National Assembly for Wales

Welcome to this final Plenary session of the fifth Senedd. Before we begin, I want to set out a few points in this meeting, as I've done in all other meetings. A Plenary meeting held by video-conference, in accordance with the Standing Orders of the Welsh Parliament, constitutes Senedd proceedings for the purposes of the Government of Wales Act 2006. Some of the provisions of Standing Order 34 will apply for today's Plenary meeting, and these are noted on your agenda. I would also remind Members that Standing Orders relating to order in Plenary meetings apply to this meeting.

Our first item today is questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services, and the first question is from Janet Finch-Saunders.

Yes. In June 2020, I created a task and finish group to explore the feasibility of proposals put forward by Bangor University and Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board for a north Wales school for medical and health sciences. This work has now progressed to the development of a full business case, and, as you'll know, my party has pledged in the forthcoming election to see that to a successful conclusion.

Thank you. Since Welsh Labour were voted back into Government in May 2016, the number of patient pathways waiting over 36 weeks to start treatment has increased from 4,078 to 50,143. You have overseen a 1,130 per cent increase over five years. Now, whilst we realise the pandemic has worsened the situation, the scene was already bleak here in north Wales. By February 2020, the number of treatment pathways waiting over 36 weeks had already reached 11,296. Fast-tracking the development of a medical school is a major part of this solution. Even the Royal College of Physicians Wales has long supported the expansion of a medical school. And as they told me only this week, there are ongoing major trainee rota gaps in every one of our hospitals, and this cannot continue, as it has a direct impact on quality of patient care. Earlier this month, you kindly issued a written statement on medical education in north Wales. Whilst I welcome the fact that a total of 19 students began their studies on the C21 programme in the 2019-20 intake, the number actually fell to 18 students in the intake the year after. What steps will you take to improve awareness of opportunities in north Wales and ensure that there is an expansion rather than a decline in the number of students receiving medical education here? Diolch.

Thank you for the question. I think it's time to put the record straight on some of the allegations made by not just this, but the regular Conservative Members. Before the pandemic, we saw the best waiting times position in six years, until the year before the pandemic. We then saw not just in Wales, but in every part of the UK a decline as a direct consequence of tax and pension changes introduced by the Conservatives at Westminster. You'll see that direct correlation in every UK nation—don't take my word for it, go and talk to the British Medical Association about the direct impact that had on their members and on the ability to continue making progress on waiting times.

When it comes to the points about the medical school and medical education in north Wales, this Government has a good track record on making decisions to expand opportunities to undertake medical education in north Wales. We're committed to not just seeing through the task and finish group and the work on delivering a business case for north Wales, but, of course, as I've indicated, there's a clear manifesto headline pledge to see that to a successful conclusion if Welsh Labour are re-elected to lead the Welsh Government again by the people of Wales.

We also have a good record on doctor training in north Wales on a whole range of areas. For example, on general practice, we now regularly fill a significant number of GP training posts. In fact, we overfill those training posts, including regularly filling all of the GP training places available in north Wales as well. So, on our track record, we have a good track record, and on our ambition for the future, I think the people of Wales will continue to place their trust in us and I look forward to their verdict on the first Thursday in May.

Minister, a medical school for north Wales is something that I have long called for and is something that is particularly important for the north Wales region. Do you agree with me that it's a Mark Drakeford-led Government that is committed to delivering this and that the only way that this is affordable and deliverable is with him as First Minister?

I completely agree, and the Member's right to point out that Welsh Labour have actually done the hard yards in Government to expand medical education and training opportunities in north Wales. We've done that successfully. It's a clear, headline, direct manifesto pledge: if you vote Welsh Labour, then we will see through to a successful conclusion a medical school in north Wales—more opportunities to train and stay in Wales, and, crucially, they'll work alongside the medical schools we already have in Swansea and Cardiff, in providing what I believe will be high-quality medical education, and to keep doctors training in Wales, and for them to stay to train, work and live in Wales.

Minister, during the referendum campaign, and well after, I always felt great disquiet as one of the major arguments for remaining, and then for thwarting the vote, was how the NHS may be affected by an exodus of workers in the NHS. It is almost as if civic leaders and politicians were celebrating the fact that other countries' health services and training were being plundered by the UK, and I never really got that point of view. Do you agree with me that a medical school in north Wales will be a part of the drive to self-sufficiency in the NHS, taking responsibility for training our own workforce, if you like, and that has to be a really, really good thing? Thank you. 

Well, I think the Member's points are broadly absurd. When it comes to the position about the referendums and our past, actually Brexit has been and done and we're out of the European Union whether we like it or not. That's the reality of where we are, and it will have an impact on our ability to recruit from current European Union member states. And I don't share the Member's view that this is about plundering other parts of the world. We see people who train here in the UK who go and work in other parts of the world as well. And I should remind not just the Member, but everybody that the NHS has always been an international success story. If we had not recruited people from around the world, then our NHS would not have delivered the breadth of care that it has. It would not be the embodiment of the most popular and trusted public institution in this country. Go into any hospital within Wales and you will find an international cast delivering high-quality healthcare, changing and improving our country, not just as workers, but as friends and community members—people who we live alongside and whose children go to the same schools as ours. I'm very proud of our international links. I look forward to maintaining those international links to both recruit and to help other parts of the world, and I look forward to building on the successful track record of this Government in recruiting, training and retaining more of our staff right across the health service—those nurses, doctors and other therapists and scientists as well that we all have come to rely on even more than usual in this past year. 

The Office for National Statistics has reported 1,643 registered deaths involving COVID-19 to Welsh residents in care homes up to 5 March. This is around 21 per cent of all deaths involving COVID-19.

On 13 March last year, you issued a directive to all health boards to postpone all non-urgent elective activity to allow them to prepare for the expected increase in workload in dealing with the pandemic. Those were the words of your Government to me in a letter. At the same time, the Welsh Government was clearing NHS beds by sending patients from hospitals into care homes without them being tested. It was a staggering thing to do. The results were fatal and brought great tragedy for many families. As of February 2021, your own Government statistics show that deaths in care homes since March 2020 are 43 per cent higher than the same period two years ago. Your party is now calling for an independent inquiry into the UK Government's handling of the pandemic in London. Propel, in 'Our Contract for Wales', has committed to implementing an independent inquiry in Wales on day one after the election in May. Given the outrageous numbers of avoidable deaths in care homes and your Government's actions having made the problem much worse, do you accept that there must be an independent inquiry into your own Government's handling of the COVID crisis?

I thank Neil McEvoy for that question. It is obviously an absolute tragedy what has happened in care homes, and my sympathy and the Government’s sympathy is with all the residents and the families who have been affected. There is no question about the tragedy that has occurred. I think the Member will recognise that most individuals who reside in care homes in Wales are the older, more vulnerable members of society, and they are one of the groups that is most at risk from the serious consequences of contracting the disease.

The analysis that's been undertaken by Public Health Wales, looking at the risk factors for the outbreaks of COVID-19 in care homes, suggested that the effect of discharge on outbreaks in care homes was very low. And, also, there's been recent research by Swansea University that has tracked patients from hospital through discharge into care homes, and that's estimated up to 1.8 per cent of discharges from hospitals into care homes could have been carrying the infection. The factors that influenced the outcome was really the size of a care home in both the number of the registered beds as well as the prevalence of COVID-19 in the community, and that had the greatest impact on the number of deaths. But, whatever caused this, it is a tragedy and, of course, I support an investigation into when and why this happened. I think that's absolutely the right thing to do and we must learn from what has happened.  

Minister, one of the things that is helping to protect care home residents, of course, is the success of the vaccination programme in care homes across Wales. But there are individuals who will have received their first dose in a care home and then returned to a different care setting, sometimes their own home, without having had a second dose. What action is the Welsh Government taking to make sure that those individuals are properly tracked so that they can get their second dose? I've had a number of constituents in my own area who do not appear to be getting their call-backs for those important second doses to give them the full protection that the vaccine can provide. 

I thank Darren Millar for that question. The vaccination programme does continue to progress well. In care homes, nearly 96 per cent of care home residents have now received their first dose of the vaccine, which is great progress. He makes an important point about people moving to different settings and ensuring that the follow-up dose is given, and we will certainly take steps to ensure that we alert settings to that possibility so that people can be followed up. I haven't been notified of any incidents myself, but if the Member has been notified of these incidents it's obviously very important that those are followed up. 

Questions now from the party spokespeople and, first of all, the Conservative spokesperson, Angela Burns. 

Diolch, Presiding Officer. Thank you. Minister, your recently published COVID-19 forward plan, I think, is a very fair summary of the situation that we face in Wales today. I think it neatly outlines the challenges that are faced by health and social care. But I also feel it is very short on some key solutions that we need to be seeing. So, for example, could you please explain what specific plans you have in place to deal with the ever worsening waiting times crisis in elective surgery? 

Well, those plans and detail have been worked through with clinical leaders. I was very fortunate to have a really useful conversation with clinical leaders and the NHS chief exec last week, and we went through the deliberate ways we're trying to change where we are. So, when the plan talks about needing to change some of our ways of working, it recognises that we can't go back to trying to buy activity and just to have a deal with the independent sector. So, we're going to need to have some local answers, some regional answers and some nationally directed answers. There isn't a hard-and-fast operational delivery plan now. That comes on the back of the framework and that will come in the plans not just from health boards, but, as I say, needing to make sure that there are local and regional overlays on them. 

The other reason is that we're not out of the pandemic yet. So, actually, the lists are going to get bigger before we're at that point. That's partly because, as you'll know, we have a position where the NHS can't work to the same operational efficiency, because we still have additional measures in place, testing and PPE requirements, and we're also still in a position where we're not able to turn back on all of the elective activity that is still paused because—and, again, you'll know this because I know you look at the figures—our critical care units are still at more than 100 per cent. So, you can expect more operational plans to be delivered, whoever the next Government is, and that work will be done by clinical leaders, together with health boards, and whoever is the next health Minister will then have to decide how to get behind those and make choices about areas where health boards need to act on their own or together, and it will, I believe, require a necessary element of direction from whoever the next health Minister is.

You talk about the importance of operational plans, and I agree with you that it's very important to work with all the stakeholders to draft operational plans that are really deliverable. Of course, to make those operational plans really sound, you've got to have good data and really up-to-date coherent information and I'm really pleased that your COVID-19 forward plan does recognise that and, in fact, I think you have a whole chapter on how we can improve and use our data. Therefore, will you also listen to the calls of organisations, such as the Royal College of Surgeons, who are asking for not just modelling and publishing of projections on the numbers of people who need an operation in Wales—because they say that is not clear and we're not clear how many elective surgeries and other operations were postponed or completely cancelled because of the pandemic—but also asking for you to publish monthly planned surgery activity levels for the health boards in Wales to encourage the restoration of surgical activity and ensure equity of access to surgical services for patients? In other words, holding the health boards to account on this matter.

Well, the Royal College of Surgeons were at the meeting that I described with clinical leaders and actually the guidance that they've issued has been helpful in allowing some activity to continue in different parts of Wales, but it reflects the reality of where we are on the ground with, not just COVID, but with other harms that are coming in. Because I think part of this is, you're right about data and understanding what that data is, but it's also still then the judgments and the understanding of where people are on that waiting list. There'll be some people who are a higher clinical priority and it's the understanding of how that's taken through to deal with people to avoid the greatest amount of harm, and that will be different in different areas of the service. And, again, the Member will know that in some parts, delaying treatment can lead to irreversible harm, for example, on sight loss. In other areas, it can lead to discomfort and deterioration in that person's well-being, if you're waiting for a joint operation, for example. But that harm may be recovered. So, it's both understanding how to prioritise the waiting list and then to understand how you fairly judge the level of activity that each organisation is undertaking.

So, I'd be more than happy to continue the conversations that we already have with the Royal College of Surgeons on how we can be open and transparent about the levels of activity that are being restarted, but not to use as a simple, 'You're somewhere on a league table and you just have to get somewhere else', because, as I say, the pandemic isn't finished yet. When we move beyond the pandemic, then, yes, I think there'll be more and more data and more and more expectation in terms of my response to your first question: how have we managed to gear up different ways of working to deliver the required levels of activity whilst, of course, at the same time, taking care of our staff who will be exhausted when the pandemic is finally over?

I'm afraid this is where I have a slight difference with you, because everybody talks about 'when the pandemic is over', and I actually think we've gone past that—we've gone past the crisis. We're now in a situation where this is endemic. We're going to have a situation where we're going to be in this position for a long, long time to come. We can't keep saying, 'Oh, we're just in a crisis; we're just in a crisis—how do we handle that?' We've got to look beyond that.

I thought that the COVID-19 forward work programme did have some really good things in it, but it comes back to some of the issues that we really found out when we did the cross-party parliamentary group on how to deliver health and social care. There's a lot of, 'We know what the challenges are', but not a lot of, 'How are we going to solve them?' And you yourself have just mentioned our exhausted staff in the NHS and social care services. And I listened to the director of the Royal College of Nursing last night at the commemoration event, talking about how exhausted and traumatised so many of the staff in the health and social care sectors are. And I do worry, reading this COVID-19 forward plan—it talks about, 'We do have a workforce deficit'; well, it's more than just a small workforce deficit. How are we going to be able to manage that on top of creating that space to allow those who have been working so hard over this last year and who are so exhausted—how are we going to allow them the time to recover and get back and start picking up all of these elective surgeries? And there wasn't much talk about recruitment policies, retraining policies, retention policies. You know our plan, we've got a very strong recruit, retain, retrain policy. I didn't see much of that. Can you give us some overview of how you're going to be able to bolster that hard-working but shattered workforce?

With respect, I don't think we are at the point where COVID is now managed and endemic. I think that's where we will get to, but I don't think we're there yet. As I said, when critical care is still operating at over 100 per cent of its capacity, and we still have significant numbers of COVID-positive patients in our hospitals, we're not there yet. But I do think we're well on track to do so, and each easement that we unlock means that there's another area of activity that can be restored in wider life and it puts us further on the path to then being able to deal with a new normal situation for our health and care system. So, I think perhaps we're at different perspectives about when the point is when more normalised activity can restart, and, with respect, I don't think the figures bear out that we're at that point now.

I do know, though, that the reality of how we manage and look after our staff is hugely important. So, you will see comments about that in the recovery plan. In terms of the detail of that, I think that's for manifestos for the election. We've got a really good track record, though, on the numbers of staff that we have recruited, trained and retained over this last term and beyond. We've managed to increase the NHS headcount by more than 10,000 over this Welsh Parliament term. That shows the benefit of consistent recruitment, retention and training. So, I think people can trust our record, because it's a strong one.

But, even with that, and even with the benefit of the future investment that I expect you will see in our manifesto, we still have a really significant task in caring for our staff and not setting unrealistic expectations about how quickly the huge backlog that exists here will be eaten into and moved away. I think this will take a full Welsh Parliament term. That's the honesty that I think the people of Wales need to hear. That's the honesty that I think our staff need to hear as well, that we're not going to expect them to suddenly wipe away all of the huge backlog that has built up necessarily to prevent people from losing their lives in this last year, and you'll hear more from us, from Welsh Labour, when it comes to the manifesto launch, and I think you'll hear plenty about future recruitment and retention for our staff that will be funded and entirely deliverable.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you, Llywydd. Well, in the final health and care question session in this Senedd, may I take this opportunity to thank the Minister and his officials for their collaboration over the years? We haven't always seen eye to eye, but whilst I've been very willing to support the Government when I think they've got things right over the past 12 months, I know that the Minister will understand the importance of scrutiny and will appreciate the role of an opposition party in trying to influence policy and changing direction when we need to do that. That's why, when the Minister said there was no case for a medical school for north Wales, we were determined to continue to campaign on that, and we're pleased to see the change of mind there.

To COVID now, the situation in Wales is improving, and that's positive. There are problems in Merthyr Tydfil and in my constituency, as it happens, and we need to support those areas now. There was a strong team of volunteers out in Holyhead this morning providing COVID tests, going from house to house. I was one of them, as it happens, but it's a cause of concern for me that the process is overly reliant on volunteers and places a huge strain on the staffing resources of the local authority. Would the Minister agree that we need to look at means of providing greater support to councils as they undertake tasks such as this one, because if there are interventions like this required in various communities, then I fear that that's going to be difficult to deliver?

Well, I think there are lots of lessons to learn, not just from what we're having to do today and in the days ahead around Holyhead—not the whole of the county of Anglesey, but around Holyhead, and the same in parts of Merthyr. We also have learning to take from the pilot that was undertaken with the three local authorities across Cwm Taf Morgannwg with a greater amount of community testing, and you will have seen, I'm sure, the really positive review of that community testing programme. And, actually, within that, we've managed to have a more successful engagement of the public in that community-wide testing than the pilots in Liverpool and Glasgow, I believe. That's really good news. We managed to highlight that, because of that, we think we'd identified more cases and prevented more admissions, including, the likely prevention of a number of deaths.

That does mean, though, that we need to learn about how we need to support local authorities. Some of that is about mutual aid, some of that is about the ongoing discussion we have between health, local government and the Welsh Government about how we support them. And I can honestly say that I've found local government leaders regardless of their party to be constructive and honest, and we have not always agreed at every point, but we have come to what I believe have been sensible answers to carry matters forward, and as ever, we're still learning as we go through. The good news is, though, that the spikes in Holyhead and in parts of Merthyr appear to be evening out with a fall in the case rate in Merthyr in the figures today in particular. That's good news, not just for everyone with the potential of opening up with more travel around Wales, but good news for those communities in those areas that are looking forward to the next stage in our path out of lockdown.

This week is a week of commemoration and reflection exactly a year since that first lockdown. The UK Prime Minister's admitted that he made some wrong decisions in dealing with the pandemic, but I'm not going to ask that question of the Minister. What I want the Minister to do is to look back at the 20 years and more of Labour control of the NHS leading up to the pandemic. One lesson that we've learnt is that health and care services in Wales aren't resilient enough to deal with the pandemic. Does the Minister accept that no other Government can afford to leave crucial services in such a vulnerable position again?

At the start of the pandemic, health and care and wider public services were still recovering from a decade of austerity and you'll recall the very difficult choices that the Government and Members in supporting budgets have had to make in moving money around. The prioritisation of the health service I believe was the right thing, but that caused real difficulties for local government in every part of the country as it meant a reduction in local government income. Just because the cuts that they had to deal with weren't of the scale that colleagues in England had to face, they were still nevertheless incredibly difficult and left our public service partners in a less-than-even-handed manner than you'd want them to; the resilience they had was less than it should have been. The same with the police, of course, who have been key partners in the pandemic response with a significant reduction in the workforce and front-line policing as well.

So yes, we were more vulnerable than I would have wanted us to be at the start of this pandemic. Despite that, what we have seen from local public service leaders is a real willingness to work together and it's a real plus that it's drawn health and local government together with other partners because of the necessity, and I believe that's good ground for those people to work together.

We disagree on whether there should be a significant reorganisation of health and social care responsibilities. My view is that's the wrong thing to do—with an unfinished pandemic—to have a big reorganisation. But I do think that there are good grounds to not just praise the response of health and local government together, but to want to build on that in the sort of joint working that we have frankly found not as easy as we'd wanted to on the scale and the pace we want to see for the transformation that is still needed to make sure that health and social care are a genuinely sustainable system working with each other.

You have to remember that the health and care sector in Wales went into a decade of austerity off the back of decades of neglect by successive Labour and Conservative Governments in Cardiff and at Westminster. It's clear to me that health and care services in Wales were not prepared for this pandemic. Public health and the care sector in particular had been neglected. Pandemic planning, we know, was woefully short of where it should have been right across health and care. There was far too much dependence, I think, on the sheer dedication of staff who'd always be prepared to go the extra mile to care for patients, but were overworked and undersupported. That's why COVID recovery now can't be about bringing us back to where we were before. I don't want reorganisation, either; I want a new focus and it's why Plaid Cymru wants to lead transformation of health and care in Wales and after 20 years and more of the failure to bring about the transformation that health and care in Wales needed before COVID, will the Minister agree that there is no reason for people to believe that Labour can lead that transformation after COVID either?

I think it's a rather foolish attempt to try to rewrite history on what's happened with the health service and funding and public services. I remember as a young man growing up with 18 years of the Conservatives in Government in the UK. I remember the creation of devolution, I remember the significant injection of public funds into health and other public services that came about with the return of a Labour Government in 1997. This institution benefited from a very different approach to public expenditure and investing in public services because there was a Labour Government across the United Kingdom, and there's no point in trying to claim that wasn't the case—it's factual, and that's why we saw a significant investment in public services, just as it's factual that we've seen a decade of austerity with a Conservative Prime Minister and Chancellor. Those are just the facts.

When it comes to pandemic planning, our planning was geared up towards something more like a flu pandemic, which was in the top handful of risks to the United Kingdom. We then found something that didn't behave quite as the flu has done, so we've all had to learn—not just here, but right across Europe—and I think the attempt to try to have a uniquely critical view on pandemic planning here in Wales is somewhat misplaced, but there are views for the public to make their choices on within that. We have seen a tremendous response across public services and from the public themselves, and the private sector, who have supported our national health service. I think that the people do broadly trust and appreciate the leadership that this Government has provided for Wales through the pandemic, and, when it comes to who you trust to complete the unfinished task of seeing us through this pandemic, I'm confident the people of Wales will recognise the role Welsh Labour has had in doing that, and renew their faith and their trust in us to lead our country forward and to have real ambition for how we can rebuild a better Wales. 

I've enjoyed our conversations across this particular forum. I don't know if you have a supplementary question later on, but we have not always agreed, and I look forward to the people of Wales making their own judgment on who should serve in this role and others after the election in early May.

It is a central ambition of this Government to do everything we can to address unacceptable inequalities in health outcomes between our most and least well-off communities. We will continue to take a whole-Government approach to tackling the root causes of health inequalities.

Minister, health inequalities in the UK and Wales are very, very concerning. Men in the most deprived communities live, on average, 10 years less than those in the least deprived, and, for women, the difference is almost eight years. And in terms of healthy years of life, the difference is almost 19 years, and that applies to both genders. So, with that sort of background, that's why the Royal College of Physicians in Wales got together around 30 organisations to look at this situation, and they were looking at research that showed that the social determinants of health or ill-health—housing, education and poverty—can be more important to health outcomes than healthcare itself or, indeed, lifestyle choices. So, in looking at this situation, they believe that there should be a more strongly cross-cutting approach from Welsh Government to involve all Ministers and all departments in changing what needs to be changed to address this totally unacceptable situation. 

So, I heard what you said, Minister, in terms of a whole-Government approach, but, in terms of those suggestions and proposals from the royal college and those 30-odd organisations, will you carefully consider what they think is needed in deciding how we can make further inroads into these longstanding issues and problems?

Yes, and I think the Royal College of Physicians report is a useful reminder of the need to have cross-Government action, because most healthcare inequalities don't come from healthcare activity, they come from those determinants outside. It's why, for example, the World Health Organization has recognised the direct healthcare impact of our improvements in housing quality. The reality that having a good-quality warm home makes a real difference to your health is something that has been recognised internationally, and praised for our approach here in Wales. I'm pleased to say you can see that continued leadership from Julie James as our housing Minister, improving housing quality stock and the environmental footprint as well. You see it in the work across education, the work we've done and the conversations yesterday with Kirsty Williams and the Chair of the Children, Young People and Education Committee about that broader approach to children and young people's health, and their health literacy for mental and physical health. You'll see that in the work that Ken Skates has undertaken on the economic contract, making sure that mental and physical health are understood as key outcomes from a good working relationship, where people have good work, good terms and conditions. If you look at healthcare inequalities, they always match over economic inequalities as well. We've made some progress, progress that I think we can be proud of. We know that there's much more to do and a real opportunity to do so as we look to rebuild Wales after this pandemic, to finish the job with the pandemic and rebuild a better, fairer Wales. 

Thank you, Minister. Yes, it's very true that it has to be a cross-cutting, cross-Government approach to this to tackle this significant problem. The pandemic has thrown into sharp focus the issue of health inequalities in Wales, and exposed the consequences of longstanding failure to tackle the problem. Tackling the social causes of health inequalities, as you said, has never been more urgent, and the true scale of the implications of the pandemic for the health and well-being of people in Wales may not become clear for a number of years yet.

Tackling the inequalities in our BME communities specifically, how, Minister, are you looking into significantly improving healthcare provision for our BME communities, healthcare provision that respects cultural differences and recognises the many languages that are spoken amongst our communities, so that we really can create equality in provision?

Well, on the specific issues around Black and Asian origin communities here in Wales, we've done quite a lot in recognising our need to improve our services, whether that's mental health or physical health. We've learnt even more and are doing even more work through the pandemic—for example, the work of Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna in understanding more about those inequalities, the work of Professor Keshav Singhal in undertaking the risk-assessment work, a first within the UK that's being rolled out to other parts of the private sector, but also in the vaccination roll-out as well. And it's perhaps appropriate to mention, given that John Griffiths asked the initial question, the work that John Griffiths and Jayne Bryant have done together with Newport City Council, with the health board, on encouraging more people to undertake not just their vaccinations, but the broader re-engagement of the health service and our broader care systems with different communities that aren't always as close to other parts of the country when it comes to accessing good quality healthcare. So, progress is being made not just on a single issue, but to take that forward more generally. 

When it comes, though, to the challenges of healthcare inequalities, I would say to the Member, and any other Conservative who wants to try to claim they have no responsibility in this area, that every objective analysis shows that the Conservative policies of austerity and the attacks on benefits and support for working-age people, including in-work benefits, have had a serious impact on increasing poverty and inequality, especially on the reductions in the gains made over the first part of the last 20 years in reducing child poverty, which have all been lost thanks to choices made by her party. So, perhaps some self-reflection on the role of Conservative policies and the reality that we have had to fight back to undo the damage that her party has chosen to cause. 

I wonder if the Minister agrees with me that siting really world-class healthcare facilities in our poorer communities can contribute to addressing health inequalities. And if he does agree with me in that regard, would he join me in congratulating Carmarthenshire County Council and all the other partners in the development of Pentre Awel in Llanelli, which will be sited right in the middle of some of the poorest wards in Wales? I'm sure he'll be aware that this will include a clinical care centre delivering multidisciplinary care, a clinical research centre and a well-being skills centre, focusing on the health and care training, focusing that training particularly on recruiting from within those communities. So, I hope that the Minister will join me in congratulating all of those involved, and wonder if he agrees with me that these kinds of projects can make a real difference in communities where they're needed most. 

I'm happy to say that I've discussed the matter with the constituency Member for Llanelli, my Government colleague, Lee Waters, and more broadly the challenge of investing in communities across the country. And it's a good example of how local health and care services can and should be drawn together to deliver better quality facilities, to invest within that community and to deliver better services, in exactly the same way as the recently-opened Mountain Ash facility that recently I saw with the council and the local Member for Cynon Valley—the lobbying and the effectiveness of that shows it isn't just health; it's health working with other partners to deliver better facilities. And again, it goes back to the significantly improved relationships between health and local government through the crisis, but before that as well, and there's a real opportunity to carry on investing in local healthcare and delivering much better facilities where they're most needed. 

We published 'Health and Social Care in Wales COVID-19: Looking Forward' on Monday 22 March, and the Member's already referred to that document. That sets out the approach the NHS will take to recovering services such as cancer. We've also published a quality statement for cancer that sets out the scope for continued improvement to cancer services in the years ahead.

And this probably will be the last question I deal with from the Member, and I do want to say that we have certainly not always agreed, but I have always valued an honest and a straightforward approach, and our agreements have always been on a trusted basis, where we know where we disagree and any matters that have been shared in confidence have always been treated in that way, and I wish her well for the future.

Thank you very much, Minister. I do appreciate your words. That's very kind of you, and I would reciprocate by saying thank you for your transparency and honesty on some of the occasions that we've had to look at some of the very tough situations that are facing our health and social services.

Of course, one of the very tough situations facing us is the provision of cancer treatments to people through the pandemic. Now, Wales has been without a cancer delivery plan since the end of last year, and, on Monday of this week, the Wales Cancer Alliance, who were hugely unimpressed with either your quality statement or your COVID-19 forward work programme, starkly warned that cancer care in Wales is at risk without a new cancer strategy. The delivery plan that you had was 21 pages long and it's been replaced by a statement that's around three pages long. I've had a read of it; it's full of nice commentary and very much little else. To quote the cancer alliance, 

'the quality statement lacks a clear roadmap for how cancer care can improve so that Wales can catch up with the best performing countries and, ultimately, save more lives.'

Most damningly, they go on to say that they do not believe

'this is a sufficiently detailed response to the current crisis in cancer care, nor does it point to a sufficiently bold ambition for cancer services in Wales.'

Minister, you talked about having a real ambition for Wales in your answer to Rhun ap Iorwerth, so can you please tell us a little bit more of what is that real ambition for cancer services, and how do you respond to this rather damning indictment of your Government's plans to treat cancer over the coming years, if you should be so fortunate as to form the next Government?

Well, we have actually already started on the path of improving outcomes for people with cancer. If you look at not just the numbers but improving outcomes in Wales, we've kept pace with other parts of the UK, and, bearing in mind that Wales is an older, poorer part of the UK, you would expect to see a potential gap in that improvement in outcomes. That shows the progress we've made. You'll also be aware of the choice that I have made to have a more transparent approach to understanding where we are on delivering people the care they need with the new single cancer pathway, and I think that will lead to improvements. We've worked on that with both cancer clinicians and the Wales Cancer Alliance.

We signalled in 'A Healthier Wales' that quality statements would be the next stage in making sure that separate delivery plans are sat within the centre of accountability, planning and progress within our organisations. So, the quality statement sets out the outcomes and expected standards that we will see. It's not intended to be a delivery plan, an operational plan in itself. There will, though, be an implementation plan developed in the coming months, with the Wales Cancer Alliance and clinicians contributing and taking part in that. The NHS exec will then ensure that that is delivered in the central part of where health boards deliver as well. Part of our challenge was in having a separate plan, separate to the other planning and implementation processes within the health service. This will make sure that cancer services are in the centre of that, and clearer accountability. So, you can expect to see the implementation detail from health-board level plans, from Velindre plans, and also from national oversight as well. So, you'll see two parts in taking this forward to replace the previous delivery programme, and I believe that will reinforce the ambition we all have for high-quality cancer care, and I believe that will be a trusted way to deal with the improvement we all want to see in cancer services and outcomes.

Minister, I heard what you just said, but I've got a constituent who has contacted me who has suffered with breast cancer, has now been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer—she's not yet 30—and has indicated her disappointment at the quality statement, because she indicates that there is no real data on people living with secondary breast cancer in Wales and there's only one specialist nurse on secondary breast cancer in Wales. Now, I've read the quality statement, and as you quite rightly pointed out, there is a reference to a rolling implementation plan to be developed—a three-year rolling plan. But, I suppose people want to know exactly what that means. So, when can we get exactly the detail of that plan so that people understand what delivery will be required by the health boards? And also, in the quality statement, it talks about the workforce, but the report from the cross-party group on cancer highlighted the concerns about the workforce; when can we have a detailed plan on how you're also going to implement and increase the workforce to ensure that these delivery services are there and working for the people?

Well, I think you're asking a number of different questions there, so I'll try to deal with where we are with the implementation plan first and its relationship to the cancer quality statement. The implementation plans will have to set out how they'll meet the outcomes and standards that we have set out in the quality statement, and that's the point. So, every health board will have to set out how they're meeting those expectations and the NHS exec will also have a role as, if you like, the central guiding hand that the parliamentary review called for, and we set out our response in 'A Healthier Wales', the long-term plan for health and care. So, that's the path that we're on and you will then see that framework and it will be open, because health boards will need to publish what they're going to do.

We'll then also have greater transparency and data from the single cancer pathway and the figures that we'll be providing on each stage. Cancer is a multifaceted challenge and it cuts across a range of other areas of treatment. So, when we talk about the workforce, it's not just the cancer workforce, because many of the surgeons we're talking about also undertake other surgery and the diagnostic workforce we're talking about undertake other diagnostics as well. For example, the centrally directed improvement programme on endoscopy, that will definitely benefit cancer services, but a range of other services too. So, I think sometimes it's difficult just to say that there is only a cancer workforce. We, of course, need to think about areas where we want to see continued improvement that are more specifically cancer, but it also affects the wider service as well.

I'm confident that, when you and I stand on a manifesto to seek re-election to this place, there'll be plans within there about reinvesting in the workforce and having more of our staff—taking account of the record-breaking levels of NHS staff we have already—that I believe will set out a pathway to continue the improvement in cancer services that we've seen over this last term, and to address the real and significant backlog that has built up in cancer services and the rest of our NHS, as a necessity in our response to the pandemic in this last year and more.

Thank you. Cwm Taf Morgannwg continues to respond with agility and innovation to the demand and pressure of the pandemic to maintain and improve health services. The health board is planning for the continued provision of essential and key services alongside caring for patients affected by COVID-19. And the Member will be aware of the Rhondda cluster of GPs and the way that they have managed to reorder the way they deliver treatments to ensure that they take account of the needs of the pandemic.

A year on from lockdown and a lot has changed. The beginning of 2020 saw many of us in the Rhondda and beyond fighting for consultant-led A&E services to be retained at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital. Your Labour Government centralisation plans are now, thankfully, off the table, and hopefully, this time, it's for good. 

The past year has shown how vital hospital capacity is and how important local health services are and we need to learn those lessons. In Plaid Cymru, we want to go further and establish a cancer diagnosis centre in the Rhondda, so will you support that? And, have you now come round to supporting consultant-led emergency medicine in hospitals like the Royal Glamorgan being retained indefinitely? And if you have, will you commit now that, if you are in Government following the election in May, you will rule out bringing back these A&E closure plans full stop, indefinitely, they will not be on the table in future as far as you're concerned?

The Government never had a plan to close A&E consultant-led services; the health board had to deal with the reality of not being able to recruit staff. It is a matter of success for us all that the health board has successfully recruited sufficient doctors, including consultants, to make sure that that service recovers. And, actually, I should say that seeing other Members from across the Cwm Taf Morgannwg area on this call, it's a reality that that service would have collapsed without the support of consultants from other parts of the health board. When I visited the Royal Glamorgan, I met consultants from the Princess of Wales who had come to that hospital to make sure that the service continued, that it did not collapse. That maintained a service and gave the health board room to go out and recruit again, which they did successfully. There is no need, therefore, to revisit this issue because they have sufficient staff. The challenge is to keep on recruiting and retaining staff in that area, to make sure that services aren't just local but that they are high quality, and the future of health and care services here in Wales will mean we constantly need to refresh our workforce and to look again at the best way to deliver the best quality care. Most of that care will be local. Ultra-specialist care will need to go into specialist centres; I would certainly travel for the best care for me and my family. But I don't believe any of us should be under any illusion that there is a threat to consultant-led A&E services. As we speak now, or going into this election, I hope that people in the Rhondda and beyond will recognise and accept that assurance of the future of consultant-led A&E services.

Thank you. There is a need for a further development of primary care provision within Llanharan. There are significant housing developments planned in the area. Although there is sufficient primary care capacity at present, as those housing developments progress, more capacity will inevitably be needed, and I recognise the Member's long-standing interest in this issue.

Minister, thank you for that answer, and I genuinely want to put on record my thanks to Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board and to Rhondda Cynon Taf council and a couple of the local councillors—Roger Turner and Geraint Hopkins—who have worked with me in partnership through a series of meetings, over the last not just 12 months but two, three, four, five years, in order to scope out the potential development for a new health and well-being centre in the Llanharan area. As you say, the population has grown, it is still growing, and even though the provision there is well served by local GPs from Talbot Green, Pontyclun, Pencoed and so on, there will be a need for more. So, I am delighted that we're at the stage now where we are being told that there is a real willingness to look at the provision of a centre.

Minister, could I ask you: if you are returned, and if you are still in that same role going forward after the election, would you work with me, work with the health board, with RCT and with local councillors to actually make real that concept of the type of thing we've seen in places like Gilfach Goch and others, where it's not just GPs, but it's occupational therapists, chiropractors, district nurses and midwives, working out of a centre locally for the good and the well-being of all the people in Llanharan and the area?

Yes, I'd be very happy to do that, and as you know, I've met with yourself and Councillor Geraint Hopkins, and others, to discuss the challenges in the local area previously. I think you're right to set out a multidisciplinary future—general practitioners working with other healthcare professionals, nurses, other therapists, in delivering a wider suite of services. I think it is important to again draw on the partnership that the health board will need with the council, as well, in understanding what those services are. It may be health and services outside health that make a Llanharan centre much more attractive to the local population and actually delivering services that people need, exactly in the same way the example in Cynon valley, in Aberdare, exemplifies that. I think there's more of that in the future, and you can expect to see more of that, I hope, in the manifesto that I expect us both to stand on. And I look forward to seeing what the voters say, and then, whoever the new First Minister is, and whether I return here or not, depending, of course, on who is in the First Minister's office.

Yes. There has been a gradual decrease across South Wales East in both infection and test-positivity rates. Continued support for the restrictions in place is essential if we are to maintain this broad downward trend.

Thank you, Minister. Merthyr has had a startlingly high incidence rate over the past few weeks, though I am glad to see the numbers levelling out. I know the health board has identified that some likely reasons for why we saw that spike would have been some extended households mixing and people not following social distancing rules. One of the strengths of our Valleys communities is our closeness, but during the pandemic we've actually suffered because of those close ties.

Minister, there will be a minority of people who have been taken in by misinformation on the virus, and I'd ask you, firstly, how you are trying to counter that misinformation spreading on Facebook, working with the health board. There will also be many families who just find it very difficult to survive on the self-isolation payment, as it currently is, who rely on grandparents for childcare, people who are afraid that they'll lose their jobs if they don't turn up for work. So, could I ask you, finally, what extra support you are considering giving to communities like Merthyr where a minority of people seem to be really struggling?

You'll be pleased to know that I've discussed all these issues with the constituency Member Dawn Bowden and the concerns about how the community is supported to make the right choice, but then actually how you try to persuade people to be honest if they have acquired COVID and they recognise themselves they've been acting outside the rules. That's part of the key role that our test, trace, protect service has in both signposting people to go and get those isolation payments—lots of people aren't applying for them when they could do—to make sure they get all the support that is there, both financially, but also the wider support to make sure that people can successfully self-isolate, and to recognise that if a whole community supports the restrictions and acts in a way that's within them, we're much more likely to continue to suppress coronavirus rates and to find a sustainable way out of the current position. It's good news that rates have fallen in Merthyr in today's figures—a pretty significant fall; we need to see that continuing for the future. And, actually, we are working alongside the council and their officers, as well as local elected representatives, as well as the health board. So, the expansion and availability of community testing is part of that. It's about encouraging people to come forward and for them to have the confidence that, if they do test positive, they will be supported to undertake their isolation with financial and other means. There'll be more of this that we need to do, because, as we progress out of lockdown with more easings, we can expect there to be localised bubblings up of transmission. This is a good test for us about how successful we could be in supporting people to help all of us to finally see an end to the pandemic.

And finally, question 8, Paul Davies.

We're working together with the health board, and Hywel Dda University Health Board is planning for the continued provision of essential and key services, alongside caring for patients affected by COVID-19, as well, of course, as working towards the delivery of wider, more routine services, where and when it is safe to do so.

Thank you for that response, Minister. Now, unfortunately, urgent cancer referrals dropped dramatically between April and December 2020, and Cancer Research UK has made it clear that when these patients do enter the system, it will cause significant capacity problems in diagnostics. Indeed, we know that the percentage of patients starting their first definitive treatment within 62 days of first being suspected of cancer is 65.9 per cent in the Hywel Dda University Health Board area. Now, I listened very carefully to the responses you gave to my colleague Angela Burns earlier, but given Cancer Research UK's warnings, what is the Welsh Government doing to specifically plan for a diagnostic workforce that can cope with any increased demand in the future? I heard you saying that the workforce needs the right support, but what are you doing specifically to support the workforce, so that steps can then be taken to increase the number of people starting their treatment within 62 days, and that people in my constituency can get the urgent treatment that they need?

Well, the Member will be able to see the additional post that we funded, and that we've secured people to come and undertake training in through the diagnostic workforce across Wales. We are in a strong position with our vacancies and recruiting people into those to train another generation. You'll also recall the investment that I've made in the diagnostic workforce and in the training of that diagnostic workforce. There's a training centre in Huw Irranca-Davies's constituency, I believe, in Pencoed, where you will see these people who welcome the investment, and the fact that it helps them not just to come here in the first place, but to stay here as well. So, I think we have a good track record on the practical improvements in the workforce. You'll see more, when it comes to manifesto time, of the detail of improving and increasing our workforce, but, as I say, we end, even after the continued effects of austerity, with more than 10,000 extra NHS staff through this Welsh Parliament term. It's a strong track record that I believe people in Wales can trust as we look forward to the future to rebuild better and fairer services and a better and fairer country and, as I say, I look forward to the verdict of the public when it comes to the elections in early May this year.

Thank you, Minister.

The next item is questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language, and the first question is from Dai Lloyd.

There is a range of mental health support available in South Wales West, in terms of services that are provided not just by the third sector but also by the NHS. This includes the sanctuary service in Swansea Bay, which has been developed by mental health services together with the regional partnership board for West Glamorgan and the mental health charity Hafal.

Thank you for that, Minister. Could I ask what progress has been made in treating emergency mental health problems, just as we deal with physical health problems in an emergency? With a heart attack, for example, a GP can phone a hospital doctor directly, and get urgent access that very same day for the patient as a matter of urgency. We used to be able to do that with mental health emergencies 20 years ago, but no longer. We've lost that direct link between the GP and the psychiatric specialist in hospitals. What hope is there of restoring that old connection?

Thank you, Dai. I know that a lot of work has been done in terms of emergency services, and that's where we've been focusing our work at present in terms of mental health. Because what was happening was that we were in a situation where, when people picked up the phone, some of the only services available, particularly after 5 o'clock in the afternoon, were emergency services. And very often, the police or the ambulance service often isn't the best place to deal with mental health problems. That's why great work has already been done, under the umbrella of the concordat, to ensure that we look at this in detail, and that we collaborate with the third sector, and that there is provision in place. Because what we have realised is that, for the majority of people who came into emergency services, maybe mental health services, in terms of pure mental health services, is not what they needed, but perhaps more social and economic support. So, that work is being done.

I'm sure you will be aware that Swansea Bay has been undertaking a pilot scheme in terms of one contact point for mental health, by phoning the 111 number. And that will now be expanded to Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board. Another thing that's worth emphasising is the fact that we do have a scheme that helps to transport people who are suffering from mental health problems. It's not appropriate, of course, to take people who are suffering from mental health problems in a police car, for example. That's why we are piloting a new programme in this area as well.

Minister, yesterday I raised concerns about support for young children, and children going back to schools, who have struggled, I think, during this pandemic, and how we can be sure that there are sufficient resources available for them to be able to benefit from talking therapies, therapists and counsellors. I'm deeply worried that we are still short of those numbers of counsellors and therapists within that area. What can you do to ensure that, as children go back to schools, as we face probably the next 12 months of challenges for some of these children, there will be sufficient therapists, and talking therapists in particular, available to meet the demand that this will bring?

Diolch yn fawr, Dai. I'm really anxious about this situation. We know that the children's commissioner has found that about 67 per cent of our children from age 12 to 18 are suffering with some form of anxiety at the moment. And of course, being out of routine is going to cause an issue for many people, and I do hope that we'll see those levels come down now, as children go back to school.

But there will definitely be a group that will need continued support. That's why we've got a comprehensive approach now to looking at children and young people. We know that 80 per cent of problems relating to mental health start when people are children or young people, and that's why it makes sense for us to focus on this. We've got a whole-school approach, so there is significant additional funding being put into schools, and we're also extending our support to early help and enhanced support, which will be rolled out from July next year, to make sure that all of the different services are working together so that children don't bounce around the system.

A lot of that work can be undertaken by the third sector. I've been on a call, actually, this morning; we had our second meeting of the oversight and implementation group for Together for Children and Young People. One of the aspects we were looking at this morning is have we got the right workforce in place, because it's clear that we have to keep on driving up that development. So, that work is ongoing. It's happening. We probably need to do more, but, obviously, we will keep an eye. The fact that we've already injected altogether about £9 million into this area I hope should give you a degree of comfort that we're heading in the right direction. 

Diolch yn fawr, Jack. We've committed an additional £4 million next year to improve access to non-clinical support for low-level mental health issues like anxiety, and this is going to build on funding we've provided this year to improve support, including the roll-out of online cognitive behavioural therapy.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. I'm sure we have all spoken to people who are experiencing anxiety for the very first time, unsure about what is happening to them, and certainly unsure about what support is available to them. Many residents in Alyn and Deeside, and across Wales, have barely been out since this time last year. They are not only anxious about coronavirus, but they are actually anxious about going out into the world. For some, this anxiety will be more extreme, and may well lead to panic attacks, something that I have only experienced once in my life, shortly after Dad died, and something I wouldn't wish on anybody. What plans does the Welsh Government have to address this, and to ensure that the NHS is fully equipped to help people, young and old, from all walks of life, with anxiety, including those that would not recognise the signs and how to reach out?

Diolch yn fawr, Jack. Thanks very much for all you've done to champion the issue of mental health. Since you've been in the Senedd, you really have been one of the foremost champions of this issue. I'd like to just underline my thanks to you for also being so honest about some of the issues that you've struggled with. Thank you very much, because it does help people to talk about it. I must say that there are very few positive things that have come out of the pandemic, but I do think the fact that people seem to be talking about mental health—that the stigma, I hope, will be reduced as a result of this. Because, frankly, there can't be many people who haven't been touched in some way in terms of anxiety during the pandemic. They haven't known about whether they're going to keep their jobs, they haven't known whether their parents are going to contract the virus, they haven't known whether their children are going to suffer from going backwards in terms of academia—all of these things lead to anxiety. I think everybody now can relate to anxiety in a way that perhaps not everybody did before. So, that is clear.

What we've tried to do, Jack, is to make sure that people are aware of what help is available if they suffer these panic attacks. Obviously, we have the CALL a mental health helpline, which is available 24 hours a day. We've put increased capacity into that. As I say, we've got this online cognitive behavioural therapy. But one of the key things that was really important for me when I was first appointed was how easy is it to get access, to know where you can go for this stuff. And what you see now—I hope that all Senedd Members received a copy of the e-mail that I sent to make sure that everybody knew that, now, every single health board has to make it absolutely clear what support is available in their region. It has to be accessible in a really easy way. So, there's plenty of support out there, but we just have to make sure that people know where to go and signpost that support. Diolch yn fawr, Jack, for everything you've done on the subject. 

That was a very comprehensive answer, Minister. Can I also take the opportunity to commend Jack Sargeant for the huge amount of work he's done in this area of mental health, which is so important, particularly during the months of the pandemic and lockdown? It was a pleasure previously working with Jack's father, Carl Sargeant, in the Senedd on a range of issues. He was passionate about those issues and I'm pleased to see that Jack has carried on in the same vein in championing issues that really matter to the people out there in our communities.

Minister, it's likely, as you've just hinted at, that we're going to see an increase in the number of people needing community mental health support for those suffering anxiety and depression, as one of the significant public health consequences of the pandemic, and it looks like that could go on for a considerable length of time, and at considerable cost. What discussions have you had with the vice-chairs of local health boards across Wales, or, indeed, with the health Minister, liaising with those health boards—those who are responsible for community mental health and primary care—to ensure that local NHS services are going to get the focus they need? Because clearly they've not just been under strain during this pandemic, they're going to be under strain for some considerable time to come, trying to cope with the aftermath of this challenging time. 

Diolch yn fawr, Nick. Certainly, that community mental health support is absolutely critical, and I think that it is important that we try and give that support, as far as possible, as close to home as possible, because, generally speaking, mental health support is not something you can just fix once; you have to have an ongoing relationship, you have to keep working on it. That's why actually giving that support in the community is much more valuable, and that's certainly what we're trying to do.

I've met with the vice-chairs now on a couple of occasions since I was appointed to this role, and I've made it absolutely clear to them the direction of travel that I would like to see things going in. One is that we need to really divert more money into tier 0 support—that early, early support—so that we don't see these problems developing and becoming more complex and more difficult for us to treat. So, early help is absolutely critical. The second thing is that we really need to divert more money into supporting children and young people as a proportion of the budget. So, those are the two messages that I've made absolutely clearly to the vice-chairs, as well as, of course, underlining their responsibilities to make sure that all of these services are available through the medium of Welsh.  

I'd like to thank Jack Sargeant for tabling such an important question today, and also to pay tribute to his father, Carl Sargeant, who helped me when I had a number of anxiety problems as a result of a negative and destructive relationship I had in the past. He was very supportive of me, and without his support, I don't think I would have come out as strongly as I have done. 

But my question is on eating disorders. I've spent my whole career campaigning on this issue, and we've heard from Beat Cymru, who have done laudable work in this area, that eating disorders have got worse during COVID. That anxiety, that feeling that they don't have the services available to them, and that they don't get the support that they need, is something that is very grave at the moment. I understand what you say, Minister, about talking about mental health, but people have had enough of talking; they want action. And there is an absence of services on the ground for people with all sorts of different mental health problems. 

So, it's an appeal to you, on my last day in the Senedd, to ensure that those services are improved for the future, so that people don't have to access private services in the future, so that they don't feel that their lives get so bad that they want to bring their lives to an end, so that new mothers can get the support that they need. That's my appeal to you as a Government now and to any future government that may come forward in May. 

Thank you, Bethan, and thank you for everything that you've done in this area. I know that this is something that you've been campaigning on for a long time. Certainly, one of the things that I am concerned about is the fact that we have, particularly in the area of eating disorders, seen an increase during the pandemic. That's something I've asked my team to focus on. 

We need to understand that this has been more of a problem. We have put more money into it during the pandemic, but I have asked to see whether we need to provide more funding for it, because I am concerned about the situation. What's very clear with this disorder is that you have to intervene early. If you don't do that, the problems can be very serious indeed, and so, once again, the solution, from my perspective, is to ensure that that funding is available for organisations such as Beat, which do such excellent work.

One of the things we need to ensure is that more people at a primary care level are willing to send people to Beat while they're waiting, perhaps, to see someone in the health service, if there are any problems in terms of waiting for a long time. We need that early intervention while people are waiting and that doesn't always work. Once again, I have asked for that to be addressed.

But I want to thank you also, Bethan, for everything that you have done in terms of perinatal care and mental health. I know that you've done excellent work in that area, and thank you very much for everything that you've done during this Senedd. It's been a very long period for you and I know that you've had a profound effect on this Senedd, and thank you very much for everything that you've done.

We'll turn to spokespersons' questions now, and the first up this afternoon is Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Siân Gwenllian.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. I welcome the news that the Welsh Government will launch the second phase of the cultural recovery fund, providing more assurance to the arts and culture sectors. There is one aspect that the sector has raised with me already, namely the accessibility of the programme. Do you have plans in place to ensure that the application process is fair, particularly to individuals who do not have the means to win the race, as it were, and I am talking specifically here about individuals with disabilities or illnesses that make it difficult for them to fill in forms quickly, and also individuals with care or work responsibilities that mean that they can't be available to sit in front of their computer at a specific time?

And secondly, in terms of the fund, performance schools have failed to make full use of the support available from Government across the various sectors. It seems that they don't tick the right boxes in order to benefit from the funds that have been put in place. So, will you consider enhancing the access to the culture recovery fund in this second phase in order to ensure that these unique and important organisations can be supported?

Thank you very much, Siân. First of all, I'm just so pleased that we've been able to announce this additional funding. This isn't something that happens in England in the same way, and certainly the help that we've been able to provide to freelancers is something that has genuinely been appreciated because none of that is happening in England. Certainly, I was aware during the first phase that there was a problem because there were so many people and the process was difficult for some people to complete in time. So, by the time we go through all of the phases, we were confident that everyone who needed and wanted to apply had the opportunity to do that. So, no-one missed out. Maybe, in the first round and by the end of all the phases, we will have ensured that everyone who needed to apply will have had the opportunity to do that. So, I do hope that we won't see the problem that we saw during the first phase, not because of any problems that were deliberate, but just because of the capacity of the system to cope. So, we're in a different situation now. We know who applied the first time, so it'll be much easier because we'll have that information to hand. So, I do hope that the accessibility of the process will be much better.

And thank you very much for asking about the performing schools. I wasn't aware of that, and so I will go back and ask what the situation is with those.

Turning now to another area that forms part of your portfolio, namely major events, I'm given to understand that the Government has commissioned an independent report on the major events strategy. I understand that work did start way before the pandemic hit and that it has also been completed, but that the report has not been published. Can you explain why that report wasn't published and can you give us some kind of flavour of what that report contained? And will you publish the report—I know there isn't much time left now before the election period—or will this report simply be left to gather dust on a shelf?

Thank you very much, Siân. As you're aware, we did commission this before the pandemic struck, and, obviously, if there's anything that's been affected by the pandemic, well, that's major events, and so, to a certain extent, part of the problem is that a lot of the report was written before the pandemic. So, evidently, we needed to adapt that in the face of the pandemic, because the support that the sector needs now is completely different to what they would have needed before the pandemic. So, we have asked the author of the report to consider that, and so the report is still in the hands of the author and we're waiting for the author to come back to us before we can publish the report. But I do hope—. I have been pressing to get that report published for some time now.

So, hopefully it will see the light of day and we will see the recommendations in terms of the future direction of this work.

If I could turn, finally, to the need, in my opinion, for an entirely new strategy for the arts and culture sector in Wales, I think that supporting a vibrant and innovative creative industry with strong support will help Wales to adapt to the post-COVID landscape in many ways. But the problem at the moment is that Government departments are working in silos, and, in moving to the next Senedd, the arts, our language, the Welsh language, and our heritage should have status across Government, and these issues—the Welsh language, the arts, culture and sports—need to be at the heart of public policy and action by central Government and local government and drawn into economic development, to health, education, the environment, and so on and so forth. Do you, therefore, agree, in terms of the arts specifically, that we need a new, holistic strategic direction that is inclusive in order to develop this sector so that it is truly at the heart of everything that the Government does?

Well, I think that the fact that we did launch Creative Wales and that we've moved forward with that project, and the fact that we have understood that this industry is something that does contribute in a profound way to our economy—. If you look at the increase in the number of people who work in the arts, there's been an increase of about 50 per cent over the last decade. There has been an incredible increase, and there's scope for us to expand further. One of the things that we've done is to focus on trying to ensure that training is provided in the right places, and I think that we can go further on that. I do understand what you say in terms of the risk that we're working in silos, and, certainly, I hope that, if we all come back next time, this is something where we'll see more work across the Government.

In terms of the Welsh language, I've taken a paper to Cabinet recently to emphasise the fact that we have to go much further than we've gone so far and that we have to ensure that there is a responsibility on every Government department to mainstream the Welsh language. Of course, I hope that, when we do return, there will be a new action programme and that every department in the Welsh Government will be expected to contribute in some way in order to show what they are doing in terms of moving things forward as regards the Welsh language.

The Conservative spokesperson, David Melding.

I thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. Minister, can I start on the engagement we've had? I've enjoyed shadowing this brief. We had briefings during the first lockdown on the cultural challenges ahead in terms of getting finance out. I do, however, want to talk about mental health and I was encouraged by your references earlier to the NGO sector. Will you join me in commending young people who take their mental health seriously, and also take the help that's available from schools and organisations like the Scouts, who are now involved in it?

Thanks very much, David, and thanks to you for all the work you've done not just on this portfolio, but also for your work over so many years. You truly have been an absolute cornerpiece of the development of this institution, and I'd just like to note my personal thanks to you for everything you've done, not least for making sure that the Conservative Party have stayed with devolution, and, hopefully, they will continue in that vein in the future. So, diolch yn fawr iawn, David, for everything you've done. You really have made a remarkable contribution to Wales.

But also, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about—I hope you don't mind, because you talk about the work that's been done in keeping in touch on the cultural side of things—the remarkable work that's been done by my colleague Dafydd Elis-Thomas during his remarkable period. It is such a great way for him to end an elected political career that has, of course, spanned decades and decades, and his contribution to Welsh life has been truly remarkable. The history books will be written some day, and I hope that they will note the incredible achievement of his work over so many years, first of all as, I think, the youngest Member of the House of Commons, going in at about 27, years and years in that chamber, never failed to champion the cause of Welsh devolution and certainly making a remarkable contribution here in this institution, not least as Presiding Officer, where he really put his stamp on that job, but also, of course, ending his political career in this institution, championing the causes that I know he loves so much. 

Thank you very much, Dafydd, for everything you've done for us in the Senedd, but also for our nation.

David, thank you very much for your question on young people as well. Of course, it is crucial that young people take their mental health seriously. I'm really pleased, actually, that so many of them are taking this seriously now. They seem to be talking about it a lot more. I think that it is a really, really difficult time for young people. Many of them have not had access to their friends for a long time, they've not had access to the routine that they were used to, and, of course, the other thing that none of us had to deal with when we were young is the absolute tyranny of social media. I do think this is something that we have to take seriously and that we have to help these children to develop resilience in the face of something that none of us had to experience at such a young age. I know that we have put in substantial support to help young people. I know that there's more that we need to do, but I can assure you that the Welsh Government is absolutely clear that we need to move forward even further in this space than we have done, with the whole-school approach and the whole-system approach and of course, the reform of our curriculum, which, of course, has mental health as central to the core of what it's trying to achieve.

Thank you for that generous reply, Minister, and I certainly would like to join you in the tribute you made to Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

I also want to commend Mind, who are working closely with Hafal and other organisations. I think the mental health sector is outstanding in its co-operative work—the umbrella bodies really pack a punch because they work together. One of the main things they're asking us to focus on—whichever party becomes the next Welsh Government—is to look at the need for an anti-stigma campaign. Now, I'm disappointed in the sense that, I think, for all of the Assembly and Senedd elections of the past, this has probably been raised and it's still a real issue. So, do you join me in hoping that whoever is in Government in May will put this at the top of the list?

Absolutely, David, and can I tell you that one of the joys of being in this job has been for me meeting regularly with those third sector organisations who do such a terrific job on the front line in our communities, and Mind and Hafal are two of those organisations that have made a really significant contribution? One of the key things for me is that we have to make sure that we're not just measuring hitting targets in terms of timetables. We have to get a sense of what are the outcomes like as a result of that intervention, and so listening to what people have to say is absolutely key, and certainly something that I was very happy to do earlier this last week was to speak and to listen to children involved in the Cardiff and Vale youth health council and also, on the weekend, the national youth stakeholders group, because I really think that listening to people who are making use of our services is absolutely crucial, because we need to know from them what works, and if it works.

But certainly, in terms of the stigma, you will be aware that we as a Government have determined that we want to continue to support Time to Change Wales. I was absolutely shocked that the Conservative Government in the UK decided to cut that programme in the middle of a pandemic. It really was a shocking decision, I think, by the Conservative Government, but I can give you an assurance that we will continue to fight the stigma associated with mental health, and I do hope that that is something that has changed during the pandemic—that people are more prepared to talk about their anxieties and to realise, actually, that they can reach out and people will understand that this is something that is absolutely not out of the ordinary anymore.

It appears we seem to have lost David Melding for his third question. David, can you hear me?

Yes, I've been reconnected. Can you hear me, Deputy Presiding Officer?

Yes, that's fine. You've got one more question as spokesperson. 

I will proceed to my final question. It did cut out when I think the Minister was going to launch an attack on the Conservative Party—

Anti-Tory party, which is a good time for you to cut out, there, David.

I think you were focusing on the UK party rather than the Welsh Conservative Party, but I don't want a harsh finish to my questions. Can I just say that I have been encouraged by the Welsh Government's participation with the Charity Commission in the programme Revitalising Trusts, which you may know looks at dormant accounts, basically, and tries to transfer those moneys where appropriate to active charitable purposes. Do you agree with me that, in promoting this excellent programme run by the Charity Commission, mental health charities should receive a very high priority?

Yes, absolutely, David. I would agree with you that that makes absolute sense, that some of that money should be directed to those mental health charities. So, I would support you in that. 

Thanks very much once again, David.

Thanks very much for everything you have done for us in Wales as well.

Thank you very much, Helen. The Welsh Government are allocating £1.2 million to the mentrau iaith in mid and west Wales in 2021-22 to promote and facilitate use of Welsh in the community. We are also implementing recommendations of a community audit to strengthen the Welsh language across the communities of Wales following COVID.

Thank you for that response, Minister. I know that you're highly aware of just how hard the mentrau iaith and other community groups, and Menter Cwm Gwendraeth Elli, are working, and how much they suffered last year by losing events that are so very important to them—the festivals, the community events that are hugely important to them in terms of providing opportunities to use the Welsh language, but are also important in terms of the income of those organisations. I'm pleased to hear of the investment that has been made, but does the Minister agree with me that the next Welsh Government, whoever that may be, should prioritise support for these community organisations in order to ensure that they can survive until they are in a position to generate more of their own income, because it's far from clear that they will be able to stage those kinds of community events during this summer either? 

Thank you very much, Helen Mary, and certainly we're aware of the great work that the mentrau iaith have done in recent years. One of the things that we've done in the pandemic is to ensure that we've had a community audit to see what the impact has been on the Welsh language from the pandemic, because a lot of groups have not been able to meet during this period, and the mentrau iaith have helped us with a lot of that work of ensuring that we know what's happening on the ground. I'm pleased that we've been able to provide additional funding to the Llandeilo centre—£0.2 million in March to Menter Dinefwr—so, we've been able to provide funding to them, and I do hope that that is a step forward. 

But one of the things that we've done as a result of that audit is that we brought a group together, and nine recommendations have now been produced. And one of the things that we hope to do is to give the mentrau iaith a new shape—we've done this with the mentrau iaith—to ensure that they do move together so that they do understand that an important part of their work is to do with economic development, not just to go out into communities and promote the Welsh language. Trying to maintain and develop jobs in the area will become a part of their core work in the future. We have been working closely with them on that, and we do hope that that will help to stabilise them for the long term. 

This is the most appropriate question for my final question in the Senedd. When I married, I moved to a Welsh-speaking village in mid Wales and I decided to be brave and to use my very basic Welsh-language skills in order to develop my own skills and to bring my children up as bilingual citizens. Since getting to the Senedd, I have been my party's spokesperson and hopefully I've been an example to all Welsh learners that you don't have to be correct every time to get things right. 

Minister, I would just like to thank you for the good working relationship that we've had over the past few years. Sharing realistic ambitions for the growth in the use of the language, the understanding of the role of the learner and the workplace in that vision has made things easier. So, it's no surprise perhaps that this is my question. The use of the Welsh language by working mothers will be crucial to the success of the 2050 strategy. In addition to spending more time with their young children, we know that women are more likely to support children with their schoolwork, and they are more likely to socialise with other families in schools and play centres. The way that we socialise in the workplace too is built on listening and sharing by conversing. So, how are you picking up on the best things in the way that women socialise and communicate in your next language plan? 

Thank you very much, Suzy, and you really are a model of what we're trying to deliver with the Welsh language strategy, and you're someone who has developed confidence in your use of the Welsh language, and I thank you for contributing not just in terms of learning and practising your Welsh, but also speaking Welsh to your children, and they are also helping us to reach 1 million Welsh speakers. So, thank you very much for that.

Certainly, in terms of working mothers, I know that the work that you've done for a long time has emphasised this need to ensure that learners become a part of what we're trying to deliver here, and workers. The fact that you're emphasising the role of the mother and the role of women is something that we do recognise. That's why, for example, we have brought a new policy forward in terms of language transfer within families, and we do recognise that the role of mothers in this sense is vital; starting from the start and trying to get people to think, before they have children, which language they want to speak to their children.

But one project that we have progressed during this session is the Working Welsh programme. I know that that is something that you are very supportive of, and of course it's been very difficult to do that during a pandemic, but I do hope that we will have an opportunity to return to that, which was a success. But just to emphasise my thanks to you, Suzy, for everything that you've done during this Senedd and everything that you've done for the Welsh language, and I'm sure that your contribution is going to be seen as something that's made a difference, not just here in the Senedd, but on the ground as well. And thank you very much for everything that you've done.

Partnership working is a fundamental part of our 'Together for Mental Health' strategy. It's underpinned by national and local arrangements with a range of partners, including NHS, public health, local authorities, police, and the voluntary sector, as part of the multi-agency approach needed to improve mental health.

Minister, a major issue is men's mental health and their tendency not to talk about their feelings and problems, as we've discussed many times. So, it is important to reach men with the right messages through a variety of means and organisations, and of course to have good role models. Given the profile and reach of professional football, I do think there's a strong role for our clubs in playing their part, and I'm very pleased that the team I support, Newport County Association Football Club, have shown very strong initiatives in this area. Two years ago, they became the only club in Wales—and only the fourth, actually, in the English Football League—to sign the Mental Health Charter for Sport and Recreation. They now work with a variety of organisations in the city to take forward policies for good mental health. They have players as mental health ambassadors, including talking about their own difficulties and experiences. County in the Community ensure that community activities incorporate good mental health messages. There's a 'well-being Wednesday', where social media, and indeed, the club's website, are used to get across information and advice. They do a range of activities during Mental Health Awareness Week. It really is, I think, a good example to sport in Wales in general, Minister, and I wonder if you will join me, when circumstances permit, in visiting the club and discussing these initiatives and how they can be built upon for the future.

Diolch yn fawr, John. Certainly, I know your commitment to Newport and to this important issue is something that is worth underlining. I felt very privileged to be able to speak to some people in the community of Newport last week to discuss this very issue of mental health, so thank you for organising that. 

Certainly, this is one of the things that I was focused on before I became Minister for mental health, starting a campaign called 'I pledge to talk', working with Mind Cymru, in mid Wales, when they found that there were three cases within a very short space of time, in a small community, where men had committed suicide. The ripples of that through the community were immense. It's absolutely clear that we've got to get men to talk, and we have got to learn to listen as well. Certainly, there are some great examples of this happening. So, we've got Men's Sheds, which I think is a great initiative, but I think football clubs have a really specific role here, because they are able—. There's the kind of Heineken effect; they can reach parts that others can't reach, and in particular, perhaps, to reach out into the younger age groups that perhaps may not want to confront mental health issues. I really commend them for, really, the active role that they've taken in really taking on this issue, and certainly I'm very pleased to see that they're doing this. We'll have to see what happens after the next election to see if I'm still in this role, but certainly, if I were, I'd be happy to attend.

But certainly, in terms of what happens next, look, I am really focused on the fact that children's activities are allowed to start again on 27 March. I think sport, being outside, is so good for people's mental health, and, as someone who has undertaken to do 10 km a day during Lent, it's partly to make sure that, actually, you get into a routine, it's to make sure that we get up and get moving, and I think there are a lot of people who could benefit from that kind of discipline and getting into a routine, and I think football clubs would be great at that.

There is a range of support in place to help people who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. These include Welsh Government-funded resources such as Reading Well Wales, online cognitive behavioural therapy and our community advice and listening line helpline. A range of support is also available from our voluntary sector partners.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. We were talking about stigma earlier, and, can I just say, when, in the Chamber, I talked about my own experience during political service of panic attacks, it had the biggest response of anything I've ever done in my career? Well over 100,000 likes on the social media that I put out on that, and I think this demonstrates—. They were worldwide, incidentally. It just demonstrates the need for us to talk about this, but also to improve services. So, I was encouraged by the cognitive behavioural therapy course that's been developed—I think it's called the SilverCloud. Now, it's in its early stages; I just wonder when we are likely to see the evidence from that programme and the take-up and effectiveness of it. But, given that Welsh Government modelling suggests that there could be an increase of up to 40 per cent in the demand for primary care mental health services, where most anxiety services would be, obviously, delivered, it seems to me that online—[Inaudible.]

We seem to have lost David—

—are an essential part of the—[Inaudible.]

We seem to have lost David; I think he's got a bad connection, so—. No, I'm sorry about that. I think we're going to move on. If we get David back, I might manage to see whether we can get an answer for his question. Can we move on to question 6, Mark Isherwood?

Diolch, Mark. The Welsh Government, through our partnership with the statutory arts council, provides funding on an annual basis to support the arts across Wales. The £63 million cultural recovery fund has been essential to support many organisations, and probably the best example in north Wales is the initial investment of £3 million that we have provided as a Government for Theatr Clwyd.

Diolch. I'm glad you mentioned that, because Theatr Clwyd's capital redevelopment project in Mold is designed to secure Wales's biggest producing theatre for future generations. As Arts Council of Wales states, Theatr Clwyd is crucial to the well-being of people in north Wales, through its high-quality and appealing programme of shows and its excellent outreach work in areas like dementia and youth justice. But it also provides jobs, attracts visitors into Wales and raises the profile of Welsh theatre with its high reputation across the UK.

In 2018, they were awarded £1.2 million towards development of the plan, when the First Minister acknowledged in writing that Theatr Clwyd had national significance and encouraged them to continue with the development of the scheme. A successful planning application for the grade II listed theatre building followed in 2019. The Arts Council of Wales confirmed their next £5 million of support in April 2020, in spite of the pandemic, and last autumn, as you say, Welsh Government agreed to release £3 million over two financial years to keep the project moving up to construction. Construction is due to start in spring 2022, with commitments needed by autumn 2021 to ensure progress and eligibility for raising further funds. How do you therefore respond to concerns that Theatr Clwyd will be in serious danger of closing without Welsh Government funding for this, and needs to ensure that decisions on this are not delayed?

I accept the responsibility that I currently have as arts Minister for Theatr Clwyd, but also as somebody who has supported the theatre since it was first established, and I entirely agree with what you've said about its contribution. But there are other arts venues across the north, like Galeri in Caernarfon, Ucheldre in Caergybi, Pontio in Bangor, Frân Wen, Theatr Bara Caws, Mostyn, Dawns i Bawb, Ruthin Craft Centre and, of course, Canolfan Gerdd William Mathias. We have a whole range of arts venues and arts activities that we are committed to support, and these are all part of the arts council's Arts Portfolio Wales. And I very much welcome the way that the arts council's capital lottery fund works alongside the arts council's Art Portfolio Wales, and I sincerely hope that this—well, I am certain—that this will continue, because Welsh Government understands, as we've heard today, that culture is central to the activity of devolved Government.

Thank you very much, Deputy Minister.

Item 3 on the agenda this afternoon is the Senedd Cymru (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2021, and I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to move the motion—Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. I move the motion to approve the Senedd Cymru (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2021. The Order makes technical changes to the process for nominating candidates for the Senedd elections scheduled for 6 May. The changes set the deadline for nominations as 4 p.m. on 8 April, so that nominations can be processed and published in a timely fashion, and enable candidates who do not reside in Wales to specify a UK parliamentary constituency on their nomination forms, where they do not wish their home address to be published. These changes are made in order to ensure that the election can continue in an orderly fashion during the pandemic. Diolch.

I call on the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee to contribute. Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Llywydd. We considered these regulations at our meeting on Monday morning, and our report contains two merits points. Our first merits point notes that the Order amends the home address form, which allows candidates to request that their home address not be made public on nomination forms. Where this is used, the candidate must provide the name of the Senedd constituency within which they reside. The amendments made by the Order allow candidates who reside outside of Wales but within the UK to provide the name of the UK parliamentary constituency within which they reside. This change applies to the 2021 Senedd election only, but the explanatory memorandum notes that it will need to be incorporated into a revised or new Order for subsequent Senedd elections.

Our second merits point relates to the consultation undertaken by the Welsh Government. Whilst we welcome the fact that a consultation has been carried out before this Order was made, the explanatory memorandum does not mention any discussions with constituency returning officers. We did ask the Welsh Government to confirm whether it had any discussions with the constituency returning officers, and, if so, the outcome of those discussions. In response, the Welsh Government told us that the regional returning officers are responsible for liaising with the returning officers for the Senedd constituencies in their region to ensure a consistent approach to the administration of the Senedd election throughout their region. The Welsh Government therefore consulted them on this basis.

In addition, one of the regional returning officers is the chair of the Wales electoral co-ordination board, which has the role of ensuring consistent electoral administration and practice across Wales. The Welsh Government also told us that it consulted the Wales branch of the Association of Electoral Administrators, which represents election professionals across Wales, and the Welsh Government's response to our reports confirmed that the views expressed during these discussions were considered before the Order was made. Diolch, Llywydd.

Thank you. I have no further speakers. Does the Minister wish to reply at all?

No. No, thank you.

Therefore I will ask whether the motion should be agreed. Does any Member object? I don't see or hear any objections, and therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 4 is withdrawn.

So, we'll move to item 5, the Public Health (Protection from Eviction) (No. 2) (Wales) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021. And I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to move the motion—Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. In my written statement of 17 March, I informed Members that I had laid the Public Health (Protection from Eviction) (No. 2) (Wales) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021—the subject of today's debate. I also indicated that I would be laying today, under the negative procedure, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (Residential Tenancies: Extension of Period of Protection from Eviction) (Wales) Regulations 2021. Taken together, these two sets of regulations will further extend, until the end of June, the current protections we have put in place. These protections prevent, in most cases, bailiffs or High Court enforcement officers from executing possession warrants or eviction notices, and also require landlords to serve a six-month notice before seeking possession.

The exceptions to these arrangements will remain very limited—for example, domestic violence, anti-social behaviour or trespass. The restrictions on the enforcement of possession orders by bailiffs or High Court enforcement officers will remain subject to regular review during the period they are in force to ensure they remain necessary and proportionate. Extending these protections will ensure tenants are able to stay in their homes whilst coronavirus restrictions remain in place. This will protect public health by reducing the number of people who are evicted, or at risk of being evicted, into homelessness, and particularly street homelessness, where their potential vulnerability to the virus, and the likelihood of them spreading it, is increased. 

These measures will also reduce the current pressure on housing and homelessness advice and support services, which might otherwise struggle to cope due to current pandemic-related demands and the availability of temporary and move-on accommodation. Notwithstanding the limited lifting of some other measures, the protections afforded by these regulations remain crucial, particularly in the context of the potential for new variants of the virus increasing its transmissibility, or the severity of its impact, or a potential third wave of infections. I recognise that extending these temporary protections for a further period of time may cause difficulties for some landlords in the private rented sector. However, my overriding priority must be the protection of public health at this time.

Members will wish to know that other administrations share this view. The UK Government has recently announced that similar restrictions in England will be extended until the end of May, whilst the Scottish Government has announced that the arrangements there will be extended until the end of September. I therefore urge Members to support the motion. Diolch.

The Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, Mick Antoniw.

Diolch, again, Llywydd. Again, we considered these regulations at our meeting on Monday morning, and our report contains four merits points, some of which will, of course, be familiar to Members.

Our first merits point notes that these regulations engage a landlord's rights under article 1 protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights. And we note that exceptions are included in the regulations that allow for evictions in certain circumstances; the regulations are made only for a specified period; they are to be reviewed on a regular three-weekly cycle; and are made in the context of the current health emergency. In addition, we also note the Government's consideration of the proportionality of these regulations in the explanatory memorandum.

Our second merits point notes that there has been no formal consultation on the regulations, and our third merits point notes that no regulatory impact assessment has been prepared. In making our third point, we draw attention to the explanatory memorandum attempting to set out a summary of the potential impact of the regulations, which does provide some qualitative assessment of their impact.

Our fourth and final merits point highlights that these regulations extend by approximately 12 weeks the period of time by which a landlord will be unable to seek possession of their property for unpaid rent. So, we therefore highlight that, in combination with previous regulations passed in January 2021 and in December 2020, landlords will have been prevented from recovering possession due to unpaid rent for a significant period of time. The arrears of rent for some landlords may have a significant adverse economic impact on them and, as such, we note that the explanatory memorandum contains the Government's assessment of this risk. Diolch, Llywydd.

I have no other speakers in this debate; I'm not sure if the Minister wishes to reply. Julie James.

No, thank you, Llywydd.

Therefore the proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? I don't see or hear any objections, and therefore the motion is agreed.

Item 6, topical questions. No topical questions were accepted.

Item 7, motion to amend Standing Orders on consolidation Bills. And I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move. Rebecca Evans.

Formally moved.

The Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, Mick Antoniw.

And I welcome the motion, which, if agreed, will put in place procedures that will further enable the Senedd to improve the accessibility of Welsh law. Our committee began considering the Welsh Government’s plans for the consolidation of Welsh law early in 2017. We scrutinised the Legislation (Wales) Bill, prior to it being passed by this Senedd in July 2019. Notably, it places a duty on the Counsel General and the Welsh Ministers to prepare at least one programme for each Senedd, beginning with the sixth, that will include activities that are intended to contribute to a process of consolidating Welsh law.

Having a Standing Order procedure that will facilitate the introduction and scrutiny of such consolidation Bills is a crucial part of the process of improving the Welsh statute book. Given our role in scrutinising the Legislation (Wales) Bill, the Business Committee consulted with us on a draft version of the Standing Order. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Business Committee for its response to the comments we provided in our correspondence in 2019.

So, turning to the proposed Standing Order itself, the exercise of consolidation should involve existing law only. I draw Members’ attention to paragraph 24 of the Business Committee’s report, which summarises the extent of proposed Standing Order 26C.2, and what a consolidation Bill may do. We set out a number of points in relation to this specific part of the Standing Order when we wrote to the Business Committee. I welcome the reiteration from the Business Committee that there will be a clear and important role for the responsible Senedd committee to assess and judge what is appropriate and within the parameters of proposed Standing Order 26C.2. Consolidating Welsh law will be a substantial task, and the responsible committee’s role and the work involved should not be underestimated.

I would also like to highlight the prospect of two consolidation Bills progressing in parallel as a package, which is documented in the Business Committee report. The first would be a principal consolidation Bill, and a second Bill would contain consequential amendments to existing legislation in light of the principal Bill. Amending stages for two Bills would need to happen consecutively, and it is anticipated these Bills would stand or fall together.

In our correspondence with the Business Committee, we acknowledged comments made by the Counsel General that there will be a process of learning as the first consolidation Bills are brought forward. We agreed with the Counsel General there should be a review of the procedure after the Senedd has scrutinised the first consolidation Bill, to ensure that the Standing Orders and procedures are fit for their intended purpose.

And I'd just like to conclude my contribution by saying that the accessibility of the Welsh statute book is not an issue that only affects us as Members as we undertake our duties here. Improving the accessibility of Welsh law will not only help legal practitioners working in Wales, but accessibility of the law and access to justice go hand in hand. Diolch, Llywydd.

I'm pleased that we're debating these many items on Standing Orders separately. I didn't request that by signifying an objection to their grouping in order to extend the fifth Assembly unnecessarily—we want to see the Assembly abolished, not continue artificially and unnecessarily. So, I do though believe that a lot of these Standing Orders are very substantive, and there are a range of different issues that I think deserve separate debates. And there are also prepared, I think, excellent documents for Business Committee on each of them that also deserve attention.

On consolidation, I initially thought that consolidation of the law was probably a sensible and not very controversial thing. And of course, there are provisions for the consolidation of laws at Westminster. However, having reflected further, I no longer believe that's the case, and I think this consolidation Standing Order will, for starters, ease the path to more legislating by this place, and I don't support that.

The Chair of the committee referred to the importance of consolidating Welsh law, but, of course, we don't have a separate jurisdiction in Wales. We have the law of England and Wales, as applicable in Wales. And I think that point draws into question many of the other points I've made about why this is such an obviously good and non-controversial thing to do, to assist users and improve access to justice and accessibility, et cetera.

I think, in the Business Committee paper, paragraph 2 puts the case from the other side quite well. It refers to the fourth Assembly's Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee having considered this in its report 'Making Laws in Wales.' We get a definition of consolidation, or at least described consolidation of law as,

'taking an area of law that has fallen into disrepair as a result of layers of amendments and modification, and producing a single clean text, in accordance with best contemporary practice.'

Now, I'm not really sure if that's true. Clearly, as laws get amended and changes are made, and there are amendments and modifications, that can increase complexity, and it can make the laws harder to use, both for legal practitioners and in terms of accessibility to the public, but often that's a factor of the growing complexity of the law, rather than necessarily just reflecting that it's coming from different statutes or different places. As that happens, of course, it increases the risk of ambiguity or contradiction, but to the extent that happens, the consolidation of law becomes a controversial process because it is potentially resolving or at least having an influence on those ambiguities and contradictions. And when the committee says it would lead to a single clean text, I just don't believe that's true in the context of devolution, and a shared devolution.

What it would lead to, in most areas, is a text for Wales and then a different range of texts for elsewhere in the UK, or at least for England, and over time it becomes possible that the interpretation of those two different bodies of law becomes different, or that it becomes very difficult to be sure that you're looking at the right law in terms of the case law, because if you have a judge who interprets things in a particular way, but is doing that in Wales, it's not clear if that then gets picked up by judges in England interpreting the law of England and Wales as applicable to England there. And, of course, there's far more interpretation in terms of volume going on in England. And if those things from the previous legislation were consolidated or referred to, it can then become very challenging for the lawyers and the practitioners to actually pin those changes back onto what's happened in Wales, and whether those changes—. Some of them may be binding, but they've been made with reference to other statutes and other provisions that have ostensibly been consolidated into a single clean text, but it's not a single clean text because the law continues to exist as it was in England. And that, to me, really brings all this into question, and we intend to oppose this new Standing Order to ease the path to this type of further legislative behaviour.

Thank you. I have no further speakers on that item. The proposal is to amend Standing Orders in relation to consolidation Bills. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is an objection, and we will defer voting until voting time. 

Item 8 is next, a motion to amend Standing Orders relating to departure from the European Union. Again, I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion. Rebecca Evans. 

Formally moved. 

I think this may be my favourite of the items we're discussing today, amending our Standing Orders to reflect our departure from the European Union. It's a relatively short report that went to Business Committee. It says, 'Had the committee'—and this is the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee—

'Had the committee consider that it did not, it could make written representations—'. 

That relates to subsidiarity. I assume that sentence should read, 'Had the committee considered that it did not, it could have made representations—'. And it then goes on:

'to the relevant House of Commons or Lords committee with a view to having those representations incorporated into a reasoned opinion to be submitted by that committee to the relevant EU authorities.'

So, that relates to subsidiarity and, supposedly, a legal process for ensuring it was applied. What isn't in the paper is whether that process was ever used, and if so, whether it ever had any effect. But the paper then continues,

'Subsidiarity is grounded in the Treaty on European Union and ceased to apply in the UK on exit day.'

Now, I disagree with that phrase very strongly. Subsidiarity is taking decisions at the lowest possible level, and the process of leaving the European Union didn't end subsidiarity; it vastly increased subsidiarity by moving a huge plethora of powers that had been exercised at the European Union level so that they're instead exercised either at Westminster or by us in Cardiff. I mean that's an increase in subsidiarity, not the end of it. Of course, it was a concept that John Major pushed to get inserted into the treaty at Maastricht, and I would question how much it has ever had real applicability in the European Union, and certainly in practical terms, if not the specific statutory terms described, there's going to be an awful lot more of this subsidiarity now we're outside the European Union. But it is, of course, sensible that we remove this now redundant provision, if it was ever not redundant, from Standing Orders.

The other issue that this arises is: what about the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee? I remember, when I was on Business Committee for a period at the beginning of this Assembly, that the committee was described, at least unofficially, as the Brexit committee. And I'd understood that it was there to help with the huge amount of legislation that had to be reconsidered in light of Brexit and to ensure that our statute book appropriately dealt with the requirements of Brexit and the amount of work that was going to involve. So, I agreed to the establishment of that committee, but I'd understood it was a temporary committee for this Assembly, with that as its focus. And we were told that, in the fourth Assembly, committees were so overburdened and there was so much legislation that we needed this additional legislation committee that could be combined with looking at Brexit. But I'm not sure how much it has been used for that, or really whether the pressure of legislation justifies having a further committee, and Brexit, as we've heard earlier, is now over. So, why do we still have this committee? And should we have any references in Standing Orders that imply it should in any way continue into the sixth Assembly or Senedd?

I have no further speakers. The proposal is to amend Standing Orders in relation to the departure from the European Union. Does any Member object? No. There are no objections, and therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36. 

We move now to item 9, a motion to amend Standing Orders relating to early business following a Senedd election. Rebecca Evans to move the motion formally. 

Formally moved. 

We were told in the Business Committee paper regarding withdrawal of a nomination neither the First Minister nomination or Presiding Officer election procedures make specific provision for a nomination to be withdrawn, and both Standing Orders use mandatory language in requiring further rounds of voting in the event of no candidate being successful in a particular round of voting. So, of course, they don't contain specific provisions relating to withdrawal of candidate, because it has mandatory language requiring that process to go to completion, and if you stand for one of these positions under our Standing Orders, you commit to seeing that process out. And if following a tie a political deal is made, so some Members of the Assembly would change their vote in a future ballot, we should have that future ballot so that we can see them changing their vote, and so that is public, and crucially we should respect and apply our Standing Orders. And I'm afraid in this case, that didn't happen.

Llywydd, you told us that Standing Orders couldn't consider every conceivable scenario and, in such situations, it is your responsibility to interpret the Standing Orders. But these Standing Orders required no interpretation. As the Business Committee said, they use 'mandatory language'. You decided that language was unreasonable and you decided to do something else, and, as a consequence of that, the leader of Plaid Cymru, your party, didn't have the embarrassment of having a further vote and losing that vote, having gone into this process under those agreed Standing Orders that, then, I'm afraid, were disapplied part of the way through. We don't support these changes. We thought that was a sensible process, the problem is that it wasn't applied. You shouldn't codify to respect a precedent when that precedent, at least in my view—and I haven't heard a contrary view at all that's convincing—was not compliant with the Standing Orders then in force.

The other very important issue, I think, here—and I find it harder to assess this issue, but it is very, very important—is in terms of Standing Order 6 and particularly Standing Order 8, the one in respect of the First Minister. I'll take Standing Orders 6.9 and 6.10 as an example, rather than Standing Order 8. Where you have two Members who are standing, then it's just whichever gets the greater vote that becomes First Minister, but then if three or more stand, there's a different provision as to what the hurdle is to become First Minister. That strikes me as very strange. It's not clear why the number of initial candidates should reflect the hurdle required to become First Minister. It's a really, really serious issue that, if we do have three or more Members standing, there's then a requirement for one of those Members to get a majority of all voting, including abstentions and potentially spoilt ballot papers, rather than the plurality, particularly given that that differs from when there are two candidates. I think that's a very strange provision. 

On balance, we oppose these changes, firstly for the other change I was just discussing, but also, on balance, for this. Because if we were to keep this and we were to have Standing Order 6.10, at least as it applies to the First Minister, it is such that, without it—without the change—if there were, say, an Abolish group of Members in the next Assembly, so long as we ensure that there were three or more Members standing and that there weren't otherwise, then by virtue of spoiling ballots and participating but abstaining, we could potentially prevent the appointment of a First Minister, if there was plurality but not majority support for the leading candidate. So, we'd still have an Assembly or Senedd, but no First Minister and no Welsh Government under him, which would be something that would be a positive move, as we would assess. Hence the possibility of blocking a First Minister appointment and leaving the situation in limbo—perhaps the UK Government could step in and assist us—would be one that we would welcome.

For that reason, we won't vote for these changes, but I certainly understand why other members of the Business Committee have proposed them, given the huge and really important inconsistency between the situation and hurdle that applies where there are two or three or more Members who'd initially like to be First Minister; and, of course, the situation is analogous for the Presiding Officer.

I have no further speakers. The proposal this time is to amend Standing Orders in relation to early business following a Senedd election. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there are objections, so I will defer voting until voting time.

The next item is the motion to amend Standing Orders in relation to sub judice. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move—Rebecca Evans.

Formally moved.

These are also, I think, potentially quite important amendments and I'm not sure why they're being made, entirely. Some of them I think are sensible, like the references to the commissioners and ombudsman. Removing those and having a general provision rather trying to update for each specific commissioner or ombudsman seems sensible.

But at the moment, we have a rule that allows the Presiding Officer to decide that a matter that relates to active judicial proceedings can be raised. And our Standing Orders have stated that if the Presiding Officer is satisfied that the matter clearly related to a matter of public importance, or a ministerial decision in question, then the matter can be raised, and I think that that's sensible. Without that, we have a situation where anyone can lay a judicial review claim—you can file one of those and there's precedent that the cost through to permission stage should be no more than perhaps a couple of £1,000 and that can sometimes take several months—and after the laying of that claim, that's then active proceedings in the court, and, as a legislature, we can't discuss any issue that that relates to.

I think that that's far too wide, particularly in the field of judicial review that questions the decisions of public authorities. If a Minister decides something that's a matter of political controversy and some of us support it and others don't, and we want to continue discussing the merits, this change in the Standing Orders would seem to provide for that discussion of elected Members to be cut short just because, say, one private citizen decides to issue a claim of judicial review. That can't be right, in my view. There is a carve-out in the new Standing Order proposed, but it's much narrower. And yes, of course, legislation, or subordinate legislation, we should discuss, but why on earth can't we debate a decision that's been made by a Minister that's controversial just because someone else is so opposed to it that they launch a claim of judicial review? There's a reference,

'except to the extent permitted by the Presiding Officer',

but it's a much narrower carve-out. Situations in which the Presiding Officer should consider allowing debate to continue even if there is a matter before the courts are now set out, and when they're not set out I think it will become much harder for a Presiding Officer to allow that sort of discussion to continue. 

Clearly, at the moment, it's right that we've got the restrictions on matters going before a jury or a family matter case, but for other cases where you have a judge or judges sitting, particularly in the field of judicial review, the idea that we as legislators can't debate or discuss any such matters I think is wrong. The chance of that judge or those judges being prejudiced on account of our debate is I think nugatory and it's something they could easily deal with. To rule out this whole field of discussion for us I just think is quite wrong. We've got perfectly sensible ways of dealing with this issue at the moment—we've an item later on it—and I think those methods should continue, rather than changing these Standing Orders in a wholly unnecessary way.   

I have no further speakers. The proposal is to amend Standing Orders in relation to sub judice. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there are objections. I will defer voting until voting time. 

We move now to item 11, a motion to amend Standing Orders on recall of the Senedd. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion—Rebecca Evans. 

Formally moved. 

I think these amendments are broadly sensible. Currently, we're only able to have a recall at the request of the First Minister, subject to the Presiding Officer's decision. It's her decision, but as it reads currently, I believe it can only be taken at the request of the First Minister. To preclude any recall of the legislature unless the head of the executive desires it doesn't seem to me to be right, so I support these changes. It opens up another head for recall—that the Presiding Officer may take the initiative to recall but, when he or she does so, it should be having consulted the First Minister and the Business Committee. I think that's broadly sensible. I had reflected on whether it might also be sensible to require at least consultation with the Business Committee on the first head for a recall when it's proposed by the First Minister, but on balance, if the First Minister and the Llywydd are in agreement, I'm content for the change to be made, because I think it's an improvement bringing in this second head for a recall. Thank you. 

The proposal is to amend Standing Orders in relation to recall of the Senedd. Does any Member object? I don't believe there are any objections, and therefore the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Item 12 is next, a motion to amend Standing Orders on membership of committees. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move—Rebecca Evans. 

Formally moved. 

Again, I think, on balance, this is a change to Standing Orders that I support. I think it's regrettable that we've lost the underpinning of the UK legislation that provided that if we couldn't reach agreement by two thirds on the constitution of our committees, then D'Hondt should apply. I think that gave an underlying backstop and security to the process, which to a degree is lost. But I think it's better to have it in Standing Orders than not to have it at all. While my preference would be for it to be a UK Act of Parliament judicable in the courts of England and Wales, that isn't the case, given the, in my view, regrettable change that's already happened. Given that, I think it's probably a good idea to have this backstop in Standing Orders, so that if we can't reach agreement on committees with a two-thirds majority, then D'Hondt applies. I think this is one of the rare instances where I think I approve of the Labour and Plaid Cymru Members exercising their two-thirds majority to try and bind future Assemblies or Senedds, because this was UK legislation, and unfortunately it was lost and it's being reinstated and re-entrenched with a two-thirds majority as the UK Parliament had initially provided for. So, on this one, I think that the proposal is a good one, even though it's binding a future Senedd. Thank you.

The proposal is to amend Standing Orders in relation to membership of committees. Does any Member object? No, I don't—[Objection.] Yes, I apologise, there is an objection. Apologies. I didn't see you. There is an objection, and we will therefore defer voting on this item until voting time.

Item 13 is next, a motion to amend Standing Orders, miscellaneous changes. A member of the Business Committee to formally move—Rebecca Evans.

Formally moved.

It's good to see at least one other Member engaged in the process to the extent of objecting, even though I seem to be alone in speaking to these debates. This section on miscellaneous changes I thought was particularly interesting. There's a range of different Standing Order changes, in actually quite disparate areas, but on these I'm afraid I'm not able to insist on separate debates, so I will deal with them as a group.

We have the Senedd pension scheme, and I can understand why this change is proposed to the extent that the current Standing Orders appear to contradict the arrangements we have where the remuneration board has taken responsibility for appointment of the trustees to the pension scheme, yet we still had this Standing Order 1.7, which puts in place an apparently competing process. I'm not clear why we have the remuneration board doing this. These are scheme rules, and the pension scheme is for the benefit of its members, current and future pensioners, and the trustees' job is to look out for their interests properly within the law. So, given that, why do we have this independent body, the remuneration board, determining how people should be appointed to represent members' interest? I think, as with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority at the House of Commons, with the remuneration board that we have here, it's probably a good principle to have this separation between Members and an independent body making decisions over Members' rations, so to speak, but that doesn't appear to be what's engaged here.

Our pension contributions are being paid, the system is set up. I'd like to see the pension scheme better managed, with a greater focus on returns. I have particular concerns about the emphasis on the index-linked gilts and the failure to have an agreed allocation towards UK equities, which have been performing much more strongly of late. But surely there is an interest of Members to manage that scheme well, and an interest of the Commission to see it managed well, so that future contributions of taxpayer funds may be minimised, and that would seem to be well done, I would have thought, with the trustees under the general law representing the interest of the members, and that's quite proper within it. So why we don't do that and we have an independent body determine that instead is not clear to me. But that is currently an apparent contradiction between those. I don't see that as a reason for opposing this, although if it were possible to have a vote on this specific Standing Order, rather than having had these grouped in such disparate areas, I might have taken a different view.

Another area that is interesting here is the difference between the constituency and the list Members. We say in our Standing Orders that constituency and regional Members should be treated equally and are of equal value. Some Members seem to cast doubt on that sometimes, but that's the provision in Standing Orders, and I think it's the right one. Yet we have the Standing Order that has a provision with regard to resignation that only references section 10 of the Government of Wales Act, and not section 11, and that then means it applies to the constituency but not to the region. But I'm not wholly sure why this Standing Order 1.9 is required. It has a provision where it says 'or otherwise' anyhow, so there is a broad discretion and I don't see why we need to go beyond the statute reference to vacancy in order to determine through the common sense application of English and a necessary reference to the courts when a vacancy has occurred, and given it is in legislation, that would presumably trump the Standing Orders interpretation anyhow, so I'm not sure that this Standing Order is required. In my view, it may be redundant and would perhaps be better erased, but given it is there, I think it is better that it does refer to both the regional and constituency provisions in the Act on a consistent basis, so I don't propose to oppose it.

I also think it's a sensible thing to remove the Business Committee Chair from the reference—I think there was quite a bit of discussion when I joined the Business Committee at the beginning of the term around that—and to the extent the Business Committee is chaired by the Presiding Officer. It does seem proper that it shouldn't be part of the party balance, notwithstanding the Presiding Officer's potential membership of a political party. Thank you.

I have no further speakers. The proposal is to amend Standing Orders to make miscellaneous changes. Does any Member object? No, I don't see any objections, and therefore, the motion is agreed.

Item 14 is next, the motion to amend temporary Standing Orders, and I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move—Rebecca Evans.

Formally moved.

So, we have a range of temporary Standing Orders that this applies to. I think it probably is appropriate on this occasion that they are taken together, and firstly, the extension on proxy voting for parental leave; I think that was brought in as a temporary provision. My view has been that proxy voting—and I speak really in circumstances without considering COVID where there is an assumption of physical meeting and presence in Cardiff—is I have thought that we should allow that proxy voting for maternity or paternity leave or other appropriate parental leave under statute, potentially, and our own contractual arrangements. But if we do have that, it has quite an impact between Government and opposition, and I think we do need this narrow exception because of maternity and paternity rights. It doesn't seem right to me to exclude those individuals from voting in connection with their job. It's good to see the UK Government having made a change recently in respect of the UK Ministers in that scenario, and I think it's right that we do have this. Personally, I think this particular narrow aspect of proxy voting only should be made permanent, but short of that, I think the extension from April to August is a good one.

But I think the remote participation that we have, I think it does change the balance between Government and opposition, because Government needs to have its votes to get its business through; it can't risk losing a vote by not having people able to participate in voting, so to the extent that we vote remotely from our homes, rather than being required in Cardiff or potentially voting remotely wherever we happen to be, I think that is a benefit to the Government, because it makes it easier for them to get their business. It doesn't have that hurdle of having to have all its Members in Cardiff at a particular time for when a vote may occur. So, there is that change, and I don't support a wider extension of proxy voting because of that.

We're extending the temporary Standing Orders in respect of, from my understanding, both the hybrid and the entirely remote working; I'm not sure why we're still doing entirely remote working rather than hybrid working, as they are in Westminster, and to the extent that may continue for the UK Parliament into May or June, I think it's appropriate we should have the potential at least for the hybrid option to continue. I've had discussions with some party colleagues around the remote voting; my feeling is perhaps that you should in a Parliament meet physically, and some have actually thought that remote participation is good, and we should make it the standard, because that would allow our building to be repurposed for more productive and useful purposes, and could save significant sums of money for the taxpayer. On balance, though, I think the hybrid and remote options—certainly the hybrid is the one I prefer, so continuing those temporary Standing Orders for at least a shortish period beyond the election is probably the right thing to do, at least in terms of having that option to provide for the hybrids. So, on these temporary Standing Orders, we do propose to support their extension. Thank you. 

There are no further speakers. The proposal is to amend Standing Orders in relation to temporary Standing Orders. Does any Member object? No, I don't see any objection, and therefore the motion is agreed.

Item 15 is next, a motion to amend Standing Orders on the definition of political groups. I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move, Rebecca Evans.