not collated centrally, but it appears that this very rarely happens. This legislative proposal advocates improving, strengthening and making better use of existing law, including seizing vehicles in almost all circumstances and imposing a meaningful penalty at first offence.

Fixed-penalty notices can also be an effective deterrent, and I agree with those local authorities that believe that this cap, which currently stands at £400 for fly-tipping, needs to be reviewed upwards. More pressing, however, is the need for a greater number of fixed-penalty notices to be issued. Last year just 1,086 were issued against fly-tippers—a fall of 8 per cent on the previous year. And that’s an average of around 50 fixed-penalty notices per local authority or just one a week.

Equally, more use needs to be made of fixed-penalty notices to combat littering. In 2022-23 local authorities issued just 533 notices—an average of two per month per local authority. Nine local authorities issued none at all, and perhaps that isn’t surprising when each notice, on average, raised just £57.

As Keep Wales Tidy notes, whilst fixed-penalty notices are popular with residents, they are resource-heavy, and this is an unavoidable fact of life for local authorities, which, understandably, focus limited resources on clearance rather than enforcement. One local authority, for example, reported 400 fly-tipping events every month, and although CCTV footage of many of these offences was available, there was simply insufficient resource to examine the evidence and pursue prosecutions. Nevertheless, clearance still costs local authorities millions of pounds each year.

[Inaudible.]—the amount of money that's spent on collecting litter, hundreds of thousands of pounds, which could be spent on education, on buses, all of these things that really matter to people. Do you think that's a better way of spending our public money?

Yes, it is a resource that should be unnecessary and is wasted. It could be spent on so many better things in making our communities better, more beautiful, more accessible, as well as all these standard services—public services that the local authorities provide.

And whether it’s littering or fly-tipping, prevention is the key and is a far more cost-effective option than increasing enforcement or clearing up the mess. Educational work is incredibly important, but we also need to invest in simple deterrents, such as even just signage to make clear that littering and fly-tipping are offences and that there will be prosecutions.

Despite the fight-back by volunteers and local authorities, they do need more support from Welsh Government. For example, data is not collected in a standardised way, and whilst innovative strategies are being implemented in some areas, there appears to be no process to identify and share best practice. So, Welsh Government could take a lead on these issues, and it should also take control of the £90 million that comes to Wales as part of the extended producer responsibility scheme and use it in a targeted and strategic way.

Llywydd, in Wales it is currently possible to litter with impunity and to see fly-tipping as a low-risk business option, so winning the battle against this anti-social behaviour will require a joined-up, Government-led approach. Our aim must be for it to become culturally unacceptable to drop litter and commercially unaffordable to fly-tip in Wales. To achieve this, enforcement needs to be stepped up. The penalties imposed need to provide a credible deterrent and reflect, not just the cost of clearance, but the detrimental impact felt by the community and the environment. This means educating magistrates on the true extent of the harm done.

We need to be more imaginative in the toolbox of penalties. For example, those who throw rubbish from their vehicles should attend, in my view, a mandatory environmental awareness course, similar to the speed awareness courses, or face penalty points, which could lead to disqualification. Commercial fly-tippers should fear, not just significant fines, but the likely prospect of vehicle confiscation and possibly a ban. Signage needs to be commonplace, educating people about the offences; technology should be widely employed.

Llywydd, I hope this Senedd will be able to engage with the cross-party group on littering, fly-tipping and waste reduction, as we develop proposals to make better use of current legislation and bring forward ideas for the inclusion in party manifestos—across all political parties. This issue has gone under the radar for too long. We ignore it at our peril, and our communities demand that action is taken. I hope that, with this legislative proposal, this will be a step forward now towards legislation that will achieve this objective. Diolch yn fawr.

I have also in the past long called for the Welsh Government to form a new approach to deal with the modern menace of fly-tipping and littering across Wales. And thank you, Mick, for really opening that up well. I'd like to endorse the comments: there are so many volunteer groups now who are sick and tired and fed up of just wading through litter—in our streets, in our countryside. I'm going to call out Friends of the West Shore, Friends of Mostyn Street, Llanrwst mayor Councillor Mostyn Jones, and their town council. These little groups get together—. And I have to say, when you see littering around, or fly-tipping, you tend to think, 'Oh, it's young people.' No, it's not. Too often, adults set no example whatsoever, no good example, and are just dumping mattresses, old settees and things. Frankly, it's disgusting and lazy behaviour, particularly when there's often a place where you can go. But I will say, over the years, that has worried me, with local authorities—how they have tried to, with all the financial pressures on them, get money back, by imposing charges on taking in mattresses, taking in settees and all sorts of other household furniture. So, I think there are lessons to be learnt there.

Natural Resources Wales noted, in 2023-24, 42,171 incidents of fly-tipping. That's disgusting. That's a 6 per cent increase from the previous year. This last year, there were more than 25,000 enforcement actions, leading to around 1,000 fines and 102 prosecutions. But when doing the research, very few prosecutions come in from our local authorities. And I get it—they say they haven't got the resources there. It goes back to my big argument with NRW: the polluter should pay. These fees and fines should be coming back to help protect our environment, going forward. In north Wales, Conwy County Borough Council recorded 1,663 incidents of fly-tipping in 2023-24, yet took only 322 enforcement actions. The Isle of Anglesey County Council: 3,918; just nine enforcement actions. And Wrexham County Borough Council had 252 incidents of fly-tipping in 2021-22. That was the lowest in north Wales for that year, but, in 2023-24, this number increased to over 1,055 reported incidents. So, it's getting worse, and I fully support you with this proposal.

Despite the Welsh Government providing local authorities with additional funding, and different schemes to enable them to increase the amount of enforcement, it's not happening. I reiterate the call for the major challenge of littering and fly-tipping to be taken seriously by local authorities and the Welsh Government. Only then can true progress be made. I'm glad to say that the Welsh Government are now working with organisations like Keep Wales Tidy. I have to say, I do beach cleans, and, again, it just sickens me when I see the kind of rubbish that's left on the beach.

Janet, you'll have to wind up now.

Yes. I thank Mick, Carolyn and Delyth for bringing this legislative proposal before us today, and I hope that we can continue, cross-party, to work on this issue, going forward. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I'd like to thank Mick for tabling today's debate and for his leadership on the cross-party group on littering, fly-tipping and waste reduction.

I detest going for walks in our countryside and coming across litter. I think, if they brought it, why can't they carry it home in their pockets? It's harmful to our natural environment, and it looks awful. I was brought up to take rubbish back home with me, but, now, I go for walks and end up taking other people's rubbish back home. I remember once, a gully emptier told me that a blocked highway drain in a cul-de-sac was blocked by an accumulation of crisp packets where young children used to play. They poked the crisp packets down the drain and blocked it. One of the young people, when they were older—she was seen posting a dog-poo bag down a gully, so she hasn't grown out of the habit.

I think the idea of a litter awareness course is a good one, so that people are aware of the damage that they’re doing. I remember, during the pandemic, lots of litter picker groups were set up, which was fantastic community action taking place, a great social responsibility, and they became the litter police as well. Local authorities are struggling with cuts. They do not have the resources or spare capacity to send litter pickers out into communities and beyond town centres. And household recycling centres in many areas have had to close on certain days as a budget-saving cost, so that’s a big issue.

Local authorities have asked for no more unfunded legislation. And I remember when they employed Kingdom—I don’t know if anybody else remembers them—an outsourced company, and there was an outcry. The challenge back to us as councillors was that they were focusing on the easy targets such as smokers and cigarette butts, and then public opposition meant that they were terminated, so that didn’t work.

However, the cost of clearing and moving fly-tipping on public land is hugely expensive. And if dumped on private land, it’s not the council’s responsibility—I don’t think many people realise that—it’s the private landowner’s responsibility, and sometimes it just gets left. It also takes a lot of work for council enforcement officers to get enough evidence to build a case. It may eventually go to court, but then the fine isn’t enough of a deterrent, so I totally agree with you, Mick, that we need to look at that.

I welcome that the UK Government is building a four-nation approach on producer responsibility, taxing companies on packaging, and hopefully we can see a change there. And deposit-return schemes for on-the-go waste might also help with the solution.

I think when people say we need more bins, I don’t think that is the way forward. It accumulates more rubbish dumped at the side. I think people should just take their rubbish home with them and recycle it. I got some bins removed from lay-bys, where people were just adding more rubbish to them and they were overflowing. And I see what happens in Cardiff, which is horrendous.

The Marine Conservation Society said that 2024 saw a 4 per cent increase in the average amount of litter found on Welsh beaches. And with plastic pollution being such an issue—it’s even in every glass of water—we know what’s happening there, so we need to do something, and I really welcome this coming forward. Thank you.

Thank you. I call Delyth Jewell. 

Thank you, Chair. I welcome this debate, and I thank Mick for bringing it forward. This is an issue that wrecks our communities and damages our environment, and places an unfair burden on local authorities and on the public. The statistics from Keep Wales Tidy are extremely worrying, especially the increase in unacceptable levels of littering in our most deprived areas. Now, this is not just an environmental issue, it’s also a social justice issue as well.

I wonder why so many people do litter. It is sometimes difficult to understand, but perhaps they feel a lack of ownership of our public spaces, a lack of connection. If we want to fix that, and close the gap, we must start, yes, with better education, by connecting young people with their community settings, and with their communities, but also with the courses which that Mick mentioned. I think that’s a very good idea.

Now, the proposed Bill seeks to address a number of other key gaps. I would support strengthening financial and non-financial penalties, but enforcement alone will not solve the problem. As we’ve already heard, behavioural change is essential. There must be a joint effort to understand why people engage in fly-tipping and what barriers prevent legal waste disposal.

Accessibility is a significant factor. When councils place restrictions on waste disposal, whether through limited opening hours, permit requirements, or higher fees, the risk of fly-tipping increases. If we’re serious about tackling this issue, we must ensure that people have accessible, affordable options to dispose of their waste. I’m not trying to—what is the word? I can’t remember the word in Welsh or in English. I'm not trying to say that what they’re doing is right, but we have to understand the thinking behind that in terms of ensuring that we can try to change their behaviour.

A standardised approach across Wales is also essential. Now, for too long, the focus has been on individuals rather than the industries and retailers that produce the waste in the first place. Producers should be ordered to take more responsibility—as has already been said this afternoon—for the entire life cycle of their products, including their disposal. A dedicated litter fund that would be ringfenced could provide resources now for enforcement and education.

I will close, Chair, where I started, with education. The work of Keep Wales Tidy in schools is invaluable. That needs to be incorporated into the curriculum. We have to change attitudes, as we did with smoking as well. Our communities will be the ones to suffer in the future if we don’t tackle this problem.

Can I firstly thank Mick Antoniw for bringing forward this legislative proposal and debate today? I think we’re all united in what you’re trying to aim to do, and I think we should all rally behind you on this.

Littering is an absolute blight throughout the entirety of Wales. Quite frankly, it lets us down as a nation. I’ve never understood personally, as we all say in here, why people make the decision to litter, and agree it is certainly antisocial. I think Delyth hit it on the head; people no longer seem to have ownership. They don’t have ownership or responsibility in many swathes of their life. I don’t know what’s gone wrong with society. It never used to be like this. We need to take a hard stance against it, because it’s not acceptable.

One particular area that falls under my shadow portfolio of transport is just the amount of littering on our roads that we see at the moment, especially on our trunk roads. I have three major transport arteries going through my constituency—the A4042, the A40 and A449—and I can tell you now that residents are really frustrated and concerned about littering, all of them. Especially those at where we sit—like in Monmouth, for instance, the A40—at the gateway to Wales. Tourists and residents are faced with this unsightly view of litter alongside our roads when entering the county, and it’s not acceptable.

It's far too easy for motorists just to chuck their waste out of the window when travelling along the country, leaving it for locals like us to pick up, or, in most cases, for it to just sit there rotting on the roadside. So, there is much of this Bill I agree with, and the laws around fly-tipping certainly need to be strengthened, but there needs to be further monitoring in place as well to catch people in the first place. I think there should be more discreet cameras monitoring our laybys and hotspots. Those are so easily resourced now and can be used really effectively.

But also there needs to be facilities for people to dispose of their waste. Mind, that’s no excuse at all. Even if there isn’t a bin there, you can take it home with you. I’m sure the facilities that used to be in laybys along the trunk roads were taken away to encourage people to take things away, but that’s not worked; we’re seeing it pile up and it’s a real mess.

So, we absolutely have to strengthen the law on fly-tipping and introduce other measures to punish those who commit these offences. But I think also local authorities and the likes of the South Wales Trunk Road Agent need additional support perhaps to get on top of this problem, so that we can ensure that we can maintain a clean and tidy presence.

So, I welcome this legislative proposal. We should not continue to tolerate fly-tipping or littering, as we tend to do nowadays. We need to go back to how it used to be and have a firm line on this. So, thank you, Mick.

Final speaker, Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you very much. One of my bêtes noires is the people who tidy their vehicles by emptying the contents of their ashtray on to the ground for somebody else to pick up. It’s extraordinary, really, and, similar to the experience that Peter Fox has, I think one of the most depressing things is when you go to beauty spots for a walk or a cycle and, in the middle of nowhere, you’ll suddenly find these cans and these plastic bottles. We know that the plastic bottles are deeply harmful, getting into the rivers and harming the wildlife. So, it’s just totally depressing. What do people think they’re doing?

But, in the urban environment that I represent, all four of the least prosperous wards in my constituency have to have volunteers to try and keep on top of this, because otherwise it would just become such an appalling place to live, and we have to be incredibly grateful for them. I imagine that Cardiff is amongst the two local authorities that dominate the prosecution league tables. Cardiff Council issued nearly 2,700 enforcement notices and over 300 fixed-penalty notices in 2023-24 to people who failed to present their rubbish correctly. Because we have to somehow get people into the understanding that separating their recycling on the doorstep is mandatory. And the worst thing that happens is when people put food into plastic bags that then get broken up by the seagulls and the foxes, and then it’s food all over the place and the rats are loving it.

I think that the—. I want to understand why there’s no co-ordination of best practice amongst local authorities, because surely there is a role for the WLGA to share best practice, because, clearly, the worst form of littering is fly-tipping, and particularly the cash-in-hand criminals who dump builders’ rubble, house clearances, mattresses, which disfigure the beautiful woods in Llanedeyrn and Pentwyn. So, despite the fact that there are all these volunteers around there, they’re not going to be able to clear those sorts of heavy items, and, unfortunately, it cost the council over £300,000 to clear fly-tipping. And I absolutely support the idea of mandatory environmental awareness training, but I think we also need to see mandatory community payback—being obliged to volunteer to clear the fly-tipping themselves or face a very, very hefty fine. Give them that choice and then they will think twice before doing it.

I call on the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs, Huw Irranca-Davies. 

Diolch yn fawr iawn. And first of all, can I thank the Members for tabling this proposal—Mick, Carolyn and Delyth—but also those other Members who've taken part—Janet, Peter and Jenny—as well? Let's start from the basis that a clean and safe and accessible to everybody and attractive environment is an essential part of the Wales that we want now and also for future generations. So, I’m therefore very much supportive of the intentions behind this proposed Bill. However, Mick, I would just like to take some time to point out what we’re already doing and what’s already in place—some of the things that you’ve asked for. So, bear with me, just for a moment. And just to agree with the point that you were making, Delyth, this is a social justice issue, because the worst travesties of fly-tipping and littering tend to be impacting on some of the most disadvantaged communities, and we recognise that. So, we need to get on top of this.

But let me turn to some of the examples, at the moment, of what we’re already doing, some of which have been touched upon in this debate. Local authorities, for example, can already confiscate vehicles related to fly-tipping offences, and, indeed, some of them are actually using this already. So, recently—only recently—Neath Port Talbot council’s waste crime team, with the support of South Wales Police, confiscated a vehicle that was used to fly-tip construction waste in Crymlyn Burrows. We need to see more of this, where it can be done. And by the way, congratulations on setting up the new cross-party group focusing on fly-tipping and litter, and waste, I understand, as well. I’m interested in the work that you’re doing there, and I look forward to coming to speak to the group sometime soon. I agree with you that local authorities need to make use of the existing enforcement tools that are available, like Neath Port Talbot have done: adopt a very proactive approach, get on top of this, get in front of the people who are littering and fly-tipping.

Now, resources have been mentioned, and we recognise that enforcement activity can, indeed, as Members have said, be complex and challenging. So, that’s why we do continue to support local authorities. We’ve doubled our funding now to Fly-tipping Action Wales. It’s a programme that’s operated by Natural Resources Wales. But let me tell you what it does in practical terms. It, for example, provides support then for local authorities to access free legal advice, because very often they’re challenged in how do we take this enforcement action. We provide the free legal advice from specialist environmental lawyers. It has also provided dedicated enforcement officer support, so those local authorities who go, ‘How do we do this, how do we get on the front foot?’, we can help them do it.

In north Wales, I can point to numerous positive results. So, for example, several offenders were caught fly-tipping in Eryri national park. One incident involved a significant amount of very dangerous asbestos sheeting, but this led to the offender paying clean-up costs for that as well. On penalties, which have been mentioned by a few, there's already a suite of financial penalties available for environmental offences. So, local authorities can set littering fixed-penalty notices at £150, and, for small-scale fly-tipping, £400. And offenders can be prosecuted in court for more serious offences.

But look, if there is evidence—and maybe the cross-party group will look at this—to suggest that we need to increase these fines, we already have the powers to do so. It doesn't need new legislation; we've got the powers to do it. It will be interesting to see what the CPG, working with the WLGA and police and others, come up with with their thoughts. But let me make it clear: littering and fly-tipping are already criminal offences and there are absolutely no excuses.

Generally, I believe that changing people's views on littering is, though, best achieved through education and awareness raising. Mick mentioned there that we need to get to that point where, culturally, it is simply unacceptable to litter and to fly-tip. In the same way that, as I said this morning at a conference in Sophia Gardens on the leadership that we're showing in terms of recycling, we are now a recycling nation, it is culturally what we do, we now need to be culturally in the space where we do not accept littering and fly-tipping. And in this, I've got to acknowledge that, despite the hard work of local authorities and others on the ground, there are still those who are determined to break the law, and that's why I welcome this debate today and the contributions and the suggestions that are being made.

And just to say, one thing that's been talked about is funding for local authorities. To be absolutely clear, that's why we've been supportive, on a four-nation basis, of developing the extended producer responsibility proposals, because that is direct: the polluter pays, passing the costs upstream of that waste packaging, which will then come to those local authorities. And then the question is should we allow those local authorities to determine what is best for them in their local area, or, as some have suggested today, should we have a drop-down template that I or others say. I think I favour the former, because local input on this, I think, is important as well on it. But EPR is going to help with that. We've also, of course, introduced legislation to tackle littering at source, with bans on several commonly littered plastic products, and, from 1 June, single-use vapes will also be banned in Wales. 

I can't respond to every point, but I note that what's been raised here today are things on data collection—and there's an issue on the quality as well as the centralisation of it, just to be clear—litter-awareness courses or, indeed, community payback; issues around affordability of the collection of bulk items; whether more bins are better or worse, or maybe they just need to be in the right places; the role of WLGA in sharing best practice; and many other things that I don't have time to turn to today.

But I just want to turn to some other parts, because I don't believe that enforcement and legislation is the whole picture; it's also to do with what we do with education. So, our continuing support, which many people take for granted now, of the Eco-Schools programme, where children are educated to be more environmentally aware, is key, including the importance of recycling and disposal of waste responsibly. It is interesting—. Oh, I've run out of time already; my apologies. Let me just touch on a couple of others quickly, with your dispensation there.

The funding of Keep Wales Tidy supports the awareness-raising campaigns, direct support to communities wishing to improve their local environment. I and others have been out with the Spring Clean Cymru events last week right across Wales: the Taff Tidy clean-up, which, with support from others, broke the world record for the largest organised litter pick; I was on the banks of the Clywedog in north Wales doing the same, with volunteers from Wrexham.

And the other thing is, as I was at the event this morning, our drive towards a circular economy, that has growing momentum in Wales. It's not just that we're the second best and approaching to be—we want to be—the first best in recycling. That is thanks to the collective efforts of individuals and businesses and local authority partners throughout Wales. What that demonstrates is that it is possible to make transformative change, to make that cultural change, we just need everybody pointing in the same direction; and that includes our DRS scheme—which we've discussed here earlier on in questions—and then working with Fly-tipping Action Wales and Keep Wales Tidy. So, thank you for all the contributions and I look forward to working with Members and with the cross-party group to see what other suggestions may come forward.

I now call on Mick Antoniw to reply to the debate and remind him that he was so enthusiastic in opening, he now only has a minute left to close. [Laughter.]

I'll be enthusiastically very, very brief.

One of the biggest problems, I think, is that the courts are not using the powers they have consistently or to the full extent they have to actually make enforcement work. And can I thank everyone who has spoken in this? I think we all have pressures from our communities, who are now raising the scale of this particular problem. The strength we have, of course, is that this is something that spans across all political parties. I suspect it's one of those unusual issues where we have 100 per cent cross-party unity that something needs to be done, that there are things we can do within existing legislation, and there are things that we need to do in the future to strengthen, to change, and to boost that legislation because our communities demand it. Diolch yn fawr.

That surprised me. The motion—. No, wait a minute. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Object—did we have an objection? So, if we have an objection, I'll defer voting under this item until voting item.

So, I'm moving on now to item 8, a debate on the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport and International Relations Committee report, 'A decade of cuts: Impact of funding reductions for culture and sport'. I call on Delyth Jewell, the Chair of the committee, to open the debate.

Thank you, Chair. It's a pleasure to open today's debate on this important report on a decade of cuts. I would like to start by thanking everyone who gave evidence to us as a committee, committee members, and the committee's team of staff for their work. There are 13 recommendations in our report. We were pleased that three of those had been accepted by the Government, but were disappointed that seven had only been accepted in principle, and that three had been rejected.

It is concerning, indeed, to see the Government increasingly, over several different departments, adhering to this method of accepting committee recommendations 'in principle', only to explain in the narrative underneath that they don't really accept the recommendation at all. For example, we recommended that the Government should analyse the most suitable model for funding national cultural companies, either through the arts council or directly from the Government. Although they accepted this recommendation in principle, the response below clearly states that the Government believes that the arts council should continue to distribute the money for these companies. How, then, could they say that they accept our recommendation in principle?

There are other examples, and this inconsistency is worrying. Again, it happens across a number of departments across Government, as we have seen. But I would like to hear the Minister responding to that issue.

Over the last decade, we've seen prolonged and harsh real-terms cuts to culture and sport. These sectors have been treated as nice to haves. As a result, public funding of culture and sport is lower in Wales per head than most European nations, despite a Wales of vibrant culture being one of the goals of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

Senedd research compared public spending on culture and sport with 24 other European countries. The average spend on recreation and sporting services in these countries is £187.74 per person. In Wales, the figure is £59.75 per person, or 32 per cent of the average of these countries, placing Wales third from bottom. The average spend on cultural services in these countries is £215.02 per person. In Wales, on the other hand, the figure is £69.68 per person, placing Wales second from bottom.

As I've said in the foreword to our report, culture and sport are not luxuries reserved for times of plenty. They are vital threads in the fabric of what makes life worth living, but they have been neglected, I'm afraid, by successive Welsh Governments. We therefore recommend in the report that the Welsh Government should increase funding for culture and sport until they are comparable with similar countries. Now, the Welsh Government accepted this recommendation in principle and responded with funding increases in the 2025-26 final budget, and we were gratified and grateful to see these increases.

This uplift, though, cannot undo the long-term damage caused by previous funding cuts. This increase does not restore the critical loss of sector skills and expertise—skills that might never be fully recovered—nor does it resolve the funding gaps that might still arise from the increases in employers' national insurance contributions.

The brutal underfunding of these vital policy areas over time has undermined their proven capabilities to strengthen community cohesion and to improve people's physical and mental well-being. It is cheaper to invest in preventative care than to treat ill health, but there is limited joined-up thinking across Government when it comes to the benefits of culture and sport. A 'preventative' category of spending in future budgets could help recognise and properly fund these sectors' true value. We were therefore disappointed that the Welsh Government rejected our recommendations relating to prevention, especially since implementing these recommendations would not be too onerous, in our opinion.

We are likewise disappointed that the Welsh Government rejected our recommendation that it should proactively remove barriers that make it more difficult for organisations to spend money they are given, especially in these particularly difficult times. Funding recipients want to be treated and funded as trusted partners, in a more reciprocal, collaborative relationship, and they called on the Welsh Government to provide more flexibility as to how it allocates funding. We heard that organisations are sometimes unable to spend additional in-year funding because of restrictions imposed on how it can be spent. The effect of this—. We already know the situation that so many of these organisations find themselves in, so that is a deeply dismaying situation to be continuing.

Now, the effect of public funding cuts on culture and sport bodies has been, of course, exacerbated by the pandemic, by inflation and the increased cost of living. The latest figures show that all forms of cultural attendance are down compared with pre-pandemic levels. Audiences are, of course, feeling the effects of the cost of living.

It is becoming more and more difficult to maintain sport and cultural facilities—that was clear in the evidence—and some have had to close their doors. We have an ageing public leisure and culture stock that requires significant investment and upgrading. The Welsh Government, we believe, needs to work with local authorities to ensure that these important community assets remain available in our communities, are up to standard, and that they meet their communities' needs. The Welsh Government has invested heavily in its twenty-first century schools and education programme, but at present there is limited joined-up thinking about how these new facilities can benefit sports clubs and the wider community.

The lack of investment in facilities and in organisations could lead to a future where our young people are deprived of the chance to explore their talents and to represent Wales on the world stage. There is a real risk that participation in culture and sport could become yet more elitist, and that those people from diverse and lower socioeconomic backgrounds will feel the effect of these cuts the most harshly.

We would like to see organisations responding more strategically to their reduced income by sharing services and pursuing new commercial activities, but that would require better strategic direction from the Government, which has to date not been there. In response to our recommendation to this effect, the Welsh Government said that they are already providing

'a very clear strategic direction to the national culture and sport bodies'.

That did not chime with the message that was given to us by witnesses to our inquiry. Witnesses told us that the sector is currently facing a crisis. As a committee, we're concerned about whether the Welsh Government has always fully appreciated the extent of the pressures the culture and sport sectors are facing.

Again, the increase in spending between the draft and final budgets was very welcome. We are still looking for signals, of course, that this is the first step in treating arts, culture and sport differently by Government, as that vital first step. We are in dire need of a long-term strategy. We welcome this funding, but it cannot be something that is simply short term. For far too long, culture and sport have been treated, as I said earlier, as nice to haves instead of intrinsic to a high quality of life. We need a change in mindset to ensure sustainability and growth in these sectors. Ultimately, they need to thrive and not just survive.

May I again thank everyone who has played a part in the production of this report? I look forward to hearing everyone's comments in this afternoon's debate.

It's a pleasure to take part in this debate this afternoon, and it's the first committee debate I've taken part in as culture spokesperson for the Welsh Conservatives, so it's a pleasure to contribute.

Culture, arts and sport are the lifeblood of our nationhood. They forge our identity and ignite our aspirations. They reinforce what it means to be Welsh—anchored in history, yet looking towards our future. They are also the crucible of our nation's talent, nurturing those talents within our next generation.

The report before us, 'A decade of cuts', paints a grim picture. Years of continuous culture and sports funding reductions have fractured the very pillars of our society, leaving them crumbling and overburdened. As Welsh Conservatives, we do not deny the need for investment—far from it. We defend it, provided that it is measured, purposeful and honours those who provide the money—indeed, the taxpayer.

We shouldn't give in to the calls for limitless spending that we hear so often from those on the left, particularly when it comes with no accountability or oversight, as is often the case. The state is no bottomless fruit bowl. We must ensure that every pound spent on the arts, culture and sport sectors is spent wisely. We should recognise that every pound lavished on theatre or a football pitch is a pound wrested from a hospital bed, a classroom or a pensioner's purse. The task is not merely to fund culture and sport; we must, but do so with discernment, ensuring that every penny serves a public good, not a bureaucratic whim or niche concern out of step with the ordinary Welsh person.

As Welsh Conservatives, we demand rigour, efficiency and accountability. We should fund culture and sport, not as a vehicle for the crachach in Pontcanna to write dissertations on bakery items and such, because this is the sort of nonsense being funded by some of the arm's-length bodies currently enjoying taxpayers' money. The funding must be of benefit to the many, those who find joy in a hymn and find community on a rugby pitch. The cultural sector is becoming a sand box for the indulgent, the obscure and, more importantly, the wasteful.

To illustrate my point, we have seen £50,000 frittered on an immersive installation in Cardiff, a labyrinth of lights and noise that bewildered its small number of visitors before its quiet demise, much to the embarrassment of its creators. Another £20,000 evaporated into a consultancy to rebrand a cultural festival that no-one sought to rename. Then there's the £15,000 swallowed by a climate change dance—a prancing oddity that's altered neither the skies nor the spectators' opinions. And, lest we forget, £30,000 was once splashed on a sculpture of recycled tyres in Swansea, lauded as 'bold' by its creators, yet dubbed an eyesore by those condemned to live beside it. This is not culture, this is waste, waste that erodes trust in funding when trust is most fragile.

There are many institutions worthy of more money that aren't getting it. I had the pleasure of visiting National Museum Wales in Cardiff last week, and their passion for preserving and sharing Wales's cultural and scientific heritage was truly inspiring. The museum is a cornerstone of our cultural heritage crying out for funding to make essential repairs. And, of course, National Theatre Wales was also forced to close last year due to Welsh Government funding cuts.

Our culture and sports are imperilled due to cuts, but also due to Welsh Government waste. I see the results of these cuts in my own constituency, in Denbighshire: library times reduced, playing fields auctioned, youth clubs hollowed out. Cuts more broadly to the arts, culture and sport sectors have been devastating. Wales has the second-lowest spending per head on culture out of all the European nations, a figure that should shame us.

So, to conclude, Llywydd dros dro, in the current economic climate, patience is wearing thin amongst the Welsh people, with quangos carelessly wasting their money. I would urge the arts and culture quangos not to bite the hands that feed them, and I would urge the Welsh Government to exercise more oversight regarding how taxpayers' money is spent. These sectors desperately need more money, and the committee's report lays that out in depressing detail. Let's fund the arts that inspire, the sports that bind and the heritage that defines us, but let us reject that waste. The people of Wales deserve no less. Thank you.

Well, I'm glad that the shadow spokesperson from the Conservatives has changed his mind on National Museum Wales after visiting. Only a few weeks ago, you were saying about woke exhibitions there. And hopefully, if you engage more with culture and the organisations that we've been seeing as committee members, perhaps you will change your mind again. Because what's clear here is that culture matters to people in our communities and, evidently, what we've seen through this inquiry is that there hasn't been enough support.

If you look at this inquiry, the cuts over a period of a decade have had a significant impact, and what we've seen is that there is relief in these sectors, in reading this report, that finally we do recognise the severity of the situation, because for years, the sectors have been praised by countless Ministers for their resilience and their response to challenges, and I’ve heard Ministers and First Ministers also give the impression, rightly or wrongly, that they are comfortable with cutting these areas in the face of financial challenges facing each portfolio.

I remember leading a debate on this exact subject a year ago and hearing the Minister at the time shout at me, ‘But what about the NHS?’ without acknowledging the key role that the arts and sport play in terms of the preventative agenda and keeping people healthy throughout their lives, saving money and the scarce resources of our health service. It is therefore good to see in the Government’s response to this report that there is at last a recognition of the challenges and impact resulting from reductions in funding and agreement that support is needed for culture and sport. So, of course there are words here to be welcomed, but we also need firm commitments in order to undo the damage and ensure that Wales does not remain among the European nations that spend the least on these services.

After all, with culture and the arts being such a central part of who we are as a nation, it is heartbreaking that we have reached a critical situation where this is the reality in terms of culture in Wales. I’ll list a few things here: national collections in buildings that require significant investment if they’re not to cause damage to those national collections; hundreds of jobs being lost; National Theatre Wales having been closed, and an individual—Michael Sheen—funding our national theatre through the medium of English; the Welsh National Opera in crisis; the junior department of the Welsh college of music and drama having disappeared; the publishing sector shrinking and publishers at risk of disappearing.

I could go on and on, but I hope that we all understand, having read this report, how dire the situation is. Since the report was published, Plaid Cymru has contacted organisations that work in these areas and has asked for their response to the report, and I’d like to share with you one of the responses that summarises, in my opinion, why scrutiny in this area has been so important, and it also summarises what action is needed.

'We felt very much heard and respected but what we now need are targeted interventions that address the core issues. First and foremost, decisions on culture spend have been viewed as political rather than financial decisions, i.e. it is, in my view, a lazy excuse to say there is no money when of course there is money; it is about prioritising where that money goes. The relative smallness of the culture spend makes little to no difference in any of the other big portfolios, but it has a material bearing on the cultural sector. It therefore boils down to values, i.e. do we as a nation value culture, and crucially, do we believe that it is worth investing in it.'

The welcoming of the report was echoed by many others, with Sport Wales stating that the report was well received across the sport sector, and the Welsh Sports Association providing this warning: if Wales wishes to maintain its proud sporting history, continue to compete on the world stage, and inspire and enable our citizens to enjoy healthy and active lives, this long-term downward trend must be reversed. I agree wholeheartedly. What I hope, therefore, to hear from the Minister in his response today is what happens next, and how seriously is the Government taking these findings. We cannot continue to let our culture, the very essence of what makes Cymru Cymru, continue to languish. There needs to be a step change, and I hope to hear that commitment made today to both the Senedd and the sectors so that we reverse the damage already inflicted.

I’m delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I thank the committee Chair for the way in which she introduced the committee report and thank the staff of the committee for the work they did on this report. I think it’s a fundamentally important report, because it speaks to not simply elements of the culture sector and policy on culture, but to fundamentals and where culture sits in terms of the priorities afforded to it by Government.

I will say—and I’ll try to be very gentle in saying this—this report deserves better from the Conservative Party. We heard a very lazy speech, a series of clichés, poorly put together and delivered. Had the Member actually read the report, he might have made a different speech, because he didn't actually reference the report in his speech in the way I would have expected and anticipated. One of the fundamental roles here is not simply the holding to account of Government, but also the holding to account of other public bodies and parts of the public sector. It is surprising that any Member would have been here for four years without fully understanding it is his role to hold those people to account. [Interruption.] I will give way, of course.

You were probably expecting it. I cross-referenced local authority accountability, for example. I mentioned issues within my own constituency in Denbighshire, which I frequently cross-reference. And there are elements in the report that—. You are right in saying that the public sector generally are accountable for these matters, so I think it's slightly disingenuous in your critiquing of my speech and perhaps slightly uninformed as to the workings behind it, given that, obviously, we are politicians and we do have views on certain matters as politicians in this place.

Clearly, we do, and we all have an equal right to articulate those views, and I'm articulating my view of your speech. Let me say this, Gareth, and I'll be very clear: it is your role to hold those people to account, not simply to come here and say that they should be held to account. You should do your job rather than simply articulate the fact that it should perhaps be done by somebody else. I would expect this understanding from any person here who comes here to speak to the culture brief: that it is not the role of politicians to determine what productions are in theatres or what exhibitions are in museums. We do not live in a totalitarian society, we live in a liberal democracy, and it is fundamental—[Interruption.] I will give way. But it is fundamental to any liberal democracy that politicians neither coerce nor threaten nor attack any institution in that society because of the choices they make. Culture does not belong to any political party or to any Government; it belongs to everybody equally. Your idea of culture may not be my idea of culture, it probably isn't the leader of the Welsh Conservatives' view of culture, but what we do is enable everybody to express themselves freely in an open democracy.

Thank you for taking the intervention. Freedom of expression and freedom of speech are incredibly important in our society and must be protected at all costs. What we also have a duty to do is to make sure that public money is spent properly and invested in the right areas, and not wasted. What my colleague quite rightly referred to were examples of waste by cultural organisations in Wales that have invested in things that many members of the public find ridiculous. Investing thousands of pounds in decolonising the Welsh cake is an absolutely barmy project to invest taxpayers' money in. Would you not agree with that, Alun? Surely at least you can see that that is an absolute atrocity.

The acting Presiding Officer will remember that I sat on the Public Accounts Committee under the chairing of the now leader of the Welsh Conservatives some years ago. He was a first-class Chair of that committee, and I'd pay tribute to him for the work he did in seeking out waste and holding public servants to account, and I enjoyed serving under his leadership. But there's a difference between holding people to account for the decisions they make and then questioning what is the cultural expression that is allowed as part of our overall cultural life in this country. There is a clear difference there, and he knows that, but I pay tribute to him for trying to save the bacon of his spokesperson.

In terms of where we're going, and I'm testing the acting Chair here, the Government needs to take a different role, because I criticise the opposition, but the Government here needs to take a different role as well. The tone has certainly changed in recent months, but the 'Crisis, what crisis?' approach from Government runs through the whole of the Government's response to the report. I'll speak absolutely clearly to you, Minister: the approach you took at committee wasn't acceptable, and the approach taken in the response from the Government to this report isn't acceptable either.

There needs to be a very clear recognition of the crisis that has been occurring in the culture sector as a consequence of decisions taken by the Welsh Government. It's the easiest thing in the world to blame the Tories—we've all done it, and I've fallen into that trap as well; we've done it on many occasions—but there is an accountability and a responsibility here. It is the Welsh Government that has taken these decisions, it's the Welsh Government that has delivered these cuts to the—

The Member must now conclude. I've been very generous.

He has been. I've given way to the Conservative Party on these matters before. But I will draw my remarks to a conclusion.

The Welsh Government needs to recognise that culture doesn't happen in a vacuum, and neither does it happen by accident. The committee has visited Ireland, we have the experience of Scotland and England and elsewhere; I look, also, to Iceland, where investment has taken place that has enhanced the life of those countries and those nations and those peoples. And if you want to look at how culture can change wider society, look at Iceland and the impact there on youth policy and on the life chances of young people. In Wales, it will always be the poorest people who lose out the most. For a Labour Government to take decisions that exclude the poorest people, the most vulnerable parts of our society and the poorest communities from joining in the expression of our culture as a nation is a fundamental error of judgment and an error of decision. So, I would like to see the Government withdraw its response to this committee and I would like to see—

The Member must conclude now. I've been extremely generous, so please come to a conclusion.

I will do so immediately. I'd like to see the Government particularly changing its response to recommendation 4, which goes to the heart of this report. I hope the Welsh Government will not simply take note of this report, but will consider what has been said in this debate and will respond more positively to the report here, because it is more fundamental than simply a report on a theme or a segment of policy; it is about who we are as a country and the Government's response to that. I'm grateful to the acting Presiding Officer.

I'm very pleased to take part in this debate today, because I do believe that culture and sport are incredibly important to Wales and, indeed, the whole world. Funding in culture and sport goes a very long way and addresses a number of cross-cutting priorities for the Welsh Government. I'd like to concentrate on grass-roots sport and physical activity, because there's such a strong connection there in terms of the preventative health agenda that we really need to move on to if we're not forever going to be firefighting in terms of health and well-being here in Wales.

We have had all those long years of austerity from the UK Tory Government, which has obviously had a real impact in terms of our sport and culture sectors here in Wales. I believe that, now that we've moved on to better times, with a move away from austerity at a UK level and a more generous funding settlement for Wales, it now gives us the opportunity to make some badly needed progress. In amongst that should be funding for grass-roots sport and physical activity.

A little funding there goes an awful long way, because of all the volunteers who I think we're all familiar with right across Wales in our own constituencies—voluntary organisations, the third sector and all those volunteers who make our grass-roots sport work for our communities, whether it's football, gymnastics, dance, rugby or any other sport or physical activity. We're so lucky to have these volunteers, week in, week out, giving up their time and energy to provide those opportunities for our young people and people of all ages.

I wonder whether the Welsh Government could do a little bit more in terms of having a strategy and policies for grass-roots sport here in Wales, knowing the beneficial effect that that would have on our health and well-being as a nation, given all the problems that we face—obesity, for example, and so many others. I wonder whether, perhaps, more funding could be given to our more deprived communities in terms of meeting the fees for coaching courses, which sometimes are prohibitive in terms of supporting community sport, whether it's providing more money for equipment and kit in those deprived areas, which, again, can be prohibitive for families, or whether it's providing more of a framework to link our big players. You know, in Newport, for example, the city council; Newport Live, the leisure trust; Newport Gwent Dragons; Newport County; and on a national level, organisations like Sport Wales and the Welsh Government itself—whether there could be a strategy or policy that aligns all of these around the effort to support our grass-roots sport.

Will you take an intervention, John?

I will, Gareth.

Thank you very much. Do you also see the value in investment in things like third generation and fourth generation pitches to reduce the barriers to sport access for people specifically with disabilities, so that there are opportunities for them seven days a week, 365 days a year, if you like?

Yes, absolutely. I think quite a lot of investment has gone into those artificial pitches, but we do need to see more. We're all familiar with games being cancelled when the weather is bad, which is very frustrating for everyone involved. I was really pleased that a local football team in Newport, Glan Llyn Football Club, recently established football sessions for disabled children, which were very popular and very well attended, and they hope to build on that and have a disability football section in their youth teams and play matches against other such teams. There are many good developments, but, you know, they really do need to be supported, and I think there just needs to be more of a system and framework behind it all, with the Welsh Government in the lead at a national level and making sure it's a reality right across Wales. 

I organised an Active Newport summit last year, which brought together a lot of the local players in grass-roots sport in Newport, which I think was worth while and successful, and we hope to have a similar event, slightly different, this year. I'm trying to bring grass-roots sport and, indeed, the health sector together locally. I'm encouraged by the fact that the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board later this year will be putting forward its 10-year health plan. One of the recommendations within that is for the Welsh Government to consider, across all its departments, a preventative category of spend in its future budgets to support public health and population health. We really need to see some of that massive health budget across Wales going into preventative spend to a much greater extent, and I think that if a considerable amount of that was channelled into grass-roots sport, it would go a long way towards bringing us forward on that journey to a more preventative approach to health spend, and would also benefit our communities in terms of general quality of life. So, there are things that can be done, and I'd very much like to see the Minister, in his response, addressing some of those issues.

I now call on the Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership, Jack Sargeant.

Diolch yn fawr, acting Presiding Officer. Can I thank particularly the Chair of the committee, Delyth Jewell, for the way in which she led the inquiry, and leads the committee, and opened today's response? I thank all committee members for their work on this important inquiry and those who gave evidence, and I think some are in the gallery this afternoon. I thank all Members who did contribute to the debate. I agree with Alun Davies about the importance of this report, and I assure Members that we do take seriously the role of the committee, the report and the sector itself. I also agree with Alun Davies about his indictment of the Conservative spokesperson's contribution this afternoon. I thought that the majority of contributions, Presiding Officer, were of much value; I'm not sure the same could be said of the Member. I think he misses the point when—

Will you take an intervention, Minister?

Sure.

Thank you. Do you not see the value in the things that the leader of the Welsh Conservatives said in his intervention, in terms of analysing waste, being prudent with public money and spending it wisely on Welsh Government-funded projects? To me, most people in public would see the benefit in that argument, I would strongly imagine.

I thank Gareth Davies for that. I think it's his third time on his feet this afternoon, plus one from the leader of the Welsh Conservatives. The Member earlier said in his contribution, if I'm right, Chair, that culture is the lifeblood of the nation. He also went on to quote that the Welsh Conservatives do not deny the need for investment. They voted against more money for the arts in the final budget, Chair. And you could forgive the Member, couldn't you, for his contribution, because it's my understanding that, whilst he wasn't a member of the committee while this important work was undertaken, he could have read the report, as Alun Davies reminded him. And whilst the comments and contributions from the Conservatives are only interested in a culture war and not the culture of Welsh heritage, I won't focus on that. I will go on focusing on supporting the sector, and the response to the final budget from the sector shows that they are very appreciative of that response.

As I set out earlier, I've said time and time again, Chair, since taking responsibility for culture and sport, I will always make the case for more support for the sector, every single day. And that's why I'm pleased to secure additional money in the final budget. It was money for the arts, money for sports that opposition parties in this place tried to deny. And it wasn't just the Conservatives, it was Plaid Cymru as well.

Chair, our final budget for next year includes additional £9.6 million revenue funding and additional £18.4 capital funding for arts, culture, the creative industries, heritage and sport in Wales. And this was very much welcomed by the sector, by the Arts Council of Wales themselves, by Sport Wales themselves.

The Plaid Cymru spokesperson highlighted the responses from the sector to the report, and I was grateful to her for doing that. I thought the evidence that the committee heard and the responses to the report are important ones. What's also important to recognise is the response of the Welsh Government's support for the sector. I mentioned the arts council and Sport Wales coming out in the final budget supporting positively not only the Welsh Government's stance, but also the Minister's take on these matters, but I'll also point to the creative industries, Presiding Officer. The chief executive officer of Bad Wolf just down the road in Splott, Jane Tranter, quotes: 'Welsh Government's investment in the creative industry is a really strong message that creative industries can be at the heart of employment, at the heart of Wales's growth. Welsh Government putting its money where its mouth is is like green shoots of hope for us all. That is something to be welcomed.'

During the last decade, there has been—it's important to recognise, Presiding Officer—a 274.4 per cent increase in real terms for capital budgets, and this has been welcomed throughout my portfolio. It's this type of investment that will help John Griffiths's constituents in accessing grass-roots sports, and I wish him well in his Active Newport campaign and event later this year. It's that type of investment, Presiding Officer, that will support projects like the redevelopment of Caerphilly castle, the extensive refurbishment of Theatr Clwyd, investing over £20 million in one of Wales's most important cultural institutions, and—[Interruption.] I'll give one more opportunity to the Member.

I do appreciate you giving way. Theatr Clwyd was funded by the UK Government's levelling-up funding last year, prior to the general election. So, are you certain that's a valid remark to make to the Senedd, giving its historical funding not by Welsh Government? It was UK Government funding prior to the last general election.

The Member points to the last general election. Let me take him back to the Senedd elections in 2021. The fact of the matter is that we both stood on election manifestos in that election, and the Welsh Government manifesto commitment in the 2021 election, which he stood in, was that the Welsh Government committed to supporting over £20 million in capital investment in Theatr Clwyd. I look forward to seeing that investment realised in the future months.

And it's not just that, is it? It was the same manifesto where we committed to supporting the football museum of Wales in Wrexham, establishing a national football museum in a city that has excited the world with its football exploits. Presiding Officer, in 2024-25, it's right, we did have to make the difficult choices to protect vital public services. The autumn statement, Presiding Officer—[Interruption.] I will take it.

Obviously we understand the situation at that point in time, but I think our report illustrates that it was a problem long before that, over a decade of cuts. Can I ask specifically, because I haven't heard your response to Alun Davies's point, in terms of your rejection of our No. 4 proposal that talked about the preventative agenda, which was illustrated by John Griffiths—why has that been rejected? Because it says it's streamlined, but evidently that's not the case, and there's so much more we can do. There's an acknowledgement from the Welsh Government themselves in your response that more can be done. So, why reject that? Why reject so many of our recommendations?

I thank the Member for that. I think there is an acknowledgement about prevention and the importance. John Griffiths makes an excellent point in the way he describes prevention. It's something we believe in as well. And funding from other portfolios does happen for this very issue, and we will be looking through the Welsh spending review—I see the Cabinet Secretary for finance, who's in the room now—exactly about the longer term ambitions of budgets, and we will keep all of that in mind, including the committee report.

But to go back to my contribution, Presiding Officer, the autumn UK Government settlement provided an opportunity for us to allocate increased funding and demonstrate our commitment to Wales's cultural, sporting and arts sectors. We are therefore pleased with the additional revenue investments into our public bodies to their revenue budget positions in 2024.

But I’m under no illusions, Presiding Officer, about the challenges within the portfolio. The final budget is a significant step forward. It provides a real opportunity to move towards more secure and more sustainable funding. I think the Chair of the committee asked for signals from the Government. Well, the final budget does provide that: a signal of intent from the Welsh Government, a signal of belief from the Welsh Government. And I've said that every single time I've stood up in this place and every single time I've been asked.

Let me just go through what that final budget provides—not just the final budget settlement, but let me go through the significant investments this year. The additional, Presiding Officer. The Member from the Conservative Party enjoyed his visit to the national museum at Cardiff, and I'm grateful he enjoyed his museum visit; I hope he enjoyed the strike exhibition too. We provided, in-year, £3.2 million additional capital funding for repairs to be carried out for both the museum in Cardiff and the National Library of Wales; £500,000 in-year to protect collections in local museums and archives; an additional £5 million revenue funding for cultural bodies and Cadw through the arm’s-length bodies; an additional £1 million in revenue supporting resilience in areas like Blackwood Miners’ Institute, and I was grateful for Rhiannon Passmore's visit a few weeks ago, highlighting the support of Welsh Government.

We are, Presiding Officer, responding to the committee. [Interruption.] There's a conversation between the two of them, but we'll go on, Presiding Officer—

Order. I want to hear the Minister. Minister.

I'm grateful for your stewardship, acting Presiding Officer, this afternoon. And we do respond to the committee's report. We consulted on our draft priorities for culture in the summer of 2024. We'll be publishing our final priorities for culture later, in the near future, and they will set out how we will shape our cultural services going forward. They will clearly show how culture can help support and deliver change across society.

The Minister must now conclude.

I will come to my conclusion, Presiding Officer. I think I've had too much fun with your Conservative spokesperson, accepting a number of interventions this afternoon. But as I have said, Presiding Officer, I have always stressed that every single person in Wales, including those from more deprived communities, as has been described this afternoon, should have the right to access, create, participate in and see themselves reflected in the cultural and sporting activity of our nation. Years of austerity damaged our cultural as well as our social fabric, but as we build the foundations of recovery, we must remember the benefits of delivering growth should be done inclusively by ensuring that everyone can have access and benefit from the wonderful cultural and sporting opportunities across Wales. I thank the Presiding Officer. I thank the committee members for their engagement in this and future scrutiny as well.

I now call on Delyth Jewell to reply to the debate.

Thank you, acting Chair, and thank you to everyone who's participated in this afternoon's debate. Gareth mentioned

'anchored in history, yet looking towards our future.'

And the arts, particularly, are an anchor. They place us in time; they pay tribute to our past, and they position us for the future. Some of the other comments we heard perhaps didn't relate directly to the report. That was slightly disappointing, because that was almost a distraction from the purpose of this afternoon's debate.

But I would, perhaps, posit in response to some of that Raymond Williams's words that culture is ordinary, culture is a kaleidoscope—it's meant to unify, it's not meant to divide; it should be celebrated in all its wonderful, colourful diversity. I think it's something that we should all keep in mind in these debates.

Heledd mentioned the response of some in the sector to our report, and, yes, there is a tension here, because you mentioned how support has been provided to so many people in the past that have shown resilience in the face of so many challenges in the arts world. So many people working in the arts do so because of their passion. 

Perhaps the English word 'passion' greater captures the nuance here, because in that word you can see far more the suffering that is intrinsic to the experience of that passion. It should not have to be that way.

Heledd asked what will happen next, what the next steps will be. We want to build on what we've seen. We welcome that, but we need that to be a first step, as we've welcomed it. As Heledd said, the arts are at the heart of who we are as a nation and as a people. 

Alun said that this report does not speak so much to specifics as to fundamentals. Yes, it's about the elemental place that culture and sport hold in our psyche. And we heard a powerful apologia for culture from Alun; I enjoyed it very much. Some of the debate, again, has strayed, perhaps, away from the confines of the report. Perhaps it shows again how vitally important culture and sport are, of course, to our work here in the Senedd, how important they are to the Welsh way. We heard clearly from Alun about how the crisis has been seen in these sectors, how that has been made manifest. Culture doesn't happen in a vacuum, Alun said, though, frankly, it can happen amongst vacuum cleaners and tyres. It is to be celebrated in all of its chaotic complexity. It is, again, fundamental.

Now, John focused on grass-roots sport and the preventative agenda, the opportunities for young people, pushing for the Welsh Government to have a more focused strategy, especially for deprived communities. John, that was really welcome. That was the subject of, I think, our committee's first inquiry in this Senedd. It deserves to be always high on the agenda, so I was very grateful. It's always wonderful to hear Members who are not part of a committee responding in these debates, so that really enriched our debate. Thank you so much for that, John.

Thank you to the Minister. 

Thank you to the Minister for his response. I do think there's been a general call and an eagerness from Members to see more long-term thinking about how these crises can be overcome. It certainly is gratifying to hear that the Minister has said that you will keep championing the sector, that you will keep pushing for this. As a committee, I know that we will want to see these further steps. You talked about those green shoots and we will certainly want to see how they grow, because they are fantastic examples of what's happening, of what the Government is funding. And we have seen examples of that too in our evidence. They are to be celebrated. They are to be applauded. 

I would, perhaps, point back to Alun's words, that it isn't only about specifics but about fundamentals. I hope that, in that regard, the Government will reconsider again its response to our recommendation 4 on preventative spending. I hope very much as well that, when the Minister said that the final budget is indeed a signal of future intent—. Just as a point of comparison that's been drawn to my attention, in a letter from the Scottish Minister to the culture committee in the Scottish Parliament that followed its own draft budget scrutiny, the Minister said:

'The Scottish Government greatly values the culture sector...demonstrated its confidence...by providing a further £34 million in 2025/26 taking the uplifts to date to £50 million a year'.

And they go on to say that there's an intention of reaching £100 million annually by 2028-29. That letter refers to the positive impact that culture has on the economy and on people's health; of course, the same can be very much be said for sport as well. 

I hope that the debate that we've had this afternoon, and the response that's been seen in the different sectors to this report, will help to focus minds in the Government now, in future Governments too, about what can be possible. Because there is nothing inevitable about culture and sport being sometimes seen as, and many people have referred to this, either 'nice to have' or 'luxuries', because—. Gareth had, again, talked about how culture and sport anchor us in time. They do. This is a moment in time that we are experiencing, but it does come off the back of a decade, as we've seen, and more, of funding reductions, and they have left these sectors brittle, they've left them under-resourced. And that must be rectified for this moment in time, but also for future generations.

Now, spending per head on these vital areas should become comparable with those of similar nations. The Welsh Government must provide these sectors with strategy, with vision, with direction, as we've said in this report. Otherwise—and this is what I'd like to finish with, Dirprwy Lywydd—there is a serious risk that Wales would be left behind in terms of culture and sporting offerings and achievements. It could endanger aspects of our character as a nation. Culture and sport could become the privilege of the rich and the few. Our young people could be deprived of opportunities to explore their talents, to gain happiness from some of the things that make life worth living.

Our report is intended as a wake-up call to the Welsh Government. This situation cannot continue. We are facing a crisis that has not gone away. Culture and sport are vital. They require, and they deserve, sustained and increased investment and vision.

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

Item 9 this afternoon is the Welsh Conservatives debate, Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee oaths and affirmations. I call on James Evans to move the motion.

Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today we remember those who we have lost. We acknowledge the profound sacrifices made by individuals, families and our front-line services. We recognise the lasting toll, emotional, economic and social, that the pandemic had and took on our communities across Wales.

As Welsh Conservatives, as other parties in this Chamber, we entered into the COVID-19 special purpose committee in good faith, committed to working constructively together, cross-party, to get the answers that bereaved families deserve, and to ensure that that specific Welsh context, which may be overlooked in the UK-wide inquiry, is properly understood and scrutinised to the fullest extent possible. We believe it is only right that the Senedd's Standing Orders be amended to provide the committee with vital discretionary powers: the ability to request that witnesses give evidence under oath or affirmation.

This is not a dramatic proposal nor is it without precedent. The Scottish statutory inquiry already has the power to compel evidence under oath. It is a basic mechanism that helps reinforce the public's trust in the process, and it ensures the seriousness of the testimony, particularly when addressing issues of such weight and consequence, like the ones that the committee is looking at currently. We do understand that some have expressed concerns that allowing the committee to administer oaths may deter some witnesses from coming forward, but I want to be absolutely clear: as far as I'm aware, it was never the committee's intention to apply this power broadly. It was to be used only in relation to public officials, Ministers and ex-Ministers, those in positions of authority whose decisions directly impacted the course of the pandemic here in Wales. As I said, this power was to be discretionary, carefully applied and proportionate. But, without it, we risk undermining the credibility of the committee's findings and the confidence of those people seeking the truth.

It is all the more troubling that, despite Baroness Hallett's own acknowledgement that the UK inquiry cannot give the full attention to the Welsh experience, the Welsh Labour Party here continues to resist equipping our committee with the necessary tools to do the work properly. And many people in here and outside of this Chamber will be asking why. Why deny the committee the tools? What is there to hide? People will be looking at those people making these decisions today and making their judgments on their voting.

There is also a striking inconsistency here, isn't there? Labour MPs in Westminster are advocating for a Hillsborough law, which would enshrine the principles that public officials must tell the truth when giving evidence. Yet, here in Wales, Welsh Labour opposes a far more modest measure. That contradiction raises serious questions about this Government's true commitment to openness and allowing the committee to get the answers that they need and the families across Wales deserve.

We must also remember the warnings raised by the older people's commissioner in May 2020 and the response from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. There were serious concerns about the treatment of older people in care settings. These matters demand a thorough and thoughtful investigation, not one held back by political interference. That's why, today, I make this cast-iron commitment to the families and those who want answers: the Welsh Conservatives will establish a full, judge-led, independent inquiry into Wales's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic if we are lucky enough, by the Welsh public, to form the next Welsh Government. I don't make promises I can't keep, and I give my commitment to the families today that we will implement this inquiry. Only such an inquiry—truly independent, under judicial oversight—can offer the comprehensive scrutiny, transparency and the trust that the people of Wales deserve.

But, in the here and now, I say to all Members across this Chamber that we need to tread very carefully here. We set up committees to scrutinise the work that we do here, and we need to make sure that everybody who looks at these committees has full confidence that the work they do is done properly and openly. And that is why we must give our committees the tools to do it, the tools that are there, under the Government of Wales Act, to allow this to happen. This isn't something new; it's something that's already there.

So, I urge Members across the Chamber today to support this motion, support the amendments to Standing Orders. Let's give the committee the mechanism it needs to serve its purpose—to find truth, to honour those we have lost and to ensure that Wales is better prepared for the future. Because I can assure you that those families and everybody across Wales never want to go back to those dark days ever again. Diolch, Deputy Presiding Officer.

COVID proved to be a huge fracture in society, didn't it? And a fracture in more ways than one. We have a pre-COVID age and a post-COVID age, with people measuring the timeline of events in their lives according to that pandemic. It exposed a huge social divide, with the most disadvantaged suffering far worse outcomes than the more privileged layers of society. There was a clear divide between the generations, with children suffering socially and developmentally, and older people suffering worse physical health conditions.

In the midst of all of this, Governments and organisations across the world were fumbling for solutions in an impossible situation. This was a completely unprecedented public health crisis and there was no blueprint for how to cope with the various crises that developed as a result. What steps should be taken to prevent people from being infected? How should we protect the vulnerable? What resources were needed and where? Who had responsibility for carrying out some of the tasks that needed to be undertaken? What new systems needed to be created in order to tackle the different problems that were arising as a result of the infection? And tens of thousands of other questions and other challenges that had not been fully considered.

In such circumstances, it is unfair—indeed, it's wrong—to say that one decision made at the expense of another was wrong or right, because, as I mentioned, it was all unprecedented. We had to make the best decision at the time with the information that was at hand, using the advice that was provided by people who had a better understanding. Therefore, the purpose of any inquiry is not to find fault. The purpose of an inquiry should be to learn lessons in order to avoid errors and ensure that we are in a better place when preparing for other catastrophic events—and there will be another incident, possibly within our lifetime—be it environmental, public health or otherwise.

Our moral duty, therefore, is to learn the best lessons that we can in order to save the lives of generations to come. Isn't that, after all, the mindset and principle underpinning the well-being of future generations Act? If we accept this hypothesis or thesis, then it is our duty as a Senedd to get to the bottom of these issues.

It's no secret that I don't believe that a special purpose committee is the best way to achieve this, and that I would have much preferred to have seen a public inquiry into COVID-19 here in Wales. But that's not where we are, so I and Plaid Cymru are ready to play our part in this committee, in good faith, in order to try to identify the relevant questions and find the best solutions. In order to do that, we are required to gather evidence, ensuring that that evidence is accurate and factual.

Without accurate factual evidence, then it is impossible to learn the right lessons, and more importantly, there is a risk of learning the wrong lessons and putting the lives of future generations at risk. We must therefore get to the truth. That is why I am so firm in insisting that witnesses must swear an oath, in order to ensure that we stick to our moral agreement with the people of Wales and find the truth in order to protect the welfare of those who come after us.

I have heard arguments from the Labour Party, stating that oaths should not be sworn because that would be unprecedented, which of course is true, but COVID itself was unprecedented; creating a special purpose committee is unprecedented; having a committee co-chaired is unprecedented. In other words, everything about this is unprecedented, and the fact that this relatively new body has not done something before is no reason not to do it now.

I also hear the argument that there is a concern that people would not be able to afford legal advice, which is why we came to the compromise that James mentioned, the compromise at the committee, saying that people with lived experience would not be expected to swear an oath, but that we would expect people who made decisions to do so.

But there is also one easy workaround for all of this, which is to tell the truth. Don't hide anything. Release all of the information. If this committee and its findings are to have any credibility and public support, then we have a moral responsibility to get to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I was reflecting just before coming in to this debate today that it's actually five years and three days to the date when the Prime Minister announced the first lockdown in the UK as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's five years to the date exactly, at 1 p.m. today, when that lockdown became legally enforceable. So, it's a timely day today to discuss this really important issue.

As colleagues have already mentioned, the COVID-19 pandemic was devastating for Wales, the UK, and for people across the world. We will live with the consequences for decades to come. And particularly I think at the moment of our young people, especially those who dealt with and who are dealing with substantial learning loss and some of the mental health impacts that directly seem to be linked to those lockdowns, with Welsh schoolchildren sadly missing more days of school than in any other part of the United Kingdom. It's part of this context that is important for us as a COVID committee in undertaking our work. I'm a member of the COVID committee here in the Senedd, joining the committee last year, and I take that role—and I know my colleagues on the committee do, as does Mabon ap Gwynfor, who has already spoken—we take that role really seriously, and as part of that role, we need to make sure we have the tools available to us to complete that work in the seriousness that it deserves.

It's sad and disappointing to me that that level of seriousness does not seem to be shared by colleagues on the Labour benches, who initially blocked the much-needed request for the independent COVID inquiry to take place here in the UK and, as has already been outlined, this position around the special purpose committee being set up, and now seemingly—. Well, not just seemingly, they are clearly blocking the request from the members of the committee to compel witnesses coming before it to swear an oath to say that they're telling the truth.

And as Mabon ap Gwynfor pointed out, what is the harm in compelling people to tell the truth? Surely that's the basis of our democracy and the basis of all scrutiny. It's about allowing every stone to be turned over to understand what is laying underneath it, so that people can get to the truth of the matter. And it's clear that Labour politicians, for whatever reason, are stopping the proper work of scrutiny that the people of Wales should expect.

As James Evans pointed out, this wasn't just about an oath swearing for anybody and everybody coming in front of the committee. It was certainly structured around those decision makers, to enable people who wanted to share their lived experience to perhaps not feel some of the pressure and tension that that may cause. It's a fair and reasonable approach to what has been one of the most devastating issues that's faced our nation, certainly through the time of devolution. 

Would you take an intervention?

Sorry, certainly, Mabon, yes.

Thanks. You were on the committee. I was on the committee. Do you recall the discussion around that oath? The vote was, if I recall correctly and if you agree with me, four to two, and therefore that was the democratic voice of the committee, and that voice should be respected by the Government.

Yes, you're right, and I'm disappointed that that hasn't been taken into account with this request, that the majority of the committee were in favour of this tool being made available to it, to enable it to carry out the scrutiny that we all—or, well, the majority—agree is required by the committee.

Going back to the context of why this is important, we know that Wales had the highest COVID-19 death rate in the UK, and the families of those who have died or suffered as a result of this—and some of them might be in this Chamber here today, who've had those experiences as well—deserve a full and thorough investigation into the decisions made by the Welsh Government Ministers at the time. The Government here in Wales made separate decisions from what else took place across the United Kingdom, and they were compelled to do that. They were required to make those decisions. They could have been in lockstep with other parts of United Kingdom, but they chose not to be. They chose to do things differently, and that was a choice. But those choices require proper scrutiny, rather than being avoided, which seems is the case at the moment.

And as has already been pointed out, this is not necessarily a new precedent being set. In Scotland, there is a separate inquiry taking place, where summoned witnesses provide evidence on oath, and they are compelled to produce documents that are asked of them as well. So, we're not calling for radical change in this place today. It is simply a measure that will allow us to carry out the task that this Senedd has asked us to carry out. And the nine gaps identified by the committee in the first module of the report are worthy of that further and thorough and full investigation, and an oath and affirmation will allow us to do that properly.

So, just in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer, the motion in front of us today will enable the Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee to obtain the power to ask relevant witnesses to take an oath or make an affirmation when giving evidence. It is a request that respects those who lost their lives during COVID-19, respects the families who are battling for this, and Senedd Members should vote in favour here today. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

May I thank the Conservatives for tabling this important motion? A simple question: how did we get to this point? It's not my question, but that of the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru on X today. And I think that's what we need to reflect on: how did we get to this point? Why are they having to fight for justice? Why does this group have to exist? And they have been fighting; they've been working hard for answers.

And surely that's what's at stake here, and surely we can all see that by blocking this request to take an oath—not everyone, as we've heard—that people think that there's something to hide, that we're trying to block that truth from coming out. Because Mabon ap Gwynfor was completely correct in saying that it's not about pointing fingers, it is about learning lessons. I've always said that I would not have wanted to take all of that responsibility at that time, and think that every decision would have been the correct one. Most people I've spoken to just want to know what were the mistakes and how are we going to rectify that for the future, because it will happen again. 

We've been told with climate change as well that that will also impact in terms of pandemics in the future and, unfortunately, it's not a matter of if we will have to deal with a situation, it will be when will that be. And that could be sooner rather than later, unfortunately. So, what I'd want to know is: what is going to be different? How are we going to ensure that every single lesson learned is applied? Because if we don't learn those lessons, where is that textbook going to be that someone can turn to and think, 'This is how I will approach it. How do we update it?' So, I'm extremely frustrated that the way that we're approaching it in Wales actually lets down the very people we're supposed to be representing.

The fact that so much of the committee's time has gone into deciding and determining this, and that we're actually spending precious time debating whether there should be an oath today, rather than moving forward with the work, frustrates me. 

Thanks for taking the intervention, Heledd. I wonder if you'd also agree with me, then, that this decision to try to block this by the Labour group also puts the legitimacy of and trust in this institution at risk as well. This is the thing that's had one of the most major impacts here in Wales, and by blocking this, trust in this institution and the work of this institution is put at risk unnecessarily.

I think there's certainly a risk. That's why I would have supported a Wales-specific COVID inquiry. We've been consistent in terms of that. I fully support what's happening in Scotland, because everyone's experience of COVID was different. Everybody was impacted differently. I heard today—or yesterday, actually—I was speaking to two young people who didn't have exams at the time. They actually quite enjoyed COVID, because they had lots of time outside to play. They have very fond memories of the sunshine that May, when they were home from school. But for others it was completely traumatising and something that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. People are still suffering, people are still not able to get over the fact that they were unable to say goodbye to relatives, not able to attend funerals. So, we owe it to them to progress this work. So, I would ask the Welsh Government to please reconsider. We need to be able to move on. 

There was also a commitment that, if the UK inquiry did not do the job of a Wales COVID inquiry, the Welsh Government would reconsider. I think we've reached that point. There will be other opportunities to discuss, but for the sake of all of those who are still fighting for justice, they shouldn't have to, we need to do better, and I'm disappointed by the Welsh Government's approach to this. 

As a clinician, I never thought that I would tell people to tell me the truth or tell us the truth. It is regrettable that my colleagues and I have had to bring forward this debate today. Who would have thought that we would be fighting to ensure that witnesses gave evidence under oath? But here we are.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Welsh Government prided itself on doing things differently, stating that their actions were saving Welsh lives, when, instead, analysis of mortality during the pandemic shows that the age-standardised mortality rate of death involving COVID was higher in Wales than in England. COVID-related deaths in Northern Ireland and Scotland were also both notably lower. What did Wales get so wrong? This is why we need a Wales-specific independent, judge-led public inquiry into the Welsh Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the Welsh Government blocked that, and here we are, five years and three days on from the pandemic, and they are still trying to hamstring efforts to get to the truth.

The Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee was set up as a sop to the growing clamouring calls for a Wales-wide inquiry. The special purpose committee is like using a sticking plaster to treat a bullet wound, set up to identify the gaps left behind by the COVID inquiry, which took just three weeks to try to distil the years of pre-pandemic planning and examine in detail every decision taken about curbing the outbreaks and saving lives in Wales, something that Baroness Hallett admitted was impossible. So, now, the special purpose committee has to identify the gaps and fill in the blanks, but the Welsh Government have once again tied their hands behind their backs.

I do not envy the task before the Co-chairs; Tom and Joyce are doing admirable work, hamstrung as they are. To make their task easier, to try to instil public confidence in the work of their committee, they simply requested that the committee be able to require witnesses to give evidence under oath. The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave this Senedd the ability to call witnesses to give evidence under oath, a simple request that should have been simply signed off by the Business Committee. But the request was blocked by the Welsh Government’s business manager, so now the public will question the motives behind this move. What does the Welsh Government have to hide? Why don’t they want to give evidence under oath? Surely no Minister or former Minister is planning to lie to the committee, so why not agree to the request?

I urge the Welsh Government to reconsider their stance on this. In the absence of a proper inquiry, let’s at least give the special purpose committee a fighting chance at getting at the truth. Give them the ability to call witnesses under oath. I beg Members to support the families who suffered bereavement and those left with long-term illnesses as a result of COVID-19 by backing our motion and getting us one step closer to learning the truth and lessons from this pandemic. Diolch yn fawr.

An oath is a promise to a deity, and an affirmation is a pledge on one's personal honour. Both are binding promises to tell the truth when giving evidence. No person, body, Government or party intending to tell the truth should therefore object to taking an oath or making an affirmation when giving evidence to the Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee. As the COVID-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Cymru stated to me, the Senedd committee is a direct response to the UK inquiry, and its purpose is to identify gaps in the UK inquiry's consideration of Welsh issues. In these circumstances, they said—and given that all evidence at the UK inquiry is on oath—it must follow that, for the committee to be credible and for reasons of parity, the committee should be provided with the discretionary power to require witnesses to give an oath.

As they also stated, the bigger question is why the Welsh Government don't want this. They refused a Welsh inquiry, haven't pushed for more Wales in the UK inquiry, and in fact, benefited from minimal scrutiny. For example, they said, in module 4—vaccines—not one single question was asked by the inquiry to the one Welsh Government witness, despite stacks of disclosure about how the Welsh Government proactively delayed vaccines in care homes by four weeks. With an inquiry committee set fully in the political arena, they said, rather than an independent public inquiry in Wales, the Welsh Government now doesn't want witnesses to give oral evidence under oath. We cannot underestimate the potentially damaging impact of the failure to provide the committee with the power to require witnesses to take an oath or make an affirmation, they said, adding, 'and this matters'.

Regardless of what the Welsh Government believes, the oath issue is the critical tip of the iceberg. When I raised calls by the North Wales Police Federation for policing to be considered for some priority in the COVID-19 vaccination programme with the health Minister four years ago, he dodged this, despite police officers putting their own safety at risk. Thanks to the UK Government at the time's decision to procure vaccines swiftly, Governments across the UK were able to safely ease the most stringent of restrictions. However, the Welsh Government, responsible for the vaccination programme in Wales, only prioritised this after we highlighted that it was running massively behind the rest of the UK on both first and second jabs. Even then, constituents contacted me with comments such as, 'I've received a letter today, and I'll have my second vaccination. I will still be up to four weeks behind my contemporaries in England in particular. I still feel that the Welsh Government is trying to win a first vaccination race, whereas elsewhere in the UK, the idea is to stop the new variant getting hold in the first place.'

Although the UK Government announced an independent public inquiry into its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK in May 2021, and three months later the Scottish First Minister announced the creation of a Scotland-focused investigation into the impact of the Scottish Government's decisions on how the pandemic was handled, the Welsh Government repeatedly denied our requests for an independent public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic in Wales.

The cross-party group on hospices and palliative care, which I chair, conducted an inquiry into experiences of palliative and end-of-life care in the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. We received evidence showing, for example, that healthcare professionals in Wales were more likely to experience medication and staff shortages relative to other areas of the UK. When the UK Government announced that COVID testing would be extended to all care home staff and residents in England, the then First Minister initially said he saw no value in providing tests to everybody in care homes in Wales.

Ahead of the UK COVID-19 inquiry's first module 1 hearing, the COVID inquiry legal team confirmed that the Welsh Government failed to disclose all relevant documents to the inquiry in the first draft of their witness statement and that the inquiry had to go back to the Welsh Government a second time to request full disclosure. These, and countless other examples, reinforce the need for the Welsh Government to show that they are not afraid of accountability to the Wales COVID-19 Inquiry Special Purpose Committee and, therefore, the people of Wales. And if they continue to block the committee's request for a discretionary power to require witnesses to take an oath or make an affirmation, the people will ask, 'Are they afraid, frightened, frit, ofn?'

I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Trefnydd, Jane Hutt.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. The Welsh Government has shown and continues to demonstrate a clear commitment to the process of inquiry and to learning lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. We do this while respecting all those who lost a loved one during the pandemic, or have been deeply affected by the events of five years ago. As I start my contribution to this debate, I want to take this opportunity to extend my condolences to everyone who is still grieving the loss of a loved one, a relative or a friend.

When the UK COVID-19 inquiry was set up, the Welsh Government committed to work with it openly and fully, to comply with its request for statements, to disclose evidence, to answer its questions as it examines every aspect of the pandemic and how our state institutions, including the Welsh Government and Welsh public services, prepared and responded. We did this because we believe the UK inquiry is the only way to answer questions about the interconnected nature of the complex response to the pandemic. The inquiry is now hearing evidence in module 5, but has made many requests for the modules that will follow afterwards.

In complying with the UK inquiry, we have disclosed tens of thousands of documents and provided more than 150 witness statements. Welsh Government witnesses, including Ministers, have also provided oral evidence at hearings, including examination of preparedness and decision making during the pandemic.

I appreciate the fact that you've said that Welsh Government Ministers are participating and the Government is participating in the UK inquiry. That, of course, is under oath and with affirmation. And there's a lot of evidence that's disclosed to that, but we've identified gaps, which is the purpose of the special purpose committee, and those gaps have to be looked at here in Wales. But we need, therefore, the Welsh Government to come forward and provide that evidence also under oath, the same equal level as is happening in the inquiry. Why is that being refused to Wales, but you're doing it with the UK inquiry?

We certainly look forward to the debate next week, of course, on the first report of the special purpose committee. It is important also to report to our Members across this Chamber that this week, two Welsh Government officials gave evidence to the inquiry's module 5 about procurement.

Of course, this is, again—and we've reflected on this, haven't we, this afternoon—about our approach to Senedd committees. We do have a similar approach to Senedd committees and the openness and the way in which we give evidence. Welsh Ministers and Welsh Government officials have always sought to co-operate and work with committees in the Senedd and the Assembly before that. It is a real strength of democracy in Wales that there is such open co-operation between the Welsh Government and the Senedd. I think the free and frank exchange of views that's well respected results from such co-operation. There is nothing to indicate that that's about to change.

The motion that the Conservatives have placed before us today is concerning on a number of fronts, and I'll go through those points. There is the matter of timing; the special purpose committee has just this week published its first report—I've referred to that already—which we will debate next week, the first step towards a motion seeking the consent of the wider Senedd to carry out its work. It's therefore unlikely that there's been an assessment of either witnesses or evidence that the committee would not be able to discharge its responsibilities without the introduction of an oath.

The use of such an oath, by virtue of its introduction for this committee alone, highlights an expectation that the committee does not believe that it will receive truthful evidence without it. Given the implications for partners working in public services across Wales, including emergency services and local authorities who could be called to give evidence, the implication is that their evidence would not otherwise be trusted. I think this damages the spirit of partnership in which we work in Wales. Damaging relationships and questioning trust are not the only unintended consequences of such a move.

Do you not see the point you just made that not giving the committee the tools it needs to scrutinise Welsh Government Ministers and officials under oath damages the working relationship that the Government has with the wider Senedd? If you say that you're giving evidence under oath to the UK-wide inquiry, what's the difference with this inquiry? What is the difference?

Well, I have to say, Dirprwy Lywydd, that an oath has not been considered necessary by any other committee, and there is no significant change in circumstances to warrant its introduction now. I'll just say again that using a discretionary power to introduce an oath would hinder, we believe, the free flow of information between people giving evidence and the special purpose committee. Those invited may become more reluctant to attend, feel compelled to take legal advice before attending, or—[Interruption.] Can you please listen?

Cabinet Secretary, I will ask the Members to listen. It is important that the Cabinet Secretary has an opportunity to respond to the debate. All Members have had an opportunity to give their contributions in peace; let's give the same consideration to the Cabinet Secretary.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I will say again that those invited may become more reluctant to attend, feel compelled to take legal advice before attending or, indeed, curtail their answers to facts only. We can't see where the benefits that have been articulated by others today can outweigh the significant risk and impact of this result.

It is important to remember that the special purpose committee is not a judicial inquiry with the independent legal oversight and all that comes with it to ensure fairness and balance to those giving evidence. Furthermore, of course, Standing Order 17.52 already makes provision for committee Chairs to take evidence under oath. This is possible where a witness has been issued with a formal notice requiring them to attend to give evidence, and there is a reason for this. If an oath is taken and broken, there must be consequences. Therefore, the proposal here to require voluntary attendees to give evidence under formal oath or affirmation is clearly unacceptable and inappropriate.

Dirprwy Lywydd, there is already a judge-led inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic that is constituted and resourced to operate in this way, and we must allow that inquiry to continue to do its important work. We will continue to support that inquiry to ensure that we learn the lessons in memory of those who lost their lives during the pandemic, and our thoughts are with the families and friends who continue to mourn their loss. We have a proud history of transparency and openness in this Senedd. We won't be supporting this motion, which we believe would seek to undermine these values. But we do value the work of the special purpose committee, which is a cross-party committee. We thank the members for their important work, and we look forward to the debate next week on their first report. Diolch yn fawr.

I call on Tom Giffard to reply to the debate.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to start by thanking all Members who have contributed to today's debate. Our role as Senedd Members who do not serve in the Government is one of scrutiny, to hold the Welsh Government to account for the decisions that it makes, to ask how things could have been done better and to get to the bottom of the truth behind the decisions they make and the motivations for them; that is our primary role as legislators. In particular, that should be the role of those of us fortunate enough to have chaired a committee, and I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have tried repeatedly to do that with this COVID-19 special purpose committee.

It is my belief, and that of my party, that the UK COVID inquiry would not investigate the decisions made here in Wales by the Welsh Government, which impacted so many people's lives, and that was proven correct just this week, since the committee has identified nine gaps in the first module alone where we feel that the UK inquiry has not sufficiently done that—gaps that merit further investigation, because the people of Wales deserve answers. Those young people who lost more school days than anywhere else in the UK—they deserve answers. Those businesses that had to shut their doors for the final time because of the differing levels of support—they deserve answers. Those who lost their jobs or struggled financially to make ends meet during the pandemic because we were locked down for longer than elsewhere—they deserve answers. Those living in care homes who saw COVID-positive patients discharged into those settings three weeks after the practice was stopped in England—they deserve actions. And, more than anyone, those who ultimately lost loved ones during the pandemic—they deserve answers.

But, we could see that the Welsh Government was unwilling to launch an independent Wales COVID inquiry to get those answers, so that's why we brought a motion forward to the Senedd that forced the Government to launch this committee to pick up at least some of the slack. I have repeatedly advocated for this committee against those who have said that it shouldn't go ahead altogether. I've told the sceptics, both in the Senedd and outside, that although this committee is not the full-fat independent Wales COVID inquiry my party has campaigned for, that it would get to the bottom of at least some of those answers, particularly when the alternative was no inquiry and no answers at all.

We entered into this committee in good faith, hoping that the Welsh Labour Government would be a good-faith partner, engaging in getting to the bottom of those truths with us. Unfortunately, it has been my repeated experience, having co-chaired this committee for some time now, that the Welsh Government is not a good-faith partner. Almost every suggestion of greater scrutiny of those decisions is met with fierce resistance, either by the Welsh Government or, often, the Labour Members who sit on the committee. COVID bereaved families feared that this committee would become a whitewash of politicians marking their own homework. I initially resisted that suggestion, defending the committee as best I could. I'm afraid I can no longer do that. I do not have the confidence that this committee will be able to get the answers that the families who have lost loved ones deserve. That is why, if this vote is defeated today, I will resign my chairmanship of the committee and the Welsh Conservatives will no longer take any place on it. I will not allow my name and my reputation to be tarnished—[Interruption.]

Members—the same respect should be given to the person closing the debate.

I will not allow my name and my reputation to be tarnished by the perception that this is a committee more interested in protecting the reputation of the Government than getting to the bottom of the truths behind the decisions it made. I'm unwilling to associate myself with a committee seemingly designed to protect the very people it should be holding to account. Let me be clear, if this vote is defeated today, this committee cannot function, and I will not stand idly by and let it limp along pretending otherwise. We are all sent here not by our parties, but by our constituents to do the job that they elected us to do, to speak truth to power, to advocate for those less fortunate than us, to get the answers that our constituents deserve.

Often in politics, saying the easy thing is not always the politically or personally convenient thing. I personally pushed for oaths to be taken in this committee against backlash from many different corners, because I felt it was the right thing to do, just like I've pushed for greater scrutiny throughout. But without our principles, we have nothing. I'm content that I have repeatedly followed mine, but I say to those Labour Members voting down the motion today, 'Where are yours?'

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there are objections. I will therefore defer voting under this item until voting time.

And that brings us to voting time. Unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, I will proceed directly to voting time.

The first vote this evening will be on item 7, a debate on a Member’s legislative proposal. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Mick Antoniw. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 33, 13 abstentions, none against. Therefore, the motion is agreed.

The next vote is on item 9, the Welsh Conservatives debate. I call for a vote on the motion tabled in the name of Paul Davies. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 23, no abstentions, 24 against. Therefore, the motion is not agreed.

That concludes voting for today.

The next item is the short debate, and I call on Heledd Fychan to speak.

If Members are leaving, please do so quietly, so that contributions can be made. Heledd, they all seem to want to listen to you.

Great. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Today’s short debate is an opportunity to discuss and pay tribute to all the women and girls who are autistic or neurodivergent and live with ADHD, and I am glad to be able to give a minute each of my time to Sioned Williams, Carolyn Thomas, Jenny Rathbone, Hannah Blythyn, Mark Isherwood and Mabon ap Gwynfor. So, I'm hoping you're feeling very generous, Deputy Presiding Officer.

I am grateful to the Women's Institute for inspiring today's debate due to their extremely important campaign, 'Thinking Differently', which seeks to raise awareness of autism and ADHD in women and girls, and to take action to improve the diagnosis process, and, in particular, to Ann Ball from Pontypridd WI, and Maggie Knight from Glam Girls, who both came to meet me and asked me to support the campaign. I'm really pleased that they did and that they're both joining us today in the gallery, along with a number of other members. Welcome to you all and thank you for your campaigning.

I'd also like to say a special thank you to Eleri Griffiths, who is a valuable member of my team, for all the additional research that she undertook to support today's debate, and to everyone who gave up their time and shared their stories and experience with us, including additional learning needs co-ordinators in schools, the head of an ALN specialist unit and local volunteer organisations. We also had several conversations with neurodivergent girls and women, and while their personal experiences were unique to themselves, their experiences of engaging with public agencies were very similar to each other. I heard the same message time and again, and the following is a summary of what was shared with me.

Looking specifically at the experiences of girls and women in terms of education, we know that about three times more boys receive a diagnosis than girls, and that they usually receive their diagnosis three years earlier. Well, why is that?

I had a look at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guidance on this matter and learned that the recommendation for diagnosis involves the use of a specific diagnostic tool. A layperson's glance at these showed me that some of the core characteristics of autism are communication and social interaction differences, restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests, including sensory differences, deficits in reciprocal social communication and social interaction, symptoms that cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning, and because I'd come across so many amazing women who are autistic or ADHDers who have struggled until late in adulthood to be identified, diagnosed or supported, I wondered why this was. I asked different people to tell me what they think is going on here, and first I heard from ALN co-ordinators in schools in my region, including Ysgol Garth Olwg, Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive School, Ysgol Afon Wen and Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhondda. They reported:

'What we see is that girls are really successful at what we call "masking".  Girls are very good at working hard to fit in with everyone else and copying their peers so that they seemingly behave the same.'

Another told me:

'Quite often with boys we see their autistic or ADHD characteristics displayed at a younger age. They can be physically more active or fidgety, needing to get up a lot and move around in a classroom; they spend time playing alone, have difficulty focusing and have a shorter attention span to certain types of tasks',

and

'Sometimes with girls, the first signals we have that someone maybe Autistic or an ADHDer is: when they start to refuse to come to school; or they become withdrawn or depressed; or their families contact us telling us they are suffering extreme anxiety. These internal feelings being experienced might be completely invisible to the teachers in the school.'

One ALN co-ordinator went on to share: 

'I have had several examples of teachers being informed of a new diagnosis of ADHD or autism for a particular girl and them exclaiming—Gosh I am surprised—I never would have realised they were autistic as they are so "studious", or they are "so quiet" or they are "a chatter box".'

Sadly, the truth is that many girls learn to mask their true inner experiences and thoughts so well that they will burn out with exhaustion rather than communicate their true thoughts and worries. When there is a change in their lives, all the camouflage and masking and coping strategies fall aside and they're thrown into turmoil, and teachers have told me that often something like a family change, a divorce or bereavement or exam pressure, moving house or friendship challenges, can bring about a crisis where a neurodivergent young person can no longer cope, and the consequences can be severe.

A typical age for this to happen is around year 9, when pupils have exams for the first time. Of course, as our diagnostic process and assessments take so long, this delay in identifying autistic and ADHD girls is significant and harmful. An ALN co-ordinator told me that in one area a referral will be made at this point, which requires evidence to be presented by both family and school, and three months later the young person will be notified if they've been accepted onto the waiting list. But the average waiting time in the area is 18 months, which is down from the previous year, but is still 18 months on average. So, if a girl of 14 years of age is going through this process, they will sit their year 9 exams, year 10 exams and possibly even their GCSEs. And we've seen an increase of children with ALN leaving the school system or home schooling—this is also an issue.

So, girls and women involved with two important local charities in Rhondda Cynon Taf, called Behaviour Support Hub and Stiwdio 37, also kindly shared their experiences, and it was an eye-opener to hear some of the stories and to listen to their experiences. It became clear from talking to the staff and the girls and young women that the underdiagnosis of autism and ADHD is not just down to masking and camouflaging behaviours, but, also, the kinds of characteristics we traditionally recognise as autism and ADHD are not really put down in terms of those assessments for women, which is why, perhaps, they're not identified sooner. After all, anxiety about friendships, an obsessional interest in things—make-up or hair styles—being very chatty, being fussy eaters, having sensory dislikes, having a very strong sense of justice, challenging when they disagree, these can be perfectly normal in teenagers. But a skilled and trained educator will know and see that sometimes these can also be indicators for autism and/or ADHD. 

The girls and women who have spoken to me and my staff are very clear on one thing—they are not all the same. Many of the women had late diagnosis, some in their late teens, some were diagnosed in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and some were still waiting for a diagnosis. One woman told me how it was only after her children went through the diagnostic process that she realised that she was probably an ADHDer, and pursued a private diagnosis in order to avoid the waiting time. In her mid 40s, having raised children and had a meaningful career, she paid. When asked why and what the benefits were, she said: 'Having a diagnosis meant that for the first time ever, I was able to forgive myself. I hadn’t realised that most people don’t have four different conversations happening at the same time in their head, whilst also having a song on a loop all day. It isn’t because I am lazy or disorganised that I start three different jobs at the same time and not follow steps in sequence to finish them. It’s not because I’m anti-social that I find it hard to meet people at the end of a long day in work. It’s not because I am paranoid that I still worry today that I may have said the wrong thing in a conversation that happened last week. These things are happening because I have ADHD and my brain works in this way. Now, I choose to take medication as it has given me some peace to think for a part of every day'. Another young woman described having ADHD as wearing wet socks all day, but you’re the only one wearing them. 

We know that there are so many issues in terms of health as well. We've heard of situations where girls with a diagnosis of autism have been told that they cannot access mental health services through child and adolescent mental health services because they're autistic or ADHD. They're supposed to have different pathways according to what they're told. But surely, that shouldn't be the case.

So, I would like us to focus for the rest of the time I have on the WI's calls.    

The WI in their campaign have identified some sensible demands. They want to ensure that there is no imbalance in diagnosis and support for ADHD and autism between boys and girls, that training needs to be improved for all the staff in our schools, teaching assistants and teachers, and we need better systems to allow children and young people to self-report on their own well-being to identify cases where children are suffering in silence.

So, thank you to the WI for your campaign and for raising awareness, and I very much hope that we can hear from the Government today how you will improve the situation for all, but specifically in terms of women and girls, and how you will ensure that there is support available to those who have failed to access support to date, or who are not in school or are older. Things have to change. There is greater awareness but there's still a lot of work to be done. 

Oh, right—I got carried away listening to you. [Laughter.] I forgot I was in the Chair. Carolyn Thomas. 

Thank you to Heledd for tabling this short debate and for a minute of your time. It was good to meet with members of the Women's Institute earlier today and I welcome this campaign, raising awareness of neurodivergence. Early diagnosis of ADHD and autism is really important for validation, for treatment if necessary, but also for adjustments in the workplace if needed. Women are better at masking symptoms than men and it takes a toll on them as well and can lead to stress. Women with ADHD have more health problems as well than other women. But we must celebrate our differences and look out for each other. It's okay, we don't have to conform to a social model, but we do need to make sure that all women and girls have the opportunity to thrive in their own way, however it might be. Thank you.

I'd like to thank Heledd for bringing this really important debate to the Senedd, but also the WI for highlighting this important issue with their campaign. I think it's so important that long-established groups like the WI, who—you know, they see all of society, don't they? All kinds of women belong to the WI, and they are involved in so many different community groups. They've got a really good sense of what's going on, and so it's great that they use their voice in this way to launch campaigns, to raise awareness on different issues, and it was good to speak with some of them earlier.

I think that this campaign really has its roots in the historic and ongoing inequality that, unfortunately, is, and has been, a feature of women's healthcare. We know about the medical gaslighting, the fobbing off, and, obviously, the lack of gender-sensitive data and research, and, as we've heard from Heledd, how this then particularly can impact women with autism and ADHD. I think we do need a real push on better training for medical professionals. We've been talking about that in terms of things like endometriosis, for example, but also, as you say, for all school staff, and I think also front-facing roles in all public services. Because attitudes and the way women are dealt with are really pertinent in this place, aren't they, as you were illustrating earlier, with some of your examples. People can be dismissed or an attitude can prevail or a stereotype can prevail unfairly on somebody, when, actually, what's going on is their condition, their neurodivergence or their ADHD. So, I think that we have to have better awareness and understanding across the piece, and that's why this campaign is so important.

I'd also like to see—and I was wondering if the Government could be thinking about this, although, obviously, it's not a devolved matter, and think about encouraging workplace training, perhaps through the Trades Union Congress and the toolkits that they provide on many different matters, to make sure that our workplaces can be more inclusive and supportive of women. We talk about the awareness of menopause, don't we? We talk about the awareness of sexual harassment. Well, this is something else that has been, perhaps, down the agenda for women and perhaps needs to be brought more to the fore.

I want to sincerely thank the WI for having written this excellent report, because it explains in plain language what autism and ADHD is and what to do and what not to do. As I have a child in my family that may or may not need the extra support required, I think it'll be really helpful to the rest of her family, and to others, to see whether this is going to be something that she's going to need in the future. Because, at the moment, she's in a nurturing primary school, and we know that it is so much easier to cope in a small primary school. I was very interested to hear that Heledd said these problems are normally identified at year 9, or they come to the fore.

We know that there is gaslighting of women's issues, as Sioned has said, and that gender bias exists through everything we do: when we're assessing girls and women, the research that we do, and the evaluation of the symptoms and the interventions that are needed to support girls and women.

I was particularly struck by the myth busting around poor parenting and the fact that there are environmental factors, such as trauma in early childhood. Because I visited a special school in my constituency recently, where the headteacher said, 'It's extraordinary how big an explosion there is', that they are having to double the size of the school because of the level of demand for children who simply cannot manage in mainstream schools. And the children I met were all in primary school—mainly boys, I have to say. But I do wonder—and I want to pose this question in public—whether this trauma in early childhood they talk about isn't in relation to the increase in the amount of induction of labour, which then leads on to instrumental and caesarean section births, with all the accompanying analgesia that's involved in all of that. We have to understand what are the causes of this and maybe change our practice if we find that that is a link.

I would like to thank the WI and Heledd for raising this issue. I welcome the opportunity to participate in this debate.

Although, Llywydd dros dro, I wonder if I should start by declaring an interest, as my mum is a very active member of the WI. She's a trustee of the Clwyd-Flint federation and chair of the public affairs. And, as we say in political speak, I'm always on a three-line whip to support the WI. [Laughter.] But, in all seriousness, the 'Thinking Differently' campaign and this short debate today are really important to not just raise awareness, but to ensure that women's voices are heard and their experiences are acted upon—both in terms of shaping policy development, but then how that works in practice in terms of our public health approaches as well.

The point I just want to make this afternoon—or this evening—is that, earlier this year, we very much welcomed the Welsh Government's women's health plan, and so I would be keen to hear how this will be built on so that autistic and ADHD women and girls are neither left out nor left behind and, crucially, that they have a say and a stake in what support and services look like. Diolch.

Well, as the WI states, for too long, women's and girls' experiences of autism and ADHD have been overlooked and missed. I've only been raising this here for two decades. Their 2024 report, 'Understanding the Experiences of Autistic and ADHD Women', found that 75 per cent felt there is insufficient support available for autistic individuals and their families. Charity KIM Inspire's 2023 'Supporting Neurodivergent Girls and Young Women across North-east Wales' report found that the presentations of autism and ADHD in girls and young women continue to be overlooked by statutory services, that parental blame is frequent, and that this is leading to distress, low self-esteem and self-harming behaviours. Leeds University's school of law research cited that mothers of autistic children are 100 times more likely to be investigated for fabricated or induced illness—that's creating or exaggerating their child's difficulties—by children's services, and that this was at least as prevalent in Wales. And, last week, I was honoured to attend a consultation at St George's House, Windsor Castle, on this crisis. All call for action from decision makers—long overdue.

And the last speaker, Mabon ap Gwynfor.

Can I start by thanking Heledd for an excellent debate, and thank the WI for this campaign? One of the first pieces of casework I undertook in this role was a mother that had approached me with a daughter that she was sure had ADHD, but the doctor refused to put her on a diagnosis pathway because the doctor said girls don't suffer from ADHD and autism. So, clearly, these old-fashioned ideas still prevail.

I just wanted to ask a few questions arising from this. First of all, Heledd mentioned the long waiting lists for girls who are waiting for diagnosis, but, if you are a Welsh-speaking girl—first-language Welsh-speaking girl—then the waiting list is even longer. So, what steps is the Government going to take to address that issue? But, for those on a long waiting list, and, as we heard in the evidence from Heledd, many of them have to go private for a diagnosis, at a cost of around £2,000 or more for that diagnosis, then they get the diagnosis, they know they are living with ADHD, and then they can't get medicines on the NHS; that is denied to them, although it's clear that they need those drugs.

So, will this Government help those people who have had a diagnosis and have done so privately, and have been forced to go private because of the Government—will the Government help them to ensure that they can get those medicines that they need?

I now call on the Minister for Mental Health and Well-being to reply to the debate—Sarah Murphy.

Thank you very much. Diolch, Heledd Fychan, and all colleagues for speaking in this debate today, and I would also like to begin by thanking the National Federation of Women's Institutes, Wales, for choosing to champion understanding the experiences of autistic and ADHD women through their 'Think Differently' campaign. I really appreciate how your thousands of members are learning and listening to lived experience; you're raising awareness via your survey responses and you're coming up with actions and a really good toolkit so that WI members, and everyone else, honestly, can advocate and stand in solidarity with women to champion inclusivity and empower individuals to embrace their unique identities. 

I wish to also thank the WI for inviting me to their online event last week to learn more about its campaign to support women and girls with autism and ADHD as part of Neurodiversity Celebration Week. I've always been a huge advocate of listening to those with lived experience, to understand and connect with each other, and I would really like to take another opportunity to thank Councillor Sara Robinson from Cardiff Council, Brogan Evans and Caitlyn Seldon for being incredibly open and candid, and taking the time to speak with us about their experiences. It was inspiring, and I personally learnt so much, and I really appreciated the discussion afterwards about the terms that we use, defining your own identity and setting boundaries.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week awareness is so powerful as an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the unique strengths and talents of neurodivergent individuals, including those with autism and ADHD, as we can see from the attendance here today. Your journeys are often marked by challenges, and also by remarkable achievements and contributions to our communities. It is essential that we acknowledge their experience, and work together to create a society that supports and empowers them. The Welsh Government is determined to do all we can to improve the lives of neurodivergent individuals, and, in Wales, we need to ensure the services and support are available, appropriate and tailored to the person. Over the past few years, we have made significant strides in transforming neurodivergent services across Wales. In February 2025, I announced a further £13.7 million to improve neurodivergent services and reduce waiting times for autism and ADHD assessments, and this will extend the work of the national neurodivergence improvement programme until March 2027, building on the £12 million already invested over the past three years. Our goal is to drive down waiting times for children's neurodevelopmental assessments, and to continue the transformation work to create sustainable, integrated services that better serve neurodivergent individuals and their families, providing increased expertise in recognising and responding to women and girls who present with neurodivergent symptoms.

Over the next two years, the neurodivergence improvement programme will implement an extensive training programme across health, social care, education and specialisms to ensure professionals are equipped to support neurodivergent individuals effectively, as mentioned by Sioned Williams. We're also going to review the current autism code of practice, with the aim of broadening its scope to encompass other neurodivergent conditions. We're going to support innovative, needs-led approaches that focus on the strengths and needs of neurodivergent individuals, moving away from that diagnosis-dependent support, establish approved data collection and reporting systems to better understand the needs of neurodivergent communities and to inform our future policy decisions, and then finally, also, to foster stronger collaborative relationships between organisations to create a more cohesive support network for neurodivergent individuals.

Many of our goals, as you can hear, align with the WI findings and requests in your campaign for action, as well as talking to many other stakeholders and those with lived experience.

Will you take an intervention?

Of course.

May I ask specifically on the point in terms of child and adolescent mental health services? We've heard the situation of, perhaps, young women with autism or ADHD who, perhaps, self-harm and aren't given the support via CAMHS for mental health, that they're actually denied some of the support that some of their peers are able to access, and also, as I mentioned, those who are not in education, because education has failed them because they haven't been identified. How do we get to those who have maybe fallen through the cracks who will have lifelong implications if we don't actually provide that support to them as well?

Absolutely. Thank you for raising that. Next week, I will be launching the suicide prevention and self-harm strategy, and, at the end of April, I'll be launching the mental health and well-being strategy. Everything that you've talked about there is very much intertwined. It's, again, because of people with lived experience. So, I was talking to Kirsty Davies-Warner today from Mirus, and she is somebody that was actually misdiagnosed as having a mental health issue, and she was autistic, and that was something that absolutely impacted all of her life, and she speaks very bravely about it now. So, we're learning from those examples and we are truly making a difference. So, I'm also aware that sometimes people get sent to CAMHS, and then you're told, 'No, you need to go back and get your assessment', so we absolutely have to shut that down by bringing the waiting list down for the assessments, but also making sure that, as I've said, we have that collaborative relationship. And there's also some work that we're exploring—myself, with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and the Minister for social care—around how we collect some data on this as well, so that even children who aren't in education will be able to be identified also. So, we've got some really good things coming on this, and we're absolutely acutely aware of it.

I also wanted to say that, over the course of the last six months, we have taken targeted action to tackle those long waiting times for children's assessments. As you know, our First Minister did a listening exercise over the summer. This came through so loudly. When I came into this post, it was one of the three key priorities that I was given, to get those waiting lists down for the children and young people who have been waiting the longest. And we did allocate that £3 million to health boards across Wales to eliminate the longest waits. While progress has been mixed—I'll be honest—some health boards successfully transformed their assessment pathways and considerably reduced times. In other parts of Wales, there needs to be a redoubling of efforts and to learn from that best practice.

Would you take an intervention?

Absolutely.

On the waiting lists, do you think it's right that those being effectively forced into private diagnosis have to pay for their medication?

Yes, I wanted to pick up on that, because you said that they're being forced into that by Welsh Government. What's happened here in the UK and across Europe, as I learned from Councillor Robinson when we went to the WI event last week, is that this is happening everywhere, and, in a way, it's because of the raised awareness. There's just been a huge increase in awareness. And as I've said in previous scrutiny in the Finance Committee, we could be looking at 60,000 people waiting for an assessment unless we do something transformational. So, what we have to do now is that we have to use some of the money, some of the funding, to tackle those longest waiting times. But we also need that transformation work alongside it.

It also comes to the point that you were making about the Welsh language as well. So, of course, it is the duty of the health boards to do that assessment of the needs of the people in their communities, and along with us in the transformation work, the Welsh language is also at the heart of that. So, I feel that, from the Welsh Government, we have truly listened to people. We're absolutely taking it very seriously. This is a very positive debate here today, but this is also a very, very serious issue. I completely understand the impact that this has on people, and, like I said, the journey that you go on, even when you do get that assessment. It's not just about the assessment; it's about the support afterwards. But this is also—and I think this comes through so clearly in the work that the WI has done—all of society as well. We need a huge shift here. I'm very sad to say that I still hear people saying, you know, 'We never had this in my day,' that this is all made up. We are still really, really fighting that assumption that people have, and it's absolutely not the case.

And I did want to say as well, to Sioned and Hannah and all of you today, that this is a gender issue. This is absolutely a gender issue. The assessments that were done in the past were not tailored for girls and women. Like you said, you could mask. I was listening to women who were telling me, 'They tell you, "Can you sit still?" Well, yes, I can sit still; is that really the assessment?' We talked last week about whether people like the term 'ADHD'. They're not fussed on the word 'deficit'. They said, 'I have a "deficit" if I'm not interested in it.' So, it's these kinds of things. And I just feel that, honestly, listening to people and asking them is incredibly powerful. We can see by how many people have stayed today, though, how important this is, but we are still fighting that. So, it's an increased awareness that has driven that need, and we are doing everything we can to address that, right now, so that people don't have to be waiting. I want to be in a world, and I want to be in a Wales, where 99 per cent of people get an assessment when they are a child and a young person. That's where I want us to be with this, to have that support and that whole-school approach as well, and wraparound.

So, just to end, as I know I need to end, I did want to say that, as we move on from Neurodiversity Celebration Week, I reaffirm my commitment to creating a more inclusive and equitable society for autistic and ADHD women and girls. We will continue to work to ensure they receive the support they need to thrive. Together, we can change the narrative and empower neurodivergent girls and women to achieve their full potential. I want to thank, again, the Women's Institute, for their trailblazing work, and to let us all continue to celebrate and champion the diverse minds that make our society richer and stronger. Diolch.

Thank you. That brings today's proceedings to a close.