National Assembly for Wales

Good afternoon. Welcome to this Plenary meeting. The first item on the agenda this afternoon is the questions to the Minister for Social Justice. The first question is from Darren Millar.

Thank you for the question. Warm hubs across Wales are now offering a range of support, depending on their location and their facilities. This includes a simple warm space with refreshments, to more substantive food, activities, free access to computers and Wi-Fi, and charging points for phones and tablets.

Thank you for that response, Minister. Will you join me in congratulating the faith communities across Wales, who've been particularly effective partners, that have engaged with the warm hubs scheme, across the country, in every corner of Wales? I know that, for example, Festival Church, in my own constituency—the church that I go to every Sunday—is one of those warm hubs that is reaching out to people in the local community and opening its doors in order to make itself available as a safe and warm space for people to be able to enjoy. But there are many thousands of these, of course, across the nation, and, therefore, would you join me in congratulating those faith communities, who've really worked hard to reach out and partner with the Welsh Government in order to deliver this important programme?

I will join you in congratulating faith communities who have played a part, as you say, across the board, all denominations. And indeed, on Monday, in our Cabinet cost-of-living sub-committee, we heard from the Muslim Council of Wales and, indeed, from the Church in Wales as well—Archbishop Andy John was talking about the food and shelter and fuel campaign that the churches have run. So, across all denominations, indeed, our mosques and temples, everyone's playing a key part, and I would like to particularly congratulate all our constituencies who've got those featured in their communities.

Minister, Cynon Valley boasts 19 winter welcome centres, offering local people a safe, accessible and warm environment during the day, and I'm sure that you would like to join with me in thanking all who are providing this invaluable resource this winter. The provision of advice and support for those who attend is a key objective of the centres. So, I'd like to ask what work is being done by the Welsh Government to facilitate the sharing of best practice in this regard, so that attendees can access the right support and that providers know what is expected of them.

Thank you very much, Vikki Howells. And again, the representation across all constituencies—yours in the Cynon Valley—of volunteers running these projects, instigating these projects, and I want to put on record again my sincere thanks to all of the volunteers who are responding, helping to support their communities. Also, just to confirm, this goes back to our £1 million warm hubs spending, which we distributed via local authorities. They work with local partners in the development and delivery of warm hubs. And actually, your point about good practice and sharing good practice has been really important. We met again, as I mentioned, our Cabinet sub-committee, with the Welsh Local Government Association, the Wales Council for Voluntary Action and Wales TUC on Monday, and, of course, sharing there of good practice, but also, as to the WLGA, I've met with leaders and they have exchanged good practice as we've met as well. I think this demonstrated the expertise that has now developed across Wales, and we will feed back what's working. I think that the development of those links to access to Wi-Fi, access to advice as well—. So, it's a place where every contact counts, for the 'Here to help' 'Claim what's yours' campaign—all sharing, but with volunteers at the heart of this.

Whilst Royal Mail remains a reserved matter, I have regular contact with both the Communications Workers Union and Royal Mail, given the significance of the service to both workers and communities across Wales. I last met with the CWU and Royal Mail, separately, on 11 and 16 January.

Okay. Thank you. Deputy Minister, I have been increasingly concerned about the misinformation being given by Royal Mail to MSs, MPs and the public. I've made it my mission to make sure that the truth is out there. I was pleased to talk to Darren Jones MP, who's the chair of the Westminster select committee, and was able to have that conversation with him prior to interviewing the chief executive officer of Royal Mail. And, similarly, it was good to jointly invite members of the Communication Workers Union to the Senedd, with Luke Fletcher. And 20 Members of the Senedd listened to what was actually really happening on the ground, including withholding sick pay from the workers.

Minister, do you agree with me that it's extremely concerning, what we're seeing, and the obvious attempts to water down the involvement of trade unions by private companies such as Royal Mail, and, also, in the public sector through UK Government legislation regarding tightening strikes et cetera, and that workers need to have their voices heard? This is so important, because such misinformation is given out to the public. So, thank you—I just wanted to get that across today. 

Can I thank Carolyn Thomas for her question? I know this is an area that the Member's very committed to and passionate about, not least because of her own background as well. And it is good to have people here with lived experience, especially when something is in the headlines in the way she describes it in her question. 

I absolutely agree with Carolyn Thomas. We completely oppose the UK Government's latest assault on workers and trade unions, who are the legitimate voice of workers in the workplace, whether that be public or private sector. On the minimum service levels Bill, the way to resolve industrial disputes is to get round the table and find a negotiated solution. And that isn't always easy; it's sometimes protracted, but that's the right way to do it, through meaningful negotiation, to seek a solution that not only sustains the service, but supports the workforce who are essential to providing that service. And that new legislation is the complete opposite way to go in terms of actually how we reach solutions to the current challenges that we face. 

It will be no surprise to anybody here that I absolutely agree with the Member with regard to how vital it is that workers have the opportunity and choice to be represented collectively in the work environment, which enables them to be heard. It not only brings about benefits in terms of workers' pay and terms and conditions, but we know that the people that provide those services, whether that be companies such as Royal Mail, or within the public sector too, have ideas in terms of actually how you can improve that service. And, actually, by supporting your workers, and engaging a better workforce, it actually brings benefits for the employer as well, and it helps them with any challenges or issues at an early stage.

When I met with both CWU and Royal Mail, one thing that struck me with the CWU meeting is, actually, there were some positive proposals there of actually recognising the challenges Royal Mail faces as a company, because the way we live has changed, and the way people send fewer letters but more parcels. But, actually, on the recognition, as we've said in this place before, of the role that posties play in our communities, there is a way to actually build on that in a positive way, rather than drive it down. And I'm very much looking to work with CWU and Royal Mail in terms of how we can support that, not only to support the workforce, but to support services, and the universal service obligation that is so important to us here in Wales. 

Deputy Minister, as you know, the Royal Mail strikes over the Christmas period not only had a financial impact on Royal Mail, but caused profound reputational damage as well. I think we all here agree that it is an individual's right to take industrial action, but we need to be aware that these strikes have had far-reaching consequences that are just not limited to Royal Mail. Small and medium-sized businesses, who make up 99.4 per cent of Welsh businesses and 62 per cent of employment in Wales, rely heavily on seasonal trade and, having struggled to deliver in time for Christmas, have consequently experienced considerable loss in orders, with customers either having cancelled their orders or not bothered ordering at all. Now, whilst I have no doubt that many here are sympathetic to the strikers' cause, they have to be aware that many businesses who are already dealing with the impact of COVID and energy prices have not survived due to these strikes. 

Also, Deputy Minister, unlike several years ago, when there were few alternatives, there are now many other companies who can compete for services that Royal Mail offers. And we have seen large companies like Currys switching their extremely large and lucrative contracts to other providers, which undoubtedly is going to provide additional financial strain on Royal Mail long term. As the Deputy Minister will know, Royal Mail has now announced plans to cut 10,000 roles by the end of August 2023 due to the strikes, and the mounting loss is expected to be around £350 million. What discussions have you had with Royal Mail—[Interruption.]—to limit job losses in Wales? Thank you.

Diolch. Can I thank Mike Hedges for helping answer my question there in advance? I will say at the outset that I welcome Joel James putting on the record that he recognises that it's a person's right to take industrial action, and the decision to take industrial action is one that is never taken lightly by any worker or trade union. Here, we support the right of all workers to take industrial action, and it is always the last resort.

As I said previously, we know the best way to respond is to work in social partnership with employers and trade unions to find a negotiated solution. That isn't easy; it can be difficult, it can be protracted. But, it's the right thing to do. In my meetings with both CWU and Royal Mail, they have confirmed they are back in talks. Although I'm unable to comment on that, as it's not my place to do so today, we hope we can seek a solution. We know that Royal Mail faces many challenges, but the way to work through those challenges is to involve your workforce and support them to support our communities in Wales.

Questions now from party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Altaf Hussain.

Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Minister, on Monday, allegations about rampant sexism and misogyny at the WRU resurfaced. We watched as harrowing tales unfolded of women who had contemplated suicide as a result of sexist bullying. All the while, senior management failed to take any action at all. In the programme, Charlotte Wathan, who was hired by the WRU to help transform women’s rugby, described hearing a man she worked with say he wanted to rape her in his hotel room in front of other members of staff in the office, including a senior manager. The WRU did eventually investigate but failed to speak to key witnesses, including the alleged perpetrator. Minister, while I accept that dealing with the issues raised in the BBC programme is a matter for the WRU, we have to make it clear that such behaviour has no place in today’s Wales. Will you, as the Minister for equality, be meeting with the WRU to underline the fact that sexism and misogyny are not to be tolerated in any workplace, especially in such a high-profile one like the WRU?             

Diolch yn fawr, Altaf Hussain. Thank you so much for making that strong statement this afternoon. I also watched the programme, as many did, I'm sure, across this Chamber. The details in those testimonies were absolutely devastating. I was just thinking again of the impact on those and the courage of the women who came forward—such courage to take after experiencing the harassment, the bullying, the abuse. But, I have to say, what came over was serious, I would say, institutional misogyny and sexism, which obviously imbued the organisation. 

This is something that, of course, the Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport is engaging with. We fed back yesterday that she'd already met with WRU on the immediate actions it must take. But, I want to say, as Minister for Social Justice, that it is clear from our perspective, from our violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy, women and girls have the right to be safe in all aspects of their lives. We are now extending our strategy to tackle abuse in the workplace and to challenge damaging behaviour and attitudes head on so that all women and girls in Wales can live fear free.

Thank you for that response, Minister. If only the WRU could be more like the FAW, who are to be congratulated for bringing in equal pay for male and female footballers. Of course, it behoves all of us to tackle misogyny head on. Chwarae Teg recently launched a petition aimed at making public spaces safer for women after the UN Women national committee UK​ found that 71 per cent of women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment in public places. Minister, what actions are the Welsh Government taking to ensure all our public spaces are safe for women and girls?

Thank you, again, for those very strong statements in support of our violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy, which, as I said, is now tackling the root cause of the violence, misogyny and sexism that women are facing. This is a societal problem that needs societal responses. It requires all of us, including all with any power, to be challenged in terms of their behaviours.

I do welcome, of course, the good news that we've got equal pay for our female footballers, which is fantastic. We congratulate the Football Association of Wales for showing the way forward. I think one of the saddest things in watching that programme as well was the fact that those women rugby players are wonderful women in sport, and they haven't been given the chance and the support that they need. But, again, in terms of every aspect of life, I think this is a really strong and, I'm sure, cross-party backing for our strategy. We must continually raise this in terms of the cultural change that we need in all our institutions, which has been reflected here in those comments today. 

Thank you, Minister. It's not just in public spaces that women do not feel safe. Even in the House of Commons Chamber, women face vile misogyny. Labour MP Rosie Duffield, during a recent speech on the Scottish gender reform Bill, was subject to vile abuse from fellow Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who later went on to abuse every woman who raised concerns about the Bill. His actions should have been condemned, yet the Labour Party leadership doubled down, briefing against Rosie Duffield to the press, with Keir Starmer's head of comms saying that she should spend more time in her constituency and less time with J.K. Rowling. This had led Rosie to conclude that Labour has a women problem. Minister, is your Westminster colleague right? Is your party stonewalling women and allowing rampant sexism to blossom? Thank you.

I'm very sad that we have got to finish what were very powerful and strong questions with that very unfortunate tone. I'm very proud of the stance that we're taking. The fact is that we've got an LGBTQ+ plan actually being presented in this Chamber. I hope that will receive the support of the whole Chamber in terms of LGBTQ+ rights and the strong actions that we're taking. I call on you, the Welsh Conservatives, to say that you will be backing what we in the Welsh Government, with our partners in the co-operation agreement, are taking forward. Of course, we need to treat each other as politicians with tolerance and respect. And that applies to all parties, I have to say—your party as well, Altaf. But let's just now look forward to a positive reception to what I think is going to be a really pioneering plan that will be a plan that will be recognised across the world in terms of its respect for LGBTQ+ people in Wales.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Sioned Williams.

Thank you, Llywydd. Minister, I'm sure you will have seen the concerning statistics on deep poverty in Wales published by the Bevan Foundation this morning. The evidence is there of households having grave difficulty in affording the necessities in life—food, shelter, heat—because of very low income or no income at all, or because debt takes up a large proportion of their income. Energy costs, of course, contribute greatly to these debts, and National Energy Action has offered a picture of the lack of progress towards achieving the Welsh Government's fuel poverty targets in its recent monitoring report. The target was 5 per cent of Welsh households at most living in fuel poverty by 2035; there are now 45 per cent living in fuel poverty in Wales.

In our scrutiny session on your draft budget, you told the Equality and Social Justice Committee last week, when explaining why you are not continuing to fund the Wales fuel support scheme, that you are investing in the discretionary assistance fund and this will help those who find themselves in fuel poverty—and that's to be welcomed. So, can you therefore provide us with more information how the impact of this fund has been measured and will be evaluated against measures of poverty, and fuel poverty particularly? 

Diolch yn fawr. That's a really important question in terms of the ways in which we have been seeking as a Welsh Government to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and, indeed, particularly the impact on fuel poverty. As I said in my response to questions and scrutiny in terms of the draft budget, unfortunately, we did not get the funding from the UK Government that would enable us to move forward on many of the important schemes that we've been developing and, indeed, delivering—£1.6 billion this year in terms of tackling the cost-of-living crisis.

I think the important question you ask is about the impact of our winter fuel support scheme. I'm pleased to say that, as of today, there's 72 per cent take-up of the £200. We widened the eligibility in line with many of the requests across this Chamber, following up the successful first phase of that winter fuel support scheme, and, indeed, the committee's engagement in that—the Equality and Social Justice Committee's engagement—as well. And certainly we'll be able to report back on the further outcomes. It's very much dependant on local authorities. We've identified that when authorities can automate and passport the benefits like our winter fuel support scheme, then it reaches the people who need it most. But there is a chance over the next few weeks; please, across this Chamber, urge your constituents to take up that £200 from the winter fuel support scheme.

And also—and this is very crucial as well—there are those on prepayment meters. Again, on Monday, I met with energy suppliers, and it is quite clear—and it was clear in the press over the weekend—that people are not getting the voucher. We know that households have got that £400, but people on prepayment meters haven't all got that £400. I held them to account on Monday: 'Why haven't you got those vouchers out?' It is their responsibility. But I will be, obviously, reporting back and monitoring the impact of our winter fuel support scheme, our partnership with the Fuel Bank Foundation, and also recognising that the way forward that we're taking is to ensure that people take up all the benefits that they're entitled to.

Thank you, Minister. I was asking particularly about the discretionary assistance fund, but perhaps we could return to that at another time.

I do have a question on prepayment meters and this concern that people are being forced onto them against their will, even when it's not safe for them to be on such a meter, which is contrary to the duty of the supplier to check that. I'm pleased that so many of us have supported Jack Sargeant's proposal, which poses some questions on this very issue.

We know that Citizens Advice have seen more people coming to them saying that they can't afford to top up their meters in past 12 months than in the past 10 years. This is clearly an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. So, how does the Welsh Government encourage social landlords to enable their tenants to pay for their energy through alternative methods, if they want to do that? The Westminster Government over the weekend has encouraged suppliers not to force customers to prepay for their energy, but that's not a prohibition. Has the Welsh Government made any effort to seek the powers necessary to ban or limit the use of meters in Wales?

I thank you for that question, and I would also like to recognise and congratulate Jack Sargeant. Jack Sargeant has called over the past few weeks consistently for a ban on the forced installation of prepayment meters, and it is also a ban that I have endorsed and also raised with UK Ministers.

I have met with energy providers. As I just said, I met with them again on Monday, and the first thing I said is how appalled we are about, of course, the revelations about the ways in which court warrants are being used—I know there's a topical question about this—to force people to install prepayment meters without any permission from the customer. I said to them again that we cannot accept that this is the right practice. These are the most vulnerable people, in terms of prepayment meters. I've already mentioned that there's a low uptake of prepayment vouchers for traditional prepayment households—a 72 per cent redemption figure recently quoted by Ofgem. But, I also raised with them the importance that we should now move towards a social tariff, which, of course, would mean that we would address some of the issues relating to the most vulnerable customers.

Again, I've mentioned the fact that we've got our partnership with the Fuel Bank Foundation. Already, we've got about 70 partners signing up with them. I recall the question, Sioned Williams, about, perhaps, not all foodbanks knowing about it. We have spread that word. I've met again, actually, just this morning, with the End Child Poverty Network, the Trussell Trust, Children in Wales and Child Poverty Action Group—all of the organisations working with us on our tackling child poverty strategy—to make sure that people do take up our Fuel Bank Foundation prepayment vouchers. But, yes, we need to look, and I continuously look, to what we can do with our powers to actually work with and support the most vulnerable, the poorest.

I'll just finally say what I said on Monday to the energy providers: 'Stop making these standing charges'. This is absolutely critical. One told me that they didn't make the standing charges. They should all be in that position, and I'd be grateful if we could have support on that across the Chamber. Standing charges are being made even if people actually are not able to access energy as a result of a lack of money or vouchers to feed the meters.

Thank you very much, Gareth Davies. We are working with the police and other partner organisations to promote community safety in Rhyl, Prestatyn and across Wales. Policing is a reserved matter, but we work closely with the police on strategic issues and provide significant funding for police community support officers to protect communities across Wales.

Thank you for that answer, Minister. Thanks to the work of the UK Government in increasing the amount of police officers in north Wales, crime is falling in Rhyl. But in a recent meeting with the local police force, it was noted that anti-social behaviour by youths as young as 13 is responsible for up to 75 per cent of all anti-social behaviour in Rhyl town centre. Sadly, a lack of strong family structure and parental responsibility is leading to these youths potentially turning to crime. Therefore, what steps will you take to ensure that people in Rhyl town centre are safe and what will you do to ensure that these youths do not continue to commit anti-social behaviour? Thank you.

Well, Gareth, as I've said, we're committed to keeping communities in Wales as safe as possible, both in Rhyl and Prestatyn, and across the country. We have sought to do that through our programme for government. Even though it's not devolved, we, the Welsh Government, have maintained our funding for 500 police community support officers, and we're increasing their number in these very stretched times by 100. These are funded by the Welsh Government, not by the UK Government—by the Welsh Government. We are the envy across England, in Wales, for what we're doing. I do want to put on record again that this means annual funding of over £22 million, and we've funded that despite policing being reserved and being in a challenging fiscal position.

I do want to answer your point about the fact that PCSOs, I think, are crucial in promoting community safety and tackling anti-social behaviour. We know that many of those issues that are facing people we are working on with other initiatives, in terms of our youth offending strategy and in terms of our work to tackle substance misuse, violence against women and domestic abuse. But I think that PCSOs act as ears and eyes on the ground for police forces; they build local relationships and create a sense of security in our communities.

Thank you, Jenny Rathbone. As part of the disability rights taskforce, the Welsh Government has set up a working group to focus on access to services. This working group is integral to driving forward changes to improve access to all services in Wales.

Thank you, Minister. We both attended the Royal National Institute of Blind People event last week here in the Senedd, and we heard patients from four different health boards provide a catalogue of woe about their struggle to get the services that they need and deserve. These testimonies were backed up by a recent survey by the RNIB, which indicated that one in three blind or partially sighted people had missed an appointment or had their health affected because they didn't receive information that was accessible to them. Over half received information about their healthcare from their GP in a format they couldn't read, and even more surprisingly, over one in 10 had been asked by their GP surgery what their preferred communication method is, and how they would like to receive information. The all-Wales standard for accessible communications and information for people with sensory loss was written in 2003, and communication methods have obviously blossomed since then, so I wondered if you could tell us, Minister, what work the Government is doing to update them and ensure that health boards are implementing them in all their work.

Thank you very much, Jenny. Of course, it was really important to be there at the RNIB event—and I think many others joined us—and to speak to the director of the RNIB about these very points of evidence that you've given us. But, I thought what was most important about the event was the panel of people with sight loss who gave their lived experience of accessing healthcare information. But what was also good was that we did have officials there from the Welsh Government's health equality team who also attended, and it's important that those lessons are learnt from people at the front line. So, just to assure you that we're engaging with health board communication leads through the normal course of business of delivery of services, and therefore, we're flagging up all the needs to update health guidance for health boards regarding how they contact and interact with blind patients. That's the value of that kind of interaction they had on that day.

And the all-Wales standard for accessible communication does ensure that the communication and information needs of people with sensory loss are met. So, that is a standard that now is going to be monitored much more closely, because they have a duty—it's a commitment to equalities—and the forthcoming duty of quality as well, in terms of services. But we will be taking this forward in the taskforce, as I've described their role, in terms of the disability taskforce, which is co-chaired with a disabled person, and is taking forward accessible communications particularly.

Although the blue badge scheme in Wales does not lie within your portfolio, removing the barriers for disabled people does, and the current blue badge scheme in Wales is creating barriers. I've been contacted by numerous constituents with a range of physical and neurodevelopmental conditions, whose blue badge parking permit applications or renewals were declined by local authorities quoting Welsh Government eligibility criteria. This states, amongst other things, that the local authority's decision on eligibility is final—there is no appeals process—causing applicants huge distress and requiring my intervention to have their applications reconsidered.

When I sat on the 2019 Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee inquiry into the blue badge scheme in Wales, we received joint written evidence from charities including Tenovus Cancer Care and Macmillan Cancer Support. They expressed disappointment when many of the committee's evidence-based recommendations in our subsequent report were rejected by the Welsh Government. Although the Welsh Government did refer to a review of eligibility criteria and guidance documentation, and the then Minister for Economy and Transport said that he had requested that officials work closely with local authorities to strengthen consistency in their approach to handling rejected applications, Tenovus Cancer Care have written stating that they regretfully report no change to implementation of the scheme, and the issues reported to the committee in 2019 persist. What actions can and will you therefore take accordingly?

Diolch yn fawr, Mark Isherwood. Thank you for that evidence on the implementation of the blue badge scheme, and the feedback that you've given. I certainly will be—. It's not my portfolio, but this is about taking forward access to services, and that includes all services' objectives. So, I will be taking that back to look at those issues. 

Thank you, Luke Fletcher. Our financial support schemes have been designed to complement schemes delivered by the UK Government. Early engagement with the DWP and HMRC has enabled a proactive approach from local authorities, allowing them to utilise DWP data to reach as many people as possible.

Thank you for that response, Minister.

 I know that a lot of people are grateful for those gaps being plugged, but a concerning case was recently brought to my attention by a constituent in Wildmill who was precluded from claiming the UK Government's last round of cost-of-living support payments. When the cost of living skyrocketed, my constituent sought help but because he receives industrial injury disablement benefit, which means that, although he receives income-related disability support allowance as well as contributions-based employment and support allowance, he was unable to access the UK Government's cost-of-living payment scheme whatsoever. Is there any scope for the Welsh Government to consider stepping in and plugging gaps like this? This is just one of many cases that have come across my desk during a time of great hardship for many. 

Thank you very much for drawing that to our attention, Luke. I would like to take this up and follow this up with you, following your question today. This is where we have to work with the DWP and HMRC and there is good working, but actually, we have to ensure that the arrangements don't reduce access to means-tested benefits, and you've described that. We've got to identify opportunities to maximise reach. We actually have a pro forma that is being co-designed by Welsh Government, DWP and HMRC, but I will take this back on this particular issue. Can I just say that one of the disappointing outcomes I think recently of the work of the Welsh Affairs Committee was that they did suggest, they had a recommendation—it was chaired by Stephen Crabb—to bring together an inter-ministerial advisory board on social security between UK and Welsh Governments to look at the merits of devolving administration of welfare benefits to Wales? That was rejected by the UK Government, but I want to revisit that, because this is how we can address some of these issues. 

Can I thank Luke Fletcher for raising this question? I absolutely agree with the sentiments that all bodies should do everything they can to make sure that people get the support that they're entitled to. Towards the end of the previous Senedd, the then Welsh Government published its income maximisation plan specifically related to child poverty. This included objectives around helping families to be more financially resilient. I understand, Minister, that the Welsh Government supports the single advice fund that provides financial advice to families, which we would all welcome. But I would like to ask, Minister, what assessment have you made of the outcomes of the original income maximisation plan? How have you taken the lessons learnt to inform the actions that have been taken by the Government throughout the cost-of-living challenges that we're now facing? And what consideration have you given to updating this strategy in light of the current difficult economic climate? 

Thank you very much, Peter Fox. Income maximisation is one of the key tools to tackling poverty. When we commissioned the Wales Centre for Public Policy to advise us on our route to tackling poverty, income maximisation—getting money into the poorest people's pockets—came up as a key priority. Our 'Claim what's yours' campaign and then, following through, we've just recently launched our 'Here to help' campaign, which is a benefit take-up campaign, is critical to get that take-up. Of course, it is a take-up that can be enhanced by the work of Citizens Advice. We fund them through the single advice fund. 

Just to give you an answer on the point about the third—. This is our third benefits take-up campaign, 'Here to help'. The previous two campaigns supported over 8,000 people to respond to the call to contact Advicelink Cymru and help them to claim an additional £2.7 million in support. 

The fire and rescue authorities determine almost all of their funding themselves through levying contributions on their constituent local authorities. The fire and rescue authorities in Wales do not receive core funding from the Welsh Government.

I'm grateful to you for your answer. I've been made aware by members of the mid and west Wales fire authority that you informed the service there that the FireLink Airwave grant, used to support their essential radio platform, is set to end completely in April this year. By comparison, the Home Office is slowly reducing its FireLink grant funding by 20 per cent each year for five years for English fire and rescue authorities. Although this has been reduced gradually, this still gives fire and rescue authorities there the ability to plan for the removal of the grant and spread the financial impact, rather than just being given four months to find £0.5 million in their budgets. Given that the Airwave is an essential lifeline for blue-light services, including the coastguard, would you reconsider your decision and instead gradually reduce this grant?

Can I thank the Member for his question? And this is something that's been raised with me previously as well. I would say, I understand the position of the fire and rescue authorities, but like them and constituent local authorities, we all face many funding challenges in the current climate. We do not normally provide funding for operational equipment or systems, such as FireLink, so they have to raise the funding from their own core resources.

As the Member will be aware from the Chancellor's autumn statement on 17 November, it represented a significant real-terms cut to the Welsh Government budget over the next two years, which has been compounded by external forces, such as the cost-of-living crisis and increased energy bills. It's very difficult, in setting a very challenging budget, for the Welsh Government to continue to fund operational communication equipment. As you say, it's meant that funding for FireLink, the service's operational communications system, had to cease from 2023-24. This represents less than 1 per cent of the overall funding that the service has received from their constituent authorities. Like I said, I recognise the challenges. Whilst previous budget settlements allowed us to provide the funding for these fees since 2010, it's been hard to justify that in the current financial climate. And, if the Member would like to support us in our efforts, he is more than welcome to have a word in the ear of his counterparts at UK Government and the Home Office, to help with further funding for us in Wales.

Good afternoon, Deputy Minister. Just to follow up on the situation in mid and west Wales, where I represent, along with others, the chief fire officer there highlighted the unsustainability of our fire services in rural areas if things carry on as they are. And I'm sure that we'd all be concerned about that. The service in mid and west Wales is staffed by a majority of retained firefighters and is supported by whole-time staff. However, the service is finding it more and more difficult to recruit and retain those firefighters. It's clear that the offer, in terms of pay, isn't commensurate with the number of hours that they work—some of them around 120 hours. So, I wondered if there would be a review of the Welsh Government grant, so that our fire services can make the necessary increases to our retained firefighter service. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Can I thank Jane Dodds for your question and your interest in this area? Because, like you, I recognise that, for many communities across Wales, it is retained fire services that provide that much-needed and valued cover, and it's the same for myself in the north Wales area as well. I do want to point out, at the outset, though, that we don't directly fund fire and rescue authorities in Wales, so we wouldn't fund them directly for core services.

I do share the concerns around the future of the retained duty system, and we've seen changes in the way people work and live, which has presented many challenges. And I regularly meet with the chiefs and the chairs of the fire and rescue authorities, including the last time I spoke to the chief from the mid and west—we share concerns around the challenges for RDS and sustainability into the future. And I've committed to working with them and the other authorities to see, actually, how we can address those challenges. But we know that it's one that's going to take significant effort, and a need to be innovative about how we do that in the future, and work to support the sustainability of services, particularly in the more rural communities across Wales. And I'm actually due to meet the fire and rescue authorities and other representatives, as part of our new fire and rescue social partnership forum tomorrow, and I understand that this issue will be on the agenda for that as well.

Thank you, Alun Davies, for that question. The Welsh Government is closely involved in the development of the police covenant, including through membership of the covenant oversight group, which is chaired by the UK Government policing Minister. The possibility of a broader emergency services covenant is also being explored in Wales. 

Thank you very much, Minister. I had a meeting with the Police Federation of England and Wales in the autumn, just before Christmas, and I was quite disturbed to hear that they felt there was a great deal of inertia involved in the delivery of the covenant and that there are a number of services that are not being delivered, which should be delivered to police officers as part of this process. Would the Minister be prepared to meet with me and the police federation to discuss their concerns, and also to ensure that the needs of those who protect us are absolutely at the core of what the Welsh Government does, moving forward? I recognise the work that she's referred to in terms of a wider emergency services covenant, but it's important that we get this right, before we try to move on to do something different. 

Thank you very much, Alun Davies, for feeding back from that meeting with the police federation, who I meet regularly, and recently met with the First Minister. The police federation arranged for us to meet many of those fantastic police officers who have shown great bravery and courage across our nation. Just to, again, ensure people, colleagues, are aware of this, the police covenant is a pledge to do more to help those who serve this country, and specifically to recognise the bravery, commitment and sacrifices of those who work or have worked in policing, and it is vital that police officers, staff and their families get equal access to support services during their time in service and afterwards. So, I will be very happy to follow up with a meeting as you propose. 

Finally, question 8. Sarah Murphy.  

Thank you, Sarah Murphy. We are committed to ensuring that public authorities use data transparently, safely and ethically for the benefit of all citizens in Wales, as set out in mission 6 of the 'Digital strategy for Wales'.

Thank you, Minister. The Data Justice Lab, based at Cardiff University, defines data justice as the

'relationship between datafication and social justice, highlighting the politics and impacts of data-driven processes and big data'—

essentially, highlighting the potential harms and risks to citizens. We have seen this in our Equality and Social Justice Committee inquiry into domestic violence and the needs of migrant women. Elizabeth, of the Step Up Migrant Women coalition, told us that, when they encouraged a woman to report domestic abuse to the police, they reported it online, and, eight days later, an immigration enforcement letter arrived at their house. And in 2019, it was reported that a police force in England admitted to a written agreement with the Department for Work and Pensions to share any information on disabled people taking part in climate protests. We also know that, in Hackney, the local authority used a predictive analysis database to assess all 53,000 children living there. They used this database to identify which children may be at risk from neglect, and they used their characteristics, such as age, ethnicity and deprivation, to create this score, which I would, essentially, call 'citizen scoring'. And the thing about citizen scoring, and this kind of data that's collected in public sectors, is that people are completely unaware that this behavioural data is being collected on them; they are being assessed, they are being categorised and they have no way to fight back on this and get any transparency around it. Researchers have argued that data practices have become normalised in our society, before a chance for a broader public discussion on the ethics and morals of the use of our data in this way. So, Minister, do you agree with me that, as citizen scoring continues to develop in the public sector, our human rights must be reflected both in the digital world as they should be offline?

Diolch yn fawr, Sarah Murphy. I do want to acknowledge and recognise the ways in which Sarah Murphy, particularly, is taking up this issue—and I think it benefits all of us—and chairing the cross-party group, because we are all learning about this, but we have responsibilities and we have powers. All in authority have powers, and we must recognise the link between data justice and social justice in the way that you've described. Thank you for referring to the ways in which this has now come to life, in terms of the evidence in the Equality and Social Justice Committee about migrant women and the way in which data can be abused, as well as used. This is about that kind of balance. I was pleased to give evidence to that committee, but also to look at this from a citizen's perspective and how citizens can engage. And so it has to be at the heart of our equality and social justice thinking—how do we engage with our citizens.

We're very fortunate that we've actually got the Data Justice Lab here in Cardiff University, and the work that they've done. And you've, obviously, engaged; we're engaged with it on citizen scoring. It's really important. And we do have a close relationship with the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, but we want to see how we can get public bodies to consider data ethics by publishing guidance, and also that guidance would be very relevant across all sectors, indeed, taking this forward.

Thank you, Minister.

The next item is questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, and the first question is from Carolyn Thomas.

Thank you for the question. As currently drafted, the Bill could see UK Government Ministers given unfettered authority to legislate in devolved areas, contrary to the democratically established devolution settlement. We have reiterated, at both an official and ministerial level, to the UK Government that our devolution settlement needs to be respected and preserved.

Thank you. Important legislation, ranging from workers' rights to environmental protections, could all be about to go up in smoke in the bonfire of Brexit, if the retained EU law Bill continues to proceed in the current form. I'm grateful to you, Counsel General, for highlighting the serious implications of this Bill and the implications that it will have for us here in Wales and this Senedd, as many of the thousands of laws set out are about to become redundant at the end of this year, and they will fall under devolved competencies. I don't think people realise the implications. I know you keep highlighting it, but I just don't think people realise, and it will be too late when it happens. Counsel General, could you please provide an update on the representations that you have made to the UK Government about its infringement on devolved matters through this wholly unnecessary and dangerous Bill? Thank you. 

Well, this is a very serious Bill, a very serious piece of legislation, with very serious consequences. The concerns about those consequences, I believe, are shared across all political parties at the moment. I believe it is legislation that is ideologically driven by a small minority in Westminster, and I think there are serious consequences for all the Governments of the UK if the Bill proceeds in its current format.

The first thing to say is that we had very little engagement with it, with the content of the Bill. In fact, I think, as I reported to this Senedd, the first notice that we had was a call to meet on a Saturday with the Minister, Suella Braverman at that particular time, where we were given very little information about what would be involved. What I can say is that, since then, I have had a whole host of meetings. I have met on several occasions with Minister Rees-Mogg; we've had numerous items of correspondence, including a joint letter right at the beginning from myself and from the Scottish Government that highlighted the serious concerns about trying to change legislation in this particular way. This isn't a party-political point; this is about bad law. It is a bad way to change law, and it gives unfettered powers to the UK Government, with very serious consequence. It is also a way of bypassing Parliament, because it does not give powers to Parliament itself, to the scrutiny of legislation, to an understanding of what major pieces of legislation may change, but it gives it solely into the hands of UK Government Ministers. That should be something that should concern all those who are concerned with parliamentary democracy.

On top of the letters, I have met yesterday with Felicity Buchan, UK Government Minister, to reiterate those concerns, and I will be attending a meeting next week of the Interministerial Standing Committee, which I will be chairing, where this issue will also be raised again.

Two major concerns we have, of course, are that it contains concurrent powers that would enable the UK Government to change Welsh law without any reference to the Welsh Government. It also has a sunset clause, where all the retained EU law is revoked, irrespective of what it is or what scrutiny it may or may not have had, by 31 December 2023. The UK Government Ministers have given for themselves within this Bill a sort of get-out-of-jail card to be able to extend it, when they realised the consequence of what they're trying to do. We have asked for exactly the same powers and, unfortunately, we are not being given those either.

What I can say is that every concern that we have, which are shared by Scotland, and I believe are shared by many across political parties in Westminster Government, which are shared by businesses, who will bear considerable costs as a result of this Bill if it goes through in its current format—. And there have been no adequate responses to the concerns that have been raised.

Thank you. Welsh Ministers have made it clear, since the time of its introduction, that the Welsh Government is not in favour of the UK apprenticeship levy. We've worked closely with the legal sector to introduce apprenticeships that will support growth and development.

I thank the Counsel General for that answer and, indeed, there has been progress, working with partners in the legal profession, with the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, with colleges and further education providers over the last few years to get to the point where we do now have foundation stage level 3 and advanced stage level 5 of the new CILEX professional qualification, the CPQ, but there is still a strong push from those out in the profession, particularly in solicitors, the Law Society amongst them, who believe that there needs also to be a level 7 solicitor apprenticeship programme in Wales. We still have the remaining problems with the apprenticeship levy and the fact that it's levied on Welsh companies, but we don’t have the full remit to use it in the way we'd want to in Wales. But I wonder: will he commit to work with those partner organisations to consider how this can be taken forward in due course?

Thank you. You've raised an important area, where Welsh Government has been looking at how it can support the development of the legal profession, those having access to it, and, ultimately, those being able to provide legal services within communities. The first thing to say about the apprenticeship levy, of course, is that it is a tax on employers, it was not one supported by us, and we get very little financial benefit as a consequence of it.

Coming back to, I think, the substance of your question, which is about legal education and training, as you say, last September, we introduced paralegal apprenticeships, which allow apprentices to gain Chartered Institute of Legal Executives qualifications, and the first cohort of those started in September 2022 at Coleg Sir Gâr in Carmarthen. As you say, we've extended it to level 3 and level 5, and we are looking at level 7; we are looking at the access to solicitor apprenticeships as well. That is slightly more complicated, because it raises issues in terms of what a lot of firms are already doing in terms of supporting and paying apprentices, and what we would really want to do is to ensure that anything that we might do would actually lead to better access for more people, more diverse access to that, and also result in people being able to provide legal services in communities, rather than just replacing expenditure that is already taking place. What I can say, though, is that we have published a specification for an assessment of the need for solicitor apprenticeships in Wales, which closed to tenders yesterday. Its aim is to establish the extent to which a solicitor degree apprenticeship may help meet the training and the development needs of the legal profession in Wales.

Questions now from the party spokespeople. The Conservative spokesperson, Darren Millar. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Will the Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government's plans to bring forward a Senedd reform Bill?

Well, thank you for the question. The issue of a Senedd reform Bill is dependent on the policies being determined by this Senedd, so it's not a policy development that is being led by Government. There is considerable policy work that is going on at the moment with a view to the production of legislation. I will make statements in due course about that legislation. The objective, as you know, is to fulfil the recommendations of the special committee that was established. I hope to be able to make announcements in the not-too-distant future on the progress of that, and also once we have looked at the issues around the content of that legislation.

I'm grateful for that response, Minister. One of the key components, as you will know, of the proposals and plans for Senedd reform includes the mandatory zipping of candidates by gender on electoral ballot papers, in order to promote better gender equality here in the Senedd. But you'll be aware of the controversial decision by the UK Government to prevent the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from becoming an Act and receiving Royal Assent, because of the reservations in equalities matters, which also apply here to the Senedd. In light of the developments north of the English border, can you tell us what assessment has been made of the Senedd's competence, as far as the Welsh Government is concerned, in relation to gender quotas and zipping? And can you confirm whether the Senedd, in your opinion, has competence in this area?

Thank you. The first thing is, we will be able to give a more definitive response once we've got to the stage of having draft legislation in front of us, to be able to look at that. And as you know, one of my obligations as Counsel General—and, again, the same with the Presiding Officer—is to actually look at the issue of competence. And again, that is a matter that also lies with the UK Government as well.

I'm aware of what the aspirations are in respect of the special committee and its particular recommendations. What we are doing is exploring all the different variations and options of ways of trying to fulfil that aspiration. What I would reiterate is perhaps the commitment that I've always given to the Senedd, that my role as a law officer, at the end of the day, with regard to competence, is to give a proper and fair and valid assessment of competence. And I will seek to ensure that the legislation that is brought before this Senedd is within the competence of this Senedd.

With regard to the point you make about section 35, I think that the issue of—. As long as we bring forward legislation that goes through proper parliamentary process, and is within competence, I do not think there is a role for UK Government in seeking to overturn legislation that has been properly determined in this place and within that competence. If there is a concern about competence that the UK Government has, then there is a way of dealing with that, and that is to refer it to the Supreme Court to determine.

Well, of course, the way that the UK Government has acted in respect of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill is as is laid out in section 35 of the Act of Parliament. So, it's well within the normal rules, and the decision has not been taken lightly.

But can I just go back to this issue of improved diversity here in the Senedd? We all agree that we want a diverse Senedd that represents the population of Wales, so that we can ensure that decisions are made that are right and proper and that reflect the citizens that we represent. But it does seem clear, in the advice that I have seen, that the Senedd does not have competence to be able to implement these zipped lists. And given that, why is the Government even wasting time on this matter, given that it could jeopardise any of the Senedd reform plans that other parties might have and want to deliver?

Well, I think whatever legislation is brought before this place will only be out of competence if it goes beyond what is the statutory competence that we actually have. And if my confirmation is that I will ensure that the legislation that is brought before here will be within competence, then I don't think that the concerns that you have will arise. My intention is not to bring forward legislation that is out of competence; I will bring forward legislation that is there.

The issue of equality is a very complex area, and I think it is always a mistake to rely on individual pieces of advice that may be out of context, or that are not part of the whole picture, or that do not necessarily relate to the various options that might be considered. The Equality Act 2010 does make provision for exemptions to promote equality and diversity, and, of course, those are areas that we want to look at very, very carefully. It is a complex area of law; I can assure you it is being looked at very, very carefully, that the legal aspects will be properly analysed, and what we bring forward before this Senedd will be within competence.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Peredur Owen Griffiths. 

Diolch, Llywydd. The UK Government's decision to veto the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill marks a new low in relations between Westminster and the devolved administrations. Over the past 13 years, this Tory Government has frequently demonstrated its thinly veiled disregard for devolution. Instead of working constructively with its devolved partners, it has resorted to damaging unilateral actions, such as the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, that trample over devolved competencies.

Could the Counsel General provide his assessment of the UK Government's recent use of the section 35 power under the Scotland Act 1998 to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, and, in particular, the implications of this measure for the devolution settlement in the UK? And will the Counsel General go as far as me in saying that the UK Government's outrageous denial of the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament further underlines the utter fallacy of the notion that the United Kingdom is a partnership of equals?

Thank you for the question. And, of course, this is an incredibly important issue that has arisen. Can I just say, firstly, on the gender recognition issue, of course the Gender Recognition Act 2004 is a reserved matter, so we are in a different position to that which the Scottish Government is in? The comment that's been made with regard to section 35 of the Scotland Act, I suppose, also ties into section 114 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, although the clauses are not exactly the same for Scotland and for Wales.

What I can say is that I have received, and am considering carefully, the seven-page document that sets out the UK Government's arguments in respect of its disagreement with the gender recognition Act that was passed in Scotland, and will consider now what the response of the Scottish Government is to that, whether there is a challenge, whether that raises significant constitutional issues that we would be concerned with. And, of course, as you know, I will have powers to intervene in any legal constitutional issues that might arise as a consequence of that.

It is probably premature to say anything further than that because there is so much detail. What I will do is express this particular comment that, firstly, after 20 years of Sewel actually working, we've had increasing numbers of the normalisation of the overriding of Sewel by the UK Government, which has been not only undermining the devolution settlement, but I believe it's beginning to undermine the inter-governmental machinery that has just recently been established. And this is a matter that is being raised, that I will be raising in appropriate meetings that I'll be having.

It is a matter of the most serious concern that if you have a Government within the United Kingdom that has legislation, that it goes through the correct processes, the correct parliamentary scrutiny, and is then passed, that it might be overturned on anything other than a significant constitutional issue that affects the whole of the United Kingdom. There are serious concerns as to whether that is the basis on which section 35 is potentially being triggered. But the issues around it are something I will consider very, very carefully, as well as the implications for the constitutional issues that might be relevant to Wales. 

Thank you for that response. 

Although the powers to legislate on gender recognition are not yet available to this Senedd, the First Minister has expressed a desire to introduce similar legislation to the GRR Bill here in Wales. He recently said in this Chamber,

'we will seek the powers. If we obtain those powers, we will put them to work here in Wales, and we will put proposals in front of this Welsh Parliament'.

However, it appears that these ambitions are increasingly at odds with the views of the UK Labour leadership. Earlier this month, Keir Starmer said that he had concerns about the proposed Bill, and stated his opposition to 16 and 17-year-olds having the ability to choose their gender. Furthermore, only 11 Labour MPs voted against the use of the section 35 powers in the Commons last week, the rest abstained. It's regrettable that UK Labour has apparently decided to follow the Tories' lead in indulging this cultural war on politics.

Can the Counsel General therefore confirm that it remains the Welsh Government's ambition to seek the necessary powers to legislate on a gender self-identification system along the same lines as those contained in the gender recognition reform Bill, including the reduction in the minimum age for applicants from 18 to 16? Diolch yn fawr.

What I can say is to reiterate what the First Minister said, which is that, yes, we do wish to have those powers. It is an area that we wish to legislate in. What the precise content of that legislation might be, I'm sure the detail of that would still need to be considered. Equally so, we'd need to go through the floor of this Senedd. Can I also say, just in terms of the points you made about other Governments, of course there are concerns, just as there were concerns in Scotland? What was interesting about the legislation in Scotland was that it had cross-party support and it had cross-party opposition. There were those within the SNP who opposed it. There were those within the Scottish Labour Party that supported and opposed as well. I think it's in the nature of that particular legislation. But, the First Minister has been completely clear about the direction that we do want to go in. The detail of that is something I'm sure would be considered if and when we actually get legislative competence in that area.

I thank the Member. Whilst we have not committed to a pilot, we recognise the potential benefits of a shorter working week alongside other forms of flexible working. We are committed to working with social partners to encourage progressive working practices. 

I'm grateful to the Counsel General for his answer this afternoon. I'm sure he'll be aware of the report published just yesterday by the Senedd's Petitions Committee, which I Chair. This report was endorsed by the majority of the committee, and it did recommend a four-day-week trial within the public sector in Wales. The pilot will build on the evidence of the private sector trials that have demonstrated already an increase in productivity and the benefits to an employee. Counsel General, this is no doubt a bold proposal, but it is one that might be challenging. But, just because something in challenging, does not mean we should not do it. Across the world, four-day-week trials have demonstrated success in increasing that productivity and improving the mental and physical health of workers and helping them upskill too. Can I ask you, Counsel General, will you commit to looking further at this matter, discussing with your Cabinet colleagues within Welsh Government, and coming back to this Senedd with a fuller report on the powers that we have to take this bold step forward?

Can I thank the Member for raising this? I think it is really important that these ideas are raised within this Chamber and questions is an appropriate way to actually do that. It does remind me that the controversy suddenly when the suggestion was made that we could potentially move to a four-day working week—I think probably that controversy existed when we moved from a seven-day working week to a six-day working week, when we moved from six days to five days, et cetera. It was probably the same controversy when we talked about stopping children from having to work down the mines and so on.

What we're interested in is economic efficiency, economic productivity, but also the well-being of society, the well-being of the people who work in society, and how flexible working and different types of working can actually be more productive. I think that's why there have been so many pilots. I'm looking at the moment—. I know that, across Government, we are taking a close interest in the evidence around the shorter working week. We don't have legislative competence in employment legislation, but there are many areas where we can influence. We have, of course, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and of course we have the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill coming through as well, which seek to influence well-being and ethical employment and issues like that.

But, there have been trials. I'm looking at some of the research around this. Scotland is looking at this closely at the moment. That is, I think, something of interest. North America has had trials. Iceland has had trials. Spain is doing a pilot. Australia is looking at a pilot. So, this isn't just something that has come out of the blue. There are progressive and modern governments all over the world that are looking at ways of better working, better for the people who work, but equally better for the economies as well. The Spanish pilot was launched in 2022, and that's expected to run for two years. So, this is something where we have to keep an open mind. We have to want to seek to make change where change will improve people's working conditions, and we have to look at the evidence from the pilots that are produced. I know that this is something that Welsh Government will be very interested in.

I'm pleased this question has been raised today, and I thank the Member for Alyn and Deeside for bringing it up, as it's a perfect example of utter hypocrisy in the Welsh Labour Party. In one breath, they support the union paymasters who are hell-bent on bringing this country to its knees, with strike after strike after strike, but then, in the other breath, they're asking people to work fewer days and bring productivity and wages down. My constituents who work in Flintshire and the Deeside area are facing rising mortgages, higher energy bills, soaring prices across the board, and they want to do some overtime, work that extra hour or two, just to keep the wolf from the door, and the local Members want them to work less and reduce their prospects. You couldn't make it up. So, when will we see a Labour Party and a Welsh Government that truly supports the working people of north-east Wales and supports people who want to get on in life, rather than holding them down?

Well, I'm sure, had the Member been around at the appropriate time, you would have been making exactly that speech when we went from seven days to a six-day working week, and I suppose you're still angry about the fact that we don't send children under 12 down the coal mines. Oh, I forgot—you actually closed most of the coal mines, so that probably dealt with that particular issue.

I note, as well, I'm sure you're probably still a supporter of the position that the Conservative Party took when it opposed the minimum wage and all the things that were said about the minimum wage at that particular time. So, listen, I hear what you say. I'm afraid you are still living in the Victorian age. We are now living in the twenty-first century and we want to look after the people who work for a living, and we want to have a good and efficient and productive economy.

Determining legal expertise is a matter for the chair to the inquiry. The Welsh Government is committed to supporting the inquiry, and has been proactive in making the inquiry aware of Wales’s constitutional and legal arrangements so that levels of expertise can be assessed.

If I could draw Members' attention to my declaration of interest. Of the 12 King's Counsel appointed and the 50 junior barristers appointed to the UK COVID inquiry, not one is based in Wales. That, of course, is not the position for Scotland or Northern Ireland. They would never put up with that, would they, Cwnsler Cyffredinol? Wales, once again, seems to be the forgotten nation—surely another strong argument for a Wales COVID inquiry. What action are you taking to remedy this situation and to ensure that the UK-wide inquiry reflects the devolved system here in Wales? Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you for the question. The points you raise in terms of the Welsh legal profession, I think, are important ones. The UK inquiry team did indicate its intention to draw staff and legal support from across the UK, with the Welsh Government inquiry team recommending to them that advice be sought from the bar's Wales and Chester circuit. It is the case, of course, in terms of the legal representation being organised by the Welsh Government, that there is significant input from the Welsh bar, and obviously I will do everything I can, in every sphere that I work in, to actually promote the interests of the use of the Welsh legal profession where that is appropriate, and, of course, issues that may arise. Equally so, one issue the Welsh Government has pressed is very much the ability, and the confirmation that it will happen, of the use of Welsh language within those inquiry proceedings.

In terms of the inquiry itself, for me, the crux, the important thing, is what is the most effective way to ensure that the questions that society at large has, that the families of the bereaved have, with regard to COVID, are properly capable of being answered. What is the correct mechanism for ensuring that there are powers to ensure that evidence is available, that the witnesses are available, that everything that is necessary in order to answer those questions is done? That is why the Welsh Government has adopted the position that it has. But, I can confirm, again, and reiterate that of course there will be Welsh lawyers that are involved in the Welsh Government's representations to that COVID inquiry.

The Public Order Bill impacts on the vital right of people in Wales to have their voices heard and express their concerns freely. I will continue to impress upon the UK Government that Wales’s views must be heard in respect of the importance of the right to protest.

The Counsel General, the Minister, like me, will have been on many protests of different types over the years. And, in fact, over the decades, and indeed over generations and centuries, in Wales, there has been a vigorous tradition of public protest, and it's right that there should have been. From the earliest Greenham Common protestors drawn from Wales, including my own late friend and reliable critic, Eunice Stallard from Ystalyfera, to Ann Clwyd MP joining Tyrone O'Sullivan and miners in a sit-in deep underground at Tower Colliery, the Trawsfynydd protestors, Welsh language campaigners, anti-racism protestors, more recently environmental protestors, too, these campaigns have always led to heated debate and sometimes to controversy, and they've often inconvenienced people deeply. Indeed, Dirprwy Lywydd, many of us will recall the go-slow petrol protests and blockades led by a farmer from north Wales—the upstanding chair of the Flintshire branch of the Farmers Union of Wales, a member of the council of the Royal Welsh Show, the Welsh Pony and Cob Society, who then became an Assembly Member here—the late Brynle Jones. He was also part of the dumping of 40 tonnes of meat into the sea off Holyhead, in his version of the Boston Tea Party. So, what does he think, what does the Minister think that Brynle Jones, Eunice Stallard, Tyrone O'Sullivan or the protestors for the Welsh language or many others would think of the sweeping powers that UK Government are now taking for themselves to block public protest? And frankly, is it even needed when the powers they already have are so wide ranging?

Before you answer, Counsel General, for the record it's Brynle Williams. 

Brynle Williams, my apologies.

I remember Brynle Williams well.

It's a really important question, and one that is arising so frequently on items of legislation. The Public Order Bill continues the UK Government's regressive approach towards the right to protest and free expression. It is another attack on the democratic rights of people across Wales. The latest amendments to the Bill would allow police to restrict protests even before they become disruptive, only to make the Bill more regressive and authoritarian. It reminds me of that film. Do you remember the film with—? I can't remember who it was, but they were arresting people because they could see into the future and they'd find out about and stop crimes by arresting people beforehand. Well, this is almost exactly the same power, where the police would have the power to arrest people who haven't actually committed any offence because they have the belief that an offence might be committed, irrespective of evidence, but almost an arbitrary power. 

The Bill follows the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which again restricted civic rights and, again, we refused legislative consent to that, but the UK Government overrode it. We have to see what is happening, I think, within a series of regressive pieces of legislation that, bit by bit, are chipping away at freedoms and fundamental rights. We can talk about the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, we have the Bill of rights being resurrected again, which seeks to take away the rights of citizens to exercise their rights on human rights in the UK courts. We have the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, which gives arbitrary powers to a Secretary of State without any reference to evidence or any other party. So, basically, this is legislation that is really creating a more and more authoritarian form of government. Obviously, there will be on this, because I believe it does impact on our position here, consideration in respect of legislative consent. We'll have to look very carefully at that and at amendments to that. But, there is a warning and there is a responsibility on law officers and on parliaments to continually be alert to the freedom of its citizens. I have to say that this legislation, day by day, is taking away the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Wales. 

This Bill is unnecessary and it is ill-conceived. It cuts across devolution and attempts to undermine our social partnership approach here in Wales. 

Yet again, Counsel General, another example of aggressive legislation from the UK Tories, one that seeks to divide working people. It seeks to cover for the 12 years of Tory failure by blaming key workers. They are the very workers they clapped for during the pandemic. Counsel General, the right to strike is a basic right, and leaders across the United Kingdom should always seek to negotiate, not threaten key workers by removing their rights. Next week, I’ll be standing in solidarity with the Wales TUC at their national rally to defend working people’s freedoms. This is an incredibly important matter for working people and their families across Wales. As this aggressive piece of legislation proceeds through the House of Commons, will you come back to this Chamber and update Members of the Senedd on the steps the Welsh Government can take to mitigate its impact in Wales? 

Thank you, again, for raising an incredibly important civil rights issue and something that also affects devolution. It’s worth saying, isn’t it, that when this issue first arose on minimum service levels, it was with regard to transport, and was of course a Bill that was laid, I think, in November last year. What was interesting in that Bill was that, at the very least, unnecessary though it was, the Bill contained a requirement to seek a voluntary agreement with trade unions over minimum service levels and it provided a mechanism for arbitration where that couldn't be achieved. Not only has this Bill now been extended to almost a complete range of public services, those requirements to seek agreement with the trade unions have been taken out of it. What has also been taken out of it is, of course, the system of arbitration. So, what does it do? It actually creates a wholly arbitrary power, a Henry VIII power of the worst scale, for the Secretary of State. So, you could have, for example, a Secretary of State sitting in his office in London deciding what the appropriate minimum service levels were for the ambulance service in south Glamorgan. It is an absolute nonsense and it is irrational. I think it has a number of other implications as well. I think it significantly challenges the International Labour Organization conventions on freedom of association. I believe it may well compete with or create an undermining of the trade and co-operation agreement, which requires us to comply with international agreements, and I think there may even be significant human rights issues that are within this.

This is a piece of legislation that is not necessary. We do not need this legislation in Wales and, as I said last week—I think in response to your urgent question on this issue—trade unions have always established minimum service levels. We have seen that up and down Wales and we've seen it throughout the UK. This is solely legislation that is an attempt to distract from the case that's being put by the trade unions in terms of public sector pay and terms and conditions, and it's an attempt to try and demonise workers in our public sector. It is a complete about-turn from those commitments that this Government gave that, after COVID, we would look after our public service workers differently. I can say that the Welsh Government is totally opposed to this legislation and we will not recommend consent to this legislation, and we will seek every lawful means that we have in terms of opposing it and its implementation.

I think that Member might have heard some of the comments I just made.

Yes, I did.

I'm happy to go straight into the Member's supplementary question.

Diolch yn fawr. I'm not quite sure why those hadn't been grouped together. Of course, this Bill does extend to Wales and, as you suggested, grants sweeping powers to the Secretary of State in Whitehall. At length in the previous Bill, safety was discussed; well, safety has been removed completely. Public safety has been removed completely from this Bill. A Secretary of State sitting in Whitehall could stop a strike because of the impact it has on the rush hour in Cardiff, or could prevent a strike because it possibly might lead to hospital appointments being cancelled or could lead to classes being disrupted. Basically, in effect, a Secretary of State sitting in Whitehall could stop all future strikes here in Wales. So, what discussions have you had with the UK Government to ensure that the criteria for the minimum service levels will still allow effective striking to happen in Wales? Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you, again, for the question. Representations have already been made. You'll be aware that I am—and, indeed, the First Minister is—very much on the record in a similar tone. It will be raised at future meetings that will be taking place. But, of course, in terms of the UK Government, I have to say, on this Bill, we have had no engagement. There has been no consultation, no engagement with the Welsh Government whatsoever on this.

It's worth also saying, on the point you raised about safety, that there is no impact assessment with this Bill yet. There was an impact assessment on the original one, the transport minimal service levels Bill, but, of course, they probably didn't want to go down the road of the impact assessment this time, because the last impact assessment basically said the likely consequence would be there would probably be an increase in forms of industrial action short of a strike. So, we wait and see what might appear then and what might happen to this Bill, and if it does go through, what may then happen in terms of any potential legal challenges. Again, what I can say is that I will ensure that, if there are valid legal interests that we have, and powers I have as Counsel General in terms of intervention, that is something I will give very serious consideration to.

Thank you for the question. After Royal Assent, the Act’s provisions will be commenced in stages, the first products being banned potentially in the autumn. We are working closely with those impacted by the Bill to ensure the bans are implemented successfully.

Thank you. Following a request by the Welsh Government, the Business Committee agreed not to refer the Bill to a responsible committee for Stage 1 scrutiny. According to the Business Committee report, one of the reasons why you requested an expedited timetable for Senedd scrutiny was, and I quote, 'due to its intention to use the Bill as a practical example to support its case in relation to the UK internal market Act in the Supreme Court.' After the Welsh Government succeeded to cut our democratic scrutiny short and pass the Bill, you then advised the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee on 16 January that you've chosen not to use the legislation to challenge the internal market Act. I believe that your Welsh Government has played fast and loose with this Welsh Parliament's powers to use this legislative process to benefit your own legal agenda. Will you now apologise for your Welsh Government's actions and make a commitment on the public record that you acknowledge that the reason for challenging any law is in order to achieve the objective of the legislation and not to armour some politically motivated legal battle? Diolch.

Thank you very much for that politically motivated question. What I can say to the Member is this: I think she may have a misunderstanding of what has happened with the process. It's because we initially started a judicial review process, and the judicial review went to the Court of Appeal, the Court of Appeal basically said that it wouldn't consider it unless there was a particular Bill in front of it, et cetera. We then sought to appeal to the Supreme Court on those issues, but also, it was necessary to have a Bill in preparation, to have a Bill that would be there.

The Bill has two motivations in terms of expedition. One is the one that was put forward by the Minister for Climate Change, and that is they need to get this Bill up and running as quickly as possible, that it was essential that it be in place. For my consideration, really, as the law officer, is the extent to which that Bill would be relevant, to get to be there in time, and be appropriate with regard to any particular reference to court. What changed since then, of course, is that the Supreme Court declined permission to appeal to it. So, the legislation has gone through and, of course, what kicks in then is the constitutional issue of a referral on competence to the Supreme Court. That is a power that lies with me, and it's also a power that lies specifically with the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General has chosen not to refer it. I regard that as a victory. I regard that a victory in the Attorney-General accepting our arguments in terms of our constitutional interpretation of the legal position. I'm prepared to support the Attorney-General in that particular position, and that is why I've chosen myself not to refer this to the Supreme Court. So, we can accept that the position now is the UK Government accepts the Welsh Government's legal analysis in respect of that particular piece of legislation. If the issue is to arise again, it could arise in other circumstances, but I felt it was appropriate that, when the UK Government's Attorney-General basically declined to refer it to the Supreme Court, I could rely on that as setting a precedent in terms of our interpretation of our constitutional position. 

Thank you for the question. Police conduct is an issue that we take extremely seriously. However, policing is currently reserved to the UK Government and so it is not the role of the Welsh Government to hold or lead an inquiry on policing practice.  

I thank you for that answer, Counsel General. Last November, The Sunday Times published a report that found that evidence of misogyny, racism, homophobia and corruption was found within Gwent Police, including amongst serving officers. Separately from this, of course, an inquiry has been established to investigate concerns about the culture and safety of women within the Metropolitan Police. I know that the Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating Gwent Police, though the Police Federation have admitted the process is likely to be horrendously slow. I'd appreciate your view about whether we should be taking a preventative approach here, rather than waiting for something terrible to happen before acting. I take on board what you've just said, Counsel General, but, according to the BBC, the Welsh Government has previously indicated it would consider a national inquiry into the allegations. Could I ask you, please, your personal opinion perhaps about whether this should happen? Would you call on the UK Government either to do this or to devolve this power so that we could do it ourselves?

What I can say is that, although policing is not devolved, there is a close relationship. We meet with the democratically elected police and crime commissioners. I know the Minister for Social Justice meets very regularly to discuss a whole range of those issues: the anti-racist action plan, issues around diversity, all the issues in which policing interacts with various devolved governmental responsibilities. That's one of the reasons why we actually want policing devolved, because it is logical, it makes sense to do it, and every elected police and crime commissioner actually agrees that it should happen. I believe one day it will happen.

But what I can say is that, in response to those events that took place, the Minister for Social Justice did meet with Gwent Police and the crime commissioner Jeff Cuthbert, and chief constable Pam Kelly, on 14 November, and again on 23 November, to discuss the issue. The First Minister also met with the police and crime commissioner Jeff Cuthbert, and the chief constable Pam Kelly, on 20 December. I understand that both Senedd Members and Members of Parliament had multiple briefings by Gwent Police on this issue, and the Secretary of State for Wales has also confirmed that he is confident in the chief constable's leadership. I think this is a matter, obviously, where we have to wait and see now what further steps are taken. It clearly is a matter of interest to us, but I do say that we are restricted in the specific things that we can do, because of the lack of devolution of policing.

And finally, Joyce Watson.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. The investigation by the College of Policing, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and the Independent Office for Police Conduct concluded that there are systematic deficiencies in the way that some police forces in England and also Wales deal with allegations of sex offences and domestic abuse against their own officers and staff. The figures compiled last year show that eight out of 10 officers kept their jobs after the accusation of domestic abuse. Nearly 2,000 officers faced accusations of sexual wrongdoing in a four-year period; just 8 per cent of those were sacked. The conviction rate for police employees accused of domestic abuse is half of that for the general population. All of this underpins a serious problem. The question, of course, here is, Counsel General, what is being done about it? I know it's not devolved, but what is devolved here is picking up the pieces by those people who become extremely distressed by what is happening and also victims of those crimes. 

You make very important and very valid comments about the inadequacy of the current system, which has been exposed time and time again. I think it has come to a real head now, where, across police forces, there are serious failings in terms of the standards, the monitoring and so on of all of those matters that you raised. I think all they do is they do add reinforcement to the view that we have that the devolution of policing is a logical step that should take place, because it fits within a whole range of policies that we are engaged with and that the police on the ground are actually engaged with, whether it be domestic abuse, whether it be sexual abuse, whether it be assaults or whether it be domestic violence.

All of those sorts of issues and many other social issues are part and parcel of the broad range of policing and the sorts of services and responsibilities that we have. We continue to work and we will continue to act in partnership with all of those bodies and all of those agencies that we can do, but within the framework of what we are actually allowed to do, and, of course, there are limitations on that. But I do thank the Member for raising those; I've no doubt that she will continue to raise them, and quite justifiably so.

I thank the Counsel General.

Item 3 is next, questions to the Senedd Commission. The questions will be answered by the Llywydd, and the first is to be asked by Delyth Jewell.

The Commission is not involved in any formal negotiations with trade unions representing Commission staff at present. The current pay arrangements of the Commission are in place until March 2025, and the Commission enjoys a positive partnership with its local officials. The British representatives of PCS have confirmed that there is a formal dispute, however. The strike on 1 February is as a result of a dispute with the UK Government on a series of broader principles—a pay rise, pensions justice, job security and no cuts in redundancy terms. As a Commission, we respect the right of trade union members to strike.

Thank you for that. It sounds, therefore, that the reasons for the strike relate to decisions taken by Westminster rather than any dispute between the Commission and its staff. That reflects the general position in Wales when it comes to workers in the public sector, where funding decisions are taken in Westminster and those decisions will sometimes lead to some constraints on the negotiations that can happen.

Without a funding settlement that's based on need, Wales will always be at the whims of decisions made in the English Treasury. And, of course, funding isn't the only issue here. The UK Government has shown a total disregard for Welsh workers, announcing an intention to scrap the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017. 

I would say that the only way of guaranteeing rights for workers would be to devolve employment law to this place. I know that's beyond any issue that you could give a view on, but if that were to happen—if employment law were to be devolved—could you give us any idea of which principles the Commission would follow in negotiating any pay or conditions issues with the staff in the Senedd?

You're trying to tempt me now to give you all kinds of political answers to that question. I don't think it's a secret to anybody to hear me say as an individual that I'm in favour of more devolution of powers to this Senedd. However, in the context of this specific question regarding the strike next week, to confirm once again that there is no specific dispute between us and our local staff in the context of the pay arrangements that are in place until 2025. And I do hope that that does reflect, on behalf of the Commission and across the parties in this Senedd, our respect to the open and sensible debate with the trade unions, that represent out workers here, and our respect for their right to strike as well, if they have practical issues and principles, and they wish to do so. 

The Commission supports opportunities to promote and showcase our Parliament and its innovative work on the international stage. This includes supporting Members to participate in international networks and facilitating programmes for visiting parliamentary delegations, such as the Canadian federal Parliament last week, and welcoming diplomats to this place, such as the representation from Catalonia this morning. Our international framework was recently agreed in a Commission meeting. It sets out the objective of raising the Senedd’s profile and the value of building our reputation through engagement and collaboration, whether that work is led by Members or committees, or whether it happens at an official level or between parliaments. 

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. It's clear that significant work is done to promote the work of our national Parliament, and this could be done through the large acts, such as you mentioned, with the engagement with all the parliaments, or perhaps even smaller acts. Now, Cymru, as a nation, is a  generous and welcoming place, and so is our Senedd, and I'm sure that Members, like myself, have received correspondence from people around the globe asking a range of questions. Most recently, I was written to by Oliver from France, asking me for one of my ties. Now, I know that Sarah Murphy often says that I have the nicest ties in this Parliament, and Oliver clearly agrees—[Laughter.]—but in all seriousness, Llywydd, it is clear that the work of our Senedd is reaching far and wide across the globe, and I wondered what further resources could be made available to allow Members to promote the work of Cymru's national Parliament, our Senedd. 

Well, I'm pleased to hear that your ties are a matter of international interest [Laughter.] I'd like to reinforce, in my response to you, and urge Members here to look at the opportunities they have as individual Members, as members of committees, to travel and to engage with parliaments and with projects right around the world, so that we can enrich our work here in terms of policy development, in terms of legislation, from the experiences in all parts of the world. I think COVID has restricted some of that international work; it opened up some additional opportunities through the use of Zoom and other technology. But there's nothing really to replace the direct experience of visiting and meeting with people from around the world to learn from where interesting ideas are happening on the ground, and for other people as well to learn from some of the good work that we're doing here in Wales. So, I urge you all, as Members of this Senedd, to look for opportunities, where the Commission can support you in any international work that you want to do on behalf of the people of Wales. 

I thank the Llywydd. 

A point of order by Jack Sargeant. 

I'm grateful, Presiding Officer, for allowing me the opportunity to correct the record. In questions to the Counsel General, it was not done lightly, but I forgot to remind Members of my interest as a proud trade union member, when asking a question about the strike. So, I'm grateful for the opportunity to remind Members that that is available online, but also for the opportunity to say, in the Chamber in front of yourself and in the presence of the Llywydd, that I am a proud member of both Community and Unite unions. 

Thank you. I'm not always convinced it's a point of order, but it's important to put it on the record, and that you've done so. Diolch yn fawr. 

Item 4 is the topical questions, and the first today will be asked by Jack Sargeant. 

The Welsh Government believes that moving customers to prepayment meters should be considered only as a last resort. During a cost-of-living crisis, it is deeply concerning that some of the most vulnerable householders are being forced into repayment arrangements, leaving them exposed to the risk of having no heating. 

I thank the Counsel General for his answer, and the leadership of Welsh Government colleague Jane Hutt in this topic. This is nothing short of a national scandal. We have seen hundreds of court orders issued at a time, and now data shows that, out of the 500,000 applied orders for forced switching to prepayment meters, only 72 were refused. Out of 500,000, just 72 were refused. Nobody could suggest that this shows anything other than no checks are taking place to establish if the consumers are vulnerable. 

Now, because of this failure to carry out even very basic checks, vulnerable people are left with the constant threat of being cut off in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis in the middle of winter. Counsel General, this is a matter of life and death. The UK Government, which recognised over the weekend that something is going very wrong following consistent calls from the likes of myself and other campaigners, still choose to only ask the very companies who have so badly let our residents down just to do the right thing. Leadership is about taking decisions, especially when the evidence of wrongdoing is so overwhelming. Statistics show that almost 200,000 more people will be forcibly switched by the end of winter if nothing is done. Counsel General, do you support my calls for an immediate ban on the forced switching of prepay meters, and for those residents who have already been inappropriately switched by energy suppliers to be able to switch back, free of charge and quickly?

Thank you for the question, and again, the Member excels at raising issues of considerable importance to civil rights and liberties in our society. Let me give you these figures. It's only since you raised the question that this has been something I've really drawn my attention to, and I know it's the same, very much, for the Minister for Social Justice, who's been engaging directly on this particular issue.

But in terms of some of the data that we have already, we know from the media that there've been something like 500,000—half a million—warrants issued recently, and let's look at the Welsh situation from what we know so far. In Caernarfon magistrates' court in 2022, two such warrants were issued. In Cardiff magistrates' court in 2021, six warrants were issued and in 2022, 10 warrants were issued—a total of 16—and two were refused. In Swansea magistrates' court in 2020, 7,308 were issued, in 2021, 8,652 were issued and in 2022, 6,817 were issued, making a total, over those three years, of 22,777, of which, six were refused. 

I've been looking at some of the public information on this, and again, this is something that I do want to take up. I was just looking at some of the comments that have been made around the figures that are now beginning to appear, and the commentary is like this: 'suppliers are able to obtain warrants to install prepayment meters when their customers fall into debt as a way for them to recoup money they're owed. They're generally more expensive than fixed energy tariffs and have been criticised by numerous charities for trapping low-income households in poverty'  and 'they require households to pay for energy before actually using it, and usually on a higher rate'.

In further monitoring of this, it can now be revealed that the costs for the energy firms to gain permission to force entry are set at £22 per warrant, with courts granting up to 1,000 at a time in hearings lasting only 20 minutes. Then customers can be charged up to £150 for having a prepayment meter force fitted, including £56 for the warrant application. One investigation revealed how one court—this was in the north of England—granted 496 warrants that allowed firms to force entry into homes in just three minutes and 51 seconds. 

I think there is a real civil justice issue when people's homes can be so readily and so easily entered, forcibly, and I think it is something that needs to be considered. Unfortunately, justice is not devolved, but I can give the Member every assurance that, in conjunction with the Minister for Social Justice who's been following this issue so closely, I will not only take this up with those particular energy companies as to what is going on and why the courts are being used, many often probably tens if not hundreds of miles from where people actually live, but this is something that I think we can validly take up, of significant concern, with both the justice Minister of the United Kingdom Government, and I think, also, with the Attorney General, just to examine and to consider the approach that the courts are adopting to basically receive spreadsheets of names and rubber stamp warrants en bloc. I think there are some very significant issues that need to be explored further, and I'm sure that we will seek to take that up in every way. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. 

The Senedd has already heard from Jack about how unfair forcible installation of prepayment meters are; I endorse his points wholeheartedly. Prepayment meters are disproportionately prevalent in the social housing sector, which means that tenants on some of the lowest income bands in the country are having to pay the highest energy tariffs. It's incredibly perverse that those with the least are being forced to pay the most for energy. This means that families in poverty have been forced to shiver through the recent cold spell because they cannot afford to put the heating on. It is an outrage. If we cannot protect our citizens in Wales from the predatory practices of energy companies, then we should make it a priority to win that right.

We have already seen that Westminster will not act against the energy companies. Whilst people struggle to heat their homes, suppliers are continuing to make record profits on the back of soaring energy bills. The staggering speed at which courts are issuing warrants, as you've mentioned, often in a matter of minutes at a minimal cost to the energy companies, gives next to no legal recourse for customers to challenge their decisions. This is exploitation on an industrial scale. There should be an immediate ban on such practices. I urge you to look at this matter to see if there is any way that we can curb the exploitation of our citizens at the hands of energy companies. Diolch. 

I thank the Member for those additional comments. Just for the record, I think there are approximately 200,000 households in Wales that have prepayment meters for their mains gas and electricity. The Member has made his comments very, very forcibly, which I think add to all the other comments that have been made, and I'm sure that we'll all want to work collectively across all political parties to see that this is looked into, and to see that people's rights and protections are properly supported. 

Thank you, Counsel General. The next topical question is to be asked by James Evans. 

Can I thank James Evans for that question? I've met with the WRU twice in the last two days on the immediate actions that it must take to address the allegations set out in this BBC investigation. 

I'd like to thank the Deputy Minister for your answer. I could have addressed this question to the Minister for Social Justice earlier as well. The recent and developing reports about the Welsh Rugby Union are deeply alarming. We've been told that, at the heart of the organisation, there is a toxic culture of sexism. We've heard allegations that a male employee made a comment in front of a senior member of staff about raping a female colleague. It's grotesque and it's unacceptable behaviour for anybody to make. As somebody who played rugby in a club that actively promotes and develops the women's game, and encourages young girls and women to play our national sport, it makes me sick to think that there are people who would foster a toxic culture like this within the WRU.

I want to applaud all those who have come forward to expose these deep-rooted problems within the union. It's obvious that there is need for immediate and transparent action to be taken to tackle these huge problems. There should be no hiding places for anybody who carries out this foul behaviour or for those who protect or condone it. Our society has no place for discrimination or violence against women. Minister, can you assure me and this Chamber that you're doing everything that you can to make sure that the administration of the Welsh Rugby Union does all that it needs to investigate these allegations, and make sure that you will hold the leadership of the Welsh Rugby Union accountable for the toxic environment that it has created at the heart of Welsh rugby?

Again, can I thank James Evans for those very powerful comments, which I would associate myself with? And can I start by making some general points in response? Firstly, the issues raised by the BBC investigation programme are without doubt devastating, and I would like to reiterate that we recognise the courage that it took to speak out after experiencing any form of harassment—to do that publicly on the programme that we saw, I think should be commended. Now, last year, as you know, as a Government, we published our national violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence strategy, which clearly sets out our ambitions to make Wales the safest place in Europe to be a woman, and that includes in the workplace. Now, the Welsh Government is not going to be a bystander to abuse, and we are committed to tackling harassment and bullying head on, because women and girls have the right to be safe in all aspects of their lives.

Now, on the specifics, as the First Minister stated here in the Chamber yesterday, we need to see urgent and transparent action that helps restore confidence in the WRU itself. And that requires public recognition on the part of the WRU of the scale and the nature of the issues that were aired in the television programme BBC Wales Investigates on Monday evening. Now, over recent days, I've been engaging with the WRU on the immediate actions that it must take to address these allegations and how it is providing a safe environment for its staff and wider stakeholders that is free from harassment and abuse of all kinds. I note the comments made by the chief executive in the media yesterday that they had fallen short in presenting Welsh rugby to the world and they are working on the necessary changes immediately to ensure that this is a sport that we can again all be proud of and that recognises the importance of gender equality and creating an environment that is free from abuse.

I met the chief executive again this morning, and I stated clearly our expectations for urgent action that will restore the trust of staff, players, supporters, parents and children in his organisation. I pressed for specific examples of what they are looking to implement to ensure the safety of those working for the WRU. And I was advised that these now include employing a people director, refreshing their HR policies, and staff engagement and equality training. Now, that is important, because, at the heart of the programme on Monday was the inequality faced by women, both in the WRU and within the women's game. And women should be able to go to work and engage in sporting activity free from harassment and abuse. Now, on the workplace issues themselves that were raised in the programme, I would say this: if an organisation does not have a problem with its culture, then complaints of this scale and nature would not come forward. And even if a formal process led by an external lawyer doesn't uphold a complaint, it doesn't mean that that incident didn't happen.

Now, what I have seen for myself is that the WRU has made positive recent progress in developing the women's game in Wales, with professional contracts for the national team, a newly formed development team and an under-18 regional competition, to outline just a few examples—all increasing the opportunities for women and girls in rugby. However, the WRU itself recognises that this follows years of inertia in developing the women's game, which is why it commissioned a review into the women's game a few years ago. There have been calls for this document to be made public; I support those calls, as I am of the firm belief that it is more damaging in the way it is being shrouded in secrecy than it is if that report was published. I have made that point to the chief executive this morning, and I have made that point to him previously in discussions with him. The WRU should, in the first place, make that document public and clarify how it responded to the review and how it is planning on further development of the women's game. I'm also aware that there have been calls for a Senedd committee inquiry, which I would of course also welcome.

Llywydd, this is a matter that I, as Deputy Minister for sport, take extremely seriously, and I will continue to press in the strongest possible way for the immediate and transformative reform of the WRU, an organisation that is at the heart of our nation's sporting, cultural and civic life. 

Minister, the programme broadcast this week was a very distressing programme, and we heard some very distressing testimony. And I think we should all join together to applaud and to commend the women who spoke out then, and also, of course, the journalists who have told this story and who brought this to our attention. 

To me, what this speaks of is not an individual HR issue, but a deep-rooted culture, and a culture that must change. And for all of us who have spent a lifetime supporting Welsh rugby at all levels, we want to see this change occur. And what I'm not interested in is hearing short-term, knee-jerk measures. I'm not interested in a short-term witch hunt; I'm interested in long-term, fundamental change, and long-term, fundamental cultural change. And I hope that Ieuan Evans will be leading that change, and what I will say is that the governance of the WRU needs to change, the culture of the WRU needs to change, and we need to ensure that the culture of rugby in this country is an inclusive culture and one which encourages women to be a fundamental part of it and doesn't force people out—that cannot be the case. 

And what I would say to the WRU—if you are unable or unprepared to lead this change, then change will be forced upon you. This is not something that a sticking plaster will repair. This is not something that can be brushed under the carpet, and this is not something that the media will move on from next week. This calls for fundamental cultural change. And my question to you, Minister, is this: what will the Welsh Government do to work with the WRU to ensure that this change happens, and how will we understand that that change has happened? Because what I don't want to see is simply a list of actions, and we'll have a Senedd inquiry this time next year or whatever—what I want to see is that change taking place. It's for the WRU to lead this change, and it's for the WRU to take responsibility for that change. And I hope that we can all rely on the WRU to understand where it is today. 

Thank you, Alun Davies, for those comments, and, again, I couldn't agree more with the issues that you raise. The need for cultural change is something that we know, in any organisation, is the most difficult thing to bring about. Cultural change takes time. It takes changes of not just policies, it takes changes of personnel, it takes changes of attitude, and it is rarely something that can happen overnight. But I can assure you that I have made it absolutely clear that that cultural change has to happen, because, at the moment, the way that things are perceived within the WRU is not in line with the values of this Government.

Now, as a Government, clearly, we do not run the WRU. We don't own the WRU. They are an independent business, and we must be clear about where the decisions about the game in Wales are taken. And they are not taken by Welsh Government. But the whole point, and I think the point that you were making, Alun, is that rugby union, and international rugby union in particular, is so fundamental to the culture of this nation that we have to have an organisation that espouses the values of this nation as well. And that has to be that everybody, whether they are playing, or whether they work in the organisation, is valued and treated with respect and dignity, and that they are valued. And that will be the measure that I will put on the change within the WRU.

Now, I'm aware, Llywydd, that, as I'm on my feet, and perhaps just before I came into the Chamber, there was a press conference taking place with the WRU and with Ieuan Evans, who I did meet for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. And I have to say, in that conversation that I had with him a couple of weeks ago, I was very impressed with his determination to drive change within the WRU. Now, I have not had the opportunity, unfortunately, to catch up with what he said in this press conference, but I would very much hope that that is what he has set out very clearly in light of what happened, which was aired in this BBC programme on Monday. 

Certainly, I would like to associate myself with all the comments made. The programme was a very difficult one to watch. It does raise questions, because we've rightly been proud of rugby as a national sport alongside football, and everybody should feel safe in the workplace, and they are absolutely abhorrent, those allegations. What has equally been abhorrent, in my view, has been the public statements to date from the WRU, which have not given me the assurances that they are taking this as seriously as they should. The fact also that there have been opportunities to address these concerns previously under the current leadership, but that hasn't seemingly happened, raises concerns in my view and does raise questions about the current leadership. 

I haven't had those discussions, as you have had to date, face to face with the WRU, but can I ask you: do you feel reassured that the WRU is taking these allegations seriously enough and taking decisive action? And do you feel, as I do by now, that there needs to be a change of leadership if these allegations are going to be addressed to the degree that they need to be addressed? 

Also, I am horrified, to be honest, that there still hasn't been a commitment to publish that report, despite you as Deputy Minister requesting that report. What has been the attitude when you have asked for that publication? Have you been given any assurances that the report will be made public?

Also, given that we do donate some public funds, make them available, to the WRU, and much of it is to make sure that the sport is more inclusive, including for women, how can we be giving public funds to a body where we certainly can't assure women that the environment they will face will be a safe one and that they'll be safe from misogyny and sexism? Is this something that you're currently reviewing as well, Minister?

Thanks, Heledd. Again, all very valid points that I would again associate myself with. The WRU has had the opportunity to address these issues over a period of time. The conversation I had with the chief executive this morning was that he set out to me a number of actions that the WRU has already taken. I told him in no uncertain terms that I felt that that needed to be far more explicit, that he needed to be public about what the WRU has done to address some of these issues, primarily in light of the report on the women's game. 

The discussions that I've had with him previously on the report into the women's game and why there was a failure to publish was primarily because the women who gave evidence to develop that report were given an assurance that their confidentiality would be respected and their identities would not be disclosed. He made it very clear to me that he felt that, had they not been given that assurance, many of those women would not have come forward. So, he felt that he had to honour that confidentiality. I understand that, and I've made it clear to him that I don't think anybody is looking to identify anybody who has given evidence to that report, and such a report could be published and redacted so that people are not identified, and that's what I've called on him to do. So, we will wait and see whether, in light of those discussions I've had—those further discussions I've had—around that area this week, that actually happens.

There is a new leadership within the WRU. I talked about Ieuan Evans earlier on. He's only been the chair of the WRU for the last couple of weeks or so. He certainly seemed to be saying all the right things when I met with him. I haven't heard what he said in the press conference today. But I think it is now incumbent upon the WRU to actually demonstrate what their commitment is to make the changes that both yourself and Alun Davies have already clearly set out. Certainly, from the programme that we saw, the impression was that that has not yet happened. I think it is now for the WRU to prove that it is happening, and what they are setting out to ensure that it does happen.

I don't doubt what you're saying about Ieuan Evans being an excellent individual, but I'm just wondering whether, on his own, he's going to be able to turn this around. Because it's over a year ago that Amanda Blanc warned in her resignation speech that there was a time bomb of sexism and racism in the WRU, which has now exploded. So, in the light of the damage done to Wales, to our reputation, as a result of this perfect storm, and inaction by the WRU, what consideration has the Minister given to having an independent regulator for all publicly funded sporting bodies in Wales, so the culture of sporting bodies marking their own homework ceases?

I heard that call for an independent regulator come from Tonia Antoniazzi in the programme. It's the first time I've heard that call made by anybody, so I would need to have some discussion with officials about what that might look like, how that would work in practice, what the legalities of that might be, how that would link in, for instance, with international bodies, because the national governing bodies of Wales don't stop in Wales; there are international rugby boards, there's UEFA for football, there's FIFA for football, there are international boards for all of our governing bodies. So, on the face of it, it's not as simple as it sounds. However, I do think there is something in there that we could look at, but I certainly can't make any commitments to that at this stage, because I think that does require some considerable investigation.

Llywydd, if you'll bear with me, I'm very conscious that I didn't answer one of the points that Heledd Fychan raised with me, which was about the public funding of the WRU. What I would say is that the Welsh Government clearly does have a long-standing financial relationship with the WRU, which is based on basically advancing public and economic objectives. And as one of our major partners, we have very, very clear expectations about what an organisation looks like and behaves like to be in receipt of public funds, and that that is something that we will be watching very, very carefully in future.

Sport Wales has recently developed, with the sector, a capability and governance guidance framework for all national governing bodies working in Wales, and that's been developed by the sector to help provide a supportive tool to help organisations across a range of sectors. Now, again, one of the things I will want to be speaking to the WRU about is whether they are taking all of that on board. It's a new set of guidance from Sport Wales, and I will be expecting the WRU to be complying with it.

I'm getting a bit fed up with standing up here talking about public bodies, sporting bodies, police, the fire, and talking about the culture that is underpinning them, of a systematic culture of misogyny, sexism in traditionally male-dominated areas. I'm getting a little bit tired of this.

The WRU has said it

'condemns the use of racist, homophobic or sexist language'. 

Well, prove it. Because they haven't proved it, and neither have all the other organisations proved it yet. So, I've got to say, I found its statement, in response to the allegations, arrogant and dismissive. I thought that they minimised and they were gaslighting, in a way that many women here will recognise today. Particularly dismissive was the WRU's response to my colleague Tonia Antoniazzi's comment, and the Gower MP rightly suggested an independent body be established to look at those complaints against sporting governing bodies in Wales. If we look at the fact that she mentioned racism in cricket, and we've seen that play out; if we look at British Gymnastics, and we've seen that play out, how many Ministers are going to stand up here and explain what these public bodies aren't doing, because that's the question here?

So, I think what we need to do is go a little bit further here. The structures are clearly not working, the people who have overall responsibility say they didn't know what was happening at the bottom of their organisation. They hadn't had a conversation. Well, they should have. So, we need to ensure, in public-sponsored bodies, with public money, that those structures are sufficient enough to do two things: one, to make sure that all parts of that organisation know what's happening in the other parts of that organisation; and the other thing is safe passage for whistleblowers, because that is the other really important thing here, and also to vet those people who are going to take part in those organisations and also the people who oversee it.

I don't want to be standing up here next week, and I'm sure nobody else does, when we get another story that's breaking and another story. So, let's just really get a hold of this because this is a disgrace to Wales—an absolute disgrace to Wales. And, you know, what will it be next week? And to say that they can't publish a report because they have given, rightly, an opportunity for people not to be named in that report, is just a disgrace, because they know full well that they could publish that report by simply removing those names. So, they're hiding behind it again. I actually think we need a root-and-branch change of those people who were in charge of the WRU by their performance so far.

Well, thank you, Joyce, and many of those points that you raise, I think I have covered in responses to previous questions, and, again, I don't disagree with an awful lot of what you say. We have a responsibility as a Welsh Government, certainly, to ensure that bodies that we are financially involved with and that we have financial partnerships with are complying with rules, behaviour and cultural values that support our own. And if that is not happening, then we need to review those relationships, and I think I was making that very clear in response to Heledd Fychan's question. And it is that kind of partnership arrangement that is important, because, again, as I said in reply to Alun Davies, the WRU is an independent organisation—they are not part of Welsh Government and we cannot force them to do the things that we may want them to do, but we can make very, very clear what our expectations are. I think I couldn't have been clearer with the WRU this week about what our expectations are and we will be monitoring that very, very closely, and I will be expecting to see some significant change and significant movement in the way that this organisation is run in the weeks and months ahead.

And finally on this topical question, Delyth Jewell.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Like everyone, the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee is aware of the allegations that have been made. Those allegations against the WRU are extremely serious. Worse than that, they are distressing, as we've heard. They've caused many people abject concern. I applaud the women who have come forward.

We, as a committee, are in agreement that anyone and everyone, regardless of their background, should be able to participate in sport without the fear of discrimination. No-one should ever be exposed to any form of prejudiced language or abuse, least of all in the place where they work, which is a place where everyone should be respected and treated equally. 

The committee is aware of the developments that have taken place since the programme was aired. We'll be continuing to monitor the situation closely over the coming days and the committee will be meeting formally next week to discuss this issue and, as part of those discussions, will consider any action we should take. In order to inform those discussions next week, Minister, I'd welcome confirmation—anything further to what you've already said—of any discussions you, as a Government, have had with the WRU, and I'd also like to know what, if any, options the Welsh Government is considering to bring about cultural change at the WRU, taking on board what you've already said this afternoon. Diolch yn fawr.

Yes, thank you, Delyth, and I think the intervention of the committee is very welcome and the support that the committee can offer here in terms of an inquiry to get beneath some of these issues, I think, would be very welcome and may be very, very helpful. But, again, I have to reiterate that I don't have the power or the authority to tell the WRU what they have to do. They are an independent organisation. What I can do is only reiterate what I have said previously, that I have left the WRU in absolutely no doubt whatsoever about what my expectations are for a major sporting governing body in Wales, what it should look like and how it should behave. And I would expect them to come back to me with their action plan very shortly, to set out exactly how they intend to tackle these issues.

I thank the Deputy Minister. The final topical question will be asked by Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Thank you for the question. The Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales and I met with the leader of the local authority this morning, once we were made aware of the deeply disappointing news. I recognise that it will be distressing for members of the workforce. Our officials are in contact with the company to try to understand the implications of the statement made today, and to offer any support we can to the workforce impacted by the announcement of the likely closure of the plant.

Thank you for that response. It's difficult to put in words how much of a blow this would be if the factory were to close. Over 700 people are working there, at the heart of Anglesey. A high percentage live very locally, close enough to walk to work. Losing those jobs would permeate through the whole community of Llangefni and beyond, and I'm thinking about everyone who has been impacted by this, the workers and their families, and, of course, I know many of them well.

A long list of reasons was given to me by the 2 Sisters chief executive for coming to this decision: Brexit, inflation, workforce shortages, COVID, energy prices. There were elements around the condition, the size, and the location of the factory itself too, he said. But, we can see that those overarching factors are ones directly under the control of UK Government, and we have to look to UK Government for a response here too. I've spoken to Isle of Anglesey County Council this morning. I know you've spoken with them too, and I look forward to all of us coming together in the coming days.

And, yes, we are calling for Welsh Government support in every way possible, seeking, of course, to avoid or minimise job losses, and thereafter, in the worst case, there will no doubt be an offer of a taskforce. The Prime Minister said this lunch time that the Department for Work and Pensions has procedures it can put in place. But, let's be quite straight here: with the scale of this, the timing, with a consultation to close in a matter of weeks, leaving hardly any time to seek alternatives, we're going to need a damn sight more than a taskforce and retraining for staff to look for other opportunities. We need jobs. We need investment in local businesses to grow in the food sector, in energy. We need support for businesses with energy costs. And we need the delivery of things that we've played our part in paving the way for as a community—in energy, the council and Stena's freeport bid. I will not accept the fate of Ynys Môn being just a holiday and retirement island. And that's not to knock tourism, which has a very important role to play, but a community totally reliant on that ceases to operate like a normal community.

But, at the heart of this are the people, my constituents, facing losing their work in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. So, will Welsh Government give that undertaking to support the workers and our community at this time, in every way, to provide support for families that will need it, and support for the council to deal with added pressure on services? And will Welsh Government work with and press on UK Government to address those issues that have proved to be so devastating here, and to co-operate to deliver solutions? This would be an appalling loss of jobs the day after workers were told, I understand, that all was good.

Thank you for the series of points made. I have the same understanding from conversations today that Brexit and the change in trading conditions is a material factor, as is inflation generally, and energy specifically. And, of course, there has been a change to the energy support for businesses, and that the increase in energy overheads is, again, a significant factor.

The point about investment in the site and, comparatively, the facility compared to other sites in the group is a matter for the business. They've made choices around site investment. But, all those points, Brexit, inflation and energy, are all matters where the UK Government have made choices, and they've been very clear, I think, that that's where they see the particular challenge.

You're right, though, that the nature and the way of the communication of the decision leaves a very, very short window. They've indicated that they expect to make a decision, and then if they're going to go ahead with the indication on closure, it would happen by the end of the financial year. That means that after the consultation is over there are literally a handful of weeks before that would happen. So, this is a very, very tightened timescale, and I'm concerned about a range of consequences from that. You're absolutely right; there are over 700 workers, many of whom are very, very local. What that means is that those people of working age don't have work, and the potential for people to stay on the island requires an economic future.

So, yes, I remain seriously interested in the work we will carry on doing to create a sustainable economic future for Anglesey and the immediacy of it. Because some of the things that we will talk about are thing that will happen in a period of years, not weeks. So, there's a challenge about what happens in the interim. So, yes, we will work with anyone and everyone to try to secure the best possible outcome. We want to see if it is possible to save the jobs. If it isn't possible to do that, what are the next-best alternatives? What will be the future of the site? What about the supply chain? These are all matters where there aren't answers now, but I'm more than happy to work with the Member and other elected representatives and the local authority in doing so, and that will mean working with the UK Government. We do need an honest reflection on why we're here and what it will require to try to maintain these jobs or have alternatives in terms of employment in the very near future.

Can I thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for submitting today's topical question? I'd like to echo the comments made by the Member for Ynys Môn. First and foremost, it's devastating news for residents on Ynys Môn, in particular in Llangefni as well, where, as we heard, there are 730 jobs at serious risk at the 2 Sisters Food Group there. It's extremely serious, especially in the context of a number of pressures on Ynys Môn at the moment.

Rhun ap Iorwerth rightfully highlighted a question being raised today with the Prime Minister by Virginia Crosby MP, and the response in terms of the commitment for DWP to provide those procedures and support where it can do that. But also, of course, there's a crucial role for the Welsh Government to play here. I certainly support the calls for that cross-governmental working, whether it's local government or UK, working, of course, with you here as the Welsh Government. So, I'd be keen to hear more about your expectations for how that might work in practice.

My question, Minister, is: of course, there are plans and there are investments and there are opportunities that you have already identified for Ynys Môn over the coming years; will you today commit to accelerate some of those investments and opportunities and plans in light of today's announcement and in light of other pressures that Ynys Môn is experiencing, so that those residents, those people who experience that potential job loss have the assurance that, on the very near horizon, there are some good opportunities lined up for them?

We'll work at the fastest pace possible to deliver economic benefit to not just Ynys Môn but to every community in Wales. What I can't do, though, is to try to say that, in the period of weeks that there is available to us, we can fast-forward all of those investments. Some of them just won't be ready. If you think about Menter Môn and the work they're doing, I think there's a great future on the island, but you can't pretend that work is going to be available at the start of April or indeed that the workforce that work at 2 Sisters are going to be able to take up all of those jobs.

There will be a need to think about the training and the skills requirements to actually think about all the different jobs that are available. So, I'm afraid that the ability to backfill 700 plus jobs in this sector in a matter of weeks isn't something, to be honest, for me to claim that I could do. What I will do, though, is I will carry on doing what I said in response to Rhun ap Iorwerth, that is working with every partner to understand not just what has happened and why, but to make the case in the first instance to see if we can support and keep the jobs—that's the first line—and then if that isn't possible, what comes next, how do we work with the community, how do we work with our stakeholders.

It's a positive that the Member of Parliament raised this in House of Commons with the Prime Minister, but you actually need more than just raising the issue. You need to see what steps the business is prepared to take and what steps the UK Government is prepared to take. Because on the trading terms with the European Union, there was a choice made about that—a clear-sighted choice. On some of the challenges around inflation, on some of the challenges around the change to the energy support, these are active choices that were made and have real-terms consequences that we are seeing today, I'm afraid.

I was devastated to have a phone call at 9 o'clock as well from residents in Anglesey. I've been talking, obviously, with you, Minister, and I've also been talking with Unite the Union, who've been having talks as well with the workforce. I need to declare also that I am a member of Unite the Union. I should have declared that earlier as well when I had questions to the Minister for Social Justice. So, apologies for that.

The factory employs a lot of local people, as the local Member said, but also people in Bangor and Caernarfon as well, and people from eastern Europe, India and Africa that come and make their home at Bangor as well. I know when we were campaigning around the 2 Sisters factory in Flintshire, when it came to Brexit as well, people were there campaigning for Brexit, but they were saying then that, you campaign for this and the impact on workers coming from eastern Europe might mean that factory would close in the future, because they're propping up those jobs for local people as well.

These possibly 730 jobs are low-paid workers, and for me, I know it's been raised about providing industry and further work, but I'm really concerned about families, about the impact on the mental health and well-being, on the children, and everything for these low-paid workers. So, do Anglesey council need money to help currently to deal with this situation? I know you said the DWP will work with them, but you know, social security isn't very good through the DWP. Universal credit takes, what, six weeks before it gets through. They're going to need immediate and very quick help.

So, what can be done? I heard that there is a taskforce being set up, and I'd like to be a member of that as well, working with Unite the Union and the local Member, but they will need this immediate help, because they won't have money saved up. They won't have backup. So, just what you can do on that, please, Minister.

Thank you, and thank you for contacting me this morning. I should make this clear, Dirprwy Lywydd: when redundancy events take place, it is often the case there has been a conversation with the council, with other support officials, with Business Wales, sometimes the development bank, sometimes directly with teams of Welsh Government officials, in this case Lesley Griffiths in her role as Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales. The food division have contacts with this sector, and of course, during the pandemic, I spent more time than I'd wish to finding out more about this particular sector, because there were COVID outbreaks, and we looked at some of the challenges. So, the company are aware of the existence of the Welsh Government, the fact that we've been actively engaged around this company, and they knew how to contact people in both the food division and the economy department. What hasn't happened is there wasn't contact with the Welsh Government. The news this morning was a surprise. There was no prior warning or engagement with us.

I did take a call from Unite the Union about what was likely to happen today, and they are obviously concerned about the direct loss of jobs that is signalled in the announcement. They are concerned about the health impact on their members of a large-scale redundancy event. There is almost always a health consequence for the workforce and the surrounding community. They're concerned about what the redundancy terms will be, and the room that may or may not provide people to deal with both the shock of the loss of employment with the final pay packet, and the opportunities that do or don't exist to seek further work. There are broader points about the supply chain and all those other people who will be affected by the closure: how genuine is the consultation, or not? What will be the future of the site, as well—a significant site in terms of its scale—and what might happen there if 2 Sisters go ahead with their closure? They're all points where we don't have answers yet. They're all points that we do need to work together on. I am grateful for the constructive approach taken by both Unite the Union and the council, and I'll look for a proper and constructive response from the company. I will of course work with elected representatives from across the political spectrum to try to get the best possible outcome for the workforce that are there and the surrounding community.

And finally, Jenny Rathbone.

I completely agree it's a disaster for the 730 staff who are employed there, but I think we have to ask some hard questions about this company as well, because in the past, as you said, Minister, there has been a serious outbreak of COVID, and eight years ago there were serious allegations of breaches of environmental health standards, which, when investigated by the Food Standards Agency, were not found to be correct. But when you're looking at what has happened and why, I wondered if you will investigate to make sure that this is a company that has maintained adequate workplace terms and conditions as well as adequate environmental health standards, because clearly those things would need rectifying if the company is to have any really substantive future.

The company has a significant footprint, and, of course, there's a significant site in north-east Wales. So, this is a company with a footprint across north Wales and beyond. One of the issues that the company have indicated has led to their likely closure decision, which they're formally consulting on and which they've announced today, is that the other sites have been invested in and have a different ability to them and a different capacity. That's a choice the company are making about how to invest, and that's one of the factors that goes into the choice. We will, of course, look to see what is happening on the site when trying to understand if it's possible to maintain the employment where it is, and if not we'll need to understand what alternative uses exist, and for those other sites that still exist and still employ significant numbers of people—I think there are about 1,000 workers on the site in north-east Wales—around what will the conditions be there. So, it's not just the picture in Llangefni, there is a broader picture, but understandably, the focus must remain on the Llangefni site, on the workforce, the impact on the community and the broader economy on the island and in north-west Wales.

Thank you, Minister.

We move on now to item 5, which is the 90-second statements. First, Samuel Kurtz. 

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Last week, ColegauCymru and the Construction Industry Training Board signed a long-awaited and eagerly anticipated co-operation agreement at Pembrokeshire College. The agreement is set to strengthen the relationship between the representatives of further education colleges in Wales and the representatives of the construction industry, a recognition that both organisations have a common interest in supporting the construction industry by facilitating apprenticeships and developing employers, young people and adult learners. Both organisations are not just committed to excellence but are striving to ensure that learners receive the correct training and skills required by industry priorities. Indeed, a great example of where further education colleges and CITB work together for the benefit of learners, employers and the wider Welsh economy is the Inspiring Skills Excellence in Wales programme, which raises awareness of vocational education and training and career pathways that will impact positively on Welsh businesses. As part of its programme, last week, Pembrokeshire College hosted over 70 learners from across Wales to compete in the first heat of the Skills Competition Wales. The competition covered 11 trades within the construction area and was attended by several local construction companies, including W.B. Griffiths and Son, Carreg Construction, CITB and Dyfed Training Group. I would like to congratulate all learners who took part and wish them the very best as they make their way through the competition. Diolch yn fawr.

I want to take the opportunity to congratulate O Ddrws i Ddrws, a community transport charity on the Llŷn peninsula, for providing 20 years of service to residents in the area. O Ddrws i Ddrws was incorporated in 2003, and since then it has carried hundreds of passengers on thousands of necessary journeys, from medical appointments, shopping locally or visiting loved ones, to getting to school, college or to work. Now the charity provides a well-being service, Lôn i Les, and is innovating in sharing and charging electric vehicles, Gwefryl, and the Flecsi Llŷn service, which provides public transport on demand during the summer months, too. Our thanks is great to all the volunteers and staff who have contributed to the charity over the years—trustees, administrators and drivers, and those funding. Their generosity is testament to the ongoing need for the crucial work that is delivered by this charity. Without O Ddrws i Ddrws services, community life and practical independent living without access to private transport would be impossible in Llŷn. So, I thank them for their work and on to the next 20 years.

This week is Cervical Cancer Prevention Week, and the charity Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust have launched their biggest campaign yet, the campaign to end cervical cancer. Around 160 cases are diagnosed annually, and it's the most common form of cancer for women under 35. But, here in Wales, we have the tools to make cervical cancer a thing of the past: a wide-ranging HPV vaccination programme, highly effective colposcopy and cervical screening services. Regular screening alone can reduce risk by up to 70 per cent. We're preventing more cases of cervical cancer than ever, but we also face barriers, including inequity in access and falling uptake. The impact of the pandemic has also been significant and work is needed to remedy this. The possibility of consigning a cancer to the history books is an exciting one, and one that we should embrace and be motivated by. To get there, we must tackle the issues of today, and look to programmes of the future. The latest report from Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust highlights the barriers and opportunities to eliminate cervical cancer. This Cervical Cancer Prevention Week, I would encourage everyone to take up their HPV vaccines and cervical screening, and to contact Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust for information and support. Together, we can eliminate cervical cancer.  

Thank you to the three Members. 

The next item is a motion to elect a Member to a committee, and I call on a member of the Business Committee to formally move the motion. Darren Millar.  

I move. 

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

Item 6 is next this afternoon: debate on a Member's legislative proposal—a Bill on digital carbon footprint reduction, and I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion. 

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd. Well, this is a debate about the relationship between the digital world and the world around us, on the interaction that happens between our use of digital technology and our concerns about climate change. Let me say right at the outset that, as chair of the cross-party group on digital, I'm eager to see us make more use of digital platforms, to improve our digital skills, and to build new platforms. These, I think, will enrich us in so many ways, creating economic opportunities, improving our health, strengthening our language, everything, including helping us to tackle the climate crisis. Through digital technology, we can manage our use of energy better, and that's how we model effective ways of producing green energy, and we can plan less harmful ways of travelling around, and that happens through digital technology and so forth. 

But—and this is what I am submitting today—we need to gain a greater realisation that that use of digital technology in itself produces a carbon footprint. I bring this up because of the very interesting discussion that we had on this issue at the last meeting of the cross-party group on digital. And what we heard in that discussion was that that carbon footprint can be a very, very large one, if we are not careful. And I came to this conclusion: as well as developing practical ways to be more effective in our use of digital, we could also be thinking now about whether there is scope for new legislation.

The proposal itself outlines the type of Bill that I believe could be worth considering, and I ask you to support it in terms of its current content, or in terms of the principle that we have to think along these lines now, in order to be in a strong position to deal with some of the challenges that are only going to pile up if we don't address them. And by the way, I am aware that the Welsh Government is aware of these challenges and is tackling them in several ways—I don't believe that officials and so forth are blind to these challenges. Bodies like the Centre for Digital Public Services work in this area. However, the challenges somehow need to be better understood by more people. 

Many do not understand that the everyday decisions that they make have an environmental impact. How much electricity can be used, or how much of a carbon footprint could be created in connection with sending an e-mail? Well consider how many billions of e-mails are sent. Perhaps the text of the occasional e-mail raises the temperature in your office, but consider the fact that storing the data in that e-mail contributes to the heating of machines in data centres, and that the environmental cost of cooling those data centres becomes greater and greater. Consider that including an attachment to that e-mail greatly increases the need for data storage space, and that a decision to send a link could reduce the carbon footprint. Legislation requiring an assessment of the carbon footprint of using digital resources in an organisation could lead to improving good practices within those organisations.

Also, given that many of us are drowning in a tidal wave of junk, or at least unnecessary e-mail communications, what if legislation of that type could lead to fewer e-mails being sent, improving the environment and our own productivity as a workforce at the same time?   

In case the message isn't clear enough: sending an A4 letter emits about 25g of carbon dioxide; an e-mail with an attachment is 50g—double—and without an attachment, 0.3g. And e-mails and attachments account for 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. So, think carefully about the content of the e-mail or the attachment, or even about sending the e-mail at all. I find the prospect of becoming more productive by thinking more environmentally to be something quite exciting.

And decisions we can all take involve much more than how many e-mails we send. Do we take a photo or a video on our phones? A photo takes up less storage space. How long do we store that data for? Do we take dozens of pictures at a time and never purge our albums? That has an impact. Not much if we break it down as individuals, but that's the whole thing about tackling climate change; it’s the collective.

One expert in this field from the M-SParc science park on Ynys Môn suggested to me that you can look at it in terms of our digital consumption and digital retention. We need to think about how much we consume in the first place—how much storage space we need to create for that video or that file or that e-mail or whatever, and then the extent to which we make long-term use of that storage space by not having good housekeeping measures in place to delete things in good time. Again, legislating to mandate assessments of digital carbon footprints of storage, for example, for any organisation could encourage that good practice. We can't just be hoarders of digital content and think there's no consequence to that.

And of course there's space that we absolutely need to use up. The development of new artificial intelligence models—hugely intensive in computing power and data storage space. But, we need to be doing that, so we need to shed more of the unnecessary stuff, but we also need to be less carbon-intensive in the way that data centres are run to store that data. Many will need to move to places where it's colder. Shifting into night-time use will save on energy costs but won’t help the environment, but shifting to powering from renewable sources does address that. And there’s a potential for Wales with our abundance of renewable energy there. At the same time, we need to learn the lessons of countries like Ireland, who face growing concerns over the amount that renewable energy data centres are consuming. Again, legislation could help focus minds.

I really could go on, but I'll stop there for now. I think I'm right in saying that this is the first time we’ve had this kind of debate on this kind of topic, and I look forward to Members’ contributions, as we try to give this issue much more prominence, and hopefully, get some legislation behind it, too.

I would really like to thank our colleague Rhun ap Iorwerth for bringing forward this legislative proposal today, and I'm very pleased to be giving it my support. Of course, as our party's shadow Minister for climate change, we think that it's vital that we do embrace new technologies for the way that they can enhance our emission reduction systems, and this is something that Wales can take the lead on. Research by the International Energy Agency shows that 60 per cent of all low-carbon energy patents across the past five years have been connected to fuel switching and energy-efficient technologies, and this proposal for a Bill on digital carbon footprint reductions can be the key to doing exactly that.

Part (a) aims to

'respond to the need to be more efficient in our use of digital in Wales, as part of the effort to reach net zero, specifically in relation to the use of energy to run digital platforms'.

More clearly needs to be done by the Welsh Government in accelerating our use of green digital infrastructure. When we have so much technology at our fingertips now, the sources powering it have to be made as clean and renewable as possible.

Part (b) seeks to

'include a strategy to deal with data that is created, stored and processed in a more energy efficient way'.

And I completely agree: there has to be a more co-ordinated and joined-up approach to data management. This will not just benefit decarbonisation, but it will help in other sectors such as our health service, education and other departments.

I note, in particular, part (c), which aims to support the development of a green data sector in Wales. This seems to be a marvellous opportunity to provide a boost for home-grown green jobs in Wales. It would complement new offshore renewable projects such as tidal lagoons and windfarms, which we highlighted in our Welsh Conservative debate last week. The education and training opportunities, especially for our young people, would provide a significant incentive to build a career in a skilled, high-paying job right here in Wales.

And finally, part (e) seeks to

'encourage innovation to help decarbonise and reach national net-zero objectives'.

I agree, and I hope that this can be done on a UK-wide basis, bringing together the brightest and the best scientific minds from right across the country. The UK Government's Advanced Research and Innovation Agency, or ARIA, is a good example of this. This was set up to explore the enormous scientific opportunities of groundbreaking discoveries. The investments in data and technology that we make now have the potential to provide enormous economic return in the years and decades to come. Ultimately, if we can improve digital connectivity and infrastructure right across Wales, there is absolutely no reason why this technology cannot be applied to monitoring our climate change commitments. For the sake of future generations, it's a task that we must not fail on. I have no hesitation in supporting Rhun and this legislative proposal whatsoever. Diolch yn fawr.

I'd like to thank Rhun ap Iorwerth for bringing this Member's legislative proposal to the Chamber today. I think this is an opportunity to discuss an issue that many aren't aware exists in this ever-expanding digitised world. When we think about reducing our carbon footprint, there is often an assumption that going online acts as a sustainable alternative to combat our environmental impact, for example, by working from home instead of driving your car to work, or by going paperless to save trees, while storing all the information and data in the cloud. When we send an e-mail, we don't necessarily think about how that e-mail is being stored and what impact that storage is having on the environment.

But the reality is that data centres, which is what I'm going to focus on today, are physical buildings that require mass amounts of energy to store data. They are in use 24/7 and require a constant temperature of 12 degrees Celsius so that they do not destroy any data that is stored in them. They also require more energy and water to prevent the deterioration of servers, which is why research shows that data centres use nearly 3 per cent of the world's electricity consumption and account for 2 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. This is enough energy to power entire countries and emissions comparable to the entire global airline industry.

So, there is no doubt that this is creating an impact on our carbon footprint. We cannot have a situation where we replace one polluter with another, and, as Janet Finch-Saunders said, it's not all bad, we need this, absolutely, but we must be honest about the realities of data centres and put infrastructure in place that deals with sustainable methods such as green data centres before it is too late, and we heard some other suggestions from Rhun just now.

Companies such as Microsoft, Switch and other data process and storage companies must work to seek green innovations to maximise energy efficiency. There are good examples of this from reducing cooling with AI to using small numbers of servers when there is low traffic of data. I would also argue that any new data centres in Wales should not be built on greenfield sites.

In November 2021, I wrote to Welsh Government to ask them for their assessment of the environmental impacts of data centres. At the time, the Welsh Government stated that it had not taken an assessment and would continue to engage with other nations and their findings as more evidence emerged. I hope that, with the work going into the Wales data nation accelerator, where public services may rely on this collection and storage of data, the Welsh Government considers this growing evidence and that we do not generate unnecessary negative impacts on our environment. So, therefore, as a fellow chair of the cross-party group on digital rights and democracy, I will be supporting your Member's legislative proposal this afternoon, Rhun. Diolch.

Thank you, Rhun, for raising this important debate today. I fully support the proposals of this Bill, and I believe that we need to be much more forward thinking in our approach to policy that helps reduce our carbon footprint in technological areas, especially as we will be relying more heavily on digital data going forward into the future. It is only right that we put legislation into place that helps ensure that we are as efficient as possible with using and storing data and we have protocols in place, particularly within public bodies, to better share and remove data that is no longer needed.

As you may all recall, I recently spoke in the Chamber about dark data, and the truth is that, whilst we are investing huge sums of money to reduce carbon in industry, encouraging people to change behaviour, as well as changing the ways we heat our home and travel around, we are not actually addressing the elephant in the room—namely, we are adopting practices and embracing technological advances in our lives that are resulting in even more carbon dioxide being produced. For instance, nearly every mobile phone has a camera, which allows us to take movies and photos in a way we couldn't 10 years ago. We use apps that create data for fun, and we end up storing huge amounts that will never, ever be used again. Whilst I recognise that we should be doing everything we can to improve data storage and use in areas that we can influence, the inconvenient truth is that significant amounts of data will be produced in Wales and held on servers globally, and thus we are contributing to a production of carbon dioxide in places that we have no control over. For instance, data from our Apple phones is held in data centres in the US. We receive huge numbers of e-mails each day advertising promotions that we'll never, ever read, and these are held on servers in other countries that have to be powered and, more crucially, have to be cooled. We must also recognise the scale of this problem. Globally, more than half of all businesses have data that exists in a dormant or unused state, and it is estimated that 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be produced annually just by storing this data, and this will never be used.

I finally want to say that, in terms of a Bill on digital carbon footprint, we also need to think about how we contribute to our global carbon emissions from data produced in Wales and stored abroad, and this will come from improving our understanding of how data flows through organisations and by creating policies that ensure our companies in Wales have processes in place that improve the visibility of dark data and better control our data storage. These policies then can also help companies and organisations to further comply with data privacy laws, such as the general data protection regulation. It is right that we introduce this legislation as soon as possible and that Wales makes a valuable contribution, because it is estimated that the amount of dark data stored worldwide will more than quadruple by 2025 to 91 ZB, which more than highlights the challenges ahead of us. Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I would urge all Members here to support this motion. Thank you.

I call on the Minister for Economy, Vaughan Gething.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and thank you to the Member for raising the important issues in today's debate and proposal. We all know and agree that the use of digital data and technology is essential in providing opportunities that benefit people, communities, public services and businesses. We also know that our increasing reliance on digital can increase carbon emissions through the energy used in processing and storing large amounts of data and running digital platforms and technology—most Members have referred to this in their contributions.

I recognise the Member's policy intent in the motion and agree with its sentiment. In fact, the Member, in opening, recognised that an amount of work is already taking place in this field. However, including it in the Welsh Government legislative timetable would be a genuine challenge, as it is already under considerable pressure and may face more, depending on external events.

Our 'Digital strategy for Wales' already articulates how digital can actually help to reduce carbon emissions overall and achieve our net-zero ambitions by designing public services effectively, using data smartly and openly, and modernising technology. And of course, our future generations Act places a responsibility on public bodies to put sustainability at the heart of all policy decisions, and that includes investment in digital and data.

From a public sector perspective, as was acknowledged, the Centre for Digital Public Services is supporting organisations to develop effective digital services centred around the needs of users. That means using technology more efficiently, minimising carbon usage and reducing the need for travel. The centre recently undertook a discovery exercise and made recommendations on how digital can help towards net zero. They include the importance of measuring the carbon footprint of services and moving to shared services and platforms. The centre also recommends building sustainability into digital procurement. Social value is increasingly becoming part of the evaluation criteria for procurement, and that includes sustainability considerations. The centre is working on next steps to ensure delivery against these important recommendations.

A key ambition in our digital strategy is providing improved digital services through better and ethical use of data. Common use of agreed standards is vital to achieving this. By ensuring that data is easily accessible and published openly, or shared securely, we can minimise duplication of data and its storage, one of the key points made by the Member. This reduces both costs and carbon footprint. Openly reporting on the environmental performance of services also ensures accountability and transparency of energy use.

As we know, data is needed for almost everything at this point, and will be more so in the future. Data centres, as mentioned by Sarah Murphy, play a critical role in storing the data, software and hardware that underpin the services that we all use. They're integral to the delivery chain and are, of course, consumers of energy and power. There is, of course, a major responsibility on companies to reduce the carbon impact of the data that they hold. We know that the industry is taking this seriously and is reducing power consumption, switching to renewable and low-carbon energy sources and driving efficiencies, including, of course, the use of excess heat, and, again, Sarah Murphy mentioned this in her contribution.

In Wales, this is happening too. We expect to see more data centres in Wales in the future and want them to be built to current and future environmental standards. Our emissions reduction plan, Net Zero Wales, sets ourselves ambitious national targets. It highlights the role that digital infrastructure can play in decarbonisation, as well as decarbonising the energy supply itself. To support our ambitions, we'll publish the net-zero skills plan shortly; that will set out our commitment to net-zero skills by investing in people and talent as crucial drivers towards a stronger, fairer, greener economy. Digital skills will be one of the cross-cutting themes.

Our innovation strategy will also enable the Welsh Government to address carbon measurement and highlight the use of digital tools in helping us to fully understand the impact we have on carbon reduction. As I've said, I recognise that there is, of course, a digital footprint, and that footprint has a carbon footprint.

I do want to thank the Member for the way in which he opened the debate, in recognising that we are taking action, and the cross-party group is broadly supportive of the digital strategy. But there is both the carbon footprint to digital activity, which is real, but also, as has been highlighted, a real lack of awareness that there is a carbon footprint to digital activity. Part of our challenge is what we can do to both raise awareness and action to address that.

Now, I'm not convinced that extra legislation is the answer. However, there is always a balance as to when legislation can and may not deliver the policy progress that we all agree upon. So, I look forward to the Member further developing the proposal. The Welsh Government will not oppose the proposal today; we will abstain and Welsh Government-supporting backbenchers will have a free vote. I think there is more for us to discuss about the proposals that have been outlined today, practical action, and our willingness to actually consider that in the future.

I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much to everyone who's participated in this debate, which I think has been important in terms of raising awareness among people who perhaps hadn't thought about the issue before and reinforcing the fact that we, as a Senedd, are willing to take steps to try to respond to a problem that will only get worse. I recognise that the Minister has yet to be convinced that that has to include legislation, and perhaps it doesn't have to include legislation, but the fact that we are willing to consider legislation as one of the options does mean that we are at less of a risk of being in a position where we realise in years to come that we should have taken the issue more seriously. It's good to hear Members from the Labour and Conservative back benches reinforcing what I had to say in my contribution. There is clear agreement that there is an issue here that needs to be addressed.

There are two issues at play here. It's about using digital for greening, which is really important, as has been acknowledged here. Digital is the key to everything that we need to do to improve our actions in tackling climate change, but, at the same time, it's the greening of digital that we have to pay attention to. I'll keep on looking at the options for legislation and, hopefully, a positive vote today, which I'm fairly confident that we can get, will be a sign that that is very much something that we want to keep on the agenda as a Parliament. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

The proposal is to note the proposal. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is objection. Voting is therefore deferred until voting time.

We move now to item 7, the debate on the Culture, Communications, Welsh, Sport and International Relations Committee report, 'Increasing costs: Impact on culture and sport', and I call on the Chair of the committee to move the motion. Delyth Jewell. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I move the motion on behalf of the committee.

It is my pleasure to open the debate today about the report by the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport and International Relations Committee on the impact of increasing costs on culture and sport. I would like to thank everyone who took part in this inquiry and who shared their experiences with us as a committee. This includes the significant number of written responses that we received. That demonstrates how concerned many stakeholders are about the impact of the cost of living on their work. I would also, of course, like to thank the members of the committee and our support staff for their work.

Culture and sport are especially vulnerable to the problems caused by higher living costs. Participation in activities has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. This is harming income in these sectors, meaning that many people—often the most disadvantaged—are missing out on the physical, mental and social benefits associated with taking part. And as we heard, sport and culture are not luxury items; instead, they are the things that give purpose to people's lives, things that bring happiness. The loss is not just a financial one.

But the financial landscape for these sectors is a cause for concern. Venues in these sectors are often energy intensive and operate on the basis of very narrow profit margins. Swimming pools, for instance, are expensive to heat, and face rising costs in other areas, such as the cost of cleaning chemicals. Higher costs and lower income mean that venues like this are at risk of permanent closure. And once they have closed, they are unlikely to reopen.

And the problems are serious with culture too. The arts council said in September that

'the crisis facing the sector is as great as at any time over the last two years.'

These sectors were under threat of permanent and widespread closure of venues during the pandemic. Rapid action and funding from the Welsh Government during the COVID period of over £140 million prevented that from happening. Our point as a committee is that this money will have been wasted if these venues were to be closed now.

We have called for additional targeted funding to offer a lifeline to venues that may close permanently in the coming months, but would probably otherwise have a long and sustainable future ahead of them. The Welsh Government says it that has accepted our key recommendation for additional funding for these sectors; that's to be welcomed, but the amount that is being provided unfortunately is a fraction of what the sector has called for.

The Deputy Minister has referred to £3.75 million in additional funding for culture and sport during the 2022-23 financial year. Of course, additional funding is to be welcomed, but this can be compared to the £5 million to £10 million for the arts alone that the arts council has called for. It would be good to know how much of the £3.75 million that the Deputy Minister referred to was for pay awards in these sectors.

The Welsh Government told us during the inquiry that

'growth in energy costs, coupled with rising inflation, pose risks to individuals, households, businesses, organisations and sectors not seen since the Second World War.'

But our view as a committee is that the nature of its response does not match this description. The Welsh Government was deservedly praised by the cultural sector for the speed of its response to COVID-19. Thus far, however, its response to the impact of increasing costs on culture and sport has failed to match the severity of the crisis. The pandemic was a universal problem that required sector-specific responses. The same is true of the cost-of-living crisis, and unfortunately, the situation has deteriorated since our report was published.

Reductions in the support available for energy bills from the UK Government in January 2023 have exacerbated concerns about business closures across the culture and sports sectors. UK Active said that the Government's new energy bill reduction scheme fails to give thousands of swimming pools, leisure centres and gyms the support that they need to avoid further restrictions on services, centre closures and job losses. Music Venue Trust said that venues, along with the entire hospitality sector, have been placed in a general category of support that is so inadequate that it will inevitably lead to the permanent closure of venues.

We have started to see troubling signs that we could see venues closing permanently and on a large scale very soon. In Cardiff, this relates to the future of St David's Hall and the Museum of Cardiff; and Powys County Council has only just avoided closing swimming pools temporarily in response to the energy crisis. One of the most popular petitions in Wales at the moment is calling for direct funding to support swimming pools and leisure centres during the energy crisis. Of course, in November, UK Active warned that 40 per cent of council areas were at risk of losing their leisure centres and swimming pools within five months, or seeing their services being reorganised or closed.

So, unfortunately, the landscape is not a pleasant one; it is not an easy one to discuss, but we need to discuss it. I look forward, therefore, to hearing the comments of other Members, and of course, the Deputy Minister. And I hope that we can offer some hope in these very dark times.

I'd also like to thank, as Delyth Jewell has, stakeholders from the sports and cultural sectors in Wales for giving their time to the committee and setting out the key issues that they face. 

A number of things struck me as we were gathering evidence for the report, including a huge range of problems that these sectors are facing. For example, we received evidence that showed that rises in wages were a big factor in staff turnover, as well as the affordability of keeping staff. So, it's clear that we must, again, rely on volunteers to help keep our vibrant culture sector going. I'm a big believer in volunteering, but think that giving them more burden without a solid support is not the way to go. So, it would be good to hear from the Deputy Minister what the Welsh Government is doing to ensure that people who follow careers in this area are encouraged, but also what support, additionally, over and above that, is provided to volunteers as well.

There is also the issue of preparedness. The funding from Welsh Government in recent years hasn't taken into account rises in costs before the pandemic. That's something that we heard from the witnesses that came before us. Clearly, cultural and sporting venues have been supported throughout the pandemic by the Welsh Government and the UK Government, but there has been a sense that their long-term funding is unknown, and short-term support, as outlined by the Deputy Minister in her response to the committee, won't help in that regard. So, surely we should be looking further down the road and making sure that these vital community resources are protected and nurtured. And I do feel the concerns outlined by stakeholders when they say, and I quote,

'The sector is financially fragile—lots of late bookings, lack of public confidence and cash, high numbers of no-shows so no secondary income on bars etc.'

That fragility, alongside rising energy costs, is causing venues to raise their prices, which, in turn, is pricing many individuals and families in Wales out of enjoying the arts and cultural sector, which then becomes a vicious cycle.

Dirprwy Lywydd, the really concerning part of the evidence we received was from Sport Wales, where they noted that two in five people's ability was negatively impacted by rising costs and that 30 per cent were saying that they were less active as a result. That should send alarm bells ringing right across Welsh Government departments, especially because of a focus on reducing obesity, as well as the value of sport in preventing long-term health conditions.

Turning to the Welsh Government's reply, I also welcome that the Deputy Minister has accepted all but two of the recommendations. However, I'm really interested that the Deputy Minister has accepted recommendation 4 about providing capital funding for the sport and culture sector on greening their energy consumption, but in her response she mentioned that this would be provided through the unhypothecated capital grant funding given to councils. And she said that this funding

'may be used to support sports and social facilities by Local Authorities in this way if Authorities consider it is appropriate to do so.'

For me, I feel that's a little bit of a get-out clause, as local authorities will have, obviously, competing priorities, and making sure sporting and cultural venues are energy efficient may not necessarily be top of that list. This was a point that Community Leisure UK Wales made very well in their evidence to the committee, so I'd be very interested to learn how this acceptance by the Deputy Minister does pan out over the years to come.

I'm also disappointed to see from the recommendations that the Welsh Government wasn't interested in opening dialogue with the UK Government on sporting and cultural packages of support, because I think that's a missed opportunity. For example, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the UK Parliament were calling for value-added tax relief in November, which could really help live music and heritage sectors in Wales, including for building restorations and ticket sales. Also, we learned how important the cultural recovery fund was to many in the Welsh arts sector, and we need to ensure that that is built upon.

There seems to be a bit of a theme here. The other recommendation the Deputy Minister also declined was about improving engagement with the cultural sector. So, it looks like the Welsh Government perhaps doesn't play well with others, and that it's a one-way relationship. If the record of engagement with these sectors is, as you say, Deputy Minister, exemplar, then why is that recommendation included in the first place in the committee's report?

It's not just a call to ensure that our culture is protected, but, logically, it's a part of our economy too. It's a great pity that the Welsh Government missed out on huge economic opportunities, such as bidding for Eurovision and the Commonwealth Games, which would have showcased our talent on an international stage. So, to conclude, it should be incumbent on you as a Minister and us as Senedd Members to represent how important Wales's rich culture and sporting pride is, especially when it comes to keeping them going. Instead, what we shouldn't be guilty of is watching on from the sidelines rather than tackling the key issues that face these sectors. Thank you.

Like others, I'd like to start my contribution this afternoon by thanking those people who gave evidence to the committee, and thanking the committee secretariat for the work they've done in producing this report. I think the report is very timely. It deals with some of the more fundamental issues that we face as a country, and, like Tom Giffard, I'm very grateful to the Minister for accepting all but two of our recommendations. In many ways, the committee report states what we already know—it states the obvious that costs have increased—and we've seen the impact of those increases in costs, and we can describe in different ways how those cost increases have affected arts, culture and sport in our own constituencies. But I want to make a somewhat different point this afternoon.

Whilst it's fair to argue that increased costs have similar impacts across the face of the country—the increased costs of electricity are the same here as they would be in Blaenau Gwent—what I would argue, though, is that the impact on people and places is different. If a Government's response is simply to treat all places and people equally, then they're not addressing the real issues that affect people in different parts of the country. We had a conversation in topical questions about the nature of equality in rugby, but the point I want to make this afternoon is that there's an important and fundamental nature of equality in all that we do in terms of arts, culture and sport, and that at the moment, I believe that we are failing the basic test of equality. 

We had a conversation with the Minister last week over the Welsh Government's budget, and the Minister made the correct and clear case that it is a matter for different bodies, such as Sport Wales and the Arts Council of Wales, to distribute funding according to the remit letter that is set for them, and that the remit letter covers the next five years. I accept and I agree with that, and that is the correct answer to the question, but it misses the point. Because the Government has a responsibility in setting out that remit letter, so that the constituents I represent in Blaenau Gwent, and that, in fact, she represents in Merthyr, are treated equally as the people represented here by—Jenny Rathbone always catches my eye as I look across the Chamber, and I don't mean to pick on you, Jenny—but the people Jenny represents in the centre of Cardiff.

So, it is important, therefore, that people who are unable to pay the additional costs charged to access cultural or sporting activity have additional help to do so. It is important that those venues and facilities that are unable to sustain their programme of activities or their opening hours for the general public are able to do so, wherever they may be. And there is a greater reliance on Government help and Government support and the role and place of Government in places like Blaenau Gwent than in places like Cardiff. Therefore, if the test that we want to set for the Government is equality, then I want to see the Government doing more where there is greatest need and less where there is less need. And that is a difficult point to make for Government, because the Government likes to tell us that everywhere in Wales is having a little piece of jam, and we've been doing this for the 15 years I've been here. However, that means that some people are still left needing greater support whilst others receive support that perhaps they don't fully need. And it is the test of equality that I want to set for the Minister in debating and discussing this report, because it is important, and it does relate to the conversation we had earlier about equality.

Because what we are seeking to achieve in Wales is cultural change, cultural change in terms of sporting activity, so that people like me, who look like me—and, let's face it, I've bought a new suit every year for the last 15 years—are able to reduce their weight and are able to increase their fitness levels. But you're unable to do it if you're locking people out of sporting and fitness activities because they can't afford the costs of accessing them. We want to see cultural change whereby everybody has the same opportunity to express who they are, their cultural identity, their own background. But if they don't access the cultural venues that they need to in order to do that, you are locking them out from the culture of our country.

So, if we do want to see the change that I think we all want to see, on all sides of the Chamber, as it happens, then that means that the Government cannot stand back and say, 'I wrote a letter last year, and I'll come back to you in another five years.' It means that the Government has to be an activist Government, intervening in these matters, month after month and week after week and year after year. And that means that the Government, if it is serious about equality and serious about achieving its ambitions of equality, has to take tough decisions, and that, Minister, is what I want to hear in your reply to this debate. I'm grateful to Members.

May I also add my thanks to the clerks, my fellow Members and everyone who provided evidence? As the Chair said in opening this debate, the situation is worse than it was when we were taking evidence, and the situation was grim enough in terms of the future of arts and culture then. And Alun Davies's point is crucially important, I think, in terms of equality, because I despise seeing surveys by local authorities at the moment asking, 'Do you want to keep your library, your museum open, or do you want your bins collected regularly? Do you want older people in society to be cared for, or do you want a museum?' These are not fair choices to put before people, and the fact is that we still see culture and sport as 'nice to have'—some of these things that are just little luxuries of life rather than being a crucial part of everyone's life.

The truth is that, despite the fact that we have local museums, that we have libraries, that we have national institutions, there are still too many people here in Wales who can't access them, as things currently stand. There are all sorts of barriers. We know that the cost of transport is one of those barriers. If you don't live close enough to enjoy some of the incredible things that are available free of charge—. I know of many people who live very near to St Fagans but they can't get there because they don't have a car or can't afford a bus, and that is a barrier. Even when you live in Cardiff, there are barriers in accessing these facilities.

I think we have to look, when you do have high transport costs, at the fact that a lot of people still think that culture simply isn't for them because they haven't had those opportunities, and policies such as free access to our national museums is crucial. But what's a barrier now is the travel costs to get there. Many schools rely on buses to come to our national museums. That's a huge problem, because they can't afford these coach trips. So, what's available locally becomes even more important.

We're talking about swimming lessons; well, the cost of those is going to increase. People can't afford them as things stand. But, rather than seeing it as a key skill, difficult decisions will be made, meaning that there will be fewer opportunities, while simultaneously we want to be promoting the preventative agenda, and also in terms of future generations, the fact that we want everyone to have the same opportunities, wherever they live in Wales. So, there are very real challenges, and I think one of the great concerns that emerged from this report was the fact that the increase in cost was going to have an impact on those that we need to provide more opportunities to.

One of the things that I would ask the Minister to expand upon is why the tenth recommendation was rejected in relation to increasing the dialogue with the cultural sector. I accept that you have a good relationship, but can I ask how much mapping is done in terms of the situation facing the sector at the moment across Wales and what will the impact of that be in terms of audiences and participation? I think it's important to work with the education sector to understand the impact of a lack of school trips in terms of that access too.

One of the things that's not clear to me in terms of the response is how can we build upon the work of things such as the review of local museums that took place in 2015, which clearly showed the impact of previous cuts on these services. But the situation is even more stark now. There might be dialogue, but where's the action? Without doubt, it's a dire financial situation for our local authorities, because many of these are non-statutory services, including sport. So, if we take this in the context of the health service, I mentioned earlier the importance of sport and culture in terms of the preventative element, that we do secure equal opportunities for everyone in Wales. How can we, therefore, look differently at Government budgets in order to ensure that these opportunities continue to be available?

I would like to see a clear message from Government that we don't consider sport and culture as nice to have when times are good, and that this is exceptionally important in terms of the vision of the Welsh Government in all elements of the agenda, from tackling child poverty to the nation's health. So, can I ask, Deputy Minister, for your response in terms of what's happening across Wales in seeing a reduction in these services, and how will the Welsh Government secure that equal access to everyone, wherever they are in Wales?

I'd also like to thank committee staff and all the organisations that took part in giving evidence for the report. One of the key messages here is that, with inflation reaching its highest level in more than 40 years, many people are cutting back on extra spending. For some, this includes spending on sport and cultural activities. In 2019-20, 23 per cent of all people and 31 per cent of children in Wales were living in relative income poverty. Not only are these families most likely to be impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, but Sports Wales research also suggests that they are the most likely group to be inactive, and this can cause serious health consequences.

It's a real concern that, according to Swim Wales, just 52 per cent of pupils moving to high school are able to swim. Swimming is an essential life skill that should be taught through schools as it will capture every child and may be something that families can no longer afford when hit with cost-of-living pressures. The Welsh Government provides some funding for free swimming, and that's really welcome, and it helps to keep pools open, but it really should be more. The Welsh Government's also facing real-terms cuts because of inflationary pressures, so I understand that pressure on the Welsh Government too.

Schools also say the increasing cost of bus transport is prohibitive when they are facing other cost pressures. North Wales and rural areas are particularly affected because transport is needed to get to sport centres and swimming pools, as my colleague Alun Davies, raised earlier. Transport operators could provide schools with free transport as part of the social value procurement contract to local authorities when bidding for home-to-school transport, and perhaps this is something that the Minister and Deputy Minister could raise through the WLGA.

The Local Government and Housing Committee—I see the chair is also present today—has raised concern about the resilience of libraries and leisure centres, as everything non-statutory is on the table following a decade of austerity, alongside current inflationary pressures, increased energy costs and rising wages. I believe that that committee is also going to be looking into this. Tennis clubs are also feeling these pressures, with feedback from Lawn Tennis Association venues prior to Christmas finding that 75 per cent are worried about energy costs, while 92 per cent of venues with more than eight courts were concerned about the impact of rising costs. All these organisations are calling for targeted support to those from areas of highest social deprivation whose participation is most affected by the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. This is an important opportunity to support more young people to develop their life skills and opportunities through sport, including through volunteering, and support to address barriers they may face in progressing through workforce pathways.

We must not forget that sport and culture are part of the preventative services regarding physical and mental health and well-being, as my colleague Heledd Fychan raised earlier. These are part of the national health service. We've been talking previously in debates that it's not just about the NHS, it's about all these preventative services, going forward. Thank you.

I extend my thanks to the culture committee for undertaking this piece of work and raising this important issue.

Llywydd, I stand and contribute today in my role as chair of the Petitions Committee. One of the most popular petitions since the start of this year has focused on the impact of high energy costs on swimming pools and leisure centres. The petition titled 'Protect leisure centres and swimming pools from closure during the current energy crisis' has received over 4,700 signatures since it opened at the very end of 2022. That is a petition that is still collecting signatures today and until the end of this month. I've just checked on the very useful tool our Petitions Committee clerks have given us and facilitated, and every single constituency has had a signature on this petition. I think that raises the importance of what we're talking about here. The petition reads as follows:

'Swimming pools and leisure centres across the country are under threat as the energy crisis impacts communities across the nation. These facilities provide an essential service for the people of Wales, and are vital to the country's wellbeing. We, the undersigned, call on the Senedd and Welsh Government to recognise the vulnerability of swimming pools by providing a ring-fenced package of financial aid above and beyond the Final Local Government Settlement to ensure swimming pools remain open.'

As I said, Llywydd, this petition is still collecting signatures until the end of February, so it limits me to what I can say directly about the petition until it comes to the committee later this year. But if we reflect on last year and the Petitions Committee work when we published a piece of work based on preventing drowning, a theme that underpinned that work was the vital importance of young people being taught to swim and to understand the dangers of waters. Swimming lessons develop a key life skill that opens up a world of fun and physical activity, but also builds safety and confidence. We need facilities to teach skills in every corner of the country.

Will you take an intervention?

Of course.

I appreciate the work you're doing in the Petitions Committee, and I know you investigate the background to any petition. So, in the work that you probably will do, once you close the petition, could you investigate whether any swimming pools in Wales are actually operating with renewable energy? Because obviously, if they're not, they are going to be hugely vulnerable.

Can I thank Jenny Rathbone for that suggestion? That's certainly one we will look into further. It's a valued suggestion from the Member. Of course, any suggestions on the committee's work are always welcome.

Llywydd, the challenge facing those who run swimming pools was an issue raised in the culture committee's inquiry, as we've heard today, and it's in this report that we are debating. The committee heard that pools were already reducing temperatures to save money, and in one area officials were predicting the closure of pools within the next 12 months. I note the committee's third recommendation called on the Welsh Government to ensure that those who run pools and leisure centres were eligible for support for greening their energy consumption, and I quote,

'such as that available from the Welsh Government’s Energy Service'.

The Minister's response confirms that leisure trusts will be eligible, but I note again that the only financial support is made up of an interest-free loan. Of course, this is very welcome, and we should not take away from that fact, but that may not be sufficient to get us through the next 12 months. We all know, in this Chamber, that we are in particularly hard times, and we all know that we simply don't have all the money that we would want to meet our needs, but has the Minister given any thought to providing direct financial support to meet the costs now being faced by swimming pools and leisure centres? Diolch.

May I sincerely thank Delyth Jewell, the committee Chair, and her fellow committee members for this important report placed before the Senedd today? I believe that all of us in this Chamber understand that culture and sport are totally integral to the fabric and identity of Welsh life. We know that our cultural and sporting organisations barely endured the financial storm that the COVID pandemic brought to their doorstep, and this is despite the £140 million from Welsh Government, when many called for that to go elsewhere. But as they have re-emerged into a post-pandemic world, our arts sectors are now met with this crippling cost-of-living crisis, and this is alongside the remaining residue of COVID workforce capacity losses, as live music faces one of its worst landscapes since the second world war. I'm going to focus on just two of the committee's report recommendations, although I do have sympathy with recommendation 6, with the real amounts of money needed, but this is a fully devolved matter, and so I do understand why the Welsh Government has not accepted recommendation 6.

Firstly, recommendation 7, namely that the Welsh Government should encourage sporting and cultural activities in warm hubs and fund the providers accordingly. I'm very heartened to see that the Welsh Labour Government is committed to accepting this recommendation. In Islwyn, Caerphilly County Borough Council has designated warm hubs that they have called 'welcoming spaces' in a variety of venues, such as libraries, community centres, church halls, sports clubs and many other places. One such welcoming space is the Newbridge library, which sits within the Newbridge memorial hall, where my constituency office is located. But it is these iconic community buildings—like the Newbridge Memo, which hosted Paul Robeson—that have played an integral cultural role in the life of our communities that must continue to do so. Indeed, our industrial mining heritage is integrally tied with cultural and musical offers of such mining workmen's halls. I see for myself on a weekly basis how important this building is in terms of its cultural hub, and also its performing auditorium, existing at the very heart. So, it is right that the Welsh Government has linked this, and has provided an initial amount of £1 million to support the development and expansion of warm hubs across Wales. The pandemic, and now the cost-of-living crisis, has shown how we now need, more than ever, to create and sustain focal cultural community points where society can come together, because together we truly are stronger, and culturally we are stronger.

Finally, I want to turn to recommendation 8, namely that the Welsh Government should provide leadership to the culture and sport sectors during the cost-of-living crisis. It was good to see the Welsh Government accept this recommendation, and I note that the Government states it has committed almost £4 million during the financial year to the National Library of Wales, National Museum Wales and the arts sector, via the Arts Council of Wales, as well as a variety of other bodies. The ability of the culture and sporting sectors to uplift their managerial and leadership competence is vital to the delivery of events and offerings on the ground to members of the public and our communities, and I do look forward to watching this piece of work progress.

Llywydd, we are all, I believe, summoned here in Senedd Cymru as the custodians and guardians of the rich and vibrant tapestry of Welsh life, and not just guardians but proponents of our cultural life, to be vigilant, to safeguard Wales and to safeguard our cultural and sporting landscapes, and drive, steer and lead Wales into a new renaissance—identity, artistry and excellence. Diolch.

I do think this is a very important committee report and debate. The leisure sector has a very important role to play in our lives in Wales, including physical activity and sport. They are so important for the enjoyment of life, health and fitness, quality of life. And, thankfully, I think we've seen much better links between the worlds of sport and fitness and the worlds of health and, indeed, social care. In Newport, we're lucky in terms of our leisure trust, Newport Live, which I think has shown some very good examples generally and in terms of those links with the health sector. So, they've done much in terms of referrals for exercise, cardiac rehabilitation, dealing with long COVID, using centres for vaccination during the pandemic, and now, opening up the Newport centre for rough sleepers. So, they are working to establish links across the piece, which I think is very, very important.

But, as we've heard, this good work is under dire threat now because of energy costs, the cost-of-living crisis, inflation and, of course, the impact on salaries. Newport Live are committed to paying the living wage, and rightly so, and that in itself will result in something like a £350,000 per annum increase in their salary bill. So, what we see I think is less income and greater outgoings, and that will mean less sport and less physical activity. And, sadly, possible redundancies for committed workforces across Wales and the undermining of our work on health and well-being, which will add to long-term pressures on the national health service. And, of course, as we've already heard, it's the most vulnerable and relatively disadvantaged who are likely to suffer the most, because they will be priced out of the market, as it were, and not able to meet the costs, and indeed increased costs that are likely to come about to deal with these pressures on the sector.

So, it's such a difficult time. And, as we've heard, the impact on swimming pools is also very worrying, as part of the general picture. I think we know, don't we, that many more of our young people need to learn to swim, for the reasons that we've already heard about. I'm a regular user of my local swimming pool, and I've certainly noticed the drop in temperature in recent times, it must be said. But, it's a great benefit to adults who want to have the benefits of what is one of the very best forms of exercise as well as being so important in terms of teaching our young people to swim.

We face the prospect of reduced hours, increasing charges, the more disadvantaged suffering disproportionately more than groups with greater incomes—all of that is so worrying for so many of our Welsh Government's most important strategies and programmes. We saw a very important shoring up of the sector, I think, during the pandemic from Welsh Government and others, and it would be such a tragedy if that support was undermined by the current crisis and, perhaps, not matching support at this time to deal with this particular challenge. We know that, as ever, the UK Government is woefully lacking in its response in terms of those energy costs and their refusal to properly support the leisure sector at such a crucial time.

Could I say as well, Llywydd, that I do believe that this is the sector that has been proactive in dealing with some of these challenges? They're not just sitting about waiting for support to come to them. Jenny Rathbone mentioned the energy situation, for example, and I know that Newport Live have done much in terms of solar panels on roofs, energy efficiency; they have many more plans to use their roofs for those solar panels and to harness ground source heat. But they will require help to meet the initial cost, if they are able to do that, and it’s a real invest-to-save opportunity that I hope Welsh Government can support.

Llywydd, the leisure sector, sport and physical activity have so much to offer, and these leisure trusts are so important in terms of supporting local sports clubs and community groups. All of this is in this very important report and I just hope that we can—Welsh Government and others—rise to meet these challenges to offer this support, which is so important for the long term and the preventative agenda that our well-being of future generations Act requires us to take with the utmost seriousness.

The Deputy Minister for Arts and Sport to contribute to the debate, Dawn Bowden.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Thank you. Can I put on record, first, my thanks to the Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee for their in-depth and considered inquiry into the impact of rising costs on culture and sport, and for bringing this debate to the Senedd this afternoon?

The impact of rising costs is particularly high across culture and sport areas within my portfolio, highlighting organisations and sectors that have been struggling to recover financially from the pandemic. And, as has been acknowledged by several contributors this afternoon, significant support was afforded to these sectors through the pandemic to ensure that they could recover post pandemic and be part of our post-pandemic recovery. However, unfortunately, we slid out of the pandemic into a cost-of-living crisis and an energy crisis that we had not anticipated. Large increases in energy prices are adding to those significant pressures on budgets, as we’ve heard. Less disposable income means people having to tighten belts and spend less on leisure and entertainment. Increased living costs are also impacting on the recruitment and retention of staff and volunteers, as people struggle to afford travel costs and childcare, or opt for better paid work. In some instances, the combined results of these challenges is reduced programmes of activities across Wales. Significant increases in supply chain costs, particularly in relation to materials and labour, are also impacting on capital projects and maintenance work.

So, turning to the committee’s report and recommendations, I’m pleased that the Welsh Government’s responded positively to the committee’s report and its recommendations, and we’re pleased to accept most of them—eight out of the 10—and on the two that we didn’t accept, I’ll expand a little bit further. So, on recommendation 6, the call for a UK-wide support package for the culture and sport sectors, as we’ve said, this is a matter wholly for the UK Government. The impact of the increased cost of living and the failure of the UK Government’s promises to replace EU funding in full has created significant challenges, and despite what Tom Giffard said, we should not be letting the UK Government off the hook on this one, and suggest that other people do the job for them. This is an area that is wholly a reserved matter and it is the responsibility of the UK Government. As a Welsh Government—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

In my actual contribution, I called on you to work with the UK Government—

To work with them, yes.

—which you didn't do. Not to let them off the hook in any way. As you know, I was part of the committee that put together that recommendation, and I still wholeheartedly believe in it. So, I just wanted to clarify that comment.

I think you probably have to understand it from our perspective, because actually, working with UK Government is actually a contradiction in terms, because they don’t let you work with them; they dictate to you what they want to dictate to you, they trample all over devolved areas of competence by trying to directly bypass us and put money into places that don’t fall into our programme for government. So they’re not the easiest people to work with. So, I’ll say that at the outset.

But as a Welsh Government, we will continue to work to prioritise our budgets to shield the most vulnerable and to maintain our commitment to create a stronger, fairer and greener Wales.

The other recommendation that we didn’t accept was recommendation 10, that the Welsh Government improves its engagement with the culture sector. Now, we have an exemplar record in terms of engagement with our sectors. We work closely and collaboratively with both sector bodies and individual organisations to monitor and understand the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, and this is being developed further through our work on the new culture strategy. Accepting this recommendation would have been contradictory, therefore, as it would have been accepting that we weren't doing what we clearly are in this area.

In respect of other recommendations raised in the debate today, our responses are as follows: on working with the national library to preserve its collections in recommendation 1, the Welsh Government is working with colleagues at the national library and providing additional support, where possible, considering the impact of rising costs that we've seen in recent months. An additional £650,000 was awarded in 2022-23 to help address the increased cost of utilities and cost-of-living pressures, and a further £500,000 to pay for a new fire system to ensure the safety of their collections. In 2024-25, it will specifically receive an additional £1.5 million towards its new collection store.

The library will also be part of a wider project that we are looking at in relation to collections management and potential shared storage solutions across both national and local cultural organisations. This would explore capital improvements, including the potential to reduce costs through the sharing of resources and reduction in energy usage, through more environmentally friendly models and storage collections. The initial phase of this work is due to be completed in March 2024.

The national library will also see an increase in its revenue grant in aid. For the next two financial years, we have made available additional, time-limited and ring-fenced funding to support additional pressures relating to pay, the cost of living and utilities. Further additional funding will be provided to support the co-operation agreement priorities, including financial sustainability, and whilst further pressures relating to inflation remain a concern during this period, this additional funding will help support the national library in 2023-24 and 2024-25.

With regard to recommendation 2, again, this refers to a UK Government scheme. The energy bill relief scheme is a UK Government initiative, and we've already made representations to the UK Government around including intensive users, such as swimming pools, within the highest threshold for support. We're working closely with Sport Wales, with the Welsh Sports Association and Swim Wales to continue to make that case, because if prices go up, businesses will have to pay the additional costs.

Libraries and museums will also be eligible for extra support as energy-intensive industries, but leisure centres and swimming pools will not be equally protected from high energy prices. The Welsh Government included representations about swimming pools in its response to the consultation on the energy bill relief scheme, and is continuing to discuss these issues and to make representation to the UK Government. Officials also met with sector representatives on 20 January to gather evidence to make the strongest possible case for leisure centres and pools to be afforded the support that has been outlined today.

On recommendations 3 and 4 about support for leisure trusts greening their energy supply and consumption, local authorities and other public sector organisations can access technical and financial support from the Welsh Government's energy service to improve the energy efficiency of their swimming pools and leisure centres, including those managed by leisure trusts, helping to reduce carbon emissions, and the financial support comprising of zero-interest loans from the Wales funding programme. Now, organisations should be considering, of course, their own energy costs and resilience as part of their usual capital estate planning. However, the unhypothecated capital funding provided to local authorities may be used to support sports and social facilities by local authorities in this way if authorities consider it appropriate for them to do so, because, as Tom Giffard knows, we are very well aware that local authorities are clear that they do not want hypothecated funding. So, the additional uplift that they have had in their rate support grant this year enables them to make greater choices about how they utilise their funding.

Specific capital funds are also provided by Welsh Government for replacement and extensive refurbishment of remodelling of schools and colleges—for example, through the sustainable communities for learning programme. Such projects are now required to deliver net-zero carbon, and often include sports facilities. Funding is also provided through the local authority buildings capital grant, which is introduced from 2023-24, and which may also benefit sports or cultural buildings within the local authority estate. Such projects will also be eligible for support from the culture division's capital transformation scheme for local museums, libraries and archives. The funding we provide to Sport Wales also supports the sector to meet our expectations on the all-Wales net-zero plan and build resilience to the impacts of climate change, ensuring that we can deliver and continue to deliver on our key public services.

In response to recommendations 5 and 8, which focus upon provision of additional support and targeted funding to the sports and cultural sectors, the Welsh Government recognises the exceptional inflationary pressures to utility costs and cost-of-living pressures that the arm's-length bodies and also local sector organisations are experiencing. And to assist with these pressures, Welsh Ministers have agreed collectively to provide £4.175 million during the 2022-23 financial year to the National Library of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales, the arts sector via the Arts Council of Wales, the sports sector via Sport Wales, the independent museums and community libraries in Wales—

Will you take an intervention?

—the Books Council of Wales and the independent creative industries in Wales. 

I'm listening to your speech. The Government has already responded to the report; I was hoping that the Minister would also respond to the debate. One of the issues I tried to raise in the debate was the issue of equality, and I think it's important that that and the matters that other colleagues have raised—very important issues—in this debate this afternoon—I think it's important that we hear a response to those issues, because we've read the Government response to the report, and we want to hear a response to the debate as well.

I was coming on to some of the points that you've raised earlier.

Well, it's fine to think about coming on to them, but we are already two minutes over time. I'll allow you a minute or so to conclude.

Okay. So, Sport Wales I think is the point that was majored by Alun Davies, which concerns participation in sport and providing equal access. I spoke about this in committee last week, on the funding for Sport Wales and the way in which our funding is set out very clearly—our direction to Sport Wales is set out very clearly in the remit letter. Part of that remit letter sets out very clearly where we expect that funding to be targeted, and that was the point I was trying to make in committee last week. The remit letter very clearly sets out that we are seeking to direct the significant capital investment funding over the next couple of years to be targeted into those areas of greatest need, and those will be in those areas of deprivation.

I'm very conscious of time, Llywydd, and I haven't really covered our response to all of the recommendations that were set out in the report. Suffice it to say, in closing, I want to reiterate that we are taking immediate steps across a number of areas to address the complex issues that have been raised by this report, and we'll seek to implement these recommendations that we've accepted with the importance that they deserve, supporting our collective efforts to respond to the cost-of-living and energy crisis, and we will continue to engage with the UK Government and press it to use the levers at its disposal to provide wider support to the culture and sports sectors. Diolch yn fawr.

Delyth Jewell to reply to the debate. 

Thank you, Llywydd. I thank everyone who took part in this debate. I think it has been a very powerful debate. Tom Giffard talked about the importance of these venues for our communities; he talked about how fragile they are. And Alun Davies talked about how the impact of this crisis is having a disproportionate impact, as he said in his intervention, and that the most disadvantaged people and areas suffer the biggest effects from this. That is a very important point and it has arisen in several ways in many different points during this debate. Heledd Fychan drew attention to the same point about equality. Sports and culture are not nice-to-have things, as Heledd said; they are vital. I thought that what Heledd said about the hidden costs, such as transport costs, I thought that was very important, and the same thread arose in terms of what Carolyn Thomas said—again, the costs on families, things such as transport, and the importance of all of this for health.

It's always good to hear from Members more broadly around the Chamber, rather than just the committee members. I thank Jack Sargeant, who spoke, again, about this petition about swimming pools. That situation is very serious for the sector and for the population as well. As Jack reminded us all, swimming can save lives. We'll return to what the Deputy Minister said about this. This is something that the committee will want to monitor, in terms of that issue.

We heard from Rhianon Passmore about how these venues are vital to the history of our communities—Paul Robeson and so forth—but also our health now, in terms of our warm hubs. I think that point is vital: how coming together as a community gives us a greater benefit, in a way that is hard to define. It's not just a financial benefit; it relates to the health and soul of our society.

John Griffiths mentioned how the quality of our lives is improved by these centres in Newport, and, of course, that's true across all of Wales. A lot of these threads arose time and again, and they were echoed—I'm mixing my metaphors now, but there were a number of points that were very important that arose during the debate.

I thank the Deputy Minister for her comments. I am pleased that the majority of our recommendations have been accepted. In terms of those that have not been accepted, I'm still concerned that the Government is not responding adequately to the long-term risks for the sport and culture sectors, and the risk to the health of the nation. Now, ideally, a UK Government funding package would drive Barnett consequentials that the Welsh Government could use to fund a package for the cost-of-living crisis for sport and culture. Certainly, as a committee, we would like to see something like that happening.

But the Welsh Government, as I said, on the whole—. Again, I'll return to the point about swimming pools, but at the outset they haven't started discussions with the UK Government to that end. During the pandemic, the Welsh Government didn't wait for the UK Government to act. In April 2020, it worked with the arts council to implement an emergency package long before it received any additional funding from the UK Government, and I would say that the Welsh Government now needs to emulate that sense of urgency that was evident during the pandemic. I think that there are so many things that have been raised during this debate this afternoon that have showed why this is such an urgent issue.

We have learned from the pandemic that it's sometimes better to overreact rather than wait and try to solve bigger problems in the future. Again, things have deteriorated so much since we published the report, I don't think we would be talking about overreacting here. There are so many venues now that are at risk of permanent closure. Again, there is a great risk of harming these sectors for an indefinite period in the future. This, in turn, as we've heard, will harm the income of organisations in these sectors, meaning that many people—again, often the most disadvantaged—and, as we've heard many times, the most disadvantaged areas, would miss out on the physical, mental and social benefits associated with taking part, as well those difficult-to-define things, as we've heard, such as the soul of our communities. So, I would urge the Government to seize this opportunity.

Finally, I would like to say again that it is good to hear that the Government is making the case for swimming pools particularly to Westminster; that's to be welcomed, certainly. We heard a lot in the debate about how vital that intervention is. So, to close, I would like to thank again everyone who took part in this debate and in the inquiry. I do hope that there will be more light shed on these very important sectors to our society: culture and sport.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed.

Item 8 is next: the Plaid Cymru debate on reducing NHS pressures. I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. A week ago, we were discussing a motion from Plaid Cymru calling for the declaration of a health crisis in Wales. Just as the Labour leader has described the situation in England as a crisis, and Labour in Scotland have described the situation as a crisis, we were eager to see Labour in Government in Wales recognise this crisis. The Labour Ministers rejected that a week ago, and the First Minister said again yesterday why he refused to use the term 'crisis'. Those are just words, according to him, and there's no value to them. Well, likewise, you could argue that declaring a climate emergency was just words. But words have value—there's a recognition of the gravity of the situation. It is a means of providing renewed focus, and I explained in that debate a week ago that we wanted the motion to be seen in a positive light, as a means of empowering Government. 

Although they rejected that—and surely the Government needs to be empowered here—we're back today again proposing a positive motion. We have many roles as opposition parties: our work is to hold Government to account, to assess how effective Government measures are—in this particular context, their efficiency in spending their budgets on health and care services, in developing policy, in supporting staff. That includes telling it as it is, and as constituents see it, even more importantly, and, necessarily, that will sometimes lead to conflict. But we on these benches do take our role of being proactive in putting alternative proposals on the table seriously, trying to influence the Government to move in a particular direction, not just outlining what we think is wrong with the direction that they've chosen.

In the context of a crisis in the health service, we, I think, all have to put our energy into finding solutions. And what we have before us today, published by Plaid Cymru this week, is a plan: a series of recommendations that we're asking the Welsh Government to implement. The risk is, of course, that the Government will say, 'Well, we're already doing all of this.' Well, sorry, but if the Welsh Government were operating effectively in these areas and were doing all of these things already, then a series of health professional bodies, royal colleges, staff representative bodies, would not have worked with us to draw up this plan. They, like us, are entirely convinced that the Government is falling well short of what should be done. This is the product of collaboration. 

It's no secret that we in Plaid Cymru believe that the first step to create the foundations for a sustainable NHS is to pay workers fairly. The First Minister recently claimed that making an improved pay offer would mean taking away money from health, but that's such a false way of looking at the situation, because providing a credible and substantive—not a one-off, but a credible and substantive—pay award for NHS workers surely is the best possible investment that we could be making in creating a more sustainable and resilient health service. They're tough choices; of course they're tough choices. But this particular choice simply has to be made. I used the word 'foundations'. The foundations of the NHS currently are pretty unfirm. Those foundations are the workers. We need to firm up those foundations if we're to build a resilient NHS. That has to be step one. 

The second step in our plan is to address issues on workforce retention. Pay is one big part of workforce planning, but there's that wider issue. We need a wider strategy to retain the talented workforce at our disposal by making the NHS in Wales a more attractive and appealing place to work—3,000 NHS vacancies in Wales; 46 per cent of medical students in Wales relocating to England because they've got more foundation posts available. Now, the Government says that they have a workforce plan on the way, but a plan's nothing unless it's delivered, and we need a clear delivery strategy with targets and full costings for that new NHS workforce plan, and one that actually accurately reflects the needs—which is why we talk about the need for data on where exactly we do stand and where those vacancies are. We need clearly definable delivery metrics. 

We've got to ensure that opportunities for career development are more available, encouraging medical students studying in Welsh universities to stay in Wales, encouraging people and helping them through continuous professional development to be able to work at the top of their competence. These are the things that lead when they're not done well to people deciding, 'You know what, this career is really not what I thought it would be; I'm not able to push myself to my limits', and the failure to deliver on these bare essentials are holding back the NHS.

The other part of this is a desperate need for Welsh Government to address the increase that we have seen in agency spending—£260 million spent on agency spending in 2022. That's not a figure just bouncing along. There's been a 40 per cent increase in a very short period of time, and that means money leaking away from the NHS into the coffers of private companies as profits. We want and absolutely support having roles that are brought in as overtime, additional shifts, and that flexibility is something that we need to build into the NHS much more, actually, but we need to take the private profit-making from agency working. 

The third step in our plans is to give greater priority to preventative health measures right across the board, not just having preventative schemes—as, of course, Welsh Government has—but making the preventative the most important element in our attitude as a whole towards the health of the nation. Building a healthier Wales has to be a priority. We'll hear more from Sioned Williams about the fact that that means the kind of housing that people live in, the support that people are given to live healthy lives. It's not just a matter of the Minister deciding one week, 'You know what, people need to live healthier lives.' They need the support from Government to be able to do that, and I think the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 provides the legislative framework in this respect.

We tend to think about that legislation more in terms of climate change. I think we need to focus on using that legislation in terms of our health as a nation, and we need clear ministerial responsibility. In Westminster, you'd have a Minister without portfolio perhaps just looking after delivering the preventative. You know, that's an idea. Is that something that we need to do here, not that I'm in favour of having more Ministers? And this is policy from me here rather than being policy. But that's the kind of way we need to think. We need to think about who has that ministerial responsibility within Government.

We have to, as point 4, look at that interaction between health and social care. We were talking there about integration. We all support integration as a principle, but it's what happens at the junction between the two as well that we've been focusing a lot on in recent weeks—the delayed transfers of care. We need to be building capacity at that point. Capacity can be physical capacity, it can be virtual capacity, it can be permanent capacity, it can be temporary capacity. We've worked in very effective temporary ways during the COVID pandemic. We absolutely have to look at what happens at that junction because currently we're falling short, and the decision, still questioned by medical professionals, to release people from hospital without the proper care packages in place is not the way forward, and I think it shows a misunderstanding of the kind of approach that Welsh Government should be taking on this.

Finally, we need to create a delivery mechanism for the recovery. I think the new NHS executive, and we think the new NHS executive, provides a model for that. Government Ministers and successive Labour Governments have had a very long time to create a more resilient and better-equipped health service. I think the Ministers could benefit from empowering that NHS executive in a way that can deliver real change right across the NHS. If we have that new organisation in place, let's use it properly, give it teeth and give it the power to drive forward change.

One of the things that I think the NHS executive could drive is action in relation to delivering elective surgery hubs. I visited one in Clatterbridge the other day. A project is in place, costing around £25 million in total, creating four theatres, 18 additional beds. It's a factory that will not be affected by winter pressures, and so on. That might not be the exact model because that's an elective hospital, but we have to find ways of delivering that kind of change here in Wales. That investment, yes, needs to be made, but a business plan for that saves you the money of sending patients otherwise to private hospitals for treatment now and, of course, quicker treatment of patients stops that worsening of health conditions that are painful for the patients, difficult for their families, and very, very costly for the NHS.

So, that's our five-point plan. As we say, they're not our ideas; they're the result of listening to people on the front line and the organisations that represent them. Our plan addresses the real concerns they have with the way the health service is currently being managed and offers five deliverable steps that will make a tangible difference to all involved, so that, together, we can start healing our NHS, which is what we all here want. I look forward to contributions today and for a signal that, if they wouldn't accept the word 'crisis', that they do accept that there needs to be a new direction. Diolch yn fawr.

I have selected the four amendments to the motion. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. I call on Russell George to move amendments 1, 3 and 4. Russell George.

Diolch, Llywydd, and I move the amendments in the name of my colleague Darren Millar. Can I thank Plaid Cymru for bringing forward this debate again? I say 'again' because we keep having health debates. It's very similar to a debate brought forward last week, and I don't think that we can have too many health debates in this Chamber. The Minister's looking, like, 'Please ease up a bit', but I think, seriously, I think we can't have too many debates around the challenges that our health service is facing. And the Welsh NHS is in a very unstable position, I would suggest, and I would agree with the Welsh NHS Confederation in their assessment of the pressures, as outlined in the motion today.

I also think it's important to stress that the issues that the NHS is facing, and some of our challenges, are in no way the fault of our fantastic health and care sector professionals who work across Wales. They're working in very challenging circumstances, and we of course thank them for all they do. And that's why I think the Welsh Government should bring forward a strategy to reduce the pressures on our NHS, and a start would be not to cut the health and social care budget in real terms, I would suggest.

One thing I did want to touch on in my contribution was—again, Andrew R.T. raised it with the First Minister yesterday—about the state of our infrastructure, the state of our hospitals, the poorly maintained state that they're in and the working environments that many have to work in. And, as Andrew pointed out yesterday, only 62 per cent of buildings owned by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board are operationally safe, and that's not a rare position. Only 72 per cent of buildings owned by the Welsh health boards have been reported as operationally safe. Well, it's not too much to ask that our health workers, our nurses, have good working conditions to be in, and, of course, that's not to even mention the issues around patient safety. As the Welsh NHS Confederation pointed out ahead of today's debate, if we're going to have a workforce and we're going to improve the morale of our health professionals, and if we're going to retain nurses and be able to recruit more health professionals to our Welsh NHS, we've got to start by making sure that we've got a workplace that's fit for purpose. And I think it's absolutely crucial that we have that investment in our hospitals. I'm disappointed. I heard the First Minister yesterday, pointing the finger at Westminster. Well, hang on, it's been 25 years, a quarter of a century of a Labour-led Government that has been responsible for the Welsh NHS. I don't think that it's reasonable to be pointing the finger at Westminster when we've got the position that we're in, with only 62 per cent of buildings in Betsi being operationally safe.

But the other issue as well is investment in training, in terms of training new NHS staff. We have had some funding for that, and I think that's very welcome; I don't think that's enough, but I think that's very much welcomed. I think we all agree—we've talked about agency nursing a great deal in the Chamber—I think we're all on the same page to say that this is all going in the wrong direction. The spend on agency nursing has increased, as Rhun ap Iorwerth pointed out, and we cannot be in a position where the spend on agency nursing is increasing to the extent it is, which is why we've put forward one of our amendments today in terms of putting a cap on agency spend. That's not the solution; that's one part of the solution, but I would suggest that we need to make sure that we have a sustainable funding plan in place to recruit and train staff in both the health and social care sectors.

Just to talk briefly as well in terms of prevention. It's so important, prevention. It's not one of the Government's priorities. I do appreciate that you can't have too many priorities, otherwise there are no priorities, but prevention, I feel that that's been pushed down the list of priorities into the deprioritisation area. If we're going to enable us to have an NHS that meets some of our challenges, we've got to make sure that we're making sure that there's appropriate focus and spend on preventative measures as well.

Finally, Presiding Officer, I was very keen to support the last part of the motion that Plaid brought forward today in terms of the new NHS executive, and having power to make real change. I absolutely agree on that position. Certainly, in our Welsh Conservative manifesto in 2021, we pledged to create an NHS Wales as a separate organisation, independent from the Welsh Government, which would have, in my view, cut bureaucracy and made for quicker decisions to be made and to better equip the Welsh NHS. I can see the Minister sighing, but she'll probably, perhaps, address that in some of her closing remarks today. But, thank you, Presiding Officer.

The NHS workforce do heroic work every day. I'm sure that all of us have many reasons to thank them for the care that we've had personally, or members of our family have had, let alone our constituents. But, we can't deny the great stress on them or the fact that very experienced staff are leaving every week because they can't deal with the stress anymore.

Visiting hospitals, visiting picket lines, and speaking to NHS workers, they describe a system in crisis that is stopping them from being able to do their job to the best of their ability. They know that people are dying that they could save, and that is taking a toll on their health and well-being, meaning that retention is increasingly becoming a concern. That's why this is the second step of our five-point plan, to focus specifically on the workforce.

I have to address some of the things that were raised by the First Minister yesterday. Of course the NHS is doing fantastic work each day, but if we're speaking to staff and they say there's a crisis, then I am angry that there wasn't that acknowledgement. But they don't just want us to acknowledge there's a crisis; they want to see action taken. That's the purpose of this five-point plan. If we were accused of scaremongering or trying to create drama in politics with our calls last week to acknowledge the crisis, that wasn't the point of it. The point was to acknowledge the truth that everybody knows that our NHS is in crisis and we must take action if we truly value it.

Whilst pay is, of course, important in terms of retention, this isn't the only element that needs to be addressed. We need to recruit, retain, redesign and retrain the health and care workforce. The implementation of these four Rs will ensure the establishment of a resilient health and care workforce. We need a costed workforce plan that sets out a range of short, medium and long-term solutions to grow, train and retain the workforce, underpinned by the necessary funding and based on the latest vacancy data and projected patient demand. Last November, 36 organisations from across health and social care, including royal colleges, charities, patient groups and professional bodies, came together to sign a joint letter to the First Minister, calling on the Welsh Government to publish the long-awaited national workforce implementation plan for health and care.

The impact of workforce shortages on patient care cannot be underestimated, as waiting times reached record levels in Wales. Cancer lists and ambulance performance times are currently the worst on record, and overall waiting list numbers passed 750,000 for the first time in October 2022. Yet with little to no reliable up-to-date workforce data, no national implementation plan for recruitment and retention, no consistent approach to the collection of accurate vacancy data collated across health boards and trusts, and no transparency on staffing shortages and rota gaps, no method of comparing the lessons learnt on recruitment and retention, and no way of knowing when we will finally receive answers from the Welsh Government, we simply are uninformed about the scale of the workforce crisis. But the responses we have received from a number of healthcare organisations highlight that there is a clear staffing crisis, and we need a clear delivery strategy with targets and full costing for a new workforce plan.

The Royal College of Midwives stated that we could only drive improvement in maternity care if there are enough midwives working in the NHS in every part of Wales. The Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Physicians have called for a renewed emphasis on workforce. The British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners are calling for the introduction of incentives for existing doctors and GPs to remain in the health service. The Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Nursing are calling for a retention strategy. The Welsh Government must reform centralised data collection so that staffing needs can be identified earlier. In addition to expanding and establishing improved pathways to continued professional development, this will ensure that health workers can work at the top of their competence whilst retaining within the NHS.

We also note that the Welsh Government have spent £260 million on agency staff in the past year, and this is haemorrhaging the sustainability of our NHS. I was told in a local hospital that I visited in my region that staff were being blocked from appointing to that department and, instead, were regularly calling in agency staff. And some of those agency staff would willingly take on contracts. But that's what I was told, and they were angry because they saw that as wasted money—the fact that they had agency staff willing to take on contracts but were being blocked. This has to be looked at, because the over-reliance on agency staff is a symptom of the Welsh Government's mismanagement of the NHS in Wales. Yes, we'll always need ways of bringing in staff for additional shifts, but profit must be removed from agency working, and we can't face a situation when we aren't seeing people being appointed into the roles when there are shortages and then only reliance on agency staff. We need to see action. This is a plan. I am urging Welsh Government to get behind it, acknowledge there's a crisis, then we can find solutions to save our NHS.

I forgot to call on the Minister to move formally amendment 2.

Formally.

Formally, therefore that's been proposed. Jenny Rathbone.

Thank you, Llywydd. Well, it's 25 January today, and it feels like the twenty-fifth iteration of the debate by the opposition on what we should be doing but we're not doing in the NHS. But any real insights into what we should be doing seems to be lacking. It always just seems to be like groundhog day. So, I thought it was a really poor introduction by Rhun ap Iorwerth. As the health spokesperson, I would have expected some new ideas. If your five-point plan doesn't contain anything more than what you've told us today, then, really, it is not good enough.

Will you take just a brief intervention?

Yes.

I'm sorry if it wasn't made clear that this is a plan that has been co-produced with those professional health bodies who say that Welsh Government is not taking action on these.

Well, I haven't seen it, and we haven't had the opportunity to look at it, and there are no new ideas in anything that you said, Rhun. You want us to pay NHS staff more, and I absolutely agree that they deserve to be paid more, but you say nothing about where we're going to get it. Is it because we've got some Roneo machine in Cathays Park?

Will you take another intervention?

Yes.

I'll again emphasise that we have mapped out exactly how much and from where the money would come—the £175 million that we would bring in from unallocated funds and reprioritisation. We've made it very, very clear.

Unallocated? Well, I think it's not useful to continue that line of enquiry, simply because I haven't read what you've produced and we can have that debate another day.

But the reason why have vacancy levels is—. The fact that we have vacancy levels is serious, but the sole point of interest to me is to explore a bit further the point made by Heledd, which is a hospital in the South Wales Central region has been blocked from appointing to substantive post. That is a serious point and something that is worth unpicking. Now, we have to assume that that's because that health board, wherever it is, is trying not to overspend its budget for this year. We're in month 10 of a 12-month budget process. So, that is a really complex set of difficult circumstances. I appreciate what's going on there, and it must make it really difficult for the hospitals involved—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes.

The hospital in question, I visited in August, and this is the situation I was told then. I visited again recently, and that was still the situation—just for some context.

Okay. It would be useful to know which health board, but, anyway, I'm sure you can tell the Minister after this debate. I really think that both the Conservatives and Plaid, who say they want to find more money to pay the nurses, need to say which bit of our budget we are going to raid in order to do that, unless there is movement from the UK Government who control the purse strings.

Now, a more important debate took place last Thursday here in the Senedd on Thursday evening, which the Minister was present at, as was I, as was Joyce Watson, as were several other Members. That was a grown-up debate, except that I was delighted to meet Katja Empson, who is a consultant in emergency medicine at the Heath hospital here in Cardiff, because it enabled me to say to her, to ask her, 'Why is it that Cardiff has been able to stop all these ambulances queuing up outside the hospital when other hospitals don't seem to have been able to do that? What is it that you've done that's different?' She gave me a really excellent answer about how it was really important to see the people waiting in the ambulances as part of the patients that they needed to treat, who were just as important as the people inside the building. So, that was owning the problem, which is that there were a lot of sick people outside who needed to come in. So, what did they do? It's a whole-system approach across the hospital to ensure that people are going through into the wards, where appropriate, and then leaving them when they've finished their medical treatment. She said that that is happening in Cardiff and it's not happening elsewhere. So, when I asked that question in the Q&A after the panel had spoken—'Why are other hospitals not actually achieving what Cardiff has achieved?'—he then passed me over to Katja Empson again. I already knew the answer and what she had to say. What I hadn't heard was what all the others might have said, who were from Bangor, from Wrexham and from the Princess of Wales and elsewhere.

I had a much better answer from the head of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who appeared before the health committee in the House of Commons yesterday morning. When he was asked that very same question—. No, not the same question; he was asked, 'Why are there so many people overrunning the emergency departments across the UK?' He said there are far too many people being sent to hospital or turning up at the emergency departments who don't need to be there. That resonates with me with some of the things I want to see happening, which is the roll-out of the neighbourhood nursing teams, inspired by Buurtzorg. I understand that, only today, the national specification for community nursing was published, which is part of a strategic programme for rolling it out across Wales. It's happening all too slowly. The only really positive thing about this—

Jenny, you'll need to conclude, please.

—just to complete on this, Deputy Presiding Officer—is that we are now using the electronic scheduling system that was tested in the pilot in Cwm Taf and elsewhere, so that we know exactly who is going to do what, all done by algorithm, as well as capturing the caseloads that are being managed in that community so we know exactly what resources we need to put into my constituency in Cardiff, or wherever it might be. This is a really, really important development, and I understand it is only happening in Wales, and therefore it's going to be a really important contribution to the system.

We have many speakers, and I'm trying to keep to time to ensure we hit as many as possible. Gareth Davies.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and it's a pleasure to contribute to this debate this afternoon. As someone who worked in the NHS for 11 years prior to being elected to the Senedd, and someone who is deeply rooted in the Rhyl and Prestatyn area, I feel slightly qualified to share some history and truths about healthcare in Denbighshire and north Wales, and pressures, indeed.

The Royal Alexandra Hospital in Rhyl, or known locally as 'the Alex', was opened in 1872 and named this because Princess Alexandra of Wales became a patron of the hospital in 1882, and it was long believed in those times that fresh air treatment and the sea air were beneficial to patients, particularly with chest and breathing difficulties. To accommodate this, they had long, sprawling balconies so patients could breathe in that fresh air and do their lungs the world of good. And what they also had there were salt baths in the basement, which, according to folklore, are still there. And nowadays the room is used for storing equipment, but unfortunately I've never had the chance to go down there to see for myself, so I'll keep believing it's there, a little bit like the 'Little Venice' underground waterways, which reportedly hosted gondolas in the now-demolished Queen's building.

Now, I'll fast forward many, many years to the late 1970s and early 1980s, and thanks to Margaret Thatcher's devotion to Wales, the then Clwyd Health Authority built and opened the brand-new flagship Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan in 1980, hosting six operating theatres, an A&E department and numerous wards, costing in the region of £16 million—and how we'd love to see figures like that nowadays. And during the 1980s and early 1990s, Glan Clwyd Hospital was regarded as one of the best-performing hospitals in not only Wales but the whole of Great Britain, and attracted many healthcare professionals to the area so that they could become part of this great success story and the people of central and eastern north Wales could benefit from their expertise. And in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Labour Government in Cardiff got their hands on it, and, since then, we've come to the situation we're in today, with spiralling waiting times, patients waiting up to 72 hours—yes, 72 hours—for ambulances and emergency treatment, and long waiting times for minor injuries, elective surgeries and clinical out-patient appointments. And I'm sure the founders of the hospital, if they are still with us, would be wincing at the current performance of Glan Clwyd Hospital.

And let me be clear, this is not the fault of hard-working front-line staff in the NHS; they are some of the best people you'll ever meet. It's the fault of successive Labour Governments in this place and endless tiers of useless middle managers, directors, bureaucrats and do-gooders who put their own careers and interests ahead of the health of the people of north Wales. And sometimes they're as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. But the common theme here is that, in all of the history, major hospitals such as Glan Clwyd, Wrexham Maelor and Ysbyty Gwynedd were supported by smaller community or cottage hospitals, and, in years gone by, nearly every town had one. And slowly but surely, the agenda for centralisation took shape as local hospitals closed in Prestatyn, Flint and Mold, to name just a couple of examples. And one of the biggest lunacies of this agenda was when they closed Conwy community hospital in 2003. [Interruption.] Yes, I will. Sorry, I didn't see you there.

Okay. It's just regarding Flint hospital. I believe that it's going to be a state-of-the-art, fit-for-purpose modern care home, which will not only have long and short-term placements but will also be able to rehabilitate people after a stay in hospital to regain their confidence and independence in their own homes. So, it's a modern facility. Some of the old hospitals, like Flint previously, would not be fit for purpose in this current state. Do you not agree? So, it's good that we're having this modernisation now of Flint hospital.

Absolutely, it's a great thing, Carolyn, and I will touch on that later in my speech, about some of the intricacies of that.

One of the biggest lunacies of this agenda was when they closed the Conwy community hospital in 2003 to pave the way for the expansion of Llandudno General Hospital, which was subsequently downgraded to community status just a few years later. You couldn't make it up. Then, north Wales saw the introduction of Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in 2009, which took the place of the three localised health boards in North East Wales NHS Trust, Conwy and Denbighshire NHS Trust, and North West Wales NHS Trust. And, since the formation of Betsi Cadwaladr, we've seen many of the long-term issues compounded, and it's widely regarded that the size of the board is far too big for its needs. So, I'd be interested to see what the Government think on that point in responding to the debate, on how we manage this problem and make sure that the people of north Wales truly have a health service that represents the local people's health needs. You've been in charge of this for so many years down here in Cardiff, Minister, and it's time that you really think seriously about this, as north Wales's health board is disproportionately worse performing than any other in Wales, and possibly even the UK at a stretch. So, it's time to up our game and get real about the severity of the problems in north Wales. 

One success story was the opening of Holywell Community Hospital in 2009, complete with community wards, allied health professionals and a minor injuries unit. And this was widely seen as a model for the plans for the construction of north Denbighshire community hospital in Rhyl, which has been promised by Labour politicians—

Gareth, you need to finish as soon as possible please. Time is going on.

Okay. But with no tangible evidence and a spade not going in the ground, when will my constituents in Rhyl, Prestatyn, Rhuddlan, St Asaph and the surrounding areas be awarded this facility to take the pressures off Glan Clwyd Hospital?

I know I've run out of time, but I'd just encourage Members to support amendments 1, 3 and 4 as seen on the agenda. Thank you.

Opening the debate, Rhun ap Iorwerth said that preventative has to be the attitude we take towards health, and I want to speak to the part of our motion that calls for the placing of preventative measures at the heart of all health-related policy and activity involving all Government departments.

Plaid Cymru has emphasised time and again when we debate health in all its aspects the need to give preventative measures better prominence and greater priority. In addressing the current crisis, the health Minister spoke about the need for people to assume greater responsibility for their health and well-being. We agree, of course, that prevention is better than cure. So, why does our motion call for all Government departments to be involved in this aspect of our plan for the NHS? What the health Minister failed to take full account of while making that call was the role of deprivation and poverty in people’s ability to do so.

How are people meant to be looking after their diet when they can’t afford to turn the oven on, when they’re cutting down on food? How can they ensure they don’t exacerbate or cause health conditions when they live in cold, damp, draughty houses they can’t afford to heat? When you are thinking about where the next meal is coming from, how to be able to afford the hot water to clean yourself and wash your clothes, when you’re working two jobs, juggling childcare, worrying about that bill you know that’s going to land that you can’t pay, how do you have the means—let alone the headspace—to attend a gym or go for a run? And how can people access leisure and sporting facilities, libraries, theatres—crucial to well-being—as well as fitness, when they are facing extensive cuts to funding?

The relationship between health and poverty is well understood: deprivation causes ill health, causes inequality in health outcomes, increases the pressure on health services. Ill health is costly to society, puts pressure on our health service. And at a time of economic constriction, at a time of raging levels of poverty, the prevention agenda is absolutely key, and in Wales, where over a third of children are in poverty—the highest level in the UK—and 45 per cent of households are struggling and trapped in fuel poverty, the need to prioritise prevention is urgent.

If we are to truly embed a preventative approach to health, we must take account of the socioeconomic circumstances when building that approach. Poverty and inequality are cross-governmental issues. In addressing the NHS crisis, we must take full account of the differences in the opportunities people have to lead healthy lives, and that must be a cross-governmental responsibility. The Food Foundation’s most recent annual report, ‘The Broken Plate’, asks important questions around how free people are to make healthy food choices around diet, noting that the poorest fifth of UK households would need to spend 43 per cent of their disposable income on food to meet the cost of the most recommended healthy diet; that compares to just 10 per cent for the richest fifth.

Health inequalities can also be related to access to care or services, the quality and experience of care, and we know this to be a long-standing issue in Wales. Health Inspectorate Wales’s national review of mental health crisis prevention, for example, emphasised that services in Wales needed to be better designed and focused around the needs of the individual. It highlighted a gap in Wales between primary care and secondary mental health services, with people falling between the criteria of different services that can provide support.

The Welsh NHS Confederation Health and Wellbeing Alliance report, ‘Mind the gap: what's stopping change?’, also highlighted that addressing the factors that cause ill health in the first place should be a central focus for the Welsh Government and local government, and yet there remains an implementation gap in tackling the underlying health inequalities. The recent update to that report, in partnership with the Royal College of Physicians, ‘Everything affects health’, spells out why they are calling on the Welsh Government to take cross-Government action to tackle those health inequalities. The report gives details of many examples across Wales and Welsh health boards and local authorities of preventative measures in action, with many public and third-sector organisations helping to reduce ill health and health inequalities among the most vulnerable in our society, but it's a patchwork.

These are the people who are most at risk of harmful behaviours such a smoking, excessive drinking and drug use, or are most likely to be socially isolated, in poor or temporary housing, have poor access to transport and well-being opportunities, or digitally excluded. The conclusion of this report is that cross-sector working of this nature should be supported and encouraged by the Welsh Government, with a cross-Government action plan. We agree that a cross-Government delivery plan setting out what every department is doing to tackle poverty and health inequalities, how success would be measured and evaluated, and how Welsh organisations can collaborate to reduce ill health, is long overdue. Public Health Wales—

Sioned, can you conclude now, please?

Public Health Wales states in its recent report 'Cost of living crisis in Wales: A public health lens' that the cost-of-living crisis is not just a temporary economic squeeze, it is a long-term public health issue affecting the whole population. We will never achieve the fairer Wales we all desire to see if our health service continues to be a means to address the consequences of poverty and inequality that are contributing so greatly and so shamefully to the crisis in our NHS.

I stated yesterday in First Minister's questions that it is important that all of us here in Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament, are candid about the very real challenges facing our beloved national health service right across the four nations of the United Kingdom. There is no corner of the United Kingdom that has not seen extensive pressures on each of its own constituent parts of the national health service. I stand addressing you as a proud Welsh Labour member. The national health service was created by the Labour Government of Clement Attlee, and it is the Labour Party's proudest moment, achievement and legacy to the people it was created to serve.

I know that in Wales its custodians, the Welsh First Minister and Welsh health Minister, understand and are dedicated to its survival and maintenance. Twenty-four hours ago, I asked the First Minister for his assurances that his Government would be devoted to the continuation of the reality of a universal, truly national public health service, free at the point of care, a principle based on experience of suffering, a holy grail battled for with the old BMA, and something my own grandfather fought for as his wife lay dying in childbirth, denied social insurance and subsequent medical care. It is that type of healthcare that I don't want here in Wales. The First Minister gave me his assurance in this Chamber, and I know that my constituents in Islwyn heard loud and clear that, no, we don't want that.

Does that mean, though, that the pressures facing the NHS today are not real? No, it doesn't. There is a clear and obvious danger at the front door of the national health service in primary care. How many of our constituents e-mail us, phone us or write to us as Members of the Senedd to express those concerns, their frustrations and worries about seeing a general practitioner? And yes, there are new ways we are doing things, they are embedding, but the demand of this moment is truly unprecedented since the birth of the national health service.

Community pharmacies play a role, as do our social prescribers, but it's the people of Wales who must be able to access without due hindrance a GP, because the alternatives on the ground are obvious. As we saw before Christmas with the rise in cases of strep A, worried parents with an ill child will, out of real, genuine fear, go to A&E if there are no alternatives. And what person will blame them? When your loved one is in pain and the diagnosis is unknown, who would take the risk of a single second lost? The national health service must exist for the people it was created for—its patients, our citizens.

Wes Streeting, the UK Labour shadow health Minister, has opened an initial exploratory discussion on whether, in the future, GPs should become salaried NHS staff. These are needed conversations with long-standing associations. Reluctance, institutionally, to change—

Yes.

Thank you for that. Would you agree, though, that not every one of our constituents needs to see a GP? They can see the pharmacist, they can see the nurse, and if they've got diabetes they're much better off with a diabetes service. So, it really isn't about salaried or not salaried GPs, but that's an important discussion.

I absolutely agree with that, Jenny Rathbone; we have a whole host of different mechanisms of seeking healthcare. But this is an important discussion, and I'm going to develop it.

We know that another crucial facet of what we must address is ambulance waiting times in Wales. Nobody should die from an excessive wait for an ambulance. Now we know that new ambulance training posts are real. But it is right for us to challenge the status quo of consultants training for decades, subsidised by the state, to work, sometimes, three days a week in the private sector. Phoning 999 in an emergency should and must always be met with a rapid response. And the sight of queues of ambulances sat idle in hospital forecourts, as hospital handover waits occur, must be the exception and not the norm. Because the pressures and challenges are real for the NHS, and so are the consequences.

And so, to those of us, across this Chamber in this Senedd, who are committed to the model of the NHS as created by Labour's Aneurin Bevan, it is time for us to actually unite and not score political points on the solid principle of the NHS free at the point of care. If you believe that, and you want to fight for a free NHS, then the stakes have never, ever been so grave. The Tories are openly speculating about privatising the NHS—and actually, to be honest, have done for a very long time.

Will the Member take an intervention?

No. She hasn't got time.

I really want to finish, if you don't mind.

This has been advanced by former English health Minister Sajid Javid. These are your party's policies. He wants to explore people paying to see a GP—with everything that Sioned Williams has just articulated—and believes in opening up the NHS to the free market. This is what is at stake. With the Tories, it's always the same: they want to shrink the state, withdraw public finances—

Rhianon, you need to conclude now, please.

—and claim this so-called better way.

Rhianon, you need to conclude now, please.

And finally, Deputy Llywydd, I will be voting for the amendment as proposed by Lesley Griffiths. Thank you.

I was out on the ambulance service picket lines last Monday and Thursday, speaking to Unite members and discussing their experiences, and asked them why they decided to take industrial action. And the conversations with Fiona, Ludwig, Catrin, Robin and the others were very valuable indeed. Their answers were striking, and everyone said the same thing. Salary and recent inflation was part of the mix. Working conditions was another important part of that mix. But the one thing that they all felt strongly about was patient care—the need to ensure that we, the patients, are safe and are given the best-possible care. They experience the crisis in the health service on a daily basis, because of these concerns about patient health. They have chosen a career in care, and because of that care, which drives them, they are willing to lose days of pay and the benefits that come as a result of that in order to ensure that we get the best-possible care. That's what solidarity looks like, and thank goodness for them.

They were keen to analyse the health crisis, reporting their personal experiences, talking about starting a shift by going immediately to an ambulance that was stuck outside a general hospital, and finishing that shift in that same ambulance, in the same hospital, with the same patient. They talked about patients lying on trollies that weren't fit for patients, for hours on end. Their experiences all painted a picture of a crisis. But they were also quite clear on one of the main drivers of this problem, namely the fundamental problems in our ability to provide social care. Despite the fact that they wanted to see improvement in terms of their pay and conditions, they were entirely clear that social carers deserved a substantial increase in salary, and that there was a lack of respect towards them.

We really need to reform social care and tackle integrated care once and for all. Because there is one undeniable fact—Wales is growing older, and we will see a substantial increase in the percentage of older people over the coming years who will need more care in the community. We must face this and prepare for it by investing in hospital-at-home services and securing specialist medical care in the community across Wales. We've already lost many community hospital beds, which has placed more pressure on our general hospitals and which, in turn, leads to an increase in hospital-spread diseases—not C. difficile alone, but things such as flu and COVID too. And older people are more likely to catch these diseases because they are weaker, and bear in mind that a large percentage of people who got COVID, particularly in the more damaging second wave, actually contracted the disease in hospital, and two in five of those people had died. And that's why we must develop community capacity. At a time of pandemic, epidemic or even winter pressures, it is necessary to keep our older people out of our general hospitals and to keep them in their communities.

In order to improve the situation, we must expand the provision of social care in order to enable a more consistent service across Wales, aligned with the health service. So, let us look at one example of good practice: the Carmarthen integrated care team have broken new ground. Now, these are knights in the community, providing a range of health and care services, particularly for older and vulnerable people. The model works in a multidisciplinary way, including seamless integration between health and care, as well as other agencies and the third sector in Carmarthenshire, and their priority is prevention and securing early intervention. People can access community hubs for assessment, for advice, support and treatments, or the team can go out to people's homes. This is an example of those core principles at work, and this is good practice that can be spread across Wales, which will take pressure off our general hospitals.

If we are to have people home sooner and reduce the numbers going to hospital in the first place, then we also have to improve the facilities for patients who don't need acute care. In addition to this, we must also have better co-ordination with local authorities in order to ensure that timely care assessments are made. Without this, what we have is something that is similar to a revolving door, with patients sent home before having to return to hospital soon afterwards. Resolving the community element is crucial if we're to tackle the health crisis or we will continue to see staff growing disheartened, leaving the service, and health and care services being destroyed by the pressures. Thank you.

I thank Plaid Cymru for bringing this debate forward.

The Welsh NHS is facing pressures that 'cannot be coped with' and that's not me saying that; that's the Welsh NHS Confederation. And I'll be honest, it's no different in England, so, actually, we can't take any lessons from the Conservatives across there. We must work together here to acknowledge that, actually, we, as a small country of only 3 million people, can actually do something differently. We can actually resolve this together.

I found myself listening to this and actually reflecting on debate in the Senedd, and I feel that this is an adult, grown-up debate, and that's what our debates are. For those of us who've been in the other Chamber, as it were, that never happened. We never had the chance to put points across that were intervened with, where we could ask questions. And so, I do know that the health Minister probably again is feeling under siege, but this is an important issue, which we do need to debate, because we do need to hear ideas and also to be able to reflect the experiences of our constituents and places and people who we've spoken to. So, in that nature, I hope that the three points that I make this evening would be taken in that vein.

Firstly, the crisis in our social care sector here in Wales, which we've heard from Rhun ap Iorwerth about, we need to do more around that. National leaders in the NHS have directly stated that the pressures in our social care sector are driving up the demand for urgent care. It's happening at both ends. The preventative work that we want our social carers to do isn't happening, and the supportive work, and that means that people are going into crisis, and then, when they're coming out, there is just not enough for them there. So, I do hope that we'll be able to look at that issue—and I know I've raised this with the health Minister before.

We would like to see, in the Welsh Liberal Democrats, the implementation of the recommendations of the Holtham commission and work with professionals to introduce those reforms towards the creation of a single, national care service for Wales. Unless we move and work together in a more unified way, then it's going to be impossible to grapple with many of those issues.

The second issue for me—and again Rhun ap Iorwerth did mention this—is looking at the backlog of elective surgery. I've also met with the Royal College of Surgeons and heard about their proposals for surgical hubs, and I know that that's been mentioned by Russell George as well and also by the health Minister. I want to see this happening across Wales. It's happening in pockets, as I understand. The health Minister mentioned Abergele hospital, and there are other examples. But we need to see this being fairly and consistently applied across Wales, so that we can remove and reduce that pressure on our emergency care in our general hospitals.

And my final very brief point is this, and it is a question, which is why we have these debates and these discussions. I note that the Government amendment commits to a workforce plan to be delivered by the end of January. I've worked out that there are only six or seven days left until the end of January, so my question, a really positive question, I hope, is: could you tell us when the workforce will be delivered, because that's so important and touches on some of the areas that have been highlighted?

I just guess I come back to this issue of 'let's all work together'. Rhianon Passmore, you said a valid point, which is that these are needed conversations, and I guess that's how I see these debates and discussions in the Siambr. They are about us working together, listening to each other, not thinking that we've got the solutions because, actually, people come from places where those things are not happening. This is a real difficult issue and we need to work together to make sure that we do the best for the people we represent. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

We know from these debates and from our own experience, Dirprwy Lywydd, that the pressures on the NHS are immense. It is often a very reactive service of necessity in many ways because, obviously, the NHS has to cope with what is coming at it, and often, what is coming at it is extremely demanding on every last bit of its resource. But we also know, and as Jane Dodds said, we do need, hopefully, some degree of consensus and agreement in terms of some of the ways of dealing with these challenges. We all know that we do need to be more preventative. And despite these day-to-day pressures, it is necessary to get heads above parapets and look at how we can be more long term and preventative, but also deal with current pressures, because a lot of the health prevention agenda will deal with the current issues as well as the longer term.

I would just like to highlight one example of links that can be made to deal with these matters and that is parkruns. It's an amazing, world-wide, free phenomenon. In Newport, at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, every Saturday morning, we often have several hundred people out running, aged from eight to 80, all degrees of physical fitness, often people who are running for rehabilitation having gone through or are going through cancer treatment, for example, and many links made to other preventative groups—couch to 5K, or working with Move, which specifically relates to how exercise can help with cancer during and after treatment. Lots of really, really good links.

It is addictive, Dirprwy Lywydd, as many others will know when they do the parkrun. I hope to do my one hundred and fiftieth this Saturday in Newport. I also hope to be on the junior parkrun on the Sunday morning with my grandson, who's eight years old, who is becoming addicted to the junior parkrun as well. People who help organise these parkruns—and we have some 47 now in Wales—what they want is to link more strongly with the health sector. So, we do have links, we have GP practices prescribing the parkrun, and I think it's something like 24 per cent of parkruns that have those links with practices. But we know that many more GP practices could have these links. Social prescribing is so important, and this is a significant part of that. The Welsh Government is out to consultation on all forms of social prescribing, and I do believe that that consultation could consider the collaboration that exists between parkruns and their key stakeholders, including public health boards, third sector organisations, national governing bodies and practitioners.

We need to utilise all possible sources of help with the preventative agenda, Dirprwy Lywydd, and this, I believe, is an important part of that. There is such commitment and goodwill to these parkruns, Dirprwy Lywydd. It is an amazing public health initiative, and it's one that we can utilise more fully in meeting these challenges that we all acknowledge. 

I call on the Minister for Health and Social Services, Eluned Morgan. 

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank Plaid Cymru for allowing me another opportunity to set out what we're already doing to reform and support the NHS, at a time when it's under more pressure than it's ever been in its history. And I'm pleased to see that, many of the points set out in the resolution, we are already delivering on through a whole series of actions, and actions that we too have developed with medical groups, and front-line workers, and the kinds of organisations that you have clearly engaged with. So, we're probably speaking to the same people, which is why we've come up with many of the same conclusions. And, if we're honest, in terms of the headlines—and I think you only published this plan yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to look at the detail—in terms of the headlines, if we're honest, it's not very original, but I look forward to reading some of the details. 

Now, in the first point of the resolution, Plaid points to comments made by the Welsh NHS Confederation that suggest that the Welsh NHS is facing pressures that cannot be coped with. And I'd just like to point out that the NHS has 2 million contacts a month in a population of 3.1 million. So, the vast majority of the people who have contact with the NHS are receiving a good service. And, I think it's really, really important that we don't lose sight of that, and that's why I won't accept that the NHS is in crisis. But, the NHS, the confederation were referring to a specific period of time over Christmas when demand has never been as high. But, on top of that, I think it's really important to point out that, when they stated this, their comments didn't relate solely to Wales, they referred to the pressures in the NHS, and the director said that these pressures were being seen across the UK, in Northern Ireland, in Wales and in England.

Now, we know that our health and care services are under pressure, and, my God, it was unrelenting pressure over Christmas. We have never seen flu rates as high since the swine flu pandemic back in 2010. COVID rates—I was just looking at the wastewater signals, and, at Christmas time, they were through the roof. And all of these things came together, which is why we had that really, really pressurised time over Christmas. And, of course, we had a lot of parents concerned about strep A. So, that explains the pressure and the pressure has diminished considerably. Now, we're not out of it. Cold weather has an impact, so, constantly, we're looking out for what's coming next. But, it is clear that the pressure that we saw over Christmas has diminished significantly. 

Now, the official statistics show that nearly 400,000 hospital consultations were carried out in November, and over 110,000 patient pathways were closed. That's an increase of 4.7 per cent from the previous month. And it's important to note that we are now back to pre-pandemic levels, which is quite incredible. Let's not forget, we're still in the pandemic, but we are back to pre-pandemic levels. Now, November also saw a second consecutive fall in the number of patients waiting to start treatment. We are continuing to make progress on the longest waits, and the number of pathways waiting longer than one year for their first out-patient appointment dropped by 10.3 per cent—so, that's for the third month in a row. 

Now, the period referred to by the Welsh NHS was an exceptional month, as I say, and the highest number of calls to 111, and the most red calls for immediately life-threatening calls to the ambulance service ever made. But the system improvements that we're driving forward at pace are making a difference, and without these improvements it's clear that the pressures on services would have been even greater.

Our health and care sector workers are continuing to work tirelessly in exceptional circumstances, and I'd like to join many in the Chamber today in applauding their heroic efforts. Now, I'm very aware of the pressure on workforce and I'd very much like to pay them more money. We've been around the whole of Government to reprioritise, to look at our budgets, to see if there's more that we can put on the table, and we have put money on the table to try and help the situation this year. But I'm not seeing any hands going up from Plaid Cymru saying, 'We're going to reprioritise the co-operation agreements.' [Interruption.] You have not. You have not made any effort to reprioritise your budgets. We've done it and you haven't. You go and explain that to the ambulance workers and the nurses, because you haven't done it. The offer has not been there and you need to go and explain that to all the people who you say are on the front line with you. 

Will you take an intervention?

No, I won't take an intervention. The Welsh Government is committed to providing the NHS with the workforce it needs to meet ever-increasing demand. We're achieving this through increased training places, encouraging young people to take up health professions and recruiting outside Wales when necessary. Last week, I announced a £281 million investment—. Can you stop, please? Do you want to listen? Do you want to listen to this debate?

Minister, you continue.

Last week, I announced a £281 million investment package to support education and training programmes for healthcare professionals in Wales. For the ninth consecutive year, funding in Wales will increase, with an extra 8 per cent for 2023-24, and this will support the highest ever number of training opportunities in Wales. The NHS has more people working in it than at any time before in its history, focusing on prevention and care for members of society across every community in Wales. 

Now, I'm really pleased that there has been a discussion on the prevention approach, and I think actually we could do with a much broader debate on that. So, I'm not going to try and address that today, because I think it's so important. You heard some of the things yesterday that we're planning to do. I do think it's a complicated, it's a sensitive and it's a difficult debate, but we do have to have that debate. And, you know, headlines don't help things, actually. But we do need to make sure that there's an understanding, like John has said—actually, there are things that people can do that don't cost money. But we need that very sensitive, difficult conversation. [Interruption.] Well, we've been having those conversations, and Lynne is responsible for 'Healthy Weight: Healthy Wales'. A massive amount of research has gone into that in terms of how we best approach this issue. We don't pluck these things out of the air; we work with professionals to know what will work best. 

Now, I have said that, by the end of this month, I will be launching the health and care workforce plan. I've got it, I'm just making a few little tweaks—I've made several tweaks, I can assure you, as it's gone along. This has been tested with many of the organisations that I know you've been speaking to as well, and one of the things within that will be about reducing the bill for agency workers. I think we've got to be realistic, we're not going to be able to switch it off overnight, because we'd have to switch off hospitals, and I'm certainly not prepared to do that. 

Now, we know that hospital discharge is having an impact on patient flow. Work is ongoing in a number of areas to strengthen and make improvements so that people are not remaining in hospital beds any longer than is necessary. Now, I, along with Julie Morgan, have been jointly chairing a care action group of senior NHS and local government leaders to drive progress, and we have secured, this winter, 595 additional community beds for step-down care. That's this winter. It has taken huge pressure off—

Minister, you will need to conclude.

—the system. Whilst in England they made an announcement that they were going to deliver 7,000, I think they're just starting on sending the money out now. So, I think it's probably worth recognising, because I can't tell you how much work that has been—really granular work, working with every local authority, every health board, making that delivery happen. It's been really difficult. 

And just to conclude, because there's so much more that I could say, my No. 1 priority in the NHS planning framework that I've sent out to health boards is the requirement for NHS organisations to develop a closer relationship with local government in order to tackle the issues of delayed transfer of care and to push more care into the community. So, I wholeheartedly agree with Mabon on this: that's where we need to really focus our attention—we need to get the support out into our communities, particularly when we're looking at an ageing population. There's so much more I can say. I understand that we're under pressure, but thank you very much and I hope you'll support our amendment.

I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lywydd. Just to give us all a breather, I'll start with giving some attention to Gareth Davies's contribution, speaking as he did of Margaret Thatcher's devotion to Wales. It's only a few letters, but I'd rather remember her demolition of Wales in her time as Prime Minister. And you know what, on these benches, Labour and ourselves, we share a contempt towards the actions of that Prime Minister. And I was grateful for Rhianon Passmore's—

Will you take an intervention?

Gladly.

I'm glad you've mentioned Margaret Thatcher, one of the greatest Prime Ministers this nation has ever had. Unlike your party and the Labour Party, she had never voted to cut an NHS budget. Under her premiership, the NHS budget rose above and beyond the recommendations of the Labour Party leaders at the time and yet you, your party and the party of Government here in Wales, the Labour Party, voted to cut an NHS budget years ago. Do you regret that? 

I would like to listen to the Member's response to the intervention.

You have ensured having that on the record today. Margaret Thatcher's legacy will be on the record forever in her damage that was caused to Welsh communities.

Back to Rhianon Passmore's contribution, we do share a shared ideal about the principles of the NHS, the principles around which the NHS was based, and we want, together, to protect those key principles. She was right also to say that these were issues that are relevant to Scotland, to Northern Ireland, to England. Labour say it's a crisis in Scotland, it's a crisis in England. That's why we're saying, 'Admit it's a crisis in Wales.' So, I'm glad that she sees it in the same way as I do. She also said that this is a serious debate, and I'd like to thank individuals—

Will you take an intervention?

Of course.

With the greatest respect, I recognise the unprecedented challenges. I do not feel, in terms of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, that it is helpful to label and use semantics about something that's of such great proportional interest to the people of Wales, and I did not say that.

In the opening remarks of that conference, the word 'crisis' was indeed used, and I'm sure your Labour colleagues in Scotland and England will note that you disagree with their assessment of the state of the NHS.

But you did say that we need a serious debate, and it is a serious debate. We heard serious contributions from Jane Dodds, from John Griffiths, from Members on my benches, Russell George. It's very, very important. I'll have to comment on Jenny Rathbone's not-so-serious comments—I think insulting comments. Not insulting to me—that's politics, that's fine—but insulting to those bodies that contributed towards these ideas, an attack on a plan she clearly knew nothing about and is less interested in learning about.

I looked at my social media during the debate, at some of the comments that have been made. The British Medical Association: grateful to see some of their key calls on pay, workforce and social care reflected in the five-point plan. The Royal College of Midwives:

'Great to see the need for fair pay for NHS staff at the top of @Plaid_Cymru's 5-Point Plan.... Good too to see the plan prioritise the...retention of NHS staff'.

The Royal College of Surgeons:

'We are pleased to contribute to this work on #surgical hubs.'

I visited Clatterbridge with the Royal College of Surgeons on Monday. They were pleased, they were at our launch of our manifesto because they have contributed towards it. And of course the Minister says that she speaks to them as well, but maybe they can speak more candidly with us in wanting to make sure that it's emphasised that steps Government are saying—. I'm not saying Government's doing nothing; I'm just saying Government isn't doing what needs to be done, and isn't pushing the agenda as quickly as it can. For example, in response to the Minister's comments on the preventative, she said that this is sensitive, this is difficult. You know what, on the preventative, hit it hard—hit it hard: put it front and centre of everything the Government says. Every time you talk about health, talk about the preventative, doing today what makes us healthier tomorrow—the figurative tomorrow of 10 years from now, of course, but the actual tomorrow; you're getting ready today for that operation you've got next week. All that preventative agenda really needs to be prioritised.

So, on to the Minister's comments. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt when she said, 'Thanks for giving me another opportunity to explain what the Government is doing.' It could have been read as sarcasm; I will just see it as a tongue-in-cheek comment from a Minister who has to answer questions day in and day out. And you know what? We make no apologies for asking those questions. We make no apologies for working with partners across health and care in putting together a five-point plan that some Members might want to ridicule, but they're ridiculing the plan put forward by the workers themselves. 'Nothing to see here' isn't good enough from Government. I feared that it would be, 'We're doing this already.'

Rhun, you need to conclude, please.

Yes, yes. I take some positives in an acceptance from Government that we are making the right calls, that she thinks she is moving in the direction on agency staffing; you're saying things now that you weren't a week ago on agency staffing. 

That's just not true.

Well, it is. The First Minister refused to engage on agency workers in any negative way in the Senedd last week.

But let's continue with the serious debate. We'll keep on pushing, as will our partners, this five-point plan, because we need to bring all our ideas to the table to resolve the problems facing the NHS.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There are objections. I will therefore defer voting until voting time.

And that brings us to voting time. And unless three Members wish for the bell to be rung, we will move immediately to voting time. No. The first vote is on item 6, debate on a Member's legislative proposal. I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Open the vote.

So, therefore, in favour 34, 16 abstentions, one against. Therefore, the motion is agreed.

We will now vote on item 8, the Plaid Cymru debate. And I call for a vote on the motion, tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian. If the proposal is not agreed, we will vote on the amendments tabled to the motion. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 11, no abstentions, 40 against. Therefore, the motion is not agreed.

I now call for a vote on amendment 1, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 25, no abstentions, 26 against. Therefore, amendment 1 is not agreed. 

We now move to amendment 2. I call for a vote on amendment 2, tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths. If amendment 2 is agreed, amendment 3 will be deselected. Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 26, no abstentions, 25 against. Therefore, amendment 2 is agreed. 

I call for a vote on amendment 4, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Close the vote. In favour 25, no abstentions, 26 against. Therefore, amendment 4 is not agreed. 

I now call for a vote on the motion as amended. 

Open the vote. Close the vote. In favour 26, no abstentions, 25 against. Therefore, the motion as amended is agreed.

That brings the votes to an end today.

We will now move on to the short debate, and if those Members who are leaving could please do so quietly.

I call on Jack Sargeant to speak to the topic he's chosen. Jack Sargeant.

Diolch yn fawr, Deputy Presiding Officer, and in opening today's short debate I'd like to give a minute of my time to both Sioned Williams and Jane Dodds. 

A 'cost-of-living crisis' is another way of saying that increasing numbers of people are being forced into poverty. It's a sign of failure of policy makers and of the way our economy is organised. It is not inevitable, and we can and we should seek to make people's lives easier and tackle poverty. We all know what happens if we don't.

This is a familiar script. We've read it all before. Poverty removes people's agency and, particularly when it's experienced in childhood, causes trauma that scars people for life. And we often talk about the need to judge people on merit. Well, how is that possible when an increasing number of people's life chances are affected from the start by poverty?

Couple this with the incredible cost of picking up the pieces after the trauma that poverty causes and you have to wonder why the UK Conservative Government are doing so little to stop certain organisations actively making things so much worse. One such group is energy suppliers. I'm sure Members will have seen the campaigning I have done and that organisations have done, calling for a ban on the forced installation of prepayment meters, and I'm grateful to the many of you who signed my statement of opinion that I tabled this week, calling for that very ban.

In fact, every single Member of the backbenches from the Welsh Labour Party, every single Member in Plaid Cymru, every single Member in the Welsh Liberal Democrats did sign the motion. But not a single Conservative Member. Presiding Officer, we don't even have one in the Chamber. We have just one online. Not one Tory signed this statement of opinion calling for a ban. And I'm calling for a ban not just because these meters serve to ensure that the poorest in our society pay the most for their energy, but it is because, in front of our very eyes—whether that's your Labour eyes, your Plaid Cymru eyes, your Liberal Democrat eyes or your Tory eyes—a national scandal is taking shape, a scandal that is putting lives at risk. I will briefly set out what is happening.

In the middle of a cold winter and significant growth in poverty, with inflation rampant and wages lagging behind, we're allowing energy companies to forcibly switch people to the most expensive and precarious way of paying for energy—hundreds of thousands of people. And of the 500,000 applications for court orders to forcibly switch residents, just 72 were refused, and that's despite the so-called requirement for energy companies to ensure that prepayment meters are suitable for customers regarded as vulnerable—those who are disabled, those with long-term health conditions.

Presiding Officer, there is meant to be a ban on switching to a prepayment meter if the consumer does not want one, yet we have reports of batches of court orders being taken at once, sometimes hundreds issued at a time. Does this suggest to anyone that the appropriate checks are happening? Vulnerable people are being switched in the middle of winter with either little or, in fact, no work to see who they are or what their conditions and circumstances are. This leaves many constantly living with the fear of being cut off. Citizens Advice have reported that somebody is cut off every 10 seconds because they cannot afford their top-up to their prepayment meter. Quite frankly, this is a matter of life and death.

It is abundantly clear that neither the regulator, Ofgem, nor the UK Government have grasped the extent of this problem. I have been highlighting this for some months now. When I wrote to Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State, at the end of December, he gave a standardised reply demonstrating no concern at all. But finally, this weekend just gone, after hundreds of thousands have already been switched, he's finally recognised the need for serious concern. But he has allowed the situation to continue, and instead written and asked for co-operation from suppliers. Well, I am clear that in the middle of this winter, in the middle of this cost-of-living crisis, we cannot leave this to the courts, we cannot leave this to the suppliers, and that's why, once again, I am calling on the Secretary of State and Ofgem to ban the forced installation of prepayment meters, or at least at a very minimum, Presiding Officer, they should order a halt to enforce prepayment meter switches until companies can show beyond doubt that they do perform the process safely.

Fortunately, Presiding Officer, unlike the UK Tory Government, I'm not burdened with an ideological belief that despite all evidence, things must be left to the goodwill of these companies. It is time for these UK Tories to show leadership. Let's be clear: prepayment meters are installed because it suits the energy suppliers. I hope we all can agree that preserving lives is much more important than that. And as I said at the start, poverty isn't just about the immediate prepay scandal that will impact people's lives forever; the cold that results from people not using energy or being cut off will have so many more impacts. It will inhibit children's ability to learn. It will cause people to fall ill and develop chronic conditions. It will cause trauma and mental health problems, and create so many more issues that it is impossible to speak to them all now. 

But access to heat and energy should be something that we all can take for granted, no matter what our background is. It should be a principle on which our system of energy supply is designed around, but instead it's abundantly clear that what takes precedence over this is the interests of energy suppliers. And this Tory crisis will grind on, and Government must become agile to spot the risks and support people. And I'll end, Presiding Officer, with this: if the Tory Government in Westminster cannot simply do that, then they should now call a general election and let the people decide what the Government's priority should be. Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you to Jack Sargeant for bringing this topic before us this afternoon. Plaid Cymru fully supports a ban on forcing customers to pay for their energy through prepayment meters, and as I raised with the Minister for Social Justice in the Chamber this afternoon, the Conservative Government in Westminster needs to do more than encourage electricity and gas suppliers to prevent this unsafe and unfair practice that has a totally disproportionate and detrimental on the most vulnerable households of Wales. There needs to be a ban. And if Westminster can't protect the people of Wales from the greed and irresponsibility of the energy providers, the Welsh Government needs to seek the powers necessary to do that.

People are disconnecting themselves from their meters, from light, heat, the ability to wash with warm water and keep their clothes clean. People, as you said, are dying as health conditions are exacerbated as a result of living in cold houses. They are dying now. We must hold the Westminster Government to account for that. The Welsh Government must take action to do what it can to safeguard its citizens.

Thank you so much to Jack. You are a tireless advocate and champion for issues relating to people living in poverty, as I know are many around this Siambr. For those of you who don't know why I joined this mad world of politics, let me tell you what it was. For 25 years, I practised as a social worker, visited families where we were doing child protection work, found those families to be amongst the poorest. The poor just get poorer. The poor just have no resources to deal with what's going on. The poor have no options, have no hope, and I hope that myself, and I'm sure, all of us here—and I'm very sorry not to see anybody from the Conservatives, not even online any more—I know that we all want to see things change.

I would go one step further, I would say we should ban all prepayment meters, not just those who are forced to consider it, but all prepayment meters, because they are the devil incarnate in terms of looking at how we can help people who are in poverty. They don't have the resources, they don't have the energy, they don't have the strength to resist what's going on. So, I do call on the Minister to consider how do we ban them in Wales, how can we make sure that they don't get installed any further into our homes in Wales. Thank you. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I call on the Minister for Social Justice to reply to the debate. Jane Hutt.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Can I start by thanking Jack Sargeant for bringing this debate today? It does provide me with an opportunity, once again, to reassure people across Wales that supporting them through this cost-of-living crisis remains our priority. I've talked at length in recent months about the impact of spiralling energy prices, the effect of inflation, particularly food inflation, the disastrous fall-out from the UK Government's mishandling of the economy, which has decimated our budgets and pushed people into poverty.

But these facts and figures don't tell you what this crisis actually means for people living with those pressures every day. They don't convey the personal cost to the mother who is going without food so that her children can be fed, the elderly person who is too worried about their finances to put the heating on, or the harrowing experience of the family that find themselves homeless because they can no longer afford their rent—one of an ever-increasing number of families and individuals that are experiencing being without a home for the first time. The bottom line is, Dirprwy Lywydd, that the amount of money that people have coming in, increasingly, no longer covers the amount needed to cover the basic essentials for life such as housing costs, heating and food. The books no longer balance, and as the weeks go past, their capacity to meet these essential costs reduces further and their levels of debt increase.

But I share the concerns that Jack Sargeant has raised today in this debate, in the topical question earlier on this afternoon, consistently at every opportunity, about the growing use of prepayment meters by energy companies as a means of reclaiming energy debt. We know that paying for energy charges on a prepayment plan is significantly more expensive for some of the most vulnerable and poorest households in our society, even where that customer is on a smart meter and there's no increase in the administrative charges for the supplier. So, on Monday this week—and I've reported on this already this afternoon—I met once again with energy suppliers and I called on them to give me their assurance that due diligence was being followed and people were not being moved onto prepayment meters against their will, in particular those already on a smart meter. I will continue to meet with them regularly to ensure that, on the promises they gave me—and they did give me some promises about their practices, saying one after another that this was only a last resort—I will hold them to account in my engagement with them and look to those means, which have been raised by Jack and colleagues today, where we could actually influence those decisions.

However, there's now evidence that suppliers aren't following the basic rules to protect people in vulnerable circumstances. Again, Jack, you referred to the Citizen's Advice evidence. From September to December last year, more than three times the number of people were moved onto a prepayment meter for debt compared to the same period in 2019. Front-line advisers consistently see evidence of people in vulnerable circumstances being moved onto prepayment meters, in breach of energy supplier regulation. So, they are in breach. We need to look at those regulations, and that's what I'm going to do. These practices continued even after Ofgem wrote to suppliers in November to remind them of their obligations. Ofgem also published a report on Monday outlining its concerns about the sharp growth in households struggling to pay their bills being switched over to prepayment meters, sometimes without their even knowing about it, as we know, leaving them without heating. 

National Energy Action Cymru has highlighted the case of the magistrates' court that approved 496 warrants to install prepayment meters in just four minutes. Who are these magistrates? We must go to them. We must address this with them. Such practices risk vulnerable customers, including those with medical conditions, being forced onto prepayment meters when this could be unsafe. Approximately 200,000 households in Wales rely on prepayment meters for their mains gas and electricity. This represents about 15 per cent of all our households. Twenty-four per cent of tenants in the private rented sector use prepayment meters, and almost half of social housing tenants rely on prepayment meters.

Welsh households were amongst the hardest hit by the increase in the standing charges being applied to household bills from last April. The highest increase in Britain was in north Wales, up 102 per cent, with south Wales witnessing standing charges up 94 per cent, the fourth highest in Britain. These additional costs to already rising fuel bills have had a disproportionate negative impact on low-income households and those on prepayment meters in particular. Citizen's Advice has highlighted record numbers of people who can no longer afford to top up their prepayment meters, including disproportionate demand from single-adult households, women and disabled households. There's no doubt that placing a customer on a more expensive tariff when they're already struggling to pay is disconnection by the back door.

You know of the Welsh Government's range of initiatives that we've put forward and that we're implementing to keep homes warm this winter. The one I want to particularly just focus on is the Fuel Bank Foundation partnership, which has so far helped 14,377 people who are struggling to prepay for their fuel and were at risk of self-disconnection. The fuel voucher scheme has resulted in 5,500 vouchers being issued to help top up prepayment meters. People struggling to pay for their off-grid fuel have also received support.

So, as I have done this afternoon, I'd take this opportunity to again urge Members to use their social media to encourage constituents who have a traditional prepayment meter to use their vouchers from the UK Government scheme. There is a 90-day expiry limit, and a worryingly large number are outstanding. But, I was also assured by energy suppliers on Monday that they would reissue those vouchers. I'm going to hold them to it, so they reissue those vouchers until people receive those vouchers. It's only 72 per cent at this time, for that £400, which is vital to the poorest in Wales. 

So, you know that we have our fuel support scheme already reaching 310,000 households with the £200 payment this year, increasing eligibility. I'd again urge eligible households, this financial year, to ensure they apply for this vital support, because this is crucial in terms of getting money into people's pockets. Our current funding allocation from the UK Government isn't sufficient for us to repeat the scheme in 2023-24, but we will lobby UK Ministers to provide further financial support for people during this difficult time. And we have also ensured that our discretionary assistance fund is there, with an increase, as you know, in the draft budget, to access emergency financial help in a crisis.

We continue to call on the UK Government, which holds the key levers for tackling poverty, to put in place practical actions that have an immediate and positive impact on those affected by the rising cost of energy, particularly those on prepayment meters. And we have called, and I'm sure that you will join me today in calling for the removal of standing charges for prepayment customers. That hopefully could be another statement of opinion. For two years, we've called on UK Ministers and Ofgem to introduce a social tariff to protect the most vulnerable households. They are now saying that they will look at this. I'm meeting Ofgem shortly. Most of the energy suppliers I met this week were moving towards being in support of this. We have got to call for that social tariff together.

So, finally, thank you to Jack Sargeant, a tireless advocate and campaigner. I pay tribute to Jack for his determination. He's put this matter in the headlines not just here in Wales, but widespread across the UK. You've highlighted the detrimental impacts that the forced change to prepayment meters has had for vulnerable households. You've galvanised political and public support for proper checks to be undertaken in every case before switching a customer to prepayment. And you've repeated calls to Ofgem and the UK Government to ban the forced installation of prepayment meters, and I have backed all those calls, Jack, and it's so good to hear that our colleagues from Plaid Cymru and Welsh Liberal Democrats are backing the calls as well. So, you did make a difference last weekend—we've got to recognise that Jack Sargeant did have an influence. Grant Shapps wrote to UK energy suppliers this weekend, restating their duty under the regulations to protect vulnerable customers struggling to pay their bills. But that's not strong enough, that's not good enough. We've got to look at those regulations to see what we can do, and we have to ensure that we take these calls and this campaign forward together. Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr, Jack.

Thank you, Minister, and thank you to Jack Sargeant. And that brings today's proceedings to a close.